#my housemate is moving out to live with her boyfriend

[pangur-and-grim]

he is magnetically attracted to blankets and pillows

#wednesday #he's only here for one more week 🥺 #my housemate is moving out to live with her boyfriend #they've been planning it for two years but I'm still not ready to say goodbye to the soft boy... #I've been living with my him and my housemate for a decade

[okkennymay]

Hi Kenny, how's 2024 treating you?

I feel a little bit like i'm running down an incredibly steep hill but I'm managing somehow 💖

I got to briefly join my sisters hens/bucks party weekend getaway for a few hours near the start of the year, it was an amazing experience and to have gotten to join in on the fun with family and friends and celebrate my sister and her fiance's marriage-to-be was an experience I never thought could happen! ♪(^∇^*) I mean sure I spent most of it hidden away, in the lil cabin my parents were renting a bit further away from all the party people, resting between moments of interaction but it was AWESOME!

and then I lost my 'no major episode' streak (almost 5 months!! A frickEN MiRAcle!!) a week later and have spent most of the time recovering 9w9" ahh all that recovery torn away and damage redone ;w; But i have been quietly working on commissions in the shadows with those who have popped up in my Instant messages- yah boi got bills to pay and a DSP don't quite cut it, so I got some nice art to post when i can get out of my own head for a minute to do so wOOOO ╰(*°▽°*)╯ my clients are my hero's honestly, it's one of the reasons why I pour so much love into my work

Sorry if that was a bit more of answer than yah wanted Anon <3 I feel a lil bit like all the people responding to Elmo's "how's everyone doing" but I tried to keep things lighthearted 💖

#ahhh paying for a house between two when we started with 4 ;w; don't look up Adelaide rental prices if you want to keep your sanity #still though the constant stress of money is still BY FAR better than my ex-friend and her wet sock of a boyfriend living with us #i've had some awful housemates but they took the cake and life and my health has been so much better without them #meanwhile I learned the other day that they were kicked out like a month after they moved into some strangers place using flatmates 👀 #Karmic retribution is delicious and I hope to hell they understand just how patient we were with all their bullshit in hindsight ╰（‵□′）╯

[moonlinos]

Invisible string (pt. I)

♡ Pairing: Lee Minho × fem!reader / Hwang Hyunjin × fem!reader

♡ Synopsis: With your terrible history of boyfriends during high school, you swore off love and vowed to get through university without a relationship. Things are great: you’re in your junior year, in an uncomplicated arrangement with a friend with benefits, and living in a nice sharehouse with two amazing roommates. But things begin to change once you meet Lee Minho, a student in your new class who vows to change your perspective on love.

♡ Genre: A ‘lite version’ of a soulmate AU, fluff, eventual smut, light angst, pining, jealousy, strangers to friends to lovers, friends with benefits

♡ CW: Swearing, sexual themes and discussions, mentions of anxiety/panic attacks, alcohol consumption, mentions of smoking

♡ Word count: 16.4k

♡ A/N: This is a three-part story because I can’t shut up. The second part will be posted sometime next week, and I’ll link it here. I’ve been writing all my life and have written for maaaany fandoms, but being on Tumblr as an active reader of SKZ fics made me want to write for them. So, yeah, guess this is what I’m doing now.

part II →

You are woken up by Hyunjin shifting beside you on the bed. He groans, arm reaching to mess with your already closed curtains. You chuckle.

“You know, the curtains won’t close any more than that.”

“I keep telling you your bed is in a terrible position,” He grumbles as you turn to face him with a smile. “Who thought placing a bed right under a window would be a good idea? Mornings are fucking hell here.”

You shrug. “Well, it’s not my house so I didn’t exactly have a say in that matter.”

“I told you a million times I could help you move it.”

“And I told you a million times Mrs. Choi doesn’t like for us to mess with her furniture,” You explain, turning under the sheets so you could face him before bringing your fingers up to pinch his cheek. Hyunjin scrunches his nose. “Speaking of which, you need to leave. You know her rule: no—”

“No boyfriends spending more than two days at the house,” He interrupted you with an eye roll. “I’m not your boyfriend, though, so that rule shouldn’t apply.” He shrugs.

Hyunjin has been one of your best friends since you first met over two years ago. It was Hyunjin’s first college party and one of the many times your housemates had dragged you along on a night out. His friends had dared him to try and chat you up, arguing it would be hilarious to see him get turned down by an older girl. What they hadn’t expected, however, was for Hyunjin’s clumsy attempt at flirting to be so endearing to you; his pink cheeks and bowl-cut hair made him look like a helpless kid despite his height towering over you. Before you knew it, you had spent the entirety of the party talking to him about everything and anything, only stopping once your housemate Eunha emerged from inside the house to drag you home with her as she desperately tried to dodge a rather insistent guy’s advances. After that day, you and Hyunjin became almost inseparable.

You can’t quite pinpoint when you began hooking up. It was meaningless in the best sense of the word. It was simply something that had happened. All you can remember is that Jisung had recently bleached Hyunjin’s hair after yet another dare from his friend. It had started with cuddles, which turned to kisses, which turned to touches, until you eventually slept together for the first time sometime last year after an excruciatingly stressful exam period. It had never once gotten weird between the two of you; the line was always clear: you were just friends who hooked up due to convenience. Everybody had needs and stress and shit complicating their lives, and fucking your best friend was far more practical and safe than going out to look for a random hook-up whenever you needed it.

You find yourself smiling at Hyunjin once again. His now long black hair fell in his eyes as he stretched his arms over his head.

“Yes, you’re not my boyfriend, but how am I supposed to explain what we are to a little old lady?”

“Doesn’t she always say she’s super modern?” Hyunjin raises his eyebrows at you with a chuckle. “Maybe she’d like a situationship of her own and you’re depriving her of that by keeping this knowledge to yourself.”

You roll your eyes at his words, attempting to push him off your bed. “Why did you sleep here, anyway?”

Hyunjin sits up on the bed, a pout on his full lips. “I had a shitty date. I was sad and lonely. Glad to know you were paying attention to my story.”

“Hyune,” You sigh, ‘When you tell me said story while fucking me, can I really be blamed for not remembering anything?”

Hyunjin flicks your forehead lightly. “Yes, you can. At this point, it’s like our thing to vent about bad dates during sex,” He argues before getting up from your bed, finding his shirt, which had somehow been thrown over your study desk.

“You mean it’s your thing,” Correcting him, you get up as well, turning to fix up your sheets. “I don’t even go on dates and you know that. The only thing I vent to you about is how awful academic life is.”

Once you turned to face him again, Hyunjin was busy messily tying his hair. His brows promptly furrowed as he took in your words. “Remind me why you literally never leave the house again?”

“Just don’t want to get distracted. Getting my degree is more important than getting a boyfriend.” You lie with a shrug.

Your history with relationships was something you kept secret from everyone you met after high school. You feel embarrassed, as if it was all somehow your fault. After five failed relationships where you had been the one to be broken up with or cheated on, you began to accept that maybe the problem really was you. Maybe something about you makes men want to yell at and cheat on you. Perhaps you are just bound to be a distraction until they find someone better.

Which is why you don’t date.

Would anyone go through the hassle of reading a long, tedious book if they already knew about the bad ending?

Hyunjin rolls his eyes at your answer, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your degree isn’t going to keep you company when you’re eighty and alone.”

“Well, my degree isn’t going to wake up one day and suddenly decide to leave me either,” you refute, earning an annoyed groan from your friend as you walk past him to leave your room.

“You literally never have fun, though. All you do is go to class, work, and study. You should at least pick up a new hobby,” Hyunjin insists as he follows you, walking into the kitchen-living room area. “Go out more, stop avoiding college parties like the plague before it’s too late to experience the joys of watching your friend throw up on some random person’s couch.”

You make a face at the offers, grabbing your mug from the cupboard. “Why would I want to see that? Besides, I have hobbies.”

“I meant a social hobby. Sitting in your room watching fucking iceberg videos isn’t sociable,” He explains, and you let out an aggrieved gasp. Your iceberg videos were educational and entertaining, thank you very much. Behind you, your housemate’s bedroom door opens, and you turn to watch as she stumbles out of her room, looking half-awake. “Soojung, don’t you think she should get a new hobby?” Hyunjin addresses the blonde girl, who stares daggers at him.

“If I say yes, will you two stop speaking so loud?”

Hyunjin slams one hand on the kitchen counter, his other pointing a finger at you. “See, she said yes. You’re outnumbered, now you have to stop spending all your free time holed up inside your room.”

Soojung groans, stepping into the kitchen and shoving Hyunjin to the side. “He’s annoying, but he is kind of right,” she mumbles.

Truthfully, you did feel bad about having essentially wasted three years at university by actively avoiding parties and invitations any chance you got. The only parties you did attend, however, only served as an irritating reminder as to why you shouldn’t put yourself in those situations. Parties and bars only meant desperate college boys. Desperate for sex, for attention, for a potential relationship. For someone’s heart to break. You had met Hyunjin at a party, for fuck’s sake. Who knows just how south things between you two could’ve gone if he had become interested in you romantically?

But, as much as you hate to admit it, Hyunjin is right. Your life is essentially an endless loop of studying and working. You only socialize when your roommates are home, when your few friends come over, and when you and Hyunjin hook up. But you aren’t ready to step out of your comfortable bubble of avoidance, so you settle for the best thing you can think of.

As Hyunjin rummages through your fridge like he lived there and Soojung stirs her coffee blankly, you loudly set your mug down on the counter. “An elective course,” you announce.

The both of them turn to face you with the same puzzled expression.

“The fuck?” Hyunjin questions, and you roll your eyes.

“I’ll take an elective,” you explain matter-of-factly, “The university offers a lot of great courses in things I’m actually interested in. It’ll be a way for me to get out of the house without having to watch a friend of mine puke on a couch or whatever atrocity it is that you said.”

Hyunjin slams the fridge door closed, earning a scolding scream from Soojung, and walks over to where you’re standing. He pulls you into a tight embrace, and you can hear the smile in his voice as he says, “You’re such a fucking nerd, what the fuck, but I’m so glad your hermit life is coming to an end.”

The elective course you choose is Japanese. It’s a language you’ve always been interested in learning, and while you know the class is merely introductory, you figure it will be fun to learn some phrases and expressions. You might even find yourself wanting to learn more in the future, and you’ll undoubtedly be glad you took this class during university.

Even if that means having to endure Hyunjin calling you a weeb.

You are able to begin attending classes a week after signing up; the lessons lining up with your work schedule to a T. The professor explained that, since you had joined the course late, you would likely need some guidance with phrases and words the class had already been taught. You didn’t mind, actually feeling excited in the morning despite your boring routine classes since you knew you would be doing something new you enjoyed in the afternoon instead of simply killing time around your house until it was time for you to work.

You walk into your first class ten minutes late, mentally cursing Eunha for being so good at telling stories about her weirdly entertaining life that it made it physically difficult for you to drag yourself away from her. You mouth a brief apology to your professor before scanning the room and scurrying over to the only available seat. 

You sit down in haste so as to not disrupt the class any further, swinging your bag over your chair and accidentally knocking over your seatmate’s water bottle all over his side of the desk. Luckily, the bottle lands on the soft surface of his notebook, barely making any noise. Unluckily, said bottle had been filled with coffee, staining his notes a faded brown color. You silently gasp, instinctively reaching out your hands to fruitlessly try and dry the pages that are now sticking to each other.

“I am so sorry, what the fuck,” you mutter under your breath as you continue to inspect his notebook frantically. “I’ll buy you a new notebook and another cup of coffee as soon as class ends, I promise,” You whisper to him, your eyes boring holes into the stained pages as you watch the bitter liquid slowly dissolve some of the black ink. At this point, you’re rambling out of nervousness, but you can’t seem to stop, adding, “Hell, I’m so angry at myself for what I did I’d bind you a new notebook and brew you some fresh coffee myself.”

You mentally berate yourself for your word vomit. It was just your luck that you would make someone hate your guts on the first day you attended a class.

After what feels like minutes of silence from him, you are prepared for the imminent burst of rage bound to come your way, the guy’s wrath more than likely stirring inside him as he sits beside you and watches as you foolishly shake the piece of paper, hoping it will miraculously return to its untainted state.

However, what you aren’t prepared for is the small burst of laughter that leaves your seatmate’s lips; it’s quiet, but you’re close enough to him to be able to hear it.

You furrow your brows, finally mustering the courage to look up at him for the first time.

“Did you…” You trail off. You feel a strange sensation inside your chest as your eyes meet his. It was something you had never felt before, a small burst of a fluttering that briskly washed over you before disappearing just as quickly. Like a pinwheel was placed inside of you and a strong wind had suddenly started blowing. You shake your head, returning to the matter at hand. You are probably just experiencing some anxiety due to what has happened, you argue mentally. “Did you just laugh at me?”

As you finally take him in properly, the guy before you looks as dazed as you felt just now, courtesy of your minor panic attack; his lips agape and his round eyes blinking while his dark pupils are fixed on you. You two remain that way for a few seconds in an impromptu staring contest that causes the peculiar feeling to bloom inside your chest once again.

When he finally speaks, his voice is soft. “You… offered to bind a notebook for a stranger,” His lips twitch into a grin. “It was a little funny.”

You open your mouth but promptly close it, unable to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make you appear like more of an idiot than you already do. You sigh. “Sorry,” you mumble, your voice low as well. “I say stupid shit when I’m nervous.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “It’s okay. I’m—”

“You two, on the back,” your professor calls out in a louder voice, however still keeping her calm demeanor. You and your seatmate turn to look at her. “I’m going to teach a few new phrases useful for traveling now. How about you two talk after class? This is actually quite perfect. Minho is one of my best students, so he could help you catch up to where we are.” She offers the two of you a small smile, and you feel your cheeks burn.

This class wasn’t mandatory, and you didn’t need it to get your degree. It is still a class, nonetheless. Ever since high school, you’ve always hated people who disrespect their professors by brazenly talking or sleeping during class.

“I’m sorry, professor,” You muttered. Beside you, your seatmate — Minho, as he was just called — scoots closer to you and whispers something you don’t understand under his breath. You look at him, confused. He chuckles, and you feel his breath on your cheek. It makes the odd fluttering return.

“Gomenasai,” He repeats more clearly, his voice louder, “It’s ‘I’m sorry’ in Japanese.” He offers you a smile, and you soak in just how good-looking he is. Ever since you first raised your head to look at him — when the pinwheel inside your chest rapidly spun and unexplainedly made you feel nervous — you knew he was a handsome guy, but his soft smile and calm eyes made him look even more annoyingly pretty.

Before you’re able to do it yourself, your professor speaks again and pulls you out of your trance.

“In this case, Sumimasen would be a bit more appropriate,” she corrects Minho, who clicks his tongue and mutters something under his breath. The woman chuckles at his reaction. “It’s okay. This is also something you can explain to Y/N after class.”

As the class went on, you couldn’t help but notice how Minho didn’t take any notes. Your mind latched onto how you ruined his notebook and how it was your fault that he couldn’t properly study during today’s class, so you couldn’t find the courage to offer him some paper so he could take notes.

After almost an hour of unrelenting guilt swallowing you up slowly, you place your hand on Minho’s shoulder as soon as the professor announces class is over after assigning the students a small written assignment.

“We could talk outside? If you want,” you offer him, feeling the now-familiar nervousness come back, making your mouth speak faster than your brain can even think to rationalize, “There’s a bench I really like outside this building. It’s a good spot. There’s a nice shade, and it’s secluded enough that people don’t bother me when I’m studying. Or googling how to bind a notebook.”

Minho lets out a brief chuckle. “Okay. I would love to talk on your favorite bench.”

You blink at him. “I don’t have a favorite bench.”

“Hm, it sure sounded like it. You listed some good attributes of that bench,” He argues, a grin etched onto his lips.

“I told you I say stupid shit when I’m nervous.”

He raises an eyebrow at your words. “You’re nervous?”

“Of course I am. I never bound a notebook before.”

Minho lets out a hearty laugh this time, his head thrown back and his eyes turning into crescent moons before he shakes his head. He picks his notebook off the table, showing you the crinkly light brown-tinted pages. “It’s dry now. I actually kind of like it, gave the pages a sort of vintage vibe. You don’t have to bind me a new notebook,” He reassures you, placing the small book into his bag. “As much as I would love to see how that would turn out.”

And just like that, your nervousness fades away. You smile at Minho, asking that he follow you over to your favorite bench.

The two of you talked for almost two hours. During that time, Minho helped you catch up with the vocabulary and phrases you had missed in class. When you asked him how he was able to know so much off the top of his head, his lips curled into a crooked grin as he sheepishly told you that he had been taking Japanese lessons since he was in high school. He explained that because he procrastinated signing up for an elective course, the advanced class was full by the time he got to it, so he decided to go for the introductory one instead. You chuckled and questioned why he would choose to spend his time on a course when he already knew everything being taught. He shrugged and explained that it was nice to have at least one class in which he didn’t have to try and that the fact that it made him feel smart also helped.

Not even your shift at work was able to make your conversation stop flowing, as Minho offered to walk with you to the coffee shop upon realizing it was near his apartment.

That was one of the many coincidences and things in common you found to have with each other that day.

It started with ordinary things like the fact that Minho had three cats back home just like you and how he had been collecting plushies since he was a child, while you had started your own collection as soon as you had access to money of your own. Or how your favorite authors were Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë — Minho swore you would die if you saw the special edition books he had back at home.

Then, it became a bit more amusing as you found out that Minho had worked at a convenience store chain when he first finished high school, and it was the same one you worked at for your first job after starting university. And you both had worked there for exactly a year and two months before quitting. You then told him about how you ended up attending this university after your top three choices turned you down, and his choices were the same as yours. And just like you, he also got rejected by his top three options, which led him to attend the same university as you.

You two couldn’t hide your bewilderment, eyes widening and lips bursting into laughter as these linked facts kept spilling out during your conversation. It was strange, you thought, but in a comforting way. It was almost as if you two had been living weirdly similar lives, all while having no clue about the other’s existence.

The two of you approach the small coffee shop while talking about your degrees. You try your best not to bore Minho with your ‘existential crisis-inducing psychology talks,’ as Hyunjin always put it, and you mostly listen to him as he talks about programming. He tells you that his dream is to develop cozy games that people can jump into without much thought, simply to relax. He says he knows how stressful life is and that people sometimes need something they can mindlessly do to get their minds off of shit. You resonate with it more than you care to admit, as cozy idle games are one of your favorite things to do while locked inside your room.

“So I do these freelancing gigs to make money but I’m actually set to start my first quote-unquote real job in two weeks,” he beams as you two stop in front of the coffee shop. Minho’s eyes lit up the moment he started speaking about his degree, and although you didn’t understand most of the terms he used, it is always endearing to watch someone talk about something they’re so passionate about. “There’s this guy who’s graduating soon who recruited me and a friend for a project he’s working on, so it’s not technically a job and we’ll work in his living room. I’ll still get some money and the chance to actually develop something, though, so it’s better than nothing.”

You smile at him. “If you like programming as much as your words led me to believe, I’m sure it won’t even feel like a job.”

Minho’s ears turned a faint shade of pink, and he scratched his head. “Sorry, I talked your ear off about shit you don’t even understand.”

“I think everybody likes to hear people talk about things they like,” you assure him, “It was a good talk. I still can’t believe we have so many things in common. It was kind of funny how they kept coming up.”

Minho chuckles, bouncing on the heels of his feet. “Guess the universe is giving us signs that we should be friends.”

“It seems like it.”

That day, you work with a persistent smile engraved on your lips. You can’t remember the last time you felt so good about meeting someone new. Despite your awkward first encounter, you found that talking to Minho was as easy as talking to an old childhood friend. It felt refreshing. The last friend you made was Hyunjin — whom you were so grateful to now for pushing you out of your comfort zone — and after that, you had unknowingly closed yourself off.

Minho had managed to open up your mind to the idea of letting someone in almost comically fast. And you loved that.

It’s been a month since you’ve been attending Japanese classes, and your studying sessions with Minho — which always turned into long conversations on what now had really become your favorite bench — were a weekly appointment, much like having him walk with you to work twice a week.

Today, however, Minho stopped you with a hand on your shoulder as you made your way toward your usual spot. When he asked you if you would like to study at his favorite bakery today instead, his eyes rapidly blinking as he looked at you through his bangs which had grown to slightly cover his eyes since you met him, you just couldn’t say no. He stammered as he promised that the place was even closer than the one where you worked, so you wouldn’t be late for your shift.

You smiled at his apparent nervousness, finding it endearing. You knew all too well how stressed you felt when offering something new or initiating plans with a new friend, and Minho seemed to be the same.

“Good thing you made this offer today, on my day off,” you bumped shoulders with him. “It’s almost like you knew.”

You begin walking, and Minho gently pushes you to the side so that he’s the one walking on the edge of the side of the sidewalk. You shoot him a questioning look, and he blinks at you again.

“Sorry, force of habit,” he chuckles, “My mom taught me a guy shouldn’t let a girl walk on the street side. I know it’s old-fashioned and probably made me seem like an ancient guy who wouldn’t let his wife work or something. Sorry.”

You shake your head. “No, it’s kind of sweet. I never had anyone do that with me.”

You feel the pinwheel twirl inside your chest again.

The two of you approach a familiar building together. You furrow your eyebrows as you take in the floral curtains on the windows and the pretty font adorning the store sign of your favorite bakery. You think about how it would be nice if you two came here on another day. Maybe you could use that opportunity to finally introduce Minho to your other friends.

You only realize Minho has stopped walking when he calls out your name. When you turn around, he’s standing in front of the bakery with a smile.

“This is the place.” He points toward the white door with a nod as you return to where he’s standing.

No fucking way.

“This is your favorite bakery?” You ask, although it is a stupid question. Minho nods. You play with the strap of your bag. “Okay, this is starting to sound ridiculous, but I swear I’m not lying. This is my favorite bakery, too.”

Minho’s eyes widen at your words, and his lips curl into a smile again. “Shut the fuck up.”

“I will not,” You chuckle.

Minho opens the door and the two of you walk inside, the familiar smell of freshly brewed coffee and baked goods bringing back great memories you made in this place. You often come here with your two roommates; it’s close enough to both your house and university that you can skip out on taking the bus, the atmosphere is always relaxing and comforting, not to mention the delicious cakes they sell. You smile to yourself as you remember Eunha scuffing down far too many slices of their chocolate cake after a nasty breakup a couple of months ago, tears streaming down her face so violently that the poor little old man who owns the shop appeared to check up on her.

“Their lemon cake is my favorite.”

“The lemon cake is what made me—”

You and Minho speak concurrently, with you unable to even finish your sentence before you both freeze for a couple of seconds in front of the only small table available at the crowded shop.

He’s the first one to move, pulling out his chair a bit awkwardly. “We should…” He trails off before clearing his throat as you sit down before him. “Should really make a written list of things we weirdly have in common.”

“At this point, I think it’d be easier if we made one of what we don’t have in common.”

You two settle for the obvious choice of two pieces of lemon cake with a cup of coffee for him and a glass of cola for you. Minho almost looked offended when you informed him that you hate coffee, wondering out loud why you even worked at a coffee shop before ensuring he could change your mind with just the five amazing facts about coffee he thought about off the top of his head. You shrugged him off with a grin. You couldn’t deny the irony of being a barista and having to make endless cups of a drink you despised daily, but you were sure Minho could never change your mind about coffee.

You two talked about your improvement in Japanese in the last month until the waiter returned with your order. Minho insists you’re a natural and could be on his level in a couple of years if you tried, but you roll your eyes at his compliments. You’ve never been naturally good at anything. That wasn’t about to change now.

“You know,” Minho begins once the waiter steps away from your table, looking around the coffee shop. People slowly started to leave as it got later in the day; the place was now much quieter, and the atmosphere even more cozy. “I used to think I would meet somebody in a place like this.”

“Like, in a romantic sense?”

Minho hums, still looking out to his side. You notice his side profile is really pretty, and you have to hide your smile by sipping your drink.

When he returns his gaze to you, he’s the one smiling. “Yes, in a romantic sense. Like being destined to meet someone.”

“Look at you, a hopeless romantic,” You roll your eyes with a chuckle. You never thought of Minho as someone like that. He seemed rather methodical, always following a routine and too engrossed in his codes to be preoccupied with something like love.

Minho furrowed his brows. “Why the eye roll?”

“I just don’t believe in that stuff,” you shrug with a small smile, “Stuff like destiny, soulmates, love…” You trail off, taking your spoon and poking the slice of cake in front of you. “Love has the awful tendency of being bad.”

Of course, you once believed all those things. Doesn’t everybody? But love has shown you time and time again that those are things reserved only for some people. And, clearly, you are not one of them. So why believe in it?

“It’s the most amazing thing in life,” Minho’s voice almost startled you as you were so deeply entranced in your thoughts.

You don’t lift your head to answer him, instead drawing mindless shapes on the icing on top of your cake.

“What is?”

“Love,” He replies in a soft voice. When you finally look at him, you’re surprised to find Minho’s deep eyes already looking at you, a small smile adorning his lips. “Love is the most amazing thing in life.”

You freeze.

You tear your eyes away from him, gaze focusing on the plate in front of you again.

You were careful with your rules. No parties, no bars, no talking to your male co-workers unless absolutely necessary, and no male friends unless they were in a relationship or proved beyond a reasonable doubt to only be interested in you platonically — which was what Minho was. So, why did him bringing up love make you feel so nervous?

Under the table, you unwittingly bounce your leg. This was stupid. Minho has been your friend for a month now; you see each other twice a week, and you talk for hours, always so comfortable around each other in a way that is still so new to you. He has never flirted with you or treated you in any way that led you to believe that he wanted anything more than to be your friend. You will not let your foolish trauma ruin what was proving to be an amazing friendship. He was simply sharing his thoughts on a topic. That’s all love was: a conversation topic.

You force out a chuckle as you snap yourself out of your senseless panic and look up at Minho once more. “We can just agree to disagree?”

He’s quiet for a few seconds, something you can’t quite pinpoint swimming in his deep eyes as he looks at you. Instead of breaking the silence, he scoops up a piece of cake with his spoon and raises it like a glass. You shake your head with a giggle as you realize what he’s doing, toasting your spoons together at the center of the table before you both eat your spoonfuls of cake.

“You know,” He speaks as soon as he’s done eating, his eyes having never left yours. “Love can never be bad. I don’t think so, at least. It never makes anything worse. It can only ever make things better.”

You hum and shift in your seat, lowering your gaze toward the table. The truth is, you hate talking about love. That — coupled with your shame regarding your past relationships — is the reason why you never indulge in this type of conversation, even with your own mother. But years of swallowing down your thoughts and opinions whenever the subject was brought up only caused a buildup of emotions in your throat. So much so that you only realized you were talking once you were midway through a sentence.

“Love can make so many things worse,” you affirmed, your eyes following the polka-dot pattern on the tablecloth, “Losing someone is bad enough, but put love into that equation, and it just worsens tenfold.”

Minho nods. “By that logic, you can say that having someone by your side is always good, but if it’s someone you love, it makes it better tenfold, right?”

You let out a chuckle as you realize you two could go back and forth about that subject for ages.

But it felt good to finally speak out your feelings on the matter, so you continue, “Love can’t be that great if people can so easily fall out of it and for so many different but equally stupid reasons. You’re suddenly not attractive to them anymore, or you have different opinions, or they love picking fights but hate it when it’s the other way around…” You trail off, swallowing down a lump in your throat as you speak out of experience. But Minho didn’t need to know that. You lift your eyes. “Not to mention falling in love with a new person all while supposedly already being in love with someone.”

“That’s not genuine love,” Minho shakes his head with furrowed eyebrows, as if it was his first time hearing of such things happening. “Real love is unconditional and understanding. Real love makes the person you love beautiful simply because they’re them. Real love doesn’t allow you to hurt the person you love because it feels like you’re hurting yourself as well.” His expression softens, and his eyes lock onto yours. “And real love makes it so that you can only see the one you love. You can’t possibly fall in love with someone else if you’re truly already in love.”

You gnaw on your bottom lip, nodding slowly. You hate the fact that part of you is desperate to believe that what Minho said was true. And you hate it even more that an even bigger part has already dismissed every single word that left his lips.

Desperate to shift the subject from Reasons Why My Exes Left Me — which only leaves you feeling sad and pathetic — back to Love Is Amazing, you decide to try and lighten the mood.

“Okay, but then explain to me how love is so great when you can just have sex with anyone, and it feels the same either way?” You question him with a teasing grin on your face. Minho shakes his head with a smile and eats another bite of his cake. You continue, “Be it a stranger at a party you met ten minutes ago or the love of your life, sex will always be sex. Therefore, you’re wrong, mister Love-Makes-Everything-Better.”

Minho chuckles around his mug, eyes closing as he almost spits out his coffee. His eyes are like crescent moons when he looks at you again, clearly amused by your words. “Well, yeah, of course, sex will always feel good no matter who you’re doing it with. It’s sex, and sex feels good,” He shrugs dismissively. “But sex with love is different. You aren’t just fucking, just fulfilling your own desires selfishly. Love makes sex better because you feel good simply by making the person who’s so important to you feel good. It makes you want to melt into the other person and become one with them because close isn’t close enough when you’re in love.

“Touching them feels like a gift, like heaven. Tasting them feels like heaven. Hearing their voice in their most blissful state feels like heaven. The trust and connection you feel in that moment is heaven, and that’s only possible through love. You can have sex with anyone, but you can only make love to someone you love, and those are two different things. That’s how love makes sex better. Therefore, I’m not wrong.”

As you take in Minho’s words, spoken so casually, like it was common knowledge, they leave you speechless. You watch him as he smiles triumphantly when he realizes you aren’t going to refute him — because you can’t refute him.

You berate yourself mentally as you notice the familiar feeling of arousal wash over you as you repeat his words inside your head. Not because it was Minho who said those things, but simply because that kind of sex sounded so good. Good in a way you had never once experienced before. Like heaven, as he had put it.

Your experience with sex has always been simply about fulfilling desires. You thought that was all there was to it.

Until now.

And even so, with your ex-boyfriends, it was always unbalanced. Ninety percent about their pleasure and only ten percent about yours. The first time you had a guy go down on you was the first time you had sex with Hyunjin, and by that point, you had already had five boyfriends. It felt weird when it happened, and you remember Hyunjin whining about how you didn’t have to ask him every five minutes if he was really okay with doing that. It had always been different with him, the good kind of different. He had never been selfish during sex; if anything, Hyunjin was too much of a giver, sometimes forgetting about his own pleasure in order to focus on yours. You thought that was the best sex you could ever have.

Until now.

Because, even with Hyunjin, there was never a genuine connection. It never felt like a gift to touch him and have him touch you. It was never anything more than sex, more than something you both did because it felt good and it was easy. He slept in your bed, and he cuddled you until morning came, but it had never once felt anything close to what Minho described.

You can’t help but wonder if Minho has ever experienced that. You desperately want to ask him, but you two aren’t close enough for that yet.

You also can’t help but wonder why you spend the rest of the evening raging a war against yourself as your mind is consumed with thoughts of what it would be like to experience that kind of sex with him.

It’s late in the night on the following Saturday, and your phone incessantly vibrating under your pillow rudely demands your attention just as you’re about to fall asleep. You squint your eyes as you type in your password. You sigh as you see Hyunjin’s name on your screen because of course it’s him.

Hyune: I’m outside open the door Hyune: please open the door? quick? Hyune: mrs. choi is gonna kill me if I use the intercom pls I don’t wanna die Hyune: I’m in my pajamas do you know how humiliating this is

Hyune: and I’m highkey pissed off Hyune: I WILL sleep on the bench outside your house if you don’t let me in and then I’ll die and who’s gonna live with the guilt? Hyune: you Hyune: OPENM TEH DOOR

You roll your eyes at his dramatic texts, stepping out of the comfort of your bed and padding across the floor as quietly as possible so as not to wake up your roommates. You open your front door and speed past the hallway and Mrs. Choi’s home, reaching the outside door in record time. It’s something you’ve done more times than you care to admit in order to let Hyunjin into your house. Your tenant was a sweet woman, insistent that she was modern and understanding of ‘young people’, but she despised people coming into your home any later than midnight.

You step outside, finding Hyunjin pacing back and forth like a creep in front of your house. True to his words, he stood in his checkered pajama pants and a black t-shirt. His hair was in a ponytail, the strands messily sticking out everywhere like he had tossed and turned in bed before coming here.

“You look like shit,” you speak up, causing him to jump and let out a gasp. You chuckle as he scowls at you, climbing the few steps to reach the door.

“I had a fight with Mingyu,” he grumbles as you two walk toward your front door. “He told me I spilled paint on his favorite shirt, which is fucking impossible since I don’t even paint anywhere near his shit.” 

“I mean, you are a messy painter.”

Hyunjin shoots you a look as you close your front door behind you. You take off your shoes and walk toward your bedroom in silence. This was routine. Hyunjin knew the rules: no knocking on the outside door, no buzzing the intercom, no shouting from outside, keep your voice down in the hallway, no talking until you reach your bedroom. It was all automatic at this point.

His voice is louder when he speaks again inside your locked bedroom. “First of all, I am not a messy painter. The paint is messy, not me. Second of all, if Mingyu wasn’t a fucking idiot, maybe he wouldn’t leave his favorite shirt on the floor of the living room right by my art corner,” Hyunjin huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, “If that’s how he treats his favorite shirt, I feel bad for his girlfriend.”

You let out a chuckle, which is cut short by him pulling you into his arms. “Hyunjin, that analogy makes no sense.”

“Yes, it does. You treat your favorite shirt like shit, you treat your girlfriend like shit,” he states matter-of-factly before pulling you into a kiss.

This was routine. It was all automatic at this point.

Hyunjin kisses you like he’s angry. Because he is, and that’s one of the reasons why you two do this. You let out your frustrations during sex. You complain, and you let off steam until you both feel okay again. It’s been this way for a year and some months now, and you never once thought anything of it. It was beneficial for you both, so why change or question it?

But that was before your talk with Minho. Before you were awoken to the truth that you’d been having meaningless sex your whole life.

When you’re pulled away from your thoughts, you’re already laid in your bed with Hyunjin hovering over you. His lips and hands wander through your body as he mumbles things you can’t quite understand; you can only make out your name and Mingyu’s mixed with curses. You try to bring yourself back to the moment, bringing your legs to wrap around Hyunjin’s waist and bring him closer to you.

He stops kissing your neck and yanks his shirt over his head, his hair untying in the process and falling on his face like a curtain. You giggle and try to fix it with your fingers. Hyunjin pouts.

“Don’t you think I’m right?”

You frown and hope he can’t see your confused expression in the dim lighting. You truly weren’t paying any attention to what he had been saying, too engrossed in your thoughts and too busy feeling sorry for yourself. Hyunjin’s tendency to tell you about his frustrations during sex always left you a bit puzzled, but it was also oddly sweet. It was like he trusted you so deeply as a friend that he believed he could share anything with you, no matter the time.

So you nod, lightly pulling at his hair. “Of course you’re right.”

He hums and buries his head on your chest, grinding his hips into your clothed core. “Of course I’m right,” he mumbles under his breath.

Everything is a blur after that, your mind insistent on repeating Minho’s words like an annoying echo. When Hyunjin’s tongue fucked you hastily, and he murmured something about you tasting so good, all you could hear was Minho’s voice telling you how tasting the person you love feels like heaven. When Hyunjin pushed his cock into you, his hands gripping your thighs and head buried in your neck, all you could think about was how this sex paled in comparison to what you could’ve been having — what you could have already had — if only you weren’t so damn unlovable. 

You knew that Minho didn’t intend to make you feel bad with his words. They weren’t targeted at you. But that didn’t stop your mind from sabotaging and putting yourself down. It was one of your biggest talents, after all.

Your body was present and responsive the entire time; you moaned because it felt good, and you kissed Hyunjin because you wanted to. But you were mentally somewhere else.

And the worst thing is, you’re a hundred percent sure Hyunjin doesn’t even notice it.

Because this wasn’t love. This was only sex.

And this was all you had ever known.

Time flies by faster than your brain can comprehend; before you know it, another month goes by. You only managed to go to your favorite bakery with Minho one more time before your work hours were changed, your shift now starting a mere thirty minutes after your Japanese class ends. He still walked you to work twice a week, but you would be lying if you said it didn’t upset you to have to let go of your weekly talks.

Minho also became busier due to his own job. With so little time to see each other face to face outside of class, most of your talks took place over text. He talked about his job with so much adoration it made you a little jealous; his partners were now simply friends he worked with, and his joy over finally being able to create a cozy game made it so that he pushed himself over his limit, often sleeping on his friend’s couch after working until four a.m. and getting through the next day on excessive amounts of coffee.

That was how you two came up with the idea of Minho dropping by the café where you work to pick up coffee for him and his friends. He would drop by at least twice every day, his friend’s house — which also served as their office — only one bus stop away.

The first time Minho came by, he had his wallet and phone in one hand, a sharpie and a block of sticky notes in the other. You eyed him curiously as he scribbled on the piece of paper while your co-worker prepared his coffee. When he was done, he stuck the note to the monitor in front of you on the counter. You furrowed your brows as your eyes shifted from the Japanese words on the bright yellow note back to Minho’s smug face. You were certainly grateful he at least had the courtesy of including the romanization of whatever he had written down. Not that it helped you in any way.

“Since our studying sessions after class were rudely taken from us, this is your extra homework. It’s all words we already learned. You just gotta think a little bit, and you’ll figure it out. You’re smart, I know you can do it,” He assured you.

Expect you weren’t that smart and ended up giving up by the time you got home that night. The piece of paper was no longer sticky on the border due to you carrying it around all day, boring holes into it as if that would magically give you the answer. You snapped a picture of it as you got ready for bed and sent it to Minho, begging him to put you out of your misery and simply give you the answer. ‘I want to drink coffee,’ he replied. You slapped your hand over your forehead with so much force you were sure the entire house had heard you. He was right; you did learn that in class. Curse the Japanese language for being so difficult.

After that, it became a routine. You waited expectantly for Minho’s visits daily, but you are extra excited today. It’s a Friday, and your birthday is tomorrow. After much pestering from Eunha, you agreed to have a small gathering at your house. It only made sense to invite Minho; he’s become one of your closest friends in the two months you’ve known him, after all.

As he walks into the coffee shop, sticky notes and sharpie in hand, you chuckle to yourself. You two chat about the development of his game, with Minho kindly using layman’s terms when explaining it to you. He also tells you about how one of his friends got so frustrated with a code that he threw his phone at a wall before immediately regretting it and crying on the floor next to Minho’s desk. Before you can get worried, he assures you that it’s just an ordinary day at the office, and the three of them end up laughing everything off at the end of the day.

After taking his order, you watch as he begins writing down your homework for the day on the small piece of paper in his hand. As you look around the coffee shop, most tables are empty, and the sun is starting to set outside the glass doors.

“You wanna come over this Saturday?” You ask Minho, who looks up at you before adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. That was one thing you learned about Minho since he began coming over: he wears glasses. Not every day, but enough times for you to notice how good he looks with them. But friends find each other attractive all the time, you justify it. “You never came over to my house, and my roommates really want to meet you. Plus, it’s my birthday tomorrow.”

Minho’s eyes widen. “Your birthday? And you save that information to the end?”

“It’s not a big deal. I usually never even celebrate.” You shrug lightly. You’ve never been big on birthdays, as you just don’t see the reason why it’s supposed to feel different from any other day of the year. “But my roommate pestered me to do something this year, so I agreed to have a party.”

Minho shifts on his feet. “I… really hate parties…” He trails off.

“It’s not a party party. I promise!” You hold up your pinky finger. “It’s more of a get-together, just my roommates and my only two other friends. And, you…” You trail off, “If you come.”

Minho blinks his eyes a couple of times before tearing the piece of paper he was writing on from the pad and crumpling it in his hand. He quickly jots down something new and sticks it to your forehead.

“Minho!” You scold him, to which he laughs, his nose scrunching and eyes crinkling. You advert your gaze from him as your persistent thoughts regarding how unfairly pretty Minho is begin to flood your brain once again. You take the note and analyze it:

はい (Hai)

You smile as you understand the word, looking up at him.

“I’d love to come to your birthday party,” He beams. “Thank you for inviting me.”

To say Minho is nervous would be an understatement.

He gets out of his car twice, ready to march back inside his friend’s apartment like a coward and pretend that nothing happened both times. Only when he thinks back to how you smiled at him when he agreed to your invitation does he find the courage to start the car and drive to your house. He’d noticed for a while now how much he likes you. But it was when he agreed with the idea of going to the café you worked at to pick up coffee that it truly dawned on him that he really liked you. Minho hated taking the bus, he hated doing anything other than zoning out on the couch during his breaks, he hated bustling shops, and he hated how his co-workers both managed to have such intricate coffee orders.

Yet he agreed to that idea, even suggesting he drop by two times a day.

He noticed he’d felt a familiar small whirlpool inside his chest whenever he was with you, when he heard you talk about something you liked or saw you smile. He’s also noticed that this tiny whirlpool has been growing bigger and bigger the more he’s been around you.

But that doesn’t scare him. Minho loves love. He loves to be in love, to love someone, and to make that person feel loved. It’s his favorite thing about life. If he was honest, he missed it so much he didn’t know how he was able to live without it.

Just down the block from your house, he parks his car and gathers his phone and his present for you — clearly clumsily wrapped, even with his co-workers’ help. He feels another wave of nervousness wash over him as he approaches the house; he’s an hour late and needs to mentally prepare to socialize with people he’s never met before. Minho chuckles as he realizes a silly party makes him more nervous than the prospect of possibly falling in love.

You open the door almost as soon as he rings the intercom, and he walks down the hallway into your house door; the crooked box he’s been holding makes his hands sweat. The first thing he notices as you open the door is your styled hair with a big white bow on the back, looking much prettier than the ugly bow he and his friends managed to stick on top of his present. He smiles at the sight and scratches his ear in a futile attempt to stop them from turning red.

God, he really liked you, didn’t he?

“Thank you for coming,” you tell him with a smile. Minho notices the quiet music playing inside the house, the simple decorations, and the cake on top of the kitchen counter. He mentally sighs in relief. This truly wasn’t anything like a big party. “You’re wearing your glasses again,” you point out as Minho walks inside and removes his shoes. He subconsciously reaches his left hand to touch his wire-rimmed glasses that sit on his nose bridge. He grimaces and curses at his friend for making him stay later than he was supposed to today.

“I had no time to go home and change,” He apologizes, fingers now toying with the stupid bow on top of the box. “I usually wear contacts, but they make my eyes dry if I stare at the computer for too long, so I just… wear my glasses at work…” Minho trails off, suddenly feeling stupid, his eyes looking anywhere but toward you.

You chuckle, lightly touching his glasses for a second before moving away again. “You always come to the coffee shop wearing them, and I think you look really good,” you assured him. His eyes quickly met yours, only for you to advert your gaze this time. “You should wear them more often.”

Minho only hums, lightly nodding his head. He feels stupid all over again as the image of himself throwing his contact lenses down the drain crosses his mind.

Clearing his throat, he finally hands you your gift. You giggle at the mismatched wrapping paper and poor excuse of a bow, which makes Minho let out a chuckle and murmur an apology. You open the box, and your eyes light up when you spot the stuffed bunny you have been raving about since you two met. It was the only animal missing from your collection, but you couldn’t find the right time to save up money to buy it. Minho didn’t need to ask if you liked it as he watched your smile grow bigger as you looked at the brown bunny.

“Come, I gotta put him in my bed now,” you beamed and took Minho’s hand in yours, leading him to the living room. There, five people sat on the couch and on the floor. Minho furrows his brows as he takes in a head of light brown hair covered by a familiar beanie. “These are my friends. Eunha’s the girl with short hair on the floor, and Soojung’s the one with blonde hair next to her. They’re also my roommates,” You point at them as you speak. “That’s Jisung sitting next to Soojung; he’s also her boyfriend. And then Hyunjin, with the long hair, sitting next to Chan on the couch. Everyone, this is Minho from my Japanese class.”

With that, you pad off to your room with your bunny in tow. As Chan finally turns to look at Minho, his shocked expression mirrors his. They stare at each other for a while before Chan finally breaks the silence.

“What the fuck, that’s my co-worker.”

Minho narrows his eyes. “So this is why you had to leave an hour earlier today?”

As you come out of your room, you chuckle. “Chan is your co-worker?” You ask Minho, “I can’t believe this. He’s been our friend for longer than I’ve known you. He came like a package deal when Jisung began dating Soojung.”

“Damn, dude, you hate me so much you never talked about me to your friend?” Chan gasped, a hand over his heart. “I’m hurt.”

Minho rolls his eyes but is unable to stop a small grin from forming on his lips as the entire living room erupts in laughter. “Of course I talked about you. I talked about you and Seungmin all the time. It’s just I…” Minho shifts on his feet, shrugging. “I never said your names.”

More laughter seeps out of the group of people, including Chan, and Minho finds himself laughing along this time, shaking his head at his own stupidity. 

He sits beside Chan on the couch while Hyunjin heads to the kitchen with you. He quickly asks him how he came to be friends with you in the first place. Chan explains that he’s been in a class with Jisung for almost two years, and the boy had always pestered him about ‘old people’ needing to hang out with people their age. That’s how he ended up meeting Soojung as soon as she became Jisung’s girlfriend. You and Eunha were an inevitable addition, seeing as you were not only roommates but also great friends.

You offer Minho a beer, which he declines. As much as he wanted to, no beer was worth having to take the bus back home. He silently sips his cola as he watches your group of friends chat. You end up sitting beside him on the couch, your friend Hyunjin to your right.

Minho finds that he missed getting together with people like this and didn’t even realize it. His only friends were left behind back at home, and although they were less than an hour away by bus, their busy lives prevented them from meeting in person. Minho’s favorite memories from his teenage years were having his friends over and just doing nothing for hours, talking about stupid shit until their stomachs hurt from laughing. Eating takeout on the couch with Chan and Seungmin after work came close, but they were always too tired and too stressed to entertain the idea of making jokes. Those were times when Minho realized he had really become an adult.

Jisung’s loud voice suddenly booms through the living room and startles an already drunk-looking Eunha, who murmurs something about the younger boy giving her a heart attack one day. 

“I’m bored,” he grumbles, draping his body over Soojung. “Let’s play spin the bottle.”

Soojung rolls her eyes at him, flicking his forehead. “Are you a teenager?”

Jisung pouts, sitting up straight once more. “We’re in university. University students play this fucking game all the time,” he states matter-of-factly. “Don’t make me regret falling for an older woman.”

“Jisung, I’m only three years older than you, I’m not—”

“Don’t make me call you noona.”

Soojung inhales deeply before turning to face the people sitting on the couch, placing one of the empty beer bottles scattered around her feet on top of the coffee table. “Let’s play spin the bottle. But let’s do dares instead of kissing, that’s too boring.”

Jisung beams, cuddling close to her like a needy child. Minho chuckles at the sight.

Eunha scoots closer to the couple so the group is seated in a circle around the coffee table, half of them on the couch and half on the floor. Minho never had the chance to play spin the bottle, which seemed to be such a staple game of one’s teenage years. By the time his friends were off sneaking into clubs and drinking behind their parents’ backs, he was already in a committed relationship and well aware of the fact that he didn’t enjoy parties.

It seems silly, but he’s glad he won’t live past his youth without experiencing such a trivial thing.

Soojung spins the bottle, and the neck stops facing Chan while the bottom faces Jisung.

“Take your shirt off,” Jisung waves a finger at Chan, who looks somewhat disoriented. Minho chuckles under his breath just as you do the same. You two face each other and let out a hearty laugh, your arm coming to rest on his bicep before retrieving back to your lap faster than Minho hoped it would.

Soojung squishes Jisung’s cheeks and places a small kiss on his lips. “You’re such a fucking chaotic bisexual,” she giggles, “Y’know, Chan, Jisung has had the biggest crush on you since you two first met.”

Chan shakes his head with a stifled laugh and proceeds to remove his shirt, neatly placing it on his lap.

Jisung is next to spin the bottle, this time landing on Soojung, who you dare to show her most embarrassing text. After showing the group a string of texts showing raunchy screenshots of a manhwa she’d been reading at that time, all sent to one of her class group chats which included some professors, she lets out a heavy sigh and orders Eunha to spin the bottle before any questions can be asked.

This time, the neck faces you while the bottom faces Eunha herself. With a smile, the short-haired girl dares you to kiss Minho.

He feels his smile drop at the very second the words leave her lips. This was not what he had in mind for tonight.

“What?” You sputter, “Why?”

Eunha shrugs, adjusting herself so she’s seated upright and staring right at you. “Well, he’s the only one here who would be actually fun to see you kiss. Jisung and Soojung are okay with each other hooking up with other people, so that’s no fun,” she explains, using her fingers to list her reasons, “I’m not into girls, so that’s no fun for me. Hyunjin is too obvious. We all already know Chan, so it would also be boring. Minho is like fresh meat. That is fun.”

Minho’s brain begins finding a suitable excuse for why you two can’t kiss, because he’s certain you have no interest in doing it. Not only are you friends, but your reaction didn’t exactly exude excitement at the prospect of kissing him. Just as he’s ready to lie through his teeth, you turn to him and place your hand on his shoulder, a touch so soft he’s barely able to feel it through the fabric of his shirt.

“Is this okay with you?” You ask him, the tone of your voice so sweet Minho feels like it melts his every thought until his brain is nothing but a sugary pool filled with only you. So he nods because god, yes, this is okay with him.

You gingerly place your right hand on his cheek, bringing your faces closer until your lips press together. The whirlpool inside his chest spins fast, like a vortex dragging every sense of his body toward you and only you.

You remain still for a few seconds, Minho’s eyes opening slightly to search for any sign of regret on your face. Before he can even properly look at you, your lips begin to move against his — gently and carefully, like you’re not sure if this is what he wants. Minho deepens the kiss and hesitates three times before committing to placing his left hand on your waist. The giggles around the two of you nothing but a muffled murmur to him. He presses another kiss to your lips, his body shifting until he is all but caging you against the back of the couch. But just as he swipes his tongue across your bottom lip, you push him back with a smile, Minho chasing after your lips.

He blinks a couple of times, eyes zoning into your smudged red lipstick. He subconsciously bites his own bottom lip, wondering if any of the color transferred to him. The surrounding murmurs bring Minho back to the moment this time, awkwardly clearing his throat before lifting himself off of you and sitting upright on the couch. He tunes out every comment regarding the kiss to the best of his abilities, focusing his energy on slowing down his heart rate. When he catches you giggling while looking at him, your arm touching his bicep yet again, he nods, grabbing his cola bottle from the floor and taking a sip.

Minho can’t remember the last time kissing someone got him so worked up. He entered a long-term relationship at such a young age that he’s only now realizing how unaccustomed he is to kissing someone new, to the rush that comes with having your lips pressing against the ones of someone you like. It was exhilarating and a bit terrifying all at the same time. He was awkward, unsure where to put his hands, uncertain if you were enjoying yourself. He was also greedy, wanting the moment to last for much longer than it had.

This had cemented the fact that he does, in fact, really like you.

After kissing you, the whirlpool living in his heart had now fully transformed into a tiny hurricane — with great chances of growing even bigger.

Minho only notices the game has continued upon hearing your voice complaining beside him. He watches as Soojung shrugs.

“It’s the only thing I could think of, sorry.”

“But why?” Hyunjin asks, placing his cup on the coffee table. “It’s a stupid dare.”

The blonde girl scoffs. “No, it’s not. I’ve had to basically live with you two for the past year, and it’s common knowledge how easily you get a boner for her.”

“Not true,” Hyunjin retorts, although it sounds more like a question than an affirmation.

Eunha blurts out, “You once got a boner watching her stir a cake mix.”

Hyunjin opens and closes his mouth before groaning, pulling you into his lap by the waist. You apologize to him quietly, to which Hyunjin shakes his head with a small smile.

Minho feels as if he’s intruding on something private.

You sit on Hyunjin’s knees, almost falling off his lap as you clearly try to keep some distance between the two of you. Hyunjin clicks his tongue and pulls you closer to him until your back is pressed up against his chest. He whispers something in your ear, to which you lightly slap his arm as his lips upturn into a grin.

Minho is definitely intruding on something private.

At some point, you turn so you’re sitting across Hyunjin’s lap, your body now facing Minho. He can’t help but watch with dark eyes as the younger boy’s hands wander through your body; playing with the buttons on your blouse, squeezing your thighs, and caressing your skin a little too close to the hem of your skirt. He furrows his brows as he tries to understand your relationship with Hyunjin, seeing as you’re obviously not put off by his hands on your body.

Minho is so transfixed by the sight and his racing thoughts that he only realizes the game has ended when someone taps his shoulder from behind the couch.  When he looks back, Chan is holding a cigarette and motioning towards the stairs that lead to the house’s terrace.

In the chilly open space above the house, they sit on a bench behind a tall vertical planter. Minho wonders who tends to the garden as he observes the various flowers, as well as some vegetables and herbs scattered around him. The terrace is small; the garden taking up all the space, an old wooden railing that overlooks the quiet street the only other thing in his sight.

He and Chan chat about school and work, as they often do nowadays. After Chan recently broke up with his girlfriend, Minho found that his friend had become much more closed off, so the list of subjects they would talk about became minimal. Chan bites his thumb before taking a long drag of his cigarette. He chuckles when he mentions being scared of graduating next year. Minho bumps his shoulder with him, arguing that being in his situation is worse. He admits that he regrets starting university late and that being in his first year when he should already be in his third is discouraging. Chan dismisses his worries, reminding him of how Minho is often the one to fix broken codes and come up with ideas for their game whenever Seungmin gets stuck.

“A degree is just a piece of paper,” Chan says, throwing his cigarette butt at a nearby trashcan. “You’re already a fantastic programmer, Minho.”

“You’re just saying that because I saved your ass today.”

Chan shrugs. “You’ve saved my ass basically every day since we started working together.” After a beat of silence, he asks, “Why did you start uni so late, anyway? You never told me.”

Minho hums, digging his brain for a way to sum up the entire story. “It’s complicated—”

He’s interrupted by footsteps on the stairs leading to the terrace. A loud giggle echoes through the open space before you and Hyunjin step into their field of vision. The long-haired boy holds you from behind, and you two stagger toward the railing.

“Wish everyone would go home already so I could just fuck you,” Hyunjin whines as he turns your body around so you’re facing him. Minho almost chokes on nothing at those words, and Chan stifles a laugh with his hand. He curses the small space as they’re able to so clearly hear everything you’re saying.

You playfully kick Hyunjin’s shin. “Don’t say it like that, Hyune, what the fuck.”

“It’s true, though,” Hyunjin continues, pressing you against the railing. He towers over you, so the only thing Minho can see from where he’s seated is your white skirt floating in the wind behind the tall boy. “I had a stressful, terrible, awful, dreadful week. All I kept thinking about was coming over and relaxing with you.”

“See, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound so awful.”

Hyunjin clicks his tongue. “There’s nothing awful about fucking. I know how much you like it, don’t act so coy.”

Minho watches as your hands clench around Hyunjin’s gray shirt, pulling him closer and kissing him softly, much like you had done to him a few moments before.

Minho presses his lips into a thin line. He connects every dot available to him inside his head and suddenly feels pathetic.

Hyunjin being too obvious of a choice for you to kiss, his hands all over your body, his words about fucking you, the way you kissed him like it was a habit.

If you had a boyfriend, why did you agree to kiss him?

The words swarm Minho’s brain. He vaguely recalls you and Hyunjin eventually walking out of the terrace. Chan starts a one-sided conversation about one of his classes, with Minho humming after every couple of sentences to appear like he’d been listening when his head is too busy wondering how to feel about everything.

Minho recalls Eunha walking up the stairs and shouting for the two of them to come downstairs to sing you happy birthday. He recalls Hyunjin’s hands wandering through your body throughout the song, his lips pressing small kisses on your face and lips as you smiled. He recalls feeling confused, stressed, jealous, and pathetic.

Minho is only truly back to the present moment once Chan’s voice bids him a loud goodbye, and the door slamming behind him makes his senses finally return to him. As he looks around, he notices that the only people left in the living room are Jisung, Hyunjin, and you. Beside him on the couch, Hyunjin stretches with a loud groan.

“I’m gonna take a shower. D’you have any of my clothes in your room?”

You sigh from where you’re sitting on the floor, resting against the television stand. “Of course, I do. You’re always living shit behind, you’re like our third roommate at this point.”

Hyunjin chuckles, walking over to give you a small peck on the lips before disappearing into your room. Minho gnaws on his bottom lip with a bitter smile as he realizes Hyunjin will sleep over at your house. The ugly feelings return as he remembers his thoughts about you these past few weeks when he unknowingly cultivated too big of a crush on you. Even on his way here tonight, when he had chuckled to himself at his lack of nervousness in the face of potential love.

Love.

Minho can’t help but wonder why your view of love is so negative when you’re in a relationship. And, at the same time, he doesn’t dare to think about it for too long, fully aware that his foolish affection-filled brain will come up with a myriad of reasons — all where your boyfriend is the sole culprit for your distaste — and Minho knows better than to let those thoughts linger for too long inside his mind. He knows himself all too well, knows only awful shit would come out of assuming things about your relationship; the urge to beat Hyunjin senseless for being a shitty boyfriend and making you think that way about love being the worst of them.

“I’m too drunk to go back to my dorm,” Jisung suddenly speaks, his eyes glazed over as he stares ahead. “Gonna crash here tonight, too.”

Minho takes that as his cue to leave.

You walk him outside, a small smile on your face the entire time. He feels guilty not being able to reciprocate the gesture. As you tell him goodbye, thanking him for coming, you pull him into a hug. You hadn’t hugged much since you met, and Minho foolishly wants to draw you closer to him, to feel your body pressed against his just as it was pressed against Hyunjin most of the night. But he can’t do that.

“Are you okay to walk back by yourself?” You ask him as you pull away.

Minho nods, forcing out a small smile. “My car is parked just down the block.”

“That’s why you didn’t drink!” You exclaim with a giggle, “I forget that most people our age already drive. My anxiety didn’t allow me the chance to even try and get a license, so I just accepted my fate of taking the bus.”

“I could drive you…” Minho trails off. There he goes again, being pathetic. “If I have the time… You can give me a call and I’d be happy to drive you anywhere.”

You smile at him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him into another embrace. Minho smiles genuinely as he buries his head in your hair.

The drive back home has Minho feeling stupid all over again as he thinks about how you’re probably in bed with Hyunjin by now. The whirlpool is back inside his chest, but it isn’t good or welcome this time. It’s agonizing and painful.

Love had never been painful. Love had never been bad.

But he had never experienced love toward someone who already loved somebody else. Although you brazenly state that you don’t believe in it, you must feel some type of love toward Hyunjin if you’re willing to be his girlfriend.

As he silently drives home, Minho finds himself agreeing with you.

Maybe love can be bad, after all.

Minho feels stupid.

This has become a constant in his life.

He had always thought of himself as a logical person. Programming had taught him that everything is predictable and fixable if you work on it hard enough. A broken code? It may take him six hours of staring at the computer to figure out it was nothing but a missing semicolon, but he will get there in the end. It was annoying and frustrating, but it was always something easily fixed.

He thought love was like that. It had always been like that with him.

Until he fell for you.

Minho was coming to terms with the fact that maybe love and programming were nothing alike. Love isn’t predictable. Loving someone who is already in love with someone else isn’t easily fixed. He can’t backspace and delete your boyfriend from the equation.

It’s been a little over six months since you two first met. Minho has consistently gone to the café you work at every day, and you two still had endless talks over text messages. You talk about everything and anything, from silly things like sharing pictures of both your growing plushie collections or your love of that particular coffee shop’s lemon cake to more serious topics like how Minho learned how to cook when he was twelve so his mom wouldn’t have to do it by herself, and now his roommates take advantage of that, or how sad you are that next year you will have to leave the house you’ve grown to love so much.

But, whether it is in person or through text, you still avoid the topic of love. You don’t ever bring up Hyunjin unless he’s part of a story you were already telling, and Minho feels his heart heavy as he slowly allows himself to imagine what it could be that led you to hate love so much.

He desperately wants to ask you, know your reasons, and make sure you’re happy with your boyfriend. But he doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries and doesn’t know how to go about it without scaring you. So he never does anything, like a coward.

Minho finds himself coming over to your sharehouse on most weekends since summer break ended. Your countless get-togethers at that house have become a hard-to-break habit. Hyunjin, Jisung, and your roommates are always assured to be there, with Chan joining whenever he isn’t overwhelmed with work or school, which was rare.

Minho had always been a hopeless romantic, always doing things for love that people repeatedly warned would result in regret. This time, it was forgoing visiting his parents and friends back home just to spend most of his summer with you. Despite not being able to pursue you in the way he truly wanted to, Minho still wanted to be your friend. You were still a fantastic person he loved to have around; that didn’t change simply because you had a boyfriend. Although he could feel a bit of his heart cracking every time he had to see you, all while knowing he couldn’t do anything about his feelings for you.

He couldn’t change your perspective of love if he weren’t allowed to love you.

In all the time he spent at your house during summer break, he ended up becoming good friends with Jisung, as you tended to stick next to Hyunjin most of the time. Minho didn’t mind it; he is your boyfriend, after all. At least, that’s what he repeats to himself every night he comes over like a mantra as he almost masochistically forces himself to watch how Hyunjin kisses your lips and caresses your skin or how you play with his hair and snuggle with him on the couch. He also endures the countless nights he’s left your house knowing all too well that Hyunjin would be spending the night with you in a way that Minho can only ever dream about.

Tonight, in particular, Hyunjin seemed to be all over you like bees on honey, buzzing around you everywhere you went, his hands never leaving your body as he pulled you closer to him every time you even slightly pulled away. Because god forbid your bodies not be touching in some way for even a split second. Before he knows it, Minho is downing his third bottle of beer of the night.

From where he’s sitting on the couch, Minho rolls his eyes as discreetly as he can while he watches Hyunjin pull you to sit on his lap on the floor as you all get ready to play a game of cards. He gnaws on his lower lip because he knows he’s being petty and borderline childish. You’re Hyunjin’s girlfriend. Of course he’s all over you, of course he wants to be close to you, of course he wants you on his lap. Minho concludes with a bitter chuckle that he is, indeed, pathetic when it comes to you.

He gulps down more of the awful-tasting cheap beer.

The night comes to a close after far too many rounds of Cards Against Humanity, with Jisung winning more than half of them. His ethics and morals fly out the window the moment the cards are handed to him, as he manages to create the most absurdly offensive phrases known to men every single time. Minho found himself groaning and yelling at the younger boy as the alcohol took over his system. He doesn’t know how much of it was simply his annoyance at Hyunjin clinging to you like a koala throughout the entire game disguised as competitiveness.

He doesn’t think he’d like to know either.

Like every night he comes over, Minho is the last person to go home. He has to call an Uber, far too buzzed to want to sit at a bus stop all alone at this time of night. He hadn’t even noticed how he kept downing his drinks until he felt the familiar buzz of inebriation wash over his body a while before the game ended. Although slamming his fist into the coffee table with a whine about how he had only been given lame cards should’ve been a sign.

As he waits outside your house by the fence, he suddenly hears the door shut behind him and your voice calling out to him. He smiles at the faint slur of your speech and the way you drag out the last syllable of his name like you always did when you were a bit drunk.

“I told you to wait for me!” You reprimand, opening the gate to stand next to him. “Look how lonely you look here all by yourself.”

Minho just shrugs with a smile, shaking his head. He did wait. He waited almost half an hour after announcing he should leave as you disappeared into your room with Hyunjin. He was still waiting, in fact, only mindlessly scrolling on his phone for the past ten minutes instead of finding a ride as he hoped you would come outside when you saw he wasn’t in the living room anymore.

You poke his shoulder, bringing his attention away from his phone to your smiling face.

“Tonight was fun, wasn’t it? Especially that last round when Hyunjin won after being tied with Jisung for the whole game,” you grinned, “Seeing Jisung make a whole damn case about how much better his card was really made my night. Think that’s the first time I’ve seen him act like a law student since I met him.”

Minho chuckles, bringing his attention back to his phone. Seeing your smile and how your eyes light up while you talk about something you like brought back the whirlpool inside his chest, which wasn’t a pleasant feeling any longer. It made him glum to think how a once beautiful feeling had turned into nothing but discomfort simply because he was lovelorn.

He hums. “You must be proud to have your boyfriend put an end to Jisung’s annoying winning streak.”

“What do you mean?”

Minho looks up from his phone, eyes wandering through your puzzled face. He furrows his brows for a second. Maybe you’re both drunker than he’d thought.

“I mean, it must’ve been nice to see Hyunjin win after Jisung basically made us all want to quit the game,” he explains, watching as your expression turns from confusion into shock before you let out a loud laugh.

Minho’s eyes widen, worried your laughter might wake up your neighbors. He gently shushes you, his arm grabbing your shoulder, but your smiling face only makes his lips stretch out into a grin. He suppresses a giggle as you catch your breath, shaking your head.

Minho smiles at you so fondly he’s certain he looks like an idiot. “What’s so funny?”

“Hyunjin isn’t my boyfriend,” you explain like it’s obvious. “We’re just friends. I thought you knew that.”

Minho only then realizes he had never once heard you refer to Hyunjin as a boyfriend, nor had any of the people around you. But his assumptions weren’t so ill-judged, either. You two acted like a couple. It wasn’t so absurd to assume that you were one.

He finds himself staring at your amused face for a few seconds before forcing himself to turn his attention back to his phone.

You acted like a couple, but you were just friends. Minho groaned mentally.

“So, you’re like friends with benefits?”

“Yeah… I don’t particularly believe in love anymore, Minho. I thought you knew that from our talk a while ago,” You chuckle, shifting on your feet. “Hyunjin is one of my best friends. We just hook up ‘cause it’s convenient.”

Minho hums, his fingers ghosting over his phone screen. “Sounds like you’re running away from love.”

He blinks a couple of times as he takes in his own words. He would have never said such a thing if it hadn’t been for the liquid courage flowing through his veins.

You shrug, moving to sit on the white bench just outside the house. “Well, yeah, that is what I’m doing. Love hasn’t been kind to me at all. I have no interest in going after it, only to be hurt again. It’s a movie I’ve watched before and I hated the ending every time.”

Minho bites the inside of his cheek, finally clicking the button to find a ride, his thumb pressing on his phone screen more forcefully than he intended. He felt angry. You didn’t deserve to settle for a friend with benefits due to convenience. Had you wanted to be in that situation, it was your every right to do so, but you were in it out of fear of being hurt.

He felt sad. He wished you didn’t equate your past experiences with love to everything it could be. Bad experiences in love were possible for everyone — even for him, who used to believe unwaveringly that love could never be hurtful — but that didn’t mean it was all there was to it. Minho desperately wanted to show you that. The good side of love, the side that made him put it above everything else in his life on so many occasions, the side that made him crave it even now when it hurt more than it felt good.

And, strangely, Minho felt relieved. It was a small percentage of the chart of current emotions he was experiencing, but prevalent nonetheless. He would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that he felt happy Hyunjin wasn’t your boyfriend and, most importantly, that you weren’t stuck in an unhappy or toxic relationship, as he had so often feared.

His ride arrives, and he’s overcome with a wave of courage. Minho would much rather live with regret than with a constant ‘what if’.

Shoving his phone inside his pocket, he offers his hand to you, who looks up at him curiously from where you’re sitting on the bench before taking his hand. Minho pulls you to your feet and hugs you. With his hand on your waist, he pulls your body closer to him, finally holding you tightly the way he’s always wanted to do. He presses a kiss to your head, bringing his lips to your ear and whispering, “I’m gonna change your mind.”

He feels your body shake with a chuckle, but he only tightens his hold on you.

“What?”

“About love, I’m gonna change your mind,” He answers matter-of-factly, “You deserve to feel love without being afraid.”

Minho pulls back from the embrace just enough to see your face, and he’s surprised to find you smiling up at him. He smiles back.

“I will change your mind.”

Minho had just dropped you off at your house, ready to drive around aimlessly until he absolutely had to go back to his dorm, when Seungmin texted him.

Kim Seungmin: hey my sister’s engagement dinner is tonight Kim Seungmin: and i might have fucked up something in the code i was working on so now there’s a chance that you fish 100 rare fish at once 🤪 Kim Seungmin: pls pls do me a solid and fix it before chan sees it and kills me? Kim Seungmin: love you hyung 💚

Minho initially groaned at the messages, thinking of the many ways in which he could murder Seungmin and get away with it. But, ultimately, he didn’t want to go back to his dorm anyway, so he gladly turned his car around. If he was lucky, this would take hours and he would have a valid excuse to crash in Chan’s cramped living room.

He punches the code to the front door and his friend greets him with a puzzled expression.

“I forgot to do the, uh, troubleshooting for this week,” Minho blurts out. It’s the first lie he can come up with, and he hopes it’s convincing enough. Chan nods slowly. Seungmin might have saved him from having to endure his roommates on a Saturday night, but he still owes him.

“It’s all good,” Chan says with a sigh, “I’m most likely gonna pull an all-nighter designing these new characters. Anyway, how did you waste your time today?”

Minho has been taking you on what he likes to call Subtle Dates for a month now.

Chan affectionately calls them Waste of Time Dates.

Minho rolls his eyes, sitting down on his own desk. “We went to Han River and walked around till sundown, then watched the Banpo Bridge water show.”

Days like today were rare, so Minho was happy. Most weekends, it seemed as if the whole world was conspiring against anything he planned with you.

“Oh, how romantic of you,” Chan gasps, feigning amazement. “Did you at least kiss her this time?”

“You know I can’t just kiss her like that. I know she’d freak out if I tried to do anything romantic with her,” Minho taps his fingers on his desk, knowing he sounds ridiculous. But he has a plan. He just hopes this plan actually works out soon. “I don’t mind being patient.”

He hears Chan scoff. “So, you took her on another one-sided date and then drove her home so Hyunjin can fuck her?”

Minho’s fingers stop tapping on his desk, his hand coming down to slam on it before he can stop himself. He lets out a heavy sigh, and Chan mumbles an apology. But, the truth is, he knows his friend is right. Just last weekend, Minho dropped you off straight into Hyunjin’s arms, the younger boy waiting for you to come back in front of your house.

And Hyunjin wasn’t the only inconvenience that rendered it almost impossible for the two of you to spend time together. Minho had to cut most of your dates short due to Chan calling him about something urgent that only he could fix at work, or you canceled altogether because your roommate was upset and you didn’t have the heart to leave her alone like that. There were also times when Minho was too tired to even go out at all, like on the day of his birthday, which resulted in you coming over to Chan’s apartment and eating cheap takeout food with him and his two friends.

Minho found himself dealing with countless bumps in the road when it came to finding a way into your heart.

“I didn’t mean to say it like that,” Chan says hesitantly, “You clearly like her a lot.”

Minho repeatedly opens and closes the code he’s supposed to fix. He sighs. “I like her more than a lot, and I don’t even know when that happened.”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” His friend explains, his face disappearing behind his own computer screen. “I just can’t see what will change if you go on dates with her when she doesn’t even know they’re dates and if she’s just gonna go home and have sex with someone else. I don’t get it. What difference does it make?”

He can hear Chan scoffing, although he tries to disguise it by clearing his throat. Minho shakes his head.

“It makes all the difference because that’s not love. I wanna show her what love is, and that it isn’t always bad. I promised her that I would.”

Chan sighs, sliding his chair toward the mini-fridge by the couch. “Agree to disagree?” He asks, grabbing a bottle of water and tossing it in Minho’s direction. He grabs it mid-air, just before it hits him in the face, and clicks his tongue.

“Agree to disagree.”

Minho plugs his headphones into the computer, drowning out the noise of Chan’s pen sliding across his iPad with his brown noise playlist. But he can’t drown out the obstinate thought ringing inside his head, screaming at him that Chan is right.

Taking you out on dates — which you don’t even know are dates — doesn’t really make a difference if you’re just going to go back to your convenience with Hyunjin at the end of the day. If you think you’re just friends going out together, and you go back home at night to the comfort of sex without the love you’ve been running away from for so long, what Minho is doing truly is useless. 

It’s just like when he argues with Seungmin through their codes, screaming at the younger boy in all caps about something that’s broken, even though he knows he’s going to be the one who will end up having to fix it.

Minho’s fingers come to a halt on the keyboard.

Closing his work, he opens up Google and finds the first flight he can to Japan. Almost as if he’s on autopilot, and his brain is completely shut off. He books the flight and the cheapest hotel he can find, using almost all the money he’s saved up to move out of his hell of a dorm. It might be the most idiotic thing he has ever done in his life, but he’s so in love it hurts him. And he loves love, and love with you — the thought of that alone has his heart beating at his throat. He doesn’t want to keep on with these futile attempts at trying to make you see that love is good and that, maybe, love can be good with him.

The truth is, he feels scared. Maybe even more scared than you do. He is terrified of knowing the answer, of finding out that maybe he could change your mind about love but that it would simply lead you to someone else’s arms and he would have to endure the pain of unrequited love until it inevitably faded away with time.

Minho would gladly live with that pain if it meant you were happy.

But he needed to know.

He adjusted his glasses — a childhood nervous habit that returned after he started wearing them more often since you complimented him months ago — and retrieved his phone from his backpack.

He typed and deleted more times than he’d like to admit.

Me: Hey, it’s late sorry  Me: Just wanted to know if you’d be up for a trip to Japan? Me: In two weeks Me: For study purposes Me: We’d finally have the chance to use what we learned in class lol Me: Chan was supposed to go with me but he has a family thing so he can’t anymore Me: Everything’s already paid for and he said he doesn’t mind if you go in his place Me: Lmk what you think

Minho’s fingers typed as his brain came up with excuses and lies, sending more messages than he needed to. He couldn’t tell you he booked a whole damn trip with you just to see if maybe, possibly, you have feelings for him too.

He all but throws his phone across his table after turning on Do Not Disturb. He’ll need to muster up the courage before reading your answer, and having his phone buzz for anything that wasn’t your reply would just be torturous. He felt stupid, would feel even more so if you turned down his invitation. He almost doesn’t want you to answer, wants to pretend he never even sent anything.

Because it was stupid.

But love is stupid, and he is in love.

Worst-case scenario, he’s stuck with Chan in Japan for a weekend while he laughs at him.

Best-case scenario, he spends a weekend with you in Japan. No letting you go back to another man at the end of the day, no more hiding that he is taking you out on dates, no more distractions, no more inconveniences of your daily lives.

Minho opens the code he was working on again, quickly typing out:

// NOTE: Minho will fix this.

#stray kids #stray kids fic #skz smut #skz x reader #stray kids x reader #skz fic #lee know fluff #lee know #lee know smut #lee know scenarios #stray kids x you #skz #fanfic #lee know x reader #lee know x you #lee know imagines #lee minho #lee minho x reader #lee minho x you #stray kids scenarios #stray kids smut

[bokutosbiceps]

meeting the house guard dog

ryoumen sukuna x afab!reader | fluff | ~550 words 

warnings: suggestive themes, otherwise none !!

a/n: this is for my darling @kamesama ,, we came up with this lil idea that we're besties who'd date yuuji n sukuna in the au where they're brothers. so this is my first meet drabble for kame n sukuna !! 🤭 i hope ya enjoy, my loves !!

18+ MDNI

“who the hell are you?” piercing brown eyes, and a sneer so sharp it makes you step back, look down on you. the man standing in the doorway does a once over of your body and shifts slightly.

you minutely shake your head and take a step back forward, clearing your throat and regarding this (handsome) stranger with as intense a look you could muster.

“what’s it to you?” you scoff, tilting your chin up so you could look him in the eyes.

“maybe because i live here, you b–” 

“‘kuna!” a mirror image of the asshole before you rushes up behind him. “stop it!” this second stranger wrestles his way to stand in the doorway with the first stranger. he offers you an apologetic smile.

“hi!” he introduces himself as yuuji, your housemate/best friend’s boyfriend, and invites you to come inside while you wait for her to come out.

yuuji disappears back into the house as quickly as he appeared from within it and you try to follow him inside but are stopped by the first stranger’s arm. kuna, yuuji had called him.

you look back at him and he’s still glaring down at you. he exhales a groan through his nose and crosses his arms, moving to the side to give you the minimum amount of space to enter the house.

once you cross the threshold, you turn to sukuna with a sly smirk.

“‘kuna?”

“sukuna.”

“what are you, the house guard dog?”

“yuuji’s brother.” 

“interesting.” you cross your arms and push past sukuna, looking around the foyer as you enter the house. “nice place.”

sukuna scoffs and closes the front door, leaning his back against it. “so why’re you here?”

“i'm picking up my best friend.” you sit down on the bench a few steps from the door. “yuuji’s girlfriend.”

“she probably won't be out for a while.” sukuna drawls, walking deeper into the house. you get up and follow him, questioning him. “her and my brother have been having an…awakening of sorts.”

your eyes widen and you stifle a chuckle at sukuna’s implication. he sits down on the couch, man spreading to provide next to no room for you. he lets his arms hang off the back of the couch and he leans his head back a bit, always seeming to look down at you.

“great…” you stand in front of him, fidgeting with your fingers as you think of something else to say. “i guess…yuuji can bring her home.” you motion toward the door. “i should go then.”

sukuna watches you turn around, letting his eyes travel to your ass without a shred of shame. nice, he decides. he clears his throat again, causing you to turn around.

you watch as he shifts so that his knees approximate and there's suddenly enough space for you to sit next to him on the couch.

“you could go…if you're afraid of getting your ass beat in mario kart.”

you fight back a smile and walk to where sukuna is sat, feeling like you're on stilts, and take the spot next to him on the couch. he passes you a switch remote and turns on the console.

“you're actually allowing me to stay?” you tease, accepting the switch remote from him.

“don't give yourself a stroke thinking about it too much, doll.” sukuna keeps his gaze trained on the screen but lets his knees fall open once more. "it ain't that deep."

you gulp at the physical contact and focus on the screen as best you can. but it's extremely hard, given there's a certain pink haired, handsome asshole bumping his knee against yours to distract you.

taglist: none! lemme know if you wanna be added to my jjk taglist !!

#jjk #jujutsu kaisen #ryoumen sukuna #sukuna #ryoumen sukuna x reader #sukuna x reader

[skzfairyy]

12:52am

Pairings: Lee Yongbok x reader!

Genre: fluff

Warnings: wholesome cuddles from Felix :”)

Wc: 604 words

AN: Something about gamer Felix never fails to bring a smile to my face :') - Y2

The soft clicking sounds of the controller echoed lightly through the living room, shortly followed by small grunts of frustration. It was late at night, and Felix had been stuck on this game for almost four hours. Long enough for his girlfriend to fall asleep on the couch behind him. Y/N coming over late at night wasn’t a big surprise for any of his housemates. The pair usually snuggled watching a movie or played video games together late into the night. 

He had started a new game and was trying to reach a certain level so he could unlock a new skin for his avatar. At first, Y/N was watching her boyfriend play attentively, but at some point, her eyes began to droop as she watched him play in content silence, and instead of fighting it, she let the sleep overtake her. Her body was sprawled across the couch, snuggling her face into a pillow that should’ve been Felix.

His avatar was finally getting the best of his opponent, intensifying the clicking sounds up until he finishes, killing the boss and leveling up in the game. Raising his arms up in triumph with the largest smile on his face, he turns around and sees his girlfriend fast asleep in dreamland. The sight of her sleeping face had put a damper on his mood, his smile fading as he remembers that Y/N came to the dorms because she wanted to spend time with him and instead, he basically ignored her because of that stupid game.

Letting out a soft sigh, he turns off the console and removes his headphones. Standing up from the floor, he approaches the couch quietly.

“You should’ve just told me to turn the game off…” his voice whispers to her sleeping frame. He leans down, pressing a kiss to her forehead, and wraps his arms around her frame. As if on autopilot, her arms lock around his neck, quickly pulling him towards her.

He shakes his head, chuckling to himself at her reflexes, which seem quicker while she’s asleep, and slides an arm around her waist and the other under her legs to lift her up from the couch.

Y/N’s eyes open slightly as she feels herself being carried by who she can only assume is her boyfriend. 

“Did you level up?” Her voice is groggy, and her face is pressed in the crook of Felix’s neck, where he can feel the soft vibrations of her voice as she speaks. 

He nods his head and uses his foot to push his bedroom door open.

“You could’ve asked me to stop…” He responds, moving to place her on his bed.

“But I like watching you play, baby.” She responds quietly, her arms falling to her sides as Felix joins her shortly after, snuggling close to her side.

With that pet name, Felix could feel the frustration he held for himself disappear. 

“Okay Angel, it’s late now, we should sleep.” His argument was dying in his mind as his own body registers how tired he actually is.

He pulls her closer, burying his face into her neck, and kisses her collarbone softly. Y/N’s hands rub his back gently as her sleepy eyes begin to droop once more. This is what she was waiting all day for. Sure watching him play his video games with such intensity and focus was entertaining, but nothing beats the feeling of falling asleep in her boyfriend’s arms. She’ll stay up all day watching Felix try to kill mythical monsters online if it ends like this, wrapped in each other's arms to sleep the rest of the night away.

masterlist ||

#y2kstories #skz x reader #straykids #felix x reader #skz fluff #skz imagines

[greetings-and-salutations]

“There’s Plenty of Kish in The Sea, Right?”

Fred Weasley x Reader Part 1

✨CATCH UP DUMP✨

Day 8 of the 13 Nights of Halloween Spooktacular!!!

Masterlist | Part 1 | Part 2

(Gif not mine)

Requested? No

Summary: Cedric wants to be a champion. (Y/n) wants him to live to see the end of the school year. Freddie just wants to be (Y/n)’s boyfriend…

Warnings: starred out swear words, jealous Freddie, Angst-kinda

Pairing: Fred Weasley x Fem!Reader (you’re a Hufflepuff)

(Y/n/n) - your nickname

The room was practically buzzing with anticipation. Dinner had been over and done with for what felt like ages, and yet no one had dared move from their seats. They remained, waiting. Because tonight was a big night. Tonight the students of Hogwarts, Beauxbatons, and Durmstrang would find out who had been chosen to compete in this years Triwizard Tournament.

“Calm down, Ced.” (Y/n) tried, her housemate and best friend practically bouncing in his seat, the anxiety flowing off of him in almost visible waves. (Y/n) herself was substantially less nervous, seeing as how her birthday wasn’t for a few more months and she was therefore ineligible for the event. Not that she’d have entered, anyhow. She valued her life, thank you very much. Cedric, however…

“I can’t help it (Y/n)! This is a huge deal! Finally, my chance to make something of myself… Ever since Harry got here it’s like I’m not good enough anymore and-“ Cedric ran his fingers through his hair in distress, (Y/n) frowning at his words, cutting him off with a comforting pat on the shoulder.

“Okay, calm down.” She ordered, the boy turning his body to look at her as she continued, knowing full well the true reasoning behind his nerves, and not liking his self-deprecation one bit… “Look, I know you want to make your dad proud, Ced. But, he loves you. And I’m sure he’ll love you just as much even if you don’t get chosen.” She ran her hand along his back in what she hoped were soothing circles, to which she was proven correct when the taller lad sunk into her embrace with a sigh.

“Thanks, (Y/n/n)… I suppose you’re right…” He mumbled, resting his head on her shoulder. (Y/n) chucked in response.

“Aren’t I always?” She asked, earning herself a playful shove back which had them both giggling. “You know, I’m still not even sure what would posses a person to want to do something like this.” (Y/n) noted, running her hand through Cedric’s hair mindlessly, as she voiced her thoughts on the tournament for what was quite possibly the millionth time. Previously, it had been in an attempt to talk the older boy out of it, though, more currently, it was simply out of spite, as there was nothing anyone could do once his name had been entered. Not that (Y/n) thought that out of all the names he’d get picked. Of course she wouldn’t be telling him that. He seemed so excited about it all. And it would be much easier to deal with a Cedric that was mad at the system for not choosing him than one mad at his best friend for not believing in him. No matter that the choice seemed relatively random…

Cedric just hummed, most likely to humor her strong opinions at this point, but (Y/n) didn’t mind, as she continued on.

“I was talking to Hermione and she said-“

“Shh!!! It’s starting!” Well, then…

+ + +

“Ahh the trusty old ‘stare at her until she notices you’ trick. Works every time.” George joked from beside Fred, who sent him the nastiest glare he could muster up, before returning his attention to the Hufflepuff across the room. He just couldn’t help it. She was gorgeous. Fred had been pretty much head-over-heels in love with her since they’d been paired up for potions the first day of third year. And, much to his twin brothers amusement, he’d been fairly useless as a human being around her ever since. It’s not like Fred meant to become a stuttering mess of a man every time he was within a ten foot radius of the girl. Under normal circumstances, he could flirt his way out of a jail sentence if he really wanted to. Fred was fairly proud of this fact. But, with (Y/n), it was like he was putty in her hands. And it was incredibly infuriating…

“Shove off, mate.” Fred grumbled, finally turning his attention away from the Hufflepuff table and back to the world around him when Cedric Diggory dropped his head to rest so f*cking adorably on (Y/n)’s shoulder. Fred briefly entertained the idea of a ‘disappearing’ prank on the older bloke, but, upon the realization that that was insane, opted to simply pout at the tabletop in front of him. A nudge from his other side gained his attention away from the wood grain, however, and Fred turned to Lee with a raised brow. “What?”

“You need to loosen up, Freddie. It’s one girl. What’s that muggle saying? ‘There’s plenty of kish in the sea’?” Lee offered, confusing the sh*t out of pretty much everyone present, before George made to correct him.

“‘Fish in the sea.’ ‘There’s plenty of fish in the sea’, mate.” He said, though nobody could hold in their snickers as Lee crossed his arms across his chest defensively. Even Fred managed a small smile before returning to a neutral expression (that one might consider rather downcast for the guy in question) when Lee jumped to his own defense.

“I’m pretty sure it was ‘kish.’” He argued, clearly causing George’s annoyance to grow, while Fred remained relatively unbothered. He wasn’t looking for a different ‘fish’ or ‘kish’ anyhow. He just wanted (Y/n)…

“Why the bloody hell would it be ‘kish’? What the f*ck is a ‘kish in the sea.’” George complained loudly, unintentionally firing Lee up more. Fred rolled his eyes.

“A good snog. Lip locking. Spit sharing. You know, a ‘kish.’” He enunciated his point with a loud smack of his own lips followed by a cheeky grin that probably meant he was proud of himself, for what, Fred didn’t know. That was just about the dumbest thing he’d ever heard, and he’d been sharing a house with Ron for the last fourteen years…

“You’re an absolute idiot.”

“Hey, you’re one to talk!”

“Why don’t you say that to my face, huh!?”

“You think I won’t!?”

“Get to it, then!”

“I will-“

“Shut up, you tossers! It’s starting!” Fred almost yelled, interrupting the fighting boys when he noticed Dumbledore making his way towards the goblet at the other end of the Hall. Finally. Something to distract him…

+ + +

“Cedric Diggory!”

W-what?

The table around (Y/n) felt like it was shaking. Hufflepuffs of all ages clapping and pounding on the hard wood in support of their champion. Of Cedric…

“(Y/n/n)!” And suddenly her feet were off the ground, her best friends arms wrapped around her tightly as he swung the younger girl around in his excitement, one that she could, regrettably, not join him in.

Cedric was going to compete in the triwizard tournament... The triwizard tournament… The incredibly dangerous triwizard tournament… Cedric…

“Oh my…” (Y/n) barely managed to breathe out, in complete and utter disbelief of the situation. Meanwhile, Cedric was practically glowing.

“I did it!” He spoke ecstatically into her ear as he put her back down on her own two feet, the biggest grin (Y/n) had ever seen spread across his face. It dimmed slightly, however, when he noticed her own worried expression, and realized that she did not share in his joy.

“Hey…” He mumbled, pulling her back in for another hug, though this one considerably calmer, which (Y/n) was grateful for. “I’m gonna be okay… I’m gonna win this thing. Yeah?” He whispered so softly (Y/n) wouldn’t have been able to hear him had he not been so close.

Now, she didn’t know how much she believed him, the concern for her friend eating away at the girl immensely, but (Y/n) gave him her best smile and nod anyway, knowing that all she could do at this point was support him. Merlin knows he’s going to need it…

“I’ve gotta go with the other champions but I’ll see you later, Okay?” And (Y/n) nodded again, holding her expression for as long as she could, before finally sighing in relief when he turned, and she could drop the act and allow herself to wallow in her true feelings. God, if she hadn’t been before, she surely was nervous now…

And that was all before the boy who lived was announced as the fourth champion…

+ + +

Could this day get any worse?

Fred thought not, as the current residents of the Great Hall all sprang to their feet and began chatting animatedly about the events that had just transpired. But Fred remained stationary in his seat, grip so tight on the tables edge that, had he cared, he’d be worried he might break it.

But Fred’s mind was elsewhere, going a mile a minute in just about a million different directions.

Cedric was the Hogwarts champion…

Harry put his name in the Goblet of Fire…

Cedric was all over (Y/n) when they called his name…

Why didn’t Harry tell George and I how to put ours in?

(Y/n) looked so worried when Cedric walked off to join the other champions…

Why doesn’t she look at me like that?

“You good, mate?” Fred heard George ask from beside him, but he didn’t answer. What could he say? “No, actually. I’m incredibly offended that the girl I like seems to fancy another guy, even though I’ve given her absolutely no reason to think I’m interested in her because I can’t f*cking talk to her without sounding like a complete and utter doof.” Yeah, that would be real helpful…

“Sorry, spaced.” Fred mumbled dumbly before finally getting to his feet. “I’m tired. Let’s go on up.”

Fred knew George was looking at him funny, but he didn’t have the energy to care, as the pair made their way out of the Hall, Fred, for the first time in over two years, not sparing a single glance at the Hufflepuff table…

There’s plenty of kish in the sea, right?

TO BE CONTINUED

Tag lists are open!!!

Tags: @electriclcvewp @missryerye @kaqua @miaandthediamonds @lolawassad @nani-2305 @etanordoesbullsh1t

#catch up dump #13 Nights of Halloween Spooktacular #13 nights of halloween #halloween #harry potter and the goblet of fire #fred weasley x y/n #fred wealsey x reader #fred weasley x you #fred weasley one shot #fred weasley fic #fred weasley fluff #fred weasley x reader #fred weasley imagine #fred weasley fanfiction #fred weasley #fred and george #fred and george weasley #cedric diggory #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter x reader #harry potter imagine #harry potter

[petitelepus]

FOX’S WEDDING, PART 1

KITSUNE!RENGUKO KYOJURO X FEM!READER

Summary: Things happen and you end up living in a manga cafe when you are offered a new home and an exciting new housemate. You end up making a contract with the interspecies program and that changes your life forever. Good or bad? Let’s find out.

Warnings: None

A/N: Female Reader, Kitsune Kyojuro, Kitsune Senjuro, Kitsune Rengoku, Monster Musume!AU

PART 1 II PART 2 II PART 3 II PART 4 II PART 5 II PART 6 II PART 7 II PART 8 II PART 9 II PART 10 II PART 11 II PART 12 II PART 13 II PART 14 II PART 15 II PART 16 II PART 17 II PART 18 II PART 19

"You can't stay here anymore."

You blinked as the words settled in. Your roommate and her boyfriend, or rather fiance had asked you to come out of your own room and have a chat with them. You were all sitting on the kitchen table, you on one side and they on the other side.

"W-what?" You stuttered, not believing what you were hearing. Weren't you the one that invited her to live with you in the apartment that the two of you shared until her boyfriend moved in also? "W-why!?"

"We have been talking..." The man looked at your roommate and then you, "That this place isn't big enough for four."

"Are you taking someone in? Without asking from me?" You asked and they nodded. You admit that you got mad, but you calmed down the second you saw your roommate hold her stomach and her fiance set a hand on top of hers.

"Are you guys...?" You swallowed, "Are you having a baby?"

"We wanted to make things work, but there is just no room for all of us." The fiance explained and he sounded sincere as was the frown on his face.

"We assure you, we didn't plan any of this!" Your roommate cried out, but then she looked at her stomach and a kind gentle smile rose to her lips, "But this baby is a blessing and we want to have it."

"Ah..." You blinked before nodding, "I understand... You do what you have to do..."

You really did understand. Babies took a lot of space and time. You couldn't be mad at them for planning their and their baby's future together. There just wasn't any room for you in those plans.

"I'm sorry, but we need space for the baby." Your roommate looked genuinely sorry and her fiance frowned, "Can't you go live with your parents until you find a new place?"

You shook your head. That wasn't possible, you had sworn that you would never return there. Not that you had a bad relationship with your parents, but when you had moved out and made it your goal to live as an independent adult, your father said he was proud of you. Just what kind of a disappointment you would be if you returned home with your tail between your leg? No, you couldn't risk it.

"We will rent a space for your stuff until you find a place to live."

"It's the least we can do."

"I see..." You nodded, "Thank you, I'll try to find a new place to live quickly. When do you need me out?"

The two of them glanced at each other and you frowned. That wasn't a good look. Your friend looked back at you, "I'm sorry, but my parents are coming tomorrow to the city and we would hate to put them in some hotel when they want to get to know their future son-in-law."

So they wanted you out today or tomorrow tops. Your disappointment must have shown because the boyfriend quickly added, "We, no, I will help you with your stuff starting now! I don't want the future mother of my child to worry or exhaust herself."

"Oh babe, you're so sweet." The two of them smiled lovingly at each other before they pecked each other on the lips. You nodded but you weren't feeling as hopeful and positive about the future as they were...

~~~~~

You quickly found out that finding a new place to live proved to be a lot harder when you were seeking one alone. You went to see many apartments but you soon found out that even if the place appeared to be perfect, the rent certainly wasn't for your small and empty wallet.

You couldn't even afford a place to stay at, or not at least one with a decent bed. No, you had to resort to staying in a manga cafe when the day would come to an end and night came. It wasn't the comfiest place, but the reclining chair was your bed now and the tiny cube room where you stayed was your temporary home.

It wasn't that expensive, but your savings were running low, eating pre-heated meals weren't exactly healthy and the worst was that no one wanted to hire a homeless person.

You slurped your cup noodles and sighed as you went through some pages on the computer. You had multiple tabs open, some being about open job offers and others about possible apartments. So far you hadn't gotten even one invite to a job interview...

"Fuck my life..." You groaned as you went to close a website, but then a new ad popped up. Thinking that it was probably spam or some commercial, you moved to close it but then it caught your attention.

'NEED A JOB OR A PLACE TO STAY? WANT TO MEET NEW PEOPLE? CLICK THE LINK IN BIO!'

That sounded almost too good to be true. You were about to close the site when suddenly there was a knock on the door behind you.

"Yes?" You called and the voice replied, "Your coffee miss?"

"Ah, yes, come on in." You said and the door opened and a young waitress came from behind the door with your coffee.

"Here you go- Oh, what's this?" She took a look at the computer screen and you panicked, fearing that she would think that you were using their computers to download something bad or worst, illegal.

"Shit, I didn't click it so there shouldn't be any viruses-!"

"No, I don't mean anything bad. I was just taken aback since my friend's cousin got that same invite. Apparently, it's about this new government's Interspecies Exchange Bill. You know, the people who, excuse my language, are related to fantasy creatures?" She said with a light smile, "They clicked the link and apparently it changed their life for the better!"

You blinked. You had heard of them.

In the past governments used to hide these humanoid species from the world but now for one reason or another, they were now starting to live among you humans. You had seen a few during the last year and while you admit, they were cool, you were never brave enough to befriend one.

You glanced at the ad and then at the young waitress. "Honestly, it sounds too good to be true." You said a little sadly because you knew that luck never favored you.

"You never know if you don't try." She smiled as she handed you your coffee and closed the door behind her. You sipped your bean juice as you took a look at the ad.

You never know if you don't try, huh? Fine, you took the bait.

You clicked the ad and a brand new website popped up, welcoming you for a new beginning, asking for your current information, and backgrounds alongside a recent picture of yourself. Talk about suspicious, this could have been a scam or worse... But on closer inspection, they didn't ask anything that could be actually used against you.

"Fine, I'll bite the bait." You nodded as you started to fill in your information and chose the most recent and decent picture of yourself from your phone. Once you had filled out the whole application you hit SENT and smiled by yourself.

"As if this helps..." You muttered as you took a sip of your lukewarm coffee and that is when you heard a bing from your phone, signaling that you had gotten a e-mail. Okay, now you were confused. You used the computer to log onto your e-mail and saw a new message there dedicated to you. Confused, you clicked the message and saw that you had been selected for an interview!

"Already!?" You gasped. You looked at the message and it appeared to be legit and not just some scam. You looked at the message and there was a phone number you were expected to call if you chose to proceed with the selection progress.

You quickly reached for your phone that was resting on a charger by the computer, and input the number but before you called you took a deep breath. You could do this. If you failed then at least you tried. So you hit the call button and put the phone by your ear.

"Hello?"

~~~~~

You swallowed nervously as you looked at your phone. 10 minutes time. You were on your way to the cafe where the man you had talked with on the phone had instructed you to go if you wanted to learn more about the job or possible home you were looking for.

You had put on your best shirt and pants, a classic combo, and some makeup, but you left the perfume out because the man on the phone had asked you to come without any. You felt beautiful and you didn't look homeless so you were winning so far!

Your phone's GPS peeped, letting you know that you had arrived at your destination. You looked up and blinked.

This was a cat cafe. You looked at the info the man had given and you were right, it was this cat cafe. It was certainly different to have an interview in such a quirky place. Shrugging, you stepped inside and you were greeted by dozens of curious little meows. You couldn't help but smile at the sight of cute kitties that came to greet you.

"Good day, ma'am!" Came a peppy voice and you turned to look and you felt your eyes widen. A real cat girl came to greet you, with a human body but with cat ears and a tail. It was the first time you had seen a demi- or pseudohuman up so close.

"Table for one?" She asked happily, and you actually panicked lightly, "Uh, actually, I'm meeting someone!"

"Oh, you're the new girl?"

New girl? Oh God, please don't let this be some sort of trick to turn you into a prostitute! The panic must have been clear on your face because the cat girl giggled, "Please do not worry. Just leave your shoes here and follow me."

You nodded and did as she told you to, following her into deeper parts of the cafe. You took quick notice that everyone working there were demihumans, but no one seemed to mind. No, they all loved it, asking for pictures with the waiters and waitresses.

"Ah, there you are." Came a man's voice and you turned to look and saw a young wearing a suit and sunglasses even inside the cafe. He must have been the man you had spoken on the phone with. He motioned you to sit down and you did as he asked you to.

"We talked over the phone. My name is Smith and you were...?"

You told him your name and the man smiled as he nodded, "Yes, just as was written in your info."

Just like magic, the man pulled a little stack of papers from thin air and looked at them over, "According to these papers you filled out, you're currently jobless and homeless. Is that correct?"

Ouch, he went right to the sore spots. You nodded, "Yes, sir, but I'm young and eager to work for my salary or home."

"I can see that, you're only 20 and already so mature." He smiled as he put the papers down on the table. "We did a little backup check just in case. A daughter, youngest out of three siblings, graduated and moved on your own with the little savings you had? That must haven't been easy."

You were stunned that they had managed to get so much information with very little you offered to them, but despite your info, the man smiled, "But my, you're clean as a whistle. No drugs or any other suspicious substance, not a single note from the police, not even a traffic ticket. I must say, I'm impressed."

"Thank you, sir."

"In fact, I think we are done here."

Huh? Done so soon? But you barely even talked with each other, didn't he have any questions or anything he wanted to ask from you?

You were so stunned that you nearly missed the paper and pencil he slid to you. You blinked and looked at the paper and then the man, "What is this?"

"This my dear is a contract that you dedicate yourself to the interspecies program. I assure you, we take good care of you as you work for the company. We will provide you with a place to live in, money for food, and everyday life necessities, taken that you will be sharing the house with a member of the non-human liminal species or as called, extra-species."

"Extra-species?" You blinked, "Like the people who work here?"

"Yes," The man in the suit nodded, "This is just one of our many agencies that employes extra-species."

"I see..." You nodded. You had nothing against living with someone else, heck, you lived with your ex-roommate for a year and a half before her boyfriend came into the picture. You bet you could live with someone who was a little different as long as they were kind to you!

You smiled, determination filling you as you grabbed the pencil and wrote your name down, sealing your fate. You looked at the man and smiled, "When can I start?"

"Marvelous, I admire your enthusiasm," He nodded as he took the paper and got up on his feet, you copying him, and he offered his hand to you. "Allow me to be the first one to welcome you aboard the program."

You were honestly so happy, you shook his hand and gave him the most excited smile you could muster, "Thank you for this chance sir, I won't let you down!"

"I trust in that." He nodded and once the two of you pulled your hands back, he reached for his jacket's pocket and pulled out a card that he handed to you. "Meet me at this place tomorrow at 1 pm. You will be housed immediately with your matching new roommate."

"Ah, my stuff, it's all in-!"

"Do not worry, the moving men will fetch your belongings from the storage unit." Mister Smith said and you blinked in surprise, "How did you-?"

"We have our ways to make your and your new housemate's life easier." He smiled as he lowered his sunglasses enough to wink at you playfully. You nodded, a little unsure, but mostly you were ecstatic. You got a new place to live and you would possibly get a new friend out of your soon-to-be housemate! Oh, you wished she was a kind one.

~~~~~

That night you barely caught any sleep in your reclining chair at the manga cafe. You were so excited yet nervous also. So when the time came for you to pick up everything you had in person and time to leave the cafe for good came, you were feeling enthusiastic.

The staff that you had grown familiar with wished you good luck out there and that if you ever needed, they would have little room ready for you instantly. You almost felt a little sad, but your happiness was stronger than your sadness. You put the address on the card that mister Smith had given to you into your phone and followed your GPS to your new home.

The walk was a little longer than you had anticipated but when you turned around the corner you saw a moving truck and people. Curious, you walked over there and took a look at the house. It was a gorgeous two-story house that was surrounded by thick walls, a gate being the only way in, a dark red roof, and big windows.

"I take you like what you see?"

You let out a short scream as you whipped around and saw mister Smith suddenly standing there behind you. The man chuckled and you gasped, "You scared me!"

"My apologies. I can be light on my feet." He nodded, "You seem to like this house."

"Oh, I was on my way to-!" You were saying when your phone peeped and you quickly glanced at it. It was the GPS, letting you know that you had arrived at your destination. You blinked, slightly confused as you turned to look at the man before you.

"Is this...?" You looked and saw familiar moving boxes being carried inside. Your boxes, from your storage unit, filled with your stuff, such as books and stuff you had collected during the years.

"No way...!" You gasped, "Is this...! My new home?"

"That would be correct." Mister Smith nodded before pulling his jacket's sleeve back so he could take a look at the wristwatch he had there. "It's about 1 pm."

"Yes?" You nodded and he grinned, "Meaning that your new housemate should be here any minute now."

Just as he said that a car pulled by the road, but not just any car but a limousine! Mister Smith smiled, "Aah, just in time."

You watched the limousine driver get out and move to open the passenger's door and you watched eyes wide how the most beautiful- No, the most handsome creature stepped out of the vehicle.

A man. He was wearing an expensive and high-ranking men's kimono and Japanese sandals and he had long bright yellow hair with red streaks akin to flames, but what caught your attention were two large pointed fox ears on the top of his head and 5 fluffiest looking thick fox tails behind him.

As you gawked, the man stepped aside and a boy that looked identical to this man stepped out. Only this boy had only 1 tail.

Finally, mister Smith gently put his hand on your shoulder and stepped ahead towards the two males, taking you to greet them with him. As you came closer, the fox men turned to look at you and smiled.

"Mister Smith!" The 5 tailed man shouted and bowed lightly, "It is an honor to meet you again."

"Pleasure is all mine, my lord," Smith said back as he bowed also and then looked at you. "Allow me to introduce you to lord Rengoku Kyojuro and his younger brother Rengoku Senjuro. They are Kitsunes or as you may know them Nine-Tailed Foxes."

You blinked, stunned to silence by the foxes' eyes as they looked at you. Golden eyes with red pupils, they were magical, no, magnificent.

Mister Smith continued, "Their family has ruled Japan's extra-species, or as they are called, Yokai, over centuries. Now, as we humans all around the world are welcoming extra-species to our everyday life, they are here on behalf of Japan's department."

Aah, you understood. They were here to strengthen the bond between countries and learn more from each other, both humans and extra-species alike.

"It is an honor finally meeting you, my dearest Hime." The older Kitsune bowed to you and you blinked as you registered what he had just called you. A Princess? You blushed as you bowed back and introduced yourself.

The Kitsune, Kyojuro smiled widely and you felt your heart skip a beat as you saw that bright smile of his and his intense stare.

"I must say, my bride really is a gorgeous human!" He suddenly shouted and you stared at him as his words slowly sank in. You blinked before blushing furiously, "W- wait, a bride!?"

"Yes, I chose you as my future wife!" Kyojuro nodded, "To strengthen our bond, we are to be married!"

"Wait, hold on, marriage!? Me!? Shouldn't we get to know each other first or-!?" You turned to look at mister Smith who just smiled at you, "Yes, that is why you will be living together, getting to know each other, and teaching each other about your different worlds."

"W- why?" You asked, "Why like this?"

"Lord Kyojuro and young Senjuro come from a very traditional Japanese mansion in the middle of the forest so all this modern life and western architectural is new for them." Mister Smith explained and you blinked as you turned to look at the Japanese men, no, foxes.

"Allow us to thank you for teaching us the modern ways." The blond man said as he and his little brother bowed to you. You panicked slightly, not used to such gestures and suddenly everything you knew about Japan and its culture came to your aid.

"Ah, the honor is mine, dear lord!" You tried your hardest not to stutter and you made sure to show respect to them by bowing back to them. You were nearly startled out of your skin when the older fox laughed, "Truly, my bride is the cutest!"

While you were stunned, mister Smith laughed and pulled out a debit card, and handed it to you. "Please use this card to pay and provide food, clothes, or anything that our royal guests or you might need. Buy something nice also."

"I..." You swallowed nervously, "Thank you?"

"You're welcome," Smith nodded and turned to look at the Kitsunes standing there and looking at the two of you. "Now, let's get you guys settled, how does that sound? The house is already furnished, all you need are your belongings and maybe go out shopping together?"

"Hm, sounds good to me!" Kyojuro turned to look at his younger brother, Senjuro, "What do you say Senjuro? Would you like to go out with out lovely hostess?"

"Yes, but, uh..."

"Yes, what is it, young lord?" Mister Smith asked kindly.

"I would like to see my new room?" The young boy admitted shyly, "This house is so big and modern, I can't help but wonder how it looks from the inside."

"Please, step inside and get to know the place." Mister Smith said with a smile, "I'll make sure everything is handled properly."

"Hm, shall we go?" Kyojuro looked at his brother who nodded little and then at you with those amazing eyes of his. "Are you ready, my Hime?"

"Y- yes!" You flinched but he didn't say anything about it. He only smiled as the three of you walked past the fence and into the house.

The lobby was huge as you stepped inside and filled with moving boxes. Your boxes, you recognized them. You noticed that the foxes took their sandals off and you copied them, taking your shoes off and pushing them aside.

"My, how many boxes!" Kyojuro exclaimed as he looked around and you blushed, "I'm sorry, they are all mine."

"Do not worry for I don't mind!"

You still felt a little awful. You tried to switch the topic, "Let's look around the downstairs, how does that sound?"

"Good idea!"

So the three of you took in the house, the kitchen, and the huge living room you could see from the kitchen. You had always admired such a design since you liked the open space and the chance of being able to see what happened in the living room.

"This place is huge...!" Senjuro awed and you felt yourself smile as you looked at the awestruck look on the boy's face.

Then there was a toilet and bathroom, utility room, alongside some extra rooms, you thought were for storing or extra bedrooms if needed. The three of you made your way upstairs and looked around, stepping into a magnificent room with a balcony connected to it. The room was spacious but otherwise empty, save for a big bed and some basic furniture.

"Oh, wow...!" Young Senjuro gasped and you smiled as you glanced at him, "Would you like to have this room for yourself?"

"C- can I really have a room this big for myself?" He asked as he looked at you uncertainly and you smiled as you glanced at the older fox, "If it is okay with your brother?"

"Hm!" Kyojuro smiled widely, "Yes, this room is perfect for my little brother!"

"Oh, wow...!" Senjuro gasped as he looked around, running up to a huge bed with snow-white bedsheets, "Is this my bed?"

"If you want it to be?" You tilted your head in slight confusion, "What kind of beds did you have back in Japan?"

"We slept on a futon that was rolled out for the night and off for the day," Kyojuro replied and you nodded, feeling a little stupid. Of course, they came from a traditional Japanese home where futons were normal.

"If you want, you can decorate the room any way you want." You added and for the first time you saw Senjuro smile like a sun, "I would love that! Thank you so much!"

"No worries!" You smiled and you turned to look at the older brother, "Shall we keep looking?"

"Yes!" Kyojuro nodded and the two of you stepped outside, letting Senjuro explore his new room by himself. There was another toilet combined with a bathroom and two other rooms that you and the older fox turned to look at. The two rooms were almost identical, only the other one was directly next to Senjuro's room.

You were looking at the one furthest from the young fox's room and you hummed as you looked around.

"This is a nice room." You thought by yourself, but Kyojuro's fox ears twitched as he heard you murmur quietly.

"Then you should take this room!" The Kitsune shouted and you blinked as you turned to look at him, "Wait, don't you want it?"

"My bride's comfort is my number one priority!" Kyojuro smiled and you blushed at that as you averted your gaze from his bashfully, "Are you certain?"

"Yes! This way I can sleep next to my dear brother's room!" He nodded and you glanced at him, admiring his passion and how he cared for his brother.

"You're a good brother, lord Kyojuro." You smiled and he absolutely beamed in happiness, "Please! Call me Kyojuro! As my bride, you are equal to me!"

Again, with that bride thing! Your blush just grew stronger and you couldn't look at him directly.

"Big brother!" Came Senjuro's voice and you and Kyojuro turned around to see Senjuro run up to you two. "Can we go look around the city?"

"What a splendid idea Senjuro!" The older fox beamed happily as he turned to look at you. "What would my bride suggest we do first?"

"M- me?" You stuttered as you thought about what you guys would need. You took a look at the two foxes and an idea popped up. "Well, we could go and look for more comfortable clothes for you two? Also, I bet the fridge is empty so we could buy something to eat."

"Of course! Clothes and food sound like a good idea!" Kyojuro exclaimed happily, "Just as expected from my brilliant bride!"

"I do have a name." You hummed quietly and he nodded, "And what a beautiful name that is!"

This damn Kitsune didn't know what he was doing to you with his constant flattery, but you didn't sense any ill will. He was truly and genuinely kind to you. Something that you weren't used to. The least you could do was to return his kindness.

"Okay, let's head out. I'll let the moving men know where to put my boxes." You said and both foxes smiled as they followed you downstairs while you were letting the human men know where to put your things, the brothers put their sandals on and waited for you by the door.

"Ready, my bride?" Kyojuro asked as you joined them and slipped your shoes on. "Ready as one can be."

And with that, you left your past life and stepped into a new one.

#rengoku kyojuro #rengoku #rengoku x reader #rengoku senjuro #senjuro #kitsune #nine tailed fox #monster musume #monster musume!AU #reader #reader insert #fem!Reader #writing #my writing #story #my story #demon slayer #kimetsu no yaiba #ENJOY! #I worked really hard on this

[missmielyhoran]

Housemate

in which Y/N finds a cheap place to live...

(Werewolf!Harry × Florist!reader)

Masterlist

*****

Moving out was a hard task and harder than that was finding a place to live.

You thought packing your bags and moving out of your parents' house after one bad fight was some kind of badass move, but it came to bite you in the ass.

You were living in your best friend's apartment, but she herself was moving in with her boyfriend, and the apartment was already bought by the next owners, and you only had two days left.

Most of the places you saw were either too expensive, too shady, or too far from your shop.

Losing all hope, you sat down on the bench in the park and ate your burrito. Tears of frustration and anger were pricking in your eyes when a piece of paper flew straight on your face and stuck to it.

You removed it from your face groaning. The first thing you saw was 'housemate needed' in bold letters, and like fate pulling you in, you walked straight to the address, forgetting all about your burrito.

*****

Harry was in desperate need of a roommate. Someone would think being who he is, he wouldn't have to worry about bills and shit but it was a modern world, even his dad had to go to work.

His work pay wasn't cutting it, though. He was struggling to pay his bills and still have some money left for food and stuff or in his savings. Then Niall suggested getting a roommate like he did. The idea would have been great if he was a normal human being, but he wasn't. He was a walking danger.

A blaring warning signal on legs was who he was.

His house was beautiful if he said so himself. It was a decent size, two rooms, and a bathroom with an open kitchen-living room plan. Most of the walls decorated with pastels. Living room walls were baby blue but a specific shade he loved with loads of plants.

No one wanted to live near the forest, which was the problem. His house of near forest (for obvious reasons) and most of the people living there were either like him or old people who just wanted to live off their days in peace.

He had just plopped himself down on his couch when the bell rang. He stood up straight, something about whoever it was on the door made his senses perk up. He fixed his jeans and patchwork cardigan he made himself. Harry walked towards the door, the unknown feeling growing and growing.

He calmed and took a deep breath before opening the door. But when he did, he forgot how to breathe. There you were in a cute little yellow sundress with black boots and the biggest smile showing your dimple on the left cheek.

"Hi" You said like a bird in some disney movie. You looked like a disney character with big almost animated looking eyes, curly hair tied up in a half up do.

"Hi" He mumbled shyly and welcomed you in. He wasn't very outgoing but in front of you he felt different. It was like he was a teenager again interacting with crush for the first time.

He really hoped you would agree to live here cause he didn't know if he could let you go.

"I saw the ad for a housemate? I honestly didn't know flyers were still a thing you know cause of Craigslist and stuff. " You laughed lightly while Harry's face went red.

"My friend suggested I should get another person here cause of expenses, and I'm not good with the internet, so I did what I knew," He said, feeling a bit embarrassed. He grew up different from the others, and he also didn't like social media, to be honest.

He was basically a grandma in 25 years old boy's body, as Niall says.

"Oh no, I didn't mean it like that." Your eyes widened, thinking you had made him feel bad. The walking around the whole area has gotten you tired and maybe a grumpy, "Oh my god, I'm sorry"

That made him laugh, showing off the deep dimples on both sides of his cheeks, his eyes crinkling. He looked like a squished grape, but in a cute way, you just wanted to pinch his cheeks and hold his face for entern-

Woah there calm down.

"I like this place a lot," you said, turning away before you could do something embarrassing.

"I will show you around," He said, walking in front of you. It was a small house with a small entryway with a shoerack and medium-sized mirror. The living room was blue with loads of plants and a yellow couch with a matching love seat, giving it a pop of colour. The kitchen was also blue with white cupboards, an island facing the back o the couch.

There were two doors, one of which you guessed was Harry's room and other yours. "This is my room" He said opening the room, it was everything you expected, white walls with a blue accent wall, crumbled white sheets on bed in middle of the room, a desk near the window and loads of plants.

"Blue is your favorite I take," you teased, watching him smile shyly and mumble a yeah.

Then we got to the other room, it was sage green with an old couch in the middle and that was it. It was a decent size enough for you. There was a window just like in his. It was identical to most.

"So...do you like it?" Harry trailed off. He was anxiously looking at you trying to figure out if you liked it or not.

"I love it!" You gave him a big smile and walked in more to look around. The whole house had a musky smile, like soil after rain, foresty, and you were in love.

"I might have to tell you I might steal your clothes cause they look good and comfy." You teased him and gave a cheeky laugh.

Harry was about to jump in happiness like a puppy getting asked if he wanted a treat, and in a way, it was.

"You can take whatever you want." He smiled, and you there it was the urge to just pinch his cheeks, and this time you gave in.

You extened your hand and gave him a soft pinch on cheek, "You're soo cut-" You cut off your sentence and removed your hand. It felt like an electric shock went through when you touched him.

Harry felt it too, a lot harder than you. His eyes were matching his, wide in shock. You didn't know what it meant, and neither did Harry, but it wasn't something normal, and neither was them being so undeniably pulled towards each other.

"I never got your name," Harry asked in hushed in voice, your eyes on his emerald ones.

"Y/N," you replied in the same voice, not wanting to break the moment. Harry smiled, thinking how your name suited you a lot.

"Welcome to Lone Cottage, Y/N"

*****

Here is my soft puppy boy, istg i love him sm

Taglist- @indierockgirrl @gotthecinema @matildasatellite

Please Like,Comment and Reblog!

You can talk to me or send me feedbacks here♡

#harry styles #harry styles x reader #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles writing #harry styles angst #harry styles one shot #harry styles fanfic #harry styles x y/n #werewolf harry styles #werewolf harry #werewolf!harry #florist yn #florist reader #roomate!harry #friends to lovers #harry fluff

[inkly-heart]

So...,

inkly, I just found out something bizarre and it became an accidental sleuthin' on my part. Because of that, I have, A LOT of questions playing in my mind more than ever. I still haven't gone through all of the content but this is what I got so far

P.S (I'm sorry if I ask too much, please do not be intimidated by the number of questions I'm gonna send soon, you can ignore them or take your time to answer them. I'm doing this in case I forgot, so please tell me to stop if you are overwhelmed. I'll be out of your hair after I asked all of them if you let me.)

Now,

Since I found you around the year of 2022, I'm pretty sure you have oodles of OC content before 2022 (veteran 2020/2021 followers can vouch me for that) that has been lost in time.

BUT

I accidentally found some and here is my first finding :

Damon and Venni are housemates/roommates

Damon has a crush on/likes Venni.

Venni likes/loves Angel

Venni has experience dating with Angel once

Venni and Angel broke up because Angel doesn't like to be in a relationship.

Venni is heartbroken.

Venni knows that Damon likes him but he 'rejected' Damon.

Hence, why DG dislike Venni.

Then Venni is introduced to Catherine (somehow)

Angel (doesn't like?) Catherine.

My first question is :

If your answer is yes, then I proceed to my next question :

Since all of these characters belonged to Br<3ken Colors, does all of this information takes place in the game as well?

If yes,

How does it play and when did it happened in the timeline of the Br<3ken Colors game? Does it happened a few months before the game takes place? Or maybe a year before the MC is introduced in the picture?

My third (or maybe fourth) question is :

Does Damon still like Venni during the time in Br<3ken Colors game? Does he still like Venni after he met and fell in love with MC?

My fourth (or fifth) question is :

Does Damon still lives with Venni in the game? If so, why did he stayed? Does he resent Venni in some way?

My last question is :

How come DG doesn't kill Venni? Or if he did, how many times did he attempt to kill Venni?

If your answer to the first question is NO, please ignore all the other questions.

Thank you.

Yours truly,

Sleuthin' Red Blob

The things what happened between these guys I have decided to change it because I didn't like the "story" anymore between them long time now.

To keep the answer more simple and focus more on the new story I won't explain their old past since it's erased.🤔

Their new past-

-Angel and Venni became friends when they were still at school but one day Angel's parent's decided that Angel will be home schooled so they got separated and since her parents are very strict she couldn't really keep contact with Venni. Angel's parents are very picky who they talk with (if you're not rich/popular you're not worth it) so they wanted to make sure she won't hang out or talk with other Hueväri who they don't like.

But when Angel moved away and got more "control" of her own life she bumped into Venni one day where they then started to hang out again. (Angel's parents are still keeping contact to her, still causing her stress. They don't know all the things what she does nowadays)

-On Damon's part. He had crush on Angel but since she is very popular he never really got a chance to get close to her and tell her about his feelings so when the times passed he slowly began to lose the hope that he could ever be her boyfriend what eventually end up to giving up and moving on with his life. It was tough for him but it hurt even more not being able to reach to her. (not to mention he doesn't like being constantly jealous. Which happens a lot when he had to watch others fawning over Angel.)

(This also happened before Angel met Venni again so Damon didn't know about him. So DG doesn't have negative feelings towards Venni anymore either.)

#morgan-free-world #ask

[potions-of-dark-devotion]

Okay...I think Lily Evans might be a masochist, and not being too mature, it makes sense for her and James to be together. As for conceiving in a way of a war, that's actually quite normal behavior. Usually, periods of death and destruction tend to make people more eager to procreate.

Yeah. I mean we saw early on that she excused The Marauders’ behavior and told him to basically grateful that they didn’t actually go through with murdering him which was spun James “saving” him. Think about this for a moment, how would you feel if you were almost mauled to death by a bear and your supposed best friend is taking the side of the bullies of led you there? No only that, but this is just before the SWM incident where they sexually assaulted Severus and she almost laughed. I mean what the hell????

At one point, Lily and Severus were absolutely best friends, but at the year of SWM Lily has started to take the side of the people that have nearly killed and now sexually assault her BFF in public. If I were her I would have thrown away the wands and just punched the shit outta them. Gotta be honest. Who the fuck bargains with the people dangling your best friend up by their legs while stripping them naked? At that point the white gloves should be coming fucking off. At this point Lily has overwhelming evidence to prove that Severus is telling the truth about them. Not only that, but she had seen them bullying him on numerous occasions, they did it every day. There is no way she didn’t witness more incidents similar to SWM before the werewolf incident, yet she dismissed Severus out of hand.

If this were my best friend I would believe them and back them up if for no other reason than the fact that I put to much stock in the last 4-5 years of our friendship than to think they’d make up a murder attempt on their life just to get me to hate someone else. How desperate Severus is just to be heard out for once that the person he cares about most is on his side as a FRIEND is heartbreaking.

What’s more it seems like what Severus mainly wants is some validation that Lily still cares for him:

He doesn’t even bring up James at first. It’s only when she condemns him for hanging out with his own housemates (and he can just stop that according to her, cause you know, he has so many options and places to go to get away from his own house), while then defending the people that make his life a living hell on a daily basis. Severus NEVER hits on Lily (in opposition to popular Marauder fannon). What we do see is one best friend asking his nearest and dearest to confirm their FRIENDSHIP and care of him for his life and wellbeing.

I just don’t understand Lily here unless you consider she was already deeply attracted to James and just didn’t want to admit it at this stage because he hadn’t “grown up” yet (and keep in mind the bar is so low she only needs convincing enough that James not sexually assaulting people in public is considered a glow up). I don’t know what this girl was thinking. I don’t think at all that Lily should be obligated to have chosen Severus as a romantic partner and honestly? I don’t think that Severus ever thought she would. What we see here is not a “tell me you want me to be your boyfriend and not him”. What we have here is “please tell me my life means more to you than James Potter’s cool guy image”. And that’s just so fucking sad to me.

In short, I believe Lily was attracted to James for a long time, and when SWM happened it was the perfect time for her to excuse a move to date James. I don’t understand how on earth you justify dating someone who is so openly cruel as James is to someone who’ve you’ve known intimately since childhood. Lily chose James and that’s totally her right, but I think it has more to do with being swept up in the high school romance trope then the war and the romance of being on the run together than it has to do with a deep and meaningful connection. Lily “making excuses for you for years” sounds more like “my cool friends don’t vibe with this whole emo thing you got going on. I think we’re in different places”. You know what? Sometimes friends grow apart, but it seems shitty to me to turn right round and date the guy who’s been torturing your ex best friend for years to the point of sexual assault THAT YOU WITNESSED????. I truly don’t understand Jilly someone help me pls.

#severus snape #pro snape #snape love #severus snape defense #severus snape meta #harry potter #anti james potter #anti marauders #harry potter books #anti jily #Lily Potter critical #yeah this is a bit venemous I’m aware

[callmewrinkles3]

Deuxmoi 2018

June 2018

Name: ex-PR girlie

Email: [email protected]

Subject: Danny Ric's girl

Message: I used to work with her. Her name is Emma Smyth, she’s from Liverpool but she was living in London since she started uni. Not sure if she's still here. We worked together for a London PR firm. Won’t give the name cause I’ve friends who still work there. She’s a year younger than him. She’s very quiet. I’d say she’s pretty much an introvert? She’s sweet, but won’t talk much and never about herself. Always remembered people's birthdays though. Didn’t come to the pubs when we went after work on Fridays. She always had an excuse. She’s pretty smart, rumors says she got the best grades in her class. She left really quickly and the other rumor was she left the job, her boyfriend, and moved out in the same week. I found it very weird that she’s out with someone like DannyRic? She never mentioned being interested in sports.

Submission: idk if this is interesting but I used to know Emma when I was a kid? My mum used to always bring us to a cafe in the East End of London on a Saturday for a hot chocolate and a cream cake. Emma worked there with the owners and she was amazing, they had the best muffins and lemon drizzle cake (and on a bad week when mum got one between us there was always accidentally an extra one). She was always quiet but sweet and said my pictures I drew were lovely. I think she was in uni? We moved out of London when Dad got a new job so I never saw her again. I hope she's happy, she was always lovely.

Submission: I was in grammar school with Ricciardo's new girlfriend! Her name is Emma Smyth, we're from Liverpool. She was always really quiet but the smartest person in the room, she helped anyone struggling really quietly without making them feel bad. Went to London for uni, none of us knew she had until I heard off my dad. He works with her dad, it wasn't great. She didn't really have friends, everyone liked her but her parents were super strict.

Submission: Emma is lovely! We were in uni together and shared a halls common room. She’s the one who made sure everyone kept to the cleaning rota. She didn’t talk to loads of people, fell into a friend group and stuck with them. We only lived together that first year, but she was one of the best housemates.

#call it what you want fic #ciwyw media

[thgfanfictionlibrary]

Mature Rated Fics Masterlist (20)

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5 / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8 / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14 / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 /

Created: November 20th, 2023

Last Checked:------

Aloha Means Hello and Goodbye-Diana_Flynn (ao3) Summary: Peeta Mellark never intended to stay in Hawaii. It did not fit in his neat life. It was too sunny, too sandy, too unpredictable. But he was here to help out his brother with his new bakery for a short time and that's it. But the best-laid plans go awry, especially when Katniss Everdeen is involved.

Every Spot Reminds Me of You-hutchabelle, p0em (ao3) Summary: When Katniss returns to Panem after seven years away, she’s prepared to say goodbye to her best friend. What she isn’t ready for is to be confronted by her ex-boyfriend and forced to face the past she’s tried so hard to forget. Peeta doesn’t give her a chance to run again, though. Instead, he insists she face him at the very spot where her life was turned on its head.

Give the Lady What She Wants-WinterWednesday (ao3) Summary: Thirteen year-old Peeta Mellark helps Katniss out of a sticky situation. When they meet again ten years later, Katniss finally has the opportunity to express her gratitude. Modern Day AU

give you my wild-melissaeverdeen13 (ao3) Summary: a look into katniss and peeta's life as they grow back together after the war; their experiences with friendship, love, and parenthood.

Mellark Orchards-mrspeetamellark (ao3) Summary: After breaking up with her long-time fiancé, veterinarian Katniss Everdeen decides to move to a small town in Pennsylvania and start over again. She meets a sexy, blonde farmer at a local orchard and feels instantly drawn to him. She knows, however, that she needs time to heal from her failed engagement before she starts dating again. Will Farmer Peeta help Katniss mend her broken heart? Will the two become romantically involved?

Mistletoe and Majoram-Diana_Flynn (ao3) Summary: To no one's surprise, Katniss hates parties. Hates them. Especially parties filled with Christmas music, eggnog and mistletoe. But her housemate Jo dragged her down to get some Christmas “cheer” so she might as well make the best of it, and maybe talk to the cute blond that lives across the hall from her.

Office with a View-Buttercupbadass (ao3) Summary: When your office faces the windows of a Hotel. You see the darnedest things.

Peeta's Pocket-Buttercupbadass (ao3) Summary: "Growing Together" as told by Peeta's Pocket Condom; a story of sexual frustration and protection

Present-melchimaus (ao3) Summary: Katniss spends the day without Peeta… kind of.

Smutercising-katnissdoesnotfollowback (ao3) Summary: A collection of unrelated ficlets based on a list of 140 dialogue prompts for smut.

#m #mature masterlist #masterlist #thg #thg fanfiction #everlark fanfiction #everlark #m masterlist

[fuwaprince]

hey. are you okay friend?

No, I'm not and c'est la vie! Sometimes you're okay and sometimes you're not. Thanks for checking in sweet friend 🫂 I hope you're having a beautiful day! 💕

Yesterday I helped Mr. Leonard deep clean his home that we're still trying to save and this morning I unfortunately headed back to the hag house I reside in! He was so nice. Sent me home with half his cookies and told me to share with the people who were kind enough to give me a ride. I didn't even mean to stay over last night but I was just so tired after cleaning... I slept for a whole 10 hours! Kind of a miracle for me. I must've been comfortable

Soon as I got back to the hag house and started to microwave my usual (a single jumbo corn dog), I was rudely interrupted and told by the biggest bitch here that I am no longer a part of the household even though I am living here for the next 30 days still???? They can deny the reality (that I have been part of this house since the day I moved in) and believe in whatever delusion they so badly want to- fine!!! But the sucky part is that they say I can no longer help myself to the food my fucking rent covers because of that decision... Wackadoodle :/ Funny how the carpet slides around. They're literally fattened up by greed. They're willing to starve me down to nothing if it means I'll die faster than I can move out. Whatever it takes to drive me away I guess since the other terror tactics just didn't work! She was giving me attitude and rude comments. Other housemate blasted trans hate (happy pride btw). Got defensive af over their food in their kitchen :/ whatever

Good news is that I reapplied for food stamps after a friend motivated me to. I'm fucking praying that this time my fucked up mother doesn't sabotage it by denying me my fucking mail again like she did last time which resulted in me starving/withering all summer of last year! I should've had it this whole time... Hopefully it gets processed soon. Phone interview will take place once the weekend is over... I hope there's a way to expedite it.

If I had my own PO box then I wouldn't have to depend on my mom actually giving me my mail... I don't have a key and don't live there with her anymore but this mailing address won't work. The people here tamper with my belongings out of hate. Why? Who knows. I try not to think about the whole "what if I was a pure white lesbian instead of a brown trans traitor? Would they respect me then?" rabbit hole. I don't care. Even if I was respectable to them, I wouldn't be their friend based on how they'd treat others. Anyways, yeah. Coming back home sucks. People are mean. My heart rly hurts and keeps acting up. Stings and feels like I'm going to pass out from time to time. It's hurting more than usual and bothering me as I type this

My on and off boyfriend also texted me saying he got hit by a car a few hours ago (he's okay, apparently.... Although I question since he refused to go to a hospital). Stresses my poor heart out to hear that tbh. But yeah. Maybe I'll go on a night walk or something. I hate this house that I'm in. If Mr. Leonard lived any closer I would just walk back there and beg him to let me in. I would feel better if I was out of here and around compassionate people. I'm gonna be okay

#i just wanna say that i am happy to see somebody else made a 3rd donation to that GoFundMe I shared #life sucks rn but it gets better and seeing that restores my faith in humanity #“There are still faint glimmers of civilization left in this barbaric slaughterhouse that was once known as humanity.” - M. Gustave H.

[kokiwiouma]

Answering that last question i had a lot of rambling i took out so heres the rambles about dynamics and how everything works?? maybe i haven't figured it out

the situation FIRST im gonna say this takes place in a world where the game did indeed happen but it was like in the 2nd game and it was all a game they "agreed" to and was all a realistic digital thing being over seen by some people? for some reason? but the first and 2nd game did happen, the future foundation exist still, but this is a time of peace (i haven't played these games in a long time i don't fully remember the lore friendos)

After they got out they all got help and readjusted to life again, Kokichi either dated or had a unspoken thing with Rantaro for little bit but ultimately it didnt work HOWEVER because i like Kaede somehow these two ended up together

The living arrangements are

Kokichi - Kaede - housemates (dating)

Tenko - Maki - roomates (figuring it out)

Himiko (just lives here )- Shuichi - Kaito - housemates (figuring it out)

Miu - Kiibo = roomates (figuring it out/friends)

i haven't figured out everyone else yet cause i have a lot of conflicting ideas like my Rantaro's parents adopting Nagito into the famliy so he lives with Rantaro in his large house with Leon and Kotoko who are Nagito's adopted siblings as well i haven't work that out how that works yet cause at some point Nagito was roomates with Mikan and left that when he broke up with her and lives with Hajime scott pilgrim style. Chiaki has a house she's just never at and wants to move in with either Hajime or Maki cause she's gotten really close with both of them

thats a lot of stuff i haven't worked out yet

im sorry i ramble so much back to the question at hand

part of me wants to say, cause i have to do some research but i'll do it later, i think they can take someone's DNA and put it in a egg/fetus and that's what they probably did but who's the biological father? part of me wants to say Rantaro did, but another part of me wants to say Kaito volunteered.

DONT GET ME WRONG Rantaro and Kaede are friends but they went through a rough patch and she kinda doesn't think she deserves to be friends with him cause of what she did but it wasn't her fault and all that. Rantaro doesn't understand her thought process and it's a whole thing so they just kinda don't talk? for a while the relationship was Kokichi and Kaede were close friends? While Kokichi was dating Rantaro later Kokichi wanted to have Kaede in cause they like eachother but Kaede doesn't like Rantaro that way so it was

Rantaro is Kokichi's boyfriend while Kaede is Kokichi's girlfriend but Rantaro and Kaede are not in a relationship, this made Kaede uncomfortable so Rantaro made the disction for her for him to leave and explained it to Kokichi who wanted to stay with Kaede even though in their heart of hearts they sort of felt more for Rantaro (cause i'm Oumami first they are my ride or die but i love Oumatsu)

#i'll tag this later i dont have time rn

[saintmeghanmarkle]

We've all known our own version of MM. by u/Hermes_Blanket

We've all known our own version of MM. Most of us have run into someone like Meghan at least once in their lives. For me, it was the summer of 1987.My housemate and I were young working women in our 20s in the big city. We needed a third person to cover the rent.We placed an ad, and she was the only one to reply. It all looked good. She had a steady job and good credit references. We told her she could move in the next week.She drove up in a flashy red Corvette with a flashy guy in the passenger seat. We were impressed by both. She told us later that she'd won the car in a burger chain contest. It was her pride and joy.She had a great figure, long hair and a pretty, if generic face. Yes, she'd been the prom queen in high school. The strange thing was her eyes. They were flat, had no light in them. You couldn't even tell what color they were -- a strange dark mix of brown, blue and green. She rarely wore any color but white.The guy in her car was the son of a former congressman and an oil heiress. She told us she'd met him on a beach somewhere and he'd fallen for her immediately. He'd begged her to move to his hometown, and she did. The problem was, he was still living at home -- he was a law student at an Ivy League school -- and she wanted to move in with him. Not into a little apartment of their own, mind you, but into his parents' palatial estate. His mother, who was no fool, blocked this idea immediately. Hence her need for a room in our little abode.He would come over every night around 8, completely exhausted from his demanding course of study. She would sometimes have some fast food ready for him and, more importantly, always a large bottle of vodka. They would watch TV together and she would feed him vodka until bedtime. I never saw her drink any.Meanwhile, a guy from her hometown called our house regularly, asking where she was and demanding to speak to her. We were instructed to say she was out and not to tell him anything. How he got our number, I have no idea.She had a job in her field, but was always coming up with get-rich-quick schemes. None of them ever came to anything, but every week there was a new one.Unfortunately, she disliked me on sight, and her dislike only grew. I tried not to interact with her, but it was a small space. When I started to date my husband-to-be, it got much worse. If he sent flowers, she was in a sour mood all day.Eventually, her boyfriend dumped her. She brought home a different man from the bars every night for weeks after that. I never knew what would be sitting at our kitchen table when I came down for breakfast in the mornings.Finally she gave up and moved back to her home state. The constant caller was waiting for her. She married him five years later. He had made a fortune after founding a company selling surveillance equipment to China to spy on their citizens.She named their only son after the law student ex. I don't know whether her husband knows.Oh yes, and they live in Montecito. post link: https://ift.tt/sdpO0y9 author: Hermes_Blanket submitted: April 02, 2024 at 07:39PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

#SaintMeghanMarkle #harry and meghan #meghan markle #prince harry #fucking grifters #Worldwide Privacy Tour #Instagram loving bitch wife #Backgrid #voetsek meghan #walmart wallis #markled #archewell #archewell foundation #megxit #duke and duchess of sussex #duke of sussex #duchess of sussex #doria ragland #rent a royal #clevr #clevr blends #lemonada media #archetypes with meghan #invictus #invictus games #Sussex #WAAAGH #american riviera orchard #Hermes_Blanket

[medusapelagia]

Give your all to me, I'll give my all to you [NSFW]

This is my gift fic for the Steddie one-shot holiday exchange!!!

For: @lorifragolina / TheMadcapLaugh Relationships: Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Minor or Background Relationship(s)Robin Buckley/Chrissy Cunningham, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Rating: Explicit Wordcount: 12k Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Tags: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst and Feels, Fake/Pretend Relationship, one bed, Anal Sex, Alcohol, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, Christmas, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, Steve Harrington Needs Love, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Eddie Munson Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Steve Harrington Has Bad Parents, Eddie Munson Loves Steve Harrington, Sharing a Bed, Protective Eddie Munson, Robin Buckley & Steve Harrington Friendship, Steve Harrington-centric, Minor Robin Buckley/Chrissy Cunningham, Christmas/New Year, New Year, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Upside Down (Stranger Things), Bartender Eddie Munson, Alternative Universe - Roommates/Housemates Summary: When Steve receives the invitation to his mother's wedding his first reaction is to ignore it, but when she insists that he has to come Steve decides that he will attend the wedding… with his fake boyfriend, Eddie.

A brief snippet under the cut!

When Steve opens the mailbox he glares at the fancy letter with his address written in a nice calligraphy in gold letter. Mr. Steven Joseph Harrington. No one calls him with his full name and he dreads the moment he finds out who the author of the letter is, but he is already late for work so he puts it in his backpack and runs to catch the bus to town. He likes living in Chicago, where he moved with Robin when she got accepted at the University, and sharing his two-room apartment with his best friend was just a plus. He deeply regrets that they weren't friends in High School, but they made up for the lost time and now they are closer than ever. When he gets into the little bookshop Robin is already checking the new arrivals. "You are late, dingus." she scolds him. "I am not. A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to." he replies sticking out his tongue. Robin snorts "Oh my god, did you just make a nerd reference?" "Maybe?" "God I knew he was a bad influence but I thought you were immune." "Like you are immune to my charm?" Steve asks while going in the back to take off his jacket. The bookshop is tiny and cozy, they specialize in foreign books and most of the ones they sell have a double version of the text: original language and English. Robin started to work there during college and when the old owner proposed to her to take over the business she happily accepted, involving Steve who now is an underpaid employee. "You are not underpaid, Steve! Stop saying that!" she complains while adding the new arrivals to the shelves. Steve laughs and opens the bookshop. The place it's so small that even a few customers make it feel overcrowded, and it's even worse when the kids come to visit because they take up almost all the space in the shop, but both Robin and Steve are too fond of them so they have come to a little agreement, every Thursday the shop host a little game of D&D, it should be open to anyone, but in reality is always the kids (and their plus one if there is one at the moment) that join them bringing some pizza from the closest Italian pizzeria. The day is pretty slow, so when finally the kids make their entrance the table for the game is already set and Steve is taking a few refreshments from the fridge. "Don't touch the book with your dirty fingers!" he tells Mike who is looking at a very expensive French translation of the Hobbit. This time the DM is Will, who takes his role very seriously and asked anyone to dress according to their character, which means that Max has a pair of pointy ears, Dustin is wearing a cape, and Eddie... Eddie is wearing a corset.

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#stranger things fanfic #steddie #myfanfic #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #steve x eddie #stranger things fanfiction #medusapelagia #steddie one shot holiday exchange