#not even employee strikes have been working
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Hi! Can I request Masky with a gn! reader that is stronger than he expected? Like, maybe they’re training or even roughhousing and he expects them to fold easily, but next thing he knows he’s on the floor? 😂 I always find this kind of funny, but do you think you could also make it a little spicy? (Also, I did this literally exactly at 2 for me, it’s always difficult to remember where has what time frame y’know?)
I know you said Masky, but I did write for specifically Tim, because my Masky would not have enjoyed this situation.
Tim is a pretty hefty guy. He's decently tall, and he's been working on bodybuilding for years, so he's definitely not lacking in strength. That's why when the two of you started training together, he wasn't exactly worried about losing. He's confident in his abilities, and it's not that he thinks you're weak, but he wasn't really thinking that you'd be able to take him down easily. You've obviously got some power and strength to you too to be able to be one of Slender's employees, but Tim is one of the leaders for a reason because he's one of the strongest in the mansion and he knows how to lead and fight.
At least, that's what he tells himself as he goes into your training session. You seem oddly relaxed as you stand across from him, and it sets Tim on edge a bit to see you so calm, but he shakes it off, thinking it must be his imagination. He knows you're strong, so he doesn't hold back when he starts launching attacks at you. While he's not intentionally trying to cause you severe harm, it's clear he's trying to test you and see just how much you can handle. Perhaps Tim should have realized that you'd be doing the same to him. You take his strikes efficiently, letting him think he's got the upper hand before you counter one of his hits particularly well. It catches him off guard, and makes him stumble back, but doesn't do too much overall, at least in his mind. Tim clears his throat nervously as he watches you roll your shoulders and crack your neck before you resume your fighting stance once more. He takes a deep breath and launches back to fight you again, but he shouldn't have been so careless. It doesn't take long this time before you've got the upper hand, having memorized all of his moves, and soon Tim is on his back staring up at the ceiling, a gasp shooting out of him as all his air leaves him.
You have him effectively pinned, even pressing your foot into his chest to hold him there, and Tim can only stare up at you in shock and awe as his heart races and thumps beneath your pressure. His face soon begins to flush red, even the tips of his ears staining with the blush taking over him. "What's the matter, cat got your tongue?" You smirk as you taunt him, and it causes him to grow even more flustered. He opens his mouth to respond to your taunt, but nothing comes out of his mouth as he stares up at you, clearly affected by the situation the two of you are in. When you smile at him, giggling at the situation as you go to help him up, he finds himself feeling vulnerable in a way he hasn't before, and he takes your hand tenderly as you pull him up. Level with you once more, he finds himself staring at you with mixed emotions, but one thing is for sure in his mind; you should do that again. The words slip past his mouth before he can stop them, and they catch you off guard, causing you to laugh again as they settle into your mind. You wrap your arms around his neck, pressing a kiss to his cheek as your body flushes against his. When you whisper into his ear that you'd be quite happy to his body trembles against yours, his hands moving to grip your hips before he can stop them. Tim tells himself he's going to have to train with you more frequently as he eagerly presses his lips against yours, his heart racing for another reason now.
#creepypasta#creepypasta headcanons#creepypasta headcanon#creepypasta semi-spicy#semi-spicy#tim wright semi-spicy#creepypasta x reader#tim wright#tim wright headcanon#tim wright headcanons#tim wright x reader#masky#masky headcanons#masky headcanon#masky x reader
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I understand wanting to boycott things for the benefit of the general public but a lot of yall don’t understand that that’s not actually how it works 99% of the time
#pimptalks#we are a capitalist society and capitalism is not built to fail by any means#you can’t boycott a few products bc whatever brand you buy in substitution is more than likely owned by the parent company#to the brand you’re trying to boycott#not even employee strikes have been working#after the most recent big employee strike companies started telling people to not come to work#or even just firing them#the last time anything like that worked America was a British colony#it’s unfortunate but it’s true absolutely none of this was built to change or to help people#unless something absolutely insane happens
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I keep seeing posts talking about the WGA/Sag-Aftra strike, which yes, good, but in all this "support writers" sentiment I'm seeing no one talk about book writers, which I think is something people should know more about right now.
We are at an all-time high for book bans, namely targeting queer & PoC-authored books. This means that a lot of schools and libraries are no longer stocking diverse YA books, and if you're not in publishing, you may not realize this but school & libraries are by far one of the biggest markets for diverse YA books.
This means that in 2023, YA book sales are down. This is also in part because Barnes & Noble (the largest physical book retailer in the U.S.) is no longer really stocking YA hardcovers. This means that marginalized authors and debut authors are struggling to sell books.
But it's a LOT worse than that. In the past couple of years, marginalized authors are *really* struggling to get new book deals. Most books are acquired by a publisher about 2 years before they release to the public, so this isn't all that noticeable yet, but a LOT of marginalized authors I've spoken to (myself included) have been unable to sell a new YA book since 2020. So while I had a book out last year, even if I sell one right now, you won't see it until 2025-2026. That's three to four years without a new release or the income I get from publishing those books.
On top of that, Big 5 publishers have started closing imprints (namely their diverse imprints) and have started telling their marginalized YA authors to just go. I've had multiple authors tell me their publisher basically said, "eh, we don't care to put in the work for you anymore. You can just go somewhere else". Of the authors who *are* getting offered new contracts, we're being offered pay far below the cost of living and we're being handed contracts that split our payments 4 or 5 ways and require we sign over our work to be used to train AI so they can replace us a few years down the road.
Authors are freelancers who own our IPs, which means we can't unionize the way Hollywood writers can, and despite authors showing up in droves to support HarperCollins employees when they went on strike for fair wages, we're being hung out to dry when it comes to our own rights.
If you enjoy diverse books, especially diverse YA, please understand that many of the authors you loved over the past 3-5 years are being forced out of the industry. We're being exploited, and we have no way to defend ourselves. Our books sales are drying up thanks to anti-queer legislation, our rights are being eaten up by AI, and our publishers are degrading us while profiting of us and refusing to share those profits with us.
Within the publishing industry, we've all been watching this decline happen over the last decade, but outside of it, I know most people have no idea what's going on so please spread the word. And if you care about diverse books especially in YA, please support marginalized authors in any way you can. The industry needs to be reminded that it needs us before we're all eliminated from it.
#Books#diverse books#author#publishing#sag aftra#writers strike#writers#labor rights#workers rights#wga strike
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"For the first time in almost 60 years, a state has formally overturned a so-called “right to work” law, clearing the way for workers to organize new union locals, collectively bargain, and make their voices heard at election time.
This week, Michigan finalized the process of eliminating a decade-old “right to work” law, which began with the shift in control of the state legislature from anti-union Republicans to pro-union Democrats following the 2022 election. “This moment has been decades in the making,” declared Michigan AFL-CIO President Ron Bieber. “By standing up and taking their power back, at the ballot box and in the workplace, workers have made it clear Michigan is and always will be the beating heart of the modern American labor movement.”
[Note: The article doesn't actually explain it, so anyway, "right to work" laws are powerful and deceptively named pieces of anti-union legislation. What right to work laws do is ban "union shops," or companies where every worker that benefits from a union is required to pay dues to the union. Right-to-work laws really undermine the leverage and especially the funding of unions, by letting non-union members receive most of the benefits of a union without helping sustain them. Sources: x, x, x, x]
In addition to formally scrapping the anti-labor law on Tuesday [February 13, 2024], Michigan also restored prevailing-wage protections for construction workers, expanded collective bargaining rights for public school employees, and restored organizing rights for graduate student research assistants at the state’s public colleges and universities. But even amid all of these wins for labor, it was the overturning of the “right to work” law that caught the attention of unions nationwide...
Now, the tide has begun to turn—beginning in a state with a rich labor history. And that’s got the attention of union activists and working-class people nationwide...
At a time when the labor movement is showing renewed vigor—and notching a string of high-profile victories, including last year’s successful strike by the United Auto Workers union against the Big Three carmakers, the historic UPS contract victory by the Teamsters, the SAG-AFTRA strike win in a struggle over abuses of AI technology in particular and the future of work in general, and the explosion of grassroots union organizing at workplaces across the country—the overturning of Michigan’s “right to work” law and the implementation of a sweeping pro-union agenda provides tangible evidence of how much has changed in recent years for workers and their unions...
By the mid-2010s, 27 states had “right to work” laws on the books.
But then, as a new generation of workers embraced “Fight for 15” organizing to raise wages, and campaigns to sign up workers at Starbucks and Amazon began to take off, the corporate-sponsored crusade to enact “right to work” measures stalled. New Hampshire’s legislature blocked a proposed “right to work” law in 2017 (and again in 2021), despite the fact that the measure was promoted by Republican Governor Chris Sununu. And in 2018, Missouri voters rejected a “right to work” referendum by a 67-33 margin.
Preventing anti-union legislation from being enacted and implemented is one thing, however. Actually overturning an existing law is something else altogether.
But that’s what happened in Michigan after 2022 voting saw the reelection of Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a labor ally, and—thanks to the overturning of gerrymandered legislative district maps that had favored the GOP—the election of Democratic majorities in the state House and state Senate. For the first time in four decades, the Democrats controlled all the major levers of power in Michigan, and they used them to implement a sweeping pro-labor agenda. That was a significant shift for Michigan, to be sure. But it was also an indication of what could be done in other states across the Great Lakes region, and nationwide.
“Michigan Democrats took full control of the state government for the first time in 40 years. They used that power to repeal the state’s ‘right to work’ law,” explained a delighted former US secretary of labor Robert Reich, who added, “This is why we have to show up for our state and local elections.”"
-via The Nation, February 16, 2024
#michigan#united states#us politics#labor#labor rights#labor unions#capitalism#unions#unionize#gretchen whitmer#democrats#voting matters#right to work#pro union#workers#workers rights#good news#hope
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SAG-AFTRA Takes Up Bethenny Frankel’s Fight To Unionize Reality Show Contestants & End “Exploitative Practices”
August 10, 2023
"SAG-AFTRA, which covers the hosts but not the contestants on reality TV competition shows, said today that it’s working “toward the protection of the reality performers” in an effort to end “the exploitative practices that have developed in this area” and “to engage in a new path to union coverage.”
“We are tired of studios and production companies trying to circumvent the union in order to exploit the talent that they rely upon to make their product,” the guild said.
The announcement comes after Bethenny Frankel, a former star of The Real Housewives of New York City, suggested that reality performers should go on strike in order to win residuals for their work and to combat abuses in the workplace. Reality show hosts, but not contestants, are covered by the guild’s Network Code, which is not part of its strike against films and scripted TV shows.
“Why isn’t reality TV on strike?” Frankel said in a recent TikTok video. “I got paid $7,250 for my first season of reality TV, and people are still watching those episodes.” Reality stars, she said, “are the stepchildren, the losers, the mules, the pack horses. The ones that the entertainment industry is going to rely on, right now, to carry the water and do the heavy lifting when real stars, real A-list Hollywood is on strike.”
She added, “Reality television exploits affairs, bankruptcy, falling off the wagon, not really having what you say you have, something inappropriate, risking cancellation every single time the camera goes on.”
To address the alleged abuse of reality stars, she’s engaged high-powered attorneys Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos to investigate the alleged abuse of reality stars.
In a statement today, SAG-AFTRA said that it “has engaged in discussions with Bryan Freedman at the Freedman + Taitelman, LLP law firm who has been retained by Bethenny Frankel around the subject of treatment of reality performers. SAG-AFTRA is the union that represents reality performers. Depending on the structure of the production and the performers involved, we can cover these performers under our Network Code Agreement.
“We stand ready to assist Bethenny Frankel, Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos along with reality performers and our members in the fight and are tired of studios and production companies trying to circumvent the Union in order to exploit the talent that they rely upon to make their product.
“We encourage any reality performers and/or members to reach out to SAG-AFTRA’s Entertainment Contracts Department so that we may work together toward the protection of the reality performers ending the exploitative practices that have developed in this area and to engage in a new path to union coverage.”
“Please be advised that the day of reckoning has arrived,” Freedman, working with Geragos, said in a letter sent to NBCUniversal on Aug. 3. “While our investigation is still ongoing, we have reason to believe that cast members and crewmembers on NBC reality TV shows have been subjected to disturbing mistreatment by NBCUniversal and/or its employees, contractors, and third-party affiliates.”
Building off Frankel’s union aims, the list of such mistreatment that Freedman lays out includes:
Deliberate attempts to manufacture mental instability by plying cast members with alcohol while depriving them of food and sleep.
Denying mental health treatment to cast members displaying obvious and alarming signs of mental deterioration.
Exploiting minors for uncompensated and sometimes long-term appearances on NBC reality TV shows.
Distributing and/or condoning the distribution of nonconsensual pornography.
Covering up acts of sexual violence.
Refusing to allow cast members the freedom to leave their shows, even under dire circumstances.
In response, an NBCUniversal spokesperson told Deadline that the company is “committed to maintaining a safe and respectful workplace for cast and crew on our reality shows. At the outset, we require our third-party production partners to have appropriate workplace policies and training in place. If complaints are brought to our attention, we work with our production partners to ensure that timely, appropriate action is or has been taken, including investigations, medical and/or psychological support, and other remedial action that may be warranted such as personnel changes.”
@bethennyfrankel on Tiktok: This is a union. I’ve defined fair & reasonable terms & consider those making $0 on the bachelor to a housewife making millions. This is a 1st pass & how I’d negotiate, w/ my institutional knowledge & wisdom in this industry w/ over a decade on 8 tv, w/ 10 books, 5 podcasts, multiple businesses & what was the fastest growing spirits business in history. I know a contract. Looking into traditional TV residuals is like looking inside “a beautiful mind.” Content used later with no profit sharing & l exploitation of hard working talent is as archaic as calling empowered independent women “housewives,” a term setting back women 100 years then using them for drama.
This is the REALITY RECKONING aka THE REALITY REVOLUTION. The is the new BETHENNY CLAUSE. Reality TV has existed for decades & sustained entertainment during the last strike & exploded. This isn’t for people like me, who have thrived & succeeded and clawed their way to the top despite the odds. This is for the next generation. These are broad stroke terms subject to modification. This fight is just getting started. We’re rogue & nimble & not entangled & unwieldy. The intention here is to affect change, get things done and make history.
I’ve listed some names who have contacted me & want to get involved. People not on this list are Vanderpump rules talent & the Kardashians, ironically the most powerful entities in entertainment right now, with the most leverage. They should fight for others who paved the way & for those after them. Shows like Summer House and others in production should stand down. Viewers should not watch this content. This paves the way for nurses and teachers, essential workers, production members & glam teams that will be inspired to create a model of their own reckoning.
Change takes courage. I’ve alienated this industry & burned bridges with the entire network and streaming community in one fell swoop. This is not for the faint of heart but it’s for the greater good. This is correct. We will be sending these terms by email with the subject line: “Reality Reckoning” starting emails with: imwithbethenny Who’s with me?"
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i am absolutely insane about your headcanons with the vee's, my mind is so full now... this is exactly what i was hoping to find when searching through the hazbin x reader tag after watching the episodes 👁️🙏🏻 please i'm so!! the being a writer for the vee's imagine is such a good idea, val and his.. comment especially got to me..
also, for your consideration:
Val — or all of the Vee's, really —, but, in the beginning, he's really not convinced about the quality of your dialogues, despite all the lines he's read (or, well, has had Vox read to him), so naturally you have to read your previous stories out loud to him, cheeks flushing and squirming when it gets to particularly graphic scenes and his gaze on you is so very heavy, smoke caressing your jaw while you stumble over your words.. It's worse if you've written about them and a character who resembles you, and Val's smile widens when you skip from story to story, mentioning the character — definitely not you — sucking Vox off, bending over willingly for Val and begging for Velvette to touch her, or even take all three of them at once, greedy...
Also the. love potions Velvette makes have me feeling things.. Her or Vox but they might end up putting a drop or four into your glass — purely accidentally, of course! —, and...
this is terrible.. my mind is too full now... i might have to post writing for hazbin now and it is your fault alone.. (affectionate; truly, I've enjoyed your thoughts so very much!! thank you for sharing!)
I'm glad you enjoyed it so much :D!! I had an absolute blast writing it myself, and I've been thinking about it lots!! Your ask made it even Worse (/pos) and I simply had to write more!! Please please please let me know if you write something for Hazbin, I can tell from your ask already that it'll be wonderful! And if you ever wanna chat about these guys, feel free to message me again, haha.
Notes: power imbalance, sexual harassment, heavily dubious/noncon due to love potion usage.
The fact Vox even bothers at all to take the time to sit Valentino down and read to him is already a show of your quality— He really wouldn’t go through wrangling him like that for just anyone, especially not with Val getting a bit pissy when being reminded your works were being compared to his. He needs to be told that, obviously, Val, some mere written words are never going to compare, especially not in earnings, to his creations. This placates Valentino.
But all Vox gets for his efforts are a lazy flick of one of Valentino’s four wrists, his eyes not even looking at him. “Look, I still think it fucking sucks. But if you wanna hire them so badly, whatever. I’ve got better shit to do than listen to daddy’s horny story-time.”
Suffice it to say, he becomes a lot more… Amiable (poor you) once you’re actually working there, and he has a face to attach to the stories. He can tell upon first glance that you’re one of those pathetic little hermits, too scared to leave your own shitty apartment, barely scraping by— He’s recruited plenty of those types as whores, after all. So easily pushed around that it shouldn’t give him nearly as much satisfaction as it does.
When Valentino practically demands you join him in his room and read your previous work to him, you sputter out protests, heart skipping a beat. Every employee in the company has something bad to say about this man, and so he’s about the last person you want to be caught alone in a room with. Especially not his bedroom.
“Ah, sir, I’m not really sure—“ But he’s already wrapping one of his arms around your shoulders, pulling you flush against his side as he drags you through the halls. The first thing that strikes you is how different the texture of coat is than you were expecting. It doesn’t even feel like anything at all.
“Oh, sweetheart, call me Valentino. No need to be so unfamiliar with each other.” He practically purrs, a single finger tracing up the contours of your chest. “I feel like we’re going to get quite familiar.” If all the alarms weren’t ringing in your head before, they most definitely are now. But there’s nothing you can do. His grip on you is tight and, underneath his red coat, you can feel the hard metal of a pistol pressing against you.
He takes you to his room, walls covered with posters featuring himself, and you hardly have the time to look around before he sits you down on one of his red couches, still caught underneath one of his arms. It’s hard to think, much less speak, as Valentino starts to prod you to pull out your phone and start reading. “No need to be shy. You’re such an artista, aren’t you? Don’t keep me waiting.”
It’s easy, at first. When the scene hasn’t grown explicit yet, and you can pretend you’re only reading the text out loud to yourself like you always do, making sure the sentences sound right. But Valentino makes it hard for you to distract yourself entirely. He rubs circles on the skin of your thigh, and the smoke from his pipe has long since been the only thing you can smell. The red smoke makes your head a little hazier, tongue a little looser— Though that all just might be because you’re not getting enough oxygen. Your every muscle is tense and, you think, this is what being a prey animal must feel like.
The first time you stutter out the word ‘cock’, Valentino barks out a laugh, loud and sudden, entirely contrasting with the sultry demeanour he’s been putting on the whole time. You jump, gaze flickering from the screen to his face, before continuing. It gets worse when you realise exactly what story you’re reading out loud to him, one of the ones you’d never even posted anywhere, so utterly self-indulgent and poorly thought out that you regret it with every ounce of your being. (Unbeknownst to you, Vox has already read every draft you’ve ever typed up, but that’s neither here nor there.)
“Sorry, can I maybe, um, read a different one?” You practically squeak out. “I realised I have some better drafts, and…”
“No,” Valentino shuts you down, tone temporarily harsh. “Don’t get too fucking cocky now, you’re already taking up enough time as it is. Shit’s about to get interesting, finally.” He’s saying all of this as if he wasn’t the one to drag you there in the first place.
So you trudge onward, reading as fast as you possible can, just trying to tough it out. As you read about a scared, unaccomplished demonic main character catching the eye of a trio of some of the most famous demons in town—through entirely unrealistic circumstances—you can see his grin grow wider from the corner of your eye. His nails dig into the flesh of your thigh, the smoke surrounding your face turning to caress your cheeks.
“So, let me gets this straight… You wrote about a trio of powerful demons with matching names, taking turns fucking an absolute nobody silly. One of them’s a pimp, the other a fashion designer, and the other a business man.” Valentino doesn’t give you the chance to respond.
“Greedy little slut. You even chose this one specifically to read out to me, huh? Seems I got you all wrong,” he hisses out. “This must be a dream come true for you, isn’t it?”
Let’s just say that you got enough ‘material’ to write another four or so stories, just from that line alone.
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A drop of love potion, and models always behave the absolute best, or so Velvette thinks! (As long as you don’t put in too much. It’s very hard to take good pictures when the girls keep trying to kiss you.) No bitching, no whining, only an easy to pose, cute demon to work with. And if she dresses you up in clothes that reveal more than they obscure, purely for her own enjoyment and usage, who’s going to blame her?
Certainly not you. You won’t remember a single damn thing. Not even the parts where you babble on about how pretty and gorgeous and cool she is, and how you’ve admired her for so long— All things she’s heard a million times before. Normally, she wouldn’t care less about it, but such words coming from someone with only a drop of her potion in her system means they’re all the absolute truth. She thinks it’s almost cute when it’s coming from you, really.
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Vox, on the other hand, would be more likely to use his hypnosis on you than a love potion. Just to have a few minutes in the middle of a meeting where you’re practically putty in his hands, all of your usual anxiety and shame having slid right off of your shoulders. He doesn’t feel any guilt about it whatsoever. Having read all of your works, he finds it safe to say that this is the exact kind of scenario you would enjoy…
And even if you didn’t, he still would. He gets a bit of a thrill out of the loopy, relaxed smile on your face as you nuzzles your cheeks against his arm, professing all of the thoughts you had about him before working at VoxTech, and the ones you still have today. It’s during one of these exact moments, that he’d likely find out that Valentino had fucked you already, something he hadn’t found necessary to mention. They’ll have a bit of a discussion about that later!
#hazbin hotel x reader#hazbin hotel#valentino x reader#vox x reader#velvette x reader#cw.drugging#cw.noncon#cw.dubcon
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The Silent Revolution in American Economics
I don't think you're expecting what I'm about to say, because I have never seen anything like this in fifty years in politics.
For decades I've been sounding an alarm about how our economy has become increasingly rigged for the rich. I've watched it get worse under both Republicans and Democrats, but what President Biden has done in his first term gives me hope I haven't felt in years. It’s a complete sea change.
Here are three key areas where Biden is fundamentally reshaping our economy to make it better for working people.
#1 Trade and industrial policy
Biden is breaking with decades of reliance on free-trade deals and free-market philosophies. He’s instead focusing on domestic policies designed to revive American manufacturing and fortify our own supply chains.
Take three of his signature pieces of legislation so far — the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, and his infrastructure package. This flood of government investment has brought about a new wave in American manufacturing.
Unlike Trump, who just levied tariffs on Chinese imports and used it as a campaign slogan, Biden is actually investing in America’s manufacturing capacity so we don’t have to rely on China in the first place.
He’s turning the tide against deals made by previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican, that helped Wall Street but ended up costing American jobs and lowering American wages.
#2 Monopoly power
Biden is the first president in living memory to take on big monopolies.
Giant firms have come to dominate almost every industry. Four beef packers now control over 80 percent of the market, domestic air travel is dominated by four airlines, and most Americans have no real choice of internet providers.
In a monopolized economy, corporate profits rise, consumers pay higher prices, and workers’ wages shrink.
But under the Biden, the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department have become the most aggressive monopoly fighters in more than a half century. They’re going after Amazon and Google, Ticketmaster and Live Nation, JetBlue and Spirit, and a wide range of other giant corporations.
#3 Labor
Biden is also the most pro-union president I’ve ever seen.
A big reason for the surge in workers organizing and striking for higher wages is the pro-labor course Biden is charting.
The Reagan years blew in a typhoon of union busting across America. Corporations routinely sunk unions and fired workers who attempted to form them. They offshored production or moved to so-called “right-to-work” states that enacted laws making it hard to form unions.
Even though Democratic presidents promised labor law reforms that would strengthen unions, they didn’t follow through. But under Joe Biden, organized labor has received a vital lifeboat. Unionizing has been protected and encouraged. Biden is even the first sitting president to walk a picket line.
Biden’s National Labor Relations Board is stemming the tide of unfair labor practices, requiring companies to bargain with their employees, speeding the period between union petitions and elections, and making it harder to fire workers for organizing.
Americans have every reason to be outraged at how decades of policies that prioritized corporations over people have thrown our economy off-keel.
But these three waves of change — a worker-centered trade and industrial policy, strong anti-monopoly enforcement, and moves to strengthen labor unions — are navigating towards a more equitable economy.
It’s a sea change that’s long overdue.
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what happened w the staff wrt “scortched earth”
ok so staff has a new page @/humans where they've got a post up listing several of the current moderators for the site, some of whom linked their own tumblr blogs. user @partyjockers made an original post like "so the new staff lineup explains why mods aren't blocking actual terfs huh" & then reblogged their own post with screenshots for evidence, one of the @/humans intro post, and one of the blog of one of those mods, "jas," @/jezzuminah. all publicly visible posts.
jas is a diehard hp fan, but people paid close attention to her artwork (her art tag is linked in a pinned post at the top of her blog). she's done a lot of dramione fanart, a lot of attack on titan fanart, and ship fanart of aged up preschoolers from spy x family. of note, she also put in her header, "opinions are my own," which is typical for ppl maintaining private social media accts linked to their real professional lives, as a way to ask for or demand a free pass to be inflammatory in some way w/o facing prof'nl. repercussions.
most of the commentary I saw at that point on @partyjockers's post was like, "lol that figures," bc it's not like any of that is especially shocking to see on tumblr; it's dime a dozen in fandom circles, but funny to confirm that "yeah the employees #on here are like that too, ugh, smh. 🙄"
within ONE DAY, staff had no only entirely shut down & seemingly permabanned @partyjockers, AND copyright striked the original screenshots so they get blanked out to error pictures if you try to repost them, they also did something they've never done before + which past staff have indicated was not doable within the tumblr framework: they scrubbed every trace of the post from the site. original post, gone. THOUSANDS of reblogs, all gone. even notifications from people interacting with reblogs of the post, wiped from the activity page. like beyond twitter, where if you delete a tweet, you can still see people's responses from THEIR pages, and you can still see QRTs even if you can't see what's been retweeted... every interaction w that post was gone. @partyjockers, gone. jas just toggled off the "view top posts" feature, locked her twitter & instagram, and deleted one piece of dramione fanart that people began reblogging after that overkill response.
and NOW the scrutiny is higher than ever before, because it's all fun & games and "my opinions are my own" until one person hurts your feelings (at WORK) by pointing & saying, "harry potter fan!" ...and, vitally, they also proved @partyjockers right. they've always been able to erase the entire footprint of violent fascists, people spreading explicit hate speech, literal nazis, revenge porn distributors, doxxers, bigots who run active harassment campaigns (incl some terfs!), ppl who share EXPLICIT csa materials, gore, etc.— even pages like @communismkills just got shadowbanned, and that was after a LONG TIME being a leaking sphincter on this site.
and tumblr staff have thus far ONLY ever unleashed this big gun ONCE in the whole history of the site, to my knowledge, as a tool to take down a page that wasn't even, like, a "whistleblower" for anything that serious, but who JUST SAID, "y'all don't ban terfs (true!) & y'all hire harry potter fans (also true!)," which apparently this new staff took sooooo personally & seriously & disparagingly (lol) that they nuked a random person's page from orbit over the "insult."
and we're currently on day 2, so I'm sure more will eventually unfold, but yeah, this scorched earth tactic is genuinely batshit hostility out of nowhere, over not even mild criticism but just a literal factual observation.
#it's incredibly stupid like they detonated a grenade to spite their face#smh.#drharlequin#tumblr dot com#long post //#1k#5k#10k#12k
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i am so sorry but reader talking about robin right before making out with eddie is like absolutely the best thing i’ve ever read i’m obsessed i genuinely can’t wait for anything else in that universe that you do
THE CUSTOMER'S ALWAYS RIGHT | god help the girl
summary: in which you come to terms with the fact that you're hopelessly in love with eddie munson.
pairing: virgin!eddie munson x reader
word count: 13k
warning: phone sex, more discussions of shitty boyfriends, j*son c*rver name drop, talks of unhealthy eating practices, smut 18+ mdni!
a/n: this ask has been sitting in my inbox for ages now, but i wanted to save it until robin made an appearance in the series! thank you, anon, for being so sweet! and for the few of you who've been waiting on me to finally post <3 hope you enjoy! xoxo
( PREVIOUSLY ) | ( SERIES MASTERLIST ) | ( NEXT )
They only met once, but it changed their lives forever.
That’s what the movie cover reads at least, but the words have long blurred into a jumbled mess at your tunnel vision. John Bender stares you in the face, but all you see is Eddie — boyish and brazen and scowling because he thinks it makes him look intimidating, but nowhere near as cruel as he seems.
He’s certainly got the hair for it, much longer and curls far wilder than Judd Nelson’s measly set of brushed-back locks. He’s got the terribly animated personality down pat, too; the one that either makes you laugh uncontrollably or squirm in discomfort when it’s pointed your way. And the style’s a pretty fine match also, though you’d argue that no one sports a leather jacket quite like Eddie Munson does.
Wallowing in your boredom at the empty Family Video store on Main Street — where your best friends slave over mundane work with aching backs and a lingering sense of gratefulness that no customer has been in in well over an hour — you find yourself analyzing each character pictured on the front cover of The Breakfast Club.
Robin would surely be Allison, you conclude rather quickly, because their deadpanned glowers are eerily identical. They’ve also got this sort of atypical aura to them, too, like a dark storm cloud or the promise of a long night. But strangely it sparkles — strikes of lightning or a sky full of stars. It draws everyone’s attention to them; even when they’re desperately trying to hide in the very back of a room.
And Steve would be Andrew, not particularly because of his affections for this Allison-Reynolds-Robin-Buckley hybrid you’ve concocted, but because "popular guy with daddy issues" is a trope that fits him far too well. He’s way more likely to get detention for trying to look cool in front of his assholes friends than for anything actually malicious of heart. But that would’ve been years ago now. He’s not that kind of guy anymore.
He’s soft and sweet — a Brian Johnson sort of soft and sweet, if you will. If Brian wasn’t the brains, but the sweetest dumbass anyone’s ever met.
You realize then, that Jim Hopper would make a mean Richard Vernon. He’s impatient to a fault, almost too stern at times, but never enough to make you genuinely fearful of him. You’ve found that it’s virtually impossible for you to take him seriously when he’s so cartoonishly angry. It’s a match made in heaven, you find, though Jim might take offense to the comparison.
And if Eddie is Bender, then that’d make you the Claire Standish of the bunch.
She’s dreadfully stylish, a bit stuck-up at times, and perhaps a little bit more spoiled than the average person; but it’s not like she ever claimed to be perfect. And you wouldn’t either.
You’ll take more pride in your wardrobe filled with pretty pleated skirts and flouncy dresses than your somewhat glacial disposition. And you might not be drowning in daddy’s money, but you’re certainly spoiled in other ways — if only in the employee discount at Enzo’s that got you wine for cheap and your connections at Family Video that meant free movie nights whenever you wanted.
The bad boy and the princess was a tale as old as time itself. It’s a fairytale you wouldn’t mind living in if it ended how it did in the movies — with a kiss on the cheek and an exchanged diamond earring in the calloused palm of another. A soft pink smile and a celebratory fist in the air.
But you’ve met your fair share of John Bender’s and none of them had been particularly kind to you, let alone had fallen in love with you.
Maybe that’s because you were no Claire Standish. Never pretty enough, never mousy enough, never pure enough. You try and dissect why you’ve never been successfully loved, and all the signs point to you, you, you.
You hope Eddie’s different. You need Eddie to be different.
“Something’s wrong with me,” you blurt out of nowhere.
Well, it’s not totally out of the blue for you. You’d been stewing over that thought since you got there — since you left the woods with damp underwear and the scent of you on Eddie’s fingers.
But to Steve and Robin, who’d stayed relatively silent and locked eyes only once after they noticed how abnormally hushed you’d gone, it catches them quite off guard.
Steve lifts his heavy head from where he mans the counter. His tired eyes leave the computerized catalog for the first time in forty minutes, and he has to rub at them with the bottom of his palms to see you properly. Meanwhile, Robin crouches at your side, taking returned tapes from the bin sitting next to her and placing them back upon the shelf you lean against.
She blinks up at you, deep ocean eyes swimming with apprehension, like she can sense the spiral you’ve just about twisted yourself into.
“What do you mean?” she wonders, ever the supportive best friend, as she plucks Heather’s, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science from the bin and sets them onto their assigned rows in the Teen Drama section.
“Eddie won’t fuck me.”
Neither of them is particularly stunned by the unabashed nature of your admission.
Not only have they both fucked you at one point or another, but they’re your best friends — no one’s ever going to know you quite the way they do. It leaves little left unsaid between the three of you, with secrets you’ve all sworn to take to your graves. Steve once stuck a finger in his ass to see if he liked it (he did) and Robin sometimes gets off on her childhood teddy bear (rather ironically named Mr. Snuggles).
So this? This was nothing. Especially in comparison to all the other shit you’ve confessed to them because god knows the whore of Hawkins has a plethora of stories to tell.
Steve is more shocked by the name that leaves your mouth than anything else. “Eddie Munson?” he repeats with furrowed brows, like he had to have heard you wrong.
You bring your chin to your right shoulder to look at him, then nod.
“Eddie… The Freak… Munson?”
You nod again, slower for him this time.
“You wanna fuck… Eddie Munson?” Steve reiterates once more, as though the idea was too appalling to be true. “Eddie Munson — The Freak?”
“Yes, Steve,” you huff in irritation.
His face contorts into a puppy-like confusion. A frown settles between his bushy brows and he cocks his head to the side, nose scrunching and his lip quirking slightly. He couldn’t look more disgusted if he tried.
“…Why?”
You groan and tilt your head back dramatically. “That’s not what’s important here, Steve. The better question is why won’t he fuck me?”
The boy’s lack of any actual assistance doesn’t surprise Robin in the slightest — his dumbfounded gaze and innate confusion are actually pretty on brand. It just puts all the burden on her, to help you wriggle out of the mess you’d tangled yourself into.
It’s not like she isn’t used to it, though, nor does she mind doing it for you. She walks you through your emotions like a professional, squashing out all the burning orange embers for you before they have the chance to burst into flames.
“Well, what do you mean he won’t fuck you? Like… did he actually say that or does he just wanna, you know, take things slow?”
The latter would’ve been way too easy. Eddie’s always been nice enough to you. It’d make sense for him to want to stay unhurried and gentle with you, but those words weren’t exactly in your vocabulary.
The first time you were alone with him, you were getting yourself off on his thigh after making him come in his jeans. The next time you saw him, after four days of him clinging to your consciousness, there wasn’t as much small talk so much as there were two of his fingers stuffed knuckle-deep inside of you.
You don’t know Eddie’s birthday, but you know how he likes to be touched — squeezed and not rubbed. You don’t know his middle name or how he likes his eggs in the morning or what his relationship with his mother is like, but he’s already made you come. Twice.
You are completely, utterly, and totally incapable of taking things slow. So it wasn’t that. It couldn’t be. So it had to be the other thing. The very scary, terrifying, boogeyman of a thing.
“I mean, I offered to give him a blowjob and he completely turned me down,” you lament in reply.
Robin and Steve wince. Like, physically wince. Their faces scrunch and their heads flinch from something invisible. Audible ooh’s fall from their mouths without them even realizing it, because you don’t get rejected. Ever. Especially not after offering to pleasure someone without much of anything in return.
They don’t mean to react the way they do. The visible shock that coats their features is involuntary more than it is anything, and it only adds to your fears.
“Exactly!” you exclaim.
“I hate to say it, but I think hell might be freezing over as we speak,” Steve half-jokes.
“Well, he was working, right?” Robin asks with raised brows. “Maybe he was just busy.”
“Sorry, Rob, but no guy’s too busy for a blowjob.”
“Real charming, Stevie.”
“Maybe he just has a small dick,” the boy concludes with a shrug.
“I felt his dick,” you shake your head almost immediately. The feeling of Eddie’s hard cock through his denim jeans, all rough and warm against your palm, hasn’t yet left you. “It’s not small.”
“Well, maybe he can’t get it up—”
“Yeah, that’s not a problem either.”
Eddie was rock hard when you left him, throbbing and aching and obviously needing some kind of relief. That’s partly why you’d been so ardent to return the favor, though the other half of it was purely selfish — you haven’t seen a more beautiful sight than Eddie Munson getting off. To deprive yourself of that masterpiece made you feel like you were starving.
You have a hard time imagining the raging hard-on just… dissipating after you’d left him. That means he probably jerked off in the back of his van and you missed it. And if he came, right after he promised everything was okay, that means he just didn’t want you to do it… right?
Steve seems to be caught in the same inner turmoil you’re currently stuck in; and for good reason. In all the years he’s known you, he can count on one hand how many times he’s had to turn you down. And every time, it was because he’d gotten back together with Nancy. It was never because of you. Not once. And sometimes he felt like it hurt him as much as it did you.
As far as Steve’s concerned, you’re so out of Eddie Munson’s league that you’re not even in his fucking orbit — so the freak show, turning you down, doesn’t make whole lot of sense to him.
“Huh…”
“It’s me. It’s definitely me,” you conclude with the shake of your head. A bitter, almost hysterical laugh spills from your lips. “He thinks I’m fucking ugly or disgusting or something. It’s totally fucking me—”
Robin completely abandons her basket of tapes then. She rises to stand in front of you, looking timid as she does so. Her raised brows form wrinkles on her freckled forehead and her blue eyes widen to reveal more of the whites of them. She looks like she’s approaching a wild animal. A bomb that’s about to explode.
“Okay… You’re starting to spiral, alright? So let’s just try and take a few deep breaths—”
You don’t listen to her.
Actually, you do quite the opposite, as you begin to blurt every fleeting thought that crosses your mind.
“I’ve made out with nearly everyone in this stupid town— I’m pretty sure I’ve fucked almost half— and you’d think Eddie would wanna take advantage of that, the way everyone makes him out to be some sort of freak, right? But he hasn’t and at this rate, he won’t, and I just don’t understand why,” you ramble without taking in a single breath. “Usually being a slut is a huge turn-on for guys, you know? But what if Eddie thinks it’s gross? I mean, it is gross— I’m gross—”
You only stop for air when Robin takes your shoulders in both hands. She looks less apprehensive and more stern, as she forces you to look at her.
“Look. I love you, but you need to get a hold of yourself, alright? I know you’re not used to being told no, and I know how much it sucks, but shit happens. I’m willing to bet all the money I’ve ever seen that whatever is going on with Eddie has nothing to do with you, okay? And if it’s making you this upset, maybe you should just talk to him.”
“But I don’t wanna seem like I’m too eager, that’s gross—”
“Then find someone else to fuck,” she offers with her signature Robin Buckley half-smile. “I’m sure it would take you less than five minutes to find a willing participant.”
“Yeah, right here,” Steve jokes from the counter with the pathetic wave of his hand and a dumb grin on his lips.
You don’t hear him over the voices in your head — half calling you crazy for letting a boy drive you this mad over nothing, and the other half bitterly affirming each of your deep-rooted insecurities.
Your face screws up, like the thought of being with anyone other than Eddie upsets you — it does upset you.
“I don’t want anyone else.”
“Then what do you want?” Robin yells in your face, shaking you by your shoulders.
“I want Eddie!” you shout back without thinking. The words seem to spill out of nowhere. It takes you of all people by surprise. No one in this rat trap town would ever expect the whore of Hawkins to want to settle down, least of all the harlot herself. It’s strange; it’s riveting; it’s really fucking scary. “…Fuck.”
The brunette smirks, proud of herself. “Well. There’s your answer.”
“I hate when you’re right,” you mumble to yourself, pouting as she crouches back down again.
“I know.”
It was a terrifying thought, to know that you were head over heels for someone else. You try to come to terms with what that means.
Sometimes you think you fall in love with a new person every day. A cute guy holds the door open for you, a pretty girl compliments your outfit — they never think about you again, but they’re on your mind for days. It was so easy to develop such meaningless infatuations, especially when you were bored.
But Eddie was different.
He was a nice guy. A nice guy that was sweet to you just for the sake of being sweet to you; not because he secretly wanted something in return. That made you fall for him at first, but then you just… kept on falling. Eddie Munson was an infinite void you couldn’t crawl your way out of even if you wanted to, even if you tried.
And that’s what frightened you the most.
Because if you really thought about it, you’ve only truly been in love a handful of times. And, sure, it didn’t work out — that was normal — but some of them fucking ruined you.
You’re still trying to figure out who you are without all of the people that have broken your heart. You’re still fighting like hell every day to recognize the person you see in the mirror, while Billy Hargrove fucks off with a new girl every other week like he didn’t totally destroy you.
But, even still, Eddie was completely different. No one’s ever made you feel the way he makes you feel. And it’s more than the stupid heavy petting — it’s more than anything. It’s never been like this before; not even with the blonde mulleted asshole who ripped your heart to shreds.
And you’re scared that if you get hurt again, you’ll never be able to come back from it.
“Steve, do you have another copy of Fast Times in the back?” you suddenly ask the boy, tossing him a look over your shoulder.
It’s your last ditch effort to rid yourself of the ponderous, gray doom and gloom surrounding you like some storm cloud. Your comfort movie solves all of your problems — or, at the very least, Phoebe Cates does — but it seems everyone else in town has developed a similar fondness for minute fifty-three of the film and got all the tapes off the shelf before you could get your hands on one.
“You know I keep on in stock for you,” he answers quietly.
He reaches below the counter to pull out a spare copy for you, and your heart swells with the rays of a thousand rising suns and the songs of every morning bird.
Steve told you some time ago that he could change. And back then, all it did was piss you off, because he didn’t want to change for the town slut — for the girl he put through the goddamn ringer. He wanted to change for Nancy. The princess bruised his brittle ego a little, and then he realized what an asshole he’d been to everyone, to you.
But as angry as it made you, you never believed him. “Once the King of Hawkins High, always the King of Hawkins High,” you remarked bitterly.
You wouldn’t say it to his face, for the sake of keeping his ego from inflating all over again, but you could tell he was really changing.
He was kinder, he was softer. He stopped caring about what everyone thought about him, about what not caring would do to his reputation, and started giving a fuck about the people worth giving a fuck about.
Apparently, you were one of them.
“…Really?”
He nods with a subtle shrug. Like it was no big deal. Like it wasn’t one of the sweetest things he’d ever done for you — keeping your favorite movie on hand so you’ll always have a spare, knowing that it’s the only thing that gets you out of a deep, dark funk sometimes.
“Stevie… You’re gonna make me blush,” you lilt with a grin as you saunter over to him, hands innocently laced behind your back. “You need to be careful, Harrington. I’m gonna start to think you actually like me.”
He scoffs. “I do like you.”
“Yeah, when it’s convenient.”
It’s obvious your joke hits him where it hurts. It serves as a bitter reminder of the asshole he used to be, the douchebag he’s trying like hell to grow out of. He looks up at you with a sheepish, honey-tinted gaze before ducking away again.
A year or more ago it would’ve made you feel good, to know that you hurt him just a fraction of the way he hurt you. But you know that that isn’t the same man standing in front of you now, that he’d rather die than make hurt your feelings, and it makes you feel like shit for saying it in the first place.
“Sorry,” you apologize with a scrunched nose. The palms of your hands dig into the edges of the counter as you lean against it. Your shrug. “It just kinda came out…”
The barcode scanner in his hand beeps as he passes the thing over the back of the tape — never charging you, just getting the movie out of the database.
“So, uh…” he starts before clearing his throat. He focuses his gaze on the computer and types on the bulky keyboard with the tip of his pointer finger. “You really like this Eddie guy, huh?”
“Maybe. I think so.”
“And he’s not, like… a total freak or anything?”
You can’t tell if he’s trying to look out for you or if he just wants intel on what it’s like trying (and failing) to bang the local weirdo. Either way, it makes a smile tug slow at your lips as you joke: “Not in the way everyone thinks.”
“Jesus,” he winces at the obscenity of your words.
“Sorry,” you apologize again, though the laugh that bubbles from your lips after cancels out any hint of actual sincerity. “You don’t need to give me the talk or anything, Steve. I can take care of myself.”
“…Can you?” he half-jokes.
It makes you falter. “Well… With you and Robin and Hopper constantly on my ass, then yeah.”
“Just don’t want you to get hurt,” Steve finally admits, soft and suddenly shy as he hands the VHS over to you.
“That’s rich coming from you—”
He jerks back the tape before you can take it from him, leaving your hand reaching for thin air. His cinnamon eyes glimmer with a foreign seriousness, not completely unkind, but lacking their usual blithe. “That’s why I’m saying it. I just… I want you to be okay.”
Steve is one of the rare ones, you conclude right then in there — in the liminal emptiness of Family Video, beneath fluorescent lights that cast sharp shadows upon his already chiseled features. He was a mythical creature of a man, one who breaks your heart and does everything in his power to mend it again.
He hasn’t forgotten about what he did to you, not like Billy did, and he won’t. Not ever. He saw what he did to you and he never moved on from it, just matured enough to make sure it never happened again. And he won’t let another unworthy douchebag hurt you like he did. Not if he can help it, at least.
And he did try to warn you about Hargrove, to be fair. You were just the dumbass that didn’t listen.
“Well, me and my Phoebe Cates wet dream are golden, Pony Boy,” you promise. He hands you the tape again and lets you snatch it from his grip this time. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, Stevie.”
Steve Harrington was right.
The fleeting thought flashes across your mind for half a second, and you quickly realize that those words have never been uttered in the same sentence before now. But he wasn’t wrong in what he’d said about you, just before you left — you were completely, totally, absolutely, and implicitly unable to take care of yourself.
You nearly passed out in the bathroom after taking the hottest shower of your life, feeling too woozy to slap on anything other than moisturizer because you failed to remember to actually eat something that day. It wasn’t totally your fault, though; if anything, it was because of Eddie and all the butterflies he’d given you that made food the very last thing on your mind.
You half-heartedly dry yourself off, keeping your hair in a towel, while you slip on a cotton set of underwear you’ve had for way longer than what's likely acceptable. Damp and half-naked, you prance into the kitchen to fix Bowie her bowl of dinner before you feed yourself.
You fork a can of wet food onto a flower-shaped plate and let her eat on the counter — because you’re an adult now, and you can do that sort of thing.
The calico purrs while she feasts, but your stomach thunders with negligence. You peek into your mostly bare refrigerator and make a mental note to go grocery shopping when you get paid next week.
With a lack of food and an even lesser will to cook something, you settle for the half-eaten chocolate bar you keep stashed in the very back of the fridge; kept only for the most special of occasions — when you’re reveling in your loneliness and trying to convince yourself that you can make it on your own.
It was practically the size of your forearm when you first bought the thing at some too expensive candy store in the city. Now it’s no bigger than your hand.
You eat the thing in bed, even though you know you’ll get crumbs everywhere and that it’ll make sleep agonizing for you — if you get any, that is. You’re bound to feel like a total zombie by the time the sun rises and the late-night sweet will likely make its appearance on your skin by then, in a red and raging blemish of a consequence.
You’ll feel empty and starved and surly, a snapping grouch instead of an actual person, until you get some actual food in your system.
And you’re more than aware of all of these things, but you don’t do a single damn thing about them.
You’re nothing but a sulking lump upon an unmade bed, lying in a pitch-black darkness that’s evaded only by the static-y television across your room, trying your best to pretend like you aren’t waiting for Eddie’s phone call. It’s hard to remember to forget him, though, when the movie you’re watching is practically a feature film of him and all the ways he makes you feel.
Spicoli and his terribly inebriated friends slur as they chorus “No shoes, no shirt, no diiiice” and you swear you can feel Eddie’s shoulder bump softly against yours as he laughs, hear every sound of his melodic chuckle in your ear that made you giggle right along with him. The low bass of Moving in Stereo plays in the otherwise empty silence of your bedroom, and every beat feels like the rhythm of your thrusts against his thigh.
Eddie Munson is all-consuming.
Even the thought of him feels physical.
Phoebe Cates all but undresses herself in front of you, but you’re stuck thinking about some guy who lives in a trailer park across town, deals drugs for a living, and can’t graduate high school. You’re a total fucking goner.
Your eyes flutter shut, and instead of the backs of your eyelids, you see Eddie’s trailer. Your lips start to tingle as they kiss his for the first time — hungry, yearning, needing. His thigh is pressed snugly into your cunt, denim jeans rough against your soft cotton panties, and you have to bite back a moan when he tenses every time you squeeze his hard, covered cock.
You can feel it, all of him, like he were here with you now.
You wish that he were.
His fingers would feel far better, leave far more sparks of electricity in your belly, than the ones as you sneak through the hem of your underwear.
You try and take things slow with yourself, to be as gentle as he had been with you earlier in the woods, but it feels strange to treat yourself with so much tenderness. To touch your pussy like it’s the first time it’s ever been touched. Like it’s a beautiful thing you need to be sweet to.
Maybe you find it so foreign to be careful with yourself because no one has ever been careful with you.
No one, except for Eddie.
Your touch doesn’t rival his. It doesn’t even come close.
No matter how tightly you squeeze your eyes shut or how hard you try to pretend that they’re his fingers inside of you, you can’t make yourself feel as good as he did.
Your fingers aren’t as rough as his guitar-string-scarred ones and they don’t caress your clit with the same methodical care. They don’t fill you quite the same either, nowhere near as satisfying as his much thicker ones.
And you’re no stranger to masturbation, not by any means. Sometimes it’s the only way you can guarantee an orgasm for yourself when you’ve got a partner who cares so little about your own pleasure. But Eddie was different. Eddie cared — so much so, that he’s gotten more orgasms out of you than you’ve gotten from him, which is something you’ve never said about anyone else you’ve been with.
It’s rare and unfamiliar, a bouquet of all things refreshing and terrifying and strange, tied together with a pretty little ribbon.
You know that you can make yourself come. It’ll just take way too long to actually be worthwhile and won’t be nearly as mind-blowing as you need it to be. You won’t be left with trembling thighs and nearly numb legs — just a pitiful excuse for an orgasm that you could get from any one of your exes with half as much work.
What you need is Eddie.
And you hate that. You hate how much you need him and you’re terrified of what that means.
As far as precedent goes, right when you start needing someone is usually when they start to leave. It’s like fucking clockwork most of the time — like everyone knows that you’re a ticking time bomb and eventually it gets too risky to stand too close to you.
You’ll just have to keep Eddie at arm's distance. So he won’t see the grenade that you are.
You pull your fingers out of your wanting cunt, still slick and throbbing with a need that you can’t give it, when the phone rings.
The high-pitched shrill in the quiet makes you tense like it’s the first time you’ve ever heard the damn thing. Your breath catches in your throat, first out of fright and then at the inclination of who waits for you on the other line.
Suddenly, you’re scrambling to collect yourself. As though there was any possibility that Eddie might be able to see you through the phone line.
You wipe your wet fingers haphazardly on the cotton of your underwear and sit up straighter from your ungracefully lazed position. Then you count to five — one mississippi… two mississippi… three — so Eddie won’t think you’re some kind of crazy person who doesn’t have anything better to do than wait for his call.
So he won’t know that’s exactly what you are.
You lift the ruby red rotary from its hook at your bedside table and stretch the corkscrew cord to press it to your ear. “…Hello?”
“Yeah, hi. I’d like to order a pizza. Half pepperoni, half hawaiian.”
You roll your eyes at his dumb joke, even though the familiarity of his voice makes you smile. It warms you like a home-cooked meal, like you were high-pitched and starving before and now you’re on the soothing comedown of finally being satiated.
“Yeah, sorry, we’re closed.”
“Then why’d you pick up the phone, huh?” he teases back. You swear you can hear the grin in his voice. You didn’t know a smile could be so audible. It makes you wonder if he can hear yours — if you’re doing a real shit job at pretending. You anxiously twirl the cord with the pointer finger of your free hand.
“Because I’ve been waiting for you to call me all night, dummy.”
Your answer is more honest than either of you were expecting.
Eddie’s sigh crackles through the shoddy reception. “Yeah. Sorry ‘bout that, sweetheart. I’ve been working all night. I only got home, like, five minutes ago.”
You can hear the heavy exhaustion in his voice. “Rough day?”
“Kinda,” he answers with a shrug. You can hear the grating squeak of his mattress as he plops down onto his bed. “I dealt to one of Jason’s goons today… They always give me a hard time.”
“I’m sorry,” is all you can think to answer.
Eddie’s been the brunt of every joke since seventh grade — people made fun of too big clothes, his too wild hair, his too loud music. But he took it all in stride, laughing with everyone else before volleying a harsher joke back in response. You almost started to think that he liked it. That, somewhere deep down, he was fond of all the attention he got from people who supposedly couldn’t stand him.
But it hurts to know that it hurts him.
“Don’t apologize. It’s not like you did anything,” he assures with a soft laugh. He makes the bold decision to be honest then, too. “You, uh… You made my day a whole lot better, actually.”
You don’t know if he’s talking about the brief fling in the woods or the phone call you’re sharing now or if you particularly care either way. Your heart flutters like it’s been kissed by the wings of a butterfly.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I mean… I don’t know— I couldn’t stop thinking about you, you know. And, knowing that I was gonna get to talk to you again kinda got me through the day, I guess… And, yes, I am fully aware of how lame that sounds, but—”
You don’t get to hear the rest of his excuse, of why what he just told you totally isn’t lame, because you’re covering the receiver with your palm and turning to squeal into your pillow. A far more pathetic sight, in your humble opinion.
There hasn’t been a more fulfilling feeling than this one, to know that he’s been feeling the same way you’ve been feeling about him this whole time. It’s better than all the orgasms he could give you combined, to be loved so wholly.
“…You okay?” you hear his muffled voice ask after you’ve gone suddenly AWOL.
You press the phone back to your ear and nod like he can see you. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. The phone… fell— you said you just got home?”
“Uh, yeah. I met with Hellfire for a bit at school. We’re almost at the end of the Cult of Vecna, so they’re kinda on my ass about it. The little shits are obsessed.”
“Well, they should be. It’s a really good campaign, Eds.”
“Thanks to you,” he mutters. You can almost picture the glimmer in his button eyes and the shaky half-smirk he always looks at you with when he gets all shy.
“That was all you, Eddie Spaghetti,” you retort. “I still have no idea how you did it.”
“Did what?” he wonders, chuckling a bit at the nickname.
“Make something so beautiful out of thin air.”
Lying in the depths of his bedroom, blanketed by the darkness and bathing in streams of moonlight, Eddie feels his breath catch in his throat.
For the first time in his life, he doesn’t have a joke to spew out on the spot. He’s speechless, just for a moment, a quick blink of a second, with nothing to say. Because, if he really thinks about it, that’s sort of what happened with you.
You were just his customer and he was just your dealer.
You were a loyal client and then a girl way out of his league that he developed a too big a crush on. Then you made him come in his underwear and washed the sticky stains out of the denim for him. Now you’re on the phone with him. You let him tell you all about his shitty day and apologize like you weren’t the only good thing about it — like you aren’t the only good thing, period.
It’s not the most cliche love story, nor is it the most beautiful, but it has his cynical little heart beating like the wings of a hummingbird.
Then, when all the mushy mess fades like fog, he finally thinks of something to say.
“It’s the witchcraft, sweetheart,” he shrugs to himself. “Didn’t you hear? I’m a devil-worshipping freak.”
“You know that’s not it, Eds,” you retort with the roll of your eyes.
You know that it’s hard, to be a metalhead from the wrong side of the tracks in the eighties — at the height of the Satanic Panic and all the delusional craze. That shit’s followed him since freshman year. Even still, it nips at his ankles like rabid dogs.
Maybe you were never naive or bored enough to believe all the rumors, but Eddie Munson was always more than that to you.
“No?”
“You can blame it on being a freak show all you want, but I know it’s because you’re one of the funniest, smartest, most creative guys I’ve ever met—”
“You must not know a ton of guys then, sweetheart,” he interjects playfully, like he couldn’t stand to hear you compliment him any longer. You’d give anything to see his blushing cheeks just now.
“…You’re kidding right?” you giggle in response.
“Sorry— that’s— I didn’t mean it like— It was— I was joking,” he stammers, frightened that he might’ve offended you in some way.
It only makes you laugh harder. Both of you know you lost count of all the guys you ‘know’ a long, long time ago. You do imagine it’s somewhere near ‘a ton’, though.
“I know, Eds,” you assure with a contented sigh. “I was just teasing.”
“Oh.”
“The slut and the freak… Who would’ve thought?” you wonder all dreamily, like it’s a fairytale as old as time itself. That’s what it feels like, sometimes.
Eddie isn’t sure what you mean — who would’ve thought you’d be friends? Two people caught in that in-between stage of platonic and romance that’s complete agony and total, total bliss? A couple of kids falling in love—
“It’s sort of kismet, huh?” he answers.
“I think so.”
“So, uh… What are you up to?” Eddie wonders then, equal parts curious and eager to keep the discussion going. He’s frightened any lapse in conversation is going to lead to saying goodbye.
He wants to stay on for hours, until both of you are fighting to stay awake, and then listen to the sound of your heavy breathing when you inevitably lose — like that isn’t the creepiest thing anyone’s ever wanted. He’ll fight Wayne about the bill if it comes to that, he doesn’t care, he just never wants to stop being this close to you.
“Do you want the real answer or the fake one?”
“Uh… Both?”
“Well, I’d say I was doing something super productive with my night, you know, catching up on all the boring adult shit, but then I’d be lying. And I don’t wanna lie to you, Eds,” you tell him with a teasing lilt playing at the edge of your voice.
Eddie swallows thickly, fearing he’d somehow been caught in his own lie — or rather, his half-truth. He moves on quickly, though not exactly full of grace. “Right. Yeah. Totally.”
“Honest answer is, that the only productive thing I’ve done tonight is shower, and now I’m in bed watching Fast Times and eating all the chocolate in my house, because I can’t cook for shit and I have nothing else better to do with my night,” you admit to him, picking at the thread of your comforter.
“Oh, don’t tell me I missed the ‘Moving in Stereo’ bit,” he agonizes.
“Just.”
“Well, correct me if I’m wrong, sweetheart, but it sounds like you’re having loads of fun tonight.”
“I’m having a lot more fun now,” you assure him.
“Glad I can be around to make you laugh,” he retorts like he’s not all too happy to do it.
“You’re a total comedian, Eddie Spaghetti.”
“If I’m the jester, you’re the queen, sweetheart,” he promises, a grin evident in his voice.
Your breath catches in your throat something fierce; you’re almost worried that he’s heard it. His words pierce your heart, a stroke of lightning or a blade of steel. He’s joking, but it’s so strangely profound, the kindest thing anyone’s ever said to you and it’s dripping in sarcasm.
It’s sort of Eddie’s love language, you’ve come to understand, to say something so sweet but coated in venom to make it sour again. It makes you feel special, loved, almost.
A fire builds behind your rib cage, sharp and distant and all-consuming.
“Are you alone, Eds?” you ask him suddenly.
The sudden curve ball in the conversation takes him by surprise. “Uh, yeah, Wayne’s at work right now… Why?”
“Because I want you to talk to me…”
“Oh?” is all he can say because isn’t that what he’s been doing this whole time?
“And I want you to say things that… maybe other people shouldn’t hear,” you explain slowly to him.
“…Oh.”
He’s heard about this only once before, the whole phone sex thing.
It was from Andy in the back of Ms. O’Donnell’s class a year or more ago, though Eddie never called him by that name. Andy, in all actuality, was Jason Carver’s right-hand man, and he meant that in every sense of the phrase. Eddie was more than convinced that the guy was so obsessed with the blonde haired, blue eyed douchebag that he was giving him handjobs on the regular.
But it seemed the dick brigade couldn’t function properly without their leader and Eddie had the misfortune of hearing all the mindless bullshit they were spewing behind him — basketball, parties, girls; in true white bread fashion.
His friends gathered around him like he was telling some sort of secret, though it was loud enough for anyone in a three foot radius to hear. Eddie, caught directly in the line of fire, heard all about Chrissy’s older sister, Wendy, who was two years older and off at college.
He’d gotten her number from some party he’d crashed. At least that’s how he told it, right before telling everyone that she swore like a sailor when she came and that she told him all the dirty things she wanted to do to him while she did.
“It was like her hand was on my dick, dude, I’m serious. That shit was crazy, bro,” he’d laughed after retelling the whole conversation in excruciating detail.
Eddie rolled his eyes to himself then, inwardly jealous that he’d never get to meet Wendy — or any other girl that would be willing to have phone sex with him, for that matter. His phone only ever rang for telemarketers or a rogue Dustin Henderson calling to annoy him.
But, here you are now, the most wanted girl in Hawkins, offering it to him on a silver platter. He wonders if you’ve done this before, surely you have — oh god, he thinks to himself, what if you’ve done this with Andy?
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to,” you assure him after his unusually long silence. “I know you’re probably busy and tired and everything—”
“No! No, yeah, I— I want to. I totally want to.”
“Okay,” you nod. Petals of a flower begin to bloom in your chest as you lie back in bed, settling further into the mattress. The movie, already long forgotten, serves only as light and background noise. “So… What are you wearing, Eds?”
“I feel like I should be asking you that,” he laughs.
On the other side of Hawkins, in a trailer in the middle of nowhere, Eddie rises from where he’d originally flopped back onto his bed with the notion that it was going to be a semi-normal night. He props himself against his headboard. His fingers twitch at his thigh.
“Beat ya to it, Munson.”
“Well, I’ll have you know that it is very sexy, sweetheart. I’m wearing the same Hellfire shirt you saw me in, I don’t know, five hours ago — except now it’s got a rip in it because I totally ate ass on the way back to the van.”
He tells you this to make you laugh — it works — but he prays you don’t ask any questions. Because he got it while hurrying back to his van mere minutes after you’d left him, so hard he thought he was going to burst, with no more than seven minutes until his next client arrived.
Thankfully, he only needed three.
“I love that shirt,” you respond in place of saying what you really want to — ‘I love how that shirt looks on you’ — how it clings to his lean torso and reveals his midriff whenever he stretches his arms over his head.
“She’s a lit-tle worse for wear now, sweetheart,” he lilts.
“I’ll stitch it up for you.”
“And I’ve got on a pair of boxers that are so old they’re practically see through because I’m pretty sure they used to be Wayne’s back in… I don’t know… the eighteen-hundreds.”
Eddie was right. It was sexy, though, for the exact reason they weren’t supposed to be.
There was something so domestic about it all. You can picture him lying in his bed, in the most comfortable clothes he owns, in the one place he can feel at peace. Like a renaissance painting, something familiar and comforting and beautiful — fuck, you’d give anything to be next to him.
“…I think that means it’s your turn now, sweetheart,” he teases.
“Is it?” you mock in return.
“C’mon. Don’t leave me hangin’ over here.”
“It’s nothing, special,” you assure. Your eye flits down to peer at your own body — nothing special, indeed, you think to yourself. The lilac cotton set came from the grocery store downtown on the clearance rack you so often frequent. “I just have my underwear on. It’s very boring, I’m afraid.”
It’s not boring. Not to Eddie — the boy who prides himself on his insanely active imagination. He might not be able to pass english with his brain, but he can certainly create worlds with it, and it’s too easy for him to picture you. He imagines you, freshly showered, and smelling of the warm lavender-vanilla scent you always smell like, mostly bare and lazing upon a fluffy comforter.
He swallows thickly. “Oh, that’s— that’s really, uh— that’s really sexy.”
His thankful that you don’t seem to mind his poor excuse for dirty talk.
“It’s only because I was too lazy to get into actual pajamas.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“Yeah?” you press, smiling to yourself and caging your bottom lip between your teeth.
“Yeah.”
“Can I tell you a secret, Eds?” you wonder, made brave enough by his own admission.
“‘Course you can.”
“Before you called…”
“…Uh-huh?” he eggs on, intrigued at the way you trailed off, sounding suddenly shy.
“I was…” The thought of telling him what you were doing mere seconds before he called makes you nervous. It wasn’t like you were ashamed of touching yourself or anything, nor is the art of dirty talking lost on you, but something about Eddie makes you timid.
“You were… what, sweetheart?” he wonders gently, with a too audible grin.
“I was touching myself.”
That’s all you tell him. The words linger and hang in the air of your separate bedrooms and you cling to the silence — almost mortified and anticipating his reply. Eddie, meanwhile, feels like his tongue has swelled in his mouth and all the air has been punched out of his lungs.
“Oh...” he tries to respond without the breath to accurately do so. “…Yeah?”
“You know what Phoebe Cates does to me,” you try to joke.
His laughter crackles through the receiver. “Yeah. I kinda have her to thank for the other night, don’t I?”
“Give yourself some credit, Eds. The hottest guy in Hawkins was sitting right next to me, what was I supposed to do?”
“No way you think I’m the hottest guy in town,” he scoffs. “Everyone knows you’ve got a thing for pretty boys.”
“Pretty boys?” you echo with a giggle.
“Uh-huh. The Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington type, you know?”
“Well, I think you’re a hundred times prettier than he is.”
“Really?” he scoffs cynically, obviously not believing you.
“He wasn’t the one I was thinking about with my hand shoved down my panties,” you admit, immediately quelling his self-doubt. “That’s gotta count for something, right?”
Eddie clears his throat and then stammers, “I— I guess so— yeah.”
“Are you hard, Eds?” you ask in a breathy whisper.
And he just nods to himself at first, too stupid to answer audibly. He can feel himself stiffening in his boxers, only halfway hard now, but getting firmer by the second. Soon, he’ll be aching.
“Yeah…”
“Can you touch yourself for me?”
Eddie would rather take a bullet to the chest than say no to you — at least, he figures that’d probably hurt less — so he slips his fidgeting fingers through the band of his boxers and takes his warm, stiffening cock in his hand. He squeezes himself just enough to make his stomach tighten.
“Want you to touch yourself, too,” he admits, neither asking or demanding it, just telling you.
“Yeah?” you tease.
“Well, I think it’s only fair, sweetheart.”
You can’t help but notice how breathy he’s gotten — how it shakes on the inhale and hitches on the out. He’s got his hand shoved down his underwear and you’re jealous of the fingers that get to wrap themselves around his cock. You wish they were yours. Both of you will have to settle, it seems.
“Whatever you want, Eds,” you answer playfully.
You obediently slide your hand back into the warmth of your panties. Your fingers slot between your lips and collect the slick that had gathered there since before you’d even answered the phone. You bring it up to your clit, circling the pads of your fingers there until you twitch, then dragging them down to press into your opening. They slip in with ease.
Both of you have turned into lovesick idiots, separated by so many miles, and missing the other most ardently. Lying in the depths of your bedrooms, basking in a velvet loneliness, building with a mutual pleasure with nothing but yearning hands and longing sighs.
Eddie’s eyes flutter shut at the sounds of your low moans and fragile whimpers that crackle through the static — beautiful still, but certainly no match to the ones you were breathing in his ear just hours ago.
His lashes dance across his cheeks as he tries to remember how you’d felt against his fingers, soft like velvet and delicate like silk, weeping and pulsating with need.
He drags his hand from his boxers and lets the band snap against his pelvis. He spits into his palm and wets his cock with it, sighing as he tugs at himself without much friction.
“Are you wet, sweetheart?” he asks, though the words threaten to get stuck in his throat.
“Yeah,” you whisper back like it’s some kind of secret.
You work yourself open with your middle finger and slip your pointer in next to it without much trouble. Your walls flutter around them while you fight to find the spot the makes you keen. You’re only able to tease it, fingers not quite long enough to caress it completely. Your thumb keeps working at your clit, though, to make up for the lost pleasure.
“I’ve been wet since I left you,” you admit through labored breaths. “Haven’t been able to… to stop thinking about you, Eds.”
“Glad I’m not the only one whipped over here, sweetheart,” he manages a laugh.
“No one’s ever made me come that hard before. Not just with their fingers,” you tell him mindlessly, dumb on pleasure, as you feel yourself climbing that peak.
“Really?”
“Never,” you promise, then whine. “Doesn’t even feel as good now… Can’t get as deep as you can—”
Eddie hangs on your every word as he works his palm up and down his stiff cock, squeezing at the base and swiping his thumb over the head with an expert hand. His face scrunches as his stomach starts to tighten, he’s close to coming — too close for his liking. He doesn’t want this to be over so quickly.
“You’ve ruined every other guy for me, Eddie Munson,” you confess, more than pleased to hear how it makes him whine. It sounds like it comes from the depths of his chest, the way it crackles low and needy through the receiver.
“Good,” he grumbles through his pants after he’s gathered himself all over again. “Don’t want anyone else to have you, sweetheart.”
This time you’re the one letting out the most pathetic of whines. It makes a smile flicker at the corners of his lips.
“You like that?”
It sounds so dirty, but you can tell by the sincerity of his tone that it’s genuine. So you answer with a longing truthfulness, a delicate “yes”entwined with a yearning moan.
“You just wanna belong to me, don’t ya?”
Now, this is dirty talk. The teasing lilt of his tone — it’s almost degrading — and makes you clench around your fingers. “Yes, please,” you whine, all but pleading for him now.
Eddie’s close, so dreadfully close, with a pleasure so tangible he could taste it. Your words make his cock twitch in his hold as the fire builds in his belly.
Through your whole-hearted promises and wanting moans, he can hear the sound of your slick through the receiver. The static reception doesn’t do it justice, but the wet click of your fingers working you open was unmistakable.
A moan grumbles in his throat as he digs the crown of his head back into his pillow. “Holy fuck— I can hear you, baby.”
“I’m so wet for you, Eds,” you tell him through fragile slurs, like it wasn’t inherently obvious.
You were wrong before, about wanting to hide from him. You couldn’t conceal your need for Eddie if you tried. The honey you drip, all sweet and just for him, wouldn’t let you keep it a secret.
“I know, baby, I know,” he nearly coos. “Are you— fuck, please tell me you’re close?”
“Yes,” you promise in a whine. Your thumb presses harder into your clit. It makes your thighs tense until they’re shaking.
“You rubbing your clit for me, sweetheart?” he asks like he knows. “I know that’s what you like.”
You whimper, working at the spongy spot within you as your hips buck off the bed. “Yeah.”
“Keep rubbing yourself like that for me, okay? Want you to keep going until you come for me.”
If he keeps talking to you like that, it’ll come a lot quicker than he’s prepared for.
It’s too soft to be much of a demand, but you listen obediently anyway, rubbing at yourself though your sensitivity keeps building. It grows like a morning tide, rising and flowing like white waves on an ocean, stirring something fierce in the depths of your stomach.
“Eddie,” you sigh out his name, broken through staggered pants.
You hear his stuttering breaths, too. “Y—Yeah?”
“I’m about to come,” you promise through a whine when the familiar crescendo sends a shock through your body.
“O… Okay,” he responds, pathetically, then whines, even more so.
“Want you to come with me… Please…”
“Fuck— okay. Shit, sweetheart, I’m almost there.”
“What are you thinking about?” you ask him.
“Your pussy,” he answers without thinking — he’s not doing a whole lot of that anymore. “Wish I’d gotten to taste you earlier. Wanna feel you… fuck… Wanna feel you come on my tongue.”
“Holy shit, Eds,” you moan at his words, at the vivid picture they paint in your head.
“And you get so… God, you get so fucking wet. Just want you to drench me, baby.”
It feels good, to be complimented for something boys used to make fun of you for, to realize for the first time that’s it’s sexy — that you’re sexy — and that Eddie is more than happy to drown in you. The feeling almost rivals the impending orgasm that’s bound to hit you like a tidal wave.
“I’m thinking about how I coulda took you on that bench… Just, fucking, get on my knees for you. Shove my head between your legs. Hold your— shit, baby— hold your thighs open, keep you exactly where I want you,” he rambles but then cuts himself off to moan at his own words. “Goddamn, sweetheart. Wanna taste you so fucking bad.”
The moan you let out is pitiful. It leaves your mouth in the most delicate cry.
No picture has ever been clearer than the one of Eddie between your thighs, your hands knotted in his hair to move him to exactly where you need him most and forcing him there. You can feel his fingers digging into your hips, his rings pressed against your burning skin, and the way your legs tremble on either side of his head.
“Yeah. Keep— Keep doing that. Keep moaning for me,” Eddie tells you. “I’m about to… holy fuck, I’m about to come.”
“Wanna feel your tongue in me so bad, Eds,” you whimper, egged on by the moan he lets out. “Want your cock even more.”
That’s what does him in, the assurance — the promise — that you want him just as bad as he wants you.
He tightens his fist around his cock, achingly hard and raging a crimson at the tip, trying to imitate the way you’d feel around him. It’s not all that close, not nearly as wet as the honey you’d be dripping for him, but his imagination does the rest of the work for him.
All at once, you’re on top of him, riding him for all he’s worth, your pussy threatening to swallow him whole. You’ve drenched him, just like he’d begged for, and that wet schlick noise still echoing from the receiver is the evidence of each of your assured thrusts over top of him.
You’re still pleading for him anyway — for more, for his tongue, for his cock — and he wants so desperately to give everything to you.
“Oh god, baby—” he sputters. He grips the phone in a white-knuckled, fist trembling. “Oh, fuck, I’m coming, baby.”
“Please, Eddie. Please come for me,” you plead over the low sounds of the forgotten film playing across the room and all the dirty wet sounds your pussy makes against your fingers. You sound like you need it, like you want his orgasm more than your own.
“Want you to come with me… Can you— Can you do that for me, sweetheart? Please?” It’s not dirty talk anymore. He’s actually fucking begging you and doesn’t feel the least bit ashamed to do so.
He wants to hear all the pretty noises you make when you come — that initial cry that stems from the depths of your soul, the high-pitched whimpers that come when the sensitivity builds, and the whines that leave you when it ebbs.
He wants to hear it over and over and over again, like a worn cassette, and play it until the tape spins out.
“Yes…” you promise through a set of stuttering breaths.
There’s no talking when either of you come. Eddie’s long forgotten to talk you through it, but you would barely hear him if he had. The phone slips out of your hand when your grip slackens and it falls to the pillow beside your head.
You chase your orgasm full throttle, working through the crescendo and the strikes of lightning, focusing only on his muffled moaning and the pretty sounds he makes as he comes.
The breath of your name whimpered through a tight throat is what does it for you. Your body has hardly any time to warn you before you’re gushing all over your fingers, twitching every time the pad of your thumb rubs over clit.
That cry, the one you always let out as you come — all wet and full of need — makes Eddie orgasm right alongside you.
He swipes his thumb over his head again, collecting the pearls of precum gathering there and sliding them down the base to squeeze himself there like he’d been doing this whole time. He clutches harder this time, imagines it's your cunt locking him in a vice-like grip, and whines in his throat when he comes.
Several loads of it spill onto his cotton boxers, most of it gathering along the side of his hand and dripping down his knuckles. His breath staggers as he works himself through his high, praising you through the phone like you’re the one who brought him to it.
“Fuck, baby… You’re so good… So fucking good.”
You’ve long settled from your own orgasm, still tingly and numb in some places, but not as gone as you had been just moments before. You still float on a cloud, getting lost as you stare through your window at the half-hidden stars sprinkling the night sky and feeling as though you could reach out and touch them.
You can feel the satin moonlight bathing you, and the jittery static of the neon of the television screen. You can feel everything and somehow nothing at all.
“I don’t know how you do it, Eds,” you confess, hardly thinking about the words spilling from your mouth when you lazily bring the phone to your ear again.
“Do what, sweetheart?”
“I don’t know… You always make me feel good. Even when you’re not here… Even when we’re not getting each other off.”
“I feel the same way,” he promises you, all mushy, even though he feels like a slob for wiping his hand off on his discarded jeans on his bed. “Just… wish you were here.”
“I wish I was there, too… Wish I could clean you up.”
Eddie’s eyes shut tight as his head tilts back to his pillow at the thought. “Fuck… You’re gonna make me hard again, sweetheart.”
You perk up suddenly as an idea sprouts like a flower in your head. A smile blooms on your lips, and you rise up onto your elbows, glowing with an unanticipated excitement. “How long would it take you to get ready?”
“…Get ready?” he echoes.
“Yeah,” is all you say.
“I mean, I— I don’t know. I figure if I put on some new underwear and a fresh pair of pants, I’ll be good as new... Why?”
“You wanna do something?”
“Yeah. Sure. Anything,” he answers clumsily in place of saying, ‘Anything to not have to be without you.’
“I wanna go to Skull Rock.”
“Skull Rock?” he repeats.
Legend has it, you and Steve made that place a local landmark. People have always said that Hopper caught the both of you one too many times up at Lover’s Lake and the Quarry, that you needed a more hidden place to fuck. So you’d stumbled around in the middle of the woods until you found a place the chief wouldn’t think to look for you.
You’d certainly found it. Then every other horny high schooler did too.
It’s the place you go to fuck, the most private place in all of Hawkins — hell, maybe even Indiana entirely for teenagers who can’t get the house to themselves. And as appealing as it sounds, to take you beneath a sky of twinkling stars, Eddie doesn’t want his first time with you to be on dirt or in the middle of the woods. That’s how all the horror movies start, don’t they?
So, needless to say, your answer takes him by surprise.
“Yeah! You can see all the stars really good from there. It’s too hard to see them so close to town.”
Eddie’s heart swells all at once at how sweet you are, like sugar poured directly onto his tongue. You’re not eager to be without him either, it seems, and that thought is as gratifying as it is thrilling.
You’re an adventure he’s about to go on, without a map or a way out, a journey he’s happy to go into blind as long as you’re holding his hand the entire way through it.
It breaks his heart to hang up the phone. He practically begs you to do it for him, and it makes you laugh — a kind giggle entwined with a tease ‘you’re such a baby.’ It rings in his ears long after the receiver clicks.
Most of all, he hates all the stoplights that separate your place from his. He hadn’t known where you lived before now, not until you uttered it over the phone. He makes a mental note to figure out a quicker way, somewhere through the winding back roads that his old van can speed through to make the distance less daunting.
He pulls into your apartment complex, a quaint two-story thing on the quieter side of town, where the woods are plentiful and the street lamps far fewer. He turns his radio down out of respect for all your neighbors that he’s sure he’ll never meet and spies you through the neon orange porch lights. You shut and lock your door in quick succession, then scurry across the way to meet him.
Eddie leans over to unlock the passenger side door for you, already beaming, and finds you’re smiling too when you climb in next to him. The grin you shoot his way outshines the night sky and makes a bright yellow sun of the girl sitting in his passenger seat.
“Hi,” you’d greeted him, all shy like you didn’t just make him come all over his hand thirty minutes ago.
“Hi, sweetheart,” he volleys back like he always does, with that big ol’ smirk and teasing lilt as he cock his head to the side — using his playfulness to cover up the bashful mess you so easily reduce him too.
Neither of you had gotten particularly dressed up to see each other. All he did was put on fresh under and pajama pants. You succumbed to a smilier laziness it seems, haphazardly brushing through your half-damp hair, throwing on a too big t-shirt, and calling it a day.
The cotton hangs low at your chest, stretched out and obviously well-loved. It falls well past your thigh, though you spend much of the drive anxiously tugging it down.
It makes him wonder what you’re wearing beneath it. If you’ve tugged on a pair of shorts or if you’re in the bra and (undoubtedly wet) underwear you’d told him you were wearing over the phone.
Eddie winds himself up all over again while you sift through the flimsy case of endless cassettes he keeps tucked in the glove compartment that never quite shuts all the way.
“How do you now have any ABBA tapes?” you wonder like it’s baffling, with an Iron Maiden tape in one hand and Cinderella in the other. Metallica plays lowly, nearly inaudibly, from the stereo.
Eddie laughs and darts his eyes from the darkened back roads to look at you, all smiley and bathed in moonlight, before turning back to the road again. “Uh, because I’m not a thirty-year-old woman. That’s the shit moms listen to.”
“Moms and hot girls,” you retort jokingly.
“Right, moms and hot girls listen to ABBA — of which, I am neither, sweetheart. Sorry to be the one to break it to you… Besides, it’s not like you walk around listening to, fucking, I don’t know— Van Halen or whatever.”
“Hey. I listen to Van Halen,” you shoot back.
He scoffs. “Yeah, right.”
“It’s got what it takes!” you sing suddenly, not quite catching the rhythm of the song, but smiling anyway as you reach for his forearm resting on the center console. “So tell me why can’t this be love!”
“Oh, my god— that’s literally their worst song,” Eddie chuckles through the widest grin you’ve ever seen from him.
It makes you smile big too, looking like an idiot who’s totally head over heels for the boy next to her. And of that, you’re happily guilty of.
“Not true,” you shake your head defiantly. “I love that song.”
“So that means it has to be good, right?” he retorts playfully, shooting you a teasing look, though his beam is more than sincere.
“Obviously,” you answer with a scoff that makes Eddie roll his eyes.
He knows he’s going to start to love it, though, if only because it’s the only Van Halen song you halfway know.
He’s going to hear that song on the radio and he’s going to want to turn it, but he’s going to remember this moment now — the one with you reaching for him while you sing the lyrics to a song he can’t stand, sitting pretty in his passenger seat, while the moonlight blanches your smile and the bare skin of your thighs.
Eddie Munson is going to love that goddamn song for the rest of his life.
He parks as close as he can to Skull Rock, knowing his van can’t work its way that far into the woods. The two of you are forced to walk the rest of the way, not exactly minding it, though Eddie’s incessantly worried you’re going to get cold.
He’s already forced his jacket upon you, which you took with little fight. It warmed you almost immediately — with his cozy heat and musky cologne.
You make mindless conversation the entire way there, about music and then about his band and then what animal you’d want to be in your band if that were the least bit possible. Eddie chooses a sheep without any hesitation, though you’re confident that a penguin would be far cooler.
You keep a careful distance between you, at first, like both of you are too scared to initiate the first move. That is, until you trip over a raised branch and nearly eat ass on the forest floor. Then Eddie’s holding your hand the entire way, keeping you close.
“If you wanted me to hold your hand, you coulda just said so, you know?” he jokes. “Didn’t have to go through all the dramatics, sweetheart.”
You try and yank your hand out of his grip in protest then, but he doesn’t let you. In fact, he pulls you closer and twirls you into a bear hug that you happily relax into.
He feels your sigh fan against his collarbone as you rest your head at the nape of his neck, his arms wrap around your shoulders as yours settle at his waist. He rocks you back in forth, in a moment that’s too almost sweet to make fun of.
Eddie finds a way, of course, “See?” he singsongs. “I’ll hug you like this all the time, if you want. You don’t have to almost kill yourself to get my attention, babe.”
“All I did was trip,” you laugh at his theatrics.
“Death by tree root… What a gnarly way to go.”
He holds your hand the entire way to Skull Rock.
He doesn’t let you go once, not until you’re ascending the large boulders to plant yourselves at the very peak of them. He’s grabbing you again once you settle, though, and the two of you just sit there, for several long moments, just gaping at the stars that dance with life above you. They sprinkle an infinite void with enough light that manages to touch you, trillions of miles away.
There’s a subtle beauty in that Eddie never would’ve appreciated before now.
“Shit, babe,” he breathes through a whimsical existential dread. “You were right. The stars are really fucking pretty out here.”
You love how much he loves this, to come to Skull Rock with you and count the stars. Any other guy would’ve had their tongue down your throat by now, stuffing your hand down their unbuttoned jeans.
But not Eddie.
He just holds your hand because he likes the feeling of his fingers entwined with yours, grasping tightly onto you while he gazes at an infinite universe — like you might float off right along with it.
His neck is stretched to gape at the night sky. You catch his adam’s apple bobbing every time he swallows. You want so desperately to kiss his milky white skin and sprinkle blotchy red bruises there.
His curly locks fall over his shoulders. He shakes his head to get his bangs out of his eyes while the chocolate buttons of them dart around the endless void.
He’s more beautiful than every star in the sky combined. You can’t be sure of how many that is, of course, but it’s a whole bunch if you had to guess. It makes sense, though, for the prettiest boy in the whole damn galaxy.
“Told ya,” you answer with a smile, leaning over to nudge his shoulder with yours. “You come out here often?”
You’re asking if he takes girls here and he knows it, but it’s not like you’re being inconspicuous about the whole thing. Eddie gauges it almost immediately, the subtle jealousy hinting at your tone — something no one else would’ve caught — and he squeezes your hand in reassurance.
He shakes his head. “No… Never.”
“Never?” you press with raised brows, like his answer shocks you.
“Ever. It’s not really my scene, I guess… But what about you, sweetheart? Never seen you around these parts before.”
You knock his shoulder again, harder this time. “Shut up. You already know the answer to that.”
“Yeah…” he nods to himself, eyes darting back and forth as he reminisces on something. “You and Harrington, you and Hargrove. Hell, I think I heard about you and Jason one time—”
“That was a long time ago,” you argue. “Before I even knew you, okay?”
“I’m just saying,” he shrugs in defense. “You totally have a thing for pretty boys, sweetheart.”
“I never said I didn’t, Eds. Just that you were pretty, too.”
“Whatever,” he scoffs and rolls his eyes like he isn’t glowing red beneath the moonlight.
“You’re better than all three of them, Eds,” you confess with a sudden softness that catches his attention almost immediately. He turns his attention from the sky to look at you properly again. His breath catches at you sad you look — all beautiful and coated in shades of blue.
“…Yeah?”
You nod and drag his hand into your lap to fidget with his fingers. You trace the skeleton heart on his middle finger, subverting all your attention there because it’s easier than having to look at him now. “Better than all of them combined— not even just them, you know? Out of everyone. No one’s ever been this nice to be before.”
“Me neither, sweetheart,” he confesses with a morose grin. “The freak of Hawkins High attracts a lot of assholes, believe it or not.”
“Is it bad?” you wonder cautiously, like you’re scared to hear the answer. In some ways, you are.
You hadn’t known him in high school, not really. For obvious reasons, you ran in very different circles. You never even had classes together. There was never any excuse to be close to each other before now, never a reason to become friends. So you didn’t.
You grew to know him as a freak, and he knew you as the town slut. Then somewhere down the line, he became your dealer and now… here you were.
But you’ve graduated now and he’s still army crawling towards a diploma. You couldn’t save him from the hell of Hawkins High even if you wanted to.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” he shrugs. “Jason and the dick brigade just wanna make my life hell, that’s all.”
“I hope they aren’t,” you respond shyly.
Eddie scoffs then shoots you a smile. “Oh, of course not. Look at me. I’m at Skull Rock with the most wanted girl in Hawkins. I’m living the dream, sweetheart.”
“So you don’t care?” you wonder, peering at him through your lashes, as you twist the silver cross around his finger.
“Care about what?”
“That I’m a slut,” you laugh like it’s obvious.
Eddie doesn’t think it’s all that funny. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s not like it isn’t true, Eds,” you retort with a trembling smile. “I mean, that’s literally what people call me — most people don’t even care to call me by my real name anymore.”
“I don’t care,” Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t care about that. I don’t give a shit about what people say about you. If everyone cared about what everyone said about everyone, neither of us would be here right now… Because you’d think I was some devil-worshipping freak and I’d think you were too busy getting it on with Chief Hopper.”
You screw your face up immediately at the thought. The mere idea was repulsive. The asshole was practically your father these days. Jim Hopper was in that small bunch of available people you would never fuck, and happily so.
“I’d never stoop that low,” you joke.
“I like you, how you are, right now,” Eddie promises. “Don’t want you to change a damn thing.”
His brown eyes twinkle with a sincerity that rivals the stars above you. All of a sudden, you don’t care about a bunch of heavenly bodies light years away from you — you care about this man, the one sitting beside you now, holding your hand even though your palms have gone all sweaty.
It’s too good to be true — the way you looks at you, the way he talks to you, the way he treats you. You’re scared that it’s a dream, that you’ll wake up and find that none of this was ever real. Or worse, that he was, and that he just didn’t care about you the way you cared about him.
It’s almost irrational. Almost.
But it’s happened before.
And it’s left you a scarred and mangled mess.
You shake your head to yourself and scrunch your face as you turn to look him. “Have you ever done this before, Eddie?”
“Don’t what?” he wonders with furrowed brows.
“I don’t know…” you shrug. “Any of this? With anyone else?”
He’s grateful he doesn’t have to lie. Or tell some clumsy half-truth for the sake of saving his own skin. He realizes tonight is perhaps the most honest he’s ever been with you, baring his pale soul beneath a silver moonlight.
“Never,” he answers, unwavering, with a firm shake of his head.
“Really?”
“Really,” he nods, then swallows thickly at a gut-wrenching realization. “I’ve never felt his way about anyone else before.’
“Me neither,” you promise.
It’s a tad more meaningful coming from you than from a boy who’s never had someone to love and to love him back.
You’re experienced, you’ve found what you like and what you don’t like. You’ve been with guys who have given you the world and guys that have ended yours altogether. And out of all of them — all of the assholes in Hawkins you could’ve picked — you’ve chosen the freak.
You want him.
You want Eddie.
The revelation makes him grin. “Promise?”
“Cross my heart, Eddie Spaghetti.”
#published by bug#eddie munson x reader#eddie munson smut#stranger things x reader#stranger things imagine#eddie munson imagine#virgin!eddie munson x reader#virgin!eddie munson
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This account, first published in JewishNews, is written by an anonymous London-based Guardian employee who has family living on a kibbutz in southern Israel. It offers a look at life in the newspaper’s offices in the days since Hamas’s attack on Israel.
I wake up on October 7 to a text from my brother-in-law: “Thoughts are with your family in Israel. I hope everyone is safe.”
I check the news. Hamas has entered southern Israel. They’re in a kibbutz. My partner’s family is in that kibbutz. His cousin is nine months pregnant. He’s in contact with them; they’re in the safe room. Terrorists are outside.
I check social media. Reports of hostages, maybe three. I check again; perhaps ten.
There has been a massacre at a music festival. I look at the video. Who do I know there? I check social media again; there are videos of hostages. I look at their faces. Do I know them?
We lose contact with family in the kibbutz. I tell myself that the phone lines are down because the IDF are there. I watch Hamas footage as it is coming out. I go on Telegram for the first time in my life and I see a room full of bodies covered in blood. I see children gunned down. I see the bodies of raped women. I see families holding each other as Hamas livestreams atrocities. I look for people I might know.
My partner and I walk 30,000 steps. There’s nothing we can do. Late that evening we hear that his family is safe but their house is gone, neighbors are dead.
I don’t understand. I could have easily been there and part of me thinks I was.
I look at the papers the next day. The newspaper I work for has a tank on the front page: ‘Hundreds die and hostages held as Hamas assault shocks Israel’—victorious terrorists hold a Palestinian flag. The subheading reads ‘Netanyahu declares war as 150 Israelis die. 230 Palestinians killed in air strikes.’
I don’t understand. I know people, Israelis, who were murdered. They did not “die,” as if in some kind of accident. I saw footage of terrorism. It was not an “assault.”
The front page of The Observer, The Guardian’s sister Sunday newspaper, on October 8, the day after the Hamas massacre. (via The Observer)
On Sunday, we get more information about what happened to my partner’s family, about how Hamas set the family’s house on fire when they thought it was empty, how my partner’s cousin screamed for her life when the room filled with smoke, how her husband had to pin her down to stop her cries, how Hamas laughed when they realized the family would need to crawl out of the room, how they refused to leave the burning building. We hear that they somehow survived and walked out through pools of their neighbors’ blood, pieces of dead children littering the street; kids who’d been playing on a Saturday morning.
I’m safe, I’m fine, but I can’t comprehend the color of the sky or the rustle of the trees. I look around at people enjoying their Sunday and I think: Do they not know what is happening? I check the news again and see there are more hostages. I look through the names.
There are still terrorists in Israel.
I listen to the radio, one Israeli interviewee and then one Palestinian. I can hear that the interviewer is struggling as defenders of Hamas justify terrorism. I don’t understand. Is this how they reported the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Did they platform Putin’s people?
I check social media. A friend has posted: “They’ve broken out of jail.” Another has said: “Today is a day of celebration,” and someone else has shared an infographic of “Settler colonialism for beginners.” My old flatmate tells her followers she will be at the demonstration outside the Israeli embassy and she invites people to join her.
On Monday I go to work. How are your family, a colleague asks. When I answer, she squirms. Can’t they just leave, my colleague says. No, they can’t actually.
I look at the morning newsletter for the newspaper I work for. It breaks down the number of dead Palestinian children. It does not mention dead Israeli children.
My group chats are exploding as family and friends work out what has been happening, who is alive. I go back to the news. I type the name of the kibbutz into the wires. Nothing. I read how Hamas invaded “settlements.” They’re not settlements! They’re small, pre-state kibbutzim.
I find out that a friend of a friend was at the music festival and is missing. I’m shaking at work.
I see a colleague who had posted about “decolonization” all over social media over the weekend. They’re laughing with the rest of their team. They’re having a great day. I used to love their podcast, full of hot takes and celeb gossip. Now they’ve evolved into an expert on the Middle East. It doesn’t look like their family is in the middle of it, though.
No one else at work speaks to me about it. I nod my way through conversations about fonts and I stumble home.
I go back the next day. I look at the front page. A photo of Gaza and “violence escalates.” Israelis “dead” but Palestinians “killed.” If they can’t empathize with the Jews now, they never will.
I email the editors. I tell them that my newspaper’s coverage has been upsetting. They tell me that their thoughts are with my family but they stand by the paper’s reporting.
I hear colleagues complaining about the newspaper’s “American readers. They’re always accusing us of antisemitism.” They’re laughing.
I leave work early to go to a vigil outside Downing Street. People quietly weep. Everyone there is Jewish.
I’ve seen on social media that I know people going to a demonstration. Later, I see photos of it: people on lampposts, red flares, Jews hiding inside, the Israeli embassy boxed in. All kinds of people are united in the chant, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” In Sydney, they are shouting: “Gas the Jews.”
On Tuesday, I find out that my friend’s friend at the music festival is dead. I remember the day I’d spent with him on the beach in Tel Aviv last month. He’d gotten back from South America and was excited to travel again. He had been gentle and sweet. I don’t understand.
On Wednesday, I go to work again, and the next day, and the next day. Finally, the pictures from the kibbutz come out. I look at all of them. I rewatch the footage. I bear witness. No colleague asks me how I am again that week.
I go to synagogue at the weekend and cry with my community. The rabbi holds space for pain. I say Kaddish for the boy at the music festival I will never talk to again.
Back at work I see someone pointing to a photo of the Israeli flag burning in the newspaper. They laugh, “This is my favorite picture.”
I remember telling my family that when I next went to Israel I’d lie to my colleagues and tell them it was Spain. I’d lie because my colleagues had said to me of Israel: “You gotta go while you still can.”
Now another colleague asks me what I think of Netanyahu. Do I hold him responsible? I explain that I have protested against Netanyahu but the only people responsible for October 7 are Hamas. She keeps asking me about the settlements. I tell her they’re bad but she won’t stop. “Don’t you think Bibi has a lot to do with this?” I ask her if she has family in the region. She does not.
I’m on social media again. Friends share infographics from Jewish Voice for Peace and heavy-hitting images from the Gaza Health Ministry. I don’t disagree with what they’re posting but they said nothing when October 7 happened. I start unfollowing decades-old friends.
In the days that follow, my synagogue receives a bomb threat, my local rail station has photos of missing children ripped off, I hear of more friends of friends who have been killed. I hear of others who are now enlisted. I hear that a synagogue president in America has been stabbed to death and synagogues all over the world have been vandalized and destroyed.
The newspaper I work for is covering the bombardment of Gaza and I watch in horror. I think that Israel must defend itself. Yet when I say this, people will tell me I am justifying the murder of children. They will tell me it is a genocide.
As the events of October 7 draw on collective Jewish memory of pogroms and the Holocaust, the newspaper I work for will dispel that myth, publishing a piece entitled “Israel must stop weaponizing the Holocaust.” Am I wrong to connect our grief today with that of our past?
In the weeks that follow, I will apply for other jobs and speak exclusively to Jewish friends and family. I will hide myself away from the streets of London and the waves of social media.
I will not forget the photos and videos I saw on October 7, but I start to think about how this day will be marked; how my children’s children will take part in a new commemoration, where we will remember not the Romans or the Persians or the Nazis but Hamas, and how we survived.
Intergenerational trauma has been retriggered but now is not the time to dwell on our historical violent oppression. Now is the time to rise up, speak out, and defend our right to exist. Now is not the time for colleagues to dismiss Jewish pain or publish inflammatory op-eds that will spark more violence.
I will keep applying for other jobs.
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star lost with you | hyunjin au | part 16
pairing: idol! hyunjin x artist! reader
genre: friends to lovers, so much angst, smut, fluff, set in the idolverse, mutual pining, unrequited love, forbidden romance, slowburn (!!!) soulmate au, star-crossed lovers
synopsis: working in a quaint little art store, you’ve had the honor of meeting all kinds of people, but you’ve never met somebody like him. there were many reasons hyunjin returned to his hometown; a getaway from the ephemeral and fast-paced life of the city, so he could fall in love with life again. he thought he was prepared for everything, to study art in the way that he’s always wanted to, but what he didn’t anticipate was meeting you. hwang hyunjin realises that sometimes, the best things in life happen unplanned.
word count: 25K
warnings: cursing, drinking, mutual pining, mostly just a lot of angst, yn is insanely in love its actually a lot, making out, jealousy, grinding, hyunjin is a little mean, sexual tension, tons of new characters, a lot of coincidences, mature content, angst
a/n: soo hyunjin dropped contradicting and somehow it's absolutely perfect for this chapter. this part does also have undertones of 'love untold' in it too, and im very excited to finally be writing the city arc! this was a long time coming and i really hope you enjoy it. theres tons of angst in this so im sorry about that. please get comfortable with snacks and a blanket to read. you can listen to my star lost playlist here!
important: all works are fiction, and do not in any way represent the real personalities or real people, they exist only as faceclaims, and are fictional characters.
masterlist
The girl next to him was pretty, in a timeless Marilyn Monroe kind of way. She had striking features, and even from this little interaction you knew her face would be burned into your memory. She was standing next to Hyunjin so simply, as if that wasn’t a place that you had been pining for all these months.
Her hand rested on the small of his back, animated eyes as she talked to him. Even now, he looked as good as the day he left. The trench coat fit his body just right, and he was so much taller than everyone else in this shop. His hair had grown longer in your absence and chocolate strands brushed his shoulders.
The last time you saw him, he kissed you until your lips were bruised, and his pants were stained with cum.
Right now… he was pretending like you didn’t even exist.
The woman looked over her shoulder, eyes meeting yours briefly as if she’d felt your burning gaze. You ought to be embarrassed that you were caught staring, yet you stood your ground. You expected a sneer, but she smiled at you — the polite kind of smile you give strangers as you pass them in the street — before turning to him again.
Monstrous curiosity clawed at your chest, gut turning in envy. She reached into her purse, an expensive-looking red bag that you couldn’t afford in any lifetime, and pulled out a black credit card. Before she could hand it into the cashier though, Hyunjin’s arm reached out, stopping her. He was touching her now, if only so briefly, but a wave of debilitating nausea overcame you. You could hear him saying, “Please, let me get this”
You were all the way across the store, but you’d be able to hear him among a million voices. The familiarity of his kindness pulled at your heartstrings.
The woman didn’t protest, probably because Hyunjin was the biggest star in this city, and he could afford anything he wanted, and everything she could ask for.
“That art building is just a few blocks down from here. I can tell you the way. It’s pretty easy” The boy you’d asked for help said. He had an employee uniform on, and a silver name tag that read “Jae”.
You’d quickly forgotten your purpose for being out and about in the streets of Seoul. You’d come here for a reason, to have a glimpse at the building you’d be studying at, the place you’d been dreaming of. Yet…you’d never longed for something as much as you did for Hyunjin.
“Yeah, um, thank you” You mumbled half-heartedly, eyes still on Hyunjin, “Can you just…give me a minute?”
It was rude of you to ask for help but not take it, only because you were distracted by a boy. “Sure, uh…take your time” The employee stepped away, not really caring about your internal drama.
Hyunjin’s back was still to you. You’d been worried about why you couldn’t contact him this entire time. A part of you was relieved; if he was here that meant he was okay, even after disappearing entirely off the grid.
He grabbed the paper bag they’d purchased, a blue cereal box peeking out, threatening to topple. It didn’t fit in the bag, but he made no effort to fix it. He didn’t seem too involved in the task. They had finished bagging their snacks, and that meant they’d leave.
There was nobody in the shop anymore, except you and them. A black car was parked just outside. It was probably his. Once he got in the car…he’d be far away from you, down a thousand identical streets and hidden between skyscrapers you’d never find him in. There were ten million people in this city. How would you ever find him again? You had no fucking way of contacting him.
He walked past where you stood in the aisle, and your pulse was pounding in your ears, tunnel vision shielding everything else.
You’d been searching for him this entire time…you couldn’t just let him walk away.
It was now or never.
He pushed the door open, and outside air swirled in.
It snapped you into action.
“Hyunjin?” Your voice wavered, and it wasn’t loud enough for this city. Your plea was drowned amongst sirens, traffic and noise.
But he stopped walking, shoulders tensing.
He heard you.
Hurriedly, you stepped towards him, navigating through the messy snacks aisle. Your hands were shaking, and you pushed them into your jacket pockets to hide that. The effect he had on you was embarrassing, even at such a time.
“Can I just talk to you for a second?” You asked, hoping you didn’t sound as desperate or nervous as you felt.
He turned around to look at you, and his knuckles were white from how tight he was gripping their bags. The grocery must be heavy, and even in a circumstance like this, you worried for him. His gaze on you was unrecognizable. It was almost like it wasn’t really him at the moment…as if he’d been replaced by a carbon copy, which was colder and meaner, and didn’t feel anything for you.
His eyes zeroed in on you, and you suddenly felt so conscious. You wish you’d dressed up better, instead of this dull, beige coat you picked off a thrift shop back home. This was the first he was seeing you after months, and you weren’t prepared. You shot him a smile. Quick and rough, and forced, but a smile nonetheless.
He had to know you were happy to see him. Inside, you were screaming.
The girl at his side looked at you again, eyebrows raised in confusion. Her earlier politeness had worn off, and now she just looked bothered. Who even was this woman?
There’d be time for questions later though, because she pulled at his arm, “Come on. We’ll be late Hyunjin” Her tone had authority to it, a kind of tone you’d never used with him.
“Can we talk?” You repeated your question. The woman wrinkled her nose, and now that you really looked at her…she was much older than you. She had expensive taste, clearly, and an aura of confidence you could never possess.
Hyunjin’s mouth parted, and then closed again, like he was having trouble speaking. There was so much to say, after all. But even if he couldn’t talk right now, you’d be happy to just know if he was okay.
You wanted to ask him for his number, but you waited, giving him the time to say whatever was on his mind. There must be a lot on it. It had to be his company pulling the strings and making him cut off all contact with you. He had to have been forced somehow, because he wasn’t that kind of person.
The longer he said nothing, the dizzier you felt. The truth was becoming obvious. Maybe it wasn’t all that far-fetched to believe that he had cut you off….on purpose.
Your chest tightened impossibly, a horrible feeling building up in your gut. There were lines in his forehead, and guilt in his eyes. Your nails dug into your palms as you tightly clenched your fists, but you were numb to that pain.
But it had to be a misunderstanding, because Hyunjin would never do that to you, would he? In fact, he’d…never do that to anyone. He was far too kind to resort to something like complete radio silence.
“I’m sorry” He spoke.
Your knees almost gave out at his voice. You’d missed it so much, and your heart was catching up to your mind, to register what he said.
Sorry for what?
He swallowed hard, steely gaze meeting your confused one, “I’m sorry… I don’t have time for this”
Before you could even process those words, he had walked out into the cold night, leaving you standing in the stupid fucking store, all by yourself. That was all there was to it.
Maybe everything that you knew about Hyunjin was wrong.
»»————-
“I’m sorry. I can’t help you…you do not have authorisation to enter the building” The security guard repeated, for the third time that night, as if you needed any more humiliation right now.
Your cheeks were burning red, and you were trembling from the cold, “Please, he knows who I am. Just ask him”
He was visibly annoyed, “If you don’t have a visitor pass, you have to stay in the lobby, until the employee buzzes you in”
You tightened your coat around yourself, trying to reason, “I can’t get through to him. Just tell him I’m here. He’ll buzz me in, I swear”
He sighed, exasperated by your desperation. You were embarrassed, and shameful, but you didn’t know what else to do. If you went home now, you might cry till you threw up. You’d cry till it was dawn, and until you heard the morning traffic outside your apartment. The only thing stopping you from bawling right now was the watchful eyes of the people around you.
You’re numb inside. You’re so, so confused.
None of it makes any sense, but your brain hurts just thinking about it.
It was so late, everybody was leaving the building, and you were the only one trying to get in. A female employee was buzzing out, pushing through the turnstiles. She looked between you and the doorman, “Something wrong?”
The guard sighed, another indication of how less of a fuck he gave about you, “She says she knows an employee in the building, but she has no visitor pass”
You looked at her, “Can you please just tell him Y/N is here? He’ll understand”
Her gaze softened at the state of you, “What’s his name? I’ll see what I can do”
You told her… and then you waited.
It was embarrassing to be standing there as hundreds of employees exited, eyeing you up, wondering why you were just standing there. The longer it took for him to come, the shakier you felt. Like you’d lose grip of yourself. It was getting chillier, and your insides hurt.
Then you heard his voice. He basically yelled your name, rushing through the crowd of employees, a beeline straight to you, “Y/N? What are you doing here?”
He was like your angel — ashy blonde hair drifting against the air conditioning of the lobby, a red scarf wrapped around his neck. “Oh my god” You stepped ahead, but a silver turnstile separated you from touching him, “I tried calling you”
He placed his card against the scanner, opening the gate so you could enter. There was no time to explain. Immediately, he wrapped his arms around your body. That was the thing you loved about Yeonjun the most. Hug first, questions later.
You buried your face in his neck, squeezing him, “I’m so sorry for just showing up, I needed to see you, Jun”
He pulled back to look at you, “I’m sorry my phone was on silent. I was working on a report, and I lost track of time”
The security guard was looking at the two of you, and he probably assumed you were a couple. He probably thought you were lovers, and if you were…everything might just have been easier. Yeonjun’s eyes narrowed in on your puffy, swollen eyes, “Wait. What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
Heat rushed to your cheeks. Had you overreacted by coming here? He must think it’s an emergency. You musthave overreacted. Your instinct made you apologise, “I’m sorry for coming here like this…”
He shook that thought away like it was nothing, “Come on. We’ll just grab my stuff, and then we can head home, all right?”
You let him lead you to the staff elevator, and he held on tightly to you through it all, which you appreciated. You didn’t want to be alone right now. You observed the office building that Yeonjun worked at. “Your building is…fancy” You mumbled, but your voice was hoarse, and you couldn’t muster up any enthusiasm.
“Yeah” He chuckled, glancing back at you, “Most companies are pretty serious about the security. There’s been a lot of data breaches recently so…”
“It was embarrassing to face off that guard. I thought he’d arrest me or something…by the way he was staring”
Yeonjun laughed, “He’d never do that. He was probably just caught off guard by how pretty you look”
Your chest squeezed at his sudden compliment. You leaned forward, wrapping an arm around his stomach to indulge him in a back hug. It was a strange display of affection for the elevator. But Yeonjun said nothing of it, squeezing your arm, and craning his neck to smile at you.
“We’re here” He told you, and you stepped out into a quiet office floor. After a monotonous and mundane hallway with doors that all looked the same, you arrived at his cubicle. The floors were grey, the doors were dark, and the ceiling was industrial exposed. You’re not sure if this was the best place for comfort right now, but it was all you had. It was better than your empty, soulless apartment.
Yeonjun’s desk was cleaner than you expected, arranged with knick-knacks and clutter. A polaroid of you and him was pinned to the bulletin, next to one of him and Hana. Your eyes trailed across his entire workspace. There were only pictures of Hana.
You stilled.
“Um, I’m sorry. I still need to clean up” He muttered, ripping the polaroids off the wall, as if to show you that he didn’t care. But it was clear to you by how he carefully placed them inside the drawer. He was still in love with her.There was a lump in your throat at the realisation. He hadn’t told you that, and Yeonjun shared everything with you.
He shot you a sheepish smile, “I’m just gonna finish sending an email. You can sit down”
There was a single swivel chair at his desk. “What about you?” You asked.
“I’ve been meaning to get off my feet anyway” He smiled, as you sat down.
You felt like a kid, watching him send the emails, with nothing to do but sit in your thoughts. It was still better than being at home. Alone.
“Do you always work this late?” You asked him, after a while. There was nobody else on the floor.
He shook his head, “No…there was a problem at work, I had to stay longer to figure it out”
“Oh”
He forcefully pushed a button on his keyboard, then turned to you, “So are you going to tell me why you’re here?”
You swallowed, fiddling with the clutter on his desk, rehearsing what happened in your head, and every way sounded stupid. So you mumbled, “It’s not that…important, actually. I should head home”
Yeonjun shut his laptop with a snap. Crossing his arms, he leaned against the desk to look at you, “Come on. Was it not what you expected?”
“Hmm?”
“The art building. That’s why you went out tonight. Is it not as good as you imagined?”
“Oh” You belatedly realised that and held back a bitter laugh, “I didn’t even get to it”
“What? You couldn’t find it?”
“I found him, Jun” You mumbled, staring at your sneakers.
“Found who?” He asked, before the realisation sank in, “Wait, him… as in Hyunjin? How!?”
That was your question too. How did you bump into him out of everyone in this city?
“I…he happened to be at the store that I stopped to ask for directions”
Jun’s eyebrows furrowed, and he knelt to be at eye level with you, “What happened then?”
“He was with some girl”
Without hesitation he said, “His manager?”
Your lip was quivering as you spoke, but you couldn’t be this fucking weak, “Maybe. I don’t really know…”
“It had to be. Hyunjin wouldn’t do that to you”
His faith in him was undeniable, and you felt like you’d break his heart by revealing the rest of the incident to him.
“She probably was. It’s not that, Jun…he walked right past me…I couldn’t even talk to him”
Yeonjun shook his head, “Are you sure he saw you?”
You recalled the look in Hyunjin’s eyes as he dismissed you completely, and the pain in your chest doubled at the reminder, “He saw me.”
“You’re sure?”
You looked at him, eyes filling with tears, “I’m sure.”
Yeonjun recoiled like a shotgun, standing up straight, and you weren’t expecting the immediate anger in his tone, “Why the fuck would he do that?”
You chewed on your lip, hoping it’d stop shaking, wishing you knew the answer to his question, “I don’t know”
“He didn’t even give you his new number?”
A sob built up in your throat, and your head was beginning to pain, “You’re not listening. He ignored me to my face, Jun. Maybe I did something wrong. Maybe it was something I said…all those months ago”
“You could never” He scoffed, “It was because of the woman he was with. Hyunjin’s probably not allowed to just talk to someone in public”
“You really think so?”
Yeonjun didn’t even look a little bit worried. He had his hands on his hips, “What else would it be, Y/N? He’d never ignore you. I don’t understand…”
You swallowed, trying to not cry, “Yeah. I just…had to see you. A few months ago, when his number changed, I was really hoping that when I came to the city, I could find him and fix things. There’s no way he’d do that on purpose. Of all people in the world, Hyunjin would never just cut me off without an explanation but…” You sniffled, “He wasn’t even happy to see me there. He just looked fucking disappointed. Like I made a mistake moving here, even though he all of people—” Your voice broke, “he, all of people knows how much I wanted to come here”
“Babe, please don’t cry” Yeonjun reached out, his thumb wiping away a tear. It was futile since you could already taste the salt on your lips.
This wasn’t what was supposed to happen, “He talked about how he missed me, I just don’t understand. Like, what even happened?”
“Come here” Yeonjun hugged you, and his t-shirt muffled your cries. He rubbed circles on your back, and you were thankful the floor was vacated, because you felt so stupid crying over a boy. Was Hyunjin even thinking about you right now? He had always hated seeing you cry, and now he was the entire reason for it.
You tightened your grip around him, “I’m sorry I’m ruining your tonight, Jun”
“Y/N” He frowned, pulling back to look at you, “Don’t ever say that again”
“Sorry…”
He looked upset and wiped the traces of tears off your lips, “Stop apologising too. This isn’t your fault”
You nodded, holding him still, “Can I please stay in your apartment tonight? I don’t want to go to my place right now”
He smiled, grabbing your bag off his desk, “I’ve told you before. You’ll always have a bed at my apartment, Y/N” He frowned suddenly, remembering something, “Um…I do have to warn you about something though…”
Maybe it was a mistake coming here. Right across Yeonjun’s apartment window, was a picture of Hyunjin. The billboard was huge, and he was plastered all over it. You almost didn’t recognise him at first. He looked like…a star.
His hair was perfectly in place, and sunglasses were pushed up to his head, like he was the protagonist of some action movie.
“You weren’t kidding about it being huge” You commented, watching from his bedroom.
He came to stand next to you, fiddling with the curtains, “I was hoping they’d change it soon, but Pegasus is pretty good at promoting the band. Downtown, they’re on almost every billboard”
At least now you knew you wouldn’t be going Downtown anymore. It was ironic that Hyunjin was everywhere in the city but out of reach for you. If that woman really was his manager, and he wasn’t allowed to even talk to you in public…then Hyunjin’s life was even tougher than you could have imagined.
Being famous must fucking suck, and being in love with someone famous was…soul-crushing.
“Anyway” He cleared his throat, “I ordered us some Chinese food”
You crossed your arms, you hadn’t realised you were starving, “Thank you, Jun…"
Yeonjun just smiled in return, leading you away from the bedroom window before pulling the curtains on the view. You were glad, because if he didn’t pull you away now, you’re afraid you’d stare at that picture for the rest of your life.
»»————-
The Atelier of the Arts was beautiful.
It was everything you could have imagined, and more. It’s where you’re supposed to spend the next two years of your life. The facade of the building was built almost entirely out of glass, resembling high-end universities you’d only seen in the movies. You felt minuscule in front of the scale and the grandeur of it. Being in Seoul for a few weeks now…you’d realised it was all about towering glass and steel structures, weaved in between all of the imperial history. You just wish you could appreciate it more right now.
A girl at the front desk thankfully told you where to go, and you carefully navigated the hallways until you were at the top floor.
You stared at what was meant to be your classroom. Sunlight cascaded through a transparent glass rooftop, casting a beautiful glow on the plants.
You only see green. There were plants of all kinds, flowers of every color and the air smelled sweet. It smelled citrusy, and like the drink Hyunjin made you on his last night.
The door was made of glass too, a brass knob sparkling against the sunlight.
You must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. This isn’t an art studio.
It’s a greenhouse.
Before you had time to retrace your steps, a girl interrupted you, “You’re not lost”
“I’m sorry?”
“Kim Jieong’s new student, right?” She asked, tilting her head at you.
You wonder what it is about you that gave you away. Was it the clothes? Or maybe it’s the bag you’re clutching tightly to your chest, sketchbook peeking out from within it. You’re joining in the middle of an ongoing semester, so you already stood out. “Yeah” You managed to say.
She smiled, proud to have got it correct, “You’re at the right place. The room’s just through there, after the hydrangeas. I’m going in now, if you wanna follow me”
She couldn’t be much older than you, and she’s so well put together.
Her accent was different, like she’s been born and bred in Seoul her whole life. She enunciated everything, frankly, in a way better to you. A denim skirt hung to her ankles, revealing Converse at her feet. Her hair was dirty blonde, tied up perfectly in place, and an amethyst choker sat at her collarbones.
You wonder if you’re underdressed on your first day of class. The creme cardigan you’re in is soft, and it’s comforting to your soul, but it’s not impressive. You found it in a thrift shop in Daejon; perhaps this is a sign you should go shopping here. You’re leading a new life, and you need clothes to match.
The girl was waiting for you to enter, but you’re not ready.
Kim Jieong has been your inspiration for as long as you can remember. He’s painted the most beautiful things known to you — expressing emotions you didn’t even know you had. The fact that he’s beyond those glass doors right now…you’re not ready. Yes…you’ve waited literally all your life, but you never thought it’d actually come to this. You wish you had someone to share this anticipation and excitement with, but all you have is your studio apartment, and its bare, dry walls. You’re trying to be positive, but somedays it feels impossible
A boy stepped through the elevator doors, and his eyes scrambled over your faded creme cardigan, and bag. You’re new here, and he’s clearly not. You can tell from the ease with which he carries himself, and by the way he looks like a picture-perfect rendition of an artist. If you searched “art student” on Pinterest, you’re pretty sure his picture would come up. He’s dressed in denim suspenders, expensive headphones hanging around his neck, paintbrushes tucked into his pockets.
“Hey” He smiled at you, “Are you… the student from Daejon?”
You nodded, holding your bag tighter on your shoulder, happy that he knew of your existence. You’d feared until the last minute that you getting in to the program had been another mess-up, and once you arrived…they’d tell you it was a mistake.
He tilt his head, “What’s your monogram?”
Your monogram. The initials you sign all your paintings with. You tell him your name, “Um…Y/N”
“Oh” He frowned, “I can’t remember if I’ve seen your work”
That’s because he hasn’t. You’ve never had a public exhibition, so how would he recognise you?
“Come on, you can get to know her later” The girl rolled her eyes at him, then looked at you, “Are you coming in…or are we going to chat here the rest of today?”
They didn’t tell you their names, even though you just told them yours. You should ask, but wouldn’t that come off too eager?
“Yeah. Sure” You forced a smile at her, and the girl’s face softened at that. It’s like she wasn’t expecting you to do that, like she expected you to be soulless and cold.
Tentatively, you stepped through the glass door, into the greenhouse-cum-studio. It’s like stepping in a fairytale, navigating through all the plants that jut out, magnificent fantastical flowers you haven’t seen even in the countryside. You reached out and touched a purple flower, the petals are coarse but the flower looked so soft.
You were walking on a metal walkway, a bridge over a little artificial stream. It reminded you so much of Daejon, it’s kind of funny that you’re actually thousands of miles away.
“Crazy place for a classroom, right?” The boy laughed. It’s like he read your mind.
You nodded, “I thought I was at the wrong place”
“You’ll get used to it” The girl looked over her shoulder to tell you. You’re standing between them, as they escort you to your class.
“The hydrangeas” She muttered, pointing to a set of purple flowers as you pass them.
As if stepping into Narnia, the plants suddenly cleared up, revealing a room. It’s big, and there’s an assortment of chairs, tables, easels, shelves, and paint. There’s so much to take in. You watched with wide eyes, and the boy laughed.
“It’s cool, right?” He asked you.
“Yeah” You breathed, “You could say that”
There were already a few students sitting at their easels, but they were too distracted setting up their paints to look up and notice you.
“Um, what are your names?” You ended up asking. Fuck being eager.
“I’m Minnie and that’s Jeonghan” She told you.
“No, I’m Nate. Nobody calls me Jeonghan except my mum” He rolled his eyes.
“Nate” You repeated, “Are you—”
“American? Yes he is, and feel free to call him Jeonghan…” Minnie finished your sentence, as she walked over to her easel.
He laughed, “I moved back to Korea a few years ago to study”
The room filled with people within seconds. There are not too many of you, just twenty, it’s an exclusive program after all. You looked around at the people who are supposed to be your classmates for the next few years. They all looked a little older than you and like they know their way around everything.
There’s only one unmarked empty stool in the corner, and it must be yours. After all, this internship was so exclusive, there wasn’t any space for extras. You took your place, opening up your supplies onto the little table. The stool was comfortable and had a plush back, so you wouldn’t kill your back when you were painting. It was already infinitely better than your set-up at home.
Minnie and Jeonghan took their places too, settling into a comfortable rhythm. Your other classmates greeted them with big smiles, but obviously…they didn’t look at you.
You’d never moved a day in your life, so this was unfamiliar — not knowing anyone in the room, and everything being new. But change was supposed to be good, right? You’d grown tired of stagnation, and so you’d chased this. Perhaps you could try conversing with the girls next to you, but where would you even start? They all knew each other from before. Why would they want to talk to a stranger?
A girl was giggling, settling into her chair, with two other friends, and they were teasing her about something but you don’t know the context. There was a cute boy across from you, and he was setting up his paints. He had earphones in, and was humming to the beat of an unknown song. He glanced up at you absentmindedly, but when your eyes met, your heart stung.
You were trying desperately to not think of Hyunjin.
But you’ve only been here for five minutes and you see Hyunjin in everything around you.
He would fall in love with this place — with the sunlight hitting the wooden boards, with how open it was, and he would probably know the name of every flower here. After all, he had to know to put them in pretty drinks to give to girls like you.
A student sitting opposite you had bleached hair, and she pulled it up into a bun and you thought of him again. Nothing could compare how it felt to card your fingers through his hair, and tug at it when he kissed you. You’d braided it back in his room, and it had been so soft to the touch, slipping through your fingers like sand.
“Hey” Someone tapped on your shoulder, and you pulled yourself out of the hopeless trench of daydreaming about him. You noticed her chunky platform boots first, and then you looked up at her, “Uh, hey”
“You’re the girl from the south?”
It was heartwarming that she started the conversation with you. You smiled, “Yeah. I’m from Daejon—”
“You’re in my spot”
“Sorry?”
“That’s my spot” She repeated, pointing at your seat.
“Oh” You realised. You’d already opened up your bag of supplies so you hurriedly grabbed your sketchbook, shoving it in your tote bag carelessly. Your paintbrushes dropped in the process, rolling off the table, and you wanted to die. Was it possible to be such a fucking cliche and embarrass yourself like this on the first day of class?
The girl made no move to help you, but you shouldn’t expect her to either. You stood up, holding the bag to your chest, and realised you had no place to sit anymore.
Before you could panic about the situation, someone else in the room caught your attention.
Kim Jieong was here.
He was standing in the centre, and you don’t know how the fuck you didn’t notice him until now. He must have just come in.
You stood starstruck, at the worst time possible. He was in a beanie, and a thick coat. He had black-rimmed glasses on, and a slight scruff. He looked like all the pictures you’d seen of him, but better than you even imagined – the right mix of pretention and whimsical.
He was the embodiment of art and of inspiration.
The little girl in you was screaming.
You were transported back to the first painting you ever saw by him. It was in a magazine that Felix had stolen for you off the library racks. As kids, you and Felix had sat on his bedroom floor, flipping through the glossy pages. On the last page though, there was a painting of a lighthouse, with surrealistic waves hitting the shore. There was no article or editorial. Just that picture, with a name on the bottom. Kim Jieong, 2006. You’d ripped the page out, and kept it safe with you, before returning the magazine. You’d felt no guilt then, because it was the most beautiful art you’d seen then.
Kim Jieong, your favorite artist in history, was a real fucking person. He was real, and he was looking at you.
The corner of his lip tilted up, “Hey”
Hey.
You’re going to fucking pass out.
He was talking to you. He knew you existed. “Um, hi” Your voice came out softer than it was, and you hope he couldn’t see the stars in your eyes.
“Can I help you…?”
You could feel the eyes of everyone on you, and you gripped onto your sketchbook tighter, “I’m…the new student”
His eyes widened, “You’re Y/N…?”
He knew your name?
Now he was the one who looked caught off guard, “Shit, I’m sorry I completely forgot you’re coming in today. Nate, can you please help Y/N get a spare stool and easel?”
Nate, the boy you’d met before, smiled, “Of course I can”
Your earlier embarrassment slowly eased. Professor Jieong stepped to you with a poise that only masterminds possessed, “Be honest… Did you have any trouble finding this room? Most students do”
“No, I was just confused because…it’s not really a conventional classroom”
Jieong laughed, “Well, if you liked conventional things, you wouldn’t be here”
“You’re right” You smiled.
He pointed to a corner, “There’s your seat. I’m putting you next to Nate. He can help you out the first week. Even though it’s your first day, don’t worry I’m not going to make you talk about yourself in front of the class or anything like that. I know how much people your age hate that”
You smiled at that, relieved, and finally sat down at what was to be your place for the future. The view from here was so pretty, through the parted indoor trees, you could look out into the city. There were floor-to-ceiling windows sprawled out, and the sun was in your eyes, but you didn’t mind. It must get really hot in the summer, but right now it’s the cusp of winter, and so it was perfect.
“So, how are you liking Seoul, Y/N?” Jieong asked you, stepping in the way, shielding your gaze from the light. It was so early in the morning, but he was full of so much of vigour. You wish you could have energy to match him right now, but lately you just feel drained.
You smiled up at him, observing how the rays formed a halo around his head, “It’s all right…I, uh, I really love the food here.”
Jieong paced across the room, making sure to look at each student, and there was so much comfort in his stance, as he talked to you, “I know you’re joining in the middle of this semester Y/N, and everything is going to feel very jarring. Usually, people get an intro class and some icebreakers so… don’t be afraid to ask me stuff, okay? There’s no stupid questions in here, right?”
“Debatable” Nate mumbled loudly next to you.
“That’s not what you said when I asked about the color combos last week” The girl with bleached hair chimed in.
Jieong grinned, putting his hands on his hips as he came to a stop in the centre, “Haha. Don’t try so hard to make me look bad in front of the new girl”’
You laughed, “Don’t worry about it”
Jieong grinned at you, and you were still reeling from his attention as he talked, “We’re going to start on a new project for the next couple of weeks. I have a couple of field trips planned but today we are just going to explore some basic anatomy, okay?”
There was nothing more to be said. Everybody fell into a rhythm, and Jieong wasn’t even speaking anymore, but he filled the room with his presence. He had such a strong personality and clearly had a good rapport with all his students. You were looking forward to get to know him.
This was such a beautiful room, and you had only been here a few minutes, but you were endlessly inspired. It reminded you of Aera’s, filling you with so much creative energy, you were bursting at the seams. You hoped that this emotion wouldn’t be lost on you. This was the first genuine excitement you’d felt since….since what happened in the shop.
It’s been a few days, or a few weeks, you can’t really tell. Yet you play it in your head over and over again, trying to connect the dots. You give up every time, because nothing justifies what happened that night, and you don’t realise that most of your sleepless nights in this city pass by…just like that.
»»————-
There were good days, and bad days.
There was a separation between the art studio, and the rest of your life. In the studio, you were content, because you were distracted. At home…was another story.
Your apartment was a blank canvas, and as the weeks passed, you breathed life into each corner. The walls filled up slowly with the new artwork you created, with your works in progress from the apprenticeship. There were a few plants in your room to remind you of Daejon’s lushness.
You immersed yourself in the whirlwind of city life. Seoul sucked you in deep. You found a bakery you like, a grocery store you frequent, an art shop that fed your supplies.
It’s strange, to have good days, but nobody to share it with. It feels pointless to be excited about something but having to keep it to yourself.
You were still teetering on the edge, you hadn’t visited nightclubs or bars — you found no time between the classes. The people at the apprenticeship were talented, in a way that made you doubt yourself but push harder. You tried to talk to the people around you, but you only saw them in classes, and your friendships didn’t exist beyond those canvases.
It was hard to make friends in the city. You hadn’t predicted the isolation that would come with moving here. Jeongin and you would occasionally bump into you at the stairwell, and that would be the most of your social interaction. You made time to meet Yeonjun each weekend, and he helped you buy some basic furniture for your apartment; a coffee table, a dresser, a mirror. They even helped you carry your new mattress up the stairs, and you invited them in that night for some wine, as a thank you.
You liked to think that you’ve settled into a routine as you washed the dishes in your new home, listening to the hum of the city traffic. In the quiet evenings that you spend with yourself, you drifted into daydreams and thought about him, but you stopped yourself before the longing gets too bad.
Your apartment is so small. There’s no space in your life to be sad.
You’re supposed to be living your dream after all.
»»————-
The sun in the art studio never bothered you. Instead, felt warm on your skin, energizing you.You attempted to channel the beauty of the room into each pencil stroke. It was hard to focus on your art, sketching out a few basics as your professor talked over a few prompts. This was only the beginning, so you were taking it slow. It felt like it had been ages since you drew, and your skills were getting rustic.
When everyone was busy and distracted, Jieong came to you. “Doing okay, Y/N?” His voice was low to not disturb the other students, and you nodded.
“I’m good…just trying to get the hang of things”
“I understand” He smiled, and he was bent over to speak to you, “You’ll soon figure out the pattern. We experiment every class and you’re free to work on whatever medium you want. Don’t think of this as an art lesson, okay? It’s…refining your existing skills”
You smiled, “Yeah. I know I missed a few but I’m excited for the rest of the classes. I feel like I’ve hit a roadblock…with my own work, I end up only making the same kind of paintings every time”
Jieong nodded, like he’d heard this a million times, “But that’s exactly what I’m here for, okay? You can talk to me about anything you want. There’s also going to be a couple of field trips this semester, and you can meet some other mentors. In case you realise you hate my methods”
You laughed, continuing to sketch away, “I doubt that’s possible. I…I’m looking forward to those though”
“And not to sound too forward but…you look like you haven’t slept in a week, kid” He commented, with a chuckle, but there was no malice in his tone. Just a genuine observation.
“I haven’t” You admitted.
“Nervous?”
If nervous and heartbroken were the same emotion. Then yes, you were more nervous than anything. You settled and said, “This just means a lot to me”
“What brought you to Seoul, if you don’t mind me…asking? Did your parents move here, or a boyfriend or somebody?”
“Just looking for a change…” You said. It would be too much to tell him that you’d looked up to him half your life, and had worked your ass off the entire summer to get here….That you’d been willing to lose your friendships for this and that there was nothing in Seoul for you except this….It would be crazy to tell him that in the end, a boy had convinced you to be selfish and come here.
His lips curled up, oblivious to your internal worries, “A change? You’re in the right place then, sweetheart”
Sweetheart. You looked up at him, with obvious adoration in your gaze. Kim Jieong just called you sweetheart.
He reached out, to pat your back, “It can’t be easy moving, but I hope you know you made the right decision. If you’re looking for change…this is the place to be, and I’m really looking forward to know you and your art better. I can promise you that you’re going to be very happy here, Y/N”
You’re smiling, but it doesn’t reach your eyes. Maybe you needed the reassurance that coming here and uprooting your entire life wasn’t a mistake. It had felt all too much like that after Hyunjin’s disappointed encounter – making you feel that you should’ve just stayed where you were.
You’d pined for this place for so long, yet you already missed your little hometown and your life there, because things with him were better back home.
It will take time to get better. It’s only the first day.
The weight of his words sank in, and you suddenly felt teary-eyed. There’s been a void in your heart for the longest time. You thought coming here would fill it up, but even as you’re painting in your dream class with your favourite artist, your heart feels dead.
You ought to be insane to not be grateful. Seoul was the only thing you ever wanted, but maybe it’s time for you to admit that…wishes change. Dreams change.
A lump builds up in your throat at the horrible realisation that maybe, the only thing that can fill the void in your being was Hyunjin.
»»————-
Today, you were drawing from life.
There was a model in front of you, and amongst all the plants, she looked like a siren plucked from the pages of an ancient Greek legend. She was sat on a barstool, dressed in a tight lace outfit. You focused on the detailing of her lingerie as you paint it into your canvas. Surprisingly, you’d never drawn anatomy from life before, you’d never ventured into that skill much.
Her set was made entirely of lace — thin flowers covering the chest, overlapping with vines and the model blends into the room's atmosphere. She looked beautiful in muted pastel colours, and you wish you could own a piece like that. You’ve found some time to revamp your wardrobe, and when you wear prettier clothes, you feel like you’re reinventing yourself.
Daejon was usually always humid, so you never experimented with patterns, layers, and textures. It was the same skirts, the same tank tops, and sweatpants that you circulated through, and it was okay because your life was the same there everyday. Here…you’re trying to be different.
Nate brought you out of your train of thought. He was poking a pencil in your leg, to get your attention, and you looked up at him. He was grinning, hair swept back. He’s handsome, in a conventional sense anyway, but you don’t let yourself think further than that. There’s no point.
You glanced at his canvas and he’s halfway through his portrait already. Somehow, he’s made the model look even more ethereal in person.
“Could I borrow the green swatch?” He asked, eyeing the watercolours you have in front of you. You’ve bought a lot of new art supplies, and it was quite frankly, a humbling experience. Everything is so much more expensive here, but the apprenticeship gives you some money for supplies, and you’re already halfway through it. The watercolour palette though, is your favourite. It’s Winsor & Netwon. In fact, it’s the same one you used the night of the Paint and Wine event at the Chateau.
“Of course” You told Nate, and handed him the palette. He dipped his brush right into it, taking away some green paint. Everybody around you was quiet, in a deep concentration as they worked on their pieces. Kim Jieong was circulating the classroom, hands on his hips as he observed every student. He stopped every few minutes, to help out, or give advice.
It’s been some time, but you still felt starstruck around him. Some charms never fade.
You’ve had little time to observe yet but it was obvious from day one - He’s insanely cool, and he teaches art in a way that makes you so grateful to be his student. He sees the world differently than you, and you’re in desperate need for that perspective. You’re tired of only seeing things your way.
So, you obviously immediately stop painting as he soon as he comes near you. You’re embarrassed as his eyes catch progress of your painting. You’re far behind the others.
“How’s that going?” He asked, in a hushed whisper to not divert attention off the class.
You dipped your paintbrush in water, letting it soak through, “I think…it’s okay”
Jieong frowned, just slightly, looking over your canvas. He had a pair of glasses pushed over his head and he slipped them back on, leaning in to look at your strokes. You’re self-conscious, rightfully, and you held your breath as he analyses the painting.
“Your strokes are very…careful” He looked back at you, “Like you’re afraid of making a mark on the paper”
You gulped, “I…sorry”
His eyebrows shot up, and he removed the glasses, keeping them on your desk. “Mind if I sit next to you, Y/N?”
You nodded, and you’re ready to hear the end of it. He pulled up an abandoned stool, scooting close to you. You pulled your hands into your lap, and faced him.
He gets right to it, “All the work that I’ve seen of yours in the portfolio you submitted. You were usually more confident. Is something bothering you these days?”
So much is bothering you, yet none of it is an excuse.
You haven’t come this far, just to slack off. You haven’t paid so much just to be average. You haven’t dreamt so long just to be careful. You’re holding back.
“No…nothing’s bothering me” You lied, manifesting that it will soon be the truth.
Jieong frowned at your blatant lie, because he’s obviously older and wiser and therefore he knows everything. “You’ve been getting enough sleep now?”
There’s no point in hiding the truth. It’s more embarrassing to be caught in a lie, “Actually, not really…my place is still new to me. I’m still getting used to the bed, my room…the traffic. Where I’m from, it’s always quieter at night. I…also miss my friends”
Jieong smiled at your words, “Is that all? Because if so, then I’m not worried. You’ll settle in soon, and the loud traffic will soon fall on deaf ears”
“I know” You nod, you’re trying to be positive, “It’s just taking some time”
He nodded, and you think he’ll leave but says, “Have you visited any museums yet? Or been around the city?”
You’re conscious again, because everybody else is painting the model, yet you feel like a kid being reprimanded by their teacher.
“I haven’t had much time. I’ve tried to improve my skills at home”
“You’re in a metro city, Y/N. You should let yourself be inspired. I’m not asking you to go out and get drunk—” He laughed, “But maybe the trick is to tire yourself out so much during the day, you fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow”
You forced a smile, but it’s hard when he’s looking right at you, “You’re right. I should do that”
“I didn’t mean to interrupt your painting” He apologised, “You can continue”
You nodded, picking up the paintbrush but you’re shaking. He’s still sitting beside you, and his observant gaze terrifies you. You feel like you’re ten years old again, trying to be perfect in art class.
His hand landed on your shoulder, “Don’t be nervous”
The fact that he’s caught on to you being nervous is embarrassing, and you decide to say, “It’s hard not to be. I’ve looked up to your art my whole life”
He smiled, in your peripheral vision, “Is that so?” He looked proud, the smile reaches his eyes, and you nodded to confirm.
You and him haven’t had too many personal conversations yet. He’s close to everyone else in class but you‘re still getting to know each other. So, he still has no idea what he means to you. He had kind eyes, and the way he carries himself makes him seem much younger than he is. He’s trying to put you at ease, and you feel slightly grateful. He didn’t need to do this, or come here.
“I went to your exhibition in Jeju” You told him.
His eyes lit up, “Is that how you heard about this program? I remember my team was handing out flyers for this program there”
“Yup, I went with my best friend. Well, I sort of dragged him there, but I’m glad I did because I saw the flyers. I never thought I’d actually get in here though”
“Yet here you are” He hummed, “At the fear of not sounding narcissistic, can I ask you what your favourite piece was?”
You smiled, “You’re one of the greatest living artists. I think you’re allowed to be a little narcissistic”
At your words, he laughed. It’s so loud that it catches the attention of the students next to you. Though they’re used to his magnanimous personality, they turn away soon enough.
“You’re too sweet” He told you.
“My favourite piece…” You trailed off, and you’re replaying the exhibition in your head. You had dragged Felix around every hallway, and he’d complained throughout. Your thoughts are overtaken by something else though. At the pool all those weeks away… you’d talked about this in detail with Hyunjin, the night you told him about your rejection. The night you sat with your feet dipped in the water, the night he touched you and told you how he’d tangibly changed you. He couldn’t have known in that moment, how right he was. You can feel the ghost of his touch on your fingers, on your lips, your thighs.
Jieong must have noticed the fall in your expression because he tilt his head, “Everything all right?”
“I’m sorry. I was…just trying to remember” You can’t let thoughts of Hyunjin paralyse you.
“That’s okay” He said, simply.
“My favourite was Celestial Fatality” You said, “How…did you even come up with it?” You’d theorised this with Hyunjin…but now you could actually get some answers.
Jieong seemed surprised, “That’s a pretty morbid painting to love, Y/N”
“It’s beautiful though. It reminds me of the legend of Icarus”
“What do you like about it?” He leaned forward, and your heart jumped. He actually cares, and wants to know your opinion. The thought of it is crazy and makes you a little dizzy.
“It’s a cautionary tale…the pair of lovers drowning in moonlight, swallowed up in their own…hubris. They were probably told to stay away from each other, yet at the risk of their mortality, they still met”
Jieong seemed almost impressed, “You seem like a romantic person”
It’s a strange thing for him to say to you, in the middle of a Wednesday class. But he’s your favourite artist, and he’s absolutely right. For a romantic person, you’ve surely never had any good relationships to account for it though.
You shook your head, “I’m really not. I just like that painting. Something about it feels close to home. It’s almost like I can feel the pain of their mistake…of choosing each other over anything else in the world, even if that ends in their perishing…”
His lip curled up into a smile, “Fascinating”
Your chest felt heavy, but it feels so good to talk about this with him, “I hope one day I can create something with as much impact as that. I want to tell stories that linger, I think there’s a long time till that though…I mean I’m struggling with basic anatomy,. I guess I just need to get better….”
“I’ve only known you a few weeks, Y/N, but can I tell you something?”
“Hmm?”
He reached out, smiling warmly, “You’re way too hard on yourself. You’re in one of the greatest cities in the world. Live a little, kid”
»»————-
It had been just two weeks, but you’ve developed a habit. Every evening after class, you find yourself organising the canisters on the shelves.
“Should we be paying you for this?” Nate asked, stepping over to you. You don’t talk much in class, and when you do, it’s always in passing, like this. Right now, he had a bag slung over his shoulder, while he bit into an apple, the juice dripping down his chin. You wish you had more energy to put into your friendships right now but making new connections has felt so draining. You’d been too dependent on Yeonjun, but he can’t always be there.
He looked silly, eating fruit here, but you laughed, “I hope you’re joking”
“No, because why are you putting all of them in that order?” He asked, another crunch reverberated through the studio as he bit into it again.
“I actually worked in an art shop my whole life. Old habits…” You shrugged, looking at him.
“You’re kidding me” Minnie said, stepping up, “That explains it”
“Explains what?” You turned to them.
“Your desk is always so…strangely clean” She said. You don’t know her well too, but you love how she dresses. You love how she pours herself into her clothes, and expresses through them. She’s always wearing chunky jewellery, flowing skirts, corsets. Her art style is similar to it. It’s loud but dainty at the same time.
“I’m gonna presume that’s a compliment” You laughed, picking up your sketchbook. “Can we get going, Nate, please?” Minnie asked him.
“See you Monday” You smiled at them, turning to finish packing your things.
Nate looked at you over his shoulder, “Actually… You got any plans after class?”
You looked between them, “Not really, I was planning on brushing up on my anatomy. Why?”
Nate rolled his eyes, and he almost reminds you of Minho in this moment, “Even though that sounds like the bestFriday night ever…We’re going to this new bar that opened up. You wanna come with?”
Minnie jumped forward, eyes lighting up, “Shit, yeah! I think you might really like it. The whole place is themed like a post-apocalyptic nuclear bunker. Very cool”
“What?” You laughed, walking over to them with your bag, “That sounds really unique, but I don’t really want to intrude on your plan”
Nate stepped forward, offering his hand to you, “Your anatomy can wait till Monday morning. You’ve been in Seoul a few weeks, don’t you want to explore the cool shit already?”
“Are you sure?”
“We have an extra ticket anyway” Minnie suggested. They’ve never asked you to hang out with them before like this. You wonder what it was about today that made them try.
You stared at his hand, outstretched to you. No inspiration was going to strike from you just sitting in your studio apartment every night. They were right, and you slipped your fingers in his. He smiled brightly…and that just happened to be the night you made your first friends in the city.
And…Nate had a lot of friends.
You realised as much when you’re sitting at the booth, squished between Minnie and him, staring at a bunch of young adults you don’t know.
They’re fun, and they’re on their fifth tequila shot of the night. In another life, this might have been your teenage years too. Attending Seoul University, having friends from affluent neighbourhoods, weekend nights out at the bar. Alas, everyone at this table is worth more than the average person’s income in Daejon, and the only cheap bar in your small town was run by an old creep.
Minnie handed you another tequila shot, her hand resting on your thigh. She’s very handsy and you don’t mind.
There’s been a few rounds of getting to know each other. You’re the new one, so you kind of feel like the baby of the group, even though they’re all older than you. Most of them came from America, but their Korean is so good you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Nate has attractive friends. Ha-ru, Renjun, Lily, Jamie. But none of them hold a candle to the boy you’re desperately trying not to think about.
You came straight to this bar after class, so you had no time to change out of your paint-tattered clothes. Thankfully, you’re wearing the leather jacket Yeonjun bought you, and it does a great job of keeping you warm. Admittedly, his friends aren’t too dressed up either. They all came from work too, and you once again realise that life here is so different from Daejon. There’s no time for frolicking, or lounging around in diners and swimming in Creeks. Everybody’s working their ass off, to afford the lifestyle that Seoul asks for, the lifestyle you always killed for.
“So, what brought you to this city, Y/N?” One of his friends asked you. It’s the only question you get asked these days. The most interesting thing about you is your newness, but they’re outgoing, so you’re not surprised at them making all these attempts to get to know you.
“Where do I start?” You joked, reaching for your drink, “I moved here from a little town near the mountains”
Your glass was tinted red, to match the theming of the bar. It’s a fancy place, and all the decor makes you feel like you’re underground. Even the bouncers are dressed up in what look like radioactive suits, for the whole nuclear bunker vibe.
Everything around you is neon. The tables, the lights, the dance floor. Each one of Nate’s friends has a neon necklace around their neck, and glow sticks as bracelets. You’ve seen those accessories in the movies, but you’ve never been to a party with them. Minnie made you a purple and blue glow-stick bracelet, and slipped it on your wrist a while ago. You’re fiddling with it as you talk to their friends.
“Ah, a small town girl” One of his friends, Renjun, laughed, but you’re not offended. It’s true, after all.
“Why would you willingly choose the life path of a struggling artist?” Jamie asked. She’s cute. Her hair is dyed bright red, so you already like her.
You laughed, “A silly dream”
“What’s your dream?” Nate asked, squeezing your shoulder. You realised his arm is around you, and has been for a while. He smells nice, and so you let it linger. Even now, his huge headphones hang off his neck. He never goes anywhere without them, and you’re proud of yourself for picking up little habits and quirks in such less time already.
Everybody has different reasons to be an artist, so you tell them yours, “I don’t know…I’ve been painting since I was a kid, but I think I’m ready to finally share my art with the world? That’s assuming other people would want to see it, but I guess I want to reach a point in my life where I’m proud of what I created, and hopefully I can inspire others. Also…because if I don’t become an artist, I have no idea what the hell I’ll do. It feels like the only thing I really enjoy doing”
It’s far too intense, and serious an answer for this bar, but Nate’s friends listened kindly. They smiled as you talked. It felt a little lame, sure. It also feels unachievable, but Minnie grinned, and pat your thigh, “I mean….wow, you’re halfway there! You made it to Jieong’s studio”
She’s right. You’ve been sad and moping this whole time, and you decide that tonight needs to be the night you want things to change. After what Jieong told you earlier today, you deserve a little fun, enough fun for the sirens and the traffic to become your lullaby as you fall asleep.
“But why Seoul? You have enough talent to make it to Paris” Jamie asked. She has piercings too, and you get distracted by how well they complimented her.
“I’d have to live on the streets” You bite your cheek. Maybe they can’t relate because they’re so much more well-off, but Nate laughed, and said, “Isn’t that an artist’s rite of passage?”
You smiled, and downed the last of your drink.
“Well, since you’re one of us now. Here’s your honorary tiara!” Jamie said, handing you a neon golden tiara across the table. You grabbed it, placing it atop your head and Minnie clicked a picture of you, joking about you being a princess from humble beginnings. Her words slur a bit, and you’ve been here more than an hour, so it explains why everybody’s already tipsy.
The dance floor was absolutely full, and there’s couples grinding on each other. There are so many pretty girls, and attractive guys surrounding them. Girls in tight dresses with no care in the world, and boys trying to flirt to catch their attention. There’s probably someone falling in love right this second, in this very bar, and you’re people-watching for a while. Everybody’s neon accessories are glowing in the blacklights, and it’s a beautiful scene, straight out of a movie.
When you tune back into the conversation, Jamie’s telling the group about some jerk at her workplace today, and you try to follow her story, except you’ve already lost the context. It’s probably the lack of sleep and all the alcohol in your veins.
You don’t have to try for long though since Renjun interrupted it, “Shit, is that Baekhyun?”
The name is familiar, and you all craned your heads to see who he’s pointing out.
There’s a well-dressed man at the far end of the bar, and he’s indulging in tequila shots, with two girls by his side. He’s beautiful, and he has silver hair.
“Who he is?” You asked, but you already know. Hyunjin has mentioned a Baekhyun before…and you’ve grown up hearing about him on television too, but this can’t possibly be him.
“A singer” Jamie said.
“Oh. He’s…the Baekhyun?” You dropped your voice. It felt weird talking about him when he’s right there, “Isn’t he like… a superstar?”
Nate nodded, “He’s one of the top, yeah. Even my mum’s obsessed with him. Why are you so surprised? Never seen an idol in the wild?”
If only he knew…
You craned your neck to see Baekhyun making out with the girl at the bar, tongue and all. “I didn’t know they can be so open…” You frowned, unable to comprehend the scene before you.
“Why wouldn’t they? He’s like twenty five. I know you’re not from the city but you’re not that old fashioned, are you?” Nate laughed.
You shook your head, but the little movement hurts you because you’re tipsy too, “No, it’s not that. I just thought…aren’t they prohibited from all of that? The drinking and everything…in public”
Minnie laughed, “Come on, you don’t seriously believe that Y/N”
It wasn’t just your belief. It’s what Hyunjin had told you, time and time again. His reputation was more important than anything, and his company would never let it be tarnished. Indulging in things like this…would definitely alter public perception of him.
“Well…they’re like super controlled by their companies” You told them. This was one thing you knew more than them. You’d heard first-hand accounts of it.
“Yeah, but none of them follow those rules” Nate laughed, and he’s drawing circles on your shoulder as he speaks, “Every single idol I know is like a sex freak”
“To put it kindly: they fuck like bunnies” Jamie clarified, “All that pent up frustration. Plus they’re all hot, and spend all their time together. It’s only natural”
“But…they’re not allowed to date publicly” You spoke, yet it came out more as a question.
Nate shrugged, “Still. They’re a bunch of horny twenty year olds, Y/N. You can’t be that naive”
“I’m not” You defended, “I just thought…Someone told me that… it’s really looked down upon, that they could get kicked out of the company”
Renjun leaned forward, jutting his head towards Baekhyun, “Does that look like the face of a man worried about being fired?”
Surely not. He was now making out with the other girl on his arm, while the previous one kissed his neck, at the bar for everyone to see. You’re sure people were taking pictures of them too, whoever wasn’t drunk enough to comprehend this.
“My friend’s worked with a couple of them. They’ve literally all fucked each other. And honestly, if I led a lifestyle as stressful as that? I would too” Renjun laughed.
“Most of them are dating too” Jamie said.
It felt like a dark cloud washed over you. Were you wrong about everything you assumed about Hyunjin’s life?
“Who told you that anyway, Y/N?” Minnie asked.
“Just some guy who works at Pegasus” You mumbled, twirling your glass on the table. Pegasus was the label Hyunjin’s group is under, but there’s enough artists in that company to not arouse any suspicion.
“Why are you so curious about this anyway? You’re in the mood to fuck a famous guy?” Nate asked.
You shook your head, “No, it’s just interesting to think about…”
If you could still talk to Hyunjin, you’d call him right now and ask him all about this, and why nobody seemed to care that Baekhyun was feeling up two girls in this very public place. It was like looking into an alternate reality, where nobody cared about what they were up to. A better reality than yours surely, yet you couldn’t process it. You hadn’t been interested in idols before Hyunjin, and after Hyunjin, all you’d known was their endless restrictions.
Minnie finished the tequila in your glass, “I could never be famous. I’d get cancelled on day one”
You smiled at her joke, but your mood had already dampened. Nate was right. You were naïve to think that none of them broke the rules, just because Hyunjin didn’t want to. You stared at the condensation ring your glass left.
Minnie nudged you in your stomach, as if noticing the lull in your emotions, “Wanna get another drink with me at the bar?”
You desperately wanted a drink, so you could finally let go and enjoy the rest of tonight, “Aren’t we going to be hungover for class tomorrow?”
She rolled her eyes, “Class isn’t till eleven. We’ll be fine. Plus, Jieong knows we drink every Wednesday”
So you followed her to the bar. Baekhyun wasn’t there anymore, and he must have left with the girls. “This place is really cool” You told her, hiking up on a bar stool as she ordered you two Tequila Sunrises.
“Isn’t it? We try to go out every week, it keeps us sane. I mean, there’s so many places to explore too, you know what I mean?”
You nodded, even though you’re all about routine and less about spontaneity, “I get it”
Your drinks arrived, decorated with two cherries on top, and a slice of orange.
“So, you have a boyfriend yet?” She asked you, chewing on her straw. You knew the question was coming, so you’re not surprised and you don’t flinch.
“No” You shook your head, “I haven’t had one for a while”
She hummed, “Why? It’d be fun to get one, while you’re here”
You laughed, sipping on your drink, “Get one? You say that as if I can just go shopping for a new boyfriend”
The drink was citrusy — a blend of tequila and orange juice. Yet your favourite drink is still the one Hyunjin made you, complete with the flower from his home garden.
She rolled her eyes, “No, I mean, you’re pretty. Look around us and just pick a cute boy. Boys in Seoul are so desperate they’ll be very easy to get”
You laughed, “You’re not serious, are you?”
“I am!” She seemed offended, “Then we could even go on double dates”
“You have a boyfriend?”
She smiled, “A girlfriend. But we’re on the down low”
You’re surprised, “Really? What’s her name?”
She laughed, pointing at your booth, “You met her. It’s Jamie. She’s at the table”
Your eyes widened, “Shit. You’re dating Jamie?”
“I know, we don’t seem like a couple, right?”
They hadn’t been all over each other so you hadn’t presumed they were together, but perhaps their love was stable, so they didn’t need to be. You took a long sip of your drink, “No, I just…I just didn’t know”
She shrugged, “We don’t really tell anyone. Not everybody gets it”
“Thank you for telling me. I know we haven’t talked much in class, and you don’t even know me that well, but—”
She interrupted you, keeping her hand on your thigh, “Stop, Y/N. I’ve seen your art, and honestly that speaks to me so much more than knowing someone for years. It’s like reading a personal diary, don’t you think? Art reveals so much of who we are”
You smiled, her words stroking a growing flame in your heart, “What does it reveal about me?”
She chewed on her straw further, smile tugging at her lips, “All I need to know. And since we’re all in Jieong’s class now, I hope you know we’ll basically be family by the end of the year”
“You’re really sweet…I was kind of nervous joining in the middle of a semester, but I’m so glad I’m here. Thank you for taking me out tonight too”
“Of course. You’re the newest addition to the group, we had to”
It feels so sudden, and fast, but you’re thankful they consider you a part.
“So” She leaned forward, “Pick a boy to kiss tonight”
You shook your head, laughing, “No, I can’t” You’re tipsy, but you’re not that drunk, and the idea of kissing someone who’s not him, hurts you far too much. You also can’t imagine enjoying it.
“Why?” She pouted.
You wonder what’s the best way to say it. You forced a smile, “I’m…in love with somebody else”
Minnie’s eyes widened, as if you’d been keeping a secret from her for years, “What? Who?”
You played with the orange slice in your drink, “Just a boy from my town”
“Can I ask what happened?”
You swallowed, gaze wavering from hers, “Uh…it’s complicated, Minnie”
“Did he break your heart?”
You looked up at her, “We…lost touch”
It sounds stupid to say in the 21st century. Those kind of things don’t happen anymore. It’s not like you are ancient lovers who separated due to circumstances. Yet it feels more like that every day. You wish you just knew what happened. There must be a reasonable explanation for why he acted this way.
Minnie frowned, “I see…”
You know she’s curious, but nobody could ever understand the complexity of what happened between you and him this summer anyway. You don’t think you understand it yourself.
“Let’s just not talk about him” You mumbled, finishing the rest of your drink. You’d been drinking so fast tonight, you didn’t realise how much you’d had.
“Hey…” A voice interrupts you, and you turned to see Jamie, “I was looking everywhere for you”
Minnie rolled her eyes, “The only place you should look is the bar”
“You’re right” Jamie slung an arm around her, pulling her close, “Can we go dance, baby?”
Minnie grinned, giving her a quick kiss on the cheek, “Y/N, do you wanna come with?”
You looked between them, and they look so cute together. Jamie was leaving little pecks on Minnie’s shoulder as they talked. They complement each other so well — Minnie with her light hair, and Jamie with her fiery red. You haven’t known Jamie before tonight, but their personalities seem so contrasting too.
You jumped off the barstool, “I’m actually gonna go to the bathroom, okay?”
“Cool. We’ll be here” She smiled, walking off to the dance floor with her girlfriend.
There’s a line at the bathroom so you stand in it, hugging yourself. The music isn’t as loud here, so it’s nice to get some time to your thoughts. A couple is making out in front of you, and the guy is grabbing her ass, pushing her to the wall. The club walls aren’t the most sanitary for this, but the music playing is sexy, and the atmosphere is so hot. There’s nothing wrong with daydreaming…so you let yourself drift into it. If he were here…you don’t think that would have stopped you either. In a dress that’s too short for you, the two of you wouldn’t be able to keep your hands off each other the whole night.
Except… he would have definitely stopped you. You can never imagine a day where he’d kiss you in the middle of a crowded bar.
Once you’re finally in, you splashed some water on your face. Some of it gets on your top. Pushing your hair back, you stared at yourself in the mirror. The image looking back at you is blurry, and out of focus. Pink neon strips surround the mirror, but the light hurts your eyes. The alcohol has got to your head, and your reflection is already spinning. You take in a breath, gripping the counter tightly. You suddenly feel sick. It’s not the drinks. It’s the image burned into your head of Baekhyun at the bar. How is he living his life with so much ease, when all you had with Hyunjin are stolen moments? You’re happy that perhaps the rules aren’t the same for everyone…but it feels unfair.
You wonder if you’re destined to always feel this way, this loss, like a hole in your heart where he belonged. Tears threatened to spill but you hold them back. You can’t be the girl crying in the bathroom, on her first night out. That would be so fucking pathetic, you’d pity yourself.
“Fucking asshole!” A voice interrupted your breakdown, and through the neon mirror, your eyes fall on a girl as she runs into the bathroom, aggression plastered on her features. She’s in a tight top, and it’s soaking wet. It looks like someone spilled a drink on it. She looked rightfully annoyed, coming to stand next to you at the sink. You wonder who she got into a fight with, or how the drink ended up on her clothes.
She’s furiously wiping away at her top, but it’s completely wet, purple liquid seeped in. Tearing off tissues one after the other, she seemed frustrated when the dispenser is out.
You’re still zoned out, and you don’t realise you’re holding out a toilet paper roll to her. Your limbs seemed to move on their own accord.
She glanced up at your reflection, with wide eyes. Bangs fall to the front of her eyes, and thick eyeliner darkened her gaze. A nose piercing catches the neon light. Despite the mess on her shirt, she easily looks like the coolestgirl you’ve ever seen.
“Thank you” She frowned, but her shoulders visibly relaxed at your gesture. She grabbed the paper roll from you, and you turned to leave.
“Some dude threw a drunk at me when I said I didn’t wanna dance with him” She said. It takes you a second to register that she’s talking to you.
So you turned around, crossing your arms to hold yourself, “Oh…ouch. Some people just can’t take a no, I guess”
She laughed, looking at herself in the mirror, “Right? I looked in his direction for a second, and he took that as an invitation”
Her clothes …are completely ruined, and you can see her bra. It’s way past the point of saving. It would have been a cute outfit, if it wasn’t for the huge stain at the front.
“Who was he? Maybe I can get my friends to talk with him” You told her, and you don’t know why you’re offering up Nate and Minnie to fight a random stranger, just for this girl.
Still, she laughed, “Your friend would beat up a stranger for me?”
You smiled, and said without hesitation, “If I ask him nicely enough. Actually… I think me and him just became friends today, so I can’t promise you”
She laughed, “A night of firsts for you too then”
“For me too?” You questioned, and you’re still looking at her through the bathroom mirror.
“It’s my first night out on the city after a long time. I honestly just needed to get out. I thought I’d go insane in my apartment” She told you, and then looked down, “What am I gonna do with this?”
You don’t think, “You can have my jacket”
Her eyebrows shoot up, and she whipped around to look at you. You realise up close, she’s even prettier than in her reflection, if that’s possible.
“You’re serious?” She tilt her head, and looked over you, gaze drifting to the leather jacket that clings to your body, “That looks new”
“You can return it to me” You offered.
“You trust me enough to do that?” She smiled, and dimples appear in her cheeks.
“You… seem nice enough”
She looked at your jacket yet again, thinking it over in head, “No, I couldn’t. Won’t you be cold?”
“I’ll be fine, and you definitely can’t wear that” You said, pointing to her blouse that sticks to her body.
She sighed, looking down at herself, and then gives in. You wonder why you’re convincing her to take your jacket. Maybe because she’s the only thing that stopped you from having an actual breakdown in the bar bathroom. She peeled off her blouse, cursing again at how it sticks to her body as she did so, and it leaves her in just her bra. She squeezed the blouse over the sink, wringing it, and purple liquid dripped out.
“That’s gross” You remarked, and she laughed. You handed your jacket to her. Inside, you’re thankfully wearing a tank top so you’ll be fine. She zipped it up, and it’s a little tight on her, but it does the job. It obviously doesn’t match with the denim skirt she’s wearing, but still you smiled, “Cute outfit”
“I look insane” She laughed.
“Well, hey, at least that’ll keep the creepy guy off you” You told her. You then realise you’ve been here far too long, “Um, I should probably head out. My friends would be worried”
She giggled loudly, turning to you, “Wait, but thank you. You’re…really nice. It’s not often you meet people with the likes of you here”
“I’m not from here but…I’m sure anybody else would have done the same thing” You suggested, standing at the door to leave.
“Well, I asked like six girls for help but all of them said no” She mumbled.
Your heart clenched. Perhaps it’s true that people in the city really are so consumed in their own lives. Maybe that’s why everyone in your town hated them.
“Where are you from then?” She asked you.
“You won’t really know it”
Her eyebrows shoot up, as if you challenged her, “Come on, try me. I was a pro in geography in high school!”
“It’s a town called Daejon”
Her eyes widened, “Daejon? Yeah, I do know where that is!”
“Oh” You smiled, and you don’t know why you’re telling everybody about yourself tonight, but it feels nice.
“I actually knew somebody from there” She said, and that’s what really catches your attention.
“You do?”
“Yeah” She smiled, but says nothing more.
Someone suddenly tugs at your sleeve. It’s Minnie, and she hooked her arm around yours, pulling you out, “You’ve been in here for like, an hour. We’re going to another bar. Nate and the others are waiting for us”
You glanced back at the girl, and said, “Sorry! I, um, gotta go”
You’ve made it all of two steps out of the bathroom and back into the bar, before she tapped on your shoulder. She yelled to be heard over the music, it’s so much louder out here, “Wait! How should I get this jacket back to you?”
You’re clearly drunker than you thought since you just handed her your shit and were walking away without any plan of how to get it back, “Um yeah, I can give you my number. I’m Y/N, by the way”
“Y/N” She repeated, pulling her phone out to save your number, “My saviour”
You enter hers, and you’re in a hurry because Minnie is pulling at your sleeve, whining about how the others will be annoyed, “What should I save yours as?”
“You can just put in Kairi!”
“Sorry?” You looked up at her, freezing. The pounding music overtakes your senses. You must have misheard her…
“Kairi. My name!” She smiled, and you’re staring at her stupidly for a second just as Minnie tugs at your arm, and before you can ask her any further questions, she dragged you back into the bar.
»»————-
At 6:46 a.m., there was a text on your phone.
heyy
its the drunk girl you gave your jacket to last night :)
im very grateful for it and would like to give it back. where do you work, yn?
You’re surprised she remembered your name.
Last night flooded through your brain. You’d gone out drinking with your friends, and then to another bar, and you’d come home without your jacket… dead in the night. Jeongin had seen you struggling with your keys, and he’d let you in. You’d been so fucking drunk, but nothing can erase the memory of that girl.
She said her name was Kairi. Chan’s ex-girlfriend was a girl named Kairi. The girl he was in love with for years, the girl he was going to ask to marry, before something happened…and they broke up. That had also been around the time Hyunjin had stopped talking to you…
How many Kairis could possibly live here? It’s probably just…a random Kairi, and not the one Hyunjin had told you all about. Although knowing your luck, Chan’s ex-girlfriend was possibly texting you, and this was all kind of insane. You can’t even go a single day without being reminded of Hyunjin, and it feels like life is playing a cruel trick on you by introducing you to Kairi. It’s too big a coincidence. It’s so crazy and convoluted that you should just block the number and never think about this again. She had no idea who you are, and it feels like you’re tricking her by knowing her identity.
But Yeonjun gave you that jacket so you can’t just let it go, and so you text her back. Just so you can get it back. Nothing more to it.
hey, im actually a student
but i can come to where you work, and pick it up
a student? that explains why you’re so sweet
and i work near the outskirts, it’ll be too far for you.
why don’t we meet up at the paris baguette near hannam? is that all right for you for tonight?
i actually have class at eleven
ah
how about now then?
You sat up immediately. You’re still in your pyjamas and hungover as fuck. Now?
»»————-
Kairi was standing outside the Paris Baguette when you arrive, tote bag slung over her shoulder. She looked absolutely stunning in the morning, miles more so than the club bathroom, and your heart shakes a little. Sober, she’s prettier, and even more confident.
“Hey” You walked up to her, trying not to think about how weird this all was. You’re just here for the jacket, and then you’re going to leave, “Morning”
“Hey, stranger” She smiled bright, dimples returning.
“I’m sorry if I was late” You apologised.
“No, don’t mind me, I just like to show up way too early. Here’s your jacket!” She reached into her bag, handing it to you, “I had it dry-cleaned in the morning. Didn’t wanna return it with the alcohol smell over it”
“Oh. Thank you” You smiled, “You didn’t need to do that”
“Of course I did. I’m buying you breakfast, by the way”
“You’re what?”
“In fact, I got here early to beat the rush. Got you some pain au chocolat before it sells out!”
Fuck. No wonder Chan was in love with her.
This feels far too weird though, and you can’t be hanging out with her, “I should…get going, Kairi”
“You remember my name, Y/N” She grinned, unfazed by you constantly wanting to just get the fuck out of here.
“Of course…you, uh remembered mine, but I should really go”
“Well, I’m not letting you go that easily. I already bought us food”
You watched, helpless, as she reached into her bag to bring out a little box, “Do you want to walk with me? There’s a place in the park we could grab coffee from”
You really shouldn’t. Every bit of you is screaming at you at how you shouldn’t do this. But she looks far too happy for this early in the morning, and you don’t want to be to the ruin her entire day so you gave in, “I…can’t ever say no to coffee”
Kairi grinned, triumphant as she led you to the park, and when you bite into the chocolate croissant that she bought you, this doesn’t feel like such a big mistake.
You’re walking, and her elbow brushed against yours as she asked you, “You said you’re a student”
“Mmh” You nodded, through a mouthful of croissant. The chocolate sticks to your lips and you wipe it off, conscious of how you look around her.
“So, tell me more, Y/N. What are you a student of?”
You’re feeling the nerves in your tummy, and you need to act normal because this is just a girl. It doesn’t matter if Chan is her ex-boyfriend, or if she’s friends with Hyunjin. You can’t make it weirder than it already is. “I study art” You told her, “At the Atelier”
“Art?” Her eyes lit up, “I swear I always attract the creative people”
“Yeah?” You glanced at her, swallowing another bite of the croissant.
She shook her head, as if to dismiss the thought, “Mmh. So what kind of art do you learn?”
It’s a chilly morning in the park, but it’s beautiful. People are walking their dogs, and old couples are sitting on benches, and you’re with a kind stranger who was buying you coffee.
“All kinds, but mostly painting” You told her, leaning against a little fence as you two come to a stop. There’s a little stall set up in the popular trail of the park, and a sweet woman is selling coffee and cakes. Kairi paid for your drinks, and you watched her from where you stand.
“I have a friend who likes to paint” She told you, smiling as she walked back over to you, “Personally, it’s not for me”
“What do you do?”
“Be careful, it’s hot” Kairi warned, handing the steaming cup of mocha to you. You wrapped your hands around it, and lift it to your cheek, letting the warmth travel to your face.
She giggled, “Who needs heat packs when we have caffeine?”
You nodded, taking a sip of it as you looked at her. She can’t seem to stay still, and she’s walking across a circle of pebbles, as she chats away and sips at her coffee. She’s so endearing, and she reminds you of a mix of Felix and Minho. Today, her hair is pulled up into a bun, strands falling around her face. Her makeup is lighter than it was yesterday too, but she’s prettier in the daylight.
“Oh and…I work in corporate. It’s…a boring job, but I think I’ve had enough of an exciting life” She hummed. You let yourself get comfortable, crossing your ankles across the dirt, enjoying the warm coffee, as she told you about her job, and the kind of clients she’s had. You tell her about your apartment, and about how you’d be locked out so frequently, if it weren’t for Jeongin. You tell her about Yeonjun too.
You’re trying really hard to not bring up anything that can give you away. You’re so curious, you need to know if this is the same Kairi that you’ve heard of this whole while. Kairi is a common enough name, even if you asked, what would you say? The boy I love is in a band with your ex-boyfriend. It’s insane to bring up, so you settle for something simpler, “Um…can I ask why you’re buying me coffee on a Friday morning?”
She looked up at you, smiling, “Would you judge me if I said I’m going through a really shitty time? I kind of want to remind myself that there’s still good stuff in the world”
“Oh. I’m sorry” You apologised, staring at your feet. That was inappropriate to ask.
“Don’t be sorry. We all have our own baggage to deal with”
“Yeah. I get you” You said, taking another sip of the mocha, “Um, so don’t you have work today?”
“No” She laughed, “I’m taking a mental health day, as cringe as that may sound”
Your chest squeezed. It sucked to see her go through this, whatever it was, and you barely know her. “We all need that sometimes” You shot her a smile, “It’s not…cringe at all. Don’t worry. In fact, the world would be a better place if everyone took a mental health day once in a while”
She stepped up to you, eyes lost in thought, “You know…you remind me of someone”
“I do?”
“Mmh” She nodded, “My boyfriend, he—Sorry, ex-boyfriend, he was just like you”
Now you’re definitely crossing a line, but you’re self-destructive so you ask anyway, “Can I…ask what happened?”
She tilt her head, pausing between sipping her mocha, “It’s not really morning coffee worth news. I wouldn’t want to bore you with the details but we’re…taking a break…indefinitely”
You swallowed, “I’m sorry to hear that”
She shrugged, wiping some foam off her lips, “Don’t be. I know that…things are going to be okay”
You can’t resist asking, “How can you be so sure?”
“Well. He’s the only person I think of, when I’m sad…and also when I’m fucking happy. I know that he feels the same, and if two people can’t stay away from each other, it just means…they aren’t supposed to be apart” She laughed.
Your stomach clenches at that. You should believe that, except it’s impossible.
“I wish that I could be as positive as you are” You end up saying.
“You said you’re from Daejon, right?” It comes out of nowhere. Why is she bringing it up now?
You felt a rush in your chest at her question, “Yeah. I am.”
She pokes her tongue in her cheek, and you don’t know where she’s headed with this, “One of my friends was born there”
“Oh…” You try hard not to react, but you’re so easy to read, you give everything away. Anybody would be able to see you’re hurting.
“He’s a painter too. Well…not professionally, but…he wishes he was. He’s so talented. in another life, I’m sure he’s much more successful than even Da Vinci”
You know exactly who she’s talking about, and you can’t hear this. You’ll end up crying or something, so you finally do the right thing and say, “Um. I think I should leave, Kairi”
Her eyes widened, and she seemed confused, stepping towards you, “What? Did I say something wrong?”
You’re pressed up to the fence, facing her, “No. I’m just going to be late for class if I stay and—”
“I said something wrong” She interrupted you, face hardened.
You look at your feet, and you shouldn’t have come here with her. You’re far too sensitive for this, “No, you didn’t”
“Wait…You know who I’m talking about, right?” She continued, and you wish she’d stop.
“I don’t” You said, and your jaw is clenched from the lie.
Kairi’s gaze is unrecognisable, and her voice feels far away, “You’re…the Y/N…aren’t you?”
You’re squeezing the cup in your hand, “What?”
“I wasn’t sure…I had a doubt but the more time I spend with you, the more obvious it gets who you are”
Your voice fell to a whisper, “You know me?”
“All he did was talk about you.”
A burning flame consumes your heart, and you can’t breathe, and you asked even though you know the answer, “Who…?”
“Hyunijn… He would be making up excuses just to keep bringing you up, in each conversation. He talked about you every second he could.”
You think you’re going to have a panic attack in the middle of the park.
“He did…?”
“Until… a few months ago he completely stopped. He…hasn’t said your name since”
You swallowed, and there’s tears in your eyes, “I’m sorry I…need to go, Kairi. Thank you…for the coffee”
She doesn’t say anything.
This time, she lets you leave.
»»————-
You’re a mess.
It’s been a few days since you saw Kairi in the park, and you’re a fucking mess. You can’t stop thinking about her, about what happened with Chan, and about Hyunjin.
You’re sitting on the floor of your apartment, and your vision is all blurry as you try to paint. There’s an assignment due in a few hours, and you’re not even halfway done. Unproductivity has plagued you. Why do you get so fucking emotional? You wish you at least had some closure. It’s not fair that Hyunjin decided to just move on, and not tell you what was up.
Your phone buzzed, and it’s only Nate.
you coming to class?
the field trip is planned for today so you better not skip it yn
You don’t even want to get out of bed, but you can’t skip it. Kim Jieong has been talking about this trip for weeks. He’s had to move a lot of schedules around to make it happen. You’re supposed to be visiting an artist friend of his— someone who owns art galleries and does frequent viewing exhibitions. The thought of meeting another real artist like that used to excite you. You had never got this chance back home, and this is just the beginning of the opportunities you get. You can’t be wasting away your time in sadness. That’s what gets you out of bed. That, and the thought of disappointing your professor potentially. These days, it feels like you’re just hanging on by a very thin thread.
When you arrive to the Atelier, everybody’s already gathered in the parking lot, ready to depart. You hate being late, but you spot your friends by the corner and you find comfort in walking over to them. Professor Jieong was in the middle of briefing everyone, and handing out access cards.
“You decided to show up” He said to you, smiling, “We were getting worried”
“I’m sorry. I ran into traffic” You apologised.
“Don’t worry” He laughed, handing you your card, “This will get you in and out of the building, but try not to use it too much. Karina would get into a shit load of trouble if my students are found wandering on the other floors”
Karina is the artist you’re supposed to meet today, apparently she’s big in the art world here in Seoul. You hope one day…you can be too.
Nate’s holding a plastic bag to his chest, and he looks cute today in a pastel sweater, “I packed some extra snacks for you, Y/N”
“You didn’t need to” Your heart warmed at his consideration.
“Come on, we’re on a tight schedule, so…let’s hurry up, okay?” Jieong announced.
“Since you’re late, you have the honor of riding with the prof” Nate smirked, jutting his head towards Kim Jieong.
“Are you serious?” Your eyes widened, “Just me alone?”
“You’ll be fine, Y/N” Minnie laughed, “He has a bias towards you”
“That’s only because I’m the new one here!”
“No, it’s because it’s impossible to not like you” Nate rolled his eyes.
Jieong approached your group, hands on his hip, “So…which one of you is coming with me?”
“She is” Minnie chirped, pushing you in his direction.
Nate hummed as he walked away, “If I remember correctly, he is your favourite artist, isn’t he?”
You’re embarrassed, and also pissed at your friends. Jieong lead you to his car in the parking lot. You watched Nate get in his jeep and he laughed at your predicament.
Jieong smiled at you as you got into his car, “Oh, don’t be shy, Y/N. This will give us a chance to know each other better, won’t it?”
You sank into his seat, flushing, “Right”
»»————-
The skyscrapers of Seoul passed you, as you drove through crowded streets and glitzy buildings, “Should I be nervous?”
He looked over at you, “Karina is one of my favourite students. She used to intern with me a few years ago. She couldn’t get off her meetings, so we’re gonna visit her at work. That’s all it is. Nothing to be nervous about”
You’re sitting in the passenger seat and it’s been mostly quiet as you fiddled with the access card in your lap, “What kind of work does she do?”
“She’s a curator. I asked her to be a sort of…mentor for you kids throughout the semester. She’s had her fair share of exhibitions”
It feels strange to ride in his car, next to him. You’re his student after all, “Do I get credit for this, Mr. Jieong?”
He glanced at you, “Of course you do. I’m not doing this on my dime, Y/N. We’re here, by the way”
At his words, you leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the building you’re arriving at. He pulled straight into the garage, and you briefly caught the glamorous exterior.
“This is where she works?” You gaped, “She must be one hell of an artist”
Jieong laughed as he pulled the car into a guest parking spot, grabbing a ticket, “Obviously the entire building doesn’t belong to her.”
You told him about Yeonjun’s workplace, as you waited in the car for all of your classmates to show up, “One of my friends…he works in a building like this, but it’s so…monotonous. I kind of hated it”
He laughed, “Well, I think you’ll love this one. It’s brimming with creativity. They have beautiful art hung in every corridor too. Karina’s workspace is on one of the upper floors”
“I’d kill to have an office like that. The view must be so good”
Jieong smiled at you, “You continue working as passionately as you do, and you will have whatever the hell you dream of, Y/N. You name it, and it’ll be yours”
He unclipped his seatbelt, and your stomach felt uneasy from anticipation as you got out of the car. Even the parking garage looks expensive, and glamorous. Way, way more than Yeonjun’s building.
“Am I underdressed? Will they let me in?” You blurted, even though it’s hardly appropriate to ask him that. You’re in a peach tube top and wish you’d grabbed a blazer or something. If the place has a dress code…you probably won’t be let in. Thankfully, the skirt falls to your ankles and isn’t too short. He looked back at you, eyes raking over your outfit, and you felt embarrassed. You shouldn’t have asked him.
His lips curled up into a smile, “You look fine, Y/N. Don’t worry”
Fine. That would have to do.
You waited near the elevators, as your classmates also made their way to you. Nate was smirking as he saw you with your professor. You rolled your eyes at him, and he stood next to you, “How was the private ride?”
“Clearly better than ours, Jeonghan, seeing as she rode with someone who actually knows how to drive. I’m surprised we made it here alive” Minnie mumbled to him.
“Stop calling me Jeonghan! It’s Nate to you” He rolled his eyes, shoving her.
“I like your Hangul name better” You told him. Nate was nice, but Jeonghan…had a ring to it.
He smiled at you, eyes crinkling, “Hmm. You’re allowed to call me whatever you want”
You laughed, and he came and swung an around you, holding you next to him. The rest of the class gathered up at the foyer, and your professor spoke, “We’ll be going straight to Karina, she’s gonna talk to each of you about her work, and we’ll spend some time looking at her portfolio. The Atelier has a reputation to withhold, and I trust you all to not mess with it. And yes by that, I mean you Jeonghan”
Jeonghan gasped dramatically, and you laughed.
The inside of the elevator was as big as your bedroom. The buttons were gold-plated, each label marking names of different managements. It seemed like a big office building, and each floor belonged to a different company. You stepped behind Jieong, letting him take the lead. He pushed a keycard, and the elevator came to life.
Familiar music started playing, and Jieong informed you, “Nobody can enter without authorisation”
“The real estate of this place…must be insane” You commented, looking around you at the gold fittings in the walls. It’s the fanciest place in the city you’ve been to, which is saying a lot, since The Art Atelier is pretty exclusive too.
Jieong leaned against the side, crossing his arms, “Well, all the floors belong to different companies. Most of them belong to Pegasus though. They’re paying for half of it”
Your head snaps to his, and surely this is all a fucking joke and somebody is messing with you big time, “Pegasus? Like…the entertainment company?”
There was no fucking way he was being serious…
He nodded, “Their headquarters are on the eighth floor. I’m sure you know most buildings downtown share offices”
Somebody has to be fucking with you.
“Hey, maybe we’ll see Baekhyun or someone again” Jeonghan laughed.
“Everything okay, Y/N?” Minnie asked, “It looks like the life drained out of you, or something”
Jeonghan grinned, pulling you into his side, “She’ll be fine. I’m sure famous people just make her nervous”
»»————-
A freak accident. That’s what this was.
Pegasus. That is where Hyunjin works.
You’re sitting in an office on the tenth floor, but you’re losing your mind. There’s art on the walls. You recognise the paintings, and they cost more than million won and you should be taking notes and appreciating them. You can’t focus on them though, not when Hyunjin is in this building somewhere.
You feel like a stalker. First Kairi, and then this. Your life is playing a cruel trick on you. You just need to get through this. It’s possible he’s not even here today — he’s a busy man. There’s a huge chance you are in and out of here, without ever encountering him. Yet you’re dying to see him.
“Make yourself comfortable. Karina will be with us soon” Professor Jieong told you all, sitting at the table. You felt like you’re going to pass out.
“Y/N. Are you okay?” Someone asked.
“I’m fine. I just…need some water” You mumbled. Your head was spinning with the revelation of where you are.
“There’s a soda machine down the hall” Your professor told you.
So, you get up and go out without a word. There’s so much life here. Jieong was right, there’s a hum of creativity in the air and the vibe is far different from Yeonjun’s office. People are walking around, clad in pantsuits and pinstripe skirts, with clipboards in hands. A woman strolled past you holding a costume rack, with the fanciest gowns you’ve seen.
You’ve never seen so much activity in one place, everybody’s in a rush. You avoided making eye contact with anyone. You felt weird, and out of place. You’re on the tenth floor. Hyunjin worked on the eighth. It’s too much distance, and it’s not enough distance.
As your eyes raked over everyone, your stomach turned with a bit of hope. You want to see him. No, you need to see him. But why would he be on a floor that isn’t his? And what would he even say if you bumped into him right now? The last time he saw you…you can’t survive a repeat of that.
The vending machine was easy enough to locate. It was fully stocked, and huge, unlike the one at your apartment building, which hardly ever worked. You reached into your purse, hoping you have enough change for a Coca-Cola.
You feel on edge in the hallway, vulnerable and out in the open. Every second feels like you’re in the wild, as you rifle through your wallet for coins. In fact, you should just fuck the soda and go back to Kim Jieong, and your apparent mentor Karina, because being out here is too dangerous for your heart.
You’re about to push the coins in, and then you’re suddenly caught off balance as somebody barrels into you.
They were running in the hallway and clearly, somebody from your class wasn’t listening to Jieong about maintain fucking decorum in the building. Coins from your hand clink to the floor, scattering in every direction, and you can’t even be bothered to care.
“Shit, I’m so fucking sorry!” A deep voice apologised. It’s a voice you don’t recognise, and you’re grateful for the unfamiliarity. You’re really not in the mood for conversation, and you feel sick to your stomach.
The stupid fucking stranger bent down, retrieving the coins you’ve left everywhere.
“I’m so sorry. I was running and I…I didn’t see you” He grimaced.
“It doesn’t matter” You mumbled, moving to step away, not really making an attempt to talk because you are not in the mood for this. You don’t care enough about this soda.
“Wait, no, what were you going to get? I can buy you a Cola” He interrupted.
You looked back at him, into the eyes of the culprit, and you froze.
Chocolate brown eyes. Dark blue hair falling to his jaw.
You don’t know him, not personally, but you recognised him. You’ve seen him splashed across gossip websites, and news articles, and in all of the pictures Hyunjin sent you.
Of all the people in the entire building, it had to be him.
He’s holding a few coins in the fist and held his palm out to you. “Sorry, the soda machine on our floor is broken again” He told you, “I came up here to get some for myself but…”
“It’s…fine”
His eyes narrowed, “I’ve never seen you on this floor before”
You faltered, “I don’t work here”
For the briefest moments, something flashed through his gaze, recognition settling into his features, “Oh…okay”
“Have a nice day” You force a smile.
He doesn’t say anything, just stands up straight with all your coins in his palm, staring after you as you walk away.
»»————-
You need to leave. Everybody was gathered around a woman in the office, and she must be the mentor you’re supposed to meet today. Most of your classmates were looking through the various portfolio pieces laid out on all the conference tables. Minnie was deeply immersed in a painting and taking notes on her phone. Jeonghan was flipping through a brochure for an art gallery and his eyes widened when he saw you walk back in.
“You’re back” He grinned.
“I’m leaving” You mumbled, grabbing your bag. You feel so childish and immature for acting out like this, but perhaps it’s time for you to take a mental health day too. Hyunjin saw you in the city, and ran from you, so it’s only fair that you run from him too. It’s not like he even knows you’re here... it’s best to just remove yourself from the situation entirely, and fuck off.
“You’re what?” Jeonghan followed you outside the room.
“I’m not feeling too well”
“But what about Karina? What am I supposed to tell Jieong?” He asked frantically, and he’s chasing after you as you make your way to the elevators. You’re surprised he cares this much.
You turned, to look at him, “It doesn’t matter. I…I really don’t want to be here.”
He frowned, “But what’s wrong? You’ve been acting really weird ever since we came here. Or…actually, you’ve been weird the past week. What happened?”
“I’m fine, Jeonghan. I’m just sick” You told him, pushing the button to make the elevator come faster, and you were too impatient to wait for it, “I’m just going to take the stairs”
He tugged at your arm, turning you to face him, “Are you kidding me? We’re on the tenth floor, Y/N” He sighed, “Look, I know we don’t know each other that well, but don’t bullshit me, please. We’re going to be seeing each other every day for a year. If things are fucked up, at least don’t lie about it to me”
You looked him in the eye, swallowing, “But…it’s really not important. I promise you’ll be the first to know when it is, okay? It’s just some shit from back home”
He frowned, “Okay but today is important, you…shouldn’t miss it, no matter what’s going on”
You pressed the button again, wishing the elevator would come faster so you could leave, “Jeonghan… I appreciate you caring. I really do, but trust me, nobody in that classroom is going to miss me, or even know that I’m gone”
“You’re kidding me” He sighed, as if he was personally offended by this, “Jieong used to talk about your art all the fucking time, before you even joined class. What makes you think he won’t notice?”
You’re not expecting to hear that, “Are you serious?”
He nodded, “He told us we had real competition to look forward to now. He was going on about how it’s been years since he’s seen such work. He really set the standards high for when you came in, Y/N. We all thought you’d be a bitch based off that but…it’s crazy. You’re actually the sweetest girl I’ve met in a while”
Despite your internal state of panic, it made you happier, “Oh…um, that’s a lot to live up to, Jeonghan”
“I know we’re still getting to know each other, but you’re a part of us now. I’m looking forward to know you even more” He smiled, reaching forward to pinch your cheek, “And see? You’re one of the only people who’s even allowed to call me by my real name”
You looked to the floor, then up at him, “Would he be mad if I left?”
“He wouldn’t be mad. Just disappointed…but…if you’re really feeling sick, I’m sure he’d understand. I can talk to him for you”
“Thank you, Jeonghan”
“Of course” He grinned, and caught you off guard by pulling you in for a half-hug. You stilled, not expecting that, but the physical contact felt nice, and you brought your arm up, to hug him back.
“I hope you feel better” He mumbled, as you pulled away, a small smile on your face. You’d made a genuine friend here, even when you weren’t trying to.
A ping rang through the floor lobby, and the elevator doors finally opened up.
You turned to step into it, but you stop short in your tracks when you look inside.
It’s a jolt to your dying heart.
Hyunjin is standing in front of you.
Your chest squeezes so you think you’re going to die.
Fucking hell.
Leaning against the elevator wall, arms crossed, his eyes widened as they fell on you. He instantly stood up straighter, ease disappearing from his body, surprise overtaking his features.
You’re sure your expression mirrors his. He was staring at you and Jeonghan, mouth parted.
Hyunjin is here. He’s in front of you.
You immediately stepped away from Jeonghan, but Hyunjin had already seen you embracing.
“Um…I’m sorry. It’s the wrong floor” Hyunjin spoke, but there’s shock in his voice, even if he’s trying to sound nonchalant. His voice was hoarse, like he’d just been singing, and exerting himself.
He leaned ahead, pushing the button to close the doors, but you can’t let him do that. He’s right here, and you need to go after him.
You turn to Jeonghan, rushed words, “I’ll…see you later”
He’s clearly confused. He chuckles, “What?”
He’s actually fucking here. It’s been so fucking long. You don’t have time to explain anything, and you don’t hesitate before stepping into the elevator, barely making it in.
The doors shut, and it’s just the two of you now.
Hyunjin was staring at you, and his hands are gripping the railing behind him, “Y/N…”
He was sweaty, and his hair was dripping wet, bangs sticking to his forehead. A white tank top hugged his body, over his sweatpants. He’s staring at you, and he looks so fucking good. Your brain is on overdrive, and you can’t process anything.
“Hyun…” You spoke. The floors are whizzing past you, and you don’t have any time. You both stepped forward at the same time, and you wrap your arms around him. He immediately hugs you back, pulling your body into his. His arms curl around your waist, and you’re on your toes, and everything is a blur. But you’re in his arms. You’re touching him, and you’re breathing him, and the void in your heart is already dissipating.
You could cry right now, because he feels the same to the touch, and his heartbeat is pounding so fast against his ribs, you can hear it.
“I missed you so much” You spoke into his neck, and your words are muffled by his hair, but he knows what you said.
“Y/N…” He whispered, hands tight around your body, and then he pulled away, “Jisung told me he saw you. I didn’t…I didn’t believe him. I had to see you myself”
“Is that why you were—”
“I was coming to see you” He interrupts you, and then his eyes dart to the elevator panel, to see what floor you’re on, “What are you doing here, Y/N?”
He must be baffled why you were at his workplace of all places in the world.
“I…I came with someone, Hyunjin, My professor…”
“Oh”
“Yeah…” You swallowed. You had so many questions. Why had he changed his number? Why hadn’t he talked to you in the store?
A part of you had doubted, if what you’d felt this summer truly was love, or if it was only infatuation…but seeing him right now, in front of you, it couldn’t have been anything else.
Every neural pathway in your brain was firing at total capacity, flooding your body with adrenaline, dopamine, oxytocin, every good hormone known to man. You were giddy, and nervous, and scared, and excited.
“I…don’t have much time. I was at practice and I need to get back…” He replied, and his breaths were shaky, “Somebody could see us”
“Wait—” You stepped forward, “You can’t just leave right now. I need to—”
Hyunjin lowered his voice, urgency in his tone, “I can’t talk here, not right now, Y/N”
He couldn’t walk away from you, not now, not again. You feel like crying already at the prospect, “But—”
“Meet me in the third room in this hallway, down the left. In fifteen minutes”
“What…?”
The elevator doors opened, and Hyunjin separated from you as if you’d electrified him.
There was a group of people outside waiting, and anybody could have seen you close to him right now. He stepped out hurriedly, saying nothing else. People flood into the elevator, but you’re still staring at him walking away.
Before disappearing around the corner, he turned to glance at you over his shoulder, and the surprise is still pure in his eyes. You used to hate these stolen glances, but right now… you live for it.
»»————-
The fifteen minutes dragged on at a snail’s pace. You don’t think time had ever been this slow, and your eyes strayed to your phone every few minutes, which only made time stop. You were pacing the hallway, clutching your bag in hand, eyes on all the different plaques of achievements hung on the wall. You recognised the band name, Urban Faeries, on multiple awards, and it brought pride to your soul, but you’re not really thinking straight.
You’re pacing, back and forth, and you drew a few suspicious looks but you hope they believe you’re just another stressed employee working here. The time is up before you know it. The third room, to your left, he had said. You stared at the unmarked white doors. You’d never live it down if you accidentally walked into a conference room, or an executive meeting. But you’d just have to trust your gut. You pushed open a door, stepping inside quickly.
You weren’t sure what you had expected. It was…a storage room. It's less fancy than the rest of this building. Racks and racks of clothing, and outfits were arranged on the sides. Stage costumes. They were all in plastic wrapping, like wedding dresses at a bridal boutique, and you could see the outfits underneath.
It had been ten minutes since you were here, and you’re staring at your phone, wondering if you were in the wrong room. He’s not here yet, and there’s a lump building in your throat. Minutes more pass, and you end up looking through the outfits hung on the rack. Sequinned jackets, tight bodysuits, leather pants. It was all so beautiful, and you imagined it all on him. There was a sheer top with lace sleeves. You shouldn’t, but you touched it, reading the tag on it.
Hwang, Hyunjin. KBS Gayo Daejon 2023.
So it was his. You had no idea he wore things like this, and you had a sudden overwhelming desire to see him in it. Lace covered every inch of it.
“You like that?” A familiar voice infiltrated your thoughts.
You were startled, letting go off it instantly. You felt embarrassed, like a kid caught stealing from a cookie jar, but all your feelings dissipated upon seeing him.
“Hyunjin” You realised.
He leaned against the wooden door, letting out a breath, like he’d run here. His gaze was on the bodysuit you’d just been eyeing. He continued speaking, nonchalant, “I personally think it’s a bit much. I don’t see the big deal, but the fans…they love it”
“It looks…great” You said, eyes drifting to the costume rack.
“I’m supposed to wear it, later this year”
You’re lost on what he’s saying. You just can’t believe you’re actually seeing him in front of you, flesh and blood.
There’s a singular lightbulb in the room, and it hangs from the ceiling, swaying back and forth lightly. Shelves surround you on both sides, and there’s only a narrow aisle to stand in. His back is flush to the door, and his arm reaches behind him, turning the doorknob until you hear a clicking sound.
He’d just locked you in with him.
You blurted the first thing that came to your mind, “Are you okay, Hyunjin?”
So much was on your mind, but that was the only thing that mattered. If the boy you loved was okay, then you would be okay too.
He breathed in, like every word was a struggle, and he was still catching his breath, “Yeah. Yeah. I’m okay…You?”
Now that he was here, you realised how small this room was. He took up so much space here, as he did in your heart. Twenty minutes ago, when you saw him…you were too shocked to process it, but now your eyes drifted over his figure. The white tank top fits his body in all the right places. It’s like every day away from you only made him prettier. You nodded, “I’m…okay”
Then his gaze raked over you. You suddenly feel conscious for the way you’re dressed. It’s different from how you used to in Daejon, and he realises that too. It’s more expensive than you’re used to. It’s artsy, like all the other kids in your class. You wonder if he hates it, but his gaze lingers on the strapless top and the silver pendant hanging from your neck. You recognise the look in his eyes, and it’s certainly not hate.
Your heart pounds at his gaze. The room suddenly feels even smaller now.
“Who was that?” He cleared his throat, “The…boy you were with”
“He’s another student…at The Atelier. I’m here with my class…”
“Oh…” His tongue darted out to lick his lips, and you tried to focus on his words, “So you’re here with Kim Jieong?”
You nodded. You’re so nervous. You’re fiddling with your fingers, “Yes”
In the little light of the bulb, you saw his lip curl up, “I knew that you’d get in”
He has such an effect on you, because just those words made you smile, “Yeah?”
In an instant it’s like all those months and weeks have been forgotten. It feels like there was no distance between you. Like catching up with an old friend after years, everything clicks into place like puzzle pieces that fit together.
“I told you, didn’t I?” He tilt his head, hair falling into his eyes, and he looked smug.
You clasped your hands behind your back, “You did…”
He continued, a little smirk playing at his lips, “I knew that you’d get into the program. I had a feeling that they’d made a mistake”
You’re smiling now, and your cheeks already hurt from the unfamiliarity of this action. It’s been a while since you’ve felt this way, “You’re proud of me?”
His features softened and he stepped towards you, “Is that really a question? Even when you hadn’t got in… I’d still be proud, but yeah…I’m so proud of you”
“Thank you” Your voice fell, chest warm, and you feel so shy, “You… always had faith in me”
“Is it everything that you imagined?”
“The art program?”
He bit his lower lip, “Mmh, and the city. Has Seoul been nice to you? Hopefully, nicer than it has to me”
You shrugged, “It’s been nice. I…made a few friends. I have a nice apartment. It faces a busy street…It kind of sucked that I didn’t get to share any of it with you”
His expression changed, “Sorry”
Tentatively, you took a step towards him. There’s only little space left between you now, but you’re both being so careful. It’s like a magnet between you two, you’re hovering but not getting too close, not touching.
You know that if he touches you, it’ll be the end of you.
“What’s going on, Hyunjin? Why did you ask me to meet you in here?”
He sighed, gaze darting to the corners of the ceiling, “It’s the only place in the building they don’t have cameras”
“Oh…” Everything suddenly made a lot of sense.
His voice softened, “Don’t worry. Nobody’s supposed to come in here right now. I checked all the schedules”
You have so many questions, but somehow you ask him the least important one, “The woman in the store with you. Was she your girlfriend?”
You regret it as soon as you ask. It makes you sound envious, and jealous. It paint a picture of you that’s not true. Sure, you’ve wondered about her identity all these weeks, but…she hardly mattered in the grand scheme of things. There’s more at stake here.
Still, Hyunjin’s eyebrows shoot up, “What?”
You feel stupid repeating, “When I saw you, you were with a girl…”
“No. No, she’s just my manager, Y/N”
“Is that why you pretended to not know me when you saw me?” It comes out harsher than you intended, but you don’t have time to ease into it. You need to know, because it’s bothered you for so long.
He swallowed, and guilt flashes over him. “Yeah. The manager I was with... She’s one of the less forgiving ones”
It eases the slight ache in your chest, but you’re not done. There’s an explanation for why he acted this way, but he’s not attempting to explain the rest.
“Why did you disappear, Hyunjin…?”
He swallowed, “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean — You changed your number all of a sudden. Do you know how hard I was trying to reach out to you?”
His fists are balled up at his side, digging into the material of his sweatpants. You feel a little bad for questioning him like this, and putting him on the stand, but you deserve to know.
“I’m sorry. I had to. I was afraid…” He trailed off, and it’s half-hearted.
So you pushed for more, “Afraid of what?”
He looked at you, straight, “I was afraid they’d find out about you. I couldn’t risk it. You know everything that’s been going on in my life, Y/N. With Chan and Jisung…I couldn’t let them get into more trouble because of me”
It hurts to hear that you’re only seen as trouble in his life. You’ve heard of many idols and celebrities who date, fall in love and marry. Why is it only an issue when you’re the one in love?
“I understand that, but…you could’ve told me. I was so fucking confused for months, and I thought I fucked up somehow. Did I do something wrong, Hyunjin?”
“What?” His voice raised a pitch, like he couldn’t believe you asked him that.
You tried not to cry, “I mean…I must have done something, for you to act this way towards me…you cut me off, with no explanation…”
You didn’t care anymore if you sounded needy, clingy, or desperate. You’d been craving an explanation all these weeks, and now that he was here…you couldn’t leave without getting one.
“No, no, you didn’t do anything wrong, Y/N” He stepped closer, until his chest is inches from yours, “I had no control of the situation…and I couldn’t risk contacting you”
You swallowed, “But why…didn’t you just tell me what was going on? I was…in the dark, for months”
“I’ve been meaning to tell you. I just didn’t know how”
“Tell me now…please”
“They went through Chan’s phone” He blurted, “After everything with Kairi went down. They were worried that something would leak and I…I couldn’t deal with that. So in the store…I couldn’t talk to you. Please believe that…especially not in front of her. It would’ve been hell explaining who you are”
He’s right. What good would it have done? The woman you were wondering about…she was just his manager. You knew that, of course. But still, it’s like you’re strangled by a lasso of truth as you blurted, “I was …jealous”
Hyunjin’s expression changed, and he tilt his head, “You were?”
He’s questioning you, yet there’s pride in his voice, like he’s happy that he had that effect on you, even if he didn’t intend to.
“She treats me like I’m a kid, Y/N” He tells you, with a slight chuckle, “She’s married and…way older than us”
The ache in your chest has subsided, “I don’t know. Maybe you’re into older women like her”
Hyunjin rolled his eyes, and there’s a playfulness in his voice. It truly feels like all of those months had been forgotten, “That’s a nice way to get fired”
“You can get fired?”
There is amusement in his features, “It’s a job, Y/N. Of course I can get fired…and anyway, does Kim Jieong know you’re here with me?”
You looked into his eyes, “Nobody knows I’m here…”
He nodded, relief sinking into his shoulders, “That’s good because—”
Hyunjin is interrupted by a loud sound.
You’re confused…until your attention turns to the door. The knob is turning…
Somebody’s trying to get in.
Hyunjin’s eyes widen.
Your eyebrows shoot up, and you panic. “Is someone—?”
He doesn’t let you finish your sentence. He clasps a hand over your mouth before you can speak, pushing you to the wall by his body, “Don’t say anything, please”
In a daze, you nod. Over his shoulder, you can see the knob struggling to turn. It’s met with resistance — The lock seems to be holding up.
“Hello?” An unfamiliar voice of a man asks, “Is anybody in there?”
“Shit” Hyunjin drops his head against yours, whispering, “I forgot to check for maintenance”
His palm is flush against your lips, and you’re glad he’s physically stopping you because your anxious breaths could surely be heard outside. You’re so nervous. You don’t know what would happen if someone finds you two here like this. Based on everything he’s been telling you, absolutely nothing good.
Suddenly, you feel guilty. He’s in here because of you. He can get fired because of you. You would never forgive yourself if he has to deal with any consequences, because of your existence, and instantly you understand why he did what he did. All your anger and confusion dissipates, and understanding sinks into you.
The door budges as somebody tries to kick it in, and the person on the other side curses loudly, “Is this door fucking broken again?”
You’re holding your breath too hard. You need to calm down. Your hands find their way to his waist, crumpling his shirt. You’re pinching at his skin, but he doesn’t care. He can hear your heartbeat, pounding so loudly. Silently, with just his eyes, Hyunjin asks if he can drop the hand.
You nod. He pulls his hand back and his palm is wet with your saliva. He doesn’t mind. He doesn’t even wipe it. He just stays in place, eyes locked onto yours. You couldn’t move… even if you wanted to. You’re frozen to your spot and caged by his body. It towers over you.
“Don’t worry…They’ll leave soon” Hyunjin reassures you, in a whisper.
You’re lucky he remembered to lock it. It’s undoubtedly a compromising position to be seen in. In a dark corner of the storage room —your bodies are squeezed together. He is dripping with sweat; you can feel it sticking to your skin. You can feel every muscle in his stomach, pressing to yours.
Your eyes meet each other, and they stay. It’s so quiet in here, you could hear a pin drop.
It’s as if he’s looking right into your soul, no words exchanged, but his eyes say everything. Like you’re challenging each other to some staring contest, seeing who would give in first, but neither of you do. You’re burning, pierced by his strong gaze but you look back at him, sight not leaving his for even a second.
He’s breathing so heavily — running on hormones and adrenaline, and his chest is moving in sync with yours. You can hear his heart thud erratically. It’s loud and frantic in a way he can’t control it. He was near you after so long.
“What if…they get in?” Your voice is shaking, you hardly recognize it.
“They won’t” He whispers.
There’s so much need you need to ask Hyunjin. He’s been out of your life for months, but the only thing that matters right now is the feel of his body against yours.
One of his arms is against the wall. The other is flexed with how tight he’s holding you. He’s been working out. Right now, he’s drenched in sweat.
You’re dizzy with want. He’s trying, but failing at looking at how you’re pressed to him.
His gaze falls to your chest, then back into your eyes, almost shameless.
Your top hardly leaves anything to the imagination, squeezing your tits against his chest, and his gaze is fixated on it, dropping down every few seconds.
You’re not saying anything, but nothing needs to be said. A sweltering desire courses through your veins.
It’s impossibly hot — hiding in here with him.
You’re electrified by his gaze. It swirls with a thousand unspoken things.
This is fucking stupid considering the circumstances. You could be caught right now, and everything would be over then.
Slowly, your hand moves over his shoulder. You squeeze his bicep in your hand, feeling him up, and his heart beats the same but his body is different. He feels stronger to your touch, like he’s been dancing for hours on end, using up all his energy.
“You…feel different” You whisper in realisation. There’s muscle now where there wasn’t before. His breath hitches, like he’s holding everything in, and his eyes fall shut. His body has changed in your absence, and you hate it, and you love it. You hate that he’s not how you remember, but you love that there’s more of him to know. More of him to touch, and discover and feel.
He’s so close that his hair is falling into your face. He tilts his head to give you space to breathe. It only makes it worse because now his nose brushes against yours. There’s barely an inch between you.
What happened in these few months? You need to sit with him, and talk for days about it. You want to tell him everything you kept to yourself, every incident, every joke, every dream, every morning, afternoon and night. You want to kiss every part of him, so your lips remember his again. So it’s muscle memory, and so he’s never a stranger to you.
The mind forgets, but the body remembers.
Therefore, you can only blame it on your body right now that it’s horrible timing but you’re so fucking turned on.
The distance between your lips is nonexistent.
He’s breathing your air, and you’re breathing his.
You should move away now, but you don’t. Hyunjin’s breaths are shaky, and his hands on you are so tight, like he’s afraid to let go. Your breaths are shaky too, they’re desperate and no amount of air in the world can bring you calm.
You want to be even closer than you are, and you press yourself to him, but the only way to be closer than this is if he were inside you.
There’s no more sounds from the other side of the door.
And then his plush lips part to say, “I… think they’re gone”
Saying that was his first mistake, because as he speaks, his mouth brushes against yours, tenderly, so delicately.
Your heart jumps. You can’t control yourself. Slowly, you press forward, taking his lower lip between yours. Hyunjin tilts his head, so his lips fit perfectly between yours, but you’re not kissing, not yet.
You’re both not moving an inch, but you are biting down on his lower lip, and Hyunjin lets out a whine. It emerges from deep within his chest. His fingers dig into your waist, thumbs slipping under the top, to feel more of your skin. You tug at his lower lip with your teeth, pulling it. A rushed moan fills the room, and you soothe the bite with your tongue, but you’re still not kissing.
You grab his hands in your own, fingers circling around his dainty wrists. Silver bracelets clink against each other, as you move his hands up your body. You want him to touch you. He takes the invitation and raises his hands to your top, cupping your chest. Does he remember your body? You feel so much. Too much.
Hyunjin’s other hand slides into your hair, his fingers on the nape of your neck making you dizzy. Long, thin fingers with silver rings card through your hair, his nails brushing your scalp, and your heart stills. The jewellery he wears is different now, but you feel the same kind of insane.
But he still doesn’t kiss you.
He just tilts your head, so he can lean in, pressing a kiss into your neck instead. Your eyes flutter shut from the pleasure, and you can only focus on the sensation of his mouth. His mouth, that drops kisses along your neck now, a trail of spit and lust. You moan at the sensation, and it’s too loud.
“No…You have to be quiet” He whispers into your neck as he sucks on it. His voice is the same kind of sexy, but he’s never commanded you like this before. He kisses every inch of skin on your neck, moving closer and closer to your mouth.
A trail of kisses, up and over your jaw, until his lips finally meets yours. His second mistake is giving in. He closes the remaining distance, your hair bunched into his fist, and neither of you are breathing anymore because his mouth is crushed to yours.
All those months disappear into nothingness as you slip your tongue into his mouth. It’s what happens every time someone puts you and him in a room together.
You kiss him with desperation and Hyunjin kisses you in hunger. He pushes his tongue in, and you’re making out like your life depends on it. He doesn’t stop squeezing your tits, fondling them through the thin fabric of your top. The material does nothing to hide how turned on you are, but you can’t be embarrassed. Not when you can feel his crotch pressing into your leg, and he’s just as turned on.
His hands are everywhere on your body, finding their home on your waist, and he pulls you into him so your back arches off the wall. There’s no words exchanged and it’s primal in every sense. The air is filled with your breaths, and whines.
He’s burning up. You push him, until he’s pressed to the door instead. Hyunjin stumbles back from the force.
It’s like you want to be caught. The very door that separates you from the rest of the world. The only thing standing between you and total annihilation. It’s hotter this way, and you press your body to his, moulding your mouth to his, hands running through his hair. He lets out a moan that travels straight to your heart which is beating faster than it has in a long time. There’s a fire in it, and every touch of his skin against yours blazes it more.
He turns you around, until you’re pressed to the door instead. He grabs your thigh, pulling your leg up so it’s wrapped around his waist, and he’s grinding his crotch against yours. You can feel him in your core and you pull back to breathe, moaning, “Hyun…” You’re not thinking, only feeling him in every single atom of your body.
You tug at the drawstrings of his sweatpants. You need to take them off. You need him now more than ever. Hyunjin is your annihilation.
He realises what you’re doing, and he pulls away in a daze, spit-coated lips, “Wait, wait, Y/N…”
“What?” You mumble, kissing his jaw.
His eyes are squeezed shut, “Shit. Wait…stop, we can’t do this”
And you can only whine, pulling him back to you, “You say that every time”
His voice drops, a bitterness to it as if he’s just had some grand fucking epiphany, “Fuck. No, We can’t…”
He says that, but Hyunjin is a hypocrite because when you push your tongue into his mouth, he lets you. He tastes so good, and kissing him feels coming home. It feels like what you’d been missing this whole time and kissing him makes you feel alive.
He mumbles, against your mouth, “We… need to stop”
You pull back, only slightly, “But …nobody is going to know. You said it yourself, nobody’s coming in”
You lean forward to kiss him, but he moves his head away before you can. You’re too much in a daze to be hurt by this rejection. He shakes his head and steps away, as if he’s trying to wake himself out of his dream, “No, we can’t. Not like this”
“But…we’re just kissing—”
“No…this isn’t okay, Y/N. None of this is.”
You fall quiet, and his words are swirling in the room all around you. Your mind is having a hard time process them. You’re in a lust-driven daze, and you brace yourself against the door to catch your breath, “What do you mean…by that?”
He breathes in, snapping out of the lust, “We’re making out…in a fucking storage closet. Do you not see how much is wrong with that?”
His tone stings you. “I mean…I don’t Hyunjin. That’s what we’ve always done. The photobooth…the—”
“That’s exactly what I mean!” His voice raises all of a sudden, but he realises and lowers it again, “We shouldn’t have to sneak away to…to do this. I’m so sick of this…”
Your heart wakes up, but only because it’s suddenly hurting again. His lips are swollen from kissing you, but he’s speaking everything you hate.
Your chest hurts like it’s going to collapse. “You’re sick…of…me?”
He looks at you, distressed eyes, “No…of…of the guilt…”
Since when has Hyunjin felt guilty? And for what? “What are you saying, Hyun?”
“Are you not mad at me?”
“What for…?”
He let out a frustrated sigh, “I stopped talking to you…but you don’t seem angry at all”
“I thought you did that because you were forced to by your managers, by the company… Is that…not true?”
He looked right at you, a bitter chuckle, “Nobody forced me to do anything, Y/N. I wasn’t even supposed to see you today, but…after Jisung told me he met you in the hallway, I couldn’t focus on practice. The routine is usually muscle memory to me, but I forgot every fucking step, because… I realised you were here. But you need to know I didn’t come in here to kiss you. I just wanted to talk to you”
You swallow, crossing your arms against your chest, and your heart is still calming down, “Okay. Talk”
He breathes in, running a hand over his face, “I… lied to you, Y/N”
“About…what?”
“Everything that we talked about” He’s scaring you, “I told you that when you moved here that I’d take you to the studio, to watch me record my fucking music”
“Yeah?” You don’t know where he’s going with this.
“But I obviously can’t do that” He takes a breath, and it feels like he’s on the verge of a panicking, "I can’t…bring you to the recording studio. I can’t paint with you. I can’t show you my routines, or any of the things I promised you. You see that, right? I mean, even just to talk to you, I have to do it away from everyone. This is…insane. I don’t know why the hell I said all of that”
He's spiralling, and you need to calm him because he’s so fucking hard on himself, “That doesn’t mean you lied, Hyunjin. You said that because you wanted it to be true, didn’t you?”
“That’s the thing! It can never be true, Y/N. You don’t see that?” His negativity…hurts you.
“I called you in here to tell you this, but I forgot the way you make me fucking feel” He says, “I wasn’t…prepared to see you”
You hear everything he’s saying but it’s wrong. You couldn’t be a part of the life that he promised you, but you didn’t care. You don’t need to do all the things that you cannot. He’s bothered by something that you don’t even mind. All you know is that you can’t go more months without him. You can’t go a second more in your life without him.
You’d convinced yourself that you could never tell him your feelings because it would scare him away. But right now, you need to tell him. Time away from him was cruelty. It was insanity, and it’s something you never want to subject yourself to ever again.
You‘ve never loved anybody as much as him, and you never will.
He needs to know that. His lip is quivering, and he looks guilty, and scared. You have to tell him, before he says something he’ll regret. Maybe if you were more prepared, your confession of love would be in a beautiful place.
Like the top of the Chateau…That night, under the stars, he told you he found comfort in you.
Hyunjin was always the more romantic one.
So you can’t blame yourself for not thinking this through. After all, how could you have planned for everything that happened? A series of accidents, of coincidences that led you to him, over and over again. No matter how much life tried to pull you apart, you found each other.
It was fate.
“I don’t care, Hyunjin”
“What?”
You step closer to him, “I don’t care if I have to kiss you in a storage closet for the rest of my life. I would choose that any day”
His lips part. He’s surprised. But you can’t hold back your feelings anymore. That has got you nowhere.
You pull him close, “I don’t care about all that, I just…I just want you”
His eyes widen, “Why would you ever choose this?”
“That’s…up to me” You swallow. He’s staring at you. It doesn’t matter that your grand declaration of love won’t be in a place as beautiful as him. It doesn’t matter where you are right now, you need to tell him the truth.
The truth — I went insane in my life without you.
The truth — I literally cannot breathe if you’re not near me.
The truth — I love you so much that my chest hurts.
“Did he kiss you?”
His question catches you so off guard, that your eyes dart up to his, “What? Who?”
He lets go of your hand, “Yongbok”
Where the fuck did that come from?
Your eyebrows knit together, and you’re so confused.
Yongbok doesn’t matter right now. You frown, “I don’t want to talk about him”
Hyunjin nods, “So…he kissed you”
You’re lost for words. You thought you two were more mature than this, “So that’s what this is about that? You’re acting this way because you’re jealous?”
He squeezes his eyes shut, “Yeah. I am. I am jealous, Y/N. It kills me to know that he’s known you all your life, and I can’t even have you to myself for one entire summer”
“But nobody is stopping you from having me”
“Everything is stopping me!” He cries out.
You flinch.
His voice falls again, and you can feel his distress, “I’m afraid, okay? I’m fucking scared that they’ll find about you and—“
“And what?”
He squeezes his eyes shut, “You’re going to get hurt. You’re not stupid, Y/N, and you fucking know that better than anyone”
“How can you be so sure of that? You’re the one that’s making decisions that hurt me, I mean I couldn’t even tell you I got into the stupid program because you cut me out from your life, all because you’re afraid of something that hasn’t even happened? Why can’t you just tell me what’s wrong? What are you so afraid of?!”
He falls quiet, and he isn’t looking at you anymore. He stepped back, inhaling deeply, as if to anchor himself. His eyes meet yours, “You…shouldn’t have come here, Y/N”
Your voice breaks, “Why?”
“It would have made everything a hell of a lot easier”
“What would it make easier?”
He swallowed, “Having to stay apart from you”
He says things like that so easily, and his words bury deep into your skin.
Your voice broke, but you’re not done fighting for him, “I thought you missed me. I’m not afraid to admit that I did, okay? I missed you every second I was away from you—”
“I called you in here to say goodbye”
Your voice is merely a whisper, “What?”
His lip is quivering, “I wanted to see you…because this is the last time”
“You don’t mean that…”
There’s a tightness in your chest. You can’t breathe.
He swallows, “You and I both knew that what we had in Daejon…it couldn’t be anything else”
“Please don’t say that”
He looks to the floor, away from you, “I’m sorry”
You don't understand. Things were just okay, “Are you being like this… because of Chan’s break up?”
His tone changes harshly, “That has nothing to do with you”
You swallow, staring at him. Your eyes fill up with tears. You thought this stupid storage closet would be where you finally tell him you love him.
He doesn’t pull you in to comfort you, like he’s always done. He just looks at you, glistening eyes and his lip is quivering.
This can’t be it. There’s more to you and him, and this isn’t fucking it. Then his phone buzzes. Hyunjin ignores it at first.
Until it gets constant, and he sighs, “I’m sorry. I need to take this. You have to go, Y/N”
His words shake you to the core, and you can’t speak.
“Can you just please make sure nobody sees you when you leave?” He asks, strained, “I know you hate me right now…but please”
You nod. You have nothing to say. Even in this moment, you love him more than you ever have.
You’re so stupid. You thought nothing in the world could make you let go of him but just like always, Hyunjin is one step ahead.
He’s already let go of you.
»»————-
masterlist ⇒
please let me know if you liked the chapter, or any thoughts on this part! thank you :)
#hyunjin x reader#hyunjin imagines#hyunjin smut#angst#friends to lovers#skz x reader#skz imagines#hwang hyunjin x reader
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Underworld Insomnia || 1 - B.Barnes
Character : Bucky × Psychiatrist Female!Reader
Summary: As a ruthless contract killer, Bucky is feared in the underworld of criminals. His opponents freeze when they see him, as he is feared among them. However, they don't know that he could be warm to only one person: his pshychiatrist. The only person who could make him fall asleep.
Chapter 1, Chapter 2 , Chapter 3 , Chapter 4 , -
Main Masterlist || support: Ko-fi
Thank you to everyone who has read this chapter. Please let me know what your thoughts are. I'd love to hear your feedback. Thank you once again.
In the world of secret societies for underground criminals, there's a secret place for criminals to stay, a shop for criminals to buy their weapons, basically, criminals live like normal people but they can only go to places that are built for criminals.
That's the rule.
There's also a particular psychiatrist for criminals only. Since many of the criminals have demons in their minds.
For this job, Dr. Ben is the only person the criminals could go to and ask for advice and medicine so they could go to sleep. Most of them can sleep.
But the only person who has trouble is Bucky Barnes.
His name is enough to make everyone in the underworld shiver. His eyes are enough to make his opponents freeze.
Bucky is their answer if anyone wants a job done without any mistakes.
With the money from the job he finished, he could have a comfortable life for generations. But he doesn't need it because all he wants right now is to sleep.
"I tried what you told me. Work out until I'm tired, learn something new, clean all my weapons, upgrade my car, renovate my house with bulletproofing, sex," Bucky said while he lay on the couch, looking at the ceiling.
Dr. Ben kept writing while listening to his patient.
"I even went to pottery class, baking class, painting class, and sex," Bucky counted on his fingers.
"Still. Nothing works. I still can't sleep. It's been 7 years," Bucky said.
Dr. Ben, who kept writing, replied, "Yeah, you have mentioned sex multiple times."
"White noise, pink noise. In the end, I smashed the Bluetooth speaker. None of your methods work," Bucky said as he sat up and glared at Dr. Ben.
Dr. Ben adjusted his reading glasses. He remained calm, probably one of the few people not afraid even though Bucky was angry.
He clicked his pen and put the report on the table.
"Do you want to try reading fairy tale books?" Dr. Ben asked.
Bucky pinched the bridge of his nose. "Are you joking with me?"
Dr. Ben replied, "Most of you people have a shitty childhood. Have shitty parents. Perhaps deep down, your kind wants something related to fulfilling your inner child."
Bucky exclaimed, "Woah, doctor, calm down. You're brutally honest here." He sighed, because he knew this method will failed like the rest. "Fine. I'll try." Then he lay back on the couch and closed his eyes.
Dr. Ben picked a children's book and started to read, he flipped through the pages, and began to read aloud, "Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, there lived a brave little mouse named Timothy."
"Timothy was no ordinary mouse," Dr. Ben continued, "for he possessed a heart as courageous as a lion and a determination that could move mountains."
"Stop. Stop. It's so weird listening to you. Get someone else," Bucky interrupted, feeling uncomfortable.
Dr. Ben closed the book. "I'll get my apprentice."
Bucky raised an eyebrow. "You've got a new one?" He knew that none of Dr. Ben's employees stayed that long, given the fear of criminals who kept coming for therapy.
Dr. Ben adjusted his glasses. "She could tame Bruce Banner; I think she could do the same to you."
Bucky rolled his eyes. "Fine."
Dr. Ben got up from his seat and opened his office door. "Y/N, help me for a bit," he called out.
Bucky heard a melodious voice respond, "Yes?"
The door swung open, revealing a woman with a confident stride and a calm demeanor. She had striking eyes that seemed to hold a depth of understanding, framed by a cascade of dark hair that fell gracefully around her shoulders.
Her posture exuded poise and assurance, hinting at a quiet strength within. She carried herself in professional attire with an air of authority, yet there was warmth in her expression as she met Bucky's gaze.
As you approach your boss, he suddenly puts a children's book in your hand.
You look at him, puzzled. "Huh?"
Dr. Ben pointed at Bucky and explained, "This person can't sleep for years. So I want to see if reading a children's story could make him fall asleep."
Bucky huffs in frustration. As a top assassin in the underworld, it's humiliating if he can only fall asleep with a children's book. "Just do it."
You flinch, knowing the man in front of you is dangerous.
Dr. Ben pats your shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry, he's just cranky. I'll be here too. I need to see if it's working or not."
"Okay," you respond, then sit in the chair near Bucky's couch.
Before opening the book, you can't help but notice the tattoos on his neck and hands.
"Are you done staring?" Bucky asks, irritation evident in his voice.
"Oh, right, I'm sorry," you apologize quickly. "I'll start reading. Once upon a time, in a faraway kingdom, there lived a brave little mouse named Timothy. Timothy was no ordinary mouse, for he possessed a heart as courageous as a lion and a determination that could move mountains."
As you continue reading, Bucky listens intently, his eyes focused on the ceiling as he tries to relax.
"Despite his small size," you continue, "Timothy dreamed of embarking on great adventures and proving himself to be the bravest mouse in all the land."
Bucky's tense expression begins to soften slightly as he listens to the soothing cadence of your voice.
"One day," you narrate, "a fierce dragon threatened the kingdom, causing panic among the inhabitants. But Timothy, undeterred by the danger, volunteered to confront the dragon and save his home."
Bucky's breathing starts to slow down as he gets engrossed in the tale, his earlier restlessness fading away.
"With unwavering courage," you go on, "Timothy faced the dragon, armed only with his wits and determination. And through his bravery and quick thinking, he managed to outsmart the fearsome beast and bring peace back to the kingdom."
As you reach the end of the story, Bucky's eyes grow heavy, and he finally begins to drift off to sleep, a sense of calm settling over him.
Dr. Ben watches silently, nodding in approval as he sees the story's effect on Bucky. It seems that, perhaps, there is power in the simplest of tales to soothe even the most troubled minds.
Bucky's eyes felt heavy. The childish story and your calm voice made him feel relaxed. Your voice seemed more effective than white noise in soothing his troubled mind. As he listened, the tension in his muscles gradually melted away, replaced by a sense of peace and tranquility.
Then Bucky opened his eyes, only to realize he wasn't in the same place in Dr. Ben's office anymore. He found himself on a bed inside an unknown room. Panic surged through him.
Had he been kidnapped?
It would bring shame to his name as the feared killer if true.
As he processed his surroundings, Bucky's hand instinctively went for his knife, ready to defend himself. But soon, he recognized the familiar surroundings of Dr. Ben's building. Relief washed over him, though he remained on edge.
A door creaked open, causing Bucky to tense, his grip tightening on the knife. But to his surprise, it was just Dr. Ben.
"Did you have a good sleep?" Dr. Ben asked calmly.
Bucky clicked his tongue in annoyance and massaged his shoulder. "No. Your methods didn't work. I'm still tired."
"Well, that's natural since you've been asleep for three days," Dr. Ben replied matter-of-factly.
Three days?!
He can't believe it, since he has only been able to sleep for one hour each night for the past seven years. Bucky's eyes widened in disbelief as he checked his phone, seeing the date and numerous missed calls and unread messages.
"It worked?" he muttered, incredulous. He had been able to sleep and hadn't even realized it.
Bucky's amazement lingered as he realized that he had slept for three whole days without even being aware of it. It was a stark contrast to the years of insomnia he had endured, struggling to find even a moment of rest.
The tension that had plagued his body for so long began to ebb away, replaced by a newfound sense of calmness and clarity. He couldn't deny the relief that washed over him, knowing that perhaps, just perhaps, there was hope for him yet.
Then, there was a knock on the door. It was you.
"How is he, doctor? Is he still asleep?" you asked, but you gasped when Bucky's intense gaze met yours.
Was he angry? Did he blame you for making him sleep for three days?
"Y/N, is it?" Bucky inquired.
You responded groggily, "Yes?"
Bucky got on his knees, his right hand resting on his left chest and his left hand reaching for you. He looked at you earnestly and asked, "Will you work for me?"
You were taken aback, as was Dr. Ben. Bucky's unexpected gesture felt like it could lead to a significant misunderstanding, resembling a proposal rather than a job offer.
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strut: in the snow - coriolanus snow.
Characters: Coriolanus Snow x Reader.
Summary: Secrets are discovered, deals bartered and announcements made.
Word Count: 800+
A/N: Curious if this will make people regret their choice on the poll lol.
Your employee file proves to be almost entirely useless to Coriolanus; though the file was thick, the majority of it had been redacted, large chunks of information scrubbed out in thick, black, blocks. He learned part of it was because of Capitol laws that had come into place to prevent the exploitation of child labour; not that that had done anything to protect you.
The other part being your participation in highly classified projects that required the highest levels of security clearance to gain access too, information that wouldn’t be lying around in a regular old employee file in the back of the Archives.
Your file was a mess quite frankly and clearly no one had bothered to do a thorough check of it, only adding in new pieces of information as required.
Almost entirely useless but, still he’d learn three things of high value about you:
You had been in the Capitol for as long as Sejanus and the Plinth family however, judging from the photograph attached to your file, even longer - something told Coriolanus the photograph had been an oversight and should not have been in your file.
You’d been officially employed by the War Department at 15, primarily working in the Capitol’s Experimental Weapons Division under Dr. Volumnia Gaul - doing what? He was unsure.
Four years later, you’d transfer out of the Experimental Weapons Division - almost immediately after Sejanus’s death - remaining in The War Department but now, in the private sector of Munitions and under the tutelage of your uncle; coming out of the shadows and making yourself known to Capitol society - Coriolanus just couldn’t figure out why; there had to be more to it than just him.
Despite the limited and missing pieces of information however, Coriolanus was able to put one important truth together: Strabo Plinth was once notoriously known for his refusal to supply The Capitol with munitions in The First Rebellion. His stance however, had taken an unexpected and dramatic turn as he began to supply The Capitol with military weapons in droves. None knew what caused the sudden change of heart in stubborn Strabo Plinth but many assumed it was the first-class ticket it bought the Plinth family to Capitol Citizenship - given his new discoveries, Coriolanus knew that this was not the case, it had something to do with you.
It's what brings him to the door of Strabo Plinth’s office in the early hours of the morning. Strutting past the older man, the threat you posed to Coriolanus and his claim to the Plinth Munitions Empire; that loomed largely over him was about to grow smaller as he prepared to leverage his newly discovered secrets (and ambiguous claims) about you to his advantage and bring you to heel.
-
Your footsteps are hard and heavy, striking loudly against the marbled floors and echoing throughout the empty university hallway. Most students had gone home for the day and the sun was long gone from the sky - not that you noticed, eyes focused only on the ballistics report in your hands; you had been waiting for it in anxious anticipation all day and finally it confirmed what you already knew to be true.
So, focused however, you don’t notice the figure creeping in the shadows until she makes herself known-
“Trapped in the Snow, she is- trapped in the Snow and she doesn’t even know, she is trapped in the Snow and she doesn’t even know there is nowhere she can…”
Go, you think, but don’t say it aloud.
“Volumnia,” you close the file, not appreciating what sounded to be a veiled threat. “I hope you’re not still upset about me killing the upgrades to your laboratory. I’m sure you can understand why it had to be done.”
She laughs her usually maniacal laugh, quietly, her hands pressed together as if she knows something you don’t.
It unsettles you in ways it had never done before.
- and she doesn’t even know -
You straighten your back, all senses on high alert - something was wrong, something was very wrong.
“Come to kill me like you did my cousin,” you eye her wearily, waiting for her to pull one of her mutts out from one of the many pockets of her clinical looking dress.
She laughs again, louder this time.
“You insult me, Miss Plinth, you know very well that I prefer to take my enemies out in a spectacle,” she tuts at you.
“So then why are you here? You never just show up somewhere, there’s always a reason.”
“There is always a reason,” she repeats with a smile and speaking in rhyme. “Why I only came to congratulate you on the new season… he only just told me a few moments ago, so glad I am, to be one of the first to know - given the role I have played in your life, it seemed only right I congratulate the soon to be wife .”
“Who? What are you…” you trail off, blood draining from your face. “What are you talking about?’
She smiles wide, all her teeth showing.
“Your engagement of course, to Coriolanus-
- and she doesn’t even know she is trapped in the -
Snow.”
-
All fics are my own work - I have not posted my work anywhere else.
Disclaimer: I do not own any characters/places mentioned above.
Do not copy. Do not translate. Do not repost.
bookofbonbon 2023. All rights reserved.
#coriolanus snow#coriolanus snow fanfiction#coriolanus snow x you#coriolanus snow x reader#coryo snow x reader#coryo snow#tom blyth
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Are You Mine?
Pairing: Anthony Lockwood x fem!Reader
Summary: For as long as you could remember you and Lockwood had butted heads. Always getting on each other’s nerves, getting in each other’s ways. You basically hate each other. Right?
Warnings: Canon typical violence, Cursing, Angst (like lowkey)
Word Count: 3.8k
If there existed within the planes of this earth a man more detestable than Anthony Lockwood, you had been lucky enough to avoid making his acquaintance. Though Quill Kipps may have made for a close second, you would rather spend an hour locked in a room alone with the latter than fifteen minutes solo with Lockwood in the kitchen of your own home. It had always been that way, with some minor exceptions and though time managed to cool some of the ever-raging conflict between you, you never quite saw eye to eye.
It was a well-known fact that you and George came as a package deal. The brains and his bodyguard, that’s what Lockwood called you. And for what it was worth, it wasn’t too far from the truth. You were, always had been, a strike first, ask questions later kind of girl. Where George had the perspective and the research to see the world in shades of gray, your situation forced you to see only in black and white. Maybe that’s why you and Lockwood had always hated each other so much. Everything was always an act with him, and you simply didn’t have the time to peel back the layers.
From your very first meeting two weeks after George was fired and you quit to ensure his safety, your chances at friendship had been dismal. The pair of you had been staying in a small, rundown hotel with what little money you could spare from your previous stint of employment, getting by on only one meal a day, a small black coffee passed back and forth and one half of a bagel each. It was miserable to say the least. Needless to say, not many people were looking to hire a fired Fittes employee and his weary sidekick. Then, on the second Tuesday since your loss of employment, George found Lockwood’s ad in the papers and after calling and being informed that you would be given the chance to interview immediately you couldn’t help the small plum of hope that settled deep within your chest at the opportunity. George on the other hand was ecstatic, fantasizing eagerly about his first meal post hiring before even setting foot in the door. That is until it opened, revealing a boy no older than you, outfitted in a freshly pressed suit.
“Mr. Lockwood?” George questioned, as you held back taking him in.
“That’s me, come in.” He signaled you forward with a smile so dazzling you were forced to avert your eyes. Your gaze fixed itself on the ground instead, taking note of the unsullied sill and the doormat, that’s edges aligned themselves perfectly with the jambs on either side. It was pristine. Alarmingly so.
“I take it we’re your first interview of the day?” The boy looked caught off guard by the sound of your voice, but quickly readjusted his features into an easy grin.
“The rest were here yesterday, so you’ve just missed them.” You quirked a doubtful brow but remained silent and followed as he beckoned you forward into what looked to be a small library of sorts.
“Normally I do my interviews one-on-one,” Lockwood spoke, looking back and forth between the two of you as you sat shoulder to shoulder on the couch. You felt George shift uncomfortably to your left.
“Well, we’re a package deal. We come together or not at all.” The phrase weighed on your tongue as it left your mouth. You’d been using it all week and where at first it felt simple, some sort of obvious truth, it was growing harder and harder to use. Especially when George had his parents to rely on and you had, well, nothing.
“Right… Well, the tests don’t work quite as well when you’re both in the room.” George leaned over, squeezing your hand in a signal that all would be well, before standing up to move to the hallway.
“That’s fine, I’ll wait my turn.”
After a series of demonstrations regarding your Talent, easily passed as you’d always had a fairly strong sense of Sight and a long wait in the hall for George’s turn, you were back in the room once more.
“Right then, that’s all I’ve really got for today, so you can be on your way, and I’ll be back to you tomorrow with my decision,” Lockwood smiled, leaning back into his armchair.
“Tomorrow?”
“(Y/N)--” George attempted to place a soothing hand on your shoulder, but you shook him off with ease.
“No. I want to know what is going on here.” Once more Lockwood’s brows arched in surprise, but he kept the remainder of his features under control this time.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not excused. You have an ad in the papers calling yourself an agency, but you’re obviously just some sad excuse of a one-man operation, sorry one-boy operation. I mean do you even have a Supervisor?”
“Well–”
“Oh, never mind that, because worse yet, you’ve been lying to us since the moment we set foot in the door. There haven’t been any other interviews, have there Mr. Lockwood? And you had better tell me the truth because I don’t appreciate having my time wasted.”
“You do realize I’m the one conducting this interview? As in I have the power to employ you, or not.” The boyish facade vanished in only a moment and the clear hint of a threat laced his tone, but it didn’t matter, because you were outraged. Act first, think later, right? Your hand flew without hesitation to the rapier at your side and within a moment it was drawn and swinging directly towards the boy in front of you. Not to harm of course, just to return the threat. But he was fast, faster than you’d realized, and by the time your blade was making its descent, he had risen from his seat to meet it with his own.
“I highly doubt you would like to face the implications of attacking me in my own home.”
“I was just leaving anyways.” You resheathed your sword in one quick motion, and began your warpath towards the door, George calling out after you. He caught your arm just as you reached your destination.
“(Y/N) please. He’s actually considered us, that’s more than we can say for any other place.”
“I am not here to be to entertain the fantasies of some boy who’s decided to play grown up for the day.”
“Come on, this seems real enough, he’s certified and everything. Besides, we’re running out of options, and you know it–”
“We can find another–”
“We can’t. I could always go live with my parents, but it will take years for anyone to hire me after Fittes let me go. And you– Well I doubt any of those places from before will take you now, and it’s not like you have–”
“That’s enough George–” You cut him off as Lockwood appeared in the doorway to the library, a knowing look painted across his features. “We should just go. I’ve caused enough of a mess as is and it’s not like he’s making his decision any time soon.”
Your stature deflated as you reached once more for the exit.
“Actually, I made my decision the moment you both passed my test.” You and George spun around in unison. “You were right,” he said, hanging his head sheepishly, “there were no other interviews.”
“So, what are you saying?” It was George who spoke, but Lockwood kept his eyes fixed on you as he made his answer.
“I’m saying you’ve got the job.”
Since then, you and Lockwood had come to a sort of understanding: as long as George was safe you would do anything he asked. Any job, any task, no matter how dangerous. Still, that didn’t mean you would take his shit either, a fact he picked up on rather quickly, and though he never let you in completely, a trait that went both ways, he told you enough to gain your trust and you returned the favor.
And so it went in the year before Lucy came. You weren’t friends, necessarily, but you knew at the end of the day he had your back, and in return, you had his.
Still, Lucy’s arrival made the waters more murky, as she went about breaking down walls like they were nothing. One night, Lockwood happened upon the pair of you in your shared bedroom, giggling like schoolgirls at a story from your youth, splayed out across the attic bed in identical fits of laughter and though you missed it, Lucy told you in a barely audible whisper that night of how his gaze had lingered on your scrunched up face. How his eyes had softened. How for a moment, the dark circles beneath his eyes seemed to vanish as he stood there in awe. Just a boy looking at a girl. No more, no less.
“You should have seen his smile,” she whispered, her body turned to face yours beneath the covers of the queen.
“Trust me I’ve seen the ‘Lockwood Smile’ more than enough in one year of acquaintanceship,” you huffed out a laugh, rolling your eyes.
“No, no. It wasn’t like that. It was– He looked so–” She sat up then hands flying at the air as though they might grasp the words she was trying to say.
“He almost looked like a kid. So… unburdened. It was pretty disturbing actually.” She broke off with a laugh. “Look I can’t explain it, but it was like he was actually happy and not just using his dashing good looks to get whatever he desires.” You rolled your eyes at the final bit, but tucked the rest away deep within your heart, stashing it beside that single plum of hope from that very first day on his doorstep.
By the following morning the whole thing was nothing more than a distant memory. You stood, pouring yourself a coffee, watching George scribble away at his notes on your current case when, Lockwood slipped by, swiping the mug from right under your nose.
“That was for me.”
“Well, I pay for everything in this house.” He smirked from behind your steaming cup.
“You don’t even like coffee.” Without breaking eye contact, Lockwood took a long sip and physically incapable of suppressing his reaction scrunched his brow in disgust. Then, parting the drink from his lips he smiled.
“Delicious.”
“You’re such an ass, now I’m going to have to brew another pot.” He shrugged off your inconvenience and took the seat beside George at the table. After putting another pot on, you joined the pair, ditching your previous research in favor of etching your new mantra into the tablecloth. Anthony Lockwood is a pompous ass. Anthony Lockwood is a pompous ass.
“What have you got so far George?” Lockwood questioned, setting down the mug in his hand after just one more sip.
“Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a Type One I think, probably a Lurker.”
“Excellent, Luce and I should be able to handle that on our own.”
“Lucy? I’m sat right here.” You glared across the table, daring the coffee thief to disagree with you.
“Besides you know my swordsmanship is superior even if she is basically the Stephen Hawking of ghost hunting.”
“Which is why she needs the practice.”
“And there is a wonderful place for her to do so in the basement. Come on Lockwood, it’s like you won’t let me go anywhere since–”
“Since the last time when you acted like a bumbling idiot and almost got yourself maimed?”
“I had the situation completely under control.”
“You fell down a staircase.”
“You can’t keep me on house arrest for forever.” Lockwood groaned and drew a frustrated hand across his face.
“Fine, but if you screw up like that again I’m locking you in the archives with George myself.” With that he withdrew, coffee abandoned on the table. Dragging it towards your person you let out a deep huff.
“It’s like he doesn’t trust me at all.”
“Or maybe he just cares about you?” George suggested, but quickly averted his eyes following a threatening glare thrown in his direction.
It was late when you reached the house, later than you would have liked. Lockwood had forgotten his rapier, so you’d had to turn back, though you had a suspicion it was some sort of ploy to get you to stay home and let Lucy go instead. Still, you held your ground and remained patient. Well as patient as you could.
“Lockwood, what the fuck. You said this place was ten minutes away, that was a thirty-minute metro ride. Not to mention the fact that that man beside us was trying to look down my shirt the whole way here.” You shivered at the thought but continued to fix Lockwood with a glare as you spoke. Through your anger you almost missed the slight shift in his demeanor at the second comment.
“Well, we’re here now are we not? Besides, it’s only a Type One, we’ll be fine.”
You were not fine. Within only a moment of stepping foot inside you felt the temperature drop dramatically.
“Lockwood–”
“I felt it too.” His face twisted into a more serious expression. Still, you continued inside to further assess the threat. Dropping your bags several feet inside the entryway, you crouched almost immediately to sift through them for the filings when from across the house, a shadowy figure flew by.
“(Y/N)--”
“One second, you did an absolute rubbish job of organizing the kit, I can’t find the filings anywhere.”
“(Y/N), really–”
“I said just a second Lockwood–” But he cut you off by using two fingers to drag your chin upwards, fixing your gaze upon the glowing figure lying in wait across the room.
“That is definitely not a Lurker.”
“No shi–” Lockwood was cut off as the ghost unleashed an unearthly scream, launching itself towards the pair of you. The boy beside you was quick to draw his blade and, tucking yourself into a small ball, you rolled deftly out of the way in an attempt to attack the Type Two from behind. Pulling your rapier from its sheath, you took a defensive position as Lockwood struck at the figure from in front. After causing the ghost to dissipate into thin air his eyes quickly sought yours out.
“We need to locate the Source. Now.” With a shared nod, the pair of you began to advance throughout the remainder of the house. Upon entering the kitchen, something caught your eye immediately.
“Lockwood, look.” You pointed your rapier in the direction of what appeared to be a hand carved cuckoo clock, hung high on the wall. “He was a clockmaker, right? That’s what the file said.”
“That has to be it.” Lockwood nodded in agreement. Moving at a slow and measured pace, you advanced on the clock, before realization hit and you grabbed Lockwood by the arm.
“The net–” You stopped short as a glow began to form in the upper corner of the kitchen.
“Go, I’ll handle it,” Lockwood ordered and with a final concerned glance in the direction of the ever-expanding light, you set off in a run down the hall. Distant clattering sounds informed you that the ghost had made its appearance in the other room, and you pushed forward harder, now at a sprint.
Skidding to a halt, you all but dumped out the entire bag of kit in your effort to locate the silver net, before grasping its cool material and spinning on your heel. Distantly, you thought you heard Lockwood call your name, though any reason as to why was beyond you until your eyes caught on the ghostly figure just before you.
Easily dodging its first attempt to harm you, you slid past its grip and through the doorway to the hall. It followed close behind and as your feet pounded against the wood floor, you could feel the atmosphere around you grow colder by the second. Flying in a panicked fury through the doorway to the kitchen, you just managed to catch Lockwood’s eye before an unseen force threw you against the counter. Your head hit the marble edge. Hard. And in a single moment you crumbled to the ground.
All sound in the room became distant, including the noise of several items on the counter’s smooth surface being dislodged with your impact. And then, in a tone you’d never heard before, Lockwood’s voice cut through all the muffled, pounding noise.
“(Y/N)!” Your head jerked up just in time to watch as the knife peeking out over the counter teetered over the edge. In a single moment of clarity, you angled your body towards the ground, clasping your head with your hands. A piercing pain laced your shoulder and you let out a scream. Distantly, you noticed Lockwood, backed into a corner, swinging wildly with his rapier, fear etched deep within his normally steady features. That was all it took.
Ignoring the sharp pounding of your head, you reached back to dislodge the knife, pulling it from the deep, now severely bleeding wound in your shoulder. It took most of your energy not to call out in pain at the action, but you knew it would only shift the ghost’s attention back to you. Dragging yourself across the floor, you snatched the net from the ground before using the wall to pull yourself up.
Three things happened at once then. Lockwood’s eyes fixed on you from behind the ghost, wide with concern and something else you couldn’t quite place. Simultaneously, your hand made contact with the clock, instantly alerting the ghost to your presence. Finally, the Type Two turned on you.
In one fell movement, you wrenched the clock from the wall, just as the ghost launched itself in your direction and covered it with the net, the creature disappearing mere inches from your face. Lockwood took a breath. It was mesmerizing, though you couldn’t understand why, that moment of quiet. And then you began to sway.
“Lock–” But the name died in your throat as you began your descent towards the cold linoleum floor. You were out before you hit the ground, though not before you felt the comfort of two arms as they wrapped themselves around you, breaking your fall.
It had been two weeks and Lockwood could still barely look at you. By the time you awoke in the hospital, he was gone, though George and Lucy had stayed, tangled up with you in the hospital bed, a mess of sleeping limbs. Once they awoke, you questioned the pair on the absence.
“Where’s Lockwood?”
“Said he was too busy to wait for you to wake up,” mumbled George bitterly, but Lucy only chided the other boy.
“He was worried sick about you, really. It’s just, well you know. He’s Lockwood.” You smiled at Lucy’s words, but a seed of disappointment planted itself firmly in your gut.
Your arrival back at 35 Portland Row was not much better. Lockwood remained hidden away in the library as Lucy and George helped you through the door.
And so, the first week continued. Wordless breakfasts in the kitchen, cold greetings in the hall. One time after you accidentally grazed his side in passing, he physically flinched away.
On the eleventh day, you found yourself near tears with the behavior.
“I think he hates me, Lucy.”
“Lockwood could never hate you.”
It was day twelve of Lockwood’s one-sided standoff when you caught him in the kitchen alone near two in the morning.
“Could you make me a cup?” You’d questioned, coming up behind him to search the cupboard for some bread as he poured himself a cup of tea. Nothing. Not even a glance.
“Come on Lockwood, it’s been days, can you just drop it? I’m fine.” Still no response. No matter. You’d always known how to get a rise out of Anthony Lockwood.
Waiting until he’d set the kettle down to reach for some sugar, you moved quickly, sandwiching yourself between the counter and the boy. For the first time in days, his eyes met yours, though he dismissed the moment with a quick huff and reached once more for the cabinet above your head. You gave him a shove.
“Fuck you Lockwood, talk to me.” His eyes glinted in a warning, but he made no effort to speak. He didn’t move a muscle. You shoved him harder.
“Talk to me you prick.” He caught your wrists in his hands as you pulled back for another shove and gripped them tightly.
“Say something!” As you struggled against him to give one final push, your shoulder caught at an odd angle and the searing pain from your still healing wound nearly sent you crumpling to the ground. Nearly. As you began to curl in on yourself, Lockwood removed his hands from your wrists and caught you by the waist.
“You’re going to reopen the gash on your shoulder.” He chided, his tone cold, but his arms continued to hold you in place.
“I know that you hate me. And that’s fine. But this– The silence, it’s too much… It hurts too much.”
“You’re an idiot. You acted recklessly and without forethought. You could have died. You could have gotten yourself killed–”
“I was just–”
“I’m not finished,” he continued, his hold on you tightening, “you jeopardized the entire mission with your actions–”
“I saved your life!”
“I had it under control–”
“Oh, like I did with the staircase?”
“I should never have brought you.”
“Because you hate me? Yeah, I know.”
“Because you are nothing but a distraction.” You froze. Body rigid in his hold. He pushed on.
“Because all I could think about the entire time we were in that house was you. If you were safe, if you were– if you were alive.” One of Lockwood’s hands traveled carefully from your waist to your cheek.
“It’s all I’ve been able to think about since the staircase. It’s why I couldn’t bear to go on any missions with you, it’s why I nearly made you George’s bloody research assistant, it’s why– it’s why I nearly fell apart when I watched you hit that oven– when I saw that knife about too–”
You could hear his breaths becoming labored and his grip tightened once more as his eyes clouded with the anxiety of distant memories.
“Hey. I’m fine.” You reassured him, bringing a hand up to caress his face. “I’m okay, really.”
“I think I’m– I care about you, so much it hurts.”
And there it was, the boyish face Lucy had seen that night in the attic. Young and afraid. Completely unguarded. You really couldn’t help kissing him.
Bunching the fabric of his shirt in your hand, you pulled his lips down to meet yours, and though surprise initially stilled his mouth, he quickly pulled you closer, kissing deeper, pressing forward to meet you. His hand curled gently in your hair, his other arm pulling you closer, closer, as though if he loosened his grip, you would simply slip away. You only pulled back to catch your breath though you could barely convince yourself to do that much as his lips followed after yours, looking to meet again.
“I love you too Anthony Lockwood.”
#anthony lockwood#lockwood#lockwood and co#anthony lockwood x reader#lockwood x reader#lockwood and co fanfiction#anthony lockwood fanfiction#lockwood and co netflix#x reader
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After a historic 6 week strike, the Temple University Graduate Students Association - the first graduate worker union in Pennsylvania - has WON.
When we went out on January 31st, I don’t think any of us thought that we would end up here. This was a long and arduous process that could never have been accomplished without everyone involved—and I do mean everyone.
Numerous news outlets have been reporting throughout the whole strike, but I’d like to run through what, exactly, it is we’ve done.
After well over a year of negotiations (we went to the table in January of 2022 after the administration delayed responding to our RFIs for months) and more than a year without a contract (it expired on February 15, 2022), we were stuck with an administrative team whose position was, resolutely, “we are happy with the contract as it is.” Their belief was that teaching and research assistants, who facilitate—at a conservative estimate—approximately one-third of all instructional work here on campus were “not a core function of the university.” Pay was structured around a tier-based system that generated inequity as part of its structure which ultimately manifested as race and gender based wage gaps, and that pay averaged out between 19k and 20k for the majority of our bargaining unit. We had only five days of parental leave in the event of childbirth. To cover a single dependent on the dependent healthcare plan required an individual to spend approximately 30% of their paycheck. There had been no substantive raises or adjustments for the cost of living since our first contract as a union.
During the strike, Temple university cut our healthcare and revoked tuition remission, attempting to break us through punitive bills and threats. They quite literally threatened peoples’ lives in addition to their livelihoods. International students were threatened for daring to exercise the rights they have as visa holders to engage in protected concerted activity. They attempted to break our will and our organization.
They failed. We didn’t.
On Monday, voting on a second tentative agreement closed. The contract negotiations team and the executive board unanimously endorsed that TA. It passed at an overwhelming 98% vote among our members. That TA, which will now become our contract, did the following:
Eliminated the tier system completely
Brought our pay up to 24k at the beginning of our contract, reaching pay of 27k by its end in 2026
Introduced 25% dependent healthcare coverage which, in addition to the pay raises, lowers the burden of single dependent care to just about 18% of one’s paycheck instead of 30%
Increased parental leave to 21 days
While this contract is not the most perfect contract, it is one of the largest single contract wins in recent history. It signifies an incredible amount of organizing power and it opens the door for future negotiations that will make TUGSA even stronger.
But more importantly, this strike and this contract are incontrovertible proof that graduate worker unions can win. They are proof that we can do it, and that administrations cannot expect to silence us through retaliation. We are stronger than them.
The fight doesn’t end here. The union of graduate workers, faculty, postdocs and more at Rutgers University has passed their strike authorization vote. The graduate workers at Duke University are fighting for their right to be recognized as employees, and that fight will soon be passed up through the nation to challenge rulings made at the National Labor Relations Board. Graduate workers at other universities in Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia area are moving to unionize. TUGSA continues to organize—our next contract negotiations will begin in less than two and a half years. Now is the time to support graduate workers. We cannot backslide. We have to fight for each other, because when we fight, we win.
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ceo alpha!eren x omega!reader because why not
content: ~1.7k word count oops. fem!reader, omegaverse and related themes (heat/rut, slick, knotting, pheromones, etc), breeding, mentions of semi-public sex, somnophilia, pet names, spitting, dirty talk, rough sex, explicit sexual content, explicit language. reader discretion advised 18+ only
Alpha!Eren who would have you join him at work, only on his most strenuous days. The days when the hands of the clock must have been dipped in molasses, and the minutes ticked by more like hours. Days drawn out by meeting after meeting, each somehow more pointless than the last. And God forbid anyone try to make a decision without his input for once in their pathetic lives.
You would trot your way up to his office, skipping past the cute little cubicles that looked pitiful in comparison to your closet, with one purpose and one purpose only.
It didn't take a genius to figure out the reason for your visits. A thin door could never suppress your heady pheromones; they billowed from the gap beneath it. But no one ever batted an eye. They never questioned it when they wouldn't see you again until evening, toted out beneath their boss's arm, slightly disheveled as you clung to him with a dainty hand wrapped around the bend in his elbow. You'd reek of Eren, having been scent-marked by him until the fumes were as choke-worthy as smoke. No one dared to take a second look. Smug bastard or not, his employees were smart enough to not interfere with his more personal affairs.
Alpha!Eren whose scent was always more alluring when vexed. It was an authoritative, commanding scent. Not a twinge at the tip of your nose but as robust as a deep breath of air and just as weighty at the bottom of your lungs. Mint as fresh as if you had tossed the leaf straight into your mouth and ground it with your molars, warmed by the intoxicating scent of stiff rum. It sedated you into this delirious and euphoric little thing. Utterly passive, like the good omega you were. You'd spend the workday at his side—and on his lap and beneath him and on top of him. Wherever he wanted you, you were always more than eager to oblige.
You perched all pretty atop his lap was his favorite, especially when you would straddle his thigh. You'd roll your hips against the ungiving muscle until he'd decidedly flip you around, cowgirl, and bounce you on his cock. It only took one hand to send an email.
But most of the time, between getting yourself off (when allowed) and getting Eren off, you'd spend the afternoon curled up under his desk in adoration, a touch-starved kitten mewling at his feet. He was such a busy man, after all. You'd nuzzle against the tightening crotch of his pants, waiting with a watering mouth for permission to remove them. Only then would you work off his belt and unzip his slacks to lap at his cock through his boxers. He'd use your mouth as his toy, and if you made a mess, you were always sure to lick it clean before it could stain.
Alpha!Eren who, upon meeting you, knew he could never go without you again. Never in his life had he experienced such a feeling. One he could only describe as a lightning strike, not from the sky but from blooming from some deep, primal part of him. Some inborn urge to impress you, to court and provide for you—to have you. You were halfway his already, undeniably so as your scent would flare every time he leaned into you. A delectable aroma of blackberries, their tartness lulled by sugared maple, swirling around him in a pacifying mist. What a wonderful cocktail the two of you would create.
Alpha!Eren who, at best, was described as insolent and, at worst, labeled an asshole, was anything but when it came to you. Any request was yours so long as you softened him up, which never took much. It made him happy to see you giggly and bounding around, so why wouldn't he go and give you whatever you pleased? He more than had the means to, and you more than deserved it. You were his mate, his perfect one at that. Truly, you must have been put on this planet just for him, so he might as well gift you the world in return.
Which was the very reason why he already knew the answer to your next request the moment he walked through the front door.
Eren was running late that night, returning home well past dark to find the couch cushions in disarray. Before he could even pull the breath to call for you, it hitched in his throat.
You were in heat. It'd been a while since that happened.
Your pheromones were tenfold thanks to it, this sharp and thickly sweet scent he could practically taste on the back of his tongue.
Work had occupied more of his week than he would have liked, but even so, he should have seen this coming. Just last night, you were restless in your sleep, wiggling and murmuring to yourself. He checked to see if you were awake only to discover how invitingly warm, how soft, you felt beneath his palm. He was hard instantly, bringing him to snake an arm around you, holding you there to fuck his cock between your slick thighs. Of course, he was too far gone at that point to question it.
You emerged from the bedroom with pillows stuffed beneath your arms, wearing one of his shirts—not a fresh one, but one you had undoubtedly dug out from the bottom of the hamper. Your figure was blurred by the oversized tee, but that didn't stop his fantasies from running rampant.
Eren watched you keenly as you added the pillows to the growing pile in front of the fireplace. You bent over to fluff, and he could plainly see how soaked your panties were. He asked you then if you had stopped taking your heat blockers.
The bashful face you made at him said enough. And when you admitted you did it because you wanted to get pregnant, Eren couldn't hide how his breathing went uneven.
He approached you, dipping his chin and taking yours between two fingers. He angled you to meet his eye and tried his best to keep his expression doting, docile, but it was near-impossible with the way you stared back at him. Your eyes were still alert, pupils blown and flickering across his face, but the rest of you looked softer, somehow. Your lips were poutier, begging to be bitten, and you had this dreamy look on your face.
"My pretty girl," Eren whispered, a low growl lurking beneath his words.
You melted into his grasp, his mesmeric pheromones coiling around you, sedating you. It was euphoric, to finally bask in your alpha's presence after a day spent alone, but it wasn't enough. Every part of your body pulsed hotly in response to his touch, waiting for him to finally have you.
And he would. Fuck, he was aching to. He needed you so terribly he couldn't be upset that you stopped taking your blockers without warning, even if it meant triggering his own rut.
Oh, well. He figured he could use a few days away from the office.
Eren swiped his thumb over your bottom lip.
"You want me to give you a baby?" His fingers traced down the front of your throat, skimming lower until they were between your legs. He pushed your underwear aside, cupping a hand over you in ownership. "Breed this perfect pussy?"
You bobbled your head in a nod, clenching your thighs around his hand in hopes he'd do something more than teasingly play with your slick for his own enjoyment.
"Whatever you want," Eren pecked the tip of your nose, and you knew it was the gentlest he planned on being with you, "it's yours."
Alpha!Eren whose strength didn't falter as he scooped you into his arms and whisked you off to bed. Legs spread with him in between, you locked your ankles against the small of his back. You pressed your body to his, hopelessly grinding your clothed pussy against his stomach on instinct, searching for any sort of release as you made a mess of his button-down.
There you were, splayed across the bed, panting, and he hadn't even touched you yet, not the way you needed him to. He appraised the sight below him, from the beads of sweat decorating your hairline to your legs wilted to either side, with this unyielding sort of look on his face, the look of hunger.
Eren thoughtlessly tore at your underwear, kissing and sucking and biting along your thighs until he closed his mouth over your pussy. It didn't take long for him to lick you to your first orgasm. You were more sensitive in this state, so submissive and dedicated, just as your omega nature intended.
The waves of your orgasm paled and swelled, leaving you in a rose-colored haze as Eren sat upright.
"How sweet you are. Let me give you a taste."
Before he could grab ahold of your face and open your mouth for you, you beat him to it. You let your jaw fall slack, your tongue lolling out to eagerly accept the string of saliva connecting you to him before he kissed it into your mouth.
What little restraint he had was clouded by your heavenly scent, cloying at his every sense. He hastily undid his belt, then the button and zipper to his pants, but his darkened eyes never left you.
You took his pink-tinged cheeks between your hands, purring, "I'm here," as you peppered open-mouthed kisses along the feverish skin of his neck.
You moved to present yourself to your alpha, but he flipped you onto your hands and knees instead. He kicked apart your legs and thrusted inside you heedlessly, like a beast freed from his leash.
You whined, tangled somewhere in the knot where pain met pleasure, as you pushed back against him.
"I know, baby. I know," he said—not consoled, because there wasn't an ounce of reassurance behind it.
Alpha!Eren who bit your name into the back of your neck, on the bonding scar behind your ear. Who knotted you in prone bone because your arms and legs were too shaky by the time he was finished with you.
He consumed you, every part of you. He bathed you in feel-good pheromones, his weight pinning your sweat-sheened body to the bed. He nuzzled against the side of your face, kissing your cheek as he asked if you were okay.
You were, your body was made for this. And once you were no longer locked together, you knew you'd be ready for another round. There was no chance Eren wouldn't knock you up this heat because whatever you wanted, it was yours.
#cw omegaverse#alpha!eren#eren x reader#eren yeager x reader#eren jaeger x reader#divider by @/saradika-graphics
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