#they're so near and dear to me in this au
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I really gotta stop drawing cats who appear past the first arc in eos au.
#for ref I sketched 2 pages of Hawk and Moth being gay and stupid together#it's entirely unimportant to the story and honestly something in the background but I think it's funny#they share one brain cell that bounces between them#Moth only looks smarter cause she doesn't talk as much but they're equally dumb when it comes to relationships#my babies my not-so-dynamic duo#they're so near and dear to me in this au
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okayokayokay... hear me out. Barbie Fairytopia AU where everything is the same, except the necklace the Enchantress gave Elina didn't give her wings, she instead got the power of Magic Footsteps.
[ID: a digital art sketch of the characters Dandelion and Elina from Barbie Fairytopia running/flying through a field of flowers. Dandelion is a slender fairy with long pigtails, a skirt made of dandelion fluff and petals, and pixie wings fluttering behind her, orange and white sparkles trailing behind her as she flies excitedly by Elina. Elina is a taller, likewise slender fairy but, diverging from canon, she doesn't have wings and is instead running on glittering, magical, platforms that appear wherever she steps, while Dandelion flies beside her. She's wearing a dress with a layered, rose-petal skirt, with a sleeveless top with two petal-like decorations that trail off her shoulders. Her hair is in a low bun. The two are looking at each other and smiling. /END ID]
#my friend and I have been watching through the barbie catalogue (in part bc I didn't grow up with these movies also bc they're a vibe)#the fairytopia movies are near and dear to me as a disabled person like that first movie hits HARD#and I do love the franchise but also just. i feel in my bones that it would be so much more powerful if she didn't get wings#like the whole lesson was that she was special with or without wings and at the end with the 'I DON'T NEED YOUR WINGS LAVERNA' like yknow#and as a disability metaphor it kinda like.... oof ouch my heart my bones my soul my credit card my IP address#so i just think it'd be cool if rather than getting wings she got essentially a mobility aid and she'd still need help to get around#bc her disability hasn't vanished but it's easier to get around (which is the purpose of an aid)#it would be a great way to normalize that stuff for kids while also giving Elina like power upgrades#and then we got to see Fairytopia become more accessible throughout the rest of the movies#idk just my thoughts asldkjf#just doodlin#sky art#sky chats#not wordgirl#described images#barbie#barbie fanart#barbie fairytopia#barbie fairytopia au
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Gimmie a Danny and Damian twins au, but not one where they're all gushy gushy and huggy huggy about the fact that they're reunited.
I want one, where they HATE and try to KILL EACH OTHER. Where they're extremely fucked up in their relationship with one another, but can't kill the other because Taila hoped that they could get along.
They spew poison at each other, inflict pain on each other as easy as BREATHING and would leave the other while heavily injured while saying that they could take care of themselves.
I want them to be near mortal-enemies wrapped up in the bodies of two highly-competent and powerful 14 year olds who cannot give a fuck about each other, has a fleeting thought of killing the other on the best of days but doesn't because of their dear mommy Taila.
Then force them to interact with each other after a long period of separation. I don't give a flying FUCK how you manage to do it, perhaps Danny has to run because his parents vivisected him, perhaps the Nasty Burger explosion couldn't be reversed because Clockwork said no and Danny is torn or perhaps Vlad brings him to Gotham for a gala (either redeemed or not redeemed Vlad), etc, etc.
Force these two children who fucking HATE each other under the same roof, make them interact, make them watch each other interact and make comments about it. Maybe even make an unstable Danny try and KILL Damian, but is stopped by the batfam, or maybe make it that Danny can't even bring himself to kill Damian because he's (discounting Talia) the only family he has left.
Maybe even (if you go the Nasty Burger/Dead Fenton fam au) make Danny hate Bruce Wayne's fucking GUTS because this man is trying to replace his dead father (even though Bruce IS his biological father) and hates him even MORE because he looks so similar to Jack's face that he's literally torn whenever he sees him. Make it that he never stays in the same room as Bruce whenever he's not in mask, make it that he tells Bruce TO HIS FACE that he hates the man for trying to replace his dead FUCKING dad and that he will NEVER accept him as one, biologically related or not.
Maybe even make him not like the batfam either just for the fact that they associate with both Bruce and Damian.
(I just remembered about that one post I saw, but BOY is this ramble gonna get even WORSE for dear old Danny. Though this part isn't really necessary could just read the on top bit lol)
Maybe they even find a way to take away his ghost side, and Bruce (With or without Talia) say that it's for the best for him, and Danny? Danny just fucking BREAKS. DOWN. He's full-on crying and screaming at Bruce and maybe has to be held back by the other batkids or not, or maybe he's just fulling on trying to hit Bruce and Bruce either dodges or just takes it.
Saying how fucking DARE he take away his ghost side, that was apart of him and he had NO FUCKING RIGHT to take away something so precious from him. Then Bruce could say that he doesn't need powers, he could be fully if not even more capable as a human.
And Danny just goes "You don't even get it, do you?" And Danny just cries harder because technically that was one the LAST things linking him to his parents. His DEAD parents. Sure, the accident was his fault, but phantom was created because of their portal, in their lab, in their basement.
Even worse if the reveal went RIGHT and they starting accepting how he was half ghost and trying to change their views on ghosts as a whole, only to die. Then, for some guy to just, take away something like that from him?
Maybe Danny would even say that, rip into him about how that was one of the only things linking him to his parents and even if it wasn't he didn't have the fucking right to decide what to do with HIS body.
"You never had to fucking worry about your parents not accepting you, I did. They still loved me regardless, they tried to change for me. But you wouldn't even know what that feels like, would you, you stupid fucking rich boy."
[idk why I typed that part out but just role with it.]
Maybe Bruce tries to sympathize with Danny about his parents, but Danny just doesn't have any fucks left to give about Bruce's life, or anyone else life in Bruce's life at all and just shuts it down or steamrolls over it. At the end of it all Danny is just a crying, shivering wreck and stares down Bruce with eyes full of HATE that tells Bruce one step closer, and he would KILL him.
Maybe then Damian (Either walks in or was there the entire time.) insults Danny over his weakness and depending on his ghost form or something, and Danny just sees fucking RED and jumps on him. No care that he's no longer half ghost, so that he means he could die more easily, no care to anyone else in that room, no care that Talia wanted both of them to get along and not kill each other.
He tries to kill Damian.
He fails miserably, of course, but he still tries. Then tries again and a fucking gain.
Then after all that he just, doesn't come out of his room, or tries to escape and leave Gotham every chance he gets. He never gets far, but he keeps trying, and he never opens up to anyone in the batfam, not even Alfred.
He's just a kid who lost everything he worked so hard for, everything he tried to hide from his biological mother and her assassin league who tried to keep whatever he had left. Now that kid is fueled by nothing but pure, revolting hatred for the people who took even that from him.
Basically like Dark Danny, but way more powerless and fully human.
[Okay that's enough of me rambling.]
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Baby Blues
Pairing: Kim Mingyu x fem!reader
Genre: fluff, domestic!au
Warnings: gross tooth rotting fluff, dad!gyu mom!reader.
Length: ~500
Note: Drunk Goggles couple is back! for a moment! I'm in a bit of a slump and needed something easy and they're so near and dear to my heart. I saw a tiktok of a baby refusing to say dada and i couldn't let it go. threw in some speech development bc im annoying (babies use their lips to say M and B sounds and their tongues to say D which is a skill they develop later)
also GIRL DAD MINGYU SUPREMACY
read more here
“Say da-da.”
“Mama!”
“Your daughter hates me.” Mingyu huffs, head falling to the kitchen table with a thunk.
Hana delights in her fathers dramatics, squealing her joy while yogurt goes flying. Her chubby fists clap against the plastic table of her high chair and little legs kick out. Mingyu smiles through the pain, never able to truly be annoyed with his favorite person in the world.
Mingyu had been trying to get her to say dada for the better part of an hour. So far each request was either answered with "mama", bubble noises, or unintelligible baby gibberish. You'd simply watched the entire thing unfold from behind your coffee cup, smirking into the rim at Mingyu's desperation.
“Our daughter doesn’t hate you." You say, rolling your eyes. "She’s a baby.”
“No, she hates me. Watch. Say dada, Hana.”
Hana doesn’t pause before shrieking, “Mama!”
“See!” He argues, arms out towards the babbling baby like she's torturing him on purpose.
“She just loves her mama, don’t you Hana?” You coo at her, stroking the top of her head covered in wispy hair as you wipe the mess of drool and her breakfast away.
“Ggggh!”
“Daddy is silly, isn’t he?”
“Bfffff.” Hana spits, ungracefully wiggling in her seat.
Eyes wide, you agree with her ramblings. “Exactly what I was thinking.”
“Hey! Don’t talk about me like I’m not here.” Mingyu pouts.
“We would never!” You give Hana a cartoonish wink that sends her into a fit.
Returning to the sink with dirty dishes, you listen to your husband try desperately to get Hana to say the words he’s been begging to hear since she called you mama for the first time a week ago. Hana humors him, pure sunshine under Mingyu’s constant attention; giggling at his crestfallen face every time like its new.
Deciding to take mercy, you approach Hana’s chair and lift her into your arms. “Gyu watch this. Hana, where’s baba? Baba?” You ask, pointing one of her pudgy fists directly at Mingyu.
“Bah…Bah?”
“She—she said—I’m baba!” Mingyu repeats dumbstruck, staring at your smiling face. “LETS GO!” He whoops, rising to bolt around the kitchen. Jumping around the room like he won the lottery, fists punching the air in victory.
It’s the same way he reacted when he found the positive test waiting for him on the bathroom counter almost a year ago. Unfiltered, unadulterated joy. Except there were far more tears when he found out he was going to be a dad, a broken lamp, and a broken couch.
Now, he grins like a mad man, chest puffed in pride that his daughter finally recognized him. As if it was ever a question despite Hana being a spitting image of Mingyu except for her nose which clearly comes from your gene pool. How she screams when he gets home from work and immediately picks her up for smothering kisses like he’d been gone more than a couple hours. Or when you’re all curled up on the couch and she falls asleep on his chest, her mouth open wide as she snores just like the man holding her. And the times all the boys visit to coo over their niece, bribing her with funny faces and silly voices to let them carry her, but the only person she reaches her little arms for his Mingyu.
Hana is Mingyu’s mini me, attached to his hip since her first day. But she's already learning how to get the best of him, no doubt a skill she inherited from you.
You and your daughter cackle in unison as Mingyu sweeps you both into a bear hug, alternating kisses between your lips and Hana’s almost bald head.
“My girls,” he says with a squeeze, content seeping into his words.
“Mama!”
There's a sigh of resignation, and a nod of his head. “We’ll work on it.”
#svthub#kim mingyu#mingyu fics#mingyu drabbles#mingyu fluff#mingyu scenarios#mingyu imagines#svt x reader#kim mingyu x reader#kim mingyu fluff#mingyu x reader#svt fluff#seventeen fluff#dghe couple#🫡 highvern
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Miracle Of The Season — J.JK
STORY SUMMARY: Cast out of Heaven after a painful betrayal, you find yourself having to navigate the intricacies of human life without any guidance from the Creator or the family you have always known. Things only get worse as the holiday season reaches its peak, with reminders of the life you left behind everywhere you look. When a familiar face pops up, you aren’t sure whether to consider it a blessing or a curse.
PAIRING: Angel Jungkook x Fallen Angel F!Reader
RATING/GENRE: M ; angst, fluff, smut ; second chance romance, angel AU, soulmate AU
WORD COUNT: 17.2k
WARNINGS: Heavy themes of religious trauma, an initially negative view of Christianity transforming into a more neutral/respectful view of individual faiths, initial dismissal of other religions, difficult self-growth journey, homelessness, very brief mentions of murder and rape
OTHER/NSFW WARNINGS: Sharing one-bed trope (kinda), mistletoe trope (teehee), first time, fingering, cunnilingus, hand job, unprotected sex
A/N: This is a lot. The story definitely got away from me, but I think that's because there was so much I wanted to say. I definitely could have made this longer, and if I had time/wasn't such a slow writer, I probably would have. It's a heavy topic, but it's one that is near and dear to my heart and one that I think a lot of people can relate to. If you do, I hope this story feels a bit healing.
A/N 2: This is based on the vibes of his song "Standing Next To You" and the m/v for it.
LINKS: Part of the Jingle All The Way! collab with my talented, wonderful friends. Cross-posted on AO3 and (eventually) Wattpad. Banner made by the lovely @kithtaehyung.
"—let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!"
You take a deep, calming breath as you pass the carolers. Their cheerful voices grate on your nerves, but you keep your head down and continue walking. Lashing out at them won't do any good, even if it might give you a moment of satisfaction. It's not like they're the source of your irritation anyway; the crowded streets are abuzz with the unrelenting chaos of the Christmas season, and you have been on edge all morning.
Turning a corner, you enter a street closer to the shelter you have been calling home for the past year and a half. Immediately, some of your tension dissipates, and you feel like you can breathe a bit easier. There are fewer lights here and less noise, but a few decorations still attract your attention, like a moth to a flame. A nativity scene is proudly displayed in someone's window, and you stop dead in your tracks.
"Freedom of religion, my ass," you mutter bitterly as you tear your gaze away. Why does everyone and their mother seem to celebrate this stupid holiday?
You know that for many, Christmas isn’t necessarily a holy season. Some humans just use the holiday as an excuse to wear obnoxious sweaters, play the same song on repeat, and spoil one another with gifts. Yet reminders of the celestial realm, of the life you have been cast out from, are everywhere. The nativity, for one. Then there are the carolers singing their songs, and the cartoonish cherub decals that can be found on shop windows, holding banners that proclaim, “Buy one, get one 20% off!” Even the name of the holiday is marked by one of His monikers. Christmas.
It makes you sick.
The weather doesn't help, either. Drawing your coat more tightly around yourself, you try to ignore the relentless chill that settles deep in your bones. You’re definitely not dressed warmly enough, ill-prepared considering the sensation of being cold is something you’re still getting used to. It is yet another item you have added to your ever-growing list of "whys.” The question of why God created snow joins the ranks of "why did He make spiders?" and "why is He the most selfish being in existence?"
You sniff. Perhaps you let your emotions get the best of you at times.
Emotions. Another thing that’s somewhat new. As an angel, you didn’t really have those. The only thing you ever thought about was following orders and how better you could praise His name. Ugh. It’s hard to believe now that you were ever so single-minded. Though, towards the end, you suppose that wasn’t the case. It all went awry when you started this “list” of yours—when you started questioning things.
The moment that doubt had first crept into your mind seems like a lifetime ago. Reaching the status of archangel was something you had been working toward for millennia. It was a position that allowed you to work more closely with humanity; you were able to actually guide their paths and alter their destiny.
At first, it was everything you had ever wanted. The miracles that occurred because of your intervention made you feel like you were doing something worthwhile. But you quickly learned that not all of your missions would be quite as fulfilling.
You will never forget the first time you were put in charge of administering a holy test. The man had done nothing wrong, yet your higher-ups still insisted that he needed to be "tried by fire." The divine reasons were beyond comprehension, or so you were told. But watching the man suffer as everything he loved was taken from him, seeing the desperation and despair in his eyes… It felt wrong. That feeling stayed with you even as you watched the man's faith remain unbroken. Somehow, that made it worse.
And then there were those who committed sinful acts and escaped punishment. You saw murderers and rapists living their lives in peace while innocent souls suffered unjustly at their hands. The scales of justice seemed unfairly balanced, and you began to feel crushed by the weight of your guilt.
Thus, the degradation process began. For the longest time, you thought it was a myth, a scary story told to keep angels in line. If you doubt, if you disobey, you begin withering away into nothingness. You'll start to feel things, to lose your sense of purpose. It will be painful and overwhelming and, eventually, you'll cease to exist entirely. You were told that if it were to happen, you must report it to a superior at once. But you were terrified.
There was only one person you trusted enough to share the way you were feeling—your other half, your celestial counterpart. The one who knew you like no other did. Your Astrom, Jungkook.
There is an old celestial folk tale that documents the first creation of an Astrom pair. It is said God took one star and split it into two. Neither half could live without the other, nor would they want to. It is difficult to describe the way you felt for him, as angels are devoid of personal desires or emotions as humans experience them. It was simply as if being with him was as natural as breathing. He was the only being other than the Creator that you felt beholden to, that you admired.
When you first revealed your doubts to him, he simply listened, displaying a level of patience that you found comforting. He answered your questions about morality, about justice as best he could, trying to reassure you that everything happened for a reason. Yet no matter how persuasively he argued, your doubts wouldn't go away.
Eventually, you began to start contemplating letting yourself fall from grace. The thought was terrifying, but at the same time, there was a certain allure to it. To Fall meant to renounce your celestial responsibilities, and that included no longer having to inflict pain on innocent souls.
When you confessed this dangerous thought to him, Jungkook gave you a look that you couldn't decipher. All you remember is what he said next: "If you Fall, I shall Fall with you."
His words had been unexpected, and you didn’t know whether to take comfort in them or not. You didn’t want him to share your fate, to bear the burden of your guilt. Could you live with yourself if he Fell too? The answer was an obvious no. But the mere thought of being alone in your struggle was something you couldn’t stomach either. So, you attempted to keep your dissent to a minimum and perform your duties as required. But it wasn’t long before everything fell apart regardless.
Eventually, you were discovered and brought before the celestial court. You were accused of blasphemy since questioning Him was an unforgivable sin and sentenced to Fall, to be cast out from the life you have always known. Yet, the real blow came when you found out who had betrayed you.
Jungkook.
Your Astrom.
The one you had trusted implicitly, the other half of your celestial star, had betrayed you in the name of divine loyalty. The pain of the Fall, the feeling of your grace ripped from your body, the scorching burn of your wings as they turned to ash—none of this could compete with the raw, gut-wrenching anguish of his betrayal.
Even now, months later, remembering makes you feel as if you can't breathe, as if you might die. Every memory of him is like a punch to the gut, and the city, so full of noise and life, does nothing to drown out the agony. Some days, the pain is so vivid and unbearable that it feels as though you are Falling all over again.
A rough shove against your shoulder makes you stumble, and the man who ran into you barely grunts out an apology before continuing past. At least the disruption is a timely one, allowing you to pull yourself out of your thoughts before you spiral. There’s no point focusing on the past when there’s nothing you to do to change it, especially not when you have a myriad of new human concerns to deal with.
Your job hunt was, once again, unsuccessful. You keep telling yourself that it’s because it’s so close to the holidays and you’ll have a better chance once the new year comes. In reality, you’re sure it’s because you have no experience, no schooling, and no useful knowledge.
At least you’re familiar enough with the city now that zoning out didn’t prevent you from getting to your destination.
Lost Star Shelter.
The place you’ve been calling home. It’s certainly not perfect, but little on Earth ever is. You feel awful stepping past the crowd of people waiting outside its doors, knowing that they, like you, have nowhere else to go. You've been fortunate enough to secure your spot due to your volunteering efforts and the fact that the manager, Naomi, seems to have taken a liking to you. But not everyone is so lucky.
You step inside, greeted by the familiar smells of disinfectant and something cooking in the kitchen. The place is buzzing with activity as usual—mothers trying to soothe crying children, elderly folks chatting away in groups, and a few lone souls quietly scrawling job applications.
"Long day?" Naomi catches your gaze from behind the front desk, her warm smile a stark contrast to the weariness etched in the lines of her face.
"Isn't it always?" You head over and pick up the clipboard she slides toward you, scanning your list of tasks for the day. As expected, it's long hours of mindless labor, but you don't mind. Not only do you need to earn your place here, but volunteering gives you a sense of purpose similar to your previous heavenly duties. And you have the satisfaction of knowing you're actually helping, not harming.
"First on the list," Naomi points to an item at the top of your clipboard, "is the donations room. We just had a big drop-off and could use some extra hands sorting through it all. But grab some dinner before you start, okay?"
You nod, her straightforward nature getting a slight smile out of you. "Yes, ma'am."
You navigate your way towards the crowded dining area, where a line of people has formed, waiting for their turn to get served. The cooks, all volunteers like yourself, are bustling about, serving portions of the day's meal which looks to be a thick stew accompanied by fresh bread. The food is simple but hearty, more than enough to keep you working through the evening. You make a mental note to slip into the kitchen later and thank them for their hard work.
You find an empty seat at one of the long tables that occupy the space, making yourself at home amongst the people who are engrossing themselves in their meals or with idle chatter. You even join in on a conversation with some older women across the table, who are engaged in a spirited debate about soap operas. Your knowledge of pop culture is sparse at best, but they seem delighted to fill you in on the latest drama, their laughter infectious.
After your meal, you make your way towards the donations room. The sight of piled-up clothes, toys, blankets, and other items is both overwhelming and heartwarming. Naomi wasn't kidding when she said they'd received a large drop-off. It's a daunting task, but you roll up your sleeves and get to work. You start by sorting through the clutter, meticulously separating everything into various categories—men's clothes, women's clothes, children's clothes, etc., and items that need repairs or cleaning. Hours pass by unnoticed, the rhythm of work almost meditative.
Your thoughts inevitably wander back to Jungkook. A pang of longing shoots through you. He was the one who would always be by your side when you had to perform menial tasks like this in the celestial realm. You wonder what he would think of your new life. Does he look down on you from up high with pity or disdain, or does he simply not think of you at all? You aren't sure if you even want to know the answer.
As time wears on, the room gradually becomes less cluttered and more organized. You're just about to take a break when Naomi appears at the doorway, her aging features softened by the warm glow of the hallway light behind her. She takes in your progress with an approving nod.
"You've done well," she says, stepping into the room.
You can't help but feel a sense of pride at her words. "Thank you, Naomi."
She strolls around the room, her observant gaze sweeping over the sorted piles, her hands touching a few items here and there.
"It's amazing," she finally says, "how much kindness there is out there, even when it seems like everything is falling apart. No matter how rough things get, we can choose to be generous, choose to help others. That's what makes us human."
Her words resonate with you. You’ve seen the worst and best of humanity firsthand; the same species that wages wars also unite in times of crisis, offering support and showing kindness to total strangers. How much is influenced by higher powers and how much is purely human nature, you wouldn't presume to know. Your very existence has blurred the lines between supernatural influence and mortal will.
"True," you say, looking up at Naomi from where you're still seated on the floor surrounded by donations. "That’s a nice way to look at things."
Naomi's smile broadens at that, and she gives one last cursory glance around the room before saying, "Well, I'll let you get back to work. Don't stay up too late."
"Goodnight, Naomi," you call after her as she steps out into the hallway, half-waving at you as she goes.
A little over an hour later, you step back to admire your work. Each item has been categorized, ready to be cleaned and redistributed. You move on to your next set of responsibilities: cleaning up the common areas and helping close up for the night.
The smell of cleaning supplies clings to your skin as you make your way back to your sleeping quarters—a small, shared room filled with single beds. Careful not to disturb anyone, you move towards your assigned bed, its familiar creaks and groans echoing softly under your weight as you settle into it. Exhaustion pulls at your muscles, but you need to wash up and change before you sleep.
You grab your shower caddy, change of clothes, and quietly make your way to the women’s bathroom. The fluorescent white lights flicker to life as you enter, revealing a row of curtained shower cubicles. You choose one at the end and let the water heat up as you undress. The hot water cascades over your tired body, soothing your muscles and washing away the sweat and grime that has built up throughout the day.
Shower done and teeth brushed, you pull on fresh clothes and make your way back to your bed. As you settle back down under the covers, you notice something strange on your bedsheet. A crisp scorch mark is visible against the fabric, and when you observe it more closely, you're shocked to realize that the shape almost looks like… fingers? Your heart hammers in your chest.
"Impossible," you whisper to yourself.
The sight of these burns is not unfamiliar to you; in fact, you have been the cause of such marks before. It is a common occurrence when celestial beings interact with the mortal world—remnants of their powerful energy left behind. But as you stare at them now, a sense of unease creeps over you. Could it be Jungkook? The thought flickers through your mind, but you quickly brush it aside. Why would he make himself known in this way and then vanish without even seeing you? You can't allow yourself to hope.
Dismissing the thought, you force yourself to rationalize that it must have been an accident. Perhaps someone burned it while it was being ironed. It’s easy enough to convince yourself; after all, it’s only three and a half slender marks—it could be anything. But the unease remains as you lay down on the bed, your mind filled with questions. You eventually succumb to sleep from sheer exhaustion, your dreams filled with memories of Jungkook.
The next day passes in a blur—the usual routine of job applications, food preparation, and cleaning duties. The burn mark on your bedsheet remains a mystery. You track down the volunteer who did the laundry, and she swears she wouldn't be so careless as to burn someone’s belongings. Despite her assurances, it's the only explanation you are willing to believe. You return to your bed to find that the sheet has been replaced with a fresh one, the burn mark gone as if it never existed.
You spot an older man sitting on a bed in the corner; his mouth moves silently, and the rosary beads dangling from his fingers lead you to believe he’s praying. A small, faux Christmas tree, no larger than a water bottle, stands on a box next to him. The sight stirs something with you, an uncomfortable feeling once again settling in your gut. You don’t understand his faith. How can someone continue to pray to a God that has obviously forsaken him?
You wait until the man finishes and safely tucks the rosary beads into his shirt pocket, right above his heart, before you approach.
“Excuse me?”
He looks up at you with a smile, eyes crinkling around the edges. "What can I help you with, dear?"
"I noticed you praying," you begin tentatively. Despite your personal qualms with religion, you don’t want to seem as if you are disrespecting him or his beliefs. "I hope you don't mind my asking, but how do you keep your faith? Under these circumstances?"
He doesn't seem bothered at all by your blunt question. Instead, he chuckles softly and pats the bed beside him, inviting you to sit down. You hesitate a moment before complying.
"Faith isn't about having all the answers," he starts, his voice a mere whisper in the quiet room. "It isn't about being rewarded for good deeds or punished for bad ones. It's about hope. It's about believing that things will get better."
“Hope? Still? Despite… despite being here? I mean, aren’t you upset with God?” Your voice is barely above a whisper as well, a mixture of curiosity and frustration seeping into your words.
He remains silent for a while, his gaze wandering towards the small Christmas tree on the box beside him.
"No, I'm not upset with God," he finally replies. "Man is given free will, and it is man who chooses what to do with it. Crisis, poverty… God didn't create these. They're the consequences of human choices." His words are sincere, spoken with a calmness that only comes from years of contemplation. "God doesn't promise us that life will always be easy or free from hardships. But He does promise that He will be there in those times of trouble. You see, faith isn't about expecting God to fix our problems, but about having the strength to face them."
“I envy your strength,” you admit with a hint of admiration in your voice.
“Strength is born from struggle, dear. You’ll find your way soon enough.”
“I hope you’re right.”
The conversation lingers in your mind long after the man's words have faded into silence. You sit on your bunk, staring at the ceiling, pondering them. His unshakable faith is both alien and inspiring to you. Even when you were an archangel, before any doubts seeped into your mind, your faith was nothing like his. It was a duty, an obligation, a resolute certainty that was less about personal beliefs and more about the world you were born into.
His mention of hope sticks out to you the most. You look around the room again, taking note of the different symbols of faith scattered across the room—crosses, menorahs, and even a small prayer mat in one corner. Each person in this room believes in something larger than themselves, something that gives them hope. And you? You're not certain what you believe in anymore. But maybe, just maybe, some of your anger has been misplaced.
As the daylight fades, you find yourself wandering outside, the crisp evening air bringing a kind of comfort you couldn't find inside. You walk aimlessly, your feet following the now-familiar sidewalks. You end up in a park, and you make a seat for yourself on a deserted bench.
Looking up into the sky, now painted with hues of orange and pink, you let yourself miss Heaven for just a minute. To miss Jungkook. Even the Creator. You can never go back to worshipping Him, nor do you want to, but you can't deny the connection that once was. As much as you wish everything never happened, you are grateful for how much you've grown since.
Suddenly, you’re disoriented by a bright flash of light and a shrill, piercing sound that makes your entire body jolt. You shut your eyes and cover your ears, but it does nothing to dull the pain. It's as if the noise is coming from inside your mind. You half-crawl, half-fall off the bench, curling in on yourself, unable to think anything, do anything, until it finally comes to a stop.
The world pauses around you; the birds stop chirping, the wind stops blowing, and people are frozen where they walk. A familiar feeling washes over you, and your breath catches in your throat. You can’t bring yourself to open your eyes. Even in this form, even as a human, his presence calls to your very soul. You hadn’t realized how incomplete you felt, how empty you were, without him by your side. He’s your other half, and he always will be. The realization makes you want to cry. You had hoped after the Fall, after you became human, that would cease to be true. You can’t stand the fact that you’re still irrevocably tied to him, even after all that he’s done. As always, fate is cruel.
“Y/N.”
He speaks your name with a quiet reverence as if he can hardly believe you’re there in front of him. The familiar, honeyed tone of his voice reignites your longing for him with full force, but you still stubbornly keep your eyes closed. You can’t look at him. You aren’t strong enough.
“I cannot believe you are alive.”
What?
His statement shocks you enough that your eyes fly open of their own accord, and for the first time in months, you're met with the sight of Jungkook. You're not sure if you perceive him differently now that you are mortal, but he's even more captivating than you remember.
His dark hair curls softly atop his head and is tousled ever-so-perfectly. His skin is beautifully tanned, and the way his tall figure is silhouetted against the sun makes it seem like he's glowing. His wings are obsidian, gargantuan in size, seemingly consuming the entire park with their reach. He's magnificent, so beautiful it hurts.
But it is his eyes that have you frozen in your spot—those beautiful, brown doe eyes, filled with so much emotion that it takes your breath away. He's not supposed to be able to feel unless… unless he has begun the degradation process, as you had.
“Y/N,” he repeats, his voice trembling. "I thought you were dead."
“I don't understand,” you manage to choke out, trying to sound more composed than you feel. You pull yourself to your feet, grimacing at the pain radiating throughout your body. How much of it is physical and how much is emotional, you can't tell.
He takes a step closer to you, his hands outstretched as if to ensure that you're real, but you recoil instinctively. He flinches at your reaction but still grabs your arms, grip unrelenting even as you attempt to pull away from him.
“Protective markings have been burned onto your ribs.” Hurt flashes across his features. “Were you hiding from me?”
“What? No.” You manage to break free and back up a few steps, putting some distance between you. You feel exposed and vulnerable under his gaze, remembering how he always seemed to know what you were thinking even before you did. "I didn't even know I had them."
"I need you to explain everything," he demands.
“You need me to explain?" You scoff and cross your arms over your chest defensively. "What about you?”
“Me?” He tilts his head slightly, his confusion obvious.
“Yes, you!" You take a step closer, anger simmering just beneath the surface. "After all, you’re how I ended up in this situation, right?”
“What are you talking about?”
"You betrayed me!" you hiss. “I confided in you, and you told me you understood. That you were with me. And then you turned around and proclaimed me a blasphemer!”
He doesn’t respond right away, and it’s as if you can see the cogs turning in his head as he pieces things together. “Y/N… I would never.”
His admittance makes you pause. Angels aren’t supposed to lie, though you know not everyone abides by that law. However, Jungkook has always been one of the most dedicated to the commandments.
“That’s not what Namsu told me.”
“Namsu? The Throne?”
“Yes, the Throne. The one who exiled me on the orders of up high.”
His eyebrows furrow. “You… were exiled? You did not wither?”
"Wither?" you scoff. "That's a myth, Jungkook. A cover-up to hide the fact that when angels start to stand up for what they think is right, they get cast out. And it's thanks to you that I'm here now."
"I… no." The intensity behind the word takes you aback. "I just wanted to help you; I thought you were sick. I went to one of the Cherubim for guidance—I would have never turned you in for some kind of punishment."
His words hang in the air, making your heart pound in your chest. He was trying to help you? The thought sends a flurry of conflicting emotions through you.
"Help me?" You repeat his words, mocking him in your disbelief. "Your way of helping got me exiled! Cast down and made mortal."
"I did not—" He cuts himself off, his gaze dropping to the ground. "I never meant for any of this to happen."
"Yet it did!" you snap, crossing your arms tightly around yourself as if they could somehow shield you from the pain his presence brings. "And now I'm here, and nothing will ever be the same!"
"I am so sorry." His apology is whispered so softly that you almost don't catch it. But you do, and it hits you like a punch in the gut.
Your head feels as if it's about to implode. He didn't purposefully betray you—in fact, he was trying to save you. But even so, his actions have led to your downfall, and now you're stuck here on earth, far from the light of Heaven, vulnerable and mortal, while he remains immortal and untouchable. Perhaps that's the part that hurts the most. The fact that now you are separated not by betrayal but by the very nature of your beings.
Your voice cracks as tears fill your eyes. "If all this is true, then why wouldn’t you have looked for me?”
“I looked everywhere at first, but I could not sense you anymore.” If it was possible, you think he would be crying too. “Namsu is the one who told me what happened. He said that you… that your doubt consumed you, and you did not survive.”
The information hits you like a ton of bricks. Your knees almost give out for a second time, but Jungkook reaches out and grabs you by the elbows, steadying you.
"I… I had no idea." A bitter laugh escapes your lips as you look up at him. "You didn't know anything, and I presumed the worst of you."
His fingers tighten around your arms in a reassuring squeeze. "We can always start over, Y/N."
"Start over?" you echo, incredulous. "You make it sound so easy."
"And why would it not be? We were not the ones to blame for our separation. Come back with me."
"I'm human now. The only way I can come back is… is if I'm dead."
His grip loosens, his face paling at your words. "I did not mean to suggest… Of course, I do not want you to die," he hastily corrects himself, glancing down at the ground. His wings flutter uneasily behind him, betraying his discomfort. "There must be another way."
"If there was, would it even be safe? I mean, why would Namsu do this?" you ask, staring at him. You're not sure if you're asking him or simply musing aloud. Even so, the question hangs heavily in the silence between you.
Finally, after what seems like an eternity, Jungkook speaks again. His voice is barely above a whisper when he says, "I wish I had the answers you seek, but I don't. All I know is that I will do everything in my power to rectify this situation." He turns away from you, scanning the horizon as if searching for something. "I need to return and confront Namsu. He must account for his actions."
"No, it's too dangerous. What if he forces you to Fall, too? You can't risk it, Jungkook."
He looks back at you, his expression hardening. "I will not let him get away with this, Y/N," he says resolutely. "Deception is not a virtue of a Throne, especially not in such grave matters."
"And you won't let him, but you need to go about this carefully. Going to him directly won't work—he's too powerful."
Jungkook tilts his head, regarding you skeptically. "It almost sounds as if you are asking me to be deceitful."
"Not deceitful, just… stealthy?"
He doesn’t respond immediately, his brow furrowed as he mulls over your words. After a moment, he exhales slowly, pulling back from you to pace the grass in thought. "Stealthy," he repeats slowly, his voice distant. "That would require careful planning. Secret meetings. Misdirection."
"Yes," you agree, watching him closely. "All of that."
He stops suddenly, turning to look at you. "Very well. I will do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this."
Your chest tightens, and you gnaw at your bottom lip. His resolve both comforts and worries you. You don't want him to risk himself for you, but part of you is happy that he is willing.
"However,” Jungkook breaks your train of thought. "It sounds like I may need to be a little bit more human to pull this off. After all, none of this comes easily to angels, but mortals lie all the time."
You raise an eyebrow. "And how are you going to achieve that?"
"You will have to teach me, of course." He says this as if doing so will be the easiest thing in the world. “The degradation process has already started for me, as I am sure you are aware. It should be easy.”
"You're serious?"
Jungkook had always been so straight-laced, the epitome of angelic perfection. The idea of him playing at being human is almost laughable.
"Completely," he responds, his intense gaze never wavering. "I am willing to do whatever it takes to bring Namsu to justice and try to fix this. Fix us. If that requires adopting some mortal habits, then so be it."
"Alright," you finally concede, shaking your head in amusement. "Time for a crash course in 'how to be a human' 101."
He smiles faintly at that, the corners of his mouth tipping upwards just so. It's a small thing, barely noticeable amidst the tension still hanging heavily in the air between you two, but it's enough. Enough to remind you that the way you felt about him in Heaven, despite not being able to feel, was some kind of love. You don't know where that leaves you now or what you're going to do about it, but procrastination is another human skill you have come to love. Maybe you'll teach him that eventually.
"Lesson one," you start, pointing a finger at him in mock sternness. "Humans don't always speak so formally or in such grandiose phrases. ‘I am going to bring Namsu to justice' sounds archaic or like something a two-bit superhero would say."
His lips quirk upward into a more genuine smile this time. "I see," he replies, his voice deliberately casual. "So how would a human say it?"
"Well, for starters, you could use slang," you suggest.
Jungkook’s brows furrow, an almost comical look of concentration on his face. “Slang,” he repeats, testing the word on his tongue.
“Yes, slang. Humans don’t always pronounce every single word, and they often come up with new, shorter words to replace certain phrases. You could say something like, 'Namsu’s gonna get what he deserves.'”
He nods, repeating your words slowly. “Namsu... is going to get what he deserves.”
You burst out laughing at his attempt. The prim, stoic angel fumbling his way through human speech? It is truly a sight to behold.
"Laughing at my expense?" He feigns hurt, but there's a playful twinkle in his eyes that gives him away. "I guess that's lesson two then: humans are full of mirth and mockery."
"You're catching on quickly," you reply, still giggling slightly. “And yes, we like to laugh.”
He observes you a moment longer before finally allowing a soft chuckle to escape his lips. It's a deep, rich sound, but it feels tentative like he's not quite sure if he's doing it right.
“Laughing…" he murmurs, puzzling over the concept. “Such a peculiar expression of joy. But I like it."
"As you should," you reply, a grin still playing across your face. "It's one of the best parts about being human."
Jungkook studies you for a moment, a smile tugging at his lips. "It suits you."
"Hm? What does?"
"Being human."
"I’m not sure whether to take that as a compliment or an insult.”
"There is a certain spontaneity in humans. A vibrancy that angels lack." Jungkook’s gaze intensifies, his voice lowering to almost a whisper as he steps closer. "It makes you shine more brightly. Like the sun."
He's so close to you now that you can make out the subtle flecks of gold in his eyes. Your heart pounds in your chest as his words wash over you, warming you from the inside out.
"That—" You clear your throat, trying to steady your shaking voice. "That sounds like a compliment."
"It is," he confirms, his gaze flickering down to your lips for a brief second before rising back to meet your eyes. "But it is also an observation. A fact."
You want to kiss him. The thought shocks you—you've never kissed someone before, let alone wanted to. It must be a human impulse. You can't help but imagine what it might feel like, the warmth of his lips against yours, his skin beneath your fingertips. You want to feel his hand on your cheek, his fingers tangling in your hair. But the danger of your respective positions impedes that thought, and you push it down. He's an angel. You're not. Him being your Astrom, the connection you had before your Fall, none of it matters now.
"Okay," you manage to squeak out, trying to ignore the electricity that seems to be sparking between your too-close bodies. "Human lesson number three: we're big on personal space."
"Oh?" Jungkook raises an eyebrow but doesn't step away. "Is this too close?"
You swallow hard. "A bit."
You swear you see a hint of mischievousness cross his features before he complies, stepping back just enough to leave a sliver of space between you. "Better?"
"Now you're just teasing me," you retort, though there's a soft smile playing on your lips.
"Is that frowned upon?"
"No," you admit. "In fact, it's quite human of you. Now, it’s time for a real challenge." He looks at you quizzically. "We have to convince Naomi to let you stay at the shelter."
"Ah," he nods, understanding dawning on him. "I see. Another part of being human—negotiation."
"Exactly."
"Then lead the way." With a snap of his fingers, time resumes for the two of you and his wings have disappeared, making him appear fully human, and you head back to Lost Star.
"Naomi, please," you beg, giving your boss the best puppy eyes you can muster. "He needs a place to stay."
Naomi crosses her arms over her chest and drags her gaze over Jungkook in a way that suggests she's scrutinizing every cell of his being, from the top of his head down to the tips of his toes. "There's no extra beds, hun. I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do."
"Then he can stay with me!"
"You and him, sharing that tiny little twin bed?" She scoffs. "I'd like to see you try."
"We'll make it work!"
"It's still against the rules. One body to one bed."
"I know it's not ideal, but just for a few days until we figure out something else," you urge her. "I wouldn't be asking you this if it wasn't important."
Jungkook steps forward, interjecting smoothly, "I will respect the rules, and if you feel my presence is harmful or disruptive in any way, I will leave immediately."
Naomi looks between you and Jungkook, and then she sighs, throwing her hands up in defeat.
"Fine, but only for a little while. And you can't sleep in the main room. Take my office—the couch is a pull-out."
"Thank you, thank you, thank you!" You pull her into a hug that she returns with a loving exasperation.
"If there's even a whiff of trouble, both of you are gone, understand?"
"Yes, ma'am! I wouldn't expect anything less."
You grab Jungkook’s hand, dragging him along behind you as you lead him through the shelter. You pass through some of the busier living areas, and it's as if everyone can’t help but stare at him. You can only assume that, despite his wings being hidden, he still emits some sort of otherworldly aura that draws people in. Plus, by human standards, you suppose he's quite attractive.
Jungkook seems unbothered by the attention, too focused on his surroundings and curiously taking in every detail.
"All these people live here?" he asks, incredulous. "This place is quite small."
"Shh! Lesson four: lower your voice when you're talking about other people. The last thing we need is for someone to overhear and think you're judging them."
"Apologies," Jungkook replies, his voice dropping to a whisper. "But my previous comment was not meant to be judgmental. I’m just… surprised. I thought humans usually lived in family units, but everyone here doesn't seem to be related."
I’m. Doesn’t. He’s already using contractions—you must either be a good teacher or he’s a quick learner.
"You're right," you agree, and as you glance around, your heart aches a little. "Not everyone is fortunate enough to have that. This place is for those who have lost their families or homes."
"Lost their homes? Like in a fire?"
"Sometimes. Or maybe they didn't have enough money to pay their taxes."
"I don't understand. Are there not enough homes for everyone? Why do you need to pay for such a basic need?"
You pause, the innocence of his question hitting you surprisingly hard. Of course he wouldn't understand the complexities of human society, of money and social class, of poverty and wealth disparity. You didn't either; at least, not until you Fell and were forced to figure it out.
"That is a complicated issue," you admit, running a hand through your hair. "And not all humans agree on how to solve it. Some people think everyone should have a home, regardless of whether or not they can pay for it. Others think that if you can't afford it, you don't deserve one."
He looks so confused that you would be tempted to laugh if the tone of the conversation wasn't so serious. "That doesn't seem fair. In heaven, everyone has a place."
"Yes, well, Earth isn't heaven." There's a bitterness to your words that you hadn't intended. "And why our Creator chooses to leave things like this is a mystery to me. I mean, why not use some of His power to help?"
"The ways of the Almighty are impossible for us to understand," Jungkook quietly replies. "And it's not for us to question."
You snort in response, crossing your arms over your chest. "Well, aren't you a dutiful little angel?"
Jungkook frowns, clearly not understanding your sarcasm. You sigh and shake your head.
"I'm sorry, Jungkook. It's just hard to wrap my head around sometimes. It's why my so-called degradation process started in the first place. Look at them—" You gesture to the people huddled together around the small television in the corner of the room, others sharing a meal or helping to care for the younger children. "They're good people. Why do they deserve to suffer?"
Silence lingers between you for a moment. When he responds, he doesn’t answer your question. “Their heavenly rewards shall be plentiful as long as they keep to their faith.”
“Does that make all of this okay?" You scoff. "Why are they being tested like this? In fact, why do they even need to believe at all to be given a home in the celestial realm? If a person is good-hearted, why isn’t that enough?”
Jungkook looks away from you. "I don't like these questions."
“You don’t like them? Or you don’t like how uncomfortable they make you feel?”
Before he can even bother replying, you let go of his hand and open the door to Naomi's office, hurrying inside, eager to get some space. It's small and cramped, filled with stacks of paper, an old wooden desk strewn with an old computer and various office supplies, and a well-worn couch wedged against the wall.
"It's not much," you say. "But it's home for now, I guess."
"Home," Jungkook repeats softly, eyes scanning the room. He zeroes in the billboard behind Naomi's desk, filled with photos of smiling people, letters from those that she has helped. A smile tugs at his lips. "It's nice."
"You say that now. Just wait until you're trying to sleep and a couch spring is digging into your back."
"I don't actually need to sleep," he reminds you.
You roll your eyes, crossing your arms over your chest. "Right, I forgot. At least we won't be fighting for the blanket."
"I can pretend to," Jungkook offers, a spark of amusement in his eyes. "The idea of laying next to you is not unwelcome."
You blush, taken aback. "W-what… you…" You take a deep breath. "No, that won't be necessary. And lesson five: don't flirt with people unless you mean it."
"What is 'flirt’?”
"Flirting," you explain, trying to keep your blush under control, "is when people say or do things that suggest they're attracted to each other."
"I see." He pauses for just a moment before asking, "And how do I know if I'm attracted to someone?"
You sigh exasperatedly. Who knew teaching an angel to be human could be so tiring?
"It's… well, it's kind of hard to explain. Especially because, as an angel, you don't really feel, at least not until the degradation process is nearing its end. But basically, it's like you have an inexplicable urge to be around this person a lot. You think about them often, their happiness makes you happy, and you want to be closer to them, maybe even touch them or hold them. Some people also might feel their heart beat faster, or a fluttering in their stomach."
As you speak, Jungkook’s eyes never leave yours. They gleam with curiosity and understanding, drinking in every word you say. He seems to be processing the concept, and then he suddenly smiles. "So, like how I feel about you."
Caught off-guard, you blink at him, speechless for a moment. And then the panic seeps in.
"No, Jungkook, that's not correct," you insist, your words tumbling out in haste and denial. "You can't… we can't… you're an angel. I'm—" Fallen, you want to say. Human, you need to say. But you don't.
"Why not?" he asks simply, his gaze steady.
"Because!" You scramble for an explanation, desperate to avoid the truth of your own feelings stirring within you. "Because angels aren't supposed to feel that way."
"But I am no longer a pure angel," Jungkook counters. "The degradation process has begun. We discussed this already."
"But that doesn't matter! The whole reason we are doing this is so you can learn the skills you need to figure out a way to stop Namsu from forcing anyone else to Fall. Once you do, you'll be able to stay in Heaven because withering isn't real." Before he can say anything else, you open the door. "I'm gonna grab my stuff from my bed. I'll… I'll be back in a second."
You slam the door behind you, leaving Jungkook alone in the room. It's a struggle to keep your composure as you head towards your bed. All you can think of is his words, the nonchalance with which he said them. You can feel your traitorous heart yearning for him, but you can't let it sway you. Whether it was an accident or not, his betrayal led to your Fall. Led to you being human. And he's an angel. No matter what you feel or what he thinks he feels, nothing can happen between you now.
As you gather your meager belongings, the man you spoke with earlier approaches you with a sympathetic expression. "You alright, dear? You didn't get evicted, did you? I'll give Naomi a piece of mind if that's the case."
"No, no," you quickly reassure him with a forced smile. "My… my friend needs a place to stay for awhile, and there's a one body to one bed policy. Naomi was kind enough to let us use the couch in her office for a few days until we figure something else out."
"Your friend, hm?" His eyes twinkle mischievously. "That fellow you walked in with? Can't say I blame you. He's quite a looker."
"It's not like that," you blush, hurriedly stuffing the rest of your belongings into your bag. "Anyway, don't worry. You'll still see me around."
The man grins and gives you a friendly pat on the shoulder. "I'm glad to hear it. This place would be much drearier without you."
You bid him goodbye with a wave and make your way back to Naomi's office, feeling like you're walking towards the edge of a cliff. As you open the door, you find Jungkook staring out the window. The streetlight spills in through the gap in the curtains, bathing him in a soft glow. He turns as you enter.
"Gathered your belongings?" he asks, his voice calm as if the previous conversation never happened. For a moment, you feel robbed—does he not understand the gravity of what he said? But you suppose it's better this way. Easier, at least.
"Yes," you respond, a bit more brusquely than intended, setting your bag down on the floor. He's still staring at you, and you flush under his gaze. "I'm just going to set up the couch. And stop staring at me so intently. Humans get nervous about stuff like that."
"Another lesson," he remarks. "Understood." Jungkook watches you for a moment longer, then turns back to the window without a word.
You get to work, unfolding the couch and covering it with your bedding. The silence between you is thick; you can feel the tension radiating off of Jungkook despite his apparent calm. Your heart pounds in your ears as you busy yourself with smoothing out some wrinkles in the sheets, a futile distraction.
With a deep breath, you break the silence. "Alright, I'm done."
Jungkook turns to look, and his eyes scan the makeshift bed you've prepared. "You've made it look inviting."
"Should be okay for a few nights," you reply curtly, avoiding his gaze. "I'm, uh, gonna go ready for bed. I know you don't sleep, but feel free to sit at her desk or something. Make yourself comfortable."
You exit the room and head down the hallway to the bathroom, leaving Jungkook alone with his thoughts. You can’t shake off his confession and your own rush to deny him. The truth of your feelings, or rather the depth of them, is something you aren't ready to face.
After getting ready for bed, you hesitantly return to Naomi's office. The door creaks upon opening, and Jungkook turns from where he's seated at Naomi's desk, looking up at you with his intense gaze.
"Goodnight," you say softly, trying not to let your voice betray how uneasy you feel.
Jungkook nods. "Goodnight," he replies, and his voice is gentle, concerned. You feel a pang of guilt at the distance you've created between the two of you but say nothing more, falling into a fitful sleep.
Sometime during the night, Jungkook figured out how to work Naomi's dinosaur of a computer and discovered the wonderful thing that is the internet. When you wake, he flocks to your side like an excited child, eager to share everything he has learned about humans, their emotions, and their behavior.
"Slow down, Jungkook," you chuckle, holding up a hand to halt his barrage of words. "I can't absorb all of that at once."
"Oh," he says, blinking in surprise. "I forget that human minds process information more slowly. Should I take this as another lesson?"
You shrug, brushing a loose strand of hair behind your ear. "Sure, go for it."
Despite the tension last night and everything unsaid between the two of you, you find yourself falling into an easy rhythm with him. He's eager to learn and keen on understanding humanity—your humanity. Throughout the day, he continues his studies, glued to the computer screen as you complete your daily volunteering. He takes breaks every once in a while to come find you and ask questions.
"I've come across some terms that are perplexing," he says, leaning on the front desk as you catalog some information. "'Memes' and 'emojis' appear prominently in human interactions online, but I don’t really know what they are or how they’re used.”
You answer question after question until you realize you aren’t getting work done, so you have to come up with a plan B. Leading him back to Naomi’s office, you pull up Netflix on the computer. Jungkook watches the screen in fascination as you explain streaming and scroll through all the shows.
"Let's try Friends," you say, clicking on the thumbnail.
You leave him to watch as you finish up your tasks for the day, checking occasionally to see that he’s still engrossed in the show. Instead of constantly badgering you with questions, he writes them on a notepad you provided and waits until the end of the day to go over them with you. You answer each one as best you can, completely endeared by him.
It's during one of the show's more depressing moments that he asks you about lying and betrayal, echoing the heavy undertones from the other day. His question takes you by surprise, his gaze focused intensely on your face as he waits for an answer.
"Lying is a tough one," you say, trying to keep your voice steady. "Sometimes it's out of fear or selfishness. Sometimes people lie because they're trying to protect themselves."
"And betrayal?" Jungkook asks, his voice unnaturally calm.
You sigh, looking down at your hands. "Betrayal… it's when someone breaks your trust. It hurts, Jungkook. It hurts a lot."
He watches you for several long moments before finally speaking again. "I see," he says softly. "And that's what you thought I did to you?"
You swallow hard, feeling the knot in your chest tighten. "Jungkook," you start, but falter, not knowing how to put your feelings into words.
"I did not mean to betray you," Jungkook continues. "I realize that my actions may have led you to believe that I deceived you, but it was not my intention. I'm sorry."
"I know." You believe him completely, but the wound is still so fresh that you can’t bring yourself to fully trust him again. Not yet. "I know you didn't mean to, but an apology doesn't fix everything. Consider it another lesson—trust, once broken, isn't so easily mended."
Jungkook plays with the skin around his nails, an anxious habit he seems to be developing the more human-like he becomes. After a moment, he says, "I understand. I will try harder."
"Try harder doing what?"
"To understand you better. To understand all humans more, their emotions and their beliefs. Maybe understanding what trust really is will teach me how to earn it back and make up for my mistakes." He's so earnest, so genuine, it almost brings tears to your eyes. "I think I want this as much as I want Namsu to answer for his crimes, if not more. And maybe that makes little sense, but maybe… maybe that's quite human of me."
"And maybe that's progress," you say softly, looking at Jungkook with newfound hope.
Your new normal is spending your days with your time split between performing your volunteering duties and teaching Jungkook all about human life.
Christmas is only a week away now, and everyone around you seems to be buzzing with excitement. At this point, even the inside of the shelter has been decorated. The hallways are lined with lights and garlands, and the common areas even have a few trees set up with donated presents underneath. And, as much as you have dreaded the holiday, you can't deny that watching Jungkook experience it for the first time makes you hate it a little less.
Despite the initial stiffness that comes with being an angel unfamiliar with human life, he has quickly adapted to life at the shelter. He's kind and patient, and he’s always eager to help out where he can. The children, in particular, have taken a liking to him. He's become their favorite storyteller and always has the kids hanging onto his every word.
One afternoon, you find him sitting with them, singing a song in an ancient celestial language. Everyone will assume it’s some gibberish language he’s made up for one of his stories, but it reminds you of home. His voice is beautiful, melodic and soothing, with a honeyed quality to it that would make anyone stop and listen.
You stand in the doorway and watch, a smile tugging at your lips. He catches your eye and winks, the action so human and unexpected that it startles a laugh out of you. The children turn to see what's so funny, but you just shake your head, telling them to continue listening.
He comes to you when he finishes, smiling brightly. "Did you enjoy the song as well?"
"I did," you reply truthfully, your heart fluttering at his attention. The feelings you have been trying to resist are becoming increasingly persistent the more time you spend with him.
"That's good to hear.”
Suddenly, the kids clamor over to you both, giggling and pointing at something above you. You look up, and all the color drains from your face. Mistletoe. Who the hell put it here?
Jungkook looks between you and the mistletoe, obviously confused. “Why are you angry with that plant? It’s quite beautiful.”
“It’s a tradition, of sorts.” You say the word with disdain. “When a couple—not that we are one—walks under the mistletoe, they’re supposed to kiss.”
“Kiss?”
“We don’t have to, it’s stupid—”
“No, let’s do it. It's a part of the human experience, right? Let's consider it another lesson."
Heat rushes to your face, and you stutter incoherently, looking around the room for a way to escape. But the children are watching expectantly, their eyes wide and eager. You swallow hard, your heart pounding in your chest.
"Alright… close your eyes," you tell him.
He listens obediently, his eyes fluttering closed. You had never noticed just how long and pretty his eyelashes were until now. Bracing yourself, you take a deep breath and lean in, placing a soft kiss on his cheek. When you pull back, you're greeted with a perplexed expression as he opens his eyes.
"That was nice," he says after a brief pause. "But that’s really what a kiss is? In the show, they did it a bit more like—"
He leans in to demonstrate what he means, his lips brushing against yours. It's soft and a bit awkward at first, but he quickly gets the hang of it, pulling you closer. Against your better judgment, you let him, allowing yourself to get lost in the moment. His lips are softer than you would have expected. His fingers lightly squeeze your waist, sending a jolt of electricity through your body, and it's not until you hear some of the children giggling that you are reminded you have an audience.
You quickly pull away, breathless and flushed with embarrassment. Jungkook, however, is grinning from ear to ear. "That," he says. "That is how they did it."
"Again! Again!" one of the kids shouts, pulling at your arm.
Jungkook chuckles at his enthusiasm. "I think we should get back to our story," he says, ruffling the boy’s hair lovingly. Then, turning back to you, he murmurs, "Thank you. For the lesson."
You can barely speak coherently, but you manage to squeak out a small “you’re welcome” before rushing out of the room. How on Earth are you supposed to get your tasks done now? It's impossible to focus, your mind running in circles over his touch, the feel of his lips against yours.
When you return to Naomi’s office later that night, you’re relieved to see that Jungkook isn't there yet. You take a moment to sit on the edge of the bed and process your thoughts, your fingers tracing absentmindedly over your lips. A shiver passes through your body, a heat blooming in the pit of your stomach. You drop your hand, clenching it into a fist to stop the trembling.
"Nervous?" a voice asks, startling you out of your thoughts. Jungkook is standing in the doorway, watching you with an unreadable expression.
"I… no," you say.
"Don't lie," he chides gently, sitting next to you on the bed. “I can tell when you do that now, you know.” He keeps to a respectful distance, but he turns his gaze to you. “I think I'm starting to really understand this human thing. Emotions and all that.”
"Is that so?"
"Yes. They can be painful sometimes but also quite beautiful."
You watch as he turns his gaze back towards the room, and silence stretches between you again. However, it’s different now from how it used to be; it's not awkward or unsettling, but comfortable. His vulnerability makes you want to be honest, to admit to the way you feel.
Just as you’re about to say something, he continues, "But now it's time for me to learn about something else. I need to start strategizing for the coming confrontation."
"Right, Namsu," you say. You almost forgot about Jungkook’s original intentions. You clap your hands and get up, heading to the computer. "Alright. Let's research."
With Jungkook sufficiently prepared, the time soon comes for him to return to the celestial realm. However, he insists on leaving at night, so he can spend the day with you. He referred to it as "a date," and you practically tripped over your own feet, much to his enjoyment. He has certainly developed a penchant for teasing you.
You decide to take him into the heart of the city, so he can observe people in their natural element. There seem to be even more decorations than you remember, and people are bustling about to finish their last-minute shopping. However, you find yourself handling the chaos a lot better with Jungkook by your side.
He hasn't let go of your hand since you stepped out of the shelter, his thumb lightly rubbing circles over your knuckles. Every once in a while, he squeezes it lightly, a silent assurance that he’s there. Whether he notices your nerves and is doing it to comfort you or is doing it because he wants to, you're grateful for it.
His doe eyes dart this way and that, eagerly drinking in the scenery. You try to explain what everything is—the office buildings, luxury apartments, and tiny shops buried in alleyways—but he's more interested in the people. It isn't until you stop in front of a Hindu temple that his attention is finally captured by a building. He cocks his head to the side, eyes wide in wonder as he takes in the sight of it. The temple is a beautiful structure, with elaborate carvings and statues lining its walls.
"What is this place?" he asks, his voice full of awe.
"It's a place of worship for those that practice Hinduism," you explain.
His eyes sparkle with interest as he takes a step closer to the building. "Can we go inside?"
You glance at him, surprised by his request. But something in his earnest gaze breaks down your hesitation. "Sure," you say softly, leading him inside.
The inside of the temple is even more impressive than the outside. There are vibrant murals depicting different gods and an intoxicating scent of incense that fills the air. You gesture to the bell at the entrance. “Would you like to ring it?”
“What’s it for?” he asks, picking it up gently.
“It’s supposed to be a way to announce your arrival to the deities.”
Jungkook shakes it, the twinkling of the bell echoing in the large room. “Pretty,” he remarks as he places it back where it belongs.
He then follows your lead as you move towards the main shrine, your heart pounding in your chest as you realize what you're about to do. An angel of the Christian God at the altar of a different one? You're almost afraid you'll be struck down where you stand.
He takes in the offerings with a small smile. "It's all quite beautiful," he remarks. "It's a shame that their gods aren't real."
You know Jungkook means no harm and that it is what he has been conditioned to think for thousands of years, but you still bristle at his easy dismissal of their beliefs. “We’re real. Our God is real. Who’s to say the gods of their religion are not?”
"There is one God. That is what we were taught."
"Yes, it is. But we were also led to believe the withering was real. Just because it is said does not mean that it is true.”
Jungkook is silent for a moment, eyes still fixed on the offerings. Then he turns to you. "You truly believe that?"
"I don't know," you confess, feeling a little exposed. “I don't know what I believe anymore. I'm just… questioning. It's complicated."
"You have given me a lot to think about," he admits, his tone quiet. “For all I know, you might be right. I shouldn't have dismissed their beliefs so easily. I apologize.”
You stare at him in surprise; you hadn't expected him to back down so easily. "It's okay," you reassure him. "I'd say being open-minded is another lesson, but unfortunately, not all humans are."
You continue to walk around the city, introducing Jungkook to as many things as possible. Everything he does fills you with affection, whether it be him trying hot dogs from a street vendor and declaring them divine, or joining some kids who were playing soccer in a park. At one point, he kicks the ball so hard that it lands in a tree branch, and you can’t help but laugh as he clumsily climbs up to retrieve it.
When night falls, you end up at the pier, watching the shimmering water beneath the stars. Jungkook is oddly quiet, looking out at the horizon with a distant expression. The silence isn't uncomfortable, but it does leave you feeling a little uneasy. You reach for his hand, and he startles slightly before turning to look at you.
"Penny for your thoughts?" you ask.
He smiles slightly. “I’m guessing that’s some sort of human expression, and you’re not actually going to give me a penny.”
“You would be correct.”
“I’m thinking about a lot of things.” He exhales as if letting out a breath he has been holding. "You, for one. But I'm always thinking of you so that much isn't a surprise." You blush and swat at his arm. "But I’m also thinking about my beliefs."
"What about them?"
He takes a moment to get his thoughts in order, grabbing your hand more tightly as if you're his anchor in a stormy sea. He answers your question with another. "What if everything we have been taught is wrong? I mean, we have never spoken with the Almighty directly. Angels, apostles, they can all take His words and twist them for their own purposes. We've seen it in action with Namsu, and with how the Bible has been changed to promote hatred."
You're taken aback by his frankness, the depth of his vulnerability. You have no answers for him, but you can relate to him and offer what little understanding you have come to have.
"So maybe it is wrong, and things have gotten taken out of context or changed as the years have gone on. Like you said, we cannot talk to Him, so we can’t ask for the truth. Or, maybe it is all part of a bigger plan, and unwavering faith is the answer.” You pause, steeling your resolve, before continuing, “But it isn’t for me. I can’t live that way. But how you decide to live is your choice. Who you are is your choice. I cannot decide that for you, and neither can He.”
He frowns. "I don't know how to make that choice. Who even am I? What am I without my purpose? Without Him?"
"Perhaps we're not defined by a single purpose we've been given," you answer quietly. "Maybe we're more than that."
"More than our purpose?"
"Yeah," you say, a soft smile tugging at your lips. "Maybe we don't need a purpose. Maybe it's okay to just exist."
Jungkook’s gaze turns thoughtful, considering your words as if they are the most precious thing in the world. "Just exist," he repeats, his voice barely above a whisper. After a moment, he stands up, looking at you with a newfound fire blazing in his eyes. "I need to return. I will talk to some of my confidants, gather information, and then confront Namsu."
You knew it was coming, but your stomach still drops. You're scared for him, for what will happen when he leaves. But you see the determination in his eyes, the steel in his gaze. You know better than to try and stop him now.
"You'll be careful, right?" you ask, your voice shaking slightly.
"I will."
He pulls you up and envelops you in his arms. His embrace is comforting, protective, and for a brief moment, it makes you forget about all your worries.
"Promise me," you whisper into his chest.
"I promise," he says, his hands rubbing soothing circles on your back. He pulls away after a moment, but not before brushing his lips against your temple. "I will return. For you."
His words weigh heavy in the air as he pulls away fully, breaking the physical contact between you two. His gaze lingers on you for another moment before he turns away and disappears into the night. You're left standing on the pier alone, the cold wind making you shiver. Wrapping your arms around yourself, you head back to Lost Star, where you have nothing to do but wait.
It’s Christmas Eve before you know it. The holiday you have been dreading feels even worse with Jungkook’s absence, and frankly, you don’t know how to handle it. You plaster a smile on your face for the sake of the children, playing along with their excitement over what presents they are going to get and stories of Santa Claus. But every time someone brings Jungkook up, wondering where he is, you feel tempted to run to Naomi’s office and hide.
Speaking of Naomi, she has been keeping a close watch over you, mothering you as per usual. You know she can tell that something has happened. Once you step away from the festivities to do some of your work, she pulls you aside.
“Honey, what’s going on? These days you seem so out of it; you’re just flitting around room to room, acting like a ghost.” When you don’t answer, she frowns. “It’s because of that boy, isn’t it?”
"He… he needed to go home. He had some things he needed to figure out," you manage to say. It's not a lie, just an oversimplification of the truth.
She wraps an arm around you. "He's going to come back. I saw the way he looked at you, and you at him. And if he doesn't, well, screw him."
"Naomi!"
"Sorry, sorry. He was sweet and all, but you're my girl. I'll always have your back." Naomi declares, patting you on the back.
You accept her comfort, fighting back your tears. If only she knew your fear didn’t revolve around him coming back—of course, part of you is scared that something will happen to him, but the rational part of your brain, the part that knows his strength, has no doubts he'll be alright. In actuality, your biggest fear is that he won't be able to stay with you, and you’ll have to go through the pain of losing him all over again.
He's an angel. You're human. There's no future there. Your traitorous heart made you fall harder and harder for him without sparing that a moment's thought, and now you have to will yourself to accept that you'll always be in love with someone you cannot have.
The rest of the day passes in a blur, nothing but forced cheer and mindless chatter. Naomi sticks by your side as much as she can, making sure to redirect everyone who asks you questions about Jungkook. You're grateful for her presence, her constant support, and now more than ever, you realize how lucky you truly are to have her in your life.
As soon as everyone is in bed and your tasks for the day are done, you seek out the solitude of the pier once again. You've been coming here daily since he left. A sentimental thing, mostly, since it was the last place you saw him. But you also hope each night will be the night he returns.
The wind is strong tonight, the kind that chills you down to your bones, and the stars are hidden behind the clouds. You wrap your scarf more tightly around yourself, gazing aimlessly at the turbulent water. Suddenly, there's a bright light and a shrill noise. You aren't scared this time, and it's not nearly as overwhelming as it was. He must have tempered it somehow, made it less painful for you.
The light fades, leaving behind a figure that is unmistakably Jungkook. The sight of him fills you with such relief and happiness that you rush forward, throwing your arms around him. He envelops you in his arms, his wings folding around you, a sigh of contentment escaping his lips as he buries his face in your hair.
"I missed you very much," he says, breathing deeply.
"I missed you too," you whisper, tears prickling at your eyes. "I knew you'd come back."
"I said I would, didn't I?" he teases, pulling away just enough to look at you. "And I have news."
"What happened?"
You stay locked in his embrace as he speaks, bringing one of your hands to his face to stroke his cheek, to follow the line of his jaw with your fingers. He lets you, as eager to feel your touch as you are to feel his.
"I confronted Namsu," he begins. "But I wasn't alone. There were other angels who had started the 'degradation' process, those who were too fearful of retribution to say anything. I told them everything, and we confronted the other Thrones about Namsu and everything he had done. They didn’t approve of his actions, and they punished him for it."
"Really?" You ask, eyes wide with surprise. "Just like that? They believed you?"
A soft laugh bubbles up from him. "It wasn't quite that simple. There was plenty of arguing, plenty of disbelief. I’d never seen anything like it. But in the end, Namsu was banished from the celestial realm."
Relief washes over you at his words, the tension you hadn't even realized you were carrying leaving your body. "That's incredible.”
Jungkook shrugs slightly, but there’s an unmistakable look of pride in his eyes. "I’m just glad he has gotten what he deserves. Now you have justice." He places a gentle kiss on your forehead.
"And what about the others? The ones who have started to degrade?" Your heart clenches at the thought of them being punished for something beyond their control.
"They're safe," Jungkook assures you quickly. "The Thrones have promised to take care of it all. They're going to convene with Him, to see if the Heavenly teachings can be altered. Things are changing up there; I think it's all going to be alright."
You're overwhelmed with emotion, both relief and dread tugging at you simultaneously. It is good to know that things will be changing, but what is done to you has been done. And now, Jungkook has no reason to stay with you. You take a step back from him.
"What about you?" you ask quietly, barely daring to meet his gaze.
"What about me?"
"You have no reason to stay anymore. You can return to your normal duties. You did what was right, and everything is fixed."
"I did what was right, yes, and I'm sure things will be much better from now on," Jungkook agrees. But he steps forward, taking your hands in his and looking deep into your eyes. "But now, I need to do what's right for me."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, my star." Your heart stutters at the endearment. "I'm not going anywhere. I want to be with you."
"But… you can only do that if you're—"
"Human, yes," he interrupts.
"Jungkook! You can't! You can't Fall for me," you half-shout, half-whisper. "You're a good angel, you—"
"Y/N." The force behind his voice stops you. "Even before you showed me the beauty of being human, before I knew how to feel, before I even knew what love was, I would have done anything for you.” His confession takes your breath away, and you wobble on your feet, moving a few steps back from him in your shock. “If you had simply asked it of me, I would have stood with you in the fires of hell for all eternity and still been grateful for each moment spent at your side."
The tears you were holding back begin to fall. "You would have?"
“I would. I can. I will.” He moves closer to you with each beat between words until he stands directly in front of you, only a hair's breadth away. Gently, hesitantly—as if for the first time—he takes your hand and presses it to his chest right above where a human heart would be. “Just say the words, and I will fall for you. I will forsake myself and turn my back on Heaven. The pain of losing my wings will be inconsequential compared to the pain of having to be without you.”
"W-what words?"
He smiles, eyes crinkling at the edges. "You know what I want to hear. Be honest. Even better, be selfish, like a human. Tell me what you really want, and I will oblige."
You hesitate. You have been fighting your feelings this entire time, so sure of the fact that Jungkook would choose to continue his life as an angel. You never wanted him to Fall for you, to be torn away from the life he has always known the way you were. But he deserves to make the choice himself. If he wants your honesty, you will give it to him.
"Speak, Y/N," Jungkook urges, his gaze never leaving yours.
"I want…" You begin slowly, your voice barely a whisper. "I want you. I want you to stay with me."
He grins, relief clear in his eyes. "Then I will."
"But you shouldn't have to Fall!"
"Fall or not, it won't change anything," he assures you. "I chose this path before even knowing there was a choice. I chose you from the second we were created.”
"Even if that means giving up everything?" you ask.
Jungkook’s expression softens. He reaches up and tucks a wayward lock of hair behind your ear. "Does it seem like I’m giving up everything?" he muses aloud, his eyes never leaving yours. "Because from where I stand, it seems like I’m gaining everything.”
"Smooth-talker,” you laugh, a tear slipping down your cheek. He brushes it off with his thumb, his gaze softening even further.
For a moment, you just stand there, looking at each other. It's quiet except for your breathing and the sound of waves crashing against the pier. You have been so afraid of asking him to make this choice, and yet he seems so certain about it, as if it was what he wanted all along.
"Are you sure about this?" you ask him one more time, seeking reassurance. "Once done, there's no going back."
His answer is immediate, "I've never been more sure about anything in my life."
"This will change everything," you say again.
"I know," he replies simply.
"Come find me when it's over," you whisper, placing a gentle kiss to his lips. "I'll be at the shelter."
As you go to leave, you can't help but glance back over your shoulder at Jungkook, taking in the appearance of him and his wings one last time. He's still standing there, watching you go with love evident in his gaze. It quells some of your worries. And then you blink, and he’s gone.
The hours that creep by feel like days. You busy yourself with meaningless tasks, cleaning the office, flipping through an old book left on the table, scrolling TikTok. None of it does anything to dull your anxiety, and you're weighing the pros and cons of tearing your hair out before you finally hear a knock on the door. You shoot up to your feet, heart pounding in your chest. Slowly, you open the door, and there he stands.
"I'm here," he says simply. "As I promised."
You pull him into a hug once again, burying your head into his chest. You can hear the beat of his human heart and, unable to stop yourself, you burst into tears. You know the pain he just went through, can remember experiencing it yourself like it was yesterday, and you can hardly believe he went through something so awful to be with you.
"I'm sorry," you whisper, tightening your hold on him. "I'm so sorry."
"Don't be," he coos, gently stroking your hair. "This was my choice."
You swallow hard and pull back from him so you can look into his eyes, searching for any sign of regret. You find none.
"Are you okay?" You ask anyway, your heart aching at the thought of what he has given up.
"I am," he assures, his voice full of conviction. He leans down, pressing a soft kiss against your lips, and when he pulls away, he's smiling. "I wondered if doing that would feel different now that I'm fully human."
"And does it?" you ask, smiling back up at him.
"Yes," he admits, tracing an invisible line down your cheek, your neck, your collarbone. You shiver at his touch. "It feels more real. Stronger somehow. It's like you're the break of dawn after a long night."
Your breath catches in your throat. "Being human certainly hasn't changed the fact that you have a way with words."
"Only when it comes to you," he replies, his fingers never ceasing their journey across your skin. They make their way back to your waist, where he plays with the hem of your shirt. "There's one lesson we never covered, you know."
"A-and what would that be?" you squeak as his fingers caress the smooth skin of your stomach.
His voice drops lower, and he tugs you closer by your belt loops. "Human intimacy."
You flush at his audacity but don't pull away. "And what would be the best way for me to teach you about that?"
"Hm…" He leans down so that his lips hover over yours, and you can feel his warm breath with each word he speaks. "I think I would respond well to some hands-on practice."
Your heartbeat thunders in your ears as his lips press against yours in a slow, searing kiss that turns your knees to jelly. He takes his time exploring your mouth, his lips moving delicately against yours. His hands are warm on your skin, trailing up and down your back as he pulls you closer.
"Then I suppose we should get started," you manage to whisper when you finally break apart, breathless.
Jungkook moves into the room, closing the door behind him, and sits down on the edge of the pull-out bed. He stares up at you, his once-innocent doe eyes now dark and hooded with desire. You float towards him as if being pulled by a magnet, and he pulls you down so that you’re straddling his lap. Your hands rest on his chest, feeling the steady rhythm of his heartbeat under your touch.
"I think I should warn you," he says, hands sliding down to rest right above the curve of your ass, "I might be a slow learner."
You roll your eyes, a short, playful chuckle escaping from your lips. "I think I can handle that."
The room fills with an easy silence as you continue to explore each other, experiencing sensations new for the both of you. His hands trace every curve and dip of your body, his touch curious yet surprisingly confident. Your fingers trace the lines of his face, his jaw, his chest, and then find their way under his shirt to the newly-formed scars on his back. They are rough against your fingertips, a stark contrast to the rest of his smooth skin.
"You aren't in pain?”
“No,” he assures you, his hands sliding to a similar position on your own back. "Were you for long after?"
"No, but I'm still worried," you smile sheepishly.
He laughs and kisses your nose. "Don't be. Don't feel like you have to be gentle with me. I won't break."
You laugh in return, your eyes twinkling with delight and a touch of mischief. "Is that a challenge, Jungkook?"
He hums in response, his gaze never leaving yours. "Maybe."
His teasing reply only spurs you on. Rising to the bait, you lean in to kiss him, this time with a boldness that leaves him momentarily stunned. But he recovers quickly, matching your fervor and deepening the kiss. Your hands weave into his hair, pulling him closer, and his hips jut up against you almost involuntarily. You moan at the sensation, and he stills.
"What was that?" he asks.
"That," you breathe out, "is what human intimacy sounds like."
"I want to hear it again."
His lips find yours again and this time it's deep and demanding, all teeth and tongue and the promise of what’s to come. His hands grab your waist, forcing you to grind down against him as he once again lifts his hips up to meet your core. Another moan escapes your lips, the sound quickly swallowed by his hungry mouth. He tugs at the hem of your shirt, his fingertips skimming against the skin of your lower back. Eagerly, you lift your arms, and he pulls it off over your head.
"Jungkook…" you whimper, clutching at his shoulders. He responds by nuzzling into your neck, his hot breath making you shiver with pleasure.
"You're so beautiful," he murmurs against the curve of your neck, his lips tracing the column of your throat, down to your chest.
He places a gentle kiss above each breast before descending lower still, sucking one into his mouth. His lips and tongue move expertly, drawing gasps from you as your nerves ignite with pleasure. His hands are firm on your waist, holding you securely against him as he devotes himself entirely to exploring the new terrain, and you grind against him wantonly. You can feel that your panties are soaked with the proof of your desire.
"Jungkook," you say again, your hands tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. His name is a plea, a prayer. "I need more."
He pulls back, his lips swollen from his ministrations. "And so I'll give it to you."
You eagerly crawl off of him, shimmying out of your jeans, before settling with your back against the pillows. You grab at the air, beckoning him closer. He does the same, now only in his boxers, and slots himself on top of you, his bare skin against yours intensifying the burning desire coursing through your veins. His hard length presses against your core, and you whine.
"I don't know what I'm doing," he admits in a low voice, his hot breath fanning against your face as his eyes search yours for assurance.
You reach up, caressing his cheek. "It's okay," you soothe him, your hands then trailing down his back to rest on his hips, encouraging him closer. "We'll figure it out together."
His lips find your neck as his hands explore every inch of you, his rough fingers exploring the softness of your flesh. He slides one down over your stomach and lower still, feather-light touches teasing you until you're gasping beneath him. His fingers trace the edge of your panties before sliding the fabric down. You lift your hips, aiding him in removing the last barrier between you. He tosses them aside before returning his attention to you, his fingers skimming along your trembling thighs. His fingers move gradually, inching steadily upward until he's touching you where you're most sensitive. You let out a soft gasp, gripping the sheets.
"Is this okay?" he asks. You nod eagerly, unable to get the words out, and he chuckles, placing a gentle kiss at the base of your throat. "Good."
Always the over-achiever, he slides down your body until his face is level with your core, focusing intently on his work. His fingers move with a slow, calculated rhythm that quickly has you dripping for him. Eventually, he slips one of his fingers inside of you. Your breath hitches, your hands clutching at his shoulders for support.
"Am I doing this right?" he asks, uncertainty creeping into his voice as he looks up at you from between your thighs.
"You must be," you gasp out, encouraging him with a roll of your hips. "Don't stop."
Grinning, he adds a second finger, working you open until you're panting and squirming beneath him. Your back arches off the bed as his fingers work their magic, curling in just the right way that has you seeing stars. Praise tumbles from your lips, but you're sure that it just sounds like nonsense, your thoughts too muddled to form coherent words.
"You're so wet," he murmurs in a low, gravelly voice that only adds fuel to your desire.
Without warning, he lowers his mouth to your core, his lips and tongue joining his exploring fingers. The sensation is electric; your breath hitches, and an animalistic moan escapes you. He takes it as a sign of encouragement, doubling his efforts. Your fingers find their way to his hair, threading into the dark strands, seeking purchase. You can't help but pull, and he moans against you, the vibrations only furthering your pleasure.
"Jungkook," you warn, "I'm—"
A coil of white heat tightens within you before snapping. His name slips from your lips as you climax, sparks dancing behind your eyelids as he continues to pleasure you, eagerly lapping up your release. He doesn't stop, not until you physically pull him away from you, body shaking with overstimulation. He climbs back up your body, his lips finding yours in a gentle kiss. You can taste yourself on his lips.
"You okay?" he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.
His pupils are blown out with desire, his hair slicked back with sweat, and he's so attractive that just the sight of him has you clenching your thighs together.
You nod, cupping his face in your hands. "More than okay," you assure him. "That was amazing. Now," you slide your fingers down his chest, sliding over the waistband of his boxers. "Let's see what we can do about you."
You hook your thumbs around the fabric and pull them downwards, and he does the rest of the work, kicking them off. You reach down, your fingers tentatively wrapping around his cock. He gasps, his head falling forward against your chest as you begin to stroke him with a slow, measured rhythm.
He nearly whines, his grip tightening on your hips. "That feels… I can't…" His words dissolve into soft, broken moans as you continue to work him over.
Suddenly overtaken with need, you stop, pulling him in for another searing kiss. "I need you inside of me, Jungkook," you gasp against his lips, "Please."
Your hand guides him back to your core, and his breath hitches. “Are you ready?”
Nodding, you lift your hips to meet him. He pushes into you carefully, slowly, each inch an intense sensation for both of you. Your body clenches around him as if welcoming him home, a strangled moan escaping your lips. One of his hands clasps yours, bringing it to rest on the side of your head while he buries his face in the crook of your neck, his heavy breaths fanning your skin. He's shaking against you, and you feel just as overwhelmed.
You squeeze the hand that's holding yours, urging him on. "You're okay," you whisper, "I'm okay. Move."
He nods, pulling out almost all the way before thrusting back inside of you. Your body jolts at the sensation, gasping his name over and over.
"You feel incredible," he breathes out, the statement more for himself than for you. “So perfect.” Your fingers thread through his hair once more, pulling him down to meet your lips.
His hips set a steady rhythm, filling the room with soft sounds of skin on skin and heavy panting. He lets out a low groan as he adjusts his angle, hitting a spot inside of you that has you crying out and grabbing at him wherever you can reach. You wrap your legs around his waist, throwing your head back against the pillows.
"That's it," you whine, "Right there. It feels so good—"
Your words cut off into a choked moan as he thrusts into you at that exact spot again and again, his movements becoming more erratic. He's close—you can tell by the way his body tenses and how he gasps desperately into your mouth.
"I'm… I'm—" he stammers out, breath hitching between each word.
"I know," you gasp out, meeting him thrust for thrust. "Me too."
You pull him as close as possible, holding him to you as you both chase your release. Your eyes squeeze shut, and your nails dig into his skin as a wave of pleasure crashes over you, even more intense than the last. You moan his name as you come, shuddering beneath him. He moans into your neck as he follows you over the edge, his hips bucking uncontrollably as he buries himself deep inside you.
He collapses on top of you, burying his face in the crook of your neck, his heavy breathing tickling your skin. He stays there, nestled inside of you, his heart pounding against your chest, matching the rapid rhythm of your own. You feel dizzy, your senses overwhelmed by him—his scent, his taste, the feel of him on top of you and within you. You caress his back, slowly tracing the contours of his scars with gentle strokes, the action soothing for both of you.
Eventually, he shifts, carefully pulling himself out of you and collapsing onto his back next to you. His hand searches blindly for yours, lacing your fingers together once he finds it. He brings your joined hands up to his lips and places a soft kiss on your knuckles.
"Is… are you…" He lifts his head to meet your eyes, unable to form words.
"I'm more than okay," you assure him softly, brushing a stray lock of hair off his forehead.
"Good," he whispers, a contented sigh escaping him.
His eyes roam over your face once more before closing, his grip on your hand tightening ever so slightly. Together, you lay there under the sheets, and the silence goes on for so long that you almost think he fell asleep.
Then suddenly, you hear him say, voice barely above a whisper, "I love you." You look over to see him staring up at you with adoration in his gaze and a soft smile on his lips. "I know I don't have to say it since surely there can be no doubt that everything I have done for you is out of love. But I want to say it anyway. I want to continue saying it for the rest of my life. I have loved you since before I even had the capacity to feel it, and I will continue to love you until time ceases to exist."
His confession leaves you breathless, and you can do little but turn on your side, grab his face, and place a gentle kiss on his lips. Tears prick at the corner of your eyes, threatening to spill down your cheeks.
"I love you too, Jungkook," you whisper against his lips, "So very, very much."
He lets out an audible sigh of relief as if he had been holding his breath, waiting for your response. His free hand reaches out to caress your cheek, wiping away a tear that had managed to escape. "I knew you would say so, but I'm happy to hear it all the same."
The two of you get ready for bed, and, for the first time since commandeering Naomi’s office, you fall asleep together in each other's arms.
The day you have been dreading has arrived—Christmas. Despite your initial hatred, however, you find yourself actually participating in the festivities around the shelter. Just like as many others do, you aren't going to consider it a holy day. You're going to use it as an excuse to be happy and spend time with your loved ones.
You join the group of children who sit by the pile of gifts, their excitement palpable as they eagerly wait for Naomi to declare it time to open them. Small hands tug at Jungkook’s sleeve, pulling him down to their level as they bombard him with questions about where he's been. He settles down amongst them, answering their questions as honestly as he can. His eyes meet yours over the sea of eager faces, and he stretches out a hand towards you, inviting you to join him. You sit right on his lap, making some of the kids giggle.
"Alright, everyone, it's time!" Naomi's voice echoes through the shelter, immediately quieting the children down.
As each name is called out and the kids scramble to collect their gifts, you can't help but smile. The pure delight on their faces is infectious. Noticing your happiness, Jungkook pulls you back so that you’re leaning against his chest, his arms wrapping around your waist.
He places a gentle kiss on your neck, murmuring, "You seem happy."
"I am," you say, placing your hands over his. "The holidays aren't so bad with you around."
"I'm glad." He turns your head so he can place a quick kiss on your lips, one that is light and soft and sweet, full of love. "Merry Christmas."
"Merry Christmas, Jungkook," you echo, smiling brightly.
Later, Naomi corners the two of you, pulling you aside. "I've been thinking about what to give you," she says. "I—"
"Naomi, you don't have to give me anything!"
"Don't interrupt me," she scolds, but there's no bite behind it. "Like I was saying, I was thinking it over, and I realized that the best gift I could offer is not anything material. From tomorrow on, you will officially be a supervisor. A paid supervisor."
Your eyes widen in surprise, and you glance at Jungkook, who is beaming at you with pride. You turn back to Naomi, stuttering out a response.
"B-but Naomi, I couldn't possibly—"
"Yes, you can," she interrupts, her tone firm. "From the day you arrived here, you have been working as hard as any of us. You deserve this." Before you can argue any further, she thrusts a small envelope into your hands. "Consider it an early Christmas gift and your first paycheck. And my office? It's yours."
"Thank you, Naomi," you manage, your voice choked with emotion. You pull her into a hug, hoping it can express everything you don't know how to say.
She pats your back, chuckling. "If anything, it's an excuse for me to take some time off. I'm getting old and need to start sharing the burden. Don't expect it to be a walk in the park!"
You pull away, wiping a stray tear from your eye. "Of course not. I'm ready to be worked to the bone, ma'am."
"That's what I like to hear," she comments, her voice carrying an undertone of pride. She turns to Jungkook, her gaze soft but words sharp. "Take care of her, will you?"
"Always," he replies without a moment's hesitation, which earns him a small nod from Naomi.
Eventually, the celebrations wind down and people start to retreat to their beds until only you and Jungkook remain. Instead of doing the same, you decide to return to the pier and watch the water for a bit, not ready for the day to end. The two of you walk in comfortable silence, hands linked tightly as if promising not to let go.
Sitting at the edge of the pier, Jungkook wraps an arm around your shoulder, pulling you closer to him. His body heat seeps into your skin, fighting away the cold, and you rest your head on his chest, letting his strong, steady heartbeat lull you into contentment.
"Who would've thought we would end up here?" you reflect, staring out at the ocean.
Jungkook laughs softly, his chest rumbling beneath your ear. "I don't think either of us could have predicted this."
"I never thought I would be happy that any of this happened, but I am. Are you?"
His gaze softens as he takes in the sight of you. "More than I could possibly put into words," he admits.
"Will you miss it, though? Heaven?"
"I thought I would," he says, tucking a piece of hair behind your ear. "But Earth has its own kind of heaven. You're here. Naomi is here. The children are here. I have so much more yet to discover, to experience." His gaze returns to you, eyes soft and full of love. "How could I miss anything when I have all of this?”
Your heart swells at his words, his declaration warming you like nothing else could. You reach up to cup his face, your fingers lightly brushing his lips. His eyes flutter shut for a moment at your touch before opening again to hold your gaze.
"You're right," you whisper, your voice barely carrying over the sound of the waves. "This is our heaven. Here, with each other. And who knows, maybe we'll end up back there someday."
"You think?" Jungkook asks, raising an eyebrow. "I must say, I'm a little surprised hearing that from you. I didn't think you had faith anymore or wanted it for that matter."
You shrug. "Honestly, I don't know. I don't have my original beliefs anymore, that's for sure, but I don't resent it all like I once did, either. I think I've just found a new kind of faith. A faith in myself, in people, in goodness, and in love. There are so many different kinds of religions out there, and at their core, they're all about trying to understand the world around us, trying to find ways to cope and move forward. I think that's what I'm doing now, in my own way."
"That's beautiful," Jungkook says, pressing a soft kiss to your forehead. "Somehow both simple and complex. Just like life itself, I suppose."
"And what about you, Jungkook?” you ask, pecking him on the lips. How will you move forward?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure, either. But I think I'm happy to find out, as long as it's with you."
You hold each other close, each hoping your touch can express what no words could possibly convey. Love. Gratitude. Hope. The promise of a shared journey. What more could you possibly ask for?
TAGLIST: @yessa-vie
#jungkook x reader#jeon jungkook x reader#jungkook angst#jungkook fluff#jungkook smut#jeon jungkook angst#jeon jungkook fluff#jeon jungkook smut#jungkook imagines#jungkook scenarios#bts imagines#bts scenarios#bts smut#bts angst#bts fluff#bts au#jungkook au#my fic#collab
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MOOT GAME: " make up a trope for your moots and their biases. doesn’t need to be romantic. can be crackfic/funny/anything you want ^ㅇ(๑>◡<๑)ㅇ^ "
Dear Soulmate
I'm sorry it took me so long, anon! I didn't know how to approach this and was waiting for a friend to do it first🙈
For my one and only, my pookie, @itstheghostofmypast💖
Choi San — soulmate au (idiots to lovers)
In a world where soulmates exist, most people discover their other halves before reaching twenty-five, you struggle to find yours, even when he had been right in front of you all along. You've witnessed those around you revelling in the bliss of finding their destined partners, all the while blindly awaiting your own.
"I cannot believe this, I'm dying alone!" you cried.
"Pooks, he'll come when the timing's right, I just know it," Eve, your closest friend and platonic soulmate, reassured you, wrapping you in a comforting embrace as you poured out your frustration. Despite being on the cusp of turning 26, your soulmate remained elusive.
"How did you and Hwa find each other again?" you asked, desperate for answers.
Eve sighed, "Whenever one of us gets hurt, a flower tattoo appears on the other in the same spot of their body. You know how clumsy I am, he found me through those blossoms. But each soulmate pair has their own unique connection. Haven't you felt anything special?"
See, in this world with soulmates, each pair discovers their connection in their own way. There's no universal formula, and you despised that fact vehemently. It only added unnecessary complexity to the already challenging quest for love.
Your parents had found each other through their inner voices, where their internal voices are the other's instead of their own. Your sister had found her soulmate through a compass on her body that led her to where her other half is.
And then there was you. Nothing. Nada. Niente. Absolutely nothing at all.
And as your birthday drew near this year, panic set in. You'd soon be a year older than the age when most people found their soulmates. Maybe you didn't have one, maybe he died, maybe he got aborted as a foetus, maybe—
"Woah, woah, just take a deep breath, everything will be okay," your friend reassured, trying her best to help in any way possible, "Hey, didn't you say you've been having a lot of dreams lately? And it's always that same dream?"
You blew a raspberry in frustration, "Yeah, but I doubt my recent dreams have anything to do with my soulmate, assuming I even have one. They're always about that art museum I go to on weekends. I think it's just because I spend so much time there."
She pondered for a moment, "Wait a minute, didn't you mention that San guy you always see there? What if—"
"Oh, hell no," you exclaimed, shuddering at the possibility of that annoyingly gorgeous mountain of a man being your destined lover, "I'd rather be alone forever than end up with someone like him."
It all happened on a day when you sought solace at the museum after a taxing week at school. Exhausted from dealing with incompetent classmates and antagonistic professors, you longed for a moment of peace as you approached your cherished spot in the corner. But to your dismay, you discovered an ignorant man occupying not just one seat, but the entire bench with his belongings. And not just any bench, your bench, the one everyone knew better than to occupy.
So you did the first thing that came to mind, you might have uttered some unkind words out of irritation. Looking back, you acknowledge it was all very unnecessary, considering it was likely his first visit to the museum and he clearly didn't realise it was your spot. However, your pride prevented you from admitting fault.
Consequently, he responded with equal unpleasantness. Even the museum guards had to intervene before things escalated into a fight. Like dealing with children, they persuaded both of you to share the bench since there was clearly more than enough space for two.
You adamantly refused to yield your spot and relocate, asserting your presence since you were here first. Similarly, it seemed his foolish pride prevented him from budging as well; thus, you both found yourselves locked in a silent standoff, exchanging wary glances as you engaged in a weekly silent war.
"Ugh, was hoping I wouldn't have to see your face today," San sneered, earning a glare from you as you settled down beside him. You were running slightly late, having trouble getting up after yet another frustrating dream, one slightly more annoying than usual.
Deliberately nudging his bag aside with irritation, you narrowed your eyes, "You wish, loser. This spot is mine, and it's staying that way."
He smirked in response, "Someone's in a foul mood, but then again, when are you not? Hope it's not because of that dream where your precious bench gets snatched away for good."
"Shut the hell up—"
You stopped short, a sudden realisation hitting you like a ton of bricks. You hadn't shared that dream with anyone, not even Eve. No one should know about it except... No freaking way. He couldn't possibly be the one you've been waiting for all this time. It seemed too absurd to be true. Why, out of all people, would fate pair you with this insufferable, infuriating, irksome yet undeniably attractive, bastard?
"Surprise, genius. It's me, your soulmate."
"I knew," he confessed, his voice carrying frustration and resignation, "I knew from the moment I saw you that you were my other half. That's why I came here in the first place, why I was in this exact spot."
Your breath hitched as his words sank in. All this time, he had known, yet he had still chosen to engage in your petty conflicts.
"But when I met you," he continued, "I was excited, hopeful even. But your attitude, your stubbornness... it's unbearable. As much as I feel the pull towards you, I can't ignore how immensely annoyed I am by your behaviour."
His words landed like a punch to the gut.
"I know that if I had a choice in who my soulmate is," he admitted, his gaze intense, "it would never be you."
After a moment of processing his words, you gritted your teeth in anger, "Well, joke's on you, buddy. I don't want you either. Maybe it would be best for both of us if you stop showing up here from now on."
Days turned into weeks, and true to your request, San ceased his visits to the museum. At first, you felt a strange sense of relief, but soon, that relief morphed into a tumult of conflicting emotions.
You didn't know how to feel. Did you truly mean what you said, or were those words simply born out of anger? Your emotions were a tangled mess. On one hand, you had just turned away your soulmate after yearning for his presence for so long. On the other hand, you couldn't shake the resentment that it had to be him, of all people. Part of you longed to be near him, to reconcile and embrace your destiny. But another part recoiled at the thought, recoiled at the frustration his presence brought.
Unbeknownst to you, San wasn't doing much better. His heart felt hollow, the absence of your presence leaving a gaping void. He tried to carry on with his life as before, but the weight of your rejection hung heavy on his shoulders. But his pride also kept him from reaching out to you.
He suppressed the pull towards you, buried it beneath layers of denial and indifference. But no matter how hard he tried to ignore it, your essence lingered in his dreams, haunting him with visions of what could have been.
Then, one day, fate intervened in a way neither of you could have predicted. You fell ill with food poisoning and ended up in the hospital. In a panic, San saw it in his dream, a vision of you lying pale and weak in a hospital bed. Without hesitation, he raced to your side, his heart pounding with fear. As he stood in the hospital room, watching over you, he realised the depth of his feelings. Despite everything, he couldn't deny the truth any longer. You were his soulmate, and he couldn't bear the thought of losing you.
You furrowed your brows at his unexpected appearance, "What the hell are you doing here? Who invited you?"
His heart sank at your coldness, but before he could form a response, Eve intervened, giving you a playful smack on the shoulder, "Stop it, you! He came all this way, and you're still going to be mean to him?" Turning to San with a warm smile, she continued, "You must be San! I'm Eve, her best friend. It's nice to finally meet you. Oh, and please don't take her words to heart. She likes to pretend as if she hadn't been dying to see you again."
Blushing furiously at her blunt revelation, you shot her a glare, but she simply tucked a strand of hair behind your ear, "Behave yourself. I'll be back shortly after settling the bill with Hwa," she said, brushing past San. As she passed him, she gave a polite nod, "Please take care of her for me, won't you?"
"Of course, Eve," he replied, nodding in return.
As soon as your friend left the room, he took a step closer, his tone serious, "Listen, I'm tired of playing games. I came here because I realised I can't bear to lose you again. So, tell me if you feel the same right now. If you still want me gone, I'll leave and never show my face around you ever again."
His words struck a chord, and you couldn't hold back the tears any longer. He couldn't resist the pull any longer, sitting down beside you on the bed and wrapping his arms around you. Relief flooded through him as he felt you relax in his embrace.
"I don't want to lose you again either. I'm sorry I was an idiot," you whispered.
"You should be," he teased, planting a kiss on your hair, "But I'm sorry too. Perhaps I should have told you who I was from the start. Let's just... not say things we don't mean and hurt each other again, okay?"
You nodded, squeezing him tightly, "Okay, Sannie."
All Rights Reserved © edenesth // DO NOT REPOST, TRANSLATE, PLAGIARISE OR REPURPOSE.
#lovely asks#my pookie#itstheghostofmypast#ateez fanfiction#choi san#ateez san#soulmate au#choi san x reader#choi san x you
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hello :D this is my first time requesting but I have read your self-aware whb and i possible can we have more crumbs of that au? I love your writing very much (o゜▽゜)o❤
masterlist
˗ˏˋ꒰ 💭 ꒱ . . . the worst thing about the free topic is the infinite things that can be talked about, and i don't know which one to choose right now (😭). also i'm working on levi in the self aware au, have faith in me please. btw, thanks for the sweet words (🥹🫶); i hope you like it, dear anon (<3).
˗ˏˋ꒰ 💭 ꒱ . . . lowercase intended
the worst, or rather, one of the most complicated and dangerous parts of the realization is, without a doubt, the obsession that certain winged individuals are being victims of.
that feeling once thought lost, of a higher being so close to them, whether or not that of god himself, has turned them into mere empty puppets seeking to feel that heat directly near them once again.
the point can reach such an extreme, in which a section of the angels is sent to do an exhaustive study to search how to reach you directly or how to bring you there with them.
know that a certain trio of seraphim will not hesitate to give their all, and even more, to achieve that. whatever blood, sweat and tears they must expend for it to be a reality. believe me, they're insistent in their beliefs.
you just have to hope, poor soul, that none of the possible options happen. you do not want to see yourself in front of any of these angels whose sanity abandoned them long ago.
#— thoughts.#— answered.#— what in “hell” is bad?#what in hell is bad#what in “hell” is bad?#whb#whb angels#whb self aware#whb seraphim#whb x reader#what in hell is bad x reader#whb x you#whb x y/n#whb x mc#whb michael#whb raphael#whb gabriel#gabriel whb#michael wbh#michael what in hell is bad#gabriel what in hell is bad#raphael whb#raphael what in hell is bad#what in hell is bad michael#what in hell is bad raphael#what in hell is bad gabriel#gabriel x reader
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The Surface
banner by @sailoryooons
Pairing: prince merman!Hoseok x sea witch!reader
Genre: fairytale AU/The Little Mermaid AU, smut
Summary: Prince Hoseok has only ever wanted one thing: to experience life on the Surface. You have only ever wanted Prince Hoseok. When he comes to you, desperate, claiming you are the only one who can help him, you decide to play along. You'll help him achieve his dream and maybe you'll satisfy your own dream, too.
Word count: 20k
Content: unprotected sex, oral sex (m. receiving), Hoseok has sex with someone but he thinks they're someone else, if you're incredibly squeamish, there may be some body/pain stuff that makes you go 😖, potentially a litt yandere-vibed
A/N: Happy my birthday eve to you, dear reader!!!!! This is my very first toe-dip into the world of fantasy/spn!! AND my first collab!!!!! Pleeeeaaassseeee read the warnings (and please!!!! let me know if I'm missing any or any are insufficient). I'm so excited; I struggled with plotting this fic and working out how to get it to do what I wanted and thid is actually v3.0 lmao BUT I'm really happy with it! And happy to be part of the Make Me Your Villain collab!!! Thanks to @daechwitatamic for beta-ng and yelling!!!!
*
Hoseok swam farther than he ever had before. Swam closer. He’d be inching forward and now he was close enough to be spotted; he knew that. He knew that that was too far, but he didn’t really care.
The first time he swam in this direction and saw the shadows of small boats cross over him, he’d bolted in a panic. Merpeople were not to be spotted by humans. Ever. So he’d raced away, not looking back.
But then he had the knowledge that humans sailed there. He knew that that stretch of water played host to life above its surface, too. They were little boats, not the huge ships he usually tailed. These were much smaller, with handfuls of humans sitting in them, pointing in the distance, holding little boxes up to their faces and lowering them again. Visible. Watchable. It was tantalising.
So he went back. Hung around and waited for a while. Did it again. Watched a boat sail over him and eventually drop anchor near the cove. Went back a third time. Saw the humans jump from the side of the boat into the water. Hung back.
The next time, he swam closer. And the time after that, closer still.
That particular day, he had time. Lots of it. There was nothing calling for his attention, nothing tying him to any place, so he edged closer and a little closer, until he could see so clearly their spindly legs kicking ineffectually through the water, their weird feet and tiny toes. He had never seen humans so close before. He wondered if anyone had. They were fascinating. They dived down and kicked back up, their limbs moving in the water to keep them afloat. They turned on to their backs, looking just like seals from below. They squealed and laughed and talked and Hoseok watched it all with rapt attention. What he wouldn’t have given to approach one. To have made contact. To have asked them all his questions.
He wished he had someone to tell. Someone who would receive the information with not even wonder—his hopes were not that high—but interest. He didn’t have anyone to share his discoveries with, his treasures, his excitement. No one else understood. Some people thought he was weird; others thought his interest in the human world was downright wrong.
But his excitement was palpable that day, floating so close to the humans, he could hear their voices. He could even just about make out their words. And then their speech took on a more urgent tone; there was more frantic splashing, some flailing of limbs. He looked around himself and rose until his head bobbed out of the water. He watched the humans spin, searching for something, pointing this way and that way, calling to each other, looking.
He wanted to help but he didn’t know how. He dipped back into the water and skirted around the edge of the group – still unseen—and then it hit him. He had been so focused on the humans that he hadn’t seen it.
The rip tide tugged him sideways with a vicious spinning force. He was lucky, because he lived in the sea and this was far from his first rip. It might have taken him unawares, but he was able to right himself and spiral through to the other side.
That was when he saw what they must have been looking for.
The rip had tossed him out on the other side of a sharp, rocky outcrop on the west side of the cove. It jutted far out into the sea, sheltering the shore from western winds, and he saw a human woman struggling to the surface.
Her limbs were slow and her face kept dipping under the waves until eventually, she just floated, barely moving at all, moving only with the rhythm of the waves. Hoseok watched with dread and fear curdling the excitement in his stomach. She was too still now, her face too low in the water. Something wasn’t right. There was something unnatural about the way she was lying there, suspended in the water.
Hoseok didn’t think before he acted. He kicked his fins and swam to her, wrapping one arm around her torso and hiking her upwards so her face was out of the water. He dragged her, swimming backwards, towards the shore. He was grateful there was a shore; the other side of the cove had nothing but sheer cliffs and sharp rocks.
He didn’t know what he would do when he reached the shingle beach, but being on land had to help, didn’t it? Land was where the humans belonged.
Hoseok dragged her as far out of the water as he could manage—which wasn’t very far because his tail churned the stones and wouldn’t propel him forwards, so he dragged himself, as well as this human woman, until only her legs were splashed by the waves.
He looked down at her, anxiety churning in his gut. How did humans die? Was she already dead? The thought was nauseating. He knew humans had hearts like merpeople did, so he pressed his hand against her chest and felt nothing. He pressed a hand against his own chest. Felt nothing. He pressed his fingers against the large artery he knew ran down his front and felt nothing. He pressed them to his neck and almost felt something, moved them around until he found the spot at which he could feel his blood pushing against them. He immediately transferred his fingers to the same position on the woman and felt the same thing.
He let out a heavy breath. Relief. At least she wasn’t dead.
But she also wasn’t awake.
“Hello?” he called lightly. “Uh, hello? Are you ok?”
She remained unmoved, but he could barely hear himself over the pounding of his frantic heart; maybe he was too quiet? Maybe merpeople couldn’t make noise outside of the water? He tried again but it elicited no response.
He watched her carefully, listening, training his ears towards her, tuning out the roar of the waves and the squawk of seagulls and the distant sound of voices. He concentrated hard, breathing carefully to slow his own heart, to quiet the thump of it against his ribs and the rush of blood through his veins. There was a wet gurgle as her chest rose and fell, coming from her mouth, but sounding from deep inside. Hoseok knew humans breathed through their mouths, not having gills of their own. So he knew she was breathing.
She was both alive and breathing. He sighed with relief. He could let his worry go and lean into his fascination.
He had never seen a human like this. Close enough to touch—he had touched her. Her hair was the colour of the sun, even wet through; the curls stuck to her skin and Hoseok dared to reach out and brush them from her face. As he took his hand back, he noticed he was shaking. Drops of water on her skin sparkled like gems, glinting in the daylight. The sun was hot—far hotter than he’d ever felt it in the water—and bright. The heat of it burnt away the water on her skin almost too quickly to notice. Hoseok didn’t think she looked all that different from a mermaid, not really. The legs made a difference, sure; she had no gills in her ribs; the webbing in her fingers was reduced to nothing, each digit separated down to the palm. But really, what difference did those things make?
He thought her a wonder. He thought her the most beautiful, fascinating thing he’d ever seen. Her rosebud mouth, lips open and plump. Her skin was smooth and dark; he looked stark next to her. Her torso was whole, one expanse of skin stretching around her back and ribs. Hoseok placed a hand to his gills, fingers playing along the edge; they were flapping uselessly in the dry air. He smoothed them down with his hand, imagined his torso like hers, uninterrupted.
He lay with his tail next to her legs. He tried to picture it split in two, tried to picture himself walking on two feet, upright. He wasn’t the longest merman, but how did that compare to humans? The woman by his side seemed long—were all other humans, too? He figured he would probably never know and the rarity of this moment, the precarity of it, dented his enthusiasm a little. But, he reminded himself, for the rest of his life, he would have this. This human woman, lying next to him, seen by him, touched by him. He wondered how many other merpeople had done that.
He’d heard the horror stories, of course, the kind that teachers tell students to scare them away from the surface. He had never believed them, not entirely. There were bad humans, sure, but there were bad merpeople, too. And looking down at this human, this woman, he knew she was good. He felt a fluttering in his chest that made his breathing hitch. Made him feel almost breathless.
He wished she would wake up and see him. That wasn’t allowed, of course. It was absolutely forbidden to make your presence as a merman known to anyone who lived on the surface. But, who had to know? Just this once. Just this once, Hoseok could have his dream come true, couldn’t he?
She blinked once, then twice, and rolled over to cough and splutter, and he panicked. The tranquillity of the moment was gone. He heard the sound of seawater hitting stone as she choked and it spilt from her lips. He didn’t know what that meant. He watched her back heave as she coughed and was gripped by an intense fear. He wasn’t bad; he didn’t break the rules; he didn’t have the stomach for it.
He was diving in the water before she had rolled back, before she had a chance to see him or even notice him. He had disappeared before he’d even made the decision to disappear. Maybe that was close enough. So much for his wishes to be seen. He just wasn’t brave enough.
Back in the water, he shuddered and realised he could breathe again. With his heart rate finally slowing, he swam towards home, his mind pre-occupied with daydreams about coming back to this shore, seeing more humans, learning some more; pre-occupied with the panic and relief and adrenalin of his last ten minutes.
Pre-occupied as he was, he didn’t see that his movements were being tracked. He didn’t see a royal aide, following at a distance, and then moving off towards the royal chambers when they made it back to court.
He didn’t see you either, though you could see him.
* * *
His mother came to see him the following day.
“Hoseok,” she began, in the quiet, stern voice that had always scared him as a child. “Do you think your father and I are stupid?”
He blinked. He hadn’t been expecting that and couldn’t see the reason behind it. That worried him. He was walking into a trap.
“No, of course not,” he answered, honestly.
“Then it will not surprise you if I say that we do know where it is you go in these waters.”
His blood turned to ice.
“We are all very well aware of your... interest in the surface. In humans and all their detritus.”
He opened his mouth to argue back but the expression on his mother’s face stopped him.
“We know you hunt out shipwrecks and follow boats along trade routes, searching the carcasses of their vessels for rubbish, hoping and waiting they might drop something valuable. We know how close you have got, Hoseok, to exposing yourself to the humans.”
He gulped. He knew he was in trouble. Probably a lot of trouble. He didn’t know what his punishment would be.
“We are not going to permit this any longer.”
That rankled. He was almost 21. An adult in any world. Permission? He found his voice.
“I wasn’t aware I needed permission to go anywhere.”
“You’re a prince, Hoseok, of course you need permission. And you no longer have it. So Sebastien will accompany you through your days for the time being, to ensure you do not go where you should not.”
“For the time being? How long is that exactly?”
His mother looked at him, impassive.
“For as long as your father and I tell him to.”
Then she swam away without bothering to say goodbye. Hoseok didn’t have any time to react before Sebastien was by his side.
“Good morning, my prince.”
Hoseok bit back a spiky retort and swam away, with Sebastien following at his fins. His mother couldn’t be serious. He was being chaperoned? It was an indignity. It was infantilising. It was entirely unnecessary. He flexed his hands into fists and out again, balling and stretching as he swam, as he carried on in his head the argument he wished he could have had with his mother. This would not do.
As he realised where he was swimming—with his new bodyguard—he stopped suddenly. He had been inadvertently leading Sebastien to his happy place, his treasure trove, the place where he kept all the so-called ‘human detritus’ he saved. He was sure his parents didn’t know about that and he didn’t want them finding out.
He swam away, ignoring Sebastien chatting idly at his side, and wondered just exactly what his parents knew. Had they seen him save that human woman? Had they seen how close he had come to being discovered? Is that what this was all about?
* * *
Hoseok looked miserable. Oh, he was smiling, and you were sure he was saying all the right things. But you knew. He was not enjoying his birthday party. There was nothing dazzling in his smile, no halo of light around his head. His laughter rang out, hollow and pitchy, not at all like the tumbling bells it usually was.
No, the prince was miserable. You were sure of it. You had noticed that he had been followed—was being followed—by one of the court’s highest-ranking aides; you saw him behind the prince at every turn, like a shadow, like a ghost. Maybe that was the problem.
You had been close as children, you and the prince, for a time. In that period when you were free, when society meant nothing to you, when prejudices and family feuds still hovered above your heads, out of reach. You had been friends and you felt it then, too, his brightness, his warmth. He didn’t care that the adults treated your family poorly; he did care that they treated you poorly. He didn’t know or care about what the adults said; neither did you. You were friends, the two of you, thick as thieves.
Then one day, all that hovered above you came tumbling down, pouring over you both like ice-water. It became more difficult then, to spend time together, to be friends. He never outright said it, broke up with you in a friend kind of way. You just ‘drifted apart’ because he was welcomed in where you were shunned; he was celebrated and everyone did their best to forget you ever existed.
You should have expected it. He was the prince, after all. And you were a sea witch. People said you were evil; the rumour had it that your whole family was. Matriarchal, and that was just the first problem. You had power. Your mother had had it. Your aunt. Their mother. The way you were told, it went back right to the very beginning. You were the latest in a very long line of very powerful witches.
It took you a long time to understand why that was used against you. You had power. Wasn’t that a good thing? You could do magic. You could achieve things no one else could. You could have made the entire sea a better place for everyone and everything living in it. But no one wanted your input; no one wanted to listen, to hear you. They wanted you to stay quiet. They wanted you to hide.
What boiled your blood was that you did. You stayed at the back, hid yourself away in a cave far from where the royal court lived: merpeople in coral towers and you, tangled in seaweed every time you so much as shook your head. You were older now and you knew full-well why they did it.
They were scared of you. They had always been scared of your family, but now, since the ‘tragic’ death of your mother, they were scared of you. Because you had a score to settle. Because you had a reason to hate them. You had vengeance on your mind.
Vengeance and Prince Hoseok.
Because no matter how much you hated it, no matter how much you didn’t want to want him, you did. You looked at him and your chest hurt with longing and your stomach roiled with hatred. How could it be that you could feel two things at once for the same person? You chose not to examine it these days. It had gone on too long and you were used to it. It felt like your natural state of being: hatred and love in equal measure. Fear and power.
No one had ever tested you. Not really. People came to you for silly little things like love potions and spells to make them smarter or charms to ward off hermit crabs from their gardens. No one wanted to see the full extent of your abilities. So you didn’t quite know what they were.
You toiled, testing yourself on little creatures, to see what you could do to them, how much you could transform them, how creative you could get. There had been a lot of failures at first, of course. So many. But then you started to succeed. And now you never failed. Everything you turned your hand to worked. Your mother had always said you were a natural and now you believed it, too.
You thought you could turn yourself into one of them if you wanted. Not that you did want. Never. Ever. You wouldn’t debase yourself, wouldn’t shame your ancestors with an attempt. But you could do it. That much you were confident of.
You were also confident of just how well you knew the prince. Better than he knew, you were sure. He probably didn’t realise quite what an open book he was to you. It was an open secret that he had a thing for life on the surface, but you saw so much more than that. He had never been able to hide from you: his enthusiasm, his wonder, his furtive glances around himself, the swift flick of his tail as he snuck between two large boulders, the fluidity and flexibility of his body the only things enabling him to sneak through. His little collection. Though ‘little’ wasn’t really the word for it, not anymore.
You had been to see it just once before. It was almost enough to impress you. His discoveries, his treasures, were displayed with such care, it almost touched you. These things, this tat, that he had found floating on the surface or buried in the seabed, he loved them. He treated them like something precious, not like the trash it so clearly was to the humans. It made your heart ache a little: his naivety, his innocence, his propensity for flights of fancy, his dreamy insistence on seeing the good in things, in people. In humans.
It was an open secret, this obsession of Hoseok’s, but it concerned his parents. Sure, he was only the youngest of seven sons—he wasn’t the heir—but he was still a prince. That made him valuable and important. It also meant he had to keep up appearances and it simply would not do to have a Prince of the Royal Court enamoured with... up there. So they had instructed one of their aides (a creeping, odious merman whom you avoided like the plague) to follow Hoseok around, to make sure he wasn’t getting himself into trouble.
Yes, you nodded to yourself, that was exactly what had happened.
*
Hoseok was getting sick of being followed around. It wasn’t even just that he couldn’t go to the surface; he couldn’t get a single minute of peace! Sebastien was always there and it was starting to grate quite uncomfortably.
He wasn’t enjoying the party and he was getting tired of pretending to enjoy it, so after taking a quick scan of the room, he turned tail and left. Sebastien followed, but Hoseok chose to ignore him.
“Leaving a party early?” you said lightly, as you caught him leaving the room. “Leaving your own party early? That’s not like you.”
His smile was a little tight when he flashed it your way.
“It’s only my party by technicality. No one will miss me.”
You merely raised your eyebrows slightly and raised one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug.
“I notice that you are also leaving,” he countered.
“Ah, once the host leaves, everyone else is free to go.”
His brow wrinkled a little and he scoffed.
“Don’t call me the host.”
“Careful,” you joked, “Sebastien here might tell your parents you’re being ungrateful. Look at all this opulence they prepared for you.”
He was about to spit something not entirely kind back at you before he realised that you were taking the piss. He rolled his eyes inwardly at himself. Of course you didn’t care. You never went in for this stuff anyway. He was surprised you had even shown up.
“I am being ungrateful. I would like them to stop looking out for me, stop doing things for me, stop-” he said, coming to such a sudden halt that Sebastien crashed into the back of him, “having me chaperoned like a child just because I like to swim a little farther than others.”
“I’m not sure it’s the distance they’re worried about.”
“Whatever. They just don’t get it. They think it’s dangerous.”
“What is?”
“The surface. Humanity. They think my collecting scraps from the seabed is somehow going to threaten all undersea life, trigger an apocalypse or something.”
“Ah.”
“They just don’t get it. They don’t get it. It’s not like I’m going to go up there and act like I’m human-”
“No? You could.”
He scoffed.
“Oh yeah, just go and flop around on the beach with my tail and my gills and everything. Great idea.”
“... You know I’m a fucking witch, right? I literally have the technology.”
Hoseok stopped suddenly again, looking at you, a little aghast, a little trepidatious. Then he laughed.
“Yeah, sure, one human coming right up!”
You laughed along with him, letting the subject drop, letting it be a joke. It had to be a joke with Sebastien listening in. But you were serious and you needed Hoseok to understand that you could do it. If he asked.
* * *
You thought about it more in the following days, as you watched the prince and his tormentor float around in the water. Hoseok couldn’t even blink without Sebastien there to watch him. You could feel his frustration, his impatience; you could see the dullness diminishing his shine; you could see the time it took for his lips to stretch into his signature heart-shaped smile expand—sometimes they barely made it at all. Was it the annoyance and inconvenience of having a chaperone in itself, or was he pining for a little adventure? Itching for a treasure hunt, fingers twitching to dig through sand and find something broken and useless to take back to his cave of wonders?
The whole sea knew. The prince was being monitored. The prince was being kept on a lead. A short one. There were whispers and gossip and speculation. The worst of these rumours was the one that told you his parents were doing this to get him ready for marriage. That he had been betrothed to a princess in the Caspian sea since before he had even existed and now they had both come of age, the marriage negotiations could begin in earnest.
That would not do. You could not have that.
Your own fingers were twitching; you were as frustrated as the prince, trying to work out a way to expedite this whole thing, to get things moving.
Someone’s hand would have to be forced, you realised. But whose? And to do what?
*
It hit you, quite suddenly, as you were drifting off to sleep one night. You had been picturing Hoseok amongst all his ‘objet d’art’: his happy face, his preening and polishing, his voice ringing out in a sweet, little tune—the one you liked to catch in your shells and store for later. It was obvious.
With each day that passed, the prince’s frustration grew. As did his misery and his little, daydreamy desires to experience life on the surface. With each day that passed, his parents were obliviously telling themselves that Hoseok was forgetting about it. He was integrating better with his peers, no longer always off on his own adventure; he was finally getting over this little ‘phase’.
It, actually, you thought to yourself as you caught the fleeting idea with a snatched hand, would work out quite nicely after all. You just had to be careful about tipping the scale.
*
Sebastien wasn’t stupid (you couldn’t get to his position if you were), but he wasn’t exactly sharp. You engaged him in a little idle chat while the prince was dining with his family. Commented on the prince’s interest in life ex-marina. Sebastien had responded a little too eagerly, sharing a little too much (not that he knew he was doing it—not sharp) so it was very easy for you to drop in that you had noticed the prince hadn’t been visiting his little shrine much recently. Sebastien played off his reaction so terribly that, even had you not been so perspicacious, it would have been clear he was bluffing, that you knew far more than he did and he was embarrassed by it. You shrugged, as if the conversation meant nothing to you, and glided away, certain that the seed had been planted.
All you had to do now was wait for it to sprout.
*
It took even less time than you expected. The sea over the next couple of days was a flurry of anxious activity. No official word had gone out, but something was happening and everyone knew it. Aides were everywhere, in every corner, under every rock, in every reef. The king and queen had an awful lot of staff at their disposal, so it wasn’t long before one of them turned up something very interesting indeed.
It was even quicker that the King stormed down to the prince’s little cave of wonders to give Hoseok what for.
You hung back and watched. Watched Hoseok’s face as it moved from dismay to anger, to fury. You had never heard him angry like that. It was thrilling. It was exciting. It was, you hated to admit it, sexy. He swam forward and you heard him confront his parents, heard his outrage.
But how his father roared. How he hovered above Hoseok, his youngest child, with a face like thunder. How his shouting rippled through the water, carrying it farther than you were sure he’d have wanted.
Hoseok put up a good fight, but he had no power. He wasn’t the heir; he had no leverage, not really. So, his father took his trident and destroyed everything. Even the very cave itself. It was rubble by the time he turned his back on his son and swam away. It was sand. Hoseok was left staring at what used to be his most prized possessions, his secret joy.
It almost hurt when you saw his face, his distress and despair. You watched him sink to the seabed and sob, then you turned around and swam away. You didn’t want to watch that. You didn’t need to. You just had to hope that it worked like you intended.
You slunk back to your cave—your presence having never been noticed—and waited for the prince to come to you.
*
Hoseok knew they were just things. He knew they were things most people would consider rubbish, garbage, trash, waste. But they weren’t rubbish to him. They were prizes. They were trophies. They were secrets. They were hints of another life, another way of living. They were like the key to a code. If he collected enough, maybe he would understand what life on the surface was like. Maybe once he had enough human things, he would be able to experience Personhood by proxy.
He had always known he would never go there. Could never go there. It just wasn’t done. Not even for a prince. Especially not for a prince. But his parents couldn’t order him to stop dreaming. So he dreamt and he collected and he treasured. He knew no one approved of what they called his ‘obsession’ with the surface. He didn’t care. They didn’t understand. They didn’t see what he could. They were so entrenched in their own, bigoted ideas that they couldn’t open their minds for a second to the possibility that maybe humans weren’t so bad. Maybe they had their problems, but they also had their wonders.
Even outside of his personal curiosity, he had always thought that some sort of treaty with the humans would be advantageous. They were lucky, in his sea, that the water was kept mostly clear, that oil spills only reached them as news. Their unfavourable interactions with humans were limited, but Hoseok knew that wasn’t the case elsewhere. He thought, if they could communicate with them, that maybe agreements could be reached. A relationship with the world on the surface could be mutually beneficial.
No one else saw it that way.
He sat on the sand and wept, cried, sobbed, for his secret little things that were no more. No longer secret and no longer there. He scooped up fragments of them in his hand and let them drift back down. He sifted through rocks and pebbles and sand to see if anything had been left intact, if anything was salvageable. But his father was thorough. And powerful. And there was nothing left.
* * *
The flurry of activity stopped and was replaced by an awkward tension. No one had seen the prince since the argument with the king. No one dared approach either king or queen, not even the other princes. People moved so slowly through the water, as if they were scared to cause too much of a ripple. The rhythm of everything had been upset.
For no one more than the prince. He lay on the sand next to what used to be his happy place for hours, until the sea grew dark and he should have been back at home with his family. The very thought made him sick. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. The thought of seeing his parents again made bile rise in his throat. His blood boiled with an anguished kind of anger he had never experienced before.
Once he had stopped crying, he spent some time staring around in disbelief. He couldn’t believe that all his things were gone, but he also couldn’t believe that his father had done it. The royal family was a Happy Family, officially, but they were also usually happy in actual fact. Arguments were few. Discord uncommon. There had been little cause for friction amongst them in his life. He wasn’t used to this. He and his brothers fought as kids, but never seriously; no one ever tried to rebel in any meaningful kind of way. It was a peaceful kingdom and that peace started at the very top.
Or so it had been. Even that had been destroyed now. Peace was the very last thing on the prince’s mind. He was torn between his anger and his despair. He wanted to hurt his father, very badly. He wanted to show his father that he wouldn’t let this stop him, that not even the King could break him. He knew he was right about humans, about humanity. He would show him. He also wanted, with a kind of frenzied desperation, to set off over the oceans and retrieve a new artefact for each and every one that he’d just lost.
As time passed and the sun disappeared from overhead, his whirring mind, his racing heart, began to slow and a tiny spark of hope burst in him. There was a way, he had realised. Or, he thought there might be a way. There was a possibility. There might be a possibility. If anyone would have the answer, it would be you.
*
He called your name and it roused you from a mid-morning nap. You sauntered to the cave mouth and your face pulled into surprise at the sight of him.
“Prince Hoseok, what are you doing here?”
He looked a little hesitant, peering behind you at the darkness of the cave, wondering what lay back there, if all the rumours were true. He knew you. You had been close at one point. He knew you so this was fine. He could trust you; he knew he could. You weren’t going to hurt him. You weren’t like they said. Well, in one way, he hoped you were; he hoped you were every bit as powerful as people said because, lord knew, he was going to need some powerful magic. Powerful magic the likes of which could topple the royal family, people said. What care did he have for the royal family now?
But, the evil part... He hoped that wasn’t true. You’d never given him cause to believe so before.
Still, waiting at the entrance to your home (your ‘lair’ as some called it and Hoseok was never sure if they were joking or not), he felt timid. Small. Not like a royal prince, but like a supplicant. Which, really, he supposed, he was.
“I’m here to ask you to do something for me.”
You couldn’t deny your intrigue. You gestured for him to follow you inside.
He did so slowly, his eyes darting around at all your shelves, full of stuff, fuller even than his own treasure trove had been. He couldn’t imagine what might be in all the containers, what secrets or tonics or poisons they might be holding. He had no idea what it was you did, really. You were the Sea Witch and that was bad enough for most people to never ask anything more... Until they needed you, of course. Hoseok had never needed you, not until now, so he had never paid your work much attention. You flew under the radar for the most part, which was entirely by design.
“Ok,” you said, as you perched yourself on a soft bed of anemones that Hoseok didn’t dare touch. “What can I do for you?”
He took a deep breath, a steeling breath.
“I want to be human.”
You pretended to be surprised, but that was exactly what you had been hoping for. Only an idiot would have been surprised by his request, especially given what had just happened.
“Human, huh? Finally pulling the trigger?”
He looked reluctant to say any more. You raised one eyebrow at him and held his gaze. He looked away.
“My parents don’t understand a thing. They don’t know anything about humans. I want to know. I have to know. They-... My parents can’t control me.”
You shrugged and nodded and caught the look of surprise on Hoseok’s face as you turned to gather some ingredients from the other side of the cave. He hadn’t thought it would be that easy.
It wouldn’t be.
You gathered the necessary items and tipped first one, then another, into the large conch you used for mixing spells.
“You... you can do it?” he asked and you chose not to be offended by the question.
“Of course I can.”
“You... will do it?”
“I will.”
The relieved smile on his face could have lit your cave for weeks. His teeth shone and his eyes sparkled as he laughed and clapped his hands. Victory.
“Thank you! I don’t know how I can repay you.”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, sunshine. There are conditions to all this, you know.”
His face settled back into seriousness, his brow knitting above his eyes. He nodded fervently.
“Yes, of course. I understand. What do I need to do?”
You paused, leaning one hand on the edge of your giant shell and looked at him with a firm, fixed stare.
“You get three days,” you told him. “Three days as a human. You’ll be human before lunch, so noon on the third day will see you turning back as you are now.”
“Oh.”
His disappointment was palpable, but that worked to your advantage, too. You forced a light chuckle.
“I’m good, Hoseok, but I’m not that good.”
(You were, in fact, that good, but he didn’t need to know that).
“Of course! Yes, three days. That’s great.”
“There is a way you can stay longer than that, but it’s not in my power.”
“What does that mean?”
You pushed off the ledge and rounded the basin, coming to a stop in front of him. You didn’t miss the two inches that he scooted backwards away from you. At a different time, under different circumstances, this might have offended you, but you had a reputation; you could hardly blame him for his timidity. He had never seen you do anything like this before.
“You have to put down roots.”
“Right... What does that mean?”
“You have to find a human woman and plant a seed.”
Hoseok continued to look at you blankly, until you rolled your eyes.
“Fornicate. Copulate. Mate. Breed. Fuck.”
His eyebrows shot towards his hairline.
“Oh... Within three days?”
“Is that a problem?”
“No!” His answer was too quick and his blushes beetroot. He cleared his throat. “No, it’s fine, but... You said plant a seed. You mean... a child?”
“Mhmm.”
He blinked, his mind reeling. You gave him a second to process.
“How do I guarantee that? It has to be a child? There has to be... it has to...?”
You nodded.
“If you want to stay up there, you need some connection to it. You need a tether. Just how it works.”
“Oh, right...”
He was nodding, but he wasn’t looking at you. You could see his eyes were far away; he was thinking.
He was worrying. Would three days be enough? And bringing a child into this? Could he? Doubt was beginning to creep in at the sides, but he couldn’t let it. He had to see this through. It felt like his only chance. And you’d already said yes. You could do it. He could almost taste it, he was so close. He had to keep going. He could deal with the seed problem later; he could hardly think about putting down roots when he didn’t even have legs to stand on. First things first and the first thing was becoming a human.
“There’s also something else I need from you,” you told him.
“Anything.”
“I just need a little piece of you. In order to make this work, I need a little tether to you.”
“You need to tether to me? But doesn’t that keep me tied here?”
You liked it when they asked questions. You smiled, benignly, but your eyes glinted wickedly.
“It keeps you tethered to me, the one with the magic? The one who’s transforming you? We can skip that step if you like, but then the spell will do absolutely nothing.”
“Oh.”
He blinked and then nodded.
“Ok, makes sense. Yeah, ok, what do you need?”
“Come here.”
You beckoned him to your side and he obeyed quietly. You took his hand in yours and plunged it into the shell; then you placed your other hand on his chest.
“Hold still; this won’t hurt.”
“What are you taking?”
“Just a little bit of soul.”
He flinched and you had to tighten your fingers around his wrist to keep it there.
“Relax, you won’t even notice it missing. And keep still, I need to concentrate.”
You closed your eyes and tapped lightly on his chest with your fingers, looking for a tap. Once you found the spot, you dug your finger in a little harder, focused hard and turned it on. You channelled it through Hoseok’s arm and tipped it into the shell through his fingers.
You were right: it didn’t hurt. He felt a weird pulling sensation in his chest and then it dragged down his arm; it was a little uncomfortable, certainly something he’d never felt before, but it didn’t hurt exactly. He wanted to look and see what his soul looked like, pouring out, but he couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes.
His soul was sweet like nectar and it shimmered as it settled atop the other ingredients. You could feel its pulse, strong in Hoseok’s heart, its rhythm airy and delicate with a stable bass. You liked it. You liked it a lot. You could feel your own shimmer in response to it; you could feel your heart flutter when you let a little of him inside it. You bit your lip to stop a smile. Once you had what you needed for the spell, you siphoned off just a little extra for yourself. Nothing he would notice – you were always careful about that.
You held him there a minute longer, just absorbing, marinating a little. Sometimes this was the worst part of the job. Some people’s souls were vile, horrid, dark, acrid, smoking things; the taste they left in your mouth wouldn’t shift for days. This, though, was delectable. If you’d had another plan in mind, you might have taken more, maybe even all of it; you weren’t sure how you managed to stop yourself.
You shouldn’t have been surprised by its sweetness. It was Hoseok. He was like that. Of course his soul would be pure as sunlight itself. It was the lightest soul you’d ever held. Almost light enough to make you feel bad for doing all this.
Almost.
“Ok,” you began, letting him go and creating a little more space between you. “We’re done.”
Hoseok opened his eyes and looked down at his tail.
“We are?”
You laughed, not unkindly.
“Yes. You might want to start swimming while I finish this off. Surface is a long way up from here.”
“Oh. But... it’ll work? I’ll be...-”
“It’ll work. Trust me. And take this.”
You thrust a little package, wrapped in fisherman’s netting, into his hands.
“Now go on. Get.”
He nodded, first a little uncertainly, but, as if he was convincing himself, each bob of his head grew surer until he was turning around and swimming straight out of your cave and up, up, up.
You gave everything in the shell a swirl, a mix, let it coalesce, then you placed your hands on the bottom and forced heat through them, so much heat that the concoction boiled, the sea water steaming around you. It bubbled and it boiled until there was nothing left in the shell but a pearl. You picked up this pearl and placed it into a clam. You shut the clam over a cord and tied it around your neck. You were going to want to keep this one close.
*
Hoseok was swimming so hard he barely noticed it at first. Then his tail was tingling. Then it began to hurt. Hurt enough to slow him down, to almost stop him completely. It was a wrenching, tearing, searing kind of pain that made him cry out, that made dark spots dance in front of his eyes and his head feel light. He couldn’t quite tell if his tail was moving or not; there was blinding pain and very little else, but he knew he was getting close to the surface. He couldn’t stop now.
In the space of three kicks, his tail became two, and Hoseok was overwhelmed by the agony of saltwater in his wounds. He couldn’t stop, couldn’t look, couldn’t do anything but try not to die. Try not to drown. He kept kicking, kept pulling with his arms, but his fingers were no longer webbed and they didn’t grab the water like before.
Swimming as a human, it turned out, was every bit as inefficient as it looked. He tried to move his legs in tandem, to kick and flick like he did with his tail but they wouldn’t cooperate; they couldn’t bend like his tail could, didn’t have the flexibility. Every movement sent a fresh surge of pain racing through him and he was finding it hard to breathe through it.
And then he stopped being able to breathe at all. He clutched at his ribs with one hand, expecting to feel his gills, but there was nothing. He opened his mouth to gasp and his throat was full of salt water in a way that felt wrong, uncomfortable, painful. In a way that made him panic. His lungs were burning, his throat was burning, his legs were burning; everything, everything, felt like it was on fire.
His heart was humming, beating so fast it vibrated against his ribs. He couldn’t think clearly, coherently, at all. It was all just a screaming panic, shouting and squealing and howling for him to get out, get out, get out of the water.
When he finally broke clear of the sea’s surface, he choked and gasped and coughed up water. It stung in his eyes and the taste of salt was so strong, it made him gag. He looked about himself to find the nearest shore and saw none in sight. He knew where he was; he saw the sea, his underwater kingdom, in his mind and he knew how to find the nearest shore. He just had to get there.
*
He dragged himself out of the waves, spent. There wasn’t a single muscle in his body that wasn’t crying out; he had never found swimming difficult before. It had always been as easy as breathing, but that, too, was difficult as a human. He swallowed seawater that made him sick, accidentally breathed it in and choked, found his breathing growing laboured and heavy when he was still miles from shore.
He lay on the shingle beach for a while, waiting to feel something other than pain. Pain and heaviness. Every movement was an effort. Every movement took active thought, especially his legs. He pushed himself into a sitting position and turned his attention to the package you gave him. He unwrapped it and unfolded fabrics—soaked through, of course. Hoseok had seen people wear clothes in books before but he’d never seen any in real life. He wondered where on earth you got them from. He briefly wondered if he wanted to know.
And despite everything: the pain, the exhaustion, the fear, the dread that was starting to settle in his stomach as the adrenalin faded, Hoseok was excited. He had human garments in his hands. They were his and he was about to wear them. He was human.
Human.
*
The awe and wonder didn’t last long. The friction of the fabric against his skin was almost unbearable. Was his skin sensitive or were the fabrics rough? He couldn’t tell but he could feel each tiny swish, each brush against him as he moved, with every swing of his arm and every step of his feet. It felt like the top layer of his skin was being slowly rubbed away, his soft, supple skin becoming red and raw and oh so sensitive.
The steps hurt, too. The shingle under his feet felt almost pleasant compared to the torching pain he felt in his legs. Like they were being cut open every time, like he was splitting his tail over and over and over again, the torture wouldn’t end.
He felt so heavy. Leaden. Like he barely had the energy to lift his feet at all. He put this down to the swim, the physical trauma, the lack of sleep he’d had that night. But he’d never felt the weight of his body so heavily before. In the water, he floated. The water kept him buoyed; the water supported him, carried him; he moved through it like he weighed nothing at all. On land, he felt no support. On the contrary, he felt as if the air itself were pushing him down, keeping him stuck to the ground, as if it didn’t want him to move anywhere.
It wasn’t at all like he had expected. He wished you had warned him about the pain. He wished he had known a little more before walking into this – literally walking! He was walking! On two feet! It was agony.
Trying to keep his head straight, he knew the first thing he should do was find food. He’d swum so far, he needed something. His stomach was gurgling in an angry, acidic roil that made him feel faint (or maybe that was the pain or the exertion or the atmosphere or or or). He was lucky that this beach was narrow and the town close. The shingle quickly gave way to grass, which was only slightly soothing on Hoseok’s feet, and then the grass gave way to paving.
He followed the path in the only direction it went and it wasn’t long before he found people. Humans. So many of them. He stood, stock still, watching them. It was overwhelming. The sights and sounds and smells of them. There was food grilling, and children laughing, and market hawkers soliciting, and Hoseok had no idea which way to turn. He could barely think at all. He needed-
He didn’t know what. A rest. A break. To sit down? He walked to the nearest chair – a metal frame with metal seat, next to a metal table – and sat; the chair scraped backwards slightly and the scratch of it on the ground brought a man out from the cafe the chair was sitting in front of.
“Hey, you can’t sit there!” the man called, looking none too happy. “Customers only! Those chairs are for customers only!”
“Oh, oh ok,” Hoseok spluttered. “I can be a customer. I can buy, uh-”
“No! We’re not open yet! No service!”
Hoseok thought then that it should be fine for him to sit down if they weren’t open, if there were no customers yet, but the man continued to shout, to shoo him off, so Hoseok stood and moved away. He would just have to try again a little further down the road.
That cafe might not have been open, but there were market stalls with edible wares already cooked and out for consumption. He took a skewer proffered by a weathered old lady and ate it gratefully, even though it was dry and hard to chew. She then held her hand out expectantly and it was at that moment, Hoseok realised he had nothing to trade. What could he offer? He considered the neat, net package that you had provided his clothes in and brought it out of his pocket. He tried to hand it over but the woman started cursing at him in a language he didn’t understand. He backed away from her aggression and this was clearly the wrong move. She grabbed a large metal spoon and came around the side of her table, raising it above her head.
Hoseok ran. He hadn’t known he could run. Would have claimed not to be able to if you’d asked him to at that moment, but the panic set him going and his feet stomped, painful step after painful step, until he was, once more, breathing heavy and laboured, a sharp pain between his ribs stabbing him with every inhale.
This was going to be harder than he thought.
*
He eventually sat at the side of the road, wondering how he was supposed to navigate this world he clearly knew nothing about. He had been arrogant in the sea. He thought he knew everything there was to know about humans. He had learnt about their culture, he thought; he had studied their ways of life, he thought. It was nothing compared to the real experience of being here. Nothing was how he expected. He was woefully unprepared.
Tears pricked in his eyes and he tried to keep them at bay because he had wanted this. He had asked for it. And you had done it for him. Hoseok realised with a shock just exactly what position this had put you in. The prince was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t told anyone what he was doing. The only person who knew was you. If they found that out, lord knew what kind of trouble you’d be in. They’d have your head if they thought you had brought him to any harm.
But you’d been willing. Supportive even. So he had to make this work. He had to make it worth it. For him. For you. He would make it work and he would return to the sea to explain everything: to show what he had achieved on the surface, to prove to everyone that humans weren’t like they all said. To prove that you had been the truest, kindest and most loyal friend he had. That you had given him all of it. That you weren’t like they all said, either.
He blew out a deep breath. There was a lot riding on this.
He knew he would eventually need somewhere to sleep, somewhere safe. He walked back towards the centre of the market and found a nice-looking woman selling necklaces.
“Excuse me,” he began, warily. “I need somewhere to stay.”
Her friendly smile faltered a little, frozen on her face as she tried to parse his words.
“Ok?” she finally returned.
“Can you tell me where I can... Is there somewhere I can sleep?”
“Uh,” she said, her face twisting into a kind of confusion that Hoseok felt he was being judged by. “I mean, you can get a hotel or something?”
“Ok, where do I get one?”
The woman looked around her, to see if anyone else was really hearing this. She shrugged.
“There are kind of a lot around. Take your pick. There’s one right there.”
She pointed over Hoseok’s shoulder at a white, stone building, and Hoseok’s smile was all the bigger for the relief he felt.
“Thank you!” he called, already making his way towards the hotel.
But things continued to be difficult. He didn’t have a ‘credit card’ for the hotel staff to ‘hold’. He didn’t know what that meant. They told him he couldn’t have a room if he had no method of payment. He tried to offer something else; he was a good swimmer, he said; he could dive for pearls? The two staff behind the reception desk gave each other the same look the woman on the stall had given him. They explained that they only took cash or credit. He didn’t have either of those two things.
He left the building and sat by the road, because there was nothing else he could do.
He tried so hard not to let doubt creep in, not to feel despair, not to start desperately wishing he had thought about this a little longer. He tried to remember things he’d learnt about the human world – things that would help him. But it was already so different here from what he had expected.
The stories he had grown up hearing about human interactions with his kind were awful; humans were brutal and cruel and hunted merpeople for sport. That kind of thing. But he thought they were kind to each other. They had a society. They governed each other: elected officials who were entrusted with their cities and countries. They made art and sang songs and raised animals whom they kept for companionship, rather than labour. Humans were resilient and tough and brave, social creatures. They came together in crisis and performed heroic feats to help others out of danger. Those were the humans he had imagined.
The ones he had experienced so far were not like that at all. Maybe they knew, he thought; maybe they could tell already somehow that he wasn’t one of them. He was different. He hadn’t even been a human for a day yet. Maybe he was doing things wrong. He was sure he wasn’t walking right—the pain made it impossible. He had shown up from the beach in clothes that had barely dried, were caked in salt. His hair was stiff and tangled with it, too. His face felt tight and rough. Maybe they were right to mistrust him.
But how could he fix it? What could he do?
He couldn’t stay there, sitting on the ground. People walking past were looking at him; it made him nervous. No one had been able to show him any generosity or kindness and the darkness of night was starting to cover everything. There were artificial lights hanging from every door, a warm glow from every window that served only to bathe the shadows in a dim, greyish light. Nothing was black, as it was in the deep ocean, but it was all muted, hard to make out, indeterminate. Scarier.
He had to get out of sight. He had to find somewhere safe that he could stay for the night. That was the most important thing.
As hot as it had been when he first arrived on the surface, he could feel the chill now. There was something naked about being out in the air, with no water surrounding him, enveloping him. Even through the fabric of his clothes (which still scored his skin with every movement), he felt the air move, felt it stiffen his skin and raise the downy hairs there. He needed shelter. He needed to be far away from people, for now. He needed to be sure that, if what the merpeople said was true, he would not come to harm this night.
It was with a heavy, sinking heart that he made his way back to the beach. He fell upon the shingle and didn’t even have the energy to cry out, to sob like he wanted to. He had never experienced pain or exhaustion like this. He had never felt so out of place—not just in this world, but in this body. Did all humans feel like this? Heavy and sore and stiff, with the world pushing down on you? His legs were still screaming; they were as unblemished and unmarked as they had been when he’d first checked them twelve hours ago, but the pain was so convincing, he thought he would look down and see his tail, mutilated, bloody, split in two just like he’d asked.
He made his way very slowly, very carefully, to the end of the beach and the edge of the shore. With the cliffside to his right, there was protection from wind, at least, and it was deserted of people. He shuffled forward and sat with his legs straight out, letting the waves wash over his feet.
That was when he cried. He cried with abandon, without thought, without hope, with an aching, broken heart. He couldn’t quite believe that it was happening this way, that all of his dreams were crumbling in front of his eyes. He wouldn’t believe it; there was good in this world and he was determined to find it, but he had never felt so out of his depth. He had no idea what to do. He had no one, nowhere, nothing.
He looked at the waves as they splashed over his feet (feet!) and he imagined sinking into them, imagined them encroaching further and further onto the shore until he was swallowed up by them, swimming, drowning. Could he drown? He was human now and humans could drown, but he was really a mermaid... Would the magic revert? He remembered what you had said about keeping a tether to him; would you know if he were drowning? Could you see him now, pathetic and weeping?
You could. With his pearl at the bottom of your basin, you could conjure up his image and watch his drama play out in the rippling water.
But the sight didn’t bring you much joy. You worried that you had overestimated him, overestimated the humans. You had spent time on the surface but it was still a foreign world; you didn’t know everything. Maybe you should have prepared him a little more, lent him a little of your human currency. You had expected his grace and charm to carry him at least through the first night but he was a different person now. Well, he was a person, not a merman anymore. He was literally out of his element. A fish out of water.
You chuckled to yourself at that one. Then you frowned and rested your chin on your palm, pondering ways that you could make this work if he couldn’t do it on his own. You fingered the clamshell on your necklace and an idea started to form.
It could work. It wasn’t how you had envisaged this whole thing going but... It could work.
With a sigh, you placed the pearl safely back in its clam and floated off to your inventory: a powder there, some shellfish here, gathering together everything needed for yet another expensive spell.
If you need something doing, you thought to yourself ruefully, you’ve got to do it yourself.
* * *
Hoseok was starting to shiver on the shore—something that he had never experienced before and something he would be quite happy to not experience again. The way his muscles trembled and his skin hurt, still raw from the fabric, but bumpy now with goosebumps that made the friction all the worse. He took his feet out of the water and asked himself forlornly what on earth he should do, but he had no answer.
He scanned the horizon out to sea and saw nothing but washed-out darkness looking back at him. He scanned the beach and the land and his attention was caught by a light, wobbling in the darkness and growing larger. It was only when the person holding the lantern stepped foot on the beach that he could see there was a person behind it at all. If he had been less tired, less sad, less hungry, he might have worried, or he might have rallied and put his best foot (foot!) forward, or he might have hidden. But he could do none of those things. He sat and watched a young woman approach.
“Goodness, are you alright?” she asked, when he was close enough to see her form but not her face.
She wore the same thin shoes that a lot of people in the town had been wearing, barely covering her feet, and long, flowing fabric danced on the shingle above them. He could just about make out her light hair and her petite height, but the rest of her remained a mystery.
“I’m fine, thank you,” Hoseok replied, knowing that he was lying but not knowing if she would see that.
“Are you sure?” she queried. “It’s not safe to be out on the beach alone at night like this. I saw you sitting here and I thought you might be in trouble.”
A glimmer of hope flicked in Hoseok’s heart. Could it finally be: a human who was like he had always dreamt humans would be? Kind? Generous? Could he tell her? Could he share his woes? Would she ease his mind? Was this what he had been waiting for?
He decided he had no choice because his only other options were to drown in the sea or starve on this beach.
“I am in trouble,” he began. “I have nowhere to stay, no food, no money. I have nothing. I don’t know what to do.”
He tried to stop his voice cracking, but it cracked of its own volition. He didn’t want to be pitied; he just needed to be helped. But beggars can’t be choosers, he reminded himself.
“None at all?”
You took a couple of steps towards him, still not close enough that he could see your features clearly, but enough to suggest trust, to suggest comfort.
He shook his head in return.
“You should come with me.”
You could see the surprise on his face, the hope that lit it, the worry that creased his brow.
“Just for tonight,” you continued. “I can give you a bed so you can rest. You really shouldn’t stay out here all night.”
Hoseok rose to his feet, biting hard on his bottom lip to stop himself crying out as the pain surged once more.
“It’s not far,” you said, before turning back the way you had come.
Hoseok followed your lantern, back up the beach, down the path, and into the town. You led him into a narrow alley with a single door at the end. It was this door that you opened with a quiet creak, then you led him inside and up a single flight of steps.
“It’s not much,” you said, attempting to sound somewhat apologetic as you opened the door to the apartment.
It was sparsely decorated and the linens were grey in a way that suggested they hadn’t always been. The lightbulb in the ceiling was naked and dim. The plant on the windowsill looked crisp and parched.
You lived comfortably underwater, despite your status as social pariah, because people wanted your little potions and spells and you could charge through the nose for them. On land, it was more difficult. Humans weren’t interested in trading for things; they wanted cash and nothing but. That made it more difficult to be comfortable here. But you had shelter and food and that was more than the prince had.
Hoseok was nervous. He hadn’t known what to expect but somehow, this wasn’t it. He had heard of the way humans warred with one another, the way they oppressed and exploited other classes, the way most of them starved whilst the few indulged. This was so much more mundane. Nondescript. Boring. Homely.
He took a look at the woman now that he could see her properly in the cold light of the apartment. She was beautiful. Not unlike the woman he had rescued from the beach, he realised. Dark skin that somehow shimmered, golden hair that almost looked like a halo with the way it reflected light. Her eyes were dark, too, deep and rich and warm. She felt familiar to him, somehow, but he couldn’t pinpoint why. He knew she wasn’t the same woman from the beach, not quite, but there was something about her that he felt he knew, had seen before. It comforted him, quieted his nerves a little.
“I don’t have much to offer,” you interrupted his thoughts with a shy chuckle. “But it’s better than sleeping outside.”
“This is wonderful. I can’t thank you enough for doing this for me. It has been a difficult day and you are the first person who’s shown me any kindness. I don’t know how I can repay you for that.”
You giggled and it sounded like chimes.
“You don’t have to repay me. Pay it forward; if you help someone like I’m helping you, that will be enough.”
Hoseok wondered for a second if he had fallen asleep on the beach and was dreaming this. Because this woman, she was everything he had dreamt; she was what he had been hoping for. The flicker of hope in his chest grew into a flame and he shivered as a warmth rushed through him.
“Would you like something to eat?” you offered and Hoseok jumped at the chance.
You gave him bread and cheese and watched him eat them, at first tentatively, and then with great gusto. Of course, he had never tried these things before, never eaten human food. You placed some fruit on the small coffee table he was eating at and he devoured that, too. His eyes widened as he bit into a pear, ripe and juicy, sticky sweet nectar dribbling down his chin. He hummed with delight and you saw the sparkle return to his eyes.
You knew what you were there to do but you were enjoying this moment. This was the Prince Hoseok you knew; this was how he should be: bright and smiling, his crescent-moon eyes alight with laughter. You sat next to him and picked at some food, too, not really tasting it because the sweetness of the moment was far too strong.
Hoseok only stopped eating when you stopped giving him food, when you only had enough left for a small breakfast in the morning and nothing else. He sat back, resting on his palms, and sighed happily.
“That was the most amazing meal I’ve ever had!” he exclaimed and you laughed.
“You are very easily impressed. There are far more exciting things to eat here; I simply cannot afford them all.”
He shook his head.
“Not at all. That was wonderful. Thank you so much.”
With his stomach finally full, his fatigue hit him full in the face and he yawned widely, a quiet wail escaping his throat.
“You must be exhausted. Please, take the bed. I can sleep on the sofa,” you said, gesturing towards the bed that sat against one wall.
Hoseok thought the bed looked huge and the sofa, small. He thought about what the right thing to do would be. He couldn’t sleep in the bed. It wouldn’t be right, would it? But he was so tired and in so much pain. He looked at the bed longingly, imagining himself stretching out over its surface, letting it take his weight. He imagined it feeling like water, like being carried on the waves, weightless. He looked at the sofa.
“Please,” you repeated. “Take the bed.”
Every manner, every point of order, every etiquette lesson was screaming at him to say no, to refuse, to offer to sleep anywhere but the bed. To not inconvenience you, to not put you out, to not cost you even more than he already had, to not trespass any further onto your kindness. But sleep was calling, louder and more insistent. His wrecked, ravaged body was screaming.
He nodded shyly and offered a quiet thanks before rising and slipping, sore and worn, beneath the sheets. He was asleep before he even had the chance to notice the way the bed fabric, too, brushed rough against his exposed skin.
You watched him. He looked peaceful; his face smoothed of any worries or concerns. He made a fine human, you thought. He was tall and lean and, despite the pain you knew he was suffering, he didn’t let it show: he’d walked straight and held himself high. Royal blood, you assumed.
You wondered how much you would have to engineer this to ensure success. Despite all you knew about the prince (and you knew a lot), this was a blind spot. He had hesitated when you told him of his conditions; the idea of a child had alarmed him. Maybe he would decide he didn’t want to stay human after all.
There were two and a half days left. That was plenty of time, you decided. You wouldn’t push; he was too delicate for that, especially after his first day’s misery. You would cushion his fall, pick him up carefully, and slowly show him both what the human world was really like and what it could be like with you. You would delight him and impress him and he would give himself to you. He would. You were sure of it. He would fall into the world that you would show him and he would give himself to you, body and soul.
You fingered the clamshell still tied around your neck. It held the pearl you created when you turned Hoseok into a human. It now also held the pearl you created when you turned yourself into one.
* * *
The thing about royalty, the thing about the privileged, who’ve never really experienced hardship, for whom doors have always been opened, is that they are resiliently optimistic folk. Everything has always gone their way; naturally, they assume it always will. Even now, after everything that happened to him yesterday, Prince Hoseok was beaming. He was enamoured. He was full of awe and wonder. He was experiencing the human world as he thought it would be.
Because of you.
It was taking a lot out of you, truth be told, because you didn’t have the riches you needed to show him a human experience comparable to his underwater life. He wasn’t a royal here; he wasn’t anyone at all. Doors didn’t open for him and they didn’t open for you. But Hoseok had his charm and you had charms of a very different sort. So you were making it work, but your nerves were rising; with every bit you put in, you told yourself you had better pull this off. You had better seal the deal, make good on this bargain you had made with yourself, see through to the end the promise you swore to your dead mother and her dead mother and all the dead mothers back until time began.
It was your biggest show. It was your hardest work. Your magnum opus.
Or it would be. If—if you could do it.
Hoseok couldn’t let on that this was his first time on the surface; he couldn’t tell you he was really a merman, that a seawitch had transfigured him, that his legs were really a tail. It was too risky, too dangerous. But he kept forgetting that that meant he had to try to hide his enthusiasm, his surprise. Everything here was new to him. Everything here was fascinating and wonderful and intriguing and he could barely contain himself.
He had no backstory. He had no lies to tell. And he hadn’t noticed that you hadn’t asked. But it was dawning on him that, if he were to have a life here, he would have to think of something to tell people about where he came from. But he didn’t have the time, right now, to think of it. There was far too much to attend to. Too much to see, too much to do.
It would have been overwhelming were it not for you. If he’d had to continue doing this alone... well, he wouldn’t have. Couldn’t have. If you hadn’t found him on the beach last night, where would he be? Sinking beneath the waves? Starving on the shore? You had lifted him up and now you were carrying him along, tethering him to the earth, providing him a guiding string to hold. He had never been so grateful for anyone in his life.
Not even the sea witch.
“What do you say?” you asked him, shortly before sunset on that second day.
Hoseok tried to think, but it didn’t really matter to him and he was so overstimulated, he couldn’t have made a decision if he’d wanted to. He shrugged.
“I’m happy to go wherever you like!”
“Hungry yet?”
He shook his head. He had sampled one of everything at the market after lunch and had to spend half an hour sitting quietly so that it wouldn’t make a return journey up his throat. He was still very far from hungry.
That was exactly the answer you were hoping for.
You led him away from town, towards the west where the land rose in a grassy slope, steep and getting steeper, until you reached the top of the cliff. You walked up to the edge and turned to see Hoseok hanging back, looking nervous.
“Scared of heights?”
Hoseok didn’t know. He had never really experienced ‘heights’, wasn’t quite sure what that meant. But the wind was stronger up here and he knew, without having to look, that the sea was a very long way down. It couldn’t be dangerous if you were doing it, he reasoned, but he’d heard too many stories of humans falling to their deaths from cliffs like these – sometimes deliberately, but often not.
You held your hand out to him and his stretched back before he’d even noticed and he inched forward until you could take it and tug him a little further and a little further still. His heart was in his mouth as he craned his neck to peer down into the foaming waves as they crashed and broke against the rock face. You didn’t let go of his hand.
“It’s very high,” he stated unsurely, not knowing if it was really.
It felt high. It looked high to him. But, in a way, everything was high. The sea had depth, not height. It wasn’t the same thing. He might have wagered that it would be, before now, but looking down to the sandy seabed from high above it was very different from looking down at the sea from the cliff edge. Something to do with the environment maybe.
Maybe the fact that he couldn’t fall off the sea and plummet to his death. Maybe that. He’d never been in mortal danger; the sea was a safe place for him and he had all the protection he might have wanted (more than he wanted, actually); he hadn’t really appreciated it until yesterday, when he had nothing and no one.
Now, he had you.
It had occurred to him. The condition of his staying a human. The three days he had to plant a seed. It kept occurring to him. It wouldn’t stop occurring to him. Not when you smiled, not when you showed him yet another wonder, not when you took his hand in your own. He wasn’t sure if he could do it. For a start, he wasn’t completely sure how all that worked with human bodies. For another, he didn’t know if you would want to. He didn’t know what human culture dictated.
You were beautiful. About that, he had no doubt. Was he attracted to you? Yes, he had decided he was. Did he trust you? Yes, as much as he could trust someone he’d just met; as much as he could trust a human. Did you feel the same way? That was a mystery he didn’t know how to solve. You had stretched out your hand to him; you had paid for him to be fed; you had let him sleep in your bed; you had taken him into your home. It suggested something, but he didn’t know what.
Just as it had the day before, his ignorance alarmed him. His recklessness in coming still surprised him. The weight of his deadline pressed down on him and he shuddered, involuntarily.
He looked concerned, you thought, distracted. You could tell he didn’t really like being so high above the sea; you wondered if it were a merman thing or a Hoseok thing. Being neither, you couldn’t know. You took pity on him and led him back down the cliffside, keeping his hand in yours as long as he would let you.
You assumed you would have to lead, that he wouldn’t take charge of the situation—judging by what you had seen so far. You mulled it over as you wandered slowly back into town. He had never really had to work for it, you supposed. He was a prince. And beautiful. And charming. And kind. He had everything going for him, which meant he had the entire sea throwing themselves at his feet, desperate to be picked. He probably didn’t know the first thing about seduction, about attraction—not really, anyway. It struck you then that there was every chance he’d be a really bad lay. There was every chance you would be, having never done it as a human before, but that was besides the point. The idea of Hoseok disappointing you left a sour taste in your mouth but you ignored it; that was not what you were there for. Good or bad didn’t matter. There was one objective and one only. Your own pleasure, your own, secret, little goals were neither here nor there. You had to stay focused.
Because it wasn’t going to be easy. You knew that. That was half the reason you hadn’t planned to do it yourself anyway (or so you told yourself...). It was going to be harder for you than some random stranger. You knew that. It was going to be horrible, you knew, looking into his eyes when he learnt the truth, when he saw you—the real you—for the first time on land. You could picture it: the shock and betrayal, the fear and hurt. It gave you pause. Because you hated him, hated who he was and what he stood for and everything about the systems and society of the place you both lived. But you also loved him, loved his smile and his eyes, his heart and his soul. You wanted him to be yours forever. You wanted him to choose you. He never would. Not really. If he knew you were here, if he knew the human holding his hand was really the sea witch who’d sent him up there, he wouldn’t choose you.
The shocked, betrayed face. The frightened, hurt expression. You sighed heavily, without meaning to.
“Are you ok?” Hoseok asked, his head tilting to the side.
You smiled brightly back at him.
“Of course! Just starting to get a bit peckish. Shall we eat something?”
Hoseok wasn’t really hungry. The market food was still solid in his stomach. But if you wanted to eat, he’d eat. He’d do anything you asked. He owed you everything.
More, in fact, than he knew.
* * *
You’d been distracted through dinner, which had been fine because, without the food to focus on (Hoseok barely ate), he could look around at everything else. He could fire questions at you (questions that were far too revealing—not that he noticed) and comment on his surroundings and commentate with barely any input required. That meant you could contemplate your task. You’d had to rush into this whole thing, take the reins with very little notice at all. This was not how you usually operated.
You were meticulous and organised because you had to be. Always on your guard because you had to be. Everything you did came with its own audit trail because you couldn’t afford to make mistakes. You had seen what that had done to your mother at far too young an age. Not that she actually made the mistake. But when you don’t have the proof of every action you’ve taken and word you’ve said, they can make it look like you did whatever they say you did.
You ate slowly, not really tasting, not really savouring. Your mind was busy, calculating. You had a day and a half left. 36 hours, give or take. There would be another night after this one. You didn’t relish the idea of leaving it until the last minute, but you could spoil the whole thing entirely if you pushed too hard, too fast. So you decided to wait.
*
Hoseok was determined, this time, to do the right thing and let you sleep in your own bed. He was embarrassed at the way he had behaved the night before: how greedily he’d eaten, how quickly he had relegated you to the sofa. It made him cringe. And then you had spent the whole day playing hostess to him: showing him around, paying for everything, keeping him company, and answering his questions.
His debt to you was beyond belief. He knew he should leave. He knew he should make his own way. He knew he could not rely on you – not even for the rest of his three days, if that was all he would have. He had to find a way to survive independently. He knew that. He had to pay you back. He had to make things right.
“I’ll sleep on the sofa tonight,” he announced when you returned back to your shabby apartment.
You pretended to be surprised.
“Oh, no,” you replied, “not at all. Take the bed! It’s fine. I don’t mind.”
“No way. It’s your bed. I slept on it last night when I really shouldn’t have. Please. Take it.”
You shook your head, scrunching your nose and grinning stubbornly at him.
“No. You.”
He sighed, but the corners of his lips twitched anyway.
“We may have reached a stalemate,” he announced, with solemn mock-seriousness.
You hummed, thoughtfully, running a finger along the bottom of the bed as you stepped closer to him.
“A compromise, then,” you said, poking a finger into his chest.
“And what is your compromise?”
“Well…”
You weren’t shy. Not when you were being yourself and not when you were pretending to be a human. But you were good at acting like it. You looked down and then up at him through your lashes, a small, reluctant smile traced on your lips.
“We could… share?”
You raised a hand to your face, covering your mouth, looking at Hoseok and then away and then back to him, eyelashes fluttering.
The genuine surprise on his face gave you butterflies. You could see his hesitation, watch his mind weigh his options, calculate the costs and benefits of each. He knew too little to have anything to guide him. Anything but you. And you had suggested it.
So it had to be ok, right?
“Share?” he asked, buying himself another moment to think it over, to consider what all this might mean in relation to the condition he had to meet.
You nodded, lip trapped between your teeth.
“Ok!” he answered brightly, hoping it was the right response, and inwardly breathing a sigh of relief when you beamed back at him.
It would be easy to love you, he thought and the sentiment caught him off-guard. He had to be realistic about human life. He wasn’t a prince here. He had nothing. But when he looked at you, he felt rich. He felt like his dream was within his grasp. You were everything he had ever hoped for. He could stay here forever with you, couldn’t he?
He wasn’t going to do anything tonight. Ask or proposition or… or god knew what else. It was too soon. Too early. There was still time. He told himself, there was still time. Still time for him to wake up from this dream he’d fallen into when he met you. Still time to commit to it forever.
You took the left side and Hoseok the right. You curled onto your side, facing him, with the covers pulled up to your eyes. He lay on his back, moonlight from the open shutter illuminating his face in a sharp line that crossed him and left you in the dark.
You watched him for a while: not sleeping, though he had his eyes closed.
“Hoseok,” you whispered. “Where are you from?”
His eyes opened and went to the window.
“Somewhere… close but also very far away.”
“You mean like, culturally?”
You saw him nod.
“Yeah. Where I come from is… very different. More different than I thought.”
“How come you came here?”
He shook his head, eyes trained on the ceiling.
“I had to,” was his simple answer and you let it hang there in the darkness, waiting for him to add to it. “I think I could have stayed, but I’d have got old and I would have looked back and I’d have regretted it. I’d have regretted staying there my whole life. I’d have regretted not seeing everything this wo- this place has to offer. I needed to experience it.”
“Do you like it here?”
He let the question go unanswered for some time. So long that he wondered, after he’d spoken, if you’d fallen asleep in the interim.
“I like some of it. I like you.”
It made your stomach swoop. Even if he wasn’t talking about you. Just the human you were pretending to be. You wondered how a real human woman would have responded to that.
You changed the subject.
“I thought I was seeing things when I first noticed you on the beach.”
A slow smile formed itself on Hoseok’s lips.
“You were… You saw me.”
You reached out and poked his arm.
“I didn’t want to go home not knowing you were ok. If I’d woken up in the morning to a news story about… well, I couldn’t have lived with myself. I realised, as I approached, that you weren’t really in danger. You looked like you were waiting for something. Someone.”
His smile turned rueful and his eyes flicked again to the window, outside of which you could hear but not see the waves crashing on the shore.
“I was,” he said, his voice a low whisper. Then he turned his face away from the light to look directly at you. “I was waiting for a miracle.”
* * *
You no longer had any concerns about the success of your plan. You had no doubt that Hoseok would go along with anything you wanted to drag him into. You didn’t know if he knew what his feelings were, but you did.
It was your own feelings that concerned you.
You hadn’t spent time with Hoseok like this since you were much younger. He was addictive. His smiles and his laughter and the way his eyes gleamed bright all the while. You could feel your resolve crumble and you knew it was bad when you realised it didn’t bother you.
You began to try to re-think things. Reformulate. Work out a way that maybe there could be a future, after all.
Originally, this was where it stopped. This was where your scheming—and your life—would end. You felt the guilt of having had no children: no one to pass your powers and your knowledge down to; you also felt free because you had subjected no one else to a life like yours. It was a heavy burden to be who you were down in the water. But it wouldn’t have mattered much once you were dead, which you were certain you would be at the end of all this. You can’t just ‘kidnap’ the prince, ‘mutilate’, and ‘trap’ him and live to tell the tale. Many had died for less. And you were fine with that. You were living to avenge every woman in your family, every witch, every creature under the sea who lived shunted into shadows, left out of the light, less than. Had been for years.
And for years, your only source of light, the single little gemstone glittering in your heart, was Prince Hoseok. Prince Hoseok and his angelic face, his musical laughter, his charm, his lightness, his brightness, his everything you weren’t and could never be.
You would get to destroy it all in one fell swoop. A beautiful, perfect demise.
Now you weren’t so sure. Weren’t so sure you could do it. You could do it; you weren’t sure you could go through with it. These feelings that you thought you were so used to, not controlled by, not swayed by anymore, were threatening to overpower you. You felt the tendrils unfurl, in the deepest pit of your heart, sending out shoots and roots, embedding themselves further into the bitter, twisted muscle. You could feel them growing through your veins, buds springing up like goosebumps on your skin. You felt them every time his hand accidentally brushed yours, every time you fed him some new food and barely grazed his lips with your fingers. Every time he laughed. Every time he looked at you. Every time. All the time.
Hoseok allowed himself to relax. You liked his company. You wanted him around. He hadn’t tried that hard to leave you—because he had no one and nothing and nowhere else, but also because he recognised that you wanted him to stay. He had realised that, whilst so much was different up on the surface, he was the same. And people liked him. Always had. Yes, he was a prince and there was always a contingent of the sycophantic and the boot-licking, but he had always been well-liked, even amongst his brothers, amongst the entire royal court. He was popular. He was fun. He was funny.
And he was enjoying himself.
He had twenty-four hours. That was enough. He’d make a decision. He was confident in that. He would make a decision soon and he would live with it, whatever it ended up being. He wasn’t pushing himself to find the answer just yet.
He was enjoying himself.
You took him dancing. It felt risky, given what you knew about how much pain he must still be in, how uncoordinated he might be on his two feet, but it was an opportunity to get closer, to show him something new, to show him something you could do. Because you loved to dance. Really only came to the surface to do this one thing.
Certain sea creatures danced, but not like humans did. It wasn’t the same without the sound of feet on floorboards, wasn’t the same without the weight of gravity trying to keep you down every time you pushed up. You weren’t exactly a fan of humans (certainly not in the way Hoseok was), but they had got this right.
Your worries had been unfounded. Hoseok’s legs were feeling better already, he thought, or he was just getting used to the pain. Either way, he wasn’t suffering like he had on the first day. He was a terrible dancer, make no mistake. He couldn’t understand the way people moved their legs, the way their feet moved so quickly they were almost blurs. He tripped and stumbled and crashed about but none of that seemed to matter to you, so it didn’t matter to him either. You held him close and pulled him up and around and twisted and turned and skipped and span until his head was dizzy.
He had never experienced a joy like it.
*
You took him on a short carriage ride, because there was somewhere else you wanted him to see. It wasn’t that far, really, but you didn’t want him to have to walk and a carriage was as new an experience to him as everything else was.
You made it drop you just far enough away that it wouldn’t spoil the surprise. You gave Hoseok nothing, answering none of his questions, not saying a word, because you were holding your breath to wait for his reaction.
And there it was.
You saw his eyebrows, first raised and then knitted together, and then softening. His eyes widening. His mouth dropping open slightly, in the way that made it perfectly heart-shaped. Then he turned his eyes on you. Was this it? Was this the thing you wanted him to see?
It was.
Like a sea of green grass with hundreds – no, thousands – of red flowers floating on the waves. Hoseok didn’t know what to say. He hadn’t seen anything like this before. It was as if he were in another new world. The red-headed poppies were so numerous, you almost couldn’t see the grass underneath; there was merely a suggestion of verdant growth propping up the riot of colour. What were these things and how did they grow in such great number?
He had been taught, growing up, that humans had no respect for nature. That they ripped up land plants and built over grasslands; they destroyed forests and valleys and wetlands all for their own ends. They would rather look at glass and concrete and chrome than the kaleidoscopic views the natural world had to offer. He had believed them, because he had heard the true stories of what human activity had done to sea life; he had received the messages of the reefs dying and oil spilling and nets catching up all sorts of things they shouldn’t. He thought, trying to give them the benefit of the doubt, as he was always wont to do, that maybe the nature on land wasn’t like the nature in the sea. Maybe things were different up here. Lots of other things were.
Now he saw that he had been entirely wrong. Acres of land lay before him. Acres of useful land that could have grown crops or laid foundations to buildings were ablaze with the bright, bright red of flowers he’d never seen before. And the humans let it happen.
As his surprise gave way to pure, wide-eyed admiration, he noticed that the humans were experiencing it the same way he was. He saw them with their cameras, taking their images (as you had explained to him that’s what they did), keeping the sight forever more. He saw them smile and laugh and frolic. He saw them and saw himself in them. He saw, also, the goodness he had always known was there. The spirit and love and joy of humanity. It was here, in these fields. It was here, in his heart. It was here, standing next to him; you, watching him expectantly, a nervous smile trying to tug your bottom lip from between your teeth.
“Wow,” was all he managed to say.
* * *
It was his last night. What might have been his last night. What could be his last night. Hoseok felt tense. Nervous. Almost sick.
He had decided. He was going to stay. If he could. If he could make it happen. If you wanted it.
He knew he had a home to go back to, if you didn’t. He would always have these three days. No one could take them away from him. And if that’s all he got, if three days on the surface was all he ever got to experience, then so be it. He was putting himself in your hands: himself, his heart, his dreams. His body.
The problem was that he didn’t know how to tell you that. He didn’t know how any of this happened on land. He didn’t know what he could or could not say, or do, or suggest. Which is why he had to leave it up to you. He’d just get it wrong.
It was Hoseok’s last night and you were wondering if you were just imagining the way he was looking at you, wanting him to be looking like that. You could bend reality, but that didn’t mean you always saw it clearly. The heart had tricks of its own.
But you had the advantage over him, because you knew his secrets. You knew that this would be his last chance; you knew that you were his only option. You knew that he wanted to stay. You couldn’t be sure if he wanted to stay enough to sleep with you.
You had suggested wine at dinner because you knew it was what the humans drank and knew it made them silly and loud and boisterous; you knew it lowered their inhibitions and made them do things they often regretted. You didn’t really know how you would react to it—your body was technically human now but you’d never been drunk before—but it had left you feeling warm and a little giddy. It had, blessedly and as you had hoped, made this whole thing easier to think about.
Because your head was spinning a little too fast to think about the bigger picture: the whys and wherefores of how you got here, how he got here, the purpose of this whole thing. You could really only think about the splendid slope of his nose. The way his shallow philtrum led to the smooth, rounded peaks of his cupid’s bow. The tiny, dark freckle there that waited, begging to be kissed. The perfect symmetry of his dimples as he smiled.
You hadn’t indulged in this since you were small. Hoseok had been your first crush. First, last. Only. As a pre-teen, you’d been silly with infatuation over him. Memorised the maps of his freckles and exact proportions of his body. You’d floated around in the sea, daydreaming about him for hours on end, not realising how far you had strayed until your mother had come screaming after you, pulling you back and warning you about being so unaware of your surroundings.
You remembered those feelings now. The fizziness in your limbs and heavy twisting in your gut. Like old friends. Hoseok, too, was an old friend. Your oldest. Your only. Now and, if you got this right, forevermore.
Hoseok had accepted the first glass of wine but recoiled at its taste, unable to believe he’d found something on the surface he didn’t like. You had then explained to him that it was technically a poison and he had been aghast to see you continue to drink it, to look around and see so many other humans doing the same. Every minute brought him something new.
You took his hand as you walked back from dinner to your apartment. It was warm and soft and you were grateful for it. Hoseok was grateful for it, too. His clothes still rubbed at his skin and so much of him still hurt, but your hand in his did not.
You didn’t let go when you reached the door, didn’t let go when it shut behind you and you let the lock click. You tugged him a little closer to you, took his other hand, kept his eyes on yours as you moved closer still.
You hadn’t done this before.
Hoseok hadn’t done this before.
You’d seen it done. You understood the concept.
Hoseok had no idea what was coming, but he had decided what he wanted. He had decided to trust you. And he’d decided to trust his gut, too. If humans were anything like merpeople (and they were), at least some of what was to happen would be instinctive.
He hoped, anyway.
You didn’t say a word, though you had planned to. You had scripted a kind of shy proposition, an awkward hobble of a speech in which you would say and ask and tell. But you abandoned it. Or rather, it abandoned you. Not a single word of it left in your head. So you stopped using it: your head. Stopped thinking.
You pressed your lips to his like you’d seen humans do.
The candle in Hoseok’s heart roared, its flame reaching up his throat and into his mouth. He didn’t have time to think. His body acted for him. For the first time since he crawled onto the shore, his body was feeling something that wasn’t pain. Was feeling something familiar. Something hot and deep and aching.
He didn’t mind the taste of the wine on your tongue, thought it was sweet, actually, had lost the acidic tang of the alcohol that made it poisonous. This kiss was like every kiss that had come before it, but also, nothing like them. Absent, the tang of salt. Present, the wet heat of your mouth and his. Absent, the way he could breathe through his gills. Present, the breathlessness that made him pull away before you pulled him back. Absent, the modest nudity in which the entire undersea world lived. Present, a kind of shy, self-conscious awareness of his hidden body.
An enormous, embarrassed awareness of the bulge in his trousers, the way it couldn’t be hidden. He had been horrified to see it, when he had washed up on the beach, two-legged and naked. He couldn’t believe that humans just walked around with everything on display like that (he had known this already, would have remembered if he’d been in his right mind); he’d felt awkward and conscious the entire time, sure that everyone could see, that it was obscene, that humans couldn’t really live like this?
But never more than now, as it strained against his trousers, which hadn’t been tight thirty seconds ago and were now constraining him in a way that bordered on painful. He kept his body away from you, more difficult now that your hands were skittering up his arms and down his chest, slipping back up his skin underneath his shirt, trying to pull him closer.
You felt a little bit dizzy. Sure, the wine, but also, this. Hoseok. The sweetness of fruit in his mouth. The heat of his skin. The sensation of a kiss—something you’d never experienced before, that you had seen, that had disgusted you—was nothing like you’d imagined. If you had thought about it, if you’d been thinking rationally, you might still have been disgusted by the way your tongues rolled over each other, swapping saliva, the way you could taste him, taste the fruit he’d just eaten. But you weren’t thinking rationally. You weren’t thinking at all.
You were feeling. And it was like nothing you’d ever felt before.
You gave into it.
Hoseok gave into it.
It was, as the humans say, like riding a bike. Though you hadn’t done that either.
Hoseok stopped thinking about it when you removed his shirt and stepped out of your dress. Legs were new to him. That was true. The human arrangement of body parts was new to him but they weren’t all that different once everything was out in the open. You had lit a fire in him and he was happy to stoke the flames. He was burning again, all over, inside and out, but it wasn’t painful, wasn’t torture. It was exquisite. New and familiar at once. Intoxicating.
You fell to your knees and Hoseok thought you had stumbled, bent down to help you up, but you stopped him, shook your head, and he stood straight.
Then you took his thick, heavy cock into your hand and licked the top. You wrapped your lips around it and pushed yourself forward, gliding your tongue along the underside, hollowing your cheeks and sucking. Hoseok gasped and almost fell to his knees himself. He didn’t know what this was, assumed it was a normal part of human sex, briefly wondered if sex actually was different here, if this was the entire act. Then he felt the head of his cock press against the back of your throat and his mind was wiped clean of thought. Replaced by a kind of urgent static that made him want to buck his hips, fuck into the hot clutch of your throat.
You had seen humans do this. You weren’t sure if you were doing it right. Not at first, anyway, but Hoseok had a pained look on his face, his mouth hanging open, his chest heaving as he panted, and you knew that was the reaction you were supposed to be eliciting. You could feel the twitch of his dick as it hit your throat, as you gagged lightly around it. You could just about hear, over the roaring of blood in your ears, Hoseok moaning, your name tumbling from his mouth like a prayer.
You were aching between your legs. You were hot and sticky and you could feel it dripping from you. You felt your walls clench and had the sudden, immediate need for Hoseok’s cock there, not in your mouth. You let it fall, wiped your eyes and your mouth and Hoseok was pulling you to your feet, crashing his mouth into yours, his hands frantic and grabbing.
Neither of you was thinking a second beyond what was happening. Gone were your concerns with your long-planned acts of vengeance. Gone were Hoseok’s worries about committing to life on the surface, about leaving his marine life behind, bringing a child into the world. Gone was the pressure of your subterfuge. Gone was the pressure of all his lies of omission. Gone was everything outside the four walls of this apartment. Gone was the whole world beyond your body in his hands, his body in yours.
Hoseok found that legs made all this much easier. They probably wouldn’t under water, but here, he saw their benefit. Saw the upsides to having two of them, of having them jointed at two places and not twenty. As he knelt over you on the dingy grey sheets of your bed, he almost laughed at the image of him trying to do this with a tail. Maybe there were some upsides to this human body after all.
He placed the tip of his cock at your entrance and pushed his hips forward, a little experimentally, testing the motion, the movement of his hips. He fell forward onto his hands, eyes closed, a long, gasping moan trapped in his throat.
He hadn’t known that humans had it so much better.
Would’ve done this days ago if he had.
You were hot and tight and wet and it was all Hoseok could do not to come right there and then. He paused, trying to catch a breath, gather himself, not lose it all as soon as he had begun.
It was excruciating for a second and the whine you’d let out wasn’t pleasured but pained. You were grateful when Hoseok stopped, though you didn’t think it was for you. Is this what it was like? You had thought they liked it. That was the point, wasn’t it? Humans mated for fun, not just for procreation. You had to assume fun would follow. It had been fun up to that point. It had been its own exquisite kind of pleasurable torture waiting for something to stuff you full.
But now he was and it was like being split down the middle. You wondered for a second if this was how it had felt for Hoseok when he grew legs. Then he started pushing his hips forward again and it tossed all thought out the window.
“Are you ok?” he asked, looking down at you with a frown of genuine concern.
You nodded. You nodded some more. You couldn’t speak because the pressure in your centre was overwhelming, the pain like nothing you had felt before. But you couldn’t stop. You wanted it. You wanted him. You had never been pushed out of your mind like this, brought into your body so viscerally, so violently, with such care. Hoseok brushed a strand of hair away from your face and tucked it behind your ear.
“Do you want to stop?” he asked.
“No.”
You pulled him down to you, down to his forearms, so you could kiss him, so his chest touched yours, so you could distract yourself from Hoseok with even more Hoseok. With your tongue in his mouth, you allowed yourself to cry out as he pushed further. He swallowed the sound and returned his own. You were trembling, your muscles shaking, your skin sticky with sweat.
So was Hoseok.
The pain wasn’t registering anymore, even though he knew it was still there. All he could feel was your cunt squeezing hard around him; it made him dizzy with pleasure. His stomach was churning, twisting; he was bracing trying to make this last.
Because he’d forgotten the point of it. Forgotten that the ending was the bit that counted. He wanted to feel you, he wanted to touch you and taste you and luxuriate in the human experience of this. He hadn’t imagined it but, if he had, even his wildest dreams wouldn’t have come close. Mermaids? He’d never go back.
He paused, to give you a moment, to give himself a moment, a breather. He kissed you, luxuriating in that, too: the way you tasted like no one else he’d ever kissed, the way your mouth was warm and wet, your tongue soft and supple. He liked the way his breath caught in his throat. He liked the way he found himself panting. He even liked the way his shoulders were starting to ache from holding his body up. Liked the way he could feel every muscle of his posterior chain move when he slowly, tentatively began to draw his hips back, when he tipped them forward again, when he set a slow, smooth motion that he found came easily to him.
Having a human body was exhausting. It was hard work. It was heavy all the time and never supported. It had been torture in the truest sense, with every step Hoseok took stabbing daggers into his legs. But he could see the benefits now. Well, he could feel them. He felt more embodied than he ever had before. Somehow separate from the world in a way that made him feel so much more connected to you. You weren’t two small parts of a larger whole. You were the whole.
He had spent time pondering the ways in which air was so different from water. He often thought water came off the better from the comparison. But this was changing everything. It was exhausting and painful and he was so aware of each and every part of his body. And with that, came a gut-churning pleasure that made his eyes water and his head spin. Water had nothing on air.
You weren’t sure it was pleasurable yet. The sharp pain had subsided and the little grunts and groans that Hoseok left in your mouth were sweet enough, but it wasn’t pleasure. Not yet. You were sure it would come. Didn’t mind entirely if it didn’t tonight. There would be other nights.
You hoped, you prayed, there would be other nights. Because it might have been pain, but it was the sweetest pain you’d ever felt. A pain that you somehow longed for, even as you longed for it to end. A pain that made you feel wanted. A pain that connected you to another living being in a way that you never had been. A pain that, in a moment of intense clarity, you realised connected you to women, human women. All human women who had experienced this since time began. You understood a little about their myths about the origin of man, and sin, and punishment.
You understood it. How this could be punishment. How it could be pleasure, too. How it could be worth it.
Hoseok could feel it coming. He was desperately trying to beat it back, to delay its onset, to make this last and last and last. He never wanted it to end, but he could feel his muscles tightening, feel his cock jumping with every thrust. Pleasure was coiling like a spring inside him, boiling rapidly, boiling over.
You gasped alongside him when he came, when his hips and breath stuttered and he filled you with ropes of hot cum. His body was heavy on top of yours, in a pleasing, crushing kind of way that grounded you. At that very moment, neither one of you was thinking about the consequences of what you had just done. What it could mean. What it meant for your best laid plans. You were lying, listening to the soft rushing of your breath and the hammering of your hearts.
*
It came to you, first, and you didn’t want to think about it. Because you were so full of feeling for Hoseok; feelings that you thought had faded, that had embedded themselves in you in a way that made them fade into the background, made you almost forget they were there, were screaming at you now. In technicolour. Surround sound. Unignorable. Undeniable.
But had you just destroyed him? Destroyed his life? His family?
That had been the intention. Bring down the royal family by having one of their own shun the sea for life on the surface, mate with a human. They’d have known it was you—it couldn’t have been anyone else—and they’d have executed you without trial. But it would’ve been worth it because, forever more, there would be a line of the royal family that ran human, that ran amok on the surface, that no one below the waves would ever be able to forget. It would have been their undoing without doubt. Whatever betrothals lay in wait for the princes would be broken; whatever treaties that were depending on them dashed; the reputation of the family would be in tatters. It would be over for them.
Which was what you had wanted.
But as you lay, absent-mindedly stroking Hoseok’s hair, naked and sweaty and sticky, with a penetrating ache still radiating through your core, you thought about how much that would hurt him. You saw the betrayal on his beatific face and your stomach flipped with fear. Because it wasn’t meant to be you lying here. And that made a difference.
Because you had seen him. You had kissed him. You had had him move inside you. You had loved him your whole life long and now you had to tell him that you had ulterior motives. That you were working against him. That all of this had been the result of your careful manipulations.
There had to be another way. There had been another way. That was how you had designed it. You weren’t supposed to be in this front-row seat. That was the point.
But it was too late now. And you needed a way out.
Maybe he never had to know.
Maybe you could make this work.
*
Hoseok’s eyes were fluttering shut. He could barely keep them open. He didn’t know if he had just secured his existence here or not. He didn’t know how to guarantee a child. Wasn’t clear-headed enough at that moment to know, for sure, if he wanted one.
He wanted to stay. Oh, he wanted to stay. He couldn’t go back now. But a child?
He felt wicked. He thought about what you might say if you ever learnt the truth. The betrayal. The way he used you for this.
He felt like a coward. He was a pampered prince who had achieved nothing on his own. He had turned to a sea witch in the midst of what amounted to a king-sized tantrum. She had risked her entire existence bringing him here. He had barely survived on his own. You had rescued him. Given him food and shelter and company and the greatest pleasure he had ever known.
He knew he couldn’t tell you the truth. Not if he wanted any part of this to continue.
Because he did. He wasn’t just using you. He wasn’t sure he was using you at all. He liked you. He wanted you. He wanted to stay, not just on the surface, but on the surface with you.
It felt too big. Too confusing. Too difficult. He was a coward, after all, so he closed his eyes and decided to see what the morning would bring.
You noticed his breathing slow, grow heavy and deep, his body relaxing further, his weight pressing down on you harder. He was asleep. That gave you time, you thought. To think of something. Some way out of this. Some way to stay in this.
But your own eyelids felt heavy, kept dropping of their own accord, and you kept losing your train of thought. You gave into it; you would wake early, go out and buy something for breakfast, figure it out in the morning.
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may I request a scara college au, with him as our secret admirer, being sweet in the letters he sends us but irl being really rude and mean. He one day catches someone messing with us and then stands up for us and confesses everything in panic after that<3
summary ; scaramouche drops his "i don't care about you" facade to protect you from this annoying boy who just won't stop trying to get your number, he reveals his identity afterwards too ;)
warnings ; red for kazuha, orange for hu tao, green for alb*rt, scara threatens your admirer but none of the actual violence, just him saying he'll break a few bones if albert comes near again, cursing
pairings ; scaramouche x gn!reader
notes ; ahhh i love this idea sm, thank you anon! also i made the letters pictures so that it's easier to read <3
you showed off your dozens of letters to your friends, though they were disinterested since this wasn't exactly your first time ranting about your oh so dear secret admirer, in fact it probably was your nth time talking about him in that week alone, your friend kazuha takes a closer look at the letters before letting a small smile take place on his lips.
"The handwriting looks familliar."
"Huh? Really?"
"Yeah, looks like Scara's handwriting to me."
Ah yes, Scaramouche. The person who you were sure only existed to make your college life a living hell, he pestered you daily, borrowing simple stuff like pens and when you ask for it back he shrugs you off with a "i forgot it at home" or a "i lost it."
"That gremlin? Pfft no way, he hates me with his whole being."
"That's not a lot of hate now, is it?"
And with that your group errupts in laughter, you couldn't help but join in, but kazuha's comment made you think, what if it really was scaramouche writing to you? nahh it can't be, your secret admirer is so sweet, they even bought you your favorite snacks and drinks the other day, comparing them to that evil goblin is truly offensive.
And when you parted with your friends to go to your respective classes you kept thinking about kazuha's comment, I mean scaramouche is attractive yes, but you just can't imagine him doing all the things your secret admirer has done.
On your way to your class you bumped into albert, this creep who just can't seem to read the room, you've rejected him plenty times and you've ignored him for plenty more but he just can't seem to get the hint.
"Name! Oh yeah by the way, are you free tonight? Wanna have dinner with me?"
"Oh albert, I'm sorry but I have to go uhh study for a quiz.."
"Aww c'mon, it'll be quick i promise! Or an even better idea is why don't you give me your number? So we can make plans for when you're finally free."
At this point your back hit the wall behind you since albert just keeps getting closer, you're clearly uncomfortable and you pray to archons above that someone passes by and helps you.
"I really gotta go, I'll be late-"
"Class doesn't start for another 5 minutes, name. What do you say we-"
"Finish that sentence and i'll crush your skull."
Out of nowhere a familiar tuff of indigo hair appeared, his hands were wrapped around albert's collar as he pulls him away from you.
"Hey man?! What the fuck is wrong with you??"
"Name said they're gonna be late. If I hear that you ever come near them again, I won't hesitate to break both your legs so you won't be able to go anywhere."
And with that albert ran off, scaramouche looked at you, his eyes no longer holding the dark aura that they possesed not even a minute ago.
"You okay?"
"Yeah.. Why'd you do that?"
"..do what?"
"Save me? You kinda don't give off that knight in shining armor energy you know?"
"Cause what kinda sick fucker let's the person they like be harassed like that? I spent so much time asking around to know what your favorite foods are so I can get them for you and you think I won't punch a bitch for you?"
And when it finally sets in that he basically just confessed to you his first instinct was to run away, and so he did. He turned his back to you as he started walking away, you grabbed his wrist as a way to stop him before he looks at you, he looked adorable, his cheeks stained red while he averted his eyes, trying to avoid your gaze.
"Are you really?"
"Yeah, look just reject me and let's get this over with."
"Reject? No! You owe me ice cream since you finally introduced yourself."
"What."
"I'd like to go out with you, Scaramouche."
#genshin scenarios#genshin fluff#genshin kazuha#genshin hu tao#genshin imagines#genshin x reader#genshin impact#genshin x you#genshin x gn reader#genshin scaramouche#scaramouche x reader#scaramouche x gender neutral reader#scaramouche x you#scaramouche x gn reader
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Always, For You.
SUMMARY: For ages, you have taken care of the Crown Prince, helped him escape his worries and the stresses of soon bearing the throne. Tonight, he wants to take care of you.
PAIRING: prince!seonghwa x fem!reader
GENRE: smut, lil bit of fluff
AU/TROPE: royal au, secret lovers/forbidden love
WORD COUNT: 2.5k
RATING: 18+
TAGS/WARNINGS: pet names (my love, darling, my prince), idiots in love, it's really emotional (but in a good way), not beta'd, probably questionable editing
A/N: for @hwaightme || bai, my love, my soulmate, the seong to my joong and one of the kindest people i have ever had the pleasure of knowing; happiest of birthdays to you. thank you for the joy you bring into the lives of others. thank you for being the sweet soul you are. and thank you, eternally, for indulging and encouraging my chaos and bullshit at every possible turn and for going very rapidly from "admired favorite author" to "chaos mutual" to "dear friend". this blog would not be what it is without you, and i cannot thank you enough. much love, and happy birthday <3
smut tags under the cut ; divs from @cafekitsune
masterlist | join my taglist | buy me a coffee?
SMUT TAGS/WARNINGS: momentary dom/sub tones, they're both switches, oral (fem recieving), seonghwa's tongue, pet names (good boy, my prince), no protection (don't do it)
The chill of the approaching winter permeated the air around you, piercing through the thin material of your night dress. Your cheeks surely had a rosy, wind-kissed tint to them, and you could feel the skin of your lower lip chapping as you gnawed at it. The minutes were dragging on like hours as you waited, ever patient, for your lover to emerge from the darkness of the palace gardens. He was not infrequently late; being the prince, he had many responsibilities to take care of before seeing you—but rarely had the sky been dark for so long before his arrival. A shiver coursed through you and you brought your numbing fingers to your lips, breathing warmth back into them.
Your time together was precious and so very limited. You would wait. He had never betrayed your trust before, and he would not do so tonight.
After what may have been hours, quick, light footsteps approached your perch on the same bench you perched on every week, unmistakable as anyone other than the man you awaited. He looked flustered already when he turned the corner, cheeks flushed pink from the brisk night, and he sighed in relief when his gaze fell upon you. You smiled, less warmth and more mischief behind yours, as your mind ran wild at the sight of him.
He was in front of you in two long strides, bowing to press his lips to your knuckles as you rose to your feet. His cloak wound its way around your shoulders, an apology in his sweet brown eyes as he took you in.
“Y/N,” he sighed, breathless, “you waited.”
“Seonghwa,” you smiled, reaching up with your free hand to close the cloak around your shoulders, “you came.”
It was a silly ritual, really, one you would deny if another ever discovered it. You had long since stopped scolding the prince for his whispered apologies at his frequent tardiness, settling instead on a compromise. His greeting, an apology, and yours, a soft abatement of his nerves. You would wait until the end of time for your prince charming.
“You’re near-frozen,” he hummed, clasping your hand between both of his to warm it.
“I’m alright,” you replied, smiling warmly as those wide eyes begged once more for the forgiveness you readily offered. “You made it, my love, that is what matters.”
He beamed, the stars dancing in his eyes as he straightened up. “I have somewhere warm for us tonight, if you would allow me the honor of your company.”
Ever the gentleman, Seonghwa released your hand, offering instead his arm. “The honor would be all mine, Your Highness.” You looped your arm through his, giggling to yourself as his ears turned pink.
You would go anywhere he desired of you.
The one-room cottage you found yourself in was quaint and cozy, a small fire already burning in the hearth when your lover opened the door for you. Grinning once more, you curtsied before you stepped over the threshold, sighing as the warmth in the cottage sank into your bones. Something undefinable tugged at your heart as your eyes roamed the space, noting the small bed pushed into a corner, the lingering scent of dust in the air and—as the centerpiece of Seonghwa’s evening work—-a cozy-looking nest of pillows, cushions and blankets nestled squarely in front of the fire. Huffing out a happy, breathless laugh, you turned back to find him observing you, a coy smile on his face.
“How did you manage this?”
“I nearly didn’t,” he admitted, stepping properly into the space and admiring his handiwork. “Autumn has been shorter than I anticipated. It was my intention to have this place for us before the first freeze, but I’m afraid I didn’t quite reach that goal.”
His eyes had drifted to the floor as he turned back to you. Quietly, you closed the space, cupping his jaw to guide his eyes back to your own. “It’s perfect, Hwa. Thank you.”
The smile that spread across his face warmed you more than the crackling fire. “Anything for you, dearest.”
His eyes darted to your lips as he spoke, and you smiled, once again rolling the bottom one between your teeth. You could feel the way his pulse ticked up under your fingers, and warmth spread through your body. It was a beautiful thing, to be so wanted.
“Anything?” you breathed, barely audible. Still, he nodded. “Then make love to me, my prince.”
He needed no more direction, sealing his lips over your own and pulling you flush against him. A pleased hum passed between your lips at his blatant need, his grip on your waist firm. You sighed into the kiss, arms draping over his shoulders and fingers carding into his hair. With one soft tug, he was melting in your arms, a breathy groan leaving him as you guided him away from you and gestured to the nest he had made.
“Take your boots off and kneel, darling,” you directed, a warm smile still etched onto your features.
Seonghwa was enamored with you, his doe eyes shining as he nodded eagerly and rushed to follow your instructions. Your heart fluttered once again as you watched him obey, slipping your own shoes off and slowly making your way to the fireplace to carefully hang his cloak next to it. When you turned back to him, he was watching you with a steady, half-lidded gaze, hands obediently splayed on his thighs.
You beamed, stepping into the ring of coziness and kneeling in front of him, catching his chin to pull him in for another brief kiss. “There’s my good boy.”
You both heard and felt his breath catch, as he preened at the praise, leaning into your touch. “Always for you, all for you,” he hummed, eyes flickering over your face.
You observed him carefully for a moment, eyes narrowing as his gaze remained sharp, reading you as you were reading him. Many nights, all it took was a single direction and a bit of praise and you had the prince eating out of the palm of your hand. Tonight, though, you could see something different in his gaze—something curious and questioning.
“You’re thinking again,” you murmured, fingers tracing back up his jaw to card into his hair. “This is meant to stop that.”
“It’s not bad, this time,” he hummed, hands leaving his thighs to ghost up your sides. You barely held back a pleasant shiver, raising an eyebrow at both his statement and his bold move. “Let me take care of you tonight,” he muttered, gaze meeting yours once more, “Let me do for you what you do for me.” He shifted from his position, kneeling up to loom over you, and you felt your stomach flip. “Let me worship every inch of your body and treat you tonight like the queen I will one day make you.”
All of your usual bravado was gone, the persona you had so carefully built for your encounters with Seonghwa ripped to shreds with a few pretty words. You heaved a shaky, breathless sigh and nodded. “Yes.”
His lips met yours once more the instant the word left your mouth, hands wrapping firmly around your torso. You pressed yourself against him until every possible inch of your body was flush with his own, grip firm in his hair and on his shoulder. Slowly, gently, he shifted, laying you back into the bed he had made for you as though you would shatter. His hands roamed over you, his touch feather-light as he explored your body. For the first time in your memory with Seonghwa, you were the first to break the kiss. You parted from him with a gasp and a heady whine, grip tightening against his scalp as he took the opportunity to trail kisses down your neck. As his lips worked lower, his hands slipped higher, sneaking under the thin cotton of your night dress to slide up your thighs. You sighed, pleased, and felt him moan against your collar bone as he found your ass bare. His eyes flickered up to your own, pleading with you, and you grinned. Perhaps tonight would not be so different, after all.
You had a special, particular relationship with the Crown Prince. Never in your memory had he taken control of you in any aspect; you were always the one to take care of him. His daily duties weighed upon him heavily; any courtesan or servant with a working set of eyes and a brain could see that. One passing comment about helping His Highness get out of his head and he had begun sending you missives, calling for you to meet him in the gardens after sundown. You could remember the first night you spent with him as though it were yesterday, little more than a conversation and a chaste kiss shared between the two of you. Oh, how beautifully had he blossomed.
Now, there was no rosy coloring to the tips of his ears as he lifted you from the makeshift mattress and tugged your night dress over your head, dropping it carelessly to the side. Now, the eyes that once looked at you with trepidation and abashment burned into you hungrily as his lips reattached to your skin at the earliest opportunity. You whined in protest as you were left bare to him, an unfamiliar sound that had him halting in his tracks for only a moment before his mind registered your shaking hands, tugging frantically at the buttons on his uniform coat. He chuckled quietly, sitting back on his heels to do the work for you.
“I never thought you would let me have you like this,” he admitted, a sheepish smile gracing his delicate features. “Thank you.”
His pause was long enough for you to take a deep breath and gather yourself just enough to smirk at him, the hand still on him tracing lower to press against his arousal. “I know you’ll make it worth my while, won’t you, my prince?”
Your words seemed to douse the flames behind his eyes in kerosene, his jaw tensing as he stripped his upper half with more urgency. “I will make tonight worth every minute you have ever waited for me.”
Within seconds, his coat had been stripped away and his undershirt quickly followed, each finding their way to the floor. He dropped just as rapidly to settle his face between your thighs, pupils lust-blown as he glanced up at you. For the first time since you had begun this relationship, he asked for no permission before pressing his tongue against your core and lapping a fat stripe up it. The moan that ripped from your throat at the combined sensation and unfamiliar position had him humming happily against you, eyes slipping shut in bliss as he began to work you over. Seonghwa could die happily between your thighs, he thought. There was something intoxicating about your scent, your taste, and each time he found himself in this position, it took every bit of his willpower not to stay there the whole night.
Tonight, though, he could do just that.
His moans buzzed through you pleasantly and your hands once again anchored themselves in his hair, grounding you against the onslaught of pleasure as that devilishly talented tongue of his fucked into you. Your hips moved of their own accord, grinding against his lips and chin as he lapped and sucked at your clit, interspersing the intense waves of pleasure with the kinder, gentler sensation of dipping into your entrance. You sighed and squirmed under his attention, fingers tugging gently at his scalp in encouragement. He was practically purring as he drank you in eagerly, lust-drunk gaze locked onto your expression while your legs closed tighter around his head. Within mere minutes, you were falling over the peak of your orgasm, grip vice-like in Seonghwa’s hair as you held him still—though, if his moans were any indication, he wouldn’t move if he could.
That sinful, skilled tongue laved at you until you were a whimpering mess, palm pressing against his forehead to nudge him away as overstimulation began to take hold. He gasped for breath as he relented, turning his head to press a soft kiss to the inside of each of your thighs. Your chest heaved as your eyes blinked open, a fresh wave of arousal making you shudder at the dark, hungry gaze fixed on you.
“I could die happily between your legs,” he muttered, voice hoarse and laden with arousal.
“Seonghwa,” you sighed, reaching forward to drag him into a messy kiss. The taste of your arousal lingered on his tongue, now sliding between your lips the same way it had parted your folds. Gripping his hair tighter, you reluctantly dragged him back, taking a shaky breath to steady yourself. “I need you.”
Your plea came out breathless, saturated in need and, when paired with your nails dragging over the front of his pants, it was impossible for your lover to misunderstand it. It was his turn to breathe a shaky exhale, gentle hands pressing you back into the now disheveled nest until he could rise to his knees. You watched him carefully, an appreciative half-smile stuck on your face as he rid himself of the rest of his clothes. He was beautiful in every situation, in every light, but tonight, with the dancing firelight bathing him in gold and casting twisting patterns over his skin, he was a work of art that should be immortalized in a gallery.
The warmth of the fire when combined with his body heat was overwhelming in the best way, just the right side of suffocating to push all other thoughts from your mind. He captured your lips firmly as he once more caged you in, filling you perfectly as your hips met. Pleased sounds left your lips in unison when he began to move; strong, slow rolls of his hips that had you arching up into him. Little time passed before your kiss dissolved into nothing more than panting against each other’s mouths, and you fell back to the ground, content to lock your eyes instead of your lips. His intensity had you short of breath; this ethereal man, the Crown Prince, was looking down at you as though you had hung the stars in the sky.
With a tight, high whine, your second high of the night crashed into you, fingers tightening in his hair again. Your shared gaze did not break as he quickly followed you over his own peak, his mouth dropping open and brows creasing in pleasure.
When you both came back down to earth, neither of you let the other go, bodies tired and satiated, the warmth of the fire lulling you both into a sleepy state. Your time together would be cut short soon, you knew, but you let yourself bask in peace for now.
His whisper cut through the quiet like thunder, “One day, I will have you. My promises are not empty. I will move mountains to have you by my side. I will do anything, my love.”
You could hear the tension in his voice, the tears gathering at his water line. Shifting up, you pressed your lips to his to silence him. “Will you stay, then?”
He smiled, the dying flames beside you dancing in his eyes. “Always, for you.”
In the aftermath, wrapped soundly in his arms, you let yourself believe.
TAGLISTS: [open, apply here]
permanent: @justhere4kpop @thatonenoona @tastymintchocolate @bahng-chrizz @elllisaaa
ateez: @pyeonghongrie-main @tattywood
special: @pocketsky
strikethrough : unable to tag
© November 2023 nebulousbrainsoup | all rights reserved. reposting and translating of author’s work is prohibited.
#cromernet#kvanity#wonderlandnet#happy birthday bai <3#seonghwa x reader#seonghwa x y/n#seonghwa x you#ateez x reader#park seonghwa x reader#park seonghwa x y/n#park seonghwa x you#park seonghwa#seonghwa#ateez seonghwa#ateez#ateez fanfic#seonghwa smut#park seonghwa smut#ateez smut#atz smut#atz#atz seonghwa#neb.atz#nebulous writes#neb.moot <3#bai <3#neb.afy
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got a request for my vesperia berseria au designs and i do have character sheets for them so: everyone is free to draw these if they want! credit is nice but, well, these all heavily reference official tales designs so i dont want to take too much credit for them lol. you can also write about the au and take any amount of what we've come up with, i really don't care, it's all for fun.
UNDER THE CUT: a vague summary of the concept. warning for Profound Self Indulgence and Somewhat Half-Assed Worldbuilding (world...changing? world editing? whatever)
okay basically flynn and yuri met as kids in a village that basically serves as the lower quarter of the au, but after spending a few years together daemons attack the village and nearly everyone dies. yuri survives, but in the process he’s become a daemon. flynn also survives, but is deeply traumatized and gets picked up by the exorcists (conveniently too late to save anyone in typical form). neither knows the other survived. to make matters worse, flynns trauma causes some memory loss…he still definitely remembers that time in the village but its very fuzzy now and as he gets older that only gets worse. and like he thinks all those people died so hes not really trying to remember them.
flynn becomes an exorcist (some flavor of legate) and is going around eradicating daemons when he runs into yuri. he doesnt recognize yuri but yuri is pretty sure he recognizes flynn. but yuri isnt about to say that when flynn is trying to kill him LOL. the general arc is that yuri keeps slipping away and flynn keeps seeing more about him in his efforts to hunt him down, realizing that this strikingly handsome strangely familiar daemon is actually...very kind? takes care of children? helps people for no gain? and this calls into question everything that he thought he understood about the world which is quite troubling.
you can think of them as similar to velvet and eleanor. but I think when flynn joins yuri it's by choice, not because yuri's forced him to be a vessel or because flynn's a spy or anything like that. or at least, he's been thrown out by the abbey for one reason or another and joins yuri instead. (we've tossed around quite a few versions of this. we love playing in the space.)
we've bounced around ideas about the rest of the cast but i only have a sheet for estelle, who is a malak controlled by the abbey ala phi. assigned to flynn, ends up with yuri one way or another. i think rita sees that malaks are people and while she wants to coordinate with them to use their strength she doesn't like how they're treated as tools (the way she feels about blastia more or less).
if you're curious about why flynn and yuri have different fates, like, in terms of lore compliance. i think yuri seeing the thing he holds most dear, the community that cared for him, destroyed in an instant, would probably fill him with malevolence no matter what, especially depending on the circumstances. (like, if the abbey was manipulating things to create daemons or therions) yuri's like...a deeply conflicted character full of self loathing, so, being a daemon really suits him. i think that malevolence would only grow as he sees the world and the abbey for what it really is. unlike someone like rose, yuri NEVER feels unconflicted about Doing Murders.
flynn in canon is pretty conflicted himself of course but i see him as similar to eleanor who can sometimes produce malevolence but has a certain purity of heart that keeps them as pretty good vessel material. nowhere near someone like sorey or rose, and definitely wouldn't have had enough resonance pre-artorius' plot to see anything. also i think the brain trauma and being picked up by the abbey leads to him having very clear purpose and a black and white view for some time, so that helps. (look, let me be real with you, half of the impetus for this au was "it would be funny if flynn had like, religious trauma")
design notes not on the sheets:
- yuri's daemonblighted skin is cooler to the touch than his regular skin. but he's a guy with cold hands regardless
- i've got purple highlights in his eyes but i think of them as glinting purple in the light. like an animal i guess?
- yuri's outfit is mostly inspired by his spirit gear in rays, aside from his normal game canon outfit.
- estelle is pulling from a lot of different abbey associated characters but mostly her own design...i didn't want to give her something weird like A FUCKING COLLAR especially bc she's not given to A WEIRDO EXORCIST but i wanted some kind of symbol of captivity so i went instead for a golden mask. pulling from the common malak's gold mask/helmets and seres' mask. in canon a lot of estelle's arc is about being sheltered so i feel like covering her eyes feels, appropriate? idk.
- i think yuri still gives estelle her nickname but she wouldn't start out as estellise so its more like yuri gives her a name
- you may notice she has the flame of purification (does that have a different proper name? blanking on it) which kind of implies that she's connected to innominat. please don't ask me to elaborate on that point because i literally don't know yet. i think if i were to make her a normal elementally aligned malak she'd be water like her spirit gear in rays, but it feels like she should be Special just like how she's a child of the full moon in canon. we just, haven't really figured out, does the berseria cast still exist, are we replacing them, what would that look like, etc. sorry that stuff should be more important to the concept but we are simply playing with the dolls. teehee
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What are your future plans for your channel btw? Although I like your content criticizing Lily, I think it’s best for you to move away from her because her time on the internet is a huge trash fire that never leads to anything good.
I’d personally really like to see you talk more about Hazbin Hotel or Steven Universe! Your streams are really fun and I love having them on the side while I work. :)
BOLD OF YOU TO ASSUME I HAVE A PLAN!
Much like I never actually intended to start a Steven Universe AU series I never actually intended to become a YouTuber in the first place.
Here's the story:
For years now I've been doing a stream weekly on Twitch where I just talk with chat while drawing. One day Hiding in Public/Private released a couple of great videos on old SU hate videos, including Lily's infamous "Steven Universe is Garbage and Here's Why".
Not too long after that Lily released "Was I Wrong About Steven Universe?" as a nakedly obvious response. I thought hey, wouldn't it be funny if one stream I just react to this video? Just for funsies? To see if Lily has actually changed her mind on anything?
What I didn't expect was I'd end up spending like half an hour explaining Shoujo Kakumei Utena of all things during that video reaction.
I was kinda impressed with my own recall of Utena despite not having watched it in full in over a decade. So I thought eh for funsies lemme cut down that part and slap it on my account. Which is the same account I've had since 2006. I've put videos up there just for my friends and small number of fans before, as you can see from this Minecraft video from 11 years ago I filmed and edited for my friend for her birthday.
And then that Utena video got 5k views. On my completely unestablished YouTube channel. And I was like... huh. I knew people are annoyed by Lily Orchard but damn.
By that point I had also already decided to react to Lily's video on the Steven Universe Movie the next stream. Cause obviously the SU movie is something pretty near and dear to me that I know very well. And Lily's video was SO BAD and had so many OUTRIGHT LIES in it I thought well hell, let's cut down the two SU reacts into a video too!
It'll probably get like 10k views tops.
And then I'll just fuck off back into the shadows whence I came.
And I suddenly found myself with 3,000 followers.
And I suddenly found myself monetized.
And that video just passed 200k views now. In 3 months.
So I was like... well shit. Now I have this new audience over here on YouTube. I should probably actually give them something. I mean the added revenue stream is nice but I'm not looking to become a career tuber. Mostly I felt like I owed it to this new audience I now have.
So I started doing my art stream on YouTube as well! And I also have been game streaming, if you haven't checked my Lives recently. I've been streaming I Wani Hug That Gator, of all things, while doing silly voices and we're all having a blast. I already wanted to get back into game steaming this year even before this giant explosion in attention.
So for now that's the only thing resembling a plan! I'm gonna keep art and game streaming and cutting videos from those streams. I'm not a video essayist. I can't write and perform a script, I'm just not good at it. But I am very good off the cuff which is why I'm a streamer. I can explain things when prompted. So hey, come to my Wednesday art streams (2pm EST) and poke me for art and writing advice! Or to pick my brain about Steven Universe and Hazbin. I thrive on chat interaction! And then those can be shorts and videos too.
I do plan to do at least 3 or 4 more Lily reacts in the future just because they're videos I think would be funny to react to. But after that? Who knows!
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I just finished the world quest with Jeht and Azariq and please I'm in love with the Stone Enchanter model. I need him to pin me down and crush me istg
If this makes you uncomfortable feel free to ignore it, but I'm imagining MC being this sheltered Rainforest scholar hiring a group of Eremites to escort her on a mission, only for the weather to turn bad and oh we all have to hunker down for an extended period of time and she's worried that the Eremites will leave once the money runs out but they're just taking the opportunity to get close to their little lady.
Alternatively, doctor!MC who is the primary medic in the camp and she's always there to take care of everyone. What do you mean that Daythunder tripped face first into her tits on purpose? Can't you see that he's hurt??? Yes he needs to squeeze her hips, it's for balance! Honestly 🙄
Alternatively alternatively, barmaid!MC who serves a certain group of Eremites and she's theirs alone. No one else touches her except them, and they love playing with her regardless of who else is looking. Groping her tits when she bends down to pour drinks, grabbing her ass when she turns around, biting her nipple through the sheer fabric of her top if she doesn't escape fast enough etc. (I feel like you wrote this before? I think)
I really just let my hands run away from me adfhk I hope you're doing well! 🌺
darling, I am so incredibly normal about this you have no idea i'm currently biting at the bars of my enclosure
also this turned out way longer than I intended but the brainrot was real for this one ;; the barmaid!reader hc turned out to be the longest and the smuttiest of them all but in my defense it was my absolute favorite one to write and I'm seriously asking begging you guys to please indulge me and send me all your possible barmaid!reader thots (different men, eremites, aus', whatever comes to your mind ;;)
fem!reader, nsfw, reader is implied to be chubby/curvy, LOTS of perviness and big gross pervy men <3
Rainforest Scholar!Reader who hired a group of Eremites because of an important study needing to be conducted near the dangerous territory of the Apam Woods which is known to be inhabited by dangerous fungi and other possibly hostile creatures, not to mention the ever-changing weather environment. For someone who has little-to-no combat training it's basically a suicide mission so you did the next best thing and hired a group of Eremite mercenaries, four big and scary looking men with weapons seemingly bigger than you, wild grins full of sharp teeth and smug voices telling you "It's gonna be okay Little Lady, we've got this".
Well, turned out no one 'got this'. Dear Gods no one got this. The whole journey ended up in a near disaster with a sudden wild storm striking the woods in the middle of studying a group of fungi not only making them hostile and attacking you but also during your and the mercenaries' escape and frantic search for a reletively safe place to wait out the storm you managed to slip and fall straight into a large puddle of water effectively drenching you and ruining your travel clothes.
Although you truly noticed this major detail only after holing up in some beat up shack left to rot in the forest when the cold finally started to seep into your bones. One of the men, Daythunder you believe others called him, pointed out your violent shivering making all the men in the group turn towards you with slight concern on their masked faces.
And indeed you were shivering like a scared puppy, wet clothes clinging at your form, combined with the howling wind making it almost unbearable and the small fire they managed to start did little to keep you warm.
"You need to get outta these clothes Little Lady or you'll catch your death here", a slightly smaller man of the group gruffly said and vaguely motioned towards your figure. You flushed slightly and looked down bashfully, 'Little Lady' they called you, a nickname meant to tease you at first but over the long days of your journey turned into some sort of endearment from the men towards you.
Your thoughts of embarrassment were quickly thrown away by another wave of unpleasant shivers due to your drenched state. You were well aware that if you didn't do something soon, you'd catch pneumonia and only gods know how long you'll be stuck here in the middle of nowhere with a raging storm outside. The only logical thing to do was to strip, let your clothes dry and get warm by the fire but you were surrounded by all these big men and while you trusted them to not make any unwanted moves, it was still a mortifying thought to be almost naked in such a small space among them.
However, even these thought were dissipated quickly enough when Daythunder gently lifted your chin with his finger, making your heart flutter with warmth and look up at his handsome masked face and listen to him quietly murmur that they'll keep you warm and make sure no danger will come for you, please Little Lady.
And so before long you were stripped down to your underwear, sitting in the warm lap of the large blond man, his beautiful tanned skin hot under your slowly warming body as his sturdy arms wrapped around you. Actually, the men surrounded you with their big bodies in a sort of cuddle pile, warming up not only your body but also your heart and lower belly, the tingling sensation only amplifying when you felt the sudden touch of warm, calloused fingers of Daythunder on your knees, slowly traveling up your thighs and massaging along the tired muscles making you let out an embarrassingly pleasured moan that caught the attention of all the other men, making them grin wildly again.
"Maybe being stuck here for a little longer won't hurt-" you thought to yourself before getting interrupted by ravenous hot lips of one of the men and letting out another pleased hum as you felt other big calloused hands join the others on your soft body.
Medic!Reader who is the resident healer of the tribe, and while it might be considered relatively small, her hands are almost always busy due to the group being made up by men who are considered to be hunters/mercenaries; always on the move, rarely setting camp for more than a week. Plus, life on the desert can't be considered an easy one, food and water rations are scarce, danger is common here and if you're inexperienced with this kind of environment or travels it's best if you just stay in a village or travel in a larger group.
And then there is little ol' you, a real delight to the men of the tribe, kept like the biggest treasure in the camp. Always cherished and spoiled with the best cuts of meat during meal time, gifted the softest and most delicate silks from their 'adventures', not to mention all the hot, reverent, hungry touches to your skin as they slowly mouth at the expanse of your naked, glistening bosom.
Oh yes, the life of the 'Treasure of the tribe' is good, very good even, but first and foremost you are a trained, skilled healer, your skills being utilized unfortunately almost everyday as your men just seem to not be able to keep out of danger if even for a day and you hate seeing your boys hurt.
After returning from yet another successful hunting trip all the returning men loudly announcing their arrival; loud, boisterous laughs and cheerful bellows can be heard from the enterance to the camp. You sighed deeply although a small smile made its way onto your face, judging from the loud joyous commotion outside it was a successful hunt and probably no permanent damage was done but it still meant looking after the men, cleaning and stitching cuts, applying cooling salves and balms and bandaging smaller wounds. While you were undoubtedly proud of your buys you swear that their pride and want for showing off will drive them into an early grave.
Making a last check-up on the stacked medical equipment you gathered, you got up and walked out into the blazing sun of the desert, although the scalding hot temperature slowly cooling down into a pleasant warmth with the incoming sunset.
Your enterance was met with loud greetings and whoops, the large men showing off their hunted prey, a large furred beast with claws the size of your fingers. While you definitely appreciated the sentiment and admired their strength and prowess in battle to be able to take down such a creature, you were more worried about the blood staining Daythunder's clothes. Making him sit on an wooden stump you quickly got to work as he seemed to be hurt the most; while definitely nowhere near deadly, that cut on his chest worried you.
Out of all the things you learned as a healer of a tribe full of men is that they're surprisingly childish and clingy, especially when hurt. The second he heavily sat down, Daythunder immediately grabbed onto your full hips and dragged you close to him so that no space can be between your bodies and with a heavy sigh the big tanned man shoved his face right into your tits, for the lack of better wording.
All you could do is sigh heavily, comb your hand through his braided blond hair and coo at him. The insistent touches more than familiar and no more embarrassing you, more like making a small pleasant flutter bloom in your belly as you gave the man a bit more time watching him nose along your barely clothed breasts and nuzzling against you much like a big cat.
What you didn't see, so preoccupied with Daythunder nuzzled deep into you, are the former joyful faces of the other men sour with ugly jealousy. Why weren't it them you were paying attention? They just slayed a beast too! But don't you worry pretty little Treasure, as soon as you finish with that big oaf they'll have their turn with you too.
Who would have guessed that Eremites could be so jealous~?
And now for the grande finale and my personal favorite, Barmaid!Reader!! Working as a barmaid at the only tavern in Caravan Ribat is one hell of a busy job. Living and working in a place that is literally in the middle of nowhere and simultaneously always busy with passing by merchants, mercenaries, travelers and adventurers alike can be definitely often hectic and at times even messy but it has its perks! Being able to listen to various stories, some of them sounding almost like a fairytale with how whimsical and fantastic they sound and yet they are all true is definitely one of those perks.
Another perk (definitely the best) is a particular group of Eremite men who seem to frequent Caravan Ribat, specifically the tavern you work at is their target. Not only being regulars, but also knowing them more...intimately, they are a delight to be around even with their burning jealousy and possessiveness; perhaps even more so with it.
Almost always you hear them before you see them, their loud talk among each other, deep booming voices almost reverberating through the local and just as you serve a patron their meal they enter in all their glory. Even with the crimson bandanas covering their eyes you can feel their eyes on you, burning with lust and want for their pretty little barmaid.
Greeting them with a warm smile and a warmth to your cheeks you tell them to sit down at their usual table (which by now is almost reserved only for them, no one dares to sit where they always touch down). Luckily it's a relatively slow night; all the patrons are already seated and busy either talking among each other or drinking their worries away in a bottle of ale of fire water.
With an almost jump in your step you quickly walk up to the table with the Eremites, their covered eyes never leaving your curvy figure and when you finally stand before them you can almost hear their deep growls of delight and ravenous apetite for more than a regular meal.
Deciding on being cheeky today and wanting to tease them a little, treat them as if their just another regular customers. You pull out a small paper and pencil from behind your belt and ask these 'gentlemen' for their order. They seem to catch on immediately, their grins widening, licking over their sharp canines as they relax and spread their thick muscled thighs wide open lounging around, deep gruff voices laced with lust listing of their order.
As you're diligently jot down their choices on the slip of paper, a small smile appears on your face as you feel the strong arm of Stone Enchanter slip around your middle and pull you closer to him, his enormous build making your stomach on level with his face even when he's seated, his big and rough with callouses hand caressing and grabbing onto your full hips, snapping the material of your skirt (the long material obscuring only your intimates and ass while exposing your thighs, you know this cut drives them crazy) against your hips and they laugh loudly as you take in a quick quiet breath, followed by the gentle scrape of teeth on your waist as the large man starts mouthing at your skin and to be honest you're quite embarrassed by how quickly this simple touch can get you wet.
But with this group you're so used to this that when they don't visit for a longer period of time you actually long for it. They are always like this; loud and boisterous, clingy, unapologetic and absolutely shameless with their touches and so so possessive over you.
You barely manage to write down their order with a small 'be right back sirs' when suddenly a swift swat to your bottom is delivered and the table erupts in laughs and jeers at Sunfrost that he managed to get you. It's even worse when you get back and start setting their cups down, when the hot touches and gropes come.
Your low cut top is made of a light material, almost sheer and you almost always forgo wearing a bra due to the almost unbearable heat due to the closeness to the desert and the stuffy inside of the tavern doesn't help, and you can be sure that these men take full advantage of it.
Large scarred hands grope your tits the second you bend down to pour their drinks and you almost spill it when they pull down the loose neckline and the mouthing at your waist and hips starts again.
Suddenly, you let out a small shrill cry as you're suddenly hoisted into the lap of Stone Enchanter and moan loudly at the feeling of hot lips trying to mouth at your nipples through your top, the straps falling from your shoulders from all the sudden movement much to the delight of the men at the table.
The loud atmosphere of the lively tavern concealing the lustful act, all the other patrons are either so deep into laughing with their companions or way too drunk to even look your way, but even if there are some curious eyes looking at your figure, you are way too deep into the hot, fuzzy headspace to care.
The dark skinned man holding you made you suddenly straddle him and you flush even deeper at the feeling of his hard cock grinding up against your barely clothed pussy and you can't help but moan helplessly and grab at his dark braids to pull him closer to your nipple which he's still insistently mouthing at, the scrape of his sharp teeth causing you to let out a delightful moan which only seemed to spur the turned on men further on.
This was definitely going to be a long, long night~
#kin speaks#asks#interactions#JESUS FINALLY I'M READY#this took me like 2.5h to write but it was a true delight ;;#thank you so much for the food nonnie <3#now barmaid reader is rotting my brain >:(#genshin impact#genshin impact x reader#genshin impact smut#eremites x reader
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Nothing, just a little thought about Acesan + Vinsmokes Siblings-
An AU where 1/2/4-ji are good brothers and after killing Judge in WCI arc they start to keep contact with Sanji. They go to the Baratie eventually because Reiju wants them to know how to be like a ‘normal person/human’. Everything if fine, until one day the three wake up and notice how everyone is excited and they're confused af, so they ask someone and the only answer they have is "Sanji is coming and we will know his boyfriend!" and they're 50/50 about the news because: A) OMG SANJI IS COMING!!! and B) SANJI HAS A BOYFRIEND?! (even Reiju comes to know this boy)
Hours later, the StrawHats ships arrive and the crew go do their things and let Sanji and Ace alone to go to the restaurant. Both arrive to lunch and the first thing Sanji see is Zeff with- oh fuck- his sibling in the door. Ichiji, Niji and Yonji greet their dear brother all happy, but they also are curious about the man and his calm posture.
All of them lunch together, Zeff asking questions to the man Sanji named “Portgas D. Ace” who was really clingy with the blonde (the Vinsmokes don't liked it). After they eat, Sanji goes to help Zeff and Ace still is with Reiju and the boys. They're talking, until the brothers hear the girl laughing low and looking Ace, and when they look-
The boy has flames in the form of hearts in his head while looking Sanji, his eyes and smile totally lovesick and making him look like a idiot, but he don't even care.
1/2/4-ji finds this... funny and somehow warms their hearts, because it's obvious he loves their precious brother. (Of course, their soft moment only go until Ace flirts with Sanji some minutes later when he comes near them)
I love aus where the vinsmoke brothers are protective in a ridiculous way it's so funny to me. And I believe that even if they try to accept Ace more, the way he aggressively flirts with Sanji and the way Sanji just kinda giggles like a girl or goes red at all of it makes them go "Okay nevermind we gotta kill em" Like Sanji would go all "Dessert will be ready in five minutes" and Ace just kinda whisper to Sanji "Idk you seem pretty ready to me" and everyone would hear him because he can't whisper for shit, so they just pretend it didn't happen while Sanji struggles to act normal. The brothers are utterly disgusted and ready to jump the gun but Zeff kinda pats them on the back like "You'll get used to it, if you call them out on it it only gets worse. Trust me."
I'd like to think that Sanji uses Ace like a furnace from time to time and at least ONE of the siblings have walked in on them and just thought "nope, not dealing with that today" and immediately U-turned.
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Hey. I'm in love with your au and I want to ask some questions.
Since JD is feral now, how does he protect his brothers when in danger? Like, a critter bigger than he is and wanting to attack him and his brothers, will he attack to just warn the creature to scramble and get away or he attacks to kill the creature no matter what because it threatens his brothers safety?
Thank you and sorry
Ahh I'm so glad you like it lets gooooo
Also never apologize for asking me questions about him I LOVE TALKING ABOUT GOBLIN MAN YALL HAVE NOT IDEA IM HAVING SO MUCH FUN EHEHEHEHE!
But yes how would feral man protect his family that is the question.
I'll start with a warning there is going to be a chapter for the au going in detail of this exact scenario so if you want Absolutely no spoilers on how he would react defiantly skip reading this then.
*Spoilers for the feral JD AU fic*
Okay so it would definitely be do or die for him.
He hasn't seen his brother for OVER 20 YEARS and has presumed them to be dead for most of that time. That's the main reason he stopped seeking them out. There was also quite a few other reasons as well but that's all you need to know right now so deal with it.
So it would be the same reaction reguardless of which brother or how many of them were in immediate danger. They could be a mile away and he would be ripping through the forest to get to them in time.
Nothing stopping this man when he's on a mission.
You can imagine his flying out of noware and tackling what ever or whoever is threatening them. If this small that bitch is gone. He will yeet them into tomorow or just straight up snap it neck.
killing is a last resort though if they fuck off then he's not going to pursue them over staying near his brothers and making sure they're safe.
Like, a critter bigger than he is and wanting to attack him and his brothers...
Bigger critters are more hassle to him. It's not something he unfamiliar with when it comes to dealing with them. He just not used to having to protect them from something very dear to him, like his brothers.
If you've ever seen How to Train Your Dragon you can imagine him reacting similarly to Toothless when Hiccup was in danger.
Flying out of thin air and slamming into the critter or using his hair to wrap around a leg to throw it off balance if its charging at his family. If he doesn't think hell make it in time catch him whipping one of those exploding stars at it or just straight up his machete. Roaring at it to gain its attention and challenging it. Jumping just out of its snapping jaws well he leads it away from his brothers. Clawing and biting it when he gets the chance and then parkouring just far enough away to not get hurt. Even if he does get hurt though that wouldn't stop him till the critter is gone. If it wont leave he will lure it somewhere it will be trapped or ultimately start targeting vital points if the fight drags out to long or gets to dangerous. So yes he would kill it if he had to.
You can imagine his brothers would be very flabbergasted
The brothers: :0 :O :o :I
JD: *bleeding, covered in dirt and green critter blood* :]
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FORGET-ME-NOT
REPLACED!MC AU
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
W A R N I N G
May contain bad grammar, limited vocabulary, and OOC characters. Please mind that English is not my first language, and it takes a lot of courage for me to post due to my anxiety and paranoia.
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
taglist: @books-and-catears @owl778 @yourlocalgrass @kaiserkisser @hhurric4ne @amberheavendremurr @yu-ulda @bk-4-trash-fire
PROLOGUE | CHAPTER I | CHAPTER II | CHAPTER III | LOUE'S LETTER | CHAPTER IV | CHAPTER V | LOUE'S LETTER | CHAPTER VI | CHAPTER VII | CHAPTER VIII | CHAPTER IX | CHAPTER X | LOUE'S LETTER | EPILOGUE
C H A P T E R I X
「 Happy Birthday, Dear Lady Soley 」
The day arrived when everyone was to surprise Soley for her birthday. It became a huge surprise indeed when an unexpected storm came to greet her as well. The winds were lashing; trees were almost to the point of snapping in half. The rain kept pouring. One could barely see through it.
Needless to say, the lady was not happy.
"I'm sorry we couldn't hold your party outside just as we planned, Soley.."
"Yeah, we even set up a treasure hunt since you love those... but I think all the clues are now either soaked by the rain or blown away by the harsh wind."
"They're definitely gone by now if the trees could barely keep themselves grounded."
The girl was standing near the window, back faced towards the brothers who worried about her continued silence. She pressed her hand against the glass, eyes never leaving the scene outside. The brothers noticed the scowl on her face from her faint reflection. It seemed like she was cursing the rain, the wind, and everything else. Including them.
"Soley?" Lucifer took the steps none of his brothers dared, and he placed a hand on the girl's head. She slowly looked up at him after a minute, frown gone and replaced with a teary expression.
"Lucifer," she croaked, "... is my birthday ruined now? Are we not going to celebrate it anymore?"
The demon's brows twitched before he stroked her head ever so gently; just as he did to someone else all those months ago.
"I will speak with Diavolo and see what we can do. Don't worry, Soley. We will make sure you get your special day."
Soley wiped away the tears from her eyes and showed the eldest a slight smile.
"Thank you, Luci."
Some of the brothers exchanged glances, which Soley didn't pick up on. Lucifer was hiding them well from her view. He smiled back at her with a nod before giving orders to his brothers to behave themselves and take care of Soley until his return from the castle. No one argued with him about going through the storm despite its severity. They all knew it needed to happen.
"A faraway mansion?!"
Lucifer has returned from the Demon Lord's Castle to the House of Lamentation, bearing good news for Soley, who jumped in surprise upon hearing them.
"Yes, that's right," Lucifer nodded his head in response as his brothers offered him a towel to dry himself off. "Diavolo has built a vacation mansion months ago at the edge of the Devildom where he frequently tampers with the environment. There, he can guarantee that no foul weather will spoil your day."
"Then what are we waiting for?! Let's go now before my birthday is over!"
Lucifer turned to his brothers and told everyone to pack their bags and meet back in the entrance hall. There was no arguing. Everyone did as they were told.
Upon arriving at the mentioned mansion, Soley was in awe. It wasn't enough for the building to be called a mansion as it looked more like a castle. The walls were made of bricks of the darkest colour, yet they give off a pearly shine when basked in the moon's glow. The moat around the structure was surprisingly clear and filled with rare fish that had the same hue as the moon. The inside of the building was beautifully decorated with banners, flags, and different kinds of flowers from all three worlds.
Soley loved every bit of it.
Except for a specific bloom displayed as the main theme of the beautiful arrangements in each and every vase. Its blue-ish hue irritated the lady for reasons unknown to her and the rest of the group.
"Lucifer," Soley called out to the demon. They were all walking around the halls to get themselves familiar with the layout. The six youngest brothers were walking ahead, talking amongst themselves.
Lucifer, with his arms crossed, turned his gaze from the beautiful paintings on the walls to the girl whose stare made him raise his eyebrow. "What is it?" He asked in wonder.
"While we were on our way here, you told us Lord Diavolo had the place decorated especially for our arrival, right?"
"Yes, that is correct."
"I'm quite certain I previously gave you a list of my favourite things, including my beloved types of flowers— and let me tell you, forget-me-nots are not one of them."
The Avatar of Pride looked to where the lady was pointing. He was about to open his mouth in reply until everyone stopped in their tracks when they reached the great hall. They all heard footsteps coming from the balcony just above the doors they had entered.
"Oh my, it's not polite to complain about decorations someone else worked on, my lady. Especially at a place you don't even own."
"But you seem to be satisfied with everything else, so you don't know how happy I am to know how much you're enjoying yourself."
The birthday girl's eyes widened in horror as soon as she heard the very same voice she dreaded ever hearing again.
Quickly spinning on her heels, she met the mocking gaze of another human. You.
"I wish you a happy birthday, dear Lady Soley."
「 CHAPTER VIII | CHAPTER X 」
#obey me#obey me angst#obey me shall we date#obey me replaced mc au#obey me mc#obey me brothers#obey me lucifer#Forget-Me-Not
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