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#this is what I think of instead of studying
storiesoflilies · 2 days
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metanoia
synopsis: (n.) the journey of changing one’s mind, heart, self, or way of life. Or alternatively, the story of two souls who bond over drinking green tea. w.c: 17k (oops)
pairing: college!toji fushiguro x f!reader (noncurse!AU)
warnings: bucketloads of fluff and sprinkle of angst. descriptions of past bullying (toji didn’t have a nice childhood) SMUT, so minors please do not interact! nipple stimulation, p in v sex (it’s all rather romantic i must say), unprotected sex (these college students need to stop being so horny). a lovely little slow burn romance for the soul. swearing.
a/n: based on this request, and it’s finally here nonie!! a piece of my heart has been woven into this piece, so i hope everyone enjoys! to all my fellow STEM students, this one’s also for you <3 toji art by @/kakashismain, dividers by @/benkeibear. spotify playlist. ao3.
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there was nothing else to do or say about fate, other than it was fixed. no matter how hard you might try to change it, she never believed it could be.
life was a series of scrawling numbers and greek letters, written by the hands of angels and god. it was never going to a straight line; rather, it was a scattered mess of ever-changing parabolas, dipping and rising above the axis like surfers on the waves of the sea.
but sometimes, just sometimes, you can hear what has been written about you. if she tuned into things really hard, and listened beyond the banal noises that came with the plane of existence all humans exist in, she could hear it. the scratching of a pen on paper, or perhaps a feather quill on a scroll? yes, that sounded more like it. she could hear the angels solving the puzzle they had been given to balance the equation of her life. things must be solved in a certain series of formulas to become a proven, tangible equation. the angels were still trying to prove her life, it seems, and it was quite simply astounding that they were still working so hard and figuring it out.
but the irrational part of her couldn’t help but think, what if they were bored? she could certainly understand; there were many times when she’d been made to solve trivial questions, such as calculating the speed of an aircraft, and she’d wished she could be anywhere but there in that moment. did the angels think that about her equation? would they ever get bored and just give up on her?
with that, the cold, beautiful reality that is life becomes apparent. none of it was personal, and she had to live it right up until the equation was balanced and the last drop of ink ran dry.
it was golden hour. that time of the day when the sun’s light softened, casting long shadows of buildings and trees across the pavement. warm honey rays filtered in through the window, refracting through the clear plastic display that showcased the traybakes of the day. the cafe was quiet now, just after the hustle and bustle of regular work hours. most of the patrons were university students, drawn to the cafe for its convenient location near the main campus, where they downed their coffees like it was a drug to be taken multiple times a day.
she couldn’t judge them; she was included in that typical student caliber too, but instead of drinking her weight in murky brown caffeine, she preferred it to be of the green kind. more specifically, a cup of green tea took her brainpower much farther than its more popular, teeth-staining counterpart. and the perks of working for the very same cafe?
every cup of it was free and unlimited use for her; something she took advantage of every single shift.
the job couldn’t be more perfect for her. although her shifts were daily, they were always scheduled during these quiet golden hours that extended into the stretch of moonlight, accommodating her university hours. choosing to study a degree in physics was certainly no joke, and she was grateful for any spare moment of peace to work on her assignments and reports. her manager never minded, leaving her to riddle away at her numbers, which went straight over their head, trusting her to still serve any customers coming in and close up the shop.
it was absolutely fine. a simple, predictable routine – an equation she was perfectly happy to solve every single day.
until it wasn’t so easy.
| Φ |
some time later that night, well after the sun had dipped below the horizon and the moon had finally peeked out from behind dusty grey clouds, the delicate bell above the doorway tinkled. it snapped her straight out of her trance, where she had been listening to the music of mathematical constants singing to her of defined, set values from the sheet of paper leaning against the wooden clipboard of ‘speciality beverages’.
it was him.
toji fushiguro.
the dark haired boy she had seen around campus, although he probably hadn’t noticed her flitting about between lectures; unusually quiet and unfairly attractive. the boy who obviously frequented the gym close by, and came here to her little cafe afterwards. that much was obvious from the way the wet strands of hair stuck to his forehead, the spicy smell of whatever body wash he used, and the all black attire he always wore. the very same same boy who she’d curiously asked about, only to be told that he kept to himself and didn’t really speak to anybody.
and she believed it. she had never seen him walking with anybody else, or even bringing anyone along to his daily study sessions at the cafe. the way he grimaced at loud, boisterous students, typical of their age group, told her enough. that toji fushiguro didn’t seem to like people very much, and was perfectly happy with not being liked in return.
“hello,” she meekly piped out, her voice barely above a squeak, because toji was quite an intimating figure. “what would you like?”
it was a silly question. she knew he would order his usual – green tea, just like her. but it was a question she asked regardless, just in case his routine equation had somehow changed. you never know, after all. perhaps the angels had miscalculated or wrote down a wrong number.
“green tea, please,” he grunted, not quite meeting her eyes. he then sauntered off to his usual table by the window, and began pulling out his study material from his canvas bag.
she was grateful for the simplicity; there was nothing worse than preparing an elaborate order in the quiet of the night and disturbing the peace. brewing green tea was something she knew like the back of her hand, easy and peaceful like breathing. she strained the herbs as she poured it into a delicate ceramic cup, which the cafe insisted on serving it in, and brought it over to him.
toji muttered a small thank you, and she politely smiled, even though he never once looked at her. walking back to her spot behind the counter, she placed the clipboard on her crossed legs, and resumed her musings. such was their routine, both of them in their respective worlds within the same plane that was the cafe, sipping their green tea and whittling away at their education.
she almost felt honored that of all the cafes open late into the night, this was the one he picked to come to. even if the bitter, realistic part of her insisted that it was only because it was conveniently close to the gym. still, their equations followed the exact same sequence of numbers at that time every day, and she found that positively wonderful.
it was nearing 10:30p.m. when she finally finished solving her report, and she guessed that toji was completely engrossed in whatever he was working on to not notice the time. he would have normally packed up his things by now, ordering one more cup of tea before heading off wherever it was he went to in the dead of night. probably back to his accommodation, because he just didn’t seem like the type to show up to late-night parties full of booze and sweat.
she didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. the logical part of her brain was overthinking everything because this just wasn’t the norm for them. toji was supposed to have packed his things, leave just the exact amount of money on the counter, and walk out without another word. she was considering not even saying anything at all, biding her time until he simply realized himself and walked out.
until her legs moved of their seemingly own accord, perhaps a result of the numbers being messily rubbed away and rewritten, straight towards him. he never even heard her; his black wired earbuds were firmly in his ears, and she wondered what sort of music it was that toji fushiguro listened to. she quickly tapped his shoulder, withdrawing her hand back to her side as quickly as she could. toji almost jumped out of his skin as he turned to acknowledge her.
“sorry,” she apologized, looking pointedly over at the clock on the wall above him. “but we’re closing soon.”
toji frowned, as if he didn’t really believe her, until he glanced at the digital clock on his laptop and jumped into action. “sorry,” he said rather awkwardly, hurriedly packing up his things as she stood at a respectful distance away.
“it’s no problem at all. please, take your time,” she replied as politely and delicately as she possibly could, looking away as he messily scraped his papers and notebooks into his bag.
his chair scraped uncomfortably across the floor, and he heaved his bag over his shoulder as he shoved a hand into his pocket, fishing for the exact change he needed. for a second, she thought, hoped, that he would hand it to her. but no, he almost jogged over to the counter and placed it right next to the black mug of green tea beside her clipboard.
toji paused, momentarily staring at her mug. she felt a flush of embarrassment, as if even he knew she wasn’t supposed to be drinking it out of a large mug. but he said nothing and rushed outside.
everything fell back into place, as according to the laws of the world, and seemed right again.
| Φ |
there was something inherently uncomfortable about contemplating the future.
as summer rapidly approached, with only about four months left of the semester, she found herself forced to confront equations she didn’t want to solve. it was during the night, when she should have been fast asleep, that she really tried to listen in on the angels scribbling away at her numbers. it was cheating really, an easy way out to hear the answers of what she was supposed to do. perhaps if the end of her final year wasn’t so dreadfully final, then it would have been easier to formulate her own answers.
well, they weren’t really her own, but anyway.
she was in her own little bubble tonight, absentmindedly sipping her tea and tapping her pen against the clipboard. she knew the answer to the problem at hand, some menial question about what angle a beam of light would reflect at, and so she could afford to daydream and listen to the music of the numbers singing in her head.
it was quite easy to imagine a picture being painted from the numbers. why bother calculating the angle when you could visualize the light bending instead? that was what mattered in the end, not just the face value of the number itself, but the tangible reality they represented. there was no point in scribbling away at the numbers if you couldn’t paint a picture in your mind of the light itself or feel the thumping of sound waves reverberating through the surrounding medium.
there was only her and toji in the cafe now. he’d breezed past her earlier on the way in straight to his seat, dumping his bag on the table with the air of a student who was beyond fed up with their lot. she knew what it looked like; she’d seen it too many times throughout the years and had been through that position herself.
she tried not to make it obvious she was looking at him, or admiring the way his arms moved in the tight compression shirt he wore, the way his wet hair was slightly slicked back today, and the way his annoyance sparked a beautiful flame of green in his eyes.
he looked over at her, and she quickly looked away.
dammit.
she heard his footsteps approaching her, but her embarrassment forced her not to look at him. instead, she focused heavily on pretending to be stuck on the paper in front of her.
“hey, uh, can i get a green tea, please?” he asked, his voice deep and undeniably addictive.
“yes, of course!” she replied swiftly, putting on her best customer service voice to shield her embarrassment as best as she possibly could.
toji shifted his feet from side to side, his hands in his pockets, and mumbled, “could i possibly have it in a mug, or something? it’s just… the teacups are really small.”
a deviation in the curve, an unexpected variable. she answered anyway, perhaps a little unsurely, “oh, sure, yeah. no problem at all. is this one fine?” she lifted her mug awkwardly off the table, and toji looked at it and nodded.
“yeah, that would be great. is it, uh, more expensive?” he asked, and the way he asked it made her heart ache, as if he was ashamed of having to in the first place.
she waved her hand at him, playing it off like a silly unnecessary question. “oh no, not at all. don’t worry about it.”
toji seemed visibly gladdened at this, the tension in his face releasing as his eyes brightened. he stood there, swinging on the balls of his feet, and she was quite surprised he was waiting for her to finish brewing the tea instead of bringing it over to him. she had to steady the slight tremor in her hand as he watched her brew the tea with practiced precision. after what seemed like an eternity, she placed the mug on a small plate and carefully handed it to him.
“thanks,” he said quietly, his eyes fixated on the mug and the thin wisps of steam wafting from it. then, like an afterthought that was actually painfully thought out, he added, “appreciate it.”
she could have sworn the corner of his lip lifted, and she almost lost her footing as she sat back down on her stool. though she knew it was impossible, it seemed as if time had been stuck in that moment, the laws of physics crying out for some sense of normalcy to resume.
and so she cleared her throat, pulling free time from where its coat was stuck on the doorknob. “no worries. let me know if you need anything else.”
but he was already walking back to his seat, firmly slotting back the numbers and variables into the places they were supposed to be.
newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest or uniform motion will continue to stay that way unless acted upon by a net external force.
or the law of inertia, as it was also called, and she much preferred that instead. it was what she thought of every time she saw toji making his way to the door of the cafe from the window, taking large, purposeful strides like he knew where he always wanted to go at all times. he was that object in uniform motion, his life seemingly constant without any real deviations. she thought of it every time he walked out of the door too, and wondered if there would ever be anything significant enough to achieve a large enough force to change his trajectory.
so what large enough force had been applied to make him finally ask for a change to how he drank his tea? maybe he had never considered it before, never realized there was any other option other than the abysmally tiny teacup he had used before. perhaps the fact that he had stopped and seen her mug the night before had opened up new possibilities for him. whatever it was, it didn’t really matter, because he looked so much more at ease now that he wasn’t hanging on for dear life to a teacup too small for those hands of his.
those big, attractive hands, with good, strong veins running through them.
toji looked up at her from behind his laptop.
the tip-taps of her pen became just a notch louder, and she bit her lip, almost crossing her eyes as she focused a little too hard into the hole of the letter ‘a’ in the word ‘angle’.
dammit.
| Φ |
it was march, and the cherry blossoms that grew around campus were now blossoming in full swing.
what little free time she had between university work, endless laboratory reports, and working at the cafe, was spent walking around the town and parks. while hearing the songs of physics and numbers was her way of life, sometimes it was nice to wind down and appreciate the beauty of biology and chemistry. to see how the rain that fell from the skies was soaked up by the weed flowers thriving in the cracks of the pavement. they were tiny little warriors, persevering in the face of the hundreds of people who surely walked this path, avoiding death by being crushed.
the air was cool, and it was late enough in the day to make it feel much cooler than it should have been. she rubbed her arms through her jacket and picked up the pace. it was a week break in the semester, and it was much busier than it should have been for that time of the day. her manager had offered her more hours to work during the break, and she had mistakenly accepted the offer instead of taking some time for herself to do what she liked.
she entered the cafe, the little bell chiming, and smiled at her colleague, who seemed rather grateful that they weren’t alone to deal with the swarm of students enjoying a relaxing coffee. it was rather different from the anxious energy that usually accompanied students in here, but it was a welcome change to see unburdened smiles before the exam season hit them all in full merciless force.
together, they took on the onslaught of orders from all the customers walking into their quaint little cafe in the middle of campus. she couldn’t remember the last time she’d made such complex teas, brewing flavor combinations she couldn’t even concoct in her wildest dreams. by the end of the rush, with her colleague having finished their shift, she was left in a frazzled state of tea stains and sticky sugary syrup.
and that is precisely when toji fushiguro decided to walk through the door.
she almost froze, a mixture of shock and embarrassment washing over like a bucket of ice-cold water. why, she’d never seen him in the cafe while the sun was still in the sky, and he wasn’t even dressed in his usual fitness attire either. instead, it was a black jumper and jeans. this was most certainly not part of the equation at all; she had never even considered to calculate the probability of such an event occurring.
“hey,” he greeted, as casual as the jeans he was wearing, while fidgeting with the hem of his jumper.
“hi,” she answered, dusting off some imaginary dust from her apron because she didn’t know what else to do with her hands. “the usual?”
toji seemed somewhat surprised at this. “yeah, please.”
she couldn’t lie; it was such a welcome relief to make something so simple amidst the chaos that was the ever-changing trends of beverages. had the universe written an additional formula just to provide her with just a moment’s respite? or was it the law of attraction being employed?
no, that was surely wishful thinking. there was no way that toji fushiguro had anything in common with her.
“are you sitting in or taking away?” she prompted, the extra words slipping through her lips.
he thought about it for a second before nodding his head, “uh, yeah, takeaway please.”
“no problem,” she replied smoothly, amazed at how well she was deviating from their usual interactions, and poured the tea into a disposable cup. “there you go.”
toji mumbled a ‘thank you’ as he carefully placed the coins on the counter, his hands completely enveloping what she would have once considered a large cup.
what compelled her to say the following words, she didn’t really know, but she called out in a hopefully not-so-loud voice as he turned to leave, “enjoy the blossoms!”
just why? why would you say that?
she was even more mortified when toji simply walked out the door without sparing her a second glance. the universe was cruel for adding that into the equation, and she could have sworn, to add further insult to injury, that two girls had watched their exchange and were snickering.
enjoy the blossoms? stupid, stupid, stupid!
| Φ |
for the rest of the day, she felt as if the second law of thermodynamics very much applied to her.
as she recounted her absolutely horrific exchange with toji, she felt the heat of the universe pressing down on her isolated being, causing her atoms inside of her to bounce of the walls that was her skin, sending her into a more and more disorganized chaotic state of existence. she actually hoped for once that the deviance of the otherwise constant line would continue to do so, and that toji wouldn’t come to the cafe later on that night. then she could resume solving the equation as it was meant to be solved for the next night, and she could continue on as if nothing ever happened in the first place.
so when their routine did end up resuming its normalcy, and toji walked into the cafe with his dark wet hair and canvas bag, she was too mortified to even speak to him, despite him being the only customer in the shop. she got straight to work brewing him his tea, avoiding even looking anywhere near him as he set his things down at the table.
her lack of attention, for once, almost caused a head-on collision.
“hey, oh shit! sorry,” toji cussed, even though it was completely her fault, as he stopped whatever momentum he had in his body from crashing into her.
she hissed as the scalding tea splashed onto her fingers. “oh, no, i’m sorry! are you alright?”
“yeah, don’t worry about it.”
with a wobbly, quivering lip, she went around him and placed his mug on the table, being careful to avoid placing the wet bottom anywhere near his papers. it was there she caught a glimpse of some messily scrawled-out calculations on a piece of scratch paper, and her brain immediately started to sing.
no, don’t stare. it’s rude.
“sorry again,” she whispered, looking straight at the ground and being careful to not step in his way again.
toji never even made a sound, and she didn’t dare to look up to see if he was looking at her. she ran her finger under some cold water before taking her usual seat at the counter, and picked up where she left off on summarizing her lectures. it was perfectly quiet now, save for the scratching of her pen on paper and toji typing away on his keyboard. this was peaceful, easy, and– hold on. why could she hear the sound of the music?
“hey, sorry to interrupt,” toji interjected, making her jump. “do you have any sandwiches or something left?”
“oh! no, i’m sorry, what’s on display is what’s left,” she answered shakily, putting her pen down on the counter. “i, um- the protein balls are pretty decent, if you like that sort of thing.”
“oh, sure. yeah,” he murmured, looking at the several flavors that were available. “I’ll take the, uh, peanut flavor. that any good?”
she smiled softly, despite the throbbing sensation in her finger. “yeah, it’s not bad. you want two?” he nodded, and she wrapped them both up in a paper bag as he procured out coins from his pocket.
toji dug around some more, patting down his pockets to make sure there was definitely nothing lingering in there, and his stomach audibly growled. the air became a touch too awkward, and she stared at the sad-looking change on the counter. she slid the bag over to him with quiet understanding, and gave him the kindest smile she possibly could.
“hey, don’t worry about it. it’s on the house,” she encouraged. “sorry, i should have said that from the beginning.”
toji shook his head, running a hand through his hair. “oh no, i couldn’t do that. sorry, i’ll just leave it. i thought i had enough change.”
she pushed the bag further towards him. “it’s fine, i insist. please.”
he slowly took the bag, as if he wasn’t sure that it was real, or that it was maybe going to bite him. “thanks,” he said quietly, and retreated back to his seat, packing up his things, while she sat there trying to will her atoms back into their rightful place.
“thanks again,” toji rumbled softly as he held the door halfway open. “i’ll see you tomorrow?”
“o-oh yeah! yeah, see you tomorrow,” she stuttered back.
with that, he closed the door behind him, the bell tingling a beautiful farewell for him, and she was left with the atoms of her thumping heart completely dispersing into the atmosphere as she frantically tried to claw them back down.
| Φ |
tomorrow came and went, and they had settled into a slightly different flow of their routine, although the core essence remained the same.
instead of waiting for her to bring over his tea, toji now waited at the counter for her to hand him a large, steaming mug of his fix. they never spoke anymore than what they did before, but there was something that had changed between them. something so subtle that it couldn’t be defined properly, but she knew it was there, and she hoped toji knew it too.
it was april now, and the flurry of students cramming for their exams in may were in full swing. when she wasn’t at the cafe, she was holed up in her shared accommodation, buried underneath a blanket that may as well have been a black hole swallowing her whole. there, she studied for the last set of exams she would ever have to sit at university, but she tried not to dwell on that fact.
not that she didn’t study at the cafe, but toji’s presence added an extra dynamic that made it difficult to focus as well as when she was alone. despite her best efforts, she couldn’t help but constantly glance at him when she was confident he wasn’t looking. right now, she could tell he was silently stressing over his exams too. spending so long in silence with another person meant she could tell the slight quirks in his face that signalled a changed in trajectory of emotion.
currently, the deep frown lines etched in his forehead meant that he was monumentally stuck on something. he’d been like that ever since he powered up his laptop and stared at the screen, the dim light casting an artificial, cold glow on his face.
once again, she didn’t know what compelled her to do what she did next. maybe it was the fact she knew he had barely touched his tea, and it was surely cold by now. or maybe it was the desire to momentarily distract him from his frustration by bringing him a warm, fresh brew. whatever it was, her body was moving according some new formula the angels had applied, and she found herself simply walking over without saying anything and placing a piping hot mug next to his laptop.
“huh? oh, thanks,” toji said slowly, daze-like, as if he wasn’t sure she was real and doing this.
she smiled softly, quickly glancing at the scratch paper in front of him, and oh no – he wasn’t composing the music correctly at all.
“that isn’t the answer,” she stated simply, looking back up at him. he frowned again, momentarily confused, until she pointed at his paper and said, “you’ve calculated this wrong. that isn’t the right equation to use.”
toji looked back down at his paper, sighing softly, and rubbed his face as he seemed to sink deeper and deeper into his chair. she couldn’t understand it; there was absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in getting a question wrong. she’d done it before herself many times, and more than likely would continue to do so.
“sorry, i-uh, i’m not very good at mathematics,” he mumbled shyly, and her heart started to crumble like a biscuit.
she pulled her pen out of her pocket and clicked it once. “no need to be sorry. do you want me to show you how to do it?”
toji nodded wordlessly, and slid the paper over to her, angling the laptop so she could see the question displayed. it was about calculating the speed of an athlete's arm as they threw a ball through the air, but he hadn’t used the correct equation, nor the correct standard units. she quickly wrote out every step of how to solve it, did a final check that her mental calculations were correct against his gray calculator, and slid the paper back to him.
“there, be careful with your units and don’t forget to include them. most of my professors have strict marking against not writing the proper ones, i don’t know about yours, but it might be better to be safe than sorry,” she explained, her throat tightening as he intently looked at her working out.
it felt personal on another sort of level, and strangely intimate.
he seemed to be taking his time studying it, with a slightly blank look, as if what she had done was still going well over his head. “yeah, good point. thank you,” was all he mustered, and he tilted his head at the scratch paper.
“do you want me to explain anything?” she prompted, half expecting him to pretend that he understood everything. that would have been typical of a student at university - faking it until they somehow made it.
so she was pleasantly surprised, but not at all unwilling to explain it when toji nodded again, a light dusting of pink on his cheeks. she tried to recall how her teachers in high school had taught her these concepts, trying to adapt their tone of voice: patient and understanding. she leaned over to be more at eye level at him, trying to seem less intimidating, and their close proximity was sending her brain into overdrive.
“i hope this makes more sense now,” she said as she wrapped up the explanation.
toji’s lips formed a small ‘o’ shape, and the scar gracing them resembled the greek letter phi, but with the line running over to the right side instead of the middle. if she didn’t need anymore proof that the boy sitting in front of her was perfect, then the angels had just thrown in the winning factor.
phi, the perfect golden constant, now belonged in her mind only to toji fushiguro.
“uh, yeah actually,” he hummed, seemingly appreciative, his eyes sparkling against the dim lighting of the cafe. “thanks so much.”
she couldn’t help it, but she grinned widely. “no problem at all.”
she started to walk away, biting her lip when she turned her back to him, already feeling the bitter sting of disappointment that things would probably be back to normal after yet another deviation. until toji called out, “you’re really good at this. what do you study?”
“physics,” she replied, hoping the shock wasn’t too evident in her voice. “what about you?”
“P.E.,” he answered, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. she had to try very hard not to stare at how nice his biceps looked. “i stupidly decided to add a sports biomechanics module as my optional one. kinda regretting it now.”
toji chuckled halfheartedly, and she almost swooned, but opted to tilt her head to the side and say, “oh, but don’t you find it fascinating? it’s the numbers behind the real output of an athlete.”
“oh, well i never really thought about it that way.” he seemed to be genuinely pondering her outlook on the matter, staring hard at the numbers before him, and she felt the blood rising to her cheeks. toji looked back up at her and smiled a devastatingly handsome smile. “i suppose it makes sense for you to think like that.”
she didn’t really know how to reply to that except an, “i guess so,” and then added a polite follow-up of, “what sort of sport do you, then?”
“judo and jujutsu,” toji replied smoothly and completely casually. “i train at the gym before i come here.”
“oh yeah? that’s quite intense.”
“not so much if you enjoy it, really.”
“easy for you to say. you’re obviously in much better shape than the rest of us.”
she almost cringed externally at that.
obviously much better shape? why on earth would you say obviously, stupid?
but toji only chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. “hard work, i guess.” he mumbled, staring back at his paper.
she glanced up at the time, noting that it was almost time to close. “well, I'm sorry, but you might have to practice it yourself at home.”
he looked panicked for a second, his eyes darting over to the clock. “oh, yeah. probably.” and started to slowly pack up his things.
she didn’t want to observe him anymore than she already had, so she busied herself by washing their mugs and quickly wiping down the counter for the morning shift, while toji was taking his time neatly packing away his things. was it wishful thinking that perhaps he was stalling. whether it was or wasn’t, she left him to it, switching off the lights everywhere except at the entrance. she swept her eyes over the cafe to make sure she hadn’t missed anything before heading out.
toji stood beside the door, his eyes flitting about anywhere but her, obviously waiting for her to finish locking up. she tried to ignore the fluttering in her chest and smiled awkwardly at him as he finally met her gaze. he shuffled outside before she did, hands in his pockets as he looked up at the nights sky, the silver moon shining between stringy wisps of clouds.
he looked like a scene straight from a movie – a movie where a beautiful boy was up against the weight of the world. she could see it all clearly now: his scuffed up trainers, canvas bag with dirt stains scraping the bottom of it, the hole in his shirt near the hem. and yet, she knew he had real strength, the quiet sort of kind, that would completely surprise anybody that decided to come at him.
she locked the door behind her, the keys jangling, disturbing the relative quiet of the street. the distant whooping of boisterous students, no doubt drinking and partying away their stress, could be heard a little ways off into the distance. the bright light of the 7-11 across the streets flickered, and she briefly considered buying some cheap dinner before heading home.
she cleared her throat and gave him a small smile. “well, good luck studying.”
toji breathed out a half-hearted laugh. “thanks, i’ll need it.”
“if you’re still having trouble with your calculations, you can always ask me tomorrow,” she reassured, feeling bold enough to assume that his equation would continue to equate to hers.
he seemed to hesitate, as if debating something within his head, and replied, “yeah, sure.” but his tone left much to be desired, and she was already kicking herself for being so direct. “sounds good.”
she bit her lip and mumbled a weak ‘goodnight’ before walking straight into the 7-11 to escape.
| Φ |
the next night in the cafe, after quite a long day of punching numbers into her calculator and her eyes swimming with all sorts of symbols, she was contemplating the sheer power of a supernova explosion. it was golden hour, and toji had arrived much earlier to study. his deviations from the norm weren't so jarring anymore, and she’d almost come to sort of expect them at this point. he’d actually met her eyes as she prepared his tea, and even offered her a smile and a ‘thank you’.
the time passed on quickly, and soon enough, it was just her, toji, and two other customers – fellow students – inhabiting the same area. it was around 9:17p.m., the usual time for it to be a sacred silence. so when four boys staggered through the door, the bell cried out aggressively from the force of them nearly ripping open the door, completely tearing her from whatever daydreams she had been lost in.
they were cruel, uncaring about her or the other patrons they were disturbing with their raised voices and boisterous behavior. she kept her cool, not letting their jeers and sly comments get to her as she prepared their orders, wanting to get them out of the cafe as soon as she possibly could. one of them was particular unnerving, staring at her more than the others did, a creepy smirk on his lips and dangerous glint in his eyes. he was like a black hole, and she felt as if she was about to be swallowed alive.
she felt like she couldn’t breath, as if her body didn’t remember the biomechanical process to allow her to expand her lungs and fill them with sweet air. were the angels in serious danger of their calculations becoming completely wrong? was her equation to become something twisted and tragic by the end of the night?
when the group left, the evil boy had glanced over his shoulder to give her one last indecipherable look before he took off at a run after his friends. she exhaled shakily, willing her body to remember how to breath, and decided to distract herself by cleaning any and all random nooks and crannies she could find in an effort to distract herself.
oh how she hated them those stupid, idiotic boys – and that their words and manners had such an impact on her.
she’d worked herself into such a state that she hadn’t even noticed toji standing awkwardly at the counter until she turned to sip at her ice-cold tea, and almost yelped in surprise.
“hey,” toji greeted gently, delicate raindrops against a pane of glass. “it’s eleven.”
and so it was as she noted the time on the clock. she wiped her brow and discarded the now completely blackened cleaning cloth into the rubbish. “sorry, i’ll just get the keys now. you head on.”
“no, it’s okay,” he hummed. “take your time. i’ll be outside.”
when she finally finished the usual locking-up routine, toji had resumed that vision of perfection from the previous night, and it was almost impossible to even consider, but he was even more dreamy than before. toji had to have been carved by michealangelo; born of marble and beauty, and forced to to live in this plane of existence. in some rural countryside of japan, at a public university campus, surrounded by bog-standard students trying to scrape through life.
she felt he didn’t really belong here, as if he was already slipping through her fingers, even though he never really was between them to begin with.
“see you tomorrow,” she said in farewell, giving him a small wave and already walking away.
the loud thuds against the pavement reverberated the immediate vicinity, and toji huffed as he caught up to her, “hey, uh, whereabouts do you live?”
“not too far, about a ten-minute walk away,” she replied, almost floored at the fact that he had just run after her. “why?”
“just… you ok if i tag along? i could use the company.”
“…sure?”
they walked side by side in silence, and her mind was going into complete overdrive. she was trying so hard not to be completely floored that somehow, on a random April night, toji fushiguro was walking her home. it was obvious that he was lying about company – perhaps not an outright lie, but it definitely wasn’t the whole truth. time seemed to have passed quicker than it should have, and before she knew it, they had arrived at her accommodation. toji seemed to hover, looking over his shoulder, his body seemingly tense.
“well, this is me,” she announced, jingling her keys for good measure. “huh, are you okay?”
toji was glaring into the darkness, into the twisted labyrinth of twists and turns in between buildings, only really half-listening. “yeah,” he replied tersely, his fists clenching. “you’re staying at home tonight, right?”
she nodded nervously, suddenly hyperaware of the deep, foreboding inkiness of the night. “mhm.”
he turned to her, verdant eyes simmering with something nearly as dark as the sky. “good, i’ll see you tomorrow then.”
“bye, toji.”
but he was already striding off into the labyrinth, off to face the dirt and coal thrown at him, when he himself was made of marble and gold.
| Φ |
a week after toji had walked her home, she had her first final exam, during which the whole time her thoughts were consumed by him.
of toji fushiguro.
toji and his eyes of forests and jade. of his sculpted body, and all the angles and lines that made up his face. his scar that made him golden and perfect, her phi. of how she had seen him on campus the next morning after he walked her home, wearing a white t-shirt and jeans, split knuckles raw and red against the marble of his skin. how he’d finally noticed her outside the cafe for the first time and actually smiled at her.
her friends – more so acquaintances who had happened to become close simply because they were on the same course –had noticed the exchange. when toji had walked well out of earshot, they had bombarded her with hushed whisper-yells of excited “oh my god!" and "how did you even get him to smile? i’ve never even heard him speak.”
and she’d shrugged them off, fending off their curiosity with, “oh, he comes to the cafe all the time, that’s all.”
she didn’t want to get into all the details of toji and her. well, just toji really – there was no 'and her'. their time together was a coveted treasure, and she was strangely possessive over it.
that night, as she handed toji his tea, she plucked up the courage to ask, “what happened to your hands?”
toji automatically looked down at them, flexing them as if even mentioning them made them burn with pain. “oh, nothing, just went a bit too hard at training.” it didn’t occur to her not to believe him until she was staring blankly at the last question of her exam.
she thought of the evil boy in the cafe, of toji staring down into the darkness and looking over his shoulder as if demons were just behind them, and he was the only thing keeping them at bay. maybe he really was doing just that. maybe that’s why he had continued to walk her home every night, as their graphs continued to overlap even more closely together.
she came out of that exam feeling as if some sort of hidden revelation was waiting to be discovered, and by god, how much she loved to solve for a new equation.
toji was already waiting for her at the cafe when she arrived for her shift, an occurrence steadily getting earlier. he immediately took note of her coming in, and his eyes lit up. she smiled brightly at him, offering him two thumbs up, to which he grinned and pushed away his laptop before approached her.
“so, it went well then?” he prompted, the ghost of a smile still playing on his lips.
she poured them both two mugs of tea, and held hers out towards him. “yeah, it wasn’t too bad actually. cheers to that!”
toji chuckled and clinked his mug with hers, the both of them blowing on the tea before sipping it tentatively. he went back to his table, resuming whatever he had been doing, and leaving her to serve the customers. that was perhaps the only drawback of toji arriving earlier - that their time spent together was interrupted. but it also served as a tantalizing countdown to when it was just the two of them.
obviously, their dynamic had shifted dramatically in the past week, and they’d settled into an easy-flowing sequence – something that felt as if phi would be, so perfectly balanced and positively golden. toji seemed to want to unveil the mystery of his equation to her, but bit by bit, which she didn’t mind at all. she loved slowing figuring out the scale of his axes, plotting all his points together, and finally drawing the curve that connected them all.
toji fushiguro could only be described as steady, a mountain that would never bend or break, his roots so profoundly deep that she had to really dig to see them. he loved his body, but not in a superficial way, but more that it was something he was in control of and could continually improve. she discovered that he drank green tea not just because it was healthy, but because it was cheap. how most of his gym wear had varying sizes of holes, and he carried around a tiny sewing kit in his bag at all times because he sometimes only noticed one when he was out and about.
most importantly, today he had divulged what he wanted for his future.
“i want to get out of this hellhole as soon as i can,” toji had sighed exaggeratedly, stretching his neck backwards. whenever the last customer had left the cafe, he’d drag a chair over to the edge of the counter. not so directly in front of it that he was blocking any customers, but just enough so that they were sitting across from each other.
she rolled her eyes playfully at him, nibbling at the cap of her pen. “oh, how original. you and every other student in this university.”
“well yeah, obviously, but not as much as me,” he retorted.
“what make you so different, then?”
“i’ve always wanted to leave, even before i got here. i want to to go and live in tokyo.”
“tokyo, huh? and what do you wanna do there?”
“well, eventually i want to open my own dojo and teach jujitsu, but i’d probably have to start out as an instructor.”
“oh wow, you’ve got a solid sort of plan. have you always wanted to do that?”
“yeah, i really hate it here.”
and he’d gone quiet, but she didn’t press him. instead, she focused on her textbook because there were still exams to be studied for, and waited for toji to come back to her. where he went in those moments, she didn’t know. there was something lurking in the shadow of the mountain, and he still seemed to be fighting against it even now.
she knew he’d come back to her when he’d lean in closer, cheek against his palm, and try to make sense of whatever diagrams appeared on the pages she was reading.
“that looks cool,” toji murmured, pointing at whatever had piqued his interest. “what is it?”
and she discovered, not that it was a real shock, that toji was so very curious. he wanted to know things, he liked to know how things worked, and he was really clever. she would explain as best as she could, and toji would follow along diligently, nodding his head every so often and asking the occasional question. many people probably underestimated just how smart he really was, but she never did.
“this is a diagram that sort of shows what einstein’s theory of general relativity is all about.”
“ah right, it’s pretty famous then isn’t it? cuz it’s einstein's.”
“haha, i suppose so, yeah.”
“what’s it about?”
she bit her lip and tilted her head, placing her finger as a makeshift bookmark and closed the book between her fingers. “it’s about… how really big objects like planets and stars cause gravity by bending space-time.”
“Bending space-time is gravity?”
“It’s because the bigger object has caused smaller ones to be pulled closer to it, if that makes sense.”
toji nodded slowly and laughed. “it’s a bit over my head. how you perfectly understand it is beyond me though.”
“i wouldn’t say perfectly,” she replied bashfully. “but i think it’s a beautiful theory.”
“you think every theory is beautiful.”
“haha! no, well yes, but that’s besides the point!”
“well, what is the point?”
“that something has had such a profound impact, because it’s so big and larger than life that it’s impacting all the other small things around it and pulling them in closer to it.”
toji smiled, the kind of smile he had when he was more vulnerable and soft, when his barriers were down and forgotten about. the way he looked at her made her body jolt with thousands of little lightning bolts.
“yeah,” he mused thoughtfully. “yeah, that is kinda beautiful.”
| Φ |
five days.
that’s how long it had been since she’d seen toji, and she missed him more than she cared to admit, even to herself.
it wasn’t ideal, right smack in the middle of the exam season, to be so distracted by a boy, but toji fushiguro wasn’t just any boy. he was the boy who she spent every day with, and the past two weeks had been a rosy dream as they talked more and more. it was now the middle of may, and she was almost done with sitting all of her exams. she should have been thinking of her future, about a solid career plan, and where she wanted to live.
but no, all she could think of was the laws of physics and toji fushiguro, and counting down the days until she could see him again.
he was currently out on a placement excursion, teaching ten-year-old kids during their regular sports curriculum. it was almost comical, and she couldn’t help but smile to herself whenever she thought of toji surrounded by a bunch of wide-eyed children. he’d already been groaning about it before he left, about this and that, and how much he didn’t like silly kids and their silly faces.
“what are you smiling about?” one of her friends whispered suspiciously, leaning in closer to her so as not to disturb anybody else in the library.
she shook her head, and told a little lie, “oh, just about how close we are to finishing uni. it’s sort of unbelievable.”
her friend raised a brow, clearly not believing her. “sure, and it doesn’t have anything to do with fushiguro?”
“ugh, why do you keep bringing him up all the time? i told you there’s nothing going on there.”
“i’ll believe that when i stop seeing you smiling like an idiot in love. now, c’mon and focus on this.”
love? no, no, it wasn’t love. not quite yet, at least, but she knew it was getting there. she felt a slight tremor in her chest, traveling all the way to the tips of her fingers and then the ends of her toes like an electric current across a wire. it was unfathomably scary to admit it, but it was nothing but the truth.
she was falling for toji fushiguro.
she ducked her head down, her pencil scratching against her notepad as she attempted yet another sample question, endeavouring to distract herself from all thoughts of him for the rest of the study session. as soon as she had to leave for the cafe, she practically shoved her things into her bag and almost ran towards it. toji should be back today, with it being friday and the school week coming to an end.
when she got there, her manager was behind the counter in the midst of serving a customer, and the cafe was reasonably busy. the overwhelming aroma of coffee wafted through her nose, warm and inviting, and familiar. she wondered if toji thought of her whenever he smelt coffee.
she certainly hoped that he did.
“great you’re here,” her manager beamed, handing her an apron to tie around her waist. “i was wondering if you would like to take some time off whenever you finish your exams? my nephew is coming to visit, and i’d like to put him to work instead of him lazing about all day.”
she was immediately hit with a sheer sense of panic. if she didn’t work, then how else was she supposed to see toji? it was so utterly embarrassing and pathetic, that she was so enamored with this boy that she was willing to work just to see him. but then she thought about what would happen after graduation, and how they realistically would not be seeing each other – perhaps ever again.
“sure, that’s alright with me,” is what she finally said after a moment's hesitation, but her manager surely picked up on her hesitant tone.
“never have i ever seen a student who didn’t want time off work,” they chuckled, hand on their hip. “this has got to do with that dark haired boy, doesn’t it?”
heat creeped up into her cheeks, and she busied herself with pouring a cup of coffee for a customer, as her manager gazed at her in bemusement. “no,” she squeaked out.
“oh to be young again,” they said in a sing-song voice. “don’t worry about not working though, i’m sure that boy would follow you anywhere you go. i’ve seen the way he looks at you.”
she didn’t quite know how to respond to that.
when the moon had risen high into the sky and the shop was empty, she waited and waited for toji. he was late, and he should have been there by now. or maybe he wouldn’t come? she thought it might have been quite bold to assume he would have tonight. he was probably tired from a whole week of teaching, and maybe he had decided to just go home and rest. she couldn’t blame him for that.
but that didn’t stop the soul-crushing disappointment from tearing her in two.
the sky must have felt her distress, because soon enough the pitter-patter of rain falling against the roof ensued. maybe metaphysical pain was real, and maybe she would spend her whole life trying to prove her theory. what a tragic future, she thought, and sniffled as she locked the door behind her.
and then she turned around, and toji was standing there, his chest heaving.
for a moment, they just faced each other. he was all wet, black hoodie all soggy and weighed down, sticking to him like a second skin. his green eyes were alight, looking at her with a mixture of nerves and something else she couldn’t place. toji exhaled shakily, his lashes fluttering as he blinked fast.
“sorry,” he mumbled. “i tried to get here sooner, but there was an accident and my train was delayed.”
her heart melted; she felt as if she was one with the rain puddles in the dips of the pavement, one with the water pooling beneath toji’s feat. could it be love already? maybe her loved ones, wiser and older than her would have said it was, but she felt too young to know it.
and yet, here was a boy standing in front of her, who had run through the rain and labyrinth of buildings to get here.
“oh, toji,” she gushed, instinctively opening up her umbrella and shielding him from the torrent of the sky. “you’ll get sick.”
she didn’t realize just how close they were together, trapped underneath the tiny space, until toji was staring down at her. a water droplet dropped from his hair, over the ridge of his nose, caressing over his cupids bow and parted lips, all the way down to his chin and onto her lip.
she shivered, feeling as if their lips may as well have touched.
“it doesn’t matter,” toji whispered, in that deep, almost sad tone that belonged only to him, and she finally admitted internally just how much she missed his voice. “it’s only water.”
they stood there staring at each other for a heartbeat too long, until she broke the silence with, “let’s get out of here.”
and then they set off at a slow, shuffling pace, the backs of their hands and shoulders brushing against each other, and she thought a live spark might just ignite off her skin. the rain sounded like little stones tumbling off the top of the umbrella, and the smell of the wet pavement served as little momentary distractions against the all-consuming feeling of toji beside her.
she didn’t want it to end, and so when they reached the entrance to her accommodation, and turned to face him. “you can’t go home like this. won’t you come inside and dry off?”
toji’s eyebrows shot up, and he almost looked like a deer in the headlights. he was fighting within himself; she could see it in the way his hand flexed, his knuckle touching hers. “i’ll just make your floor wet though,” he muttered, looking down at the ground.
“it doesn’t matter,” she urged, and added a desperate. “please.”
that seemed to snap him out of whatever internal deliberation he was having, and toji nodded. “okay then.”
she couldn’t help the smile that spread across her face, almost immediately turning towards the door to hide most of it from him, taking out the keys from her pocket and fumbled with one hand to grab the correct one for her door. his proximity behind her was beyond distracting, her back felt like the south side of a magnet, and toji was her north. it would be too easy to fall back into him, and so she endeavored to root her feet into the ground and resist the urge.
she finally opened it and they passed through the unwelcoming vibes of the main lobby, toji’s shoes squelching loudly with every step he took. the student behind the desk glancing uninterestedly up at them, and then sharply looked back up, staring with saucer eyes at toji in tow behind her.
she once again fought with her keys, the sound echoing throughout the empty corridor, and pushed open the door to her shared dorm. it was compact but efficient for two people to live comfortably together. her flatmate was curled up on the sofa with her boyfriend, shui, in the main living area, only lit up by whatever was on the tv.
“roomie!” her roommate called out, oblivious to toji’s presence. “how was studying today?”
“yeah, great,” she answered, glancing back at toji awkwardly standing by the door. “you?”
“all goo- oh! oh. hello there!” her roommate finally registered toji’s presence as the door clicked shut behind him, immediately jumping out of shiu’s arms, who also looked back over his shoulder in intrigue.
“hey,” toji mumbled, a puddle of water now collecting over the white tiles.
shiu waved his hand at toji, who flicked his chin upwards in acknowledgment. she immediately turned to her roommate, “hey, you think you have something from shui’s he could borrow?”
her roommate sprung into action, scrambling off the sofa. “yeah, yeah! sorry! i’ll be right back.”
toji remained where he was, stationary as a rock, his emerald orbs flicking every which way. she wondered what he was thinking, but she was too consumed by the monumental event that he was really standing there in her living room to dwell on it.
her roommate burst out of her room, smiling brightly as she handled a bundle of clothes to toji. “there you go! the bathroom’s just to the left there.”
he strode straight to the bathroom, his eyes meeting hers just before he closed the door.
“girl,” her roommate excitedly whispered, vigorously grabbing her forearms. “what the- what is going on? i didn’t know you and fushiguro were together.”
“we’re not together,” she rebuked, biting her lip. “we’re just… friends.”
her roommate scoffed, nearly bouncing up and down in glee. “shiu, you know this is the first time she’d brought a boy home.”
shiu hummed quietly, an unlit cigarette dangling between his lips. “that’s great, babe.”
her roommate scoffed, rolling her eyes at him, and her grip tightened just a fraction. “is he spending the night? oh my god, you both should stay and watch a movie with us.”
“oh, i don’t think he’ll stay…”
“girl, just go and get changed into something else, and i’ll talk to him when he comes out. you know people can’t say no to me.”
before she knew it, she was being pushed into her room, and the door was slammed behind her. she breathed out shakily, sliding against her wardrobe with her head in her hands. her heart was racing, and fuck fuck fuck, what the hell was she thinking bringing toji here?
she heard the bathroom door open, and the quiet baritone of toji’s voice mingled with her roommate's bubbly one. the words ‘pizza’ and ‘movie’ were mentioned, and she rushed to shimmy off her clothes and into her slightly better-looking loungewear, checking her hair was presentable enough. when she quietly opened her door, toji had his back towards her, wearing a black t-shirt that was a size too small and grey joggers that hugged his thick thighs.
he turned to face her, and the tense look on his face relaxed. her roommate piped up from the sofa, “hey! i was just saying that toji should stay and watch a movie with us while his clothes dry.”
she bit the inside of her cheek, and softly said to him, “you don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
toji looked between her and her roommate, before replying with a low, “I’ll stay.”
her roommate clapped her hands together. “great! I’ll order the pizza.”
she walked over to the adjacent sofa to shiu, and hesitantly sat down on one edge of the sofa. toji followed and lowered himself onto the other empty side, leaving a space of everything and nothing between them. soon enough, her roommate returned and plonked herself right in between shiu’s spread legs, shuffling through the channels until she settled on a movie. the pizza arrived some time into the movie, and the four of them helped themselves. she couldn’t help but steal glances at toji, his face illuminated by the tv's glow as he brought a cheesy slice of pizza to his mouth, his expression blank and unreadable.
whatever way the angels must be solving her cosmic equation, they were obviously applying toji’s formula. their numbers were intertwining, creating a new constant, and she wondered what sort of symbol would represent the two of them.
toji met her gaze, and the corner of his lip curled upward.
after the movie had ended, her roommate had ushered a bemused shiu into her room and wiggled her fingers in an excited goodbye. “shh,” she’d giggled, while shiu rolled his eyes at her, tugging on the sleeve of her pyjama top. “don’t make too much noise, you two.”
and with that, she shut the door, leaving them alone.
together.
in her living room, on the same sofa.
“do you, uh, want to watch something else?” she murmured, her legs folded beneath her.
toji breathed out a quiet laugh. “please. i’m sorry, but that movie was actually so bad.”
she nearly snorted, clapping her hand over her mouth in an effort to contain her giggle. “yeah, it was pretty shit.”
the clock above the tv read 1:42 a.m., and she wondered if toji was tired. she assumed he would be after waking up so early to teach a bunch of energetic children. “you want some tea? i was just going to make some,” she asked, her ankles cracking as she rose from the sofa.
toji slapped his thighs, and steadily got up as well. “sure, but i should really get going soon. i don’t want to overstay my welcome.”
“spend the night,” she blurted out before she could stop herself. “none of us would mind, i promise.”
she then stupidly, pathetically even, held out her pinky towards him. toji frowned, clearly confused. “what are you doing?”
“a pinky promise.”
“oh right, yeah.”
he curled his pinky around hers, and a tiny electric shock sparked between them. she hissed and drew her hand back, but their eyes met, and they both erupted into a fit of hushed giggles, which only served to make them laugh harder.
“okay, you stick something on tv and i’ll make the tea,” she grinned, her bare feet softly padding on the floor as she went over to the kitchen.
as the kettle boiled, she watched toji flicking aimlessly through the channels, his face contorting when he came across something he didn’t like. he settled back onto the sofa, legs spread out as he reclined, mop of thick hair resting against the armrest. the shock of having him her in her home had faded now, and it felt almost natural for them to be around each other in this way. she brought over his mug filled with green tea, and he looked up at her gratefully as he took it from her. she sat down on the other sofa, stretching her legs out. toji’s eyes were slightly red, and he was yawning great big yawns, with the mug delicately balanced on his chest and one arm behind his head. the tv was on a low volume, and the she wanted to pause time, even just for a while.
“hey, just lemme know when you wanna sleep. you can sleep in my room,” she murmured, hands grasping both sides of her mug, feet rubbing against each other.
toji looked over at her, a scowl playing on his features. “and where are you going to sleep, the sofa?”
“well, yeah.”
“no.”
“but you’re the guest!”
“shut up, no.”
“bu-”
“no.”
she huffed playfully, throwing a hand up in surrender, to which toji smirked at. they sat in comfortable silence, watching some silly competition show play on. despite the tea, she could feel herself becoming sleepier by the minute. she looked over at toji, who seemed perfectly content to lie there and watch the contestants make complete fools of themselves.
“bet that guy’s gonna fall off,” he mumbled, his arms folded over his chest. she only hummed in response, her cheek squished against a pillow, and toji grunted, “you the sleepy one now?”
she laughed, which interrupted her yawn. “maybe.”
“go to sleep then. don’t stay up for me.”
oh, how much he didn’t know about how long she would stay up for him, and how long she would really wait. but she couldn’t say anything except, “you sure?”
“yeah, yeah, i’m cool here.”
“hold on, lemme get you a blanket and pillow before i go.”
she returned promptly with them, kneeling down to place them on the floor beside him. when she looked up, she didn’t realize just how close his face was to hers. toji’s eyes flicked down to her lips, then back up to her eyes.
she gulped.
“good night,” he whispered.
“night,” was all she could muster before overcoming the magnetism between them and walking away.
| Φ |
the final stretch.
a flurry of pens on paper, pounding hearts, a tripwire of nerves, and then…
“time is up! please, everyone, put down your pens. the exam is officially concluded.”
she leaned back in her seat, a sheer sense of awe crawling over her. this was it, she was done. her last university exam, all of it was finally over after three long years. her fellow students were of similar sentiment, with wide, nervous smiles, as if they all couldn’t really believe this was happening, as the smacks of numerous pats on the back reverberated through the hall.
the sun was shining on her face as she exited the exam hall, warm and inviting, promising that the hope for the future wasn’t unfounded. they were all high on life, with the thought that the world was their oyster, and they would all be lucky enough to find their own pearls.
“oh my god,” her friend groaned exaggeratedly, hands on her knees as if she’d just run a marathon. “it’s over.”
"yeah, it is," she hummed in agreement, basking in the sheer awe of the moment.
her friend barked out a laugh and clasped her hands together. “right then, i’m going to get ready for the party tonight. you are coming, right?”
“yeah of course,” she confirmed, shocking even herself that she would be going out. “we can only celebrate this once.”
her friend squealed, pulling her into a big hug before breaking away and trotting off. “bring fushiguro! maybe you both can get drunk and finally kiss,” she called out over her shoulder.
a few students looked over at her, and the embarrassment was almost crushing. she’d come to understand now that everyone on campus knew who toji fushiguro was. he was renowned for his adonis figure, the kind of handsome that only existed in fiction, and the fact he most certainly wasn’t associated with any girls or went to any parties.
until perhaps now, of course.
later that night at the cafe, as she fidgeted at her spot behind the counter, she plucked up the courage to ask toji, “so, you can totally say no if you don’t want to come, but there’s a party that’s happening in my building to celebrate the end of exams.”
toji looked up from reading her quantum mechanics textbook she had brought and grunted, “a party, huh. you going?”
“yeah, i’ll be heading over after closing up,” she replied, a bit deflated that he hadn’t seemed to notice she had dressed up quite a bit from her usual attire.
he hummed, nodded, and went back to reading. “i’ll see how i feel.”
that was no definitive reply, and she picked apart his usual baritone and analyzed in her mind as she went through a back-and-forth internal debate, trying to deduce some sort of meaning from it. she’d arrived to the party about an hour ago, and she was still thinking about it as she sipped away at some fruit-flavored punch that was far too delicious and dangerous for someone who didn't really drink. her lips were already numb, and the creeping giddiness was making her feel the joyousness of all that life is and would be.
her course mates had their arms around her shoulders, all of them loudly singing, more slurring really, in a circle to whatever song was thumping through the speakers. a part of her wanted to loose herself in the silliness of it all; it gave her courage and made her seem capable of things she would never have dreamed of sober.
“oh my- don’t look, but fushiguro is actually here,” her friend slurred through her ear, nearly shouting and sending a ringing noise piercing through her eardrum.
she turned around, and sure enough, there was toji fushiguro pushing his way through the throng of students dancing in the cramped apartment they had decided to congregate in. his green eyes met hers, and relief ran over his features. it was cheesy, as well as completely impossible, but time seemed stretch and distort, slowing to a crawl the closer he got to her. her friend released her from the circle, giving her a calculated shove and sending her stumbling over her own feet.
straight into toji’s waiting arms.
“oh, fuck,” he shouted as he caught her, holding her forearms in a firm grip. “you okay?”
she stared up at him, the alcohol running through her blood making her lips spread into a big, dopey smile, and giggled, “yeah, you’re here.”
she could have sworn the tips of his ears turned pink, but the flashing, multicoloured lights made it too hard to make it out properly. it took her far too long to realize that toji still hadn’t let go of her arms, even as her punch had spilled on them both, and as even more people stared and bumped into them.
“you want a drink?” she shouted, standing up on her tiptoes to reach his ear.
toji grimaced. “no thanks, i don’t drink.”
“oh yeah, you’re a proper athlete and all,” she hiccuped, her body flushing with heat and the sound of the music.
he only laughed at that, his emerald eyes twinkling with possibilities.
| Φ |
“be careful,” toji hissed as he quickly moved to steady her as she tripped over the doorway into her dorm. “jesus, you’re a mess.”
“i-hiccup! no, no i’m a ss-shtar,” she wallowed, chuckling madly at her own antics. “ssstar! star.”
“yes, yes, a star, definitely,” toji mumbled, closing the door behind them, and maneuvering her securely along with him.
“hehe, am i youuuur star, toji?” she giggled, her legs giving out from underneath her, suddenly turning into jelly.
he snorted, using her strength to lift her off the floor and into his arms. “yes, you are. now c’mon, let’s get you to bed.”
her head rolled against his chest, her head swimming in a pool of red stars and blue moons, all of them circulating around a green sun. “go onnn, you have to say i’m yo-hiccup-ur star!”
“you’re my star, now c’mon. get into bed.”
as soon as he laid her underneath her duvet, her head started to pound and swirl the moment she closed her eyes, her stomach lurched as if she was actually free-falling, and she groaned loudly. toji kneeled down in front of her, his face oh so very close to hers.
“what’s wrong? you wanna get sick?” he asked, forest eyes deep and ethereal as they took in her probably smeared makeup.
“i close my eyes and it feels bad,” she mumbled, feeling childish as her silliness became too much for even her not-so-sober state to listen to.
toji settled into a more comfortable sitting position, and she could feel his breath caressing her face. “tell me about something then, don’t think about it.”
“like-hiccup what?”
“anything. talk to me about stars, or whatever.”
“stars, really? okay… did you know, that there’s -hic- all different colors?”
“no, i didn’t actually. why’s there so many?”
“cuz they’re all different temperatures, that’s why.”
“that’s really cool. tell me about all the colors.”
“ohh, well there’s blue stars, those're the hottest one. and then there’s…”
| Φ |
she woke up to a throbbing headache and a burning stomach, her eyes hurting as light filtered through the opaque grey curtains of the window. the white wall beside her bed was the first thing she saw when she peeked her eyes open, so dreadfully plain and uninteresting, but rolling over to the other side was another sort of unnecessarily difficult task.
she almost threw up when she saw toji lying there on the floor.
“toji?” she whispered urgently. “toji?! are you awake?”
he grunted in annoyance and rolled over to face her, his midnight hair all messy on a pillow he had procured from who knows where, although there was no blanket to be seen. the light through the curtains softly enhanced his features, the scarred side of his lip twitching as he flitted somewhere in between the realm of dreams and sleep, and oh how her heart was absolutely swooning at the sight.
she smiled to herself, quietly watching him sleep and quickly forgetting about how ill she felt, because none of that mattered. only that she could hear the scratching of quills, ruffling feathers, and the soft music playing, telling her that this was it.
she was in love with toji fushiguro.
there was no other way around it, no more denying it to herself or anyone else. she loved him, the boy who slept on a rock-hard floor beside her all night, listening to her drunk and probably terrible explanations about stars and who knows what else.
green orbs peeked out from hooded lids, and toji mumbled, “what’re you lookin at?”
she bit her lip, trying to contain her giddiness at her sudden revelation, and reached over to poke his hand. “you. why didn’t you sleep on the sofa?”
toji's eyes fully opened, and he grabbed her finger and tugged gently. “cause, what if you needed to get sick and tripped in the dark? you might be a star, but you don’t actually shine, you know?”
“hah, you’re hilarious,” she retorted, letting him waggle her finger with his hand. “what else did i say, then?”
“that i’m the nicest person on earth for staying with you, and that i deserve free green tea from now on.”
“chancer, i definitely didn’t.”
“but how do you know you definitely didn’t?”
a loud knock at her door jolted them both out of their banter, and her roommate belted from the other side, “oi, lovebirds! we’re all going to get breakfast, want to come with?”
she looked expectantly at toji, who shrugged and mouthed ‘sure’, and answered back, “yeah, be out in a sec!”
“lovebirds, huh?” toji mumbled, as he intertwined their fingers, the corner of his lip curling upwards.
oh, angels in heaven above…
“shut up.”
| Φ |
the month of june was of blue skies and scorching pavements. of far too many melted vanilla and matcha ice-creams dripping onto their clothes. of heat mirages and the cool, sweet relief of air-conditioned cafes and shopping malls. of lying on dried-out, yellowed grass at night, their sweaty hands firmly holding each other, while looking up at the midnight sky and divulging all their deepest secrets.
it was when she learned how toji got the scar on his lip.
he was twiddling with the hem of her baby pink t-shirt, and not quite looking at her. “my cousins used to bully me when i was a kid,” he admitted quietly.
her gaze snapped over to him, soul aching for him. “toji, that’s awful. did you tell anyone?”
toji shook his head, trailing a finger up and down her bare arm. “my parents kinda dismissed it like it wasn’t happening. i think they didn’t want to stir things within the family, even when the fuckers took it too far one day and caused this." he paused, voiced tinged with bitterness. "they held me down and threatened me with razor blades, and one of 'em accidentally slipped."
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, not knowing quite else to say, and then rolled over onto her side to face him.
“it’s alright, i’m over it,” toji mumbled, returning to lying on his back, his arm behind his head. “but it’s why i've been studying so hard, so i can get the hell out of here. my family lives quite close by, you see.”
“right, and tokyo is about as far away as you can get.”
“yeah, pretty much.”
“and that’s why you didn’t speak to anyone at uni. you knew you'd just be moving on anyways, so there was no point making friends."
“mhm.”
she chewed the inside of her cheek. “so, what made me different?”
toji turned his head to face her, his gaze holding a gentleness she'd never seen before, “because… you’re you,” he said, as if that alone would explain everything.
she looked away, staring up at the sky again. it was silent for some time before she finally asked, “have i ever explained what quantum entanglement is to you before?”
“no, don’t think so, but go on.”
“it’s when two particles are so deeply connected, that it doesn’t matter even if they’re separated. the connection will always be there, and they’ll always affect each other. the distance between them doesn't matter either, because they still belong to each other.”
toji was quiet for a long time, and she wondered if he understood the deeper meaning behind what she was actually trying to say. she had never explicitly said to him that she loved him, and perhaps this was the only way she could say it - in the only way she knew how to. it was too late to turn back now anyway.
suddenly, he pushed his upper body off the ground and sat upwards, his back turned to her. he was breathing fast, too fast, and her heart started to beat frantically.
“toji?” she called out, fear lacing her words, her heart breaking in two at the mere thought of him rejecting all of this this – rejecting her.
toji turned to her, and whispered with glossy eyes, his words almost barely audible, “it’s you. it’s you. it’s you, and i love you.”
with that, he practically fell on top of her, their lips finally meeting in what seemed like an inevitable occurrence. like an eclipse or the death of a star, but none of that mattered. because here she was, with toji fushiguro, and he loved her.
he loved her, as her lips parted for him and their tongues swirled together, and she thought he tasted of vanilla.
she loved him, as he tenderly held the back of her head, and she melted into him like the ice creams they savoured every day.
they loved each other, as their hands dipped underneath their shirts, exploring the dips and valleys of each other's bodies.
the universe was never more perfect than in that very moment.
| Φ |
the very next week, they went on their first official date.
“i’ll swing by your place at eight o’clock, is that okay?” toji asked her over the phone, as she lazed about in her bed in a dream-like, rosy trance.
she hummed, rolling onto her back and kicking her legs in the air. “sure. what are we doing?”
“never you mind your brilliant little head about it. just be ready, okay?”
“hehe, okay.”
“okay, i’ll see you later… i love you.”
“i love you too.”
with that, he ended the call, and she was left counting down the hours until she would see him. she got ready in good time, being careful to shave every bit of hair on her body, using her roommate's products that she’d left behind after moving out. not that she even thought they would be doing something like that, at least not until she had seen a box of condoms under the bathroom sink cabinet. she hadn’t thought of sex since her subpar experience with it during her first year, and had since locked it out of her mind.
and now, it was all she could think about.
just after eight p.m., there was a prompt knock on the door, and she breathed out shakily before opened it. and there was her boy, her toji, holding a bouquet of half a dozen red roses, with a blush gracing his cheeks nearly as colorful as the flowers.
“hey,” he greeted with a handsome, crooked smile, his eyes sweeping up and down her figure. “you look beautiful. i hope you like italian food.”
and all her bundle of nerves dissipated. “yeah,” she replied breathlessly. “i do.”
toji took her to a small restaurant not too far from her dorm, about a fifteen-minute walk away. it was quirky, designed really for students with not much money in their pockets, but it was just perfect. it was natural, the way it was always meant to be. with her sitting there in a dainty summer dress, while toji, in his usual black t-shirt and jeans, looked at her like she was his whole universe.
after they were done with their meal, he’d shooed her away from even trying to pay for the bill, which he paid for in battered notes and loose change. then, they walked hand in hand in the warm summer breeze back to her dorm. she was going on excitedly about how she was looking for internships at various firms in tokyo, and toji was smiling as he listened to her finally start to figure out the answers to her future equation.
though, maybe not just her future.
they finally entered the safe space of her dorm, her roommates absence filling it with a sad eeriness. she looked at him shyly, fiddling with her fingers behind her back, and asked, “you want some tea?”
toji hummed, taking his shoes off at the door. “sure, thanks.”
she was grateful he said yes; it gave her something to do with her hands. she reached upwards to the cabinet to grab their mugs. the two twin beige, somewhat grey, mugs that always sat beside each other. they clinked loudly against the counter, and she flicked the kettle on.
and then, toji’s warm hands were on her hips, and her mind went blank.
“i love you,” he mumbled, his lips soft and wet as they trailed against the curve of her neck. “you’re my star, and i love you.”
he was repeating ‘i love you’ like a mantra he couldn’t quite believe was true, and even a part of her was still amazed that it actually was. she turned to face him, tea well forgotten about, and wrapped her arms around his neck to place her lips between his plush ones. toji hummed into her mouth, his hands sliding down to gently grip her behind, pulling her closer into him.
it was a nebula explosion after that, a stumbling mess of them making their way to her bedroom with their lips interlocked, bodies pressed close together as they ripped their clothes off each other. giggling like naughty children when she struggled to tug her dress off.
“you’re hopeless,” toji groaned playfully, tapping her nose with his finger, before smoothly sliding her dress from her body.
she pouted, crossing her arms over her bare chest. “am not.”
he shushed her softly, pulling her into him once more in a fiery kiss, and they fell gently onto the bed. toji kneaded her breasts, eliciting a moan from her as his mouth traveled slowly from her lips, down to her neck and caressing her collarbone, flicking her hard nipple with his tongue.
“hmm, you feelin good, baby?” toji murmured, looking up at her with hooded lids, forest eyes blazing with desire reserved just for her. “not too much?”
"n-no," she stuttered, fisting his black locks between her fingers, scratching the back of his scalp and making him groan.
toji parted his lips, his breath blowing softly and tickling her nipple, and she shivered and slightly arched her back in anticipation. he teased her with his tongue, licking her hard bud with a featherlight touch, and she gasped, “toji, please.”
with that, he took her nipple in his mouth, steaming hot and so wet as his tongue swirled around it. she moaned loudly, arching herself into his body, and he placed a strong hand on the small of her back to pull her in.
she thought that if toji pulled her in any closer, they would surely melt into each other and become one.
her legs parted of their own accord, and her hips were pure instinct as she ground her slick pussy on his thigh, the ridges of the powerful muscle stimulating her perfectly and sending jolts of pleasure through her core. toji smiled against her nipple, giving it one last suck, let it go with an audible pop! and traveled back up to her face, his lips brushing hers.
“who knew,” he whispered, pressing soft kisses along the bridge of her nose. “that all this would happen from drinking green tea.”
she giggled, and held his face in her hands, bringing his lips back home to hers. “i need you, toji,” she breathed out, breaking their kiss. “can i have you?”
toji smiled, touched his forehead to hers and murmured, “you can always have me, sweetheart. tell me what you want.”
“i want you in me,” she begged, her arousal making her more desperate by the second. “i’m yours, toji. make me yours.”
he snapped.
his lips captured hers once more in a searing kiss so molten hot, she was sure she would burn and be consumed by his fire. toji’s hands moved down to himself, freeing his hard cock from his boxers with a tiny slap noise as it hit against her lower stomach. he pressed his hips into her and settled in between her legs, his hard and flushed dick feeling even hotter against her skin than his lips did.
toji moved his hips, his cock wetting against her folds, the slick sounds lewd and utterly intoxicating, as he pushed further into her with every back and forth motion.
further.
and further.
she moaned loudly as he finally sunk deep into her wet walls, painfully slow and deliciously agonising.
“oh, fuck baby,” toji groaned, his face in her neck, as he buried himself to the hilt. “you’re -ah!- so fuckin beautiful. my beautiful girl.”
her nails dug into his shoulder, and toji bent her legs to fold them, rutting further into her. she whined at the deeper connection, feeling his cock flex inside her. he stilled with their chests pressed tightly together, and she could feel his heart pumping hard.
“t-toji,” she gasped, throwing her head back as she felt his balls against the curve of her ass, the tip of his dick rubbing against that spongy spot that made her see stars behind her eyelids.
he started shallowly thrusting, deliberately slow, holding her head so lovingly she felt she was going to burst. this was heaven, she thought, toji was heaven – her phi. the golden ratio, found in all remarkable and beautiful things on the planet. all her life, all the combinations of numbers, formulas, and sequences had to have been carefully calculated to lead up to him, to this moment.
toji sucked and kissed just below her ear, his muscled thighs flexing as he increased the pace just a fraction, and she clenched around him as she felt the veins of his cock rubbing exquisitely inside her. she tightly squeezed his bicep as the sounds of her squelching pussy and slapping of their bodies filled the room, and the smell of sex and toji filled her nose.
“look at us,” he cooed, stroking her cheek. “makin such a mess on your bed.”
she looked down to the interconnected bodies, a ring of white cream at the base of toji’s cock pumping in and out of her, dripping down onto a damp spot on the bedsheets underneath them. his toned abs had a thin sheen of sweat, and they flexed and rippled as he really started to pound into her. her pussy clenched around him again at the thought of him chasing his pleasure high from her body. she kissed him fervently, and he moaned into her mouth. toji’s balls were tightening, and her orgasm was exponentially building, like the pressure of boiling water molecules hitting the walls of a sealed container.
“let go, baby” toji murmured huskily, his hips snapping at an even faster pace. “let go.”
and she did, throwing her head back and almost screaming as her legs shook violently.
a supernova imploded somewhere at the other end of a distant universe. stars flew across the blackness behind her squeezed-shut eyelids, leaving behind a glittering trail of stardust. toji groaned into her neck, and she felt hot ropes of his cum spurt against her walls, his legs the only thing powering his body through his high.
she wrapped her arms around his neck as he stilled, half-hard cock still plugged inside her, panting into each other as their shared sweat made them stick to each other.
“i love you,” toji whispered, full of reverence and life.
she kissed him softly, rubbing their noses together. “i love you too.”
| Φ |
it was early july now; their results had been released, and graduations were finally right around the corner.
“you should go toji!” she exclaimed, cupping her mug of lukewarm tea with both hands, watching intently from the sofa as he did some stretches. “you’ve worked so hard for this.”
he grunted, but from effort or annoyance, she didn’t know. “i can’t be bothered, seriously, and i’m not interested in standing on a stage and be the only person without parents cheering them on.”
she didn’t press it further, casting one last longing look at his muscles rippling as he stretched, and resumed looking through internship advertisements on her laptop. they had settled into an oddly domestic routine for the past few weeks. she would work in the cafe during the day, while toji trained at the gym. he would swing by and pick her up as she finished work in the early afternoon, and they would cook dinner and hang around the dorm. the weather was getting far too hot for leisurely walks during the day, so they had mostly passed that time making love and talking about everything and nothing.
toji kissed the top of her head, squatting behind her and clearly finished with his stretches, his eyes skimming over the current tab open on her laptop. “still nothin, baby?”
she sighed, rubbing his hand that was gently massaging her shoulder. “no.”
“you’ll find something, don’t worry. it’ll happen. let’s just focus on celebrating your graduation next week.”
her graduation.
she still couldn’t believe it. next week, she would be graduating, and the week after that, saying goodbye to her accommodation – her home – for the last three years of her life. saying farewell to her manager and the little cafe that had been so good to her, and not just because it had brought her and toji together. the stress was mounting to find something, anything, in tokyo, because she refused to even entertain the idea of going backwards and returning home.
and because she absolutely could not bear to be so far away from toji either, the thought alone was soul-crushing.
she heard the shower faucet running in the bathroom, and a wave of loneliness hit her. why exactly, she wasn’t sure, but she chased after toji into the bathroom.
he stared as she burst in, brow raised in startled confusion as soap suds ran down his face and back. “what? you find somethin?”
clothes be damned, she stepped into the shower and kissed him with all the energy and emotion she could muster. toji was taken aback for a second, hesitatingly circling his arms around her, and then giving into her.
she then decided; she would rather her body combust, and all her atoms disperse into the atmosphere before even trying to live without toji fushiguro.
| Φ |
it was the night before her graduation, and she was a nervous wreck.
“oh, toji,” she gushed, dipping the razor she was holding into a bowl of soapy water and giving it a little shake. “i hate getting up in front of people. i might just not go. it doesn’t really matter anyway, does it?”
toji hummed, brows furrowed at her, but remained unable to respond unless he wanted to get soap in his mouth. she flicked the excess water from the razor and carefully shaved underneath toji’s chin. he’d really let his stubble grow out, and since he was adamant about attending her graduation, it meant that the scruff would just have to go.
“nugh- y’re goin,” toji mumbled through pursed lips. “y’re too shmart t'not go.”
“and you’re too smart to have missed yours, but here we are,” she retorted, her tongue poking out from the side of her lip in concentration. “now stop talking, or you’ll get cut.”
toji grumbled and huffed from his nose, sending a soap sud flying onto her bare arm, and he snorted in amusement. she was sat on top of the kitchen counter next to the sink, with toji standing in between her legs, his hands kneading her plush thighs every so often. she was deep in thought, going through her mental checklist of everything she needed to prepare for tomorrow morning.
her light green kimono for the ceremony was already laid out on her roommate's old bed, zori shoes and tabi socks neatly placed beside it. but her hair pins and accessories still needed to be picked out, and she hadn’t even decided on a-
“ow, fuck!”
she snapped out of her thoughts as toji hissed in pain, ruby-red pearls of blood already blooming from his lip.
oh no…
please god, no...
she’d cut his scar, reopening the top layer of delicate flesh.
“toji! fuck, i’m sorry,” she panicked, as he pulled away from her in a flash, his fingers pressing down on his lip. “i’m sorry, i didn’t mean to!
she slid off the counter, immediately trying to go over and help him, but toji practically growled, “don’t fucking touch me.”
her body froze, a cold shock of dread spreading from her head straight down to her stomach where it pooled uncomfortably. “toji?” she called out, her heart cracking and lip quivering. “it’s me. it’s only me.”
she’d never seen him like this before, backed up against the wall like an injured animal, his green eyes widened, breathing quickened, and nostrils flared, as if he was about to lash out at anything and everything. he met her worried gaze, and there was nothing but coldness and emptiness. there was no trace of the boy she knew and loved. “oh, toji. please,” she begged, fat droplets of tears running down the apples of her cheeks. "let me help you."
toji madly scrambled away, grabbing his shoes, and was out the door as if he’d never been there to begin with.
| Φ |
toji never came home last night.
she’d fallen asleep on the sofa, after calling him numerous times with no answer, waiting for him to walk back through the door until she couldn’t possibly keep her eyes open any longer. when she woke up groggily, her eyes still heavy from sleep and crying, she went about the arduous task of getting herself ready for graduation.
she hoped, no, prayed to the angels solving her equation to apply a magic formula that would bring toji back to her. she had to believe he would show up to the ceremony; he just had to show. she didn’t even want to think about trying to calculate for the probability of him not showing up. the day past in a hazy, slow blur of camera flashes, ostentatious flower bouquets, and toothy grins of parents and graduates. she played the part perfectly, a walking empty shell of a human, hugging and smiling with her loved ones. when her name was called to receive her diploma, nothing else mattered except trying to catch a glimpse of toji’s face in the audience.
but she couldn’t see him, and a foolish part of her hoped that he was simply standing right at the back, wearing that soft smile she loved so much whenever he looked at her.
she eventually returned back to her dorm in a numb daze, blinking slowly as her eyes swept over her soon-to-be-old home.
there was no trace of toji.
not his black sliders by the door.
not his toothbrush in the holder in the bathroom.
not his canvas bag or dirty gym clothes in the washing basket.
nothing at all.
she collapsed to the floor in a heap, her hands shakily procuring her phone from her clutch purse, and dialled toji’s number.
beep. beep. beep.
“sorry, but the number you have called does not exist. ple-”
she snapped her phone shut, and hoped that her angels could hear the gut-wrenching scream that clawed its way out of her throat and reverberated around the empty walls of the dorm.
| Φ |
the first law of thermodynamics states that energy could never be created or destroyed, only changing from one form to another.
she thought of that as she remained curled into a fetal position on the cold, hard tiles, teeth chattering and the very marrow of her bones frozen solid. her fingernails had dug crescent moons into her palm, so hard she surely must have bled by now, but she didn’t care. her heart was tearing itself apart, a war of muscle and heartstrings against merciless, cruel love clashing inside of her chest.
her energy, what was it? was it inherently love? for perhaps the numbers and greek letters she had puzzled over for hours on end, contemplating all of the universe's workings and mysteries. or was it for toji fushiguro? for the dark-haired boy who had taught to her love something else other than her calculations and green tea. to love life and all the little joys that came along with it, and that she was worth so much more than she gave herself credit for.
if her energy was love, then what was it going to change into?
hate or rage? both? maybe the angels would mercifully apply the catastrophic formula of death instead, proving her equation to be null and false, and her body would dissolve back into dust and atoms. atoms that would find their way back to toji, hovering so closely to him, but never touching him again. would his body know hers, even if he could never hope to see her? would he sense her and smile, and remember the quiet, young love they had once shared?
her teeth clattered loudly, and her arms disappeared into the sleeves of her kimono.
how strange, she thought, that the music was the loudest it had ever been.
scratching of quills.
a splash of ink and a teardrop.
and the scroll was flipped over to a blank side.
| Φ |
general taglist: @tadabzzzbee
toji brainrot tag <3: @dollsuguru
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disneyprincemuke · 3 days
Text
sick little games * op81
neither you nor oscar can believe the predicament you’ve found yourselves in.
pairings: oscar piastri x female!reader
word count: 1.4k
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you’d left the restaurant immediately after the newscaster finished talking. you’d lost your appetite after finding out that the man you’d hit on was possibly a ghost. you simply ordered a sandwich to go — frankly because you’re honestly still quite hungry — paid and then left to head back to your apartment.
oscar trailed behind you all the way back, not another word uttered between you.
on your way back, it started to make sense for you. when you first bumped into him, the confused stares weren’t from you stopping in the middle of the crowd, but from the fact that you were talking to yourself. and even then, the waitress’s hostility and confusion should have been the nail in the coffin.
you hadn’t even questioned the way that she only brought you 1 glass of water instead of 2.
you open the door to your apartment and turn around after stepping in, oscar still standing in the hallway with his hands clasped in front of him. you raise your eyebrows. “what are you doing? come in.”
“really?” oscar asks in shock. “i mean, you don’t have to invite me inside… like, i’m a stranger.”
“what?” you scowl in disbelief. “you’re a literal ghost — what are you going to do, murder me?”
he blinks at you. “too soon.”
“just come in so nobody else thinks i’m going insane talking to myself,” you scoff, beckoning him inside. “stop the whining.”
you close the door when he steps into your apartment. you almost want to giggle at yourself for holding the door open for a ghost and waiting for him to walk in. but you swallow the giggle you feel bubbling because you can only imagine how difficult it is especially for oscar.
oscar lingers next to you as you take off your shoes, looking down at his feet. “do you think i can take my shoes off?”
“i don’t know,” you glance over your shoulder and watch him seriously ponder at the thought, “you’re the ghost — try it.”
he blinks, “you don’t think i’d dirty your apartment floor if i keep them on, right?”
you tilt your head and sigh. you stand up straighter and turn to face him. “but didn’t we bump into each other? means if i reach out right now,” you hold your arm out and hover it over oscar’s shoulder, “i would hit you.”
“i guess?” oscar scrunches his face and looks down at your hand. “hit me.”
you hesitate for a moment. can he even feel pain? so you reach forward with all intentions of hitting him and even wound your arm back slightly to do some damage.
a soft shriek emits from you when you stumble forward and your fingertips jab into the wall supposedly behind him. “what?” you squeak, quickly stabilising yourself in disbelief. “i swear i bumped into you when we met!”
“you did!” oscar says with a sigh, throwing his head back. “i don’t get it!” he darts his hand out to grab your wrist, eyes widening when his hand passes through you. he gasps, “why does it do that? i swear i bumped into you earlier!”
“i don’t know! you’re the ghost!” you shriek, now walking further into your apartment. “you’re asking me like i’ve got a degree in parapsychology!”
oscar tilts his head as follows you in. “para-what?”
“study of paranormal activity!” you sigh. “my sister used to be obsessed with this type of stuff before our parents got separated and moved to different ends of the country. she’s a very investigative person.”
“i’m sorry, i didn’t… i’m sorry about your parents,” oscar shrugs, frowning slightly. he watches you take a seat on your couch and throw your sandwich next to you. “and your sister. i’ve got 3 of my own back in australia and i grew up in the uk.”
you suck in a deep breath and sink into the couch. you realise you’re not entirely in the position to be freaking out as much as you are. you have to give it to oscar for staying calm in the past hour. you know that if you were in his position, you would not have taken it as well. in fact, you think you might even go crazy if you woke up one day with little to no recollection of events as a ghost.
and to find out from some random news clip to a restaurant with someone you've never met?
“i’m sorry. that must’ve been really hard on you,” you sigh, leaning forward to rest your elbows on your knees. “how do you feel? about everything?” you turn your head and realise that he is still standing and hovering by your couch. “why don’t you sit down?”
“it’s not my house — i don’t want to feel too at home as a guest,” oscar shrugs simply. he points at the empty spot next to you for permission. you nod and move the paper bag to the ground by your feet and he laughs as he takes a seat. “i doubt i’d deform your sandwich if i sat on it, by the way.”
“it’s on and off again. this sandwich is my overdue lunch and i’m not taking any chances,” you snort with a small grin. “this must be a little overwhelming for you.”
he shrugs and leans back. “it is. i don’t even remember waking up today, i’d just regained consciousness walking down the street before i bumped into you. it was like a video game — spawned out of nowhere.”
“this game is not going to be fun, by the looks of it,” you mutter, earning yourself a soft chuckle from oscar. “you can stay here until…”
“i’m not a ghost anymore?” he prompts.
“technically not a ghost 'cause you’re not…” you’re trying to choose your words carefully. you don’t want to trigger anything if you don’t know him that well just yet. “you know.”
“dead,” he points out firmly with a finger pointed at you. “let’s be realistic — i could be a ghost. i don’t even know how critical my condition is.”
you press your lips together and drop your gaze to the ground. you mirror his position on the couch and lean back with a sigh. “we should really stop talking about it, don’t you think?” you whisper hopefully.
he shakes his head. “i need to know what happened to me and who did this to me,” he sighs, shaking his head slightly. “maybe they got it wrong. maybe it was a driver error that caused my crash.”
“oscar…”
insistent, he continues to shake his head. “they wouldn’t do this to me,” he says softly with a frown, “i refuse to believe it. there’s no reason to!” oscar turns his head and meets your eyes. he sighs. “what do you think?”
you shrug. “i don’t know any of these people you’re talking about,” you say softly with a smile. “but i’ll help you, i promise.”
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gen taglist: @33-81 @happy-nico @darleneslane @nikfigueiredo @localwhoore @namgification @c-losur3
taglist: @lipringlrh @mess-is-my-aesthetic @vicurious28 @imsiriuslyreal @fionaschicken @pastryboyyy @spookystitchery @topgunmav1df1 @nixisracing @honethatty12 @bloodyymaryyy
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newluvrs · 1 day
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Sungchan ₊ ⊹₍ᐢᐢ₎  mdni!! 18+ currently listening to: VENUS AS A BOY - BJORK word count: 3k a/n: sungchan is so Venus as a boy coded
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Its 4:37 a.m. when you finally close your laptop for the evening.  Your skin feels like shit and you’re practically vibrating from the amount of espresso shots that were in your iced latte.  You haven’t moved from your desk since noon, only taking miniature breaks to go take a piss and grab a quick snack.  Finals week always makes you feel barely human.  When you finally turn off dnd on your phone, your met with a trillion notifications, but only a specific person holds all your attention.  Your heart lurches when you see Sungchan’s name under missed calls, you almost feel guilty recalling your demand you made earlier this week, almost. 
-
“Are you serious?”
“Sungchan, please I am quite literally begging.” 
“Baby, I just don’t understand why you don’t want to study with me...” 
You know damn well he knows why and just wants to make you say it.  You look at him with a bored expression on your face.
“You’re distracting.”
When he feigns confusion at your simple response, you roll your eyes before continuing.  
“Fine.  If you want me to be vulgar I’ll be vulgar.  We both know that I want to fuck you all the time.  You know that it only gets worse when I’m stressed.  I can’t sit there with you and just study when 90% of the time all I can think about is jumping your bones.”
“90% of the time, huh?” 
You want to kiss the stupid smug grin off of his face, but you settle instead for turning your back to him, trying to steel your resolve.  
“It’ll only be a week… it can’t be that hard, right?”
-
Except that’s absolutely not true because why would he ever make things easy for you?  It’s only been a few days since, and you can no longer count on both hands the amount of times you have had to stop yourself from driving to his place. It’s not even his fault, for the most part.  Your boyfriend is just so hot.  You swear BeReal is plotting against you when the timer has just so happened to go off every day this week when he’s in the gym.  How are you supposed to contain yourself when he walks around looking like that, and always so willing to give you what you want.  You’ve had to pause in the middle of studying a couple of times this week just to get yourself off.  Truly you are no better than a man.  
Sungchan himself has pleaded with you a couple of times to just let him come see you.  Trying to explain to you that you’re being ridiculous.  In his head he can’t understand why you won’t just let him be there to help relieve your stress.  He knows that you’re the insatiable one in this relationship.  You having explained to him after you first slept together that your sex drive tended to be high.  And he’s always been more than willing to help you out, whether it be fucking you exactly the way you need after a long day or bringing you to a tender release with his mouth first thing in the morning before you go to work.  He knows exactly what you need when you need it, so he can’t understand why you’re torturing yourself (and him) now. 
chan <3: plz let me come over 
Needless to say you absolutely weren’t expecting to receive a message from him this late at night.  
You: Why r u up??? 
chan <3: ochem :/
chan <3: I need to see u :(
You want to ignore the message, but you would be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t subconsciously press your thighs together.  All you’ve been able to think about since you last saw him is how bad you need him.  You can only do so much with your own fingers, and each time you get off has just been less and less satisfying.  Before you even get a chance to respond another message comes through. 
chan <3: im coming over
Immediately you rush to jump in the shower, not exactly feeling the most desirable in the ratty t-shirt you’ve been wearing for the last 2 days and your unwashed hair.  You tell yourself you’re not gonna let him stay over.  That all you’re gonna do is give him a quick kiss and a hug, just so that both of you can see that the other is doing fine.  And then you’re gonna tell him that you’ll see him in a few more days, after your last exam.  You say this to yourself even as you forego throwing on a bra.  You say this to yourself again as you pull up your sleeping shorts without putting on any underwear.  You tell yourself this one last time as you climb under your sheets, making yourself comfortable against your pillows.  When the familiar sound of your apartment door unlocking finally comes, you feel yourself become nervous suddenly, voice shaking as you holler that you’re in your bedroom.  
You try your best to act like you weren’t waiting for him, but you fail when as soon as you see him standing in your doorway you immediately open your arms wide for him to join you.  He lays himself next to you in your bed, wrapping his arms around your middle resting his head on your chest as you leave kisses on his forehead.  Immediately you feel comforted by his presence, your mood doing a 180. The both of you stay like this for a moment, just holding each other, feeling the exhaustion in your bones.  It’s him who breaks the silence. 
“Missed you.”  
He looks up at you when he says it, his tired eyes making your heart turn.  You can tell that he also just showered, his hair slightly damp and face covered in a light sheen from his skincare products, pimple patches and all.  You love being with him like this, tired and both of your faces bare, it feels like the both of you truly see each other.  
“”m so tired.” 
You sigh as you rub your eyes, truly you’re so exhausted.  Stress has been wrecking your body and making you feel wound too tight.  Not seeing Sungchan has only made it worse, making you feel touch starved and lonely on top of everything else.  He can already tell without you having to say it that it’s been a long couple of days for you.  He knows how hard you can push yourself to succeed.  Being told your whole life that you’re a hard worker only fueled your anxieties of being the best you could be, afraid to let everyone down.
“Let me take care of you.”  
You look down at him still resting his chin on your chest as he says so, his pretty lips pulled into a pout.  
“Just want to help you relieve your stress, will you let me do that for you baby?”  
You feel your pussy throb at this.  It makes you feel good to know that just as much as you always want Sungchan, he always wants you too.  When you don’t say anything he moves to slot himself between your legs, planting soft kisses against your jaw.
“I need to make my pretty girl feel good.  All I’ve been able to think about these last few days is fucking you.”
You can feel that he’s already half-hard as he rocks his hips against yours, a gentle sigh falling from your mouth at the smallest bit of pleasure.  
“..please.”  
That’s all he needs to hear before he’s pushing your shirt up to your hips, his hands moving to your waist as he pulls you fully against him.  He moves his lips gently against yours as you softly moan into his mouth.  You feel so sleepy even right now, everything feeling like a dream as he grinds against you, panting into your mouth.  
“Felt like I was going crazy without you.  I was waiting for a call from you, telling me that you needed me and I was ready to drop everything.  You’re all I could think about.”  
You might be the insatiable one in this relationship but Sungchan is a close second.  For every time that you needed him to make you feel good, there was a time where he needed to make you feel good.  There’s nothing in this world hotter to him than the effect he has on you.  
“Your stupid fucking BeReals made me have to take several… study breaks.”  
Your ears burn hot as you admit this, casting your eyes to between your bodies watching as Sungchan rolls his hips into yours.  Heat blooming in your chest seeing the way the two of you fit perfectly together.
“I wanted to cave so many times… I’m happy you came over.” 
His heart swells in his chest hearing you say this. Placing a tender kiss against your cheek before he pulls away to pull your shorts off.  When he comes face to face with your bare cunt when he was expecting panties, he feels like he’s gonna combust.  
“Jesus y/n, you drive me fucking crazy.”  
He wants to be cocky about it, tease you for having such shit resolve when it comes to him, but he’s so hard it hurts.  You look so soft and tender, hair still damp from the shower, your old t-shirt still on along with your glasses.  He leans on an elbow as he reaches a hand down to play with you, when his fingers brush against your core you’re already soaked. When he looks up at you in silent awe your hands are covering your face, trying to shy away from his gaze.  
“I can’t help it..” You mumble out from behind your hands.  
He doesn’t want to make you wait any longer, slipping two fingers up and down your slit, coating them in your wetness.  He rubs them along your clit briefly just to hear your gasps, rutting his cock against your thigh as he does so.  He moves to pull your hands away from your face as he lines his fingers up with your hole.  Pressing them in he revels in the way you shut your eyes in bliss, mouth falling open.  He feels cocky now, smirking to himself at the way you moan when he crooks them up once they’re fully inside, rubbing up against your top wall.  
“Sungchan fuck..” 
You reach out for him, pulling him down to kiss you while his fingers play with you.  You stay like this for awhile, just making out as his fingers play with you.  He slides in a third to feel the way you gasp into his mouth.  When you arch your chest into his he almost dies at the way he can feel your nipples through your t-shirt.  
“You’re so needy, baby.”  
He presses kisses all over your face as he says this, sliding his fingers out of you to give your clit some more attention.  
“Why are your clothes still on.. this is so unfair.” 
He laughs to himself when you say this, finding it cute the way you try to make demands even as your body is twitching, caving in on itself from the pleasure.  
“Sorry baby, ‘m just gonna make you cum like this real quick, and then I’ll take them off, deal?” 
You can’t even process what he’s saying anymore, just nodding your head as you rock your hips up into his hand.  He slips his fingers back into your cunt, palm grinding into your clit as he finger fucks you.  You’re so distracted by his fingers you don’t even notice that he’s pushed your shirt up to your tits until you feel his mouth wrap around one of your nipples.  Unsure what to do with your hands, all you can do is claw at the sheets, body so overwhelmed from the pleasure.
You cum just like this, the only warning Sungchan gets is the way your body seizes up, your moans reaching a whinier pitch.  He groans at the feeling of you sporadically clenching around his fingers as he fucks you through your orgasm.  Only coming to a halt when you try and push his hand away.  You shudder as he pulls his fingers out, your throat feeling dry as you lay there, boneless.  He’s tender with the way he treats you after, leaving kisses all over your face.  
“So good to me baby, you feel better?”
You nod your head, slowly blinking, still trying to come down from your first high.  When you finally find the words to speak there’s only one thing you can say.
“Goddamn.”
You don’t even care that he smirks to himself at your comment, he deserves to be cocky right now.  When he moves back between your legs, you can already feel heat blooming again, setting your nerves alight.  You can see how hard he is through his sweats, dick straining against the fabric.  Sungchan already knows that cumming once is never enough for you, which is why you want to slap the smug grin off of his face when you hear him ask,
“You want to go again?” 
When you glare at him trying to seem threatening, he can only laugh at how cute you are.  Bringing his lips to yours to kiss the pout off your face.  He leans back on his heels to pull his long sleeve over his head.  You feel yourself throb when you see his body.  You were never one to care about muscles or whether or not someone goes to the gym, but you can’t help but admire all of Sungchan’s hard work.  
“Chan, you’re so handsome.” 
Sungchan feels himself blush at the compliment, filling with pride when you admire him so openly.  He goes to pull down his sweats, freeing his dick from the restrictive fabric.  
“You’re gonna sit there and tease me for not wearing panties, when you show up at my door without boxers on under your sweats?”  
You can’t even sound mean right now because you just feel desperate.  Trying to sound authoritative while simultaneously spreading your legs a little wider to make room for him.  
“Can’t help it I needed to make myself easily accessible to my baby.”  
Now it’s your turn to blush, rolling your eyes like you’re not affected.  He digs a condom from his pocket before sliding it on, you want to make a joke about why it was there in the first place, but the joke dies in your throat when he’s finally lining himself up between your legs.  He runs the head of his cock up and down your slit a few times before finally, finally, pushing in to your wet heat.  The stretch is so good, as he gentle eases himself into you, bringing a hand to thumb at your clit.  The slide easy with how wet you already were from your previous orgasm.  Sungchan loves the way your body opens up for him so easily.  
When he finally bottoms out, both of you just sit there panting.  You take in the sleepy look on Sungchan’s face and think about how yours must mirror his, recalling how it’s close to 6 a.m. now.  You bring a hand up to his cheek, just looking at him as you whine from how deep he feels in you, making you feel so full.  When you finally nod for him to start moving, he pulls out slowly before pushing back in just as slowly, hips reaching deep within you.  Sungchan knows that now is one of those times where you just needed to feel him close.  He fucks you just like this, slow but making sure to sink all the way in each time so you feel full.  
You’re so tired your eyes are starting to slip closed at the pleasure, just feeling so good and so sleepy.  Sungchan sees this and brings himself up to murmur against your ear.
“‘m I fucking you good?”  
All you can do is nod your head, gasping out each time he reaches deep within you.  
“’m I fucking you like you deserve?”  
When he feels you clench around him he keeps talking.
“My needy girl deserves to be fucked exactly how she likes.  You’ve been working so hard baby, just let me take care of you.  Let your pretty boy fuck you good.”  
Sungchan pulls away to rest his head in the crook of your neck, hips picking up the pace.  You bring a shaky hand to the one he has stationed by your head, urging him to lace his fingers with yours.  His heart feeling tender at the action, the gentle affection a heavy contrast to the way his hips are repeatedly rutting into yours.  The both of you are fighting to stay awake, fueled by the need to get each other off.  Sungchan knows you’re close when your moans start to change in pitch.
“You gonna cum?” 
Your eyes are squeezed shut as you hum a simple “mhm” back to him.  Sungchan uses all the energy he has left to fuck into that tender spot within you, hips refusing to let up.  
“Cum pretty girl, then we can go to sleep.” 
You just nod your head, wrapping your arms around him, trying to bring your face to his.  Sungchan takes the hint, softly pressing his lips to yours as he fucks into you one, two, three more times before you’re whimpering against him, body twitching as he feels you seize up around him.  He follows close behind, spilling into the condom as you twitch around him, fighting to keep your eyes open so you can see the way his face contorts from the bliss.  When he’s done going through the motions, he pulls out of you, hissing from the sensitivity.  He disposes of the condom before pulling his sweats back up, cleaning you up quickly with a damp towel trying his best to be gentle, putting a clean pair of underwear on you before finally sliding next to you in your bed.  
When he cuts the lights off you can see that the sun is starting to shine, both of your eyes feeling heavy as he wraps himself around you.  Before you both doze off you hear him mumble one last thing.
“I really did miss you.” 
You smile to yourself, placing a kiss on his pouty lips. 
“I missed you more Chan.”  
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tencrushesperday · 15 hours
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Blood runs thicker than water
pairing : matt rempe x hughes!reader
warnings : angst, and some description of bruises, sort of forbidden lovers
w.c : 1052
a/n : instead of studying for my exams next week i do this, i was listening to The water is fine by Chloe Ament and felt inspired
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You wanted to stay until the end of the match. You wanted to congratulate your brothers on the win. You wanted to party with the team after such a huge win against their rivals.
But the blood was pounding in your ears and you didn’t know what to do with your hands. The crowd was so loud. Jack’s last conquest and Bratt’s girlfriend were chatting next to you. Yet you were feigning interest in the game to ignore them. Even though you could barely focus your sight.
Luke had gotten into an unnecessary fight during second period and Jack was right there to back him up. Both were okay. But the other guy wasn’t.
As soon as the second intermission started you excused yourself to the restroom then texted Nicole on your way to your car saying that suddenly you weren’t feeling good.
Fortunately, you’ve driven down this road so many times you didn’t have to focus to get home because suddenly you were in your apartment. You were on autopilot the whole time doing your night routine and then you were in your bed trying to fall asleep.
Sleep wouldn’t come. Every time you closed your eyes you would see him taking hit after hit. Him struggling to get up. His bloody face.
Then you heard keys turning in the lock and the front door shutting. You got up from your bed and marched out of your room, ready to send one of your bothers home.
“Matt”, you stopped dead in your tracks right outside your bedroom door.
There he stood, in front of the entrance, cheeks bruised, lip cracked.
“I’m sorry”, he only managed to whisper it.
He wanted to say a thousand other things but everything was pointless and painful. Looking at you was painful. Nothing was more appropriate than “sorry”.
He was the one who hit first. Even though Luke asked for it. He chirped Matt’s girlfriend without even knowing it was his own sister and Matt couldn’t let it slide. He also couldn’t tell Luke the truth.
The truth being you weren’t even his girlfriend.
You were just hooking up, keeping it casual, secret.
He would have loved it, have it been any other girl.
But he was so desperately in love with you. He wanted to hold your hand and take you on dates and have you cheering on him at his game. He loved waking up next to you and the casual evenings you spent at each other’s apartments, watching a movie, cooking together and telling each other about your days. He loved when you talked about hockey and he would promise you to take you play again, like when you used to do when you were younger. He even loved the stupid reels and tiktok’s you would send him in the morning on your commute to work because then he knew that you thought about him.
However, it has never gotten out of your apartments. His promise to take you to the rink to play hockey together was never fulfilled.
That he hated.
You kept looking at him. You couldn’t sleep because you kept seeing him getting hurt. But now that he was actually in front of you and even in the dim light coming in from the street you could see the bruises.
Not breaking eye contact you get closer to him as he silently takes off his shoes. He knows the rules in your home. He has a spare key. He knows you inside and out and he still can’t call you his and that’s worse than any hit from your brother, he thinks to himself.
“You left before third period.” He wants to wrap his arms around you and feel the warmth of your body to forget the cold of the ice.
You look at him before taking his hand and leading him to the kitchen. “So did you.”
You drop his hand and reach for two glasses in your cupboard.
He watches your every movement and anticipates your every word. You’re too calm but he knows there’s a storm brewing inside of you. You always go quiet when you’re upset and feeling too much. He knows that growing up with three brothers toughened you up and that, even if you’re working on it, subconsciously you still think that showing emotion is a weakness. Still he awaits your next words and actions. You have him wrapped around your finger so tight he almost wants to laugh at his poor situation.
You turn on the tap and let the water running until it’s at the right temperature before filling up your glass.
Matt can’t wait anymore. His patience thins with every drop of water. It’s pouring out of the faucet and going down the drain.
He’s right behind you when you turn around. You wanted to ask him if he wants water but your words die in your throat. He looks even worse up close.
If you weren’t holding in your breath you would have sobbed at the sight.
Despair fills his eyes when you look up to him. He crashes his lips on yours and you can taste it right there.
You’re not mad he fought Luke. You know how it is on the ice, you know how Luke can be a little shit when chirping, you know how Matt can fly off the handle in such a situation.
You taste a metallic taste in your mouth as the slit on his lip cracks open at the fierceness with which he kissed you.
It doesn’t matter who he fought, he’s hurt and that’s what upsets you.
The metallic taste mixes with the saltiness of the tear that slid down your cheek. He catches the next one with the thumb that is caressing your skin, as he cradles your face.
Your fingers run through his hair. You can’t let him go. You tug him closer. You can’t tell your bothers. Not now. Every thought in your head contradicts the previous one. His other hand is wrapped around your whole body and pulls you impossible closer. You’re caught up in such a mess, one you made yourself.
But for tonight you’ll kiss Matt even harder. You’ll take care of his bruised lip. You’ll kiss the pain away.
Leaving the mess for tomorrow morning.
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scoonsalicious · 3 days
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Unwanted: Chapter 28, Unwanted - Pt. 1
Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avenger!Fem!Reader
Summary: When your FWB relationship with your best friend Bucky Barnes turns into something more, you couldn’t be happier. That is, however, until a new Avenger sets her sights on your super soldier and he inadvertently breaks your heart. You take on a mission you might not be prepared for to put some distance between the two of you and open yourself up to past traumas. Too bad the only one who can help you heal is the one person you can no longer trust.
Warnings: (For this part only; see Story Masterlist for general Warnings) Language, violence, death
Word Count: 861
Previously On...: You're boyfriend's back and Jade's gonna be in trouble. Hey na, hey na...
A/N: THREE MORE CHAPTERS LEFT OMG HOW DID WE GET HERE?!
NOTE! The tag list is a fickle bitch, so I'm not really going to be dealing with it anymore. If you want to be notified when new story parts drop, please follow @scoonsaliciousupdates
Banner By: The absolutely amazing @mrsbuckybarnes1917!
Thank you to all those who have been reading; if you like what you've read, likes, comments, and reblogs give me life, and I truly appreciate them, and you!
Taglist: (Sadly, tag list is closed; Tumblr will not let me add anyone new. If you want to be notified when I update, please Follow me for Notifications!) @jmeelee @cazellen @mrsbuckybarnes1917 @blackhawkfanatic @buckybarnessimpp @hayjat @capswife @itsteambarnes @marygoddessofmischief @sebastians-love @learisa @lethallyprotected @rabbitrabbit12321 @buckybarnesandmarvel @fanfictiongirl77 @calwitch @fantasyfootballchampion @selella @jackiehollanderr @wintercrows @sashaisready @missvelvetsstuff @angelbabyyy99 @keylimebeag @maybefoxysouls @vicmc624 @j23r23 @wintercrows @crist1216 @cjand10 @pattiemac1@les-sel @dottirose @winterslove1917 @harperkenobi @ivet4 @casey1-2007 @mrsevans90 @steeph-aniie @bean-bean2000 @beanbagbitch @peachiestevie @wintrsoldrluvr @shadowzena43
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Jade was dragging you through the hallways of the base by your hair as she frantically searched for an exit that would keep her out of Bucky’s reach. At first, you tried to keep track of the path you took, making note of turns and counting doorways as you were pulled down long corridors in case the opportunity to escape presented itself and you had to retrace your steps, but the route was so convoluted, and your head so battered, that you quickly lost track of where you were going, and any sense of direction you’d been able to hold onto. 
“I need eyes,” Jade said, more to herself than to you, and soon she was shifting directions. Within moments, she was throwing open a metal door that appeared to lead to a security center. Tossing you unceremoniously inside, she bolted the door behind her and heaved a heavy breath.
“What’s the matter?” you asked, your tone dangerously mocking. “If he loves you as much as you think he does, you shouldn’t have any reason to run from him.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” Jade chanted. She moved over to the row of security monitors and began quickly cycling through the screens. “Gotta find an exit,” she murmured to herself. “There has to be a way out where he won’t see.”
You took the opportunity her distraction provided to study the rest of the monitors, hoping to find some subtle way to contact Bucky, to let him know where you were or, at the very least, to try and find an escape route of your own. 
“How did he know where to find you?” Jade muttered as she continued to flip through the feeds.
You opted not to answer; you’d be a fucking idiot to reveal your distress bangle now. If you could keep it a secret from Jade, you’d ensure that Bucky would have the ability to find you, no matter where she ended up taking you. It would also let him know you were still alive.
You scanned the rest of the monitors, instead, and were shocked by what you saw: Room after room was littered in corpses; bloody, mangled, bodies where there had once been Hydra agents. Your eyes landed on a monitor in the far left corner of the room, and you saw him. Bucky was covered head to toe in the blood of his enemies, dual guns raised in the air as he opened fire on anyone who stood in his way. Though you couldn’t hear the words coming from his mouth, you could read his lips well enough to know he was screaming your name, searching for you as he tore through the facility, slaughtering every Hydra operative that crossed his path.
You had never seen him so enraged before. Yes, you knew that, as the Winter Soldier, he’d been capable of immense violence– you’d seen video footage of him in action, after all, but this? This was so much worse than that. Because Soldat complied. And Bucky Barnes? He was out for blood.*
You should have been frightened by the blatant display of absolute brutality, should have been repulsed by it. But instead, it excited you. It thrilled you, because you knew that he was doing this for you. To get you back, to keep you safe. He was willing to damn his soul to hell to protect you when you needed him. You should have been disgusted, but you’d never been more turned on by him in your life.
“Gotcha!” Jade exclaimed, drawing your attention back to her. She’d stopped her cycling through the security feeds on a non-descript door that, so far, seemed to have been spared from the ongoing carnage. Moving to a locker beside the desk, Jade reached inside and pulled out a handgun and several clips of ammo, tucking them snuggly into her belt.
“Come on,” she said, reaching out and grabbing your hair once more. “You’re my human shield for getting out of here.” She dragged you back out of the security station and into the hallway, looking both ways before turning left and sprinting down the corridor. It was all you could do to keep up; you had no doubt that if you faltered, she’d drag you across the floor behind her without a second thought. 
In minutes, you were at the door you’d seen in the feed. Jade let go of your hair and trained her gun on your head. “Open it,” she commanded. 
You winced in pain as you yanked on the door with your right hand, the left dangling limply and uselessly at your side. “Hurry up!” Jade shouted at you.
“I’m trying,” you grunted as you pulled. “The door’s fucking heavy, and in case you forgot, I’m down an arm because of you.”
“Jesus Christ,” Jade grumbled, reaching around you to yank the door open, herself. “Do I have to do fucking everything around here?” She jabbed the barrel of her gun into your back. “Go,” she urged.
You stepped into the darkness of the open tunnel and, doing your best not to stumble or jostle your ruined arm, began to walk.
<- Previous Chapter / Next Part ->
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koenigami · 18 hours
Text
Mechanic!Wriothesley who changes the flat tire on your car while you're perched on top of the large work table in his workshop, a cherry flavored lollipop in your mouth. You study the bulging veins in his forearms as he effortlessly removes the damaged tire before replacing it with a new one. The top of his navy overall is partially unbuttoned, allowing you to catch a glimpse of his thick pecks that rise and fall with each steady breath that he takes.
"You getting bored there?" His suave voice sounds rough, almost a little tired. He must have had a pretty busy day judging by the scattered tools around his usually neat and tidy shop, and the oil stains all over him.
"Nuh-Uh." Not at all. With that view? How could you? With a wet "pop", you pull the candy out of your mouth and point it at him before you resume. "You look like you could use a break though."
"Yeah? That bad, huh?" Wriothesley briefly lifts his head to shoot you a handsome smirk before continuing his work. You stop kicking your legs, and instead decide to cross one over the other, clenching and unclenching your thighs to calm this pulsing need that is slowly spreading in your lower area.
With a satisfied hum, you watch him get up from his crouched position and wipe his dirty hands off his pants before striding towards you. The distinct smell of oil and faded cologne wafts through your nose as he halts in front of you, and you have to control the urge to spread your legs and let him get closer. Let him invade your space until all you can sense is him.
"Never." The word is hushed as it leaves your coloured lips, and you smile instinctively when he lifts one eyebrow in confusion. "You could never look bad, Wriothesley."
One look into those deep pools of blue is enough to let your mind drift over to other horizons. You wonder what he'd look like with a few more buttons unbuttoned, how good he'd look between your thighs, how his tongue would feel on your-
Your breath hitches when he leans down, warm air brushes down the column of your throat, and lower to your bosom until his warmth leaves you. And with him, your lollipop disappears too as you notice the empty fingers that have been tightly clutching the white stem.
Biting the inside of your cheek, you watch him slip your car keys out of his pocket. But instead of tossing them to you, like you had anticipated with disappointment, he makes sure to lock your car and puts them back in his trousers.
"'S not safe to drive with it, 'nd I need to make few more 'sheck ups." Wriothesley explains, mumbling almost incoherently and swallowing syllables with your candy in his mouth. "'S okay if I drop ya' off home?"
The lights are turned off once you give him an approving nod, all while you try to contain the stupid grin on your face. So with a hand on the small of your back, he leads you towards his car and holds the passenger side door open for you.
Until now, the lollipop has already dissolved in Wriothesley's mouth. That’s why when he speaks next, you can understand his words and their implication very clearly when he leans down to murmur into your ear.
"Think I can take a shower at yours?"
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zhaosbin · 2 days
Note
what about fwb with gyuvin?? AND MAYBE HIGHSCHOOL AU!! like everybody thinks that you are just friends but in private it's something else..
ohhh i'm obsessed with this idea...THANK U ANON🫡
just friends — k. gyuvin
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the dreaded day had finally come...monday. to make this particular monday more bearable, you and your friend hanbin had decided to meet up at a cafe before school started. you both order a small iced coffee and sit down at a booth nearby for a few minutes.
"did you study for mrs. choi's exam yet?" your friend asked you curiously. you quickly snap your head to look at him.
"we had an exam?" you say with an almost terrified look on your face. your friend, being used to ur laziness when it comes to school, simply laughed at you and offered to help you study as he always did.
"maybe if you weren't so busy with gyuvin, you would've known" hanbin says while giggling. you roll your eyes at your friend. everybody knew you and gyuvin were best friends, almost inseparable these days. it didn't stop them from teasing you both about it though.
"i already told you, there's nothing going on between us. we're just best friends"! you semi shout while hitting hanbin with you bag.
of course, you didn't like lying to your best friend. but you couldn't exactly tell him you were fucking one of his closest friends, could you?
you walk into your fourth period class exhausted. of course you got stuck with gym first period and had to go the rest of the day sweaty and tired. you take your seat next to your desk mate gunwook and you two casually talk about your days before the teacher comes in and begins the lesson.
unfortunately, the subject being taught right now was math. you couldn't care less about fractions and exponents right now. not when your phone was blowing up with text messages and calls. you knew right away who it was.
from: gyuvin 👹
y/n
y/nnnnn
can you come to the west wing?
please
it's important
answer me
from: y/n🫣
gyuvin i am literally in class
you were surprised when your needy "best friend" didn't immediately answer your message. putting your phone away, you went back to trying to figure out what ur teacher was even teaching.
a few moments later, a rather hard knock on the door snapped you out of your trance. the teacher looked annoyed until he opened the door to see his favorite student. kim gyuvin.
"im sorry sir, may i borrow y/n for a yearbook picture"? gyuvin says with a perfect smile on his perfect face.
you have to stop your jaw from hitting the floor. you cannot believe the nerve of this guy. the teacher, who absolutely ADORES gyuvin, immediately nods and motions at you to gather your stuff.
you both leave the classroom as gyuvin shoots the teacher a wave and another award winning smile. when the door finally shuts, you immediately slap his shoulder.
"are you crazy! what could possibly be this important?" you shout at him in the empty hallway.
gyuvin immediately pulls you to the closest janitors closet. he takes your hand and you look at him confused, until he places it on his very obvious boner.
"im sorry, i just couldn't stop thinking about being inside you again" gyuvin says casually like it's something normal.
you shake your head in disbelief, but you couldn't lie to yourself, just the thought of you making him hard was a huge turn on.
gyuvin could tell you were slipping into your submissive role already, the state he most adored you in. he placed a stray hair behind your ear and smiled at you.
"do you wanna help me out?" gyuvin asked with those beautiful puppy dog eyes. although u could tell he really needed this right now, you know he wouldn't force you into anything you didnt want to do.
instead of responding, you pull him in for a long and heated kiss. what started out slow and innocent turned into gyuvin shoving you against one of the shelves in the closet.
you gasp as your back hits the shelf. while part of you wanted gyuvin to publicly be yours, you couldn't deny how exciting it was having these secret sessions only the two of you knew about.
gyuvin moves from your lips down to your neck, being careful not to leave any noticeable marks there.
growing impatient, you nudge your knee against his crotch as he lets out a deep groan. gyuvin giggles at your lack of control and quickly gives in and lifts up your skirt. yeah, this was definitely his favorite part of the uniforms you guys had to wear.
he moves your panties to the side and immediately feels the wetness between your legs. you let out a sweet whimper, possibly one of gyuvin's favorite sounds in the world.
he slowly rubbed circles around your clit just to get you to relax a bit more. this only continued for a few minutes because he was simply too impatient. he needed to be inside you again.
helping him undo his belt, he quickly gets rid of his pants and throws them somewhere behind him. he then takes out a condom and rolls it onto his length, fingers fumbling due to his speed.
gyuvin gives you another sweet kiss as you feel him finally enter you. he groans at the feeling of your tight walls around his throbbing cock.
knowing the last time he was inside you was only two days ago, he wastes no time in fucking you mercilessly against the shelf.
your latch on to him and rest your forehead on his chest, his strong arms holding you up.
"fuck, you always feel so good around my cock baby" gyuvin pants almost breathlessly.
you moan in return, barely able to speak a sentence due to his cock hitting all the right spots inside of you.
trying to focus on something, you glance down at his hands. those veiny fucking hands.
as of gyuvin could read your mind, he wraps one of them around your throat. you knew it was game over for you.
"gyuvin i-im cumming" you're barely able to spit out before your orgasm shakes ur entire body. knowing you can get loud when you cum, he takes the hand that was around your throat and places it over your mouth.
"hold on baby, im almost done" gyuvin says as he kisses your forehead. he only manages to get a few more thrusts in before he's cumming with a deep moan.
he pumps into you a few more times before finally pulling out and helping you to stand. when you guys make eye contact again, you both let out a laugh. you couldn't believe this was your life.
after you both clean up the best you can, you exit the janitors closet together. when you step outside, you see hanbin standing on the other side of the hallway, a look of disbelief but also humor on his face.
"I KNEW IT!" he shouts loud enough for anyone passing by to hear. you and gyuvin look at each other and he grabs your hand.
"let's just make it official" he says with a look of adoration on his face.
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traumatrios · 12 hours
Text
friends, fwb!ART DONALDSON
josie’s notes! this is kind of a character study & lowkey bad but i got out of the theater 4 hours ago and have been obsessing. new era incoming!
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ART DONALDSON was unable to keep his eyes off of you.
They are thirsty to drink in the way your body curves with ease in the bootcut jeans you wear out of Art’s bathroom. He lets his gaze swipe up and down your form, as you twist and turn in search of your straggling belongings. Most importantly, your phone.
“Mornin’,” Art chimed, admiring the curve of your chest in the sculpted tank you sported.
“Good morning,” you returned with an innocent smile, swinging the strap of your backpack on your shoulder. Your hands patted along the front, back and sides of your thighs, coming up empty handed.
Art’s eyes located your phone atop his dresser, spinning over in his desk chair to reach and retrieve it. Weight slid off of your shoulders in the form of a relieved sigh.
The corners of Art’s eyes crinkled in a friendly smile as he held it out for you to take. His arms– most notably his biceps –and the bruised marks that stretched across the skin. You could still see the fresh indents your freshly manicured nails left earlier in the morning.
“Here, princess.”
There it was again. That Donaldson smile that has all the ladies swooning. You were a victim of the assault. It took every nerve in your body to speak with how your knees grew wobbly and your thighs began to grow sore.
“Thanks, friend,” you uttered, lifting your fingers to grab the phone. Art pulled his hand away from your, clicking his tongue.
“Ah-ah,” his smile turned into a smirk as he teased you. You were supposed to leave for class five minutes ago, but with his hand ‘accidentally’ prodding at your ass this morning and how he seems to be playing a game now, you began to ponder the possibility of never being able to leave. Your knee was already pressing next to his in his chair, any further and you weren’t ever getting up.
“C’mon, gotta leave,” you attempted to grab the phone again, only for him to pull it further away from you. The tips of your ears began to burn with your growing frustration.
Art raised his eyebrows in suggestion, and you knew exactly what it meant. Tilting your head at the gesture, he rebounded with a different motive.
“Kiss first?” he asked, an attempt at batting his eyelashes following. “Please?” he added.
You roll your eyes at him. You liked how playful he was, you did, but leaving his dorm the morning after another needy fuck was starting to get tiring. What was the next step?
This wasn’t the heavy subject you needed to focus on right now, instead you needed to start thinking about what you’d do if you failed this mornings’ calculus exam.
Before your feet could get moving, your lips were already obliging his request. Art’s hand cupped the back of your scalp to deepen what was meant to be a parting kiss, turning the soft peck into a loving kiss.
With the way his teeth didn’t try to clash with yours, you wondered if this was how he fed the fantasies in his head. It was obvious, Art wanted more than a fuck-buddy, but his passion was way ahead of his heart when it came to pretty girls like you. He always dove in head first, never thinking of the commitment— or lack thereof —when it came to this type of relationship.
You didn’t know what you wanted. It was hard to tell in college; you didn’t even fully know what you wanted to do with your life, how were you supposed to know anything else?
So you’d continue your late-night ventures to his dorm building and totally-not-lunch-dates whenever he had a gap in his weekend tennis schedule and you weren’t swamped with homework. You’d settle with quickies in closets and longing stares if it meant you had a warm body next to you that made you feel wanted.
After what felt like too long, you were the one to break the kiss. Art’s mouth was tinted with a frown to see you snatch your cell phone from his palm and begin to exit his dorm.
“Bye, friend!” You called.
“Bye, friend.”
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divider by @benkeibear !
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kingdom-of-sins · 2 days
Text
Charles Leclerc x reader
A/N: Friends to lovers
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You and Charles knew each other since you were kids. Went to the same school and had play dates almost every week. Both were each other's valentines when you two were just five year olds.
You two kinda lost touch when your parents sent you to boarding school in a different country. Charles got busy with his karting career and you got busy with your studies. But you two would meet once or twice in a year whenever you go back home or both coincidentally in the same city.
Both of you had relationships with other people as you two grew older, but your break ups were not as controversial as his. You would hear your friends talking about it, and with social media everyone just knows about every thing.
Once you moved back to Monaco the friendship took a new life. It's not a big place so you two run into each other almost every day. See each other at every event. Same gym. Same neighborhood.
Your professional life soon got hectic when you started working in your parents' company. A fashion/jewelry company. Famous internationally. You managed to sign Charles as a brand ambassador.
Imagine him doing a photoshoot for your company's new line of clothing. You at the set as well. Both constantly talking and discussing just normal stuff. Both going out for lunch just as friends. Your social media is private, so imagine Charles posting a funny video of you taking ages to choose what flavor of ice cream you will have...just imagine his laugh while he is explaining what's going on and zooming the camera on you. Imagine the fans reaction, but obviously they don't know you two are just very good friends.
Charles and you started to spend more time together. It's like the play dates you two had when you both were kids, but the difference is you two are now adults and instead of playing fun silly little kid's games you two just hang out, vent about your hectic lives, share interesting life events, all that...
Since the friendship rekindled Charles didn't feel the need to jump into a new relationship. He didn't know why. He didn't even think about it. But both of you still under the impression that you two are "just friends".
Imagine you invited to the Monaco GP by Ferrari. You at the back of the garage during the weekend, having a front seat view to everything and Charles. Charles will occasionally come talk to you if he gets the time. Obviously the cameras will get that. It will even be posted on the Ferrari social media. Imagine Charles winning the Monaco GP for the first time (i think we all want it to happen). He doesn't say it but a part of him thinks he won his home race because you were there.
Imagine bored Charles during his week off. Visit you in your office with lunch because you are too busy to even eat. He doesn't disturb you or anything, just making sure you eat something. You find a few minutes break from your work and spend it with him.
Gradually you find yourself regularly keeping tabs about the races and important news regarding F1. You will be doing some important work and the race which is happening in a different continent would be playing on the tv or your phone.
The first time Charles realized that he loves you is when he was in desperate need of a haircut before a social event. He was not in Monaco, but fortunately you were in the same city, probably invited to the same event. So hours before the event he was in your hotel room, sitting on a chair with a towel on his shoulder, and you with a comb and scissor in your hands. Charles trusted you to cut his hair and you were his only option. The entire time he was thinking how "right" it feels. He was looking at the mirror while you cut his hair, and the longer he looked the longer he wanted it to last. The bonus is the hair cut is exactly how his mom would have done it.
You are not dumb or oblivious to everything. You know you are falling for Charles. Whenever you think about you two, about the past and all the moments spent together, falling in love with him seems just inevitable. But you are kinda scared to take the first step. What if he doesn't feel the same way? Charles too is scared to confess his feelings. He knows he doesn't have a good track record when it comes to love and relationships. He doesn't want to mess things up with you. He is scared and nervous and completely in love.
You were very good at hiding your feelings but Charles was not even half as good as you. Everyone around him could tell that he is in love. Even the workers at the Ferrari factory could tell.
Imagine Charles in a different country for a race, and you in a different country for work. Suddenly he sees an article of you with some model or designer. It's just a work meeting but the media made it seem like there was something romantic. Charles knew that but he so badly wished that it was him in that article instead of the other guy. He won the race, mostly because he just wanted for the race to be over as fast as possible so he could hop on the plane and fly to you.
When Charles knocked at your hotel room door you thought it was room service. You opened the door expecting to see your dinner but found an exhausted Charles standing there. He didn't give you a chance to speak and immediately kissed you. It took you a couple of seconds but you kissed back. The way he held you, the way your fingers ran through his hair, the way it felt to kiss each other said everything.
Everything just felt natural. Everything just felt like it was all meant to be. Everything just fits like a perfect puzzle.
BONUS
Imagine both you and Charles decided to keep the relationship private. Of course your families and close friends know and they were all thrilled.
Both finding the right balance between work and relationship. Sometimes you are able to sync your travel with his so you both can be in the same city. You understand what it takes to date an F1 driver, and Charles soon understood what it takes to date someone who is one day going to inherit an entire company.
It's okay if you two don't call each other every day, but you two keep each other updated with texts, photos, videos and voice notes.
Imagine Charles trying to attend your company's events to support you. And you try to attend as many races as you can, at least 10 races a year.
While the relationship is private you never enter the paddock with him. It's for the best. But people are not blind and most are overthinkers and great investigators. Of course speculations started to spread about you two.
You thought the relationship would be private for at least a few more months but Charles accidentally posted a video of you driving his Ferrari while he is just being the passenger princess. The video was supposed to be for the "close friends" but he accidentally forgot to choose that potion before uploading it on his insta story. He realized it immediately and deleted it but a lot of fans have already seen it and recorded it.
Now imagine entering the paddock together. A power couple. Charles holding your hand, fingers intertwined and all. Him introducing you to some necessary people.
Imagine one of those photos where he helps you get in his car and see how it feels. A very unique experience. Him explaining the steering wheel and all the buttons and switches.
Charles kissing you before getting in the car and after finishing his race. If he is in the top 3 or won the race then he just knows you are with the Ferrari team at the parc ferme waiting for him and celebrating for him. Hugs and kisses. Smiling at you from the top of the podium.
Your social media accounts are private so the fans just hound him to post photos of you. Occasional hate is there. You don't care but Charles does.
Summer break. You surprise Charles with an amazing vacation. He is thrilled and excited, but he just can't stop smiling when he finds out that you invited his family as well, because you know he loves going on vacation with his family.
Cute videos of you two from race weekends.
Charles posting cute photos of you or of both of you. It's very rare but he proudly posts them.
Whenever someone asks him questions about you or your name comes up he just gives a love sick smile "my girlfriend..."
You live in Monaco, you are rich, you already have expensive cars, but imagine Charles gifting you a Ferrari. He was completely involved in designing, choosing the perfect color, anything that can be personalized.
Imagine cozy nights at home. You cooking and Charles helping. Watching movies while cuddling under the blanket.
Imagine both working out together.
Imagine both buying a house together. Both equally involved in designing and all. There is no shortage of money so you two can have anything you want.
Imagine you two having a perfect relationship.
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gatorbites-imagines · 17 hours
Note
Hii! Hope you’re having a great day :D
I was thinking about Law with a tall male reader who looks very intimidating. everyone thinks that he is the top in the relationship but Law is the one who actually tops/? Like his s/o looks like a top but is actually a pillow princess. ;)
You can take this as a request or not if you want :3
Trafalgar D. Water Law x Tall male reader
Headcanons
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Guten Abend everyone, still getting dragged over the studying coals, but fuck it we ball.
No outright smut in this one, mainly just focusing on their relationship since im exhausted, but I hope its still enjoyable.
In the One Piece universe, being tall can mean a lot of things. Being taller than Law just means you have to be somewhere over 6 ft 5, or taller, if that’s what you prefer. Being intimidating isn’t too hard either, especially if you are a fellow pirate.
Seeing you two together can be a little off-putting to the people around you, at least the ones that aren’t part of your crew, who know you two on a more personal level.
No one would dare to make assumptions in the beginning of a meeting, since Law already has quite the reputation, and either your scary aura or your own dangerous reputation makes people shut up. They might have ideas to themselves, but they wouldn’t verbalize it.
It probably comes up during an afterparty of some kind, after you guys have defeated the baddie of the week and you’re all kicking back. Since Law isn’t a big fan of drinking, you would end up being the one getting tipsy out of the two of you.
At some point during the night, Kidd or others who are more comfortable with you two, would start making jabs or ask questions, as one does when you get wasted. It becomes clear pretty damn quick though, that everyone thinks that Law is the one who bottoms.
Law isn’t the type to out your guy’s bedroom life, but I could still imagine him asking, in a bit of a tense tone, why they think that. That’s when you guys get the explanation from your allies and friends. But it all boils down to you being taller, bigger, scarier and with a stronger presence. So, it just made sense to them.
It gets a bit of a laugh from you, and you can tell from the tension in Laws jaw that it gets on his nerves, maybe even hurting his ego a little. But you also know your lover wouldn’t verbalize those thoughts, not wanting to admit something like an assumption of his bedroom role would hit him in any way.
When you guys get back to the polar tang, one would assume Law would drag you off to the bedroom to show you and him that your friends and allies’ assumptions were wrong. But Law is also a doctor, so he wouldn’t want to do such a thing when you’re drunk.
Instead, he gets some water in you, gets you something to eat, helps you get washed down if that’s what you need, and then the two of you conk out in bed, Law the big spoon even if you are taller. Hes like your tattooed backpack, if the height difference is big enough.
Law doesn’t end up making a move on you in the morning either if you suffer from hangovers, instead your lover would make sure you were alright, and get you something for the hangover if its bad enough. His ego may have been wounded a little, but he’s a respectful guy, especially to you as his lover.
That evening, or the day after though, you’re all his, not that you mind though. Seeing as all your crewmates are most likely still out partying or suffering from hangovers, you two have the polar tang all to yourself.
As you enjoy laying back and receiving pleasure without doing much in return, Law gets to do most of the work. He doesn’t need the same in return, as giving you pleasure is satisfying for him. Being in charge would feel quite nice for him, as it allows him to have an eye on the entire situation and what’s going on.
Law would definitely also use his devil fruit power when you guys are together, since it would make it easier for the both of you, and with his devil fruit he’s able to reach parts of you no one else can.
In the end, people you meet, and probably most of your friends and allies, think you are the top still, but Law wouldn’t mind too much after you show him that you don’t think lesser of him or let other people’s assumptions bother you or your relationship.
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pippytmi · 3 days
Note
Your ennemies to lovers prompts make me think so much about kacy during S1. I appreciate all of your Kacy fics and love the emotions you manage to create with your writing. I was wondering if you would be interested in writing a story that combines prompt 4 and 6?
It is an unspoken rule that when the DIA is involved in a case, Lucy needs to be kept far, far away.
At least, that’s how Jesse rationalizes trying to keep Lucy away from DIA Officer Whistler. He cites repeated complaints to Tennant (undeserved ones), numerous whisper-shouting matches in the halls (all Whistler’s fault), and ending in the middle of tense stare-downs more often than not (obviously biased). So really, it’s a no-brainer that Lucy indignantly ignores Jesse’s pleas and makes it her mission to give as good as she gets.
“Good morning, DIA Officer Whistler,” Lucy tells her sweetly this morning, having been waiting outside the elevator just to catch the briefly-perplexed, then immediately-annoyed expression on Whistler’s face.
“Special Agent Tara,” Whistler says curtly. “I was told I would be speaking with Agent Boone today.”
“He’s busy,” Lucy says. “Small mishap with his car.” (She’d let the air out of his tires, actually, just in preparation for today).
Whistler’s expression does not waver. “I’ll speak with Special Agent Tennant, then,” she says.
“Or,” Lucy says, following as Whistler begins to stalk through the bullpen, “you can discuss the case with me. I haven’t actually been briefed on why you’re here, but if you give me two minutes…”
Whistler comes to an abrupt stop, and Lucy nearly knocks them both over; Whistler has to grip Lucy’s arm just to keep her from falling on her face, and when Lucy meets Whistler’s gaze, she sees—strangely—a kind of uncharacteristic apprehension that Whistler never has. Whistler drops Lucy’s arm like she has been burned, and her voice goes quiet when she says, 
“It really would make more sense to discuss clearance with your boss. It’s a time-sensitive matter.”
“Oh.” Lucy tries to hide her confusion, but it’s a halfhearted attempt at best; usually, the back-and-forth with Whistler is inevitable (and maybe even slightly thrilling). Whistler never just…gives up. “Is everything okay?”
“Of course,” Whistler says, already heading towards Jane’s office with renewed intensity. “Excuse me.”
Lucy is practically rooted in her spot, bewildered, and she watches as Tennant beckons Whistler inside before shutting the door. “Huh,” she says aloud. “Weird.”
“What’s weird?” Kai comes in carrying coffee, and he freezes in place as he, too, realizes what Lucy is looking at. “Damn. DIA’s here already? We haven’t even been briefed on the case yet.”
“Apparently it’s ‘time-sensitive’,” Lucy says, complete with air quotes and everything. “Think this means Whistler will actually give us something for once?”
“I’m not holding my breath,” Kai yawns, offering Lucy her cup before he wanders over to his desk. “Hey, where’s Jesse?”
(Lucy decides not to incriminate herself by answering that).
By the time Whistler and Jane emerge, both Kai and Lucy are pretending to be working and Jesse is just barely bursting through the doors. Jane doesn’t comment on either; instead, she waves her arms to get everyone together and begins her spiel about how they need to work with DIA and be a happy team or whatever. Honestly, Lucy is kind of tuning out the pep talk and is instead studying Whistler—everything about her body language screams discomfort, from the stiffness of her shoulders to the sharpness of her set mouth. And when she catches Lucy staring, all she does is quickly look away.
Weird.
Later, after they've been fully briefed and Jane dismisses them to do boring grunt work, Lucy tries to edge closer to Whistler and ask what exactly DIA needs to be here for. But when Whistler sees her coming, she makes a beeline towards Jesse instead, and Lucy is left frowning at their backs.
At first Lucy doesn't think too much of it. Jesse is probably handling the precious, redacted DIA files that point them to the possible suspects in this abduction case. But then, after Lucy is tasked with talking to their kidnapping victim's husband, she tries to be polite and ask Whistler if she wants to sit in. A gesture of goodwill, really, to make Whistler feel like she’s part of the investigation. 
“Hey Whistler, do you want to get in on this?” Lucy waves her case file enticingly when Whistler emerges from the break room. “We can do a good cop/bad cop routine. Obviously we know who's who in that scenario, but if you ask nicely I might consider flipping you for bad cop.”
Whistler blinks at her. “What?”
“I'm going to interview Sergeant Nguyen’s husband,” Lucy clarifies. “Want to help?”
“That's not in my job description,” Whistler says, brow crinkling in deeper confusion. “And I have to go talk to Tennant.”
“Again?” Lucy asks this question to the empty space where Whistler used to be. Except this time, Whistler is not being invited into Jane’s office. No, Whistler is just walking away, and pretending to get a call so she has an excuse to exit the hallway.
In an instant, Lucy is pissed off. Here she is, extending an olive branch, and Whistler is acting like she's too good for it. Fine—if Whistler wants to avoid her, then two can play at that game.
Ernie patiently listens to Lucy explain all of this once the interview with the Sergeant's husband gets them nothing. “So that’s why you're hiding in here,” he guesses. “Because Whistler doesn’t want to fight with you like usual.”
“I'm not hiding,” Lucy scoffs. “I actually came here to discuss…” She lamely grabs the top file on his desk, flipping it open to the first page. “Timothy Summers. Hm. Yeah, I think he's our guy.”
“Great,” Ernie says. “So an arrest is imminent, then?”
“Oh, definitely. That's why I'm here…with you…for our next move.”
“And how does the fact that he's been dead for six months fit into this?”
Lucy pauses. “You couldn’t have just told me that?”
“It’s literally underneath his picture. Deceased.” Ernie jabs at the file with his finger, and Lucy smacks him with it. “Ow! God, you’re mean when you fight with your girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” Lucy’s voice comes out several octaves higher than it should. “Why would you say that?”
“Uh, lots of reasons.” Ernie pops open a box of candy on his desk, offering Lucy a sympathetic red vine which she numbly accepts. “Everyone can see it. Honestly, I thought you two were going to start going at it on Kai’s desk the other day when Whistler broke the news that we were off the Dominguez case.”
Lucy’s jaw drops. “Because we were arguing?”
“Intensely arguing,” Ernie corrects. “Kai and I placed bets on who would kiss who first.”
“Are you serious? She hates me.” 
“Does she?” Ernie continues chewing on his red vine before whispering conspiringly, “Or does she secretly burn for you?”
Horrified, Lucy ditches the candy; surely, that must be the reason she suddenly feels sick to her stomach. “Forget it. I’m going to hide somewhere else.”
“So you are hiding. I knew it! Hey, can you—”
Whatever Ernie wants, Lucy doesn’t stick around to find out. She decides she’s going to find Kai instead, see if he has any actual leads in the case.
Except she ends up bumping into Whistler again. Full-on body contact this time, even—Whistler jerks backwards, Lucy tries to jump into the wall, and really it's a wonder it doesn't end in catastrophe.
“I'm sorry, I…” Whistler trails off when she sees Lucy. “Um, Tennant said I had to talk to Ernie about Sergeant Nguyen’s finances. Is he here?”
“Yeah, he's in there.” Lucy gestures vaguely over her shoulder. “The tech-nerd talk is all yours. I need to go talk to...other people. About things.”
Whistler nods awkwardly, still waiting, and Lucy belatedly steps out of the doorway in order to head back to the bullpen. Okay, so, Operation Avoid Whistler is officially off to a bad start.
But when she catches up to Kai, he has a much better idea of how to spend their time, and it also guarantees Lucy can avoid Whistler perfectly.
“Sergeant Nguyen was last seen at a Vietnamese restaurant two blocks from here,” Kai says. “Do you want to go check it out? Maybe we'll get something the police didn't.”
Lucy’s spirits are immediately lifted. “Yes. I could go for a banh mi,” she says dreamily. “Ooh, and some spring rolls.”
“I'm…pretty sure we're not allowed to order food from our suspects.”
“We don't know if they're our suspects,” Lucy reminds him. “And besides, spring rolls never kidnapped anyone.” She pats him on the shoulder reassuringly. “Give me five minutes and I’ll meet you in the parking lot.”
It ends up being closer to twenty minutes to update Jane on their next move, but Jane does give her blessing to investigate (and bring back lunch). Lucy has a pep in her step the entire way out to the parking lot, where…Whistler is standing.
Lucy notices her first; Whistler is facing the ocean, hand cupped above her forehead and frowning at something. She looks so serious—and out of place—that Lucy almost considers asking what’s wrong. Key word almost, because she is still on avoid-Kate-Whistler-mode, and she makes a mad dash to Kai’s car before Whistler can spot her.
Kai yelps when Lucy yanks the door open with, admittedly, a sense of urgency that is a tad unwarranted. “What—?”
“Drive, Kai,” Lucy demands, and he immediately starts up the engine, but he eyes her warily all the same.
(Unfortunately, Lucy makes eye contact with Whistler through the window as the car peels out of the lot, and she groans and sinks low in her seat.)
“What was that?” Kai ventures to ask. “Are you and Whistler fighting?”
“For once, no,” Lucy says. “She’s been avoiding me. So now I’m the one avoiding her.”
“Well did something happen?” The drive is quick, and before they know it, Kai is easing the car into a parking spot. “I know you two get…uh. Really passionate sometimes.”
“Because she hates me,” Lucy reiterates, feeling like a broken record at this point. “So I hate to break it to you, but you and Ernie are not going to collect on any bets related to kissing.”
Kai winces. “You know about that?”
“Yes, Kai, what the hell? I expect this from Ernie, but from you?”
“Any way I can make it up to you?” Kai asks weakly.
“Buy me lunch and we’ll talk,” Lucy says, and Kai—newfound meddler that he has proved to be—can at least follow instructions beautifully.
The restaurant turns out to be a dead-end case wise, but their menu is grand; they order too much food and bring enough lunch for everyone. (Even Whistler).
But when Lucy ever-so-casually mentions this, Jane just shrugs and says,
“I told her to stick around for you two, but she said she had to finalize some reports.”
“Wow,” Ernie says around a mouthful of noodles, “that’s dedication. Turning down free food just for work.” He pointedly raises his eyebrows at Lucy, who in turn tries very hard to glower at him with just her eyes.
“Good for her,” is all Lucy has to say about that. Jane gives her a curious look for the comment, but thankfully doesn’t ask.
“Hey, Lucy,” Ernie says suddenly. “I left my tea in the lair. Can you do me a favor and bring it to me?”
Lucy—still cradling her precious, half-eaten banh mi—has to do an actual double-take. “Why can’t you get it?”
“Because I have a cramp…in my leg…and you love me,” Ernie says. When Lucy stares back at him, unimpressed, he tries again with: “And I’ll owe you?”
“Fine,” Lucy sighs. “But you’re being so weird.” Suspiciously weird, even, but his scheming doesn’t click until Lucy is actually opening Ernie’s door and—“Oh.”
Whistler lifts her head at the intrusion, her stunned expression likely a mirror of Lucy’s. “Special Agent Tara,” she says.
“Whistler,” Lucy says slowly. “What are you doing in here?”
“Ernie said I could borrow his computer,” Whistler says. “DIA wants me here until we get a ransom demand, and I wanted to get some work done.”
“Ernie let you borrow his computer,” Lucy echoes. “Willingly?”
“Yes?” Whistler tilts her head questioningly. “Sorry, did you need something?”
Lucy knows she should be looking for Ernie’s tea. She also knows she should probably ask Whistler about it. But all that comes out is: “You know, we brought lunch for everyone.”
“Thank you, but I had lunch already.” Whistler glances back down at the computer screen, tapping away at its keys in a silent dismissal, and in an instant Lucy has had enough.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
The mechanical typing falters. “I’m not.”
“You’re working with everyone else on my team but me,” Lucy says. “That kind of feels like you’re avoiding me.”
“Maybe I felt like getting actual work done for once.” Whistler looks up again, this time with a deep-set frown on her lips. “And I wasn’t in the mood to fight.”
“Hey, you’re the one who fights with me!”  Lucy argues. “Literally, from day one. You yelled at Jane about me in front of everyone.”
“Because you stole a sensitive report which you had no clearance for!”
“Actually, I read it upside down while you were talking about how I didn’t have clearance for it,” Lucy counters. “No stealing required.”
Whistler’s jaw clenches. “That is not any better.”
“But it means I’m not a thief. I’m just…you know, crafty,” Lucy says. “Come on, haven’t you ever bent the rules a little to break a case?”
“I don't break cases,” Whistler says flatly. “I protect intel.”
Lucy rolls her eyes. “Fine,” she snaps, exasperated, “you’re a saint and a better person than I am. Is that what you want to hear?”
“Are you—what is your problem? That is not what I’m saying.”
“Then what are you saying?” Lucy lets the words hang between them in the ensuing silence. She doesn’t even realize that she has placed her hands on the desk in challenge—barely any space between them now—until Whistler is hastily standing up.
Even as tall as she is, Whistler’s voice comes out incredibly small. “Nothing,” she says finally. “Please forgive my…gross unprofessionalism. Clearly, I have overstayed my welcome.” She steps out from behind the desk without even bothering to close whatever she’d been working on, and Lucy sees red.
“Oh sure, just run away,” Lucy huffs. “Go ahead! Prove you’ve been avoiding me.”
“I haven’t been—”
“I’m sick of playing this game with you!” Lucy cuts her off.
Whistler doesn’t move an inch. “What game?” 
Dammit. Ernie is most definitely in her head. What the hell; it’s not like Lucy has anything to lose. “The game where we pretend we don't like each other,” she says firmly. “You’re an asshole and I like to piss you off, but obviously there is something else here and I’m not crazy. This is—”
Honestly, in the back of her mind, the most Lucy expects is more denial. At worst, she expects Whistler to march out of the room and report her to Jane again. She certainly does not anticipate Whistler yanking Lucy in to kiss her breathless—just for a brief, dizzying moment—before pulling away.
Whistler tries to apologize, but Lucy doesn’t let her; she is once again determined to give as good as she gets (in a very different context). Lucy pulls Whistler right back in, grasping desperately at her face and stretching as fall as the tips of her toes will allow. 
It seems to reassure Whistler in any case, who eagerly slides her hands along Lucy’s back and melts against her. Maybe it's the months of pent-up aggression between the two of them, or maybe it's the knowledge that Whistler is an actual human being, or maybe it's just the ghost of the faint touch of Whistler's fingertips underneath the hem of Lucy’s shirt, but the kiss gets really intense really fast.
Lucy debates sliding her own hand under Whistler's shirt—see if she is as serious in her bra choices as she is in pantsuits—but then Whistler flicks her tongue into Lucy’s mouth and she cannot possibly be expected to focus. It's intoxicating and exhilarating and…
“Wait, wait,” Lucy regretfully manages to twist away. “We can't do this.”
“Right,” Whistler says, nodding rapidly. “It would be a mistake.” She's clearly trying to school her features into her usual stoic demeanor, but her efforts are completely undermined by her kiss-swollen lips and the obvious flush on her cheeks.
“What? No, I meant, we can't do this here,” Lucy says. “You think it would be a mistake?”
“Not if…you don't,” Kate says, almost like a question.
“Are you seriously going to throw yourself at me but not even say what you feel out loud? I think you're addicted to fighting with me,” Lucy decides.
“I didn't throw myself at you, and—if anything, you're the one trying to fight with me!” Kate exclaims. “Every day I come in, and you're there trying to undermine me. I've been trying to keep my distance for both our sakes. Obviously our working dynamic is…less than ideal, most of the time.”
“I'm not trying to undermine you. I'm just trying to get you to loosen up a little maybe,” Lucy says. “Which…okay, might be annoying. So I get why you're an uptight asshole sometimes. No offense!”
Whistler frowns. “Some offense taken.”
“Oh, it's fine,” Lucy says. “The asshole thing is unfortunately very hot. Ernie may or may not have had a point.”
“What does Ernie have to do with this?” Whistler looks horrified now.
“Not like—Ernie and I don't sit around discussing how hot you are,” Lucy tries to save face. “He just suggested that we might…you know…jump each other at some point.”
“You're not making this any better.”
“Then forget Ernie,” Lucy says. “Take him out of the equation entirely. Do you also find me unfortunately hot?”
“I wouldn’t call it unfortunate,” Whistler says. “But. Yes?”
“Okay, so…” Lucy trails off. “What are we doing here, Whistler? Do you want to walk out of here and pretend this never happened?”
“No.” Whistler steps forward hesitantly. “That’s not what I want. I…I like you, Lucy. And I know this would completely ruin our working relationship, but—”
“Shut up about work,” Lucy says, dragging Whistler back in for another fervorous kiss, delighting in the fact that Whistler certainly isn’t fighting her now.
(Lucy’s phone buzzing, however, does effectively kill the mood.)
“What is that?” Whistler is instantly back into work mode, smoothing her hair haphazardly as if someone is about to walk in any second. “Is it about the case?”
Lucy unlocks her phone with bated breath. “Maybe we finally have a ransom call,” she says, before the familiar face in her text messages proves otherwise. “...nevermind, it’s just Ernie. He wants to know if we’ve ‘kissed and made up’. I’m going to tell him we’re going to have sex in his chair.”
Whistler half-coughs, half-chokes. “Are we?”
“Obviously not,” Lucy says. Then, thoughtfully: “But I’m technically still on lunch. Did you drive here?”
“Yeah, I have a company car,” Whistler says. “Do you have another lead?”
“No, but I do have thirty minutes to spare,” Lucy says cheerfully. “Get your keys. We’re totally going to have sex in your company car.”
Whistler turns very, very red. “I…don’t think my boss would like that.”
“Fine, then we can make out in your company car,” Lucy amends. “But you’re going to have to leave first. Kai and Ernie have a bet going about us, and I don’t want either of them to win.”
“Your team has a strange obsession with your love life,” Whistler tells her matter-of-factly.
“Eh, could be worse,” Lucy says. “Jane could get involved.”
Whistler—marginally disheveled—manages to crack a smile. “Let’s not let it get that far,” she suggests, brushing one final kiss against Lucy’s mouth with a resigned sigh. “So…are we keeping this between us for now?”
“I guess so,” Lucy says begrudgingly. “Think you can keep on fighting me in front of everyone?”
Whistler shrugs. “Are you going to keep being an asshole?”
“Wha—hey, no fair! You’re the asshole. I’m the good-meaning, happy-go-lucky agent who just wants to keep you human,” Lucy says, poking at Whistler’s cheek until her smile grows even more.
“Challenge accepted,” Whistler says, smoothly tucking a strand of hair behind Lucy’s cheek before casually making her exit. 
Lucy places her hands on her hips and wistfully watches her go. This day has gone absolutely nowhere she expected it to, but dammit, she can’t be mad.
(Especially when her phone buzzes again with another text from Ernie. All it says is: NOOOOOO 😭).
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Text
Memorable || Sebastian Sallow x Reader
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Outline: Sebastian invites you to the ball, the very first one you get to attend at Hogwarts. After learning that you have yet a few more first times to experience, he vows to make this night memorable for both of you.
Word count: 5’595
Warnings: Aged up characters, first time sex and explicit smut.
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Sebastian was sitting on the grass, his textbook opened and resting on his legs. Despite the soft spring rays of sunshine warming his face, the birds singing in the trees and your quiet presence right next to him, he still felt nervous.
He stared at you in awe of how beautiful your eyes looked in bright sunlight, how shiny and soft your hair seemed to be, how the first two buttons of your blouse were popped open and how he could catch a glimpse of a forbidden sight every time you slightly leaned forward to turn the page of your own textbook, scribbling notes on the parchment on your lap. He had suggested you studied together this afternoon, which wasn’t such an uncommon occurrence, but this time, getting himself to focus on anything else but you proved close to impossible.
“Hey, what are the two of you up to ?” A familiar voice asked. Sebastian managed to peel his eyes away from you to see Garreth Weasley, making his way to you with a friendly smile on his face.
“Studying.” You replied, barely looking up at him which somehow pleased Sebastian more than what he’d want to admit. “You should do the same if you want to pass your exam.”
“A wise advice.” Garreth replied, shaking his head as he sat down on the grass next to you.
Sebastian groaned. Getting you to agree to a study session with him without letting Ominis know about it had been harder than what he anticipated since the three of you were almost always together but he had managed to make it happen, but Garreth joining you wasn’t something he had planned on. He wanted to be alone with you… Not to mention that he didn’t like the way the redheaded gryffindor had decided to sit, so close to you, his knee almost touching yours…
“Oh look, there they are.” Sebastian said, pointing behind you to redirect Garreth’s attention somewhere other than on the parchment paper on your lap, where your skirt was slightly pulled up and letting a silver of your skin appear.
You and Garreth both turned around in time to see a group of Beauxbatons students passing by. They had arrived a few days earlier along with students from Durmstrang for the Triwizard tournament organized at Hogwarts. This year being the ten year anniversary of the tournament, Professor Black had decided to make it special by hosting it in the middle of spring instead of waiting until winter.
The French students were so elegantly dressed, walking graciously towards the castle like a fascinating herd of absolutely gorgeous creatures. Sebastian knew the new students were Garreth’s current obsession, he even knew he kept failing to find the courage to invite one of them to the ball so, as expected, the young man jumped on his feet to take a better look at the light blue airy uniforms passing by, even awkwardly waving in their direction.
Unfortunately for him, none of the French girls paid him any mind, only one of them shooting a bright smile in Sebastian’s direction before vanishing inside the castle. Sebastian had smiled back at her instinctively, without really thinking about it, but the exchange between him and the Beauxbatons student didn’t go unnoticed, causing him to face Garreth’s envious disbelief and your dark stare.
“I think you caught the attention of the one with the long legs and plump lips, you lucky bastard.”
“I was just being friendly.” Sebastian argued, unsure of how to interpret the way you were staring at him. The only thing he knew was that he was in imminent danger of an ancient magic lighting hitting him if he didn’t justify himself quickly enough.
“I get it, I really want to be friendly with them too. All of them. At the same time.” Garreth continued, with a stupid smile on his face.
“Alright, you guys can drool together all you want but I have to study so I’ll find a quieter place to do so.” You snapped, closing your book and rolling your parchement papers with impatience.
“Wait.” Sebastian demanded but you were already walking away. He watched you until you reached the doors leading back inside the castle. Maybe you were dressed in a plain gray uniform like everybody else in Hogwarts, maybe you weren’t that gracious while walking around the castle but by Merlin, you were the most beautiful sight he had ever laid eyes on. Those girls from Beauxbatons were so elegant and full of poise which seemed to seduce pretty much every other guy but not him. Sebastian Sallow couldn’t care less about elegance, decorum or grace, because all he wanted was you and the beautifully chaotic way you fought against poachers, ennemies and acromentulas. You and the insanely hot way you always beat him up at duels. You.
“Dammit, Garreth.” He groaned, looking up at him and noticing how he still was very clearly lost in his daydreams about the Beauxbatons girls. “I wanted to ask her to go to the ball with me.”
“Who ? Long legs and plump lips ?”
“No, you idiot.” He replied, rolling his eyes. “I swear if I missed my chance because of you and someone else asks her…”
“Well, I heard Leander talking about inviting her the other day so maybe you should hurry up.”
Sebastian cursed under his breath, packing his books and quickly stood back up. He reached for Garreth’s shoulder, forcefully pulling him with him as he headed to the castle to follow on your steps.
“I’m going to need your help.” Sebastian explained, the gryffindor cloak of his friend tightly balled up in his fist as he dragged him along until they reached the library doors. “Mrs Scribner banned me from the library for the rest of the semester so we’re going to have to be careful… and creative.”
“What the hell did you even do for her to go to such extremes ? Usually she only gives you detention.”
“Err, I might have damaged a few pieces of furniture when I broke into the restricted section… Turns out those armchairs really aren’t sturdy enough to resist the embers of a few confrigo spells shot at the restricted section gates… And old books ? Highly inflammable.”
Garreth quietly nodded at him, no stranger to such incidents himself. Together, they sneaked inside the library, stopping to hide behind the first bookshelf, out of sight from Scribner’s desk. Both leaned over to take a look, easily spotting you sitting at a nearby table, all alone.
Sebastian called your name, as quietly as he could but you didn’t hear him. Garreth tried making random sounds, as if you would be more keen to answer to a bad imitation of an owl shriek rather than your own name, but nothing worked, you stayed focused on your homework.
…Homework ? Brillant.
Sebastian opened his texbook, retrieving a crumpled piece of parchement on which he scribbled something. He balled up the paper in his hand and peeked from behind the bookshelf, aiming at you and throwing the ball of parchement, hitting the back of your head. You barely moved in reaction, looking around but not where he was hiding from the librarian.
He scribbled another note and repeated the process, this time the ball of paper getting caught in your hair. He heard your loud, annoyed, sigh from afar as you pulled his note out of your locks and placed it on the table next to your book without giving it a second thought.
“And this is the hero of Hogwarts.” He grumbled, rolling his eyes. Garreth let out an amused sound, reminding your slytherin friend of his presence. “Go see her, tell her to check the notes.”
“What ?! Why me ?” Garreth asked, a bit too loudly.
“Because if Scribner catches me here, I’ll probably get expelled.” Sebastian reminded him. It was only fair that Garreth helped him since he was the one who had ruined his first plan but the young man seemed pretty uncomfortable at the thought. “What are you scared of ?”
“Her.” He admitted, without hesitation. “She’s in a bad mood because you flirted with the Beauxbatons girl and I know better than to go and face her wrath.”
“I did not flirt with that girl… Now, go!” He pushed him out of their hiding place and Garreth hesitantly walked towards you, glancing over his shoulder a few times to make sure Sebastian didn’t change his mind.
You didn’t notice him standing next to you right away, too busy taking notes on a chapter until he cleared his throat, making you jump.
“By Merlin, what do you want ?” You asked him, slightly annoyed to be interrupted while studying once again.
“Err, Sebastian says you need to check the notes.” Garreth repeated, awkwardly glancing to the bookshelf behind which Sebastian was still hiding.
“The notes ?” You repeated, confused, wondering if it had something to do with your homework until Garreth pointed at the ball of crumpled paper on the table. You reached for it, smoothing it so that you could read a single word written in runny blue ink.
“Ball ?” You read out loud, looking at Garreth for an explanation but he clearly had none. You turned around and bended down to pick up the other ball that he pointed to, still on the floor, and repeated your gesture to smooth out the wrinkled paper. “With ?”
What were they up to ? Was it a prank ? A joke ? Because you definitely didn’t have time for that, not so close to your exam.
You looked up to where Garreth kept nervously glancing, seeing Sebastian’s freckled face peeking from behind a shelf. Your eyes met but he didn’t register it quickly enough to stop his movement as he aimed another balled up note right at your face.
Ouch. It hit your nose before falling on the floor.
He mouthed a quiet sorry in your direction and you shook your head disapprovingly before picking up the last note.
“Me ?” You read, placing the wrinkled notes next to each other, like a puzzle. “Ball with me ?”
You looked at Sebastian again. A slight pink blush was now coloring his cheeks as he anxiously stared back at you.
“Well ? What do I tell him ?” Garreth asked, unable to remain still any longer.
“Oh uh… Tell him to meet me tomorrow afternoon in the gardens.” You replied. Your friend seemed to find the answer odd but didn’t say anything, simply walking back to Sebastian to rely the message to him.
Sebastian listened intently then looked at you again, a confused expression on his face. So you shyly nodded at him and a smile slowly appeared on his lips. He felt himself bursting with joy and pride that you accepted his proposal, even forgetting that he was persona non grata in the library as he fully stepped out of his hiding spot before Scribner’s voice reminded him of what he risked if he got caught. So, with one last smile in your direction, he ran off before she could spot him, leaving you to your studies with a silly smile on your face too.
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The next afternoon, Sebastian met you as promised at the same place you had attempted to study together the day before. You weren’t too sure what to say or do as he walked to you, the question of whether he had asked you to go to the ball with him as a friend or as something more had kept you awake all night long. The only way to know for sure would be to ask him, but you couldn’t quite gather the courage to do so. Not yet.
Instead, you awkwardly led him further away from the mass of other students, behind a tall bush and on a small patch of wildflowers. You stood with your head held high in front of him, trying to fake the confidence you suddenly lacked in his presence, his coy smile making it even harder to keep your composure and not melt in front of him right away.
“I’d like to practice.” You told him, a bit embarrassed to admit that you didn’t know how to dance. Not properly. Not like the Beauxbatons girls probably did.
“Practice dancing ?”
“Yes. Do you think you could… teach me ?”
A faint amused smile appeared on Sebastian’s face, instantly making you regret asking for his help. He was probably going to laugh at you for lacking such a basic skill in this time and age...
“Of course.” He simply said, stepping closer until he was able to place his hand on your hip, the warmth of his skin radiating on your own through your skirt. He outstretched his other arm to the side, his palm up to welcome your hand in his. You followed his lead, resting your other hand on his shoulder, the unusual proximity between you leaving you breathless for a moment.
He took a step to the side and you followed a bit late and again when he stepped back, unable to properly anticipate his movements. You stared at your feet, trying to follow his lead and after a while, you felt like you were getting slightly better at it…
“Now ideally, you should be looking at me.” He instructed, amused by how complicated it seemed to be for you to let him lead you while he was so comfortable swaying to imaginary music.
You looked up to his brown eyes, feeling heat rush to your cheeks.
“When did you learn how to dance ?” You asked him, in an attempt to make small talk so that you wouldn’t be staring into his hypnotizingly beautiful eyes in silence.
“Years ago, with Anne. Ever since our first year at Hogwarts she’s been looking forward to the balls. Back then she promised that if I practiced dancing with her, she’d let me borrow her books on advanced metamorphosis.”
“A deal you couldn’t possibly refuse.” You smiled, imagining a young Sebastian dancing with his twin and pretending that it wasn’t fun.
“Obviously.” He smiled back, as you realized that you had managed to follow his steps without looking for a moment.
With his face so close to yours, smiling at each other, it was almost tempting to lean just a little bit closer and see what would happen if you pressed your lips against his. Would he step away ? Would he return the kiss ? The way he was looking down at you made you feel like the latter was the most plausible outcome but you didn’t have much time to ponder as he suddenly attempted to twirl you around… And you crashed against his body instead of gracefully turning in his arms.
“Sorry, it’s my first time doing this.” You said, feeling the need to justify yourself.
“Will it be your first ball ?” He asked, curious.
“First ball, first dance, first date…”
His eyes sparked with excitement and some kind of mischief at your words, prompting him to try to twirl you again just so that you’d crash into him once more. With your chest pressed against his, he held you closer and tighter, looking down at your face with a smirk.
“You can count on me to make all your first times memorable then.” He promised.
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“Will you please stop it, Sebastian ? The whole bench is trembling because you keep bouncing your leg.” Ominis complained.
Sebastian tried to still his body, taking a deep breath to appease the growing nervousness inside of him but a few seconds later he was back at absently bouncing his leg again, causing Ominis to sigh in despair.
After a few afternoons of practicing dancing with you, Sebastian felt comfortable and rather confident doing it. Especially with you. It had been the highlight of his day for the few days leading up to the ball, he’d joined you behind that bush and get to hold you in his arms for an hour or so, swaying with you and pulling you close every once in a while, each time getting dangerously closer to letting his instinct kick in and passionately kissing you… But he had promised himself that he would be on his best behavior with you, that he’d be a gentleman, and that he’d make your first ball as amazing as it could be.
But he just couldn’t help it but feel nervous. It wasn’t a quiet dance in the garden anymore but a real party with music, nice clothes and other people around. He was worried everything would be different this way, and mostly, he was worried that after this night, he wouldn’t get to share with you such intimate moments like you did while practicing anymore.
He tugged on his collar, adjusted his vest and ran a hand through his brown hair. He had tried to comb them back in the same way Ominis did with his but his hair were too unruly to fully comply with that idea, some locks already shooting in different directions and sometimes grazing his forehead.
All the students old enough to attend the ball were making their way to the ballroom, excitedly chatting and laughing. The crowd was growing outside the doors as well, young people dressed in gorgeous gowns and suits waiting for their date to arrive.
Sebastian spotted Garreth and Leander entering the ballroom together and smiled mockingly at the realization that neither of them had been able to find a date. A while later, Poppy shyly approached, dressed in a pretty extravagant yellow dress for such a usually quiet girl. She complimented Ominis on his white costume and they awkwardly linked their arms together as they left Sebastian on his own.
His stomach tightened as the possibility that maybe you had changed your mind and didn’t plan on attending anymore occurred to him. Or maybe you had decided to go with someone else at the last minute. Maybe a guy from Durmstrang convinced you to sneak out with him instead and would steal all your first times from him…
But then, he saw you.
From the moment you walked in, everyone else disappeared from his sight, leaving only you in your gorgeous dress. You were like a vision, something otherworldly and he couldn’t believe that it was him you were walking towards. How did he get so lucky ?
“Good evening.” You greeted him, with a smile but he didn’t return it right away, too busy staring at you in awe of your beauty.
“You look… You are beautiful.” He said, nervously pulling on his collar again.
“Thanks. You look pretty good yourself.”
He smiled, glad that you liked the all black suit he had bought for the event. It had costed him more than what he had budgeted, but he was determined to look his best for you. He offered you his arm and you took it, gladly using it to keep you balance as you walked down the stairs in your impressive ball gown and uncomfortable shoes.
You entered the ballroom together, marveling at how beautifully the decor was and how lovely the music playing sounded. You tried the buffet, eating and drinking merrily at a table with your friends before putting your dance practice to good use. Sebastian twirled you around, bended you over and even kept you closer than required for a few dances, making you laugh and smile joyfully while having a great time.
But unfortunately, it was all over too soon, the party coming to an end as more and more students left the ballroom. Soon, Sebastian and you were the only ones left still swaying to the music, the few last couples quickly grabbing something to eat or drink before heading to bed.
“Maybe we should go.” You told your date, reluctantly. Both of you could have continued dancing and holding each other like this forever.
Sebastian nodded as the last song ended, releasing your from his embrace. He walked you out of the ballroom, leaving the magical decor and the soft music behind. In the hall, faint sunlight was already shining behind the windows, indicating it was very early morning. He looked down at you, the thought of letting you go back to your dorm and be separated from you again feeling all too overwhelming suddenly.
But what other choice did he have ? Maybe next year, after you both graduated from Hogwarts he could ask you to move in with him in Feldcroft, or maybe he could follow you wherever you wanted to go… But for a few more months, you still were students and had no choice but to each sleep separately.
Resigned, Sebastian quietly walked you back to your dorm, adjusting his pace to yours and your aching feet and tired legs. Once you reached the entrance of your common room, you turned around to look at him, unsure of what to say apart from wishing him a good night.
“And thank you for such a memorable first time.” You added, with a smile.
His eyes darkened slightly at your words, giving him a sudden unexplainable need to share many more first times with you. So, as a rush of pure adrenaline seized him, he stepped closer and his lips crashed against yours, kissing you more feverishly than you imagined he would. Your first kiss.
He pressed his body against yours, his hands finding the small of your back. He deepened the kiss and, with the strength of his own body, forced you to take a few steps back until you were both inside the - relative - privacy of your common room.
“You shouldn’t, if someone catches you here you’ll get detention.” You reminded him, knowing the intrusion of a slytherin inside your dorm would cause quite a scandal if anyone heard about it.
“I don’t care.” Sebastian replied, silencing your worries with another hungry kiss.
All he ever knew was the Slytherin common room and dorms, he had never stepped inside any other students quarters during his seven years at Hogwarts. Of course, he had always been curious about the other houses’ dorms. He often said he would love to see what they looked like, to compare them to his own but now that he finally was inside one of those forbidden areas, he couldn’t care less about what it looked like. The only thing that mattered to him at this very moment was where he could find a couch - or a table, anything would do - to lay you down so that he could take that dress off of you.
The common room was plunged in darkness at this hour, the only light coming from the dying fire in the chimney and filtering through the tainted glass windows. You bumped into an armchair and he cursed when his shoulder hit a stone statue, but he kept walking you backwards until you could no longer move, your legs pressed against the back of the sofa facing the fireplace.
Finally.
Sebastian allowed his hands to roam over the fabric of your dress, stopping at your shoulders and slowly peeling the straps off until they loosely rested on your arms. Then, he gripped the soft fabric over your belly, pulling it down in a torturously slow motion, revealing your skin inch by inch.
“We might get caught.” You warned him, in a whisper.
Probably. But he was too far gone now to step back and walk away. After all this time, daydreaming about what it would feel like to touch you like this, imagining the curves and lines of your body hiding underneath your school uniform, wanting you to be his and only his, he was too close to fulfilling the dangerous desire he had fought against for so long to renounce.
“It’s alright.” He breathed, his fingers grazing your lips as he angled your face in his direction, his brown eyes plunging into yours, a hint of mischief still blazing in his gaze. “You’ll just have to be very quiet.”
You couldn’t quite decide what to do. The consequences you’ll both have to face if you got caught doing this would be enormous… But at the same time, you had wanted this for so long - probably as long as he did - so stopping him and sending him back to his dorm seemed to require a huge amount of willpower and you clearly lacked it. You nervously glance to the stairs leading to the bedrooms, making sure no noise could be heard expect for the faint cracks of the fire and the sound of the wet kisses Sebastian was placing all over your neck, your collarbone, your shoulder…
Your dress pooled around your feet, exposing yourself to him and, although you felt kind of vulnerable like this, the hunger that passed on his face as he took in your almost naked body in front of him was an obvious indication of how desperately he wanted you.
By Merlin, you were beautiful. Even more beautiful than what he ever imagined in his daydreams. You looked like you were made for him, like every curve of your body was perfectly tailored for his hands to caress, like the softness of your skin was an invitation for his kisses and his touch. If his heart wasn’t beating so fast in his chest, he would have wondered if he had died and gone to heaven. Or maybe he was dreaming again, but if it was the case, he sure as hell didn’t want to wake up. Not now. Not before he could lead you around the sofa and lay you down on it, wanting to remember how incredible you looked in this very moment, with the dark leather of the couch around you and the warm light of the chimney flashing in your eyes.
He quickly took off his vest and unbutonned his shirt, feeling like his body was on fire. His pants were getting alarmingly tighter around his growing erection. Everything inside him was begging to have you. Right here, right now. But he knew better than to rush things. He wanted to savor this, make sure that if it was his only opportunity to have you, he’ll take his sweet time to carve each moment in his memory forever.
He sat at the end of the couch, his hands finding your thighs and attempting to push them apart but you stayed still under his gentle touch, nervousness rising in you.
“I’ve never… What if I’m bad at this ? Like I’m bad at dancing.” You admitted, afraid he might be disappointed with you.
“Nonsense.” He said, with a cocky grin. “But I won’t mind if you want to do like we did for dancing and practice every day until you’re comfortable enough.”
You laughed and your body relaxed, allowing him to slowly pull your underwear off and spread your legs apart. Before you could even realize, his face disappeared between your thighs.
Sebastian knew one thing or two about how to make a woman comfortable, all thanks to the forbidden books and journals Garreth had shared with him and Ominis last year. He had made sure to remember every tip and trick written on the pages, understanding that - unlike men - women needed to be prepared and sufficiently aroused in order for them to find an intercourse enjoyable… So he was just doing as advised, running his tongue between your folds. One thing he didn’t expect though was the way you reacted to this new sensation, shuddering with pleasure under his soft licks. He must have been doing something right.
With this welcomed boost to his confidence, he kept moving his tongue over your sensitive skin, exploring and tasting you, finding it surprisingly pleasant and delicious. He could faintly hear your ragged breathing, your thighs pressed against his ears preventing him from focusing on anything else but you and your pleasure. At some point, you reached for his hair, your fingers entangling in his tousled locks, a soft moan leaving your lips which was almost enough to make him cum in his pants.
But he knew it wasn’t it. Not yet.
He had to make sure you were ready to take him. All of him. So he plunged a finger passed your entrance, making sure to keep lapping at your center so that it would still feel pleasurable to you. You trembled in reaction, thighs tightening around his head. He took it as a silent permission to keep going, gently pumping his finger in and out. After a while, he boldly added another one to stretch you out for him a bit more which seemed to surprise you at first but the discomfort you felt quickly faded with his simultaneous - and merciless - treatment of your clit with his tongue.
You arched your back, doing your best to stay quiet as a wave of pleasure completely took hold of you. Sebastian resurfaced in front of you, watching with a satisfied grin as your body shook with the orgasm he had given you, his chest puffed out with pride.
But even though he loved to see you come undone, especially since it was his doing, he couldn’t forget the fully grown and rock hard erection in his pants, almost painfully demanding attention too. He reached for his trousers, if only to free his cock from the tight fabric around it and was surprised to see you spread your legs open again, silently inviting him in for more.
He angled his stiff cock at your entrance, ready to push past your glistening folds but you placed a hand on his bare chest, stopping him.
“Be gentle.” You asked him, before allowing him to continue.
He looked at you with a tender smile, his erection slowly sliding inside you as he leaned over, until his face was close enough to yours to plant a kiss on your lips, a softness that clashed with the overwhelming feeling of his cock stretching your insides. It wasn’t painful but the sensation felt foreign and it took you a moment to get used to it.
Sebastian stayed still, giving you time to adjust to him, leaving a trail of gentle kisses on your lips, cheeks and neck in the process. When he finally felt your body relax, as if it had finally accepted his presence inside you, he attempted to move. Very slowly.
Attentive to the expressions on your face, he made sure to slow down every time you grimaced, until finally, your features told him that you were starting to enjoy his movements as much as he did.
“This feels pretty nice.” You informed him, breathlessly.
Pretty nice ? Was it all it was to you ? Because to him, it felt like fireworks going off in his brain, the feeling of his cock buried inside your warm and wet center, your walls so tight around him was the best thing he ever experienced and if he could have it his way, he’d simply never stop fucking you.
He wanted you to feel as good as he did, not just pretty nice… So he decided to stop worrying about hurting you and finally let go of his restraint, thrusting into you much deeper and quicker than before. You closed your eyes, making him unable to interpret the way you felt about it all anymore. But then, a moan slipped from your lips, making his body tingle with pleasure in reaction. He was making you feel good. Finally.
“Faster.” You demanded, your voice a barely audible plea among your panted breaths.
But Sebastian heard you loud and clear, putting all the strength he had left into his fast thrusts until you tensed all around him, your cry of bliss causing him to release himself inside of you with a loud gasp of relief.
Then, he collapsed on top of you, his face resting on your heaving chest as your body trembled with a pleasure like none other.
“That was…” He started, interrupting himself to catch his breath.
“Memorable ?” You finished, with a giggle.
He agreed, his body feeling so numb that he wasn’t sure that he’d be able to move from on top of you. Not that he wanted to anyway. Now that he had you, he was determined to never let you go again. He’d be the most annoying boyfriend you could ever ask for, he’ll follow you around like a puppy, he’ll do whatever you asked of him and he’ll make sure to kiss and hug you at the most inappropriate and inconvenient times…
A noise resounded up the stairs, suddenly alerting you both, reminding you of what you risked if you got caught by someone in such a compromising situation.
“It must be the prefect.” You whispered, helping Sebastian get off of you so that you could both get up and move. “You need to go.”
You helped him button his shirt up as he tugged his satisfied cock back into his pants. He reached for his vest and you reached for your dress, putting it back on as quickly as you could. Once Sebastian was more or less presentable, he rushed to the door as some footsteps slowly approached the common room. You anxiously looked, hoping he’d be able to get away before your prefect could see him and report him but instead of leaving, he hurried back to you to plant one last kiss on your lips. You quietly giggled, pushing him away after a few seconds to remind him that he needed to go and he did, running off into the deserted corridors and back to his dorm with yet another silly smile plastered on his face, very similar to the one that stayed on yours for the rest of your short night.
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floralcyanide · 2 days
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⊱ 𝑆𝑡𝑎𝑦 𝐺𝑜𝑙𝑑 ― 𝐶𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑜𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑢𝑠 𝑆𝑛𝑜𝑤 ⊰
[ ᴀ ʜᴜɴɢᴇʀ ɢᴀᴍᴇs ᴀʟᴛᴇʀɴᴀᴛɪᴠᴇ ᴜɴɪᴠᴇʀsᴇ ғᴀɴ��ɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ]
1960s ᴜs ᴘʀᴇsɪᴅᴇɴᴛᴀʟ ᴄᴀɴᴅɪᴅᴀᴛᴇ!ᴄᴏʀɪᴏʟᴀɴᴜs sɴᴏᴡ x ғᴇᴍ!ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ
𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑝𝑡𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑖𝑣𝑒 (ℎ𝑒𝑎𝑑𝑐𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑛𝑠): 𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑠𝑢𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑟
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౨ৎ 18+ ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀs ᴏɴʟʏ !
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⊹ summary: a run down of the events after new year's eve. ⊹ pairing: young!coriolanus snow / fem!reader ⊹ warnings: innuendo, the insinuation of smoking, mentions of alcohol ⊹ word count: 1139 ⊹ author’s note: sorry for the wait, but I decided to make the rest of the series headcanons instead of actual chapters. it is quite exhausting to write sometimes, and there's so much to this series that I'd rather do it this way. thanks for all of your support. this is my favorite series I've written so far. (:
౨ৎ divider credit: @cafekitsune
౨ৎ sᴇʀɪᴇs ᴛᴀɢʟɪsᴛ | sᴇʀɪᴇs sᴏᴜɴᴅᴛʀᴀᴄᴋ | sᴇʀɪᴇs ᴍᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ
౨ৎ this fic has been cross posted to ao3.
ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴄᴏᴘʏ, ʀᴇᴘʀᴏᴅᴜᴄᴇ, ᴏʀ ᴄʟᴀɪᴍ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋ ᴀs ʏᴏᴜʀs ᴏɴ ᴛᴜᴍʙʟʀ, ᴀᴏ3, ᴡᴀᴛᴛᴘᴀᴅ, ᴏʀ ᴀɴʏ ᴡᴇʙsɪᴛᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴅᴏ ɴᴏᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴘᴇʀᴍɪssɪᴏɴ ᴛᴏ ᴜsᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋs ɪɴ ᴀɪ ɢᴇɴᴇʀᴀᴛᴏʀs ᴏʀ ᴀɴʏᴛʜɪɴɢ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀʀᴛɪғɪᴄɪᴀʟ ɪɴᴛᴇʟʟɪɢᴇɴᴄᴇ. ʏᴏᴜ ᴍᴀʏ ɴᴏᴛ ᴜsᴇ ᴍʏ ᴡᴏʀᴋs ᴛᴏ sᴇʟʟ ғᴏʀ ᴀs ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴏᴡɴ ᴄʀᴇᴀᴛɪᴏɴ.
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❝A man does what he must—in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures - and that is the basis of all human morality.❞ ― John F. Kennedy
✲ Coriolanus is leading in the polls so far for the 1964 election, but there’s a problem. He has yet to marry, and this is peculiar to many hesitant voters. Jack and Bobby both talk to him about this when they all gather in Coriolanus’ office to discuss their next steps.
✲ “I think the girl studying Jack would be a great contender,” Bobby suggests.
✲ Jack laughs incredulously at his brother, “I am not going to send off my student to marry a politician when she has so much ahead of her.”
✲ Coriolanus shuffles uncomfortably. The two of you have been secretly seeing each other here and there since that past New Year’s Eve, and it’s now the middle of April. The thought of just popping the question to you has crossed his mind, but he didn’t want to ruin the good things going for you. 
✲ Other problems more dangerous than marriage plague Coriolanus. The Women’s Revolution, the movement for Women’s rights, has reached new heights in their tension with the government. Coriolanus has been questioned about it by journalists and citizens alike. He firmly stands by his goal of women’s equal rights being passed into law.
✲ Jack offers Coriolanus the chance to come back to the Compound in the summer to finish up campaign strategies and kick back for a while. Little does Coriolanus know that Jack offered for you to return as well to finish up your dissertation. He wants to test Bobby’s theory of you and Coriolanus being together. Hopefully, you can finish up your project before Coriolanus makes a move.
✲ You arrive at the Compound, much to John Jr. and Caroline’s delight, as they run down the front stairs to you. You clamber out of the car, and the Secret Service removes your luggage. The kids cling to your legs as you laugh down at them. You glance up to see Coriolanus at the top of the stairs, and you do a double take.
✲ “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming here?” you ask, a grin growing on your face. It had been about a month since you’d seen Coriolanus. “It was a last-minute decision,” he shrugs. 
✲ That first day, you, Jack, Coriolanus, and Jackie go out on the boat and have a few drinks. You all catch up, and Jackie gives you knowing looks the whole time. You and Coriolanus avoid the elephant in the room regarding you two.
✲ The evening creeps up, and you and Coriolanus sneak to the fire pit after dinner. “Have I told you about my vice president?” “No, not yet. What’s he like?” “His name is Sejanus Plinth, I think you two would get along very well.”
✲ After you and Coriolanus discuss Sejanus, he asks a question after a moment of silence. “Have you ever tried the shit that Jack smokes?” “Not really, but it smells peculiar,” you say, “Why?” “You seriously don’t know what it is?” Coriolanus chuckles. “Well, it can’t be tobacco, so,” you trail off, realizing what the substance is, “Oh. I see.” Coriolanus laughs at you again before pulling a joint out of his pocket, “Wanna smoke some?”
✲ Coriolanus sneaks into your room that night just to sleep in the same bed as you.
✲ You and Coriolanus become prone to sneaking and doing daring things. One night, after everyone has gone to bed, Coriolanus drags you to the garage, where the two of you take Jack’s convertible out for a spin. Without the Secret Service. Coriolanus drives down a back road alongside the coast, where your arms are thrown into the air as the wind gusts past your hair. Coriolanus looks over at you, knowing then and there he needs to marry you. There’s no one else, and there never would be. 
✲ Coriolanus takes you out on a beautiful date in Boston at the fanciest restaurant in the city, which was suggested by Jack and Jackie. 
✲ When you get to the bottom of your champagne glass, something hits your lips. You jump in surprise and slide it out of the glass when you pull it away from you. It’s a stunning diamond ring, the gem itself huge. The band is a simple white gold, and you look up at Coriolanus, who has now moved to kneel before you. 
✲ “I know this is quite sudden and out of nowhere, but there’s no one else like you. And I don’t think I can go on without you being mine forever,” Coriolanus has his hand on your knee, a hand out so he can place the ring on your finger, “Say yes, and I’ll give you everything you could possibly want.” “I think I have everything I could possibly want right in front of me, Coryo.” “So, you’ll marry me, darling?” “Yes, Coryo. I will definitely marry you!”
✲ The next day, it’s splattered all over the press that presidential candidate Coriolanus Snow is engaged to be married to little old you, the student under President John F. Kennedy. Bobby is beside himself, and Jackie hugs you, whispering in your ear how she knew you two would end up together.
✲ It’s now the middle of summer, and the wedding day is coming soon. You decided to get married on the beach outside the compound where you and Coriolanus met. The entire Kennedy family is invited, and your friends from university, as well as a few of Coriolanus’ friends, are invited. You finally meet Tigris, Coriolanus’ cousin who raised him, at the bridal shower. She tells stories upon stories about the blonde boy getting into trouble, which you enjoy thoroughly. 
✲ You and Coriolanus marry in late June of 1964 in a beautiful ceremony, where Jack walks you down the aisle. He says it’s the biggest honor he’s ever received. Not even his Purple Heart could compare. 
✲ Your honeymoon is spent in Boston in a luxury hotel near downtown. For the whole week, the two of you hardly leave the bedroom. 
✲ When the two of you are back from the honeymoon, Jackie proposes a day on the beach for the whole family. You both sit by the sea while the kids play and the guys play some football. Coriolanus isn’t a major fan of sports, so he stays with the kids.
✲ Both of you watch as Coriolanus plays with Caroline, John Jr., and Bobby Jr. in the shallows, splashing back at them when they throw water at him. “Have you thought about kids yet?” Jackie asks suddenly. You open your mouth but close it back, unsure of how to answer, “I- we haven’t really… discussed it yet, I guess.” Jackie hums, nodding, “It would look great for the campaign, besides, the sooner, the better. Voters love a great love story.”
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chilschuck · 11 hours
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I love your writings so much!! I was thinking if you could do some scenarios of tall-man chilchuck and reader
`✦ ˑ ִֶ 𓂃⊹ thank you so so much anon WAHHHH!!! i hope these are okay!! it’s currently almost midnight where i’m at but i wanted to get these out for you!!! us tall-man chil fans gotta have something to eat fr!!! <333
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— TALL-MAN!CHILCHUCK: x gn!reader hcs.
꒰ warnings: ꒱ none, sfw + fluffy!!!
꒰ wc: ꒱ 585
✦ hope these are what you were wanting!! if not, feel free to submit another request for more tall-man chil and i will happily oblige!! :D <333
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✦ Even though he wasn’t a tall-man for very long, you still found yourself enamored with him in this form. You were already smitten with Chilchuck anyways, but this was something very different to the both of you.
✦ The fact he towered over you like this made your heart beat a little faster, and once he found out his effect on you in that way, you were doomed.
✦ It started with him instead resting his head on top of yours, using his height to his advantage now. Sometimes he’d even pull you to his chest, your back to him, and laugh at the reaction you gave him. You didn’t find his teasing very amusing at first.
✦ Even so, you couldn’t help but wrap your arms around his waist occasionally, nuzzling your head into his own back and causing him to jump slightly. You weren’t going to let any time you had him in this form go to waste, so you spent it giving him even more affection.
✦ Your hand sought his out any chance it could, your fingers intertwining and causing him to look up at you. All you gave him was that cheeky smile and a wink, causing him to grumble. The effect you had on him…
✦ If there was ever a time you took a moment to rest, you’d sit between his legs and just admire him. Holding his hand in yours and comparing the size, studying how broad his chest was, noticing little details like the shape of his chin… Chilchuck’s cheeks were always rosy when you gave him that kind of attention, embarrassed to be doted on like that in front of everyone. (Not that they cared all too much; Marcille was definitely squealing at the moment.)
✦ Chil was always so fun to mess with, especially with him being like this. You couldn’t help but pull him down to your height and place tender and sweet kisses to his cheek, before letting go and walking off like nothing happened. (Oh, that’d get him all flustered for sure.)
“Chil…” You’d whisper, hands behind your back in that innocent way you always did when you were scheming something. Raising a brow at you, he walked over to the sound of his name, waiting for you to continue.
Instead of giving him what he expected, you reached up for his neckwarmer, pulling him down until he was level to you. Before he could pull away, you pressed soft, fleeting kisses to his stubbled cheek. Letting your lips trail along his skin until you reached the corner of his mouth, you abruptly let go of him and walked off. Chilchuck scrambled for something to say, anything at all, but instead watched as you caught up to the others.
You knew just how much you drove him insane.
✦ You were used to protecting him before, but now he still couldn’t do much in this state. More than happy to assist, you’d make sure he stayed safe, while also appreciating just how handsome he was. (You’d give him another wink and he’d yell out for you to stay focused!)
✦ Noticing just how skinny he was, especially like this, you’d try and convince him to eat a little more than usual. All this affection and doting wasn’t unusual in the slightest, but he could tell you were enjoying yourself a little too much like this. Not that he’d ever catch himself saying anything about how he secretly revels in it…
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— dividers by @/cafekitsune! <3
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themummersfolly · 3 days
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Brotherly Art
alt. title: Love Is Stored In the Infodump
This is the first of a three part series on Thrawn's relationship to art. He's such a nerd, I love him so much.
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People who meet Thrawn often think he’s quiet. People who know him, at least for any length of time, often wish he was.
Thrass understands the complaint, but he doesn’t share it. When his brother gets onto certain topics, the stiff poise and awkward reserve melt away; his eyes shine with more than bioluminescence, and he lays out his opinions with the enthusiasm of a child and the earnestness of a professor. True, no one else can get a word in edgewise. But Thrass has spent enough time in university to appreciate the free dispersal of knowledge by someone passionate about the topic. And Thrawn rarely looks so alive, let alone happy. Thrass wants to see him happy.
“-but in 68 BCA, you start to see a shift in the assembly technique, as though the makers’ perspective on the physical possibilities of their craft has begun to shift. The history books say they didn’t have any contact with outsiders until at least 50 BCA, but I think we can see from the pottery alone that the date of first contact can be pushed back by almost a decade. It shows up in other artifacts, but it’s most clear here that their whole conception of their place in the universe underwent a seismic shift-” Thrawn looks up from the zoomed-in picture of a potshard on his questis and glances at Thrass. “This isn’t boring, is it?”
Someday, Thrass reflects, he’d like to meet whoever told Thrawn his interests were boring. There’ll be an assault charge, of course, but he’s fairly certain he can talk his way out of the worst of it. “Not at all. I like hearing what you think.” His own questis pings. “Delivery’s almost here.”
“Ok. I have to use the fresher anyway.” A look of urgency crosses Thrawn’s face and he practically vaults the couch on his way. Thrass shakes his head. Trust Thrawn to get so wrapped up in a topic he forgets to pee. Thrass gets up to clear the table for their meal and brings Thrawn’s questis with him. When he sets it down, the jolt causes the screen to switch back on. He blinks. Instead of the potshard, the screen is a solid, alarming blue.
“Thrawn, I think something is wrong with your questis.”
Thrawn emerges from the fresher, still drying his hands. Thrass hands him the device.
“It’s gone all blue. If I broke it, I’ll replace it-”
“Oh, no, it’s fine.” Thrawn breathes a visible sigh of relief. “That’s just the lock screen.”
“You set your lock screen to The Blue Screen of Death?” In fairness, it’s not the strangest thing his brother’s ever done. Thrawn shakes his head.
“It’s a painting by Cli’ure’akoio, one of her Color Studies. I’ve got downloads of all her older work, this one’s my favorite. Most people just see skin tone when they look at it, but a blue this saturated and even is really difficult to produce outside electronic media. And look how she applied it, it’s hard to tell here but there are no visible brushstrokes. That’s what makes this picture unique: she’s taken something absurdly simple and executed it so perfectly it’s like she’s daring people to say they could do the same thing, openly flexing on her critics-”
And just like that, he’s off on an extended explanation of the experimental paintings of Cli’ure’akoio.
Later, as Thrawn scrolls through his questis looking for a particular painting, Thrass peers over his shoulder. Most people’s image files are full of family members, tookas, or scantily clad individuals they deny any knowledge of; Thrawn’s is full of art downloads.
“Do you have any pictures you took yourself?”
“Oh, certainly.” He pauses on a blurry picture of a stack of duracrete slabs. “I took this at the sculpture festival last year. I usually stick to downloads, though. I don’t take very good pictures.”
Thrass shakes his head. “Have you ever thought about collecting any pieces yourself?”
Thrawn doesn’t look up from scrolling. “I don’t have the room; I live on a light cruiser. Besides, most of these cost more money than I’ll ever see.” There’s a wistfulness in his voice that only someone who knows him well would pick up on. An idea takes root in Thrass’s mind; he files it away for later.
Thrawn’s shore leave is over entirely too soon, in Thrass’s opinion. He hurries to the shuttle station to see him off, careful not to drop the package under his arm.
He spots his brother on the edge of a knot of CEDF personnel, waiting for the shuttle to blackdock. Thrawn stands outside the chattering conversations of his peers, hands behind his back, waiting his turn to contribute to the discussion. He turns when he sees Thrass approaching.
“I was worried you wouldn’t make it,” he says by way of greeting. Thrass envelops him in a hug.
“Had an appointment I had to keep. Besides, I have a going away present I have to give you.”
He takes the package from under his arm and presents it to Thrawn. By now the others have taken note and gathering around to watch.
“Open it.”
Thrawn strips the wrapping away and stares at the transparesteel case. Then he registers its contents and his mouth falls open. “You didn’t-”
“I told her what you said about her Color Studies. She says she’d be honored to have this piece in the hands of someone who can appreciate it.”
One of Thrawn’s peers looks over his shoulder at the painting. “I don’t get it.”
“It’s one of Cli’ure’akoio’s latest series, Studies In Color and Texture.” Thrawn looks like he’s tearing up. “Each tile is done in a different pigment and brush stroke.” He holds the painting in its case as though receiving a holy covenant. “This is for me?”
Thrass nods. “I had it mounted in a protective case. It’ll be as safe as anything on the ship- probably safer.”
Thrawn meets his eyes, a significant effort for him, Thrass knows. “I’ll treasure it forever.”
“It’s a good start to your collection.” A tone clangs over the loudspeakers, announcing the arrival of the shuttle. “There’s no time now. But when you get home, you’ll have to explain the series to me.”
Thrawn won’t be able to wait until his next shore leave, Thrass reflects as he waves goodbye. His next letter is likely to be several densely packed pages, expounding on the technical aspects and deeper meaning of the work of Cli’ure’akoio, fit more for a graduate level art history paper than a casual conversation.
Thrass can’t wait to read it.
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jewish-vents · 3 days
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I can't with this anymore uhhhhhhggggg
"AITAH for creating a private doc to keep notes on what my racist teacher said"
I have this teacher who said a lot of shit (eg. "Ashkenazi people were Europeans forcefully converted by invading Jews", "the Torah mentions Jesus and Mohammed", "Judaism started in Ethiopia because it's the oldest religion and therefore must come from where all people do", "getting angry at Houthis for attacking Israel is like getting angry at a l*nched man for struggling on the noose", etc.). No one cared that she said these things besides a boy she kept deadnaming, a girl who she used as an example talking about slave r*pe, and a kid who she humiliated in front of the class a few times.
When I reported this shit to the dean he was concerned as fuck and 100000% on my side because he's really cool. And to report the stuff, I'd been using a private google doc to keep track of what she'd said. The principal though was overly optimistic and decided instead of talking to the teacher in private, she would hold a class discussion! Yaaaaaaayyyyyyy. I was less than pleased by this, and at the discussion most people took her side. I eventually decided to share the doc with the other three kids so I could get better firsthand accounts.
But then the doc started spreading.
One of the other kids shared it with this boy who she used to mock and throw under the bus, and he shared it with his friend. Who shared it with another friend. Things went like whisper-down-the-lane until someone, I don't know WHO, got a hold of it and shared it to the whole. Fucking. Class. Including the teacher. People started claiming the doc was Islamophobic and didn't elaborate why, and saying we were only "attacking" the teacher because she was Muslim. Or that we only reported this stuff to get drama and attention. The principal herself even said that this was happening because we have varying cultures, which is BS because I have plenty of Muslim friends who have never said ANY of the shit this lady has. That is waaaayyyy more Islamophobic of a statement and I felt offended on my friends' behalf with that one.
I feel bad for the teacher for seeing that doc, but then again, I myself am suffering because someone leaked all my personal opinions to the class. I'm a super conflict avoidant person because I have severe ADHD and OCD and mild autism (ASD1, to be specific), and I hate being involved. I want to sympathize for her. I really do. But when asked to apologize for what she said, she started defending herself and saying we were all closed-minded for not thinking what we previously thought was wrong. My mom wants to take me out of the class to do an independent study project so I can pass the required course without being in that classroom. Because nothing gets in the way of Jewish parents. Especially during Passover.
My classmates are saying she's a sweet lady and it was wrong of us to get upset at her, so are we the bad guys and/or am I overreacting to this scenario.
Anon I'm going to be very honest here. You are absolutely NTA here. And you're not overreacting at all. Your teacher is being very offensive, not to mention historically wrong.
And the doc? If she didn't want to have her offensive opinions called out in front of everyone, maybe she should stop being offensive.
I'm going to say, personally if she were my teacher the doc would be the least of her problems. She would not like me very much.
I hope you're safe tho, you and the other students she's hurt. You don't deserve to be treated like this
-🐺
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