#they had connections and common interests and could talk to each other | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bbyseok · 13 days

Text

at first sight? — GOJO SATORU

pairing: gojo satoru x gn!reader

word count: 10k (idek i was possessed)

banner by @/bbyseok , dividers by @/bunnysrph !!

a/n: um hi. its finally here ! thanks to all who liked the teaser, this is my first jjk/gojo fic ever but i really think everyone needs some comfort after jjk chap 261.. and fuck u gege !!

content: soulmate au, gender neutral reader, minimal use of they/them pronouns for reader but gender is not specified, sorcerer reader, nicknames ‘sweetheart’, ‘pretty’, ‘baby’, fluff, mild angst with a happy ending, slowburn??, several pov switches, suggestive/implied nsfw at the end but nothing explicit, brief swearing/explicit language, brief violence/injuries, alcohol consumption, reader gets mildly drunk but nothing else, implied satosugu as past soulmates: can be interpreted as either romantic or platonic, fic takes place after jjk 0 but before the show starts

analysis: this is a world filled not only with curses, but soulmates—in which you know someone is your soulmate when you first make eye contact with them. but for your case, things can get a bit complicated when someone is wearing a blindfold.

here, in this universe, you can tell that someone is your soulmate by simply looking at them. so with that, the saying of “love at first sight” is actually pretty accurate here. you see them for the very first time and barely know the person and yet, somehow, they’re the one you’re destined to be with.

with that, you’d think it’d be pretty common for two random people to run into each other while crossing the street or something and bam! suddenly you’ve found the supposed love of your life!

and you? well, for you, that hasn’t happened yet.

to be fair, it’s not like you’re actively trying to look for your soulmate. handling curses as a jujutsu sorcerer is difficult enough. (maybe you’ll run into them one day after saving them from a curse or something. how romantic!)

it’s better to leave it up to fate. it’s fate who decided your pairing anyway, right?

your transfer to jujutsu tech had been fairly smooth. after being stationed in kyoto for a while, tokyo was a nice change of pace.

coincidentally, you had been out of the country during the incident known as the night parade of a hundred demons. a scary event that proved the threat of curse users to be formidable.

because of that, your decision to transfer to tokyo seemed like the right thing to do. and so far, it’s been decent.

it’s a nice change of scenery. the students are aspiring; while maki and megumi aren’t the friendliest, they’re warming up to you. toge and panda are gradually improving.

nanami’s pessimistic outlook on jujutsu society and shoko’s overall unenthusiastic demeanor are certainly interesting for the most part, but your coworkers are pleasant to be around.

well. except for one.

gojo satoru knows that you are his soulmate. he has indeed known this fact right from the very start, ever since your first meeting.

even with his blindfold on, he could see your own eyes before him. his six eyes can see everything. the thing is.. he didn’t know he could have another soulmate.

his situation with geto suguru is something he doesn’t talk about with anyone. maybe shoko at times, but even then, it’s rare. it’s not that he doesn’t want to, but it’s pretty hard to talk about.

after suguru defected, gojo could still obviously feel their bond. even though they were no longer together as the strongest duo, did it really matter when their souls were still connected to one another? it was a factor that played in avoiding (and perhaps meeting up with) each other as the years went by.

satoru felt their bond die that day after the events with okkotsu and rika. and it had frightened him. that lingering presence of the bond was no longer there.

so imagine his surprise when he sees you.

a new sorcerer in kyoto, now transferred to tokyo. normally, gojo doesn’t seek out the new recruits, but yaga had dragged him over regardless. besides, he might as well get to know his possible assistant teacher that would be helping him out with the new first years.

“i guess i can check out some new faces,” he relented with a sigh, adjusting his blindfold and looking to the side as yaga’s steps slowed as they approached you.

gojo rolled his eyes–not that you’d see it anyway–as yaga introduced you with your name and your sorcerer grade. he stopped to stand next to the principal.

you extended your hand to offer a handshake, and gojo finally turned his head.

that feeling as his gaze fell upon yours beneath the blindfold was familiar—frighteningly so—and unfamiliar at the same time. as if he could breathe for the first time in ages. your eyes are unaware, but they’re so revealing to him.

satoru stuttered in his movements, reluctantly taking your hand. the skin that touched yours felt like it was on fire. he briefly held on to see if you felt it too.

but you simply smiled up at him.

“it’s nice to meet you, gojo,” you said, blissfully unaware of the revelation currently dawning on the man before you and the turmoil it brought as he abruptly retracted his arm back.

gojo stiffened. he merely offered a curt nod before turning on heel and walking away briskly. he could faintly hear yaga protest about his sudden departure before apologizing to you hastily. satoru shook his head.

how was this be possible? how could the universe give him two soulmates? he didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen. he wondered if there had been a similar occurrence before.

gojo couldn’t help but feel nauseous. was this the world playing some sort of sick, cruel joke on him? or was it perhaps giving him a second chance?

and truthfully, it wasn’t like gojo even wanted another soulmate. not after what he had been through with suguru. he hadn’t given it much thought.

was it really worth it?

what if he couldn’t protect you too?

so satoru had decided on one thing that day: the blindfold stays on. concealing his eyes from the world not only for him, but for your sake too. he was certain in his choice; he would never tell you the truth.

as far as you were concerned, you haven’t met your soulmate yet.

and never will.

your first meeting with gojo wasn’t exactly unpleasant, but it wasn’t something you could describe as good either. you’ve been left with the impression that he’s cocky and indifferent.

and that he doesn’t like you.

it’s been around.. two? three weeks? it’s been a while since your encounter with the white-haired sorcerer, and you’ve only seen a few glimpses of him here and there on campus.

okay, he doesn’t display any outright mean or ill intention towards you. on the very rare times the two of you do interact, he is obviously curt and clipped. seems like he’s deemed you worthy of the only either nods or one word responses.

you’ve yet to actually participate in a lesson or mission with gojo, but you prefer it that way. providing individual training and advice for the upcoming second years has been going great. at this point, you’re sure it’d only be awkward.

besides, the strongest sorcerer alive doesn’t necessarily need assistance in dealing with curses after all. that much is understandable.

you’re currently in the teachers’ lounge room with nanami. even though he isn’t actually a teacher, he pays visits sometimes. he’s good company anyway.

“it’s nice to hear that you’re settling in well,” the blonde says with a nod. he loosens his necktie absentmindedly as he adjusts the newspaper in his lap. “especially with that gojo around. he can be a pain in the ass sometimes.”

you frown at the mention of the sorcerer, crossing your arms. you’re seated across from nanami, watching him idly look through the newspaper.

“oh, well, actually, he isn’t too much trouble. for me, at least,” you reply, brows furrowing, “he barely talks to me.” (in fact, he seems to avoid you like you’re carrying the plague or something.)

nanami looks up, raising a brow. “huh. you should be grateful then.” he then hums, “but maybe that’ll change once there’s actually new first year students to teach. you both are assigned to them after all.”

you lean back in your seat, your shoulders committing to a halfhearted shrug. “maybe. it’s not like i never did anything bad to him though..”

nanami sighs gruffly. “don’t think about it too much.” before he can continue, there’s the sound of footsteps. nanami brings his newspaper back up, muttering, “speak of the devil.”

“nanamiiii!” gojo’s voice sounds from around the corner. it almost startles you how lively he sounds. you realize you’ve never actually heard or seen how he acts without you around.

nanami doesn’t respond, rolling his eyes.

gojo strolls in enthusiastically, blindfold on. “heyy, nanami, we should-” he cuts off when he presumably sees you, falling quiet and stopping short.

you blink, a bit hurt. does he dislike you that much? but you don’t let it show, resorting to greeting him politely like you usually do when you occasionally pass each other.

“good afternoon, gojo,” you muse, offering a little wave.

nanami notices his reaction too, but doesn’t comment on it. he continues to ignore the sorcerer’s presence in fact, eyes still roaming over the newspaper.

gojo clears his throat and resumes his pace. “afternoon,” he responds, focusing his attention back on nanami. he reaches the two of you, giving you no further acknowledgment.

you don’t care if he can see you looking at him, you opt to stare at the black blindfold covering his face. you have a hunch that he can see, or at least feel, you staring at him.

“can i borrow you for a sec, nanami?”

nanami emits an exasperated sigh, but stands nonetheless to follow gojo out of the room for some discussion not meant for your ears apparently, leaving you alone with your thoughts.

do you make gojo uncomfortable? you don’t know what you could’ve possibly done so though. from what you’ve heard from the others, he can be rather eccentric and overbearing.

does he just not like you? perhaps he views you as inferior, too below his level and power to actually converse with you. while it seems a bit of a stretch, you’re sure it’s not out of the possibility also based on what you’ve heard about him from others.

your frown returns. before you can dwell on it any longer, nanami comes back into the room. “well, i certainly see what you mean from what you said about gojo earlier,” he announces.

his words do nothing to falter your frown. “right.” you then shrug once more, “it’s okay. it’s just a bit.. strange.” you then shake your head, trying to be a bit optimistic. “but also like you said earlier, that might change! who knows?”

who knows, indeed.

megumi tucks the cursed tools inside their designated box and closes the lid. he moves on to the next one right as gojo enters the shed, beaming a smile.

“hey, megumi. you almost done wrapping up things here?” satoru asks, undoing his blindfold naturally. there’s a pair of glasses in his hand ready for use.

the teen nods. they had used a few cursed tools during training session today, and the storage did need a bit of tidying up. “almost done.”

satoru makes a noise of approval as he places his glasses on. “great! do you need help setting up your dorm room?” he looks excited at the idea, still grinning.

meanwhile, megumi looks disinterested at his offer. “no thanks. i think it’ll be easy enough. it’s not like i’m decorating it anyway.”

“oh, boo.” but gojo doesn’t insist on it any further. he actually falls strangely quiet, which causes megumi to glance at him curiously.

his teacher looks.. distraught. it’s hard to actually tell, but he seems to be looking at the floor, maybe lost in thought. before megumi can say anything, gojo’s expression changes and he starts talking again.

“you’re, uh, with the new teacher for tomorrow,” gojo then informs. he shoves his hands into his pockets and kicks at the floor absentmindedly. (he’s fidgeting. subtly.) “it’ll just be you two, i think, on a small mission. so they can get used to actually working with students on field. it’ll be good for the both of you.”

megumi nods. he tilts his head afterward. “you can say their name, you know. it won’t kill you,” he says a bit pointedly, “and they’re not technically new anymore. it has been a few weeks now since they’ve joined the school.”

“right, right.” megumi’s face scrunches up as gojo’s hand comes down to ruffle his hair gently. (a habit that has not died since his younger days.) “whatever you say, megumi.”

despite your minimal interactions and his rather closed off demeanor, megumi is actually one of your favorite students. (and yeah, maybe you shouldn’t have favorites, but oh well.)

your mission with megumi, or rather, the mission you’ve been assigned to supervise the student on, is rather simple.

there’s been reports of a low grade curse roaming the premises of a supermarket neighboring a nearby cemetery, so megumi is to obviously exorcise it under your watch. the area has been closed off with a small veil. megumi had decided to check the parking lot first for any lingering traces, so here you are.

“i think we’re good here,” the teenager confirms as his demon dogs return to his feet, seemingly in the clear. you nod and let him lead the way towards the inside of the store.

as the two of you begin to walk down each aisle with one of the demon dogs trailing behind, megumi says your name in an inquisitive tone. “what do you think of gojo-sensei?”

the sudden question has you blinking in surprise. your eyes scan megumi as you both continue to trek down the aisle. “what makes you ask?”

“no reason.” he doesn’t meet your gaze.

you bite down on your lip in contemplation. you’re not sure what brings this question to mind for him, but you’re willing to indulge him for now. “well.. i think he’s.. alright.” you pause. “as a sorcerer, i admire his strength. though, i think a lot of people think that obviously.”

“and as a person?” megumi presses, turning to investigate the next aisle. he still doesn’t glance over to you, still preoccupied with searching for the curse.

(hell, for a teenager, he sure is perceptive.)

you choose your words carefully, thinking it over with a brief pause.

“i’ll admit, i don’t think i know him well enough to be sure. as a person, i think he’s.. self-centered and rude. sometimes, i see him act very carefree in a way. he’s.. obscure, i guess.” you clear your throat and reiterate, “but again, i don’t really... know him.”

you can see megumi go over your words silently. the quiet continues. the conversation seems to be dying, but it doesn’t matter when monstrous gurgling sounds up ahead.

a curse appears in front of you, the shelving of the aisles toppling over as it gargles some unintelligible roar. megumi doesn’t hesitate, using his technique to summon his demon dogs once more to swiftly engage in combat.

the fight is easily handled in three minutes top. (they weren’t kidding when they said it’d be easy.)

after the commotion has settled, you allow megumi to do one more check up around the store just in case. just as you are prepared to exit and bring down the veil, you decide it’s your turn to ask him now.

“and what about you, megumi?” you inquire lightly, giving one of the demon dogs a few head pats for their good work. “what exactly do you think of gojo?”

megumi hums.

“i agree with most of what you said actually,” he answers honestly, causing you to chuckle in amusement. the teenager tilts his head and finally looks at you. “but i also think he’s kind when he wants to be.”

his frontward honesty surprises you once more. this kid sure is something. you believe his words; he has no reason to lie to you, especially about gojo of all things. still, you poke at him teasingly, “really now?”

you don’t really expect him to answer, but then megumi says in a mumble so quiet that you nearly miss it.

“well, he did sort of raise me after all.”

“i just don’t think he likes me, shoko,” you puff out a sigh, watching as she puffs out smoke. “i’ve seen the way he is around other people, and he’s not like that with me.”

she’s on break right now, so you thought you could talk to her about a certain blindfolded sorcerer who’s been plaguing your thoughts.

it’s interesting to hear about the different sides of gojo satoru from your peers. from nanami, you’ve learned that he’s pretentious and troublesome. from megumi, that he can be caring in his own way. and shoko?

“he’s crazy.” the doctor waves her cigarette at you with a shrug of her shoulders. “but it beats me on why he doesn’t particularly like you.”

you groan, slouching in one of the chairs set up in the infirmary. “maybe i should’ve stayed in kyoto,” you mumble. it’s more of a joke than anything; your.. weird terms with gojo isn’t enough to actually deter you.

but shoko puts the cigarette back to her lips and tilts her head. “want me to ask him about it?”

you straighten your posture abruptly and look at her. “what? you don’t have to. he might think i asked you to or something.”

she shrugs again. “your call.”

your brows furrow. “maybe we just got off on the wrong foot somehow. even though all i did was shake his hand.” you snort. “maybe i can get him something to break the ice. what does he like?”

shoko doesn’t even hesitate. “sweets. he likes his sweets.”

oh. oh, okay! you blink and nod. who would’ve thought? the strongest sorcerer in the world likes sweets. “i can handle sweets.”

you, in fact, cannot handle sweets.

why are there so many? you’re at a local bakery staring at the rows and rows of pastries they have on display, looking as if you’re trying the decipher the world’s hardest math problem.

shoko never specified what kind of sweets he liked during your conversation with her a couple days ago. cake? ice cream? cookies? you might as well buy the whole damn store at this point with your luck. the last thing you want is to buy him something he won’t actually eat.

“oh, fuck it,” you mutter and finally decide on a small piece of cake. it happens to be your favorite kind of cake, but oh well. if he doesn’t like it, he doesn’t like it! it’s the thought that matters anyway, right?

as you exit the shop with your newly acquired dessert, you try to devise a way to give it to him. do you just.. hand it to him? or maybe it’ll be better to leave it in his office. or have shoko give it to him!

ughh, who knew how hard it’d be to give a man a cake? okay, okay. you’ll simply give it to him in person since he’ll know it’s directly from you. problem solved.

well, actually, problem is not solved. how are you supposed to give the cake to gojo in person when you have absolutely no clue where he is right now? after returning to the school, he’s no where to be found, so you eventually turn to yaga for help.

“he’s on a mission where??”

you stare at yaga with wide eyes as he names some city so far away you’re pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to find an affordable ride to get you there in a reasonable amount of time.

“oh, alright,” you say, feeling a little disappointed. the cake suddenly feels a little too big and heavy in your hands.

the principal’s gaze flickers down to your little intended treat for his former student. “these kinds of missions are no trouble for satoru. i’m sure he’ll be back soon, so you can leave that in his office.”

you brighten up at that and nod. “thank you, yaga.” you then dismiss yourself with a polite bow after he informs you where gojo’s office is exactly, and you start to make your way there.

it’s only a few minutes until you get there. you open the door and catch sight of a desk. it looks rather plain, which is understandable since it doesn’t seem like he uses this space often. (though, there is a chair that looks more expensive than your entire rent.)

either way, you walk inside and set the container down on the desk with a small sigh. hopefully the gesture is appreciated! if he really does have a sweet tooth like shoko says, you’re not sure why he’d turn it down. again, you can only hope.

you sigh again and turn to leave when the sound of the door creaking open sounds again. you freeze in place when it swings out fully, revealing the very man you were thinking about.

(yaga was not kidding when he said that gojo finishes his missions pretty fast.)

gojo perks up at the sight of you in his office, and even with his blindfold on, you can tell he’s got a surprised look on his face. “can i help you.. or do you have a reason on why you’re snooping around in my office?” he inquires, walking in.

while not evidently hostile, his appearance and words suddenly have you anxious. “oh, well, i-’’ you want to mentally smack yourself for fumbling over your words. “i’m sorry for intruding. i, uh, just wanted to leave you a little something.”

it’s only then does gojo look past you and makes a small noise. you can’t really decipher it, but you watch as he walks by you to open the small packaging to see the slice of cake meant for him.

and when he makes a small noise again, you can tell it’s one of delight. “you got me.. cake?” he asks, looking to you again questioningly.

“i did,” you clarify with a small nod, summoning a small smile and rubbing the back of your neck a bit sheepishly, “i didn’t know what kind of sweet you would like, so i just ended up choosing my favorite cake. um, i really hope you don’t mind the flavor, but if you don’t you really don’t have to eat it so-”

“kikufuku.”

you stare at him, confused. “what?”

“kikufuku,” satoru reiterates, and it’s his turn to smile. (it nearly catches you off guard because although very small, it’s pretty.) “s’my favorite. or.. one of my favorite sweets. crepes are good too.”

his newfound friendliness has you smiling a bit more evidently, pleased that this interaction is your most pleasant one with him so far in the weeks you’ve been here. “oh, okay,” you chuckle, “noted.”

gojo opens the container and unwraps the plastic fork that had came with it. he takes a bite of the cake and hums in approval. “can see why it’s your favorite. it’s not bad.”

your face lightens up at that. “oh, i’m glad.”

he hums, popping another slice of cake into his mouth. “any particular reason on why you’ve decided to give me cake, if i may ask?”

you falter once more, now nervous in telling that you’re hoping to.. resolve this one-sided tension with you. ultimately, you decide to be straightforward, inhaling deeply and looking at him. (well, his blindfold.)

“well, i’m not an idiot, gojo. you haven’t exactly been.. friendly to me. i’m not trying to win you over or anything, but if we’re going to work together with the first year students, consider this a gift for a truce. or um, a peace offering so we can act somewhat decent with each other.”

the white-haired sorcerer falls silent at your confrontation. you’re half expecting him to brush you off and walk out of the room entirely. especially since he seems to have stiffen up (similarly to the way when you first met, you had noticed).

he seems to contemplate for a bit. you don’t know where he’s looking at; the floor, the cake in his hands, you? it’s suddenly nerve-wracking.

“you’re right,” he finally speaks up, “i.. i’m sorry for my previous behavior towards you. can we start over?” he places the cake aside and walks back over to you to hold out his hand.

“gojo satoru.”

your eyes flicker to his blindfold to his hand, then back to where his eyes are hidden underneath. the rumored powerful and breaktaking six eyes concealed from your ever so curious sight.

against your better judgment, you repeat your name and take his hand.

“it’s nice to meet you, gojo.”

your new relationship with gojo is steadily becoming better. he’s no longer curt with you, and actually engages in conversations even with no other people around.

though, you can’t help but feel like he’d avoiding looking at you for some reason. which is pretty far off since you can’t technically see where he’s looking, but it’s a hunch you have nonetheless.

but hey, it’s progress, progress that you’re somewhat happy about.

like now, as satoru leans over your shoulder to peer at the clipboard in your hands. you’ve just finished wrapping up a lesson with the soon-to-be second years out on the field.

“ooh, what’s on the agenda for tomorrow, teach?” he pries.

“assistant teach,” you remind him teasingly, going over the contents of the clipboard. “more sparring. oh, and the registration for that new first year.”

“the one from the countryside?” gojo hums.

you nod. “yep. a.. kugasaki nobara. we won’t actually get to meet her, but arrangements for her arrival are getting finalized.”

“oh, boo. s’just more paperwork,” the sorcerer beside you whines, kicking at the grass.

“at least megumi isn’t the only one now,” you point out and finally turn to him.

just as you expected, satoru glances away to look at panda and toge finishing up. you squint at him narrowly but don’t comment on it.

“that’s true. not like that kid cares anyway, but it’ll be good for him,” gojo agrees airily, shoving his hands into his pockets.

you eye him. “hey, gojo?”

“yeah?” his head remains turned to the students. (further proving your point! you feel like you’re collecting evidence here; the gojo satoru cannot look at you in the eye!)

you hesitate. “wanna grab some kikufuku?”

he perks up at that. (like a puppy, really. it almost makes you laugh.) “mm, whatever happened to not trying to win me over with sweets?” he teases.

you laugh at that then, shaking your head in soft denial. “no- that’s not what i-”

“well, you did said kikufuku.." satoru interrupts you with a dramatic sigh and heave of his shoulders, “so how could i ever possibly resist?”

satoru doesn’t dare to look down at you.

“care to join me?”

but you smile up at him cheekily, and he hates the way the sunlight is hitting your features just right. it looks like the color of your eyes is glistening.

you’re just.. lying down on the grass of one of the training fields, admiring the drifting formations of white clouds on the blue canvas that is the sky.

satoru keeps telling himself that shouldn’t be doing this. his first mistake was accepting your cake. allowing himself to get closer to you. but when you look at him like that, he feels like he can do anything. which is odd, becaues really, he can do anything. it goes without saying as his status as the strongest.

but with you, it’s starting to feel a bit different.

when he doesn’t give you an immediate answer, you tilt your head and continue to blink up at him. “you can see the sky even with your blindfold on, right?”

he snorts. “yeah, i can.”

you pat the space on the grass next to you welcomingly, a beckoning that he just can’t resist again. “well, come on and join me,” you persist.

he hesitates, shifting his weight on his legs for a moment. against his better judgement, he joins you. it’s surprisingly comfortable, he finds, as he kicks out his legs and sighs.

it’s a comfortable silence that it’s almost startling. how easy it is just to be around you. (which is the exact reason why he had been avoiding you in the start, in fear of slipping up around you. he still might.)

“you get headaches, right? if you don’t cover your eyes.”

he chuckles at your question. “yeah.” it’s a half truth, half lie. he does get headaches, but for another reason now. you can’t get out of his head. (he’s got a suspicious feeling it’s because the soulmate bond is incomplete. but again, that’s just a theory of his.)

“‘m’sorry. that sucks.” you pout subconscously, still looking up at the sky to admire it.

he scoffs fondly, clapsing his hands over his stomach. “it’s no biggie. you think headaches can take down gojo satoru?”

“hey now, tough guy. they can take down me sometimes.”

(he’d fight off headaches from you if he could.) his heart is thudding against his ribcage, warning him. but he doesn’t heed the warning, and continues to lay down with you on the grass.

it’s a nice feeling. he doesn’t feel like the greatest sorcerer in the world with his colleague. it feels like he’s just satoru, pointing out the different shapes and animals you can spot in the sky with his soulmate.

“hey, that one looks like you!”

“hah?!”

“i’m guessing you and gojo-sensei are getting along now,” megumi bluntly comments.

it catches you off guard slightly, and you can’t help but laugh. (of course he had noticed how the both of you interacted from the beginning.) “oh, uh, yeah.”

and as you watch satoru go down the steps of the stairs to head over to you both whilst waving an arm with much more enthusiam than needed, you can’t help but smile.

“yeah, we are.”

this is a mistake. he shouldn’t be doing this.

but satoru can’t help but be so selfish, selfish in indulging in your looks, in your scarce touches. when you had confronted him with your peace offering as you had so called it, he had given in.

and now he’s spending more time with you. be it after lessons with the students, on random days where you have nothing to do, during weekends when there’s no authorities to bother him—he can’t help it.

was it the bond wanting to be complete? you were still unaware of his true identity, of what he could possibly mean to you, so why does he feel like he needs to be so close? he gets antsy at times when you’re not in his sight. it’s starting to affect him.

the soulmate bond, or lack of it—that has to be the only explanation for it. because he knows that you’re his soulmate, he’s subconsciously drawn to you and your presence. (it’s definitely not because he likes the way you smile, or laugh, or-)

fuck.

after a relatively tough mission, you’re obviously sent to see shoko. you’re not fatally harmed, maybe a scratch here and there. and okay, maybe a gash on your shoulder..

it had been enough to sort of knock you off your feet, but you’re fine. totally. exorcising a semi grade two curse at 1 a.m. in the morning was no biggie at this point.

once she’s finished tending to your wound, she dusts off her hands and places them on her hips. “you’re all set.”

you smile gratefully. “thanks, sho. can always count you to patch me up.”

she snorts. “well, it is my job.”

gojo suddenly appears right next to the table and you yelp, startled by his teleportation. shoko, on the other hand, looks unfazed, as if she’s used to this.

“gojo!” you blink, your voice taking a scolding tone soon after, “geez, you scared me! what’re you still doing awake??”

the blindfolded man falters, looking apologetic. “sorry. heard you got back from your mission.” he sounds worried, but before he can voice his concern, shoko rolls her eyes.

“they’ll be fine,” she says.

gojo’s shoulders finally drop down and he plays off his previous display of concern with a laugh. “ahaha, yeahhh, i knew that,” he scoffs with a wave of his hand, “i can’t bless you two with my presence?”

shoko gives him a displeased look before she turns around to tidy up her tools. you chuckle at her annoyance. “thanks for checking up on me, satoru,” you say sincerely. your eyes go over his appearance; he’s dressed more casually: a pair of dark slacks and shirt that expose his collarbones. not that you’re.. particularly looking.

but his shoulders seem tense again at your words and he hums quietly. (huh, strange. at least he’s not refusing to look at you anymore, you think.)

“well, i say this calls for a little celebration,” satoru suddenly purrs in delight, waving his hands in the air.

“celebration? for me getting kinda beat up?” you blow a raspberry at him, only for him to blow one at you right back. even though you had done it first, you can’t help but giggle at his childish antics.

he grins at that, then shakes his head. “heyy, i heard you beat up a semi grade two curse!” he says, “i think that does call for a celebration, does it not?”

you stare at him, unsure on whether he’s joking or not. wait, how did he even know that? well, maybe he had gone through the mission reports and assignments. still, you’re surprised that he knows. “you can wipe those out in less than a minute, gojo,” you point out with a raised brow, “don’t try and humor me.”

his grin lessens. “well, yeah, s’kinda easy for me, but i think that goes without saying. you’re telling me don’t wanna celebrate an accomplishment of yours?”

you look to shoko who is almost finished with cleaning up. she just shrugs. you look back to satoru and shrug yourself whilst rolling your eyes. “alright, we can celebrate.”

gojo fist bumps the air. and here you are again, giggling at him.

eventually, when he leads you out of the infirmary and to the teachers’ lounge. he digs through one of the fridges and hands you a bottle of what seems to be alcohol.

“i didn’t even know this was allowed here,” you mumble, settling down on what of the high chairs near the counter. you wiggle in your seat to get comfortable as gojo takes the one next to you.

you offer it to him but he shakes his head, nose scrunching up a little. “i don’t drink.”

“wasn’t this your idea?” you blink. “suit yourself, more for me.” you shrug and open the bottle to pour yourself a glass. and another. and another. and then another.

(you don’t know what particularly drives you to keep drinking as you talk with him, but perhaps it’s the way you know that satoru’s eyes are lingering just underneath the blindfold. you can practically feel his stare.)

and gojo watches you gradually drink yourself to being mildly drunk.

“okay, no more for you,” he laughs as he takes the bottle away from you and holding it above your head when you try to reach for it.

“awh, man.” you pout and rest your head on your arms on the table, looking at him the best you can. “you meanie. you got me drunk on purpose. give it back.”

he snickers, amused and endeared by your drunk antics as he pushes the bottle aside. “sorry. you’ll thank me later, pretty.”

pretty. he’s never called you that before. you wanna hear him say it again. (amongst some other things.)

“pretty.. you’re pretty. i bet your eyes are pretty too,” you say into your sleeve, your other hand reaching out to his blindfold, “everyone else says they’re v’ry pretty.”

he leans back to avoid your hand, heart pounding in his chest a little too loud for his liking. he wonders if you can hear it. “sure. i guess they are,” he says softly with a small chuckle.

“i wonder who my soulmate is,” you then mumble out. maybe it’s the alcohol, maybe it’s your incoherent slurring, but you sound.. sad.

before he can dwell on it, you’re slurring out another question that has come to your head.

“d’you have a soulmate?”

satoru’s eyes widen under the blindfold. he knows that you’re drunk. that you’re just saying things. but your hazy eyes stare up at him with a glint that makes his heart lurch.

and you won’t remember a thing in the morning, right?

before he can answer, you’re out like a light.

you wake up in the morning with a splitting headache.

with a groan, you sit up in what seems to be a bed that seems way to be to be your own, legs kicking the sheets that had been draped over you in alarm.

you have no idea where you are, but there’s a glass of water along with some painkillers on the nightstand beside you, which you down gratefully. there’s also the smell of food coming from outside the room.

you can piece two and two together that you’re probably in the home of someone you know.. your brain racks for information of what had happened last night but it’s only causing it to ache even more.

gojo.

you shake your head and make your way to what seems to be the bathroom to tidy yourself up. you notice that your’re still clad in your clothes of last night, so gojo had done the courtesy of tucking you in.

after you’re done, you take a deep breath and head outside.

you navigate your way down the hallway and follow the smell of food. as you turn the corner, you catch the sight of satoru in the kitchen. not that you doubted that the greatest sorcerer could cook, but for some reason, he looks so domestic.

he’s simply wearing sweats and a loose fitting shirt, your back turned to you as he tends to the stove, but the mere sight of it has your heart leaping into your throat. you have a feeling that it’s a sight meant for you, for you to see.

you don’t no how long you stand there, but suddenly a laugh rings through the kitchen from satoru teasingly. “take a picture, sweetheart, it’ll last longer.”

you yelp, embarrassed. (sweetheart? you try not to think about it, but you hate the way it makes your heart leap again. he’s just.. messing with you.) “erm.. sorry. good morning, gojo.” you approach the kitchen and take a seat at the counter.

when he finally turns to you, he’s not wearing his usual black blindfold, but instead what seems to be white bandages. you haven’t seen it on him before, but you don’t comment on it though.

he says good morning back before serving you some food, which you thank him for gratefully. “thank you for the painkillers too. i didn’t do anything embarrassing last night, did i?” you inquire, half jokingly.

you try to remember what had happened last night, but your memories are still a bit hazy. all you can recall is talking with him about things and staring at him. (you’re not going to tell him that though.)

“nah,” he waves off, “just told me your darkest secrets, s'all.”

you straighten up. “what?”

“kidding, kidding!” he snickers.

you groan and drag your plate to you. “i didn’t know you could cook.”

satoru looks mildly offended, emitting a dramatic gasp as he waves the spatula at you in a petulant manner. “hey now, i’m no expert. but i can at least make some sort of breakfast.”

(he totally did not look up a tutorial on how to cook for you. definitely not. but he’s a natural at everything, so at least his naturally gifted skill is in his favor this time.)

“thank you, gojo.” a smile tugs at the edges of your mouth.

“satoru.”

“what?”

“c’mon, you’re literally eating breakfast in my kitchen,” he laughs, sliding a mug of coffee (probably with extra cream and sugar because it’s gojo) towards you across the counter. “satoru’s fine.”

you test the name on your tongue, paying little attention to the way it makes the man before you stiffen up as you grab the coffee. “satoru.. thanks, satoru.” you think you can get used to saying that.

(he does too.)

satoru turns away back to the stove. “you’re welcome.”

“hey satoru, what did you say what you wanted again? i’m thinking bubble tea but i dunno..”

he likes the way his name sounds from you.

“uh, satoru? satoru? helloo, earth to gojo satoru? satoru!”

oh.

fuck, he hadn’t realized he had spaced out. gojo lifts his head in a sudden motion, making a surprised noise. he smiles sheepishly. “what’s up?”

“you feeling alright, satoru?” you tilt your head.

keep saying his name.

“awhh, i’m feeling more than alright, sweetheart.” he shoots you a grin, liking the way your eyes reflect the café lights, giving it a warm hue. “i’ll have whatever you’re having.”

“you seem to be in a good mood lately,” megumi points out. ijichi, in the front see, looks at the two of them through the rear view in silent agreement.

(a lot of people have noticed actually.)

gojo pauses, halfway through unwrapping the plastic of a popsicle. it’s the same one he used to consume during his youth, but his taste really hasn’t changed after all this time. “oh?”

the teenager eyes him narrowly. “yeah.”

gojo merely hums and pops the icy treat into his mouth.

“heh, i guess i am.”

you can hear gojo and shoko’s voices coming from the infirmary, causing you to smile absentmindedly. you didn’t think you’d be enjoying their company this much in the recent months—especially satoru’s.

(strangely, it feels so natural to be around him, you can’t help but wonder if he feels the same. you try to write it off as spending so much time together for a while now, but you can’t lie when you say he doesn’t make the stomach churn with butterflies.)

you turn the corner and announce your presence to the two with a smile and wave. you catch sight of them when they glance over to you, noticing something different.

shoko is wearing her usual white coat with a cigarette in hand, but she’s got her hair tied up in a rare bun to keep any strands from her face.

but that’s not what’s different as your gaze strays to the man next to her, the familiar frame of gojo catching you a bit off guard.

he’s wearing his glasses.

you’ve never seen him wear anything but his blindfold.

how does he look even more breathtaking than without it? you can’t see his eyes still, no—it’s a deep, deep shade of blue that still blocks his gaze from anyone else. but it’s a more casual look, seeing as his hair isn’t being help up and a few strands fall down and you can see his sharp facial features a bit more and-

and then he’s gone.

you audibly make a sound of confusion and hurt, because one moment he’s there and the next he’s no where to be seen. he had vanished without a single world.

he’s fucking avoiding you again; the realization of it makes your throat close up. after all you had been through with satoru.

“what the fuck was that?”

shoko stares at the space gojo had just been standing, just as lost as you.

there’s a distance between the two of you again. it’s painstakingly familiar to when you had first met gojo and he had kept himself strictly professional with you.

and you don’t know why.

it’s back to the cold shoulder from him; you’re seeing him less and less around campus, and those times where you did hang out off duty are practically a thing of the past now.

satoru is going to be the death of you one day, you’re sure of it.

and you and satoru aren’t even.. a thing.

then again, you’re not even sure what you are. you’re friends, yes, that’s much more than clear, but why does it feel so much more intimate than that despite the fact that the two of you have never even done anything?

however.. a part of you knows that you want more. more of those days lying in the grass with him, more of those mornings eating breakfast with him in his home, more of those afternoon café runs, more of everything with satoru.

is that why does it hurts so much now that he’s pushed you away again?

satoru is praying that you’re not in there with shoko as he approaches the infirmary a week later. she had called him over, and though he could’ve easily refused, he found himself obliging anyway.

“hey, what was that the other day?”

shoko is blunt and straight to the point once he arrived, striking him with a petulant and expectant gaze with her tired eyes.

gojo blinks innocently, tilting his head at shoko. “what was what?”

shoko then rolls her eyes. “you know what i’m talking about. what was that. you just- walked out like they we’re going to kill you or something.”

that’s the thing. you just might.

the white-haired man frowns and continues to feign innocence. he’s starting to wonder why he bothered coming here. “i have no idea what you’re talking about.”

his avoidance causes shoko to frown as well and she crosses her arms. “you’re doing the same thing that you did with them when they first joined here.”

when he doesn’t say anything, she continues, “avoiding them, pushing them away. i thought you didn’t have any problems with them. at this point, make up your mind because you’re just toying with their feelings and it’s not going to-”

“we’re soulmates,” satoru blurts out.

shoko is cut off, staring at him all wide-eyed for once. “you’re kidding.”

satoru falters. “i’m not. s’why i always wear the blindfold. and that’s why i.. i ran last night. just my glasses was too risky.”

what if he had angled his head the wrong way, what if you saw his eyes, what if you finally realized that you were fated to be together at the whims of the universe? he couldn’t do that to you.

“how long have you-”

“since we first met. i.. i could see it because of six eyes,” he explains, running a hand through his hair. “i don’t know why. i didn’t think i could have another one after-”

the two fall quiet at the mention of suguru, a heavy feeling hanging in the air between them.

“what are you going to do?” shoko asks quietly.

satoru sounds wrecked. “..i don’t know.”

“well.” shoko smushes her cigarette against the surface of the metal table. “you better do something before it’s too late.”

unfortunately, the higher ups have also noticed.

(the push and pull that has been going on between the pride of the gojo clan and a random transferred sorcerer from kyoto. nothing goes unseen by their tight hold on jujutsu society.)

and you are none the wiser when you’re an assigned a mission late so at night, at a secluded edge of tokyo. you would’ve questioned it, but after looking over the details, it seems easy enough since it was a low level curse.

ijichi drops you off near the location and bids you luck. the night is dark, with the shape of the moon only peaking out every now and then due to the clouds to offer minimum light, and then the veil is coming up.

it’s fine though, as you start walking to get this over with. the faster, the better.

what the fuck? the cursed energy here is much stronger than you had anticipated, almost as if it’s suffocating. now uneasy, you continue your search with more caution.

a low growl sounds from somewhere behind you, and you turn on heel to brace yourself in case the curse decides to catch you off guard with an unexpected attack.

your heart drops.

it’s a grade one curse.

something’s not right.

satoru can feel it. he can sense it in the air. something is lingering, a presence that makes even him feel uneasy, and he doesn’t know why. nothing makes him feel uneasy. but it’s a gut feeling, it’s the bond tugging and tugging and-

you.

something’s not right.

and then gojo is teleporting and finding ijichi in record time, giving the poor man a scare. gojo’s voice is on edge and leaves no room for argument as he demands the assistant director where he had driven you minutes prior. the veil still stands, undisturbed.

fuck, fuck, fuck- shoko was right. he should’ve done something before it was too late, because now it might actually be too late as he steps through the veil.

it’s too quiet for his liking, but the lingering silence only lasts for a few heartbeats before he hears you scream.

you’re going to die.

you don’t want to think that, but you’re definitely not going to make it out of this unscathed as you dodge the curse’s scarily accurate attacks, as if it knows where you’re going to move and land.

the curse screeches out something ugly, and you’re too stunned to react in time as one of its malformed limbs swings down with a speed that you can’t comprehend.

your throat cries for help even as the air out of your lungs, but then there’s the sudden brilliant flash of red that blinds your vision.

satoru?

you can’t see and your body aches everywhere while the sounds of the curse fade out. it’s replaced by the sound of someone speaking frantically. it is satoru as he crouches down at you, hands coming to lift you up gently. his infinity is off. “hey, hey it’s me,” he voices, “it’s me, sweetheart.”

satoru, it’s satoru. satoru is here.

you emit a sigh of relief, cloudy vision gradually focusing. you try and focus it on satoru, tracing over his features repeatedly, trying to engrave it into your memory.

“shit. those damn higher ups,” gojo grits his teeth into an angered scowl. the higher ups? were they behind this? you don’t know, but you know that you’ve ever seen him this furious before. “i am going to rip those old geezers apart limb from li-”

“satoru, we need to head back.”

he looks dazed, tufts of snowy hair now hanging a bit loosely over his blindfold compared to when it’s normally pushed upright. he even sounds dazed, the great gojo satoru, when he says, “yeah. yeah, okay.”

he’s holding on to you tight and suddenly everything seems to get blurry for less than a second before you blink. you realize he’s teleported you both not to the school, not to shoko’s infirmary, but to his penthouse.

the interior is at least familiar: white walls, a little messy, a couple of decorations, and—

“my place,” he clarifies, as if he had read your thoughts. he sets you down on his couch, uncaring if you’re staining the color of the cushions. but he doesn’t let go, hands still cradling your form so tight that you don’t know if you’re still shaking or that he is.

“are you okay?” you utter out weakly and scan him for any injuries while clutching at his arms, which is ridiculous because he’s untouchable. but you’re not in the right mind right now, and you have a feeling he isn’t either.

“i should be the one asking you that,” he retorts, and you also have the feeling he’s doing the same thing with you with the help of his six eyes.

“i’m alright,” you try to reassure him with a small shake of your head. it only aids you in wincing, but the pain is the last thing on your mind. especially with him here. “it’s fine.”

“it’s not fine,” he argues, his hold tightening even more on you, if that was even possible. is that a slight tremor in his voice? “you almost died.”

“and why do you care?” it’s not a malicious question from you. it’s more of confusion, of genuine. after all you’ve been through with satoru, you’re not sure where he stands. what he feels.

he seems startled by your question, like he can’t believe you could ask such a thing. “of course i care! why-”

you clench your fists in your lap, eyes tracing over his face repeatedly. “i don’t know what you want anymore from me, satoru! you’re not- you’re not telling me the truth.”

“i didn’t want to hurt you,” he tells you hoarsely. god, you wish you could see what he’s thinking. what’s going on in that head of his.

“you did hurt me.”

gojo trembles. “i know.”

“you seem to know a lot of things.” your voice sounds tired. your hand goes to rest on his chest, where you can faintly feel his heartbeat underneath. (oh, to be the only one who can touch gojo satoru like this.) “what are you hiding from me?”

“i can’t hide anything from you.” he draws a slow intake of breath. he then whispers,

“but how am i supposed to tell you that we’re soulmates?”

your heart skips a beat.

gojo satoru is your soulmate?

astonished, you now stare at him with wide eyes. “why- why didn’t you tell me??” you ask, voice cracking. to think, all this time, your soulmate had been right there, right beside you, right in front of you.

then it all clicks. his off-standish behavior, his reluctant interactions, his avoidance. his blindfold. he didn’t want you to see his eyes.

he’s known all this time somehow—and oh, oh. his six eyes. your lips part in realization as you stare hard, as if you could see his damned eyes beneath the cloth that hides you from the truth.

“i thought that if you knew that we were soulmates, you’d-” satoru shakes his head. “something always happens to the people i love.” he hesitates, “you still have a chance. you can find someone else.”

“what if i don’t want someone else??” you say out softly in protest, gripping the lapels of his uniform.

gojo shakes his head again. despite this, he doesn’t let you go. like he can’t, like he doesn’t want to. “we’re not bonded yet,” he says your name shakily. “please.”

still gripping the collar of his uniform, you tug him closer to you desperately. it’s so clear, so obvious that he wanted this.

“satoru, have you thought about what i wanted?” you breathe out, feeling tears well up in your eyes, “that maybe, there’s a chance that i want to take the risk? that i want to be bonded to you?”

your eyes flicker down to his lips momentarily. “that i want you too?”

satoru’s breath stutters.

“you haven’t seen my eyes.”

you cup satoru’s face in your hands, swiping your thumb under the space where his eye is hidden with a fierce tenderness that makes him listen.

“satoru, i didn’t need to see your eyes to fall in love with you.”

your confession has him stilling.

(all the times he had stiffened up in your presence, he had been falling for you, bit by bit. you know that now.)

his hand comes to cover yours, the one that’s still resting on his cheek, fingers smoothing over your knuckles. and then his hand continues to go up, up, up, and-

he tugs the blindfold up and over his head, revealing his eyes to you at last.

his eyes are gorgeous, a blue that seems to spill into your vision and take over your senses. a blue that you can get lost in, a blue that reminds you of the summer sky, a blue that tethers your soul to his, and you both can feel it.

the bond between you is so electrifying that you nearly forget how to breathe.

and then satoru is surging forward, closer, even closer, until your breath is his and you forget how to breathe for a whole different reason entirely.

he’s kissing you.

he kisses you like you might disappear right before him, his head angling into yours to capture your lips with a force that makes your world spin.

and you return it tenfold, one hand still cradling his face while the other sneaks to dig its fingers into his undercut, and he’s making a noise into your mouth with fervor.

you’re all too aware of his heat against you, the frantic touches he’s now giving into as he draws you closer. the surface of the sofa dissipates into nothingness and then-

suddenly he’s teleporting you both again—or maybe he’s kissing you dizzy. but you realize you’re now in space that’s not overly familiar with you, but you can tell it’s most likely his bedroom based off of the feel of the lush satin sheets underneath you.

less than an hour ago you were fighting for your life, and now you’re fighting for your life on gojo satoru’s bed.

“satoru, s’toru, wait-” you’re gasping for air, for something as he engulfs you with his presence. he’s everywhere all at once, and it feels as if the bond is intensifying everything he’s doing to you.

“nuh uh. think we’ve both waited long enough for this, baby,” he gasps against your lips, like it’s impossible to be separated from you again, “don’t know how much i wanted this, wanted you. drove me crazy.”

his words makes your head all fuzzy. you don’t even know if it’s the bond anymore, or just the way he makes you feel. maybe even both. your lungs feeling like they’re burning, but even then, you manage to get out,

“you have me, ‘toru, you have me.”

“yeah?” when he pulls back, it’s not even a few inches, his nose brushing against yours. his alluring eyes glimmer in the darkness of the room, and you’re almost so mad that you feel like kissing him again because he’s kept them from you for so long.

your hands hook over his neck again. when your fingers run over his undercut again, you can actually feel him shiver, causing you to giggle in delight. “yeah, ‘toru.”

“yeah, pretty,” he sighs out and he’s losing himself in everything that is you once more so willingly. your eyes, your very being, compels him to give you everything, so he does. “y’have me too. all of me.”

his confession rings through your ears before he’s kissing you again, kissing you breathless. it’s a blur on what happens next; feverish touches and passionate symphonies, but one thing’s for sure,

the magnetic glow of his eyes in the dark of that night is something that you’ll never forget.

as your stir amongst the tousled bedsheets, you can feel the warmth of a certain someone creeping over you, like a cozy cat searching for cuddles.

your eyes peer open to meet the blurry sight of the ceiling, along with the sight of messy white hair tickling your chin.

“good morning to you, sweetheart,” a voice says cheekily, followed by cascading kisses down your jawline, prompting you to giggle softly.

you watch sunlight spill over into the bedroom, engulfing the man above you in an angelic glow as he finally pulls back to look down at you.

so maybe you didn’t fall in love at first sight with gojo satoru.

that’s okay.

cause as you stare up into your soulmate’s pretty ceruleans in the morning light, you think you can fall in love with him like this a little more.

BONUS!

“you owe me.”

nanami drags a hand over his face as he digs into his pocket for his wallet. “this is the first and last time i make a bet with you,” he grumbles.

shoko merely smirks. “you have such little faith in gojo.”

“bet or not, can we go back to before they were together?” nanami looks like he’s close to investing in a pair of one of gojo’s glasses that can block any normal person’s vision.

satoru is clinging onto you like a sloth.

“babyyyyy,” your boyfriend whines, resting his chin on your shoulder with his arms wrapped around your torso. you can’t help but giggle, endeared by his clinginess. (he had claimed it was to make up for the way he had acted in the past and for lost time.)

he’s like another part of you now. not that you mind. being his soulmate is everything and more—from the tender touches to the passionate ones, to the talks of everything: to the mundane to the serious. after all, your soul is his, and his soul is yours.

(and then his hands are sneaking off to places they shouldn’t be.)

“‘toru, not here!”

nanami heaves out another sigh as his hand comes to pinch the bridge of his nose. “is it too late to quit being a sorcerer again?”

TAGLIST : @spn-obession , @deepestartisanhumanoidshark , @scarasw1f3 , @kalopsia-flaneur , @90s-belladonna , @peachipeachy , @chrystinaamanda , @kalulakunundrum , @hunnyheavenn , @dekusdante , @dontmindmelove , @cherries-lostgirls , @rv19 , @etherealstarlightqueen

+ a/n: this fic ended up being way no longer than i expected omg.. but thanks to all who asked to be on the taglist !! some didnt work so im sorry about that </3

like this fic? feel free to go ahead and check out my other works here! -> masterlist

973 notes · View notes

hannieehaee · 6 months

Text

18+ / mdi

content: idol!mingyu x idol!reader, 97 liner reader, best friends to lovers, jealousy, possessiveness, reader's got bitches, afab reader, smut, dry humping, oral (f receiving), penetrative sex, very ambiguous description of what position they're in so pls go crazy with ur imagination, etc.

part 2

wc: 2730

a/n: thank u to the person that requested this i live for idol ausshsks also this isnt connected to my other idol!mingyu fics just fyi <3

masterlist

mingyu couldnt stand the sight in front of him anymore. he knew jungkook was charming, but for him to blatantly flirt with you in front of him was just going too far for his liking.

admittedly, mingyu knew that most of the other 97 liners had a bit of a thing for you, but it was common knowledge that mingyu had been pining for you for the longest time. there was an unspoken agreement; you were his. you'd been best friends basically since debuting, it was only fair that he got to have you over all your other friends.

except you were blissfully unaware of his feelings. you'd known each other for so long that you now chalked up his flirting to just a silly inside joke between the two of you. no matter how many advancements he made, you'd act none the wiser and keep him on a tight hold in the friend zone. yes, mingyu knew the friend zone wasn't a real thing. he understood women! but there was no better way to describe his current predicament. now he had to watch one of his best friends flirt with the love of his life. the only silver lining in all this was that you never flirted back. whether it be jaehyun paying for your meal, or yugyeom bringing you a drink in the morning, you never took it as anything further than friendship.

except right now you seemed to be ... reciprocating? was that your hand on jungkook's chest? what was happening right now? you never showed interest in jungkook. why were you now dangling a flirtatious smile right in front of mingyu's face? and not directed at him?

he could only sit there and watch you for so long until he grew tired of it. he wasn't ready to drag you away and profess his feelings for you just yet, but his emotions got the best of him, marching towards you as he grabbed your arm and walked you to a more secluded area, leaving jungkook to lightheartedly chuckle at his friend's possessive nature over you.

yes, jungkook might've had a thing for you before, but truly all he had wanted was to just provoke mingyu. he knew you werent actually flirting back but just playing along with him - as a friend, of course. and it seemed to have worked, as mingyu was now dragging a very unsuspecting you away as you followed with no questions asked.

mingyu only let go of you when you were finally alone, with a closed door to separate you from any possible intruders. he didn't say anything at first, wanting to calm himself down from his exasperated state before speaking up. he also had to think of an excuse as to why he took you away from jungkook just now.

"mingyu? what the hell was that?", okay, seemed like you didn't have the patience to wait for him. understandable.

"i- just ... why-why were you flirting with him?"

"what? i wasnt flirting. thats just how we talk to each other, you know that. you're the same way!"

"oh yeah? with your hand on his chest?", he chuckled bitterly. okay, he was taking this a little too personal. but how couldnt he? he'd been waiting for you to look his way all this years and instead you turn to his friend? any time he flirted with you you scolded him or just brushed him off, but you reciprocated his friend? this was nothing short of unfair in mingyu's eyes.

"mingyu. don't be so dramatic. it doesnt mean anything."

"okay, but what if it means something to me?"

"what? what do you mean?"

you were confused. and with good reason. despite what everyone else believed, he had been quite good at hiding his feelings from you. yeah, sure, he flirted with you and acted overly affectionate, but that was his just his personality. as you had just said, he was the same way with everyone. but what you hadnt known was that he always meant it when it came to you. his flirtatious advances? his words of affection? the longing gazes? they were all purposeful and completely sincere. and now he was just too fed up. he had waited too long, had watched from the sidelines as you went through any and every relationship and situationship that headed your way. seeing you blatantly flirt with jungkook had been more than enough to make him finally snap into action.

"do you really not see it?"

"see what?"

he gave you a sad smile, "the way i look at you. the way i touch you. the way i can never stay away for too long ... how much i like you."

"gyu, what? i-" you stared dumbfounded at him, attempting to question him, but he interrupted you in order to continue the speech that his heart was demanding him to deliver.

"its been so many years since- ive liked you since the moment we met. i thought it was obvious. i mean, all the guys know about it," he chuckled sadly before continuing, "i guess its hard to tell with all the other boys chasing after you. you have your options open. i'm sorry. i don't mean to push this on you. just seeing you with jungkook made me so- god. i just couldnt watch it. not with him. ive seen you through all your boyfriends, but i just cant stand the sight of you with someone else anymore, i-"

thats as far as he got when you tackled him. or, well, tried to. he was pretty big after all.

you jumped him, pulling his face to yours to plant a kiss on him, refusing to separate even when he yelped in surprise. it only took a few seconds for him to catch up, holding you in his arms as he returned the kiss enthusiastically, moaning against your mouth at the feeling.

the two of you kissed for a bit, up until you pulled away from him, chuckling against him when he whined and followed your lips with his, only for you to pat him away as you giggled at him.

"gyu ... i had no idea. you shouldve told me. ive liked you too. since we met, i mean," you flashed him a shy smile at your revelation.

"y-you have?!"

"yes, gyu. how can i not? you're so ... you," you neared him once more as you said this, your eyes never leaving his. he felt butterflies in his stomach at the way you were looking at him. there was so much adoration in your eyes. it was reminiscent of the way he looked at you whenever you werent watching.

he closed the gap between you again, this time simply holding you in his arms, caressing you softly as he laughed at the situation. he wasnt sure how to proceed now that he had this new information, but he felt himself being drawn closer to you as you both smiled fondly at each other. it was a very tender moment, really. not many words needed to be exchanged to convey how you two were feeling.

the juxtaposition was funny, really. you had just been tenderly exchanging words of affirmation as you revealed your crushes to each other, and now you were, well, not being quite as tender anymore.

it was only to be expected, specially for mingyu. he insisted that even if you had liked him back, he had pined after you even more. even after a back and forth about it, he wouldnt let go, saying he lived day and night thinking about you, and he had to compete with all his friends who also liked you (but not as much as him, of course).

the only moment in which you conceded was when mingyu had trapped you under his arms, only letting go to get on his knees in front of you, lifting the skirt of your dress in order to caress your thighs and pepper kisses on them before getting to work.

"g-gyu ..." the desperate swipes of his tongue had you lightheaded, your body limp against the wall while he knelt in front of you.

"always wanted to taste you ... fuck. you have no idea how long i waited for this," he could tell his words were affecting you as he felt you shove his head even closer to your cunt.

"yes ... fuck. ride my face, baby. want you to gush on my tongue," he was feeding off your cries and whines above him. even if he couldnt see you due to his head being quite literally hidden under your skirt, he could feel and hear all the effects he had on your body. it made an animalistic side of his come out.

he was beginning to feel lightheaded, growing extremely aroused at the sound of your voice and the feel of your hands burying themselves in his hair as you pushed up the skirt to get it out of the way, wanting direct contact with him. when he finally looked up, he truly lost his mind. the beautiful girl he had pined over for years; the girl of his dreams, had her head thrown back against the wall, practically crying at the feeling of his tongue licking at your folds. his favorite, however, was the way you mewled his name once he decided to play with your swollen bud, lightly tugging it between his teeth while he sucked and sucked.

"oh ... gyu ... please. you feel so .. ah! you're gonna make me come ..."

"'n im gonna lick it all up, baby. gonna lick it up and then im gonna bend you over the table and fill you up. yeah? gotta be fair, ba-fuck, gotta give you something too," mingyu adored how his threats to pound into you had your walls pulse against his tongue, growing drunk on the thought that you wanted him just as bad as he did you.

nothing compared to the sound of your cries as you came, with your hands desperately shoving his face into your cunt as you ground against him, no shame in the depravity of your actions. he adored how badly you wanted him, having no control of your movements as you cried and cried at the feeling of his tongue continuing to probe at you even through your orgasm.

when he got up, he knew his face mustve been a complete mess; hair pulled at all angles and chin dripping with your juices. you didn't seem to care, though, as your doe eyes looked into his own before pulling him towards you for a deep kiss. he couldnt help but groan into your mouth at the thought of you tasting yourself in his tongue. your pretty mewls of pleasure at him did not help in the least. without knowing, he had begun to grind his hardened length against your clothed core, making you become even louder in the process.

"y-you're so big. fuck ..." god, the simple thought of impaling you with his cock had him thanking all the gods for whatever it was that got him to this point.

he had thought about you every lonely night. every time he found himself alone in his various hotel rooms, dick in hand as he touched himself to completion. he'd felt bad about it at first, when you had barely become friends, but over the years he'd found he just wasnt able to help himself. he'd conjure up a pretty image in his head. you in a pretty little number just for him, lace covering your skin as he caressed every curve of your body, making you sigh against him with that pretty voice of yours. other times, however, his mind would be plagued with darker thoughts; thoughts of throwing you on the bed as he hammered his length into your cunt, not stopping even as you cried over the stimulation. and now he was here, with your beautiful eyes staring up at him, waiting for him to finally be proactive and make you his.

"gunna fuck you now, baby. okay? shit. been wanting you so fucking bad, you have no idea," he knew he wasnt being too coherent, but he just needed to get the point across. he could worry about tender love-making later into the relationship (because yes, he was going to make you officially his after finally getting his load deeply settled in your cunt), but now all he wanted was your tight walls around him, allowing him no room to breathe as you strangled his cock.

and strangle him you did. there had been no greater pleasure in mingyu's life than the moment his cock finally made its way through the tightness of your pussy. he was pretty sure anyone in the near vicinity couldve heard his loud groan of pleasure at the feeling of his dick being asphyxiated by your cunt, not even allowing him to move. the sight before him was one to behold. your pretty face in the most pleasurable state imaginable. your soft lips open while your eyes remained closed, brows furrowed at the feeling of his dick breaking through your walls.

"baby ... you're so fucking tight, my fucking god ..." he was completely out of breath, barely able to think as he pounded into you.

"did you know? all these years? how badly i wanted you? how i thought of you every single night?" he needed you to know. needed you to understand how much he'd longed for you, "my beautiful girl ... all mine now. none of them can have you .. never letting y-shit .. never letting you go."

"please ... want you so bad gyu ..." you didnt need to say much to get him spiraling, grabbing more tightly onto your hips as he pushed himself even deeper, wanting to increase the volume of your cries for me.

"yeah? made me wait so long for you, baby. couldve had you in bed every night. couldve kept you warm n taken care of you. couldve filled you up with cock every day," but the wasted time didnt matter now that he had you to his full disposition, knowing no one else would ever have you in the way he did now.

he fucked you with so much passion that you were unable to produce any words other than cries of his name. this filled him with pride, knowing your mind was empty of any thoughts that were not of him. none of your mutual friends could ever have you now. not jaehyun, not yugyeom, not dongmin. and not jungkook. you were now mingyu's, and he'd let everyone know.

once he finally filled you up with his load, marking you as his, he picked you up, taking you to the nearest bathroom in order to help clean up between your thighs. you both chuckled shyly at the situation, with the intensity having now died down a bit. he was a bit embarrassed by his possessive display now, but was also thankful of his jealous tendencies since they'd finally led him into your arms.

"gyu-"

"i love you," he interrupted you, eyes glued to yours with adoration behind them, "sorry, i just ... ive been in love with you since we met. just need you to know that. this wasnt some fluke or stupid jealousy. well, maybe some jealousy, but i truly do love you. be mine? please?," he hoped you'd take some pity on him. i mean, you did say that you liked him back, but he wanted love. he wanted you to feel emotions as strong as his. he needed you to be in love with him, to never look at another man, specially not jungk-

"i love you too," you responded, interrupting his internal rambling as you held onto his hands, "i wish you told me earlier. i thought i was going insane."

"you?! i had to watch all the guys flirt with you on the daily!"

"then you shouldve done something about it!"

"oh?", was that a challenge?, "want me to do something about it, baby? i'll show you," and with that, he picked you back up, taking you with him as he explained in detail how you'd have to go on a short hiatus while he made you his over and over again, refusing to let you leave his side for even one second. he had too much time to make up for.

#seventeen fanfic #seventeen x reader #svt fanfic #seventeen #svt #svt x reader #seventeen imagine #seventeen oneshot #seventeen smut #svt smut #seventeen scenarios #svt scenarios #mingyu smut #mingyu fanfic #mingyu x reader #mingyu oneshot #mingyu imagine #mingyu scenario #mingyu scenarios

2K notes · View notes

alexisomnias · 1 year

Text

— TELL YOU I LOVE YOU. . .

⤷ he'd be a pine tree (— pining trope)

featuring the OVERBLOT BOYS

RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS - knees brushing against each other, leading to deep breaths and giddy feels.

riddle is hopelessly in love with you, to the point its distracting. seriously? how could he let his feelings grow this large to the point he can't even simply go near you without his mind running off to a romantic version of your real relationship. oh, how riddle hopes that daydream would one day become real, but for now. he needs to get back on trac-

"riddle? are you okay?" your voice raises, cutting through and silencing his voice playing loops in his head. he blushes, his hair color blending to his face as his breath catches. stomach churning nervously as he feels your skin brush against his, a blockage in his throat as his head pounds nervously. how much he really wants to hold your hand now, or wrap his arms around you... (when was he so touch starved...?)

"y-yes.. im perfectly fine. thanks for your concern." he nods, gazing away, afraid that even a few more seconds of meeting your eyes would cause the butterflies in his stomach to explode from inside out. why couldn't he just be straight up about his feelings...

LEONA KINGSCHOLAR - taking care of them in the shadows

leona was a blunt man. always straight to the point, and uncaring of others first opinions on him. but with you? oh it seems like nothing that ever comes out of his mouth is honest! its not like he lies to you, its just that he never finishes his full thought. "stop dragging me into trouble" i don't want to see you hurt, "why are you touching me?" you could've asked...

so, what better way of getting out his feelings to anybody but the true object of affection? well simply let himself lie in your shadow. for all those in front of you too gaze and know for, but for you? you won't see the slight affection and care that seeps into his gaze, nor will you know that behind the scenes he is ensuring your life upon arriving to Twisted Wonderland will be nothing but easy and like royalty. for he does not want to ever see you struggle.

so he'll be in your shadow. for him to follow you and love you, for everyone else to see that love except you... until he decides to appear before you once the sun comes out and he's ready to open himself to that level of vulnerability, to step out of the dark and show his face.

AZUL ASHENGROTTO - digging in their interests so that you have common topics to talk about

it was quite well known that azul has many connections, many ways to get information and to utilize it. his office is like an archive for all secrets and importance. but for that section of his brain, it holds everything about you. from silly daydreams, to just everything you like and what could make you happy. he truly had an entire library of thoughts and knowledge dedicated to you only with a key to those who break into his heart whether he'd like it or not. floyd and jade, being two, never left him alone about it.

it was no secret to his two friends that azul was a simp, he'd die before admitting it, but its true! he was utterly floored everytime you smiled at him, everytime you greeted him first. he was down-bad to the point he'd of made it to the bottom of the Mariana trench. Azul only wanted to make you happy, and get to know you better. even if he had no chance to call you a lover, this was far more than enough. so he got into all your interests so he had a common interest with you, no matter how wild, he'd end up loving it because you love it. and he loves you.

JAMIL VIPER - Instant butterflies when you call out their name

"jamil!" you called excitedly, waving him over with a beautiful, utterly handsome smile on your face.

jamil was used to his name being called. from Kalim to the servants in the house. it is common knowledge to know a servant would get his name called, for an order of sorts. to be told. but with you? oh it was so so different... normally everytime his name was called he'd be filled with dread. what would he have to do next? but with you? it is filled with such euphoria. your calling him, you want to talk to him, you want to see him. its such a strange thing to jamil on how his name being called could be so different. from just a simple tone, simple vocal difference. how is it so different everytime you call his name?

jamil would be ready to walk no mattered distance if he could meet you again. ugh.... how did he end up this deep in love? he's merely in high school...

VIL SCHOENHEIT - having your every little thing memorized

vil schoenheit was an actor. master of memorizing lines, and routines of all sorts. and yet, he is also a master of memorizing you. from your lovely smile, to your hair, to your hypnotic eyes. vil has it all remembered as if he's going to chisel an exact replica of you as a statue. this memory of his helps him realize every little emotion you have. your lips are a little bit more curved, are you okay dear? your hair is not in its usual style? what brought up this change? oh you must've gotten new clothes, he's never seen this outfit before.

all of which are in effort of loving you. he truly never thought he'd find the day where of he'd care so much for someone that every bit of them is put into memory. every touch, feeling of skin put into his mind like a note sheet. notes upon notes about every little thing he notices about you... and if you catch him staring..?

"vil? do i have something on my face? you've been staring for a while..."

"oh no, there's nothing there. just noticing the beauty that's made its mark."

IDIA SHROUD - dropping everything at their messages

idia wasn't the type for social interaction, in fact any sorts of it he would immediately ditch on. for even if he gets a messaged it would be left on read for weeks, but with you? oh its like theres a personal alarm set for himself! every message, or call you make is received right away. like an update for a game or show, he sees it right away and it immediately leaves him feeling giddy...

for an introvert, anti-socialist, like him. it was unfamiliar to get such a wonderful sensation upon being talked to... being noticed... having someone contact him first, willingly? oh how it felt like the world flipped itself for him, and complied to his wills and wants. and those wants? oh its to call you his... but i guess he got too far caught into the selfshipping delusions for he doubts you'll ever love him above online friend (he's to nervous to meet you face to face. you're so ethereal).

when the notification goes off, the typing bubble immediately comes up. hes not missing your message for the world.

MALLEUS DRACONIA - rambling about something you love and all they do is stare at them lovingly

malleus is completely, and totally infatuated with you. every word you speak, every breath you take it has him at the edge of his seat. ready to love and adore whatever you do next. he thinks everything you do is lovely, and worthy of adoration. he especially loves when you tell him about whatever interests you may have. Malleus absolutely adores listening to you.

please, tell him about anything and he'll listen so devotedly. how he loves knowing your comfortable enough around him to tell him and talk about your interests, whether from Twisted Wonderland, or from your world, "earth". anything and everything you tell him he is so ready to listen and learn. its coming from you, its something you consider important. so its only natural he listens.

and when you do rant, he stares and listens. looking at you like your the only thing in his universe, a beautiful sunset of which he's never laid his eyes upon before. a gift given by the world for him to love and cherish. and he'll learn everything about this treasure he has the pleasure of knowing. so... child of man, tell him more.

#twisted wonderland x reader #twisted wonderland #overblot boys x reader #twst x reader #riddle rosehearts x reader #leona kingsholar x reader #azul ashengrotto x reader #jamil viper x reader #vil shoenheit x reader #idia shroud x reader #malleus draconia x reader #riddle rosehearts #leona kingscholar #azul ashengrotto #jamil viper #vil schoenheit #idia shroud #malleus draconia #suns pencil.

2K notes · View notes

scuderiahoney · 3 months

Text

Oscar Piastri x reader // in motion pt 2

hockey au part 2: a lil backstory, Max Verstappen’s Pizza Theory, breakfast for dinner, and the beginnings of a physics study club. 5.7k words

warnings: mentions of sports related injuries, alcohol, and a creepy guy at a party.

You met Lando your freshman year, in an intro level writing class. Lando Norris may be great at hockey, but he was and still is absolutely atrocious at writing, which you discovered quickly when you’d been paired up with him for a partner project. He was the most talkative person in the whole class, and also the most likely to fall asleep. You couldn't blame him. It was an 8 am class, and from what you could tell, he had early morning hockey practices nearly every day.

He’d noticed the Timberwolves Soccer sticker on your laptop case, the one you’d been picking at the edges of at any available moment, trying to peel it off. It wouldn’t budge. He’d tried to use that as a common interest, a way to make a connection. He hadn’t known how much of a touchy subject it was. How could he have? The two of you barely knew each other's names.

You’d been angry at the world, at the time. Fresh off a life changing injury, still dealing with the physical therapy afterwards and stuck feeling like it was all so painfully obvious due to the knee brace on your leg. You’d only come to the stupid school to play on the soccer team, anyways. A month into your freshman year, injured and off the roster, with your chances of ever playing again looking bleak, you’d had a hard time trying to find a new reason to be there.

Before you met Lando, the soccer team had been your main source of friends. When you got injured, it all went to shit. At first, you hadn’t blamed them for the distance. You were dealing with something none of them even wanted to think about. But when you had to have surgery and none of them even bothered to text and check in, you’d begun to feel bitter. It had felt so lonely, in a town where you knew nobody, and the few people you’d connected with had slipped away. Lando had helped change that. His team had helped change that.

By the time you had to have a second surgery during winter semester, you’d been fully adopted by the entire Timberwolves Hockey team. They’d sent cards and flowers that filled up the room. Lando had visited every day, at least one of his teammates in tow. Max hadn’t been team captain at the time, but he’d taken the lead on getting a schedule set up to have people help carry your things to class for you while you were on crutches. You’d found a family, a reason to stay at the school, even without your beloved sport. You’d never be able to thank them enough for it.

Now you’re in your junior year of college and sitting in the stands at a hockey game instead of on the field at a soccer game, but the people on the ice are all your best friends. They’re losing, quite terribly, if you’re being honest. The stands are half empty. They’re just… off, today, in the second game of the week. Not quite in sync. You can see the frustration on all of them even from all the way up in the stands. Charles and Carlos are bickering on the bench. Max is skating messily. Lando looks lost on the ice, like his skates have a mind of their own. Even Oscar is struggling.

When the buzzer sounds for the end of the game, you stand up from your seat and head outside. Lily’s not here tonight- she has to work- so you’re on your own as you head toward the house. You text Max and ask if you should order pizza. He replies with an enthusiastic yes, a list of requests, and $100 on Venmo.

You have the pizza waiting, along with paper plates and Gatorade, by the time the first one of them walks into the house. It’s Oscar. He shuffles into the kitchen and looks at the pizza boxes with a wrinkled nose.

“Are you guys having a party?” He asks.

You sort of hate the way he says it. You guys. Like it’s not his house. Like it’s not his team. You know the feeling, really, of sort of just drifting along with nothing to cling onto. You tilt your head at him and slide a bottle of Gatorade across the counter towards him.

“No,” you say, and his shoulders relax slightly. “Usually after a tough game, Max likes to do some sort of team bonding. So. Pizza. He didn’t tell you?”

Oscar shrugs. “He probably did. Dunno. I was kind of out of it, and I snuck out as soon as the coaches were done yelling.”

You wince and nod in understanding. “I used to be the same way after bad games.”

You don’t even realize what you’ve hinted at until his head jerks up from where he’s been staring at the bottle in front of him. “You play sports?”

You chew on the inside of your cheek. You suppose he’ll hear the story eventually, but maybe now isn’t the best time. Maybe he doesn’t need your pity party while he’s trying to have his own. Maybe it’s nice that he doesn’t feel bad for you, just confused by you and your constant presence around the hockey team.

“Used to,” you say. When his face flickers with confusion, you hand him a paper plate. “Have some pizza. Captain’s orders.”

He stands there, staring, looking so unsure.

“You can take it up to your room if you really want, I won’t tattle” you say, and he twists his mouth. “Honestly, though? I hate to watch you guys lose, but sometimes these nights are some of the best. You should stick around.”

He pulls a piece of pepperoni pizza from the box and sets it on the plate. Then he takes a seat at one of the kitchen island barstools. You hope he doesn’t hear your sigh of relief.

An hour later, the kitchen, dining room, and back deck are full of people, and they’re all complaining about the game. Charles and Carlos are at the table, no longer angry with each other, instead complaining about a defenseman on the other team. Lando’s draped over Alex’s shoulder, loudly fake crying over god knows what. Oscar’s on Alex’s other side, laughing loudly at Lando’s dramatics.

You’re pouring drinks for the three of them- you’d offered when you noticed the empty cups. It’s not a party, but the alcohol helps numb the bitter feeling of a bad game. Max is standing nearby, looking proud. He elbows you.

“Pizza theory,” he says, raising his eyebrows.

You laugh. “Yeah, Max. Another one for the pizza theory.”

He’s had this running… experiment, of sorts, for a couple years now. It started after a string of bad games your freshman year, his sophomore year. He’d pointed out that when the team had pizza together after a loss, the next game was always a win. So he’d begun trying things out and writing down the results- you’ve seen the Google document, now co-organized by Charles. Pizza leads to wins almost 95% of the time. Chinese sits at a healthy 70%. They tried Subway one time and all got so sick off of it they nearly had to cancel the next game, so they never tried again.

You’ve told him before that you don’t think it’s really about the pizza- it’s about the time spent together, and the space to be just teammates again. It’s not like they’re apologizing or talking strategy, but put a bunch of greasy food in front of them and they’ll start to unwind. Mend bridges. Build new ones, even, you think, as you watch Oscar and Alex chat, heads leaned close together.

They win the next game by one point. It’s an away game, but you watch it from your apartment with Lily and a couple other friends, grinning the whole way through. You have pizza in honor of Max’s theory. Charles nearly tackles Oscar onto the ice when he scores. When the camera zooms in on the smiles on both of their faces, your heart melts. Lando howls like a wolf at the end of the game, which is simultaneously endearing and cringe inducing. When they get back to the hotel, he FaceTimes you from the elevator. It’s full of hockey boys with big grins on their faces. Max, hair still dripping wet from the shower, his arm slung around Lando, is smiling brightest of them all.

“Pizza theory!” he yells, and you can’t fight a grin in return.

“Pizza theory indeed,” you reply.

Oscar’s head pops up on the screen. You can only see his eyes and forehead, and he seems to know, because he wiggles his brows. It makes you laugh.

“What’s pizza theory?” He asks.

“You have much to learn, young grasshopper,” Lando quips.

“We’ll show you the Google doc later,” Charles promises. “Right now, we are going to the pool.”

…..

Oscar doesn’t join in the game afterparties for weeks. You don’t take it personally, but you do wonder why he doesn’t want to celebrate with his team. You even ask Lando to make sure he knows he’s invited. Your friend just looks at you like you’re crazy, which you suppose you are.

In the end, the party he does show up at isn’t even one after a game. It’s a bye week, and Seb gives them Saturday night off of practice, so they throw what starts out as a hangout and quickly morphs into a full on party. There are people spilling out into the lawn. Lando’s in charge of the music and taking it very seriously. And Oscar is in the kitchen, chatting with Alex over their red plastic cups. It’s an odd sight, but a welcome one. You’re trying not to stare.

Instead, you’re standing nearby, listening to Charles and Carlos argue. It’s over something stupid, you’re pretty sure- it almost always is. Max is standing next to you, hiding his amusement behind his own plastic cup. The three of them have a weird dynamic. Charles and Carlos have known each other for a while- they played together on a team before they started college. Max and Charles go farther back, though. They’re childhood rivals turned captain and alternate captain. They’re all oddly competitive over who likes who more or less. It’s entertaining, to say the least.

You’re really only half listening, using them to take appropriate breaks from watching Oscar. You’d tried to convince yourself you were just keeping an eye on him at first, that you were making sure he was okay and having fun. Now, two drinks deep, you’ve stopped making excuses in your own head. You just like the way he looks in the glow of Lando’s cheesy LED light strips. They’re purple tonight. Oscar’s cheekbones are painted purple because of it. You know there are freckles there, dotting his skin. You wish you were close enough to see them.

Eventually, you leave the guys to their arguing, tear your eyes from Oscar, and start to wander the party. There’s a lot going on, and there are a lot of people in the house that you’ve never met before. That happens, at these sort of events, you’ve found. The unplanned ones end up being an odd mix of people. So when you find yourself leaning against a wall and a guy you don’t recognize comes up to talk to you, you’re not exactly surprised. When he plants his hand next to your head on the wall, though, that does surprise you.

“I hear they call you Bunny,” he says, leering over you.

You hate the way he uses the nickname, the way it sounds on his lips. He leans close, caging you in. You swallow tightly, trying to peer over his shoulder and spot any one of your friends. It’s no use. He’s tall and broad and blocking your view. You say a silent prayer to whoever might be listening that one of your friends notices your absence.

“My friends do, yeah,” you say, hoping he takes the hint. “Actually, I have to go find-“

He cuts you off when he leans closer. You press yourself back against the wall. You can smell the cheap beer on his breath. Your heart pounds in your chest. Fight or flight or freeze, time to choose.

“Come on, sweetie,” the guy says. “Be a good bunny and-“

Someone’s hand clamps down on his shoulder. That’s all you see before he’s ripped away from you. It’s like you can breathe again, suddenly, relief flashing through your brain like the purple lights in the kitchen. It’s followed quickly by concern, though, when you catch sight of what’s going on.

Oscar has him pinned against the wall, one hand on his shoulder, his other fist cocked back, elbow bent, ready to throw a punch. There’s fury on his face. You’ve never seen him like this. Oscar doesn’t really fight. Not now, not at his previous team, not before then, either. You know it because Lando mentioned it when talking about how levelheaded he was. Plus, there are no helmets or pads to protect him here. Just him and his apparent anger.

“Mate,” Max says, carefully, appearing almost out of thin air. “Cool down, yeah?”

Oscar grits his teeth and clenches his jaw. You blink widely at the sight in front of you. Max’s eyes flicker to you, to the way you’re huddled against the wall, and understanding washes over his face.

“Piastri,” Max says, which seems to clear a bit of the fog from Oscar's head. The younger teammate turns to look at his captain and falters slightly. “I think you’ve proved your point.”

Oscar takes it for what it is- a thinly veiled command. Fighting on the rink is one thing. Fighting at a party they’re definitely not supposed to be having is another. Once they’re in motion, fights are difficult to stop, even harder to control, really. It'll get out of hand, so, so quickly. Seb would have their heads on a silver platter, and Max is always responsible for the actions of the team- it comes with being captain. He drops his fist and backs away slightly. Max nods.

The guy sneers at you, then Oscar, and then he spits on the floor near your feet. “Dumb bitch-“

In the blink of an eye, he’s pinned back to the wall, this time by Max, both hands on each of his shoulders. He tosses a look over his shoulder at Oscar.

“Get her out of here?” He says, and Oscar nods frantically.

He takes your hand, gentle as ever. You follow along nearly blindly as tears begin to well up in your eyes. Oscar weaves through the crowd, a man on a mission, and heads for the stairs. You dodge a couple who are making out on the top step, and he makes his way to his bedroom. They keep the rooms locked during parties- he punches his code in and ushers you inside. You nearly laugh through your tears when you see number 44, Lewis Hamilton, staring down from the poster on the wall. You wonder if Oscar knows he and Lando have matching ones.

He sits you down on the bed, reaching to turn on the lamp. He moves around the room quickly, and he tosses you a hoodie from his drawer, which you pull over your head gratefully. You hadn’t noticed until then how you had your own arms wrapped around your body, like you were hiding. You shake your hands out, flexing your fingers, trying to get the feeling back in them.

He sighs and reaches for the door. “Okay. You’re okay. Just- I’ll close the door behind me and-“

“Where are you going?” You ask, suddenly feeling panicky. You think it’s clear just from the sound of your voice, too.

“To get Lando,” he says, freezing in place, hand on the doorknob as he looks at you.

You sniffle. “Max will find him. Could you- can you- I don’t want to be alone, really, so-“

“Fuck. Shit. Sorry,” Oscar says.

Then he does the last thing you’d have expected. He sits down on the bed next to you, close enough to touch, and then wraps an arm around your shoulders. You gasp at the feeling, but lean into it, feeling a bit of relief running down your spine. His hand covers your whole shoulder.

“Is this okay?” He whispers, and you nod. “Okay. Sorry. I didn’t really think about it.”

“It’s okay,” you answer, unsure what he’s even apologizing for- almost leaving or touching you. Either way, it’s fine.

The two of you sit there in the relative quiet for a minute or two. Downstairs, the music is loud as ever. Oscar’s hand is heavy on your shoulder, and you’re still a bit stuck in fight or flight mode. Maybe you’re just frozen, really. You can still smell the beer on the other guy’s breath, can still see the anger on Oscar’s face, can still feel the panic when he was about to leave you. Your chest is tight, fingertips still buzzing.

“Were you actually going to punch him?” You ask, breaking the silence in the room, trying to find something to distract yourself.

Oscar huffs. “The first time, probably not. But when he called you a…” he shrugs. “If Max hadn’t been there…”

You turn to look at him. “Why?”

He blinks, almost taken aback that you’d even ask. “You know. Take care of the team and all.”

You sniffle. “But I’m not on the team.”

“Might as well be, all the time you spend here.”

“Yeah, but…” you trail off. “You don’t… you don’t care about me. You- why would you get into a fight for me?”

He’s quiet for a moment. You’re waiting for the canned answer. Because nobody else was around. Because I knew it’d earn me brownie points with the rest of the team. Because-

“I’m sorry,” he says again. “For making you feel like I didn’t care.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. His hand squeezes your shoulder. Your heart squeezes in your chest. You hadn’t meant for this to go this direction, and now your face is hot and your throat hurts and there are tears welling up behind your closed eyelids.

“I just… I showed up here, and everyone already has their friend groups and buddies and-“ he huffs again, and realization starts to dawn on you. “And they all love you, and they’re super protective of you. And I’ve been so busy trying to find my place here and not step on any toes, I guess I forgot to try and make friends, too, you know?”

You sigh. “I don’t bite, you know. I’m very easy to be friends with. I can be low maintenance if that’s what you need. Or- what’s Lando call it? Low frequency?”

Oscar laughs. “I know.”

You turn to look up at him, and your breath hitches when he reaches up and wipes a couple tears from your cheeks. An hour ago, you thought he couldn’t care less about you. Now you’re sitting in his room, and he’s wiping away tears with a tender touch that makes your stomach ache. His eyes trace your face, like he’s looking for injury, for a source of the pain. It’s overwhelming.

“Okay. So stop ignoring me in class? And in general?” You say, trying to redirect things.

He groans, dropping his chin to his chest. “That was- it wasn’t even on purpose, I just didn’t notice and then when I did it felt too late to say anything, so-“

You break off into a fit of giggles. He drops his arm from around your shoulder, and you miss the warmth immediately. You try not to let it show as he drags his hands over his face and echoes your laughter with his own. When you lean against his shoulder, your side pressed to his, he stays steady and lets you do it.

“It’s okay,” you say, nudging him with your elbow. “Fresh start, yeah?”

He nods. You stick your hand out to him. He laughs and wraps his own around yours, shaking firmly.

“Awesome. Because I have a feeling you’re smart,” you say. “And I’m seriously going to fail our physics class unless you help me.”

Oscar laughs, and the way it takes over his whole body makes you smile. His head bumps against yours, but you can’t even find it in you to mind. It’s enough that he’s laughing around you.

“Okay, but you have to help me, too,” he says, hand still wrapped with yours, and he squeezes it. “I wanna fit in here. I mean, I’m not even from this continent, you know. So trying to find my place has been…”

Your heart aches for him. Suddenly it all makes sense. You know the feeling of being an outsider all too well. So you smile and nod and shake his hand again. “Deal.”

Lando comes and finds the two of you only a few minutes later. He knocks on the door, and Oscar opens it just a crack before he lets his teammate in. He leaves the two of you with a quick nod, seeming to understand that his job here is done. Lando takes you back to his room a few minutes later, his arm around your waist and his head knocking against yours. You pass Max in the hallway, who exchanges a look with Lando and reaches out to squeeze your arm. You’re sure he’ll interrogate you tomorrow to make sure you’re feeling okay.

Lando doesn’t even question the fact that Oscar was the one to take care of you- you suppose to him, it just makes sense. Teammates looking out for teammates, or in this case, their teammate’s friend. He just checks in on you, cleans up the last few tears from your face, and then suggests you stay the night. You don’t exactly want to go back downstairs and through the party, so you agree. You change into a pair of his shorts and a t-shirt, though you keep Oscar’s sweatshirt and put it back on, too. Lando gives you the bed and pulls out the air mattress that he keeps on hand for this, and the two of you fall asleep to the sound of the bass shaking the walls of the house.

…..

The family dinner the next day is loosely breakfast themed. The guys are all dead in the morning, so you take it upon yourself to go do the shopping. And for that, you drag along your trusty assistant, Logan Sargeant. He’s one of few people on the team with his driver’s license, since so many of them are international students and never bothered getting one, and he has a car. Besides that, he’s a rookie, and he’s contractually obligated -meaning Max has politely asked him- to help you whenever you ask. He picks you up in his tiny Toyota, and then you’re off to the grocery store.

He carries the list while you stroll the aisles. “I’ve never heard of literally half the stuff on this list,” he says.

You roll your eyes. “That’s because you’re uncultured.”

You reach up on one of the shelves, snagging a jar with a yellow lid and label. He checks it off the list, brow furrowed.

“I thought this was breakfast for dinner night,” he adds, scrunching his nose up.

You turn to him, giving him an exasperated sigh. “It is. There’s just… a secondary theme. Don’t worry, my American boy, you’ll get your omelette.”

“Omelettes are French!” He cries out, huffing as you start to walk down the aisle, away from him. “The word is literally French!”

“Whatever you say, Miami,” you tease. “What’s next on the list?”

You buy Logan a coffee from a local place on your way back as a thank you for his help. In return, he tells you he forgives you for your comments about him being American. When you pull up to the house, you can see Lando and Charles in the living room. They come outside quickly, ready to help carry the bags in.

You head for the kitchen, one very specific bag in hand. When you walk in, you find Oscar, perched on a barstool, head pressed against his fist as his elbow rests on the counter. Max is on the phone in the dining area, chatting away loudly in another language. You can tell Oscar has a headache, just from the look on his face.

“You’re just the guy I was looking for,” you say, brightly but not too loud.

He blinks a couple times, then points at himself. “I’m an awful cook, if that’s what you’re implying.

You laugh and shake your head. “No, no- not that. But it’s breakfast night, right? So-“ you pull a jar of Vegemite out of the bag and set it down on the counter. “I got this. And then I went a little crazy in the international aisle of the grocery store. Oh, and I got sprinkles? The internet said something about fairy bread and I’m intrigued-“

You pause when he reaches for the jar, and his fingers brush yours. When you look up, there’s a look on his face you don’t quite recognize. It’s almost unbearably soft. You pull your hand out from under his so he can take the jar.

“You got Australian snacks,” he says, so quietly and almost reverently. “You…”

You shrug. “We talked about finding your place. One of the best ways I’ve found to do that is to tell people a little bit about yourself. It doesn’t have to be deep, could just be…”

He leans up and peeks in the bag, and his eyes go wide as he gasps, “TimTams!”

You laugh. “Yeah, could just be TimTams.”

He grins up at you, big and wide and so, so endeared. It’s a whole different side of him. You feel unbelievably proud of yourself for the idea.

Lando comes into the kitchen, hands full of bags. “Yeah, thanks, guys, we don’t need help.”

Charles is right behind him. “It’s fine, actually- hey, you bought Oscar cookies?”

Oscar hugs the package to his chest, suddenly possessive. You laugh and reach into one of the bags Lando is holding. In your hand is another package of TimTams.

“I got two of everything,” you tell Oscar. “To share and to keep.”

He smiles again, and lets the TimTams fall from his chest. “You all have to try one.”

Max gets off the phone and helps unpack things, setting out the stuff he’ll need for dinner tonight. You watch on with a fond smile as Oscar introduces all the snacks to anyone who’s willing to listen. Lando, Logan, and Charles sit with rapt attention as Oscar tells them childhood stories about all the snacks. Meanwhile, Max starts making pancake batter, and you start prepping the other ingredients.

Max elbows you lightly as the other guys laugh together. “You did good.”

You smile at him, shrugging. “We had a nice talk last night.”

Max cocks his head, smiling softly. “Before or after he tried to punch a guy out for you?”

Your face heats up at the comment, and you look away from Max and back to the food in front of you. “Last I remember, you had that guy pinned to the wall.”

Max makes a noncommittal noise. “I should’ve let Oscar punch him.”

You want to argue. To tell him that you’re not worth the trouble of that, and that he was right to tell Oscar to back off and send both of you away. But when you look up at him, the look on his face is a mixture of concern and determination. You blink, and he nudges his shoulder against yours.

“He deserved to be punched,” Max says, and you shrug. “And if you ever see him again, you call one of us. And maybe at the next party, you-“

“I’m fine,” you insist, picking up a plate and heading for the dining table. “Promise.”

More and more teammates file in, and now Lando’s the one forcing them to try TimTams, and encouraging Oscar to tell a story about being 5 and eating them in a pool, or something along those lines. You listen, even with your back turned, and hope that this helps Oscar feel a little bit more at home.

Later, after dinner, while everyone else is cleaning up, Oscar finds you in the living room. He holds out a plate. On top of it, laid out perfectly and carefully, are three TimTams.

“You didn’t try any earlier,” he says. He shifts on his feet when you take the plate. “I wanted to say thank you. Again.”

You smile up at him, laying your book on your chest. “Not a problem, Piastri. It was the least I could do, after you helped me last night.”

He frowns slightly, nose wrinkling up in mild disgust. “You know you don’t owe me for that, right?”

You nod as you pick up a TimTam off the plate. “But I can still say thank you. So. Thank you, again.”

He nods, and his face goes soft when you take a bite of the cookie and look up at him. It’s like he’s waiting with bated breath, desperate to know if you like them or not. You break out into a wide grin at the taste and nod eagerly up at him.

“Yeah, okay,” you say, eyeing the cookies on the plate. “I get the obsession.”

He laughs, nodding in agreement. One of your arms is resting on the back of the couch, and as if on reflex, he brushes his hand against yours. His skin is warm and soft. Your breath catches in your chest.

He backs away to disappear upstairs, then, with a soft “Goodnight,” that you echo, but not before you catch the tinge of red on his cheeks.

…..

In physics class on Monday, you watch Oscar waver in the doorway. He takes a stilted step towards the seat he normally sits in, across the lecture hall, and then he stops. You blink in confusion, taking a sip of coffee from your travel mug. He seems to take a breath, and then he turns- you pretend you’re not watching as he walks towards you instead. You pretend your heart isn’t racing as he walks up next to you. It shouldn’t be racing. Why is your heart racing?

“Is this seat taken?” He asks, politely, quietly, like it’s the first day of class.

You bite back a laugh when you look up at him, because his cheeks are red and he looks so, so proud of himself. “It’s open,” you say, smiling up at him.

He nods, sets his bag down on the desk, and then collapses into the chair next to you. He stares at your travel mug enviously as he slips his laptop from his bag, and you do laugh at that, at the tight furrow in his brow, at the pout on his lips. He glares at you, then, and then it all dissolves into a yawn. Something about it makes your chest ache- maybe it’s the way he pulls his hands into his hoodie sleeves. He looks like he could curl up right there and fall asleep.

“Early practice?” You ask, smiling sympathetically.

“So early,” he says, rubbing his eyes blearily. “I hate Seb.” Then he frowns, and shakes his head. “No, I don’t. But I do love sleep.”

You laugh and elbow him lightly. “I’ll bring you coffee on Wednesday. As long as you make good on your promise to help me study for this exam.”

His eyes light up, and he elbows you back, smiling brightly. “Easy trade. We’re going to get you an A+.”

You roll your eyes. Before you can respond, the professor calls the class to order, and you both open your laptops. But Oscar’s there, and he’s agreed to help you study, and when you lose your place in the notes halfway through the lecture he helps you get back on track with a sweet smile. It definitely doesn’t make butterflies swirl in your stomach.

Two days later, you walk into the kitchen, paper bag in hand, and you’re greeted with bright smiles and eager hands. Lando grabs for the bag, and Alex isn’t far behind him. Even Max, who’s cooking something on the stovetop, seems to perk up.

“Hey, hey,” you scold, snatching the bag out of their reach. “Not for you.”

Lando furrows his brows. “You’re my best friend, you show up at my house, and you have food that’s not for me?”

You shrug. “It’s for my study group,” you explain, holding the bag high above your head as you walk towards the dining room.

Oscar pops his head through the doorway and smiles at you. He takes the bag from your hand. “Hi. Ready?”

Lando blinks at the two of you in bewilderment. “Um?”

“We’re gonna get an A+ in physics,” Oscar says to Lando, drumming his free hand on the doorframe.

You scoff. “I’m unsure if that’s possible, at this point. But I’m hoping to at least pass.”

You head for the dining table and sit down. Oscar already has all his study materials spread out, so you do the same. When you look up, Lando is having some sort of almost silent conversation with Oscar, talking in hushed tones and facial expressions that do very little to tell you what’s going on. You see Oscar shake his head, then nod, then shake his head again. Max is watching them, too, in amusement. You exchange a glance with the team captain, and he shrugs. His food is burning on the stove- you can smell it. Alex’s far too calm announcement of that fact breaks up whatever was happening between Oscar and Lando.

Oscar turns back to you, brows raised. “Ready?”

Behind him, Max opens the kitchen window and waves smoke out of it.

You nod. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

You unpack Chinese takeout containers and dish out food on plates. Oscar’s teammates wander through occasionally, sticking their heads into the dining areas to say hi and ask how things are going, but for a while, it’s just the two of you. You find that Oscar’s a great study partner. He’s kind when you ask questions, willing to explain things in a way that you understand. And, when you get bored, you have him to look at. The serious look on his face, the little furrow in his brow, the soft curve of his lips when you answer a question correctly. He’s nice to look at, that’s all.

You walk home later that night feeling better about your odds on the physics exam, and better about the whole situation with Oscar. You think you might finally be winning him over. Halfway to your apartment, you pause on the sidewalk, overlooking the campus park. It would be shorter to just cut through the park. Take the more direct route. You study it for a few moments in the hazy blue post sunset light. Then you turn down the sidewalk and continue on your original route home.

Read Part 3, Losing The Dream!

taglist: @4-mula1 @celestialams @struggling-with-delia @lovekt @i-wish-this-was-me @forzalando @iloveyou3000morgan @callsign-scully @arian-directioner @racingheartsposts @sakuramxchii

series taglist: @sourskywalker @ivyvlair @gwginnyweasley @annispamz @bearlul @aresriiots @verstoppenheimer @black-fireproofs @smilinlemon @arieslost @floralkoi @vicurious28 @likedbygaslyy @rorabelle15 @bwormie @treatallwithkindness @fandomnerd11 @adhxmoony @sakuramxchii @insunia @mindflay3r @talking-raw @coolmathgames2 @assholeinatrenchcoat @saachiep81 @venusacrossthestars @v1naco @anthonylockwoodandco111 @whalebursoot-main

crossed out blogs are ones i was unable to tag!!

621 notes · View notes

kiefbowl · 4 months

Text

this is going to sound silly but it isn't silly, and I'm seriously saying this. I do think there is a slight feminist concern to alien abduction stories in so far as we can assume that when people, especially women, talk about their abductions and their abilities to communicate with extra terrestrials et cetera, they are someone who is mentally unwell and who has likely experienced something traumatic. alien abduction stories tend to have common elements even if there are details wildly different from each individual. those details are different because they likely didn't happen, but the common elements tend to be things like being taken from home, being violated, being exposed, having things implanted in the body, experiencing pregnancy, having secret knowledge, having a special connection to the extra terrestrials...

you can start putting some pieces together. yes, sometimes these elements are shared because they are what's heard in pop culture. you're more likely to imagine the details of a book you read or a tv show you saw than come up with something so fantastically new and original. you can imagine, for example, if someone is a say a seven year old girl being manipulated into sexual favors by a trusted adult and doesn't understand what's happening to her and has seen alien media and perhaps even has other messaging around her wrt sin, purity, worthiness, karma (what have you), and also perhaps is predisposed to mental illness, it's easier to believe she's a special person being abducted by other worldly creatures who don't truly mean her harm. you can see how a vivid child's imagination could lead to an adult believing memories that never happened.

and so the feminist concern is to not treat these stories as complete jokes and hoaxes and roll our eyes. I'm just reminded today of something I saw years ago. I think it was a Penn and Teller Bullshit episode on aliens, and they had a group of hard core believers talking about their experiences with aliens, and it felt like we were supposed to be laughing at them when at least one of them was a woman who truly believed an alien husband took her way sometimes and forced her to give birth and she had several children she didn't get to see in space, and she was clearly not very well adjusted socially. all I could think was is this a woman who's been raped? is this a woman who has been forced to have abortions? is this a woman who has had multiple miscarriages? is this a woman experiencing domestic abuse from a husband or boyfriend? but the episode wasn't interested in exploring that, and she stuck out as "one of these things is not like the others" when juxtaposed to fake professors trying to sell their weirdo books as a living or whatever else was in the episode.

when we say believe women, that includes "crazy" women. women who say ghosts are trying to kill them, who talk about people living in their walls coming out at night to steal their body parts, women who believe they are married to alien overlords since they were 12 and have birth 50 alien babies. these women are probably telling us something and I think we can say "I believe something has happened to you" rather than make a mockery of them.

#this post probably sounds apropos of nothing but it's been on my mind before #I just went down a rabbit hole not worth explaining that reminded me of this

725 notes · View notes

setsugekka · 1 year

Text

❥outsourcing (m)

↳ With monogamy as the assumed, standard relationship model, what happens when a few years down the line, you and your husband come to the understanding that both of you are interested in exploring more?

You call his friend over for dinner and entertainment, of course.

husband!bang chan x fem!reader x bull!lee minho — ethical non-monogamy, explicit sexual content. [5,8k wc] cws: hot wifing/cuckholding!!, dom/sub dynamics (dom!minho), penetrative sex (unprotected), oral sex (m), hair pulling, rough sex, dirty talk, humiliation, pet names (incl. slut).

Renegotiation of terms.

There are always terms and conditions.

We don’t typically refer to it in such a crass way – the agreed upon conditions of a relationship upon entering it. The expectations and boundaries each individual may have for the other. Typically, most things that would constitute the terms and conditions are assumed upon entry.

Monogamy is assumed. The standard. This is the baseline, unless otherwise stated. The end all, be all of a relationships' foundation, in many cases. Do you want to fuck other people, or not?

Sometimes, when entering a new relationship, we agree to terms that at the time we are happy with. Of course I don’t want to be with anyone else, I love you, why would I? You’re all I could ever need.

The concept of one person providing any and everything you could possibly ever need. Such a socially common set up for failure. An impossible task we ask of partners without even truly stating it. Be everything at all times for me, and I will be the same for you. The idea that seeking anything outside of a partner is bad – when that is precisely what friends, family, colleagues all provide, without the logical connection being made.

Is one person ever truly enough? Is it logical to even believe in such a fairy tale?

The truth of the matter, is that you are not enough. There is comfort, serenity, freedom upon accepting this as the case. We are only human, after all. Being human is okay.

“Do you ever think about it?”

You watch the back of Chan’s head from your seated position at the dining room table – you watch his arms still only briefly from the chopping motion of him working into the onions on the counter before he turns slowly to look behind him – at you, and his brows furrow in confusion. “Think about…what?”

The innocuous conversation about your time together as a couple – now married – had started simply enough, discussing the past and present and all of your little journeys together in between, sexual and not – but naturally, as the hours wore on, the sexual nature had begun looming more and more in the foreground of the talk.

Besides, you had been thinking about it for months, now. How to bring it up. If you even should. Suppose now was as good a time as ever.

It was difficult sneaking it in there, between some recollection of dirty talking and fantasy discussion. He was the one that had brought it up to begin with, after all. He put the thought in your head. Nothing you were too keen on in particular at the time – three or so years back, and in the middle of sex – but the idea stuck with you, creeping back in with more and more frequency. He brought it up. He mentioned it. It was his idea.

But did he even remember?

Bringing an elbow up to the table and placing your chin in your palm, you grin towards him. Your husband. Love of your life. It wasn’t as if you wanted to replace him, after all. He was perfect, amazing, wonderful, and the sex was, too. It wasn’t about any of that.

You weren’t really sure what it was about. Curiosity? Taboo? A sort of itch unable to be scratched, but also lingering without cause. The truth was this: you had perfectly fine dick at home, so why were you wanting more?

He brought it up.

“Remember that anniversary night that we got pretty drunk, you said that thing,” you begin, taking the utmost care in how you traverse your words. “About…someone else?”

It always was cute, the way you could watch Chan’s ears redden in real time.

“Were you serious?”

Chan sets the knife down and turns slowly, leaning the small of his back up against the counter edge as if in need of the support for the conversation that is about to take place. Chewing on the inside of his mouth as if just as carefully attempting to choose his words, he silences for far too long for your own liking, before finally allowing a response from himself.

“Do you want that?”

“Don’t answer my question with another question!” you whine, jokingly throwing a hand towel in his direction and only for it to fall flat on the floor in front of him. He flinches regardless and smiles.

“Fine,” he says, before making his way to sit across from you at the table. “Then we need to like…talk about this.”

Chan reaches forward and takes your free hand into one of his own, gently rubbing his thumb over the top of it and bashfully smiles at you. Ears still bright with shyness, and he pulls his eyes down and away from your own briefly before answering the question.

“For me? Yeah, I mean,” he pauses, once again thinking through his response carefully and in real time. “I don’t want to pressure you into anything but…I think about it, yeah.”

“Do you jerk off to it?”

“Oh come on, really?”

“I feel like that’s the best indicator of how into something you are,” you joke, “if you come to it, then you’re into it. At least, the idea of it.”

Pulling his hand away and sitting back in his chair to cross his arms, playfully huffy at the way the conversation has turned, he rolls his eyes before reluctantly answering. “Yes! Is that what you want me to say? Yes, I have.”

“Okay, good,” you say, reaching forward again with a grabby hand indicating that you wish to receive physical affection from him just as he had been giving prior to the line of questioning. “What is it about it that you…like?”

You can tell that your husband struggles with coming to terms with the conversation taking place. Not from a place of humiliation, or dissatisfaction, but rather that it was one he hadn’t intended on ever having, most likely. A conversation that he had never once played out in his head, or practiced. A passing whim one drunken night, locked away into the back of his mind – only to be indulged between him and his hand – now bare and laid out on the table for questioning. By his wife. In regards to a monogamous marriage.

…Unless?

Chan shifts in his seat and gives his hand back to you, bringing his elbow up to mirror your own posture before responding. “Suppose…something about watching you – would just be incredibly sexy to me. Making eye contact with you while it happens even if I’m not involved.”

And now you’re really taken aback, because the original assumption had been one of a threesome, but now with new information present – you realize the two of you had been on much different pages all along – and the difficulty of not expressing your shock at the revelation holds firm as it paints your facial features. “Not involved?”

But he only smiles in reply, as if the initial timidity had already worn off with the one, single expression of his desires. However, perhaps he had merely passed it to you, now, feeling the tips of your ears heat up at the implications racing through your mind.

Not a threesome. Watching.

“You think about watching another man fuck me?”

Just right out with it, then.

Chan chuckles at the fact that you’ve finally caught up with what’s actually being discussed and squeezes your hand in affirmation. “You know I’ve never been the jealous type, babe.”

“I mean, yeah,” you stumble through your words, “I just figure…most men would at least want to be involved.”

“I would be involved, I’d be there, just wouldn’t be the one fucking you.”

“You’ve really thought about this before?” you ask, suspicious.

“More than you even know.”

Your eyes widen in silent shock at the admission. You learn so much about your husband everyday, suppose today would be no different, would it?

“Besides,” he begins again, “you’re the one that broached this conversation, so obviously you’ve been thinking about it, too.”

“Yeah, a threesome, not-”

“Fucking another man, in general. The details are just that, really.”

Chan saying it like that makes you feel a little guilty, you realize. Shying away from the topic both verbally and physically – gently attempting to pull your hand from his own you watch the way his face Changes from playful to concerned – he always was incredibly attentive and quick on the pickup. “Whoa, whoa,” he stammers, “what’s wrong?”

Concern lacing your own features, you refrain from making eye contact with him – unsure of the turn that the discussion had taken. “I don’t want you to think that you’re like…not good enough or something, or like I’m constantly fantasizing about other men, or-”

“Aww, babe,” Chan coos, motioning you out of your chair and over to him. He seats you on his lap and quickly wraps strong arms around you. “I don’t. I am not even a little insecure about this – or about us – you have to know that.”

Chan kisses your arm, the only thing in direct kissable range and smiles up at you as you look down at him. “Trust me, that I know what I’m okay with, yeah? You don’t have to babysit me, I promise.”

“Okay, I believe you.”

“So, shall we dabble, then? Wade in the pools of non-monogamy?”

Hearing him say the words, non-monogamy, it sort of makes your head spin. Obviously, that is precisely what is at hand, so it being said shouldn’t elicit such a bizarre reaction deep within you. Innate guilt, worry, almost a sense of dirtiness begins to bubble up in your gut – and realistically, you know why.

Monogamy is the implied social standard. Anything outside of that is wrong. That’s what you’ve grown up being told…by everyone, by everything. Is it really okay, to bring someone else into your marriage, even if both parties are enthusiastically on board?

Hell yeah it is.

The truth is, renegotiating the terms of ones marriage – even just for a night, takes time. It takes work. It takes numerous conversations – and as a result, it’s approximately six months that go by before the logistics ever really feel ironed out enough to make the dive. Discussions of friends? Mutual friends? One-sided friends? Strangers? Each coupling will have their own preference of whom to invite in, even be it only for an evening, but upon settling on the first term, it’s only a whole slew of others thereafter. After a point, you begin to consider if sex is ever even going to happen, or if the two of you will simply talk about it forever.

But such is how it must be, to help ensure that the night – and relationship – not end in catastrophe.

It does, however, sneak up on you faster than expected – once a third and the date arrive. Standing in front of your bathroom mirror, clipping the backing of your earring on – is when you hear the voice of your husband greeting another of only semi-familiarity.

Lee Minho was Chan’s friend. He was in the wedding party. The two of you had spent just enough time together that you felt comfortable around him but not so much so that he felt too close to you, specifically. The perfect candidate. Drop-dead gorgeous. Not shy about his particular…endeavors, either. He fit the bill, perfectly.

Because you and your husband were searching for something quite specific for the evening.

It was in that moment, though – knowing that the two men were both in your home now, that it felt truly real. Of course, there was still much conversation to take place before anyone's clothing would be coming off, but he was here. Your husband was here. You were here. You were…going to have sex with another man for your husbands viewing pleasure tonight.

Probably not a story for the future grandchildren.

“Hey.”

There they are. The two men of the night standing in the doorway, now both looking at you as you slink into the living room slowly – as if not to disturb, and you can’t help but carefully scan the expressions on both of them – as if looking for the tiniest sign of reluctance.

But Minho knows why he’s here tonight – naturally, best not to spring this sort of arrangement on an unsuspecting party.

“Hey,” Minho says, continuing to shrug off his coat and hanging it on the rack next to the door. With shoes already off, he makes his way over to you and kisses the air next to your cheek. “Long time no see, huh? You look nice.”

It feels normal, in ways. It also feels incredibly bizarre. Perhaps you expected him to act some way, some way different – although you’re not sure how. But he wasn’t. He was the same as always. You aren’t sure if it makes it feel better or worse. Weird?

You look over at your husband, once again looking for any signs that this should end now before it even gets started.

But Chan only smiles. All lights green for go.

Chan handles dinner as he typically does, and it goes smoothly as expected. Catching up with Minho as if he’s any other house guest – except for tonight, a careful consideration for the alcohol intake by all parties. A soft ‘two drink maximum’ is agreed upon long before his arrival by all participants, as to not get too carried away on any end. Once food is eaten and plates cleared, Chan pours everyone their second and final glasses of wine for the night before taking his seat at the shared table again and he inhales deeply, purposefully.

Because it’s time for negotiations.

“So, suppose we should talk about the rest of the night, then?”

You shuffle in your seat a bit at the idea of how the talk will go, despite having already had similar discussions previously over the months. Minho is no stranger to the topic at hand, and it’s not even his first time being a third to a couple – information he casually mentioned upon the first inquiry – it was comforting to you in a particular way, that at least someone involved in tonight's festivities had been here before.

“Pretty much,” Chan starts, and surprisingly confident, “the two of you just have fun. I don’t have any particular boundaries of what you can and can’t do, but I think it’s best if we use the color system for safety, just in case.”

Green means “everything is good,” yellow means “slow down, I need a moment to recollect myself,” and red means “immediate full stop.”

“Yeah, that sounds best,” Minho agrees, and then turns his sight to you across the table. “Are you okay with that? Is there anything you can think of that you do or don’t want me to do?”

Just the question itself makes you feel a little light-headed. You had thought about this numerous times already, for months, and yet your mind still felt empty in the moment. As if not even a second of consideration had been had prior. It was excitement, but it was also fear. The fear of doing something wrong. The fear of the potential aftermath of tonight.

Sensing your hesitation, Minho looks at Chan before reaching his hand across and taking your own. “Hey, you don’t have to do this just because I’m here, seriously, we don’t have to do anything, I can go home now, later, right in the middle of it – it’s all fine by me.”

“No, no!” you insist, realizing how standoffish you appear. Reluctant. scared. You are a little bit, but in no way are you rethinking. “I do, I want to…I'm just, nervous? I guess?”

“Is it because I’m here?” Chan asks suddenly, and you realize upon hearing the words that yeah, it kind of is. He smiles and nods at your admission, gently reaching over and adding his own hand onto the pile of reaffirming ones already laid out atop the table.

“Don’t worry about me, if you’re happy, then I’m happy.”

Arms pull back and negotiations continue, easier than before. Minho asks about the common things; condoms, anal, penis in vagina, oral…along with some less common things that are more within the scope of the role he’s meant to play that night, and with boundaries more or less set, the three of you stand up, and head towards the bedroom. Minho walks ahead, taking your hand into his own to lead you – briefly looking back at your husband, with a smile on his face – it’s the first time that the guilt and fear truly subsides – and is replaced with excitement, anticipation, desire.

Pulling up a chair, Chan sits himself down a bit distanced from the corner of the bed as to allow ample space for the scene that is about to take place before him. You suspect that perhaps he had downplayed his interest in the whole thing, with how the smile on his face never diminishes even once Minho starts kissing you.

You think it’s charming, but you know that eventually, you’re going to have to let the thought of your husband fall by the wayside to truly enjoy the fun that the night has to offer.

Standing at the side of the bed, Minho gently wraps one, strong, arm around your waist and pulls you flush against him before kissing you on the mouth – and the excitement of another man kissing you, lips completely unfamiliar after years of familiarity, immediately sends a rush of anticipation to your groin. Gently sucking at your bottom lip, teeth ghosting against the flesh – you’re reminded that Minho had been invited to play a very particular role that night – one that Chan never had been all that willing to play, even after all of your years together.

Minho was there to use you.

Pulling back from you, you already feel a bit dazed from the rush of adrenaline – looking at the man before you as he begins unbuttoning his white dress shirt, looking at you through long lashes and whispy, black hair, he smiles briefly before quickly kissing you again.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, remember that,” he whispers as he continues fiddling with his buttons. “Ever. You can tell me to stop any time.”

“I know,” you respond, a bit breathier with want than you had liked, and Minho chuckles under his breath at the effect that he’s already had on you before shrugging his shirt off and bending down for the bottom of your dress – carefully pulling it up and over your head.

Now it was very real.

Minho kisses you again, arms pulling you against him, and you revel at the way it feels to have the heat of another man on your skin. When you had imagined the moment, you hadn’t thought it to feel anything like this. The excitement, the anticipation, the needy want of another man inside of you, and already? Truthfully, you were a little humiliated at what he was doing to you.

“I’m gonna start the scene now,” Minho says quietly, looking you in the eyes and scanning your features. “Remember what I said.”

“Yeah, okay,” you exhale, and it’s shaky.

“Are you okay?” Minho chuckles again before starting, and you can only laugh at yourself in response.

“Yeah, you’re…I want to fuck you.”

You hear Chan off in the corner, and he’s laughing at your admission, which only causes Minho to laugh a bit, himself. “Okay well, we’ll get there, needy.”

Hearing Minho call you needy certainly doesn’t offset your desire for him, but watching his expression harden and his eyes darken right before you – as if settling into character – only sets off the growing desire in the pit of your stomach more.

“Get on your knees.”

Minho is already unbuckling his belt and prying his zipper down as the demand leaves his lips, and you’re all too happy to follow suit, dropping quickly and placing your hands on his thighs for leverage as he exposes himself to you. Slightly thinner than Chan, but also slightly longer – the idea of taking a dick that you’re not familiar with rushes to the forefront of your mind and the familiar ache of want begins to settle between your legs.

You haven’t even touched it, yet.

“Why don’t you go ahead and make coming here worth my time, then?”

And you’re all too happy to oblige, wrapping a hand around the base of his cock and slowly working him before gently running a circle over the tip of him with your tongue – Minho’s breath hitches as he watches you then take the majority of his length into your mouth. Three strokes of your lips onto him, Minho brings a hand up and into your hair, gripping slightly and pulling you off of him. He smiles, rubbing the head of himself against your already red lips and watching the way you already – seemingly desperately – wish to have him in your mouth again.

“Look at you,” he says, satisfaction lacing his tone, “so desperate for strange cock. Color?”

It almost gives you whiplash, but you answer right away, “green.”

“Good, that’s what I thought – now show me just how bad you want it.”

And you do, in quick fashion. Combining the motion of your mouth and your hands as you work him, tongue lapping circles over the tip of his cock when you pull off, you love the way he watches every motion of you on him – and almost with a look of disdain. As if he doesn’t respect you, as if you’re nothing but a place to come for him.

Precisely everything that Chan could never do.

Working him quickly, you feel his fingertips curl into your scalp as the words leave his lips – except that they’re not intended for you.

“Mmm, your wife sucks cock pretty well, might have to make a regular arrangement of this.”

You think in that moment, that you might come untouched after all.

But just as quickly, Minho pulls you off of him and motions for you to get onto the bed as he pulls his jeans from his legs the rest of the way. You quickly oblige, and it’s not long before Minho is up and between your legs – meeting you face to face again and kissing you rough, with teeth. needy and hard between your legs. Hands snaking up his toned arms – not as thick and built as Chan – but enough to be strong, you feel all of the ways that he’s different from the man that you married. That you love. The thought brings your attention back to Chan, seated across the room – hand firmly and slowly wrapped around himself.

He was enjoying watching it. Suppose it really was his ultimate fantasy all along: watching you fuck another man for his entertainment.

And naturally, the fact that he was enjoying it, touching himself to it, only made the desire pool between your legs that much more.

“Don’t look at him,” Minho says, pulling your face over and towards him with a finger, “you’re mine, tonight.”

Oh my god.

You feel Minho’s hand slink down your body and between your legs, fingers pressed up against your clothed pussy, and you watch the way genuine shock takes his features – it’s almost out of character in the split second – it might actually be out of character.

You wore lace panties. Can’t hide much with that.

“Oh my God,” he exclaims, barely touching the soaked fabric between your legs, “you’re so wet.”

“Minho!” you shyly reply, swatting his arm as it holds him in a hovering position over you, and he only laughs in response.

“Sorry, I’m just – wow – good.”

And it’s as if he remembers to slip back into a more domineering character, that he adds, “I was going to eat you out, but suppose I don’t have to.”

Pulling himself up and seated on his heels, Minho slips a finger on each side of your hips into your panties, “can I take these off?” and you nod hurriedly in response. Minho’s eyes follow the string of arousal that connects the fabric to you as he pulls it from you in near awe – and playfully shakes his head at you before crawling back up your torso and settling down against you – head of his length just faintly pressed against your folds.

“Sure you don’t want me to wear a condom?”

“No, I-” and you pause, eyes pulling towards your husband again – his own eyes intently gazing upon the display in front of him – and you snap.

“I want to feel you, I want to feel all of you.”

Minho only smiles, dipping his head down into the crook of your neck as he reaches down to line himself up with you. Kissing your skin, his lips make their way to the shell of your ear as he slowly presses himself forward and in.

“God baby, you want me so bad, hm? Don’t worry, I’ll have you drooling for me…”

It’s a whisper, dialogue only to be heard between the two of you – not for your husbands ears, and the implications make your head spin, along with the slow stretch of unfamiliarity prying you apart in new and different ways from what you’re used to. Once pressed hip to hip, Minho stills and pulls himself up and off of you to look at you – taking you in visually.

“Can I move?”

“Please,” you just about beg.

If you were honest, Minho was being much less domineering than you had expected – you assume that it’s due to this being the first time that this arrangement is taking place – that he’s playing it safe and not wanting to take too many risks. You kind of wish he would be riskier, but the excitement of a new partner is already doing majority of the work for him as it is – mind racing at how wrong it is, allowing another man to fuck you, and raw at that.

And come inside of you?

With just the thought, your walls tighten against him and he feels it, humming at the sensation in a slow build up to a pace that suits the both of you – Minho hovers over you with both palms flat against the mattress to either side, looking down at how he enters and exits you – and then back up at the absolute delight splashed across your face.

Biting your lip as his pace builds, the overwhelming need to vocalize threatens you, and it feels all too real in the moment. Moaning as another man fucks you, for your husband to hear, but Minho’s too quick on the uptake and he recognizes it. Another easy win, for him.

“You worried he’s gonna hear you?” Minho groans as he finally settles into his pace – fucking hard into you and the sounds echoing throughout the room. “Worried he’s gonna hear how much you love my cock? He can hear you, he’s going to hear you, it’s okay.”

You can’t even control it at that point, exasperated fuck and oh my God escaping your bitten red lips as he fucks into you, and it only makes him thrust against you harder – so hard that it pushes you up the bed. “That’s right, don’t hold back, let him hear you, baby, let him know you like it.”

Head spinning, and muscles tightening, you scramble to grab onto anything that you feel will give you any sort of leverage as you feel your first orgasm quickly threatening – Minho’s forearms seeming as good a choice as any as your nails dig in, and he hisses in response with a smile, all the while continuing his relentless pace into you.

“You can come” he insists with a soft, gentle utterance, “you can come for me, and you can come for him.”

And for whatever reason, that’s what makes you snap.

The orgasm tears through you in violent fashion, eyes darting down to watch your husband as he pulls at himself at the sight. Looking back up at the man taking you through it, he grins down at you with his bottom lip pulled up between his teeth in satisfaction.

As Minho finishes riding you through it, he presses himself down against you again – mouth against the skin of your cheek, hot breath against you as he breathes out, and you can feel him begin to withdraw from you.

“That one was for me, now one for him, hm?”

Before you can think through the implications of the words, Minho pulls up and away – taking your limp body with him and turning you to face Chan across the room – your arms barely able to catch you from face planting into the mattress, and the man steadies your hips up and towards him and just as fluidly sinks himself into you again with a groan as he leans forward and settles a fist in your hair – ensuring that you’re watching your husband just before you.

“You like having him watch you?”

“Y-yes,” you stutter out and against the sheets.

Minho looks up and at Chan, “you like watching her get fucked?”

It’s breathy and shaken, but a “yeah” escapes from him in response.

“Good,” Minho says, burying himself deep into you from behind – so hard that the force and weight of him pushes you down and flat against the bed beneath you – now straddling you from behind, he brings his hand back, flat against the between of your shoulders to hold you in place as he continues into you. “She’s so wet, think she’s going to come watching you.”

Chan groans at the words, and the truth of the matter is that he might be right – feeling the familiar coiling between your legs again, and already at that.

“You gonna come for him, baby?” Minho growls, his motions harsher and rougher than before, getting more comfortable in his role as a sort of dom for the night. “Gonna let him watch you get filled up with my cum, maybe?”

“Fuck, Minho,” is all you can manage through gritted teeth, fingertips curled into the sheets beneath you begging for any purchase onto reality, but the truth is, you’re watching Chan – watching the way he palms himself at the sight of another man fucking you, talking to you like this, saying that he’s going to come inside of you – and Chan is enjoying it. He’s close.

It only gets you there even faster.

“Oh, hear that? Thought of me coming in her has her moaning my name,” he says smugly, thrusts harder than ever before, “well go ahead then, milk me, slut. Earn it.”

Quickly, you feel Minho lean down and against your ear, “can I cum inside of you?” and you just as quickly answer in affirmation. You had discussed it prior, but you appreciate the check in, nonetheless. He pulls back up, both hands gripped into the flesh of your behind as he rocks into you, desperate pleas for him not to stop falling from your mouth as you bring your attention back up to your husband – and with finality, you deliver the final blow of the night.

“I’m coming, please, please, i-inside, I want-”

Your incoherent babbling is enough to set both of the men over the edge, but it’s Chan who is the first to go, breathy curses leaving his lips in what you think might be the hardest he’s ever come – and you think to yourself in one split-second moment of clarity how lucky you are to be in such a position where you can simply witness it, as almost a bystander of sorts – to the absolute visual glory that is your husband stroking himself to completion as milky-clear ropes of cum coat his abs and fingers upon the display before him.

You’re the second to find your end, tightening hard around Minho’s cock at the visual of watching Chan finish, and it’s all it takes to topple the man inside of you over the edge – fingernails gripped deep into your skin as he fucks into you hard – three, four more times – throbbing through his release inside of you before slowly coming to a halt and slumping over your back with a heaving chest.

As sanity begins to come back to you, you consider the fact that there’s a lot of post-nut clarity to wade through right about now.

But Minho takes over, just as he had majority of the night – being the sort of guide throughout – he soon after finishing withdraws from you and peels himself from you altogether, lying down next to and brushing hair from your face.

“Are you okay? How do you feel?”

It takes you a few moments to answer, but the concern across his face pushes you forward. he’s worried. He needs to hear that you’re okay. That it’s all okay. That he didn’t fuck up and that you’re not feeling regretful, guilty, remorse.

“Yeah,” you finally exhale, “yeah, I’m okay, I feel good.”

And Minho smiles at the response, feeling relieved. He reaches down and finds your hand, lacing his fingers with your own, before leaning forward and kissing you on the forehead. “Good.”

With that, he then slowly cranes his neck up and over to get a visual of Chan, still breathy and spent just a bit across the room. “You good, champ?”

But Chan can only chuckle in response at first, before nodding and acknowledging the mess before him, “if she’s happy, then I’m happy.”

“Thanks for everything again,” Chan says, handing Minho a bag of food to take home in the morning. “You do good work, very professional,” he jokes.

“Don’t talk to me like I’m work for hire, oh my God,” Minho scoffs, pulling his jacket on and taking the bag from Chan. “I did you the favor!”

“Fucking my wife is a favor to me?”

“Evidently, I didn’t invite myself.”

“Don’t listen to him,” you smile, playfully slapping Chan on the arm before reaching towards Minho and hugging him goodbye. “Thanks for last night, you took really good care of us, it means a lot.”

Minho sort of rolls his eyes, as if embarrassed by the idea of being complimented for a job well done, but says that you’re more than welcome to you before turning back towards your husband, and with an elbow to the arm and a sly grin, “be careful buddy, might steal your girl.”

And Chan rolls his eyes in response, thanking Minho again for his time before pushing him out of the front door in envious jest.

With the door closed, and an end to the chapter, Chan pulls you into his embrace and hugs you tightly, much to your surprise. “I love you,” he says.

“Babe,” you start, apprehensively, “are you really worried he’s going to take me? You don’t have to-”

“No,” Chan interjects, pulling you from him and just as lightning quick hoisting you up and over his shoulder before heading to the bedroom.

“But don’t worry, I’m about to undo everything he just did.”

♡ send me your thoughts and feelings in my ask.

—this is a oneshot, there will be no part 2.

2K notes · View notes

mayullla · 9 months

Note

Yandere Ayato 🦋🌸 please and thank you 😊

Title: You continued to look for him

Character(s): Ayato (Genshin Impact) Summary: You could not help but hope that you would be able to meet your fated soulmate. Yet that never happened and you wed the Yashiro Commissioner. You should have given up on soulmates then, but you didn't. Warnings/tags: Yandere themes, Fem!reader, soulmate au (same tattoos), arranged marriage au, manipulation, toxic parents, implied murder

[ - A little present~! Event - Closed - ]

Fated love, in your world, was something like marks on the skin that you were born with. A patterned birthmark that was unique to only you and one other person who was your soulmate.

There was a special connection between both people, the deeper the love the more profound the shade, it was a pride to some lovers, because a mark never lies. Most lovers could rest assured that they have each other in their hearts, however if one side dies, their birthmark will become lighter... less obvious on the skin.

Gone as if they were never there. What felt like only a dream… meeting their soulmate, marrying, and living happily ever after life whatever that dream was has come to an end. But for many aristocratic families, it was common practice to marry out of benefits or money rather than something like fate.

You were born into aristocracy and were expected the same.

Even when everyone saw that little birthmark on your wrist right under your palm, it was either ignored by most or stared with pity for the more sympathetic ones. But they too ultimately ignored it, unable to help you.

Your parents found your birthmark to be a nuisance. If it was somewhere else on the body less obvious, then it would have been far better in their eyes. If you didn't have any from the start, it was the most ideal situation.

But it was not the case, and they could only make do with forcing you to wear gloves whenever you go out or when you were in their eyesight.

You grew up being told that this birthmark means nothing in nobility. Your parents made sure that you didn't get any ideas banning others from talking about it in front of you. Yet you listened, listened to the stories from maids who didn't think others were looking... listening to their little stories and gasps.

A word about it never left your lips about this sensitive topic, it was obvious that your parents would never care if you had found your soulmate. They wouldn't have let you meet him if he was of commoner status or worse shout and yell in anger if he was poor. But you always had this naive hope, there was a happy ending waiting for you.

However, that never arrived, as you wed another man arranged by your parents. They were full of glee and greed when they heard that the head of the Kamisato clan took an interest in you, ecstatic when he had sent a proposal. You watched from the corner of the room as you glanced down at your wrist, your birthmark hidden under the gloves you were forced to wear.

"It seems that you are disappointed." Kamisato Ayato, your fiance touched your cheek lightly when you stared at your wrist for too long, a solemn look on his face. You could see what he would ask next but before he could speak you didn't let him.

You shook your head at his words.

In the garden of the Kamisato estate you and him looked at the waters of Inazuma, "I am only doing what was expected of me. I will become your wife." You told him, leaning in his hand as if to show him affection, that you were willing to do this.

From that moment you should have thrown those silent hopes and dreams away. From the moment it became official that you and he were husband and wife, you should have thrown any thoughts of meeting the person you were supposed to be fated to. That from now on you belonged to someone else.

Ayato was a kind man, you thought. People had many things to say about him. He was hard-working, dutiful, smart and caring. He fulfilled his role as your husband. You were never in need, whether that be food or clothes, instead, you were spoiled as he gifted and dressed you with the finest luxuries that others could only wish to have. He was affectionate, always taking at least a little time off each day to stay by your side. You felt like he thought of you as his equal, a part of him instead of someone foreign, or a sort of trophy. He may not have been your fated partner, but he loved and cherished you nonetheless.

You should have been satisfied with what you have. You should have thrown all those feelings away, yet you were still so curious, eyes still lingering at your wrist when you zoned out in thought. He was alive that much you knew, you knew he was out there somewhere. Was he also curious as to who you were? What would you and he do when you found each other when you were married to another man.

You fulfilled your duties as the Kamisato head's wife. You showed respect to your husband as the leader. But there was a distant feeling that was never mentioned between you and Ayato. A kind of invisible wall that you unconsciously placed. Guilt ate you when you realize that your husband knew of it.

He stayed quiet, never complaining, never accusing as he continued to show affection towards you, as his wife. Everyone saw his love for you, and you heard from others and knew how loving he was as a husband. That he only had eyes for you. You would smile and blush flustered at their words but it felt more akin to stabs at your conscience.

Looking at the falling rain under the umbrella, the tapping sounds when the water drops hit the umbrella shield was relaxing as you took a stroll. Many of the servants tried to discourage you from going out worried that you may get wet, yet you told them you wished to follow Thoma to the market rather than stay home. They relented after a while, Thoma was kind enough to help you out stating that he would protect and help you if something bad were to actually happen.

Reaching the market you watched as people walked along the street, most holding their own umbrellas, others running with a hand or newspaper over their heads or hiding under shelters waiting for the rain to stop. Your mind was elsewhere as you waited for Thoma to buy all the ingredients for tonight's dinner.

Till you saw him.

Many say that it was as if the world had stopped for a moment when soulmates saw each other for the first time. A surreal experience, as you realize that the other person was the one. You could not breathe for a moment, frozen in place, eyes wide as you watched him march past you never noticing your stare. A soldier, based on his uniform but you saw the birthmark on his wrist that was holding his umbrella.

You wanted to stop him, you wanted to see him just once. Get a good look at the man who was supposed to be your fated partner. Talk to him just once to see what it would look like in your future if you married him. What was it like? Where would you be? So many questions consumed your thoughts but something was keeping you still. It was hard to move, hard to even breathe as you unconsciously counted the time, knowing that every second he was getting farther and farther away from you.

However you could not do anything.

A hand placed itself on your shoulder, snapping you back to reality. Time returned back to its normal pace. The umbrella that was on your hand was on the floor and cold were the droplets that hit your hair and your face, soon covered by an umbrella that wasn't yours.

"Are you okay?"

He called out your name, a familiar deep voice. Concerned eyes looked at you questioning why you had been standing in the rain like that. Ayato covered you with his own umbrella bringing you closer to him to shield you from getting any more wet. Words didn't come out for a moment, rendered speechless. You looked away from your husband towards where your fated partner was but the crowd had taken him away from you as you could not see him anymore.

You felt like your heart dropped and shattered into pieces till you felt a warm hand touch your cheek. Looking at the pale hand you looked up to your husband who looked at you in worry. "Do you have a fever? Hmmm... you are cold..." Ayato asked, mumbling the latter part as he moved his hand to your forehead. Some stared at you guys but continued on with their day while others mainly the elderly cooed at such a lovely couple.

"... No..." you told him, shaking your head as you looked down. It was impossible to look him in the eyes. "I am fine. I apologize… I do not know what came over me."

It was hard to think of any excuses...

He looked at you for a moment, the silence dragging on as you wondered if he actually believed you. Yet instead of a reply, you were suddenly covered with a coat too big to be yours. Looking up at your husband surprised he just moved you closer to him. "It seems like you had a long day, dear." He spoke in a soft tone, "Come. Let's get you home."

Telling Thoma who just came back from haggling with the vendors to grab your umbrella, you guys went back in the direction of the Kamisato estate. You looked nowhere but in front of you, hurried to quickly escape this situation. You didn't see your husband glance back at the crowd, his eyes trailing at someone's form.

Ayato always loved you, long before the marriage arrangement that he and your parents made. But it seemed that fate was not kind to him when he found out that you had a soulmate birthmark on your wrist while he had none.

However he knew as nobles, it was rare that one would be able to marry their fated lover as marriage was often mixed in with greed, gains, and benefits. Your parents were just the same, they looked at what they could gain while you were nothing more than one of their pawns. It was easy to sign a contract with them where he gave something that did not benefit him at all for your hand in marriage.

He didn't feel an ounce of guilt in the first meeting when you glanced at his wrist with a little bit of hope in your eyes only to dull when you found nothing. Rather it annoyed him more than anything but he knew that with time you would fall in love with him too even without a tattoo. He had already shackled you from ever leaving him too easily with marriage. And while it might take a little while you would return your feelings to him he was patient with you and gave you everything even when you placed this invisible wall between you and him.

It was slow, but he knew he was getting there. When you looked at him with those guilty eyes and tried to every so often show him the same affection he showered you with, only time would make it more genuine but a little push could never hurt anyone. It was a little later he found out who was your soulmate. An ordinary soldier, one of many and nothing special. This was just the last step till he finally had you in his grasp. Your conscious was still tilting one side to the other, telling yourself to leave those fantasies behind, with this you could finally make your decision.

Just one more step till you fall into his arms, in tears as the birthmark on your wrist slowly faded signaling the death of your soulmate. Till you finally give your heart to him, with nothing holding yourself back.

Only time was needed now till you finally become wholly his.

890 notes · View notes

agirlwhodreamsandwishes · 3 months

Text

Night in Velaris

Azriel x Reader

Summary: While going for the first time to a ball in Velaris, you met Azriel, with whom you feel an instant connection.

a/n. Hi! My second fanfic is here, it’s exciting :)! I would really appreciate if you tell me if you liked and your opinions about it! I hope I don't dissapoint anyone! Any advice would be appreciated. And please, remember English is not my first language.

Word count: 1k

Velaris was the most beautiful city you’ve ever seen. You wonder why in your five hundred years this was the first time you saw it, but then you remember how your family treated you, never allowing you to pursue your dream of traveling all Prythian. When you could, you left your family house and started visiting as many places as you could. That’s why you were now in that city on the Night Court, and you couldn't stop looking at everything around you. It was astonishing. You met some people there and they were all very nice to you; you felt really comfortable there. Almost like you could stay there for your whole life, you think.

“Hey, Y/N! Why don’t you go with us tonight?” The girls you’d met earlier were talking about a ball hosted by the High Lord and the High Lady. They were really nice and you were comfortable around them, so you thought about saying yes.

“I’d love to go, but what am I gonna wear? I don’t have any fancy dresses with me! Also… I’m not from this Court… are you sure it wouldn’t be a problem?” You started feeling sad because you already pictured how beautiful it had to be. The place, the dresses… you already had all in your mind.

“Leave the dress to us! And no, no problem. You’re in Velaris now, you have to come! Please?” You laughed and decided to go. You trusted them and you wanted to experience a ball here!

Everything was better than you could imagine. The dress? The most beautiful dress you had ever seen. The place? Magnificent. And the atmosphere? Indescribable. Your friends had helped you get ready for the ball, and you all had an amazing time doing it. You’ll miss this place and those girls when you leave, you thought to yourself. You almost want to cry at the thought. It’s the first time you get so attached to a place and to the people you’ve met.

The music started, you started dancing with your friends, having the most fun you’ve ever had. Suddenly you feel someone staring at you, but you didn’t know who it was. The night continued with you having fun and feeling that stare on you all the time.

You needed a rest, too much dancing! You saw a free chair and you sat there, hoping for a little rest. You started looking around, looking at the people dancing and having fun. That’s when you saw him. The most beautiful man you’ve ever seen, sitting in the opposite corner of the place, looking at you. You stand up, realizing it was him the one looking at you all night. You feel like you have to talk to him, so that’s what you do.

“Hi, I’m Y/N.” You smiled as you talked to him. He stared at you, like if he couldn’t talk. After what felt like an eternity, he answered. “Hi, Y/N, I’m Azriel.” You didn’t know who he was, having in mind the fact that you weren’t from that Court. He smiled, and you thought you were dead. It was the most beautiful sight you’ve ever seen, you could look at him for as long as the Mother wanted.

You two started talking about everything and anything, your friends and dancing quickly forgotten. The conversation flew like you knew each other forever. He told you about his family, his two brothers and their mates. You told him about your family and how you decided it was time to grow apart. You shared interests with him, and it seemed you had a lot in common. The night was almost finishing, but you didn’t want to leave, you didn’t want to get away from Azriel.

You saw your friends waving at you, a signal that they were leaving. “So… I should go… Those are my friends and I came here with them.” “Oh, I see…” He looked almost… sad, like if he didn’t want you to leave. And you felt the same. You looked at him as if it was the last time that you were going to see him before saying goodbye and turned around, ready to leave with your friends.

“Wait!” You turned around and saw him staring at you, nervous, like if he didn’t know how to tell you something. “I… I would like to see you again. If you want, of course.” He was blushing, avoiding your gaze, fearing the rejection. He wanted to see you again. He wanted to see you again!!! “Yes!! I mean, yeah, sure.” It was your time to blush. He chuckled and looked at you, with hope in his eyes.

“So… I’ll pick you up tomorrow at 6pm? Is that okay?” You were surprised. Did he really want to see you that soon? You smiled and nodded, telling him where you were staying. You looked at him, again, not wanting to leave. You looked back at your friends, who were looking at you, shocked that you were talking to the Shadowsinger himself.

“Well… goodbye, Azriel!” You kissed his cheek and ran away to your friends before he could say or do something. He couldn’t believe what just happened, but he wasn’t going to complain. In fact, he would replay that innocent kiss again and again in his mind until he saw you again. Azriel thought he couldn’t erase your beautiful face from his mind even if he was tortured.

When you arrive at your friends, blushing and giggling, they keep staring at you with eyes wide open. “What?” You start worrying; you don’t understand anything. “Was he one of your exes? Is he a bad person? Girls, what’s going on?!”

“Y/N, you really don’t know who he is?” One of them asks, and you try to think if you remember him from somewhere. “No?” You even question yourself.

They look at each other, shocked, and then start to laugh. “Y/N, he is Azriel, the Shadowsinger of the Night Court. The high’s lord brother.” You opened your eyes. “You’re joking, right? Oh my god! I probably embarrassed myself! Oh my god, oh my god, OH MY GOD!” You were definitely panicking. You looked back to where he was only to discover he was looking at you too and smiling. That instantly calmed you.

“Girls, I have a date tomorrow”. You definitely didn’t plan to leave that Court in the nearest future.

#azriel fluff #azriel #acotar #azriel x reader #azriel x you

245 notes · View notes

asha-mage · 2 months

Text

WoT Meta: Feudalism, Class, And The Politics of The Wheel of Time

One of my long standing personal annoyances with the fantasy genre is that it often falls into the trap of simplifying feudal class systems, stripping out the interesting parts and the nuance to make something that’s either a lot more cardboard cut-out, or has our modern ideas about class imposed onto it.

Ironically the principal exception is also the series that set the bar for me. As is so often the case, Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time is unique in how much it works to understand and convey a realistic approach to power, politics, government, rulership, and the world in general–colored neither by cynicism or idealism. How Jordan works the feudal system into his world building is no exception–weaving in the weaknesses, the strengths, and the banal realities of what it means to have a Lord or Lady, a sovereign Queen or King, and to exist in a state held together by interpersonal relationships between them–while still conveying themes and ideas that are, at their heart, relevant to our modern world.

So, I thought I’d talk a little bit about how he does that.

Defining the Structure

First, since we’re talking about feudal class systems, let's define what that means– what classes actually existed, how they related to each other, and how that is represented in Jordan’s world.

But before that, a quick disclaimer. To avoid getting too deep into the historical weeds, I am going to be making some pretty wide generalizations. The phrases ‘most often’, ‘usually’, and ‘in general’ are going to be doing a lot of heavy lifting. While the strata I’m describing is broadly true across the majority medieval and early Renaissance feudal states these things were obviously heavily influenced by the culture, religion, geography, and economics of their country–all of which varied widely and could shift dramatically over a surprisingly small amount of time (sometimes less than a single generation). Almost nothing I am going to say is universally applicable to all feudal states, but all states will have large swathes of it true for them, and it will be widely applicable. The other thing I would ask you to keep in mind is that a lot of our conceptions of class have been heavily changed by industrialization. It’s impossible to overstate how completely the steam engine altered the landscape of socio-politics the world over, in ways both good and bad. This is already one of those things that Jordan is incredibly good at remembering, and that most fantasy authors are very good at forgetting.

The disparity between your average medieval monarch’s standard of living and their peasants was pretty wide, but it was nothing compared to the distance between your average minimum wage worker and any billionaire; the monarch and the peasant had far more in common with each other than you or I do with Jeff Bezos or Mike Zuckerberg. The disparity between most people’s local country lord and their peasants was even smaller. It was only when the steam engine made the mass production of consumer goods possible that the wealth gap started to become a chasm–and that was in fact one of the forces that lead to the end of the feudal system and the collapse of many (though by no means all) of the ruling monarchies in Europe. I bring this up because the idea of a class system not predicated on the accumulation of capital seems pretty alien to our modern sensibilities, but it was the norm for most of history. Descent and birth mattered far more than the riches you could acquire–and the act of accumulating wealth was itself often seen as something vulgar and in many countries actively sinful. So with that in mind, what exactly were the classes of feudalism, and how do they connect to the Wheel of Time?

The Monarch and their immediate family unsurprisingly occupied the top of the societal pyramid (at least, in feudal states that had a monarch and royal family- which wasn’t all of them). The Monarch was head of the government and was responsible for administering the nation: collecting taxes, seeing them spent, enforcing law, defending the country’s borders and vassals in the event of war, etc. Contrary to popular belief, relatively few monarchs had absolute power during the medieval period. But how much power the monarch did have varied widely- some monarchs were little more than figureheads, others were able to centralize enough power on themselves to dictate the majority of state business- and that balance could shift back and forth over a single generation, or even a single reign depending on the competence of the monarch.

The royal family usually held power in relation to their monarch, but also at the monarch’s discretion. The more power a monarch had, the more likely they were to delegate it to trusted family members in order to aid with the administration of the realm. This was in both official and unofficial capacities: princes were often required to do military service as a right of passage, and to act as diplomats or officials, and princesses (especially those married into foreign powers) were often used as spies for their home state, or played roles in managing court affairs and business on behalf of the ruler.

Beneath the monarch and their family you get the noble aristocracy, and I could write a whole separate essay just on the delineations and strata within this group, but suffice to say the aristocracy covers individuals and families with a wide range of power and wealth. Again, starting from that country lord whose power and wealth in the grand scheme of things is not much bigger than his peasants, all the way to people as powerful, or sometimes more powerful, than the monarch.

Nobles in a feudal system ruled over sections of land (the size and quality usually related sharply to their power) setting taxes, enforcing laws, providing protection to the peasants, hearing petitions, etc. within their domains. These nobles were sometimes independent, but more often would swear fealty to more powerful nobles (or monarchs) in exchange for greater protection and membership in a nation state. Doing so meant agreeing to pay taxes, obey (and enforce) the laws of the kingdom, and to provide soldiers to their liege in the event of war. The amount of actual power and autonomy nobles had varied pretty widely, and the general rule of thumb is that the more powerful the monarch is, the less power and autonomy the nobles have, and vice versa. Nobles generally were expected to be well educated (or at least to be able to pretend they were) and usually provided the pool from which important government officials were drawn–generals, council members, envoys, etc–with some kingdoms having laws that prevented anyone not of noble descent from occupying these positions.

Beneath the nobles you get the wealthy financial class–major merchants, bankers, and the heads of large trade guilds. Those Marx referred to generally as the bourgeoisie because they either own means of production or manage capital. In a feudal system this class tended to have a good bit of soft power, since their fortunes could buy them access to circles of the powerful, but very little institutional power, since the accumulation and pursuit of riches, if anything, was seen to have negative moral worth. An underlying presumption of greediness was attached to this class, and with it the sense that they should be kept out of direct power.

That was possible, in part, because there weren't that many means of production to actually own, or that much capital to manage, in a pre-industrial society. Most goods were produced without the aid of equipment that required significant capital investment (a weaver owned their own loom, a blacksmith owned their own tools, etc), and most citizens did not have enough wealth to make use of banking services. This is the class of merchants who owned, but generally didn’t directly operate, multiple trading ships or caravans, guild leaders for craftsfolk who required large scale equipment to do their work (copper and iron foundries for the making of bells, for example), and bankers who mainly served the nobility and other wealthy individuals through the loaning and borrowing of money. This usually (but not always) represented the ceiling of what those not born aristocrats could achieve in society.

After that you get middling merchants, master craftsfolk and specialty artisans, in particular of luxury goods. Merchants in this class usually still directly manage their expeditions and operations, while the craftsfolk and artisans are those with specialty skill sets that can not be easily replicated without a lifetime of training. Master silversmiths, dressmakers, lacquer workers, hairdressers, and clockmakers are all found in this class. How much social clout individuals in this class have usually relates strongly to how much value is placed on their skill or product by their society (think how the Seanchan have an insatiable appetite for lacquer work and how Seanchan nobles make several Ebou Dari lacquer workers very rich) as well as the actual quality of the product. But even an unskilled artisan is still probably comfortable (as Thom says, even a bad clockmaker is still a wealthy man). Apprenticeships, where children are taught these crafts, are thus highly desired by those in lower classes,as it guaranteed at least some level of financial security in life.

Bellow that class you find minor merchants (single ship or wagon types), the owners of small businesses (inns, taverns, millers etc), some educated posts (clerks, scribes, accountants, tutors) and most craftsfolk (blacksmiths, carpenters, bootmakers, etc). These are people who can usually support themselves and their families through their own labor, or who, in the words of Jin Di, ‘work with their hands’. Most of those who occupy this class are found in cities and larger towns, where the flow of trade allows so many non-food producers to congregate and still (mostly) make ends meet. This is why there is only one inn, one miller, one blacksmith (with a single apprentice) in places like Emond’s Field: most smaller villages can not sustain more than a handful of non-food producers. This is also where you start to get the possibility of serious financial instability; in times of chaos it is people at this tier (and below) that are the first to be forced into poverty, flight, or other desperate actions to survive.

Finally, there is the group often collectively called ‘peasants’ (though that term is also sometimes used to mean anyone not noble born). Farmers, manual laborers, peddlers, fishers- anyone who is unlikely to be able to support more than themselves with their labor, and often had to depend on the combined labor of their spouse and families to get by. Servants also generally fit into this tier socially, but it’s important to understand that a servant in say, a palace, is going to be significantly better paid and respected than a maid in a merchant's house. This class is the largest, making up the majority of the population in a given country, and with a majority of its own number being food-producers specifically. Without the aid of the steam engine, most of a country’s populace needs to be producing food, and a great deal of it, in order to remain a functional nation. Most of the population as a result live in smaller spread out agrarian communities, loosely organized around single towns and villages. Since these communities will almost always lack access to certain goods or amenities (Emond’s Field has a bootmaker, but no candlemaker, for example) they depend on smalltime traders, called peddlers, to provide them with everyday things, who might travel from town to town with no more than a single wagon, or even just a large pack.

The only groups lower than peasants on the social hierarchy are beggars, the destitute, and (in societies that practice slavery) slaves. People who can not (or are not allowed to) support themselves, and instead must either eke out a day to day existence from scraps, or must be supported by others. Slaves can perform labor of any kind, but they are regarded legally as a means of production rather than a laborer, and the value is awarded to their owner instead.

It’s also worth noting that slavery has varied wildly across history in how exactly it was carried out and ran the gamut from the trans-Atlantic chattel slavery to more caste or punitive-based slavery systems where slaves could achieve freedom, social mobility, or even some degree of power within their societies. But those realities (as with servants) had more to do with who their owners were than the slave’s own merit, and the majority of slaves (who are almost always seen as less than a freedman even when they are doing the same work) were performing the same common labor as the ‘peasant’ class, and so viewed as inferior.

Viewing The Wheel of Time Through This Lens

So what does all this have to do with Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time? A lot actually, especially compared to his contemporaries in fantasy writing. Whereas most fantasy taking place in feudal systems succumbs to the urge to simplify matters (sometimes as far down to their only being two classes, ‘peasant’ and ‘royalty’) Jordan much more closely models real feudalism in his world.

The majority of the nations we encounter are feudal monarchies, and a majority of each of their populations are agrarian farming communities overseen by a local lord or other official. How large a nation’s other classes are is directly tied to how prosperous the kingdom is, which is strongly connected to how much food and how many goods the kingdom can produce on the available land within it. This in turn, is tightly interdependent on how stable the kingdom is and how effective its government is.

Andor is the prime example: a very large, very prosperous kingdom, which is both self-sufficient in feeding itself via its large swathes of farmland (so much so that they can afford to feed Cairhien through selling their surplus almost certainly at next to no profit) and rich in mineral wealth from mines in the west. It is capable of supporting several fairly large cities even on its outskirts, as well as the very well-developed and cosmopolitan Caemlyn as its capital. This allows Andor to maintain a pretty robust class of educated workers, craftsfolk, artisans, etc, which in turn furthers the realm’s prosperity. At the top of things, the Queen presides over the entire realm with largely centralized power to set laws and taxes. Beneath her are the ‘great houses’–the only Houses in Andor besides the royal house who are strong enough that other nobles ‘follow where they lead’ making them the equivalent of Duchesses and Dukes, with any minor nobles not sworn directly to the Queen being sworn to these ten.

And that ties into something very important about the feudal system and the impact it had on our world and the impact it has on Jordan's. To quote Youtuber Jack Rackham, feudalism is what those in the science biz would call an unstable equilibrium. The monarch and their vassals are constantly in conflict with each other; the vassals desiring more power and autonomy, as the monarch works to centralize power on themselves. In feudalism there isn’t really a state army. Instead the monarch and the nobles all have personal armies, and while the monarch’s might be stronger than anyone else’s army, it’s never going to be stronger than everybody else’s.

To maintain peace and stability in this situation everyone has to essentially play Game of Thrones (or as Jordan called it years before Martin wrote GoT, Daes Dae’mar) using political maneuvering, alliances, and scheming in order to pursue their goals without the swords coming out, and depending on the relative skill of those involved, this can go on for centuries at a time….or break apart completely over the course of a single bad summer, and plunge the country into civil war.

Cairhien is a great example of this problem. After losing the Aiel War and being left in ruins, the monarch who ultimately secured the throne of Cairhien, Galldrian Riatin, started from a place of profound weakness. He inherited a bankrupt, war torn and starving country, parts of which were still actively on fire at the time. As Thom discusses in the Great Hunt, Galddrian's failure to resettle the farmers displaced by the war left Cairhien dependent on foreign powers to feed the populace (the grain exports from Tear and Andor) and in order to prevent riots in his own capital, Galldrian choose bread and circuses to keep the people pacified rather then trying to substantially improve their situation. Meanwhile, the nobles, with no effective check on them, began to flex their power, seeing how much strength they could take away from each other and the King, further limiting the throne’s options in how to deal with the crisis, and forcing the King to compete with his most powerful vassals in order to just stay on the throne. This state of affairs ultimately resulted, unsurprisingly, in one of Galladrin’s schemes backfiring, him ending up dead, and the country plunging into civil war, every aristocrat fighting to replace him and more concerned with securing their own power then with restoring the country that was now fully plunged into ruin.

When Dyelin is supporting Elayne in the Andoran Succession, it is this outcome (or one very much like it) that she is attempting to prevent. She says as much outright to Elayne in Knife of Dreams–a direct succession is more stable, and should only be prevented in a situation where the Daughter Heir is unfit–through either incompetence or malice–to become Queen. On the flip side, Arymilla and her lot are trying to push their own agendas, using the war as an excuse to further enrich their Houses or empower themselves and their allies. Rhavin’s machinations had very neatly destabilized Andor, emboldening nobles such as Arymilla (who normally would never dream of putting forward a serious claim for the throne) by making them believe Morgase and Trakand were weak and thus easy to take advantage of.

We also see this conflict crop up as a central reason Murandy and Altara are in their current state as well. Both are countries where their noble classes have almost complete autonomy, and the monarch is a figurehead without significantly more power than their vassals (Tylin can only keep order in Ebou Dar and its immediate surrounding area, and from what she says her father started with an even worse deal,with parts of the capital more under the control of his vassals than him). Their main unifying force is that they wish to avoid invasion and domination by another larger power (Andor for Murandy, Illian and Amadica for Altara) and the threat of that is the only thing capable of bringing either country into anything close to unity.

Meanwhile a lack of centralization has its trade offs; people enjoy more relative freedoms and social mobility (both depend heavily on trade, which means more wealth flowing into their countries but not necessarily accumulating at the top, due to the lack of stability), and Altara specifically has a very robust ‘middle class’ (or as near as you can get pre-industrialization) of middling to minor merchants, business and craftsfolk, etc. Mat’s time in Ebou Dar (and his friendship with Satelle Anan) gets into a lot of this. Think of the many many guilds that call Altara home, and how the husband of an inn owner can do a successful enough business fishing that he comes to own several crafts by his own merit.

On the flip side both countries have problems with violence and lawlessness due to the lack of any enforced uniformity in terms of justice. You might ride a day and end up in land ruled by a Lord or Lady with a completely different idea of what constitutes, say, a capital offense, than the Lord or Lady you were under yesterday. This is also probably why Altara has such an ingrained culture of duels to resolve disputes, among both nobles and common folk. Why appeal to a higher authority when that authority can barely keep the streets clean? Instead you and the person you are in conflict with, on anything from the last cup of wine to who cheated who in a business deal, can just settle it with your knives and not have to bother with a hearing or a petition. It’s not like you could trust it anyways; as Mat informs us, most of the magistrates in Altara do the bidding of whoever is paying their bribes.

But neither Altara nor Murandy represents the extreme of how much power and autonomy nobles can manage to wrangle for themselves. That honor goes to Tear, where the nobles have done away with the monarch entirely to instead establish what amounts to an aristocratic confederacy. Their ruling council (The High Lords of Tear) share power roughly equally among themselves, and rule via compromise and consensus. This approach also has its tradeoffs: unlike Murandy and Altara, Tear is still able to effectively administer the realm and create uniformity even without a monarch, and they are able to be remarkably flexible in terms of their politics and foreign policy, maintaining trade relationships even with bitter enemies like Tar Valon or Illian. On the flipside, the interests of individual nobles are able to shape policy and law to a much greater extent, with no monarch to play arbiter or hold them accountable. This is the source of many of the social problems in Tear: a higher sense of justice, good, or even just plain fairness all take a back seat to the whims and interest of nobles. Tear is the only country where Jordan goes out of his way, repeatedly, to point out wealth inequality and injustice. They are present in other countries, but Jordan drives home that it is much worse in Tear, and much more obscene.

This is at least in part because there is no one to serve as a check to the nobles, not even each other. A monarch is (at least in theory) beholden to the country as a whole, but each High Lord is beholden only to their specific people, house and interests, and there is no force present that can even attempt to keep the ambitions and desires of the High Lords from dictating everything. So while Satelle Anan's husband can work his way up from a single fishing boat to the owner of multiple vessels, most fisherman and farmers in Tear scrape by on subsistence, as taxes are used to siphon off their wealth and enrich the High Lords. While in Andor ‘even the Queen most obey the law she makes or there is no law’ (to quote Morgase), Tairen Lords can commit murder, rape, or theft without any expectation of consequences, because the law dosen’t treat those acts as crimes when done to their ‘lessers’, and any chance someone might get their own justice back (as they would in Altara) is quashed, since the common folk are not even allowed to own weapons in Tear. As we’re told in the Dragon Reborn, when an innkeeper is troubled by a Lord cheating at dice in the common room, the Civil Watch will do nothing about it and citizens in Tear are banned from owning weapons so there is nothing he can do about it. The best that can be hoped for is that he will ‘get bored and go away’.

On the opposite end, you have the very very centralized Seanchan Empire as a counter example to Tear, so centralized it’s almost (though not quite) managed to transcend feudalism. In Seanchan the aristocratic class has largely been neutered by the monarchy, their ambitions and plots kept in check by a secret police (the Seekers of Truth) and their private armies dwarfed by a state army that is rigorously kept and maintained. It’s likely that the levies of the noble houses, if they all united together, would still be enough to topple the Empress, but the Crystal Throne expends a great deal of effort to ensure that doesn't happen,playing the nobles against each other and taking advantage of natural divisions in order to keep them from uniting.

Again, this has pros and cons. The Seanchan Empire is unquestionably prosperous; able to support a ridiculous food surplus and the accompanying flow of wealth throughout its society, and it has a level of equity in its legal administration that we don’t see anywhere else in Randland. Mat spots the heads of at least two Seanchan nobles decorating the gates over Ebou Dar when he enters, their crimes being rape and theft, which is a far cry from the consequence-free lives of the Tairen nobles. Meanwhile a vast state-sponsored bureaucracy works to oversee the distribution of resources and effective governance in the Empress’s name. No one, Tuon tells us proudly, has to beg or go hungry in the Empire. But that is not without cost.

Because for all its prosperity, Seanchan society is also incredibly rigid and controlling. One of the guiding philosophies of the Seanchan is ‘the pattern has a place for everything and everything’s place should be obvious on sight’. The classes are more distinct and more regimented than anywhere else we see in Randland. The freedoms and rights of everyone from High Lords to common folk are curtailed–and what you can say or do is sharply limited by both social convention and law. The Throne (and its proxies) are also permitted to deprive you of those rights on nothing more than suspicion. To paraphrase Egeanin from TSR: Disobeying a Seeker (and presumably any other proxy of the Empress) is a crime. Flight from a Seeker is a crime. Failure to cooperate fully with a Seeker is a crime. A Seeker could order a suspected criminal to go fetch the rope for their own binding, and the suspected criminal would be expected to do it–and likely would because failure to do anything else would make them a criminal anyway, whatever their guilt or innocence in any other matter.

Meanwhile that food surplus and the resulting wealth of the Empire is built on its imperialism and its caste-based slavery system, and both of those are inherently unsustainable engines. What social mobility there is, is tied to the Empire’s constant cycle of expand, consolidate, assimilate, repeat–Egeanin raises that very point early on, that the Corenne would mean ‘new names given and the chance to rise high’. But that cycle also creates an endless slew of problems and burning resentments, as conquered populations resist assimilation, the resistance explodes into violence that the Seanchan must constantly deal with–the ‘near constant rebellions since the Conquest finished’ that Mat mentions when musing on how the Seanchan army has stayed sharp.

The Seanchan also practice a form of punitive and caste-based slavery for non-channelers, and chattel slavery for channelers. As with the real-life Ottoman Empire, some da’covale enjoy incredible power and privilege in their society, but they (the Deathwatch Guard, the so’jhin, the Seekers) are the exception, not the rule. The majority of the slaves we encounter are nameless servants, laborers, or damane. While non-channelers have some enshrined legal protections in how they can be treated by their masters and society as a whole, we are told that emancipation is incredibly rare, and the slave status is inherited from parent to child as well as used as a legal punishment–which of course would have the natural effect of discouraging most da’covale from reproducing by choice until after (or if) they are emancipated–so the primary source for most of the laborers and servants in Seanchan society is going to be either people who are being punished or who choose to sell themselves into slavery rather then beg or face other desperate circumstances.

This keeps the enslaved population in proportion with the rest of society only because of the Empire’s imperialism- that same cycle of expand, consolidate, assimilate, repeat, has the side effect of breeding instability, which breeds desperation and thus provides a wide pool to draw on of both those willing to go into slavery to avoid starvation, and those who are being punished with slavery for wronging the state in some manner. It’s likely the only reason the Empire’s production can keep pace with its constant war efforts: conquered nations (and subdued rebellions) eventually yield up not just the necessary resources, but also the necessary laborers to cultivate them in the name of the state, and if that engine stalls for any sustained length of time (like say a three hundred year peace enforced by a treaty), it would mean a labor collapse the likes of which the Empire has never seen before.

A note on damane here: the damane system is undoubtedly one of chattel slavery, where human beings are deprived of basic rights and person hood under the law for the enrichment of those that claim ownership over them. Like in real life this state of affairs is maintained by a set of ingrained cultural prejudices, carefully constructed lies, and simple ignorance of the truly horrific state of affairs that the masses enjoy. The longevity of channelers insulates the damane from some of the problems of how slavery can be unsustainable, but in the long run it also suffers from the same structural problem: when the endless expansion stops, so too will the flow of new damane, and the resulting cratering of power the Empire will face will put it in jeopardy like nothing has before. There is also the problem that, as with real life chattel slavery, if any one piece of the combination of ignorance, lies, and prejudice starts to fall apart, an abolition movement becomes inevitable–and several characters are setting the stage for just that via the careful spreading of the truth about the sul’dam. Even if the Seanchan successfully put down an abolition movement, doing so will profoundly weaken them in a way that will necessitate fundamental transformation, or ensure collapse.

How Jordan Depicts The Relationships Between Classes

As someone who is very conscious in how he depicts class in his works, it makes sense that Jordan frequently focuses on characters interacting through the barriers of their various classes in different ways. New Spring in particular is a gold mine for this kind of insight.

Take, for example, Moiraine and Siuan’s visit to the master seamstress. A lesser writer would not think more deeply on the matter than ‘Moiraine is nobly born so obviously she’s going to be snobby and demanding, while down-to-earth Siuan is likely to be build a natural rapport and have better relationship her fellow commoner, the seamstress Tamore Alkohima’. But Jordan correctly writes it as the reverse: Tamore Alkohima might not be nobly born, but she is not really a peasant either–rather she belongs to that class of speciality artisans, who via the value placed on her labor and skill, is able to live quite comfortably. Moiraine is much more adept at maneuvering this kind of possibly fraught relationship than Siuan is. Yes, she is at the top of the social structure (all the more so since becoming Aes Sedai) but that does not release her from a need to observe formalities and courtesies with someone who, afterall, is doing something for Moiraine that she can not do for herself, even with the Power. If Moiraine wants the services of a master dressmaker, the finest in Tar Valon, she must show respect for both Tamore Alkohima and her craft, which means submitting to her artistic decisions, as well as paying whatever price, without complaint.

Siuan, who comes from the poor Maule district in Tear, is not used to navigating this kind of situation. Most of those she has dealt with before coming to the Tower were either her equals or only slightly above her in terms of class. She tries to treat Tamore Alkohima initially like she most likely treated vendors in the Maule where everyone is concerned with price, since so many are constantly on the edge of poverty, and she wants to know exactly what she is buying and have complete say over the final product, which is the practical mentality of someone to whom those factors had a huge impact on her survival. Coin wasted on fish a day from going bad, or netting that isn’t the right kind, might have meant the difference between eating that week or not, for a young Siuan and her father.

Yet this this reads as an insult to Tamore Alkohima, who takes it as being treated with mockery, and leads to Moiraine needing to step in to try and smooth things over, and explain to Siuan-

“Listen to me, Siuan and do not argue.” she whispered in a rush. “We must not keep Tamore waiting long. Do not ask after prices: she will tell us after we make our selections. Nothing you buy here will be cheap, but the dresses Tamore sews for you will make you look Aes Sedai as much as the shawl does. And it is Tamore, not Mistress Alkohima. You must observe the properties or she will believe you are mocking her. But try thinking of her as a sister who stands just a little above you. A touch of deference is necessary. Just a touch, but she will tell you what to wear as much as she asks.” “And will the bloody shoe maker tell us what kind of slippers to buy and charge us enough to buy fifty new sets of nets?” “No.” Moiraine said impatiently. Tamore was only arching one eyebrow but her face may as well have been a thunderhead. The meaning of that eyebrow was clear as the finest crystal. They had already made the seamstress wait too long, and there was going to be a price for it. And that scowl! She hurried on, whispering as fast as she could. “The shoemaker will make us what we want and we will bargain the price with him, but not too hard if we want his best work. The same with the glovemaker, the stockingmaker, the shiftmaker, and all the rest. Just be glad neither of us needs a hairdresser. The best hairdressers are true tyrants, and nearly as bad as perfumers.”

-New Spring, Chapter 13: Business in the City.

Navigating the relationship between characters of a different class is something a of a running theme throughout New Spring–from Moiraine’s dealing with the discretion of her banker (‘Another woman who knew well her place in the world’ as Moiraine puts it), to having to meet with peasants during her search for the Dragon Reborn (and bungling several of those interactions), to wading through the roughest criminal parts of Chachin in search of an inn, and frequently needing to resort to the Power to avoid or resolve conflict. Moiraine’s ability to handle these situations is tightly tied to her experience with the people involved prior to her time as a Novice, but all hold up and give color to the class system Jordan presents. It also serves as set up so that when Moraine breaks the properties with a different seamstress near the end of the book, it can be a sign of the rising tension and the complex machinations she and Siuan find themselves in.

Notably, Moiraine and Siuan’s relative skill with working with people is strongly related to their backgrounds: the more Moiraine encounters people outside her lived experience as a noble daughter in Cairhien, the more she struggles to navigate those situations while Siuan is much more effective at dealing with the soldiers during the name-taking sequence (who are drawn mostly from the same class as her–common laborers, farmers, etc), and the people in Chachin, where she secures an lodging and local contacts to help in the search with relative ease.

Trying to navigate these waters is also something that frequently trips up characters in the main series as well, especially with the Two Rivers folk who are, ultimately, from a relatively classless society that does not subscribe to feudal norms (more on that below). All of them react to both moving through a society that does follow those norms, and later, being incorporated into its power structures in different, frequently disastrous ways.

Rand, who is not used to the complicated balance between vassal and monarch (which is all the more complicated as he is constantly adding more and more realms under his banner) finds imposing his will and leading the aristocrats who swear fealty to him incredibly difficult. While his reforms are undoubtedly good for the common folk and the general welfare of the nations he takes over, he is most often left to enforce them with threats and violence, which ultimately fuel resistance, rebellion, and more opposition to him throughout the nations he rules, and has down-the-line bad ripple effects on how he treats others, both noble and not, who disagree with him.

Rand also struggles even with those who sincerely wish to serve and aid him in this context: he is awkward with servants, distant with the soldiers and warriors who swear their lives to him, and even struggles with many of his advisors and allies. Part of that is distrust that plagues him in general, but a big element to it is also his own outsider perspective. The Aiel frequently complain that Rand tries to lead them like a King, but that’s because they assume a wetlander King always leads by edict and command. Yet Rand’s efforts to do that with the Westland nations he takes over almost always backfire or have lasting consequences. Rand is frequently trying to frequently play act at what he thinks a King is and does–and when he succeeds it’s almost always a result of Moiraine or Elayne’s advice on the subject, not his own instincts or preconceptions.

Perrin, meanwhile, is unable to hide his contempt for aristocracy and those that willingly follow them, which leads to him both being frequently derelict in his duties as a Lord, and not treating his followers with a great deal of respect. Nynaeve has a similar problem, where she often tries to ‘instill backbone’ into those lower in the class system then her, then comes to regret it when that backbone ends up turned on her, and her leadership rejected or her position disrespected by those she had encouraged to reject leadership or not show respect to people in higher positions.

Interestingly, it’s Mat that most effectively manages to navigate various inter-class relationships, and who via the Band of the Red Hand builds a pretty equitable, merit-based army. He does this by following a simple rule: treating people how they wish to be treated. He accepts deference when it’s offered, but never demands it. He pushes back on the notion he’s a Lord often, but only makes it a serious bone with people who hold the aristocracy in contempt. He’s earnest in his dealings, fair minded, and good at reading social situations to adapt to how folks expect him to act, and when he breaches those expectations it’s usually a deliberate tactical choice.

This lets him maintain strong friendships with people of all backgrounds and classes– from Princes like Beslan to horse thieves like Chel Vanin. More importantly, it makes everyone under his command feel included, respected, and valued for what they are. Mat has Strong Ideas About Class (and about most things really), but he’s the only Two Rivers character who doesn't seem to be working from an assumption that everyone else ought to live by his ideals. He thinks anyone that buys into the feudal system is mad, but he doesn't actually let that impact how he treats anyone–probably from the knowledge that they think he’s just as mad.

Getting Creative With the Structure

The other thing I want to dig into is the ways in which Jordan, via his understanding of the feudal system, is able to play with it in creative and interesting ways that match his world. Succession is the big one; who rules after the current monarch dies is a massively important matter since it determines the flow of power in a country from one leader to the next. The reason so many European monarchies had primogeniture (eldest child inherits all titles) succession is not because everyone just hated second children, it’s because primogeniture is remarkably stable. Being able to point to the eldest child of the monarch and say them, that one, and their younger sibling if they're not around, and so on is very good for the transition of power, since it establishes a framework that is both easy to understand and very very hard to subvert. Pretty much the only way, historically, to subvert a primogeniture succession is for either the heir’s blood relationship to the monarch or the legitimacy of their parent’s marriage to be called into question.

And yet despite that, few of the countries in Jordan's world actually use primogeniture succession. Andor does, as do some of the Borderlands, but the majority of monarchies in Randland use elective succession, where the monarch is elected from among the aristocratic class by some kind of deliberative body. This is the way things are in Tarabon, Arad Doman,Ghealdan, Illian, and Malkier, who all elect the monarchs (or diarchs in the case of Tarabon- where two rulers, the Panarch and the King, share power) via either special council or some other assembly of aristocrats.

There are three countries where we don’t know the succession type (Arafel, Murandy, and Amadicia) but also one we know for sure doesn't use primogeniture succession: Cairhien. We know this because Moiraine’s claim to the Sun Throne as a member of House Damodred is seen as as legitimate enough for the White Tower to view putting her on the Sun Throne as a viable possibility, despite the fact that she has two older sisters whose claims would be considered superior to her own under primogeniture succession. We never find out for sure in the books what the succession law actually is (the country never stabilizes for a long enough period that it becomes important), but if I had to guess I would guess that it’s designated,where the monarch chooses their successor prior to their death, and that the civil war that followed the Aiel War was the result of both Laman and his designated heir(s) dying at the Bloodsnows (we are told by Moiraine that Laman and both his brothers are killed; likely one of them was the next in line).

One country that we know for sure uses designated succession is Seanchan, where the prospective heir is still chosen from among the children of the Empress, but they are made to compete with each other (usually via murder and plotting) for the monarch’s favor, the ‘best’ being then chosen to become the heir. This very closely models how the Ottoman Empire did succession (state sanctioned fratricide) and while it has the potential to ensure competence (by certain metrics, anyways) it also sows the seeds of potential instability by ensuring that the monarch is surrounded by a whole lot of people with bad will to them and feelings of being cheated or snubbed in the succession, or else out for vengeance for their favored and felled candidate. Of course, from the Seanchan’s point of view this is a feature not a bug: if you can’t win a civil war or prevent yourself from being assassinated, then you shouldn’t have the throne anyways.

Succession is far from the only way that Jordan plays with the feudal structure either. Population is something else that is very present in the world building, even though it’s only drawn attention to a handful of times. In our world, the global population steadily and consistently rose throughout the middle ages and the Renaissance (with only small dips for things like the plague and the Mongol Invasion), then exploded with the Industrial Revolution and has seen been on a meteoric climb year over year (something that may just now be stabilizing into an equilibrium again, only time will tell). This is one of the pressures that led to the collapse of feudalism in the real world, as a growing aristocratic class was confronted with finite land and titles, while at the same time the growing (and increasingly powerful) wealthy financial class of various countries were beginning to challenge the traditions and laws that kept them out of direct power. If you’ve ever read a Jane Austen novel (or really anything from the Georgian/Regency/Victorian eras) this tension is on display. The aristocratic class had never been as secure as people think, but the potential to fall into poverty and ruin had never been a greater threat, which had ripple effects for the stability of a nation, and in particular a monarch who derived much of their power from the fealty of their now-destabilized vassals.

In Jordan’s world however, we are told as early as The Great Hunt that the global population is steadily falling, and has been since the Hundred Years’ War (at least). No kingdom is able to actually control all the territory it has on a map, the size of armies have in particular shrunk consistently (to the point where it’s repeatedly commented on that the armies Rand puts together, some of no more than a few thousand, are larger than any ‘since Artur Hawkwing's day’), large swathes of land lay ungoverned and even more uninhabited or settled. Entire kingdoms have collapsed due to the inability of their increasingly small populations to hold together. This is the fate of many of the kingdoms Ingtar talks about in the Great Hunt: Almoth, Gabon, Hardan, Moredo, Caralain, to name just a few. They came apart due to a combination of ineffective leadership, low population, and a lack of strong neighbors willing or able to extend their power and stability over the area.

All of this means that there is actually more land than there are aristocrats to govern it; so much so that in places like Baerlon power is held by a crown-appointed governor because no noble house has been able to effectively entrench in the area. This has several interesting effects on the society and politics of Randland: people in general are far more aware of the fragility of the nation state as a idea then they would be otherwise, and institutions (even the intractable and mysterious White Tower) are not viewed by even their biggest partisans as invulnerable or perpetual. Even the most powerful leaders are aware, gazing out constantly, as they do, at the ruins of the hundreds of kingdoms that have risen and fallen since the Breaking of the World (itself nothing more, to their understanding, then the death of the ultimate kingdom) that there are no guarantees, no promises that it all won’t fall apart.

This conflict reflects on different characters in different ways, drawing out selfishness and cowardice from some, courage and strength from others. This is a factor in Andor’s surprisingly egalitarian social climate: Elayne and Morgase both boast that Andorans are able to speak their minds freely to their leaders about the state of things, and be listened to, and even the most selfish of leaders like Elenia Sarand are painfully aware that they stand on a tower built from ‘the bricks of the common folk’, and make a concentrated effort to ensure their followers feel included and heard. Conversely it also reflects on the extremely regimented culture of the Borderlands, were dereliction of duty can mean not just the loss of your life, but the loss of a village, a town, a city, to Trolloc raids (another pressure likely responsible for slow and steady decline of the global population).

The Borderlanders value duty, honor, and responsibility above all else, because those are the cornerstones holding their various nations together against both the march of time and the Blight. All classes place a high value on the social contract; the idea that everyone must fulfill their duty to keep society safe is a lot less abstract when the stakes are made obvious every winter through monsters raiding your towns. This is most obvious in both Hurin and Ingtar’s behavior throughout The Great Hunt: Hurin (and the rest of the non-noble class) lean on the assurance that the noble class will be responsible for the greater scale problems and issues in order to endure otherwise unendurable realities, and that Rand, Ingtar, Aglemar, Lan (all of whom he believes to be nobly born) have been raised with the necessary training and tools to take charge and lead others through impossible situations and are giving over their entire lives in service to the people. In exchange Hurin pays in respect, obedience, and (presumably) taxes. This frees Hurin up to focus on the things that are decidedly within his ken: tracking, thief taking, sword breaking, etc, trusting that Ingtar, and later Rand, will take care of everything else.

When Hurin comes up against the feudal system in Cairhien, where the failures of everyone involved have lead to a culture of endless backstabbing and scheming, forced deference, entitlement, and mutual contempt between the parties, he at first attempts to show the Cairhienin ‘proper’ behavior through example, in the hopes of drawing out some shame in them. But upon realizing that no one in Cairhien truly believes in the system any longer after it has failed the country so thoroughly (hence the willingness of vassals to betray their masters, and nobles to abandon their oaths–something unthinkable in the Borderlands) he reverts to his more normal shows of deference to Rand and Ingtar, abandoning excessive courtesy in favor of true fealty.

Ingtar (and later Rand) feel the reverse side of this: the pressure to be the one with the answers, to hold it all together, to be as much icon and object as living person, a figure who people can believe in and draw strength from when they have none of their own remaining, and knowing at the same time that their choices will decide the fates and lives of others. It’s no mistake that Rand first meets Hurin and begins this arc in the remains of Hardan, one of those swept-away nations that Ingtar talks about having been left nothing more than ‘the greatest stone quarry for a hundred miles’. The stakes of what can happen if they fail in this duty are made painfully clear from the start, and for Rand the stakes will only grow ever higher throughout the course of the series, as number of those ‘under his charge’ slides to become ‘a nation’ then ‘several nations’ and finally ‘all the world’. And that leads into one of the problems at the heart of Rand’s character arc.

This emphasis on the feudal contract and duty helps the Borderlands survive the impossible, but almost all of them (with the exception of Saldaea) practice cultures of emotional repression and control,spurning displays of emotion as a lack of self-control, and viewing it as weakness to address the pains and psychological traumas of their day to day lives. ‘Duty is heavier than a mountain, death lighter than a feather’, ‘There will be time to sleep when you’re dead’, ‘You can care for the living or mourn the dead, you cannot do both’: all common sayings in the Borderlands. On the one hand, all of these emphasize the importance of fulfilling your duty and obligations…but on the other, all also implicitly imply the only true release from the sorrows and wounds taken in the course of that duty is death. It is this, in part, that breaks Ingtar: the belief that only the Borderlands truly understand the existential threat, and that he and those like him are suffering and dying for ‘soft southlanders’ whose kingdoms are destined to go to ruin anyways. It’s also why he reveals his suffering to Rand only after he has decided to die in a last stand–he is putting down the mountain of his trauma at last. This is also one of those moments in the books that is a particular building block on the road to Rand’s own problems with not expressing his feelings or being willing to work through his trauma, that will swing back around to endanger the same world he is duty-bound to protect.

I also suspect strongly that this is the source of the otherwise baffling Saldean practice of….what we will call dedicated emotional release. One of the core cultural Saldean traits (and something that is constantly tripping up Perrin in his interactions with Faile) is that Saldeans are the only Borderlanders to reject the notion that showing emotion is weakness. In fact, Saldeans in general believe that shows of anger, passion, sorrow, ardor–you name it–are a sign of both strength and respect. Your feelings are strong and they matter, and being willing to inflict them on another person is not a burden or a betrayal of duty, it’s knowing that they will be strong enough to bear whatever you are feeling. I would hesitate to call even the Saldaens well-adjusted (I don’t know that there is a way to be well-adjusted in a society at constant war), but I do think there is merit to their apparent belief in catharsis, and their resistance to emotional repression as a sign of strength. Of course, that doesn't make their culture naturally better at communication (as Faile and Perrin’s relationship problems prove) but I do think it plays a part in why Bashere is such a good influence on Rand, helping push him away from a lot of the stoic restraint Rand has internalized from Lan, Ingtar, Moiraine, et al.

It also demonstrates that a functioning feudal society is not dependent on absolute emotional repression, or perfect obedience. Only mutual respect and trust between the parties are necessary–trust that the noble (or monarch) will do their best in the execution of their duties, and trust that the common folk in society will in turn fulfill their roles to the best of their ability. Faile’s effectiveness as Perrin’s co-leader/second in command is never hindered or even implied to be hindered by her temperament or her refusal to hide/repress her emotions. She is arguably the one who is doing most of the actual work of governing the Two Rivers after she and Perrin are acclaimed their lord and lady: seeing to public works projects, settling disputes, maintaining relationships with various official groups of their subjects.

The prologue from Lord of Chaos (a favorite scene of mine of the books) where Faile is holding public audience while Perrin is off sulking ‘again’ is a great great example of this; Faile is the quintessential Borderland noble heir, raised all her life in the skills necessary to run a feudal domain, and those skills are on prime display as she holds court. But that is not hindered by her willingness to show her true feelings, from contempt of those she thinks are wasting her time, to compassion and empathy to the Wisdoms who come to her for reassurance about the weather. This is one of those things that Perrin has to learn from her over the course of the series–that simply burying his emotions for fear they might hurt others is not a healthy way to go about life, and it isn’t necessary to rule or lead either. His prejudices about what constitutes a ‘good’ Lord (Lan, Agelmar, Ingtar) and a ‘bad’ one (literally everyone else) are blinding him, showing his lack of understanding of the system that his people are adopting, and his role in it.

Which is a nice dovetail with my next bit–

Outsiders And the Non-Feudal State

Another way Jordan effectively depicts the Feudal system is by having groups who decidedly do not practice it be prominent throughout the series–which is again accurate to real life history, where feudalism was the mode of government for much of (but by no means all) of Medieval and Renaissance Europe, but even in Europe their were always societies doing their own thing, and outside of it, different systems of government flourished in response to their environments and cultures; some with parallels to Feudalism, many completely distinct.

The obvious here are the Aiel who draw on several different non-feudal societies (the Scottish Highland Clans, the Iroquois Confederation, the Mongols, and the Zulu to name just a few) and the Seafolk (whose are a combination of the Maori and the Republic of Piracy of all things), but also firmly in these categories are groups like the communities in the Black Hills, Almoth Plain, and the Two Rivers.

Even though it’s an agrarian farming community made up primarily of small villages, the Two Rivers is not a feudal state or system. We tend to forget this because it looks a lot like our notion of a classic medieval European village, which our biases inherently equate to feudal, but Jordan is very good at remembering this is not the case, and that the Two Rivers folk are just as much outsiders to these systems as the Aiel, or the Seafolk.

Consider how often the refrain of ‘don’t even know they’re part of the Kingdom of Andor’ is repeated in regards to the Two Rivers, and how much the knowledge of Our Heroes about how things like Kingdoms, courts, war, etc, are little more than fairy tales to the likes of those Two Rivers, while even places unaffected directly by things like the Trakand Succession or the Aiel War are still strongly culturally, economically, and politically impacted.

Instead of deriving power and justice from a noble or even a code of law, power is maintained by two distinct groups of village elders (The Village Council and the Women’s Circle) who are awarded seats based on their standing within the community. These groups provide the day-to-day ordering of business and resolving of conflicts, aiding those in need and doing what they can for problems that impact the entire community. The Wisdom serves as the community physician, spiritual advisor, and judge (in a role that resembles what we know of pre-Christian celtic druids), and the Women’s Circle manages most social ceremonies from marriages to betrothals to funerals, as well as presiding over criminal trials (insofar as they even have them). The Mayor manages the village economics, maintaining relationships and arbitrating deals with outsider merchants and peddlers, collecting and spending public funds (through a volunteer collection when necessary, which is how we’re told the new sick house was built and presumably was how the village paid for things like fireworks and gleeman for public festivals), while the Council oversees civil matters like property disputes.

On the surface this seems like an ideal community: idyllic, agrarian, decentralized, where everyone cares more about good food and good company and good harvests than matters of power, politics, or wealth, and without the need for any broader power-structure beyond the local town leaders. It’s the kind of place that luddites Tolkien and Thomas Jefferson envisioned as a utopia (and indeed the Two Rivers it the most Tolkien-y place in Randland after the Ogier stedding, of which we see relatively little), but I think Jordan does an excellent job of not romanticizing this way of life the way Tolkien often did. Because while the Two Rivers has many virtues and a great deal to recommend it, it also has many flaws.

The people in the Two Rivers are largely narrow minded and bigoted, especially to outsiders; The day after Moiraine saves the lives of the entire village from a Trolloc attack, a mob turns up to try and burn her out, driven by their own xenophobia and fear of that which they don’t understand. Their society is also heavily repressed and regressive in its sex norms and gender relations: the personal lives of everyone are considered public business, and anyone living in a fashion the Women’s Circle deems unsuitable (such as widower and single father Tam al’Thor) is subject to intense pressure to ‘correct’ their ways (remarry and find a mother for Rand). There is also no uniformity in terms of law or government, no codified legal code, and no real public infrastructure (largely the result of the region’s lack of taxes). This is made possible by the geographic isolation and food stability–two factors that insulate the Two Rivers from many of the problems that cause the formation or joining of a nation state. It’s only after the repeated emergence of problems that their existing systems can not handle (Trolloc raids, martial law under the White Cloaks, the Endless Summer, etc) that the Two Rivers folk begin adopting feudalism, and even then it’s not an instantaneous process, as everyone involved must navigate not just how they are going to adopt this alien form of government, but how they are going to make it match to their culture and history as well.

This plays neatly with the societies that, very pointedly, do not adopt feudalism over the course of the series. The Aiel reject the notion entirely, thinking it as barbaric and backward as the Westerlanders think their culture is–and Jordan is very good at showing neither as really right. The Aiel as a society have many strengths the fandom likes to focus on (a commitment to community care, a strong sense of collective responsibility, a flexible social order that is more capable of accounting for non-traditional platonic and romantic relationships, as well as a general lack of repressive sex norms) but this comes at a serious cost as well. The Aiel broadly share the Borderlander’s response of emotional suppression as a way of dealing with the violence of their daily life, as well as serious problems with institutionalized violence, xenophobia, and a lack of respect for individual rights and agency. Of these, the xenophobia is probably the most outright destructive, and is one of the major factors Rand has to account for when leading the Aiel into Cairhien, as well a huge motivating factor in the Shaido going renegade, and many Aiel breaking clan to join them–and even before Rand’s arrival it manifested as killing all outsiders who entered their land, except for Cairhienin, whom they sold as slaves in Shara.

And yet, despite these problems Jordan never really suggests that the Aiel would be better off as town-or-castle dwelling society, and several characters (most notably the Maidens) explicitly reject the idea that they should abandon their culture, values, and history as a response to the revelations at Rhuidean. Charting a unique course forward for the Aiel is one of the most persistent problems that weighs on the Wise Ones throughout the second half of the series, and Aviendha in particular. Unlike many of the feudal states faced with Tarmon Gai’don, the Aiel when confronted with the end of days and the sure knowledge of the destruction of their way of life are mostly disinterested in ignoring, running from, or rejecting that revelation (those that do, defect to the Shaido). Their unique government and cultural structure gives them the necessary flexibility to pivot quickly to facing the reality of the Last Battle, and to focus on both helping the world defeat the Shadow, and what will become of them afterwards. This ironically, leaves them in one of the best positions post-series, as the keepers of the Dragon’s Peace, which will allow them to hold on to many of their core cultural values even as they make the transition to a new way of life, without having to succumb to the pressures to either assimilate into Westlands, or return to their xenophobic isolationism.

The Seafolk provide the other contrast, being a maritime society where the majority of the people spend their time shipboard. Their culture is one of strong self-discipline and control, where rank, experience, and rules are valued heavily, agreements are considered the next thing to sacred, and material prosperity is valued. Though we don’t spend quite as much time with them as the Aiel, we get a good sense of their culture throughout the mid-series. They share the Aiel’s contempt for the feudal ‘shorebound’, but don’t share their xenophobia, instead maintaining strong trade relationships with every nation on navigable water, though outside of the context of those trade relationships, they are at best frosty to non-Seafolk.

They are not society without problems–the implication of their strong anti-corruption and anti-nepotism policies is that it’s a serious issue in their culture, and their lack of a centralized power structure outside of their handful of island homes means that they suffer a similar problem to the likes of Murandy and Altara, where life on one ship might be radically different then life on another, in terms of the justice or treatment you might face, especially as an outsider. But the trade off is that they have more social mobility then basically any other society we see in Randland. Even the Aiel tend to have strongly entrenched and managed circles of power, with little mobility not managed by the Wise Ones or the chiefs. But anyone can rise high in Sea Folk society, to become a leader in their clan, or even Mistress of the Ships or Master of the Blades– and they can fall just as easily, for shows of incompetence, or failures to execute their duties.

They are also another society who is able to adapt to circumstances of Tamon Gai’don relatively painlessly, having a very effective plan in place to deal with the fallout and realities of the Last Battle. The execution gets tripped up frequently by various factors, but again, I don’t think it’s a mistake that they are one of the groups that comes out the other side of the Last Battle in a strong position, especially given the need that will now exist to move supplies and personnel for rebuilding post-Last Battle. The Seafolk have already begun working out embassies in every nation on navigable water, an important step to modernizing national relationships.

How does all this relate to feudalism and class? It’s Jordan digging into a fundamental truth about the world and people–at no point in our own history have we ever found a truly ‘perfect’ model for society. That’s something he’s constantly trying to show with feudalism–it is neither an ideal nor an abomination, it just is. Conversely, the Two Rivers, Aiel, Seafolk, and Ogier (who I don’t get into to much here for space, but who also have their own big problems with suffrage and independence, and their virtues in terms of environmental stability and social harmony) all exist in largely classes societies, but that doesn't exempt them from having problems or make them a utopia, and it certainly doesn't make them lesser or backwards either–Jordan expends a lot of energy to show them as complex, nuanced and flawed, in the same way he does for his pseudo-Europe.

Conclusion

To restate my premise: one of Jordan’s profound gifts as a writer is his capacity to set aside his own biases and write anything from his villains to his world with an honest, empathetic cast that defies simplification. Feudalism and monarchy more generally have a bad rep in our society, for good reasons. But I think either whitewashing or vilifying the feudal system is a mistake, which Jordan’s writing naturally reflects. Jordan is good at asking complicating questions of simple premises. He presents you with the Kingdom of Andor, prosperous and vast and under the rule of a regal much loved Queen and he asks ‘where does its wealth come from? How does it maintain law and order? How does the Queen exert influence and maintain her rule even in far-flung corners of the realm? How did she come to power in the first place and does that have an impact on the politics surrounding her current reign?’. And he does this with every country, every corner of his world–shining interesting lights on familiar tropes, and exploring the humanity of these grand ideas in a way that feels very real as a result.

The question of, is this an inherently just system is never really raised because it’s a simplifying question, not a complicating one. Whatever you answer–yes or no–does not add to the depiction of these systems or the people within them, it takes away. You make someone flat–be it a glorious just revolutionary opposing a cackling wicked King, or a virtuous and dutiful King suppressing dangerous radical dissidents, and you make the world flatter as a result.

I often think about how, when I began studying European history, I was shocked to learn that the majority of the royalists who rose up against the Jacobins were provincial peasants, marching against what they perceived to be disgruntled, greedy academic and financial elites. These were, after all, the same people that the Jacobins’ revolution claimed to serve and be doing the will of. Many of the French aristocrats were undeniably corrupt, indolent, and detached from their subjects, but when you look closer at the motives of many of the Jacobins you discover that motives were frequently more complex then history tends to remember or their propaganda tried to claim, and many were bitterly divided against each other on matters of tactics, or ideals, or simple personality difference. The simple version of the French Revolution assigns all the blame to the likes of Robespierre going mad with power, and losing sight of the revolutions’ higher ideals, but the truth was the Jacobins could never properly agree on many of their supposed core ideals, and Robespierre, while powerful, was still one voice in a Republic–and every person executed by guillotine was decreed guilty by a majority vote.

This is the sort of nuance lost so often in fantasy stories, but not in Jordan’s books. The story could be simpler–Morgase could just be a just and good high Queen archetype who is driven by love of her people, but Jordan depicts her from the beginning as human–with virtues and flaws, doing the best she can in the word she has found herself. Trying to be a just and good Queen and often succeeding, and sometimes falling short of the mark. The Tairen and Cairhienin nobility could just all be greedy, corrupt, out-of-touch monsters who cannot care for anything beyond their own pleasures–but for every Laman, Weairamon, or Colavaere, you have Dobraine, Moiraine, or Darlin. And that is one of the core tenets of Jordan’s storytelling: that there is no system wholly without merit or completely without flaw, and no group of people is ever wholly good or evil.

By taking this approach, Jordan’s story feels real. None of his characters or world come across like caricature or parody. The heinous acts are sharper and more distinct, the heroic choices more earned and powerful. Nothing is assumed–not the divine right of kings, or the glorious virtue of the common man. This, combined with a willingness to draw on the real complex histories of our own world, and work through how the unique quirks of fantasy impact them, is what renders The Wheel Of Time such a standout as a fantasy series, past even more classic seminal examples of the genre, and why its themes of class, duty, power, and politics resonate with its modern audiences.

192 notes · View notes

pupyuj · 10 months

Text

→ “careful what you wish for.” || ahn yujin x reader fic.

— being ahn yujin’s biggest fan, there was no way you were going to pass up on the opportunity to be able to talk to her face to face! but you soon find out that you will be getting more than what you bargained for…

word count: 4.1k

dynamic: dom!ahn yujin x sub!virgin!reader.

content warnings: explicit sexual content, rough sex, semi-exhibitionism, mirror sex, fingering, masturbation, voyeurism, humiliation, bondage, cunt slapping, begging, degradation.

requested? : nope.

a/n: first fic! apologies for any mistakes. hope you had fun reading!

“go ahead. the members are waiting for you all.”

you, along with two other lucky fans, perked up at the mention of your favorite idols. you were standing in front of what you assumed was a practice room. as promised by the manager, ive was waiting patiently on the other side and you were both beyond excited and terrified. on paper, meeting your idols up close was a dream come true, but you didn’t think it through until now.

after all, the closest you’ve seen them was from behind barricades in concerts. the longest eye contact you’ve made with any of them lasted for merely three seconds (yes, you counted). standing only a few feet away and having them stare at you for three or more hours was bound to kill you, but you hope it doesn’t. you had to see her after all. the one member you have loved, admired, and respected since forever ago.

with a huff, you grabbed the doorknob and turned it, pushing the door open excruciatingly slow. you allowed the two other fans to enter first, being the polite person that you were, before bowing to the managers behind you and closing the door shut. your favorite group, ive, stood right in the center of the room, waving and joyfully greeting all of you.

god, you could barely lift your head to look at any of them. you couldn’t spend this entire encounter looking at the ground, however! with all the courage you could muster in your tiny little body, you looked up and immediately, the first person you made eye contact with was her — ahn yujin, the love of your life.

okay, maybe that was a bit excessive but you really did adore her a lot!

“hello.”

did she say that to you?

“...hello?”

oh god, she did.

your fellow fan beside you nudged your arm with their elbow, pulling you out of your head. “h-hi! hello… hi.” you could crumple up into a ball with the way your voice shook and cracked. if yujin noticed, she doesn’t say anything about it. she simply smiled brightly at you and oh, you were on cloud nine.

the entire point of this very special fanmeeting was for some three lucky fans to get closer to their favorite idols. it was an opportunity to truly connect, try to relate to each other, and share common interests! it was the perfect event for you; since you always longed to know yujin on a… semi-personal level. you didn’t need to know her entire life story, you just wanted to see a little bit more of the girl that was inside that idol facade…

about thirty minutes into this fanmeeting, you could see glimpses of the real ahn yujin.

the longer it went on, the more you noticed the little things that made yujin just a bit more special. she was quite the klutz, a clumsy and dorky one at that. she was a lot more fun to hang out with than what the cameras made her out to be, and you found yourself wanting to be her friend more than anything else. however, there were times when she would space out and whenever she did, she often spaced out while staring at you. of course, being the hopeless girl that you were, you melted under her stare everytime you caught her, and you could only smile awkwardly before going back to focusing on the activity.

you caught her staring at you a lot. and even when she was sitting right next to you, she could not keep her eyes off of you. you wondered if there was something wrong with your face. was it your makeup? you were never really good with that stuff anyway. was it your clothes? you’d like to think that you had a decent fashion sense, but maybe yujin thinks otherwise.

or maybe you haven’t been as slick as you thought. maybe yujin noticed you checking her out while she was demonstrating a choreography to everyone. maybe yujin noticed the way your eyes would flicker down to her lips every time she talked. maybe yujin noticed how you bit your lip and looked away bashfully when she touched your shoulder one time.

was she onto you, then? there was truly nothing worse in the world than having your idol crush find out about the crush in question like this.

“(y/n)-ssi, right?”

you froze up. yujin was standing right in front of you, a soft smile on her pretty face as she slightly looked down on you.

“y-yes?” you hid your shaking hands behind your waist and gave your favorite girl a stiff smile.

“please relax,” yujin says with a laugh. you blinked, utterly confused. “you have been looking… afraid this entire time. don’t be nervous around us — we don’t bite!”

she… she was worried about you?

“o-oh,” you released a sigh of relief and giggled. “sorry. this just feels surreal.” you smiled up at yujin, genuinely, which she returned with her signature dimpled grin that you loved so much. your chest felt light now that every negative thought has been chased away by yujin’s reassurance. maybe you could finally enjoy this little fanmeeting instead of going through it with your ass clenched the entire time.

nothing to worry about now.

(unfortunately for you, you don’t notice the way yujin’s eyes darkened the second you left her side to join the others. she smirked as she stared at your leaving figure, very obviously checking your ass out but nobody notices. she has to find a way to get you alone. she needs to.)

much to your dismay, the fanmeeting had to end. the girls thanked you, and the two other fans, for your time and the managers arrived to escort the three of you out of the building. you left the practice room happy, having exchanged playlists with jiwon herself and deepening your connection with yujin.

you were nearly out the door when you froze, realizing that you had forgotten something in the practice room.

“i’m so sorry, can i go back? i forgot my water bottle in the room.”

“sure,” the young staff who was more than happy to assist you stopped in her tracks when she was called over by her senior. “do you remember the way back? i have to check this out.”

you swallowed, “kind of…?”

“okay, great. just… you know, don’t disturb anyone and come back here as soon as possible. the taxis should arrive any minute now.” the staff member hurried away, leaving you to your lonesome in the lobby. you turned on your heel and tried retracing your steps, and of course nothing works in your favor.

you got lost exactly three times—you walked the same loopy path two times and ended up in a completely different area that one other time—but you finally made your way back to the practice room. the door was ajar, but you still made sure to knock softly just in case anybody was inside.

“what— oh,” holy fuck. yujin stands on the other side of the door. the flannel jacket she had on earlier was wrapped around her waist, leaving her with only a black tank top and some shorts. she should not be looking this good. “can’t get enough of me, huh?”

you blushed, averting your gaze somewhere else while yujin laughs at your reaction. “i’m joking! god, you’re adorable.” yujin tilts her head, forcing you to look at her in the eyes and blush even more. she was going to be the death of you.

“what’re you here for, cutie?” yujin leans against the door frame, crossing her arms and looking at you up and down. you don’t notice the lust in her eyes, or the way she swiped her tongue on her upper lip swiftly.

you try your hardest to ignore the rapid beating of your heart. damn yujin and her nicknames. “m-my water bottle… i forgot to grab it with me. it should be here somewhere.” as if on cue, you spotted the baby blue tumbler on the other side of the room.

yujin looks back and forth in the hallway, seemingly making sure that no one was around. you follow her action, confused. “u-um… can i…? o-or did you have something important you needed to do… oh god, did i interrupt you with something?” you scratched your head.

the tall girl smiles at you, “i was practicing a little choreography i made, but don’t worry about it. in fact, i’m glad you’re here.” she steps aside and allows you to walk inside the room, once again checking the hallway before closing the door behind the two of you.

you made a beeline towards your tumbler and swiped it from the floor. “thanks, yujin. i should get going, they told me not to take too long...”

“oh, don’t mind them,” yujin flips her hair over her shoulder, still smiling at you. (she flips the lock on the door. you don’t see it.) “stay for a few minutes more. i want to know your opinion about my dance.”

“are you sure they won’t mind?” you asked. yujin only hums, she wasn't able to keep that smile off her face for some reason. she must be really proud of her choreography if she was this giddy over it, at least that was what you thought. nevertheless, it made you smile too, even though you felt like you were trespassing on private property.

yujin comes up to you. her tall figure nearly towered over you and if it weren’t for the platform shoes you were wearing, you would’ve broken your neck looking up at her. probably. “get comfortable, (y/n). and keep your eyes on me.” yujin brushes the back of her hand along your jaw and winks before making her way back towards the center of the room.

what.

what the fuck was that.

you touched the part of your face that she made contact with, your cheeks burning. yujin dims the light in the room and restarts her music. get comfortable, she said… but you were on the verge of a heart attack as yujin untied her flannel from her waist and dropped it on the floor. you make eye contact with her through the mirror, and something tugs at your pretty little head when she smirked.

you held onto your tumbler for dear life, awkwardly sipping as the song steadily heads into its pre-chorus. and finally, yujin moves.

needless to say, she didn’t need to tell you to keep your eyes on her, because you wouldn’t be able to look away even if a meteor was about to hit the earth. the way she swayed her hips, rolled her body, popped, and glided her hands around herself… ahn yujin was a fantastic performer, a captivating one at that too. her expressions—every lip bite, wink, and smile—did not go unnoticed by you either. you were deeply entranced, finding yourself squirming where you stood, pressing your legs together to calm that feeling between your thighs. this was not the time.

you tugged on the collar of your blouse, wondering why it suddenly got hot in what used to be a chill room. still, no matter how much you wanted to, you couldn’t tear your gaze away from yujin. she had you under her spell, and you didn’t know it now but she’s not going to be lifting it anytime soon.

the music comes to an end. yujin didn’t seem the least bit exhausted when she turned around to face you, grinning. “that was good, right?” she asked. you couldn’t help but think that the sweat that glistened on her skin looked so attractive.

“(y/n),” yujin says again, this time in a teasing tone. you blinked, realizing that you did not answer her question at all. yujin shakes her head, walking towards you. she runs a hand through her slightly damp hair and comes to a stop right in front of you, a little bit closer than normal. god, you wanted to take that top right off of her. or maybe you wanted her to rip your blouse open, who knows?! “if i knew we had fans this cute, i would have asked my management to do these kinds of meetings earlier.”

at this point, you didn’t make an effort to hide what you’re currently feeling for her anymore. you stared right at her lips, shamelessly licking your own as you did so. (yujin quite enjoyed the dazed look in your eyes.) you wanted to kiss her so bad.

somehow, yujin has got you trapped between the wall behind you and herself. she puts her hands on your hips, pulling you close. you felt dizzy, was this really happening?!

“i don’t… i-i don’t think we should… not here… or at all…” you struggled to form words as yujin drew her face closer to yours.

“why not? you want me, i want you. that should be enough.” yujin places a single finger on your chin and tilts your head up. she loved the look of your flushed face, and your trembling lips and quivering eyes. you were so afraid, but so turned on at the same time and it showed.

“but… w-w-what if someone comes in and we’re—”

“just shut up.” and with that, yujin puts her hand in the back of your head and crashes your lips together. despite the messy kiss—which was partly your fault because you did not know how to kiss at all—and the way she slightly tugged at your hair to control you, all you felt was bliss. you were kissing ahn yujin, your favorite idol. you start feeling excited, eager to know all about the things she has planned for you.

yujin presses her knee against your clothed cunt, smiling when you instinctively buck your hips into her and moan. noting your reaction, yujin presses her knee right up against your clit and again, you moaned into her mouth. you have now dropped your tumbler to the ground (it surprisingly did not break open and leak its contents everywhere) and you put your hands on yujin’s shoulders, nails digging into her skin, making her hiss. she pushes her tongue past your lips, exploring your mouth as she pleases while you softly grinded on her knee.

she felt how wet you were and in return, it got her wet.

she reached to your side and unzipped your skirt, you let it fall to the ground. yujin kicks it elsewhere and pulled away from the kiss, “you ever done this before, cutie?” she asked, all while she watched you desperately rub yourself on her knee. you shook your head, looking up at her with pleading eyes. you needed her badly.

“let’s sit down, then.”

and so you do. yujin sits down on the floor with her back against the wall and you on her lap. as soon as the two of you were settled, you cupped her cheeks and kissed her boldly. surprisingly enough, yujin reciprocated. but not while she unbuttoned your blouse, of course. she doesn’t make you take it off, she merely left it open and started fondling your breasts, pinching your perky nipples through your pink lacy bra.

“cute.” yujin snaps the waistband of your matching pink lacy panties against your skin. she dips her head and starts kissing up your neck, careful not to leave marks as much as she wanted to do it. she didn’t want anybody finding out about this. something about this whole thing being her secret with you, a fan who she knows would never dare tell a single soul of this encounter, was exciting to her sick little head.

still, she didn’t want you to think that she thinks nothing of you. so, she leaves one mark on your boob. it was perfectly hidden, and only you would be able to see it when you open up your blouse.

while yujin busied her mouth with kissing your neck, she slides her hand down your stomach and stopped at your soaked panties. you were already such a mess, and yujin was more than excited to ruin you even further. she starts rubbing your clit through your panties at a rough pace, grinning against your skin when you whine loudly.

“not so loud, angel.” yujin whispered. it annoyed yujin to say that. your voice was lovely and she wanted nothing more than to make you scream her name but alas.

yujin pulls your bra up since she couldn’t be bothered to unclasp it all the way from your back. she bites her lip at the sight of your bare tits, she can feel herself clenching. “fuck, you’re so pretty. don’t you think so?” she takes one tit in her hand and squeezes it gently, loving the way you throw your head back when she pressed her thumb against your hard nipple.

“i’m… i’m not— hngg.. not pretty…” you managed to say somehow.

“no?” just then, a sick idea popped inside yujin’s head. “i’ll show you just how much then. turn around and sit in between my legs.” too delirious to say anything against it, you obey yujin’s demand. she pulls you closer to her by the waist and continues toying with your clit, now rubbing excruciatingly slow. you leaned into her, turning your head to hide your face in her neck but she grabs your jaw and forces you to look in the mirror.

“look. just watch how pretty you look while i fuck you,” she looks into your eyes through the mirror. your core clenched at her glare, and she feels it. “eyes on me. alright?” you nodded, too afraid to say otherwise.

yujin then lifts your hips up as she pulled your panties down. you let it hang at your ankle. you watched through the mirror as yujin parted your wet folds, showing you your swollen clit and tight hole. it was embarrassing to see so you tried to close your legs but yujin was quick to use her other hand, forcing your legs to open back up. you gasp loudly when she delivers a slap to your pussy. what the fuck that felt good.

“don’t be a bad girl now,” she says, but you ended up closing your legs completely against your will anyway. yujin grips your thigh and parts your legs again and slaps you again. you whine in both pain and pleasure. “better fucking listen, slut.” another slap. a tear rolls down your cheek. it hurts so good.

without warning, and rather impatiently, yujin plunges two fingers knuckle-deep inside your cunt. “i would have gone easier if didn’t pull that stunt on me.” she starts pumping in and out of you at a steady pace, but it felt fast for you. you have never felt anything like this before. it was both too good and too overwhelming, but you couldn’t ask yujin to stop. not when you felt like you were on cloud nine at the moment.

the only sounds being heard were your barely-contained whines and yujin’s fingers moving in and out of you. you felt dirty, you felt embarrassed to be showing this side of yourself to your favorite girl but good god did you not want to stop. yujin curls her fingers inside of you and you covered your mouth to muffle a moan. yujin didn’t like that apparently, because she rips your hand out of your face, “uh-uh. let me hear you.”

yujin pulls her fingers out of you temporarily. it was a break, but you were disappointed to lose all the tension built up. yujin grabs a red lanyard from your skirt pocket — it had a card that said ‘fan pass’ attached to it. it was the only thing that permitted you to the building. yujin puts your hands together and wrapped the lanyard around your wrists, tying it up nice and tight. “now nothing’s gonna stop me from hearing that cute voice of yours.” yujin pulls you by your hair so your back is against her again. you quite liked that, but you couldn’t tell her as she went back to sliding her fingers inside your pussy again.

she pressed her thumb against your clit, circling it. your back arched as you tried your very hardest to repress a moan. “that feels good, right? want me to do it more?” yujin doesn’t wait for a reply, she simply rubs your clit again. it was nearly impossible for you to not just scream her name over and over at this point.

yujin pushes her fingers deeper inside you and hits a certain spot. a spot that caught you off guard so bad that you couldn’t bite back the sound that escaped your lips.

“f-fuck…! fuck, i’m sorry… i’m sorry…”

yujin shakes her head, grinning. “no, no. that was good.” she hits that spot again, not at all caring about the loud moans that now filled the air. she starts moving her fingers faster but still hitting that spot you love so much. it drove you crazy. yujin drove you crazy. at this point, neither you or her cared if someone were to hear the two of you. to yujin, your voice—screaming her name, moaning, whining, whimpering, all of it—was too heavenly to be kept quiet. and to you, you had to let yujin know how good she filled you up.

“how fucking lucky are you,” yujin said. she uses her other hand to massage your clit in a pace that was much, much rougher than last time. you moaned out her name, the loudest you’ve ever been so far. “getting your virginity taken by your favorite idol… in secret, too. d’you like it, hm? you like getting fucked senseless like this?” yujin kissed your cheek and the salty taste of your tears stays on her lips. you’d been crying from nothing but pure pleasure.

“do you?” yujin asks again, pinching your clit and making you scream.

“yes…! yes, yes, i love it… please…”

“please, what?” yujin feels her own clit throbbing. begging to be touched. the sight of you all fucked out in the mirror had her mind reeling.

“p-please.. ah— please ruin me, yujin-ah…” you narrowed your eyes at her through the mirror. you were out of your mind, literally, and you probably had no idea what you were really saying but yujin took it to heart. she grins. how could she say no to a pretty girl like you, after all? she pulled you impossibly closer to her, kissing down your neck while both of her hands worked on your pussy: one fingering you and the other abusing your clit.

a knot starts to form in your stomach, and you start panicking because what was happening? your moans start getting louder and higher, you buck your hips against yujin’s hands — you can’t stop yourself. “y-yujin… yujin…!” you whined, shaking your head. you were building up to something and it felt so good but so scary at the same time. it was getting closer—yujin bites your skin and simultaneously hits that spot again—and closer—your eyes meet yujin’s through the mirror again, her eyes were so dark and inviting—and closer—yujin stops playing with your clit but her fingers inside you now moved at an unreal pace just to keep the pressure going, her nails dig into your thighs—until something snaps.

all you could see was white as you came undone on yujin’s fingers. your legs shook violently, but yujin kept you steady. her fingers still moved in and out of you, albeit now in a slower pace. eventually, she stops and pulls out of your cunt, allowing you to catch your breath and come back to your senses.

you don’t exactly know how long it took for you to finally compose yourself, but when you were finally back to reality, you heard heaving breaths from behind you.

“so fucking pretty… fuck.” yujin… was moaning? you looked at the mirror and there you saw yujin, face down on your shoulder and her hand inside her shorts, fingering herself. she lifts her head and smiles at your bewildered expression. she looked insanely hot.

yujin takes her hand out her shorts and shoves her fingers inside your mouth, letting your taste her juices. she was sweet. “you did this to me,” yujin whined, pouting. you licked her juices off her fingers, making sure to clean it well. yujin then grabs your jaw, tapping your cheek and smirking at you. you could feel yourself getting drenched again. “wanna make that mouth useful now?”

#ive smut #ahn yujin smut #ahn yujin x reader #girl group smut #girl group x reader #yujin smut #ive x reader #yujin x reader #ahn yujin x fem reader #wlw fics

720 notes · View notes

hogwartsfirebolt · 4 months

Text

yes, and

It was a no for so long. A rejected handshake, long years of tipping different sides of a scale. No, Harry wouldn’t talk to him. No, Harry wouldn’t look at him even though Draco sought his gaze with a mindless desperation only possible because they were so young. No, Harry wouldn’t try to save him, even though he saved everyone else. No, no, no.

Yet fate’s puppeteering hands acted in mysterious ways, beyond anything he’d ever been able to comprehend. No, he wasn’t saved, but he was … pardoned. No, he couldn’t take back everything he’d already messed up by then, but he could atone. Community service, two years of it in the kitchens of the Ministry, with the long tables and magic dictating every move, every stir of a spoon. He did his time at first grudgingly, sick on the scent of spices that clung to his apron and the way the still air would make the back of his hair stand on end, but as months passed and he became familiar with the intricate, purposeful magic he needed to master to cook, and the people working beside him, he came to love it. The twin chefs who were his bosses, Poppy and Aspen, were outrageously funny in a foul-mouthed way, and halfway through the year they were already inviting Draco and the other sous-chefs to their flats to have game nights and sparkly drinks. No, his friends from school wouldn’t even hear from him, his letters would return unopened and no, his parents weren’t home, but abroad, exiled, forbidden from making contact. No, he had no family left. But the mismatched group of five who spent their mornings charming potatoes out of their peels with him began to tug at his heart.

No, they didn’t have much in common, but they got him, he got them. This was a connection that was unblemished, for the first time in his life, untainted by his background. It was brilliant, sun-water bliss, and in it, he had the chance to nurture parts of himself he’d only peripherally known about and let them bloom. What he found was that, stripped of the need to be cleverer than everyone else, his opinion was seen as smart, valued, and taken seriously. What he found was that, stripped of ill intent, his jokes and drama were actually quite well received, with loud laughs and occasionally clutched stomachs, tear-streaked cheeks. They loved his theatrics, would go hysterical over his imitation of the stand-offish inflection of the Unspeakables when they came to get their lunch, the brutish tone of the Cursebreakers, the loud laugh of the Auror force.

And well, no, it wasn’t all sunshine and flowers; no, they didn’t entirely get him sometimes, wouldn’t understand why he didn’t want to serve the Aurors their meal, ever. They could understand that he hated serving in general, why he much preferred staying safely inside the kitchen over spooning food onto trays and handing it to Ministry employees who all looked at him like he was a joke at best, or pretended he was entirely invisible at worst; but they couldn't comprehend why he’d serve the haughty Unspeakables and daft Cursebreakers with mild irritation, but went pale when faced with the generally well-liked Aurors. No, they definitely didn’t get it, so no, he couldn’t always avoid it, had to bribe Cooper to trade his serving day for her butter-churning day, had to beg Luisa out of her dish-washing week so she’d mind the counter, had to promise Pip a bottle of wine whenever he took over his serving duties, but there were times when no, nobody wanted to trade, and no, he couldn’t do anything but suck up and do it.

One such day, queuing in between a group of arrogant Unspeakables and a pair of thick-headed Cursebreakers, came Harry Potter. No, it wasn’t the first time Draco had been forced to serve him but no, it never got any easier. Draco tended to avoid his gaze, to pretend the bowl of pasta he was holding was far more interesting than the wild man standing in front of him in blood-crimson robes for a few short minutes each day, hoping he’d just go away as swiftly as possible. But no, Harry had never let things be simple between them. Because no, Harry wasn’t like the others, but not only for the obvious reasons. Despite their — frankly titanic — history, the truth was that no, Harry didn’t look at him like he was a joke, wouldn’t pretend Draco was invisible, and honestly wouldn’t even look at him with derision anymore. He just … looked. No, he didn’t stay quiet, not content with pretending Draco didn’t exist. Instead, he asked questions. He’d say “hey, how are you doing?”, he’d say, “hey, bit cold today, right?”, he’d say, “hey, do you think we could talk, maybe?”

And no. Draco most definitely did not think they could talk. He opened his mouth to say as much, because no, what did they even have to talk to each other about? But Harry must have sensed it, because he added, “Please?” Open and earnest, one word dripping with the easy confidence he’d carried for a lifetime, the unassuming kind.

It had been a no for so long, for so many good reasons. But not all of those reasons remained true, not even most of them — they’d been swept away by the stream of time, by life allowing the pieces that had held each of them slot into their fated place, no longer on opposing sides of a scale. Draco heard the sound of his own voice say, “yes.” He said, “yes, alright.”

And suddenly, a lot of things shifted, things that had been a firm, unmovable no.

And then they were yes.

Yes, he went to get drinks with Harry and they talked. Yes, he promised he’d hear Harry out without fighting. Yes, he was sorry too. Yes, he wanted a fresh start.

Yes, he was free next week at the same time.

Then, as a knit jumper catches on a nail and unspools, a friendship with Harry was pulled out of him, accidentally, irrevocably.

Harry kept asking, and Draco kept answering, yes. Yes, Draco was free that night, yes, Draco liked Japanese food and would love to get some, yes, Draco would hear the speech Harry had written for the function and tell him very, very honestly if he thought it was shit (it wasn’t). Yes, he’d be at the function himself. Yes, fine, they could match their neckties.

Their back and forth became an exercise of yes, and. They’d always connected in a way that went beyond logic, only now that they were using it to work alongside each other instead of against each other, they were unstoppable and unbearable and so much fun that Draco’s ribs hurt from how hard he laughed most days. He’d imitate the cretin Unspeakables and Harry would say, “yes, and how about this caviar?” while poking the Ministry’s rice and beans. Then Draco would say something purposefully daft and Harry would whack him over the head and ask him if he was a pea-brained Cursebreaker.

Harry would have Draco over at his flat and show him the thread-board of his latest case and work through what he knew out loud in case Draco could spot something he hadn’t, and most of the time Draco didn’t even have to say anything, would only open his mouth to say, “Have you thought that maybe —?” And Harry would exclaim, “You’re so right, I should interrogate the reporter.” And when he solved that case with absolutely no real input from Draco whatsoever, he had him over at his flat again and clinked their wine glasses together with a huge smile and said, “Couldn’t have done this without you, really.”

Yes, Draco’s help had been non-existent, but oh yes, he adored the appreciation. And yes, those glasses of wine flowed incredibly quickly and yes, Draco had tried mezcal once and he was very open to trying it again and yes, he was one hundred percent sure he could knock back that shot quicker than Harry and yes — they were spectacularly drunk a short two hours after getting to Harry’s flat.

Yes, it was insane that this should be happening, but it … also wasn’t. They were friends. They were good friends. No, he hadn’t wanted to show the rougher sides of his personality at first, even if Harry had at one point known them better than most people. Draco was hesitant, their budding friendship felt delicate, and he knew he was a bit much, much too coarse, much too rude most times, that anyone would think so, that they’d be right if they did. But there was something in Harry that made his resolve to hide crack open like an egg and he found himself just being. It was something in the way Harry knew who he was, knew exactly why he was there, yet he seemed to want him, continuously. Want his opinion, his support, his ideas and conversation, his jokes, mean as they occasionally were.

Most of their free time was spent seeking one another or trading barbs and anecdotes through quick-floo notes. Cooper and Luisa had a field day with it, made fun of Draco relentlessly when Harry came in for lunch and they’d snatch the three seconds he spent queuing to chat, would call Harry his man, his boyfriend. Chefs Poppy and Aspen would draw chia seed hearts on Harry’s toast and wink, acted as though they were doing him a favor. And yes, Harry found it hysterical. He’d blow Draco kisses over his toast, call him sweetie pie and bonbon where the others could hear and yes, Draco pinked and raged and returned it by bringing Harry’s tray to his table the next day, where he sat with his loud Auror bunch, and saying, “For you, pumpkin.” Yes, he savored Harry’s spluttering thanks, walked back into the kitchen with a grin.

But yes, that night at Harry’s flat, when Draco settled in on the big green sofa and Harry handed him a cup of homemade sangria saying, “here, love,” it felt like the most natural thing in the world.

It was a no for so long, but Harry’s wine-stained lips grazing his felt not like a first time, but a hundredth, a thousandth, a lifetime of a connection that had shapeshifted but always existed, and probably always would. So maybe, going back around to it, giving it some thought, peeling back the layers … it had truly always been a yes, deep down. A yes, and.

Read on ao3

#drarry #drarry fic #drarry fanfic #Harry Potter #Draco Malfoy #mywriting

187 notes · View notes

bbyseok · 18 days

Text

at first sight? — GOJO SATORU [TEASER]

pairing: gojo satoru x gn!reader

word count: TBA (looking to be around 5k-ish??)

RELEASE DATE: NOW POSTED

content: soulmate au, gender neutral reader, minimal use of they/them pronouns for reader, but gender is not specified, sorcerer reader, fluff, angst with a happy ending, brief swearing/explicit language, implied satosugu as past soulmates: can be interpreted as either romantic or platonic, fic takes place after jjk 0 but before the show starts

analysis: this is a world filled not only with curses, but soulmates too—in which you know someone is your soulmate when you first make eye contact with them. but for your case, things can get a bit complicated when someone is wearing a blindfold.

with that, you’d think it’d be pretty common for two random people to run into each other while crossing the street or something and bam! suddenly you’ve found the supposed love of your life!

and you? well, for you, that hasn’t happened yet.

it’s better to leave it up to fate. it’s fate who decided your pairing anyway, right?

your transfer to jujutsu tech had been fairly smooth. after being stationed in kyoto for a while, tokyo was a nice change of pace.

coincidentally, you had been out of the country during the incident known as the night parade of a thousand demons. a scary event that proved the threat of curse users to be formidable.

because of that, your decision to transfer to tokyo seemed like the right thing to do. and so far, it’s been decent.

it’s a nice change of scenery. the students are aspiring; while maki and megumi aren’t the friendliest, they’re warming up to you. toge and panda are gradually improving.

nanami’s pessimistic outlook on jujutsu society and shoko’s overall unenthusiastic demeanor are certainly interesting for the most part, but your coworkers are pleasant to be around.

well. except for one.

꘎♡━━━━━♡꘎

gojo satoru knows that you are his soulmate. he has indeed known this fact right from the very start, ever since your first meeting.

even with his blindfold on, he could see your own eyes before him. his six eyes can see everything. the thing is.. he didn’t know he could have another soulmate.

satoru felt their bond die that day after the events with okkotsu and rika. and it had frightened him. that lingering presence of the bond was no longer there.

so imagine his surprise when he sees you.

“i guess i can check out some new faces,” he relented with a sigh, adjusting his blindfold and looking to the side as yaga’s steps slowed as they approached you.

gojo rolled his eyes–not that you’d see it anyway–as yaga introduced you with your name and your sorcerer grade. he stopped to stand next to the principal.

you extended your hand to offer a handshake, and gojo finally turned his head.

satoru stuttered in his movements, reluctantly taking your hand. the skin that touched yours felt like it was on fire. he briefly held on to see if you felt it too.

but you simply smiled up at him.

“it’s nice to meet you, gojo,” you said, blissfully unaware of the revelation currently dawning on the man before you and the turmoil it brought as he abruptly retracted his arm back.

how was this be possible? how could the universe give him two soulmates? he didn’t even know that was a thing that could happen. he wondered if there had been a similar occurrence before.

gojo couldn’t help but feel nauseous. was this the world playing some sort of sick, cruel joke on him? or was it perhaps giving him a second chance?

and truthfully, it wasn’t like gojo even wanted another soulmate. not after what he had been through with suguru. he hadn’t given it much thought.

was it really worth it?

what if he couldn’t protect you too?

so satoru had decided on one thing that day. the blindfold stays on. concealing his eyes from the world not only for him, but for your sake too. he was certain in his choice; he would never tell you the truth.

as far as you were concerned, you haven’t met your soulmate yet.

and never will.

[END OF TEASER]

a/n: hi ! thanks for reading the teaser !! this is my first jjk/gojo fic so im excited to post it soon. im thinking about adding a tag list since a few people were suggesting it, so feel free comment if you want to be included <33

170 notes · View notes

dichromaticdyke · 6 months

Text

ALRIGHT I'LL POST MY ANALYSIS OF THE MTL JERK-OFF SCENE HERE TOO.

you're welcome @ogurizz

for reference, this is a character analysis based solely off the scene in "Writersklok" where Nathan explains their "process" to Abigail. yes, i'm serious.

nathan:

sleeping on the floor with piles of booze and drugs, not surprising there. though out of everyone who’s still asleep, he’s the only one who’s at the very least stirring, and he’s checking the time. he’s aware he has to be at least somewhat responsible for the band getting up and working, but he doesn’t want to.

then for breakfast, he’s just staring angrily at his plate of meat and eggs and potatoes. kind of unenthused, like this is the meal he used to eat in his football days just to bulk up—there’s no joy in it, it’s just routine.

the most emotion we see from him in this scene is when he’s jacking off, he looks both intense and and also like he’s VERY pent up. which i think is reminiscent of how he’s the one who craves a romantic connection the most. even though he does have casual sex, it doesn’t seem to be fulfilling him.

pickles:

passed out in his bathroom, clearly hungover and had a rough bender the night before. there’s something very lonely about it—despite them all being addicts who love to party and binge drink, pickles is still the one who does it to the most excess, and that’s so common that it’s normal for no one else to be around afterwards. they know he’ll be “fine.”

and he is, he gets his cinnamon buns, indulging in something that we know makes him very happy. his face there looks a bit happy but also a bit unsure. i mean based off the framing of this shot, it’s implied they’re all having breakfast alone. which might not be true, they all do seem like they could be together in the same room since they’re each in different areas, but that could also just speak to the familiarity they have with each other. even when they’re alone, that’s their spot.

but back to pickles, casual smirk while jacking off. not much to say except—this one’s for you pickle fuckers.

murderface:

he’s also been drinking. the way he’s positioned too, his arms crossed like they usually are reflects his typical disdain and anger that he carries through life. he can’t find a moment of peace, even when sleeping.

he’s clearly not getting enough sleep, though, likely still troubled by something, whether it’s anxiety/insecurity or nightmares about his father, and so all he has for breakfast is coffee.

again, he seems most at peace while jacking off, and he’s also really focused. we know he’s not getting as much action as the rest of the band, but he’s at least found a way to deal with it so he doesn’t get too frustrated.

toki:

funnily enough, he has the easiest time sleeping. i think that’s crazy given his TRAUMA, but he clearly has a routine he sticks to. he’s got his sleep mask on, he’s sleeping in his clothes on top of his bed like a heathen—whatever it is, he knows how to get comfortable, and honestly? probably just having a bed AT ALL is better than his childhood, so that’s all he needs.

then he has just a very simple cereal for breakfast—even though he could have anything he wants, and even though he DOES indulge at times, he prefers the simple things in many cases.

and he jacks off like a maniac: not only is he using that intense focused face he makes while coloring and texting (clearly coloring, sex, and social interaction all fire off the same synapses in his brain) but he’s also. not in his room. @supersaturnnyoomkitty and i have talked about this before and we don’t know where the hell he is in this shot. but he’s not comfortable jacking off in his room, probably because of all the creepy pictures of his parents staring at him.

skwisgaar:

my babygirl…sleeping with a bunch of groupies who he’d just spent the night with. i always think it’s interesting that he lets his groupies stay the night, i think he longs for the closeness/intimacy of sharing a bed with someone after sex, but he’d never admit it.

at breakfast, he just looks bored. he had a beer and nathan’s coffee mug and waffles, but all he’s interested in is his guitar. that’s all he’s ever truly interested in, regardless of who else may or may not be around.

and then he’s naked when he’s jacking off. because of COURSE he is. besides guitar, sex is the only thing he’s good at, he takes it very seriously, very intensely. besides guitar, it’s probably the only worth he thinks he has.

and then none of them really feel like recording. not because they’re dispassionate about music, obviously they’re not. they all care deeply about music and dethklok, even if they’re just terribly lazy. because they have gotten so used to the rockstar lifestyle that it’s easy for them to fall back on base pleasures, even when they’re all clearly suffering from loneliness or trauma, and they can just WORK ON THAT if they made music together, if they worked together as a BAND a FAMILY. but they don’t always want to, because it’s gay to care.

i spent way too much time looking at this scene to write this, i deserve recompense.

#dichromaticdyke.exe #Metalocalypse #written in a fit of divine madness #Nathan Explosion #Pickles the Drummer #William Murderface #Toki Wartooth #Skwisgaar Skwigelf #you are lucky that i was already bullied by others to write this out lmfao #also nyoom sorry for pinging you again for this lol

215 notes · View notes

kel-lance · 2 months

Text

JJK Mafia Au (JJK x Reader) PART 2

Part 1

Warnings:- TW: Dead dove dont read (DDDR) Minors do not interact (MDNI): SA, Physical Assault, DubCon, NonCon, Mindbreak, Public Humiliation, Breeding, Ownership, Gaslighting, Multiple manipulation, RWORD, PTSD, a lot more toxic sh.

Premise: Reader lives in a city where the two biggest gangs keep things line until the third gang showed up. That had nothing to do with you though, until dumb luck just happened to favor you one day. Basically You’re picked up and used by every dangerous criminal within the clans due to some alliances they had to create due to some members messing up the previous alliances. ((Almost everyone’s gonna have a turn 🤗)) ( i have 11 more chapters planned out right now meaning after i write those ill still be writing more.)

“We’re done for today.” The large man reaches for his robes. You don’t bother to move. Just breathing hurt. It was his off day and he was deciding to break you in, deciding to keep you for however long you were durable. He was amused with your reactions. He liked it. He found it interesting how you were also trying to survive. He’d play along as your god now.

You lay in the bed and his finger prints stained your skin, each strike created blots of purple and blue and green. You liked bruises before, it showed how you fought for it.

You apparently woke up two days later, and he lets you rest. Your body finally turns off survival mode for a second, just a second to adjust to the warm room. Four walls, the nice smell, it was just another thing you weren’t used to. Stillness. It was boring. But under these circumstances you were glad to have your own padded room to deal with this.

The time you were left alone, you didn’t know how long that would be. Another hour or so you’d think he’d come back in, hearing as you’re up. Time for more torture, though do torture victims get a bed and tended to? It felt more like you were a sacrifice, meant to appease him, though no one handed you over.

You were brushed, scrubbed raw, and even felt a bit of shame for the way you were living compared to the two ladies who were taking care of you. But you didn’t know how long they’ve been in this line of work. Hell they honestly looked like they were born into it with the cold looks in their eyes. They could care less about your well-being, though they found and scrubbed every inch of you. Of course you didn’t want strangers to look at you, especially after such a moment that brought you here. To be real, these twins are probably the only people who knew you more than anyone you currently knew.

Friends? You had a few, some to help you out sometimes, some to let you crash at their place. It was all fair game to the people you knew. Life was never easy for them and they knew of you being a free spirit. You didn’t leech off of them for you’d always show up with something in exchange, usually something you stole but it would never get traced back, it was either too common (but useful) or just something that would never be brought out of shown off.

You weren’t a bad friend for it, if anything you were the perfect guest, though this time you didn’t mean to give yourself away for a few nights stay.

“I gotta get out of here, but where would I go? These people have already seen my face and I can’t tell how many more there would be. I can’t request anything to learn the layout of this place and no one will talk to me. If I leave I’ll have to run further and faster than I already have been…” You ponder more, sitting at the table placed in front of the window.

They’re smart enough to know what I’d do if I wanted to pick a fight with their lord, of course there are guards at more doors, even under the window out your room, and it’s safe to say that there’s even a guard at each vent that’s connected to your room.

“Why does it seem like I’m so special?” You sit and open the window, the guard below moves from his post to observe you on the same side has the other posted to view you. You look down at then and offer a wave, saying you’re not doing anything stupid, but you just wanted some air. One of them leaves, probably to get Sukuna.

“I bet he’s just a lonely loser and I just happen to fall into his lap, or maybe I was one of many and was the newest. The girls here looked like they could be in the same position as you, though why weren’t they? They didn’t look like they were his blood, and there was no way that he could be their dad. That would make things even worse since you’re close in age as the twins.

You see the guard go back to his post, nonchalantly. “Weirdo.” You thought. Not even a second later your room door whips open. Jumping from your place at the table, you turn and see who other than the man with the unpredictable entrances. “Finally up?” He leans on the door frame. “Honestly, you’re so dramatic for that.” He teased, being strangely familiar to you.

“Dude…” You caught yourself about to tell off this stranger. All you’ve known from him is that he’s having fun taking you and making you a toy, that his name was Sukuna and how everyone seemed under his control. Not that they enjoy it, but it didn’t look like anyone, even in their numbers, would stand up to someone like him.

It still wasn’t apparent for you. He only told you his first name, his last could tell you that you were in even more danger than any “normal” man doing this to you. It could be such a metaphor but you’re literally trapped in the best place you’ve ever been. Was that just life? all the bad comes up when you’re supposed to be happy, and realizing how good you’ve had it as it gets ripped apart in front of you? The balance of it all only comes with ignorance, which was also why you wouldn’t get attached. You didn’t run to one person for everything you didn’t need more than what you’d ask for and that wasn’t much. If they were lucky you’d be there for 3 days at most.

You lost your voice, his presence set in, bringing you out of your (if you can all it that) relaxed state. He notices you tense up, the look in your eyes begging him to give your body a break. He huffs and saunters into the room, taking a seat at the end of the bed, the side that’s facing you. “You had some time to clear your head, now tell me what was your intention. Playing dumb suits that pretty face of yours… But that’s not why I’m here.”

You sure knew nothing about this guy. Other than his name and how his body looked. How he felt was different, it just happened so fast that you could only remember how it lingered in your belly after he left you the second time. It wasn’t something you can forget, those were the best orgasms of your life. “Sukuna… I’m serious.”

“You expect me to believe that? Did I hit you too hard?” You almost wanted to laugh, you saw stars and colors you couldn’t before his knuckles contacted your skull. Lifting his hand from his side to place under his chin made you flinch, a bit too hard for his liking apparently. It took a lot for you to muster standing up on your own, much less realize you had to get to the table by needing support from the wall. It was like you were in an ice skating rink and had to hold onto the walls for dear life, except there was no ice, it was just pain in your body not letting you level yourself out.

“When you’re ready to talk, I might hear you out. My patience is thin you already know.” He stands and closes your door, sent a shiver down your spine. Him not being close to you, or hurting you, having this quick visit was so unsettling.

It haunted you for hours. He didn’t touch you. The edge of the bed where he sat still held an energy, like he left a part of him right there to keep watch over you.

He definitely hit you too hard, you were thinking more outlandish things to go with this scenario. Like why didn’t the touch you? You thought he was going to keep a pattern, that maybe after this he would come in periodically to taunt you. That maybe his patience has worn out and he was going to get rid of you any minute now, or to use you again.

The trauma you got from this certainly messed with your self soothing methods. Every time you catch yourself hitting your peak of your self imposed orgasms, you were almost wishing you had more than just your fingers. You didn’t want him, but seriously its already been 2 weeks. You were gonna go crazy in here. The girls kept bringing you your meals, and a bathroom is attached, though you couldn’t do much by yourself.

You were to let the others feed and bathe you, and you honestly hated it. It was way too weird, you never talked to them, and they never tried with you so it felt like there was an agreement to just not speak about it. That none of you were here willingly. That gave you some insight. Your body healed itself enough that you didn’t need the wall to walk anymore, making your trips to the table in front of the window more frequent.

You notice some sort of schedule Sukuna follows, as well as a few other noticeable men in this kind of gated community. Whatever he has gong on here, it felt like you were almost a stolen princess locked away in a tower or something. “You have GOT TO get a hold of yourself.” You didn’t need to see a doctor or someone, you were fully aware that these thoughts were just you daydreaming to escape reality, yet again. Though this time it was getting boring, you couldn’t help yourself, literally.

At this point you wanted to even ask one of the guards if they wanted to come in and help you out, but you didn’t have to do that, because a day later you decided to act. Rolling around night time, you decided to open your window a noticeable amount. By then the guards usually leave one guard to patrol the grounds in each quarter.

The ones outside your door either end up sleeping or one leaves the other for a bathroom break, some nights they both go, probably to blow each other you thought. It wasn’t any of your concern, they did it before when you could barely move, but now you were agile again, enough to move around without hissing at each moment.

Placing your ear to the door, you heard light snoring through it. “Okay, just find his room you thought. You knew that it took about 60 steps to reach a stair case, then that would be about 24 steps down. You could hear his footsteps through the pairs of others who followed him, as his echoed with pace, and the others almost scuttled behind them like bugs..

You find your way slipping past heavy wooden doors, making sure it wouldn’t creak, you saw the walkway in the garden. You looked up and saw your room, you knew it was yours as it was the only one with the window open. you knew that the guard just left this fourth of his grounds. You were searching the area for his room. Peering through the windows, it would have been hard to tell if it was him, but his tattoos were honestly unique.

None of them were him, you go back to the walkway, going down the opposite end, just blindly working your way through. You couldn’t just walk through any door, it could be your last mistake, it being Sukuna or not. But it just had to be him, you wanted so badly to find his familiar face and just, you don’t know.

You decide to be more ballsy, there’s surely no way he’s be in the same quarters that has this many people,” you decide to take your chance with the left corridor. “I wouldn’t take him for a cuddly guy anyway.”

Listen, you know it sounds crazy, but if you even got to escape, you’d be hunted like a fox, unnecessarily, and as a spectacle for others to watch. But if you could find him, and do it yourself, “I mean, at least I’d die with something, and what a funny way to go.” You loved to joke about these kinds of things. Anytime it seemed dark, you’d find yourself cracking a joke or going off an other tangents from the barrage of thoughts coming your way.

You hold your breath as you set your fingers around the doorknob, you pull it back slowly, and turn it, to silence any squeaks it may have. After turning it fully, you let it go back and unclenched your fingers to let it go a second time, making sure there was no noise from the metal trap, and decided to go in.

What fucking luck you had as if you broke into another room you’d think your breathing would start to give you away. As you head towards the bed, the raising figure laying there was him. Your eyes had adjusted to the dark, so much so that you could just stand in front of him.

Looking down at him you wondered what you should do. You’re not going to kill him, that’s one thing, though you had nothing to lose, you still liked your life and you enjoyed whatever adventurous you got yourself into. It was always just one thing after the next and you’d rest when needed, but you loved it.

This was totally different though. Before it was like you were born into this work and have to abide by its rules. As of right now you could do /anything/. What else would you do?

You look down at him, kneeling at the edge of the bed to face him. Looking at his face like this, completely defenseless, his harsh eyes weren’t poking at you or telling you exactly what he was thinking. No he was just, he looked human. Like if you were to have met him at any other place it would possibly be on a magazine cover or an army recruitment booth posted wherever.

“Damn bastard is beautiful.” You thought. “I didn’t get this far to stop now. Fucking 2 weeks you keep me here and don’t do anything? Do you know how boring that is? You can’t just keep me here and forget.” All that time alone had gone to your head, did you forget how he treated you the time you met?

Tbh it fades in and out, your memory’s cut up pieces of film that randomly plays an old memory, and since you can’t recognize it, you call it a dream.

Nothing could take you away from where you were now. Looking over him, still not a care in the world. Nothing could wake him if he’d allow it. You cocked your head to align your eyes with his, and reach out and brush your fingertips across his jawline.

How much of this could you enjoy before he kills you for breaking out? Just that thought had you slowly leaning in, your hand before tracing his face was leaning onto the bed to support your intrusion.

First, you kissed his forehead. The poor fuck probably hadn’t felt the touch of a real lover in ages, he just finds and uses whatever and whoever he wants, whenever. Of course you didn’t pity him, but does he even know what being loved properly was like? You’re really one to be asking.

You peck the smooth, hot skin, and kissed a line across his cheek, getting more sensual with the next. His touch, even sleeping was still so manly. His body was so, honestly the words seem odd, but he looked so edible. Like you almost couldn’t keep your lips off of him. He was so yummy when you get a good look at him.

Cupping his face, your lips reach his, beginning to lightly stimulate the connection. You lean in further, applying yourself onto him, guiding open his mouth with yours as you lick his lips. This shit was getting you so excited, considering all that he’s done to you, having this moment, where you’re in control and he was at your mercy, and only you know this.

Continuing to make out with your kidnapper, you moved yourself to get on top of him. His lazy reaction of kissing back had you think he was a deep sleeper, god you really wished.

You opened your eyes just to make sure he was still asleep, but his eyes were staring back at you, with the same look he always has. You didn’t have time to even make a sound before he had you under him. His hand grabbed your waist and turned kept you parallel to him as his leg pushed his body to get on top.

You could feel his erection, he was basically stabbing your thighs with his head. His hands pushed your wrists into opposite sides of your head, and he has you immobilized as he sat on your legs. Most you could move was your toes and neck, but he had pressed his face up against yours.

“I don’t even know where to start with you. If you wanted to kill me, you would’ve already. Maybe I can believe you’re just some random, …but you wouldn’t have come to my room.” He lets a wrist go to reel back and strikes your face as a warning. Seriously, no sane person would just come straight back to him in your situation.

“The guard fell asleep?” Nothing gets by him. You can’t tell if he was just prepared for everything or if he planned this out. The excitement you were feeling before was being clashed with the sudden shock to your face. “Depending how the rest of the night will go will determine his punishment.”

Keeping everything in place, he moves your chin up by his nose, giving him space to start attacking your neck. “We’ll just start with yours.” His grasp tightened around each wrist, so much so that he was pulling on the tendons in your forearms, making your fingers involuntary curl.

Your luck may have run out, but you weren’t as scared. Trying to enjoy the moment as much as possible, knowing fully well that you’re about to be eaten alive, and god, youve been waiting. His teeth grazed your collar bone, making their way back up, making themselves a known threat to your neck.

“Speak.” He orders. “Who sent you?”

“You still think I’m a spy?” The spot where he hit you was pounding, but it didn’t hurt. Other parts of your body were just pulsating along with your heartbeat, you knew he was going to take that as a sign of fear.

“Hurry up, we have a meeting tomorrow so I’m trying to be considerate for everyone else.”

He’s still not listening. You weren’t either at this point, finding his roughing up sort of endearing. Maybe he didn’t want to get blood on his bed, or maybe he did care about that stupid meeting. All you could feel was vigorous pulsating from your wrists, your face, your heart, and more than anything else, your pussy.

This was literally what you came here to do, this was why he even took you with him wasn’t it? Seriously whatever big shot he thinks he is… this shit wasn’t legal; You were serious on going out with a bang, raising your hips to create some friction on his hard on.

Sukuna seemed to notice the look in your eyes and gave you another firm slap. “Focus, doll.” He adjusts his hips a few inches too far down your liking, his hands being the only thing touching you.

“Put it back.” You got this far, now he wants to start questioning you immediately after waking up? He picked you up after meeting and ignored you for two weeks, you’re about to do what most others would. Especially if they’re in the same situation with the same circumstances.

“You’re not the one to be giving orders, much less to me.”

You raise your hips back up to his head, having it dip into you, crossing your clit but unable to enter fully. His tip could find its way in no problem, it was just his call, and that almost drove him over the edge. You’ve stopped fighting back, for something like your freedom and what’s better for you.

What you were after now was just one more orgasm brought by that monstrous mf. He doesn’t drop his guard, or change his face at all as he accepted “your bait/distraction”. In this position, you’re still straight legged, laying in his bed as he has you held down, arms pinned, palms up, and legs trapped as he sat on your thighs.

He could easily kill you now, but it would honestly leave a bad taste as no one’s been killed in his room before, much less even entered without permission. You both didn’t know what to think really.

To you he’s some strange and strong asshole who’s been unclear if you were his sex toy or if you were “invited” and he was just being a terrible host. Honestly, it felt worse to you to have everything you needed; Without your freedom, you were honestly thinking it’d be better to be dead.

To him, you were dangerous. You got it all right. From the room, to the person to bump into, to the alley. You could have been a spy laying low, from whichever gang he thought you were from, he thought it would be good to hold you off to send a message to see who would come collect you first. They wouldn’t send someone if they didn’t have something to say.

At first he did just want to keep you until one of them sent them back another message. It didn’t matter what happened to you, honestly he got bored. He’s a busy man, there was really nothing else to say.

So imagine his surprise how you came crawling all over him tonight. He knew an assassin would’ve done it before he even knew the door opened, they were to make sure it was quick. The attack would have had to been fatal, whether they succeed in one shot or have them die as they’re leaving. And how quick they leave is how desperately they want to live.

You, just came in to stare at him and decided you wanted something else. And it didn’t seem like revenge. That was a first, especially for him. Right now he was allowing it, letting you go. There was no way you could harm him, he concluded.

Looking down at you squirm and pout, upset on how close you were to getting what you’ve been aching from and for. He won’t drop his guard, but he sure as hell was silver platter served. Really how badly did you want it?

He connects your wrists at the top of your head with one hand, the other has its index finger and thumb at the base, controlling himself with those two fingers. He raises his erection and knocked it against your clit, the strikes sent waves of pleasure from your core to the top of your head and palm of your feet, having you whimper out.

Your aching hole needed him, it was taking him so long. Seriously you wish he’d kill you now because this so actually torture. The only thing you could do was start to cry, tears leaving their corners and running into your hair. You were more than frustrated. Angry, horny, needy, powerless, you wanted it so bad you were losing control, it didn’t matter, no one else could judge you, and who would be worse than Sukuna?

“You came in here, climb all over me, just to cry now? You’re so pathetic.”

“Please,” You whine. “I want you to put it in.”

His face changed, from laughing at you beg, to sharpening his focus. Even after all this, getting caught, threatened, insulted, you’ve started to beg for it. He takes his legs up from pinning yours, putting them to your sides as he aligns himself to your front hole. “Say it again.”

“Please Sukuna, put it in-“ He lowers his hips and dives deep into you. He watches as your head writhes. Instantly youre spread apart, the sudden plunge casted a warm blush across your face and electricity towards the tips of your fingers. “Oooh,”

“Fuuuuuck.” He finished for you. He continues to grind deeply into you, quickly using his now free hand to gag you from waking everyone up. Good thing too as you were messy, fucked silly couldn’t cover it. You gave up control a long time ago. He wouldn’t kill you, not right now anyway, you especially wouldn’t let him without trying to get one last nut. It was diabolical how down bad he had you. It was more of your unhealed trauma and he just happened to be the best person to help you out, willing or not.

——————————————————————————

You lay there as the base of your back ached. Every part of your body was bruised again, you could only imagine to move again as you tried catching your breath. You had lost count on just how many times he’s forced an orgasm out of you, mind numbingly rich euphoria every time. Nothing else mattered, you were more than thrilled the first 2 times but started to wonder if he ever got tired.

It wasn’t until after your fifth orgasm that he managed to get his first one in. You were honestly almost regretting climbing into his room but his second had him pinning you on your back as he lay on your lower torso and legs. You couldn’t feel anything but your pulsating cervix, half feeling good from the pain and lingering pleasure, the other half making you know that this was a mistake and the nausea was on you.

Raising your free arm, you weakly start to pat his head. It was over, you insatiable perverted needs were fulfilled, so what were you going to do now? It’s not like you’re in love with the guy, you don’t even know if you’ll get to wake up tomorrow with this stunt. “It was worth it.” You thought. Running your fingers thorough his hair, and tracing his back, you fall asleep holding him, accepting that this is it.

97 notes · View notes