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euthymiya · 18 days

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it always ends with i love you ft. wriothesley — in which you, a small floral shop owner, meet the duke of meropide by a chance encounter—and then you meet a bunch more too…but not so much by chance anymore

contains: 20.3k work count (please give it a chance i put my soul into it) ; female reader ; mature content—not suitable for minors ; strangers to friends to lovers ; flower shop au + florist reader ; reader has a small backstory regarding her dead father ; use of canon flowers and and lore, meaning i did my best so please be gentle on me with my botany facts ; heavy spoilers for wriothesley’s story quest and backstory, explores themes such as murder and hints at child exploitation and trafficking—all pertaining to his adopted home life ; slight oc’s because i gave a few of his adopted siblings names ; a fun neuvillette and clorinde appearance! ; a not so fun childe appearance + jealousy ; a short argument ; love confessions and getting together ; wriothesley is scared of love (anyone who had to kill their parents should be tbh) ; reader sits on his lap/lays on him ; there’s sex in every scene lol i got carried away—includes vaginal fingering ; cunnilingus ; nipple play ; hand + blow jobs ; unprotected vaginal sex ; creampie

the first time you meet wriothesley is by accident.

he doesn’t exactly come up to the surface regularly—he sees the sun frequently enough to remember what sunlight feels like if he tries to recall, but not enough that most people of fontaine would know he’s the duke of meropide just by looking at him.

he likes it that way. the duke is no small title, and he’d prefer the trip through the streets of the court without being stopped for idle chit-chat.

he doesn’t intend on stopping on his way to the palais, but you’re a bit of a unique circumstance.

he hears the smashing sound of something breaking before the scream, quickly glancing over his shoulder at the noise. nothing could have prepared him for a flower shop to be the source of such chaos—what could be chaotic about selling petals on a stem?

except you’re clumsily chasing after a man as he stumbles past your door, knocking over the potted plants on display in the process as you follow him.

the look of distress on your face as the pot falls and shatters compels him to investigate the scene. (of course, there’s a note of distress on your face before the pot falls, but the way it deepens when it does is almost criminal. your face is too lovely to have such creases in your forehead, even if he won’t admit as much out loud).

“stop! please,” you call, “you haven’t paid for those!”

thievery. wriothesley knows a thing or two about pocketing things that don’t belong to him.

first, it’s because he spends a portion of his life on the streets, surviving more than living. those moments reduce him down to a simple pocket thief at times. (he had standards for his crimes: never too much and only enough to survive for a bit. always from someone who dresses expensively and looks like they’re comfortable enough not to feel the damage to their wallets. and, of course, never from women).

second, it’s because people, on the streets or in the fortress, love to steal from those who are weak and vulnerable. people who are sleeping are of that classification of individuals, so wriothesley learns how to keep his things hidden and how to be a light sleeper. he’s never had too many things that are precious to him, of course, but he owns little enough that he’d notice his losses harshly should they come.

he hates thievery. partly because it reminds him of his past and the darkness that taints it, but mostly because it always involves someone innocent who doesn’t deserve to lose. not even a little.

his feet carry him over to the scene before he can stop himself—not that he would stop himself even if he did have control over his body, but it’s just that this particular circumstance seems to have him in some sort of trance. one that won’t allow him to look away from your face.

“please,” you follow the man past your shop’s door, “those are the last of my glaze lilies—i promised them in an order!”

the man running doesn’t seem to care about your pleas, snickering as he turns to give you an amused look, as if your distress is entertaining. he doesn’t make it far, though, before he bumps into a muscled chest.

“what the—”

wriothesley cuts him off, raising a brow. “i do believe the lovely lady here has asked for her flowers back. or did you miss that part?”

“and just who do you think you are, mister?” the man barks, glaring wriothesley up and down. (it’s a bit funny, considering he’s much shorter, so it takes a tad bit of effort on his part to give wriothesley the menacing once over it’s meant to be). “i don’t remember asking you what she asked.”

“oh me?” wriothesley cracks his knuckles casually, shrugging as he says, “duke of meropide at your service. i must say, i’m not very popular around here—not a lot of people know me, it seems.”

your jaw drops. the man’s face pales—which is a nice confirmation, at least, that he does have some sort of a brain.

“w-what? and just why would i believe that? you expect me to think the fortress’s duke is just prancing around the streets as if he hasn’t got duties? as if!”

wriothesley’s lips quirk up at the edges as he hums, fishing through the pocket of his shirt before he pulls out an envelope, sealed with the stamp of the iudex himself. there’s writing on it in clear letters, bold and italicized, as if just to mock the man.

to: duke wriothesley

from: iudex neuvillette

“that clear things up for you?” wriothesley asks, traces of a cheeky glint in his eyes as he raises a brow.

instantly, the man is clasping his hands, head bowing as a string of incoherent apologies flows past his shaky lips. “i-i’m sorry! i’ve never done anything like this before, you can check! my records are clean! i-it was a moment of weakness, but it won’t happen again, sir. p-please don’t take me to monsieur neuvillette. or court. or—”

“your first thieving gig, and you picked flowers?” wriothesley snorts, “i almost don’t want to bring you to court just save myself from the embarrassment.”

the man flushes, bashfully shrinking as he mumbles, “w-well i just…i just wanted to get flowers for my girlfriend for our anniversary and these…th-they’re her favorite you know? b-but they’re hard to come by since liyue is so far and…and the lady wouldn’t sell them to me so…you know…i uh…” the man trails off, wilting as wriothesley’s stares down, unimpressed. “i promised her i’d get them,” he adds, as if it’ll help.

“what a tragic sob story you got there,” wriothesley deadpans. “your girlfriend must love your honesty.”

“if i may interrupt,” you call from behind, making both men glance over to where you stand some distance away.

wriothesley forgot you were there, truthfully. but now that he’s taking in your appearance up closer, he can’t help but appreciate it. your features complement each other well—like an assortment of carefully arranged flowers, hand-picked one by one by celestia themselves.

“hello miss,” he nods, raising a hand to half-wave at you, “don’t worry, i’ll get this man out of your hair in a moment with your flowers too. just give me a sec—”

“no,” you say softly, “no it’s okay. he can keep some of them…i’m sure i can make do with a shorter hand than usual.”

he blinks. you couldn’t have possibly offered to let your thief keep his earnings at your expense, could you? he can’t decide if you're just that naive, just that foolish, or truly just that kind.

maybe all three, if he’s being honest.

“uh…are you sure?” he tilts his head in disbelief, “you want to let him keep the flowers?”

“partially,” you confirm, “it’s alright. everyone deserves flowers on their anniversary. especially their favorite.”

wriothesley decides you’re just that kind—and in some ways, it’s worse than being a bit on the naive side. at least you can sharpen yourself to become untrusting and skeptical if naivety gets you in trouble. kindness is as easy to take advantage of as it is to take for granted, and it’s not just something people like you can turn off like a switch.

“oh, thank you!” the man exclaims as soon as the words come out of your mouth, not wasting a second to grin at you as he says, “you’re really so kind! if you’d just tell the duke here that it was all a misunderstanding and that you’d like to drop all charges, then i’ll be on my way with partial the flowers—”

“make no mistake,” your hands find your hips as your face hardens with a certain strictness even he’s a bit startled by, “if you should come here and cause trouble again, i have the duke’s word to press double the charges next time. i would tread carefully if i were you—don’t ever let me catch you stealing from me again.”

wriothesley stares at you and gapes. he’s sorely mistaken about you—kindness is not the absence of your spitefulness, and the man shrinks back as you stare down at him expectantly.

“o-of course,” he says quickly, “it won’t happen again.”

“good,” you nod, “that’ll be five hundred mora, please.”

“b-but—”

“is there a problem?” you raise a menacing brow, making the man scramble to shake his head.

“wow,” wriothesley snorts as the man scampers off after fishing enough mora from his pockets, “i suppose i underestimated your ability to handle the situation, miss.”

“i think i owe a good portion of my success to you, your grace,” you bow your head slightly, unable to meet his eyes as you nervously chuckle, “i don’t usually have robberies. the people in this area are familiar with me. they’re quite kind—i’ve never had someone as stubborn as him.”

“well, rest assured, if he bothers you again, you can come to find me for my word at court.”

“i’ll hold onto the offer,” you grin.

that chance meeting becomes history after a while. he comes and pays you a visit every time he’s at the surface, which isn’t all too often, but often enough that you start to look forward to at least one routine visit per month. sometimes, he teases you about whether or not you’ve had new thieves pay you a visit. other times, you make use of his strong hands and built muscles and cheekily order him around to move heavy bags of fertilizer around.

he likes tea, you learn—he takes a very piqued interest in the jars of dried petals you keep on shelves, ones you tell him are good for making blends for tea, or to boil with water for natural remedies, or to make syrups for beverages like lemonade. it’s a slow, steady, blossoming friendship until, all at once, you feel incomplete without the routine visit from the fortress’s warden. you’re too reliant on the familiarity of explaining flowers, their origins, what stories they share, and what they mean—and likewise, you feel incomplete without his stories from the fortress, what the inmates are up to, and what changes he’s developing to make things better for the people under his wing.

you like to think he feels the same way; otherwise, he wouldn’t come around as much as he does.

sometimes he walks you home, and sometimes you invite him for tea. you drink coffee, but you don’t mind the trouble of brewing two beverages if it means some extra time with him in your cozy little home.

like today, where he sits comfortably at your dining table while you cut fresh bulle fruit as tea steeps in the hot water. he watches you with fond eyes, listening as you ramble intently about your recent endeavors at your flower shop.

“—and i think i’ve finally managed to grow a cactus from sumeru long enough to bloom my own henna berries,” you grin, looking at him brightly, pride settling into the crinkles of your eyes, “it did take some trial and error—fontaine rains far too often for cacti to survive, but this one i managed to grow indoors.”

“couldn’t you just get the berries delivered from sumeru? since you have plenty delivered from there already,” he asks in amusement. you huff, rolling your eyes as you walk over, setting the platter of fruit down before him.

“of course, you’d want to take such a simple route—but plants are far more rewarding when you grow them yourself, you know. plus, every fruit i’ve managed to grow on my own here in fontaine has had a bit of a unique flavor as opposed to ones grown from their original nation. i’d like to see if that’s the case with these berries, too.”

“well, if that’s the case,” he hums, taking a slow sip from the tea you’ve brewed for him—it’s perfectly made to his liking, with two sugar cubes and piping hot just as you’ve learned he prefers. he closes his eyes and lets out a content sigh as the warmth trickles down his throat. “let me try one when they’re ready.”

“of course,” you brighten excitedly, as though the prospect of someone to share such a moment with is one you look forward to. there’s something that tickles in his chest, right beneath his ribcage, at the sight of your wide grin.

you chatter until the sun sets, warm, honeyed rays of orange and pink pouring through your windows and painting his skin vibrant hues. it’s about time for him to leave—you can tell even before he clears his throat and stands, grabbing the plate and mug and heading to the sink.

“i should go,” he says kindly, washing the dishes with so much familiarity that it almost feels domestic and natural to have him here. you shake the thought out of your head as quickly as it enters your head. “thank you for having me this evening.”

“oh, i think we’re past the formalities,” you huff a small laugh, “you’re doing my dishes.”

“technically they’re my dishes,” he chuckles, “since i did dirty them.”

you hum, walking over to where he stands as he turns the faucet off—until a small twist of your ankle has you gasping as you stumble forward. you brace yourself for the impact of the hardwood floor, but instead, you’re met with a firm yet soft chest as strong arms wrap around your waist and catch you before you can fall.

“oh,” you breathe as you open your eyes, staring into him with just as widened pupils as him.

“are you okay?” he asks quietly, voice just barely audible as he whispers to you—he’s so close, so painfully close, you think the only reason you heard him was because of the proximity.

“yeah,” you nod. it’s hardly a nod, really—if you were to move your head too much, you’d risk brushing your nose against his. or maybe even your lips. “i’m fine. thank you.”

“yeah, no problem,” his eyes are still trained on yours, and neither of you can find it in yourselves to pull away. you can’t, and he definitely doesn’t, and nothing seems to give as you stare at each other. you’re pressed against his chest, and his arms are wrapped around you, and there’s a strange beating in both of your chests that you think you can just barely make out.

they almost seem to beat in sync, rapid and untamed. so, so fast, you wonder if it’s even healthy.

you don’t know who does it first—or maybe it was the both of you. all you know is that one second, you’re staring at each other, and the next, your heads are tilted so that your lips meet tentatively. he hesitates at the first brush of your lips, but your hands cup his cheeks and pull him forward, making his eyes flutter shut as he shakily breathes into your mouth. it’s so slow, so dizzyingly slow, that you wonder if time has just stopped altogether to grant you a moment with no interruptions.

he fits perfectly against you, the soft flesh of his cheeks spilling over your palms, your thumb rubbing affectionately into the skin as he nips at your lips, kissing you like he’s waited his whole life to feel you. the curves of his mouth connect with the curves of yours like pieces of a puzzle, like he was carved to match you from the same stone.

you’re not sure how long you kiss like that, but slowly, it grows needier, more quick and hasty as your hands leave his cheeks to wander to his hair and gently tug at the strands as his hands wander to your waist and lower back, feeling every curve of you as he groans into your mouth.

he tries to pull away, but you chase after him, unwilling to let go.

“w-wait,” he mumbles, “maybe we should stop—”

“you really want to?” you ask breathlessly, and all it takes is one glance down at your glossy, swollen lips for him to close his eyes and shiver.

“no,” he admits hoarsely, “i don’t. are…are you sure about this?”

“yes,” you whisper instantly.

he doesn’t waste a moment, quickly pulling you into your bedroom as you both collapse on the mattress. you climb onto his lap, crotch pressing against the semi-hardened erection in his pants, the press of your heat against his bulge earning a low, drawn-out groan from him that shoots straight to your clit with a dull ache.

“sweetheart,” he says in between kisses, making you inhale sharply at the pet name, “you’re killing me here.”

“okay,” you smile against his mouth, pecking it sweetly before you add, “then let me do something about that.”

he doesn’t expect you to drop down between his legs, face to face with the obvious tent in his pants—wriothesley is a gentleman, a giver before he is a taker. his first instinct is to protest as he opens his mouth and starts to say, “hang on—you don’t have to—”

“i want to,” you pout, looking up at him, “please? i want to.”

when was the last time someone looked up at him like that, staring up at him like pleasing him is the only way they’ll survive? he doesn’t recall, doesn’t think it’s ever happened, in fact. he groans, head falling back against your bed frame as he nods slowly.

“okay,” he concedes, lifting his hips up so you can pull his pants down his legs, leaving him in his boxers. there’s a wet patch where his tip meets the cloth, the evidence of pre cum drooling from his swollen head that makes you hum in satisfaction as you leave a tender kiss on the spot through the fabric. he gasps, hips jolting as his thighs clench at the teasing touch.

“can i?” you purr, hand rubbing soothingly over his tense thigh as he swallows and nods, looking anywhere but at you as he breathes harshly.

“y-yes,” he grunts, “please.”

you’re freeing his cock as soon as he utters the plead, letting him spring free and meet the cool air. he hisses, gritting his teeth as his chest rises and falls erratically, labored breaths that he tries to use to calm himself as he stands painfully hard between his legs.

“pretty,” you murmur, entranced at the sheer size of him—he’s flushed an almost painful red at his thick tip, leaking enough pre cum that you’d think he might have already had his release with the way it runs down the side of his hardened length.

your hand wraps gently around the tip, thumb smearing the pre cum along the tip before coating the rest of his cock, using it as lubrication for the steady stroke of your hand along the girth. he throws his head back, groaning as his hips buck into your touch before he stops himself, frantically trying to keep himself still and let you take your time.

“f-fuck,” he rasps, “that…that feels nice.”

“yeah?” you breathe, smiling as you press a kiss to his thigh as he chokes on a grunt while your hand slowly pumps him. “am i doing it right?”

“you’re doing just fine,” he assures, biting his lip as he finally can’t keep himself from bucking impatiently into your fist any longer, “feel free to do more, though.”

you giggle, pressing a soft kiss to his lip before gliding your tongue through his slit and watching as he melts against your bed frame at the gesture, body loosening up like he’s limbless as you slowly take him into your mouth, swallowing around his cock and bobbing your head, pumping the rest with your hand that you can’t fit down your throat.

“shit,” he curses, hand cupping the back of your head as he guides you up and down his length, moaning your name when you swirl your tongue around the tip, “you…you’re so good at this, yeah? take me so well in that pretty mouth of yours.”

you hum around him, making him cry out at the vibrations around his cock, one hand running through his hair as he tries to keep himself grounded, the other still cradling the back of your head. he’s a gentleman, though, living up to one just as much as he always lets on to be when he doesn’t force you to take more of him by pushing your head down or burying himself deeper into your throat by fucking his hips into your mouth. he lets you do things at your own pace, and you think it’s enough when you feel the telling signs of his release as his panting grows harsher and his cock twitches in your mouth.

“w-wait, wait,” he says frantically, “i’ll cum—i’ll cum. not yet, not until i have you.”

you reluctantly pull away, a trail of spit connecting from your lips to his tip that makes him close his eyes and groan, clenching his jaw as his near-orgasm dies down to nothing again. his cock is achingly hard, hot and swollen and throbbing after denying himself for the sake of feeling you.

“c’mere,” he motions for you to climb onto his lap. you do, sitting on his thigh as he slowly trails a thumb under your shirt, rubbing the skin with a feather-light, heated touch that has you shivering against him. “you sure you want this?”

“i want it,” you whisper, leaning to press a kiss to his lips that he reciprocates with a low hum of approval, “with you.”

“such a sweet way with words,” he murmurs, slowly pulling your blouse over your head and unclasping your bra, tossing them to the side as he marvels at the view of your tits. “such a sweet view, too. beautiful.”

you flush at the praise, looking away. but his hands grab at your breasts, large as they cup them and massage lightly, thumbs running over the pert nipples as you shudder and breathe out a light gasp.

“wriothesley, need more—”

“give me a moment,” he shushes you, “and then i’ll give you what you want.”

he admires you like that for a bit, sat on his thigh as your eyes flutter shut and his thumbs tease your nipples, wetness pooling in your core that he can feel on his thigh—you’d be embarrassed, you really would, but it’s not as though his cock is any less leaky at the head.

finally, he inhales sharply, sitting up slightly to unbutton his shirt, revealing the scars down his chest before he helps you out of your pants. you stare at the harsh, jagged lines that pain his skin, raised, discolored skin, the only evidence of some brutal, vicious past that he survived.

your thumb traces down the lines, making him shiver at the fragileness behind the touch.

“where’d you get this?” you murmur, staring at him curiously.

“hmm? oh the scar on my body? it's from a gash i got while battling a gigantic undersea monster that tried to take over the fortress of meropide…” he stares at you cheekily as you blink, looking at him unimpressed. “hah, just kidding.”

“do you ever take anything seriously?” you shake your head and huff, but there’s endearment on your face as you fight back a smile.

“on the contrary, milady,” he murmurs, grabbing your hips and pulling you back slightly, exposing your drenched cunt before he slowly sinks two fingers into your folds and curls them against the back of your walls, “i take this quite seriously.”

you gasp at the feeling, his digits rubbing against your walls and angling to hit a sensitive, achingly sweet spot at the back of your cunt. it’s precise, the way he pumps his fingers into you, slowly sinking in a third digit while you mewl and throw your head back. the heel of his palm catches against your clit, the sweet friction building your orgasm up slowly, slowly, until suddenly, you’re near the edge all at once.

“c’mon, don’t hold back now,” he drawls, voice low and sweet and so attractive, you feel like the sound of him alone is enough to send you tumbling over the edge, “why don’t you be a sweet little thing and let go for me, hm?”

you do—instantly, you do, crying out his name is choked garbles as he works you through your orgasm with his fingers, still thrusting into you with a precise pace. finally, when you’re done clenching around him, he pulls his digits out, the slickness of your pussy coating them as he hums in satisfaction.

“think you’re ready?” he asks softly, cradling the back of your head with his good hand as he pulls you closer, “or do you need one more from me?”

“i’m ready,” you huff impatiently, “i need you, need to feel you already.”

“okay, okay,” he laughs, amused but not anymore patient himself as his cock pulses between his legs, “i’m not trying to wait any longer, either. do you have a…uh…y-you know…”

you snort at the way he trails off awkwardly, flushing at the thought of asking for a condom as if he’s not completely nude under you. “no,” you giggle, pinching his cheek as he huffs, “but we don’t need one. it’s fine.”

“okay,” he nods slowly. his hands grab at your hips, firm yet so gentle with the way they lift you up and guide you to angle over his swollen cock, slowly helping you sink down on him as he chokes on a grunt when his head pushes past your folds.

you gasp as soon as he intrudes into your tight hole, splitting you open on his thick girth as you take him inch by inch until you’re sat on his lap completely, buried completely with his length as his jaw clenches at the tight squeeze of you around him.

“wri—wriothesley,” you sob brokenly, unable to say anything else besides cracked repeats of his name. he’s so big, buried so deep, and leaving you so full, you’re not sure if you have it in you to fuck onto him from this position.

he takes things into his own hands, though—roughly grabbing your hips and pulling you back before helping you sink back down on him again, rolling his own hips upward to bury deeper into you. your head spins, and all you can think to do is weakly plant your hands onto his shoulders before you roll your hips, grinding down on his length and sloppily fucking yourself onto him.

he bullies past your folds, curves deliciously into the most intimate parts of you, fat tip slamming against the soft, sensitive spot that makes you see white. pleasure burns up your spine, building a coil in your belly that grows tighter, tighter, tighter—so close yet so far from snapping and letting you plummet into your second release.

“that’s it,” he grunts, “fuck—you’re so tight, so good. i’ve…i’ve never felt anything so good. it’s like you were made for me, weren’t you? take me so well, fit around me so well.”

his hand moves to your clit, thumb pressing against the sensitive bundle of nerves and rubbing merciless circles against it as you mewl, head burying into his neck as your nails claw at his shoulder. everything is so good—so hot and filthy and leaves you impatiently desperate for some form of release. the friction of his cock dragging along every ridge leaves your mind hazed, and the harsh press of his tip against your sweet spot leaves your vision blurry.

you’re not sure how you even have the strength to rock yourself onto his stiff length, but somehow you manage, and he seems keen on helping you, too, with rough, bruising hands that grip your waist with a punishingly tight grasp.

“c-can’t hold on much longer,” you cry, voice a strangled sob that’s muffled into his skin, “i’m s-so close. please.”

“me too,” he pants, voice just as strained as yours as he moans through a cracked voice when you clench down on his particularly tightly, “me too, sweetheart. i’m right there with you, alright? let go—c-c’mon.”

once more, you cum around him—this time on his cock instead of his fingers, and if the first time felt good, the second time is devastating. your vision practically goes white as your walls spasm around him, slick and dripping with your release and mixing with his own as he follows you not long after. his cock jolts, pumping hot, sticky ropes of his seed deep into you, and both of your bodies are slumped against one another as you barely roll your hips, sloppy pace with no rhythm as you focus on getting yourselves through the ecstasies of your orgasms.

his thumb is still pressing against your clit, and your hands have left his shoulders to bury into his sweaty hair, tugging fiercely at the dark strands and making him groan at the mix of pain and pleasure.

finally, you both ride out the final few waves, him slumping against your bed as you fall against his sturdy chest, face still buried into his neck. sweat clings to your skin, but you don’t mind the feeling of his damp skin against yours, not when the warmth of your body makes the afterglow feel so sweet. your fingers thread through his hair, soothing over his scalp with the rake of your nails where you’d just tugged so harshly, and his palms glide up and down your hips, rubbing gentleness back into the parts where he dug bruises along the skin.

“wait, is that watering can supposed to be a dog?” he asks out of the blue, making you lift your head and look over your shoulder.

“yes,” you quirk a brow, watching as he lets out a small snort as he looks at the watering can by your plants in wonder.

“it’s pretty ugly.”

“rude!” you gasp, pulling away slightly as he shakes under you in laughter, “i think it’s adorable!”

“do you now?” he bites his lips, attempting to suppress the smile that threatens to take over, “you have…interesting taste.”

“oh, you’re dead to me,” you spit dramatically, collapsing back against his chest as you bury your head into his neck again. “dead to me, i say.”

“my apologies,” he snickers. his hand rubs slowly into your hip, quietly humming for a moment before he asks, “what made you so passionate about plants?”

“i can’t just really like them?” you challenge.

“sure,” he shrugs, eyeing the watering can again as he smiles, “but you don’t give the impression that you just happen to just really like leaves, and that’s it.”

“there’s more to plants than leaves,” you scoff, rolling your eyes. and then, much gentler this time, “my father was a scholar from sumeru. an herbologist.” your voice is a quiet murmur, a low hum as you speak into his neck while his hands are still rubbing into your hips, “i used to be fascinated by his journals and all the plants he’d seen. he died when i was young, so sometimes…sometimes i try to grow them here in fontaine myself. just to feel close to him.”

“do you?” he asks quietly, staring at the various plants that decorate your small home. it’s cozy, he thinks, so lively and warm that it almost doesn’t feel like you’re the only inhabitant. “do you feel close to him when you do?”

“if it works,” you admit, “it’s not always easy to recreate the same conditions they’re meant to grow in.”

“i think you do an impressive job,” he praises, earning a slow smile from you that he can feel curve into his skin, “i’ve yet to come across a flower shop in fontaine with as much variety as yours.”

“you flatter me, your grace,” you chuckle, pulling away as you stare at him, the tousled hair from where his hand ran through, the swollen bottom lip where his teeth sank in, the flushed skin where heat settled. you take all of it in slowly, admiring him as he looks up at you through lidded eyes.

“do i? i meant it seriously, not in flattery,” he raises a brow and smirks, “if i wanted to try flattery on you, i think i’d have some other choice words.”

“don’t be so insatiable,” you gently swat at his chest, earning a chuckle from him. “will you be able to stop by tomorrow?”

“i’m afraid not,” he sighs, “i have a meeting with some people from the palais tomorrow at the fortress. it’ll run a bit late.”

“oh,” you try to hide the disappointment in your voice, but he seems to sense it instantly. “that’s okay. i just had a blend i thought you might like to try—for tea, that is. it’s um…i dried the petals myself, and it’s new. i thought i’d let you be the first to try it to let me know what you think.”

you try not to giggle at the way he perks up at the mention of tea.

“ah, i’m afraid i won’t have time tomorrow. but…” he coughs, trailing off as he looks away, contemplating his words.

“but…?” you press.

“but…well, i have a few guards returning tomorrow from the surface from a few tasks i gave them. i could have them stop by the shop to escort you down to the fortress if that works for you…it’s okay if you can’t, though! i can always come by sometime this week when my duties aren’t as—”

“that sounds nice,” you cut him off, grinning widely, something close to excitement blooming across your features, brighter than any set of petals in your shop, he thinks. “you can give me an official tour of the fortress, perhaps. i’ve only ever heard about it through stories.”

“as you wish, my lady,” he winks.

he leaves not too long after—you try not to focus on his lingering scent in your sheets once you settle back in after bidding him goodbye. it’s oddly peaceful, being surrounded by him even when he’s not there, and sleep lulls over you quicker than usual.

the scent is faded by the time you wake up, so you take one last deep breath to inhale it before you set off to get ready for the day, counting down the hours before you get to see him again.

——————————

as promised, a group of fortress guards stop by your shop, politely waiting for you to close up before you join them on their return.

the fortress is darker than you expected—but not at all as small as your mind anticipated. in fact, it’s huge. you follow the guards, making idle chatter as they take you up an elevator, up, and up, and up—until finally, you finally arrive on the floor of his office.

you’re so busy taking in all you can of the fortress that by the time they escort you to his office door, you remember why you’re here in the first place. to bring wriothesley dried petals of sweet flowers that you grew yourself—flowers often make for a wonderful tea blend, and learning his passionate liking for the drink makes you feel compelled to share with him every one of the various floral teas you’ve learned about in your time as a florist.

you knock on the door of his office—except, oddly enough, there’s more than one voice you can make out from the room. you didn’t think his meeting would still be in session by the time you arrived, making you anxiously regret the knock as soon as your knuckles leave the surface of the door.

but he answers before you can think too much of it. “come in,” his voice calls.

“your grace,” you hum, stepping in, “if this is a bad time, then i can…”

you trail off. both fontaine’s chief justice and champion duelist stand in his office, gathered around his desk as he sits and sifts through files. of course, wriothesley is a duke, which is no small title by any means, but you’re caught more than a little off guard as you step in and share the room with two of fontaine’s more important figures in the justice system.

“no,” he says casually, “come in, you’re right on time. i was just telling miss clorinde about the delicious tea blend you would bring for her to try. she couldn’t wait a moment longer.”

“if you want to try it so badly, just say so,” she rolls her eyes.

“fine,” he huffs, lips curling into a slight pout, “i’d like to try the tea you promised me. clorinde will pass, though.”

“i think i’ll try it, as well,” she chimes in, suppressing a smile as wriothesley crosses his arms.

“but you just said—”

you giggle, walking over as you hand him the bag with dried petals, grinning at the amusing dynamic, and murmur, “i believe it would be the polite thing to do if you made an extra cup for the madam while making yours.”

“picking her side, are we? such an act of betrayal won’t be forgotten,” he huffs. still, almost as excited as a child opening a present, he opens the bag to add the petals to the tea maker he keeps at his desk. you watch with fondness at the action. “you still owe me a present, by the way. and tea won’t do—i’ve just received a batch.”

“then i suppose i can gift you a new tie,” clorinde hums, eyeing the loosened tie around his neck and making him furrow his brows as he subconsciously straightens it, “something that fits your neck better so you look a bit more put together.”

it’s almost like she sees through the both of you, eyeing between you and him with a hint of a knowing glint in her eyes. wriothesley scowls, giving her a petulant glare.

“there’s nothing wrong with my tie. i look just fine.”

“i do believe it’s a stylistic choice,” neuvillette pipes up from the side, “it doesn’t seem to be an issue with the tie itself.”

you snort at the way the joke flies over his head. “you’re right, monsieur,” you join in the banter, “i do believe his grace has a rather…unique choice of style.”

“i wonder if he ever plans to properly wear the coat he always seems to keep hanging over his shoulders,” clorinde adds, the earlier grin she attempted to fight back now fully curled into her lips. you laugh, much to wriothesley’s dismay.

“perhaps he just values being prepared,” you hum, “one can never tell when the fortress will suddenly be too cold. someone as busy as the duke surely can’t afford the wasted time to go and fetch a coat.”

“ah,” she nods, “i suppose you’re right. he is too busy learning legal codes as of late.”

“i take it that my gift has been useful, then?” neuvillette brightens, turning to a miserable wriothesley as he rubs his temples wearily.

“most helpful,” he sighs, not bothering to explain to the iudex that he’s once more missed the point of the joke.

“oh, we’re only joking,” you laugh, taking the tea cup sitting at his desk and pouring him a glass of the now freshly brewed tea, “it’s all in good fun, your grace.”

“wriothesley is just fine,” he mumbles, “as you can see, this isn’t a very…formal meeting.”

he watches as you carefully make his cup, one sugar cube as opposed to his usual two—before he can point it out, however, you beat him to it. “i know you’re particular about your tea. i can see it on your face you’re about to insist i give you two, but this is a very sweet blend as it is. one will suffice.”

“careful when it comes to his tea,” clorinde warns, “he’ll be in a foul mood all day if it doesn’t live up to his standards.”

“not true,” he grumbles. as if to prove a point, he takes a sip, slowly blinking before he looks at you with an awed grin, “it’s lovely. you’re right, it is just perfectly sweet with one cube.”

“perhaps you’re the only person he won’t make a fuss with then,” clorinde teases, “he’s got quite the list of grievances if i make him a cup of tea.”

“that’s because you don’t know how to make proper tea,” wriothesley rolls his eyes, “there’s a set of steps you’re meant to follow, you know.”

“water is a most simple beverage,” the iudex cuts in, “one that has many complexities in flavor, as well. perhaps you should consider it as a fitting option if tea gives you too much trouble.”

“i would hate to think of the wrath the poor inmates would have to face if he were to miss a single tea time,” you grin, fighting back a chuckle as wriothesley takes a tired sip from his cup, resigning himself to his fate as the target of your banter, “water simply won’t do.”

“well, i believe we should be off,” clorinde looks at neuvillette, “perhaps we should leave them to themselves.”

“ah, yes,” the chief justice nods politely, “there are many more files for me to read through at the office.”

“do you ever take the day off?” wriothesley raises a brow, “wouldn’t hurt.”

“even his dreams are of legal cases, i’m sure. he wouldn’t last a day on vacation,” clorinde hums.

“i don’t typically dream when i sleep,” neuvillette frowns, still so serious that you choke on a snort as you try to hold back you giggles. wriothesley looks at you with an amused grin, biting his lip to hide a chuckle himself.

“i’ll be seeing you,” he waves as the two leave, “and hopefully with my present ready next time,” he calls to clorinde with a pointed look. she rolls her eyes, fondly waving as she heads out the door.

“i didn’t know you were friends with such important people,” you murmur as they leave, making him raise a brow as he takes another sip.

“friends isn’t the best title for it—consider us work acquaintances.”

“with banter like that, i hardly believe it,” you chuckle, earning you a half-hearted glare from him over the rim of his tea cup.

“did you have your fun at my expense?” he asks dryly—but there’s no real bite to the words, “it seems you got along quite well with clorinde.”

“monsieur neuvillette is lovely too,” you giggle, “even if he’s not exactly…the earliest to catch onto jokes.”

he laughs at that, setting down his empty cup as he stands, eyeing the door to his office quickly before stepping closer to you, eyes staring down at your lips as you chew on the bottom and wait for him to make his move.

“thank you for the tea,” he murmurs lowly, lips just barely a millimeter away from yours, “it was quite sweet. i enjoyed it.”

“there are plenty of other floral blends i have for you to try,” you hum.

he grins, hands finding your waist before he whispers, “surely i couldn’t take all that from you without offering something in return, could i? i wouldn’t want it to seem like i'm taking bribes.”

“oh?” you breathe, grabbing a hold of his tie and tugging him closer until your lips meet his in a slow, heated kiss. it awakens a sick, insatiable heat in your core almost instantly. “what did you have in mind, your grace?”

he groans at the way your voice teasingly lilts at the title, hungrily chasing after your lips again. it’s more tongue than it is anything, messy and almost too scandalous to take place in his office where anyone could knock and come in at a moment’s notice. he seems to know it, too, because slowly, he guides you backward, slow steps that don’t interrupt the lock of your lips until your back meets a door.

“why don’t i show you,” he breathes—and then the doorknob is twisted open, and you’re gently pushed in with an arm curled around your waist to guide you. there’s a bedroom connected to his office, you realize.

not entirely a shock—you’re sure the duke of the fortress has his own quarters to sleep in away from the other inmates, but it doesn’t surprise you less enough that you don’t pull away to take a glance around.

it’s empty, mainly. not too many things besides a few scattered files and another tea maker with a few cups surrounding it at a desk in the corner. the sheets are dark grey, plain, and neatly made, with two pillows and nothing else. it has no more than what he needs, no more than what’s necessary. no hints of anything that’s his, anything that makes the room belong to him outside of being a mere sleeping quarters.

“not one for decor?” you hum, wrapping your arms around his neck as your fingers fiddle with the collar of his shirt.

“i only come here at night to sleep,” he shrugs, “never felt the need.”

“everyone needs a space that’s theirs, don’t you think? even a few flowers would brighten the place up.”

“offering me more business?” he chuckles, making you roll your eyes, “and they’d die. there isn’t much sun down here.”

“i can think of a few options that would thrive,” you murmur.

“so it is business,” he quips. sigh exasperatedly, and he grins cheekily at you before you’re gently pushed to fall onto his bed, his body moving to hover over you as your legs wrap around his waist. his cock is semi-hard through his pants, and you wiggle your hips to press against it, the friction making him groan as you feel him stiffen even more from your actions.

“i think i’d like my payment now,” you hum, making him raise a brow.

“eager?” he asks, making your hand travel to squeeze at his bulge.

“and you aren’t?” you challenge.

“fuck,” he grunts, shuddering at the feeling, “looks like you got me.”

it happens faster than you can process—the shedding of clothes, the way his fingers slowly sink into you, pumping in and out expertly as your head spins from the way he brushes against your sensitive spots. he’s quick, the way he stretches you apart with his digits, adding a second and third finger with little to no time to waste. you hardly have time to accommodate the third when you feel a familiar ache building up steadily.

“c-close,” you say shakily, voice brokenly whispering against his mouth as he drinks up your moans, “i’m going to—”

“i know,” he hums, “shh. just let go—you’re doing so well.”

the praise shatters you—you break at the way he sounds so in awe of you, of the way you suck his fingers into your slick cunt, so tight and wet with every clench. your back arches, and your hips roll into his hand, whimpering as his palm rolls over your sensitive clit. “god,” you gasp, “wriothesley, please.”

“please what?” he drawls, “you already got what you needed.”

“please let me feel you.”

“such a demanding price for some tea,” he sighs, “alright. i guess i can afford it.”

the nudge of his cock against your folds is enough to make you mewl, a sweet, whiny little cry that he groans at—every sound you make leaves an ache shooting up his stiff cock in the form of a twitch, like your every cry calls out to him. he responds with a rough thrust of his hips, burying himself into the depths of you, so deep and so close you can practically feel his pulse alongside yours.

“so full,” you gasp, panting as you try to adjust to the sheer girth of him. he waits a moment, jaw clenched and teeth grit as he waits for you to nod your head and signal him to move.

“and you’re so tight,” he grunts, moaning softly against your ear as he nibbles on your earlobe, “i wouldn’t mind it if you charged interest either, just so you know. i’ll pay it over as many times as you want.”

“oh be quiet, would you?” you roll your eyes at his words at first, but then they roll back at the feeling of his thick, swollen tip pressing against the deep, sweet spot in the back of your walls. he lets out a breathy laugh, kissing the corner of your mouth so he doesn’t muffle the precious little moan you let out.

“sure thing,” he hums, “i like listening to you more, anyway.”

“oh,” you gasp, “oh—wriothesley!” his finger teases over your clit, making your walls quiver around him as you feel your second orgasm creep up on you. “w-wait—i’m close.”

“why would i wait?” he asks in amusement, “that’s the idea.”

“t-together,” you whimper, pouting up at him through swollen lips and watery eyes, “please. please.”

he curses, closing his eyes and inhaling shakily at the way you look so fucked out, so drunkenly hazed on pleasure from the drag of his cock along your every ridge. you ask so sweetly—and who is he to deny such an innocent request?

“fuck—okay, sweetheart. fine by me,” he pants, rolling his hips harshly as he works himself to his own orgasm. his thumb teases your clit cruelly, fast and merciless one second, and a slow, bare feather’s touch the next. it keeps you right on the edge, a drooling mess of broken pleas as he finally approaches his own high. “close?”

“so close,” you gasp, twitching as he buries himself deep into you again.

“me too,” his voice cracks, “c-cum with me—please.”

hearing him plead sends you over the edge again—your first orgasm pales in comparison to your second. you didn’t even think that was possible, but the thick of his cock bullying into you is infinitely better than his nimble digits. the blunt head hits all the right spots, curves in all the right angles, and fucks you through your high expertly without even trying.

you both cry out each other's names like prayers, muffled strings of curses, and breathy gasps that you swallow up between slow, sloppy, open-mouthed kisses. finally, when the last few twitches of his cock finish painting his release into you, he slumps on the bed beside your body, body shaking in slight tremors as he catches his breath.

“you okay?” he asks through a labored voice, “didn’t hurt you?”

“i’m okay,” you breathe, smiling softly. he closes his eyes, relaxing into the mattress, pulling the covers to tuck the both of you in before he stares up at the ceiling, arms folded behind his head while he seems to be deep in thought. “what’re you thinking about?” you murmur.

“just how good you got along with clorinde,” he hums quietly, almost in wonder. “she’s not exactly the easiest to banter with so quickly.”

“well, i guess it’s not too hard if it’s at your expense,” you tease.

“ah, yes,” he sighs, pretending to woefully shake his head, “i’ve been reduced to the butt of the joke one too many times today, it seems.”

he grins to himself at the sound of your quiet laughter, so soft and sweet, so perfectly filling up the quietness in the room, bouncing off the walls and ringing in his ears like a symphony. you stare up at the ceiling yourself, eyeing the pipes, the dark amber metal that makes up his home. it’s quiet like that for a bit—not awkward or uneasy, almost like you’ve known him for ages. almost like this is natural.

“can i ask you something?” you murmur after some time, shifting under the covers to face him.

he raises a brow, looking at you curiously. “you’re scaring me with that look. going to confess some wicked crime you want me to help you hide?”

“it’s not like that,” you huff, rolling your eyes. carefully, as if treading unknown territories (you are, in all fairness), your fingers find his bicep, running along the skin soothingly. it’s an affectionate touch—you and wriothesley only touch each other for physical pleasure, nothing more. this is new, something you’re freshly navigating with a weak compass that points back and forth between your heart and your head, unsure whether to follow logic or emotion.

“well, go ahead and ask,” he insists, “you’ve got me curious, anyway.”

“what…what did you serve for? when you were an inmate,” you say quietly. he tenses under your touch, muscles becoming rigid as you instantly regret the question. your fingers pull away at the same time as you start speaking, “it’s okay if you don’t want to answer! i just got curious and—”

his hand catches your retreating wrist, gently pulling it closer, closer, until your hand rests on his chest. this is definitely uncharted territory—but his hand firmly lays over yours as he presses your palm over his bare chest.

“it’s fine,” he mumbles, “it’s not exactly something people in my inner circle don’t know.”

“oh,” you whisper, “i’ve been promoted to inner circle, huh?”

“you’ve seen me naked,” he snorts, eyeing you with a hint of amused disbelief, “you’ve sucked me off, in fact. i think there’s a special other circle inside the circle just for you.”

“okay, no need to get all…”

“all what?” he teases, waiting for you to finish.

“all uncouth about our activities!” you huff, face feeling hot as he grins.

he laughs, wrapping an arm around you, pulling you against his side so your cheek presses against a muscled pec as his warm hand traces circles into your hip. you gasp slightly at the sudden gesture but relax all too quickly, your own hand moving to rub into his chest slowly, feeling the rough scars and tracing them with your fingertips.

“i was adopted when i was young from an orphanage. when i was a bit older,” he swallows, voice quiet, serious—so oddly vulnerable, you think you’re talking to a new version of him altogether, “i found a diary in my mother’s drawer. i didn’t…i didn’t mean to snoop. i was just looking for some paper for my sister to color with.”

“you had a sister?” you ask softly, looking up to see his jaw tighten slightly.

“i had quite a few siblings,” he admits, voice strained. “older and younger. my parents would adopt a few children at a time and raise them until they were old enough to be adopted into families of greater means. and then they’d adopt more younger children. i thought they were perfect parents,” his eyes stare off distantly, unfocused as they look up at the ceiling, hand mindlessly wandering along your hip as you listen.

“until…?”

“until i read that diary,” his voice hardens, still strained as he clenches his jaw and swallows thickly again, “they were records. of my older siblings, the ones i thought were adopted off. all of their names were followed by prices, and the ones who didn’t have prices had been crossed off. i didn’t understand until i saw my own name and my brother antoine’s. we had blank spaces next to ours.”

“how come?” you furrow your brows, looking at him in jarred curiosity.

“because we weren’t sold yet,” he smiles ruefully, “i realized we were being sold off like livestock. and i started to piece together why i had never heard from any of my siblings even when they’d promised to write. i…i never knew what became of them.”

“oh, wriothesley,” you say gently, so delicate, he closes his eyes and lets out a shaky breath. you press a soft kiss to his chest under you, hand moving up to cup his cheek, “what awful people.”

“i…i should have kept it to myself,” he whispers shakily, “i didn’t…i couldn’t figure out what to do, so i told antoine—i thought…i figured maybe…” he trails off, eyes closed once more as he breathes heavily, trying to collect the composure he fights so fiercely to keep.

“it’s okay,” you kiss his jaw, “we can forget about it. i’m sorry for—”

“no,” he shakes his head. “i want you to know.”

it should make you feel special—maybe even a little happy that he trusts you enough to want to share. but nothing about this makes you feel anything but pain—you can feel his pain, every inch of it. from the way his hand clasps around your waist in a shaky grip to ground himself to the way his jaw is tight under your lips as they press a soothing kiss to the angle of it. every part of him is in pain, and you can feel it. deep in your own bones, like a lingering ache. one that runs years deep, living in the deepest, most intimate parts of your body.

you don’t mind it, though. you don’t mind sharing his pain, not if it’s him.

“okay,” you nod slowly, “okay.”

he inhales sharply, taking a deep breath before he continues. “i told him because i knew we were next. i thought maybe we could have figured out a plan together. but he asked my mother about the diary, what the prices meant, and why we’d never heard from the others once they’d left. he was gone the next morning—my mother told us he was adopted, but i knew. i knew he was merely disposed of. and it was my fault.”

“it was not your fault,” you turn your head swiftly, looking up at him in disbelief as he scoffs and shakes his head.

“if i hadn’t told him, if i handled it on my own—”

“then what? he would have been fine? you don’t know that, what if he was sold off for something awful? or found out on his own without you? you were a child, and you didn’t know that he’d choose to do that.”

“but i still could have kept quiet,” he chuckles dryly, voice cracking as he adds, “i could have gotten us both out of there. on my own.”

“you shouldn’t have to have done it on your own,” you cup his cheek, bringing him to face you as your forehead presses against his, “you didn’t want to be on your own, did you?”

“no,” he admits, lips trembling, “i didn’t.”

“and that’s okay,” you murmur, rubbing a thumb over his cheekbone, “you didn’t deserve to be alone.”

“maybe it was for the better, though,” he sniffles.

“a lot of things are. we can’t hope to predict everything for what would turn out better.”

“he died,” wriothesley chokes, “my brother. he died that night—i…i knew he did. so i ran the next day, when my parents were busy, i snuck off and ran. i didn’t come back until a few years later and i…” his breath catches in his throat, glancing at you for a moment. there’s something fleeting in his eyes. doubt, maybe—perhaps even fear.

you’re not entirely sure, but you press a kiss to his lips, soft and tender, so unlike your usual heated ones. something that’s shared not for the sake of pleasure but for the sake of knowing you’re there—that he has you. you’re both here, together, just the two of you. he can feel your warmth, and you can feel his.

it eases the tension somewhat, making his rigid muscles relax as he pulls you closer.

you pull away first, murmuring a soft, “i don’t care what you did. whatever it is.”

“you say that now,” he chuckles weakly, “but you don’t even know what i did.”

“i don’t care,” you say seriously, “i don’t. whatever you did, it was because you didn’t have a choice.”

“i killed them,” he says against your mouth, such harsh, dark words that don’t belong against your soft, pure lips—he thinks he might have just tainted them. almost like you know his thoughts, you prove you don’t care when you peck his mouth lightly. “i killed them and set the other children free.”

“you were just a kid,” you breathe, “a baby.”

“a teenager,” he huffs a laugh hoarsely, “maybe not that young.”

“a baby to me,” you say firmly, “no one that young should be pushed to such extreme methods.”

“you’re oddly calm about sharing a bed with a murderer. was the sex that good?”

you roll over, laying on top of him, pulling a soft oof from his lips—you know it’s exaggerated. he’s strong and broad under you, capable of taking your weight and then some as his hands find your waist to keep you in place, eyes boring into yours. so bare and so easy for you to look into, to read, to see so plainly for all he is.

he doesn’t even blink—as if he’s offering himself to you, trusting you to see as much as you want, see as much of him as he can show you.

“is that all you see yourself as? a murderer?” you ask seriously.

“of course not,” he denies, breathing softly into your hands as they cradle his face, “but it’s the part of me that matters most. that defines me the most. whether i want it to or not.”

“not to me,” you shake your head, “and not to you either, i can tell.”

“i know why i did it,” he tells you, staring at you so intensely, you feel like maybe he’s seeing you more than you’re seeing him, “i did it for my siblings. because i knew it was the only way to get them out. no one else would do a thing. but when you strip my title as duke from me, whether you put me in the underworld or put me in the overworld, i am a murderer. that won’t change.”

“and?” you raise a brow, “do you regret it? what you did?”

“never,” he says instantly. he means it. “but i’m aware of what i am to others. what they see me as. i’m not naive enough to believe my past will go away.”

“and it shouldn’t,” you shake your head, “i don’t think it should. i don’t think murder is what matters most about you—i think a child raised like livestock, betrayed, and taken advantage of, matters most. a boy who willingly gave up his freedom so his siblings would have theirs is what matters most. a man who served his time and chose to stay so he could make things better for everyone who followed is what matters. death was a kind fate for your parents, wriothesley—i for one, believe there were more fitting fates for them. far crueler ones than a peaceful demise.”

he chuckles at that last part, staring at you in wonder, in slight amusement, in so much awe that you almost feel shy.

“now i’m really questioning if the sex was that good—you’re really rationalizing my crimes, aren’t you?”

“oh, you’re such an asshole, do you know that?” you huff, “i think that’s what defines you best. a complete, utter, shameless assho—oh.”

he kisses you—abruptly so. his lips are pressed hard and firm against you, kissing with so much conviction, so much need, you’d think that you were disintegrating in his arms, that this was his last opportunity to kiss you and commit how you feel to memory.

“you sure it’s not my stamina?” he wiggles his brows, “how about my—”

“i’ll see to it that this is the last time we ever engage in such activities if that’s all you can focus on—”

“okay, okay,” he laughs, pouting as he pulls you down to lay on him, your head tucking under his chin as he kisses the crown of your head, “enough sex jokes. i promise.”

“so crass,” you scold, “have some decorum, will you?”

“my apologies, milady,” he sighs regretfully, voice exaggerated and theatrical as he adds, “i won’t allow myself to forget my manners again. from here on out, i’ll make sure to discuss more…gentlemanly topics for your liking.”

“you’re a real handful,” you sigh, “poor sigewinne. such a sweet little angel to put up with the likes of you.”

“you met her?” he smiles fondly at the mention of her.

“briefly, yes,” you nod, “the poor thing must be tired of your antics.”

“i’m on my best behavior around her!” he insists, “you can ask her.”

“i don’t think she’ll vouch for you, you know.”

“yeah, you’re probably right,” he withers in defeat.

you giggle, kissing his collarbone softly before nuzzling against him as he relaxes. it’s comfortably silent, just your body against his, warmth seeping between the space that hardly separates your bodies, spreading across your skin. you share your heat, and he shares his. it lulls you, slowly but surely, and you can feel it lull him, too as his breath slowly evens out under you.

sleep is just a breath away from clutching you when you mumble, “wriothesley?”

“hmm?” comes his sleepy hum.

“thank you,” you whisper, yawning, “for trusting me. enough to tell me.”

“go to sleep,” he grunts tiredly, “you can be sappy and sentimental in the morning.”

“okay,” you grin tiredly, pressing closer into him, “i’ll hold you to it.”

sleep comes quickly after that—so easy, so natural in his arms, you wonder how you’ve rested all these years without him.

——————————

your routine to meet with wriothesley ebbs and flows between the surface and the fortress. sometimes, he stops by just like before, and sometimes, he sends for guards to fetch you when he’s too busy to make an appearance himself. your meetings more or less end the same—catching your breath together, bare bodies huddled together in a tired mess as you share quiet, whispered words into each other’s skin. it’s a routine that both of you are too used to by now, that even a short gap of not seeing each other makes the both of you impatient for the next time you’ll get to see each other.

on days you can’t afford to see each other, your days at the shop drag by slower when all you can do is think about him. sometimes, the guards will be relieved to come to escort you, woefully expressing the awful mood the duke has been in, shuddering as they recall how unpleasant he is to be around when he’s unhappy. they seem to insist your visits are what help end his supposed awful temperament—your instinct is always to flush and insist they must be mistaken.

but it’s an intimate sort of development—the way the two of you slowly learn to depend on each other for comfort. you on long days at the shop, him after tiresome affairs with the fortress. every delicate touch and every saccharine word you exchange slowly peels away the harsh layers of the week, leaving you raw and bare to each other.

it’s nice. something you’ve grown a bit dependent on, in fact. a part of you would like to be scared, but wriothesley doesn’t let you fear anything—it’s just the kind of guy he is. everything about him feels too safe for you to consider being scared.

you miss him terribly, too. you haven’t gotten a chance to see him in over a week—it’s the first week of spring, the blooming season for a number of flowers. you have shipments from across the continent—cecilias from mondstadt, silk jades from liyue, sakura blossoms from inazuma, and padisarahs from sumeru. there are plenty more—too many for you to list off the top of your head, but those are the ones you’re sure will sell out the quickest.

there’s a certain man who stops by every day, a mop of ginger on his head and an interesting aura about him as he asks you if you’ve received kalpalata lotuses yet—they’re for my sister, he tells you, i bring them home for her every time i visit sumeru. but i won’t have a chance for quite a while.

you learn he’s a harbinger, the eleventh in rank, and hardly one to step foot in his homeland for too long at a time. but he’s due back, he tells you, for a project that won’t allow him to leave for quite some time. mingling with a fatui operative is hardly on your list of possibilities for the week, but you realize even a harbinger can appreciate the beauty of flowers. so you promise him your batch's biggest blooms as soon as they are delivered.

and he’s patient, coming every day in hopes that they’ve been delivered, helping you organize the deliveries you do get, going as far as to join you to loch urania amidst a terrible storm to assist in picking lakelight lilies when you’re low. you appreciate the small companionship you’ve formed with him—childe, as he’s called, he tells you. a code name for his place as a harbinger that you relish in being given the knowledge of.

the day finally comes when the lotuses are delivered, and for all his help and kindness, you try to repay him with a free bouquet.

he declines persistently. “no, no miss,” he chuckles, waving his hands in dismissal as you offer the beautifully bundled flowers, “i couldn’t possibly accept them free of charge.”

“oh, don’t be silly,” you huff, “you’ve done plenty for me. an extra set of hands in the shop is as rare as glaze lilies blooming in midwinter!”

“i was happy to help,” he chirps, “i had a good time occupying myself as i waited to depart fontaine.”

“and archons know when the next time you’ll return is,” you sigh, “which is why you should accept these as a parting gift.”

“a parting gift, huh?” your eyes widen at the familiar voice—wriothesley. it’s been almost two weeks since you’ve heard it, and you beam as you look over at his approaching figure.

“wriothesley!” you hum, “what are you doing here?”

“thought i’d come to pay a visit,” he says gruffly, eyeing childe, who grins tightly at the warden. “i wasn’t banking on seeing an ex-inmate, though. what a shocking surprise.”

“the fortress’s duke in broad daylight,” childe coos, “what a fascinating sight.”

it’s tense—you can feel the atmosphere shift all too quickly as the two men stare each other down.

“i didn’t know childe was a prisoner at the fortress,” you murmur, making the warden scoff as he glares at the harbinger.

“well,” childe shrugs, eyes sharp as they gaze at wriothesley, “i like to consider myself wrongly sentenced. justice isn’t always fair in the courts of fontaine, it seems.”

“ah, is that why you escaped from your sentence early?”

“i believe my escape proved to be quite helpful in saving the people of this nation in the end, didn’t it?” he asks, voice low, almost predatory, as wriothesley grits his jaw, glancing back at you before crossing his arms.

“is the fatui boy giving you trouble?” he asks, making you shake your head frantically as the harbinger lets out a dry chuckle from the side.

“oh, no!” you insist, “no, childe has been quite helpful, i promise. he’s given quite a hand, in fact!”

“is that so?” wriothesley perches a brow, tongue poking his cheek as he glares to the side at the smug ginger.

“oh, absolutely,” childe nods, “you see, i’ve been offering the lovely lady my assistance as i waited on my delivery. we even visited loch urania together to pick lakelight lilies for a bouquet she needed to deliver.”

“he treated me to lunch,” you beam innocently. you might have missed the way wriothesley’s jaw tightens, but childe certainly doesn’t, making his grin spread even wider. “he’s nice, wriothesley, i promise. i hope you both can sort out whatever differences you had during his previous sentence.”

“perhaps next time, you could join us for lunch,” childe drawls, “it’ll be on me.”

“a kind offer,” the duke chuckles dryly, a rueful grin on his tight lips as he adds, “but i’ll have to decline.”

“please, i really insist you take these lotuses,” you hold the bouquet out to the harbinger, and much to wriothesley’s dismay, there’s an evident amount of extra care put into the floral packaging. your careful handwriting in soft, looped letters spelling out his name across the paper, with a heart beside it as though you took time to thoughtfully scribble each letter just for him. “give your sister my best regards.”

“you know his sister?” wriothesley grits.

“oh no,” you chuckle, “but he tells me of her. the flowers are for her!”

“like i said,” childe hums, taking out a heavy pouch of mora and placing it on your counter—both yours and wriothesley’s eyes widen at the sheer amount of mora you’re sure is inside. it’s undoubtedly far more than a small, simple bouquet would cost, but he waves it off like it’s nothing as he says, “i insist on giving you the payment you deserve. you’ve certainly made my last few days here at fontaine interesting. it’s made up for the less than…welcoming treatment from the beginning of my trip.”

wriothesley’s eye all but twitches.

“that’s far too much to accept for a small bunch of kalpalata lotuses, you can’t—”

“consider it a payment in advance for the next time i return to fontaine,” he winks, “i’ll be sure to visit for more of your lovely flowers. i’m sure my mother will appreciate a bouquet too.”

with that, he waves at you, walking off with a grin as you sigh and shake your head fondly, waving him off as you call, “you’re quite the handful, you know. do visit again next time you’re here!”

“oh, i wouldn’t miss the opportunity for anything.”

wriothesley scoffs at the final exchange of words, watching the retreating figure of the harbinger with hardened, distant eyes while you exhale softly and grab the pouch of mora.

“are all harbingers this loaded with mora, do you think?”

“who knows,” he mutters, looking away as he swallows before adding, “i came to visit on my way back to the fortress. i had business with neuvillette.”

“oh,” you hum, smiling as you ask, “is he doing well?”

“fine,” is all wriothesley says.

“that’s good,” you nod, “we haven’t been able to see each other in quite a bit, huh? i’d have visited, but the deliveries all week have kept me busy.”

“good thing you had the harbinger to lend a hand, huh?” he remarks, raising a brow.

“well, yeah, i suppose so,” you frown slightly, watching as he takes a slow, deep breath before fixing his tie. “is everything okay?”

“yeah,” he says instantly. “may i walk you home?”

“of course,” you smile—it doesn’t reach your eyes, and he wishes he could find it in himself to do something to reassure the lingering worry in your irises, but he doesn’t. instead, he quietly waits for you to close the shop, so uncharacteristically silent that you can practically feel the tension in the air tangibly.

the walk to your home is just as silent. wriothesley doesn’t say anything, and you don’t have the confidence to break the silence yourself. you’ve never seen him like this, so bothered and visibly so. you’re not entirely sure what brought it on, either—but you are sure it has something to do with childe.

you finally reach your home after a long walk, quietly standing in front of the door as you turn to him and inspect his face. hard-lined lips, distant eyes, and crossed arms. he doesn’t look like the usual wriothesley you know—the one who grins and gives you a slight bow as he says, we’ve arrived at your lovely home, milady.

“thank you for walking me,” you murmur, looking at him carefully as he nods.

“sure,” he responds flatly, “my pleasure.”

“you didn’t have to trouble yourself if you were tired from your meeting,” you add.

“not tired,” he shakes his head. “it was no trouble to me.”

“are you sure?” you raise a brow, sighing as you cross your own arms, “you don’t seem too happy to be here.”

“what do you mean?” he shrugs lamely, avoiding your question, your gaze. you know that one look into your eyes is all it takes to make him spill, and normally, you don’t take advantage of that, but you think tonight you will.

because you’re tired of dancing around half-truths and coded words you have to decipher. you want one straight, laid-bare conversation with him. so you reach over and tilt his jaw, making him inhale sharply at your touch as you force him to face you and look at you.

“what is up with you? and don’t even think about saying nothing.”

“nothing is up with me,” he mumbles stubbornly.

“wriothesley,” you warn, looking at him unimpressed, “i was not born yesterday.”

“my apologies,” he says sarcastically, a rueful smile curling on those chapped lips of his, “i suppose i’m just a bit shocked i’m not the only customer you offer your affections to. i suppose that was silly of me—it must be good for business.”

“excuse me?” you recoil, staring at him in disbelief. a little hurt, too—he regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth, flinching slightly at the implications. “how dare you insinuate i’m a common whore?”

“that’s not what i was trying to say at all,” he groans, pinching the bridge of his nose, “it came out wrong.”

“then what were you trying to say?” you demand, looking at him expectantly, hands on your hips and a raise of your brows that almost mockingly tells him, i’d love to see you work your way out of this one.

“you never told me you and the fatui boy were so close.”

if there’s one thing wriothesley is good at, it’s shifting things to focus on other people. so he can observe. watch closely. take note of all the little things so he can figure out what he wants to know without asking at all. all without having anything told to him right out. it’s how he works—and you won’t entertain it.

“the fatui boy has a name,” you point out.

“his name is not actually childe,” he snorts—there’s no real amusement in the action, just as sarcastic and sardonic as everything prior. “is that what you believe?”

“if you’re not going to say the problem with your words like an adult, i’m going to go inside,” you spit, “we’re both wasting time here if we’re just going to talk in circles.”

“yes, because i’m the one who’s not admitting things,” he chuckles dryly.

you glare at him—because enough is enough, and you’re sick of taking one step forward just to stumble ten steps back. with one swift move, your hand grips his wrist firmly and yanks, pulling him to stumble into your home as the door slams behind him. you’re tired of having bystanders walk past you and listen to your pointless discussion, and you’re tired of getting nowhere the longer you stand outside. it feels like the more you talk, the less you know. every word he says confuses you more and more.

and that’s the thing about him—he never tells you things, not since that night he first opened up. you thought you broke some newfound trust, a new ground to walk on with him that leads somewhere further than just two people who seek each other out for pleasure. you feel something for him—and you thought he did too, but it’s always something vague or another with him and you’re tired of it. tired of wondering where you stand, what he wants, how he feels. you want to know, and tonight, even if it kills you, you’ll find out.

“what is it you want me to admit wriothesley? huh?” you scowl, “tell me so i can tell you what you need to know so you’ll finally answer my question. i’m tired of the back-and-forth game with you.”

“you don’t need to admit anything to me,” he shrugs, “it’s not my business.”

“you don’t even believe that yourself,” you scoff, “even i can tell that much. is this about childe? you don’t like me mingling with the fatui? he’s just friendly, that’s all. and good business.”

“right,” he nods slowly, disbelievingly. you almost see red—how dare he hint that you’re a liar.

“what do you think i’m doing then?” you challenge, “let’s hear it. fraternizing with the fatui? is that the accusation you’ll pull out?”

“well, if he’s helping you pick flowers and buying you lunch, then you certainly can’t be strangers,” he smiles tightly, “perhaps next time he can join us in our canoodling too if you’d like.”

“so that’s what it is?” you shake your head exasperatedly, “you’re moody because you’re jealous?”

“i’m not jealous,” he narrows his eyes, “i have no reason to be.”

“i’d believe you sooner if you’d said the underwater beast really was the cause of your scars,” you scoff, pursing your lips. “why is it so hard for you to just speak your mind?”

“then let’s start with you,” he retorts, hands throwing up in the air as he takes a step closer and glares daggers at you, “why are you dancing around what your relationship with the harbinger is?”

“there is nothing between me and the harbinger! nothing at all, and i don’t appreciate you assuming things about me. i’ve only been intimate with you!”

“you don’t need to hide it,” he smiles bitterly. finally, as if the conversation has chipped away at his resolve enough that bits and pieces of his inner turmoil can show, you can see the lingering hurt in his gaze. the betrayal. the doubt and fear—all of it pools in his eyes, swimming in the many, many flecks of his eyes as you stare into them. “it’s not as though we’ve committed to anything here.”

“i’m not hiding anything,” you say firmly, “you don’t have to be jealous.”

“i’m not jealous,” he shakes his head. it feels like he’s convincing himself more than you. because more than you, admitting to himself he cares is hard. all of this is hard—you know that. the last time he dared to trust someone, to love someone, he’d lost more than he could fathom. more than he was ever ready to lose.

so you sigh, dropping your shoulders as you let the anger dissipate.

“i wouldn’t blame you if you were jealous,” you say softly, extending the olive branch with a slow, hesitant hand to his cheek. he stiffens, but he doesn’t pull away, “it would kill me, too, to think you were close to another woman. but the harbinger is a customer i’ve become friendly with and nothing more. don’t you believe me?”

he closes his eyes, letting out a shaky breath as he hesitantly leans into your palm, letting your thumb brush soothing strokes along the scar under his eye.

“i was jealous,” he admits, quiet. hoarse. strained. it takes every ounce of him to admit as much to you—the progress makes you smile softly. “i…i was so jealous i couldn’t think straight. and i took it out on you. i’m sorry.”

“maybe it’s time we had a discussion,” you say softly, “about…well, us. what it is we’re doing. it’s long overdue.”

“i’ve been avoiding it,” he confesses.

“i know,” you murmur, smiling tightly, “i know you have. that’s why i didn’t bring it up. but we can’t dance around it forever.”

“i’m no good at this,” he opens his eyes, defeated and so lost, you can’t help but lean in and press a soft kiss to his jaw.

“you’re not so bad,” you hum, “give yourself a little more credit.”

“no,” he shakes his head, “you don’t understand. i’ve never been good at this…at trusting people and getting close to them. i don’t even have real friends—i see clorinde and neuvillette every few months, and briefly at that. one of them was the judge at my trial, and the other knows as much about me as the files say. i don’t like talking about my feelings, and i hate sharing things about myself. i’m not jealous of childe because he threatens me—even i know you’d never give a fatui member a chance. but i’m no good for a stroll in the park, or picking flowers, or lunch at a cafe. i live underwater in a large prison that i run, and i rarely come up—at least, not often enough to be a healthy, functioning member of society, that is.”

“so what?” you frown, “i don’t care. nothing is easy at first—isn’t that why we try? who says you have to share all your feelings immediately? we can work up to that slowly. this was sharing, wasn’t it? what you just did? that’s a step in the right direction.”

“and look how much we had to battle for that little bit,” he lets out a sharp, self-deprecating laugh that makes your heart ache, “you’ll grow tired of me.”

“you don’t get to decide that,” you shake your head stubbornly, “i would never grow tired of you. never you.”

“i might be a duke now, but i was a murderer in the past,” he adds, a low and cheap attempt to convince you he’s not worth it. you roll your eyes at the statement.

“i’m aware,” you say blandly, “i don’t care, wriothesley. i don’t. those are all excuses—if you want this, if you really want this like i do, because you care about me just like i care about you and you feel the same way, then you’d realize these are all petty excuses your head is coming up with. i’ll wait for you to be better at communicating if you promise you’ll try. and your past is just a small stain on the cloth that we can ignore.”

“it’s murder,” he says in disbelief.

“i said what i said,” you huff. he blinks once, then twice before letting out a breathy chuckle.

“you’re insane.”

“thank you,” you nod, grinning, “and you being at the fortress is just a small obstacle. we’ll make it work, you and me.”

“how?” he asks, voice small and unsure.

“you act like it’s impossible, you silly thing. i’ll come see you, and you’ll come see me, and we can spend nights together wherever is most convenient for the time. why are you overthinking it?” you ask like it’s obvious. maybe it is—maybe his brain just doesn’t let him see how simple of a solution it really is.

“the fortress is no place for someone who’s used to the surface—”

“enough excuses,” you scold firmly, “i won’t have any of it.”

“you don’t know what you’re getting into,” he shakes his head—you cup his cheeks, pulling his face close as you press soft, delicate kisses along his skin. like he’s fragile. like he needs to be handled with care.

no one has ever handled wriothesley with care. even as a child when he was defenseless. when his parents saw a commodity to raise and sell like livestock instead of a child to love and cherish. when the streets saw a rat with dirty clothes and nimble fingers only good for theft. when he woke up in a hospital bed with cuffs to his hands, wrists shackled, and a caseworker sat a comfortable distance away, even without his gauntlets. when they saw him as nothing more than a murderer on trial as opposed to a child with no other way out. when the world showed him no mercy and left him to fend for himself in a dark, ruthless corner of the nation under the sea with no sun, no grass, no fresh air, and no hope.

no one has thought to treat wriothesley with gentleness, with kindness, with grace—as if he mattered. not until he made himself matter, taking what he wanted through a pen, paper, and meaningless title.

no one until you.

“i know exactly what i’m getting into,” you whisper, “you know what i see? when i look at you?”

“what? big muscles?” he teases, voice weak. a last, feeble attempt at keeping himself guarded. it’s useless, and he knows it as well as you do. he’s already far more vulnerable than he’s comfortable with.

“a good man,” you say firmly, “a good man who is worth the effort. one who has a good heart and no one to share it with. someone who knows when change needs to happen and makes it happen. someone who knows a thing or two about second chances. who shows people mercy if they’re willing to be better—because that’s all he wants. for things to be better.”

“you’re giving me a lot more credit than i deserve, sweetheart,” he says shakily, trying to give you his usual smirk. his lips wobble, much to his dismay—you kiss them to help him hide the tremor like the angel you are.

he’s not sure why the archons, celestia, or whoever is in charge of fate would send him such a perfect, pure angel in his arms. but they did. he’s certainly not one to miscount his blessings—they’ve been few and far between as is.

“no,” you murmur, whispering between kisses, “i’m not. i’m giving you as much credit as you deserve. because no one has ever told you these things about you, and it’s time someone did.”

“doing the dirty work, huh?”

“i wish you’d stop with that,” you smile at him sadly, “i wish you would treat yourself with the same kindness you treat everyone else with. that you treat me with.”

“you’re an angel,” he murmurs, pecking your cheek, “that’s the difference.”

“you can’t be that bad if that’s the case,” you grin cheekily, “what kind of angel picks such an awful guy?”

“one who thinks the fatui harbingers make good friends,” he snorts, “one who’s a little on the naive side.”

“i like to think of it as seeing good in people,” you wink.

he laughs, arms wrapping around you, pulling you flush against his chest as he kisses you. and kisses you. and kisses you—and kisses you some more until you’re forced to pull away and breathe. even then, he’s not satisfied, lips finding the sensitive skin along your collarbones, traveling up along your neck and finding your jaw, peppering soft presses of his lips until they hover over your mouth again.

“you good?” he asks smugly, “need a minute to catch your breath?”

“you’re such a pain,” you huff, pressing against his mouth and closing the gap as he hums against you.

“what were you just saying about me just a few moments ago? something about a good man?”

“come here,” you sigh exasperatedly—and then you’re tugging him into your bedroom, stumbling and giggling as you both impatiently find the bed. you fall back, the mattress catching you along with him as he hovers over you and doesn’t waste a moment to nip at your neck.

“next time you need help with flowers in a dangerous, stormy place, you ask me,” he says lowly, breath fanning over your skin and making you shiver, “you don’t need the fatui boy.”

“okay,” you laugh, breathless as your eyes flutter shut when he nibbles on the sensitive spot over your pulse point, “you might have to temporarily drop your duties as a duke for that, though.”

“consider it done.” his hands tug your blouse over your head, doing quick work to toss it somewhere on the floor as he grins at the lacey red bra you have on underneath. “this is new,” he comments, “i like this.”

“of course you do,” you grin in amusement, “so predictable.”

“hey,” he pouts, “i’m an easy guy to please. just need you, maybe a few accessories…i don’t ask for much.”

“well,” you look at him in anticipation, “are you going to stare all day? or are you going to take it off?”

his eyes darken—hazed with lust and desperation as he quickly works the bra off of you and tosses it off to the side, too, but not before he stares at the label quickly. “chioriya boutique,” he reads, nodding, “remind me to give her my thanks. and business, too, in the future.”

“shameless,” you scoff, shaking your head.

“grateful,” he corrects, grinning cheekily at you. you don’t even get a chance to retort before his lips are around your nipple, teeth lightly grazing the pebbled nub as he sucks, making you gasp as your hands find his head, cupping the back of it as your own head throws back against the pillows.

“wri—”

“you know what i see when i see you?” he hums, pulling away from one nipple and latching onto the other, tongue rolling over it slowly as his thumb finds the other, not to leave it neglected, “i see the woman i would defy the gods themselves to possess. who i would commit far worse crimes for, and serve time all over again for. one who commands my every thought. do you know how many times i’ve neglected my duties just thinking about you alone? when i see you, i see the one thing that’s finally mine—mine alone.”

you whimper as his lips reattach themselves to your breast, sucking and grazing his tongue around one nipple and pinching and toying with the other with his hand. your hands tug at his hair, pulling a soft groan from his throat as he pulls away and stares at you. you’re a panting, heaving mess already—he grins in satisfaction.

“pretty,” he hums, nuzzling his nose against your throat, right where your pulse is erratic, “so, so pretty.”

“all this flattery, and you’ve yet to do something,” you rasp, just to rile him up as he lets out a deep, gruff sound of disapproval, eyeing you with a raised brow.

“oh, you want me to do something, is that it? i thought we’d take our time,” he grazes his finger along your waist, tracing the edge of your skirt before looping his finger under it, tugging slowly, “but if you insist, i guess we can pick up the pace.”

he pulls the skirt down your legs, eyes widening as he takes in the matching red laced panties from the bra earlier—you grin cheekily as he does. “like this one too?”

“oh,” he chuckles, breathless, “sweetheart, you have no idea.” wriothesley is a giver—you’re reminded of this fact as soon as his head buries between your thighs enthusiastically, kissing your clit through the lace as your breath hitches. “did you pick this little set up just for me?”

“don’t be silly,” you tease, “i obviously got this for myself. consider yourself a lucky witness.”

“and a lucky witness i am indeed,” he nods, humming as he slowly, carefully inches the lace down your legs, admiring the way it contrasts against your sweet, supple skin. “i owe chioriya boutique my life. i’ll even give my thanks to madame chiori myself.”

“please do not,” you say in horror, making him chuckle, “that would be utterly undignified.”

he’s not even listening, you realize. his lips attach to your clit as soon as the fabric is discarded somewhere to the side like the rest, a soft groan rumbling from his chest as soon as he tastes you, spreading your legs for better access as he glides his tongue to your folds, pressing between your folds and looking up to watch as your head throws back with a soft gasp.

“wriothesley,” you gasp, pulling his hair in a tight grip to ground yourself.

you’re the most gentle with him when you handle him—but you’re also the roughest. the way you grasp him so harshly, mercilessly in your grip, makes his eyes flutter shut in a sick, twisted sort of masochism. he loves the pain, the dull throb in his skull from your pleasure.

“yeah, i’m right here, sweetheart,” he chuckles lowly, “feels good?”

“yes,” you whine, “s’good—so good.”

“i know,” he hums, pressing soft kisses to your clit, along your inner thigh, until he’s back to your folds, hovering over them as he whispers, “i can tell just from the way you’re dripping. isn’t that cute?”

you whine in embarrassment, closing your legs around him as he grins against your cunt, grinding down on his mouth until he’s back to devouring you, tongue slipping deep into you as far as he can, exploring your tight, wet hole with fervor.

“close,” you whisper, voice bordering on broken, “i’m s-so close—oh, wriothesley!”

you come undone on his tongue with one more roll of his tongue over your clit, shaking as he sloppily eats you out through your high until your whole body is a shaking, quivering mess along with your walls.

“got anything else from that boutique you want to show me?” he murmurs, moving back up to hover over you, burying his face into your neck as your arms snake around his shoulders, rubbing into his back.

“maybe,” you say vaguely, grinning, “it’s a secret. maybe if you behave, you’ll find out.”

“yeah?” he chuckles, “consider me on my best behavior, milady.”

“then take this off,” you tug at his shirt, pouting as you add, “not fair that i’m the only one undressed.”

“as you wish,” he agrees. you watch as he strips—it’s not embarrassing like the first time or two when you looked away with a hot face and ears. now it’s intimate, watching him bear his soul to you, with every scar and imperfection, every flaw and tainted part.

his cock is hard, standing between his legs as it throbs, a bead of pre cum coating the tip. your arms wrap around his neck, pulling him close again as you feel his hardened length poke at your thigh, making you press against it and pull a groan out of him.

“i want you,” you whisper, “i’ve never wanted anyone else. not like this. not like you. i don’t think i ever will.”

“you can’t have met too many people then,” he teases.

“oh, i meet plenty of people. romantic ones at that—flowers are a love language, you know.”

“and you still want me? they must all be taken.”

“they’re not you,” you correct, pulling him into a sweet, slow kiss, taking your time to mold your lips against him and feel him against you, “nothing close to you. no one comes close.”

the bees should come to your lips for nectar, he thinks. flowers bloom from your mouth, delicate and sweet petals that light up his world and color him every shade of love.

“in that case,” he whispers, pulling away from your mouth to press a soft kiss to your nose, “i’m the luckiest man in fontaine. maybe teyvat.”

“i would agree,” you wink cheekily, “aren’t i such a lucky catch?”

“oh absolutely,” he laughs, amused, fond, so deeply enamored. then his lips are back on yours, and his hips are angled so that his cock teases your folds, grazing the entrance of your cunt as he coats his tip with your dripping slick.

you both shudder at the feeling, gasping against each other’s mouths as you exchange hot, labored breaths.

“i want you,” you repeat, “please.”

“you have me,” he whispers, letting out a soft moan as he pushes the tip past your entrance, “as long as you want.”

“that’ll be forever,” you say breathlessly, “think you can handle that long?”

“i’m sure i’ll manage.”

finally, he pushes all the way through, buried to the hilt and stretching you apart until he splits you open on his cock. he presses so deep into you, you can feel him nudge against that sweet, spongy spot without even trying. it’s like he was made for you—like the laws of this land declared him yours from birth and made him fit you in every way possible. the slot of his fingers with yours, the mold of his lips against you, the press of his cock into your cunt. all of it fits you so well, you wonder if you’ve lived your life just to find wriothesley.

you both moan into each other’s mouths, strangled sounds that you swallow from each other’s mouths as your lips sloppily press into each other.

“wr-wrio—fuck,” you stammer, nails raking along his back as he rolls his hips, slamming into your deepest, most rawest parts.

“yeah, baby,” he pants, kissing the corner of your mouth, “m’right here, sweetheart.”

you sob when a rough, callused thumb finds your clit, rubbing circles into the bundle of nerves perfectly in tune with the harsh thrusts that fill you so deep. deep—he’s so far into you, you wonder if you can feel him in your throat, in your lungs, and in your heart, knocking the air out of you as you breathlessly try to call his name.

“faster,” you plead, clinging to him, “more—please, need more.”

“think you can take it?” he chuckles, cutting himself off with a strangled grunt when you squeeze around him particularly tightly, “i think you’re falling apart as is.”

“more,” you whine, back arching as your hips desperately buck up to meet his in tandem, trying to feel him closer, deeper, harder.

“if that’s what you want,” he hums—you want to scoff at him, but you’re too delirious. you’d tease him for acting like he doesn’t want the same, like the ache of his cock doesn’t crave more friction, doesn’t want to slam into you with little to no self-control outside of chasing his pleasure. you feel so good around him—so good, his head falls to your shoulder as he pants harshly into your ear, murmuring stammered praises. “s-so good, sweetheart. you always take me so good, like the pretty thing you are. how in teyvat did i score the affections of fontaine’s most radiant lady? o-only the gods could know.”

“why don’t you ask them,” you breathe, head pressing against the pillow as your back arches and your toes curl when he slams his swollen tip against your sweet spot once more, hips rolling in perfect precision, “ask them how you got so blessed.”

“maybe i’ll ask the divinity right before me,” he hums smoothly, chuckling when you mewl as his thumb rubs faster into your clit, “how did i get so lucky?”

“because i need you,” you whine, “n-need you—only you.”

“what a sweet answer,” he groans, pumping his cock into you faster, feeling the familiar twitch indicating he’s close—and you are too. he can tell from the erratic squeeze of your walls. “always spoiling me, right sweetheart?”

“wriothesley,” you cry, “i-i’m close. m’so close, please. please.”

“no need to say please, baby,” he grunts, “you can have whatever you want. when you want it, yeah?”

and just like that, you break—his thumb is still rubbing those harsh circles into you swollen clit as you cum, clenching down on him through your high as your mouth parts and your head presses deeper into the pillow. he’s fucking into you, still slamming his hips into you as mercilessly as before, riding you through your orgasm as you chant his name.

“wri—wriothesley,” you sob.

“yeah, sweetheart? what is it?” he teases—it doesn’t last long, though. his bravado falls apart as soon as the first twitch of his cock indicates his own orgasm. you feel the hot, sticky, endless ropes of cum fill you up, coating your walls as he stiffens over you and shudders, groaning lowly as he empties himself into your sweet cunt. “f-fuck, you feel so good—you’re the only one. the. only. one.”

his hips thrust into you to punctuate the words, cock pushing his release deeper into you, messy and leaking down your thighs and forming a ring at the base of his length. it’s so filthy you almost think it’s a sin. but how could it be when it feels so right, so good?

finally, he slumps over your body, spent and panting as he finishes. you catch your breath under him, labored breath one after the other as your sweaty skin clings against his own.

“you’re beautiful,” he murmurs after some time, kissing the damp skin of your neck.

“i know,” you whisper cheekily, making him chuckle as he rolls over, pulling you into his chest.

“so humble,” he snorts.

“of course,” you beam, “but feel free to leave more compliments.”

“oh don’t worry, i won’t run out any time soon.”

it’s quiet for a bit, apart from your giggles and his low chuckles. soft, peaceful, and so painfully comforting, you wonder if heaven itself wishes for a place beside wriothesley.

“when you first came up to the surface after your sentence,” you mumble after a few moments of quietness, tracing small loops into his chest as he silently hums for you to continue, “what was the first thing you did?”

“i got a croissant,” he answers thoughtfully, thumb rubbing circles into your hip where his hand is comfortably rested.

you blink, tilting your head to look up at him. his lips curve into a knowing grin.

“pardon?”

he laughs—it’s a beautiful thing. like a boy, eyes crinkled and lips freely curved so wide, you’d think his cheeks were endless with the way they expand to accommodate for such a large stretch. it’s the one time he doesn’t seem like the rugged man you usually know. something younger, more innocent, more raw comes out when wriothesley laughs.

“they go well with tea,” he shrugs, looking down at you, quickly stealing a peck of your nose, “and…” his voice is softer as he trails off, smile faltering.

“and?” you press delicately. so delicately, you’d think you were speaking to a house of cards, one word that’s breathed too harshly away from toppling over.

“and i wanted to visit a bakery i went to as a kid,” he murmurs quietly, voice dropping to a whisper as if he’s admitting something he’s never told anyone. something tells you he just might be. “there was an old lady who used to feed me sometimes when i was a kid on the streets. after i ran away. she’d give me a chocolate croissant and warm tea. i thought…i thought maybe there was a chance she’d still …”

he swallows, cutting his words off just before his voice has the chance to break. it’s a measured gesture. you know it is because you know him. just like you know the feelings of petals and thorns with your eyes closed, you know wriothesley. just like you can tell flowers apart from scent alone, you have him memorized. just like you know what every petal and its origin means, you understand him like it’s your job, too.

except you get paid to do this with something better than mora. with open-mouthed kisses and lingering touches. with coffee in a mug to complement the tea next to it. with strong arms to shield you when rain pours hard over your unsuspecting heads. with a gentle voice that learns to whisper back the language you speak better than anything else.

it says you’re the one i need the most, like rainbow roses. i miss you so much, i ache for you, like mourning flowers. i’d shed blood for you to live, like dendrobiums. you’re what i desire more than anything else, like romaritimes. each word is carefully formed, fragile as it hangs from a singular point. like petals on a stem, his words blossom from the tip of his tongue, falling one by one to your awaiting hands as your thumb traces his lips.

they all tell you one thing—whether he says the words out loud or not, he tells you he loves you through the things he does say. every little promise, every compliment, every form of praise. they say one thing—i love you.

you have always felt loved around wriothesley. you know he loves you, even if you question it sometimes, even if you ache to hear it, you’re always reminded he does when those eyes soften as they look at you, training on you like they never want to look away.

he loves you. he loves you not. he loves you. he loves you not. he loves you.

he loves you.

it always ends with he loves you.

“was she?” you whisper, finger tracing up his chest, along his neck and jaw until it cups his cheek tenderly. he shivers at the touch. “was she still there?”

gentleness isn’t something wriothesley is very familiar with. it raids his skin, takes over the territory that’s only known harshness, and conquers the scarred patches that are barren and empty from all the pain and desolation.

“no,” his voice is barely audible. “her son owns it now. the croissants still taste the same, though.”

“some things never change, i suppose,” you smile softly, leaning closer as your nose presses against his, “even when everything else does. it’s not so bad if you hold onto what you can.”

“and what if you have nothing?” he challenges, closing his eyes when you kiss his jaw sweetly and slowly inhaling a soft breath.

“i’m sure that’s never true,” you murmur, “there’s always something.”

“yeah? how optimistic of you,” he chuckles.

“i’m serious,” you pout, “there’s always a way to make do. look at cacti. they go ages without water, don’t they? and did you know naku weeds can survive being struck by lightning?”

“do you just compare everything to plants?” he asks in amusement, eyeing you with a charmed glint.

“of course,” you huff, “don’t you compare things to what you love most?”

he looks at you for a moment. really looks at you. grazes his eyes over your supple skin he’s traced so many times, over the small crinkles by your eyes permanently etched from smiling so often, over the curve of your nose and lips he’s pressed his own against, over the two eyes that stare back at him and see him more than they do look.

and then he nods.

“yeah,” he admits, “i do.”

your lips are as sweet as the warm chocolate that coated his lips and chin as a child. your touch is as soft as the hands of his mother when he thought he could trust her. your eyes are as bright as the sun when he first saw it after years of dark, rusted walls. everything about you reminds him of his past, the better parts and the worst. all of it.

some of it is healing, and some of it hurts so raw he thinks he’ll bleed out. but your hands are dipped in gold, he thinks. they’d make the most infertile soil rich and filled with life, letting him blossom new again right where his blood spilled.

he’s reminded of you in everything he sees. tea reminds him of your coffee with too much milk. paperwork reminds him of how distressed you are by wasted pages and killed trees. his gauntlets remind him of your hands so small in comparison. he’s doomed, he thinks. cursed, even.

cursed to always remember you in everything.

so, of course, he compares everything to what he loves most. because why else would you reside in his mind so endlessly, taking up the space from one end all the way to the other? why else would you remind him of you in even the mundane of things if he didn’t love you so deeply, so purely, so easily, that you’re everywhere all at once, even when you’re nowhere in sight?

he presses his forehead to yours, closing his eyes and inhaling sharply before letting out a slow, shaky breath.

“i lied,” he admits, making you frown.

“about?”

“about the first thing i did when i got to the surface,” he says quietly. “i went to my parents' graves.”

“to visit them?” you raise a confused eyebrow.

“no. to make sure they were really dead.”

“oh,” is all you say, staring into his eyes as he waits for you to say something more. “well, were they dead?”

“yes,” he snorts, closing his eyes and huffing out a small laugh. “very much so.”

“well, that’s a relief,” you giggle, “otherwise, you’d have served a sentence for murder for nothing.”

“good thing i didn’t, huh?”

“good thing you didn’t,” you nod, grinning as he stares at you softly.

“i’ll take you one of these days,” he hums quietly after a moment. you look surprised, eyes widening as you process the words.

“to your parents' grave?”

“to the bakery,” he rolls his eyes, letting out a breathy laugh. “i don’t think my dead mother would appreciate me bringing back a woman after i killed her.”

“oh, very funny,” you scowl, glaring at him.

“you think so?” he winks, laughing when you gently shove his face away, making his hand grab at your wrist and bite gently into the skin.

you squeal, giggling as he nibbles into your skin. “stop that, you brute!” you demand in between laughs.

it’s quiet for a moment as the laughter settles down, just you and him. him and you. silence echoing off the walls and warmth radiating between your bodies, the sheets clinging to your bare skin. you can feel his bare hip brush against yours. it’s intimate—far more intimate than either of you are used to, but not unwelcome.

he turns, pulling you into his arms and pressing your foreheads together. you think that’s his favorite position to be in—when your faces are so close, they touch. when his eyes can bore into yours. when he can feel the warmth of you tickling his skin as you breathe, as you talk, as you exist before him.

“you’ll like the croissants,” he adds quietly, thoughtfully, “the blackberry ones are particularly nice with the lemon and mint tea—”

you cut him off. before you can think. the words fly past your lips, swept with the breeze like dandelion seeds, and carried through the room as they find shelter in every little crevice. they’ll be here, in every corner, in every little place, a memento of your first real confession.

“i love you.”

he pauses as you cut him off, blinking as he stares at you. something flashes in his eyes—fear, excitement, a small bit of shock and doubt that makes your heartache. you can read him like a book.

it’s not doubt because he thinks you lie. it’s doubt because he thinks it shouldn’t be him. you know that, and you’re prepared to patiently prove him he’s wrong. little by little. day by day. one kiss at a time.

“that’s really enthusiastic,” he shoots you a teasing grin, too easy and too practiced for your liking, “if i knew you liked croissants that much—”

“no, wriothesley,” you say gently, like your words could rock the boat and topple you both into a dangerous, unforgiving current any moment. “i love you. i love when you tell me things you don’t like sharing, and i love when you show me things that are hard to revisit. i love you. because you try, and you’re good at trying. and that’s enough.”

“getting sentimental on me?” he asks hoarsely, smiling tightly.

your hand cups his cheek again, pulling him in so you can kiss the corner of his mouth as you whisper, “yes.” your lips find the other side of his mouth, still at the corner as you whisper again. “because you deserve to hear nice things. even the cheesy ones.”

his eyes close. one moment turns to two, and you let him take his time. let him swallow as he takes a shallow breath before he opens them again and looks at you.

he’s laid bare before you. in more ways than one. being nude is easier than being seen—he trusts you enough to let himself be both.

“you deserve to hear nice things, too,” he admits. it’s not the same as admitting he loves you too, but it’s as close as he can get—still difficult enough that his voice breaks. like it’s hard for him to confess something like this.

it is.

it’s hard for him to tell someone he loves them. the last time he did, he felt the sucker punch of betrayal in his guts, so young that he hardly understood what it meant to be betrayed at all. he watched the same eyes he used to think were his saviors die out as blood spilled in the living room, where his tiny feet padded across as he ran around and played. he misses them sometimes, even now.

his mother’s beautiful green eyes that greeted him in the mornings as she kissed him awake, warm and gentle on his forehead. his father’s deep blue ones that would look at him proudly as he grew and grew, clasping his shoulder with that firmly affectionate grip.

sometimes, he misses them, misses what he thought he had. other times, he’s glad he did it. sometimes, in the dead of night, when it’s just him, he mourns the old him. the one that didn’t have blood on his hands, the him that didn’t have to take two lives to set so many free. the version of him that was allowed to be a boy who existed freely, no taxes to pay for the love he so desperately wanted.

love is wicked like that—it creeps up on you, takes pieces of you, and changes you until you can hardly recognize yourself. until you can hardly recognize everyone around you. how long has it been since he’s seen his siblings? can he even still call them that? do they remember him? would he even recognize them?

he still loves them in his own way. his precious little sisters camille and lucie, and his sweet baby his brothers alexandre and nicolas—he came back and set them free just before it was their time. he didn’t want to leave them, but he had no choice. there were ones who left before him, a time that he can hardly remember anymore. a time before him and antoine. but he recalls them being so delicate with him just as older siblings should be. did they make it out of whatever fate they were sealed to? were they disposed of with no witnesses to bring their demises to justice? he doesn’t know. it’s easier not to know.

it’s easier not to love at all than to open up the risk of hurting. every person he’s ever loved has caused him pain. even the innocent siblings who did nothing wrong—all he’s ever known is pain. the pain of not having them around anymore. the pain of their quiet demise. the pain of setting them free and letting them go. the pain of never having them to himself like a proper family.

loving is so hard for him, so hard on him. so unforgiving to him. so cruel and harsh to him that he hides away behind guarded fists and loaded punches. and you know it, too—he knows you do because you reward his confession with the softest kiss you’ve ever given him as soon as he spills the words.

“i love you,” you murmur the sweet words into his mouth between warm kisses, “i love you. i love you.”

“say it again,” he pleads. it’s easier to let you love him than it is to love you—you don’t mind letting him be a little selfish. he deserves it, in fact.

“i love you. more than anything i’ve ever loved.”

“promise me,” he begs.

“i promise,” you say firmly. “and you don’t have to say it back, not yet. but i want you to know it because you should know you’re loved.”

all at once, the vines wrapped around his chest release, one petal blooming across his heart and arteries at a time until the nectar is running through his veins.

it’s warm. it’s sunny. it’s soft. it’s so, so safe. it doesn’t hurt. it never does with you. you never let it.

“i love you too,” he croaks. he shivers as he says it before he’s grinning slowly, chuckling in wonder as he lets the words sink in before he repeats again, “i love you.”

“yeah?” you beam, eyes crinkling as joy tucks itself into the crevices.

he nods. “yes. and your weird nature lectures.”

you pout, making him laugh. “hey—”

“and your annoyingly aromatic house with petals everywhere—”

“they’re not everywhere—”

“and that ugly dog watering can of yours—”

“it kind of reminds me of you, so—”

“i love them all, and i want them for the rest of my life. i hope you take it easy on the snapdragons, though. i think i’m allergic.”

“such a romantic at heart,” you grumble, rolling your eyes. but they’re glassy, swelling with unshed, precious little tears.

he kisses your eyelids as you close your eyes, murmuring, “i’m doing my best here. cut me some slack, i’ve never dated someone before.”

“oh, wriothesley,” you sniffle, tears coating your sun-soaked skin. and despite the evidence of tears, he’s never seen joy on your face like this before—so clear and radiant. “who taught you about romance? you’re hopeless.”

“hopelessly in love with you,” he shoots back smugly, wiggling his brows.

“i’m doomed,” you snort, letting out a watery chuckle.

“yeah,” he says cheekily, “you are. i hope you’re prepared.”

you kiss him in reply. he kisses you, too. you kiss each other. flowers bloom everywhere your lips touch—wriothesley swallows every petal gratefully.

you love him. you love him not. you love him. you love him not. you love him. you love him not.

you love him.

it always ends with you love him.

and he loves you, too. you both love each other. the words bounce from both of your tongues like you take turns tasting them, feeling them, familiarizing yourselves with them.

it doesn’t matter who whispers the words first or who murmurs them last. no matter who breaks the silence, it always ends with i love you.

ITS FINISHED. WOW. i never thought a flower shop drabble was going to turn into this—i actually had a completely different flower shop au idea that was going to be a long fic but i just wanted to write a tiny practice round drabble to get the itch out my system before i had time to sit down for the full fic. well as you can see…the practice run kind of took a mind of its own so now we have this. LOL. i think perhaps i will also write the other idea but we will see!!! this one kind of replaced the other one in my heart as flower shop wrio lore lol 🥸

ANYWAY!!! i hope you all enjoyed this as much as i enjoyed writing it. idk if wrio was ooc or not or if i did his past and trauma justice but i certainly tried!! all the things about his past with the siblings and his mother's diary and the croissant at the bakery are all headcanons i carefully crafted and hold so so so dear. they are my truth!!! and they make me fall in love with him so much more deeply :( anyway! if you liked it then as always, reblogs and comments are appreciated. now if you’ll excuse me, i will be doodling his name in pink glitter pen with hearts in my diary and giggling.

#writing tag #wriothesley x reader #wriothesley x you #wriothesley smut #genshin x reader #genshin x you #genshin smut #genshin impact x reader #genshin impact x you #genshin impact smut

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cinnaminsvga · 2 months

Text

Harana | Jungkook

harana (n.): the act of wooing someone by serenading them

→ summary:

Unwilling to settle down with you after five years of dating, Jeon Jungkook decides to break up to chase after his dreams. In the aftermath, you leave your hometown, desperate to forget your past and relearn what it means to be on your own. Two years later while on your way to work, you pass by a familiar voice singing songs about a girl he had left behind.

{or alternatively: Jungkook still sings the love songs that he wrote for you. He still means them, too.}

→ genre: busker!au, exes to lovers, angst, humor → warnings: jimin is insane and kinda crude (he has some issues going on), jungkook is a pathetic wet bunny but he's trying his best, oc has So Many Problems, so much arguing and yearning, ambiguous ending??? but my god there is hope!! the humanity of it all!! → words: 16.1K → a/n: HOLY SHIT IM BACK (kinda) and happy new year!! yeah ok its march but im relearning how to form coherent sentences so be patient ;w; this is the first installment of my hfoh series that i teased a LONG time ago... i made it a resolution to complete this series by the end of the year before i kms (Keep Myself Safe) so here's to a brand new year :D (oh god @ universe pls be kind)

part of the “heart full of hugot” series

Two days before the incident, your shower nozzle decides to explode.

Okay, you have to admit that statement is a little misleading. Shower nozzles, in all its nonsentience, do not randomly decide to explode no matter how much you try to defend yourself to your landlord. Maybe your grip had been a little too harsh that morning, or maybe hanging 5 pounds of hair products on the handle had been a bit too much for the old sport to handle. Or maybe, just maybe, the universe was warning you about the incident.

Whatever it was, it doesn’t erase the fact that your shower would be out of commission for the next week or so (though your landlord seems adamant about prolonging your suffering as long as possible). Until then, you’re going to have to find some other ways to keep the grease and grime from building on you. Heavens know that you already have a thriving ecosystem living in the back of your couch—you don’t need another one growing under your armpits.

Lucky for you, you have friends. More importantly, you have friends who have showers. There is one problem though—all your friends live on the other side of the country.

It’s been two years since you moved to the Big City™️, but you have done little to grow your social network. Call it introversion or depression, either way, you have no more contacts on your phone than you did when you left your hometown. Well, except for one person, if you could even consider him one. Frankly, you didn’t have a choice.

“Welcome to my humble abode, stinky,” Jimin greets you as you enter his house. Your nose is instantly assaulted by the smell of Bath & Body Works® Sweet Pea, reminding you once more why you didn’t consider him a friend.

“Hey,” you reply gruffly, shucking your ratty shoes near his entrance. Your shoes look incredibly out of place amidst the sea of designer Chelsea boots and a singular pair of thigh-high heels. You take a glance at his living room, already feeling worse about yourself tenfold.

You had met Park Jimin by complete accident, much like how his mother probably felt when she first saw him too. You had never known anyone quite as… interesting as him, to put it lightly.

When you got your job as a hostess for a luxury bar and restaurant, you figured you wouldn’t make many friends with your coworkers. Everyone was so… pretty, but in the shiny, untouchable sort of way. Almost all of the servers were as gorgeous as the models you’d see in magazines. You hadn’t known that the owners only hired a certain “demographic” of people for their restaurant, and you were equal parts flattered and disgusted that you’d somehow made it (though you suppose your bullshitting skills were all to thank).

Unsurprisingly, even the bartenders were gorgeous, including one Park Jimin. He did have an aura to him that screamed “I’m a cut above the rest and I know it,” but that could just be the gold chains dripping down his neck. You almost mistook him as one of the patrons who mistakenly made his way behind the bar, and knowing the sort of clientele you’ve had to deal with so far, you wouldn’t have been surprised. It took a couple of weeks before you finally found out who he was (and what his fucking problem was).

Jimin was a part-time bartender with a full-time job as a bitch a self-made entrepreneur. Which is to say, he sold… tasteful photos of himself on the internet. You had nothing against his line of work. In fact, you would go far as to say you didn’t give a shit what he did outside of your shared workspace. But if there’s one thing Jimin is, it’s that he hates being ignored.

So when you were adamant about not oohing and aahing at everything that makes Park Jimin perfect, he made it his self-appointed mission to befriend you. Or at least that’s what he claims, but given how he treats you lesser than the shit that cakes his cheeks, you have a lot of doubts. Perhaps he’s never made an effort to make a friend, hence his inexperience with being a decent human being. Or perhaps he’s just an asshole, but who is to say? The point is: he’s the only person you knew in this godforsaken city who would likely allow you to use his shower without being awkward about it and that’s that.

The worst part about being an acquaintance with Park Jimin was that he lived in the richest area of Downtown but he wasn’t old money, that’s for sure. His entire essence screamed overconsumption, and his myriad of little trinkets littered across his apartment confirmed your previous assessment. You wouldn’t be surprised if you opened his freezer and found ten types of ice sorted assorted by color and shape like the extra bitch that he was.

He made his money through sheer force, and it would have impressed you if he wasn’t, you know. Him.

“Bathroom is over there. I placed a towel and other shower amenities that you can borrow,” he says pointing to a door with a large “FART ZONE: ENTER WITH CAUTION” sign taped to it. You don’t ask.

“Thanks,” you say flatly. You wait patiently for his out-of-pocket comment.

Like clockwork, Jimin smirks. “Sure thing. I gave you the super heavy-duty stuff. Figured you’d burn a hole through my expensive towels with how stinky you are, with your yeasty cu—”

“Aaaand I’ll be done in a few minutes. Thanks again Jimin,” you interrupt, making your way to the bathroom and slamming the door with as much force as you can muster. You hear something fall as the door shuts, and you vaguely hear Jimin mutter something about his “fart zone” signage.

You begin to prepare your shower routine, humming lowly as you go about your business. You try to ignore the suffocating scent of ten million diffusers entering your nostrils, wondering for the umpteenth time if Jimin is suffering from long-term olfactory dysfunction.

“Focus, Y/N. The quicker you shower, the quicker you can get the fuck out of here,” you whisper to yourself. However, in your haste, you knock over Jimin’s towel by accident. When the towel falls, a sheet of sandpaper slips out from underneath it, and you stare bemusedly until it finally hits you.

“YOU ARE SUCH A LITTLE BITCH!”

From behind the door, you can hear Jimin’s infamous cackle. “Did you find the loofah? I got it just for you, darling!” he shouts back through his laughter, and you just grumble back in response. How on earth no one has strangled him to death, you have no idea.

“Whatever. I’m gonna shower now! Go beat off or whatever the fuck you do in your spare time,” you grouse, stripping as quickly as possible.

When the first droplets of water hit your body, you can’t help but breathe a sigh of relief. You had both anticipated and dreaded going to Jimin’s house, but you desperately needed the shower. So you go through your routine, trying to find some semblance of relaxation throughout the process. However, it seems that Jimin was yearning for a little bit of attention as he chose to recline on the other side of the door and chat your ear off. Peace was never an option, it seems.

“Hey, Y/N! So why haven’t I seen you at work recently?” Jimin hollers from his living room. Despite the wall separating you, his voice manages to retain its volume.

You squirt a large glob of Jimin’s (expensive) conditioner onto your hands. “What do you mean? I go to work every day. You were the one who hasn’t been clocking in.”

You can hear Jimin scoff. “Um, correction! I went to work last Friday, which so happened to be your day off. If I didn’t know any better, I would have assumed you were avoiding me.”

And right you are, you think. But instead, you say, “Yeah, what a coincidence. I’ll be back to my regular schedule on Monday, though.”

“So that means you didn’t see the Justin Bieber wannabe stationed outside the restaurant then?” Jimin asks, voice miffed. “The guy suddenly sat down by the entrance window and a whole damn crowd started to appear! The absolute nerve of these people—don’t they know Park Jimin was just past the doors?”

This provokes Jimin to go on his long epic soliloquy, which you’ve learned to drown out over the past two years. He could go on hour-long tirades if he wanted, and any interruption from you would just bounce off his nonfunctioning ears. And so, you allow his voice to fall to the back of your mind, similar to white noise if it wasn’t so grating.

However, this was likely your greatest mistake. If you hadn’t been so exhausted, or if Park Jimin hadn’t been so damn annoying all the time, or if the stars had aligned just right… Maybe you would have been forewarned about the incident. It’s as if the universe was screaming at you to pay attention, but alas… You were standing on the proverbial highway, unbeknownst to the incoming traffic because you had your metaphorical AirPods on.

So there you are, completely showered but none the wiser to your impending doom, naively looking to the future with unsuspecting eyes. Even if you had known of what was to come, would avoiding it even be possible? In hindsight, you suppose not, but you still kick yourself for being so blind. If only you’d steeled your heart, then maybe you wouldn’t have felt like vomiting in front of a crowd of innocent bystanders the very next day.

xxx

Monday comes and your shower still isn’t fixed. Jimin makes the benevolent gesture of allowing you to use his shower in the meantime, though you’ll only partake in his offer as minimally as possible. He does mention that he’ll need at least an hour’s notice, warning you about “accidental voyeurism.” You shudder to think of what sort of horror you might find if you did visit him without warning, and you pray for the continued well-being of your retinas.

On your way to work, you’re too busy watching cute videos of animals to notice the unusual flock of people idling close to your workplace. When you get closer, however, the growing commotion is enough to rip your gaze away from your phone, and the sight of the large crowd makes you stop in your tracks.

It is 4 pm and the usual line of waiting patrons should not start piling up for another three hours, so this confuses you more than anything. You shuffle closer, squinting at the crowd until you notice that they aren’t lined up at all; instead, they have congregated into a large circle, but you are too far to see what they are surrounding.

An accident? You worry, wondering if something terrible happened. You tiptoe above the heads of people, subtly moving forward to take a better look. Curse you and your curiosity. You take a deep breath, bracing yourself to see something grotesque or astonishing, but instead…

It’s worse.

Inching closer, you can begin to hear a soft thrumming of a guitar and a gentle singing voice that causes alarm bells to ring in your ears. The warm melody digs up old memories of a time long past: of ballads sung outside your childhood bedroom window, of promises whispered under Spiderman sheets, of tender caresses tucking stray hairs behind your ears… They flood your senses, but all you can feel is dread.

It can’t be who you think it is. You accidentally elbow a guy on your way to get closer, unsteadying his grip on his phone.

“Hey, watch it! I’m filming a totally not-staged TikTok over here!” He yells, but you can hardly pay attention to him when you feel unnaturally drawn to come closer, still.

You’re nearly at the front, with just a couple of teenagers standing between you and the (not-so) mysterious street performer. But the distance is enough, and your breath catches. You can see him—

Black hair partially hidden under a bucket hat. Boots bigger than Pangaea and a pair of eyes equally as large. Dark ink snaking down his arms, peeking out from under oversized sleeves. Piercings that could rival Park Jimin on a good day. He isn’t facing you, but you can still see his big doe eyes, gentle sloping nose, and pretty lips stretched into a handsome smile.

Your heart is thundering in your chest. This can’t be happening, you panic. After two whole years of rebuilding and reshaping yourself, relearning how to be yourself and not… not just his girlfriend.

Jeon Jungkook stands before you, busking in front of your workplace of all locations. The universe could not have been any crueler to you.

You—you had been known as nothing more than Jeon Jungkook’s high school sweetheart. Buried memories of snide comments from jealous teen girls fill your mind, reminding you of the time when you were coined a simple side piece to the main attraction. Decor, as they would call you. Nothing more than a girl who happened to snag Jungkook before people realized he was going to turn… hot. A hot guy who could sing. An inevitable chic magnet, as they would call him.

And now, years later after much therapy and soul searching, your worst nightmare is standing in front of you in the flesh. This is what you will eventually dub the incident.

At that moment, however, there is little to no time to dwell on naming this ongoing core memory. All you can feel is the adrenaline pumping through your veins, as well as the nausea rising up your throat. You stumble backward, blatantly shoving onlookers away as you struggle to find some air to breathe. In hindsight, you probably should have backed away as subtly as possible, but you hope that your dyed hair might be different enough that Jungkook wouldn’t know it was you if he had glanced your way.

Even when you stagger towards your work establishment, the walls cannot perfectly muffle his soothing singing. You can’t make out the lyrics to his song too well, but his unmistakable voice is hard to ignore. Working as a hostess, your station is also coincidentally as close to the door as possible for maximum torture.

This can’t get any worse, you think as your mind races with conflicting emotions. You thought you had moved on, thought you were past the pain and the memories, but seeing Jungkook again, unexpectedly, stirs up a storm of feelings you thought were buried deep. Anger, hurt, betrayal—all rush to the surface, threatening to overwhelm you.

But there is no time to unpack all that baggage right now. Time will continue to march on, and your job is still on the line. How can you have the time to have a mental breakdown when you were still living paycheck to paycheck?

But even as you try to push Jungkook out of your mind, his voice echoes in your ears, his image burned into your memory. It's as if the universe is laughing at your misery, reminding you that despite all your supposed growth, you are still just you.

Painfully and pathetically you.

As you struggle to pull yourself together, a familiarly loud voice rings outside the edge of your consciousness. “Hey, Y/N! Fancy seeing you here…” Jimin greets you, his usual jovial demeanor halting midway when he sees your panicked expression. He clears his throat, perplexed. “Umm… Are you alright there, girl? You’re looking a little pale.”

You do not even have the mental capacity to wonder why Park Jimin was miraculously early to his shift, nor why he seems genuinely worried for you. Rather, all you can do is wave him off and use what little time you have before the restaurant opens to steel yourself for hours of melodious torture.

“I’m fine, Park. You should get to work,” you grit out, wiping your sweaty palms on your uniform. Normally, Jimin would have teased you about the obvious wrinkles on your skirt.

“You’re not the boss of me,” Jimin huffs, always the contrarian. He thinks better of it, however, and softens his tone. “Are you feeling sick or something? You look like you just saw a ghost.”

You freeze, perhaps giving yourself away a little. “I’m fine,” you repeat.

“You know, if you refuse to elaborate, I’m going to have to retract your shower privileges,” Jimin taunts with a smirk.

You feel a migraine growing by your temple, making you wince. God, why must men be the source of all your problems?

“I’m just… a little annoyed by the busker outside the restaurant,” you eventually admit, trying to be vague. Unfortunately for you, Jimin hates beating around the bush and would never take your crap if he knows something is up.

Unable to withstand the weight of his unimpressed stare, you clarify, “He was someone I used to know, that’s all.” You aren’t going to be any more specific than that, though you imagine Jimin gets the picture. You zip your lips, hoping to whoever is causing you pain that Jimin would somehow let the matter drop and leave you to your misery.

You brace yourself for his onslaught of questioning to come, and… it doesn’t happen. Instead, when you glance at Jimin, he is mysteriously stone faced. You wait for him to speak for what feels like a few minutes, but he doesn’t show any signs of wanting to tease or ridicule you. He simply watches you with a pensive expression. You can barely stop yourself from staring back at him, slack-jawed at his silence.

Of course, you aren’t just going to question your luck, or what little you have at least. So, you stay silent back and fidget uncomfortably.

Finally, Jimin seems to snap out of his strange reverie. He fixes you with a bizarrely sympathetic grin, patting you affectionately on the back. “I see… Well, if you ever need a drink tonight, head over to the bar for a little sip. I got you covered,” is all he says in response before sashaying away.

That was so fucking weird. You want to chase after him, perhaps beat the truth out of him. Jimin is nothing but a scheming dick, and you aren’t about to let him roam free with such sensitive information about yourself. Just as you’re about to stomp his ass (perhaps to relieve some of the building tension from your weary soul), your manager pops his head from his office door.

“Y/N! Make sure you’re logged into the booking system. There’s going to be a party of 20 coming in about an hour,” he reminds you, shooting you an apologetic look. You nod back with a sigh, swiping the booking tablet from the hostess desk and scrolling through the logs. Sure enough, it is going to be a busy night despite being a Monday evening. Perhaps a little busier than usual, in fact.

Whatever. You will use whatever distraction you can get, and perhaps the approaching noise from the restaurant patrons will be enough to drown out the sound of his voice.

You aren’t religious by any means, but you pray to whatever higher power exists that Jeon Jungkook doesn’t somehow decide to enter the restaurant. Stay outside, you plead. Outside the restaurant and your life, if possible.

Throughout the evening, you do your best to push aside the memories that threaten to resurface. You greet customers with a smile, lead them to their tables, and ensure their dining experience is pleasant despite the anxiety poisoning your insides. It's a routine you've perfected over time, a shield against the chaos of your emotions.

As the night wears on, you can feel Jimin's eyes on you from across the restaurant. You sneak glances back at him, and you blanch at his pitying gaze. If the restaurant had been slightly less crowded, you would have flipped him off.

He’s probably enjoying my suffering, you think darkly. Unwilling to give him the satisfaction, you straighten up and do your best to appear more unaffected. Just as you do so, you can hear Jungkook perfectly hitting a soulful high note.

“I’m so sorry for thinking I was strong,” you whisper to the universe. “Forgive me for my insolence.” You clench your fist in anguish, ignoring the confused looks from the customers in front of you.

By the time your shift comes to a close, you are completely and utterly drained. You feel like a snail that has been continuously salted over the past eight hours, and you cannot help but cheer in relief when the clock finally strikes two in the morning. You have to wait for the last few diners to make their leave, but otherwise you are ready to let your bed swallow you whole.

You stand by your hostess desk, leaning your head against it with a defeated sigh. Jungkook’s voice had died down only a few minutes ago, and you hope that by this point he has mercifully left the premises. You want to take a peek to make sure, but just as you’re about to make your way to the door, you feel a hand on your shoulder stop you in your tracks.

“‘Sup, bitch.” Jimin still has that weird, pitying gaze pointed at you, though his words don’t match it. “Are you okay to go home alone tonight? I can bring your dumb ass home if you want.”

You shove his hand away, ready to bite his head off when you think better of it. If Jimin drives you home, then that lowers the chances of seeing Jungkook down to pretty much zero.

“You know what? Thanks,” you grouse. Jimin smiles at you winningly, and the image of it brings a shiver down your spine. You hit him, creeped out. “Hey. Stop that, will you? You’re being really weird?”

Jimin scoffs, crossing his arms. “Me? Weird? At least I don’t look like a damn firework ready to explode just because my cringelord ex-boyfriend is singing sappy love songs outside—”

“Shut the fuck up,” you seethe, stomping on his foot. He yelps in pain and slaps your shoulder in retaliation.

“Ouch! Watch your ogre feet! My shoes are worth twice your monthly rent I’ll have you know,” he bristles. He breathes deeply, likely finding his inner calm (which you doubt exists). “But because I’m so nice, I’ll ignore your earlier transgression and blame it on your underdeveloped amygdala.”

You don’t know what’s more surprising: the fact that Jimin knew what an amygdala was or that he was forgiving you in the first place. “Whatever. Let’s finish closing up and then head out. I’m exhausted.”

You make quick work of your task and when you’re ready to head out, Jimin is already waiting by the backdoor. He’s twirling his car keys with a finger and gestures for you to follow him. As you make your way to his car in the back parking lot, you catch sight of a lone figure standing next to a beat-up pickup truck. He’s leaning against it, his hands busy tuning a battered guitar.

Your breath hitches, and you immediately feel nauseous. Of course the incident has yet to end. The night is young, after all.

Jimin accidentally slams the backdoor closed, and the noise wrenches Jungkook’s attention away from his ministrations. Immediately, his eyes lock with Jimin before finally turning to you.

Your heart skips a beat as he gazes at you, your mind racing with a hurricane of emotions. You hadn’t expected to see him again so soon, especially not after the tumultuous encounter earlier in the day. What did you say earlier? That “the chances of seeing Jungkook was down to pretty much zero”?

The chances of seeing Jungkook is low, but never zero, your mind unhelpfully supplies.

There is a long period of awkward silence. Jungkook has his mouth slightly agape, his hand subconsciously lowering his guitar to rest against his truck. To your left, Jimin’s breathing quickens slightly. You, on the other hand, are trying your best not to projectile vomit in this damned parking lot.

Jungkook is the one who decides to break the delicate silence. “Is that you…?” he calls out hesitantly.

Don’t say my name don’t say my name don’t say my name don’t say my name don’t say my—

“Y/N,” Jimin interjects. His gaze is steel cold, uncharacteristic of the carefree boy. He slings an arm around your shoulders, gently nudging you towards his car. With your view still fixed on Jungkook, you miss the way Jimin shoots the other boy with a playful smirk. “C’mon, babe. Let’s go home.”

His words startle both you and Jungkook. “Wha—? Jimin?” you splutter, flushing at his flirtatious undertone. You want to curse him out for his strange behavior, but all the shock has left you mute.

Jimin all but shoves you into the passenger seat. But just as he’s about to slam the car door, you hear Jungkook call out your name. It’s fleeting and quiet, but you heard him crystal clear.

It breaks your spirit to hear him say your name. For a moment, you feel as though you are floating.

When was the last time he called your name? And so softly, too? If you could replay that moment over and over, would you be able to catch some signs of tenderness in his voice? When you close your eyes later that night, would your dreams show you that he had been gazing at you with yearning? Was any of it true?

As Jimin starts the car and pulls away from the curb, you steal one last glance out the window, only to find Jungkook staring at you with an arm outstretched. You continue to watch him until his figure disappears into the night.

You are quietly immersed in your own thoughts, the whirlwind of emotions intensifying your persistent migraine. Unaccustomed to silence, Jimin decides to give his unsolicited two cents, as per usual.

“Geez. Didn’t know you were into the whole starving artist type. If I’d known, then maybe I’d stop trying to brag about my fortune to you,” Jimin scoffs. “If loser buskers like him impress you, then maybe I should—”

“Would you shut the fuck up for once in your fucking life!” You explode, whirling to face him with a glare. Jimin has the audacity to flinch, but he doesn’t take his eyes off the road.

“What the fuck? Why the hell are you mad at me?”

“What the hell was that back there? ‘C’mon babe.’” You mimic his voice with a sneer. “Why on earth would you do that? Now he thinks that we…”

“Why do you care what he thinks? He’s your ex, remember?” Jimin cuts you off, but you can’t even refute him. He continues, “Figured as much. And judging by how spooked you’ve looked all day, I have to assume that he was an asshole, right? Why else would you accept my offer for a ride home if you really wanted to avoid seeing him?”

You shrink under his accurate assumptions. Damn, were you really that easy to read? “I… I mean, yeah but…” You clear your throat, still feeling wronged by him. “You didn’t have to act like a weird prick in front of him!”

Without warning, the floodgates burst forth. You begin to ramble, the thoughts that have been weighing you down pouring out of you in waves. “Jungkook was my ex, yeah. But he wasn’t an asshole. On the contrary, he was really sweet. The nicest guy in my school, at least. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, that sort of person. I dated him all throughout high school and he was a great partner.”

Jimin hums skeptically. “Then why the messy break-up?”

“It wasn’t messy!” You retort defensively.

“Could’ve fooled me!” Jimin snorts. “I also frequently act like a trembling kitten when I see my exes,” he says sarcastically.

You ignore him. “The reason we broke it off was because he wanted to pursue his dreams to become a singer after high school and I wanted to do other things. It was a mutual break-up! Honestly, I’m glad that we did. Too many girls wanted him and all the unwanted attention was getting on my nerves. I was glad to find a reason to end it all,” you explain, hoping you didn’t sound as shaky as you felt. What you said was mostly true, though you left out the important bits to yourself. Mostly to save some of your dignity intact. (Truthfully, you just didn’t want to admit things you weren’t ready to face.)

“Then if you’re so glad, why do you look like you wanted to shit yourself? It ain’t adding up,” Jimin fires back.

“It’s just—” you stammer, trying to find a reason why you were so bent out of shape after seeing him. “I-I was caught off guard, I guess. I knew he was pursuing his dreams to sing and all, so I expected him to leave the country. I wasn’t expecting to see him outside where I work, of all places,” you mutter lamely. You have your head bowed, biting your lips from the nerves. Again, you weren’t totally lying.

Jimin is silent for a moment, contemplating your admission. When he looks so calm like this, it’s hard to get a read on what he’s thinking. As Jimin speeds down the highway, the street lights illuminate his face in a strange way, and for once, he looks like a stranger. His steely expression makes you nervous, for some reason.

Eventually, he asks you a question you would never have expected. “And he just let you go?”

You pause. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…” Jimin huffs, irritated. “He just up and left without a fight? If I were him, I would have…” he trails off, his jaw clenching.

You don’t know where this Jimin came from. Under the moonlight, Jimin looks livid, but that can’t be right. Jimin, mad for you? Sure, you’ve seen his anger directed towards you, but this? Everything’s gotten so complicated, and you are just about ready to succumb to sleep and hope to wake from this nightmare.

The rest of the drive to your house is silent, save for the sounds coming from passing cars. Jimin pulls up to your apartment complex, his mysterious anger finally subsiding.

Just as you’re about to reach for the car door handle, Jimin places a hand on your shoulder. “Listen, Y/N. I’ll talk to management tomorrow morning. I know the manager well enough that I can probably convince him to do something about that ex of yours. He’s busking on private property, so it should be easy to get rid of him,” Jimin says, tone serious. He swallows, and for a moment you think he looks a little nervous. “If that’s what you want, I guess.”

His kindness scares you. You want to tease him, ask him where Mr. Bitchy and his $2000 Chelsea boots had gone. Anything to make this air of severe sincerity to abate. This new Jimin feels suffocating. But instead, you nod your head stiffly.

Jimin makes a pained expression for a moment, but it’s quickly replaced by his usual playful smirk. He slaps you upside the head, laughing heartily at your stunned face.

“Get some rest, babe. I’ll see you tomorrow evening,” he chuckles, reaching over to open the door for you. You scramble out into the cold city air, taking one last look back at him through his window.

He rolls it down, leaning forward to flash a toothy grin at you. “Hey, stop with all the angst, pookie. Wouldn’t want my favorite toy to get sick from overthinking. Who else would I bother at work if not you?”

You snort, both endeared and irritated in equal measure. He’s right. Everything was going back to normal tomorrow, you’re sure of it. You flip him off with a cheeky grin before making your way to your apartment.

Everything is going to be okay. Jimin says he’ll do something about it, and for whatever reason, you feel like you can trust him on this. Surely good fortune was soon to be upon you.

xxx

Jimin had texted you while you were still sleeping:

Spoke to Manager Jeong about your little problem. He said he’ll deal with him.

You breathe a sigh of relief, your body feeling significantly lighter. Your sleep last night had been tumultuous and restless. You feel more tired than you did when you went to bed, but all your weariness fades once you read Jimin’s text.

Once you make it to work, you find that management has gotten rid of Jungkook somehow. Added with the fact that your landlord has promised to look into repairing your shower (no guarantees, but you want to stay optimistic), today has been significantly better compared to yesterday. You even catch yourself humming as you set up your workstation, a small smile gracing your lips.

Jimin has a later shift this evening, and you find that you are somewhat disappointed for once. Your overwhelming gratitude is surely the only reason, otherwise you would never admit to wanting to see him at any given time.

You are in the midst of texting Jimin about all the good news when your manager passes by your desk. You are quick to pocket your phone away from his prying eyes, ready to defend that you aren’t slacking off… but his demeanor does not reveal any ire. In fact, he looks rather pleased for once.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Jeong. What’s up?” you ask, suspicious. You instinctively fold your hands behind your back; it is a subconscious effort on your part to keep your distance from him. Something about your manager always gives you a bad feeling when he looks a little too happy.

He grins widely. “Everything is going splendidly, Ms. Y/N. In fact, I think today might just be our lucky day!”

Never during your time working here has his and your luck ever coincided. “Our lucky day?” you echo.

“Why, yes! I spoke with your lovely friend and coworker Jimin this morning,” he starts, and immediately your alarm bells ring. You don’t even bother correcting him about the ‘friend’ part like you normally would. He continues, “He gave me a brilliant idea about the busker who had been performing in front of the restaurant the past two days.”

You nod slowly, not quite understanding. “Yes… The busker has been quite… the spectacle,” you say carefully. Somehow, you know calling Jungkook a ‘nuisance’ would have been the wrong choice in this instance.

Manager Jeong beams. “Exactly! You must have noticed the amount of people we served yesterday despite being a Monday. Additionally, almost all of those new customers requested outdoor seating no less!”

You feel the world tilt on its axis. What is he on abou—?

“What are you talking about?” you exhale.

“Don’t you think it would be even better for business if we got that busker to perform inside the restaurant? Why, it’s a brilliant idea and I don’t know why I didn’t think of it first! Our live band has always been missing something special, and perhaps a vocal accompaniment is the exact answer to our problem! Think about it, the atmosphere would be…”

Manager Jeong continues to prattle animatedly about his plans to your unhearing ears. There must be static or cotton plugging your head because you cannot possibly understand anything he is saying. Jungkook? Inside? Performing at your restaurant? But Jimin said he had spoken to the manager about getting Jungkook away from you! None of this makes sense.

“That makes no sense,” you verbalize, unknowingly cutting Manager Jeong from his monologue. He halts in surprise, as if now just realizing you were standing there (much less capable of interrupting or disagreeing with him). When he snaps out of it, you sense that familiarly sinister aura emerging from him in waves. You belatedly realize he must have mistaken your outburst as antagonistic.

“Well, Ms. Y/N. Whether it makes sense or not, we have hired Mr. Jeon to perform live at the bar stage for the next four weeknights. If, for some unknowable reason, I am incorrect,” he pauses to emphasize his words, “then his services will be promptly terminated. However, judging by his popularity from simply standing out in the cold and singing silly love songs, I am sure that worry is unwarranted.”

Behind you, the telltale sound of the main door swinging open catches you even more off guard. You do not even have the chance to turn to face the newcomer, only managing to register the gust of cold wind that accompanies their entry.

And so, you hear him before you see him.

“Hello?” Jeon Jungkook greets quietly.

Even without turning, you can imagine how he looks, how he stands, how he feels, how he tastes—

Manager Jeong claps his hands gleefully. “Splendid timing! Speak of the devil…” The older man nearly skips towards Jungkook like a youthful school girl, accompanied by his uncharacteristic squeals of excitement.

You can feel his gaze on you, almost tangibly. With nothing but your shreds of dignity left intact, you force yourself to face him.

He’s still so tall, is all your mind can helpfully supply as you stand feet away from your high school sweetheart for the first time in two years. He’s still wearing the same bucket hat from the night before, semi-shielding him from view. Despite that, you catch a small flash of white graze his bottom lip as he chews the soft flesh nervously.

“Hi, Y/N.” He addresses you directly, completely overlooking your manager without a single glance. Despite his hat, he still has his eyes lasered on you, as if not quite believing you were there. You hate how his attention makes you shiver all the same.

Even though he ignored your manager (which would have been a major dispute had you done the same), Jungkook still receives a friendly handshake in return. “Mr. Jeon! I’m surprised you know Ms. Y/N, though I’m sure you must have spoken with her when she was escorting guests to the outdoor seating the other day.”

You had actually gotten your co-hostess to seat all the outdoor seatings yesterday, but you weren’t going to mention that.

Manager Jeong claps him on the back, inadvertently causing Jungkook to stumble forward closer to you. He looks up at you then, eyes bugging out of their sockets like a rabbit caught in a bear trap. You stagger backwards in turn, barely concealing the anxiety on your face. Oh fucking hell.

Your manager is none the wiser, of course. “Well, this makes my job much easier! Since you’re both acquainted, I’ll let Y/N show you the ropes. The band doesn’t start their set until later in the evening, but you’re free to take a look at the stage and other parts of our facility in the meantime,” he says, chuffed. Meanwhile, Jungkook looks like he’s been shot by a freeze ray.

Then, your manager points a sharper gaze at you. “Ms. Y/N, treat our super star well. I know you won’t disappoint me.”

Fucking superstar… You can only nod in defeat. “Y-Yes, sir…” you whisper, clenching your uniform with your fists. It is the only way to keep them from shaking like a leaf. You watch as his figure disappears behind his office door, leaving you to fend for yourself. Powerless, you train your gaze to the floor, unwilling to meet Jungkook’s eyes.

But the nerves are taking control of your body, screaming at you to eject, eject, eject!

“Sorry, I have to go to the toilet,” you splutter quickly, almost tripping over yourself on the way to the restroom. You dimly wonder if Jungkook is going to think you’re leaving to throw up, but you can’t find any self-respect left to care. All you need is air and space to breathe—preferably away from him.

You slam open the stall, hardly checking to see if anyone else is around before locking the door shut. You sit on the toilet, plant your face between your knees, and scream.

Should you go home and use sickness as an excuse? But even if you did, you still had shifts every weeknight. You would have to see him eventually. You can pray all you want that Jungkook will be fired by the end of the week, but even your delusional mind can never fathom the idea that anyone would willingly want to send Jeon Jungkook away. Plus, you remember that the regular band that plays at the restaurant has been wanting to get a singer to accompany them for ages, and you know just how damn affable he can be. They are going to love him, and you hate him for that.

It is clear to you that there is no other option:

You pull out your phone to quickly open up Indeed on your browser, frantically hunting for any openings that might fit your measly qualifications. However, you have to pause in your search to deliberate. Wouldn’t it be better to move out of the country? You had been so naive to think that moving cities was enough distance between you and Jungkook—going across the ocean is the obvious answer. Should you start up your Duolingo lessons again and hope that you can somehow survive in a different continent with only a few dollars to your name?

You shut your phone in despair. Whether or not your plans of escape are feasible or not, in the short term, you are stuck with having to suck it up and just learn to ignore your ex-boyfriend’s presence. Surely you can force out a fake smile or two, especially with how much practice you’ve gotten after working with unbearably entitled customers.

Taking a step outside of the restroom stall, you head to the sink to splash some cold on your face. You stare at the mirror, confronted by a girl who looks two seconds away from having a Netflix Original-esque meltdown. You rake your fingers through your hair, doing your best to look like you aren’t about to rush into incoming traffic. To no one's surprise, it doesn't work.

“Okay, I got this. Just pretend like he’s just some guy, because at the end of the day, he is just some guy,” you mutter to your reflection. She looks back at you unconvinced. “He may have broken my heart into little bite size pieces, but who cares! HE’S JUST A GUY!” You repeat the phrase over and over again like a lunatic, in a desperate attempt to cognitively alter your brain chemistry.

At that moment, one of the other stalls in the restroom creaks open, and a girl you recognize who works as one of the dishwashers walks out. You both have a silent eye conversation as she quietly studies your crazed expression and crumpled work uniform.

Eventually, she awkwardly clears her throat, pointing to the only sink in the restroom. “Uh, sorry to hear about your, uh, guy problem. Could I use the sink please?”

You hastily back away, allowing her to take your spot. You don’t even have the energy to apologize for your spectacle, just bowing sheepishly to her before making your way back to the main hall. If she rats you out to the rest of your coworkers, then that gives you another reason to move out of the country. Maybe you should consider a name change while you’re at it.

When you exit the restroom, you half expect Jungkook to be waiting for you by the door, but find that he isn’t anywhere nearby. He isn’t by your hostess station either, and you thank your lucky stars for once. Even if your manager had asked you to show him around, you’re sure that Jungkook can find his way around just fine. Plus, the stage is at the corner of the restaurant and is sufficiently far enough that you wouldn’t have to make eye contact with him if you were careful.

You don’t know which greater entity has been messing with your sanity these past few days, but you hope that they can show you mercy just once—a brief reprieve, if anything.

You clasp your hands in prayer. I’ll eat more vegetables, I’ll remember to floss, I’ll call my parents from time to time… Just please let me survive tonight.

“Remember, Y/N… He’s just some guy,” you reiterate through gritted teeth. If a passing coworker happens to overhear your demented chanting, then you pay them no mind.

You walk towards the entrance, flipping the sign to open. You feel like a video game character when you glance at the clock, which signals the start of your shift. You can imagine the red bold text hovering above your head: 8 more hours until freedom.

This is just like playing Five Nights at Freddy’s, except you’ve only watched the movie and you suspect your life is probably worse than whatever Josh Hutcherson had to survive through.

You take a couple heaving breaths to brace yourself for what will be the longest eight hours of your life. You’ll show Jungkook just how well-adjusted and mature you’ve become. You are a professional, and not even a boy with angelic vocals will make you crumble. After all, what’s the worst he can do?

xxx

He could, in fact, do a lot worse than you thought.

“I have many regrets being born at all,” you mutter bleakly, three hours into your shift.

Jungkook had started singing only an hour ago, so you had been filled with false confidence at first when the restaurant was filled with nothing but ambient chatter and soothing jazz music. You felt more and more confident as the minutes ticked by and your anxiety slowly melted away. You even forgot that he was somewhere in the back, likely warming up or whatever it is that singers did before a performance.

However, your brief moment of courage shatters almost immediately when Jungkook finally takes the stage.

At first, you did your best to tune out his voice, but it’s especially hard when whoever was in charge of the sound system decided to crank his volume to an excruciating level. You wanted desperately to grab some napkins and shove them in your ears, but you suspected that your customers (and manager) would be unappreciative of that gesture. And so there you lay, forced to wallow in Jungkook’s melodious singing like a criminal strapped to an electric chair.

But how much more pleasant an electric chair would be! Why on earth was Jungkook so adamant to sing sad love songs the entire time? Why couldn’t he be like his other singing contemporaries, who loved to write songs about getting bitches and making money? At the very least, even if he wasn’t quite a platinum selling artist just yet, surely he was constantly sharing beds with anyone he pleases? Couldn’t he sing about that?!

(In the back of your mind, you wonder if it would be less painful to learn that Jungkook has slept with multiple people… Because then, it would mean that he had moved on while you stood alone on your island, stranded and yearning.)

You didn’t want to think too deeply about his lyrics. However, you're only human. So when your mind barrier failed and you caught snippets of his singing, you noticed a pattern. There was always a girl in his songs. She was omnipresent, and Jungkook was always pleading for her. Begging and aching and wanting. But most all… he was always repenting. In every song, he always whispered a pious apology.

You feared what would happen if you turned around in those moments of weakness. You were terrified of admitting something, of letting words spill that had been trapped in your throat for the better part of two years.

Lucky for you, salvation comes in the form of one Park Jimin. Though, can you even count him as your savior when he had also inadvertently caused your demise?

Jimin doesn’t even have a shift today, so you’re more than surprised when his bright blonde head stumbles through the restaurant doors. His expensive coat is askew and his signature designer shades are nowhere to be found. He is panic incarnate—an expression you have never seen on his face before.

“Holy fuck,” he greets, his chest heaving as he struggles to catch his breath. His profanity startles the elderly couple waiting to be seated, their glares menacingly sharp. To his credit, Jimin doesn’t even seem phased.

In lieu of an answer, you gesture vaguely behind you. You can imagine how dejected you must look. “Holy fuck indeed,” you sigh.

It takes a moment for Jimin to regain his bearings. He straightens up and pats down his coat, but his hair is still tousled by the wind. If not for the fact that he has a car, you might have thought he had run all the way here.

“I am so sorry. I didn’t know this was going to happen,” he starts, genuinely remorseful. “I texted Manager Jeong this morning and he said he’d get your ex to leave, but I didn’t think he’d offer the damn bastard a job!”

“Mind your language, Park. I’m still at work,” you scold. You try your best to ignore the scrutinizing gaze of the elderly couple. You lower your voice. “And don’t apologize. I know you’re an asshole, but I doubt you’d actually prey on my downfall like this. I know you’re not into public humiliation.”

Jimin brightens slightly at your joke, but he still looks like a guilty puppy who'd been caught shitting on the carpet. “Yeah, well. I happen to enjoy tormenting you and I won’t let some upstart Charlie Puth wannabe ruin your life. That’s my job.”

You smile wryly at him. “Well, that’s too bad. Jungkook’s been singing for a few hours now and I’m pretty sure Manager Jeong is going to keep him long-term. He might have broken my heart, but damn does he have vocals. I'm sure you'll have plenty competition when it comes to 'who can make Y/N's life feel like hell.'”

Jimin doesn't smile back, but instead studies your face for a moment. Then:

“Do you think if I offer to suck Manager Jeong off, he’ll fire him?”

“What the fuck?” You nearly yell out in surprise, your jaw dropping to the floor. Judging by his serious scowl, you know he's actually considering it. By now, the elderly couple waiting to be seated have left the premises.

Jimin continues, unperturbed. “I know he secretly wants me, based on how his wife seems to have a personal vendetta against me. He definitely wants a taste of my bus—.”

“Stop, I get it!” You wave your hands to make him shut up, heat rising up your cheeks. “Never say that string of words to me ever again. You have just inflicted ten years of suffering onto my poor brain.”

“Hey, I’m just offering solutions here!” Jimin pouts.

You stare at him, unimpressed. “Save it. You tried solving my problems already, so let’s just accept the fact that there’s nothing else for me to do but to suck it up. It’s time for me to put on my big girl pants for a change.”

“I mean, I could do all the sucking instead, but you’re being a little bitch about it,” Jimin mumbles. He’s lucky you didn’t hear him this time, lest you give him something to really whine about.

“Anyway, I guess this is my life now. Nothing to do except hope that he never tries to interact with me or I can find another job,” you shrug.

Over your shoulder, Jimin fixes Jungkook with an icy glare that is cold enough to give you the shivers. For the first time that entire night, you hazard a glance back at the stage, finding that Jungkook is already looking back at you.

You whip your head back forward, perspiration forming down your back. For fuck’s sake, this guy.

“Well, let me know if he tries anything. I’ll beat that little freak into the floor if he tries so much as breathing the same air as you.” Jimin huffs, puffing up his chest with false bravado. You can’t help but laugh at his empty threat, knowing that Jungkook could probably bench press Jimin without breaking a sweat. Jimin's muscles are only for aesthetics, after all.

“Don’t worry, he hasn’t actually spoken to me actually. He can keep singing his sad little love songs, I really don’t mind,” you say, like a liar. Jimin snorts, wholly unconvinced.

“Well, if you need me, I’m heading to the bar to grab a drink so I can stare at your ex uncomfortably until he leaves. See you!” Jimin bids you farewell with a cheery grin as he skips a little too happily inside the restaurant.

Why'd you have to befriend the largest lunatic in the city? You massage your forehead with a groan, willing away your growing headache.

The rest of the night trickles away like molasses. Jungkook continues to sing his heart out, save for an hour intermission where he presumably takes a short break. In his absence, you hear Jimin guffaw loudly, his laughter too sharp to be considered happy. You faintly hear Jungkook shy stutters in response, and you momentarily consider running in to interrupt.

Why? Did you want to save Jungkook from Jimin’s unnecessary harassment? It’s not like Jimin is doing it out nowhere, he was just trying to be… a good friend?

You pause to ponder. As much as you hate to admit it, you know why you want to help Jungkook. But Jimin on the other hand? Why did he want to help you? Questions begin flowing through your head like a whirlwind, and your nausea increases. God, when was your next therapy appointment again?

You save those questions for another day. As you look at your watch, there are only thirty minutes left until two in the morning. You tap your foot impatiently, smiling curtly at departing customers as the restaurant slowly emptied. As they left, you overhear some of your regulars giggling amongst themselves, whispering about the cute new singer and his charming demeanor.

The last nail on your coffin has been hammered. Yeah, Jungkook isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

With the restaurant closing soon, it sounds like Jungkook is ready to end his set as well.

Throughout the night, Jungkook rarely made a point to speak. The only time he didn’t sing was when he quietly introduced the title of his next song and the band swiftly began the first opening notes. For his last song, however, Jungkook decided to give a little more backstory for his final song.

“Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for listening to me for the night,” Jungkook says with a soft voice, his tone awfully shy despite his powerful belting throughout the evening. The few customers left give him a warm round of applause, and you hear the familiar sound of his timid giggles spill from the restaurant speakers.

“This will be my final song for the night. Most of the songs I sang today were covers, but this one is an original. I…” He hesitates for a moment, and something pulls you to turn despite the alarm bells ringing in your ears. You face him, and just like earlier in the evening, he is already looking back at you.

This time, you don’t look away; he does. His eyes flit to the ceiling, and he licks his lips from nerves. “I… I wrote this song a long while ago. I’ve never sang it in public before and I never thought it would ever see the light of day. Until, well…”

He stops again. This time, he gestures to the guitarist in the band, silently asking to borrow it. With a guitar in hand, he smiles a little more confidently at the small crowd of people. He begins strumming the first few notes, and your heart stops. “I hope everyone had a pleasant evening. Get home safe and have a great rest of your week. My name is Jungkook, and this last song is called…”

Before he can sing the first line of his song, you make a break for it.

You slam the restaurant doors open, and the stinging cold air immediately pierces their fangs into your skin. Your coat is still inside, but you can’t bring yourself to reenter. You take a long breath, the chill barely registering in your mind with how loudly your heart is pounding in your ears.

Hearing the opening to that song was enough to bring you back in time, three years ago:

You are in his childhood bedroom, his walls littered with concert posters and his floor a mess with unfolded laundry and guitar picks. The afternoon sun is streaming through his windows, bathing him in gold. You have an exam the next day and he has cram school to go to, but you’ve both chucked your books somewhere on his desk, left forgotten.

He has his eyes closed, concentrated. You’re both on his small twin bed, squished together side by side and thighs touching. You have your head on his shoulder and he has his hands on his guitar. He strums a few chords experimentally and sings a melody that only the two of you know.

(Not anymore.)

“Are you writing a new song?” you ask, voice a little scratchy. Neither of you had spoken for the past few hours, just basking in the setting sun and Jungkook’s indistinct strumming. But now, his chords sound more sure, more certain of something.

“Yeah, I just thought of it,” he hums. He opens his eyes a smidge, a smitten smile on his lips. You mirror him.

“What’s it about this time?”

His brows furrow. “I’ve been trying to write about other stuff, you know? Namjoon-hyung tells me it’s important that songs have meaning and impact.” He pauses in his strumming, looking a little conflicted. “And I get what he means. Art is all about saying something, but… I can’t help that there’s only one thing I ever want to talk about. Is that so wrong?”

You chuckle, understanding what he means. You nudge your head against his cheek, grinning from ear to ear. The fluttering in your chest has become routine to you at this point, but he somehow always knows how to increase it tenfold. “God, you’re such a sweet talker. Really, Koo. There’s no need to serenade with love songs—I’m already yours.”

He looks back at you, brimming with tender affection. “I know,” he responds. Then, he takes a pen from his bedside table, and begins writing.

During those years of dating him, you always thought that If he was a waterfall, then you were a teaspoon. You desperately tried to be enough for him, but you’re barely able to fathom the depth of his devotion. Everything about him was excessive, and you could seldom understand how he managed to contain himself. He was born to share himself, to tear bits of his soul so that the world may understand him, love him. His songs were a testament that he was trying to do that, and you always felt so lucky to be able to receive him, wholly and fully.

How cruel was it that Jungkook uses that same song to rip open the barely healed scab on your heart, leaving you bare and stinging and raw all over again.

You have no idea how long you've stood there in the cold. It must have been barely a few minutes when Jimin finds his way to you. He wordlessly shrugs his coat off and places it on your shoulders, but you make no move to acknowledge him.

You hope your silence is enough for Jimin to infer that you are not in a conversational mood, but he’s nothing if not impatient. He forcibly pulls you to face him, his hands warm even through your clothing.

“Hey, you good? Did something happen?” He asks with barely concealed irritation, but it’s not directed at you. Still, you flinch at his scathing tone, shrinking in on yourself. In your daze, you vaguely notice his resemblance to an angry baby chick.

“It’s nothing. Go back inside, I’ll be right there,” you mumble lamely, weakly pushing him back towards the restaurant. Jimin does not budge, instead leveling you with a hard stare. This time, you’re sure his irritation is for you.

“You idiot, you literally ran out like someone was out to get you. Of course it’s not nothing,” he grouses.

You sigh tiredly, shaking your head at him. “We can talk later. It’s almost closing time and I just want to go home and sleep.”

Before Jimin can argue further, the door to the restaurant opens once more, but it isn’t a leaving customer.

“What the fuck? What are you doing out here?” Jimin all but shouts at Jungkook. He holds up an accusatory finger at him and uses his other hand to nudge you behind him as if to shield you.

Jungkook winces, instinctively stepping back. Despite being a few inches taller than Jimin, Jungkook’s timidness makes him look smaller. “I… I was just worried about her—”

“Don’t you have a song to finish in there? Talk about professional,” Jimin spits out. Jimin maneuvers you so that Jungkook can’t see you, but you manage to catch sight of how his gaze follows you unfailingly.

“I finished up my set. It’s closing time.” Jungkook responds coolly. He’s still a little quiet, but you can sense some of his natural composure rising to the surface. When he needs to be, Jungkook has been known to stand his ground—usually when it comes to matters involving you.

At this time of the night and after hours of mental torture, the last thing you need is to watch your two worst nightmares duke it out in front of your work establishment. You are beyond exhausted, and you hardly have the fortitude to withstand another minute of their voices ringing in your ears.

Your eyes well up with tears of frustration, causing the two boys to freeze up in panic. You don’t give them the chance to fuss over you; instead, you haphazardly wipe your cheeks before roughly pushing them back towards the restaurant.

“Get back to work, you idiots.” Your voice sounds warbled even to your own ears, but you push past your overwhelming emotions in favor of getting back inside to close up. Hell, you might even call in sick tomorrow, just so you can cry pathetically into your bowl of cereal in solitude.

“I’m not even on the clock today!” Jimin complains faintly, but you only push him harder.

When you all reenter, you walk back to your desk and pointedly ignore the two of them until they awkwardly float away from your orbit. Despite the distance they give you, their gazes are still fixed plainly on you and they feel like knives digging into your back.

Eventually, all the final customers of the day take their leave, and your remaining coworkers start dimming the lights and bidding their goodbyes. From the corner of your eye, you see Jungkook bowing respectfully to the band, who were giving him friendly pats on the back for a job well done. Jimin walks toward you, his car keys dangling from his left pinky.

“No thanks. I’ll take the bus home today,” you declare before he can offer a ride. Jimin opens his mouth like a goldfish, flapping his lips dumbly as he stares at you in shock. You have no idea why he’s so surprised, given how you’ve been making it obvious that you need some space.

He looks like he wants to argue again, but thinks better of it. A singular moment of restraint from Park Jimin, which is an act you once thought impossible. Maybe he does care about you more than you thought.

He stiffly nods at you, shoving his hands and keys into his pockets. He still has a frown on his face when he tells you to text him when you get home. You flip him off with a shaky smirk in response, a feeble attempt to bring some levity back to your now tense relationship. It works a little, and Jimin brightens up significantly. How simple-minded of him.

With a flippant wave, you leave work and head towards your bus stop. At this hour of the night, the streets are mostly dim, save for some street lamps and bars that stay open longer than your restaurant. There are always some people milling about, enough that you never feel too on edge about how late it is. Still, your bus stop is often empty, leaving you to mull over your thoughts in peace.

You are in the midst of jamming your earbuds into your ear when a presence makes itself known beside you.

Is it possible to go through the five stages of grief in under a second? You suppose not, but it’s hard to tell what sort of emotions swim through you when you come face to face with Jeon Jungkook again.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” you mutter under your breath. You pause the song playing on your phone to glare at him with as much venom as you can muster.

Jungkook holds up his hands in surrender, doe eyes wide like prey. “I-I’m heading home too! I’m not following you, I swear!”

You groan internally. Figures that you and Jungkook take the same bus home. But hold on— “Don’t you have a car? I remember you were parked near the restaurant the other night,” you note, squinting at him.

Jungkook looks sheepish as he rubs the back of his neck. “Oh, yeah. That car was my hyung’s. He lets me borrow it sometimes, but he needed it tonight.”

“Sure…” You level him with a skeptical frown. You remember his hyung, but don’t recall him ever owning a car. You aren’t even sure that his Namjoon-hyung is allowed by the country to drive a car, much less own one.

He could be lying, but you don’t want to give him an excuse to continue any conversation. So, you busy yourself with your phone and keep your head bowed away from him.

When the bus arrives, Jungkook makes it a point to sit a few rows behind you. Thankfully, he has a better understanding of social cues than a certain Park that you know. He leaves you alone, but your entire body still feels like a rope pulled taut. You have to convince yourself not to look behind you, your morbid curiosity scratching your insides raw.

You are in the home stretch now, and it’ll only be a few more minutes before you get to your stop and make your way to your safe haven. Hell resumes the next day and the next, but at the very least you’ll have your home to yourself. No one could take that away from you.

Again, this is where you learn that tempting fate is never a good idea.

When you exit the bus at your stop, you can hear his footsteps following you. It’s hard not to notice, especially when his large and distracting boots make such a distinct racket that makes him so Jungkook.

You hasten your pace towards your apartment complex, your shoulders hunched and hands shoved into your coat pockets in an attempt to hinder the bile rising from your stomach. He had promised that he wasn’t following you, but that proclamation seems to be standing on feeble legs with how long he’s been on your tail now.

Your street is filled with rows of low-rise apartment buildings, so you hope that if anything happens, you can yell as loud as you can and alert some compassionate neighbor to come to your aid. (Not that you think he would ever physically harm you, but… You can’t say the same about your mental state.)

Your home is just two buildings away from where you are, but Jungkook still seems determined to follow you to the end. You all but skip the remaining feet to your apartment entrance, your breath coming out in puffs as you finally muster up the courage to face your supposed stalker and give him a piece of your mind.

“If this is some convoluted way for you to find out where I live, then you aren’t being very subtle about it,” you say, your chin held up high despite the growing urge to vomit pathetically in front of your ex-boyfriend. You have your hand rested on the doorknob, just a moment’s notice away from bolting into your house if the need for a quick getaway arises.

To your surprise, Jungkook wasn’t following you as closely as you expected. He had stopped trailing you about two buildings down, his own hand poised on the door with a look of genuine shock.

You both stand there, staring at each other as mutual understanding dawns on the two of you.

Everyday, the universe learns of more creative ways to be cruel.

“Oh…” Jungkook’s voice falters. He looks simultaneously frightened and amazed, as if he too finds this entire situation unbelievably harsh. He swallows thickly, looking at you and back to his door in quick succession. “Well… This is a strange coincidence,” he murmurs.

You want to believe that this was his entire fault, that Jungkook had somehow managed to track you down to haunt you for the rest of your days. You want to believe that he’s a crazed stalker who is willing to find where you work and live so that every hour of your wretched life is filled with nothing but reminders of what-could-have-beens. You just want someone to blame instead of just the cosmos—you want someone tangible to hate so that your suffering can be given some sort of identity. You want to give your mourning and hurt a name so that you can learn how to heal.

You want to believe all of that, but it’s hard to do so when Jungkook looks so incredibly uncomfortable, as if he’d rather melt into the shadows and never be seen again.

In all your memories, you have never seen Jungkook look so small.

You heave a big sigh, your fingers grasping the door knob so tightly that you half-expect it to be dented from the force. You linger for a moment, your mouth opening but nothing spills out.

What is there to say? What do you say to an ex-boyfriend that you haven’t seen in two years, who is suddenly so deeply entwined in your life once more? Do you tell him goodnight? Tell him to stay away? Tell him to come home with you?

Jungkook looks equally as conflicted. His lips are pursed tight with words left unsaid. You aren’t sure whether you want to punch the confession out of his mouth or seal them up forever. It feels like eons before he finally breaks the silence with a mirthless laugh.

“I… I just wanted to say—back at the restaurant. When I sang that last song,” Jungkook begins, and his voice feels loud because of how empty the streets are. For a moment, you are reminded of a cathedral you once visited during a vacation, how sacred silence can be. The world holds its breath, waiting for him to speak.

“I meant it all. Every word. Every lyric. I never stopped…”

He trails off, shrugging his shoulders. He stares at you helplessly, but you don’t know what to say. You don’t want to listen any more, but your feet are planted to the ground. You’re frozen like a deer in headlights, forced to brace against him as he crashes into you.

He continues, “And when we broke up back then… I never wanted that to happen. You broke it off before we could even try something—and I hated how I didn’t fight for you harder. I let you misunderstand me because I was afraid you wouldn’t want to stick around if I didn’t succeed. I convinced myself that I was holding you down, but I never gave you—us—a chance. I never stopped regretting it since.”

“Me? Break up with you?” You echo incredulously. That statement is enough to break you from your trance, the telltale signs of indignation rising up your chest. “How dare you suggest—Me? You were the one who broke up with me, asshole! You were the one who broke my heart and decided to up and leave to god knows where! Only to miraculously respawn right next to me, groveling at my feet with sad love songs as if that’s enough for me to forgive and forget? Fucking entitled bastard,” you seethe.

Somehow, Jungkook manages to shrink more, like a bunny with his tail tucked between his legs. “Yes, you’re right that I broke your heart but… When I told you I was moving away to try and become a singer, it was always with the intention of staying together. I know it would have been difficult, but I wanted you to be with me through thick and thin. But when you misunderstood and took it as a break up, I let you go because, well… I was scared that it would happen eventually. Who wants to date a broke busking fool anyway?”

He laughs, but it sounds watery. He sniffles, and you hope it's only because of the cold. “I tried looking for you, but you blocked me everywhere and no one from back home seemed to know where you went. So I just accepted that we’d never see each other again… Until a few days ago, that is.”

A misunderstanding? Is that what everything boils down to? Years of trying to build yourself back up again, relearning what it means to be happy—all the fallen domino pieces in your life trailing back to a single moment in time? All because Jungkook was scared that you didn't love him enough?

You’ve never felt angrier in your life. You fear what you might say if you continue to stand outside there, face to face with the singular person strong enough to whittle you down to the bone. Jeon Jungkook is all soft smiles and sweet songs, but how come he’s always able to knock you off your axis? Few people on this earth can stitch you up and break you down in equal measure, but somehow, Jungkook manages to do all that and more.

Then, comes the guilt. Had it been all your fault? That you hadn't returned his love in equal measure? Had you secretly given up on the hope of being on his level? Always looking down on yourself: unable to move past your insecurities. Were you terrified of being his side piece, his girlfriend, forever?

Who are you, even? And where do you stand?

(Beside him, is what you want to answer. You don't know if that's the right choice.)

You can’t bear to look at him, least of all answer him. Without another word, you shove your house key into the door before slamming it shut despite the late hour. If you awaken any neighbors, you’ll apologize later. For now, all you require is sleep and hope that this has been all a terrible nightmare.

xxx

Reality is a bitter pill to swallow.

Jeon Jungkook continues to sing at the restaurant, and after only two days of repeat stellar performances, your manager decides to promote him as the official vocalist for the band. It hurts to admit that you're not the least bit surprised; you might have a hard time looking at him, but you can never deny his talent.

His song list has added a larger variety of genres ever since his first performance. That is to say, he isn’t always singing about lost loves and tragic couples every night. Perhaps it is due to some requests from customers or his other bandmates, but it doesn’t stop him from sprinkling one or two love songs into the mix.

He doesn’t sing any original songs ever again. That, at least, is a small mercy. He doesn’t make any moves to speak with you either, despite the daily awkward trips back home after the end of your shifts. Whether that’s because he’s given up on you (again), or he’s waiting for you to make the first move, you don’t know. Frankly, you don’t think you have the energy (nor courage) to do anything about it.

It’s a few weeks after Jungkook’s first performance at the restaurant, and closing time is approaching. You appreciate Friday nights the most because it means you’ll have two consecutive days to relax and avoid your problems. It’s also the busiest night of the week, when white-collar workers decide to drink and eat for as long as the night allows them. Busier nights mean more distractions, and you’re willing to deal with twenty Karens over one Jungkook.

During nights like these, your manager occasionally asks you to fulfill some waitress duties when there aren’t enough hands on deck. Normally you’d hate it, but earning the extra tips is enough to keep your grumbling to a minimum To this day, your landlord has yet to do anything about your broken shower, and you’ve finally conceded to the fact that you’ll have to be the one to do something about it.

As you inform the customers in your area that the last call for orders is approaching, you sneak a glance at the bar to see Jimin dutifully performing his job. That is to say, he’s flirting up a storm, getting women and men alike to blush from head to toe as he serves their drinks with a salacious smirk.

What a swindler, you think to yourself, snorting when he makes eye contact with you. He gives you a cheeky salute, mouthing something as he gestures to the back door.

Despite the semi-fight the two of you had all those weeks ago, Jimin was never one to argue about the same topic two days in a row. When you saw him the next day after your confrontation with Jungkook, Jimin was back to all smiles. You still catch him sending death glares towards Jungkook on most nights, but he doesn’t bring up the matter with you anymore. For that reason, you’ve gratefully settled back into your weird, banterful friendship with him. Even if there’s still a lingering tension between the two of you that you refuse to acknowledge.

You nod thankfully back at him, excited to go to his house and take a much needed shower. At this point, going to his house has become second nature to you, and it gives you an excuse to not see Jungkook at your regular bus stop every day. You have half a mind to never fix your shower for that reason, but of course there is still the problem of having to deal with Jimin every time you need to bathe. You hardly consider yourself an impatient person, but Jimin likes to toe the line far more often than necessary.

You’re down to your last two tables before you can close up shop when your manager suddenly barrels right into your path. You nearly drop your tray of dirty dishes to the floor, holding in a loud yelp as your suspiciously stern-faced manager halts you in place.

“Ms. Y/N, may I have a word with you for a moment? It’s regarding your paycheck for the month,” he barks, lips downturned. He appears disgruntled about something, and it sends a worried shiver down your spine. And here you thought Fridays are meant to be fun. He doesn’t wait for you to reply before he stalks back to his office, an unspoken command for you to follow.

You unload your dishes in the kitchen before making your way to his office. The small, dark room is cramped with overflowing file folders and coupons from multiple take-out places. You accidentally step on a stack of papers, and upon further inspection, seem to be a pile of applications for new hires. You distinctly remember complaining to him months prior about being understaffed and him replying that no inquiries were coming in.

As you approach, your manager shuffles through your coworkers pay stubs, and you notice yours and Jungkook’s on top of the piles.

Manager Jeong clears his throat. “Well, Y/N. It seems to be your lucky day. As you know, we split the tips based on your hours and what sort of duties you fulfill. With the new hire we have as our in-house singer, we’ve had to split it one way more to accommodate his arrival. However, he has recently requested to me that his portion be reallocated… to you, Ms. Y/N.”

Your jaw drops immediately. “I-I don’t understand, Manager Jeong,” you sputter.

Manager Jeong snorts, bemused by your reaction. “Don’t understand? Well, I suppose you’ll have to ask Mr. Jeon if you want his reasoning. Regardless, since we normally deposit your salary straight to your bank account, would it be alright if I hand you his tips in cash for now? He only informed me about his request an hour ago, and the accountant has already clocked out for the week.”

All you can do is nod dumbly back at him. With a huff, your manager presses a white envelope into your hands before promptly ushering you out of his office. “Well, that's settled. Out you go! Have a good weekend, Ms. Y/N. Don’t forget to lock the register before you leave!” He calls out before slamming his door in your face.

It takes you a moment to reanimate back to life. You stare at the white envelope for a long while, unable to fathom the scribbled out name of Jeon Jungkook replaced with your own name. Then, you crumple it into your fist before stomping over to where Jungkook and the rest of the band are in the middle of packing it up for the night.

Jungkook looks up from his guitar case when he senses you fast approaching. For a fleeting second, a smile graces his handsome face before it’s smacked away by your crumpled envelope.

“Keep your fucking cash, Jungkook. What the hell is your problem?” You fume, cheeks heating from agitation. Jungkook splutters for a moment, prying the envelope away from his face and looking at it in bewilderment. When he sees it clearly, recognition dawns on his face, followed by guilt.

“It’s just… my way of saying sorry, I guess.” He answers you meekly, neck flushing red in embarrassment. Behind him, the rest of the band grow silent at the scene before them, and you debate on telling them to mind their own business when they quicken their pace to leave.

“Well, keep your apology to yourself. There’s nothing to apologize for,” you correct him with a frown. To offer an apology is to offer accountability. You aren’t sure if you’re ready to hear him say that.

“No, it’s a sorry for… using you, I suppose.”

“Using me?” You repeat, dumbfounded. “For what?”

Jungkook smiles wryly back at you. “For inspiration?” he clarifies. For being the reason I can sing? He leaves that part unsaid, but you can almost imagine him saying it.

You feel heat rising to your cheeks again, but this time you aren’t quite sure if it’s from embarrassment, anger… or something else.

Unable to conjure up a response to his simple confession, you stomp away from him with a pounding heart and shaking hands. You continue the rest of your closing shift routine instinctually, your body moving on autopilot as Jungkook’s words continue to ring inside your head. When all is said and done, Jimin makes his way to your station with a questioning stare, but you wave him off in favor of stomping ahead of him to the parking lot.

In his car, Jimin rattles off about his latest exploits and purchases, his grating voice a comfort for once. You hum noncommittally during his stories when appropriate, but you suppose your usual indifference feels different, even to Jimin's untrained ears.

At his house, you drift to his bathroom immediately. You already have a shirt button undone by the time you get a handle on the door when Jimin’s hand stops you in place. You can feel his warmth emanating against your back as he slowly pulls the bathroom door close. With a tired sigh, you reluctantly turn to face him and find him standing closer than you expected.

He has an arm resting above your head, effectively caging you. You feel your shoulders sag. Damn, here comes another confrontation. Why can’t everyone just leave you alone?!

“Talk to me,” he says. No, he demands.

You push him away weakly, but he hardly budges. “Nothing to talk about,” you lie. Had you no filter, you’d be word vomiting all over the place ages ago.

Jimin groans, rolling his eyes in exasperation. “Enough with the emotional constipation. I’m here to listen, alright? No teasing or anything, I’m all ears and maybe a shoulder to cry on. Just don’t stain my Chanel top too bad,” he jokes.

You puff out a short breath—a sorry excuse for a laugh. “Don’t you get it? I don’t want to talk about it, and that’s that.”

“It’ll make you feel a lot better, though,” he offers.

You scoff. “What makes you think that? What if I just want to ignore all my problems forever and never grow from it? Is that so bad?”

Jimin pushes himself away from you, raising his hands in mock defeat. “You’re so fucking annoying. Can you stop running away from your problems and talk to me? Hell, talk to Jungkook for all I care! Just stop being a doormat and speak your mind for once in your damn life!”

“What are you, my therapist?” You brush past him, shower all but forgotten. You begin toeing your shoes back on, ready to head home tired and smelly. At the very least, you won’t have to deal with this stupid annoying asshole any longer.

Jimin strides back towards you, but for once he doesn’t do anything to forcibly stop you. Jimin has always been gruff with you, not afraid to push and pull you in any which direction. It’s part of the reason why you can’t take him seriously, even though you’ve recently realized why he was always being such a prick towards you—

“Yeah, I’m not your therapist. But for better or for worse, I’m your friend and I—I fucking care about you, alright? And it sucks seeing that good-for-nothing stick his nose in your business and act like he can do anything without any repercussions.”

Is Jimin being for real right now? “With how often you look at yourself in the mirror, you’d think you’d be better at introspection,” is all you say to that. You shove your feet into your shoes, not caring that you’ve probably put them on wrong. Maybe it’s because it’s Friday and the fatigue from the week has finally settled deep in your bones, but you can’t help but leave one last scathing remark to drive the final nail in the coffin.

“You know, if you were a little nicer to me, maybe I would talk to you. Hell, maybe I’d like you back. But no, just keep being your domineering, asshole self and I’ll keep being the same fucking doormat bitch you know and love,” you spit, turning towards the door and away from his face. You’re not even curious to see how he reacts. “I don’t need protection, alright? When I tell you to stay out of my business, you stay out of it. So don’t try and pretend to be my knight in shining armor.”

There’s an ocean of silence, enough to hear a pin drop. The urge to apologize surges to the surface, but you stamp it down. He’s petty all the time, so now it’s your turn.

Okay, maybe that’s a little too mean on your part, but you’re exhausted. Perhaps it is true when they say you should never act on your anger when it’s past midnight. But can anyone blame you? You’re only a girl, and girls need to snap too.

When he responds, his voice sounds weak. Park Jimin, weak? It's almost unthinkable. "Why don't you trust me?"

Isn't it obvious? you want to say. But some mercy remains within you. You'll pick up the pieces another time. Instead, you rasp out, “Good night, Park. I’ll see you on Monday.”

The walk of shame back to your house is long and arduous. Your phone dings thrice, likely signaling texts from Jimin, but you turn it off without checking for sure. For once, the weight on your shoulders is slightly lighter. You huff out a dry laugh, realizing belatedly that maybe Jimin is right—maybe speaking your mind has its benefits.

There’s a small park in your neighborhood that you always pass by. You don’t remember the last time you spared it a second glance, but this time you notice a lone figure swinging back and forth, arching dangerously higher than what you would consider safe. From a distance, all you can make out are the person’s comically bright boots, and you have a sinking suspicion you know who it is without seeing their face.

Cosmos, or whoever it is that controls my life, why must you braid our strings of fate so tightly? You ask, but as always, it refuses to reply.

Against your better judgment, your feet bring you closer towards him. He has his back towards you, his feet pumping him higher and higher and you half expect him to swing in a perfect arc like a gymnast on parallel bars. You have to keep your distance a bit, lest you get the wind knocked out of you by his signature stompers.

You clear your throat, and the boy stops mid-swing and nearly catapults himself into the spongey, playground floor. Hunched over and wheezing, Jungkook directs his shocked eyes at you with a comical stare.

You raise a hand in greeting. A peace offering, maybe. “Hello—”

“I swear I’m not stalking you!” Jungkook interrupts as he scrambles to his feet. He bows deeply in remorse, the action so endearingly him. “S-sorry, I’ll make my way home now…”

“I don’t own the park, Jungkook. I was just saying hello…” You snort, wringing your hands uncomfortably. You grind your shoes into the ground, the sound of crunching leaves breaking the still air. “A-and… to say sorry, for earlier.”

“Sorry?” Jungkook repeats, confused. When he realizes what you mean, he waves his hands frantically. “No, no! Don’t be sorry! It was my fault for being so inconsiderate. I understand how you might misconstrue my actions, and I made things more awkward. I’ll consider your feelings more in the future…”

In the future… You cough, unwilling to meet his bright and honest gaze. If you stare too long, you fear you might go blind.

“I come here to the park often, when I feel too cramped inside my apartment,” Jungkook explains, frantic energy radiating off him in waves. He’s gesticulating too much, a clear sign that he’s trying to hide his nerves. You remember how he would do the same thing in high school, whenever he had to present his projects in front of the class.

You hold a hand up, a weak attempt to get him to calm down. “I’m not here to interrogate you. I just wanted to…” What is it that you wanted to do?

The two of you just stand awkwardly like that, similar to a few weeks ago when you discovered you were neighbors. You’re grasping at straws in your head, both conflicted for wanting to tell him something and running away. Even if you were to talk to him, what would you say? There’s a reason you told Jimin you didn’t want to talk—frankly, it’s mostly because you have no idea what to say or feel.

But you do know, the universe responds.

I ask you questions all the time, and this is how you respond?

Either that, or you’re going insane, the universe remarks.

Jungkook pulls out his phone, his fingers fumbling as he unlocks it. He takes a furtive step towards you, but thinks better of it. There’s a few feet of distance between you, but it feels like worlds apart. Close and yet so far. You recall how you’d easily pull him towards you in the past, how being together felt as natural as breathing.

“I know you absolutely hated it the last time I played my original song at the restaurant, so I refrained from performing any ever since that night. But that didn’t stop me from writing them. I was fine with keeping them locked in a vault forever, but…” He hesitates, searching you for any signs of discomfort. When he sees the carefully blank look on your face, he continues with trepidation.

“Can I try a song for you? You don’t have to say yes, and you’re free to tell me to fuck off and I’ll never even look at you ever again. Just…” He flails one last time, a choked sob making its escape from his throat.

Are you hopeless for wanting to say yes? Or were you reverting back to your old self who relied on him and believed in him so heavily? If you wanted him out of your life for good, you would have quit your job at the first sight of him. Maybe you were masochistic. Or maybe were you hopeful for a new start, a chance to rekindle a relationship that you’ve secretly always wanted to repair.

You have so much life ahead of you. Many more mistakes will be made and maybe they’ll haunt you when you’re older. But would it really be such a terrible gamble to take one more chance?

You nod, and seal your fate.

He presses play, and the soft strumming of a guitar fills the empty playground air.

Not for the first time, you wonder how it can be so easy for Jungkook to be so… honest. He spills his heart in every song that he writes, and you know he’s never been a great liar. He can’t help it, being genuine is in his DNA. This crashing waterfall, this boy with overflowing emotions—he sings what he thinks but feels terrified because of it. You might not understand his honesty, but you know that fear. You know it all too well.

He beholds himself to you—raw and unfiltered. A little battered and bruised, but still Jungkook. Behind everything, still the boy you’ve been yearning for.

Maybe this song is what will give you enough confidence to admit everything to him, too. As you stand there, listening to his mellow voice sing confessions to no one but you and the stars, you think you grow a little more courageous that day.

Maybe you won’t be able to tell him tonight. Maybe not tomorrow, nor next week either. But as you gaze back at his hopeful eyes, you know deep in your heart that you’ll find the words you’ve been looking for.

“I’ll keep waiting for you, if you let me.” Jungkook’s voice floats gently to you, and settles in your open palms. This time, you don’t let go

xxx

Months later, Jungkook stops working at the restaurant when an offer from a major record company arrives in his mail. Apparently, a big shot from the local radio station had pitched him to an employee at that company and they were all pleasantly surprised to find a hidden gem at a random bar and restaurant.

In your apartment, you stare outside your window and to where his home is—well, where it was. You wonder if he finished packing his things, ready to make the big move tomorrow. You stand up with a stretch, sparing a glance at your still broken shower. It would be nice to have one more shower at his place… And after that? Maybe you should start looking for a nicer apartment; somewhere far away might be nice.

Your phone rings, and you see his contact photo light up your screen. With a smile, you answer.

“Come over, if you want. I won’t make you,” Jungkook assures you.

You laugh lightly, already halfway out the door.

#bts scenarios #jungkook scenarios #bts x reader #jungkook x reader #bts reader insert #bts fanfiction #bts imagines #bts fluff #bts angst #jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #jeon jungkook #jungkook #bangtan #bts #bts fanfic

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yok00k · 3 months

Text

Igual Que Un Ángel

pairing: hellokittylover!/bimbo!oc x boxer!jk

genre: MATURE, fluff, lowkey angst,

“heaven must have sent you, love”

synopsis: after spending the entire day shopping with your boyfriend, you’re craving mochi donuts and bubble milk tea before going to bed and jungkook, even in his tired state, will do everything to make you happy.

word count: 5.4k

warnings: so much fluff, NO plot, jealous/possessive kook, oc can’t tell when someone flirts with her, tiny silent treatment, oc is kinda dumb, lots of kisses, shower sex, oral [m], oc’s head game is STRONG, head pusher jk, hair pulling, they went shopping for underwear, cussing, aftercare, oc is obsessed with pink/hello kitty, oc is so desperate for his cock and she must get what she wants⛄️(she was virgin before this took place), oc had a vid of her playing, mention of toys, JK is not trying to b obvious but he’s IN LOVE, brief cockwarming at the end, <not proofread>

author’s note: i def did not write this in between my classes😮‍💨 i just discovered that im mentally unhinged as im editing this in class. I have my priorities straights tho so here you go🥢

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆

you suppose today was really wonderful.

you two spend almost the whole day at the outlet mall, mostly to shop clothes for yourself. you needed new pairs of undies and Jungkook being the glorious boyfriend he is, helped you shop. not only he paid for all your purchase, he also gives his opinions on certain cloth materials of what the underwear was made of. he wants to make himself useful by helping you out pick out make sure that they’re comfortable to your preference, he goes with you in the fitting room to try them on in front of him.

As you try on clothes for hours and hours in multiple shops, your boyfriend miraculously always finds a chair in the corner of each fitting room that he can rest on. a few hours later, you two arrive back at your place. jungkook initiated to carry all the paper bags you had as the two of you headed from the garage to inside your house.

soon, he began cooking the night’s dinner, which you really enjoy watching because he keeps entertaining you with his skillful talent and his humorous jokes. a quality time like this just makes you fall in love with him even more. you wish and pray that you can spend the rest of this delightful lifetime with him.

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆

the hands of the clock signifies 11:11, which is usually the time you drift off to sleep. except tonight isn’t a typical night, owing to the fact that your beloved lover is sleeping over at your cozy flat.

although it’s pretty late, you two are cuddled on your not-so-spacious couch, watching a kdrama that was recently released and you still have the clothes you put on this afternoon: a cute pink long sleeve crop top and a pink/black mini skirt. you also can’t forget to add a pair of thick fleece tights since it’s freezing cold outside.

you felt a sudden cravings for something in the midst of the show. you desire for something sweet. and chewy.

“koo..” you murmur, distracting your man from the show on the big screen. he redirects his focus to you as he caresses your hair with his soft, yet rough palms.

“i’m craving donuts”

“want me to go to the convenience store and grab some for you?” he suggests

“no I don’t want that, I want mochi donuts” you cutely demand

“but baby it’s too late” he said, lifting his wrist to look at his gold Rolex watch. “aren’t they close at this time?”

these days, your social feeds are just full of ads, particularly bakery places nearby your place that serve mouth-watering breads, donuts, ice creams, bubble milk tea, and the list goes on. promptly, the phone that’s sitting next to jungkook was taken by you.

“look, there’s one that’s still open till midnight” you replied, showing him the navigation to the bakery shop that’s on your screen. his tired eyes glanced at your phone, then back at you.

“please koo?” you pleaded, climbing on top of him and giving him thousands of kisses all over his face until he’s got enough is the most effective technique to persuade him. how can jungkook say no when you display a behavior like this to get whatever you want? the forever answer is he just can’t.

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆

You two arrive at the place twenty minutes before they close. Since it’s late at night, you can see through the big windows that there’s not many customers inside the donut shop.

“oh my, we’re finally here” you joyfully babble to yourself out loud which made your driving boyfriend chuckle. while jungkook slows down the car to eyeball a good parking spot, you reach for your pink purse taking out the hello kitty lip oil to apply them on your chapped lips.

Jungkook carefully parked the car on the side of the road. He looked at our surroundings such as the front, back, and the side of his vehicle, making sure everything seems clear before he takes off his seat belt and gets off of the automobile. As usual, Jungkook walks to the other side, gesturing that he will open the car door for me. This man doesn’t ask a lot regarding how things should be in our relationship but the number one rule he established is that you could never open any door when you’re with him.

He quickly unlocked my door with one hand and offered his other hand to assist my body getting out of the car. As you got out, you felt the strong wind blowing your mini skirts, making them move up. but jungkook immediately takes off his zip up fleece oversized jacket to tie it tight around your waist.he ensures that the skirt won’t go up by walking behind you whilst holding your cold hand towards the bakery.

a scent of sweet caramelized brown sugar that you’ve been craving welcomes you as soon as you step into the threshold of the place. Looking around the store, you notice multiple neon pink led lights of donuts are decorated in the walls. the long honey maple stained table against the windows was paired with white barstool chairs. You also did not fail to miss that their white snowed christmas tree is still up, filled with rosy ornaments and pinkish lights around it.

‘this is definitely my new favorite place’ you noted to yourself as you feel cozy inside.

Your boyfriend wasted no time to lead you to the counter, only for you to see the variety of flavor of their delicious mochi donuts displayed on the front top. you can’t help but to drool on the sight, you’re starting to feel satisfaction by just looking at them.

“hello, what can I get for you today?” the tall male server who’s probably around your age friendly greeted. a little too friendly, in jungkook’s opinion but he chose to try to shrug it off. before answering him, I turned to jungkook “what are you getting koo?” asking to know what he wants.

“don’t know. you can order whatever you want for me” he responds as his doe eyes look up to scan the menu on the screen that’s mounted in their polished ceramic walls. Jungkook is on a diet these days therefore he tries his best to restrain eating sweets but he knows that cheat days won’t hurt if it only happens once or twice a month.

turning to face the server once again, you made up your mind on what to order. “hi, can we get two brown sugar milk teas with less ice and can you make one extra sugar please” you gently requested and the server instantly punched the orders in their ipad.

you take another look at the yummy donuts before continuing. “and i would like to get a dozen of the mochi donuts.” you pointed to the biggest bakery box.

jungkook wasn’t even surprised that you’re getting 12 pieces, potentially all for yourself considering you have a sweet tooth, which could be really extreme sometimes. he stands still next to you, amused by how cute you are, getting all excited by all these sweets you’re about to eat as you tell the the guy the flavors you want.

the server hands you two of their fresh brown sugar bubble milk tea & pink box that contains lots of sugar and of course, you happiness. afterwards, he declars the total for all the things you order. you’re about to tap in your debit card that’s covered with hello kitty skin when jungkook’s black card is already approved on the chip card reader.

“you didn’t have to koo” you murmur. your man always insists on paying for everything,

“i want too”

he does things for you not because he’s going to gain something or that he’s expecting some type of return from you. Rather, he does them solely because he loves you and he loves seeing you getting all the things you want.

for the meantime ,you look for a table that you two can sit at, particularly a spot where there’s a cute background since you would like to take some photos.

immediately, your eyes spot the perfect table right next to the huge windows to sit and take pictures in. you swiftly walk over the spot and your boyfriend follows you like a lost puppy.

“kook can you take pictures of me here?” you ask, while unwrapping the thick jacket around your waist and position yourself on the stool chair.

jungkook unlocks the camera on his phone, positions the cellular in your desired angle, and clicks the white button multiple times. he casually looks at the camera screen and looks up to you. when he notices that by the way your sitting is slightly showing your ass, and instantly goes up to you to fix it. you’re confused at first by his sudden action but you soon realize why.

“oops, thank you kookie” you chortle

when he goes back to his previous standing position, he catches the same annoying server maliciously staring at you, in a way that’s very unpleasant to him, which just pisses him off more. nevertheless, he captures photos of your adorable face while attempting to drink your favorite bubble tea for the camera. then, he passes his phone so you can review the images.

‘he’s such a great photographer’you thought. these picture will be posted on your pink themed finsta.

“can we go now?” jungkook harsly rushed. this place is alright, but that fucking server is just making his blood boils. he needs to get you two out of here before he does something not pretty.

you read his sudden unusual behavior and chose not to argue. you really loved this place, but you can understand that your boyfriend is too tired and just wanted to sleep. you’ll definitely come back though.

“wait koo, I'll use their restroom first.” you excuse yourself, feeling the need to change the menstrual pad that you’re wearing, you fear bleeding through jungkook’s leather seats.

you did your business pronto. unexpectedly when you walked out of the restroom, the friendly worker corners you, with something in his hand.

“miss, would you like to have this?” He offers the cute and huge hello kitty boba plushie that is in his grip. your eyes widening as they gaze upon the lovely thing. “I noticed your phone case and I thought this is perfect for you” he shyly adds as he scratches the back of his head, pointing out the pink Hello Kitty case you have.

“sure! how much is it?” you respond with full of energy. this plush will be added to your collection.

“don’t worry about it,here” he extends the plushie towards you, gesturing that you should take it.

you look for some type of unseriousness in his eyes but you found none. he does seem nice. you accept the cute plushie that’s waiting for you to be held, hugging it really tight.

“you’re really cute. do you mind if I get your number?” the man in front of you speaks. “so i can give you more plushies for free of course” he further explains, trying to convince you to give him your digits

but you remember what jungkook once said, and that is never give any other men your number. Although you can’t grasp why he doesn’t want you to do that, you listen to him because you don’t want to get him all sad and mad at you. angry jungkook is the least thing you want to deal with. he turns really cold and you hate not getting affection from him.

“I'm sorry but I can't give you my number. thanks for this though.” you give him a weak smile. you also hate the feeling of rejecting people but you also don’t want to get in trouble.

the friendly expression that the guy has been erased and replaced with a blank expression, as if ‘no’ isn’t the right answer. he snarls before speaking “Is it because of your punk boyfriend? c'mon pretty girl he doesn’t have to kno-“

“who doesn’t have to know what?” a familiar voice cuts off the man you’re facing before you can understand what the previous man just said.

jungkook approaches you, snatching the plushy in your grasp. “where did you get this from?” he sternly asks. he might have known the answer, it’s so obvious from what it looks like, but he needs to make sure before he beats somebody’s ass.

“koo he gav-“ that was enough for jungkook to vigorously slam the plushy back onto that guy’s chest, making the man flinch and slightly back off. “look or talk to my woman one more time and things will get ugly for you” he threatens, giving the guy the most serious stare, the same stare he has when fighting in the boxing ring.

without saying anything, he grabs your hand sternly and you two walk out the store. you still didn’t get why jungkook didn’t want you to have that plushie, it was perfect to add to your collection.

the entire car ride back to your place was awfully quiet. you offer to drive back home when you notice that he’s speeding and seems so tense, but jungkook refuses, telling you that he’s fully capable of driving back with a somber tone.. his tattooed hands aren’t where they’re supposed to be placed, your thigh. but you argue no further, not wanting to make him more angry than he already is.

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆

hours later, you’re gathering the sleepwear you’ll wear for tonight before hopping in the shower, which is currently occupied by your boyfriend. usually, you two always shower together whenever you’re sleeping at his place and vice versa, but tonight you received no invitation from him since he’s giving you silent treatment for an unknown reason.

despite the fact, you made up your mind to join him as you enter the steamy bathroom, the warm atmosphere welcomes you while you close the door behind you.

your gaze meets jungkook’s tall muscular figure, his tattooed arm up against the white wall, while head is pointing down as the hot water that’s coming from the showerhead runs down his body.

quietly strip down your clothes, you proceed to open the sliding shower door and step inside the shower, closing the distance between you and him.

jungkook faintly flinched as he felt a pair of dainty arms wrapped around his bare torso. he knew exactly who they belonged to, his loved one.

he slightly turns his head, just to see you, hopelessly showing affection towards him in the midst of washing the negative internal thoughts out of his system.

“are you mad at me baby?” you worriedly ask, overthinking that you might have done something that might upset him or maybe he’s too stressed out on his non-stop training schedule since his competitions are coming soon or maybe he can’t handle being with you anymore. lots of maybe but communication is the only way you will know how he feels.

the question of yours sends a sharp pang of guilt in his chest. you completely did nothing wrong. he knows for a fact you can’t say no to anyone who gives you a Hello Kitty plushie. your tiny little head just can’t comprehend that these guys want something in return for giving you things you love to collect. you’re too good for your own.

now he feels like a total idiot, another part of him feels guilty for the sudden shift in his behavior, solely because he's so in love with you that he can’t stand seeing men look at your way.

you did nothing wrong. nothing at all. you’re just so goddamn beautiful that your boyfriend is starting to lose it.

he can’t help but let the possessiveness take over him as soon as he perceives other guys showing their interest in his pretty girl. the woman he desires to keep to himself for the rest of this lifetime, the next one, and for many more

jungkook crowds you up against the cold marble wall just after he turns his buff body to face you. wasting no time, he leaves smooches on your pouty lips and jaw. “didn’t I tell you I'm the only one who can give you hello kitty stuff?” he sensually whispers to your right ear, continuing to give you wet kisses. “hmm?”

“but why?” you pout, resulting in the kisses to come to stop. he looks at you directly in the eyes, “because i’m your boyfriend and that job is solely for me” he simply explains

“but koo it was for free, he was really nice but then he started asking for my number so he could give me more but i didn’t give it to him because you specifically instructed me not to.” you mindlessly babble, explaining your side all in one sentence. simultaneously, you grab the white loofa next to the pink one and apply jungkook’s favorite body wash. it still doesn’t make sense to you. you love collecting hello kitty, but the love you have for the man in front of you is significantly greater.

oh jungkook is really going to lose it. that fucker had the audacity to ask you shit like that right when you’re with him.

“and that’s why I don’t want you talking to them, they want to take advantage of you” he takes a deep breath

“i’m sorry kook” you mutter, attempting to cuddle his naked form.

“i know something was off with that motherfucker” he starts off, “keeps looking at you in a way i don’t appreciate” he finally admits, with his tone hinting a pinch of jealousy. “and that fucking plush- he’s getting on my fucking nerves.”

“all he can do is look koo” you laugh. “Besides, I’m already cuffed by my hot boyfriend. what more can I possibly look for?” your words declaring that your eyes are only fixed to him. there’s no reason to look at other men anyways.

“you’re only mine right?” he just needs to directly hear those words come out of your mouth.

“only yours” you murmur. and that reassured him. for now.

you stand on your tiptoe to kiss his cute nose, from there you smack your lips against his as your smooth palms trace his jawline.

as seconds goes by, the desire to express how much you love him is rapidly growing. you want him. you need him.

you detach your lips against his, just to fixate them on his neck, right on the pretty tiny mole on his skin, your favorite spot. your hand does its own job to explore his sculpted body, finding its way to palm his painful growing erection.

he knows where this is going

your kisses trail from his upper chest to his defined abs; so brawny and delicious. he follows your gesture, finding you on your knees, beneath him, your beautiful face positioned right in front of his hardening cock.

oh this is the one and only circumstance he would kill and die for to be in.

jungkook knows that sly grin expression you wear as you look up with those round doll eyes. purposely, your both arms push against each other to give him a good view of your perky breast squeezed together. with his shaft twitching, can’t help but to utter an uncontrollable moan from seeing you like this.

“can I?” you ask softly, waiting for permission from him as if you’re not in this sinful position at least twice every time you two spend time together. no matter what, you still drool by just staring at his cock as if it’s your favorite lollipop.

he quietly hums and nods his head while nibbling his lip piercings, giving you the green light.

you start off slow, giving his pretty pink tip covered with precum small pecks. smearing the liquid around your lips, pretending it as if it’s one of your lip gloss, making them nice and glossy.

sweet

“i only wanna do this with you” you hungrily voice out in each swift peck while locking your seductive eyes on his.

he brings his fingers towards your jaw, lifting your chin up. “open” he commands, directing you to open your mouth. and so you did, without hesitation. a hot glob of spit falls into your tongue, which turns you on even more. you quickly swallow it and resume with what you’re doing.

he continues to watch you as your swollen lips slowly wrap his thick cock. your mouth is solely made for jungkook as it welcomes him inch by inch. although sucking him becomes a part of your daily routine, you still need to take a sweet time adjusting to his length.

irresistible tears roll down your face as he hits the back of your throat for the first few times, but you’re so determined to make him feel good. you began bobbing your head back and forth as your mouth slowly adjusted to his size.

“hmm, so good baby” he muffles weakly. “j-just like that” almost sounds as if he’s about to cry from the incredible sensation.

you can’t help but to release a quiet whine from hearing him. the steamy bathroom is filled with jungkook's angelic yet sinful groans, along with the sounds that’s being created as you which arouse you even more. he’s got your pussy clenching over nothing.

your bent knees on the cold and wet ground are starting to get tired, but you pay no attention to them. rather, you take him even more, until his tip hits the back of your throat. you continue to do it smoothly, using no hands.

you proceed to shift your attention to untouched balls. your tiny hand softly jerks off his length upward, as a trail of kisses made their way from the underside of his girthy and veiny cock to one of the oval-shaped organs. wet and loud smooches on jungkook’s sensitive skin turn to sloppy sucking. your mouth is so full of him. a mixture of his precum and saliva of yours covers your entire chin, even some of it drops on the ground.

this sequence stirs more moans from jungkook, but this time he gets louder and louder. his slender hands acts at its own and gather your length hair into a ponytail, just so he can manipulate your head, to use you however he pleases

Jungkook pulls your hair back, causing you to lose contact with the sac you were passionately lapping. he leads you mouth back to where it should give its focus to. his throbbing cock. once his dewy dick is shoved in you, he pushes your cock drunk head to take more of him. you obediently follow the flow of the hand guiding your head

“such a good girl” he grunts, throwing his head up in the air, then focusing back on you. “only for me”. your boyfriend is still controlling your head bobbing on his length.

“you’re such a slut for a fucking hello kitty, aren’t you?” jungkook mocks in between deep breaths. “me or that stupid kitty cat? huh?” thrusting his hips into your messy and well-fucked face.

you just moan against him, not even bothering to answer him because you’re too fucked, your tiny little brain is wearing out as you keep bouncing your head up and down. and also it might be because you know for a fact that you could be a slut for hello kitty too sometimes. you’re in no position to protest.

the man above you grips your hair even tighter, demanding you to answer him. “I wanna hear you baby”

“‘mmh you, o-only you koo,” you sob. lots and lots of tears coming out of your eyes. “all I want is you and this cock” you mewl weakly as you desperately lap his precious tip, just like how he loves it.

“that’s it, pretty girl, I'm cummin’” he verbalizes, grasping your head forcibly as slamming his pelvis into your abused mouth. to this point, you feel dizzy and your whole body is worn out. you grip into his beefy thighs as you allow him to utilize you like a slut.

“hmpp f-fuck” he moans loudly, releasing abundant strings of semen into your mouth. he cums so deep inside your throat. not wanting a drop to fall, you gobble up everything as your life depends on them.

after swallowing, you show him your empty mouth, with tongue being out. you can see in his half lidded eyes that he’s proud, giving you a soft smile.

you were about to get up when all of a sudden the dizzy spell hits you real hard, causing you to lose your balance but jungkook catches you before you can even fall.

“hey, you okay? Did I go too hard?” he locks his gaze upon you, hoping that you will lock yours to him too. but you didn’t as you are sobbing and trembling a little bit. jungkook wipes the dries tears on your swollen face with one hand while the other wraps around your waist. he might have gone harder than you can handle.

“baby look at me please? did I hurt you? i'm sor—“

“koo i’m okay” you faintly cut his sentence off. he doesn’t need to be sorry. “just need a few minutes to recover” you explain. jungkook immediately understands that. he gives you minutes of peaceful silence, with that, he takes care of washing your body. gently rubbing the pink loofah in your smooth skin as he hums the song that’s been stuck in your brain for quite a while.

after showering, he helps you slip on your baby pink dainty nightgown. this dress is special. jungkook got it for you when he flew abroad for one of his boxing competitions. one day, he and his team were strolling around the fancy mall when he passed by a cute local lingerie store that you will definitely check out, only if you were with him. of course, he chose to follow what his heart tells him to do, to go inside and find a thing or two to give you as soon as he comes home. to you.

⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡ ⋆

both yours and jungkook’s bodies are situated on your twin sized bed. in spite of the fact that there’s not much for the two of you and one of you might fall on the ground if another moves a little, it’s not a hurdle as you two embrace each other’s warmth as if there’s no tomorrow. two bodies comfortably embracing one another. tonight, you’re designated to be the tiny spoon

“ggukie..” you murmur, hot breath fanning against his bare chest. “hmm??” jungkook looks down to see what his princess needs.

“want your cock”you weakly pleaded, causing the man to slightly chuckle. you must be out of your mind.

“baby, your body is tired” said by him, shaking his head to show his disapproval. what a silly idea that goes around your mind when your eyes can barely open. you’re really out here doing everything but to sleep. he continues to caress your soft hair.

on a side note, you and jungkook never had penetrative sex before. yes, he eats you out here and there and vice versa. but he never dares to insert himself inside you.

indeed you’re a virgin but it’s not that you never wanted to. matter of fact you’ve made up your mind and are willing to give your virginity to him. jungkook is well aware of that. however, fear of hurting you always troubles him. he’s afraid that you will go through pain, scared that he’ll break you: his fragile pretty girl

“need your cock inside me” you continue to whine. “didn’t I show you a video of me from last week taking the toy you gifted me? you said I did so well” reminding him that one video clip of you masturbating to the pink rose you got from him. how could he forget about that when he uses it to get off every single night? with full on volume too, all ears concentrate on your high pitched moans, giving him more than the satisfaction he craves. the thoughts of that makes the lust that nearly vanishes inside him linger, you just never fail to get him arouse even before going to sleep.

however, jungkook is still in his right mind. “that’s different,” he argues. it’s valid to doubt that he’ll fit.

“ok then just put it in me then we can sleep?” you beg, attempting to compromise. “just wanna feel you close while I sleep. can you imagine how much I missed you?” you’ve come to an extent to use the guilt trip tool to convince him.

he understands the emotion you’re trying to make him feel as he looks into your bambi doe eyes. looking so innocent yet begging for his cock. evoking his guilt to get what you want. jungkook recognizes you in and out, you won’t take no for an answer. also it’s not like he’s not dying to do it, as if he doesn’t fantasize about it when you sleep over at his penthouse. the amount of self control he has..

you have him on a chokehold. jungkook doesn’t say anything, rather he gently lifts up the arm which your head is laying on and slightly gets up to open the pink mini cabinet on top of your nightstand, taking out a sky blue container.

“here, apply it”, throwing the lube bottle on your lap.

you’re stunned, heart excitedly does jumping jacks inside your chest. next time it will be you doing jumping jacks on his di-

“cmon cutie I don’t have all night” he blurts, interrupting your thoughts. you never get up so fast in your nineteen years of living. he goes straight back to his original position, laid on his back. he may act chill,but he’s internally pleased and aroused.

as you go down on him (again), your two hands get a grip of the band of his black boxer and pull it down, his semi-hard cock immediately springs out. you can’t help but to give it a tiny peck before giving it a few strokes as you point it towards your lips

you open the bottle up with a pop, squirting out enough lube on your fingers before gently spreading it on his tip. he hisses as he feels the cold liquid substance being applied to him. you trace the sides of his length, ensuring the reduction of friction.

he grabs your arm, guiding your body to lay down sideways next to him. a tattooed veiny arm from behind snakes around your torso, clasping your upper body.

“ready?” he whispers, as he nibbles your ear. jungkook earns longingly nods from you, and for a split moment he spreads some liquid using his lubricated tip around your private area before slowly inserting it in. you discern the penetrating sensation in your core, which makes you purr.

he continues to penetrate inside you furthermore, causing you to close your eyes and tighten your clasp on his arms as you bear with the ache. he fully aware of how you’re feeling as he’s also having a hard time moving in.

“bare with me baby” tensely reassuring you. “so t-tight, fuck.” his other arm makes its journey below your nightgown, traveling its way to your perky breast, delicately squeezing one of them. jungkook does the same and gives the attention to the other one. simultanously, he plants a few smooches on the skin behind your ear, attemping to distract you from the pain. you quietly release moans and groans as he continues. he’s inches in when he feels your wall clenching around him.

your tight pussy becomes jungkook’s personal paradise. it’s the way your walls are clenching around him is better than he imagined; unmatched from all the fantasy he creates in his mind about you.

“koo.. “ your fingers tracing the veins on the back of his palm.

“what? my baby can’t handle it? tell me and I’ll stop” he softly asks. a tear just drops from you leg but you’re too tired to even react.

“n-no just stay inside, i’m sleepy” and with that, you instantly drift to sleep.

he hums, a hand that was busy playing on your chest shifts to caress your hair. jungkook lays one last kiss at your temple.

“goodnight to you too my pretty girl, love you so much”

series m.list

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shamelessfaceless · 26 days

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Navigation | Marvel Masterlist | Series Masterlist

1. The one and only Spider-Woman.

Pairings: WandaNat x F!Spidey!Polish!Reader, OC x Reader, Avengers x Reader (Platonic)

Summary: When your girlfriend cheated on you, you decided to finally accept Tony Stark's offer.

Warnings: Cheating with man, sad R, Homophobia

Wc: 1.2k

A/n: I will put my whole heart in this series😭 Next parts are gonna be longer.

You promised yourself you would always smile while wearing your mask. For this reason your mask was showing the bottom of your face. It was your own project and it had a special place in your heart. You wanted to show people that nitatter what you are doing, and who you fight with, you will always smile, just be happy that you can protect innocent people. Another reason why you projected your mask like that, was the fact that you have fangs. It's not like you use them often, but they can be really helpful. One little bite, and can paralysis villains for a while. S.H.I.E.L.D knew about your existence, and wanted you to join avengers. They even send to you the one and only Tony Stark with Nick Fury. You decided to wait. It was your last month of school, and you had a girlfriend you didn’t want to leave alone.

You graduated with not so bad grades, and you passed all your exams with almost the best scores in your class. You hoped your girlfriend would be with you, but she texted you at the last minute that she needed to take care of her sick mother. You believed her. How could you not? She was almost the most important person in your life. So in the evening you decided to visit her, her mother knew you really well, and was happy her daughter had someone like you. Well, she didn’t know you were a couple, she was a typical homophobic christian, just like most people in your country.

Only thing in her room you could see was how deep she was in kissing a guy. She didn’t even notice you opened the door to her room. Looking in her cold eyes made your stomach flip. You don't even know how... no, when this happened. You don't know when she met him, when he started being the reason she's smiling everyday, when she stopped caring about you. Only thing you can look at are her sky blue eyes you loved looking at. You were always finding your safe space in her, now the only thing you see in her eyes is how much she is disgusted in you. Her words were something you were expecting. You weren't enough. He is a man, of course she would want to be with him, how could she love a girl? You were just stupid thinking he was just her friend.You tried so much to not end up like before. But everything is always the same. You are trying your best, but they are always choosing someone else, someone who isn't so complicated, someone who is.. pure. The most important, they always will choose someone who will fuck with them after a week of dating. They don't understand why you care about romantic things, when you could just let them fuck you. They are animals chasing their own pleasure, don't giving fuck about true love.

It was the first time when you put on your mask and did wear your bright smile.

There was no reason for you to stay. Your friend moved out a long time ago, and for you, your online friends were enough. Your parents were dead. At least for you. Just like you were dead for them. They didn’t want a Lesbian daughter, and you hated them for all the traumas they gave you. You half lived on the street. Most of the time you were spending in school or saving your country. You showed up in your home only if you needed to take a shower or books for school.

“What are you thinking about kiddo?” Tony asked, putting hand on your back.

“You know, just how my girlfriend cheated on me few hours ago, and now Im part of fucking Avengers” You didn’t even looked at him. You only look at changing numbers signaling that you were higher every second.

After running away from your girlfriend's house, you called Tony. Only thing you wanted was to leave as far away and as fast as you could. Break ups were always hard for you. You just wanted to feel loved, feel important for someone. Looking at the sunset on top of one of the buildings was your way to say goodbye to the country you truly love. You promised yourself, you will start a new and better life. No thinking about the past. You need to let it go, and life looking at the future. You knew it would be hard, but you also knew you needed to do this. There's too many open wounds, just because you couldn’t let go thinking about the past every night.

Pretending to smile while meeting everyone was the hardest part. Pretending to be happy while in the back of your mind the only thing you could think of was your exs, and how you couldn’t be enough for them. Tony left you just when you walked out of the elevator. Steve introduced himself and his friend Bucky. You gave them a polite smile and mumbled your name. You just wanted to go to your room and sleep the rest of the day. Next people that introduced themselves were Clint, Bruce and Sam. Last person was Natasha Romanoff. You learned from her that her wife Wanda is on the mission with Thor.

“I hear slavic accent.”

“Oh, yeah… I'm Polish.”

“Tony was one hundred percent sure you're from Russia.” You hate when people mistake you for Russian. It's not even like your languages sound super alike.

“Chuj.” You said to yourself. “Uhm, nevermind.”You looked at the floor when she looked at you. Natasha just laughed it off and you smiled.

(Chuj - Dick)

“I'm guessing you don’t know where your room is?” When your eyes met her forest green ones, you felt like you couldn’t look away, but you needed to. You didn't want her to take you for a freak.

“Yeah… Stark just left me here, and didn’t show me anything.” You rolled your eyes.

“Come with me. Tony decides that you will take Wanda's old room. We have lived together for the past few years, so her room stood empty. It's next to ours.” She said pointing at one of the doors. “So if you need something you can always knock.”

“So… It was nice to meet the famous black widow.” You opened the door to your room.

“It was nice to meet another spider.” After you closed the door you looked around the room. You didn’t take many things with you, so there wasn’t a lot to unpack. Just some clothes and books. Just a few minutes and everything was in their places. You looked out the window and a few seconds later at mask in your hands.

After a while you were jumping between buildings. It's late at night, so one would rather see you. When you get tired of jumping, running and half flying, you sit at the top of a skyscraper.

“So It will be my new life. The spider-woman saving the world.” You laughed to yourself. “It's almost unbelievable."

TAGLIST:

@marvelwomen-simp @andersonsprincess @leenasayeed @sapphic-simp4015 @taliiiaasteria

#marvel #wanda maximoff #lesbian #lgbtq #natasha romanoff #wanda maximoff x female reader #wanda maximoff x reader #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha romanoff x you #natasha romanov #wanda maximoff x natasha romanoff #natasha x reader #wandanat #wanda x reader

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roosterforme · 12 days

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Covering the Classics Part 11 | Bob Floyd x OC

Summary: When Anna hits rock bottom, she knows she needs to figure out how to put herself back together. But she also knows that leaving Kevin behind once and for all will require her to give up the only thing she wants from him. Maybe a shot at happiness with Bob would have been worth it.

Warnings: Fluff, angst, adult language, 18+

Length: 4400 words

Pairing: Robert "Bob" Floyd x Female OC (this story is part of the Beer Boy/Sugar and Jake/Jessica universe)

Covering the Classics masterlist. Check my masterlist for more!

If this wasn't rock bottom, Anna didn't want to know what was. She spent Sunday night laying on the floor next to her bed alternating between crying and hyperventilating. Apparently she couldn't do both at the same time, because her body kept giving each activity its full attention before switching again. When she finally started to fall asleep around three o'clock, her ribs were aching so much, she didn't see how she would be able to teach in a few hours. But it didn't matter. She wouldn't be going to campus anyway.

When she woke up at six, she crawled to her computer and emailed everyone in her classes, informing them that she would not be in today and to work through the syllabus independently until their next class with her. All of the other professors pulled this kind of thing all the time, but she still felt guilty which triggered more tears. If Kevin somehow cost her a full time tenure position along with her happiness, she didn't know what else she had that he could possibly take from her.

When she thought about Bob, it hurt so badly she had to run to the toilet. And when she thought about Advanced Calculus and Advanced Physics, it hurt almost just as much. She was in love with so many things in San Diego, but she'd dragged her past here along with her even if she didn't want to acknowledge that fact. She'd brought this dark shadow along that tainted everything and left her wondering if she could fix any of it at this point. If she could even figure out how to start.

As she hiccupped alone in her bathroom, she knew she needed to mentally backtrack to New Jersey for the first time in a long time before she could focus on San Diego. When she crawled back toward her bed, she located her phone and found the contact information for her lawyer's office. It was late enough on the east coast that someone answered after one ring, and soon Anna had to use her scratchy, raw voice to try to communicate.

"When will my divorce be final?" she managed to ask as she propped herself against the wall. She left herself hungry every day, and she was living in this tiny room simply so she could pay these people to help her sort out her life, but the response she got was not ideal.

"Ms. Webber... your husband still has three days left to comply, but he has not done so yet."

Anna wanted to scream, but her throat felt like it was constricting. Why wouldn't he just let her have the one thing she wanted? She wasn't asking for anything extra, just the thing she worked so hard to make her own. She didn't even care about all of the money. But he wouldn't let her have it. Even though she didn't want to fight for anything else in the house, he still wouldn't comply. He was making hundreds of thousands of dollars now, and she wanted none of it back, but he knew that her manuscript was the one thing meant something to her. He would happily drag this out until she had nothing left.

She knew she needed to wait it out. It was her fault she hadn't filed sooner. She let Kevin's words destroy her even when she knew he was sleeping with Alyssa. She let him convince her that she needed him for way too long. "What happens in three days?" she finally asked.

"If he doesn't comply, then you can restructure your end of the divorce agreement, and we can try again."

Anna knew what that meant for her, but she didn't know if she could pull the trigger. Restructure it? There was only one thing she could remove. Kevin would come out clean as a whistle, and she would lose everything she hadn't already.

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

When Bob knocked on the door at seven in the morning after barely sleeping at all, Jessica looked concerned when she opened it, and Jake looked annoyed. "What's wrong?" she asked, reaching out and running her hand along his stubbled cheek. "Why haven't you shaved? Why do you look so upset?"

"Why are you even here?" Jake called from the kitchen where he was cooking breakfast in his uniform.

"I need to talk to you," Bob croaked, and Jessica pulled him inside and gently guided him toward the couch. She rubbed his back and didn't rush him as he sat there, and Jake even stopped turning to glare from in front of the waffle iron.

"Did you know Anna's married?"

Bob could tell by the sharp intake of breath and the way Jessica's hand came to a screeching halt on his back that she had no idea.

"She's what?"

"Married," he repeated without any feeling whatsoever. The handful of hours he'd spent around her were some of the best of his life, but he would have never let his friends try to push them together if he'd know. He should have let her keep him in the friend zone when she tried to let him know that's what she wanted. Mutual attraction be damned, she'd made marriage vows to someone else. He just wished he would have known.

"No," Jessica said adamantly. "How? She's got no rings, and she said she lives alone. She mentioned an ex before, but I'm virtually certain he's still in New Jersey. She... struggles with certain things, and if she was married, someone would be helping her make ends meet. I don't know where you came up with this, but no."

Bob took his glasses off and set them down on the arm of the couch while he ran his hands over his exhausted eyes. "Jessica. She told me she was."

"Well," his friend said as she wrapped her arm around his shoulders, "I'll ask her about it at lunchtime today. There must be some sort of miscommunication."

"I don't think so," he groaned softly. "We... slept together, and those were her parting words as she ran out of my house."

"You slept together?!" Jessica practically shrieked.

"It's about damn time!" Jake called from the kitchen, clanging his spatulas together and whooping loudly.

But Bob was shaking his head and staring at the floor through his slightly fuzzy vision. He had his phone in his hand all night, trying to decide if he should call or text her, wondering if she went home to climb into bed with her husband. Scared that this was the reason why she squeezed herself into her apartment door before closing it abruptly when he drove her home.

"I should have backed off when she friend zoned me the first time. I should have never believed that I could be with a woman like her." A woman that inspired the best poetry he'd ever written in his life. A woman who made him want everything.

It finally dawned on Bob that there might be an irate husband in his future, and he would just have to take whatever came his way. Because there wasn't a chance that Anna didn't have her spouse wrapped around her fingers. Even if she had a lapse of judgement when it came to Bob, Anna's husband would know how good he had it and want to fight for her. Bob would just have to take it on the chin.

When Jessica kissed his cheek and whispered, "I'll try to sort this out," he just nodded with his shoulders slumped and his elbows digging into his thighs. But there was nothing to sort out. Anna would never be his, and now he would have to pay the price for the way she told him she was married about an hour too late to take it all back. Honestly, he never thought accidentally sleeping with a married woman was something he would ever have to deal with in his wildest dreams, and now that he was forced to do it, he was getting pretty mad.

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

Anna managed to give her Classics lecture on Tuesday morning with a sore throat after screaming into her pillow off and on for most of Monday afternoon. She hadn't eaten in days, and if anyone noticed her puffy, red eyes, they didn't mention it to her. She had quizzes to grade and reports to read, but when she went back to her office, the overwhelming scent of bread from the cafeteria made her gag.

There was a pack of peanuts in her desk along with a room temperature can of ginger ale, but she had no appetite yet. She was just in survival mode until she decided what to do when Kevin's time was up. Until she worked up the courage to talk to Bob and apologize.

He was the sweetest man she had ever known, and her lapse of judgement was going to cost her any chance with him in the future as well as her friendships. In fact, none of them were ever going to want to speak to her again, and that's what she deserved. If she would have just been honest with Bob, she wouldn't be in this mess. But San Diego was like a balm for her senses, making her feel normal where she knew she wasn't. Maybe Bob would have been willing to wait a few more months until she figured out her next steps. Maybe he would have accepted that she was legally separated from Kevin if her husband would just sign the fucking paperwork.

Tears were burning her eyes again just as someone knocked on her office door. She sat perfectly still, silently begging them to go away, praying that everyone would leave her alone until she could sneak out and go home later.

"Anna?"

She knew that voice so well, and she was shocked to find that it sounded more concerned than angry.

"It's just us," came the second voice, and without another thought, Anna was on her feet, wrenching the door open as she started to sob. "Oh, Anna," whispered Jessica as she collected her into her arms.

Anna stood in the middle of her tiny office and cried and cried in Jessica's arms while her other friend studiously locked the door and dimmed the lights before reaching for the box of tissues on the shelf. "Here," she whispered, and Anna accepted a wad of tissues from her.

She tried to mop at her face, but it was a lost cause. Jessica pushed the loose strands of her red hair back from her eyes as she said, "Anna, we're here for you, but I think we need to talk. For real."

"We have some... concerns."

Anna tried to take huge gulps of air into her burning lungs as she gasped, "I'm really not okay. I hurt Bob."

Her friends looked at each other before Jessica said, "I think it's time you backtracked a little bit. Maybe all the way back to New Jersey."

"I hated it there," she told them immediately, wiping at her eyes as she sat on the edge of her desk, bracing herself for the interrogation to come.

Advanced Calculus eyed her sympathetically before a look of steel locked in her gaze. "Are you married?"

Anna nodded slightly, cringing as she pictured Kevin's face. "Technically, yes."

"Anna!" Jessica exclaimed. "You slept with Bob!"

They knew. They knew everything. Bob told them, and they knew what she'd done. She cradled her forehead in her hands and said, "I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I hate Kevin. I don't think we were even married two years before he started cheating on me. I'm trying my best to divorce him, but he just won't fucking let me."

"What do you mean he won't let you?" Advanced Calculus asked, cutting off Jessica before she could screech again.

"He is ruining my life," Anna whispered, finally starting to feel more anger than anything else. "Like an idiot, I've let him ruin my life. I put him through medical school. I dropped out of Princeton to work two jobs to put my husband through medical school." Her voice faded into a soft yet harsh whisper. "Kevin promised he'd take care of me after that so I could finish my Ivy League PhD. But then he started cheating on me because I was always tired and boring and no fun. Because all I was doing was working to pay his tuition for four years straight while he fucked another medical student between classes. I caught them having sex in my car."

"No," both women gasped at the same time. But she just nodded as the memories she had tried so hard to keep at bay since she moved to California came roaring back.

"That's not a marriage," Jessica practically growled, reaching out for Anna's hand that she hadn't even been aware was shaking. "Not really."

"You're right," Anna agreed. "I'm a joke." She honestly felt like one. Images of Bob's face and the memory of his kind voice flooded her system. The way he looked at her and touched her felt like love. The things he wrote about her had her almost convinced he could love her back.

"You're not a joke, Anna," her friend told her. "You're a smart, capable woman who should have come to her friends months ago with all of this information."

"I hate Kevin!" Jessica shrieked before biting down on her own fingertips, and it was so comical, Anna might have laughed if she was in a better frame of mind.

"Yes," Advanced Calculus agreed. "Kevin sounds like an asshole. But you know who isn't an asshole? Bob. But right now, he kind of feels like one."

Anna closed her eyes as the tears started welling up faster. "I tried so hard. You have to believe me. But Bob is perfect. And he didn't think I was boring. But I wasn't planning on falling in love ever again."

"You love him?" Jessica snapped loudly. "You love him? Because Bob thinks you are in a loving marriage with your spouse!"

"Jessica, go sit in the desk chair and calm down," the other woman commanded, and Anna watched the petite, bespectacled blonde stomp around her desk. "Now, Anna, why didn't you explain this all to Bob before you rocked the man's whole world and then ran off into the night like Cinderella?"

"I freaked out," Anna whispered, swallowing hard. "He's the perfect man. He did everything exactly right, and he was exquisite." She looked down at the floor as she said, "I haven't been touched like that in years. Like I was worth something. I'm not even thirty yet, and my husband ditched me for someone else while actively bankrupting me." She was mortified by what she was telling them, but she couldn't stop herself now. "Kevin always said I should dye my hair, and he loved it when I wore makeup. But Bob... he likes my hair and my freckles. He likes the books I read. He thinks I'm smart." She felt her face warm up as she thought about his poems. "We had sex, and then he was looking at me, and he started talking about us. I can't be an us with someone when I can't shake Kevin."

Anna could practically feel Jessica freaking out in the chair behind her, but she kept her eyes on the floor. "If you need help with Kevin or money for a lawyer or something-" Jessica said, but Anna cut her off.

"No. I'm fine. But he's going to force me to decide if I'd rather have my freedom or my self worth. And right now, I can't decide what I want to let him get away with when he already took so much."

"Hey," her much calmer friend said softly, and Anna finally met her eyes. "We're here for you. Anything you need, okay? But I need you to promise you'll talk to Bob. The sooner the better." Then Anna watched her reach for her tie dye lunch box which she apparently brought in with her and pulled out one of her fancy containers. "Bradley made you some hummus, and I packed you crackers and veggies to go with it. Please make sure you're eating. And please talk to Bob. I need to go teach Differential Equations, but I'll text you later. Jess, you have Physics III in fifteen minutes."

Anna received two hugs that she barely returned, and when the two women were gone, she sank into her chair and managed to eat some of the hummus without gagging. Then she texted Bob, because if nothing else, she needed him to know how sorry she was for running out on him. How sorry she was for all of it.

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

Anna wanted to talk to him on Thursday evening. Bob had to fight the urge to offer to pick her up on campus and save her from having to take an Uber to his house, especially after the few details that Jessica told him about her finances. She confirmed that Anna was married. She also promised him that there was no angry spouse waiting to jump him in the In 'N Out parking lot. She also told him that he needed to give Anna a chance to clear the air. So he agreed. He was free on Thursday. It wasn't like he'd been doing anything except going to work and coming straight home all week, even avoiding Suzanne as much as he could. And he wasn't going to break his promise to Jessica, even though Nat told him to delete Anna's number.

Bob sat in his living room, staring at his new bookshelf in disgust. He'd let himself fall into a fantasy where he imagined someday Anna's books would get mixed up with his on the shelves. Where all of her dog eared novels would live alongside his pristine ones. He'd been subconsciously thinking about it since he met her.

His insides were churning with anxiety. Part of him wanted to scream at her that none of this was fair to him, but the other part knew that no matter what, he still didn't want to see tears in her brown eyes. He couldn't let her take all of the blame for this anyway. He'd even told Jessica that she pushed a little too hard and that she shouldn't do that again in the future.

When there was a knock on his door, it was hard for him to stand up. How was he supposed to do this? He dragged himself across his living room to his front door and carefully opened it to find Anna with the saddest expression imaginable on her face. She looked somehow smaller and paler than she should. She looked like she hadn't slept. And that's when Bob realized he must look the same way to her.

"Hi," she whispered, brown eyes darting around his face nervously. She held out a small bouquet of blue flowers and the books she had borrowed in his direction, and Bob noticed her hands were shaking. "Um, I got these for you. They look like the flowers on the cover of the Whitman poems, and I thought of you when I saw them at the store."

"Anna," Bob groaned as he took them from her along with the books. He moved out of the doorway so she could come inside, and somehow he still couldn't decide if he was angry at her or not.

"I'm sorry," she gasped, turning to look at him once she was halfway across the room. There were several feet of space between them, but he could smell her hair. She was wearing the jeans she wore last time she went to the Hard Deck. He knew what that shirt felt like between his fingers. He could tell she was trying not to cry as she said, "I'm just really sorry."

"Why didn't you tell me you're married?" he snapped, unable to hold back. He knew his tone was harsh as he added, "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"Because I should have been divorced by now!" she practically shouted, and Bob was instantly more soothed by that sentence than he should have been. "You think I want to be married to the worst man I know?" He had so many questions already, but something told him to just let her keep going. "That's why I'm here. In San Diego. He was supposed to sign the papers so I could get on with my ridiculous life, but he won't!" She sucked in a deep breath before she said, "And it's eating me alive knowing what I kept settling for when you exist! Knowing that I could have been with a man like you."

Her lips were moving like she was shivering, and her eyes were wide and watery. Red blotches covered her freckled cheeks, and Bob just knew she was going to panic again. She made a helpless noise and rushed forward, ready to run, but this time he caught her in his arms, the books and flowers falling to the floor. He let her struggle for a few seconds as she cried, but he held on tight.

"Anna," he said softly. "You can't keep running."

Her body slumped against his. She looked up at him as he held her, and a few seconds later, she let her cheek come to rest against his chest. She nodded against him as she whispered, "I don't really have anywhere to go anyway."

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

Bob kept his distance while also somehow always being nearby. Anna knew he was probably expecting her to vanish again if he turned his back for too long, but she was too mentally and physically exhausted to move from his living room couch while he fixed some tea. It was getting dark outside, and it was nearly impossible to try to think about anything other than Sunday night when she felt truly free for the first time in years.

Similar thoughts must have been on Bob's mind, because he was still occasionally looking at her like he used to. Then his cheeks would turn pink, and he'd duck his head before showing her a completely neutral expression. She took the mug of tea he handed her and whispered, "Thank you," as he sat down as far away from her as he could. She cleared her throat as she looked into her drink and said, "You're one of the kindest, most generous people I've ever met." She forced her gaze to his face. "I'm sorry I took that for granted. And I'm sorry I wasn't honest with you and the ladies."

Bob nodded but didn't speak for a minute. His voice was as gentle as always as he eventually said, "I'd like it if we could talk."

"Yeah," she agreed softly now that she felt like the fight inside her was gone and the tears had finally dried up.

"Where's your husband?"

She pictured Kevin standing in the perfect kitchen in the beautiful house on the cul-de-sac. "In New Jersey."

"Right," Bob replied in a reassuring tone. "You said you should have been divorced by now, so does that mean you don't want to be married to him?"

"I hate him," she whispered, back to staring into her mug. "And I'm sure he hates me, too. No, I don't want to be married to him any longer."

"You're separated?" he asked softly.

Anna shrugged, wishing more than anything that she could scoot a little closer to Bob and feel his hand on hers. "Not legally. He won't sign anything."

"Right," Bob repeated again. "Would it be too much for me to ask what happened? Because I really don't understand. I'm trying, but I'm still so confused, Anna."

Her brain was screaming at her to start crying again, begging her to fall apart or hyperventilate, but she didn't even have the energy for it. She took one long sip of her perfect cup of tea before setting it aside and turning to look at him. Even now, he had sympathy in his eyes. Whether that was because he now knew she and Kevin weren't really together or because he was always this sweet, she couldn't say. But he was everything she wanted and would never have again.

"The short version is that I put him through medical school while he cheated on me. The long version is that he used up every bit of my money, let me work myself ragged, prevented me from finishing my PhD at Princeton, belittled me, and flaunted his extramarital relationship in my face. It was humiliating knowing he was cheating. It's humiliating eating sandwiches and peanuts for every meal now. But the worst thing is that he is holding my manuscript hostage, and no matter what I do, he won't let me have it back."

"Jesus, Anna," he gasped, making the slightest move like he wanted to reach for her before pulling back.

She slowly stood, and he looked up at her, trying to gauge what she was going to do, but she just looked down at him as she tucked her shaking hands behind her back. "You're perfect," she whispered. "You're Sky Writing. You're the handsome man from the bookstore who smells like tea and soap. You're Bob, the guy my friends knew I would fall in love with as soon as I met them." She took a step back, barely able to handle how he was looking at her like she still mattered. "But I don't know how to be an us with you. I know that's what you want, but I never wanted to fall like this again. I tried my best not to. I can't do this with Kevin's shadow behind me all the time. And I'm just really sorry I let it go as far as it did. Because now that I know so much about you...."

That's when the tears arrived, and that's also when Bob stood up. "Anna, I feel like-"

When he cut himself off, leaving the sentence hanging in the air for a few seconds, she took one long, last look at him and whispered, "I'm going to go." He didn't stop her from stepping over the flowers, walking out the door, and heading to the end of his street where she waited for a ride as the night air made her shiver, and her tear streaked cheeks finally started to dry again.

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

Oh, they both fell for each other. I'm not sure if Bob feels better or worse now. Kevin is an absolute dick, and we will hear from him in the next chapter. Keep fighting, Anna. Thanks @beyondthesefourwalls

PART 12

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cherrygukkie · 8 months

Text

Late Night Encounters| jjk

Summary: A student-athlete like you, who flies under the radar, never expected to become enemies with someone like Jeon Jungkook, an annoying talkative senior who goes out of his way to make your life a living hell. But what happens when your rivalry takes some twists and turns, and your hate turns into something else? Will getting too close to Jungkook reveal a side of him that you’ve never seen before?

Word Count: 5,2k

AN: Hey folks! This is something I came up with in the middle of the night, so I hope that you all enjoy this as much as I am currently planning all of this out! :) But yeah, I don't have anything else to say, but to enjoy this first snippet of Jk and OC's relationship. Love yah mwahh!!

Props to @dollfaceksj for beta-reading thank you <3

READ: (Pls comment and give feedback it's all welcomed. It'll help me stay motivated.)

Lmk if there are any errors please and thank you.

••••••••

Thursday, 7:03 a.m.

It’s early in the morning, and you know what that means…. School time!!!

Yay… school.

You’re currently at school, exhausted. That wasn’t out of the ordinary though. No matter how much sleep your body gets you still end up tired. At this point, you've accepted the fact that you’re a sleepy girl.

Putting on your beats, you turn the music volume to the max. Hopefully, music can give you a little energy and help you get through the day because you need it.

Surprisingly Yoongi or Taehyung weren't at school around this time. Usually, the three of you arrived at the same time, if something came up you’d receive a message from either one of them. They didn’t tell you yesterday or text you, so you check their location.

When you do it shows that they are on the road, moving in the same area.

They were driving somewhere…

The direction they are going is further away from the school. You being curious, you took it upon yourself to see what’s up with them.

Letting out a yawn, you call Yoongi, and not even a second later, he declines.

What the fuck?

You decide to shoot Taehyung a message since they’re together and he responds…

You: um why aren’t you or Yoongi at school?

You: I see that you guys are driving and I feel left out.

Taehyung : Sorry Y/N. I was supposed to tell you, but It slipped my mind.

Yeah, just like how my foot is gonna slip up both their asses.

Taehyung: We got caught up in some last-minute shit.

•okay, but my question is still unanswered.

You: where are you guys going though???

Read.

Taehyung left you on read along with him being secretive about his location… that’s unusual and weird.

Extremely weird…

“Such shitheads for ditching me,” you mutter, shoving your phone in your pocket. Great… Now today is going to be the definition of boring without dumber and dumbest.

You open your locker, replacing your books with your skateboard. The bell is going to ring shortly, so you start walking to class. You slam your locker shut, striding down the halls with the volume of your headphones sounding out everything and everyone, just how you liked it.

Your face was frowned up until ETA by NewJeans came on. A smile creeps onto the corner of your mouth as angelic voices enter your ears and a flicker of amusement manages to lighten your mood.

“what’s your ETA!” “what’s your ETA!”

Just when your grumpy spirit is starting to lift, someone swoops in from the right, snatching your headphones off your ears. The music is gone and the little smile you grew shattered into a million pieces.

You freeze, taken back by his audacity. “You did not… just take my headphones.”

You turn around to see the one and only, Jeon Jungkook.

Jeon Jungkook who surprisingly wasn’t wearing his usual Calvin Klein attire. Instead, he had on a pair of distressed jeans with a soft blue zip-up jacket.

The way he has his jacket off his shoulder is so baby girl of him

Jungkook smirks, holding the headphones out of reach. “New Jeans? Really?” He could hear even while they were hanging above your head. That’s how loud the music was.

“Give it back!” you demand, through a big jump to retrieve your headphones. Each time you jumped, his hand went higher and higher. Jungkook enjoyed watching you struggle, especially if it’s because of him.

“You don’t seem like the type to listen to New Jeans,” he says, ignoring the fact that he’s holding your property. “They’re so uplifting and joyful… and you-” Jungkook pauses, eyeing you down. You could sense the insult coming.

You talk over him, not letting him finish. “Why are you doing this?”

It’s too early to play his stupid games. He couldn’t wait until Chemistry class?

“Just doing my daily dose of annoying you.” He clicks his tongue, dangling the headphones with his index finger.

“Well, congratulations, Jungkook. You’ve succeeded once again. Now give me back my headphones and leave me alone,” you demand again, reaching up only for him to hold them higher.

At this damn point, your arms are moving in the air desperately like a lunatic. This is taking place in the middle of the halls… in front of people.

How fucking embarrassing is that?

ugh, I hope that people don’t think I’m a pushover now…

You raise your voice, walking up to Jungkook. “Give me my shit back!”

The anger in your voice draws attention in the halls. Right after you speak, multiple eyes burn into your soul. You look around and people are staring at the both of you with concerned faces. Part of you wanted to tell them to mind their shit and keep it pushing, but you take a breath, taking a chill pill.

“Jungkook,” you say through gritted teeth, bringing your hands together. “Can I have my beats back? They’re too expensive to be played around with.” You swallow all the bass in your tone.

“What’s the magic word?” Jungkook teases, exposing the dimple on his right cheek. Beasty, huh? you've never understood why he gave you such a nickname in the first place. Assuming it was an insult, you always ignored it.

Today wasn’t the day for his stupid games, he for sure wasn’t getting a please out of you.

You blink constantly, accepting your defeat. “You know what… I’m not doing this shit today. You can keep them, you jerk.” Walking away from Jungkook, you try to speed walk to class in need to get away from him. You’re already dealing with limbs that could barely function and heavy eyelids, you aren't in the mood to play.

Searching for peace didn't last how you wanted. Jungkook catches up with you, refusing to leave you alone.

"Careful there or you'll drop your books."

You look over at Jungkook who was keeping up with your speed. “I hate you.”

A little laugh sneaks past his lips before speaking, “No, you don’t.”

He had the presence of a fly, no matter how much you shoo him away he always finds his way back.

Why do you despise him with a passion?

Why is Jeon Jungkook your nemesis?

The reason behind it is a story. It started when you ran into him on a chaotic evening at the worst moment possible, just when you thought the hole you were in couldn't get any deeper...it did.

*Flashback!*

4 months ago...

Friday evening, 7:37 p.m.

Stuck in the middle of traffic, you’re repeatedly hitting crazy turns, left, right, left, left, right, right, nonstop. You wanted to punch yourself in the face for missing the bus and being an irresponsible dumbass.

Yeah, it's true...you were late to a game. It's not all your fault, though. To be fair it was a last-minute one that the coach signed everyone up for. Earlier today, you had to stay after school to figure out some arrangements with your teachers for your grades. It was either that or nothing because bad grades equal no volleyball.

All work was uncompleted, besides Mrs. Parker's class. That was your favorite class and you had an A+, so you didn't have to visit her. You had to visit everyone else and it didn’t go as planned. Besides giving you an extension on the work, you were assigned a tutor for the next 2 months.

Your schedule was dedicated to volleyball, therefore you had no free days unless it was the weekend, and as much as you didn't want to sacrifice it, you had to.

Girl, your grades were crying.

You need to maintain them to keep volleyball in your life. Today was Saturday and you decided to start. It wasn't a problem because you had no plans at all… well that’s what you thought.

You put your phone on do not disturb, just to concentrate, not to ignore anybody.

You just needed your mind to be fixated on school for once, not a ball, not a net, or a gym.

🏐🥊

During those long hours of catching up and studying you weren't aware of the messages in your group chat. You packed up all your things and you went directly to your messages to see 100+ texts from the group chat.

You open it thinking it's about the next practice or probably not expecting a message like this.

Coach [: "I'm sorry to spring this on you girls on such short notice, but I received an email from a coach from another district about playing against his team because apparently, the other team forfeited before the game.

Coach [: I agreed to it thinking maybe you girls could use the extra practice, you know? explore other teams and their ways of playing."

Coach [: "The school is far, so I recommend you gear up and be at the gym by school at 6:20 because the drive is longer than 30 minutes and we all need to ride the bus together, as a team."

Coach [: "There's no reason why any of you should be late because I'm texting you a couple of hours before, so please be on time okay you all know how I am about tardiness."

The more we are late the more we condition....

Coach [: "Okay, but that's all. I'll see you all in a bit, be ready!"

You take your phone off Do not disturb, then you exit the building, phone, and bag in hand checking your missed calls,

Reading that you had numerous missed calls from the coach, you call her and she answers immediately. The phone barely got through the first ring. You opened your mouth to speak, but her lecture overpowered you. "Y/N where the hell are you? the game is about to start!"

You're so stuck you couldn't give a proper answer so all you say is, "Huh?" the confusion in your response made her angrier.

"You are late Y/N! You were supposed to be on the bus an hour ago!"

Coach sent that message at 3:36 and when you checked the time it was 7:15 p.m. It was like glass shattering when your heart sank realizing you lost track of time. Your phone shook in your trembling hands, too stunned to speak.

It's been that long?!?

She tells you that the game has already started and that you need to be on your way now, especially with you being one of the main players you were needed no matter what, or the rotation would be switched.

It was still the beginning of the season, so people were only familiar with their positions. Having rotations changed and adjusted to something last minute during a game is a total mess. A rule in volleyball is if you were out of rotation they deduct points, and that was unacceptable.

"C-coach, I'm sorry-" you tried to sound sincere with a pounding heart and unsteady voice. "I'll get there as fast as possible." She ends the conversation by hanging up the phone.

Well goddamn.

Then and there you knew you were "Fucked." you muffled, in your hand. "I am so fucked...."

You start running as fast as you can and thankfully the dorms aren't too far from the school, so you arrive shortly. You swung the door open and rushed to your room not greeting your roommate, but that didn't matter.

She wasn't the nicest...

When you get in your room you start tossing things everywhere trying to find your jersey. That's what you get for misplacing important shit, that's what your mom would tell you after you'd lost something and it played in your mind on a loop.

At some point, you found everything and shoved it in your bag racing out the door to the parking lot. And there you are speeding recklessly in your car, slamming your fist on the horn honking at cars, cutting them off doing all you can to escape from this major traffic jam.

You weave through traffic pressing on the gas pedal, “Come the fuck on…” you yell, feeling your frustration build up. “Can these cars go any slower?!? I’m almost there!”

Why does everything go wrong on inconvenient days…?

Finally, you arrive at the stadium, and you pull into the parking lot and your eyes dart immediately to a good spot in between two cars surprisingly in front of the entrance. There were a shit ton of people here...

You turn the wheel parking your car thinking none of it, then suddenly there is this noise you heard. In the mise of hearing that sound, your whole car jolted back from the impact, even though it was the slightest tap.

Leaning forward a bit, you see the space you have in front of you and your jaw drops in disbelief. "Please no...." This could not be happening right now.... you're already in trouble for being an hour late and now you have to deal with this.

To fix your parking, you back out and properly pull in between the two cars. After, you take a moment to close your eyes and cross your fingers hoping that the damage wasn't too severe. Your pockets had flies coming out of them…. you couldn't afford to fix a damn car.

Let's pray that there was nothing there and you could move on with life, peacefully. You got out of the car to check yours first. It was in perfect condition and not a single mark was on it, maybe that was a sign of something good.

You rushed to the back of the black car to confirm that the crunching noise you heard was in fact the bumper that was dented up, terribly. The back of the vehicle even had scratches and the black paint was scraped off.

It was bad...

"Oh my god..." you mouthed nervously. The car did look fancy and highly expensive. It didn't take long for you to realize that the car you hit was a Mercedes-Benz, but not only that it was the newest version. "You've got to be fucking kidding me...." you screamed, burying your face in your palms.

How the hell were you going to pay for the damages on this car, a damn Mercedes?!? To be fair, you weren't poor, you just didn't have money like that, or you didn't have any on you. And bothering your parents with this rough situation was the last you wanted to do. They were already helping you pay for volleyball camp, so there was no need to shake them for more money.

Your hands found their way to your head gripping your hair, stressfully. "Ugh, I should've been on the damn bus!" you yell again, feeling stupid. You wanted to punch yourself in the face for the rookie mistake.

Too busy pacing back and forth and complaining you didn't notice that there wasn't a single soul in the car. By now someone would've come out to give you shit for hitting their vehicle.

You instantly got an idea.

And that idea was to walk away and pretend nothing happened.

Why not? nobody was outside, nobody saw you and nobody was inside the car meaning there's no proof of you hitting their car attempting to park.

That intense feeling wore off and your body relaxed a little. You look both ways before crossing the street.

Thank god, you didn't have to deal with a rich bitch or asshole who'd exaggerate the problem like the car was their child and make you pay more than you have to. You sigh, walking away, ready to enter the school and deal with the coach because that was next on the checklist.

You stuff your hands in your pockets, making your way towards the entrance, until you hear something. That something was the sound of a car door getting slammed violently.

"What the hell? are you fucking kidding me?!?" the mysterious man shouted. He sounded upset—a more fitting word, enraged. "Hey, you! black sweatshirt."

Yep, that was you. A girl in a black sweatshirt who was trying to ditch the situation.

"Hm?" you slowly turned around as if you were innocent.

Your guilty eyes met his deep brown cold ones. He looked very pissed right now. "Hm?" the mysterious boy mocked your act. "You fucked up my shit!" he pointed to the poor bumper.

You nibble on your lip, caught up and no he wasn't wrong that's exactly what you were going to do.

"What?” You fix your thick frames. "Dude, what are you talking about? I didn't fuck up anything. I was only walking out here getting fresh air, that's all..."

"Oh really?" He took a step closer moving under the moon. It was easier to make out the details. Soft dark curly long hair, muscular figure, piercings, tattoos.... a dangerous combination a guy could have.

Damn.

He wore a Calvin Klein denim jacket with a matching shirt and bold thick platformed boots. He looked like your typical bad boy or fuck boy, you choose. You’d never seen him before, ever.

You reacted, backing away from his unnecessary step. "Yes?"

"You are lying and you fucking suck at it.”

You tried flipping the script. “That’s what you think.”

“It’s what I know and now you’re starting to piss me off.”

"Okay, shit!" Your arms slap your sides, defeated. "I hit your car, okay? But it was a mistake. I was rushing to get to my game and I was going to leave because I needed to avoid this. After all, I'm already late and my coach is upset with me." Listening to you, his eyes were rolled to the back of his head, tired of hearing your sob story. "It was seriously an accident, I misjudged the distance between the cars," you continued. "I'm fucking sorry, okay?"

He was able to see that you were going through a tough time, but did he care? Hell no. He wasn't having any of that. For fucks sake, you hit his car and that's all he cared about, not some girl who's using being late as an excuse to recklessly drive.

“Do you know how much it’s going to cost me to get fixed?”

"No, I don't, but I do know that it's going to be pricey and trust me if I had the money I would pay for the expenses, but I don't have much money right now..."

"Oh, great. Miss careless driver not only hits my car, but she can't afford to fix it. Just what I fucking needed today."

You continued to apologize and reason with him, but he cut you off. "You expect me to accept your apology? That doesn't change the fact you hit my car. I could care less about a fucking apology right now.”

Now... it was bothering you a little. Despite the situation, this guy was being a dickhead.

Did you hit his car? Yes, you did and he has every right to be angry, but there should be some way that this can be resolved respectfully without being an asshole. And that's what he was doing, he's raising his voice, expecting you to stand there like a fool.

He had no idea who he was talking to. You frowned, no longer feeling ashamed or apologetic for hitting his car.

"No, it isn't but I'm sure that if you can afford a Mercedes then I'm sure you have the money to fix the damn bumper yourself," you argued.

"You're right," he chuckled, rubbing his forehead. "I can afford to get it fixed. I don't know why I thought that someone...." His voice trailed off as he faced your car. ".... someone who drives a 2010 Ford Taurus could even pay for a single scratch on my car."

broke bitch alert!!!

He turned around, lifting his brows, waiting for a response from you. The disrespect was too real and you blurted out an aggressive, “Fuck you.”

He was seriously calling you broke…

“And fuck you for hitting my car.” The guy got closer, narrowing his eyes at you as if you were familiar somehow. “You...” His voice trailed off from looking at your sweatshirt.

He got distracted from the words on it. It had your team and university labeled on it.

“You don’t even go to this school, do you?” he asks.

The mysterious boy’s question threw you off. Your eyes darted everywhere before talking. "No...?" you replied lost. "Why the hell does it even matter?"

“I knew you seemed familiar.” He nodded, getting struck by a moment of realization. "You're that one volleyball player who plays at ____ university?" He asked, reading your shirt. "And you're Y/N, right?"

“Yeah, why?”

"You know what-" he smacked his lips. "I'll let this slide this time one time.” You wanted to say thanks, too bad part of you was still heated from the argument, but how did he know your name?

You watched him walk to his car, and then he opened the door. “Just stay the hell out of my way, got it?"

He didn’t have to tell you twice.

"More than happy too,” you shout.

Once he got into his car, you turned around and ran inside the school. heading straight to the gym. You saw your team on the court, playing hard in an intense rally as you walked in. There was a shit ton of people cheering, yelling and screaming.

The noise was a mixture of good and bad…

You glanced at the score and thankfully, it was a tie. Coach gave you a deadpan as you walked towards her with guilt. Like you were expecting, she scolded you or whatever, and then she called a time-out.

All the girls left the court to get water and catch their breaths. Coach like usual, went over everyone's positions and dos and don'ts. While she did so, you slid out of your hoodie and sweatpants, revealing your jersey and shorts under.

You were prepared.

You scanned the crowds on your school's side and damn near everyone showed up to support the team. Some classmates waved at you and of course, you returned the kind gesture, glad to see them here to support the team.

Then randomly out of nowhere, you saw the same guy enter the gymnasium. He walks up a few flights of bleachers to sit with Jimin, Seokjin, and some other guy you don't know.

You assumed they were his friends.

When he's done greeting them... his attention landed on you, only you. It was weird after that interaction you had with him.

Looking away from him, you tried to regain your focus on the girls and coach.

"You all are doing great; except I need you all to make it harder for them. Let's stop fooling around and get in the lead and let it stay that way. Now that Y/N is here there's no more confusion now, the lineup is back to normal. Everyone with me?" Coach looked at everyone and they responded with nodding heads or a yes ma'am.

"Go out there and make them work, make them sweat."

The girls, including you, did your signature hand-stack a second after the buzzer went off. Girls that were benched sat down and girls that were on the court returned to the floor.

You simply do you and you get on the court to do what you're best at.

Play volleyball.

Things went back to normal, everyone played their hearts out, and in the end. You won the game.

But throughout the process, you couldn't help but notice his stares during the whole game. Anytime you'd look in his direction his focus was already on you.

The more you looked at him the more you remembered his identity. Now him knowing your name made sense because he attends your school along with him being in your 5th period.

Chemistry.

His name is Jungkook, Jeon Jungkook. He was a new exchange student from Seoul, but you couldn’t remember his major, although you did remember that he’s in a relationship with a girl named Alex who was well known at your school. Which is also how Jungkook was known in the first place.

It’s surprising because you hardly recognized him due to your head being on such a swivel.

It’s crazy that you've never even crossed paths before.

Ever since your first impression of Jungkook, the universe did its thing where he appeared everywhere now and you couldn’t escape him…

For some odd reason, he stood out even more because every day he went out of his way to bother you and piss you off, constantly. You haven't liked him since then and now you don't like him even more and couldn’t avoid him.

He didn't keep his word when you ran into him and he told you this exactly: "Stay the hell out of my way."

You’ve been stuck with this idiot ever since then.

*Present*

“Should I have taken your glasses instead?” he jokes, knowing damn well you are practically blind. You could see, but not too well.

You bark, “Why are you bothering me?”

“You should’ve never hit my car,” he says, words rolling off his tongue with a shrug.

“Oh, fuck off,” you aggressively tell him, wishing he’d disappear like dust into the air.

How long was he going to hold you accountable for that? It’s been months.

“I’ll fuck off when you tell me what’s up with you. You seem more feisty than usual….” You immediately stop walking to glare at Jungkook who places his finger on his chin. “Did one of your little boyfriends piss you off?”

He’s referring to Taehyung and Yoongi…

“Wow… your detective skills are impressive,” you sarcastically praise him, dramatically rolling your eyes. “Is that all you got?”

Jungkook strokes his chin. “Am I right?”

“Those aren’t my boyfriends and you are wrong, but why do you even care about what’s going on with me?”

“I don't, I'm just curious,” He replies, sounding interested in the reason for your attitude. “And you look like shit and it’s not because of me… so I want to know.”

“Yeah, and I feel like it too,” You admit, feeling the sleepiness weigh you down. “Like always…” an exhausted sigh leaves your lips.

“Why?” he asks, headphones still in his possession.

Jungkook's questions make you rub your temples. “I’m exhausted and later today I’m gonna be busy. I have to attend the sports event. You know where all athletes are required to go?”

“I’m familiar.” Jungkook places the headphones around his neck. “They announced the dumb thing yesterday.”

“It’s not dumb, Jungkook,” you declare, folding your arms, giving him a deadpan. “It's an important and great opportunity for all college athletes. It only happens once a year.”

The sports event in the evening that you are attending is an event for all athletes. It allows students to meet other teams including school teams, professional teams and club teams.

It’s a chance to ask professional coaches and players for advice for future reference. Sometimes, people who are that good get recruited to play on a team outside of school with the professionals.

That happens to maybe a couple of students out of the multitude of schools put together. Being chosen is such an amazing opportunity, you get to be on national television, by any chance make history, and get paid tons and other good things, but you weren’t banking on it this year. The odds of you getting scouted out were more than average, however, there are still things you’re insecure about when it comes to playing.

If anything, you need to secure those first before putting yourself out there, on national television.

“Beasty…” he says as if he had a question.

“Yes...?” you lazily nod slowly, watching his tongue glide over his teeth while smirking.

He better not ask to be my additional person

Was he going to ask you if he could be your extra guest this evening? You’re currently figuring out who’s that going to be, but it damn sure wasn’t going to him.

“Will-”

You squint your eyes, hoping this isn’t leading to a proposal. “Wait… you aren’t suggesting that I should take you-”

“No, I’m already going,” he claims, shaking his head. “And I have my date for this evening. I was just wondering about yours.”

Date, hm?

“So, who is it?” he asks, intrigued.

It's purely silent for a moment, but you think of something quickly to save yourself from the embarrassment-

You quickly speak up. "I have a date,” you throw in proudly, ignoring how big of a lie that is.

All you care about is covering your ass at the moment, not the backlash.

you’re such a fucking liar.

"Right, so who is it?"

You dodge his question. “Who's your date, Jungkook?” you ponder, pretending that your curiosity isn’t bouncing off the walls. You could feel it in your bones.

Jungkook isn't an athlete for the school, so that means the person he will be attending the event with is someone who goes to this school or someone else.

His face twitches with amusement. Seeing you in his business is a sight for him. “A very good friend of mine…”

“Is she on my team?”

“I can assure you she isn’t.” Jungkook cackles before confirming, “Volleyball players aren’t my type.”

Then what is?

•that’s a relief

“She goes to another school anyway. I can guarantee that you don’t know her.” Jungkook watches your eyes drop from his face to his neck, then grips the headphones firmly.

“Enough about mine,” he says as he changes the subject unexpectedly. “Who’s your…” A smile plastered on his face. “Date. And don't answer my question with another question."

Hm, who is your date??

"It's a secret," you whisper, motioning sealed lips. "I'll reveal mine once I see yours.”

He gives a subtle shrug. "Fair enough," Jungkook says, nodding his head, acknowledging your agreement.

*Bell rings!*

“Oh, won’t you look at that?” Placing your hands on your hips, you point out, “It's time to go class…so-” you stare at the headphones again. “Are you going to hand them over or what?”

Jungkook looks down at your hand and laughs when you extend it out. “Should I?” He calmly asks, pushing your buttons. You start to tap your foot impatiently, exaggerating your irritation.

He thinks to himself for a moment, before his eyes drop to the beats around his neck, then shortly locks eyes with your frustrated ones. “Actually… I want to hang onto these for a little while. These will come in handy during my workout.”

“Fine! Keep them,” you express with a dramatic slap to the side of your thighs. “But don’t think that I won’t get them back.”

As the warning bell rings, you shoot him a withering glare and without wasting a single second, you storm off to class with only one particular thing on your mind… and it wasn’t the headphones…

Who is Jungkook's date?

To be continued…

♡︎Taglist is here, lovelies

#jungkook x reader #jungkook smut #minors dni #jeon jungkook smut #bts x reader #bts imagine #jungkook au #jungkook x you #bts #jeon Jungkook #bts smut #Jungkook fic

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twstfanblog · 6 months

Text

*~Period Drama~* Monday

A/N: SCREAMS. There was no reason why this took me so long to get out. But it's here and I hope you guys like it! Another thank you to @bun-lapin for allowing me to use their lovely OCs for this fic series! I love them so much and I'm having so much fun playing with them! Word Count: 8.4K Words (God damn the next part is gonna be even bigger...) Warnings: She/They Pronouns OC, Period talk, Mentions of labor and pregnancy. Pairings: JamilxOC (Poly), Paternal Crewel &OC ~TagList @twistedcece @deltrea @krenenbaker @koebishrimpuwu @cat100200 @emyluwinter Start, Part 2 (Octavinelle), Part 3 (Heartslabyul), Part 4 (Here), Part 4.5 (Diasomnia pt.1), Part 5 (Diasomnia pt.2)

Yuu felt awful, just total dog shit in a bag and on fire awful. But, that was to be expected when they had their period and hadn’t been able to take any pain medication. So, in all honesty, they should be fine.

Yuu checked themselves over in the bathroom mirror. Huffing under their breath and trying to get their hair to settle in a less haggard fashion. They weren’t too sure if they should even go to class. But then they thought about the fact they enjoyed school in Twisted Wonderland. They had teachers who, begrudgingly, took time out of their days to help them understand the coursework. It felt like some kind of disservice to skip out just to laze around their dorm in pain. Not to mention Crewel would have to either visit himself or have someone else bring them food and pain medicine for the day. It just sounded like a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth for everyone else that Yuu wasn’t in the mood to put their loved ones through.

So, Yuu had put her big girl panties on - with a hand towel between her legs for blood catching, hoping she wasn't going to bleed through it - and got out of bed to go to school. She should also try to pick Grim up from Scarabia. While she’s sure her cat companion was having fun being held and hand-fed gourmet crackers, she did miss the furball and if Jamil’s update texts were of any merit, he was pouting about being away from her for so long.

Now fully dressed, and stiff with muscle aches, Yuu sighed as they walked out of their dorm. At least they were able to leave much earlier than they normally were. No Grim to drag out of bed and the fact they had been awake for hours beforehand playing a very key role. With the Sun just barely peeking over the thick woods, they started their journey to the main road to the school.

But, stepping onto the dirt path that branched off from the paved walkways of the school’s actual borders, Yuu pauses, calling out, “...Jack?”

Tall gray-furred ears perk up, the massive figure they were on freezing at the call of his name. Jack turned around slowly, almost in confusion at being called out to. But seeing it was Yuu who called to him, his wide-eyed expression shifted, his eyebrows creasing as his eyes darted to the dorm before moving back to Yuu, “Why are you outside?”

“No, no, good boy. This is still my property. I ask the questions first. What are you doing out here?” Yuu raises an eyebrow, walking closer to Jack and watching as he seemed to grow more nervous.

“I was…Just on my morning jog…”

“...At 7:30am?” Yuu smiles, tilting her at different angles with each question, “Without Vil? In your school uniform? Walking at a leisurely pace?”

“Yes, what of it?”

Yuu smiled, covering her mouth as she playfully batted at Jack’s arm, the other freshman scowling and twitching his body away from her hits, “Aw~. Were you checking on me?”

“NO, stop hitting me!”

“Oh, by the seven. I lived to see the day! Jack Howl, caring for his classmates. His heart has softened! He shows his emotions on his sleeve! His tail is wagging with glee!” “Shut up! It’s not!” Jack quickly looked behind him, just to double check his tail wasn’t actually wagging before he turned back to Yuu, “That’s not important! Why are you outside? Go back inside!”

“No? I’m going to class.” Yuu shrugs, moving to walk past him before the towering freshman steps in their path, “Jack. I was in a silly goofy mood, but not enough for this. Step aside.”

Shaking his head, Jack folds his arms in front of his chest, “No. You’re injured. You should be resting, not going to school. We’ll bring you your notes or something. Go back home.”

“No~.” Yuu tried to step past Jack again, only to lock them both into a half-step and jump dance that quickly had Yuu groaning in frustration, “Fucking move your enormous self!”

“No! You’re going back to Ramshackle to rest properly.” Jack moves forward, hands braced to clearly pick Yuu up to carry them back to the dorm physically.

“Jack.” Yuu steps back, a hand held up in a motion of ‘Stop’, “If you fucking touch me, I will eject blood on you so hard it’ll bruise you and never come out of your jacket.”

Jack instantly steps back, hands pulling back to his sides in mild fear. He…had no idea if that was even a thing. Was it a thing? Could Yuu actually somehow spray him with blood with enough pressure to harm him physically? He didn’t want to find out. Looking away, Jack steps back another pace, “I just…Should you be walking around? You don’t look good…”

Yuu sighed, tilting their head back, “I’m…gonna live. Don’t worry about it, I’m gonna get a quick pain potion from Crewel and just…fucking deal.” Rolling their neck, they shrug their shoulders and finally falling in step beside Jack to slap his back, “Come on, good boy. We got an education to get.”

“...” Jack sighed, quickly falling into pace with Yuu’s lazy stride, “Stop calling me that. Leona-Senpai keeps mocking me for it.”

“Good, you’re too big. You need to be mocked before you get any taller.”

The walk to the main building was longer than Yuu cared to remember. It was only longer with Jack constantly pointing out that Yuu counted as ‘ill’ and that it would make sense for them to skip class for the day. Then, when Yuu would simply state they were fine, Jack would offer to just carry them on his back to the school since they were clearly in pain.

“Jack, you’re very sweet. I will literally bleed on you just to prove a point. Drop it.”

The beastman huffed, looking away in annoyance but not bringing it up anymore on their walk. But in the semi-crowded hallways, Jack didn't leave for his own class. He looked conflicted, glancing at Yuu then down the hall to where he was supposed to be. He didn’t want to leave his friend unattended. The scent of their blood was stronger the longer he walked with them and he could only guess how much stronger it would get during the day. Looking around, he could see the other beastmen glancing at them in various degrees of concern and bewilderment.

“Don’t you have to go to class?”

Looking from their surroundings, Jack turned back to Yuu. He sometimes forgot just how small they felt beside him. Sure they weren't the shortest of their friends and they wore heels whenever they could, not to mention they fit into Night Raven almost too well with the number of students they've sent to the medical wing. But smelling their blood, seeing how tired and simply weathered they looked…it made a part of him want to just scoop them into his arms. Try to hum and growl the obvious pain away, like how his own parents did when he hurt himself in his childhood.

But, he'd rather Yuu actually spray him like some kind of demented blood skunk than say that to them, "Yeah I'm…Yuu. You know you smell…weird right?"

The look in Yuu's eyes literally made a bead of cold sweat form at his temple. Piercing yellow eyes quickly looking away from deep, near soulless appearing black pupils as he stuttered. Yuu somehow managed to learn Crewel-Sensei's famous "I will skin you alive and wear it as a coat" glare, something that quickly put anyone on edge because they weren't sure if they'd actually try to do it.

"Not! Not like 'smell bad' weird! Just…off…like…" he blushes, a hand coming up to nervously thumb at a pinned back ear, trying to find the right words, "You…you smell like a lady…"

The glare had thankfully faded to a simple "That was the dumbest thing I ever heard in my life" expression. Yuu tilted their head both in question and to look Jack directly in his sheepish eyes,"..." They sigh, pinching the bridge of their nose and gesturing down the hall with their other hand, "Jack, go to class."

"But-"

"Go to class."

"Bye, Yuu."

They sigh, watching Jack's hunched figure scurry down the hall and into a classroom. Honestly, the fucking men of this school…

With a spin on their heel, missing the crowd of beastmen who jump and scramble out of their way, they walk toward the teacher's lounge. Hopefully, they'll catch Crewel before he made his way to homeroom for the morning roll call.

Instead, Yuu ran into Jamil and Kalim. The two second-years standing in front of a classroom and seeming to be arguing. Grim held in one of Jamil’s arms and clearly pouting. Whether it was from the lazy hold or his own bad mood, Yuu couldn't tell.

"I can take Grim with me to class. You already have issues focusing and Grim won't be any help in that avenue."

Kalim pouts, trying to take Grim from Jamil only to be denied each time, "Come on! You won't cuddle with him and he'll be so sad until lunch. Shouldn't we do our best to keep him happy until Yuu is feeling better?"

Jamil rolls his eyes, smacking Kalim’s hand away once again, "Yuu doesn't even try to keep Grim happy at all times. He can handle not being cradled for a few hours."

Yuu walks up beside the two, hands easily snatching Grim from Jamil’s grasp in his surprise, "I don't indulge him, Jamil. There's a difference." Yuu smiles, feeling Grim instantly start purring under her grip, shifting him until he was able to rest his arms on her shoulders in a lazy hug, "Sup buddy?"

"Why the hell are you here?"

"Hello to you too, Jamil, my love."

Grim grumbles, nuzzling into Yuu's shoulder, but pulling his ears back at their scent, "You still smell weird…" his grumbles turning into purrs as Yuu scratches behind his ear.

"Yeah. I'm still on the bleed, but I should be ok."

"How!?" Jamil looked ready to either burst a blood vessel, or simply grapple them to the ground to drag them back to Ramshackle. Which was fair, but Yuu felt like if anyone besides Grim touched them they'd start swinging.

Yuu shrugs, "It's fine. I'm…living. I can handle a day at school. Did it all the time back home."

"Yeah, I don't think that was healthy…" Kalim gives them a nervous smile, clearly wanting to gather them up in a hug but having enough sense to take note of their expression, "You look…upset…"

"Oh, I am. But, that's normal."

Jamil finally relaxed, if only to pinch the bridge of his nose, "Why are you here? You should go home, you're not well."

"Jamil." Yuu placed a hand on one of his shoulders, stepping closer to press their sides together and let the second-year wrap his arms around them, even though the contact was slowly worsening their mood, "It's gonna be fine. I'm on my way to get a pain potion from Crewel. I'm going to be sitting all day. So unless by some miraculous, horrible, divine intervention and periods become contiguous? Everyone else is gonna be fine, too."

"..." Kalim suddenly stepped back, his hands covering his lower stomach in brief panic, "Wait, it's contiguous?"

"No, you fucking- I'm gonna go." Yuu pulls away from Jamil, managing to pry the second-year's hands from their jacket, " I'm gonna go before I clock Kalim in the face."

"Me!? What'd I do!? I'm sorry!"

"Stop talking." Yuu took a breath, moving their arms to properly support Grim slung over their shoulder, "No offense Kalim, but the sound of your voice is activating my fight response. So I'm leaving before I put it into action." They nodded in farewell, almost stomping away from the confused duo. Missing the panic that slowly grew over Jamil’s face before he pulled his phone out and started texting someone.

Yuu walked down the hallway, doing her best to keep her mood above the poverty line. Beastmen bobbed and weaved through the crowds, watching Yuu through doorways and running back around corners when they saw she had noticed their staring. Normally she’d attribute it to Savanaclaw reacting to one of her and Leona’s public squabbles, but too many uniforms were sporting non-yellow ribbons to only be the Beast King’s dorm.

Showing up to the ornate door of the teachers' lounge, Yuu saw a group of beastmen from various dorms crowded around it, whispering sharply among themselves. Yuu stood back a few moments before speaking up, “Are you guys gonna move or go in?”

The yowl the cat beastmen let out made everyone jump. Yuu stepped back as they all turned to look at her in what could be described as ‘horror’.

“...Um…Hi?”

“Do you need help!?”

“...” Yuu looked at the other beastmen, each one almost shaking with panicked expressions, “I gotta…get into the teachers’ lounge. So can you guys move?”

They move as a unit, one of them even shoving another to get him out of their path faster. They stood in a single file line beside the door, looking at them in a mix of respect and fear. One started to scramble to remove his jacket, placing it on the ground for Yuu to walk on as if it were some kind of tiny red carpet. The taller boy smiles sheepishly and gestured for Yuu to go into the room.

…

Yuu looked down, doing their best to not walk on the jacket, “Okay…Thank you…Please leave.”

There was a second scrambling, the same student shoving the other straight to the ground as they all tried to leave. The cat beastman doubled back. He stood fidgeting with his fingers and biting his lip. Looking at him closer Yuu could see he was from Heartslabyul. Seeming to gather up his courage, he looked at her with a firm nod, “You’re doin’ great!'' Then he turned tail and ran down the hall. The group of them peeking from around the corner before fully disappearing.

…

Grim pulled his head from Yuu’s shoulder, looking at them in sleepy confusion, “What was that about?”

“I…I wish I could tell you, Grim…Let’s just go see Crewel.” Yuu leaves the jacket on the ground, stepping over it awkwardly and opening the door, “Oh, papa dog? Your favorite puppy is here.” Crewel’s head snapped around from his seat at a fast speed, Ingrid giving his neck a concerned look at the audible pop she heard from across the table, “Why?” He looked Yuu over in bewilderment, standing up and rushing to them, “WHY ARE YOU HERE!?”

“Well, I'm in this room to get some pain relief. But, I’m in the building to go to school? That thing you guys really want me to do? To get an education or something?”

“WHY-” He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and trying to calm himself down. He bends down and places a hand on Yuu’s free shoulder, pulling her closer to speak softly, “My sweet puppy. My little mongrel. My mini menace…Why are you coming to school when you are actively bleeding from your vagina?”

“Because I’m not a little bitch?”

“You wanna repeat that?”

“Okay, okay!” Ingrid stood from her seat, gathering up the designs and fabric swatches she and Crewel were going over and quickly getting between the ‘father-daughter’ duo, “You two hotheads can cool down. Crewel, she’s here and willing to stay for classes. Now, as teachers, we’re not going to try to dissuade a student from attending classes now are we?”

Ignoring Crewel’s grumbled response, the redheaded woman turns to Yuu. Her smile turning strained as she gets a good look at the first-year student. A part of her filing away the cutting remark of ‘hit by a truck chic’. But she keeps smiling, tilting her head in a questioning manner, “Yuu, are you…sure…you wanna go to class?”

Yuu sighed, taking one arm from supporting Grim to pinch at her nose. Copying the pose Crewel had just done only moments ago.

Ingrid tried to keep her coo to herself. By the 7, she really behaved like a mini Crewel at times.

“Ms. Oster. I'm fine. This is totally normal, it'd actually be weirder if I didn't go to school. Unless I'm like…dying, there's no reason for me to not deal with my daily burdens while on my period. I just need a painkiller and I'll be good for the day or at least until lunch.”

Ingrid looks from the corner of her eye, taking in Crewel’s upset face before the bicolor-haired man scoffs. He rolls his eyes and turns on his heel, red bottom lace up loafers clicking against the floor.

“I swear, you were born to a damned dystopia. No one should be leaving their home, let alone their bed when bleeding like this!” He threw open the doors of a medicine cabinet roughly, fully stocked with all sorts of pain relievers though most of them were formulated for headaches. Being a teacher was hard enough, being a teacher at Night Raven College was a gauntlet.

Yuu shrugged, managing to catch the potion Crewel had flung at them. They were sure if they hadn't the teacher would have used their ‘decreased hand-eye coordination’ as a reason they shouldn't be in school. Uncorking the bottle, they gulped it down. While the pain was easing, none of the other symptoms did. They still felt awful, bloated, and as the fizzy thick syrup settled in their stomach, nauseous.

Hearing the small groan Yuu made, Crewel clicked his tongue, “Puppy, I'm serious. Go back to bed, you're not well.” His stern tone dipped into worry on his last word, expression changed from angry to concerned as he walked closer to them.

Yuu waves not only him but Ingrid off, breathing evenly to get their body back in check, “I'll be fine…period never stopped me before, no reason for it to stop me now…” they sighed, letting Ingrid press a hand to their forehead briefly.

“...” Ingrid hummed, pulling her hand away to instead pick and straighten Yuu's uniform, “They don't have a fever…and they did manage to walk all the way up here. She might be okay to stay, Crewel…”

“Ha!” Yuu smiled at Crewel, “Get outvoted, bitch.”

“You wanna stay for classes!? Fine!?” Crewel slapped his crop in his hand out of frustration, growling under his breath before waving the crop as he walked, “Well then hurry up, puppy. Follow me to class. You're lucky it's a joint class day. Homeroom and potions will just be lectures.”

Even though Grim groaned in their arms, complaining about how boring just sitting was going to be, Yuu was pleased, “Perfect. I don't have the beans to actually measure shit out right now.”

“Amazing. It sounds like you shouldn't have come to classes.”

Ingrid chuckles, waving the two away as they leave the room, still nipping comments at each other in annoyance. Once she was sure they were gone, she whipped out her phone. Typing furiously into the teachers' chat room. If Yuu was going to be on campus, she needed to make sure Hui-Yan kept a certain someone in Diasomnia for as long as possible.

Yuu and Crewel walked into the room, the teacher lightly shoving Yuu toward their seat, “Sit. And if I see blood on the chair when you leave, I'm dragging you back to Ramshackle.”

Their response was to quickly flip Crewel off, rushing over to their seat when the teacher raised his crop in a threatening manner. Sitting down, they nod their head in a greeting to their friends before placing Grim on the tabletop, “Sup?”

Ace and Deuce were staring wide-eyed, each leaning on the table in an effort to get a clear view of them. The duo looked at each other, then both looked across the room to Jack and Epel. Jack carrying a pinched expression, the look of guilt just barely coming across as Epel ogled aghast. The purple-haired boy gestured as subtly as he could, not wanting to call attention to himself as Crewel started to write on the board.

Deuce cleared his throat, hesitantly nudging his arm against Yuu's, “Yuu…do you really wanna be here right now? With everything going on?”

“Do you wanna die, Deuce?”

“...” The spade card soldier shared a fearful glance with Ace before answering, “No…?”

“Yeah, but you're gonna do it one day anyway. That's how I'm doing right now, so don't talk to me.”

Ace winches, tilting his head in confusion, “ If you don't feel well why didn't you just stay home?”

“Ace, I don't…wanna speak. I don't feel good. Just leave me alone and we can all get through today with our bones.”

The Heartslabyul duo clearly wanted to say something else, hoping to wear down their friend into going home. But the resting bitch face was stronger than normal, and neither wanted to test if Yuu was willing to actually attack them during class. So instead they sat quietly, taking their time to send messages with the other first years across the room.

Throughout the class, Yuu's glare only got worse. A headache almost forming from just how strained their facial muscles were. Crewel snapping his crop more than normal wasn't helping either. The professor kept dead stopping in his lecture to demand the attention of the class. Yuu didn't hear anything that would normally call his ire. Sparing a glance around the room, they noticed a few beastmen quickly look away from their eyes.

Yuu managed to make eye contact with one, the canine beastman jumping up from his seat, seeming to ready himself to vault over the table.

“SIT DOWN!” The crop hit Crewel’s desk so hard Yuu was afraid that the poor wand would just snap in half at some point.

The yell was enough to send the beastman crashing back into his seat. The Ignihyde student blushing furiously as he tried to curl away from the view of his classmates.

The class settled into an uncomfortable silence, Crewel grumbling before he turned back around to aggressively write on the chalkboard, the chalk squeaking harshly with each swipe.

Yuu sighs, gathering an already snoozing Grim into their arms and using him as a mock pillow. Laying their head down, they closed their eyes and welcomed the half nap that quickly took them over.

If coming to classes was a ‘bad idea’, going PE was a horrible, shitty idea. Yuu had only gotten into their uniform by the grace of the Seven and however many other icons decided to help. The fact they'd need to change again after class only made their stomach churn.

By the time they walked out to the field, they were the last one to line up. Jack sends them a glance but straightens up as their teachers call for their attention.

Vargas boomed out a laugh, “Now that you’re all here, let’s get those muscles primed and trained! Let’s do some quick stretches then you’ll pick which training to do today. Either endurance training with me or strength training with Professor Dubhghall.”

Iomhar Dubhghall was a tall, quiet man. From afar he looked like an average person, but standing closer, you saw just how large the man was, broad-shouldered and long-limbed. While he did teach physical education like Vargas, he spent most of his time focusing on a sparring-centered class that was only open to the 3rd-years. Yuu had met him only a handful of times, delivering staff handouts in Crowley's place was the only real way their paths crossed. He rarely spoke but Yuu had the impression he was pleased enough with her. He had once called her back during a delivery to teach her a few moves on a practice dummy before sending her on her way.

Yuu didn’t mind the other gym teacher, she kind of preferred his quiet judgment over Vargas’ bombastic demands to ‘build muscle’. Overall, a more balanced teacher.

Sadly, neither PE activity was high on their list to do. They groaned and grumbled through the stretches, Jack muttering back to them that the stretches were almost over, to hold on for just a bit longer. Touching their toes made their stomach roll, having to swallow down what they feared really was vomit. Once the warm-ups were done, Yuu groaned, sitting down on the ground as the other students quickly divided themselves among the activities.

Epel tried to walk closer, a nervous expression on his face before he was called back from one side of the field. Someone obviously taunting him about not being brave enough to spar. The Pomefiore first-year growled, looking at Jack before the two of them nodded, Epel running after the student who mocked him. Instead of picking an activity, Jack stood vigilant beside their seated form, eyes scanning the crowd. Every now and again, he’d growl or increase his glare in a direction.

Ace and Deuce ran around the track, Grim hot on their ankles as they would look over every time they passed her. The Heartslabyul duo checking on her in their own way.

Vargas looks from the side, opening his mouth to call Yuu over, only to stop at a firm hand resting on his shoulder. Iomhar didn’t turn to face Vargas’ confused glance, only shaking his head. Vargas huffed, folding his arms but not calling out to Yuu, “I don’t see why she should be allowed to sit out…If she had the energy to come to class, she’s got the energy to build her muscle.”

Iomhar shook his head again, “Just because she had the will to get to the mountain doesn’t mean she has the might to climb it. Not today at least…”

“What does today have anything to do with it?”

“...” The other teacher looked at Vargas with an exasperated look, “Do you not check your phone?”

Yuu sat silently, hands gripping and ripping into the grass in a method to distract themselves. Luckily, Jack kept his strange guard around her. The Savanaclaw student every now and again rushing around to grab and offer Yuu a cold water bottle that she would only accept half the time. Mid swallow, a familiar Heartslabyul student walked closer, ears pinned back as Jack growled at the cat beastmen.

“Jack…Calm down.” Yuu titled their head at the Heartslabyul beastman, questioning glare just a bit fiercer than necessary, “What do you want?”

“...” The cat beastman suddenly got nervous, shuffling his feet and looking down before breathing out, “We made you something…Come see?”

“...I guess?” Yuu groans, standing to their feet and sighing, “What’s this thing?”

The student perks up, gesturing behind him to the bleachers, “It’s under there! Me and some others worked hard on it so it’d be extra comfortable for you.” A beat of silence passes before the beastman steps closer, “Do you need me to carry you?”

Fuck no? That was what Yuu was going to say. Instead, they had to force down a gag as they felt themselves being scooped up and jostled into large firm arms. Once the nausea faded they realized they were in Jack’s arms. Their Savanaclaw friend glaring daggers at the shorter student.

“I’ll carry them. Just lead the way…” Jack looks at their bewildered face, ears pinning back in embarrassment, “Sorry…Should've asked…”

“You shouldn’t have in the first place.”

Jack hummed in what had better be agreement, following the jittery Heartslabyul student behind the bleachers. When they arrived, Yuu still wasn’t sure what they were supposed to be looking at. On the ground, protected from the dirt by a tarp, was a pile of fabrics. It looked like a mess of school uniforms all piled together and formed to give it a side so that someone could lay lounge style. Looking longer. Yuu noticed a few pieces of clothing that belonged to her friends. Epel’s ruffled dress shirt, Ace’s tie with a playing card tucked into the back folds, and what seemed to be Deuce’s track hoodie.

Silence passed, until Yuu spoke up, “What the fuck am I looking at?”

The group all deflates, turning to start whispering to each other. ‘They don’t like it.’ ‘I told you we should have put food nearby!’. ‘We didn’t get enough of their friends' stuff…’

“No, don’t ignore me, tell me what the fuck I’m looking at!”

Jack huffed but didn’t demand an answer either. Readjusting them in his arms before turning away with a mutter of, “Pitiful…” Exiting the bleachers as the group of beastmen start to mobilize again.

“I’ll go grab snacks!” “You! Go grab some blankets and pillows from your dorm!”

“How did I not think of it!? Pomefiore is a haven of proper materials!”

Yuu scowled, upset from still being unanswered, “Jack. What in the green eyes of the thorn fairy was that bullshit?”

Jack glanced away, ears pinning back as a conflicted expression crossed his face, “...” He opened his mouth.

“Jack. If you tell me something along the lines of, ‘I smell like a lady’ again…something…will happen to both of us…”

And his mouth snapped shut, the clinking of his teeth being the only noise he made. Reaching back to their plot of free space, Jack moves to place Yuu back on the ground.

“No.”

“Alright…” Jack stood up straight, keeping Yuu in his arms. Eyes scanning the surrounding area for various “dangers”.

From the side, Vargas looked up from his phone and groaned, “Iomhar, look at this! They’re not even sitting anymore! Howl’s carrying them around. I’ve had plenty of muscle cramps in my life, this can’t be as bad as everyone is claiming it is.”

Iomhar again shook his head, “Yuu’s already primed to fight anyone they please. It’s even more so now and I don’t believe any fondness they hold will keep them from actually trying to hurt someone…So if they attack you, I’m not pulling them off of your neck.”

“Phhht. I doubt they’d be able to reach my gloriously robust neck. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of fighting Little Ramshackle?”

“I don’t fight children, Vargas. I at most spar with them, and at least, train them.”

“Oh, and I assume flipping the Schoenheit boy three times in one match was sparring.”

“It was. It was in the ring and everything.”

Yuu glared at her friends, Grim held firmly in her arms, “Literally…All of you?”

Epel smiled, a bead of sweat just barely rolling down his temple as he tried to steady a clearly distressed Sebek who was clawing at the hallway wall in a bent-over position, “Sorry…Sebek’s really not feeling well. Ace, Deuce, and Jack are helping me since Diasomnia gives me the creeps. We’ll try to be back by lunch! To keep you company!”

Yuu shook her head, walking past the group of nervous boys, “Don’t worry about it. Take little bitch boy Sebek back to Diasomnia. I’ll…take notes or something I don’t know…”

Deuce spoke up, nervously rubbing the back of his head, “Do you…wanna come with us-”

“NO!” Sebek jumps up from his huddled position, the panic clear in his expression as though Deuce just suggested they all go line up to punch Malleus in the face. He realized his outburst, turning to Yuu with a fearful expression, “Uh…I mean…Please don’t come to Diasomnia.”

“...” Yuu blinked before shaking her head and walking into Trien’s room. Whatever was going on today with everyone was something she did not have the bones nor spoons to try to figure out.

The potion had started to fade, already feeling the tightening pressure doing nothing to help their rolling empty stomach. Their mood had also not gotten any better. For the rest of gym class, the same beastmen students had continuously called Jack to carry them back behind the bleachers and show off increasingly elaborate piles of fabric. They still refused to just tell them what the fuck the mess was supposed to be, only growing more determined to ‘get it right’. But when they had failed by the end of the class, they had actually apologized to them profusely and wished them luck before rushing off to their own classes.

So, by Night Raven boy standards, very fucking weird.

Yuu should have asked at least one of her friends to stay behind in class with them. One of them to act as a buffer against the wide-eyed stares of various first and second-year students who possibly hadn’t seen them yet today. She clicks her tongue, looking around the room and breathing a sigh of relief seeing Ruggie. The hyena beastman had a half-eaten donut shoved in his mouth, slowly chewing to make it disappear, and rifling through his beaten-up bag. And just her luck the seat next to him was empty.

They sat, letting Grim crawl out of their arms and getting comfortable, as much as they could with the cramps slowly returning and the feeling of a moist hand towel against their pussy, “Hey Ruggie.”

“Hey-Hold the fuck on…” Ruggie whips around, looking at them as though they were back from the dead. The hyena leaned closer to them, sniffling deeply before pulling back so hard he almost tipped out of his seat, “By the seven, are you okay!?”

Grim gave Yuu a nervous glance, waving a paw as he tried to warn Ruggie to calm down his concern, “Uh…Hey listen-”

“Ruggie, do you wanna be okay?”

“...” The Savanaclaw sophomore actually looked down, seeming to weigh his options before he looked up and nodded, “Yeah?”

“Okay, then I’m gonna need something from you.”

“Sure! What ya need? You want some water? I think I got a bottle left, hell just take the one I had too. You must be hungry, you’ve probably been working hard all day. Let me see if I got anything in here to eat-”

“Ruggie.” Once Yuu was certain they had his attention, they motioned him to lean closer again. He did, though he looked mildly reluctant to do so. Once he was close enough, Yuu gripped him by the collar and pulled him even closer to whisper, “I want you to shut the fuck up. Just…Just shut the fuck up for the whole class. Can you do that for me?”

“Yes.”

“Less intensity.”

“Yeah, I can do that…Do you want the water though?”

“...” Yuu sighed. Maybe water would help their growing nausea, “Fine. And a sucker if you got it.”

Ruggie turned and searched through his bag, quickly pulling out a fresh water bottle and a handful of brightly colored suckers to dump on the table, “Here you go. Made them myself. The yellow ones are lemon; you like lemon right-”

“Ruggie.”

“Sorry.” The hyena raised his hands, scooting away as much as he could without pressing against the other student beside him.

The joint history class was passing by. That being the best way Yuu could describe it. Trein’s dry voice, while being the dullest kind of ASMR, was a calming effect to Yuu's thoughts. While it was history here, Yuu couldn't help but hear the lecture as a very detailed fairytale being read aloud in a fancy library. She could feel herself finally relaxing, stomach being only slightly appeased by the sweet-flavored lemon suckers.

If she had bothered to look around, Yuu would have noticed how the beastmen around her were finally calming too. The clearly distressed mood from the Ramshackle prefect doing more damage than she thought it would have.

But the peace was broken, just as Yuu crunched down on their second sucker, the cracking being more audible than they were expecting. But seeing how Trein didn't stop speaking or even turn to them, they grabbed another sucker and started to open it-

“Sensei? Is Ramshackle supposed to be eating?”

It was like time had frozen. Trein’s writing had stopped abruptly, the chalk in hand snapping off in his tightened grip. Every beastman nearly stopped breathing, turning to glare at the Scarabia student who had spoken up.

Ruggie turned to Yuu, opening his mouth to tell them to not mind the student, they could keep eating their sucker. Only to jump back as Yuu stood up, slamming their hands on the table.

Trein felt his face pinch, watching Yuu gather up the half-empty water bottle and numerous unopened suckers. He sighed as Yuu walked toward the small wastebasket by the door, “Yuu, you don’t need to-”

“No, it’s fine!” Yuu shrugged in an almost frantic motion, slamming the water bottle into the wastebasket hard enough the poor plastic bowl had nearly tipped over, “It’s fine. I just can’t fucking have anything!” They had moved onto the suckers, whipping each one into the basket with enough force that everyone was able to hear the candy being broken on impact, “It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine!” At the end, they simply threw all of the suckers into the trash.

The room remained silent, waiting in bated breath as Yuu stomped back to their seat, ignoring the concerned looks from Grim and Ruggie. Without saying anything, Ruggie slipped his hand into Yuu’s, holding it firmly as a form of silent support. They looked over, expression clear that they were not pleased, but didn’t pull their hand away.

Trein looked over his class. The beastmen not close to Yuu were spending their energy glaring at the student who had spoken up, those closer were trying to subtly pass items to Bucchi. Hidden juice packs, different candies, savory snacks. All things that were forbidden in his classroom besides a Pomefiore beastmen trying to hand over his gallon-sized personalized water bottle. He sighed. If he had the time to properly speak, he would have told the student to pay attention to the lesson and not his classmates sitting silently, minding their own business.

Sighing, he turned back to the board, grabbing a fresh piece of chalk, “Now…as I was saying…”

The lesson continued on, the air clearly tense as Yuu started to tap on their table in an increasingly aggressive manner.

Trein turns to the class, “Can anyone tell me what was the tactic used in the battle against invaders of the East Kingdom?” Seeing no one raising their hand, he unfortunately fell back on muscle memory. Yuu had shown great promise in his class, excitedly asking questions about historical events and even reading text for the second or third-year classes on their own time. So it didn't occur to him that calling on them in their current state was not the right move to make, “Yuu? Would you care to enlighten the class?”

“...” Yuu stood from their seat, leaving behind a confused Grim and Ruggie, and walked out of the room. The door slamming hard behind them and rattling the surrounding frames.

…

Trein sighed, turning back to the chalkboard and continued writing, “Does anyone have the answer?”

The botanical gardens were always pleasant. Perfect temperature no matter the season, full of fresh smelling air. Even when the magical dome had its annual rainshower, Yuu wasn't above gathering their friends and sitting under a tree to chat in the sprinkle. Which is probably why the gardens were the first place their legs took them.

Just where he normally was, Leona laid down with his arms folded under his head in a relaxed pose. The third-year napping peacefully in his patch of overgrown grass. She sat beside Leona, moving to stretch her back as she did during gym.

Leona’s eyes snap open after a few beats of silence. He sat up on his elbows, looking at Yuu with wide eyes, “...” He tilted his head, eyes flickering to their lower body, “Are you okay?”

Yuu sat up, winding back their fist and punched Leona directly in the chest.

“AUH! You little-” Leona had pulled his hand back, fully prepared to backhand Yuu in retaliation before he paused. Taking in Yuu's face, he noted how pathetic they looked even though they were glaring at him. He groaned and clenched his hand tightly. Having to remember his key reasons for not just striking back the non-magical student at every sucker punch Yuu managed to land on him. ‘They were younger than him’. ‘They didn’t have magic’. ‘They knew better than to just hit him, so they clearly want him to do something’. He breathed in, putting his hand back down and raising an eyebrow at the angry scowl on Yuu’s face, “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me? What the fuck is wrong with everyone else!?” Yuu waved their arms around, as though Leona could see the examples all around them, “This whole fucking day, everyone’s been acting so weird! Jack was basically a fucking bodyguard for me during gym! Hell, Ruggie was almost trying to hand-feed me during history!”

Leona mumbled under his breath, realizing just how late in the day it had become, “Fuck, I overslept…”

“Plus, like, I think every beastman is acting like I’m about to explode if they don’t treat me like the most delicate little flower.” Yuu turned to Leona, confusion easily bleeding into their scowl, “Like, what the fuck is going on today!?”

“...” Leona points to between Yuu’s legs, nose wrinkling as he sniffles the air softly “What’s happening down there?”

“I’m on my period…”

“Yeah, because I clearly know what the hell that is, Feral.”

Yuu groans out, the force of it almost making them slump over before they snap back up, “I’m bleeding out my pussy. Don’t freak out, it’s normal for me,”

Leona brought his fingers to his temple, sighing, “Yeah, that’ll do it…”

“Do what!?”

“Send everyone into a fucking panic. You smell like you’re in active labor…” Leona suddenly looked at them from the corner of his eyes, “You aren’t, right? If that lizard actually knocked you up while you’re still in school-”

“I’m not pregnant! This is literally happening because I’m not pregnant!”

Leona leaned away, doing his best to not roll his eyes, “Okay. By the seven…I'm just saying if he did, you can sue him over that.”

“Leona, I'm not suing my boyfriend just because you've got some kinda one-sided blood feud with him.”

“One; it's not one-sided. Two; it's sound legal advice. You two had a binding agreement and if he broke it you have right to-”

“Words can not express how much I want you to shut the fuck up…”

Leaning back, Leona scoffed. Arms going back to their folded position as he reclined on the grass, eyes closing, “Fine. Get fucked over for all I care…” After a beat of silence, he sighs out, cracking an eye to look at Yuu, “What happened? You're supposed to be in history. You're a little goody for Trein normally.”

“...” Yuu sighs, taking the standing silent invitation and laying down beside Leona, hands folded over the growingly tense muscles of their pelvis, “It's just been…a lot today. I can normally handle my period just fine but…”

The following silence quickly sombered their conversation. Leona gave Yuu his full attention, raising an eyebrow as a silent gesture for Yuu to continue. His concern almost showing on his face when they don’t respond to him, “Yuu-”

“YUU!?”

Leona’s ears press against his head at the yell echoing in the garden. He grumbles under his breath and sits up again, sniffing in the direction of the yell before calling out, “Stop making so much noise. We’re over here.”

Ruggie comes rushing around the corner, Grim just barely hanging onto him from his shoulder. In his arms were blankets and multiple kinds of snacks and drinks, “There you are! Are you ok? Ya hungry? I got some cold juice on the way over here. Leona, how's it looking? Are the contractions far apart still?”

… Yuu rolls over to fully press their face into the ground, frustrated screaming slowly growing in volume as they banged their fists against the grass. Ruggie had attempted to rush over, dropping the bundle in his arms only to be stopped by Leona’s outstretched hand.

“Calm down, she’s not pregnant. Just being a little bitch.”

“Wait, what?”

The screaming had died down, Ruggie and Leona speaking in quick mumbles to each other. Grim slipped off of Ruggie’s shoulder, cautiously nudging at Yuu’s prone arm.

“Hold on…this is normal?”

Leona shrugs, running a hand through his hair as he sighed, “I’m guessing from how pissed they’re being about people worrying over them…” His green eyes looked over Ruggie, noting his empty arms before he scowled, “And where’s my lunch?”

Ruggie rolls his eyes, clicking his tongue and picking at the collar of his too-big button-up, “Well, forgive me for being more worried about the potentially pregnant person about to pop out a baby to get you a damn sandwich…”

“That’s not an excuse to not do your job-”

Grim whined, pushing against Yuu’s arm even harder than before, “Yuuuuuu! Come on, henchman, I'm hungry! Don’t you wanna go get lunch-”

“NO!” Yuu snaps up, their yelling sending Grim rolling away from them and scrambling to hide behind an equally stunned Leona and Ruggie, “No! I wanna take a shit and die. Just fucking pass away from the mortal coil!”

“Yuu-”

“It shouldn’t be this fucking hard!” Yuu pulled themselves up from the ground, kneeling as they look at their hands, trying to find the answers to their boiling-over questions and concerns, “It’s normal! It’s fucking basic as fuck for me normally! Periods shouldn’t be this hard, things shouldn’t be this hard!”

Ruggie and Leona share a look with each other, the second-year trying to step closer, “Hey, bud, it’s okay-”

“IT’S NOT RUGGIE, AND THAT’S THE PROBLEM!” Yuu was almost shaking from the force of their welling emotions, “Everyone is acting like something’s wrong! And that has never happened to me past just ‘Oh fuck, your period started? You need a tampon?’ And that’s it! Like, I knew things were different here, obviously. But I don’t think about it, you know? But now I am because everyone is acting weird when it’s just my period, it's not a big deal! But it is a big deal here! A lot of shit is a big deal here. And I'm thinking about where I came from a lot now and holy shit, I'm never gonna see those people or places again. And I'm okay with that! But, oh my fucking God, I am craving comforts and shit that I'm never going to have again. And I'm spiraling thinking about the few things I do regret and how I'm never gonna be able to fix them, I won't even get to try! Does anyone even know I'm gone? Did anyone care? I'm in a place where I don't actually exist, bleeding out my pussy with basically no support, and I'm realizing I have never felt more alone.”

The only sound was Yuu’s harsh breathing, the magicless human trying to take deep breaths to calm her rolling stomach and fight against the tears threatening to spill. The three males all shared a look, having a silent conversation with a series of eyebrow raises and glares. In the end Leona sighed, leaning over to place a hand on Yuu’s shoulder.

“Oi…Feral…You okay?”

“...Yeah…” Yuu’s face pinches up, a single sound of struggle slipping out as she shook her head, “No…” Turning, she dry heaved into the grass.

“Oh, by the Seven…” Leona moved, reaching over and pulling Yuu’s hair back in time for them to let out a wet-sounding retch that finally brought up a bit of watery bile. He held their hair, silently directing Ruggie to wrap up the food items in one of the many blankets. He only looked back to Yuu once the vomiting had stopped, helping them to sit up, “Feel better now?”

Yuu looked at Leona, tears clear in their eyes and quickly losing the fight to not cry. They shake their head again, tilting it down as they whimper, “I wanna go home…”

“Alright…” Leona slips his arms around Yuu’s body, easily scooping the smaller into his hold and cradling them close, “You shoulda stayed home in the first place…”

“Shut up…”

Leona looks to Ruggie, using one of his hands to grip the makeshift bag of treats, “Watch the weasel, I'm taking them home.” He made his way out of the garden, calling over his shoulder, “And you better have my lunch by the time I’m back!”

Ruggie sighed, sharing a look with Grim before he gave a disgusted look to the puddle of vomit on the ground, “I should find a hose or something to clean this up…smells awful-”

“Uh…Ruggie?” Once Grim was sure he had the hyena’s attention he pointed a paw to the top of the greenhouse dome, noting the fast-rolling dark clouds, sparks of green lightning seen inside them, “Should we be worried about that…?”

“...Fuck…”

“Cozy?” Leona pulled away, making sure Yuu was completely covered by the blanket. The prefect was curled up on the couch, sniffling and getting themselves fully comfortable before nodding their head, “Good.” Leona pulled a basket closer, the snacks Ruggie had gathered filling it almost to the top as he offered a juice box to them.

Yuu took the box, the tops of their arms leaving the warmth of the blankets to open the drink. Sipping once from the tiny straw, before speaking, “Thank you…”

“Yeah, yeah. You owe me for this. Coming to school when you were basically sick and then throwing a tantrum like that…you know better, Feral.” but looking at Yuu's pitiful face, he felt his own frown soften. Kneeling down, he pets at Yuu's head, subtly checking for a fever, “...Are you gonna be alright alone?” he asked it so softly Yuu almost missed it.

They smile, sniffling and wiping at their eyes, “Yeah…I think I just need a good cry…if it gets bad, I'll call someone. Promise.”

He nods his head, standing up and walking to the doorway of the lounge, “On or off?” At Yuu's soft call of ‘off’, he flipped the light switch. With the room in darkness, Leona gave one last grunt of goodbye, walking away as he heard Yuu's silent crying turn to choked-back sobs.

Outside of Ramshackle, he noted the shift in weather. The clouds he had noticed on the walk in had completely taken over the sky, still rolling like the bubbles of an overheating potion. And as he stepped onto the path leading away from the building, he saw a growing spark of green lightning. The lights crackling and seeming to follow the path of something, or rather someone walking in the direction to Ramshackle.

Leona sighs, shoving his hands in his pockets and walking forward. Seems like he'd have to be the one to talk to Malleus…

#twisted wonderland #twst #disney twst #twst wonderland #yuu oc #twst savanaclaw #leona kingscholar #ruggie bucchi #jack howl #epel felmier #ace trappola #deuce spade #sebek zigvolt #papa crewel #divus crewel #twist oc #jamil x yuu

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dr3c0mix · 11 months

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Hiii! Could you please do a scenario where the reader is gushing over a fictional character and saying stuff like how hot they are and that they (reader) want to marry them (fictional character). And then the reaction of your characters to all that (specifically darik and hallow I think were the names) thanks!!

When Their Darling Simps For A Fictional Character

My OCs x GN Reader

hey silly billys !! ill be on a little hiatus for a bit because ill be visiting family <3 thank you for all the love yall have given me and my characters!

⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅∙∘☽༓☾∘∙•⋅⋅⋅•⋅⋅⊰⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅⋅•⋅

Adrian sees you on your phone and smiling at...a cartoon character??

Over the course of the week, he teases and makes fun of you for it, but quickly goes through the stages of grief over how he's not getting your attention as much as before.

At first, he denies that he's jealous of a fucking picture, but that denial is soon forgotten once he hears you comment about how hot they were and he's fuming.

He'll try any way to get you to pay attention to him, slap your phone out of your hand, throw balls of paper at you, anything to make you stop ogling over that dumb character and be with him!!

"Stop looking at that stupid fanfiction and pay attention to me!"

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Brandon is not hiding the fact that he's jealous.

I mean he's trying, but you can clearly see he has beef with your fictional husbando.

He goes home and does research on the character, asking you all casual sounding what you like about them and change a bit of his style depending on your answer.

If you like how masc they are, he's gonna show off his muscles more during training, take off his shirt drenched with sweat in front of you, anything he can think of to make you think he's more manly and therefore more worthy of your love and attention.

"Hey (Y/N)! Check out my new haircut! You know, it kinda reminds me of that character you like right?...right?"

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Valeth brought you a few books to read and he notices you taking a liking to a certain character in one of them.

You tell him how dreamy and attractive the character is and how awesome they are, and he's trying not to grab your little book and throw it in the fire.

He would never want you to hate him for destroying something you love but goddAMN would it be satisfying.

He makes sure to note what characteristics you like about them and see if he can display them himself.

The big orc would even try to hide your book in a high shelf so you can't read it and pay attention to this fictional character instead of him :(

"Duckling? How about you put down that book and we prepare dinner together? I've missed spending time with my love~"

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Bo hates it. But he stays quiet about it, there's no way he can tear apart something that doesn't exist...

He's really salty and a bit whiny about it, begging you to compliment and love on him instead.

"Why settle for some fake when ya got the real thing right 'ere darlin'?"

Ribs is tearing apart anything that depicts the character. Say goodbye to your comic books or magazines.

He just throws a little pouty tantrum because you love someone that isn't the horde.

"You're our mate! Now please come here so I can hug you!" >:I

Soda is sitting across from you as you ramble about how cool this character is and he's not listening at the slightest. Fuck this guy, who even are they???

After you're done, he crawls up to you and pulls you into a tight cuddle.

"Thats nice...can we go back to kissing now?"

Screw just thinks you like the merch and not the character so he collects anything with your favorite character on it.

However, the others get mad at him for it and explain. Screw then takes it all away and hides it somewhere you'll never find.

"mmm I think we're cooler.."

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Wolfie isn't happy. He takes whatever thing you have of your character, and he rips it to pieces.

You run after him as he has your treasured item in his mouth and you hear his muffled laughing as he shakes his head around, ruining it..

He makes it his mission to jump in your lap whenever he sees you gushing about your little character, or pawing your face so you can look at him and love him now. It's been 5 minutes (Y/N)! It's his turn!

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Dorik's eye twitches as he watches you smiling and giggling over some picture. What's so good about it anyway?

He tries to get your attention on him by being extra obedient, making your favorite food, turning on your favorite movie for the both of you to watch, running you a hot bath, anything to make you praise him and not that stupid little image!

He almost settles to whining and begging for your attention, asking why and how you like this drawing and not him! He's your loyal servant after all!

"Master! They don't deserve someone as wonderful and perfect as you! Let's just eat dinner together and forget about them!"

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Kalva is a bit like screw and supports your interest in the character, but only if you praise him for finding little trinkets and stuff of them.

He loves seeing you happy, even though he hates the fact that you talk about them like they're your mate or something, but that's nonsense, he's your mate!

There will not be anything of that character in your shared bed/nest. You have a personal space for them, but your bed is special to only you and him.

He coos to sleep next to you, mumbling about you possessively while he huddles close to your warmth.

"Cute mate, my little mate, you're my mate! My happy little darling!"

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Jasper wouldn't really care unless you directly tell him you like them better than him then he's committing a war crime.

If he hears you saying you want to marry them, he's stealing all your merch of the character and burning them.

He might distract you with Jonesy like pushing a glass off a table and framing it on the cat so you could stop paying attention to your fanfics or whatever.

"H-hey, Jonesy's on the table again...maybe you should switch apps...take some pictures.."

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Viktor tries to stay cool but deep down, he's very very jealous of how much you like this character.

He's one of the only ones to actually confront you about it and he's adorable whilst doing so.

"M-my dear, maybe you should read some other books? I-I know how much you love that one but maybe uhm..we could read one together?"

Garrick doesn't even hide his hatred towards them, he insults and belittles them every chance his gets.

Why be interested in someone like them when you got 3 supernatural men hopelessly in love with you?

"Oh they're strong? Bet I could beat em in a fight. Can they turn into a bat? Probably not..I can though!"

Silas ignores it, he's sure it's just a little interest that will go away sooner or later.

But if he hears you talking about wanting to marry them, he's sitting you down and asking you why you'd want to do that. He hints a lot about him being a better pick.

"Darling I'm sure you can do better than them..I mean..you sure theres no other..attractive..intelligent and interesting people in your life?.."

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Baron has to keep his cold exterior from breaking every time you ramble to him about your favorite character. He's read the books you've read because he's a creep because he wanted to know you better and he can't help but find some similarities between him and that character of yours.

He wants to speak up about it but he's scared what he might imply. A bit of him is a bit flattered that you find people like him hot, maybe he should show off those characteristics more often around you.

"They're uhm..interesting, Boss..sounds a lot like someone I know..."

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Caspian is a whiny bitch when he finds out your liking to that character, he'll try to guilt trip you into dropping your interest in them because 'he should be your only love!'

He'll try his best to get you to look at him instead of that ugly little book.

"You love them more than me don't you? You're so very mean sometimes my treasure!"

⋆⁺｡˚⋆˙‧₊☽ ◯ ☾₊‧˙⋆˚｡⁺⋆

Hallow is hiding the book, no ifs, ands or buts. He's not letting some big strong hero protagonist person take up your attention. If you try finding it, he's ripping it up and disappearing for days.

He'll be extra cuddly to you from then. He'll make sure he's the one who makes you happy, not your other little friend.

"I'll give it back to you doll, if you give me a kiss~"

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faithshouseofchaos · 2 months

Text

New addition — Ollie bearman x Oc!Ferrari team principal reader

Part of the Queen of hearts series

Tagged — @ashy-kit @astraeaworld @67-angelofthelordme-67 @a-casual-romantic @alwayzbeenale @amatswimming @bblouifford @badassturtle13 @bbtoni @barcelonaloverf1life @charlesf1leclerc @crashingwavesofeuphoria @clowngirlsstuff @eugene-emt-roe @embrosegraves @faithsotherhouseofchaos @f1ln4dr3cl16mv33 @formulas-bitch @hangmandruigandmav @hrts4scarr @hollie911 @ironcowboycopnickel @jeffs77 @kimiracing07 @lightdragonrayne @lollypop90907 @laura-naruto-fan1998 @moss-on-tmblr @omgsuperstarg @oconswrld @otako5811 @purplephantomwolf @toasttt11 @taylorswifts-cardigan @vellicora @venusisnothere @vivwritesfics

Ollie Bearman the newest addition to the Ferrari family. He was feeling for Carlos why Carlos was having surgery to have his appendix removed. So the 18 year old was nervous that anyone could see it.

“Ollie don’t worry you’ll do great” you said walking the kid to the garage.

“I'm just afraid to let the TIFOSI down,” Ollie said, looking at the ground.

“Hey kid don’t worry everyone will love you” you said

“Thank you Mrs.L/n” Ollie said

“Please Ollie call me Ruby” you said smiling.

“Ok Mrs.RUBY” Ollie said smiling.

“Ok, Let's go, we're almost there. You'll do great, trust me,” Ruby said, walking into the garage.

“I will Mrs.Ruby” Ollie said smiling. “I trust you.”

“Good. I know you'll make our fans proud.” Ruby said, giving the kid's shoulder a gentle squeeze.

“I’ll try my best,” ollie said smiling as Ruby opened up the garage doors.

“And that’s all we ask. Just give it your best effort, and let nature take its course.” Ruby said.

“Ok, I will!” Ollie said as they stood inside the garage, and he could see all the fans.

“Ready?” Ruby asked.

“Yeah, I think I'm ready. I'm nervous, but I'm ready.” Ollie said smiling.

“That's normal. Remember, no matter what happens, you'll always have the support of the team and the fans behind you.” Ruby said.

“I know Mrs.Ruby. I know.” Ollie said smiling and as he smiled he began to walk out the garage, waving to the fans.

Back inside the Garage, the mood was festive and everyone was cheering his name even though he finished 7th, as the team was proud of what he accomplished.

“Not bad for your first race,” Leclerc said smiling and giving Ollie a pat on the back.

Carlos walked over to Ollie and shook his hand while complimenting him.

“Good job, kid, that was awesome,” Sainz said.

“Thanks, guys, it was a little nerve-wracking, but I think I did okay,” Ollie said, smiling at them.

“You did more than okay,” Leclerc said, placing a hand on Ollie’s shoulder. “You did great, and I'm proud of you.”

“Thank you, Charles,” Ollie said, feeling a bit emotional over how everyone was supporting him.

“Oh my god Ollie that was amazing” you said.

“Thank you Ruby” Ollie said, smiling at her, his confidence now soaring.

“You should be proud of yourself, kid,” Sainz said, giving Ollie a pat on the shoulder. “You drove like a pro out there.”

“Thanks, Carlos. That means a lot coming from you,” Ollie said, smiling. “It was pretty nerve-racking, though.”

“Nerves are natural in your first race,” Carlos said, putting his hand on Ollie’s shoulder. “And you handled them really well.”

“Ollie did great out there today,” Toto said, smiling at you. “It was awesome seeing someone that young perform so well in their first ever race.”

“I know, right? And the fact that he was able to handle the nerves and deliver such an impressive performance is very promising for his future,” you said, smiling at Toto.

“Absolutely,” Toto said, nodding in agreement. “And the fact that he's young means that he has plenty of time to grow and develop into an even better driver.”

“Exactly,” you said, nodding in agreement. “Like you said, the fact that he was able to perform so well under pressure is a good indicator that he has the talent and the potential to be a star in the making.”

“And since he’s so young, he has so much room for improvement and growth. I’m excited to see how he progresses over time.”

“Me too,” you said, smiling. “I think he has a lot of potential and he could be a future world champion.”

“I would definitely not rule that option out,” Toto said, smiling. “He has all the right characteristics and qualities that a world champion needs. He’s determined, confident, and driven. And he also has the talent to back it up.”

#formula one x reader #f1 x reader #formula one imagine #f1 #formula one x you #f1 x y/n #formula one x y/n #formula one x oc #ollie bearman #ollie bearman x reader #ollie bearman x you #ollie bearman x y/n #ollie bearman x female reader #toto wolff x reader #toto wolff #toto wolff x you #toto wolff x y/n #toto wolff x oc

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la-petite-lapin · 5 months

Text

Double the Love | Part One

Double the Love masterlist

Simon "Ghost" Riley x Johnny "Soap" MacTavish x female civilian!OC Word Count: 1.2k Series warnings (may update between chapters): 18+, Minors DNI, angst, death, mentions of violence, injury description, eventual explicit sexual content, polyamory, M/M/F, FMC is bad at feelings

How it all started

I wake up to the first knock.

The apartment is warm, despite the fact that it's the second month into winter, and quiet. Peaceful, even. Winnie is probably already at work. The café doesn't need me for at least another hour.

I turn my head to look at the clock on the nightstand. 8 a.m. I can't think of a single reason why someone would be knocking here so early, so I roll over and try to go back to sleep, thinking that I might've just imagined it. Last night was a long one. I couldn't fall asleep, so I stayed awake watching endless reruns of Friends until - at 3 a.m. - I finally knocked out.

It's times like these, when the insomnia kicks in and I feel completely alone, when I can't wait for Alex to be home.

Alex, my heroic older brother. The SAS soldier always on some mission or other to save the world. He's on another top secret op at the moment, but last time we spoke he said that it looked like they'd be home at the end of the month. The new unit he's been assigned to have been keeping him occupied. He couldn't tell me much on the call, but it sounds like they've welcomed him into the fold with open arms, just like all the other units he's worked with in the past. That and he's still worried about me - something that he's been in a perpetual state of since the dawn of time.

Hopefully he'll be home soon though.

Just as my eyes start to close, there's another knock at the door. This one's more persistent.

Definitely not in my imagination.

I throw the covers to the side, adjusting the hem of the heavy knitted sweater I fell asleep in to make sure that it's people-appropriate, and stepping into my slippers as I make a beeline for the door. I drag my feet out of my bedroom and down the hallway towards the front door.

When I open it, my heart drops into the pit of my stomach.

There's a tall man with light brown hair and a beanie standing out in the hallway. His dark eyes are tired but kind, a thick scruffy beard covering his jawline as he stands there, hands behind his back, feet shoulder-width apart. He takes one look at my slight frame, half-hidden behind the door and closes his eyes, shaking his head with a quiet, "Bloody fucking hell."

I tilt my head to one side, confused. I'm just about to ask him if I know him when he says, "Are you Talia Keller? Alex's sister?"

Just like that, my heart starts thundering inside my ribcage. I reach out to put a hand on the doorframe, knowing that it's all I can do to stop my knees from buckling.

The stranger on my doorstep meets my eyes once again and I can see it.

"Please...no-"

He shakes his head, those kind eyes refusing to shy away from my tear-filled gaze. "It is with deep regret and my upmost sympathy that I am here to inform you of the death of your brother, Operations Officer Alex Keller. He died on active duty, contributing to a rescue mission that, because of his sacrifice, saved a lot of lives." I choke on a sob. "I am so very sorry for your loss."

My vision blurs and the sound that leaves my mouth is horrible. It's a sob, so loud and violent that I almost can't believe I made it. "No," I whimper.

"May I come inside?" the stranger asks, nodding past me at the empty apartment. His hands aren't behind his back now. They're in front of him, palms open like he's placating a wounded animal.

My own sobbing eclipses any other noise in the hallway as I take a few shaky steps back, giving him access to the doorway. He walks inside slowly, like he's giving me time to take the unspoken invitation back. I don't.

I wrap my arms around myself, trying to keep myself from falling apart. But my brother is dead. My sweet, perfect brother who I'll never see again.

"I- oh god, I'm going to be sick," I manage to choke out, stumbling back until I hit the side of my armchair.

The stranger swoops in then, gently easing me down onto the sofa. I shouldn't let him - shouldn't have let this man into my home. He could be anyone. But he spoke about Alex with the reverence of someone who knew him personally. He must of to be here now, telling me this awful, fucked up news.

I tip forward, my head finding my hands as I cradle myself, my whole body shaking with the effort of not crumbling to the ground.

Alex was all I had left. We were orphans: each other's only living relatives. Now I'm alone.

"Is there anyone I could call for you?" the man asks, his gravelly voice even softer than it was to begin with. I hate his sympathy with a passion, but I don't have the energy to call him on it. "You shouldn't be alone at a time like this. Alex told me that the two of you were very close."

The words bring a fresh wave of pain ripping straight through my heart.

His question reminds me of Winnie. She's already made enough sacrifices for me; I can't pull her away from her work. I don't know what to do. There's no one else I can call. It was Alex and Winnie. Winnie and Alex. No one else.

"Alex was... he was all I had." The words both sound and feel pathetic as they leave my mouth. I lift my head and see that he's watching me, dark eyes far from judgemental. "I can't- I don't know what..."

"Look," he says softly, one large paw of a hand coming to rest on my upper arm, his warmth radiating through the thick cable-knit. "Take a deep breath for me. He wouldn't want this for you."

We sit there for a while as I calm myself down, getting through the worst of hyperventilating. Slowly, the tears come to a weak ebb. A numbness fills me; a disbelief that he's truly gone.

"I know that this is probably the last thing on your mind right now, but we had him cremated. It was written in his file that that's what he wanted. We'll send the ashes and his dog tags to you as per his request." He shifts in the armchair. I can't help but notice just how haunted he looks as he meets my gaze. "My name is Captain Price, but you can call me John. I was your brother's unit commander. You might not want to talk to me right now - might blame me even - and I understand that, but I'll leave my personal phone number here with you. If you ever need anything, anything at all, please call me."

I nod softly, rubbing my knuckles along the undersides of my eyes. "Thank you, John."

He nods once then stands up, the muscles of his thighs straining against the sandy-khaki material of his cargos. Instead of heading straight for the door, he walks across to the desk, opening Winnie's smiley face notepad and writing a number down on the first blank page. His number.

I don't look up when he leaves. The door closes with a soft click and then - just like Alex - he's gone.

a/n: hey guys! hope y'all liked part one. don't worry - you'll meet the guys very soon... sorry if this part was a little bit boring, just want to set the scene before all the good stuff happens 🙃 - see ya soon, lapetitelapin

#cod #fanfic #ghoap x reader #ghost x reader x soap #simon “ghost” riley x reader #soap x reader #callofduty #cod fanfic #cod x reader #ghost x reader #romance #angst #poly #female reader #johnny mactavish x reader #johnny soap mactavish x reader #johnny x reader x simon #throuple #double the love

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jeankluv · 1 month

Text

Birdie | Satoru Gojo - Chapter 04

Words: 4,9k

Summary: You didn’t like him, at all. But due to your bad luck you would have to be forced to work with him and different circumstances end up leading you to the fact that perhaps the word dislike is not the one you use to describe him.

Warnings this chapter: mentions of wounds

ac: _3aem

Tags: modern au, college au, fem!reader, academic rivals, he fell first, fluff, old money Gojo Satoru, abusive parents, slight slow burn, Satoru is a softy, secondary couple (Geto Suguru x oc), a bit of angst, no use of y/n, eventual smut, Gojo plays basketball

Authors notes: I was going to post this one during the weekend but I felt like posting before. I want to thank everyone leaving lovely messages and likes on each of the chapters, this motivates me so much to keep writing this story. Thank you.

Materialist | previous chapter | next chapter

Links to the fic on: wattpad | ao3

You were sitting on the floor of your apartment as you put things into boxes and waited for Gojo to arrive. After meeting him in the cafeteria and having insisted on coming and that he would show you even if he had to help with all the moving, you haven't seen him again. He hadn't even shown up in class, which was extremely rare. If your memory didn't fail you, Gojo had never missed a class.

Kyoko had told you that Suguru had told her something about family matters, so you didn't give any more importance to the fact that he wasn't going to show up to class for sometime.

The address wasn't complicated enough to take so long, and on top of that he could have sent you a message or something, so you wouldn't have to wait an hour or so.

You only wished he was not going to leave you waiting for him all day. Or else…

The doorbell rang suddenly, making you jump on your seat. You got up and walked to open the door.

He was finally here.

"Finally you're here." You said opening the door. "I already thought this was a bad joke or…" Your face dropped. "Gojo! What happened?!"

His face was purple and he had some wounds with the scab already coming off. Your heart was beating a mile an hour. Had they attacked him coming here? A thief? No, the wounds didn't seem recent.

"Oh birdie you're worried about me?" A smirk formed on his face.

"Don't joke in a situation like that asshole!" You reprimanded him. "Of course I'm worried if someone appears all wounded in my front door."

Turning on your heel you headed to the sink, you knew the house had a first aid kit, maybe you could treat him with some of it.

"Birdie…” He muttered approaching you. "It's okay, they are old."

"You got into a fight?" You left the first aid kit back on it's place. "I never pictured you like those kind of boys."

"A bad boy?" A smirk appeared on his lips.

"No. An asswhole who would get on a fight and would end up all wounded.”

He looked at you and then smiled. "Should we start?" He turned around and walked around the tiny apartment.

"Yeah. I brought my notebook and everything the professor gave us." You said taking everything out of your bag. "This is not the best place to study… but since you insisted so much, we will have to deal with these boxes and everything around us."

"You used to live here?" He sat down on the bed. "It's…"

"Tiny? I know but it was the best I could get when I got here." You sat next to him.

He nodded and grabbed one of your notebooks from your hands. "Your parents don't live in…"

"I don't have parents." You cut him off. You didn't want to talk about the matter and hoped that Gojo would catch it with the cold tone you used.

Gojo cleared his throat and murmured a sorry, before turning to face you.

Placing the notebook between the two of you, he spoke. "So…" He looked at the notebook. "What's exactly what you don't understand?"

You thought for a moment. "I guess the problems." You pointed them out. "I understand most of the formulas but when it comes to start resolving the problem I find it confusing and ended up taking data that is not, or so I think." You mumbled the last part.

"It's true that the way professor Tanaka redacts her problems are a bit confusing, but once you realize how she redacts them you will see that they are always the same." He pointed out. "If you know the equations it shouldn't be difficult for you." He looked at you. "Let's start with this one, try to solve it and I will also do the same and see where you fail okay?" You shook your head and Gojo smiled, grabbing a pen from your desk and a piece of paper to start on with the problem.

Minutes started to pass and you were embarrassed, you didn't want to look at Gojo because you knew he finished the problem long ago but here you were looking at the result you obtained knowing that it was impossible to get to that conclusion.

You had been competing against Gojo these last few years to be the best academically and you had never managed to surpass him and now you were embarrassed because a stupid subject had stuck and you were unable to advance.

You dropped your head forward, it already hurt and it was only the first problem.

"Bridie…" You heard Gojo spoke. "You need help with the problem?"

You nodded without looking up and you could see how his hand took your notebook and turned it a little so he could see what you had done. He would probably think you were an idiot and laugh at you.

"Let's do it together, okay?" You nodded again.

What expression would he have at that moment? Was he holding back his laugh? You wanted to look up but you were too embarrassed.

"Let me sit next to you." You could feel how he moved and stood next to you. "This way we can both read the statement." You murmured okay and then he started to explain. "Well, what I usually do is point out the important aspects of the problem." He pointed to the information. "And then write them down on the sheet, so you have a global idea of everything."

He began to write everything down and write down the names of what each thing was. It was true that that way you could see everything more clearly.

"If in the problem can be done, I usually make a drawing."

"I used to do that in chemistry." You said.

"Yeah me too." He responded. "That way it was easier to know what quantities each mixture needed." You nodded. "Well, it's similar here, that way you get an idea of what you're looking for." He finished drawing and showed it to you. "Do you see it clearer that way?" He said, turning the page and showing it to you.

You definitely did and now things made sense, not like before. You nodded and Gojo handed you the paper so you could do the problem. You started doing it, now everything was easier.

"I will be back in a minute." He stood up and exited for a moment.

You saw him leave and you paid your attention back to the problem again, this time you would get it and if you used what Gojo had taught you again you could solve the rest of the problems without help.

You felt like a weight was lifted from your shoulders being able to master this. Passing all the subjects meant that you would continue to qualify for the scholarship so you could continue studying, but if you failed in any of them, the scholarship would disappear and your dream of continuing with your degree and graduating would also disappear.

You smiled when you checked the result, it was correct. You had done it. You looked at the door where Gojo had left and when you saw that he did not return, you got to work on the rest of the problems using the method that Gojo had taught you. Underline, write down, draw (if possible).

Underline, write down, draw (if possible).

You don't know how much time had passed when Gojo returned, but you had managed to solve 5 problems on your own.

"Birdie, I went and buy…"

"I solved them!" You showed him. "I did it!"

Gojo looked at you and then at the page. "You did it. Good job birdie." He smiled. "That's because I am an excellent teacher."

You laughed and rolled your eyes. "Actually it's because I'm an excellent student."

"Sure…" He looked around. "I think our lesson for today it's over."

"What? You almost did nothing."

"I helped you understand how to solve the problems!" He replied.

"And? What a shitty teacher you are." You crossed your arms and sat on the bed.

"You mad at me birdie?" He sat next to you. "Come on, I bought you snacks." He moved the bag in the air.

"Snacks?" You looked and tried to grab the bag.

"No, no, no." He shook his head with a playful smirk drawn on his face. "First you need to admit I'm an excellent teacher."

You huffed, brushing a strand of your hair out of front of you. "Okay, you're the best tutor I've ever had." Gojo smiled and handed you the bag.

"Hey, have you had any other private tutors?" He looked at you while you rummaged through the bag and grabbed one of the snacks.

"No." You smiled while eating a piece of the snack.

Gojo laughed. "So obviously I'm the best."

"Of course, there hasn't been any other." You shrugged.

"Now." He stood up from the bed. "How should I help you here?" He looked around.

"You are going to help me?" You looked at him swallowing the piece you just ate.

"Sure. And don't say there is no need."

"Hmm." You thought, he was taller and stronger than you. "Could you bring me down the things that are in the top of the closet? Most of them are winter clothes or old things, but I barely get there and they are quite heavy." Gojo looked where you were pointing and nodded. "Thank you."

"We can have another tutoring session through the week." Gojo said. "We have the same free hours, soâ€¦ if you want."

"Yeah, okay." You nodded. "I still have some doubts on another aspect of the subject, maybe you can help me."

"Of course I can, I'm the best."

"You're the best." You said at the same time, rolling your eyes. "Again thank you Gojo, for… helping me, I guess." The words had cost you, but they were finally out.

"Birdie." You looked up at him and he was shaking his head. "I should be the one thanking you."

You tilted your head to the side, what did that mean? "Why?"

"I guess for giving me a chance or something like that?" He left one of the bags he had taken on the floor. "I know you don't like me, I don't know why, really, but I'm glad they put us in that job together." He smiled at you. "It will be the last time you have to put up with me."

What did he mean with that last sentence? Gojo climbed back onto the chair and continued taking out the bags without saying a single word again. You also did your thing, keeping things in a box and leaving everything as if no one had ever lived in that apartment. But you couldn't get that phrase out of your head, next year you would share even more classes, in the end you were studying the same branch, why did he said that as if he wasn't going to come back?

You looked around at the boxes, not many, but full of what you had brought from your grandmother's house and what you had been buying and acquiring these last two years, nearly three years. It was at times like this where you missed having your grandmother with you or having been able to have your mother next to you and that she would have been there to see you grow.

You hoped that they were both looking down on you and feeling proud of what you were slowly achieving.

The ringing of a phone snapped you out of your momentary trance. You grabbed your phone to see that it wasn't yours, it was Gojo's, who was leaning face down on your old bed.

"Hmm, Gojo." You called him, he was still taking care of winter clothes you told him to. He looked at you and you pointed to his phone. "Someone is calling."

"Can you check who it is?" You nodded and grabbed it.

"It says… mother." You didn't know if it was your feeling or what, but you could swear that Gojo tensed up the moment you said the word mother.

"Hang up and put the phone on silent please." You nodded without asking questions, you didn't want to get involved in matters that weren't yours.

You felt a pinch in your heart as you thought about the tone Gojo had used. He didn't seem to get along with his mother, or maybe they were just angry about something. You've heard rumors about the Gojo clan, who hasn't? The entire university had heard them. Satoru Gojo was the only son and grandson, which made him the heir. An extremely rich heir.

The Gojo clan had dedicated more than three generations to their law firm and had gained incredible fame, positioning them in the upper class of Japan. From what you understood, Gojo's great-grandfather had been the one who started the business, in the 1930s he traveled with his wife to the United States where he started from scratch and managed to make his way and by the 1960s he was already a truly known man, and returned to Japan where he earned the respect of the upper classes. His son inherited the business after the death of him and later Gojo's father and now it would be Satoru Gojo's turn. But he had decided to take another alternative and ignore the wishes of his family.

When you had your first encounter with Satoru Gojo, the first day, when he dumped you and didn't even look at you, you thought he was a brat and later that day you learned who he was. The rich boy from the Gojo clan.

When you started classes you thought he was there for his parents' money, you never saw him doing anything and you knew from the voices in the hallways that he went from party to party every weekend. They said that he never slept with the same girl, he had seemed like a textbook fuckboy to you.

That is why you were distrustful and so extremely curt with him. You couldn't trust him, but the bastard made it really difficult. You had gotten to know him a little and something inside you had softened, even if you wanted to ignore it.

You shook your head. You could stop thinking about it. Once the work was finished everything would be over, yes that's. Everything would end, but why did that make you feel sad?

"In the clouds again, birdie?" Breath hit your ear causing you to stir.

"Fuck Gojo!" You turned to look at him covering your ear. You hadn't heard him come down from where he was.

He smiled showing his teeth. "I'm done. What do you want me to do now?" You looked around thinking. "I can help you with your underwear if you want." He smiled sideways. The colors of your face were probably at their peak. You wanted to kill him for teasing you like that.

"Gojo, you want to die?" He laughed.

"I was kidding birdie. But c'mon what can I do for you?" Fuck, there it was that look again and you heart beating loudly on your chest.

"Put the kitchen utensils in the boxes." You pointed your finger at the boxes on the dining room table.

*･゜ﾟ･*:.｡..｡.:*･''･*:.｡. .｡.:*･゜ﾟ･*

A couple of hours had passed since Gojo's arrival at your former apartment, the sun was now setting. The apartment appeared nearly untouched, as if no one had lived in before. You wiped your forehead with a tissue and glanced at Gojo, who was diligently packing items into boxes.

There had been little conversation between you two; in fact, Gojo had hardly uttered a word since you mentioned his mother's phone call. He hadn't even agreed to take a break, indicating his determination to assist you in getting everything sorted as quickly as possible.

Sitting on the bed, you idly swung your feet in the air, waiting for Gojo to finish packing the last of the items he held. If someone were to walk in at that moment, they might assume something entirely different. I mean, who would come to assist a mere "classmate" in cleaning up their old apartment? Hardly anyone, right? That's what made Gojo's actions so puzzling. Why did he choose to help? Did he have hidden motives, or was it simply an act of goodwill? You couldn't say for sure, and part of you hesitated to even ask and find out.

"All done." Gojo spoke putting both hands on his waist and showing his smile. He really had a perfect smile.

"Good." You stood up. "Thank you."

"You're welcome birdie." He said patting your head.

You moved his hand. "I'm not a dog for you to do that to me." You said upset.

"Alright."

He walked past you with a smile and grabbed his cell phone that was still on the bed. The smile disappeared when he looked at the screen. Had something happened? Gojo looked really distraught. You had to do something, right?

"Gojo are you…?" You started to talk.

"I need to make a call, I will be right back." And he existed the apartment leaving you alone.

You turned around on your own feet and sat back down on the bed. Was he alright? Should you ask him?

"What would Kyoko do in a situation like this?" You whispered to yourself.

Probably she would try to talk to him and comfort him. But for Kyoko was something natural for you, not at all, you didn't know how to handle feelings well, you weren't good with your own, not to mention the others. You grabbed your phone started playing with it, nervously trying to figure it what to do once Gojo was back.

You were so lost in your own thoughts that you didn't hear Gojo re-enter. You didn't notice his presence until you felt the mattress next to you sink, indicating that he had sat next to you. You had your back turned to him so you couldn't see his face. It was then when you felt his arm grab you from behind, making you shiver at that sensation. What the fuck was he doing?

"Gojo, what…?"

Gojo cut you off before finishing the question. "Just stay like this." He hid his face in the crook of your exposed neck. And he muttered against your skin. "Please…"

You remained silent, offering no protest or words. It was the first time you witnessed Gojo in such a vulnerable state. Resting your chin on your hand, you gazed at the white wall of your old room. The room echoed only with your faint breaths, mingled with the distant sounds of the bustling street.

Feeling moisture on your shoulder, you realized Gojo was crying as he held onto you. Uncertain of how to respond, you grappled with the dilemma â€" should you ask him, step away, or maintain a silent pretense? Opting for the cowardly choice, you remained silent, pretending it wasn't unfolding.

After a few minutes, Gojo released his grip, audibly sniffing. Without turning around, you rose from your position and headed to the kitchen. It was nearly 11 pm, and you needed to return to Kyoko's house. Fortunately, you managed to organize and clean everything, making it easier for you to retrieve your belongings later.

"I…" You swallowed. "I think it's time to go." You still didn't turn around, he probably didn't want you to see him in that state.

"Yeah…" He whispered and you heard him moving from his place.

Your heart was pounding in your chest. You were afraid that with the silence that was there, Gojo would hear it. You felt his presence behind you. Shit, you should have asked him how he was feeling? Something?

"Take your things, I will take you home." He said passing next to you and exiting the apartment.

Taking a deep breath, you pondered the recent emotional outburst. How should you respond to this unexpected side of Gojo? His tears left you perplexed, and the tired, sorrowful tone in his voice during the call lingered in your thoughts. It struck a chord, reminiscent of your own moments of vulnerability with your grandmother.

Despite your usual disdain for Gojo, you found a desire to comfort and uplift him. You wished for the return of the annoying yet smiling Gojo, even if most of the time, you wanted to strangle him.

Heading to the apartment's desk, you gathered bags containing items for Kyoko's house, leaving the rest for donation. Struggling with the weight, you loaded your backpack and carried multiple bags on each side. Now, burdened with a load twice as heavy, you realized you genuinely needed Gojo's help. Stumbling out of the apartment, you navigated the challenge of your hefty cargo.

"Sorry." You noticed how your left shoulder lightened. "I was so deep in thought that I didn't notice the bags you wanted to carry." Gojo had taken all the bags in your hands without any effort. It wasn't surprising, after all he was the star of the basketball team.

"It's okay…" You followed him. "I was handling it just right."

"It don't look like that." He smirked.

Oh he was back. And you were happy.

"For real." You replied.

"For someone that has a black belt in taekwondo, you are actually pretty weak birdie." Now he was mocking you.

"Did Kyoko tell you that?" He nodded. "Well let me tell you I have pretty strong legs."

"I would love to see that." He said with a smirk, leaving the bags in the car.

Your cheeks turned, you knew he was saying it with other intentions. "Gojo, don't you dare. Or I'm going to kick your ass for real." You slammed the backpack against his chest causing a whimper to leave his lips.

"Alright bridie, but be careful with me. I'm a delicate guy." He pouted.

Rolling your eyes, you settled into the passenger seat, and Gojo started the car. As you directed him to Kyoko's home, a comfortable silence enveloped the car, only disrupted by the radio's music. Despite the lack of conversation, it didn't feel awkward.

The recent emotional episode played on a loop in your mind. The urge to ask if he was okay lingered, but uncertainty held you back. Sneaking glances at him from the corner of your eyes, you couldn't deny his attractive profile. Everything about him seemed perfect, explaining why everyone seemed captivated by him.

"Eh…" You played with your fingertips. "Gojo." You heard him humming. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah!" It didn't sound genuine. "Don't worry."

You nodded, although you didn't trust his words. He wasn't telling you the truth but you didn't want to pressure him, so you let it be. You closed your eyes and you leaned back in the seat, leaving your mind blank and letting the dim street lights increase your sleep.

At some point you actually fell asleep because the next thing you remember is fingers leaving a strand behind your ear. You opened your eyes and rubbed them, it was already completely night outside.

"Was my car comfortable, bridie?" You nodded still sleepy. "So cute." You heard him softly laugh.

"Huh?" You snapped back and looked at him.

"Good morning or should I say good night?" He titled his head.

"I fell asleep?" He nodded. "Shit, sorry…"

"Don't worry, you looked cute with the drool falling." She teased you as she brought her hand up to touch your chin.

You hit his hand and turned your head to avoid his gaze, you felt like your cheeks were burning at that exact moment. "Gojo, you're an idiot."

He laughed and then cleared his throat. "Mhm… Next Friday we have…" He paused for a moment playing with his hands on the wheel. "We have a basketball game."

"Good luck." Although you knew they didn't need it after all Gojo was there and he was the star of the team, of course.

"I would like you to attend." That tone, was he nervous?

"Gojo, I have to work."

"Talk to Haibara I'm sure he won't mind. Or I will talk with him." You shook your head.

"No." You moved on your seat. "Gojo, tell me something." He hummed. "Why?"

"Why?"

"Yeah, why do you want me to go to the play?"

He fell silent, you could tell he was trying to find an answer. Was it that difficult to tell you why? "Just because?"

"Just because?" You repeated. "That's not an answer Gojo."

He sighed in defeat. "I would like you to be there." He looked at you. "So please come."

Now you were the one that stayed quiet. He wanted you there? Why? Was this a joke? So many questions were formulating in your head and you were feeling so weird about it.

"Birdie?" You came back when you heard his voice. "You ok…"

"I need to leave." Unbucking the seat belt and opening the door. "I'll see you tomorrow in class, right?" To which Gojo nodded. "Good! Then see you tomorrow and treat those wounds so they don't get worse." You got out of the car and turned one last time to say goodbye. "Good, see you! Bye!" And you can swear you ran grabbing all the things and trying not to fall in the front door.

You entered the house and dropped everything to the floor, making a big noise. You touched your forehead, did you have a fever again? No that was not it.

You heard your name and saw Kyoko's mom in front of you. "Honey, you are all red!" She approached you. "Are you sick again?" She said touching your face.

"It's okay, I just… everything was really heavy and I got tired." You looked at the bags.

"Did you bring everything on your own?" She said worried. "You should've called."

"No, no." You shook your head. "A friend helped me out."

"Oh okay honey." She smiled. "Kyoko still hasn't come back."

"Really?" You looked at her with surprise.

She left before you in the morning and was almost dinner. But that was a good thing, She must have been having a good time with Suguru.

"Do you know by any chance the guy she was meeting?"

"Yeah, he goes to the same college as us and it's our age." You smiled. "And don't worry, I think he is a really good guy."

"It's good to hear that. Let me help you with those bags." She took some of the bags and you did the same with the others.

As you unpacked your belongings, primarily clothes, you couldn't help but notice the stark contrast between your wardrobe and Kyoko's. While you leaned towards black attire, Kyoko embraced a more flirtatious style with bows and pastel colors. Despite these differences, your bond remained strong, understanding each other perfectly.

The sound of approaching footsteps and the creak of the door opening interrupted your thoughts, signaling someone's entrance into your room.

"Ah." Kyoko sighed. "I might be in love." She threw herself to your bed.

"Was it a good date?" You said, crossing your legs and looking at her.

"The best." She sighed again. "He was… ugh." She hid her face in your pillow. "He was so attentive, I had never had such a good date."

"Wow." You let out in surprise. "You are for real?" She nodded. "I'm so happy for you Kyoko. Suguru seems like a nice guy."

"Thank you." She smiled. "And how was yours?"

"My what?"

"Your date."

"I didn't have a date, Gojo came to help me study."

"Okay, so your study date." You held a pillow and threw it to her. "Sorry. But did you study?"

"Yeah… He actually helped me a lot." You sighed.

You wanted to tell Kyoko about what happened with Gojo but you felt it was too private to go around telling other people.

"What's up with that sighed?" Kyoko questioned you.

"Nothing, just thinking." You bit your lip, Kyoko probably knew you were hiding something from her. You needed to bring up another topic. "Gojo asked me to go to his match."

Kyoko let out a gasp and crawled over to you so she was facing you. "Next week?" You nodded. "Suguru asked me too!" She grabbed your hands. "We have to go."

"I have to work that day."

"Talk to your coworker…" She put her puppy eyes.

"Don't use those eyes on me." You looked the other way. "But I might talk with him."

"Yay!" Kyoko screamed. "It will be so fun."

Kyoko stayed in your bedroom for the next couple of hours, both of you stayed talking about different things. She also told you more details of her date and so on. It was almost 2 a.m. when you laid down on your bed. You were going to be tired in your classes, but spending time with your best friend as if you were 14 was worth it.

You spent the night reflecting on the unexpected events of Gojo's vulnerability, the request to attend his basketball game, and the strange connection that seemed to be developing. As you drifted into sleep, you wondered about the complexity of relationships and the uncertainties that lay ahead.

Author’s note: fourth chapter done. Ngl the scene of Satoru back hugging birdie was inspired by the scene of Maomao and Jinshi from The Apothecary diaries. Also birdie is starting to be softer when it comes to Satoru, our girl has trust issues

- if you wanna get tagged, comment -

Tag list: @lavender-hvze, @crybabytoru, @sanriosatoru, @norvacaine, @sadmonke, @faetoraa , @hexipessimistic , @gojoful

#gojo satoru fanfic #gojo satoru x oc #gojo satoru smut #gojo satoru fluff #satoru gojo x reader #gojo x reader #gojo satoru x reader #gojou satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo x you #satoru gojo x you #gojo saturo #satoru x you #satoru x reader #fanfic jjk #jjk x reader #satoru gojo fanfiction

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starcrossedxwriter · 7 months

Text

Wicked Fantasies Part 7 (MBJ x OC)

Warnings: harassment, public sex, the usual BDSM warnings apply heavilyyyy lol

A/N: Umm this is a fun one! Mostly fluff with a little drama lol We're getting into the holiday spirit with a couple time jumps so enjoyyy!

***

“I have a surprise for you,” Michael whispered, chuckling as Raven tucked herself deeper into the covers.

They had been out at a party until late and then Michael proceeded to have his way with her at his condo until the wee hours of the morning. Her body still ached from the suspension ropes he hung her from for over an hour. It was her first introduction into true restraints and bondage and she enjoyed it far more than she thought she would. And now, all she and her limbs wanted to do was burrow in her covers and sleep all day.

“Is the surprise a hot bath?” she called, her words still muffled by the heavy duvet cover.

“Nah.”

“Ok well then I hate surprises,” she mumbled, causing Michael to laugh.

“Come on, this is a fun one. I promise!”

She groaned and dramatically flopped the covers from over her face and pouted. “I was a really good girl last night and this is my reward? Being woken up at ungodly hours?”

Michael raised an eyebrow and glanced down at his Apple Watch. “It’s 10 am, baby.”

Her heart fluttered at the word baby, her eyes casting downward as she tried to limit the smile that wanted to bloom on her lips. She still was not used to it yet. To the world and everyone around them, nothing had changed. But for them, everything had changed. They were a real couple, bonafide and no longer faking or pretending. There was a new intimacy to it that she had not expected. And freedom. It was so clear to her now how much both of them had been holding back, how muted what they felt for each other truly was before. Because now, they could both experience the full breadth of their love for each other, could express it and receive it. And it made both of them wonder if they had ever experienced true romantic love before each other. Because this was everything and so much more.

Everything felt lighter and easier. And yet, Raven could not help but feel like there was a dark cloud looming over them, a deep-seeded fear that everything she felt would be taken away. Perhaps she was just worried that, even if they were telling the truth about their romance now, they had started off as a lie. It did not seem like the steadiest of foundations. However, she chose to brush those fears aside. They were just her doubts and insecurities talking. She had never felt for a man like she felt for Michael, never felt so loved by someone. It felt good and she realized she never knew true happiness until now. Sure, there had been times when she was happy. But pure uninhibited bliss? That was only a state Michael could bring out in her.

“So what’s this big surprise?” She asked as she stretched her body long in the bed before sliding out.

Her slippers shuffled against the floor as she made her way to his bathroom to get ready for the day.

“Wouldn’t be a big surprise if I told you now, would it?”

“I hate you,” she grumbled, though the smile on her face let him know that was a complete and utter lie.

“You weren’t sayin’ that last night… in fact, I distinctly remember making you scream the exact opposite,” he mused as his fingers played with the delicate thin strap of her night gown as he moved it to the side to press delicate kisses against her warm skin. “Over and over and over again. Maybe I need to give you a refresher.”

She smirked and decided to play the brat, excited for where the experience could take her. “Seems like the first lesson didn’t stick… not a very effective teacher it seems, Mr. Jordan.”

Michael chuckled. “You’re gon’ regret that shit. But lucky for you, we gotta get to the house soon so I ain’t got time to put you in your place. But tonight, that ass is mine.”

Raven clenched her thighs together and grinned. Of course, he was not too foolish to not realize that was the exact outcome she wanted.

The pair listened to music as they got dressed in comfortable clothes and drove over to Michael’s family’s house. Everyone was there, hot chocolate and breakfast waiting. The entire entry way was filled with bins and boxes of ornaments, decorations, and trees.

“What’s all this?”

Michael smiled. “Well ma don't let December 1 pass without ensuring the house is decorated so figured you could help us out this year. I remember you tellin’ me your grandma would let you decorate her tree and thought you might like it.”

Raven felt everything inside her melt and her eyes well up with tears. He seemed to remember literally everything she told him.

“Y-Yea I would like that,” she offered, her throat tight as she tried not to cry.

“Don’t cry, Rae,” he laughed, pulling her into a hug. “It was supposed to make you happy.”

“I am happy,” she whispered pitifully as her tears stained his sweater.

“My cute crybaby,” he kissed her on the top of her head. “Ok, no tears on decorating day or moms’ll never let you live it down. Come on.”

Raven laughed and wiped them away before following him into the kitchen. Everyone greeted her with hugs and smiles. All of them joked around and talked as they ate the delicious breakfast Michael’s mom prepared. Raven felt as if she had gained 10 pounds since spending more time at Michael’s house.

“Ok baby girl,” Michael gestured toward the many decorations in his foyer. “You get to be creative director. We got four trees.”

Raven’s eyes bugged out of her head. “Four trees??”

“One in here, one in the living room, one upstairs and then one in the basement.”

Raven let out a breathy chuckle as she took in his matter of fact tone, as if to say everyone had enough space for four trees.

She studied the available decorations before pulling all of them out and sectioning them off. And before she knew it, Christmas music blared on the speakers and the troops went to work, decorating all four trees. Michael and Raven were in charge of the second largest one in his family room, Raven needing a ladder to decorate the full thing.

The pair had a ball decorating, Michael thoroughly amused at Raven’s strong opinions on how to fluff out a fake tree. She had a professional eye for detail that he had not expected as she worked. But there was a playfulness to all of it, a joy that made him thankful he went this route instead of his usual. She sang loudly with the music playing, knowing every word to every song that came on. And her entire body practically bounced around as they finished their tree and she went to go help with the others.

By the time they finished dinner and stowed away all the extra decorations and cleaned up, they were exhausted. Everyone else had gone to bed, leaving Michael and Raven on his couch with cups of hot chocolate, spiked to Michael’s preference, and a movie playing in the background.

Raven could barely look at the movie though as her eyes kept traveling to the two trees that were within eyesight and all the random Christmas decorations they had spread across his house. She felt as if she had stepped into a winter wonderland.

“You did a great job as creative director,” he whispered as he watched her eyes study the tree Raven was in charge of. “Still mad at this surprise?”

It was beautiful, decorated in soft colors of white, rose, and gold with small white lights. It was not the pristine and perfectly symmetrical tree he usually had in his living room, towering and professionally decorated to the point that it could have been in a magazine. No, every aspect of the 11 ft tree was done painstakingly, in Michael’s opinion, by hand. But something about it was more beautiful than any other Christmas tree he had ever had as an adult. It was crafted with love and attention and care, it was homey and perfect.

She smiled. “No, you were right… It was a fun one. But I know you usually hire someone to do it.”

“Who told you that?”

“Your dad accidentally let it slip,” she chuckled. “It’s not as good as a real decorator could do. Not as… refined or perfect,” she scoffed, bowing her head, her own insecurities seeping in. That was her too… not refined enough or good enough to be on the arm of someone like him, to be in his life in this way. He could call her his girlfriend but her doubt about whether she deserved the designation still lingered like weeds.

His finger lifted her eyes back to his. “It’s perfect… exactly what the house needed but didn’t realize.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Don’t think we’re talkin’ about trees anymore.”

“Don’t think we ever were,” he winked at her.

Silence fell over them as they cuddled on the couch. Michael stared down at her, wondering if this was finally his chance. There was so much he still wanted to know about her, so much she revealed but still kept from him. He understood it but he wanted to consume every little thing there was to know about her, even the things that were hard to share. He wanted to help her carry her baggage or help her unpack it and set it down where she could.

And there was one thing, one story, that she kept from him as much as she could. The one major thing about her life he still did not have the answer to but desperately wanted it.

“You ever gon’ tell me?” He asked quietly as Raven shifted so she was leaning her back against his chest.

“Tell you what?” She threw him a confused glance. He knew everything worth knowing about her.

“Why you stopped writing? You said you’d tell me one day.”

Her face fell. She was not sure where she thought the conversation was going to go but it was not there. She supposed she was not going to be able to keep it a secret forever, particularly not when she revealed it to the whole dinner table at Thanksgiving by accident.

“Not that interesting of a story, I’m afraid.” She tried to downplay it as she shifted uncomfortably. And it wasn’t, half the women she knew had a story like hers, varying degrees of awfulness but the story was unfortunately common.

“Then tell me.” At her silence, he amended. “You don’t have to tell me anything, Rae. I just… want to know everything about you and if you’re up for sharing, I wanna hear it.”

She sat up and turned to face him, her nails tapping against the ceramic mug as she brought her legs beneath her.

“Just your typical ‘men ain’t shit’ story.” At his confused glance, she elaborated. “The first editor I had at my publisher was a woman and she was amazing. Worked with her on my first book and it was great. By the time it came out, we were starting to edit and refine the second and I had signed my contract for it. And… she had a baby and decided to be a stay at home mom. My new editor, this guy… he was good, great at his job. Nice enough to be unsuspecting and unassuming. But I could tell… well, I could tell he was attracted to me? Or liked me, you know? But I ignored it, figured as long as he didn’t try anything, it wouldn’t be a problem. One night, we were working late on his edits for the book and he… made a pass at me.”

Michael’s eyes immediately darkened as if he knew exactly where the story was headed. She could immediately feel a shift in his whole demeanor, his outrage wafted off of him. And something about it was incredibly sexy… that he was so angry for her.

She smiled. “Relax… you can put Killmonger back in his cage,” she teased with a soft smile. “He didn’t do that. I said no a-and he pushed, but I held firm. I’m not above using my body to get what I want… that much is obvious but I like for it to be my choice, not some asshole taking it away from me. Anyway, finally, he accepted that no meant no so we called it a night and I went home. All he had done was make me uncomfortable, he hadn’t hurt me or anything, so I figured he would just apologize and we’d both move on. A week later, my agent called and said that they weren’t gonna move forward with my book. I was no longer a fit for their publishing house.”

Michael could still hear the pain and frustration that had been caused in her voice, despite her best efforts to keep the tone light.

“The contract I signed after I submitted the draft gave them distribution rights for three years so I got a year and some change to go. I tried to think of new ideas, you know, write other stuff in the meantime but he blacklisted me from damn near every publishing house worth anything. So my agent dropped me. And then I was… just too tired to write anything after that. Like he had just taken all of life for it out of me?” She paused for a moment before continuing. “I was hoping to use the time to save up to eventually self publish the second one when I can but my family’s made that difficult,” she chuckled. “So yea… doing my 3 year bid and then I’ll be free. It won’t make me the same amount of money, but there’s freedom in self-publishing I guess. Being your own boss.”

“I’m sorry. No one deserves that.” He figured it was something along those lines but it did not make it any easier to hear.

She shrugged. “No, they don’t. But what can I say? I’m a magnet for shitty people.” Her tone attempted to lighten the mood but it fell flat. “Or… I dunno… too trusting of people who haven’t earned it,” she mused. “But if I wasn’t so trusting, I wouldn’t be here… with you. And I would’ve hated to miss out on this.”

“I’d like to believe God would’ve helped us find our way to each other without you having to go through trauma and concussions,” he pushed her hair behind her ear.

“Yea maybe. But without all that, I wouldn’t be the woman you love.”

“How do you do that?” Michael asked quietly.

“What?”

“Find the silver lining in everything? One bad breakup had me showin’ my entire ass for years and you… you’ve seen the worst people have to offer. How do you even trust people after all this?”

Raven smiled and shifted so she could straddle his hips and sit in his lap. “It’s not easy… and some days, it feels like it’s not worth it. But… you remember Monique, that dancer I told you about? Well, my first night at the club was a fuckin’ disaster. I was 18, hella green and hella naive. I made like nothing in tips cause I sucked.” Michael loved how she laughed with her whole body as she reminisced on her memories. “And this drunk asshole tried to follow me out to my car and tried to get me to go home with him. Monique rolled up like a knight in shining armor and punched him square in the face. She gave me half her tips for the night and the next day, offered to teach me some moves and some fighting moves in case that ever happened again. The point is… For every terrible person I’ve come across that wanted to do me harm, I’ve run into someone who reminded that there’s more good out there than I know… as fuckin’ cliche as that sounds. So I just hold onto that. Just don’t… don’t ever want to be jaded? Let someone have the power to steal the inherent qualities that make me… me? No one should have that much power, you know?”

“One of the many things I love about you,” he whispered, tugging on her arm so she was in his lap.

Hearing the word love on his lips made her heart flutter every single time. Deep down in her soul she felt it in every way.

She rested her hands on his chest. “One of the ways? I’m that amazing??” She joked, causing him to shake his head.

“Yea. You are that amazing. How about we take our drinks upstairs and I can tell you all the ways?” He leaned in and nipped at her earlobe with his teeth causing an ache between her legs to grow.

“I’d rather you show me.”

“That’s a given, baby.”

***

Michael spied behind a bookshelf as Raven interacted with the young students filling the plush seating of the library’s gathering space. His heart wanted to burst as she talked to the students. He knew she only fell into this job as a result of a shitty situation but she was making the best of it. And he could not help but think that perhaps this was truly her calling in addition to writing. The kids seemed to love her and she seemed to love them back, all of their faces in bright smiles.

And for the first time, he found himself wondering what she would be like as a mom. And what their kids would be like. Michael always wanted kids but he figured it would not be in the cards for him any time soon. However, Raven made him want to think about that, and want to think about a future. And now, he saw those additional grandkids his mom wanted so badly as clear as day.

He counted, the club had almost 50 kids in it. They all looked like they ranged in age from middle school aged to seniors in high school.

“I got something for y’all,” she reached behind her and pulled out a couple of boxes of neatly wrapped gift bags. “It isn’t much but… what’s our last book club meeting before the holidays without a gift??”

The kids cheered as they all leapt out of their seats. Even he was curious as to what the gift could be. She had not even mentioned it to him.

He could tell they were personalized in some way as she handed them out one by one, checking each gift tag to make sure each kid got the right gift. She instructed the kids to wait to rip into them. Though it was clear that was a chore for most of them. Once the last kid, who Michael recognized as Jamal who he had met once before, had his in hand, stuffing paper started to fly.

Each kid pulled out a glittering sliver book embosser, a different book, and a handwritten card from Raven.

“What is it?” One of the girls in the class asked as she pushed her wide framed glasses up higher on her nose.

“You know those stickers that go on Oprah’s book club books?” All the kids nodded. “It’s like that but with your names and a bit more fun. It’s like a stamp you can put in the first page of your books. Y’all are all starting your own library collections, should have something that makes them a bit more unique. And the books are ones I think each of you would like. And the card is just a note from me ahead of the new year.”

“It’s kinda old school but cool. Like something vintage,” another girl offered as she tested out the embosser.

“Yea it’s like a typewriter or some shit. That’s dope, that’s dope,” Jamal remarked as he tested his out on the book in front of him.

Michael had to stifle his own laughter so as not to give himself away as Raven facepalmed herself and laughed.

“Like a typewriter. Wow. How old do y’all think I am??”

“You really want us to answer that?”

She shook her head immediately. “You know what… Point taken. Well I hope y’all like them and they aren’t too too old-school,” she offered with a smile as the group started to mutter excitedly to themselves as they tested out their new gadgets on their books.

“It isn’t much but just wanted to do something small to say Merry Christmas.” She glanced at the clock. “Oh I didn’t even see the time. Aight, we gotta wrap up, I’m sure some of your parents’ve been waiting outside for a while.” At their groans, she merely shook her head. “We are well past our hour and y’all aren’t gonna get me in trouble with your parents.”

She ushered the younger kids and some siblings to the door, each of their parents greeting her and chatting for a few moments before they walked their kids out to their cards or toward the street.

At that point, only a small group of older kids remained. “Alright, you know the drill - text me when you get home and stay in your groups, please.”

“We ain’t babies.”

“Yea and we all live like 5 minutes from here,” the girl with glasses remarked.

“I know y’all are basically grown. But humor me please. If one of you got hurt or lost, it’d take literal years off my life. You’re really doing it for my sanity over anything else,” she reasoned.

Raven got along with the kids so well because she was an adult they could relate to and trust but even she had to put on the hat of responsible adult occasionally, much to their collective chagrin. And that meant ensuring every kid made it the few blocks, bus ride, or into the car to get home.

“Yes, Ms. T.” All of their disgruntled murmurs filled the library as they headed out the door in small groups depending on where they lived. Thankfully, they were all friends so she knew they’d look out for each other.

“You can come outta hiding now,” she called, seemingly to no one in particular.

“Busted?” Michael asked as he emerged from the shelves to stare at her, an amused expression painted on her face.

“Yep… caught a glimpse of you scurrying behind that bookshelf. Better be glad the kids didn’t see you. You’re more than one of their celebrity crushes. They would’ve been all over you for a picture or a story or a reel or whatever they do on social these days.”

Michael let out a barking laugh. “You sound like an old lady.”

“I am an old lady… proudly,” she laughed. “And they know it too.”

“Those were sweet gifts you got them.”

She smiled. “Thanks. Despite well… everything, Christmas is my favorite time of the year. Everyone’s so caught up in the spirit and giving. It wasn’t much but I hoped it would put a smile on one of two of their faces. Did you hear them call me old school?? Super offensive,” she chuckled.

“Hella offensive.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Language, Mr. Jordan,” she winked at him playfully.

“You gonna discipline me, Ms. Turner?” He asked, closing the space between them, his breath tickling the skin on her neck as he leaned in to whisper in her ear.

Raven felt her whole body flush with heat. Fuck. For some foolish reason, she had worried the spark between them would fade once they settled into the normalcy and mundaneness of a real relationship. However, it had been the exact opposite. Somehow, everything he did only heightened her emotions and desire for him. She thought it was overwhelming before? Well, now it was all consuming and blinding.

“Maybe you should take me home and find out?” She whispered.

“What if I want to find out here?”

“Then I’d have to remind you that this is a public library… with cameras everywhere.”

He glanced around. “Come on, I bet you know one spot that ain’t got cameras, baby girl. I vaguely remember you saying you wanted to live out some fantasies. You gonna tell me sex in public ain’t one of them?”

Her eyes darkened with lust. She knew he knew that he had her. It was most certainly one, one of the more sinful ones she would admit. But it lacked practicality.

“This isn’t just in public, babe. This is my job,” she reminded him, her resolve growing weaker with every word. And he knew it.

“That makes it even more fun. Come on, baby. You know you want me to fuck you senseless in one of these shelves, want me to make you beg to come right here.”

Fucking hate him, she thought to herself. Her panties were soaked.

She grabbed his hand and led him up the stairs to the second floor, to a small far corner that she knew had no cameras in the vicinity. It also was ominously dark as some of the overhead lights had gone out earlier that week. She knew the library was utterly deserted and there was absolutely no chance of them getting caught, but still it made her nervous. But she supposed that was the entire point.

“Can’t believe we’re doing this…” she mumbled, more to herself than Michael. Not that having sex at work or in public had not been on her list of things to one day do. She did not think it would be this particular job.

“Relax and enjoy it,” he whispered in her ear before he pushed her forward, forcing her upper body against the cold wooden table in the corner.

She hissed slightly as the cold material touched her bare arms. She could already tell what this was going to be: quick and dirty… and her favorite: rough. His touch always had a gentleness to it, which she appreciated. However, she loved it when he was rough, when he left a mark to remind her whose exactly she was.

“You gon’ be quiet for me?”

“Yes.”

She yelped as a hard smack fell across her ass as he pushed her skirt up to her waist.

“Yes what?”

“Yes sir.”

“Good girl. But if that was any indication, don’t think you’re gonna keep quiet so…”

Before Raven could even react, Michael ripped her panties clean from her body and stuffed them into her mouth as a makeshift gag. The quickness of it, the bite of the material against her skin, and the mere act of being forced to taste herself made her moan. But it worked, the sound was muffled.

“That’s much better. And don’t let them fall out or I’ll light that ass up, understand?”

She nodded fervently. Her body shuddered as he wiped a finger over her clit.

“So wet for me.” He sucked her juices off his finger and moaned lightly. “You taste so good, baby girl.”

She wanted to say thank you or beg but she couldn’t, not with her panties muffling her voice.

She let out a guttural moan as he filled her in one stroke, the angle of the low table allowing him to get deep. One hand pushed her back deeper into the table as she squirmed. His strokes were deep and guttural, each one ending with jolt to her g spot.

He was not making love to her, he was not gentle. This was pure fucking, fast and furious and uninhibited and she loved it. Everything in her wanted to scream but she could not. But her muffled low moans filled the small space as he settled into a rhythm.

“You gon’ cum on this dick, you disgusting slut??”

She could only force her head up enough to nod slightly before falling back against the table. She did not even feel the pain of her thighs banging into the table with every thrust because she was so focused on him. The power of his thighs slamming against hers, the pressure of one had at the base of her neck while the other bit into the meat of her hip.

Where they were became irrelevant, the nervousness she felt about that fell away as every sense in her body focused on him and only him and the pleasure he so graciously provided her.

Her eyes screwed shut as waves of pleasure hit her with the force of a train. Usually she had time to warm up and prepare herself but not today. Today, she was merely a vessel for him to get off and she loved every second of it.

“Fuck… that’s it baby. Cum on this dick.” Michael was in heaven as her pussy clenched around him. He usually could last far longer than this but his body seemed to understand the point of a quickie. And so it did not take long for him to feel himself reaching the peak.

He groaned and held onto her tightly as he filled her with his cum, part of him wanting to collapse next to her. He leaned over her for a few moments to catch his breath before staggering back from her as he pulled his briefs and pants back up and righted himself.

Raven propped herself up on her elbows after letting her panties fall from her mouth. She glanced back at him with an incredulous look on her face as if she was still shocked that they just did that. Which made them both burst out into laughter.

“Well that was… definitely one for the books,” she remarked as she sat up and turned around. She leaned against the table, her panties bunched up in her hand, she gestured toward them. “That was a nice addition, Mr. Jordan. Seems like you punished me more than I did you though.”

“Eh you can punish me later, how about that?” He kissed her on the forehead before fishing her panties out of her hand and pushing them into his pocket with a wink. “Think I’ll keep those for the rest of the night. You can’t put ‘em back on.”

“Whose there??” An older man’s voice rang out causing both of them to scurry to fully right their clothing.

Raven cleared her throat as Michael helped her adjust her top and she emerged from the bookshelves.

“I-It’s just me, Mr. Robinson!”

She waved at the elderly black man who was clearly maintenance staff.

“Ms. Turner! Figured it was you. Whatchu doin’ here so late? Book club ended a while ago?”

Raven smiled and nodded. She grabbed Michael and pulled him out of the shelves. “My boyfriend came to pick me up and got distracted giving him a tour. This is Michael,” she gestured at the star, the older man’s eyes growing big. “This is Mr. Robinson.”

“How you doin’ man? I’m a big fan!” He offered, shaking Michael’s hand. “Cynthia called earlier and said some lights up here were out so I just came to fix ‘em before tomorrow.”

“Thank you, we really appreciate that. Well, it’s all yours. We were just looking at books and joking around, we’ll get out of your way.” She jerked her head toward the door, gesturing for Michael to follow her. However, when she reached the steps, she turned back. “Oh and Mr. Robinson?”

The man seemed to have a knowing look on his face. “Didn’t see anyone here when I came through, you were just finishin’ up as I was comin’ in.” He winked at her before waving them on their way.

They made quick work of grabbing Raven’s bag and materials before scurrying out the door, the pair both busting out into laughter as they climbed into Michael’s SUV.

“That was a close one,” she remarked. “Ok that was fun but definitely no more job sex.”

“Don’t pretend like you didn’t enjoy it,” he teased.

She gently shoved him back into his seat as she chuckled. “Shut upppppp. Whew I’m exhausted, can’t wait to knock out.”

Michael patted his thigh, Raven laying down across the seat so she could sleep. It was a bit of a trek to his house from her neighborhood so Raven closed her eyes and enjoyed the soft music that played as Allen drove them home.

“Do you miss it?”

“Hm?” Raven asked, needing further clarification of what he was asking.

“Do you miss writing? Or does this… the kids fill that void?”

Raven thought about it for a moment, realizing she had never really let herself think too much about it or miss it that much. “Umm… yea, I try not to… try not to think about it. But I miss it a lot. It was my dream and I love these kids… don’t get me wrong. They are amazing and I have so much fun with them. But it doesn’t fill the void? Just makes the void a bit more bearable.”

His hand ran through her blow out for a few moments before nodding and allowing silence to fall over them. Soon her gentle snores filled the car as Michael thought long and hard about what she said. He reached into his pocket, careful not to jolt the sleeping woman beneath him and opened his text thread with Alex.

Michael: hey, need two favors

Alex: Don’t you always?

Michael: ha ha. Need you to find me a contact at Hatchett & Perkins Publishing house? Like in legal or licensing or somethin

Alex: Let me guess… this favor is not so you can write a memoir?

Michael: of course not.

Alex: Give me till tomorrow and I’ll send you a name & email. Favor #2?

Michael: You got any friends that rep authors?

Alex: Yep.

Michael: Find me one that reps fantasy. Preferably black women if you know them

Alex: Done.

Michael let his phone fall onto his other thigh before he leaned back and smiled to himself. He was about to give her the Christmas of a lifetime.

***

Christmas Day

Raven stretched lazily, the smell of cinnamon rolls wafting up to Michael’s bedroom through the cracked bedroom door. She lazily rolled over, surprised to find his spot empty. She groped in the bed for her phone, squinting to read the time. 8 am.

Too early, she huffed as she threw the covers back over her head. They had been up past midnight partaking in the Jordans’ Christmas Eve traditions. They drank, watched a Christmas movie - this year was Michael’s turn to choose and he chose Jim Carey’s the Grinch much to Raven’s excitement - and opened one present each.

There was a mountain of them under the tree. She had spent days helping Michael wrap them all. He had intended to have them sent out to be professionally wrapped but Raven put a stop to that nearly immediately. Similar to tree decorating, she thought there was something impersonal about having a professional do it. So she spent an entire Saturday wrapping all of his presents for his family, he hid hers from her much to her chagrin, and she had a ball doing it. His dining table looked like a disaster when she was done but each one looked perfect, his girl using different color wrapping paper for each member of the family.

Raven had truly improved the whole Christmas holiday for the entire household, reminding him that just because money could buy some conveniences did not mean it should. He also just loved her childlike excitement and joy around the season that seemed endless. She was constantly humming a Christmas song under her breath, her singing voice was not half bad though she did not agree.

She never much cared for Christmas herself. She loved the spirit and energy it brought for others but there was nothing special about it for her. No traditions or joyous memories to hold on to. But Michael went out of his way to help her create some with his family and she loved him dearly for it.

She had dozed off again when a familiar voice woke her up.

“Come on sleepyhead. It’s present time,” she heard a singsongy voice call out that made her groan. “Five seconds or I’ll tackle you.”

“You wouldn’t dare!” She called out, her voice muffled under the thick comforter.

“Five.”

“Four.”

“Three…”

“Two…”

Raven let out a shriek as she felt Michael’s heavy body land on her. His fingers attempted to tickle her sides, forcing laughter and her face to emerge from the covers.

“Fine, fine. I yield! I yield! I yield!” She cried out.

At her words, he gripped her hips and flipped them over so she was straddling his waist. He grabbed a Santa hat he discarded on the bed and plopped into her head. “Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas,” she leaned down and kissed him on the lips.

“Get dressed, we’re opening presents at 9.”

She nodded. “Alrighty. I’ll just start breakfast while y’all do that.”

“You’re opening presents too.”

“You gave me mine last night?” And it was gorgeous, a set of diamond earrings that she was honestly afraid to ever wear.

“You thought I only got you one present??”

She laughed, not understanding. “Well, I only got you one present!”

“That’s fine. Hell, you could just put a bow on yourself and I would be happy. I got everything I could ever need or want. But you have presents under the tree from everyone and everyone has a present from you and us. Get dressed.”

At her shocked expression, Michael figured that she was not used to getting many, if any gifts. However, he decided to keep the mood light and playful.

“You surprised? You been naughty this year or somethin’? Expectin’ a lump of coal?”

She offered him a sly grin. “Oh I’ve been real naughty. But somethin’ tells me that being naughty got me more presents from Santa than being nice would’ve.”

“You damn right, girl.”

She let out a cackle and rolled her eyes before sliding out of bed to get dressed. Before she knew it, the entire family was surrounded by an explosion of wrapping paper and stacks of gifts.

Raven loved all of her gifts from Michael’s family. They gave her a lot of books and gadgets for writers and readers but she loved all of them. She imagined that was all they really knew about her but she appreciated that they put effort and thought into it.

“Ok, baby girl. Last one from me,” Michael handed her a box with a neat bow around it. The rest of the family had dispersed to get dressed for the day and for brunch, leaving the couple in the living room surrounded by everyone’s presents.

“Baby…” she let out a playful whine. Most of her gifts had come for Michael and while they were all sweet and thoughtful, she knew they had cost him an arm and a leg. Another first edition book, a gorgeous Chloe tote bag for her to take to work, and more jewelry than she knew what to do with. It made her gift feel measly in comparison but she had done her best. “You already got me so much. Don’t need anything else.”

He shook his head. “Well, this is the gift that matters.”

She paused. “Well I have yours upstairs… I just wanted to give it to you when we were alone. Wanna go up there and exchange?”

He nodded, both of them heading up to his room with bright grins on their faces. She sat her gift down on the bed while she went into her stuff and pulled out a small book.

She held it close to her chest, taking a deep breath. “It’s not much… I d-didn’t know what to get a man who has well… everything a person could want. But I thought, well, maybe you’d like this. O-or at least you’d give me an A for effort,” she chuckled. “But if you hate it, I totally understand. You don’t gotta pretend if you don’t like it.”

Michael raised an eyebrow and laughed, closing the space between them. “Why don’t you let me see it before you decide that I don’t like it? Whatever it is, I’m sure I’ll love it.”

She nodded and held out the small book to him. It looked like a professionally printed book, with a beautiful but simple black and gold cover.

The title read: The Fall by Raven Turner

Michael opened the first page, which read:

It’s not much but you were the first person in a long time to make me want to pick up my figurative pen again. And this was the result: a story dedicated to every moment of the greatest fall of my life. I love you.

Raven

“You wrote me a book?” He asked quietly as he examined it in his hands.

She nodded. “Y-You like it?”

He rushed forward and pulled her into his arms, kissing her deeply. “I more than like it. This is the best gift anyone’s ever gotten me!”

He peppered her face with kisses that made her giggle. “You sure? My other option was like a watch or something…”

He laughed. “Total waste of money. This is more valuable to me than 100 Rolexes. Thank you. I’ll read it tonight.”

Nothing would have taken the smile off her face.

“Now it’s your turn,” he urged as he sat his gift on his bedside table.

Raven sat on his bed as she gently ripped the bow off and opened the box to find an envelope inside. It was odd, Raven could not possibly understand what the gift could be.

She ripped open the envelope to reveal a plane ticket and hotel reservation to a resort in Thailand.

“Y-You’re serious?? Thailand??”

“Wanted to ring in our first New Years together somewhere special.”

“Babe… this is…”

“Exactly what you deserve. I have a feeling next year is gonna be your best year yet and I think we should usher it in with some style.” He had more than just a feeling, as long as his real surprise was wrapped up by their trip, it would surely be her best year yet.

She laughed, wiping her tears away. “This is most certainly style. Thank you. I love it.”

“I’m glad you do cause we leave tomorrow night.”

Her mouth dropped open. “W-what?? Babe I gotta get my hair done… a wax, my nails! These aren’t vacation nails…” she glanced down at her beautiful but very Christmas themed nail set.

“You think I’d book you a trip to Thailand and not take care of everything?” His face scrunched up in a faux annoyance that made her chuckle. “You’re in for a day of pampering tomorrow while Jason picks out pieces and has his team pack for you. I plan on having you naked for most of the next two weeks so you ain’t gonna need much clothes.”

“And work?”

“You’d be surprised what a handsome face and nice smile will get you,” he remarked with a shrug.

She stood and wrapped her arms around him, kissing him. “What did I do to deserve you?”

“You’re you. That’s all it takes.”

She smiled and kissed him again. She glanced at the bed, lust curling in her belly.

“How long before your family comes looking for us?”

She shrieked and laughed as he gently pushed her down on his bed.

“Long enough for me to make you cum at least twice.”

***

Raven was thankful their bungalow at this resort was fairly distant from the others as Michael seemed committed to making her scream over and over and over again for the last five days. She had seen very little of the resort aside from when they emerged for dinner. They had a private pool and private access to the beach.

Michael had not been lying when he said he planned to have her naked for most of the trip. All she could do was laugh when she realized the only panties packed for her had been part of very sexy and elaborate lingerie sets that would not count as clothes for anyone with eyes. When she was not in a bathing suit or an outfit for dinner, she was in lingerie that did not stay on her body for long.

Michael quite literally ravished her from sun up to sun down on every surface in their suite, in and by the pool, underneath the waterfall shower in their giant bathroom, and in the sand on their private beach. Though, neither of them did that one again due to the uncontrollable and annoying nature of sand.

But every moment of it was pure bliss. She loved how he switched, often at a moment’s notice, from treating her like a grand prize he won to a convenient hole for him to fuck. It was not uncommon for him, while they were mid conversation about something utterly random by the pool or over lunch, to bend her over the nearest surface and fuck her senseless simply because he felt like it. Their games did not diminish but seemed to amplify the more their relationship blossomed.

Today, their game was orgasm denial. It was New Year’s Eve and Michael practically ignored her most of the day. After several days of being woken up with his head between her legs bringing her to orgasm, she was almost saddened to be woken up with a mere call for breakfast.

The only time he touched her was during breakfast, as he - without a single word - slid his favorite vibrating toy into her pussy. She expected him to turn it on and bring her to orgasm right there, but he did no such thing. Instead, he told her of the tour of the nearby islands they were going to go on after breakfast.

From that moment forward, all of his touches were chaste at best and decidedly frustrating to his girlfriend, much to his satisfaction. He could feel her eyes boring into the side of his face as if willing him to turn on the remote in his pocket as their tour guide jetted them around on a boat ride along the gorgeous blue water.

It was difficult to ignore her for him too but he loved how eager she was, how the more he pretended he had not put the vibrator in her, the more aware she was of its presence. He watched her intently, how she tried to pay attention to the tour guide as she droned on and on about history, how her body squirmed in her seat with every platonic touch he offered, how her shoulders fell in disappointment every time those platonic touches did not turn into more.

The boat ride was three hours of pure torture and he knew if he touched her, she would be dripping wet underneath her very revealing bathing suit and cover up.

As they returned to their resort and stood up to get off the boat, Michael turned the vibrator on its full setting, Raven letting out a groan and her knees buckling beneath her.

She almost fell completely to the floor of the boat but Michael skillfully caught her and feigned concern for her.

“You ok, baby?” He glanced back at the tour guide before discreetly cutting the vibrator off. “Think the heat just got to her. Let me get you inside, love.”

Raven was so consumed with the short-lived but amazing pleasure that all she could do was nod. She wanted to curse at him, scream at him.

He held onto her tightly, keeping her flush to his side, as if he was helping a sick person until they made it back to their secluded bungalow. And by that time, Raven was fuming.

“What the fuck, Bakari! In front of that lady as I was getting off the boat?? After you ignored me all morning??” She was not actually angry at him, she was just so fucking horny that she was angry.

Michael grabbed her by the arm and put his hand around the base of her neck as he held her in a rough grip that made her thighs clench together.

“If you want to cum at all again before 2023, I’d shut the fuck up. Understand?” he warned, his voice so strong and dominant that her mouth immediately shut.

Fuck. Admittedly, 2023 was only 12 more hours away, at least in Thailand. But she did not think she could wait 12 more hours. She was most certainly not God’s strongest soldier.

“Y-Yes sir.”

He grabbed her hand and led her outside to their private pool. “Sit,” he gestured toward one lounge chair that faced the pool.

She sat down immediately, surprised when he disappeared back into their room, returning with several ropes.

Fuck, she thought to herself again. Whatever he was about to do, she knew it would be extremely fun for him and a sort of delicious torturous fun for her.

“Lay back.”

She laid down against the warm fabric of the chair. He adjusted it so she was leaning back. He grabbed both of her hands and raised them above her head, tying them to the top of the lounge chair. Instinctively, she tried to move them but his knots were tight.

Then she watched as he did the same with each ankle, tying them to either side of the lounge chair so her legs were spread open.

And then much to her surprise, he shed his clothes and slid in the pool. Her eyes filled with pure lust as she took in the droplets of water cascading down his perfect chiseled chest. She’d never get used to him.

“Seems like you keep forgettin’ whose runnin’ this shit. So maybe this’ll teach you.”

She did not fully understand what he meant until she felt the vibrator turn on, this time at its lowest setting. Her hips rolled as much as she could with her body restrained. She bit her lip to stop the moans from escaping, part of her not wanting to give him the satisfaction as she knew he was going to drag this out as long as possible.

“You can try to keep quiet if you want to, baby. Honestly that’ll just make the show more entertaining for me.”

And a show it was. Raven could only imagine how she looked to him as he leaned against the opposite edge of the pool and controlled her pleasure from afar. He talked, telling her about his upcoming projects for 2023, how he was so excited for his directorial debut of Creed 3. At first, with the toy on its lowest setting, she found it easier to ignore and engage in a conversation with him.

However, as he steadily increased the intensity, her questions and responses were more broken by moans and groans that she could not hide.

“How many books are in that series of yours?”

“Supposed to b- SHIT!” She cried out as he increased it to the highest setting. “Fuckkkkk,” she moaned as her hips started humping the air to increase the pleasure as she came close to her first orgasm of the day. However, as soon as she got to the edge, he cut it off, robbing her of it.

“Michael!” She called out in frustration.

“10.”

“10 what??”

“Spankings. 5 for not answering my question and 5 for not addressing me properly.”

She desperately wanted to roll her eyes. This nigga.

“Three… the series is three books.”

“Good girl.”

The cycle and their conversation continued. Michael asked her more random questions about writing and her writing process and expected full answers as he brought her to the edge of an orgasm but took them away five more times. He gave her ample time to calm down in between each one but each time made the climb more intense and made the lack of an orgasm more painful.

And all the while, he sat unmoving like a statue across from her, watching as she moaned, begged, pleaded, and writhed around against her restraints.

“You wanna cum, don’t you, baby?” He asked, moving for the first time to wade over to her.

She was in tears as she nodded. “P-Please, d-daddy. I n-need to cum. I c-can’t take… much more. Please.”

He lifted himself out of the water, Raven’s eyes studying how his biceps flexed at the swift motion.

He grabbed her chin to force her to look at him. “You’ll take as much as I tell you. Besides, do you deserve pleasure before you’ve been punished?”

She groaned. She hated him so much but she loved him so much that she would indeed take as much as he told her to.

“N-no, no I don’t.”

“That’s right. Only good girls get to orgasm. Are you gonna take your punishment like a good girl?”

She nodded desperately. “Y-yes, I promise.”

With that, he untied her and helped her up. He made her crawl behind him to their bedroom. He helped her onto the bed.

“You know what to do.”

Indeed, she did. Raven quickly discarded her bathing suit and climbed onto the bed and assumed his favorite position for both pleasure and punishment. Her face pressed against their comforter as she placed the deepest arch she could in her back.

“Good girl, you want my hand or the belt?”

That was an easy choice in her mind but she appreciated him letting her choose. “Your hand, please,” she asked innocently.

She knew it was both of their preference. Something about feeling the extent of his strength with every lash, seeing the red marks on her ass in the shape of his palm, made every punishment well worth it. She also knew Michael preferred it too.

“Count ‘em out or I start over.”

She groaned. This was the hardest part, focusing on each one enough to remember the number.

She shrieked as he hit her the first time. She was not gonna be able to sit comfortably for the rest of their vacation.

“One.”

By the time she hit 15, she was in tears but she would have begged him not to stop.

“Ten more, baby. And you’re doing so good…” he grabbed the remote he had discarded next to them and turn it on to its highest setting. “You can cum whenever you want.”

Raven felt like her whole body was in flames as he rained down the last ten blows while the vibrator did the work of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost against her g-spot. She tried to grab a pillow to bury her face in as her screams reached a fever pitch that she imagined could be heard across their resort but Michael grabbed a fist of her braids and forced her head up.

“Nah I wanna hear you.”

She could not even register the last two spankings as she blissfully felt every part of her body, down to the cellular level, become overwhelmed with mind-numbing, life altering pleasure. Her entire body collapsed forward onto the bed, her legs unable to hold her lower body up.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she mumbled as she felt the vibrator turn off and started to come down.

Michael smiled as he took in her form, he had utterly depleted her as she laid there, her entire body covered in a thin layer of sweat.

He climbed onto the bed and pulled her into his arms, rubbing her back soothingly as she laid there, her brain not fully functioning or cognizant of his presence.

Raven used the little bit of energy she had to settle into his arms, burying her head into his neck. She appreciated his commitment to aftercare, particularly when their sessions were super intense. Oftentimes, they were just so intense, they rubbed Raven raw emotionally and left her feeling vulnerable. And when they were merely fake dating, she had to often ignore those needs because she was afraid to ask him for more. He always checked in and ran her a bath or gave her a massage, often brought her food to ensure she was ok before he went to his guest room to sleep.

But now, she could snuggle up against him and feel close to him, feel his love and receive his praise while she recovered. And she had not realized just how much she was missing.

“You ok?” He asked. “That was intense.”

“I’m excellent. And still horny but I don’t think my legs work to move,” she moaned.

“Well, rest. I’ll wake up when it’s time to get ready for dinner.”

He watched her for a while before he set an alarm and dozed off himself.

***

“Figured we could go watch the fireworks on the beach. They told me the good ones start around 11:30… so in a bit.”

Raven smiled as she continued eating. They had slept most of the day away after their session and she was starving. Michael had a private dinner scheduled for them in their suite, which she appreciated. She still got dolled up in a flowery two piece crop top and skirt but it was nice to have dinner in their own space.

“So my mom asks this every New Years Eve… what do you want out of 2023?”

Raven’s fork paused in mid air as she thought on the question. What did she want out of the new year? She had no idea.

“Umm… whew, I dunno. I’ve just been counting down the last couple years truth be told. Kinda felt lost and all over the place without my career? Didn’t really think I had much to look forward to? But…”

“But…”

“But now I feel like I don’t want everything to just pass me by? Like even if I’m not free to do what I love just yet, I wanna feel… happy? I wanna feel good and enjoy life.” She shrugged. “It’s kinda stupid.”

He held his hand out for her to take it and squeezed, his thumb rubbing her hand. “That’s far from stupid. I have a surprise for you.”

He took a deep breath and reached under the table to grab a box.

She smiled and shook her head. “This trip wasn’t a surprise enough??”

“Nah. And this is really just a late Christmas gift. Legal shit delayed it a couple days… but it seems fitting. Here’s to a 2023 of happiness and freedom.”

He held the box out to her, it exactly resembled the one he had given her with their surprise trip to Thailand inside only this one had a large stack of paperwork in it.

“What’s this??” She pulled the heavy stack, her eyes growing wide as she thumbed through them, skimming them quickly. “I-Is this what I think it is?”

“If you think it’s the rights to your book, which are now yours to do with whatever you want, then yes. If you were thinkin’ it was somethin’ else…”

Her mouth dropped open. Her breath came out more as a strangled sob than anything else as she continued reading.

“This is…” she laughed nervously. “This is a joke right? Y-you didn’t… I know this had to have cost like… someone’s yearly salary money.” She stood and shook her head. “Y-You have to let me pay you back for that. It’ll take me like a fuckin’ decade,” she admitted. “But you can’t…”

Michael gestured for him to come to her. He kept her flush to his lap as her entire body trembled from the pure shock. He had expected this reaction and was prepared. But he had not done what he did and paid what he did lightly. It was worth every single frustrating conversation and dollar spent.

“Yes I can… and I did. Getting rid of the last piece of dead weight you were dragging around was worth every dime. You deserve to tell your stories and they took that from you. So I took it back and am giving it to you. One signature,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pen and held it to her. “And they are all yours.”

A tear fell on the papers before Raven tossed them down to the ground and threw herself into Michael’s arms as she sobbed into his neck. He wrapped his arms around her tightly as he held her.

“I love you… so much.” She whispered through her sobs. “T-this is the greatest thing anyone’s ever done for m-me.”

His palm wiped away the tears streaming down her face as he kissed her.

“It’s nothing.”

She shook her head. “No, it’s literally everything… I don’t deserve you,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“Yea you do. And all the other good things in this world. I’ll spend every day making sure you know it.”

They finished their dessert with Raven still on his lap, the young woman too shocked to really speak or offer much to the conversation. She could not believe it, could not believe him. She knew it would still be a long road to self-publish and figure all of that out but now? Now she had options, she could figure it out without waiting for the timer to hit zero.

And he had done that for her.

“Come on, fireworks are about to start.”

Raven nodded and smiled. “Give me 5 minutes? Gonna put these somewhere safe,” she grabbed the scattered papers off the floor. “And fix my makeup. Can’t have you kissing me at midnight with eyeliner running down my face. That’d be a tragic start to the year.”

“I’ll be by the pool. Don’t take too long.”

He watched her walk away and smiled before walking outside to the balcony. The fireworks were already in full swing and he could hear music and laughter from the main beach of the resort.

It was the perfect end to a perfect night. Well, almost. A buzzing in his pocket redirected his attention. Tasha’s name scrolled across his phone.

“This girl,” he mumbled. He knew her well enough to know if he did not answer she would simply call back.

Michael glanced over his shoulder and sighed as he swiped across his phone.

“Hey,” he offered coldly. The truth was he had forgotten everything about Tasha, had not thought about her once since her name graced his screen on Raven’s birthday.

He did not hate her or offer her ill will, he just had no interest in seeing or speaking to her again.

“Hey baby. Happy New Year.”

“Happy New Year.” Michael’s tone was short and clipped, praying he could get her off the phone before Raven came back from the bathroom to find him.

“Wanted to see if the New Year was gonna bring my favorite customer back to me?”

“Look Tash…”

“It’s been a few months, Mike. You promised.”

Michael rolled his eyes. He had let her get far too comfortable, so comfortable that she thought he’d always be there. Which seemed like a base level foolish assumption given her line of work. But either way, he had moved on. Raven was his present and his future. He had no interest in anyone else. But this was the weight he was dragging around behind him, he quickly realized. And every day that he did not tell Tasha that truth and let her believe there was something there for them, was a disservice to her, Raven, and himself.

“I know what I said but shit changed. I love her, Tash.”

A wave of anger hit him as he heard the woman scoff, which was filled with disbelief.

“Her?? You love her??”

“Yes, her. I love her and even though it started off as somethin’ not real, it’s real to us both now and she’s everything I want.” He sighed. “Look, you are a great girl, I enjoyed our time together but I can’t see you anymore. Ever.”

“You serious right now??” He could feel her rage through the phone but that did not deter him. Raven was everything for him and nothing Tasha could say would change that.

“Dead serious. I know this ain’t what you wanted to hear but it’s over between us. I’m sorry.”

She was seething. “Fuck you, Michael! You can’t just drop me outta fuckin’ no where! What am I supposed to fuckin’ do??”

He bowed his head. Her reaction was not out of the realm of possibility, he just had not considered it at all, had not considered that he would have to “break up” with her officially. But he did not regret nor was he phased by her anger. That part of his life - whoring and using any and every woman who would let him - was over and in the past.

“Find another client to replace me. I can’t be the first client to move on.”

There was a long pause. “Nah you ain’t the first. But you’re the first to fall in love with a fuckin’ hooker and try to pass it off as a real relationship. Imagine the money TMZ would give me for that story.”

Michael’s mouth dropped open. “You’re kidding right?”

“I ain’t’ fuckin’ laughin. You can leave me for that country ass fake bumpkin, you can put her in designer clothes and call her your girlfriend but unfortunately for you, I know what she really is. A whore. And while you might think you can wave a wand and make her a housewife, everyone else? They’ll fuckin’ tear her apart. You really want that?”

Michael couldn’t believe this shit. In all his years of being famous and having money, he had never had someone try to blackmail him. Michael clenched his eyes shut. “How much?”

“There we go. Glad we could come to an agreement. $10k for now. I expect it as soon as you get back to LA. And then we can figure out an arrangement that works for both of us. Happy New Year, baby.”

And with that, the phone went dead. Michael clenched it in his hand in frustration as he turned and shook his head. He quickly deleted the call from his call log to ensure Raven did not accidentally see it and sent Alex a text.

Mike: We have a BIG problem

“Wow, those are gorgeous!”

Michael slid his phone in his pocket as Raven emerged and stood next to him, her make up pristine and her body now clad in a very sexy ocean blue lingerie set. Michael forced a smile onto his face as he grabbed her ass and squeezed.

“Not as gorgeous as you.”

“We got five minutes till midnight and then I figured we could create some fireworks of our own?”

“I like the sound of that…” Michael mused.

He knew he needed to tell Raven about Tasha but he did not have the heart to do it right then. She was so happy, so happy that her whole body seemed to radiate with it. He refused to let anything diminish or take that feeling away. And he refused to let another selfish person steal her joy and relaxation while they were on vacation. He had a week to figure out a plan and get Tasha out of his life once and for all. And he had every intention of doing so and telling Raven once it was all said and done. She was finally happy and she deserved to stay that way. This was exclusively his mess, he would get himself out of it.

“Oh you never told me,” Raven said as they sat down and stuck their feet in the water while the fireworks continued to boom loudly around them, painting the sky in bright colors.

“What?”

“What you want out of 2023?”

Michael glanced down at her and the bright smile on her face. “I think I got everything I want for 2023. I got you, about to finish the biggest run of my career. I guess I just… want to make sure I don’t lose it all?”

She gently shoved him with her shoulder and chuckled. “Well, you aren’t gonna lose me.”

“That a promise?”

“Yes it is.”

Off in the distance, they could hear the faint countdown from the giant crowd at the beach.

Five… four… three… two…

“Happy New Year, Rae.”

“Happy New Year, baby.”

They shared a deep kiss under the fireworks before Michael swooped her up into his arms and carried her to bed, their room becoming a fireworks show for two.

Tag List: @readinghere2023 @blackerthings @prettyisasprettydoes1306 @physicxal @purplehairgawdess @miyuhpapayuh @rueruesclues @geemamii @certifiedlesbianbaddie @pipsqueak-98 @nyifly22 @destinio1 @twocentaur @gopaperless @musicisme333 @roguekiki @majesticbrownjawn @taurusqueen83 @mysteryuz @miamormilan @itsknor-thedeep @naj-ay444 @mads-grace4 @nayaesworld @kholdkill @msniaimani @nccu-rnc @apenasumlug4r

***

A/N: the babies are in relationship blisssssss. And how perfect is Michael? Getting her book back for her. Also I tried to do some research on how all that works and it is really confusing so any real authors reading - don't hate me if I got it wrong LOL it's fiction! Well, as we all knew it would, Tasha has come back to claim her man again... what do we think? Should he have told Raven? Or should he wait till they get home? Or should he just deal with Tasha on his own? Anndddd this is the last update for this story for like a month - so so sorry to leave it like that LOL love yall though! Hope you enjoyed it!

#black writers #michael b jordan #michael b jordan x oc #mbjordanedit #michael b jordan x reader #black panther #michael b jordan fanfic #creed 3 #adonis creed

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whenishipiluxurycruiseit · 2 months

Text

After reading some twts about how the reveal should not affect the kaishin fandom bc of how old it is and how most old shippers had the suspicion of kaishin being related and proceeded to not care and accept and even ship them more leads me to the acceptance stage and the realization stage where this is all fiction and not true thus it will not affect anyone greatly and most of us should realize this too HAHAHA

I mean i had my suspicions too ya know but like i was expecting them to be distantly related not this closely related gahdang gosho JAGDHSHS also i was kinda closing my eyes when i saw how similar toichi and yuusaku looked like when i saw them so AHDGSHS lovelies lets just think that the reveal made the ship spicer that ever

Kaishin may be cousins and what? Its fiction, this ship is old, there are even more worse ships than this, will this hurt anyone? No (unless ur really in deep like delusional deep), will this change the world? No, will this affect your daily life? No, will this change your morals? For me no, cause i know they are not real, why on earth would they change my morals.

Honestly its not just kaishin, there are a lot of ships with this kind of relationship, and other shippers must realize the fact that they are not real and no one will get hurt. If you get disturbed by the fact that we ship cousins/twins/siblings then you may close your eyes and move one to the other post, im not like validating this bc in the real and current world this may seem disturbing but everyone must know the difference between real and fiction, do not do what fiction do but you may learn what fiction do, just put it at the back of your head as an additional knowledge and the possibility that some other people might mix up fiction and real life.

Anyways so much for the monologue JAGSHS

THE REVEAL FIRED ME UP INTO MAKING ANOTHER PROMPT YEEEEY

Like im not even focusing abt how kaishin is cousins anymore but at why toichi did that to his son, what is incest compared to betrayal (not rlly cause kaito still didnt know hes alive BUT STILL THATS HIS KID??? HIS CHILD IN THE EYES OF DANGER?? AND HE LET HIS CHILD DO THAT?? BOY?)?

Like i know he protects kaito at the side (it was on magic kaito 1412 i forgot what episode) but he protects kaito with kaito experiencing trauma bc how tf how dare u use my dead dads face you traitor like that like bro??

I dont even also think that chikage knew that her husband is alive, only yuusaku (like wow cute they mustve been such close siblings but thats not the point) knows that hes alive and yuusaku probs only also knows cause hes yuusaku and yuusaku knows everything in just once glance for some weird ass reason

ANYWAYS SO

My prompt is that (please know that some of the characters are ooc!!! Esp the parents cause they dont show much wth JAGDHSH also ill put in a oc for plot purposes WAHSGAHSGA)

Shinichi, still as conan, was in a pinch and was suddenly saved by a mysterious guy. Whom he thought was like akai san but he sensed someone different like.. KID? No.. dad??

Toichi who saw a kid who looked like his nephew when he was a child is being chased by men in black (who suspiciously looked like snake for some reason but snake doesnt wear shades in the dark cause thats a foolish move) decided to help him and lose the pursuers off his back

“Boya are you ok?” “…..(hmm? What is this feeling.. i feel like i’ve met him somewhere but..)” “boya?” “Ah! Un! Thank you uncle!”

Toichi suddenly thought of shinichi when he heard conans voice saying uncle, it sounds just like 10 yrs ago when he visited yuusakus house to teach yukiko the art of disguise

Toichi then took conan to his guardians when he found out that his parents was in america apparently (1) and he also found out that his guardians were the mouris (2) which was 2 points of suspicion which wasnt that bad but just weird cause why didnt his younger brother tell anything, not that that shit tells him anything at all. Adding to the fact that he has not seen his attention loving smart nephew in the news for a while now then pops out a child that looks like him makes the suspicion highly likely. (Their family kinda has a knack for attracting dangerous orgs, from what he seen to himself and his son, he just hopes his younger brother and nephew didnt get it (which was highly unlikely now too))

Consider his suspicions correct when his younger brother decides to okay dumb (he knows ok, theyre twins for a reason and hes a older brother for a reason) the problem now was which shady org was it and how much does his nephew and younger brother know….

2 weeks later he found out

Apparently he wasnt the only one suspicious of someone

His, (knew it), dear shrunken nephew was too! Bc of one comment from mouri kun (have we met somewhere before?) and his suspicions were proven right when he saw yuusakus phone lying around with his message on the notif screen

(Toichis so proud, thats my nephew, be nosy kid you will go far in life)(it made his nephew cute too 🥰)

and color him suprised when his nephew has a shady org at his back too (he was kinda hoping that his nephew only stumbled on the scene of the crime that was he was chased not being a victim himself sighs the family curse)

and toichi and his nephew (whom just found out they were related with the first kaitou kid, who was supposed to be dead) made an alliance! (it kinda feels good to not only have one person know about your secrets, it also makes him relieved that his nephew has a lot of trusted people at his back other than some bigass shady org)

it also makes toichi happy that his son could be himself (not just kaitou kid but really being kaito his son whom he left with his wife toprotecttonotpullintothismessbutthey-) with his cousin

his son was inlove with his cousin

oh shit

yuusaku why did we not let them meet again

how he found out? he got the front seat

with snake

but does that really matter

(is akai kun included when hes so far away from the build the confession was happening)

(akai kun just shoot snake pls)

then it all went to shit (from his perspective cause wdym kaito did not even notice snake was there so its ok uncle shinichi kun did u also not notice my mental breakdown too)

they apprehended snake, and found out he was just some lackey in the black org and wanted to be the same lvl as gin so hes chasing after some immortality granting stone (yea hes not gonna be on the same lvl as gin hes stupid says his dear cutified nephew)

he told his younger brother about the confession

his younger brother knew all along ever since he caught kaito sneaking in their house to leave a jewel that he stole and saw him caress shinichis face.. yuusaku told him with the face of did u really not see that coming, we never let them meet when they were old enough to remember.

like valid? but at least share the tea gahdang

yukiko also knows? brother? i thought bros before hoes? (he nearly got mauled to death by his mystery loving younger brother, bc how dare you call my wife a hoe? ur the hoe u *spits real talk that hurts*)

after yuusaku hurt him internally he has come to the fact that yea he was worse than his son.. (also who can blame him, shinichi kun has yukikos genes (not that his darling wife is any less beautiful than yukiko, his wifes beauty came from being reckless and he likes that in his woman sighs i miss my wife) and their reckless genes so, with his wifes beautiful and shiny loving gene with his reckless loving gene, shinichi, conan, his nephew was the perfect person for his son. not ignoring the fact that shinichi kun is also a very understanding person. his nephew grew a lot (internally cause well.. he shrunk physically))

and now shinichi is looking at him weirdly

no way

did he not hear his sons confession

"shin kun... what did you think about what my son said to you?" "hm? ah that chase?... isnt it just a chase? oh im sorry uncle if i hurt kaito, it was needed to make it look convincing haha, i dont plan on capturing him rn dw!" "... oh! its ok shin kun ^^"

it was not okay, how does his nephew not notice his sons confession to him? (his son was a child of two phantom thieves, making a heist even grander than it already is shows that his son is courting his nephew SO HOW TF- oh, oh yuusaku just told him that every heist shinichi went to was always that grand so he might not see the difference? oh. oh my gosh.)

how to break this to his son who thought his father was dead

yuusaku just smiled (useless asshole, just bc hes still close to his son even though his son is in another identity now and can still pretend to be his new sons identities father bc of the disguising art that toUICHI HIMSELF TAUGHT HIM)

shinichi kun said to wait till evrything was over, or wait till the black org is down cause he will help explain too cause he hid it too after knowing his undeadness (at least his nephew was helpful, might be yukikos gene)

"you know, ever since i met kaitou kid, i knew that i might need his help to bring this org down, but i never knew that it would be the first kaitou kid that will help me hehe"

his nephew is so cute (yep its yukikos genes, yuusaku could never be like that anymore, still regrets the day where he showed off to his younger brother his magician skills)

the org was brought down but the antidote for shinchis problem still hasnt been made but time is an essence they need to reveal the truth to his family now or it might get worse

family reunion time! :DDDDDDDDD

shinichi went to get his son and wife while he and his younger brother prepares his execution letter

(if u wanna know how shinichi went to get kaito and chikage pls comment! ill write it up on the other post)

"yukiko chan can u-" "nope"

"yuusaku istg id u dont help me we're twins for a reason if i die you die too" "fk u" (helps him)

then it all went to shit (pt 2) (shinichi kun can see it now too, toichi thinks even hakase next door can feel it)

his son did not walk out bc of shinichi kun ("kaito, listen to you father please, you know my situation, its kind of the same but in your fathers case, you are ran" "at least you were close to her!" "does it really matter when all she saw was conan not shinichi?" "but-!" "kaito, the woman i love is slipping before my eyes because i cant go to her like before now! everytime i go back to my body temporarily all i think about is how she will get hurt if the organization realizes i was one of the victims they failed to kill and will go after her and her family and friends! there are numerous people in the org who already knew about my real identity, they mightve been killed or decided to not tell about it but there is no saying they might decide to not do the opposite!"

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69dias · 2 years

Text

baby don’t go (i’m bad at being alone)

genre: bff2l, idiots to lovers

warnings: as slowburn as it gets for 25k words, jk is an idiot and oc is so mean to herself AND to others occasionally. religious themes [Bible verses], mentions of alcoholism, unrequited love (not between jk and oc), mentions and themes of death, resolving trauma, bad childhoods. smut: vaginal fingering, marking kink, ily kink, kinda breeding kink, unprotected sex which is BAD

wc: 25k (this is hefty IM SAWRY)

listen to a playlist for this here!

When Jungkook was seven years old, his mother had asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He'd answered, way too confident and much too quickly, that his ultimate passion in life was to be a ninja. His mother had laughed fondly, serving him a plate of fruit that she’d cut up for him, and ruffled his hair

He’s positive that she had convinced herself that he'd figure it out eventually; that she’d probably taken it in stride considering the fact that he was seven, but the memory remains clear as day in Jungkook's head in his senior year of college.

Computer Science. That had turned out to be his actual ‘ultimate passion’ in life, though Jungkook always finds himself hesitating when he says it out loud. Perhaps his younger self had thought that he would figure it out eventually too, shoving the concept of a future deep into his mind until he was nearing the end of his gap year and had to choose something tangible to study, and perhaps he’d made the right decision considering his knack for coding and the outrageous starting salary for his major, but his voice always waivers when someone asks what he’s studying.

After all, Jungkook is nothing like you.

Enter character: his childhood best friend, whose umbilical cord had only freshly been cut when they met, much too young to comprehend what he was even looking at. You were a year younger than him, but always a few grades ahead, thanks to your insane amount of academic aptitude (that came with the burden of being afraid to fail at all, but only Jungkook truly knows that), and you’d always, always, known what you wanted to be when you grew up.

You’d answer, voice too strong and vocabulary too poise for an elementary school kid; “My passion is to study law, like my mother.”

You stayed true to it, as well, and if Jungkook wasn’t too absorbed in being impressed by you, he would’ve been sad that you never had a true, silly dream — a princess, or a ballerina, or an astronaut, or anything that didn’t require you to be so stringent at such a young age. But you’d skipped 3rd grade, skipped senior year, went straight to Columbia, and then to Columbia Law; by the time you had graduated college, Jungkook was about halfway done with his gap year. Simply put, being impressed by you wasn’t difficult.

But back to the point he was making, Jungkook is nothing like you, but he misses seeing your face at the frequency he did when you lived next door. And he misses getting you your ridiculously overpriced iced white mochas from a very specific New York-based small business. And he misses you.

The thought of you makes the aforementioned memory with his mother run through his head a bit more persistently than usual, and it’s hard to ignore on an otherwise quiet Wednesday morning. That is, however, until his roommate pops his head into the bathroom.

Enter character: Jungkook’s roomie, Kim Mingyu. Ripped, tall, extremely attractive, and at any given point, either drunk off his ass, or high off his ass, or hungover as shit.

Today, it’s the latter, if the exhausted lily in his voice is any indication.

“Hey, JK.”

He blinks, and the man in question nods from the edge of the bathtub.

“How the hell do I kick this girl out.”

Jungkook’s toothpaste drips onto his wrist, and leans across the commode to spit it out.

“I don’t know, man. Ask her to leave, and give her breakfast money.”

He is not speaking from experience, but Mingyu nods as though he’s been given profound philosophical advice. Jungkook turns the tap on, and wonders how much his friend has had to drink when he visibly grimaces at the rush of the water.

“Thanks man. See you around.”

We live together, I’ll see you in literally one minute.

Jungkook nods, and lets Mingyu shut the door before he’s rinsing his mouth and tending to the very strict AM skincare regime he’s curated. The memory he was stuck on has taken another path to the back of his brain, and he’s thankful that he doesn’t have to think of it, think of you, or think of how much he misses his mother any longer.

He doesn’t, however, exit the bathroom immediately. The girl Mingyu had over is causing a ruckus in their living room, demanding to know why she’s being kicked out and simultaneously letting Jungkook know that his advice was definitely not taken into account; he’d be a bit offended if he couldn’t practically hear Mingyu’s head pounding as she steadily gets louder.

He decides Comp.Sci is a good option; he’s definitely going to get paid enough to not have to deal with this roommate bullshit once he’s out of this college, but he can’t help but feel bad for the girl, and feel worse for Mingyu.

Jungkook walks out when he hears the front door finally lock, and looks up a sobriety program on his phone as his roommate walks past him to his own room.

“Hey JK?”

He turns around, sheepishly hiding his phone without considering the fact that Mingyu is definitely seeing double and definitely didn’t make out his search.

“Yeah?”

“Do not do this one-night stand thing.”

Hey Mingyu? Do not do this alcohol thing.

Both pieces of advice are a bit too little too late, considering that the two of them are in their final years and are confidently past the stage of needing such freshman-esque tips, but Jungkook chooses to stay quiet so as to not rub salt into Mingyu’s wound, though he’s positive the latter is barely aware of this metaphorical wound.

“Yeah, thanks man.”

Mingyu nods again, this time affirmatively, as though he’s given some profound Kantean counseling before shutting his door. Jungkook copies the cheapest and closest sobriety program he finds, and pastes the link in his notes app for future reference.

—

When you were 17, late in your first year of college, your boyfriend had died.

It’s a horrible note to start off on, and it’s worse to have to think about it on a Wednesday, seeing as you reserve these deep delves into trauma for long weekends and bank holidays, but the thing about grief is that it presents itself in weird ways.

Today, you remember the wake. Specifically, you remember the coffee you’d drank afterwards, and how you’ve ended up with the same drink today. It wasn’t your fault, no, a shaken espresso is a common drink at the coffee shop next to campus, and there’s no way AJ would’ve known, seeing as it’s a detail you’ve quite literally never mentioned.

Enter character: AJ, or Alex Jacob Lee, your closest friend at law school, and barista of another overpriced coffee shop you frequent, not to be mistaken with the one further into the city from where you buy those sinfully good white mochas. He has a game going on with you, where he’ll conjure up a different drink for you every Wednesday after your last class, which aligns with his shifts there.

And today, he’s chosen a shaken espresso. Again, not his fault. Again, not a bad drink. It’s the way the bitterness sits on your tongue, and the first greetings of summer in the evening air that have you thinking of your boyfriend — ex-boyfriend, that is. You think of his smile, the closed casket he was laid to rest in because his body was pretty wrecked from the car crash, and you think of Jeon Jungkook.

You remember his arms around you, and you remember refusing to cry. You remember him buying you the drink, and you remember breaking down in front of him, showing any semblance of weakness for the first time in all your 17 years of knowing each other. You think of how much you miss him, how it’s been a good few weeks since you’ve seen him in person, you think of how you never actually fell in love with your boyfriend, and how broken you’d been after he passed.

You still feel the ebbing pain in the left side of your chest, but that’s not something you’re willing to admit. After all, it’s been a good 6 years since then, and you laid him to rest in the tresses of your mind the second you had left the cemetery after his wake.

When you’re done with the drink, you’re done with the memory, and you decide to return to the shop; that way, you can convince yourself that you’re fine, and you can convince AJ to get dinner with you. The coffee lingers in your mouth, though, and take a quick detour to the vending machine to the left of the shop to pick up a bottle of water and think about how horrible the placement of this machine is.

“Hey, you. What’s wrong? Drink not good enough today?”

AJ’s right next to you when you pick up the water from the slot at the bottom, and you find yourself smiling up at him instinctively.

“I think you’ve lost your touch, honestly.”

He laughs, you laugh with him, and your heart feels just a bit lighter after the thought you’ve just had to throttle out of your brain physically, which reminds you of why you returned to the shop in the first place. He looks down at you, gaze so fixed that you look away for a moment before you even open your mouth to speak.

“Wanna grab some dinner? I’m kinda winded, we can get pizza.”

He looks back at the shop, and then at you. The silence is comfortable, and you can hear the music from within the business as someone opens the door to enter. AJ’s expression is a bit hard to read, but the little furrow of his brow, and the way he’s avoiding eye contact tells you that he’s about to say no.

“Can I take a rain check? I’ve gotta finish up at the shop, and I have an early morning tomorrow.”

I’ll wait, and we won’t take long. We can just take it out, we don’t have to sit and eat.

Your mouth feels dry, tastes little like you’ve just thrown up bile, and your eyes shake just a bit as you think of what to say, think of where to look.

“Oh, yeah? No prob, Jakey.”

The nickname slips out, and his mouth droops into a lopsided grin. You don’t notice the twinkle of his eyes, because you’re too busy unscrewing the bottle of water, eager to finally get the tinge of coffee out of your mouth.

He doesn’t say much more, just tells you that he’ll see you around, and takes a quick jog back to work. Pulling your phone out of your pocket is a bit hard because of how hard your hands are shaking, and you clench your fingers together to stop them from doing so, though you’re not sure why you’re acting like this in the first place. Maybe it’s because you’ve just remembered one of the worst days of your life, maybe it’s because you needed company, maybe it’s because you know AJ doesn’t have classes early tomorrow, and maybe it’s because you miss your old best friend.

You decide it’s the latter, and when you finally, finally unlock your phone, you decide to call Jungkook.

The phone rings, and you can’t stand to hear the way AJ’s voice travels outside the coffee shop occasionally, so you walk onto the pavement, trying to focus on the obnoxious rings of the phone. You let it go to voicemail when he doesn’t pick up, and decide that you won’t deal with rejection today, so text him to get dinner with you instead

[to JayKayz] hey, you down to get some pizza tonight?

[to JayKayz] i’ll take the train to NYU and you can meet me at 2 bros?

You figure he’s either in, or finishing his last class, hence the lack of response for the first ten minutes or so, which severely dampens your mood on the way to the train station, but he replies soon after, and you’d be lying if you said your mood didn’t do an entire 180.

[from JayKayz] this is fucking insane cuz I was literally just thinking about you this morning

[from JayKayz] yes to pizza btw.

[from JayKayz] sorry I didn’t pick up I was dealing with Mingyu who’s fucking drunk again.

[from JayKayz] text me when ur on campus and I’ll pick you up.

You have to physically fight yourself from smiling like a psychopath, which is awkward since you don’t really know why you’re smiling. Maybe it’s because he was thinking of you, maybe it’s because he said he’s, or maybe it’s because it’s funny how fed up he is with his roommate who definitely needs to attend a sobriety program. You decide it’s the latter, and your heart isn’t on edge the whole time you make your way to Jeon Jungkook’s university.

—

The thing about you and Jungkook is that there’s nothing awkward about the silences that tend to ensue between the two of you. It’s not uncommon for there to be no words spoken, especially in the past few years — Jungkook has always been an introvert, and school tends to tire you out of being able to carry the conversation. It’s okay, it’s normal, and it’s happened a lot since you moved out to be nearer to campus, but you’re different today.

Jungkook notices the shift almost as soon as you sit down across from him and slide him his coke, hands otherwise empty, saying absolutely nothing else. Typically (read: every single time the two of you eat at 2Bros Pizza, which is not rare), you make fun of him for ordering the Meat Supreme slice, and you always get a coke float for yourself, which reminds him of the time there was a new employee working the Night Shift, and you, in your drunken stupor, almost jumped the counter when he didn’t know how to make one for you. He tucks the memory aside to ask you what’s wrong:

“No float today? Finally saw the light?”

It comes out wrong, less empathetic than he’d like to be, seeing as you’re visibly struggling with something, but it seems to break you out of your own head, and you look up at him. Your eyes shine under the streetlight just a couple inches away from the table the two of you sit at, and the way a smile breaks across your face sends something akin to a shiver down his spine.

“Yeah, I had a coffee earlier. AJ and I have a game going, so - uh, yeah, I’m not that thirsty right now.l

Jungkook remembers this guy, but he also notices the way you’ve started to chew on the right side of your lip as you think about him. He hums quietly, opening his mouth to speak when you beat him to it.

“How’s Mingyu by the way? Day drinking again?”

He laughs out loud, taking a bite out of his pizza. You do the same, eyes a bit less dazed as you listen intently to whatever he’s about to say, but he doesn’t speak for a while again, and the silence that ensues this time is more comfortable than before.

It’s something about Jungkook that’s routinely, and you don’t hate it at all. You’ve been a stickler for organization, for schedules, for routine for as long as you can remember, and while you and him are quite different, you can tell that Jungkook appreciates the stability you bring.

You remember being a child and coming here with your family, Jungkook with his. Your mom would share a cheese slice with you, and his mom would share the abominable Meat Premium slice with him. You’d get a coke float, and his eyebrows would furrow as he animatedly talked about how good everything tasted, almost looking upset because it was delicious. You’d stay quiet, sharing an exasperatedly fond look with the two women who sat across from each other, and then you’d look at Jungkook.

And then, you look at Jungkook.

He has the same pinch in his eyebrows, but he’s been eating here for over a decade so the comments about how good the food is have dwindled, and he just slurps obscenely at the cheese, occasionally stopping to take an equally obscene swig of his drink. You’d be disgusted if AJ ate that way, but it’s Jungkook, so you just laugh, and the question you asked about his roommate dissipates from where it was hanging in the air.

“So this AJ guy, what’s his deal?”

You pause mid-bite, looking a bit confused; the timing is scary, and it’s almost like Jungkook's managed to read your mind in the past minute. You answer with a question of your own.

“So this Mingyu guy, what’s his deal?”

“Touché.”

“No like, actually, though,” you let out a laugh at the way Jungkook goes back to devouring his food. “He needs to get to a sobriety program.”

“Dude, for real. I was literally looking one up for him this morning, like it’s an actual fucking problem and he refuses to acknowledge it.”

“Have you actually tried to get him to acknowledge it?”

Jungkook is many things; he’s smart, capable, strong, his eyes are bright under the streetlights, and he’s compassionate, but he’s never been confrontational. Though you don’t doubt he’s concerned for his friend, you also don’t doubt that he’s never brought it up in front of Mingyu, at least directly; you reckon there’s been a lot of beating around the bush, a lot of surreptitious monologues about ‘seeking help when you need’, etcetera. The thought makes you laugh, and Jungkook looks at you quizzically.

“I mean, I made him watch a TED talk about sobriety last week, and he seemed intrigued…”

You raise a brow. Jungkook would bully you relentlessly for watching those videos, and you doubt he’d watch them even with someone’s best interest in mind.

“We were both high.”

The two of you laugh, looking away so as to not break entirely, and then accidentally making eye contact, breaking almost immediately after.

His laughter is loud, bright, and it brings you back to when you were kids.

You laugh silently, taking in large gasps of air whenever you feel the need to, and Jungkook can’t help but think of how you’ve had this habit since you were a toddler.

When a few tears slip inevitably, Jungkook doesn’t let you use the collar of your shirt to wipe them like AJ typically does, using the pads of his fingers to gently flick them off of your cheeks. (It’s another thing he’s done for years now, but you don’t think about it in the afterglow of laughing so hard that your ribs sting a bit.)

Thinking of AJ reminds you of the question Jungkook asked you before you grilled him about Mingyu. You wonder why you avoided it so desperately, and you wonder why you’re thinking so much about AJ today, when Jungkook is right in front of you.

He’s pretty like this, the pizza parlor’s sign lights up a little after 21:30, and the green and red hues make the dewy skin of his face look softer. He’s chewing at his straw, and has a lazy grin on his face, occasionally giggling when he undoubtedly remembers the outburst the two of you just had.

It’s simple, routinely, laughing with Jungkook, being with Jungkook, and your mind is no longer clouded with the wake, with how much your Tort Law professor hates your whole class, with how AJ lied to you, but you don’t suppose it’d be the worst thing to not leave Jungkook hanging.

“What about AJ, by the way?”

He looks up, and his eyes are just as big as they used to be when he was a toddler.

“You asked what his deal was, what’d you mean?”

Jungkook’s lazy grin is back as he stares at you, reaching across the table to push back a strand of hair that you hadn’t even noticed fall into your face. His touch is warm, and you hope the bright red light of the sign masks the soft blush that warms your face when he strokes the underside of your jaw before pulling away.

“I meant, like, you know,” he pauses, but you shake your head, still confused. Jungkook breathes to regroup, and continues. “The Wednesday drink thing, and how he’s the homescreen of your phone, and how you’re blushing right now after bringing him up? I know dating’s a bit tough but like, maybe there’s something there?”

The realization dawns upon you; Jungkook thinks you’re into AJ, and vice versa. You don’t know why it makes your stomach turn, so you attribute it to the pizza you’ve just had and the coffee from earlier.

The ridiculous urge to defend yourself like Jungkook’s accused you of something fights it’s way up your throat, accompanied by bile. You swallow it down, clearing your throat before you start your rebuttal statement. (You don’t think about how you’re thinking of this like a case, when it’s quite literally just your best friend talking about who you’re dating).

“The Wednesday drink thing’s only because he has a shift there after I’m done with classes, and it’s not like he gives them to me for free.”

Jungkook can’t tell why you look so serious now, back straight and face cold, voice icy. It’s a sharp contrast to the way you were speaking only a mere 10 minutes prior, and he wants to tell you that it’s nothing serious; that he wasn’t accusing you.

“He’s the homescreen of my phone because I look good in the picture, and also because it’s from my 21st birthday, which was just a good day in my life —“

“I think y-you misunderstood me?”

He doesn’t sound confident, but you stop speaking, unable to tell him that you weren’t, in fact, blushing because of AJ.

“There’s nothing there, Jungkook.”

He looks down, and then back up at you, the prickly feeling of discomfort crawling across his chest. Jungkook isn’t sure why he feels cornered, why he feels upset at the way you responded to something innocent he said.

It makes him think of another time, back in your first year of law school when he’d asked you why you hadn’t called him for a week; you’d straightened up, basically recounted every assignment you had due, every other engagement you had, went to hell and back to justify yourself when he was just asking a question.

It makes him think of countless other times, when you’d dissect questions like he was a prosecutor in a courtroom, when you’d pounce at him at the slightest indication of being cornered, when you’d feel the need to justify and self-assess even if he wasn't even in a 100 mile radius of asking you to do that.

He wants to tell you that you don’t have to feel like he’s forcing an answer out of you, that you have a life and you could’ve just laughed it off, that you don’t have to be afraid to have human instincts and relationships and that you’re his best friend.

Instead, he ignores the way your eyes look glossy, ignores the clear indication that you’ve had a stupidly hard day, ignores the screaming cries for someone to tell you that it’s okay, for someone to just ask what’s wrong — something he’s been on the fence of doing for the whole evening. He ignores it all, and gets up to throw his plate away.

“I’m sorry —“

“Need me to walk you to the train station?”

“Uh, no. I got it. Thanks.”

You follow with your own plate, picking your bag up from the seat beside you, and wave at Jungkook a bit awkwardly. He waves back, still not making eye contact with you, and lets you walk away without saying a word more.

Jungkook tries not to think about how pretty you are, tries not to think about how you’re going to cry in the solitude of your room which is how you’ve always dealt with emotions, tries not to think about whatever you could’ve been thinking of that had you on the edge the entire evening. He tries to think about Mingyu, sobriety, and a fraternity party he has to go to tomorrow. He tries to think about skipping his last class, and ends up thinking about how lovely your smile is.

You text AJ to pick you up from campus despite the fake excuse he’d thrown at you earlier even though you don’t really want to think of him, and you hope the person sitting across from you on the train doesn’t notice how you’re crying. It’s your boyfriend, it’s Jungkook and how you lashed out at him for no reason, it’s fucking AJ, and how Jungkook thinks you’re dating him when he’s just lied to you — it’s how AJ lied to you about a morning class — it’s Tort Law, and it’s the shaken espresso you had that seems to still linger on your tongue. You try to think about a party you’ve been invited to tomorrow, try to think about how badly you need to get laid, and end up thinking about Jungkook’s pretty eyes.

—

AJ ends up picking you up from outside the train station, and if he notices your red-rimmed eyes, he doesn’t say anything.

Jungkook’s words, the cause of you snapping him, his insinuations all come to mind when AJ’s this close to you. You can smell his deodorant, you can feel the thin hoodie he dons on your sleeve, you can hear the small breaths he takes; I know dating’s a bit tough but like, maybe there’s something there?”

Is there? You wished you would’ve asked Jungkook to elaborate on this theory of his; he’s observant, and as aforementioned, not one for confrontation of any kind — the thought makes your head hurt with guilt because you’ve just shown him that he shouldn’t, in fact, confront people lest they give him a reaction anywhere similar to yours — and it’s apparent that he was probably sitting on the thought for a while.

Is there? AJ looks at you warmly, the Wednesday drink thing is a bit intimate, he knows your schedule, knows your professors and how you feel about them, knows your apartment even when he's drunk and it’s dark, and you know all of these things when it comes to him. You think about it for a moment, and when you look up at him, he’s already staring down at you. It’s kind, a bit far away like he was doing some thinking of his own, too, and you’re grateful he doesn’t look away immediately.

AJ and you make sense together, if you were to put it logistically. Met in Law School, were friends for years before potentially getting together, and you’d be lying if you said it didn’t feel like a puzzle piece fitting into place. But logistics aren’t the game you play, and the longer you look at him, the more it settles in that there isn’t really much there. With Jungkook, for example, you’d notice the pretty doe shape in his eyes, the scar above his cheek, the slope of his nose and how when he blushes, the pink spreads from the tips of his ears inwards — with AJ, all you see is a handsome face.

Jungkook is your best friend, though, and again, it makes more sense to notice these nuances with him than with AJ and fuck, why are you even thinking about this?

AJ continues to look at you, and you’re thankful, not for his eerie silence as much as for the fact that he’s walking you home at night after you’ve had such a rough day. If being with Jungkook is routine, AJ is the soft of your sheets after a long day — he’s always there, always with you, even if he doesn’t really say anything to you.

(You fight this thought from appearing in your head, but evidently fail.)

Even today, he didn’t question where you were coming from, didn’t say that he couldn’t come get you because he had this supposed ‘early morning’ (which he didn’t, which you could not get over), didn’t say a single word, at least it until you did.

It’s a quiet question, one that has lingered in the back of your mind for the whole evening: “Why’d you lie, Alex?”

He looks startled, both at the rare use of his first name, and by the question itself.

“What… what do you mean, exactly?” His laugh is a bit forced, and he steps away from you, looking away.

“You said you have an early morning, but I know your Crim. Justice class starts at 2. You could’ve just said you didn’t wanna have dinner with me —“ you laugh at the end, hoping to lighten the atmosphere but it doesn’t work.

There is seriously something wrong with you today, but AJ breaks through that thought with a laugh.

“Early morning for work, ___. Internships don’t start till June, but doesn’t Cravath ask you to come in sometimes? It’s that. Some petty admin work.”

Your heart stops trying to commit suicide, and your shoulders relax for the first time since AJ handed you that damn drink this morning. You’d both landed top internships; you with Cravath, AJ with Watchell Lipton, and he was right, because you have gone in to do ‘petty admin work’ for them in the past month since you were accepted.

It’s a happy reminder of how well you’re doing, a happy reminder that your friend didn’t just lie to you, and you can’t help but laugh. It’s a sheepish one that turns genuine when you realize how accusatory you’d been, and you’re grateful again that he starts laughing along with you.

(You don’t notice his laugh the same way you did with Jungkook, but you also don’t dwell on that too much.)

“Fuck, man. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.”

He throws an arm around your shoulder, pulling you into his upper body so he can plant a loud kiss on the crown of your head. It’s something he does with everyone, but the conversation you had over dinner remains at the forefront of your mind and you close your eyes to really take in the proximity, the ease with which he just touches you, the way it feels natural, and the way you don’t mind.

“Maybe you should ask questions on the spot instead of working yourself into a frenzy about them, huh?”

“Maybe I should. No yeah, I definitely should. I don't know why I’m being slick about it —“

He laughs at that, taking your hand to spin you in front of him, and then around.

If AJ notices the way your hair frames your face when he stops puppeteering you, if he notices the way your laugh echoes in his mind after you’ve stopped, if he notices the way you’ve remembered his classes, he doesn’t do anything about it. He had, however, noticed the way you were so obviously crying, and though he refuses to pry lest he invade your privacy, lest he finds out that he might’ve been the reason.

He stays quiet about it, though, all the way till he reaches the lobby of your apartment complex, which is when he repeats what Jungkook had done just about an hour prior, fixing a strand of your messy hair.

(You don’t blush like you had when Jungkook had done it, but AJ also doesn’t touch the underside of your jaw as gingerly as Jungkook had, so you convince yourself that it’s nothing)

“If it was hayfever, I know a great remedy, but if not, you should know that whatever you had to cry about, that it’s okay. If you can do Tort Law with Henderson, you can do anything.”

His assurance, paired with the fact that he hadn’t lied, paired with the fact that he’d kissed your head, paired with the way he’d spun you around like he was starring in some Glen Powell rom-com, paired with the way that he’d come and pick you up in the first place — all of it settles your heart fully, and you don’t even really remember why you’d cried in the first place.

“Thank you. For picking me up, and I’m sorry that I was so, you know —“

“Don’t worry about it, it’s literally going to be your job to be ‘so, you know’ okay?”

You nod, chuckling lightly, and watch him wave you goodbye. If you pronounce your own wave a little extra so he laughs at it and isn’t even slightly worried about you being upset, nobody has to know. And if you still can’t stop thinking about Jungkook and how you need to apologize to him, nobody has to know.

—

Jungkook despises his schedule on Thursdays. It’s class after class, a shift at his job, another class, and another class — typically, by the end of the day, his brain is nothing but mush, he’s frazzled; exhausted, and passes out for a much simpler Friday, but as it is, there’s been a lot more unconventional breaks in routine than he’s used to, and he ends up going to a party after his final class on this particular Thursday.

Mingyu invited him, but he’s not thinking about that, because thinking of his roommate makes him think of his conversation with you, which makes him think of how abruptly your manner had changed, which makes him feel bad for you, and also a little upset that you spoke to him that way, which makes him think of the notifications on his phone that he’s definitely not ignoring right now.

[from Elle Woods] jeongguk

[from Elle Woods] im sorry, i don’t know what that was or why I got so defensive about aj, and you didn’t deserve it

[from Elle Woods] i really missed you, it’s been weeks since we’ve talked

[from Elle Woods] actually, can i just call you?

[2 missed calls from Elle Woods]

He’d feel a little bad, because he knows that if you owe each other something, anything, it’s communication — you’ve been friends since you were literal infants, and he should know that there’s probably a very reasonable explanation for yesterday but he shuts his phone off, and recites the excuse for whenever he decides to get back to you.

___ie, I’m sorry, I was just busy — you know how Thursdays are, right?

He’s sure you’ll understand, and he can’t bring himself to continue thinking about it lest he breaks and gets himself into a longer-than-necessary phone call with you when he could be getting shitfaced to forget about the day he’s had; either that, or protecting Mingyu from throwing himself into premature liver failure as best as he possibly can.

Jungkook finds himself shoveling any remaining thoughts of you to the back of his head, another thing he’s being doing unconventionally often, and his short commute to the fraternity house Mingyu’s typo-filled message points him towards — another thing that should debase him, but the promise of alcohol (with a borderline frightening amount of emojis) keeps him going.

He realizes soon, that senior year is an absolute bitch, because it’s been months since he’s seen half of these people and it’s like nostalgia’s kicked him in the mouth, followed by the pungence of miscellaneous alcoholic drinks that you can only drink half a cup of before blacking out, followed by the familiar twinge of the fraternity party patented sweat.

He’s broken out of this haze, watching people pass by him as he slumps against the doorframe of the kitchen by the vaguely familiar voice of somebody he used to know very well —

“Jungkookie? At a party? As I live and breathe!”

Enter character: Lim Nayoung, Jungkook’s ex-fuckbuddy, ex-situationship, near ex-girlfriend. Though the first two are terms exclusively used by high school students, there’s really no other way to describe the relation he has (had) with her, and even as he hears her voice, there’s a rush of emotion that he had to swallow down before he gets a good look at her.

She’s, well, a sight to see; though Jungkook told her he liked her long hair a lot (especially when she styled it like yours, which isn’t something he’s willing to say out loud), she has it cut short. He thinks it suits her, and he makes a mental note to let her know as he tries his best to take a once-over of her subtly, but gives up shortly when he notices her gaze on him; expectant.

“It’s been a while, huh?” A soft grin makes its way up his face, and he fights the urge to pull her into a hug. “I love the hair.”

“What happened to liking it long? In that weird 90s blowout?”

(Your ‘weird 90s blowout’. The same hair you’ve been wearing since junior year of high school, but Nayoung doesn’t have to know, and Jungkook doesn’t want to tell her.)

“I actually still like that look, but this is working for you, baby,” the pet name slips from his lips, force of habit, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t notice the way her eyes lit up for a second. “Where’s everyone else?” It’s a quick attempt to salvage his slip-up, but it doesn’t seem like Nayoung notices the deflection. She doesn’t point him to the group of friends he’s so familiar with, though, instead dragging him by the forearm into the kitchen.

He catches sight of Mingyu by the drinks as Nayoung pours him something from a punch bowl, bright red with fruits strewn about the top, and Jungkook’s sure just a smell of it would kill a medieval peasant. He does, in fact have an incentive for being here, and is reminded of that by his aforementioned roommate’s loud shriek of his name.

Nayoung gets to him before Mingyu, passing him a solo cup that she so graciously garnished with an orange slice, and he strokes her hair as a silent thanks, and a preemptive apology for what’s about to hit her, vis-à-vis Hurricane Mingyu;

“Yo, JK? You came, man!” The side hug he gets is sloppy, and Mingyu’s voice is so slurred that Jungkook can’t help but assume he’s been pre-gaming this for a while. The thought is cut off violently when his jaw is grabbed, forehead pressing against Mingyu’s in a manner too intimate for Jungkook to deal with without alcohol in his system. “You’re the man, I can’t believe we haven’t partied at all this year!” He shoves Jungkook away, while the latter looks dazed (read: disgusted) at how strongly Mingyu’s breath smelled of alcohol.

He takes a sip of the concoction in his cup, wincing just a bit as the gasoline-y aftertaste fully settles in, right before the realization that it has, indeed, been way too long since he's last been to a party at all. He downs the drink, trying not to let his aversion show immediately before he looks down at Nayoung, nodding towards the drinks again.

“Down like water, huh? What happened to my whiskey addict?” Nayoung’s voice is bleary over the terrible EDM drop that’s just played over the speakers, but Jungkook laughs anyways — whiskey’s been his drink of choice ever since you managed to get away with buying a bottle at 17, and he thinks about you every single time he drinks it; more specifically, the way you’d all but hurled it in front of a bodega, and then the way the two of you had drunkenly ran off.

Whatever was in the drink is working, apparently, because Jungkook can feel the buzz of the drink in his veins, and as he pushes aside the memory of the two of you, there’s a burst of confidence that pulses through him. It isn’t anything forward, just the personality so many of his friends were well acquainted with — cocky, a little egotistical, a little too hot for his own good — fighting it’s way out of the somber senior he’s been playing for a good few months now.

He leans against the punch table so he’s eye-level with Nayoung, who shies away from the sudden proximity, and if she’s blushing just a bit, he pretends like he doesn’t notice in favor of grabbing the drink out of her hand and drinking it all in one go. It stings on its way down, and she stares at him, mouth agape at what she’s just seen him do twice in a row.

“There’s like, an entire bottle of vodka in that.”

Jungkook smiles, a little lazy and a little lopsided.

“Is there another full bottle somewhere?”

The catastrophic thing about Jungkook isn’t that he makes bad decisions, it’s just that he refuses to admit when he’s made a bad decision.

To set the scene, think of Jungkook, on the lawn of the insanely big glorified fraternity mansion, 7 shots of vodka in and drunk enough that his equilibrium is fully askew and he’s slurring his words in the dialect only you’re familiar with, one he’s grown out of years ago.

Nayoung is still by his side, reasonably sober compared to him, and a couple of his friends — both close and those who he all but neglected in favor of computer science senior year — surround him. They’ve chosen the surprisingly well kempt area because EDM and copious amounts of alcohol stop making sense when you hit your twenties, and as it is, Jungkook’s previous attempts to keep you out of his brain are failing horrifically.

They talk about the time Nayoung and Jungkook got drunk, called Namjoon and told him the only identifiable landmark was the moon, talk about Seokjin throwing up at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, talk about their lives, Mingyu talks about his endeavors in bed (which is weird because he definitely doesn’t know half the people in this vicinity) and Jungkook thinks about you.

He thinks about feeling bad that he’s not replying, thinks about how you don’t drink a lot because drunk driving killed your boyfriend, thinks about how smart you are and how he wishes you had an easier childhood, how he wishes you weren’t so hard on yourself, wishes you were here and that you hadn’t moved out, wishes he could see you everyday, and wishes that he could just get you out of his head.

He thinks about you, uncharacteristically quiet until Nayoung calls him on it —

“What’s got you all worked up?” Her question is really just a figure of speech, but he wants to tell her everything because if anyone knows Jungkook even a smidge close to the way you know him, it’s Nayoung.

“N’thin, nothing,” he takes a pause to breathe out, regroup and look down at Nayoung. It takes him a while to really gather that the group has split up, all going their separate ways after getting shitfaced, presumably to find themselves another drink or a hookup. He wonders if you’ve ever hooked up with someone at a party, wonders if you’d say yes if he were to ask —

“Wanna go upstairs? I hate this fucking music.”

[In retrospect, he should’ve known, at that point, that he was making a horrible mistake, but again, he’d never admit it]

“Yeah. Not because I wanna sit in a fraternity kid’s bed, but because I wanna shoot Avicii right about now.” It takes Nayoung a while to comprehend his slurred words, but she laughs at the sentiment before telling him that Avicii’s very much not alive. It makes Jungkook grin morbidly, and he finds himself grabbing her hand to pull her back into the house.

In the essence of wanting to be a good friend, he looks around to catch a glimpse of Mingyu anywhere, and finds him near the kitchen. He’s, surprisingly so, not drunk outwardly, but Jungkook figures that’s bound to change soon; the party is nowhere near being over. His roommate catches Nayoung’s hand in his, and shoots him a horrifically confused look, which Jungkook pays no mind to.

It doesn’t take long for them to make their way upstairs and into the only bedroom on the floor that isn’t locked or mysteriously producing obscene pornstar-esque sex sounds, and even though the bed is horribly unkempt in a way that would become the butt of your jokes for months on end, they settle.

Fuck, Jungkook has got to stop thinking about you. It’s becoming dangerously apparent that you’re becoming the forefront of his thoughts this evening, and he just can’t figure out why. It’s happened before, too, every time he’d go out to get lunch or dinner with you, every time you’d force him to come with you to The Met or every time he’d force you to come with him to a Yankees game, you’d just plague his brain for the next couple of days. He thinks it because you’re his best friend, that it’s normal to think about someone who’s entire childhood has been riddled with yours, but he can’t exactly focus on that thought when Nayoung pulls her jacket off.

It’s one she bought when they used to… be involved, and Jungkook smiles ever so lightly when he remembers the day.

“That from our little detour to Jersey?”

She looks up at him, and the light of the room is a bit too dim to properly make out her features, but it reflects off of her collarbones, gets his mind all fuzzy when she reciprocates the dopey smile he has on.

“Yeah, yep. I always keep the memorabilia.”

“I mean, the other memorabilias,” he quotes the word, still feeling really fucking buzzed, “were just tattoos. Bit hard to get rid of those, huh?”

Nayoung laughs, and Jungkook feels the claws of past intimacy scratch down his back. It’s familiar, being like this with her, and he values that. Values her, even if she never really gave him an actual reason for breaking it off — ‘we’re in different places, clearly’ she’d told him, and if he sat down to really think about it, he might be able to decipher her words in the context of their relationship but Jungkook literally cannot think of more than three things at once right now.

She lies down flat on the bed, and he has half a mind to tell her off about frat boys and their abysmal hygiene, but he thinks it’s a good idea, and readjusts himself so he’s laying right next to her. She tilts her head to look at him, and he finds the ceiling to be the most interesting thing in the world as soon as it registers in his mind what might be happening.

“What happened with you?”

“Huh?”

“Just… how you disappeared after senior year, how you were dozing off even when you’re definitely drunk. It’s so unlike you to not be like, the one keeping the conversation going.”

I can’t stop thinking about my best friend. I’m worried about her, and senior year is ruining my life because I’m not sure I even want to do computer science and my roommate needs to be put in a sobriety program and I need to talk to my best friend right now but I’m ignoring her.

“Yeah, it’s just — work stuff, ya know? ‘S been crazy this year. You know.”

Though his intentions aren’t to give her the wrong idea about this ordeal, he can’t help himself from turning his head to look at her. He laughs, and she doesn’t wince even when his (presumably) vodka-smelling breath hits her face. Nayoung’s giggle is quiet, and she lifts a hand to his head to push back his hair.

If Jungkook keens just a bit, nobody has to know.

“I don’t know, really. I mean, I don’t have a sick internship, so work’s not that bad for me.”

Jungkook’s pupils are blown out, and when Nayoung’s eyes meet his, he sobers up enough for him to realize just how close they are. With a portion of his brain suddenly not inebriated, he should realize what’s happening, he should pull away, but he also realizes that you haven’t crossed his head for a good couple of minutes, which is good enough of a sign for him to stay put.

“Your thing with ___ not work out?”

He’s confused at why you’re being brought up, but he shakes his head as best as he can manage; there’s no way she remembers you, and there’s no way she thought there was a ‘thing’ between you and him. That would be weird, but he can’t help but think of what she’d said — we’re in different places, clearly.

Different places.

“There was… no thing.”

“So there’s nothing with her and you?”

“No, Nayoung-ie. Never was.”

Different places? Was there a thing?

When she kisses him, he doesn’t stop her.

(And when she asks him to fuck her; delirious, eyes wide, skin dewy, he doesn’t stop himself.)

It’s messy, limbs tangled as he’s basically bent her over in half to plow his cock into her, more drunk off the pretty sounds she makes — familiarly, intimacy — than the copious amounts of drinks he’s had. She’s moaning his name out like a prayer, and he’s leaning over her like a god, and Jungkook’s stopped being religious, but he thinks it’s sin, the way she envelopes him and gives herself to him. The way he doesn’t have to ask, the way she’s meeting his hips halfway.

Exodus 20:14, Proverbs 6:32, Hebrews 13:4 — You shall not commit adultery, But a man who commits adultery has no sense; whoever does so destroys himself, Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral.

He remembers these verses, and he remembers your pretty eyes, and you’re all he can think about when he looks down at Nayoung. Does that make him an adulterer? Does that make him a cheater, dirty, sinful? He fucks into her deeper, inevitably hits the spot — familiarity, intimacy — and drinks her moans in. He remembers the slope of your nose, and how you’d laughed together over dinner a day ago, how your eyes had looked under the streetlights. Nayoung tears up, tells him it feels so fucking good, and he thinks of the tears in your eyes. His hips stutter, and it makes her dig her blunt nails into the clothes expanse of his shoulders, but he welcomes the pain better than he welcomes the guilt of having let you walk away.

He feels wretched, feels horribly for Nayoung and feels the vodka in his system crawl its way up his throat but he keeps it down. He’s close, she’s close, and if this was a bad decision, nobody has to know.

Jungkook feels her lose herself over him, and he lets his mind drift to you one last time, biting his lip so he doesn’t groan out your name as his hips lose their rhythm. When he pulls out, one hand lazily pumping his cock, he tries to picture Nayoung, her tits bouncing pretty under her shirt, how she’s trying to regroup all because of him, how she laughed and how it felt when she touched his hair but all his brain can manage is you.

Fuck, he feels wretched. Disgusting, like it’s incestual to think about you the way he is but he welcomes it, let’s you into his mind after fighting it for hours, and when he spills all over Nayoung’s stomach, there’s some sick gratification that coats him.

And that’s the thing about Jungkook. This was a horrible decision, down to every last detail. Fucking your ex-fuckbuddy in a random frat boy’s room after getting shitfaced because you haven’t drank that much in months, and ending up thinking about your best friend even if the goal was to not do that? Bad, bad decision.

But he takes it in stride. Thinks of this as a silver lining, a distraction from you as though you haven’t clouded his head like a stupid wet dream while he fucked somebody else.

And that’s the thing about Jungkook. He refuses to admit that he’s messed up.

Jungkook doesn’t take much time to recuperate from sex. He has incredible stamina coming from the insane workout regime he absolutely has to keep up with, and he can definitely go multiple times in one night, thank you very much, but he can’t bring himself to even think of agreeing to fuck Nayoung again.

He hopes she’s on the same page when he looks at her, the pacing of her breath slowing down as she sits up slowly. He reaches out, stroking her arm right above her elbow where the matching tattoo she got with him sits. Jungkook distracts himself from deciding on what to say as he recalls how they’d gotten it together, how he’d called you right after to show —

Fuck, he hadn’t even thought about you. Granted, you don’t fit into the situation very well, but he doesn’t doubt that you’ll be impartial to telling him off about what he’s just done. He thinks about what to tell you, and remembers the unread messages on his phone, and remembers what he should be doing, which is somehow getting the idea of ever doing this again out of Nayoung’s head.

“Well, you’re never gonna be bad at sex.”

He laughs sheepishly, shuffling to pull his boxers over his still exposed dick. He has no idea what the hell to say to that, and it seems like it’s about to lead to a monologue about how since he’s never ‘gonna be bad at sex’, that they should continue — or return — to be fuckbuddies.

Fuck.

“But we aren’t doing that again.”

Jungkook’s neck snaps up and he lets out a breath of relief he had no idea he was even holding. Nayoung looks incredibly beautiful, and he would lay everything at her feet out of gratitude because she’s just made this whole ordeal inexplicably easy for him. Her face is bright, like it always used to get after they fucked, and Jungkook feels a bout of familiarity catch in his throat, this time accompanied with a sick rush of guilt.

“Uh, w-why do you say that?” His voice is gentle, coaxing the answer out of her, though he can predict what she’s about to say.

We’re in different places, clearly.

“I mean, you were shitfaced just half an hour ago. This was like, a drunken rebound,” Jungkook laughs at that, quiet and low, reaching up to rub at his nape. He doesn’t feel as drunk now, but Nayoung’s next words definitely do the job of sobering him up. “You’re fun, but I want a relationship before I graduate and I honestly don’t think you even like me.”

His world pauses for a split second, and his heart breaks for her; because he made her feel unloved.

Jungkook thinks of Nayoung. Sitting in front of him, face tinged a bit pink from the incredible sex (Exodus 20:14, Proverbs 6:32, Hebrews 13:4), hair cut short and hair long in a blowout (the one you sport all the time) (he thinks your hair is the prettiest shade of brown, and he remembers running his fingers through it). He thinks of Nayoung, matching tattoos and drives to Jersey and how she kissed him with so much fervency and how he tried so hard to match it.

“Your thing with ___ not work out?”

He thinks of calling you after getting tattoos, thinks of how your laugh echoed through his phone in the empty street. He thinks of texting you (shit, he has to text you) for ideas of things to give Nayoung. He thinks of Nayoung opening those gifts and throwing her arms around his neck. He thinks of getting drunk with Nayoung and telling her about childhood memories with you — he thinks of the house you grew up in and the one next to it, where he grew up.

He thinks of you telling him how hard school was, how young you were in high school. He thinks of you crying when your boyfriend died. He thinks of your overpriced white mochas and 2Bros Pizza and fucking AJ. He thinks of how you told him to date Nayoung about two years ago, he thinks about how you’ve always been under this multitude of pressure to excel, and he thinks about how he loves you, and how he loves (fuck) Nayoung.

“Of course I like you, Nana.”

Jungkook remembers how she’d lay down on his bicep after he fucked her one night, telling him about the silly nickname. He remembers thinking then, about how you never had a silly nickname because your parents were too focused on getting you into the top ranking kindergarten in all of the Upper East Side. He remembers laughing at Nayoung’s story, and then making a note to give you a stupid nickname.

And then, Jungkook realizes she’s right.

He doesn’t like her, at least not enough to date her. He thinks of his best friend more than he thinks of her, and Nayoung probably already knows this, hence her little comment earlier.

“Your thing with ___ not work out?”

“But I think I like you too much to fuck you and let myself leave it at that. So you’re wrong about that. But I also think that I can’t give you that relationship. I’m busy, and I think I need to figure out like, my future job and stuff and fuck, I’m sorry if I led you on.”

The look Nayoung gives him reaches down into his stomach and tugs at his gut. She looks pitiful, like he’s the one who’s being hurt in this situation. He looks equally as confused as she does woeful.

“I don’t think your job is all you need to figure out, Jungkook.”

“Your thing with ___ not work out?”

Exodus 20:14, Proverbs 6:32, Hebrews 13:4

He doesn’t ask her what she means, and she doesn’t elaborate.

Jungkook watches her redress, and he chooses to do the same as the reality of being butt naked on a random frat boy’s bed nearly gives him whiplash.

He feels the weight of his phone in the back pocket of his jeans, and realizes how desperately he needs to talk to you, to let you talk to him. To let you tell him what went wrong yesterday. He thinks he won’t tell you what just went down with Nayoung.

Nayoung.

She’s beautiful in her clothes again, a little messy, but Jungkook feels the urge to never let anyone hurt her, including himself. It’s love, he knows immediately, when the dim lamp hits the apples of her cheeks and he can see the flutter in her eyelashes when she blinks. But it’s not romantic, and he’s a bit relieved when he realizes this. (It feels nothing like how he does when he looks at you). This love is platonic, not brotherly but friendly, like he’d pick her up from a club and remember her restaurant orders and be the one to haze any of her boyfriends.

And he tells her just this.

“I love you, Nana. You know that, yeah?”

She looks over at him, and it must click in her head what he's implying, because her eyes brighten just a little.

(If they’re glossing over because she’s about to cry, Jungkook will pretend he doesn’t notice.)

“I love you too, Jungkook. You know that, yeah?”

He nods, and he feels the taste of his love for her heavy on his tongue. This love is platonic, not brotherly but friendly, like he’d pick her up from a club and remember her restaurant orders and be the one to haze any of her boyfriends.

(He thinks he loves you platonically as well.)

(If the love he feels when he looks at you is entirely different than the love he feels when he looks at Nayoung, even though he cites them both as being platonic, nobody has to know.)

—

[from JayKayz] im sorry baby, i didn’t check my phone all day.

[from JayKayz] you know how thursdays are.

[from JayKayz] dont apologize. i don’t wanna talk over call, twll me when you’re free

—

It’s about a month after the small reconciliation that Jungkook tells you about how he’d fucked Nayoung.

The last couple of weeks have been incredible; works dwindled down over the past couple of weeks for the both of you, finals are in their last bow before summer, and after a brunch at one of Manhattan’s finest rooftop bars where the two of you had drank a shit ton of margaritas, the guilt of potentially offending Jungkook no longer eats you alive.

It reminds Jungkook of, funnily enough, his freshman year of college — going out as he came in — when the grief of losing your boyfriend wasn’t eating you alive any longer. The two of you had done every cheesy New York tourist thing; ice skating at Bryant Park down to lunch on top of the Empire State Building, and you’d laughed, learned to ballroom dance from YouTube videos only to botch it horribly in the streets; it was the first time Jungkook felt that rush down his throat, and he’s begun to feel it again recently.

It’s like the montage of a romantic comedy where the main characters get to really know each other: a part you savor, and a part Jungkook tends to skip so he can get to whatever conflict awaits. The two of you have done everything together, continued to get weekly pizzas at 2Bros, where you’ve openly made fun of him for his order choice, gotten white mochas at the small business you love too much (he thinks it’s not that great but spends $18 anyways), rewatched the first 5 seasons of Friends (he’s realized you can literally quote it), gone to every Yankees game you could get tickets to (you make him explain all the plays even if he’s done it a million times), spent too much time and too much money at the Statue of Liberty, gotten pictures together at random photo booths in the street, slept under the stars, slept tangled in each other’s arms, drunkenly made out once only to never talk about it —

It’s going better than it ever has, and Jungkook can count on one hand the memories he has that beat out any of the ones that he’s spent with you.

However, as a callback to the Glen Powell rom-com plot curve, there has to be a conflict. So when Jungkook tells you about that drunken memory that still is very much in his mind, you really think you should’ve seen it coming.

It happens over lunch, another sick foreshadow you should’ve seen barreling towards you, and it hits you in a way you can’t exactly explain. He doesn’t take it as seriously; doesn’t think you’d care because it’s not like any of this is inherently romantic. It’s not like he cheated on you; the two of you were just best friends who hadn’t even seen each other in a while when it happened.

(If the Bible verses are at the tip of his tongue when Jungkook thinks of it, he leaves that part out of the recollection.)

He laughs when he tells you, and you savor the sweet sound, the one that’s low and tugs at your heart in an inexplicable manner.

It starts off as a conversation about how he cannot drink vodka anymore, and you immediately wish you hadn’t asked when he speaks: “You know that time, when you got really pissed at me for saying that AJ shit to you?”

The memory sends something queasy down your stomach. It shoots down your legs for a split second before you remember his words from a month back.

You don’t have to explain yourself, I get it.

It must’ve been a hard day, huh? That fucker got you a shaken espresso, Jesus.

Yeah I know he had no idea, but still. I do. And it makes me feel so shitty for you.

You don’t have to explain yourself.

“I’d say pissed is an overstatement.”

“Overstatement for you, you have the best attorneys in the country teaching you on random Tuesday. For me,” his hands reach to rest dramatically over his heart, and you laugh unironically, making a note to yourself to only order mocktails from this moment forward. “It was like getting bitchslapped.”

That genuinely makes you laugh.

“But whatever, the next day, I went to a party and got shitfaced to deal with the pain.”

That reminds you of how you’d dealt with snapping at him the day after — how you had hyperventilated in your room when he didn’t reply, how you had to skip a class because your heart wouldn’t stop beating at the prospect of losing him.

You don’t have to explain yourself.

“And I fucked Nayoung. So no more vodka for me.”

“Lim Nayoung?”

You don’t know why you ask, obviously it’s her.

Obviously it’s Lim Nayoung. The girl who has a matching tattoo with Jungkook on her arm. The girl who has gifts you told him to get for her decorating her shelves. The sweet girl who never stopped Jungkook from speaking to you even if the ‘girl best friend archetype made perfect sense. The girl who has a jacket from when Jungkook and her had almost had a Ross/Rachel wedding after getting drunk in Jersey. His ex-fuckbuddy, hell, his ex-girlfriend because who does all of that with someone who’s supposed to be strictly physical.

Obviously it’s Lim Nayoung.

Obviously you shouldn’t be this fucking surprised.

Obviously your heart shouldn’t sink to the tresses of your stomahc.

Obviously this wasn’t meant to be romantic.

“Yeah, her. It was fucking crazy, I don’t think I’ve ever drank that much.”

His voice is fuzzy in your ears, and you can’t look him in the eyes properly. You take a sip of the drink that’s next to you, willing yourself to suddenly get wasted so you never remember this moment.

Why does it make a sharp pain go through your left side? Why do you have to clench your palms into a fist to subside said pain. Why did you think this was going somewhere, why did you think Jungkook wasn’t still hung up on her.

You think of AJ, and how he doesn’t even know about your ex-boyfriend. You think of your ex-boyfriend, and shaken espressos, and wakes, and how Jungkook’s the only person who’s been through all of that with you.

You think of how you graduate in less than a month, and you think of how Jungkook will have attended six of your graduations by that point. You think of Nayoung, how pretty she is, and how much you think she deserves him.

You wonder why you think you would ever deserve him, and you wonder why you thought it would end in anything but an eternal friendship; beautiful, intimate, but forever bound by the jagged cuffs of platonicity. You wonder if he, even for a fleeting moment — when you were tangled in his sheets, when you laughed at his stupid king-kong jokes at the Empire State Building, when you reached for his hand during the climaxes of horror movies, when your lips were fervent on his in that back alley — thought that this would go anywhere.

“Maybe we need to get you in that sobriety program, huh?”

If your voice cracks, you pray he doesn’t notice. You pray the laugh you get out of him is genuine, and you pray that he didn’t look at Nayoung so warmly, only to feel just as guilty as you had a month prior.

AJ has no idea why you’re at his apartment, nor does he have any idea as to why you’re drunk. It’s way too early in the day for you to be wasted; in fact, he distinctly remembers you telling him that you and Jungkook were going out, which is why you couldn’t make it to the lunch he had proposed.

Were you getting drunk at noon? He knows you like margaritas, but he also knows that you have an insane tolerance; how many did you drink to get you this —

“H- he doesn’t love me.”

You interrupt the tangent of his thoughts with a hiccuped, slurred out sentence, and his entire face contorts trying to decipher what you’re saying, and then why you’re saying it.

“Hey, hey — wait, come in, what are you saying? Who doesn’t love you?”

Your skin is warm under his touch as he gently tugs at your arm to pull you past the threshold of his door, and he tries not to look too hard at the way your lips glisten under the dim light of his entranceway. He tries not to notice the way your hair is a little messy, undoubtedly from the wind, and how pretty your collarbones look under the small top you’re wearing —

Jungkook.

You’re talking about Jungkook, and he knows this not because there’s literally nobody else you could be talking about, but because there’s nobody who could get you this upset by ‘not loving you’.

(Do you love him?)

He sits you down on one of the barstools he keeps in front his kitchen countertop, and you slump your head down onto your arms, mumbling incoherently.

(Do you love him?)

He pours out a glass of water for you, and pats your head gently, touch lingering for a second to give you even the slightest inkling of comfort in this outwardly distressed state.

You lift your head, eyes red-rimmed and glossy with tears.

AJ doesn’t feel like this often. He jokes about how the two of you grew up, devoid of the privilege of showing normal emotions, bottling them up and spilling them over textbook pages and only ever being allowed to feel happy upon seeing numbers scribbled in red at the top of test pages. He jokes about the two of you ending up in Ivy Leagues at the cost of having normal human feelings; he knows that he’s perceptive and sharp and he likes to think that he has you all figured out, but when you look at him like that, he knows that he doesn’t.

He doesn’t know why you told him to never make you a shaken espresso again, he doesn’t know what relationship you and Jungkook even have, he doesn’t know why you’re this upset over him not loving you.

He does, however, know that even if Jungkook doesn’t love you, he might.

AJ met you in your first year of law school, and he remembers thinking that you were the only person in the whole class who was fit to be his rival; you’d been only person other than him who’d gotten through the cold calls, the only person who’d read all the way to the end of the syllabus, the one person he would accept as a ‘rival’, like he was in a Viola Davis drama, if you may.

He’d spoken to you after class — a little cocky, a little smug — and you’d been nothing but sweet. Soft voice, pretty smile, quips that had him looking away to stop himself from laughing, he liked you immediately.

The two of you had really done everything together — studied at ungodly hours, called each other drunk to drive the other home, you had inside jokes and three years worth of memories, you’d helped him through breakups and he’d gotten you free coffee every week for a year now — the rapport he had with you was one he’d never ever expected, and the way he looked at you, felt about you, was something he’d never ever expected.

He had his girlfriends, and he told you about them while you’d answer with a curt joke about never having dated anybody, but he’d never ever looked at them like he looked at you. Never noticed the furrow in their brows when they read something hard to understand, never noticed their lopsided smiles and the way they’d drink, but never enough to really get them wasted. And the thing is, AJ hadn’t cared that he saw all of these things, because perceptive as he was, all you’d ever been to him was a brilliant girl who he’d be sure to keep up with after law school.

Right now, though? He knows. He knows why he noticed, he knows why it bothers him that you might love Jungkook back, he knows that you graduate soon and that he doesn’t have much time, and even if he did, it wouldn’t matter because you might love Jungkook back —

“AJ, Jungkook doesn't love me.”

“Yikes.”

He wants to say more. Wants to tell you that it doesn’t matter what Jungkook thinks, because I love you, and I think you’re incredible and I’ve spent the past 3 years ignoring it but I’ve never ever ignored you and I love you.

“He fucked Nayoung.”

AJ has no idea who that is, but he wants to sock Jungkook in the face for having this girl, this amazing girl with him for his entire life and fucking somebody else.

“I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry he did that, and I’m sorry you don’t know that I would never do that.

“He —“ you pause to sob: a soft, strangled noise that makes AJ’s stomach turn. “He doesn’t love me.”

“Do you love him?”

Say no. Say no. Say no. Say no. Say no.

“Fuck, AJ. He doesn’t —“ you don’t again, shoving your head back into your arms.

“Do you love him, though?”

AJ’s not sure why he’s asking, because he knows that there’s no way you’d be upset if he didn’t love you back. He thinks of it like a prosecution case; he’s gotten enough out of you on the stand that everybody can draw the conclusion but he has to get it out of you.

A surefire kill.

“Hm?”

Your eyes are bleary when you look up, half from crying and half from being the drunkest you’ve ever been. Your hair is still messy, and your lips are bitten red from all the quiet crying you’ve been doing. He can’t cry in his kitchen, not when you’ve been here laughing, not when his granite countertops hold years of your touch, not when you’re unraveling a foot away from him.

“I think I do, AJ. I really think I do.”

“Fuck, baby. I’m sorry.”

I’m sorry that I thought I could have you, when Jungkook’s always been the one you wanted.

“He used to be like, the one person —“ pause to hiccup. “I never thought I’d love like that. But we got closer after the fucking, shaken espresso day last month. And I guess the proximity j-just set it in.”

He can’t tell if the reason your words are so mangled in his ears is because the sound of his own heart crashing into his stomach is so loud, or because you’re slurring your words that much.

“Drink some water, please.”

Say you’re lying, please.

—

Jungkook doesn’t exactly know why you ordered another 3 margaritas in the middle of your lunch detour, and he doesn’t know why you stopped looking him directly in the eyes right after he told you that he’d had sex with Nayoung. He doesn’t know why you insisted on drinking when you never get to a point where being wasted is even an option, and he doesn’t know why you so fervently denied him walking you home.

He doesn’t know why he stays awake at night thinking of you, either.

Jungkook is surprisingly introspective for somebody who zones in and out of conversation so much, who is typically dazed and doesn’t have much to offer when it comes to picking up obvious hints thrown at him, but he knows himself quite well.

Better than you, he’d argue.

The sheets are warm around his waist, and he has one arm propped under his head as he stares at the ceiling, eyes wide without even a hint of sleep in the tresses of them, which is unusual for it being the middle of the night. He remembers how a month prior, all you’d ever been was his best friend. He remembers the little fall-out and how you’d gotten together for dinner, how pretty you’d looked and wonders why he’d focused on that when he simply never had done that before.

He remembers the day after, and how he’d taken another girl to bed. Jungkook remembers faint Bible verses about adultery, how he couldn’t get you out of his head, and he remembers what Nayoung had told him that night, as long as what she’d told him when they broke it off.

“I don’t think your job is all you need to figure out, Jungkook.”

“Your thing with ___ not work out?”

“We’re in different places, clearly.”

He never thought about what she meant when they’d split; the pain of losing someone who’s memory he had literally etched into his skin was too imminent for him to even think about the ending scene. He also never thought about what she meant when she’d walked out of the fraternity room that day; he’d made up with you right after, and the following month was you, you, and more you. Focusing on Nayoung’s words and the small sliver of conversation they’d engaged in hadn’t even been an afterthought, at least until he’s brought her up today and you, like similar poles of a magnet, quite literally repelled him.

But really, what was she even talking about?

Why would there be a thing with you? Sure, the two of you were close, and sure, he’d probably talked about you and called you and FaceTimed you too much for her security, but he’d always thought the concept of him having a ‘girl best friend’ was what annoyed her, and not the notion that the two of you would have a ‘thing’.

Why would there be a thing with you? Sure, he idolized you and told her how smart he thought you were, but him and Nayoung were never official, and he’d only ever assumed that she was confused as to why he was always talking about some other girl after literally sleeping with her -

Oh.

It hits him like a shot to the heart, and he physically sits up to grab his phone because he has to confirm this sudden realization.

The look Mingyu had given him at the party shoots to the forefront of his brain, Nayoung’s words echo, and the way your resolve has crumbled when he told you about her suddenly makes a lot more sense.

In fact, it all makes sense.

I don’t think your job is all that you need to figure out.

She was talking about you. About how he was hung up on you and never even realized it —

We’re clearly in different places.

She was talking about you. About how she was willing to be invested with him, but the place he was stuck at, was you.

The ringing of his phone as he calls Nayoung seems louder than it usually is. It’s daunting, like he’s hoping she doesn’t pick up with each ring so he doesn’t have to face the reality he’s been unknowingly ignoring for… fuck, he doesn’t even know how long.

“Jungkook? It’s 2 in the morning. Are you okay?”

“Why did we break up, Nayoung?”

His voice is hoarse, and if he wasn’t so fucking stressed, he thinks about how proud you’d be for putting on the ‘interrogation voice’ you’d introduced him to in your second year of Law School.

“What?” Her laugh is quiet, laced with sleep, and Jungkook wonders if she should hang up and say sorry for waking her. “We weren’t really together, so I wouldn’t call it a break up —“

Her pause is long, and Jungkook doesn’t correct her, doesn’t bring up the tattoos and leather jackets and how they’d nearly eloped and the fact that they just had sex a month prior. She’s right, and he needs her to continue now.

“But I always assumed that you had something going on with __”

“You mean the time I called her after we got matching tattoos?” He can’t fight the urge to make the joke, even though it just dawned on him that you were, indeed, the straw on the camel’s back that broke him and Nayoung up. It just dawned on him that he might be in love with his best friend, and that he’d hurt Nayoung because of it, and that you might love him back.

Maybe.

He ignores that, and laughs wryly at the silly anecdote, thanking every religious figure he can think of when she also laughs.

“Yeah, that, but also just… your relationship. The way you obsessively talked about her and were literally always on call with her was one thing, but…” she pauses like she’s thinking about what to say next, how to describe the end of it all to him in a way that won’t flip his entire world around, not knowing that she’d already done that. Not knowing that you’d already done that.

“She came over once to pick us up when we got drunk. It was the same night I was talking about at the party, when we told Joon the closest thing to us was the moon? Yeah, ___ came and got us that night.”

“I knew right then, honestly. The way you looked at her was fucking insane. When you used to look at me, my friends would say that it was like I’d done every good thing in the world for you. But when you looked at her, it was like she’d saved you from every bad thing that could’ve ever happened to you. It was like, relief. Like you could let it all down in front of her. And I’d never been on the receiving end of that look; not ever when you were sober. Being like that and looking at her like that completely shitfaced? I knew I couldn’t stand in the way of the two of you, even if it literally killed me.”

He doesn’t process it immediately, choosing to focus on the last sentence, because feelings for you aside, he felt like the most massive douchebag in the world for making her feel that way.

“Nayoung, I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I honestly — I had no idea, I really didn’t —“

“Jungkook, I know. And I know you’re probably trying not to drive yourself insane thinking of whether she loves you back.”

He definitely is, but he doesn’t tell her this in fear that it’ll just hurt her more.

“No it’s not like that, I’m just, so incredibly sorry that I put you through that, you deserve so much more, you deserve the relationship you want and I feel like shit —“

“What do you mean it’s not like that, Jungkook? You’re not thinking about whether she likes you back?”

“Huh?”

“You don’t think she loves you back?”

Do you love him back? Do you look at him like he’s saved you from every bad thing that could’ve ever happened to you? Do you? Will you ever?”

“I don’t… know?”

“When you called her that night, you tripped over your own feet. She knew exactly where we were based off of that.”

Summer of 2006.

The field he’d gotten wasted with Nayoung, except he only remembers you.

Remembers how you’d just gotten promoted up to the fourth grade, remembers how you were licking down the side of your ice cream cone; vanilla with sprinkles, as always. He had his mint chocolate chip, and your mothers were on a bench a couple of feet away from you.

The sun had made your hair look golden, your eyes were bright, and your smile was so pretty that he couldn’t hold your gaze for longer than three seconds. He remembers this, because he’d physically tripped over his own feet when you looked at him just a couple of seconds too long.

The small ‘oof’ that he’d let out when he’d fallen, damp grass and soil under his tender palms, knees tickled by the summer green just seconds later, the way you’d gasped and abandoned your ice cream cone on the ground to come tend to him, and your mothers rushing over too, laughing at how much you cared for him.

He’d always, always tripped over his own feet at that spot, always fallen with that little ‘oof’ and soon realized that it wasn’t really because he couldn’t make eye contact with you, but because there was a little hump in the ground at the spot he’d been standing at.

And you remembered.

You remembered even if the first time it happened was more than a decade and a half ago, you remembered even if you had grown out of visiting that field when you went to college.

“She remembered.”

“Yeah, Jungkook. Obviously she remembered. Because she loves you back, and it’s honestly making me more upset that the two of you haven’t worked it out yet.”

“Fuck, Nayoung. Fuck. Thank you. Thank you — I have to think about — fuck, I’m sorry it’s so fucking late and I’ve just called you and went on this weird self discovery path —“

Her laugh is bright when she cuts him off, and Jungkook feels part of his heart ease when he realizes that she’s not angry with him.

“Go to bed, talk to her tomorrow. I love you, Jungkook. And you love her and she loves you in a completely different way, but I love you. And don’t say sorry, I was up anyways.”

She hangs up after, not giving Jungkook space to even say goodbye, and simultaneously giving him a million different things to think about, but only one that he can really focus on: how he’s in love with you.

And how, apparently, you’re in love with him as well.

—

The beauty of New York City is the anonymity it provides, even amongst 8 million other people. Street bustle, skyscrapers kiss the clouds, floods of people drown you in the street, and even through all of that, you have the privilege of being alone. Solitude; a lighter flickering in a Brooklyn balcony, and the drip of water down in Harlem.

Tonight, you and Jungkook have the privilege of being alone, just 20 minutes away from each other, staring at the same film photograph of the both of you from the photobooth you’d stopped at a couple of weeks prior.

The grainy picture features four shots; your hair is damp, and Jungkook can still feel how it felt on his neck, your lips are a dark maroon, and Jungkook can still feel them hovering right above his. Jungkook’s in his leather jacket, and you feel the goosebumps on your arms from when the fabric brushed against your skin. His hair’s also wet from the rain, but the gel he still uses had kept it together surprisingly well; you remember the way you’d made fun of him for his incessant usage of the product.

The picture on the top right is a glamour shot, if anything. You’re smiling, and when he looks down at it, his chest blooms with a warmth akin to spring’s first bloom. He has a softer look; sporting the lopsided grin you’re so used to seeing, and it makes your stomach coil enough to make you physically look away and laugh.

Top left is a lot less serious, you remember he’d made a joke about the two of you being mafioso heirs, and it hadn’t even been that funny, but the picture features bright, childish, innocent grins. Your eyes are shut, smile spreading all the way across your face as you lean forward. His head is thrown back, lip piercing caught between his bottom lip when he laughs. The both of you hear each other’s laughter, echoing in the photobooth and across the empty, rain stricken streets of New York.

You think of how much you miss this, about how this day had inevitably been when you fell face first, defenseless with your guard all the way down. You think of the bottom left picture, not having the courage to look at it fully; you remember how you’d leaned into his body, and how he’d let you do it, how your lips had been just millimeters from touching when the flash had caught you off guard and you’d looked up straight into his eyes like something out of a Glen Powell rom-com.

Jungkook thinks of how much he misses this, about how this day had been one of the ‘moments he knew’, a collection that grows the more he thinks about how irrevocably in love with you he is. He thinks about the bottom right picture, how he’s looking at you and you’re fixing your hair, how he got the picture developed and still didn’t see the stars in his eyes, still didn’t realize that you were always the one.

The four photos are pressed to your heart. You haven’t had it in you to fall asleep, there’s still a full ache in your head from the alcohol and you make a note to thank AJ for getting you home safe today. A tinge of embarrassment shoots down your body when you think about the conversation you had with him today, the conclusion you’d reached, what you’d learned about Jungkook and Nayoung, what you’d learned about yourself; that you loved him, and he didn’t love you back, and how it made you want to die the more you thought of the month the two of you had.

The four photos are pressed to his heart. He wonders if they’ll soothe the ache or not knowing whether you love him, too. The phone he’s just put down should provide him with silence; fuck , he craves silence, but Nayoung’s words just echo in his head. Talk to her tomorrow, but he has no idea if you feel even remotely the same. He has no idea if he’s completely off base, he has no idea if he’s gotten the wrong ideas based off of the last month, and the guilt of potentially having taken your platonicity and genuine friendship as a lead eats him alive.

[But it can’t all be platonic, you think.]

[But it can’t all be platonic, he thinks. ]

No, you think. Because the alcohol might’ve made it easier, but you remember the way he tasted on your lips a little too well. The way his hands traveled down your shirt, sodden and soaked in the rain, caressing the curve of your waist. The way your own fingers had explored the figure of his shoulders, pressing into the hard plains of muscle as he moved his lips against yours too languidly to be a drunken detour.

No, he thinks. Because the drowsy haze of Sunday might’ve made it easier, but he remembers the way your leg was thrown over his thighs, the soft cotton of his own shirt hardly covering any of your legs, the rasp in your voice when you’d mumbled out his name, looking over you as he cooked. The way you’d laughed at his stupid dad jokes, and the way Mingyu had slapped his back after you’d gone, talking about the ‘way she looked at you’ — there’s no way it was just platonic.

There was nothing platonic about the way he’d held you in line at Liberty, the way he’d looked at you when you went up the fire escape when Mingyu had another girl over, the way you’d spoken, hushed into his skin the night you fell asleep at his place. Maybe falling in love, for the two of you, was like having your eyes closed while standing on the shore; maybe it was a wave that came crashing, rushing up your legs and soaking the two of you entirely before you even realized it. Maybe all the two of you had been doing, was enjoying the crashing of water ahead of you, ignorant to the receding waves and how dangerously close you were to being caught up in the mess your ignorance would inevitably bring.

And there you are —

Present day New York City, staring up at empty ceilings with full hearts, itching to reach for your phones with nothing but apprehension holding you back; what if he doesn’t love me, what if she doesn’t love me, what if I’m off-base, what if everything changes, 23 years down the drain, I have to tell her, I have to tell him. Alone, anonymous, lovers amidst millions others, feeling so much that you taste it on your tongues, feeling so much that you want to rip your beating hearts out; alone, anonymous, in love, in pain.

And there you are —

Begging the other not to go, because you’re so bad at being alone, but not being able to tell them why.

—

Cravath asks you to work in their London office after you graduate. It’s one of the perks of

consistently being at the top of your class, one of the perks of having an internship at the best law firm in all of New York, and it’s an opportunity you can’t say no to.

You figure it’ll help you get over this Jungkook fiasco, considering the fact that it’s basically a dead-end for you; you wonder if Watchell Lipton can refer AJ to a firm in London so you won’t completely be alone in a new city, you start to think about how wonderful it’d be to get some time away, to get space away from where you’d suffered such a big loss just a couple of years back — away from where you’d been pushed beyond every limit of yours since the first grade.

There’s nothing loss has taught you other than to put up walls, to close people off and to shut them out at any waking moment that you even come close to vulnerability. It’s not healthy, nor is it a quality you’re proud of; your stricken body’s last attempt at cushioning any further blows, any further losses from even those you claim to be the closest to you. It’s the reason you never told your parents about the intense stress their expectations put onto you, it’s why AJ doesn’t know about your ex but you know about all of his, and it’s the reason you’ve been ignoring Jungkook for a week now.

The realization that you were, in fact, madly in love with him had might as well carved through your skin to make its way into your system judging by the pain you’ve gone through since it’s hit you. You’re a rational adult, and loving someone is human nature, but loving your best friend and knowing that he doesn’t love you back should be something God implements in hell as punishment. You haven’t been able to look at the photo booth picture, have turned every photograph that reminds you of him around to avoid seeing it, have turned to sticking your head in your ridiculously heavy textbooks so you have a way to save face should Jungkook ever text you, and you’re sure that this game of shutting him out is going to be successful when you accept the job in London.

But you don’t.

For some reason, the drafted email accepting the position sits on your laptop, in a minimized tab that you open and contemplate hitting ‘send’ for hours on end, but never do. There’s a sliver of yearning — stupid, human yearning — that you wish you could just turn off, that tells you there’s a chance Jungkook might love you back. That tells you this situation will end with him running to you in the rain and kissing you under the stars, a grandiose recreation of the kiss you’d had almost a month ago now; the little voice in your head is your biggest vice, and you stare at the email over and over everyday, telling it to just shut up, telling you to get over yourself because he’s always loved Nayoung and you will never be her — never be that pretty, that put together, that kind or compassionate — and you tell yourself to just send the email.

Send it, burn this love you have with the littlest flicker of emotion you have left in your heart, move to London and start over. Reinvent yourself and learn to love properly, learn to love things that will love you back, learn to feel properly and not be so stringent on goals, learn to be human because it seems like you’d forgotten how to, until the realization that you love Jungkook barreled towards you like an avalanche of everything you never wanted to be.

Send it, and tell Jungkook. Take his little display of sadness and walk out of his life with the bitter taste of a confession that’ll never leave your lips still heavy on your tongue. Watch him in pictures like he’d watched you sleep, watch him fall in love with Nayoung eventually and move out because Computer Science has a killer starting salary, watch him pursue something he wants to do —

(“I think I really wanna do art. Sing, paint, do something that doesn’t involve binary code.”

“I think you should go for it. Stick it out till graduation and work for like a month because your starting salary is totally gonna support you even if you fail, and take the leap. Kierkegaard.”

“No idea what the fuck a ‘kira gard’ is.”

“Shut up.”

“You think I’ll be able to do it?”

“I think you’re the most talented person I know. If anyone can be an artist, it’s you.”)

If you love someone, let them go. And you want to do it so badly, a part of you craves the final sweet release of pain that New York City will give you before you escape it, but there’s another part that’s screaming in agony because you cannot do this to yourself, like your body fears that giving up someone you love so much that it physically hurts you to think about will be the final straw, that you’ll drop dead at JFK airport if Jungkook doesn’t tell you that he loves you, too.

If you love someone, let them go. Let them go, let them go. If you love yourself, let yourself go. Leave, and enjoy London and free yourself from a city that’s so beautiful that all you’ve done is loved it and the loneliness it’s handed you on a platter. If you love New York, let it go. If you let Jungkook, let him go.

You’re staring at the email again, and you can’t tell if you’re tearing up because of how long you haven’t been blinking, or if it’s because you know that when you finally click the send button, it’ll all be over.

You’ll be putting the fear of shaken espressos behind you, you’ll be putting Jungkook, New York, your parents, your entire life behind you; you’ll graduate in two weeks after finals, and you’ll grab nothing but your passport to go to London. It’ll be over, which is a thought that’s as daunting as it is relieving, but not because of your ex, not because of New York, or your parents —

It’s hard solely because you don’t want to put Jeon Jungkook behind you. The first person you’d ever talked to about how burnt out you were, the first person to sleep under the same sheets with you, the only person to eat a meat lovers pizza at 2Bros, the only person you let your guard down with, the only person who’d ever seen you cry, the only person you’d ever been in love with. The photographs you’ve turned around, the permanent imprint of his lips on yours, the way his hand found purchase on the small of your back, his heartbreaks and your biggest loss, the strum of his guitar back in middle school when you’d blushed under his gaze for the first time, the way he rubs at his nape when he’s embarrassed, his smile, the way he trusts you with his life — you’d sooner die than call it quits on those memories, but it’s even harder to imagine living with them, knowing that he’s never going to feel the same way about it.

Your heart is heavier than it's ever been, even if you’ve been carrying the weight of your own world for the past 17 years at least, without putting it down even for a second. You’re sure you’re crying, if the way the words on your screen blur is any indication. Your left side aches the same way it had a month ago when he told you about Nayoung, and you wonder if that pain will ever go away if you leave.

Your fingers tremble when they clasp the mouse, and you decide that the pain is something you’ll have to live with. It’s the melancholy it’ll leave in your eyes that’ll make strangers fall in love for you and never quite forget; it’s the edge of having to walk away from something, from the only thing, you’ve ever loved, that’ll make you a strong lawyer. Unattached, a bit desolate, and incredibly strong, but only when working. It’ll be this mistake that’ll prevent you from making others, it’ll be this mistake that’ll make you fall harder for whoever will come next; that’ll teach you to cherish those who love you back.

(You fall back onto your bed and break down.)

(You send the email minutes after you’re done crying.)

(You figure you’ll tell Jungkook the day after. That you’ll apologize. For everything.)

(You figure Jungkook’s going to cut you off for not telling him before sending the email.)

(You figure it’s for the best.)

—

Jungkook feels like his heart is being torn from his chest, inch by inch so he feels the surface of his skin ripping, so he feels the blood dripping down his chest and soaking his shirt, so he can feel the poison in his veins, can feel the thump of the organ when it’s pulled out of his body.

You’re leaving.

“You’re leaving?”

You’re leaving.

He loves you, and you’re leaving in two weeks and he’s trying so hard to not look like he’s in unfathomable, unspeakable, unrelentless pain that leaves him wanting to get on the floor of his apartment and claw at his chest so he can scrape some of the ache away.

He clenches his fingers into fists and refuses to look at you.

“I’m sorry, Jungkook, I thought I’d tell you but finals had me busy —“

You’re fucking lying to him, too. You’re leaving, and he loves you and you’re lying. You weren’t busy with finals, you were ignoring him for whatever godforsaken reason, you were cooped up in your apartment overthinking and fixating on whatever he’d told when the two of you had brunch, and you were doing it on purpose.

Fucking finals.

Your go-to excuse for shutting people out and putting up walls that nobody will ever be allowed to break down. He thought he’d be the first to, he thought he’d already broken them, plowed through the cement when he’d kissed you in a back alley, when he’d held you in his arms after the wake, when he’d bought you your coffee and gotten the order correct, when he had you in his bed. He thought he’d broken them, but he’d been wrong; he hadn’t done shit to stop you from holding yourself away from the world, he hadn’t done shit to help you face vulnerability instead of ignoring it in favor of not facing anyone at all, he hadn’t done shit to get you out of your stupid fucking law school shell, and he was in love with you despite this one tiny flaw, and he knew everything about you, so he knew you were lying.

“Stop that.”

“Stop what?”

“You’re fucking lying to me.”

Your scoff is incredulous and it makes Jungkook want to pull his hair out and drag his blunt fingernails down his face until he’s bleeding out to show you; I care, stop pushing me away, why are you leaving, you don’t know I’m in love with you, why, why, why, why —

“I’m not lying, you know I have finals — you have my planner!”

“No. No, you’re not fucking doing this again. In sophomore year, you were upset because of something your dad said and locked yourself in your room for three days straight. You said you had finals back then. After your fucking boyfriend died, you locked yourself in your room and said you had finals. Whenever you’ve been scared, or humiliated, or had any semblance of fucking human emotions, you’ve said you have —“

“Jungkook, you have no fucking right to bring that up now, what the fuck is wrong with you.”

“What’s wrong with me is you! You decide you’re leaving the only place you’ve ever lived in within the week I last saw you and didn’t even think to discuss it with me? Even after the month we’ve had — even after the life we’ve had?”

You stare at him, and he can see the redness in your eyes like he had seen before you broke down at the wake.

He wants to get down on his knees and put his forehead to your feet and apologize, hold you and never let you go.

You’re leaving.

“It’s my life, not yours.”

“It’s my life, too. You know this.”

“No. I don’t fucking know this, because I’ve worked my ass off for the past 17 years to get to law school and graduate and work at the best fucking law firm in the country. It’s not your fucking life —“

“You’ve killed yourself for all this—”

You stand up from his couch, and turn away so he doesn’t see your tears fall.

“You’ve fucking killed yourself. You worked like a dog since middle school to get into that pretentious private school, and you worked even harder to get to Columbia. You never had a fucking dream, you never had a childhood because you killed yourself to get to this point. You never had time to have a fucking ‘life’ or whatever you call it because all you’ve ever done is work for some stupid fucking goal.”

You sob once, twice, and Jungkook has to put a hand to his heart so he doesn’t die on the spot.

“And you can’t tell me that I don’t know this because I’m the only one who knows this! I’m the only person you’ve ever told about this and it fucking hurts because I love you, and it fucking hurts because you’re leaving me —“

“Because my best friend is leaving me,” he backtracks.

Best friend. Because you don’t know, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to have the heart to tell you.

“And it hurts because my best friend is leaving me and she didn’t even think to mention this before.”

“You didn’t think to mention Nayoung even once in this aforementioned ‘month’ we had,” the quotes you make with your fingers do nothing but show him how much you’re shaking. He wants to grab your hands and tell you that it’s okay; that you don’t need to cry and that he has you.

That he’ll always have you.

(But he won’t, because you’re leaving.)

You’re leaving, and you’re talking about Nayoung for some reason.

“Yeah, because we had sex one fucking time! I don’t even like her, why the fuck would I bring her up — and why are you bringing her up like fucking a girl is anywhere similar to moving halfway across the world.”

You sob once, twice, and when you turn around to face him, he feels like he’s holding his dead heart in his cold hands and watching it try to come to life.

“I’m bringing it up because you love her, and you didn’t even bother to tell me.”

“I don’t fucking love her.”

I love you. I love you, why do you think I love her —

Why do you think he loves Nayoung, and why does your face fall when you say it, and why did you start to ignore him the day he told you that he’d had sex with her?

“You do. She’s the one that got away, and she’ll be here so it doesn’t fucking matter —“

“Stop saying that it doesn’t matter. Stop saying that you don’t matter.”

“Because I don’t, Jungkook,” a sob breaks your sentence and it feels like his world has just come crashing down when he realizes how you feel about yourself. “I’ve lived here for 23 years and nobody knows shit about me and you’re right, it’s because I shut myself away, but nobody bothers anyways and I’ve worked so hard to get here so I’m gonna take the chance to leave, so I don’t have to not matter anymore, so I can like… change.”

“You don’t have to change, ___”

Your name on his lips is a prayer, a silent hope to the god he only remembered when he was fucking somebody, a plea and the final chance he gets to have you.

“Don’t change, __”

Don’t let her leave me, God. Don’t let her change, don’t let her go.

“How can you ask that of me?”

He hears his mothers laugh from when he told her he wanted to be a ninja. He decides that he doesn’t want to be a ninja, or a computer science major, or an artist. He decides that he wants you to know how madly in love with you he is.

“Because I love you.”

“I love you too, Jungkook.”

“No — fuck, I’m in love with you.”

Your stare is dumbfounded, like he’s just told you that he’s a vampire hybrid or something else completely unorthodox. He would laugh at the look typically, but he feels empty, like the compression that had been a steady pressure on his chest for the past few days had lifted, only to be replaced with a pain unlike any other, because what if this messes it up more?

What if you would originally go to London and keep tabs with him and be in his life, and what if he’s told you this and turned you off the idea of ever even looking in his direction again.

What if you don’t love him back?

“You’re in love with me.”

He nods, silently swallowing as he tries to whisper a prayer to whatever god is listening that whatever you say won’t end in you leaving for good.

“You’re in love with me?”

“I am. I have been. I am. I’m in love with you, I’ve been in love with you, and I don’t even remember how long it’s been since it first happened.”

“Jungkook —“

You chuckle, and it should break his heart because it seems like you’re on the road to mocking him, but he feels his heart rejuvenate in his arms when he hears the sound of your laugh. It sounds like a metaphor he’s been trying to write down for ages. It sounds familiar, it sounds intimate, and his name rolling off your tongue is a balm he presses over the open wound of his chest to soothe it.

“Jungkook — you’re in love with me, and not Nayoung?”

He can’t speak, isn’t used to the lightness in his chest.

He shakes his head, and he swears he sees the world light up behind your eyes. He swears you’re the prettiest girl in the entire world, even when tears track down your face and even when you’re red-eyed and have a snotty nose from crying.

(Especially then.)

“Fuck.”

“Fuck, Jungkook, I’m in love with you too. I am. I have been. I’m in love with you, and I’ve been in love with you for as long as —“

You won’t finish that sentence, he decides, taking one long stride towards you to close the distance between your bodies. Your face in his hands is warm, a little sticky from the tears, and your lips are chapped. He doesn’t doubt that he’s in any better of a condition, but you look up at him through your wet eyelashes and he’s had enough.

He’s had enough of yearning, and pleading, and wondering if you love him back because you do. He’s had enough of waiting and wondering why he keeps thinking of you because he wants to think of you.

In fact, he thinks he’s open to thinking of you forever.

So he kisses you, and he thanks his lucky stars when you kiss back, for blessing him with the embodiment of them in the form of you, a girl who shone so brightly that he couldn’t see the love cooped up in her eyes until she cried, told him she was moving to London, and kissed him in his living room.

He thinks he could die happy, but he doesn’t want to die when he finally has you.

Finally has you.

(Except, you could be leaving.)

Jungkook ignores this because you tilt your head so his lips slot against yours better, and he can barely focus on anything other than the way you feel and the fact that he’s kissing his best friend — kissing the love of his life.

He bared his heart and walked through hell for this, and if the way he feels right now is redemption, he’d do it all over again.

—

It starts with you on a table, umbilical cord freshly cut, wrapped up in a pretty pink fluffy blanket. Jungkook, just a one year old, stares blankly, and starts crying in his mothers arms.

It starts in the suburbs of New York City, where you lose yourself between textbook pages and Jungkook wonders what he’ll ever amount to being.

It starts with your boyfriend dying, and the way shaken espressos feel on your tongue. It starts with Jungkook seeing you cry for the first time, and it starts with you wondering if you can ever love someone.

It starts with law school, and a three week gap in your final year during which you and Jungkook don’t talk. He finds himself thinking of you, and you text him, asking to meet up for dinner.

It starts with him asking you about a friend of yours, and you getting vigorously upset, uncalled for and downright appalling on Jungkook’s part.

It starts with you calling him to apologize while he makes a drunken mistake. It starts with you meeting him to apologize and promising to do better; it starts with him telling you that he doesn’t need you to ‘do better’ like it’s a standardized test — that he just needs you to talk to him.

It starts with an amazing month, trailblazing and falling for each other, starts with drunken kisses and getting soaked in the rain and the ruse of being ‘best friends’ and drinking margaritas even though Jungkook doesn’t really like cocktails. It starts with the city of New York, and the anonymous back alleys where millions walk, but nobody lingers long enough to leave a mark.

It starts with him telling you about this drunken mistake, starts with the both of you realizing how madly in love you are with the other. It starts with you accepting a job in London, and it starts with Jungkook calling his ex and figuring out that it’s always been you.

It starts with an argument encased in the walls of his living room, where you empty your heart out and he empties his, starts with accusations that he loves somebody else and utter silence because he can’t tell you that he loves you.

There’s a million beginnings to this story, thousands of waking moments that could’ve been the moment both of you knew, hundreds of little sparks that ignited into the brilliant flame of the love between the two of you, but there’s only one ending.

This is the end of yearning; his lips are on yours, and his warm hands are holding your body like if he lets go, you’ll really be gone. His hands find purchase on every inch of you like he’s trying to map your very existence out with his ten fingers, and you lose yourself when he licks into your mouth, your own hands flying to his face, tracing the little scar beneath his eye, scratching over his sideburns, on an excavation of your own; to discover him and to never let go.

He has you pushed up against the kitchen counter, large hands groping you through your jeans, soft squeezes at the flesh, quiet moans coloring the air when you move your tongue in tandem with his.

Jungkook promises himself to take it slow, but he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to honor that thought when your manicured nails play with the hair at his nape, when he feels you pull away so you can get a better look at him —

Fuck, are you a sight to see. Red rimmed eyes, swollen lips, cheeks dusted with the slightest hues of pink; you wear a smile so pretty he thinks he could fall for you all over again, and your warm breath hits his face with every exhale.

You think he’s never looked better, either. His lips are bitten from kissing you, tear tracks down his soft skin, jaw tight and eyes dark when he looks at you as though he’s trying to drink you in like you’re a glass of fine scotch. You rub your thighs together, desperate for some friction to provide even a fraction of relief from this innate need Jungkook’s instilled in you with just one kiss, and he catches your lips in another, clearly wanting this to go the same way you do.

Jungkook encases your face in his hands, he feels you keen against his lips and releases yours to curse lowly. Your hands travel down his chest, toned and warm from hours at the gym, and trace down the trail of hair you know leads down into his underwear. It has him bucking his hips against you lightly and you can barely hold back a moan, readjusting your focus so you can trace the denim of his waistband, letting two of your fingers slip beneath the fabric, rubbing at the elastic of his boxers —

You’re a fucking tease, and Jungkook should’ve known this about you after 23 years but he’d be lying if he said that it wasn’t thoroughly enjoyable. It’s barely been 5 minutes of you fervently making out with him, though, that he realizes how badly he wants you. The bulge in his pants is one indication, but he’s utterly surrounded by you — your cologne, your soft sounds, breathless whimpers, incredulous gaze like you can’t really fathom this; he gets it, he’s horrified that he’ll wake up in his bed and you won’t love him back and you won’t be kissing him and feeling him up like this, and he needs to feel you, needs the reaffirmation, needs you to fall apart between his sheets. He needs everything you have to offer, needs to smell your shampoo on his pillowcases and your perfume on his shirts and he might as well should just die if he’s waited this long to stall some more.

Two hands trail down your back, pads of his fingers pressing into the little dimples at the bottom of your spine before they land on the junction of your thighs. His eyes are stuck on yours, like he’s too afraid to even look away, and you smile against his jaw.

“Jump, baby,” it’s a whispered order, too silent for anybody but you to have heard it, and the thought makes your brain go numb for a second — it’s you and him now, your whispered secrets and hushed tales, it’s the two of you and this space you’ve curated, even if it was out of your own heartbreak. You can’t do anything but oblige; fuck, you might as well should just die if you don’t hang on to every word that leaves the tip of his tongue.

Your legs find home around his waist, and he carries you to his room, telling his high school self and college self and every single past existence of his that you’re his. He’s mapping out this floor with you in his arms, and though they’ve been around many women, he doesn’t think any one of them have fit like you do. It’s simple intimacy, you can see sunlight pouring into the living room as he carries you out, you see the art he has framed, and you see traces of his roommate strewn around the apartment. You wonder what his and your apartment will look like, wonder if he’ll like the interior design you do, and decide that if he doesn’t, you’ll let him choose whatever.

The door to his room shuts behind you, and you notice the only photo frame he has contains a picture of the two of you.

Your eyes tear away from the glass frame in fear of breaking down again, and you choose to look at him. You choose to look at his eyes that hold all the stars in your skies, you choose to run your finger over the curve of his face and the slant of his nose and his Cupid’s bow. You choose to bask in his presence, feel all of his body pressed against you and feel him uncomfortably hard against your thighs — it’s a bit filthy, but you’ll take anything when it comes to Jungkook, and you let that thought linger when you lean forward to kiss him again.

Jungkook closes his eyes because he doesn’t think he can look into yours without going insane. He hasn’t shut his curtains, so the sunlight lands on your face and highlights all the angles and all the slopes and he thinks that he should memorize the planes of your face, that it’ll give him a reason to stay alive. Your lips smack softly, and he readjusts his hips so he can grind the clothed bulge in his jeans against your own, and his thighs stutter just a smidge when you let out the sweetest moan he’s ever heard in his life.

His fingers trail their way down from your waist, pulling gently at the hem of your shirt, a silent final exit just in case you want to back out, but you don’t let him even consider the thought of you leaving when you pull your own shirt off your head. It’s an aggressive jerk, one that catches him off guard and following you, abandoning the piece of clothing somewhere in the corners of his room.

Even when you’re just in your bra, he can’t stop looking at your eyes. He can’t stop thinking of you, how you’re in his bed and how he has you with him now and how he’ll have you with him forever if he has anything to do with it. Jungkook never doubted that you were attractive, not even for a slight second, but he doesn’t dare look at you, near naked and in all your glory in front of him — he wonders if this is what Icarus felt like, wanting to fly so close to the sun because he loved Helios too much, and he vows that he’ll be careful, he won’t look too quickly and that he’ll be gentle because he cannot stand even the idea of losing you, even if he’d be the one crashing and burning.

You pull him closer by the name, and his hands go to cradle your bare shoulders. Before he can even process the proximity, your lips are on his neck, and they’re soft, warm: they’re everything he’s ever wanted and he feels like he’s been set aflame because he’s lived his whole life not really knowing what he wanted, but he knows now. Your lips on his skin are the tantalizing fruit that's been dangling behind his head the whole time and he can see it, can feel it and he can feel it; all he’s ever wanted is you, and he lets himself go, voice breathy and untethered to his own self as he moans, incoherent pleas for you to keep going.

Jungkook prays he’ll see marks tomorrow, if this is even real. He prays that you leave a tangible sign, a purple bruise on his golden skin as a reminder that this was once real. If you leave after he’s made love to you, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to recover from it, but if you leave your mark; the indent of your teeth and the faded stain of your lipstick, he thinks it’ll be enough to satiate him.

You’re not one to waste time, apparently, fingers tracing down his abs agonizingly fast before Jungkook can process the touch, reaching for the button on his jeans so he can be free, get inside you, because it’s been way too fucking long and you need him sheathed within your body like you’re entwined, like you’re one entity. You reckon the thought is one of the filthiest ones you’ve ever had, but it doesn’t matter, because you can feel yourself soaking through your panties and you run cold like ice, wanting him to melt you — needing him to melt you.

This will be your new beginning; fuck London, you decide. Fuck London if it means you have him like this, the pads of his fingers running like feathers over your skin, leaving chills in their wake. This will be your new beginning, his lips grazing over your collarbones as he grinds his hips into yours just hard enough for you to feel through your jeans. This will be your new beginning, desperately bucking your hips up to meet him halfway, to gain some much needed friction until he decides to stop giving you the tantalizing guise of what you need, until he decides to unbutton your jeans with daft digits,, pulling them until you lay before him in all your glory.

Jungkook has never known religion until he sees you like this. The curves of your body and the slope of your waist and the way your bra just barely covers your breasts and the way your panties sit on your hips and your collarbones illuminated by the sun that desperately laps at your soft skin like it, too, wants to have you wholly. He has never known a God until he thanks Him for you, thanks his lucky stars that he has you in front of him, fights the urge to sink to his knees and pray that you don’t disappear into a brilliant beam of light like you were nothing but a figment of his imagination.

His cock strains, and he reaches out to stroke the lace of your panties so gently, almost like he’s afraid to leave a mark, though he yearns for yours on his skin. You want to ink the calluses of his fingers so they leave permanent imprints on your body, so you feel the rough drag forever, but it's only an afterthought when he begins to rub at your clit through the fabric. The added friction feels like heaven on your tongue, like you can taste the waning of yearning on the tip of your tongue –

“Fuck, Jungkook,” your voice sounds dazed in your own ears, and he shifts your panties aside to rub your wetness all over your sex, thumb rubbing slow circles over your clit as his fingers tease your entrance. If there was a way to put the bliss, the desperation into words, you’re sure that you could talk for hours. You hear his breathing, heavy like he’s incredulous, in utter disbelief, and you hear the unrecognizable keens of his name.

“I know, baby. I know, I love you. Lemme have you.”

He repeats it like a prayer, those three words running like water off his tongue as he rubs tight eight-figures of your clit. Eyes raking your figure, he drinks in the tilt of your head backwards, a tattoo on your shoulder blade that he makes a note to ask you about, the bend of your elbows and the way your stomach tightens. Jungkook tries to take his time, but his fingers are drenched in your arousal and he deems you wet enough to slip his index finger in.

You moan, high and unadulterated, and he moans, low and throaty; it feels like you’re complete, and he can’t help but wonder how your walls would feel on his cock. You suck him in, pussy greedy for something to fill it, and he does his best to affirm this when he bends down to catch your lips within his again –

“Shit, doll, you’re soaking me… look at your sweet cunt, look at how she’s taking me,” he uses his free hand to tilt your chin downwards, and the pink of your bitten lips distracts him for just a second before he pushes another finger in.

“Jungkook – ah, fuck, more please, more,” you let your mind go adrift, thinking about how good you feel and then thinking of nothing at all when he curls his fingers in an upwards motion, rendering you speechless and fucked silly. The thought of what his cock would do is lost among a myriad of unsullied pleasure, and you don’t know whether it's because you haven’t cum in so long, but you’re dangerously teetering over the edge of your release, continuing to beg him to just throw you over.

He tells you he has you, eases another finger in until the tears that prickle the corners of your eyes finally spill over. He licks them away, rutting his hips up into his free hand like it gets him off, seeing you cry for him, seeing you writhe under him. He knows it's too much, knows that you’re close like he’s done this a million times before, like your body is his own.

“I’m f– fuck, so fucking close,” you can feel the coil in your lower belly so close to snapping that it makes you want to run away from the feeling. It’s all too much, because his thumb feels rough on your clit and his fingers are jackhammering into you like he has a point to prove, because he’s calling you his and his voice is echoing somewhere in the back of your mind, because all you can do is squirm and push your hips up to get yourself over the precipice of pleasure –

“Fu- fu- uck, Jesus –”

“I gotchu honey, let go for me, just let go, ‘m always hare, let go for me –”

What you expect to be a wave, crashing into you like the realization that you loved him had, is nothing but a soft roll of ecstasy taking ahold of every inch of your skin. It starts in your head, numbing your senses and then heightening them, makes its way down to your arms until you’re clawing at Jungkook’s because it’s so fucking good, rolls down your legs until you clench your toes, grapples at your throat until your voice is choked out and all you can do is pant helplessly. What you expect to be a wave is a slow pulse that leaves you breathless and staring up at Jungkook who seems to be mesmerized by the expression you’re wearing, fingers slowing within you as he helps you ride it out.

“Fucking hell, baby. You’re stunning,”

You laugh, out of it and incredulous as he presses a kiss – too chaste for the mind-blowing orgasm he’s just given you – to your temple.

“Gonna make me do that everyday, Jeon?”

“You can count on it, angel. I’ll make you do that every single day.”

The two of you move in tandem, knowing that this wasn’t nearly enough to satiate you both; your hands fly to his jeans, pulling his zipper down and yanking the fabric off of his legs. Jungkook’s laugh is breathy, pupils still blown out as he watches you try to get him naked and he lets you.

He lets you strip him until his skin is bare, watches you rake your eyes over his figure and pause at the ink of his arms. He vows to tell you about all the secret tattoos he’s gotten that remind him of you; that he got because of you, but all he can focus on is the way your eyes go dazed and glossy when you push down his boxers to pull his cock out.

You’re well aware that Jungkook is beautiful, and he’s never doubted his physical appearance for more than a split second since college, but he never thought that his dick would be the center of said attention. Fuck, he has a pretty cock; it’s thick and your mouth waters at the angry vein running down the underside of it, desperate to get your mouth on him and savor the weight of him on your tongue. It curves up, pretty mushroom tip having been rendered a dark red from when he was getting you off, the pearly beads of pre-cum that spill over the sides of it when you rub your hand over his length a stark contrast.

He buckles over, hand splaying over your stomach as he lets out a choked groan at the contact, and you can feel the wetness of the sheet underneath you as you see him lose himself underneath your touch. You could do this forever, and the inexplicable urge to just get him in your mouth takes over your body reflexively, but Jungkook doesn’t let you act on it; his warm fingers press down on your skin, and he lets his free hand replace yours on his cock.

“Gonna fuck you real good, darling. You’re gonna feel it all the way — shit — all the way up to here,” he pumps his cock like he’s trying to deprave himself of your pussy on purpose and your eyes desperate search for his, no longer trusting your brain to form adequate words to explain just how badly you need him to fuck you.

He knows, he knows you like the back of his hand, and he knows how much you need and crave this. Just as quick as he’d gotten your hands off of him, he presses himself to your entrance, rubbing the head of his cock up and down your embarrassingly wet slit. The squelching would typically have you curl in on yourself, but it’s Jungkook, and you’ve let every wall down around him and it feels so fucking incredible when he rubs his dick against your sensitive clit that you just cannot bring yourself to care;

“Please, please Jungkook —“

“I know, I know baby, shhh… just relax for me and I’ll make this so good, ‘kay? That’s my girl,” the hand on your stomach goes lax when you exhale, letting him align himself with your entrance and ease himself in.

He gets his tip in with surprising deftness, rubbing over your torso when you tense your body. He knows you’re not a virgin, he’s done this before and so have you, but with each other? It feels holy, like you’re coming back to earth and coming back to the person each of you is meant to be with.

His inked hand goes to cradle your face, pushing your hair away from your tear-stricken skin, kissing away at the new tears that threaten to slip from your eyes. You breathe out at his touch, and he pulls out all the way to thrust back into you, slipping in and filling you all the way to the brim.

A choked moan leaves you, and your simultaneous gasps color the air, mingling and dissipating as the two of you mold into one entity. Jungkook forgets the Bible verses about adultery, things of new beginnings and redemption and how you’re the Holy Grail he tried so hard to find when you were right there. He curses himself for not doing this earlier, for realizing so late, but it’s all so worth it when you give an experimental roll of your hips, bucking upwards to get him to move.

Jungkook thinks he would give you anything, take chunks out of the moon if you so looked at it with desire, and he thinks that he’ll lay his body down for you if you even implied that you wanted him to. He thrusts into you, a gritty moan leaving his throat when he feels your walls, warm and wet and fluttering around his cock. Your pussy is greedy for him, milking his every drop and he knows you can feel him, knows you feel everything.

He’s right, too, because the veins of his cock, every ridge and every edge of it is fully sheathed within you. When his shallow thrusts get longer, deeper, when he bucks his hips upwards to fuck you just right, when you look down at his hand and see the bulge of his cock in your stomach — fuck, it’s exhilarating, and he seems to notice it too, following your gaze and letting his hips lose their well adjusted rhythm for just a split second.

“G-god Jungkook, so fucking full — shit.”

“Yeah, you are. Fuck, fuck, I told you. Told you I’d fill your greedy little cunt up.”

You think this is the only side of Jungkook you haven’t seen, so when he continues to talk, confidence and this natural allure of dominance absolutely dripping off of him, you thank whatever deity is up there for letting you have him.

“Look at you, tsk tsk. Baby, you kept this pretty pussy away from me for so fucking — shit — long?”

His moans are nothing compared to the high keens, pornographic breathy whimpers that leave your throat. It’s like he’s ripped off every barricade you put up in front of you, has you naked and bare and begging in his sheets like you were made for this, fucks you like your pussy was made for this.

“How’d you keep her satisfied without me, darling?”

He leans down, hands still playing with your hair and holding onto your face in a way that you know will leave pink fingerprints — in a way that makes you wonder if he even believes this is real, grasping onto you so he can reassure himself that you’re tangible. You see the knot in his brows, feel the murmur of his words against your jaw when he presses his lips to the bone, catch the tension in his abdomen as he tries to keep his rhythm.

You’re sure he won’t have to, though, because there’s something about the way he’s leaning down into you, the way he’s thrusting into you so deep, never slow but never too fast, the way he snakes one hand between your bodies to rub at your clit, knowing he won’t be able to last long inside of you. All of it has your head spinning, and you’re not sure if you’ll ever experience anything this riveting, this revitalizing before. It feels like you’re closer to being born again with every thrust, with every bit of the coil in your stomach tightening —

He presses his forehead to yours, thumb rubbing circles onto your clit, cock prodding against just the right spot like he’s practiced this only for you, only for you. Your eyes meet, and you see tears in the corner of his own eyes, you feel his hand trembling in your hair as he tries to leave traces of his prints on every inch of you — you lock your legs around his waist, and the new angle is like the straw on the camel’s back as you’re thrown so violently over the edge that it catches you off guard.

This one is a wave, drenching you and drenching his cock and the sheets and the miles of skin that connect the two of you. He lets out a deep groan, lips connecting to the column of your throat when you throw your head back, nails digging deep into the skin of his shoulders so as to lessen the blow.

Fuck, he wants you to leave his back scratched and bloody, needs a reminder of this rebirth; needs the sting of you permanently imprinted if it on his body, then in his brain.

You get the memo, clearly, running the sharp acrylics up and down the toned expanse of his back as you just barely catch your breath — it comes in pants, the achy pleasure of overstimulation creeping its way up your spine.

If he doesn’t come inside of you, it’ll be his biggest regret. You’re smart, he knows you’re on the pill and he knows you would’ve told him to pull out, wouldn’t have had your legs wrapped around his waist if you didn’t want this just as bad as he did, but he opens his mouth to ask anyways.

“Come inside, baby. I — fuck. I fucking love you, I’ll love you forever, come inside of me, please.”

The deliriosity of your orgasm, along with the continuous sensation of being fucked senseless as Jungkook loses his rhythm and resorts to jackhammering into you, chasing his high like you’re nothing but a toy to do it; all of it pushes you into overdrive and you babble, begging for him to finish inside like it’s the only thing you can think of.

He doesn’t dare look away from your face, mapping every second within his brain, feeling the familiar feeling of an orgasm washing its way up to shore. He’s sure you’re on the same page, too, recognizing the face he’s seen twice now etch itself back onto your features —

You cum for a third time when his hips stutter and he buckles over your body, hand never moving from your head, cradling it like the contact is keeping him grounded. You feel the warm ropes of his cum paint your insides, and the third orgasm is nowhere near as intense as the others, just a gentle pulsation of pleasure and a bout of love that you don’t think you’ve ever felt before blooming over your heart.

Jungkook collapses next to you, dirty sheets be damned when he throws his inked arms over your body. For a while, neither of you find it in yourselves to talk — it’s barely even the orgasms, more so the fact that the two of you are best friends who are madly in love with each other, the fact that you’ve just told each other this and then proceeded to have the most mindblowing sex the either of you could even imagine, all within the span of an hour or so.

He’s first to make a move, lifting your chin so you look at him, smiling down at you so gently that you feel every bit of insecurity — every worry that’s already clouding your mind about the future, London, all of it — disappear.

You match his gaze, trying to read what is so clearly written in his eyes. I love you, they say, twinkling brighter than the golden rays of sunshine that pour through his poorly strewn curtains. It’s hard to speak so you don’t, opting to reach up and slot your mouth against his.

Jungkook swears he’s been given a second chance at life when you kiss him, and he decides to plan it out better this time. The thought goes away quicker than he’d like, though, because you slip your tongue into his mouth and his brain short circuits for the umpteenth time that day. It’s hard to imagine anything being difficult if you kiss him like this, it’s hard to imagine struggle, hard to imagine dissatisfaction, hard to imagine not being in love with every waking moment of his life when he’s this madly in love with you.

You pull away.

“I’m not worried, by the way.”

He grins, leaning into your smaller frame to press a kiss against the junction of your shoulder.

“I know. I’m not either.”

“We‘re gonna make it work?”

“Yeah. Of course. It’s us, ___. We’ll make it work.”

—

Jungkook doesn’t like summer, but he thinks you make it better. You graduate law school a week after he graduates college, and he’s in the front row watching you give your high honors speech before getting your degree. You tell Cravath that you can’t work in London, and ask AJ if he’s willing to quit Wachtell Lipton and take your place.

He tells you that he thinks he’s in love with you, that he’s happy you’ve found love with Jungkook, and takes the job.

You decide to give New York a second chance that summer; decide to give yourself a new beginning as you start to work and don’t immediately take immense bouts of stress upon yourself. Jungkook thinks about what he really wants to do, and though he takes a job that is gratuitously well paying – bless the Comp Sci starting salary – he thinks he wants to freelance art on the side.

–

When fall rolls around, you stand in the kitchen with your mother. The two of you look out at Jungkook and your father turning pages of old photo albums, and she tells you that she’s proud of you. You wonder if this is what it feels like to be avenged. It gets colder, and Jungkook gets you all the white mochas you want to drink, especially when you drive up to the cemetery to see your ex in early October. The two of you lay down orange roses, and you tell him that you’ll always love him in a way nobody else knows – Jungkook is proud, you’re proud, and for the first time in years, your heart doesn’t feel heavy when he drives around that part of town.

Jungkook paints portraits of you in the living room of the apartment you share. The two of your extremely well-paying jobs had let you buy a penthouse in Greenwich Village, and you’re just grateful you can find someplace to call home. Speaking of living together, Mingyu had enrolled himself into a sobriety program when Jungkook had forced him to watch that TED Talk, only this time neither of them had been high.

You tell Jungkook’s parents, too, and their excitement is nowhere near as gentle as your parents’ had been. His mom cries, and his dad tells you that he’s been rooting for you and Jungkook for ages.

(As it turns out, Jungkook had been rooting for him and yourself for ages as well.)

–

Winter follows, encasing New York in an icy chill but your heart has never been warmer. You have a classic NYC Christmas, doing all the insanely cliche tourist activities that are manageable. Nayoung moves out of state as well, and Jungkook cries into her shoulder at the airport. You’re there with him every second of every day – baking cookies, forcing him to take notes when the two of you watch Die Hard together for the first time, in his sweaters, in his sheets, in his heart.

Jungkook’s art sells well, he loves this city, and he still loves getting 2Bros with you – he even forces you to get the meat pizza he’s devoured for years, and you decide that while it’s not so bad, that you’ll continue to make fun of him for it. A tradition, just like the coke floats you still buy in sub-zero temperatures.

He makes you a shaken espresso in February, and you tell him it tastes incredible.

You stop putting walls up, and he learns to actually talk about his feelings, and you’re still the same toddlers from two decades ago; a bit immature, bound to end up together, and totally susceptible to throwing your ice cream cones on the ground if the other shoes any semblance of an injury.

–

New beginnings are for spring, though. Months after his birthday and yours have passed, months after new years, right when the first flowers bloom and the cold starts to whisper it's goodbyes, right when he realizes it’s nearly been a year since the day he’d randomly thought of you and set lose this insane chain of events – right in the middle of April, he decides he’s going to marry you.

It won’t be anytime soon, but seeing as how you’re steadily progressing in your career, and he’s earning more with his art than with his job? The budget for a wedding is definitely on the table, and he vows to officially make you his one day.

Some day.

(He already has the ring in his cart on the Cartier website.)

(Mingyu comes out of the program a few weeks later, and Jungkook asks him to be the best man.)

(You’re on the same page, if the wedding themed Pinterest board he sees you shut with insane speed is any indication.)

–

You love infinitely, filled to the brim and overflowing with it; so much so that it gets overwhelming at times, but neither of you go. You choose him, and he chooses you, and seasons go by and Jungkook figures out the direction he wants to go in this new life, and you learn to be gentle with yourself, and neither of you go.

And so it goes.

You and Jungkook, two kids grow into two adults in the most marvelous city in the world. A million possible beginnings in the span of two decades, but one conclusion; one ending: the both of you aren’t flawless – it’s hard to be – you’re just bad at being alone.

—

a/n: U GUYS ITS HEREEEEE. I’m sorry for the incessant word vomit and unnecessarily long smut scene it was important for the plot development hehe. and if u feel bad for AJ and Nayoung… so do I! this is also a birthday fic for my love jungkook and I hope he has the bestest day in the entire universe I love U my little virgo sweet boy I should Kiss u a million times

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#jungkook #jungkook smut #jungkook drabbles #bts #jungkook x reader #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook/reader #jungkook blurbs #jungkook angst #happy birthday jungkook #jungkookday #bts smut #bts fics #jungkook fics #jungkook oneshot #jungkook oneshots #jungkook au #jungkook fic

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