#sigh . . he's so dreami c: !

[cubffections]

cw. nsfw! fingering with mista ratio ‎ᡣ𐭩

you see, veritas ratio was a busy man.

he was always out doing something of the sort, either teaching or on business for the guild, if or if not for his own pleasure. though he'd never forget to remind you that it was all in the sake of spreading his wisdom and enlightening to save those from the wretched disease that is known as idiocy, a disease that he swore most people have caught. you know this, you really do! but you couldn't help craving him whenever he's around, and y'know the genius himself can't help but give into you :(

"for such a intelligent girl, you truly become quite the ditz once you're occupied with my fingers don't you?" he remarked, one hand busy flipping the pages of the book laid upon his lap as the other was three fingers deep into your leaky cunt. he sat on the bed's side as his fingers massaged themselves deeper at quicker pace, his eyes paying you no mind as they remained trained on the literature beneath him. "however, i cannot blame you. such a cunt like yours can only be sated by the likes of myself."

"v—veri!" you cried, interrupted by the sudden curl of his fingers silencing anything else you might've said, soft mewls falling out your pretty lips. he mentally gave you five points on how sugary your calls sounded pleading for his attention, almost making him feel slightly guilty on your behalf while he was ignored you. nonetheless, he remembers that he couldn't sympathize with you much . . he did tell you he was busy.

"shush dear, you asked for this. remember?" he inquired, finally glancing at your longing gaze as his thumb circled and pressed onto your aching clit. satisfied at the sight of your mouth morphing from whiny wails into savored moans of his name. your arms soon stretching towards your beloved prodigy giving him the chance to lean over to place a sweet kiss on your lips as he pumped his digits into your heat diligently.

"i can finish this later. turn over, let me take care of you."

#𑄼ల۫ ﹒𝓈𝓌𝑒𝑒𝓉 𝒹𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂𝓈 . . #sigh . . he's so dreami c: ! #veritas ratio #ratio smut #dr ratio smut #dr ratio #ratio x reader #hsr ratio #hsr veritas #hsr smut

[leatherbookmark]

hongjoong @ 210916 deja vu

bonus (sorry):

#hongjoong #ateez #kpop #shrimp gifs #the coloring is all over the place but I TRIED. the stage lights are my bitterest enemy THIS IS WHY I PREFER MVS :((( #maybe i should pick up those like special studio choom &c performances. those can have light changes but at least they're not as wild #i really liked the mini rainbows :') so cute #this gifset could have been longer! this gifset could span the entire performance! at the cost of my sanity and my laptop's wellbeing lol #i love giffing hj (as though you couldn't tell.) because obviously he's got the Expressions and the joy of being on stage #but also there's just Something. very captivating in his moves. dreamy sigh

[m-ayo-o]

megumi and yuji sharing a cute bunny girl and yuji is so soft and sweet with her and gumi pounds her into the mattress 😵‍💫😵‍💫😵‍💫

* ✦　˚　. s t r a w b e r r i e s & c r e a m   ★⋆. ࿐࿔

REQUESTS ARE STILL CLOSED : written in the past! 🍒 yuji + megumi 21+ x hybrid bunny girl reader 🐇 wc: 2.6k aged up characters !!! nsfw -> panty ripping, messy pussy eating, squirting mention, explicit food play, threesome, pussy sharing (i went on a side quest with this one) hybrid fics 💕 valentine's

Another month has passed, with your heat cycle running its course, going up and down with your hormones.

Your owner knows every detail of your behaviour during the cycle. He knows when you need comforting and snuggling, he knows when you need a bit of space, and he knows when you're so pent up you never want to let him go.

And now his sweet best friend, who you've come to like very much, knows a lot about you too. He spends so much time visiting you and your owner, you've become close. You trust him- not as much as your owner, but enough that you feel very comfortable around the pink haired man.

Perhaps a little too comfortable, Megumi is beginning to think.

However, he continues to allow his visits because when Yuji arrives it looks like your birthday and Christmas have come at once. With that pretty, shy smile of yours, the excited shine behind your eyes; Megumi can't deny that.

And you're so glad, because now it almost feels like you have two owners. You know that's not true. It never will be. But two gorgeous men looking after you is a real treat. They're very different, but you can tell they both care about you so much.

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

After another cute day out with them, going to the movies followed by a bit of shopping (with some grunting and sighing from Megumi) you're finally back in your warm apartment, nestled on the sofa with Yuji.

Or rather, Yuji's sitting on the sofa. You're sitting on him.

He dragged you onto his lap after you got changed into something 'more comfortable' when you got home. It's just so warm and cosy, it's like your nest where you feel most content, so of course you put on a cute little night dress. You didn't take into consideration the two of their feelings when you selected this certain piece of clothing, only that it would help keep you a bit cooler.

But it's not exactly helping now your body is under Yuji's burning hot touches. He's always so warm it feels like he has fire under his caramel skin, deep in his body, that's released with every loving squeeze to your waist, your hips, your arms, your back- anywhere he can touch he is blazing a trail of heat.

He touches you on instinct; following the flow of your body. You're just chatting away and he can't keep his big hands off you.

"I really liked that store we went to, with the- uh, um-"

You forget what they called it. Your nose twitches and your ears flop to the side with a confused look on your dainty features.

Yuji studies your puzzled face for a moment, wondering which store you might mean.

"Oh, the lingerie?"

"Yes, yes!" That was it. All of those pretty, skimpy outfits, dresses and costumes, with the lace and bows and- you just can't contain your excitement- "it was so beautiful in there."

You say with a dreamy look on your face.

"Mhm," Yuji nods in agreement, his brown eyes giving you a long and loving stare, "and you would look so beautiful... in those outfits."

He admits a little bashfully, still with a soft smile on his face.

"Maybe we can go back and you can try some on?" He asks while tugging at the hem of your nightie you're currently wearing.

This one is cute enough, he thinks, with the way it barely covers your ass and reveals your sumptuous thighs to him. It makes him drool. He places his hands there now, on your thighs, absentmindedly squeezing.

You nod and say how much you'd like that.

"Good, oh good, I'd love it too," he gets excited now, picturing you in all the pretty lingerie sets his heart desires, until he hears a little squeak from your mouth and you tug on his brawny wrists.

"Ow- ow! Yuji~ y-you're hurting me-"

During his daydreaming, he started grabbing your thighs much too hard, simply forgetting to hold back the strength in his hands.

He jumps suddenly then starts caressing your legs.

"Oh-! I, I'm sorry, bunny, I didn't mean to-" he coos and dips his head down to inspect your legs with a sad look on his face. You tell him it's okay and stroke his soft pink strands till he's holding you closer and murmuring apologies into your chest. You hold the back of his neck, stroking down to the hefty muscle of his shoulders and pressing your body into him till he looks up at you with a little pout on his lips and asks-

"Can I kiss them better?"

You smile and let him sit you down on the sofa, watching him drop to his knees and stroke your legs, pressing his warm mouth over your thighs.

Megumi has been in the kitchen all this time, tidying up after dinner and whipping up some cream for dessert (mainly for you and Yuji). But now your soft chatting has ceased his ears prick at the silence and he wonders what you're up to.

Now Yuji is getting carried away. He's kissed every inch of your warm thighs, taking your soft skin in his calloused grip, licking you and squeezing you softly. His gaze has gone all mellow now you're in his hands and he starts kissing between your thighs, where he didn't even touch before, nuzzling his nose over your satin skin and spreading your legs wider. You just sigh softly, completely adoring all of his sweet affections, until he brings his mouth to settle over the warm centre of your pussy. Your skimpy panties still cover you up, but that doesn't stop him from kissing and licking you there, feeling the moist patch beneath the material and now starting to moan into you.

"You smell so good."

He pushes his head closer and buries himself between your thighs, stuffing his big hands under your ass to pull you into him and you hear a sudden tearing sound.

It makes you jump, but his soothing words comfort you till you sink into the sofa and let him do what he wants with you.

"Oh, we'll have to go to that store now, bunny-" he coos and shreds the last of your panties, tugging the remaining string out of his way, "get you some new pretty panties, hm? Can I choose them? 'Gumi can choose some too, right?"

You nod and watch his tongue slide over his lips, before returning all of his attention to your pussy that's finally bare for him to lick. He sticks his tongue out and connects to your lips with a groan, now feeling your sweetness over his tongue. He eats you till you're dizzy and squirting all over his stubbly chin.

He lets go and pants softly, licking up the mess and trailing his half lidded eyes over your body. He's so entranced with watching you squirm under his gentle tonguing that he didn't hear Megumi step into the living room. But you see him approach and he's carrying something, with a little smile on his face now he can see why you two were so quiet.

He gets closer, watching Yuji continue as if he weren't even there, and reaches out to you where you sit, with your legs open in Yuji's strong hands.

"Here," you notice he has something between his fingers as he brings them closer to your parted lips, "want a strawberry, bunny?"

You lick your lips then open your mouth for the juicy treat and he watches you with delight, nibbling on the soft fruit until it's all gone. He sees a bit of the pinkish juice trickle down your chin and he swipes it away lovingly.

"You want some dessert, Yuji?"

He asks his friend who's still enjoying his own dessert between your legs, but he moans in agreement and your owner heads back to the kitchen. He'd love to see this, anyway. Since he can't eat so much cream and knows you and Yuji both love it, he'll treat you two and watch you having fun.

He comes back with whipped cream in a bowl, holds a spoon out and tells you it might feel a little cold.

Yuji moves his head back with a string of slick juice connecting him to your pussy and watches the blob of cream land on your clit. You giggle and shiver at the wet feeling and Yuji looks up at his friend, thanking him then dives into his new meal.

He hums with excitement, lapping the cream from your sweet folds and telling Megumi to add more. He spoons it on, with a strawberry this time, which Yuji nimbly slides down your lips and presses into your hole. It feels funny, but the fruit slides in a little and Yuji giggles and slurps it right back out again, munching on it and swallowing every bit of juice down.

You have your fun with the dessert and Megumi steps away to clean up again, only to re-enter the living room with you sitting on Yuji's lap, this time stuffed full of his cock. He couldn't wait a second longer and loved how your eyes nearly crossed when he slipped his tongue inside you- he just had to get back on the sofa and pull you onto him, getting your pussy stretched over his fat dick.

"Yeah- yeah, bunny, oh you're so good at taking me now, huh? Got used to me really good, like you're mine~" he presses needy kisses to your throat and pulls your nightie off, licking your supple tits and telling you how crazy you make him.

But you can see it now, in the way he's starting to sigh your name and chant over and over-

"My bunny, mine, mine~"

-he's starting to forget who's watching. Without thinking, he keeps this up and opens his mouth to suck on your neck.

"Yuji," his best friend's voice cuts through the haze of his arousal, causing him to slow down the pumping motions of his cock.

Megumi has been very patient with his best friend. He knows that you adore him, he knows how Yuji feels about you, and he allows your horny antics for the most part.

"Yuji."

"Do I have to remind you... who she belongs to?"

It's not jealousy that drives him. Oh no, Yuji is the only other man who's lucky enough to touch you, and he'll let him fuck you till the sun burns out. But he just wants to remind you both of his power as an owner.

Your owner.

"Bunny, up."

He commands and you jump off Yuji's cock without hesitation, leaving the poor man moaning and grabbing onto his thighs. He doesn't grab for you. He can't hurt you again, so he keeps his hands to himself.

"Come."

~

"Cum, oh- good girl- on command? You're such a pretty little thing, and so obedient, too. Fuck, sometimes I think you're too perfect to share."

He spares his friend a glance, where he's leaning heavily against your bedroom wall with his dick in his hand. He knows he should've showed some self restraint and tugged his shorts back up, but he couldn't help following you and touching himself to the sights of you obeying your owner's every command.

"Bounce on my dick- yeah, oh well done, bunny-" he praises you and strokes your body while you move up and down.

"Now come here," he lifts you off and pats the bed, watching you crawl onto the mattress eagerly, "I'm gonna give you a special treat, ok?"

He gets on top of you and throws your legs over his shoulders, sinking himself in inch by inch and pressing his strong body down on you.

"You love this position, don't you baby?" He coos and Yuji starts to whimper, seeing how you're being folded in half by his best friend.

"Oh, sounds like someone else does too," Megumi muses and looks the pink haired man up and down before returning all of his attention to you.

"Now, for your treat," he hums with the corner of his mouth forming a coy smile.

"Treat?" You repeat happily, looking up at him as if he's your whole world. Which he is. And Megumi knows he is, and it makes him so proud.

"Yeah~" he's all the way in, struggling to control himself now he can feel the tight pressure of your sweet, wet pussy.

"I'm gonna give it to you hard, ok?"

You gasp and smile, eyes sparkling with excitement.

"M-Megumi- owner- owner-!!!" You squeal and have a dizzy look on your face before he's even started.

"Calm- calm down, bunny- I can feel you squeezing me, you're gonna make me cum-" he gives you a breathy laugh and then asks if you're ready, at which you nod and Yuji watches in awe.

He places a hand on your head, offering a buffer against the headboard, leans in close and starts up a rhythm of hard pumping. He starts off slow, but each thrust is more untamed than the last, and when he gets faster you slam a hand over your mouth to stop you from screaming. Your spare hand grabs the bedsheets for dear life and you watch your owner's descent into mindless fucking.

Sometimes you think Megumi fucks you like he's the one in heat, and your little mind starts to wonder how amazing that would be if he had heats, too. You wonder what he would be like. But you're brought right back down to earth again when your owner addresses you.

"Bunny," his voice is low and raspy, "hands on me."

Your little hands immediately release your mouth and the bedsheets and fly to his body. One lands on his chest, the other nestled in his jet black strands.

"Good," he presses his forehead to yours, "good girl."

He sinks into you so hard, with your knees by your ears, pushing closer and closer till you're completely overwhelmed by him and tears start to spill down your cheeks.

"Pretty," he kisses them away gently, "pretty bunny, are you crying because of me?"

"B-be-cause..." your eyes dart down to where he's entering you.

"'cause 'm fucking you too hard?"

You bite your lip, willing him to understand that it isn't too hard, it just feels so good you started crying. You couldn't help it.

"Want me to go easy on you?"

You shake your head rapidly.

"Ah- bunny- y-you're perfect, you know that- letting me fuck you like this~"

The wooden headboard starts smacking into the wall with his thrusts now and the boards start to creak dangerously underneath. You wonder if the bed will last.

He pins you to the mattress, giving you every ounce of pleasure, until you're gasping out that you're going to cum.

"Again? Oh, bunny, you're too good to me," he hums and praises you softly while delivering those forceful bucks of his hips.

Yuji never does it like this, and you start to admit you've been a little wrapped up in all of your soft and sweet sex with him that you may have been neglecting your owner.

"M-missed you-" he can feel you start to pulse and grip him harder now as you get another buzz of pleasure through your cute body. You kiss his pretty face as he guides you through it and he watches with pure adoration as you start to cry and tell him how much you've missed him doing it like this.

"It's okay, it's okay, Yuji come here," he beckons his friend as you come down from your intense high. Megumi lets up a little and starts giving you slower rolls of his hips, grinding his body into you.

"Let's take turns, ok? See how many times we can make you cum tonight, bunny. You can have both of us, alright? You don't have to choose."

Your owner kisses your head and releases you and the two men slide in and out of you all night till they're spent and filling you one final time before collapsing on the mattress either side of you, all flushed and dripping with sweat.

You feel relieved now, knowing that only a little while ago your owner may have got a bit angry with Yuji calling you 'mine'. But he knows only he can give you what you truly need. It's all fun and games with Yuji, but Megumi is your owner and there are certain things that only he can do to you.

yuji | megumi | m.list

#jujutsu kaisen #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen smut #jjk smut #female reader #18+ content #megumi fushiguro #megumi x reader #megumi <3 #megumi x bunny #bunny reader #hybrid bunny #bunny owner #subby bunny #bunny girl #yuji imagine #yuji itadori x reader #yuji x reader #yuji smut #yuji itadori #megumi x yuji x reader #tw: sex #tw: food play

[sleyu]

C U GIRL

PAIRING: RON WEASLEY X READER

GENRE: SMUT

WARNINGS: SEX, UNPROTECTED SEX, PRAISE, CURSING

Hushed whispers and giggles were all that could be heard as the two of you frantically rushed along the hogwarts corridors in search of an empty, vacant classroom.

It had quite frankly started in the morning. You had chosen to sit across from Ron during breakfast, much to his dismay. As you were eating your cereal, you had taken notice of the lack of attention Ron paid to his food and the topic of the upcoming quidditch game Harry was urgently speaking of. Instead, his eyes were fixed on you, in the all-so-familiar dreamy look of his, enchanted by the sight of your face and presence.

Due to the upcoming exams, much of your evenings were spent either in the library or common room revising, leaving little time or focus on your boyfriend or the needs of the pair of you. Here Ron was, facing the dread of quidditch and academic papers, and positively ruined by the lack of you.

And so it started.

Ron deliberately gave up his spot by Harry—much to his confusion—and eagerly stole the free spot next to you, usually occupied by Hermione, who herself, was displeased yet unsurprised by Ron’s cheat. Hermione’s firm, ‘Ronald!’ was left ignored by Ron who sheepishly smiled at you, resting a gentle hand on your upper thigh.

‘Let’s skip transfiguration, yeah?’ he whispered, grinning innocently. You smirked, already familiar with this routine. Pretending to think over his question, you watched his eyes grow wide in expectancy. ‘Hmm, not sure. I heard from yesterday’s class that she’s revising important information. Wouldn’t it be a waste not to go?’

Ron’s eyebrows furrowed, his hand squeezing your thighs for attention. ‘I doubt it. Besides, even if she did, that’s what we have Harry and Hermione for!’ he laughed nervously, awaiting either your approval or dismissal.

You smiled. ‘i’m only teasing. sure, whatever you want, Ron.’ Laughing, you leaned against your boyfriend who had begun bouncing his knees anxiously.

This all led to your current predicament. Ron’s firm grip on your hand was unrelenting, dragging you inside the abandoned and perfectly spacious classroom.

He turned to you, grinning sheepishly, and pulled you close to him, heart skipping as you wrapped your arms around his neck, leaning up to kiss him softly. Ron sighed into the kiss, hands roaming up and down your body, from the expanse of your back to a firm, possessive squeeze to your ass.

‘Missed you,’ he mumbled quietly, pressing your chest against his and rocking his hips against yours, groaning softly. His hands reached to the back of your thighs and lifted you on top of the scratched desk.

You pulled away from the kiss, taking notice to Ron’s swollen, pink lips and his equally flushed face. His eyes had become dark and his gaze had become that of lust, intensely staring at your chest. ‘You sure we won’t be caught here?’ you asked, whispering.

He shook his head, handing reaching up to unbutton your white blouse, pausing to look at you for approval, before whispering back, ‘Don’t care if we do.’

Your cunt throbbed as his large hands began groping your chest through your bra. His mouth had become occupied on your neck, giving the skin bruised, open-mouth kisses, desperately attempting to leave his mark. Those marks were Ron’s pride and joy. If it weren’t for his cum dripping out of your ruined, spent cunt after fucking, it was the hickey’s on your neck that solidified and affirmed that you belonged to him and only him.

Much to his disappointment, which was exceedingly apparent by his whines of protest, you had pulled his head away from your neck. ‘We don’t have time—I’m sure filch is roaming around here and there. We’ve got to hurry, Ron.’ you sighed, in an equal degree of anguish.

Ron rolled his eyes and nodded before kneeling before you and spreading your legs, pulling your throbbing, covered cunt to his face. He pushed your skirt to your hips without a second thought, pressing painful bites and kisses to the soft, supple flesh of your thighs.

Your heart rate increased with Ron’s lack of urgency and the press of his fingers against your covered clit. Tugging his hair softly, he grinned and nodded before pulling your panties to the side. If you leaned closer, you would have been able to see one of Ron’s hand’s leaving your thigh to palm his hard cock over his slacks, groaning and muttering curses at the sight of your dripping, puffy cunt.

Standing up, he began to unbuckle his belt before pulling his pants down enough for him to take out his throbbing length. You whined, reaching forward to grip his cock, which twitched upon your gentle touch. Groaning, Ron rutted his hips against your fist. ‘Fuck, see this? Yeah, you did that. You ‘n your pretty face, and those doe eyes.’ he sighed shakily.

You whined, guiding his cock toward your fluttering, needy hole. ‘Can’t wait any longer. Need you inside me,’ you mumbled.

Nodding, Ron brushed away your hand before lining his cock with your cunt, suddenly pushing inside with little warning. You cried out, biting the back of your hand in an attempt to silence your voice in response to his intrusion.

Ron grunted, throwing his head back before looking down at you with half-lidded eyes. ‘Do you know how long i’ve been waiting for this?’ he whimpered.

‘How long I’ve been jerking myself off thinking about this cunt? Thinking about your sweet fucking sounds?’

You shook your head, mouth open and eyes watering at the feeling of his cock brushing against your sweet spot, deliciously stretching out your already spent hole that had severely missed his nightly routine.

As Ron thrust in and out of your cunt, he buried his face in your neck, deeply breathing in the scent of your shampoo, nearly intoxicated by the smell. ‘so sweet—so fucking sweet.’

In between pressing feverish kisses alongside your neck and jaw, he’d whimper out sweet nothings, thanking you for letting him take you out in the open so suddenly. ‘Such a good girl—fuck—my little fucking princess.’ he’d gasp. ‘Love you so fuckin’ much.’

Feeling a sudden warmth in your chest from not only your high approaching, but also his confession, you whined, wrapping your legs around his waist, pushing him further into you, causing the pair of you to gasp.

‘Love you too, Ron,’ you whispered shakily, feeling your boyfriend’s hips begin to stutter at the approaching feeling of his high, your cunt throbbing and closing in around his fat cock in anticipation of your orgasm.

Ron pulled away from your neck and pressed his forehead against yours, looking down, watching the pair of you connect as he rutted into your pussy. He whined at the sight of your cunt just barely taking in his fat cock, all swollen and abused because of him.

His hand finally reached down to rub the nub of your clit, grinning wolfishly at the sound of your loud, sudden cries. ‘That’s it, honey—fuck—cum just like that,’ he grinned. ‘Doing so good for me, yeah? You look so pretty like this.’

And just like that, you felt your stomach clench and your pulsating hole clamp around his cock, finally cumming all over his leaking member.

It felt fuzzy for a while. Your brain had practically gone numb from your orgasm, leaving you too far gone to register ron’s loud groans and pants, only focusing on the feeling of his seed filling you up, and the wet, lewd sounds of his cock thrusting into your wet, dripping cunt stuffed full of the mixture of both of your juices.

‘So, so good. wanna keep filling you up forever—fuck.’ Ron felt himself go dumb, mindlessly thrusting his overstimulated dick in and out of your pussy, the warmth too addictive to pull out from despite the pain he felt. Nevertheless, the sight of your closed eyes and heavy pants pulled him to realization. He laughed softly at your whines, pleading him to fill you up again, before he pulled his pants back up, fastening his belt.

Due to the classroom setting—which Ron eventually realized its inconvenience during the aftermath of sex—he hesitantly put your panties back on your body, slightly cringing at the sight of them becoming damp to the lack of adequate clothes around to wipe you clean.

‘Ah, sorry, love.’ he whispered as he dressed you once again, fixing your skirt and buttoning your blouse, occasionally pressing loving, doting kisses around your face in an attempt to bring you back to proper consciousness.

Alas, your head simply rested on his chest as you closed your eyes, sleepy as usual after sex. You felt yourself flush as Ron lifted your face so that your eyes could meet. What amused you was how shy he became after completely rearranging your insides. You felt your heart swell at the sight of his flustered expression and red ears.

‘Let’s go back to my dorm, okay? I can take care of you there—or—on second thought—do you think the prefect's bathroom would be better—’ you cut his sheepish rambling off with a soft peck on his lips before pulling him into a gentle hug, to which he enthusiastically responded to, wrapping his arms around your frame, projecting his warmth onto you.

‘Let’s do prefects bathroom. Round two there?’

#ron weasley smut #ron weasley x reader #ron weasley imagine #harry potter smut #harry potter x reader #harry potter imagine #ron weasley fluff #ron weasley #ron weasley x you #harry potter x you #harry potter fanfiction #ron weasley fanfiction #harry potter x y/n #ron weasley x y/n #ron weasley fanfic

[neopuppy]

preview: rush

pairing. professor step-dad Jeno x step-daughter female reader

･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆ ･ ⋆ ･ ⠄⠂⋆

‘I’d prefer we keep our at-home relationship disassociated from—‘ Professor Lee waved his hands around awkwardly, very different from the confident instructor you’d become familiar with for the past 6 months. ‘You know what I mean, I’m still your teacher, and you can come to me with any of your questions, concerns. But at home, I’m your step-dad.’

The conversation over dinner had been more uncomfortable than necessary, namely when your professor smiled at you and proceeded to pat your shoulder.

‘I mean, you’re like a daughter to me already, we don’t really need those pesky titles. Don’t ever feel bad about thinking of me as your dad now.’

Jeno’s lip twitched to contain a large smile from stretching his cheeks, mindful of your mother’s dreamy sigh as he reached over to pat and rub her thigh under the table.

Professor Lee, Dad.. Step-dad, or the one you had no idea he preferred best, daddy.

When your mother ranted about her new hot beau she connected with on Hinge, you couldn’t have expected it to be your Classic Literature Professor of all the men in the world. No, not your favorite instructor.

They were only dating anyway. Until they weren’t and suddenly your Professor was staying over a few times a week, even offering to drop you off near school.

‘It could look questionable to have a student exiting my vehicle on campus grounds, you understand right?’

The thing about Professor Lee is, he’s a good guy, a really smart and friendly guy. That teacher with a huge waitlist to join his class because everyone knows he grades on a curve and isn’t a hard ass about turning in assignments on time. He’s the ‘cool’ Professor, which could attest to the amount of female student body that fight to earn a space in his course, that or the fact that Professor Lee is, frankly, hot.

‘Kind of insane if you think about it.’ Your friend whispered in your ear, leaning over behind a book to discreetly gossip. ‘That he’s fucking your mom.’

‘Don’t be disgusting.’

‘I mean, you’re a dead ringer for her, you know? You guys could pass more as sisters than mother and daughter.’

You really hated hearing that, mostly because it’s true. Oftentimes strangers have often mistaken your mother as your older sister. As much as the reminder bothers you, you can’t say Professor Lee has shown indication of being a creep.

There are times you find yourself lingering on him longer than you should. Mindlessly taking in how tight his pants fit some days more than others, or how broad and muscular his back looks when he peels off one of his suit blazers and loosens the tie around his neck when getting heated up during a lecture.

Sure, Professor Lee is a very attractive man, there’s no denying that, but between work and trying to keep up with your studies, time for ogling men is hardly a matter of importance for you at the moment.

“Professor, I wanted to discuss my last thesis with you.” It’s taken a while to not address your step-father at home about school work, even when he passes by the living room and sees you scribbling notes, marking different pages to analyze and come back to. He’ll nod, smile, wave for you to carry on and not bother him about assignments unless you’re in class or visiting his office.

“Oh of course, pull up a seat.” Jeno motions to a desk chair nearby, waving off the last students to exit his classroom before settling back with raised eyebrows. “What’s up?”

“Well, the grading,” you draw free the folder, first visible page marked with a C-. “I worked so hard on this, and now my average has gone down so much.”

Professor Lee hums, thumbing open the pages and nodding as he rereads his notes and markings. “You worked hard on this?”

Your mouth parts, prepared for combat only to find his unconvinced gaze focused on you. “Well, yes! Of course I did, you—you saw!”

“What have I told you about home life?” He sighs, head shaking as he opens up to recite part of the breakdown you typed out. “This is so lazy, I was being generous with my grading. I hate to say this but you’ve really slacked off since, well..” he trails off, tossing your assignment back on his desk.

“Slacked off?? I stayed up all night working on this!” You stammer, sitting up straight more annoyed. It’s not as if he didn’t see you hunched over your laptop in the living room at 3am when he passed by to the kitchen for a glass of water and grinned while saying ‘don’t work too hard.’

“Listen, between you and me,” he leans closer, as if a soul could hear your conversation in this empty lecture hall. “You’re a procrastinator, I don’t see you studying half as much as you should be and when you do it’s at the crack of dawn when you should be asleep. Proper rest is integral to your education, I want to see you excel and put the effort in that your classmates do. I can only be so fair, I know my reputation around here, but as a trusted Professor, I simply cannot let you fly by and put my integrity at risk because you’d rather lay out by the pool and spend hours online shopping.”

“Professor! That’s—that’s not fair! You’re judging what I do at home! I—“ speechless, you gasp, doing your best to control your temper as your teacher's handsome features droop to a disappointed frown. “I’m not just lazing around the house! I work! Mr. Lee, I’m always working when, I..” you pause, internally cursing trying to come up with a way to defend yourself without giving out more detail.

“Ah, yes, your mother has mentioned your job.” He nods, cheek lifted as he reaches to rub the back of his neck and block a smile out of your view with his arm. “You assist professional writers by proofing and editing their work? That keeps you real busy, does it?”

He sounds apprehensive, picking up your thesis again. “Listen, this deserved a lower score, but I’m willing to work with you here Lana. Perhaps you need to consider prioritizing school over work for now though—“

“What—” between your frenzy and coining up an excuse, you’re sure you misheard Professor Lee just now. “What did you call me?”

A wide gaze lifts to your eyes, pursing together his lips tightly with a casual shrug. “I didn’t call you anything sweetie.” He smiles, reaching to press the back of his hand on your forehead. “You sure that you’re not overworking yourself?”

His smile softens, stroking down your cheek to pinch your chin. “If you’re pressed for cash, you can always come to me. It’ll be our secret if you don’t want your mother to know. I don’t mind helping you out if it means you’ll be less stressed and prioritize your school work.”

You can’t find it in you to reply again, because you know you heard it.

“Now, I’ll rethink my grading if you promise to work harder on your next thesis. Sound good?” He pats your back, moving to gather his things. “Shall I drive you back home?”

His casual relaxed manner throws you off even more, exiting in a zombie-like state after declining his offer to pick you up from a coffee shop off campus.

Lana.

There’s no way you imagined that.

Why the fuck did your step-father call you by your online pseudonym only ever used for your Only Fans account.

#WIP

[flowerandblood]

Rip my heart, heal my soul

[ Jack the Ripper • modern!Aemond x female ]

[ warnings: sex content, smut, angst, stalking, violence, mention of murder and body mutilation, manipulation, obsession ]

[ description: Driven by his hatred of women, who in his opinion are mere whores, Aemond delights in killing them when they least expect it - during their rapture with him. He meets a girl whom he chooses as his next target, but it turns out that this time he is the victim of a feeling he has never known before in his life. Murder, mutilation of his victims, obsessive, poetic, dark!Aemond. ]

This oneshot is an Anon Request and is created with Halloween in mind, so unlike what I usually write, these fisc will be very dark and uncomfortable. Keep this in mind before you start reading.

Next chapter: Rip my heart, heal my soul (2)

Aemond Inside Alphabet

*English is not my first language. Please, do not repost. Enjoy!*

My others works: Masterlist

_____

He hated how two-faced women could be. With what ease they pretended to be sweet, innocent, warm, looking at him with dreamy eyes, only to fuck him a few hours later like common whores in their flat, moaning loudly like butchered animals.

He loved to see their expressions of surprise when they suddenly felt a fishing lines tighten around their neck as he fucked them from behind, choking them while smiling broadly, pleased to hear them stop making those sickening sounds, trying helplessly to grab air in their lungs and only then did he cum with a sigh of relief.

He loathed them.

He abhorred them.

Women like them laughed at him when he was in highschool, when he lost his left eye. They avoided him, calling him a cyclop, a monster, considering themselves superior, beautiful inside and out.

He knew how simple their mechanism of action was − all they had to do was meet a well-built, mysterious, charismatic man and they were all wet, suddenly forgetting about his artificial eye, ready for him to fuck them anywhere and any way.

They wanted to be the unique ones, the special ones.

They kept repeating to him that they weren't like other girls and he looked at them with a smile, nodding.

He'd gouge their eyeballs out of their eye sockets, grinning to find that it suited them to look like this − suddenly they seemed to be some kind of terrifying beasts, demons from the innermost abysses of darkness that had come to devour him.

He quartered their bodies with cleavers, packed them in great black sacks into which he placed stones and drove many hours ahead, finding some lake into which he threw their remains, their empty shell, as he liked to think of them.

His first target was his schoolmate who mocked him, but then he began to observe women and girls outside clubs, hunting down those who behaved similarly, pretending to be inaccessible, hard to get.

He knew this was nonsense, a cover for a guy to want to try harder.

Because of what he did, he changed his address frequently, catching light seasonal jobs. Mostly he was employed in cafés, because there he could observe people, often finding new targets. Women would frequently pretend to come to work there with their laptops, but would glance at him surreptitiously, checking if he was looking at them.

One day he heard the ringing of a bell hanging over the door and felt hot in his chest at the thought that this girl was perfect.

She was wearing an oversized pastel jumper, light-coloured shorts and mid-thigh-length woollen socks, her hair partly pinned back − a typical sweet pastel girl making big eyes, thinking he didn't know who she really was.

She smiled warmly at him as she approached the counter, but he didn't reciprocate the gesture and looked at her expectantly, throwing a cloth over his shoulder in a gesture of impatience.

"Good morning. A large hot chocolate, please." She said softly, pulling her small rucksack off her back, searching in it for her wallet.

As she opened it, looking in it for banknotes, he saw out of the corner of his eye a student card from a university an hour away from their town and pressed his lips together, thinking it was a perfect match. He scooped her order onto the till and glanced down at her − she reached his shoulder height.

"Anything else?" He asked indifferently and she shook her head, undeterred by his coolness she was still smiling.

Stupid bitch.

"No, thank you." She said calmly, and he told her the amount she had to pay. She placed in front of him exactly as much as he had said, and he walked over to the machine and busied himself filling her order.

"Did you come here on holiday?" He asked her, standing with his back to her. He felt her move uncomfortably, surprised by his question.

"In a way." She said lightly, but added nothing more. He handed her a cup and she took it from him − she looked him in the eye and thanked him, then sat down by the window, setting down her chocolate, pulling a laptop from her backpack.

He wandered between tables cleaning them and collecting orders from other guests, glancing at her screen out of the corner of his eye each time, wanting to find something that might give him a clue as to who she was, what she was doing.

He saw that she was constantly typing something in an open text document with quick, sure movements, clicking loudly on the keyboard, taking a sip of chocolate once in a while. When their gazes met she smiled slightly at him, but immediately went back to work again.

Despite his hopes that she would order something else, after half an hour she packed up and left, wiping her table with her handkerchief beforehand and bringing him her empty cup, throwing over her shoulder to wish him a good day.

He felt all tense and bit his lower lip, knowing exactly how he would spend the evening.

As soon as he entered his flat he opened the internet browser on his laptop and typed in the name of her university − it was a private institution of higher learning, so she either had to have an outstanding academic record or a great deal of money.

Another fucking nepotistic child, he thought with amusement and mockery.

He started browsing the university's website, her Facebook page and Instagram hoping to see her somewhere, but found nothing. The only thing he found out was that the university specialised in the humanities, psychology, history, literature.

That would explain why she wrote so much.

He felt impatience and frustration when she didn't come for days, unable to concentrate, thinking only of her. Standing outside the clubs, smoking a cigarette, he caught himself not observing what was going on around him at all, replaying for the hundredth time her visit to the café, her smile, her cordiality, the fact that she had cleaned up after herself so he wouldn't have to.

He knew it was all just a shell, underneath which there was only disgusting meat.

He couldn't hide the gleam in his eye, the grimace of satisfaction that ascended suddenly on his face and disappeared a moment later when he saw her again in the doorway of the café − this time she was wearing a summer blue dress, her hair tied up in a braid. She walked up to the counter and ordered the same hot chocolate again with a smile.

He felt he needed to start any light conversation.

"Wouldn't you prefer something cooler for such a hot day? We have freshly squeezed juices." He suggested, looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She cocked her head, curious, and hesitated, involuntarily pressing her lips together.

He looked at them, at their pink, fleshy, moist texture, at her slender, long neck, and swallowed loudly, feeling his trousers pulsing at the thought of tightening the noose on her.

"Do you also have orange juice?" She asked softly and he nodded.

"Of course." He replied lowly.

"In that case, I'll have the juice." She said, taking out her wallet again − this time his attention was caught by the small photos she had slipped into a translucent pocket, a picture of some boy, a dog and an older man.

He wondered if she had a boyfriend and furrowed his eyebrows as he pressed half an orange to the juice squeezer, recognising in his mind that this would complicate things a lot.

He set the glass in front of her and took the banknote she handed him.

"Thank you very much for your suggestion." She said lightly, with a wide, warm smile and satisfaction in her eyes. She moved ahead to the same table as before and took out her laptop again, starting to type something.

He circled around her for half an hour until he finally decided he couldn't stand it.

He walked over to her table with a cloth and spray, pretending he had to wipe the top, and she picked up her laptop, wanting to help him and make some space.

"Do you work even on holidays?" He asked her indifferently, and she blinked, surprised by his question. She grunted quietly, correcting herself in her seat.

"I have to publish academic articles if I want to keep my place at university. But I like doing it." She said, shrugging her shoulders, not even a trace of displeasure on her face. She put her laptop back on the table when he had finished, and he analysed quickly what she had said.

So it was a scholarship after all, she wasn't paying tuition fees.

"What are you writing about this time?" He asked feeling that this was his only chance, glancing at her nervously, wondering if he was crossing the line or being too persistent. She lifted her gaze to him and cocked her head.

"I'm writing an article on the prose of Edgar Allan Poe. Do you know him?" She asked lightly, and he involuntarily bit his lower lip at her question.

Prose in which men cut out their beloveds' entrails, collected their teeth, confessed poems over their cadaverous faces, professing infinite love for them, raging with desire, with despair, with the darkness that was tearing them apart.

Of course he fucking knew him.

"Yeah. It's a pretty dark choice." He admitted, looking at her, recognising with surprise that it didn't match either her clothes, her manner or her personality. She giggled at his words, placing her elbows on the tabletop, not taking her bright gaze off him.

"It is true, however, there is something captivating about him. His darkness is filled with pain, his inner struggle, as if he still lived in agony even when he loved, even when he seemed happy. Each of his poems, each of his stories, is a dark work of art that I could analyse endlessly. He is an inexhaustible source of inspiration for me." She finished her explanation and he stared at her with his lips pressed together, feeling the heat in his lower abdomen and the pulsing in his trousers at her words, thinking that he was about to throw himself at her like an animal.

She was perfect.

"Which of his stories do you like the most?" He asked finally, feeling with surprise that his voice trembled slightly, his heart pounding like mad.

He had the feeling that he was looking at her as if something possessed him.

She thought about his question, lifting her gaze upwards and hummed under her breath.

"Black Cat. This is his first story I've read. I couldn't get over it, had trouble sleeping afterwards. I promised myself I'd never go back to it again, but I couldn't stop thinking about it and ended up reading the whole book." She said with a smile and some kind of excitement.

"And yours?" She asked, continuing their exchange, and he felt a tightening in his throat at the thought that he had succeeded, that he had intrigued her.

"The Fall of the House of Usher." He whispered, thinking of the woman locked in the coffin alive, unable to get out, whose moans were heard by her own brother, but he chose not to help her, horrified by what he had done.

He thought that perhaps he too could lock her up like this, keep her to himself, only not underground, not in a coffin, but in his arms.

He shuddered when an impatient customer called out to him if he was going to serve her, and he gave her a furious look.

"Of course." He said lowly, walking up to her, asking what he could help with.

Usually if someone frustrated him so much, spoke to him in the way she did when she paid him, complaining about his tone of voice, the way he looked at her, he would find her and do to her what he did to everyone else.

However, now that he had met her, he didn't want to have to change his residence again and decided to hold back.

He saw with a squeeze in his heart that she had closed her laptop and started packing.

He didn't want her to leave.

She approached the counter and he felt a squeeze in his throat, his whole body tense.

"I'm very sorry this woman treated you this way. I worked as a waitress last year too and I know what a thankless job it is. Don't worry about it. See you later." She said lightly and waved at him. He led her away with his eyes, watching as she disappeared around the corner throwing him another happy smile.

From that moment on, he felt that he was completely crazy about her.

He stopped going under the clubs and stalking other women, decided he didn't need to waste his time with whores when he found her, his Berniece, Morella, Eleonora, his muse, his dark inspiration, his elusive lover, the object of his desire and desperate, hot affection, his obsession.

Never before in his life had he felt so wonderful; he felt as if his insides were filled with fire.

After what she had told him, he realised that she must have been studying fiction, and he searched for academic works published on the internet about Poe's poetry, hoping to come across her name by chance.

He was not mistaken.

He involuntarily licked his lower lip as he typed another name into the browser and her Facebook profile picture came up.

He bit his lip as he entered her profile, seeing that apart from basic information as he wasn't friends with her he couldn't see much else. However, he already knew that she was three years younger than him and that she was in fact studying fiction.

He went back to her article, starting to read curiously, wanting to see if she really was that good, if her words weren't just haughty, populist feminine gibberish.

The Black Cat is the story not of a madman who murdered his cat in an act of rage. It is the story of a progressive illness and trauma, a proceeding inner agony and schizophrenia that the main character is unable to cope with, his mind and his feelings measured against his animal aggression, his desire to vent his urges and frustrations purely physically. He begins to lose his memory, able to wake up suddenly in a different place, not knowing what he was doing a few days before, losing his grip on reality completely. It is very likely that the other cat he sees does not exist at all, is merely a figment of his imagination, his remorse, his progressive illness. The protagonist, falling into a spiral of his own madness, is unable to distinguish between his imagination and reality, terrified and filled with aggression like a feral animal he collapses into himself, eventually leading to tragedy, in his madness walling up his beloved wife. We observe a phenomenon of slow dehumanisation, the protagonist discarding piece by piece all sorts of brakes that on a daily basis stop us from sudden, brutal, cruel acts, leaving only pure reactions, filled with anger and frustration. Despite his actions, the reader, being inside the protagonist's head, involuntarily sympathises with him, understanding that he cannot control how his own mind, that he cannot stop the inevitable, that he is doomed to fall apart completely.

He swallowed loudly, feeling the dryness in his throat, stroking his chin with a nervous, anxious hand gesture, wondering why his heart was pounding so much, why he was so tense.

He thought he felt as if she had written about him, as if she had looked into the depths of his inner emptiness and described with tenderness and care what was happening to him.

He bit his thumb thinking that he felt understood, not judged, that there was warmth emanating from her text and what she wrote.

He thought with horror that he might have fallen in love with her.

He waited for her every day, taking more shifts at work than he had to, afraid that he wouldn't be there that day when she came again.

He felt a tickle in his fingers at the thought of seeing her again, of talking to her again, of looking at her soft, happy face.

When, a few days later, she walked into the café in a black top and shorts, he felt immediately what he saw in his trousers, ready to fuck her in his back room.

He thought he couldn't treat her that way − she hadn't done anything through which he should show her such disrespect, treat her so objectively.

She approached him with a light, pleased smile, her eyes shining. He thought, feeling heat in his chest, that she was glad to see him.

"Good morning. I'll have the same delicious juice as last time, please." She said in a soft, warm voice and he swallowed quietly, the corner of his mouth twitching in a smile, which didn't escape her notice.

"Coming right up, ma'am." He said softly, and she blinked, shifting from foot to foot, he had the impression she was blushing. She lowered her eyelids meekly, her eyes covered by a veil of her lashes, looking down at her hands.

He tried to focus on his task and prepared her juice, handing it to her and she gave him a banknote.

"Further article writing today?" He asked her in a calm, light tone and she nodded.

"Yes. Would you like to read it? I like to hear other people's opinions, maybe give me some advice, or hint at your observations." She said softly, no undertone or attempt at flirtation could be heard in her tone of voice.

This turned him on even more.

"I would love to. Unfortunately, working here, I won't have as much time to sit down and read everything at once." He said uncertainly and she waved her hand, smiling broadly.

"I don't mean to disturb you while you're working. Give me your email if you want, I'll send you my file." She said with a smile and he nodded, pulling a piece of paper from a drawer and quickly writing down his address, feeling his hands tremble.

He couldn't find the words with what excitement he was waiting to hear from her.

He paced around his flat taking deep sips of coffee, feeling the adrenaline coursing through his veins, his heart pounding like crazy.

He refreshed his messages once in a while, and when he finally saw a message from her he sat down rapidly at his laptop, opening it quickly.

Hi, thank you very much for deciding to devote your free time to me and reading what I have written. Feel free to write me what you think, perhaps you have some comments or suggestions. I am sending a PDF of the article as an attachment. Greetings!

He swallowed loudly, immediately opened the document she had sent him and began to read − this time she was dwelling on Poe's love literature and he felt hot at the thought.

She wrote about how he describes women in his prose, seeing them as phantoms, statues, demigoddesses, elusive to him, being his constant object of boundless adoration bordering on madness.

He agreed with everything she wrote, but one thing caught his attention. He thought for a long time how to put his thoughts into words so as not to scare her away.

Hi, you've done a wonderful job, I'm very impressed. It's great to read what you write and I agree with almost everything you've written. However, I am puzzled by the wording you used when you question the sincerity of his feelings, assuming that what the protagonist felt towards his women was not in fact love, but only an obsession for an unmatched ideal, that he did not see human form in her. I disagree with this statement looking at the fact that when she ceased to be this ideal, when she died his interest in her did not diminish, his feelings did not fade and his despair only widened. I think his obsession stemmed from his emotionality, from loving her too much, from not being able to draw a line, sinking into his feeling instead of taming it. I hope you don't find what I've written upsetting and don't take it as criticism. Once again, very well done. Greetings.

He sent it at last and stood up, walking around his living room as if in a trance, on the one hand filled with euphoria that he had had contact with her, that he had been able to talk to her, on the other terrified by what he had written, that he had evinced in those words a hint of who he himself was, that he had shown her too much.

He started to feel anxious when he didn't get any reply for half an hour and literally threw himself at his laptop when suddenly an unread message from her appeared glowing white in his inbox.

He clicked on it quickly and began to read, licking his lips.

Your observation is quite interesting and I partially agree with your statement. I think it is true that a feeling on the part of the protagonist cannot be ruled out, as his inner dilemmas often concern matters of beauty, his remarks on the smallest details of their appearance or behaviour that rejoice him every day. Indeed, perhaps my assessment was too harsh. What I mean is that I believe − but this is my subjective opinion − that when it comes to true love, even when it is wrapped in obsession, the safety of the beloved should be the overriding thought, the priority, and yet sometimes the protagonist chooses his desire, his psychosis at the expense of the object of his adoration, who, after all, he supposedly loved. If I were to be loved I would want to be able to feel safe and not wonder every night if my beloved would clamp his hands around my neck and strangle me whispering that he loves me.

He felt a shudder seeing her last sentence, reading what she had written again and again, feeling the heat in his chest, his heart pounding like crazy, feeling the tension in his trousers, his cock pulsing hard.

If I were to be loved I would want to be able to feel safe and not wonder every night if my beloved would clamp his hands around my neck and strangle me whispering that he loves me.

He thought that he would never hurt her.

That he would make her feel safe, kissing every inch of her beautiful, soft body with adoration every day, enclosing her in the embrace of his arms, protecting her from the darkness of the whole world, including his own.

He didn't know what he should answer − what she had written seemed so private, intimate, his hands hovered over the keyboard in uncertainty.

If he could he would find her, go to her and not fuck her, but make love to her all night.

He would have cuddled her close and whispered reassuringly to her with each deep, peaceful thrust of his hips, stroking her soft, warm skin, sinking his hands into her hair, drawing in her scent with his nose.

He quickly unbuckled his belt from his trousers and unzipped them, put his hand under the material of his boxers, grasping his throbbing, hard manhood, the tip of which was already leaking his wetness.

He began to jerk himself off with quick aggressive strokes, panting hard, closing his eyes, thinking about what he would do to her, how tender he would be, how much he wanted to be affectionate, for her, just for her.

He came with a low, helpless moan, panting loudly, resting his forehead against the top of the desk he was sitting at and swallowed loudly, concluding that he had never felt anything like this before in his life.

He took a quick shower afterwards, thinking hard about his answer. He sat down in front of his laptop in only his trousers, his hair still wet, opening the window beforehand and lighting a cigarette, taking a drag thoughtfully, then began to write.

In this case, too, I have to agree with you. You don't really love someone if you can't protect them from themselves. The protagonists fight each other and fail, but does that mean that they didn't really love, or however, is it simply madness that prevails, the fear that fate will take their beloved away from them, so in order not to feel that fear anymore, they end their life first? Whatever it is, they are driven by despair.

He finally wrote and sent the message, letting the smoke out loudly with his mouth, shaking the ash from his cigarette into the ashtray standing by his computer. He received a reply from her after about fifteen minutes and managed to make himself a cup of tea in the meantime.

I think that's the key word in understanding their dilemma. Despair. Their beauty, their wonderfulness frightens them, they can't bear how much they love them. They are despairing that while their affection may be eternal, their bodies are not so, cruelly destroyed by time, that every second brings them closer to their death. This realisation seems unbearable to them. I will amend this paragraph and expand on what we have been talking about. Thank you very much. Will you be at work tomorrow?

He blinked, reading the last sentence, tightening his lips, writing back quickly.

You're welcome, it's been a pleasure. Yes, I will.

She wrote him back after a moment.

In that case, I'm glad. See you tomorrow!

According to what she wrote she came the next day. This time it was he who smiled at her first, and she reciprocated the gesture, walking up to the counter with a light step.

"The article has been sent. Thanks to you I think it's perfect. If you don't mind, I would like to invite you to a temporary exhibition at the museum as a token of my gratitude. It concerns neo-Gothic illustrations for horror novels, including Poe's, and I thought it might interest you." She said, lowering her gaze with a kind of embarrassment, playing with her fingers, and he felt a shiver go through him, his legs suddenly as soft as cotton wool.

Was she asking him out?

He swallowed loudly at the thought feeling like his heart would rip out of his chest.

"When?" He asked absentmindedly, glancing down at the glass he had just poured her juice into, his hands trembling. He saw that she lifted her gaze to him, hearing with hope that he hadn't declined her offer.

"And when do you have the day off?" She asked softly − he could see from the corner of his eye that she was smiling, embarrassed and happy at the same time. He felt a squeeze in his stomach at the thought and a heat in his lower abdomen.

"Tomorrow."

Women often invited him to meetings and he came to them with relish, braiding them into his web, but this time he was terrified and flustered inwardly, outwardly maintaining his icy mask.

He combed his fair hair back, put a black turtleneck, black trousers and a watch, and decided he looked good enough − elegant but at the same time not pompous.

When he arrived at the agreed place she was already waiting for him in front of the entrance, waving at him − she was wearing a light summer strapless dress, a small rucksack on her back, part of her hair braided at the back of her head.

She ran up to him with a smile and they stood in front of each other, unsure of how to greet.

"Hi. Here, this one is for you." She said, handing him his ticket without suggesting a hug or a handshake.

Her approach was very open, but physically she kept her distance.

The fact that he couldn't touch her was driving him crazy.

They both entered a beautiful neo-baroque building that must once have been a small noble residence and followed the signs. They stepped across the creaky wooden floor into a black room lit only by spotlights set on each of the works on exhibiton.

For the most part, they were etchings and lithographs with depictions of agony, death, loving embraces, figures full of anxiety, ghosts, symbolic scenes, executed with great precision and care. They both bent over each work, looking at it carefully, not rushing anywhere, wanting to analyse exactly what they were seeing.

"Amazing how artists can capture the spirit of prose, isn't it? Looking at it I immediately feel what the author wrote about, the same anxiety even though I don't have the text in front of me." She said quietly with some kind of admiration.

He listened to her but had trouble concentrating, smelling the pleasant scent of her girlish, floral perfume.

"Mmm." He hummed under his breath and nodded in agreement, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye. He saw that she was looking at him too and they both turned away, embarrassed.

He couldn't help himself − his hand involuntarily burshed hers as they moved on to the next piece of work − he felt her flinch, but she didn't move away.

He heard her quietly draw in air as his fingers tentatively intertwined with hers, he felt like his heart was going to jump out of his chest. He pressed his lips together as he felt her fingers spread, allowing him to grab hold and they watched further.

He didn't let go of her hand then or when they left the building, talking about what they'd seen, pretending that nothing had happened between them, that it was a simple friendly gesture.

He saw that her face was all flushed, her gaze lowered, a gentle, warm smile of happiness on her face. He felt a squeeze in his heart at the sight, at the thought that he was not repelling her, that she was not disgusted by him.

He walked her to the tenement where she rented a room and immediately memorised the number, knowing in the back of his mind that he would surely be passing this way often over the next few weeks. They looked at each other and he wondered if she would want him to kiss her, to go inside.

He wanted it and didn't want it at the same time.

"I hope you had a nice time. Thank you for everything." She said softly looking at him at last, her eyes big and filled with something that made him hot, their fingers still entwined in a light, non-committal embrace.

"Very nice." He murmured, looking down at her thoughtfully, at her soft, pleasant face, at her pink lips and red cheeks. She swallowed loudly and let go of his hand, embarrassed.

"Goodnight." She whispered and opened the wicket, closing it behind her.

"Goodnight." He replied and led her away with his eyes, watching as she opened the door and disappeared behind it. He stood and waited to see where the light would turn on, and after a moment the warm glow of the night light illuminated a room on the second floor of the house.

From that day onwards, she spent long hours every day in his café, not knowing that every evening he arranged to walk around her townhouse, watching her window from afar, sometimes seeing her silhouette as she walked from place to place, or as she opened the window to let in some cool, fresh air.

Since he met her he has not killed anyone.

Since he met her he had felt no need to kill anyone.

She filled his every thought, his every breath, the vision of her and her face brought him sweet relief, the touch of her hands, their entwined fingers kept him awake.

He felt that they had formed a bond, that she reciprocated his affect − he could see it in her gaze, in the way she smiled at him as she crossed the café door and spotted him behind the counter.

One day, he couldn't stand it and such a direct proposal came out of his mouth that he felt embarrassed for himself.

"I need to spend an evening with you or I'll go crazy." He said standing over her table and she looked at him surprised, her cheeks lit up with a hot blush.

She lowered her gaze, knowing exactly what he wanted, what he was implying, and swallowed loudly while he looked at her helplessly thinking only of the fact that he was an impatient idiot.

"I need that too." She confessed and he tightened his lips at the words.

That same evening he found himself at her door.

When she opened it for him he clung to her lips as if starved, enclosing her cheeks in the tender embrace of his hands. He pulled away pressing his forehead to hers, her gaze at once fearful and thirsty, warm and dreamy, her lips twitching slightly in uncertainty.

"− I know −" He whispered, kissing her again, capturing her lower lip between his own, releasing it with a loud click, her fingertips running through his hair. "− I know − I won't hurt you − God, I would never hurt you −"

He was delighted by her sweet, innocent sounds as he placed slow, tender kisses on her neck, her shoulders, as he laid her down on her bed, running his fingers over her body, taking his time, letting her calm down, letting her feel that he would not take her by force, that he would wait as long as she needed.

"− it's okay − it's okay −" He whispered soothingly, running his hot lips, swollen with desire, over her soft skin, laying between her thighs, letting her feel how hard he was, how much he needed her.

"− oh −" Rippled out of her mouth when she felt it, and he chuckled under his breath, delighted by her reaction. He raised himself up on his elbows and looked at her face, running the tip of his nose over hers.

"Will you let me kiss you down there?" He cooed, lowering his hand to her bare thigh, running his fingertips over it, feeling goosebumps forming where he touched her. She nodded, and he hummed before kissing her again.

They undressed slowly, unhurriedly − as he lowered the straps of her dress and exposed one of her breasts he began to place tender, light, butterfly kisses on her skin, barely brushing her with his breath, feeling her breathing fast, her lips parted in delight.

She helped him pull off his black t-shirt and his trousers, and after a moment they were both wonderfully naked, like Adam and Eve in paradise before they picked the forbidden fruit.

He looked at her adoringly and kissed her deeply, passionately − she reciprocated his gesture, weaving her delicate hands into his hair, drawing him close, his chest pressed against her breasts.

He began to slide his lips down her sternum, to her navel all the way down, leaving a moist, sticky trail of his saliva, feeling her writhing beneath him with arousal.

With a gentle, slow movement, he spread her thighs in front of him and noticed her glowing, sticky folds from with her moisture dripping onto the sheets beneath them.

He didn't hesitate for a moment − with a groan of pleasure he pressed his lips to her heat, running his nose over her puffy clit, his tongue slipped tentatively between her fleshy walss and tasted in a circular motion what was between them. Her wetness and her taste spilled over his palate, her whole body trembled, her hand tightened on his hair, a shy cry came from her throat.

"− shhh −" He hushed her tenderly, sinking deeper into her hot flesh, his tongue with sure, intense flicks began to invade between her slick folds, licking and rubbing her upper wall just at her entrance, feeling her hidden, spongy spot from which her thighs trembled in his hands.

"− please −" She mumbled, but he shushed her again, knowing exactly what she needed, how he should caress her.

He'd been thinking about this for weeks.

He let her come on his face, felt her body lean back with a loud, pleading whine, trying to push him away − a purr of satisfaction escaped his throat when he felt how much of her moisture flowed out of her and he licked it all off with devotion, teasing her over-stimulated, throbbing walls.

"− such a good girl − you did so well −" He praised her with admiration and heard her sigh of pleasure. He kissed the inside of her thigh rising up, wiping his face, placing his hands on either side of her head.

"− I need to feel you − alright? − I will take it slow −" He breathed out and she nodded, allowing him to grasp her hips in his hands and entwine her legs around his waist.

When he guided the fat head of his cock against her opening she moaned helplessly, trying to fit it in. He kissed her tenderly, pushing against her, stretching her throbbing wet walls with himself.

"− that's it − ah − I know, baby − I know −" He muttered, hearing her moan of effort, trying hard to take in what he was sliding into her, pushing her insides to their limits − her body tensed like a string, one of his hands on her hip, the other holding her cheek, his forehead pressed against hers, her hands entwined around his neck.

They both sighed loudly when he finally filled her fully, feeling her core clench hungrily against him on all sides. He slipped his tongue between her lips as he slid out of her slowly, only to fill her to the brim again with the buck of his hips, their hands clenched tightly on their hot, naked bodies.

"− yes −" She gasped and he groaned into her mouth, feeling his cock pulsate inside her hungrily at her words, his thrusts faster but still calm, deep, his thighs slapping against her buttocks with a sticky slaps.

"− just like that − oh, baby −" He groaned loudly losing control, slamming into her faster and more aggressively, her head tilted back, her eyes clenched shut, her mouth wide open trying to catch air loudly, her breasts bouncing up and down with each of his thrusts.

He felt her hands tighten on his hips, her body reaching out and literally impaling herself on him, her walls clenching against him driving him crazy.

"− yes − please −" She sobbed pleadingly, as if she was going to cry, as if she was going to die if she didn't experience fulfilment with him.

He slipped his tongue between her lips, their kisses sticky, greedy, the tips of their tongues teasing and licking as his cock pounded into her brutally with every sure, deep thrust of his hips.

"− fuck − m' close −" He uttered, and she stroked his hair, reciprocating his kisses with tenderness and devotion, clamping her hand on his buttock, directing him deep inside her, as if that was where he belonged, as if the fact that he was taking her would be the most natural thing in the world.

"− yes − please − inside me −" She mewled, and he growled loudly at her words, letting go at last and coming inside her so hard that for a moment he went dark before his eyes. Their bodies were still moving towards each other in involuntary motions when his warm cum spilled into her hot core, giving him a feeling of fulfilment and peace.

He opened his eyes with difficulty and looked at her face, finding to his surprise that she was still alive, that he had not strangled her, her breasts rising and falling in accelerated breaths, her gaze warm and hot, her lips trembling slightly. She lifted her hand and touched his scarred cheek, running her fingers over it.

"− you are so beautiful −" She whispered, and he felt a tightness in his throat at her words, unable to get the phrase out, enchanted by the sight of her, so he merely breathed loudly, letting himself be touched by her.

He couldn't find the right term, the right confession to describe what he felt for her.

He kissed her all night, finally feeling accepted, beautiful, loved, her tender hands stroking his hair, his cheeks, his body all night, praising him, telling him how good he was, how tender he was.

He whispered to her that she was beautiful, that she was his Eleonora, Ophelia, Helena, that he would never hurt her, that she would always be safe with him.

When he returned the next day to his flat, he packed his knives, his fishing lines, his photographs, his mementos of the murders into a big box and drove for hours, finally turning into the woods.

He poured everything he had into a big hole − dozens of blank white eyes, photos of women, their documents, phones − and doused it all with petrol, then threw a light inside and watched his past burn.

Finally, he buried it all back, covering it with mulch and moss and drove back the way he came, promising himself that he was done with it, that he would change for her.

That he would protect her.

From the world.

From himself.

_____

Next chapter: Rip my heart, heal my soul (2)

#aemond fic #aemond fanfiction #aemond targaryen #aemond x oc #hotd aemond #aemond x fem!reader #ewan mitchell #ewan mitchell fanfic #dark aemond smut #dark aemond #dark aemond targaryen #modern aemond angst #dark modern aemond #modern aemond smut #modern aemond #hotd smut #aemond smut #aemond targaryen smut #ewan mitchell smut #aemond targeryen angst #aemond targaryen angst #aemond angst #hotd angst #aemond fanfic #hotd fanfiction #hotd fanfic #aemond kinslayer #prince aemond #aemond #aemond one eye

[writing-intheundercroft]

The Perfect Gift - O. Gaunt

Pairing: Ominis Gaunt x F!MC

Word Count: 4,129

Rating: T

Summary: Ominis overhears the girls talking about some singer, and decides to write MC a song for Christmas. Sebastian can't help but be his wingman.

A/N: @darch7995 sent me a song and I had to write something fluffy and happy for Ominis! Listen to the audio HERE. Merry Christmas!

Ominis Gaunt was rarely stopped in his tracks, but once he’d heard the low warbling coming from the gramophone, he halted, holding his hands to his ears. He hated the insinuation that his blindness enhanced his other senses, but he did have impeccable hearing, and the song emitting from the sun room next to the Charms classroom had his ears ringing.

“Isn’t he just so dreamy?” Poppy sighed.

“Clarence Warbeck is my favorite singer of all time.” Leonora Everleigh declared. “I would listen to him all day if I could.”

Ominis rolled his milky blue eyes, ready to walk into the warm, sunlit room to say something snarky, until he heard her voice.

“I think he’s quite the romantic,” she said. His dear friend had a lilt in her voice towards the end of her sentence, as if she hadn’t finished her thought.  

“You mean easy on the eyes?” Leonora teased.

She let out a laugh that had Ominis shivering, stumbling behind the column to avoid them seeing him. 

“I just think music is quite lovely.” she mused. “And a song?  I think that’s the sweetest gift a person could ever give.”

Ominis bit his bottom lip as he blushed.  That was valuable information, he thought, especially with the holidays approaching.  The wheels started spinning in his mind as he imagined a song, especially one about her–

“Oh, hi Ominis!”

He blinked, turning towards the voice.  His friend had seen him, and now he had nowhere to hide.

“Hello, ladies.” Ominis said smoothly.

“Come to take a nap in the light?” Poppy said kindly.  He blushed again; clearly his napping habits were quite public knowledge at this point.  

“Come over,” his friend beckoned him closer. “We can sit on the cushions, if you’d like.”

“If you insist,” he stuttered.

Ominis awkwardly scampered over to the sound of her voice, settling down on the various plush cushions that were set on the floor.  He felt her sit down next to him, tucking her feet under herself as he splayed out on the floor.  One of the many cats that lived in the DADA tower slid against the two of them, purring.

“Comfortable?” she asked softly, the sound of the music dulled by her voice.

“Very,” Ominis hummed.  He settled onto the cushions, his head falling into her lap.  She continued her conversation with the girls as he drifted into a light sleep, the crooning of Clarence Warbeck filling the background noise.

Ominis and Sebastian sat at the Slytherin table in the great hall; with the holidays quickly approaching, most students were busy packing their trunks for the journey home. The Hogwarts Express was departing Hogsmeade station for the holidays the next morning, but per usual, Ominis and Sebastian were spending the holiday at the castle. As Professor Ronen decorated the Christmas tree, the boys sat at the table, loitering before dinner.

“And honestly, I took that quite personally.  So I don’t think I should have gotten a detention for setting Leander on fire, he was the one who was in my way…Ominis, are you paying any attention to me?” Sebastian asked, eyebrows quirked. 

Ominis rolled his unseeing eyes, waving off his best friend. “Yes, yes, something about nearly giving Leander Prewett third degree burns because he looked at you funny in potions again.” he said lazily, waving his wand again.  His eyebrows were furrowed as he waved his wand again.  His dictation quill scratched out a few words on the parchment in front of him.

“What are you doing?” Sebastian asked, narrowing his eyes at the many pages in front of his friend.

“Nothing,” Ominis said hastily, snatching his pages together before Sebastian could get his grubby hands on them. 

“Why so secretive?” Sebastian asked, clearly intrigued by the change in Ominis’s attitude.

“It’s none of your business,” Ominis sniffed. “Back off.”

From the blond’s biting tone, Sebastian knew it was in his best interests not to press.  However, his best interests were rarely ever actually on his mind.  Lurching forward, Sebastian snatched a piece of parchment from Ominis’s hands, taking glee in how the blond panicked.

“Each year I ask for many different things–”

“Sebastian stop,” Ominis panted. “It’s not funny.”

“But now I know what my heart–”

“Sebastian!” Ominis screeched, nearly ripping the parchment from his best friend’s hands. “Stop it, I’m begging you.”

“What in Merlin’s name are you writing?” Sebastian laughed, watching as his normally impenetrable friend reddened, pushing the wrinkled parchment into his bookbag. “Is that a poem?”

Ominis’s face was bright red. “It’s a song, if you want to know so bad.” he scowled.

Sebastian’s face softened. “I didn’t know you were back at the old piano again.”

It wasn’t common knowledge that Ominis was an accomplished pianist.  Mrs. Gaunt had insisted every child in the Gaunt family mastered an instrument, and he’d spent most of his childhood dreading piano lessons. Despite his initial disdain, Ominis had taken quite well to the instrument, and it became a hobby. Once he was at Hogwarts, he’d slip into the music room every now and then, practicing his rusty skills whenever he was under duress.

“It’s for a gift,” Ominis mumbled. 

“Pardon?” Sebastian asked, now grinning.  He had an idea of Ominis’s motivation, but wanted to hear the words from the boy himself.

“It is a Christmas gift,” Ominis hissed. “For her.  Are you happy, Sebastian?”

“Blissful.” Sebastian leaned into the table, tucking his chin in hand. “This is rich–you’re writing a song for a girl.” he crooned. “How sweet, Omi.  What gave you the idea?”

Ominis gave him a rude hand gesture, sparking laughter from the brunette. “I overheard her talking with Poppy and Leonora about that singer–Clarence Warbeck–and how they loved his songs.”

“Right, the prat who sings all those cheesy love songs the girls are obsessed with.” Sebastian noted. “Isn’t he doing a show in London over the holiday break?”

Ominis gave him a dry look. “Precisely.  His lyrics are…uninspired, to say the least.  And I was already thinking of what to give her for the holidays–you know she’s impossible to shop for.  The girl has every piece of clothing known to mankind, every potion, book, broom at her disposal.  I thought to myself, she deserves a song. You know, something actually personalized to her.” he said sheepishly.

“Well, I think it’s very kindhearted of you.” Sebastian said smugly. “Are you admitting it then?”

“Admitting what?” Ominis feigned indifference.

“Your crush on her.”

“Could you be any louder, Sebastian?” Ominis hissed. His hands flew to his temples as his best friend chortled next to him. “I just–”

“Just writing her a lovely, romantic song for the holidays.” Sebastian snorted. “Oh come on, I’m just teasing you.  I think it’s great; you never play the piano, so it must mean something special.”

Ominis felt his face flush; despite his disdain for Sebastian in the moment, his best friend was right.  Ominis had minimal experience with the fairer sex.  The concept of romance was lost on the Gaunts, choosing to pair their children in arranged matches to bring honor to the bloodline.  He’d never even imagined the idea of dating someone until she’d arrived at Hogwarts. Their friendship had gotten off to a rocky start, thanks to the freckled heathen sitting next to him, but the events of their fifth year had only drawn them closer to one another.  What had started as an admiration for her bravery turned into a funny twist in his stomach whenever he heard her laughing.  As of late, it had gotten so unbearable, Ominis had turned into a blushing mess whenever she sat next to him in class.  

“Speak of the devil–she’s coming in.” Sebastian murmured. “Hide your sheets, then.”

Ominis heard her footsteps draw closer and closer as he hurriedly shoved his parchment back into his school bag.  

“Hello you two,” she said sweetly, standing next to them.  Ominis could smell her perfume wafting towards him, still smelling like the sweet scent of strawberries in the dead of winter. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” both boys said in unison.

Despite his blindness, Ominis could almost sense the arch of her brow. “Alright, weirdos.”  she chuckled. “I have good and bad news.”

“Do tell,” Sebastian said.

“Good news, Leonora’s mother surprised us with tickets to Clarence Warbeck’s show in London!” she said gleefully.  “I was going to stay in the castle for the holidays, but Leonora’s parents decided to surprise her early so she could bring friends, and she invited me to join!”

“O-oh.” Ominis said, feeling his heart crack in half. “So you’ll be gone, then?”

“Yes, well that’s the bad news, you see. I know it’s such late notice, but I hope the two of you won’t be cross with me,” she said wistfully. “It’s just such a good opportunity, and I’ve never been to a real show before–”

“Of course we’re not mad,” Ominis interjected. “If it makes you happy, we’ll be happy for you.”

“Oh, I’m so glad you understand,” she sighed in relief. “I am going to miss you over the holidays, I hope you know that.”

Ominis pursed his lips. “Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”

“Speak for yourself,” Sebastian chuckled. “I’m positively bereft you’re leaving us.”

Despite his inner turmoil, Ominis knew she was excited for the opportunity to visit London.  It was silly of him to write the song, he thought; he was no great wordsmith, nor half the performer that Clarence Warbeck was.  He felt a pit of jealousy in his stomach as he pictured her singing and cheering for him in a crowd, waiting for his autograph at the side door to the theater–

He was broken out of his thoughts at the feeling of her kissing his cheek.  

“Don’t miss me too much, Ominis.” she said kindly. 

“I’ll be counting down the days until you’re back,” he said softly. Realizing just how lovesick he sounded, he quickly covered with a cough. “Can’t forgive you for leaving me with this one,” he elbowed Sebastian, who yelped in return.

She gave a sparkling laugh, which brought warmth to his cheeks once more. “I’ll try to see you before I leave tomorrow.” she promised, her voice getting further and further away as he heard her walk towards the door. 

The boys were silent until they heard the door properly shut.

“Lots of talk, use of the word we,” Sebastian noted. “When you’re the one supposedly preparing a love song for her.”

“Shove off,” Ominis mumbled. “I knew it was a stupid idea.”

“Don’t say that,” Sebastian assured him. “You can give it to her when she’s back.”

Ominis knew he was right, but he was rather hoping to give her his song over the holidays.  He’d already spent so much time planning his confession, and her leaving for the holiday was a major setback.  Ominis wasn’t sure he could muster up the confidence to play his music for her again, let alone with a castle full of other students who might walk in on them.

“Whatever,” Ominis sighed. 

It had been a few days since the train had departed for London, taking her to London and far, far away from Hogwarts for the holidays.  Ominis had since retreated to the music room nearly every night, wishing to be alone. It was late, and Ominis was seated at the piano again.  His long, lithe fingers softly danced across the keys, playing the tune he’d written for her song.  Under his breath, he mumbled the lyrics; deep down, he didn’t really want to be alone, but she had been the only company he’d desired. He imagined her, standing at the Clarence Warbeck show, swaying to the lame lyrics with her girlfriends, and it made his piano strokes a bit heavier and angrier than he’d wanted them to be.

He was so lost in thought, he hardly noticed the sound of skittering feet approaching the music room.  It wasn’t until the door burst open that he stumbled over the keys, lifting his wand to identify the intruder.

“Sebastian?  What in Merlin’s name are you doing?” Ominis barked.

“She’s–Ominis, they–show got canceled–she’s here,” Sebastian rambled, panting for air.

“What are you even talking about?”

Sebastian took a big gulp of air. “The Clarence Warbeck show got canceled,” he breathed. “She caught the train back to Hogsmeade instead.”

Ominis blinked at his best friend. “She’s here?” he said, voice strained.

“Do you have your song written?” Sebastian demanded.

“Er, yes–I was just finishing the melody.” Ominis admitted.

“That settles it–you have a song to deliver then, Ominis.” Sebastian said proudly. “I can grab her, if you like–”

“Are you insane?” Ominis gaped. “It’s not–I’m not ready!” he panicked. 

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “There’s a piano, you have your lyrics, what aren’t you ready for?” he asked.

Ominis began wringing his hands. “But it has to be romantic,” he wheezed. “And this isn’t romantic at all.  For Merlin’s sake, I’m wearing pajamas!”

Sebastian was quiet for a few moments; Ominis could tell the cogs were moving in his best friend’s head. The brunette snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it!” he said gleefully. “The perfect idea.”  He could hear Sebastian’s boots scuffling around him, muttering under his breath.

“What are you doing?” Ominis asked curiously.

“Candles.” Sebastian said simply, muttering a conjuration charm. “You’ll need a lot of candles, girls love them.”

“I’m not even going to ask how you know that,” Ominis scowled, standing up and raising his wand.  He could sense Sebastian conjuring dozens candles, setting them around the piano. 

“And you–you should change into something a little nicer.” Sebastian tutted. “Not that your pajamas aren’t cute and all, but you’ll want to look your best.”

“I know that,” Ominis rolled his eyes.  However, he couldn’t contain the flutter of excitement in his stomach. “Are you suggesting I change now?”

“Run down to the dungeons, I’ll take care of the room.” Sebastian assured him. “Ambiance, by Sebastian Sallow.” he joked.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Ominis said earnestly.

“Get fewer girls, that’s for sure.” The brunette snorted.

“Don’t start.” Ominis warned him, backing up towards the door.

“Is that any way to treat your personal elf?” He didn’t need sight to know there was a smug grin stretched across Sebastian’s face. “Go on, get prettied up.  I’ll be here, getting everything prepared.”

“I know you can’t see yourself, but you look quite dashing.” Sebastian hummed.  He adjusted Ominis’s tie, the blonde slapping his hands away in return.  “Don’t be nervous.”

“I’m not nervous,” Ominis lied.  “What’s to be nervous about?”

“I dunno–the fact that it’s nearly midnight and you’re about to host your first solo concert to the girl you’re in love with.” Sebastian hummed. “I know I had some mistletoe around here somewhere…”

“Hello?” A feminine voice called out. “Is anyone there?”

Ominis slapped Sebastian’s arm. “She’s here!” He hissed. “Get out!”

Sebastian yelped in response; Ominis straightened his waistcoat as he heard his best friend stumble across the music room, his boots clacking against the stairs.  

“Ominis, are you in there?” Her voice sounded nearer, about to turn the corner into the room.

He gulped, twirling his wand rather anxiously at his side. “I am,” he choked out.  “Do come in.”

He could hear her delicate footsteps as she walked into the music room; first quickly, and then stopping in her tracks.  It felt like eons before her feet picked up again, taking slow deliberate steps towards him in the corner, next to the piano.

“Sebastian sent me an owl, saying it was rather time-sensitive.” she said hesitantly. “That it was an emergency.”

“That twat,” Ominis grumbled. “It’s not an emergency, per say, but I did want you to meet me here.”

“So no one is dying, gravely wounded, or in need of protection?”

“Did he say that was the issue?” Ominis choked.

She snorted. “Rather implied it was a life or death matter.”

Ominis scolded Sebastian in his head, rolling his eyes.  He’d have to set him straight later on.

“I wanted to ask you to come meet me here,” Ominis chewed on his lower lip. “Because I knew you were quite disappointed when the Clarence Warbeck show was canceled.”

“Oh, right.” she said quickly. “Yeah, Leonora was a bit upset over it, and I didn’t really have any other reason to be in London, so I caught the train home.”

“Well, with that being the case, I thought this was a good time to give you your Christmas present.” Ominis swallowed thickly. 

“Omi, I thought we weren’t doing presents,” she said, her voice slightly panicked. “I haven’t gotten you anything–”

“This,” Ominis interjected, pointing his wand towards the piano. “This is the present.”

She paused, clearly confused. “The piano?  The one that’s always here in the music room? I mean, thanks Ominis, but I doubt we can steal the school piano–”

“No,” Ominis groaned. He tugged her hand towards the bench, gesturing for her to sit next to him. “This is the present. Me–er, rather, a song for you.”

There was a pregnant pause as she slowly slid into the bench next to him.  Her shoulder bumped into his, and he could feel the ends of her braid tickling his skin.  They’d never sat so closely before–not under the pretense of anything other than a friendly afternoon nap in the corridor. 

“You wrote a song for me?” she asked, her voice suddenly small and subdued. “Ominis, I didn’t even know that you could play the piano.”

Ominis set his wand down on the piano’s ledge with shaky hands. “I did–I do play the piano.  I learned when I was younger,” he admitted, his fingers finding the ivory keys. “I’m actually quite good, if I do say so myself.  Sebastian tells me I am too.”

“You’ve played for Sebastian, but not me?” she scoffed, a playful tone returning to her voice. 

Ominis began playing the tune he’d written, the one he’d memorized in a matter of days just for her. “I only share this with people I love,” he said softly.  Realizing what he’d just said, he coughed quickly to cover his blunder. “Like my friends.  Anne, Sebastian, and now you.”

She rested her chin on Ominis’s shoulder. “Well, go on then.  Let me hear it.”

“And you won’t make fun of me if I’m a lousy singer?” Ominis asked, feeling the back of his neck heating up.

“I would never,” she reassured him.

Ominis began singing; he could hear her breath catch as his voice echoed in the room.  The words tumbled out of his mouth as his fingers danced across the keys.  Despite not having his wand in hand, he started to feel more confident as his tune went on, his voice only cracking slightly when he felt her soft hand on his leg.  

So just please fall in love with me, this Christmas

There’s nothing else that I would need, this Christmas

Won’t be wrapped under a tree, I wish that this would last forever,

So kiss me on this cold December night;

They call it the season of giving; I’m here, yours for the taking

I’m here, I’m yours

The notes trailed off, Ominis’s fingers lifting from the keys.  He wasn’t sure what to do with his hands; in his nervousness, he clenched his fists in his lap.

“I tried to copy Warbeck’s style,” he gulped. “Since you like him so much.  I overheard you talking with the girls last week, that you thought a song was the sweetest gift a person could give.”

“You listened to me,” she murmured.

Ominis squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to articulate his feelings. “I…I’m always listening to you.  I want to make you happy.” he wrung his hands together.

“Ominis, this is…the song…” she trailed off.

“Do you hate it?” he asked nervously. 

She threw her arms around him; he yelped as she squeezed him tight.

“How could one hate a song so beautiful? This is my favorite Christmas gift I’ve ever received, the most perfect gift.” she gasped. “No one has ever written me a song before.”

Ominis sighed in relief, blushing as he found the courage to wrap his arms around her waist, hugging her in return. “I’m glad you liked it.” he murmured into her shoulder.

She pulled away, pressing her small, warm hands against his cheeks. “Liked it?  Ominis, I loved it!” she exclaimed.  “I never knew you had such talent.  You need to play more often for me.”

Ominis smiled as he pressed her forehead against hers. “Well, now that you know, I’d be happy to play for you whenever you’d like.”

Her warm hands left his cheeks, falling to hold his hands.  There was a brief pause; he could tell she was chewing on her lower lip.

“The lyrics,” she murmured. “You…you mean them, right?  They’re not just lyrics?”

Ominis took in a sharp breath as her fingers entwined with his. “Well, Mr. Warbeck is quite forward with his feelings in all of his songs, so I thought I should do the same.” he whispered. “I wanted it to be romantic, and all I could think of wanting this Christmas was you.” he confessed.

“I thought so,” she mused. “So you would like me to kiss you?”

Ominis blinked rapidly, his cheeks burning hot. “Only if–” he started to say, quickly cut off by her lips pressing against his. 

She smiled against his lips, and Ominis melted into her touch.  His hands cradled her face while she held onto his forearms, keeping him close.  He whined softly as she pulled away, pressing a quick kiss to the tip of his nose. 

“Only what?” she asked.

“If you mean it, truly.” Ominis fought the smile that tugged on the corner of his lips. “I hope you do. Or I guess in this case, did.”

She laughed; the melodic sound of her giggles rivaled even the sweetest of songs. Her chin dropped to his shoulder again, and she nuzzled closer. 

“You didn’t need to write a song to capture my heart, Ominis.” she breathed. “It’s been yours for a while now.”

Ominis went slack jawed. “What?”

“Why do you think I caught the first train back to Hogwarts?” she nudged him with her nose. “I wanted to be back here, to spend Christmas with you, Ominis.”  

“But the show–Clarence Warbeck–”

“He’s a good singer,” she laughed. “But he’s not you.” 

Ominis surged forward, and she yelped when he pressed his lips against her face, slightly missing her lips.  No matter; she chuckled again, angling her face to meet him perfectly.  One of Ominis’s hands tugged her closer at the waist, the other trailing up to her soft, strawberry scented hair.  

“I love you,” he admitted, rubbing the tip of his nose against hers.

Just as she was about to open her mouth in response, the two heard a cough from the rafters.  They jolted apart, Ominis nearly falling off the bench to maintain a proper distance from her in case it was a professor.

It wasn’t–he could hear a familiar voice huffing at them.

“Can I come down now?”

Ominis furrowed his eyebrows. “Sebastian, what the bloody hell are you still doing here?” he gasped.

“Well you didn’t give me much time to get down from the rafters,” Sebastian complained. “I was trying to hang the mistletoe for you two.”

“Get out!” Ominis groaned, while she laughed next to him on the piano bench.

Ominis could hear Sebastian’s snickering, and the familiar beat of his steps as he ran out of the music room.  He groaned, his head falling against her shoulder.

“So embarrassing.” he muttered into the fabric of her shirt. “I can’t believe he heard the song.”

“Not at all,” she cooed. “Wouldn’t quite be a moment between us without Sebastian interrupting, would it?” she pressed a soft kiss against his hair. “Play the song for me again?”

“Only if I get to kiss you more.” Ominis whispered.

“That can be arranged,” she said coyly, tilting his chin up towards her. She adoringly pressed kisses against his forehead, his cheeks, the tip of his nose, and then finally his lips again.  Pulling away, she leaned her head on his shoulder once more, sighing happily as his fingers started dancing across the keys again. 

“Happy Christmas, Ominis.  I love you too.”

Those four words were music to Ominis’s ears.  He played the song for her over and over again, his voice more confident every time he repeated the lyrics. The fourth time he repeated, she stopped him, kissing him breathless.  

“Saw the mistletoe,” she whispered against his lips, slithering her arms around his waist. “He managed to hang it after all.”

Grinning into her kiss once more, Ominis reminded himself to thank Sebastian. 

#ominis gaunt #ominis gaunt x reader #ominis gaunt x mc #ominis gaunt fan fiction #pianist ominis gaunt #ominis gaunt x you #ominis gaunt x oc #had to do a happy ominis piece somehow

[m00nsbaby]

Jealous of your celebrity crush.

Moon system x reader. - Headcanons.

Steven.

It was an amazing date.

You couldn't remember when was the last time you went to the theater, and even though Steven and you had never had money problems, you still saw buying tickets for the front row as a luxury.

That night, you laughed, cried, and even hummed softly to each other. After all, it was your favorite musical.

Oh, and Steven's hand never let go of yours.

"Shall we go to the back?" "Here? Love, we can't…" "Steven!" You blushed, giving his shoulder a light tap. "Not for that, to get an autograph."

Steven was well aware that you both chose that particular show mainly because your favorite Broadway actor was in the cast.

"Run, or we won't catch him."

Your boyfriend truly was your best accomplice in everything. You couldn't think of a time he had said no to your whims, and he was the one who stood up to lead you out of the venue.

As you got closer, he felt something odd in his stomach.

A different sensation.

You felt his hand tighten around yours, and you could only assume he was making sure not to lose you in the crowd that was starting to exit as well.

"I'm nervous," you whispered. "Me too." And you didn't question how odd his response was.

There was a small group of people at the back of the theater, all with the same intention as you – to get an autograph and a photo with the stars of the show. A metal barrier separated them from the actors.

You took a spot toward the back, holding onto the barrier, and Steven positioned himself behind you.

"Should I take the photo, love?" That strange feeling invaded him again when you declined.

And again when a round of gentle applause and cheers echoed through the air. It all felt quite intimate in a way, and that didn't sit well with him.

You gasped loudly when you saw him coming out. That was another point on the list of things Steven wasn't enjoying about this situation.

It didn't seem strange to you when he draped his arm around your shoulders, pulling you closer to him.

"What should I say to him?" You asked eagerly as you watched him move through the crowd, talking, signing autographs, and thanking other fans.

Luckily, you had positioned yourselves towards the end, which gave you time to think about what to say.

"That he did a great job?" Steven pressed his lips together at his own words. It was as if he was suddenly regretting this whole idea, no matter how hard he tried to find his usual kind words, nothing came out.

Finally, it was your turn.

"Did you enjoy the show, guys?" He was so dreamy. A sigh escaped you at how kind he remained, even though he must have been tired. He took his time with each person, getting to know them and chatting.

Steven wasn't impressed by him at all.

In fact, thinking about it, neither his performance nor his singing were as good as he had initially thought.

Rather mediocre, actually.

"Your work is… incredible, really." Your eyes shone as you watched him sign your program.

Your dramatic boyfriend could only think that was the way you looked at him. And that you should only look at him that way.

Only at him.

Steven dissociated from much of your conversation, especially the part where you handed your phone to the other guy for a selfie with you. He snapped back to reality when he asked about Steven.

"He's my boyfriend; I forced him to come." You joked. Why did you two suddenly seemed like lifelong friends?

Besides, it was a lie; he was the one who had initiated the idea.

"I-I wasn't forced at all; I love being involved." He replied honestly. It churned his stomach that the other guy looked at him with admiration. Why did he have to be such a good person?

You said your goodbyes with a hug that left a slight scent of his cologne on you. If it was possible, it made Steven even more nauseous.

"Isn't he charming?" "Sure."

You pursed your lips at Steven's sudden coldness as he walked beside you in the well-lit city, not letting go of your hand.

"Didn't you like him?" "Of course, I liked him, love. Why wouldn't I?"

His rapid speech gave him away, and you remained silent as you tried to figure out what had upset him.

Oh.

Oh.

You decided to test your theory.

"Don't you think his eyes were beautiful?" Another squeeze of your hand, and you had to bite your lip to keep from laughing. "They were just regular eyes."

Bingo. Steven was jealous.

At the entrance to your house, you turned on your heels, taking advantage of the stairs to give you a few extra inches in height so you could look him in the face.

"You know you don't have to be jealous of anyone, right?" His cheeks turned red as you placed your hands on them, giving them a gentle squeeze.

Steven, obediently, held onto your waist.

"You're the love of my life, Steven Grant." Your words were the culmination of a wonderful date, of the happiness he brought you every day.

And yes, a jealous Steven was amusing, but it broke your heart to think that insecurity might be getting the best of him.

His eyes sparkled like the stars.

"You are mine, right, love?" He sounded like a little kid begging for confirmation.

He knew exactly how to play his cards, what puppy-dog face to make based on the situation, and the tone of voice that made butterflies flutter in your stomach.

And a special warmth in your body.

You played along.

"Only yours, sweetheart." You whispered before kissing his lips.

Steven was content with how his little jealousy issue had been resolved, but he was sure of one thing after this.

You wouldn't be watching anything starring that idiot again.

Marc.

Marc was proud of his accomplishment.

Fighting for tickets on a website was more challenging than you could have ever imagined, not to mention the secret maneuvering behind your back. It had probably been his most difficult mission, surpassing all the tasks Khonshu could assign him.

But he would be the first to say it had been worth it. Even more so after having the opportunity to see you cry tears of happiness in his arms on your birthday.

"Will you come with me?" "Of course, dear." That was the biggest surprise, actually. Marc despised crowded places with all his heart, but he was excited to accompany you on such an important moment for you.

When the day of the concert arrived, Marc almost fainted.

He was left speechless by your style, a bit more… dark? You had definitely gotten into character for the concert, and that only encouraged him further.

For a short time.

He regretted it as soon as he saw the line to enter, but that was another matter.

You arrived at the venue early, mentally prepared to stand and wait for a good couple of hours.

And you had to say that after that experience, you were truly ready to marry Marc because you had an amazing time in your little corner between the metal fences. You talked about everything, because despite spending as much time together as possible, once you started talking, no one could silence you.

It was worth it; you almost fainted when you entered and realized you had reached the front row.

Marc, on the other hand, was starting to feel nervous due to the number of people arriving, but he immediately went into his boyfriend role. He let you hold onto the metal railing, and he positioned himself behind you, enclosing you between the fence and his body.

He would rather die than let you get crushed.

When the concert started, Marc was already feeling overstimulated, but he was willing to let you enjoy this. After all, according to the band's official page, it would only be about an hour after the opening acts.

He was satisfied to hear you scream, jump, sing, and smile like he had never seen you do before.

The problem began around 15 minutes into the concert when the lead vocalist fixed his attention on you.

Like clockwork, Marc remembered all those times you had talked about your teenage crush.

A burning sensation rose to his throat, and he furrowed his brow when he saw the singer wink at you while singing.

"Marc! Marc! Marc!" Your shouts pulled him from his thoughts, and you looked at him over your shoulder. "It's my song!" You had been saying that for the last 10 minutes, but it made him laugh. He kissed your lips, and you returned it briefly.

Marc mentally prayed that the idiot had seen that. Who, by the way, seemed unable to take his eyes off you.

The noise was enough to cover the groan that escaped your throat when Marc's hands tightened on your hips, pressing you closer to his body if that was even possible.

You blushed, though it was impossible to tell whether it was that or just the heat from jumping around for so long.

The straw that broke the camel's back was when the other guy leaned over the edge of the stage to your level and grabbed your phone from your hands.

You were going crazy. Screaming, with tears of sheer excitement in your eyes.

Marc rolled his eyes. Cheap tricks, he thought.

His only consolation was knowing he had made you scream louder before.

The phone returned to your hands after the guy recorded himself singing a few lines and interacting with the crowd.

This was definitely the best day of your life, or you were dreaming.

When the last song came on, his instinct was stronger than him. He ended up turning you around, and you didn't complain.

This was his special moment.

You could swear he kissed you the entire time the song played, until you relaxed in his arms, and the music seemed like a background melody accompanying you.

You would have never imagined that Marc was marking his territory.

He showered you with kisses until the lights came on, making you aware that you were still in public. You separated almost instantly, your cheeks red.

"Marc! You made me miss the last song!" You didn't seem upset as he leaned his forehead against yours.

You had enough time for yourselves while people began to leave.

"You don't seem too upset." Your hips hurt from the way he had been holding you for the past several minutes.

"Thank you," you whispered before kissing him one last time. "It's the best gift I've ever received."

Marc didn't have time to tell you how much he loved you; his gaze focused on the two large guys wearing backstage passes on their chests that were scanning the crowd.

You never knew why Marc pulled you out of there in a hurry, but you had no more doubts or questions when he distracted you with bribes, he bought you the T-shirt you liked the most, and a poster at which he would later throw darts.

Straight at the lead singer's face.

Jake.

At this precise point in his life, Jake considered himself probably the most unfortunate man who had ever existed.

Because, of course, the first time he ignored his desires to throw the guy into the nearest sewer and let him be forgotten over time.

Even more when he complimented your nails.

"Of course, they're nice," he thought to himself. "Even more so when they're wrapped around my…"

He couldn't continue mentally killing him; he had to smile and say "I'm the boyfriend" when you two bumped into your favorite actor on the streets of New York.

It made his stomach turn to notice how you fidgeted with your hands, trying to appear calm.

In fact, he couldn't decide whether he liked that more than if you had just voiced your desire to scream.

Both options made him want to put on Khonshu's suit.

The upside was that, for security reasons, you couldn't take a photo with him, so he could live without having to see you smile even more next to him forever.

Without being dramatic, he would erase his memory if he could just to forget that all this happened.

But you could say it was a fairly harmless encounter as far as possible. Well, for Jake, who never expressed how this was eating him up inside. You, on the other hand, had to wake up the next day with marks on your body caused by him.

His hands on your neck and waist, bites on your shoulders.

Although, you weren't complaining. It was a nice reminder that even though there were many attractive men out there (with acting skills like gods), none of them would ever drive you as crazy as Jake Lockley.

The problem came when you ran into him for the second time.

Jake didn't consider himself particularly insecure.

You yourself had to deal with a thousand girls who thought he was flirting with them because of that permanent smile on his face.

Or that habit you hated so much of winking at them to get a free dessert or to get you two seated faster at the restaurant.

But sometimes, Jake's ego wavered.

That small part of him that still felt like a tool for Marc and Steven, forgetting that he was a person in his own right.

You kept him aware of his independence, and when he doubted that… everything was a disaster for him.

So, you can imagine how he crumbled when the other guy recognized you.

"Of course, I remember you!" He was so loud that Jake swore he had a headache just from listening to him talk.

You almost fainted right there.

He grabbed your hands again to see your nails, excited about the new design, while Jake was thinking about how easy it would be to cut off his hands in that position.

You didn't need to say anything for him to understand your protest; both of you looked at each other in reproach.

"It's the same perfume, right?" The aforementioned guy took you out of the momentary staring contest with Jake, whom you could feel breathing down your neck despite being about two steps away from you.

You nodded silently.

"I knew it. I can still smell you on me."

After that, Jake swore he was seeing everything in shades of red, and a shiver ran down your spine because you could feel his gaze fixed on you.

"Well, we're already running late." Jake's accent interrupted your conversation, and his hand settled on the small of your back. You bit your lower lip because at this point, you didn't know if he was scaring you or if you wanted to push this limit further.

"Oh, but this time we can take the picture that you wanted so much…" "Really late." Jake interrupted him immediately, that smile that made you tremble from head to toe. In fact, he didn't even let him respond, or finish that sentence in which he seemed about to tell you he was glad to see you.

"Come on, mi vida." A bad omen.

His hand slid slowly down your back until it reached your hand, gripping your wrist with his usual firmness, but you noticed an extra touch of strength.

It's needless to emphasize how he devoured your mouth as soon as you entered the building.

It was going to be a long night.

And mentally, you thanked the city's cold weather; you could wear scarves without anyone wondering what your possessive boyfriend had done to you the previous night.

You would consider making him jealous more often.

yeah, i wasn't really a fan of this lol, anyways, here's a little extra of which guys i thought about while writing this in order of appearance!!

#moon knight #moon knight x reader #moon knight x y/n #moon knight x you #moon system #moon system x you #moon system x y/n #moon system x reader #moon boys #moon boys x reader #moon boys x y/n #moon boys x you #steven grant #steven grant x y/n #steven grant x you #steven grant x reader #jake lockley #jake lockley x reader #jake lockley x y/n #jake lockley x you #marc spector #marc spector x y/n #marc spector x you #marc spector x reader #oscar isaac #oscar isaac x you #oscar isaac x reader #oscar isaac x y/n

[wuahae]

☼ dayglow

pairing: mingyu x f!reader

wc: ~19k

synopsis: in which it's the summer before college, the new lifeguard is a pain in your ass, and you just want to have fun surfing before you have to leave it all behind.

notes: lifeguard!mingyu, surfer!reader, brief one-sided enemies-to-lovers, summer-before-college!au, netflix coming-of-age romcom coded, set in hawaii, special thanks to @husbandhoshi for helping me with the finishing touches mwah <3

It’s the sign of summer—water glistening in midday sunlight, loud chatter from families with beach blankets and baskets ready for a relaxing day out, people littered throughout the expanse of sand ready to sunbathe their vacation time away. Sun and sea salt, what more could you ask for?

A lot, apparently. And quite frankly, you think it’s ridiculous.

It’s almost unfair how the cards have so ruthlessly turned against your favor, especially on what you consider your turf. As hard to believe as it may be, especially with the current…state of things, your favorite beach used to be quiet before this summer. The only activity you would really see would be an occasional elderly couple taking their evening walks along the sand or rare sparse picnic blankets spread out for a quiet sunset date. Even the seabirds didn’t cause much of a ruckus here.

That was until him—the bane of your existence, the unwitting source of all your social migraines, the tragic end to your peaceful solitude: Kim Mingyu.

Apparently, spending his summer as a beach lifeguard was of the utmost importance to him, and with his grandpa as the previous lifeguard for the past decade, getting employed at this particular beach was basically guaranteed. Not much to complain about, in concept, just a guy fresh out of high school looking for a quick, easy buck—you respect it, even. But when his idea of ‘summer fun’ comes at the expense of your own peace and quiet, you think it’s only reasonable that his name leaves a distaste in your mouth.

His first day on the job, someone (you think it was the girl who pretended she couldn’t swim) had spilled that local hottie Kim Mingyu was working shifts as a lifeguard at this hidden beach, and no less than twenty-four hours after, googly-eyed teenagers (and single moms) ready to take in the latest local attraction began populating his shifts. And unfortunately, the googly-eyed teenagers just happened to include your best friend, meaning you were spared no solace from the presence of your worst enemy.

“I just think he’s so…” Chaeyoung sighs, hand under her chin as she lays sprawled on the beach blanket. You think she would start kicking her feet if it wasn’t so unbecoming to do outside of the privacy of her bedroom. “So…”

“Annoying?” you pitch in, popping a strawberry in your mouth. “Obnoxious? Tacky? Unnecessary?”

“Dreamy…” she finishes, a long glance drifting to his lifeguard tower. You can practically see the hearts coming from her eyes. Her head snaps to you, finally registering your interruption. “What do you mean unnecessary…” She’s incredulous. “He’s serving his community! Protecting the local beachgoers!”

“Exactly, this is a beach,” you point out, gesturing around you. “What even happens here?” 

Chaeyoung sits up, passionate. “A lot!” she exclaims, hands gesturing in emphasis. “Rip currents! Heat strokes! Drowning kids…drowning kids!”

You look at her plainly. “You know none of that happened here before Mingyu came along.” The last lifeguard spent his time falling asleep on the tower balcony, sunscreen smeared on his nose and all.

“Exactly…” She leans in, eyes narrowed. “You know what, I think those single moms are telling their kids to fake-drown so that Mingyu will have to save them. I heard this lady tell her eight-year-old she’d buy him malasadas if he went into the deep end.”

“Chaeyoung.”

“What! It’s true…" She ponders a little, shifting the sunglasses on top of her head. "They're definitely onto something though. Do you think I—"

"Chaeyoung."

"It would be the perfect opportunity!" Chaeyoung clasps her hands together, voice dreamy as she imagines it in her head. "I'd 'accidentally' make my way into the deep end—suddenly I can't swim, I've ingested too much water and by the time Mingyu's able to rescue me…" she trails off, turning to you with starry eyes. "He gives me mouth-to-mouth…"

"He'd break your ribs with chest compressions."

Chaeyoung places a hand on your arm, grave. "It would be worth it."

You can’t even control the utterly exasperated sigh that escapes you, pinching the bridge of your nose as you reach for another strawberry. “What do you even see in him anyway?” You wrinkle your nose, feeling yet another Mingyu-induced migraine coming. “He’s not all that.”

"Yes he is!" Chaeyoung insists, waving the tiny fruit fork at you. "He's hot, he's well-mannered, he's good with kids, he's hot—"

"You said that already."

"It needs to be emphasized twice." This is serious business for Chaeyoung. "Have you even seen him?"

"Yes," you respond dryly, rolling your eyes, "and he's still not all that." You hold your hand out, counting down your fingers. "He takes this job way too seriously for one—"

"It shows dedication—"

"There is no job where he needs to be doing all…" you gesture to him up on that lifeguard tower sitting on that stupid stool of his—shirtless, binoculars strung around his neck, his red swim trunks an inseam inch too short. Insufferable. "...That. He probably does it on purpose."

Some girl in the distance, too busy watching Mingyu, trips over her little brother and faceplants into the water.

Chaeyoung shakes her head. "No way is he trying to look that hot."

"Of course he is," you retort. "Just look at the amount of sunscreen he wears." Mingyu downright glistens with the amount he puts on his body, only serving to accentuate his tanned, toned muscles. (You won't deny what's right in front of you, after all, but only to yourself. You would rather die than admit you find any part of him attractive out loud, especially to Chaeyoung.) It just has to be on purpose. 

"What does he even need that much for?" you add on, insistent. "He's up in that tower all damn day."

Chaeyoung lightly swats at you. "That just means he takes care of his skin…" she lets out another dreamy sigh. "Isn't it nice that he cares."

"That is just some guy."

Chaeyoung flops defeated onto the blanket. "You just think that because you knew him in high school."

Ah, yes. Kim Mingyu, fellow classmate for all four years of high school. Before he was the bane of your existence, he was just that kid you knew in homeroom, the boy who kept trying (and failing) to balance pencils on his nose, the centerpiece of the notorious sophomore year incident where he tipped back his chair too far back and crashed right as the vice-principal walked in for the monthly classroom evaluation, the kid who napped through most of your third period precalc classes because he couldn't, for the life of him, care about unit circles and piecewise functions. He still never returned that pen you let him borrow in English that one time during senior year.

So no, you really don't get all the hype around him. 

Chaeyoung is still off in her own little world. "Do you think he needs help putting on sunscreen? Or better yet, do you think he would help me put on my sunscreen—"

You let out a noise of dismay, reaching over to your bag and tossing a can of spray-on sunscreen over to her. "You can do it yourself."

She slaps a hand over her chest, wounded. "You're always so mean to me…" Chaeyoung wipes a fake tear, clutching onto the spray can. "Where is your sense of imagination, of romance?"

Standing up, you brush off stray sand from your bottom before you reach for your surfboard lying next to the blanket. "Sorry if I'm not delusional, Chaeyoung."

She grumbles your words under her breath, imitating your cadence and all, and she makes sure you catch all of it before you walk away. "'Delusional deshmusional,' no wonder you're single."

You send her an unamused look. She counters with a petty "Hmph," nose turned up in the air, then flips over to sunbathe. 

Rolling your eyes, you hoist your board up to your side and make your way towards the shore, expertly sidestepping the little kids playing tag, and you walk past Mingyu's lifeguard tower.

"Hey, Y/N," he calls down from above, a little smile and wave accompanying it. You squint up at him, a hand on your forehead to block the sun. You suddenly recall a past conversation with Chaeyoung, similar to all the conversations concerning Mingyu you have with your friend. 

("It's like when I look up at him he glows…"

You dryly retort back at the memory of your friend. That's just the sun blinding you.)

"Catching waves again?" Mingyu asks, and if it weren't for your crippling desire to not make enemies with people who don't reciprocate the same animosity, you would have given him a sarcastic gesture to the surfboard in your arms and a dry "what do you think?" to accompany it.

But Mingyu is nothing but earnest and unknowing, much to your chagrin, and you can sense his puppy-like desire to be friendly with an old high school classmate even through those obnoxious designer sunglasses he has sat on his nose. So you settle for thinly veiled politeness instead, nodding your head when you hum your confirmation. "Just the usual."

He grins at that, along with his standard "have fun!" and you give him a civil smile and thanks before making your way to the water. 

The waves lap at your feet the instant you arrive, sand between your toes, and you think you'll miss this when you leave. The ocean, the air, the people.

But if there's one thing you're certain of, you think, paddling further into the water. Kim Mingyu is not going to be a part of that list.

"So let me get this straight," Seungkwan says, agonized. "You're telling me you haven't even started sending in profiles for your incoming freshman class's Instagram?"

You're slow on the uptake, apparently. "Yes… Was I…supposed to?"

No amount of caricature drawings could truly encapsulate the horror in Seungkwan's face. "It's already August!"

“Again,” you repeat, leaning against the counter. Island music crackles quietly out of the old speaker in the corner of the room. “Why does it matter?”

“You leave at the beginning of September, which means there’s only a few more weeks until you’re up in the mainland all alone—in California, no less!” Seungkwan places a hand on your shoulder, pitying eyes looking you up and down. “You know you need all the help you can get making friends…”

“Hello?” you exclaim, dismayed. “I have friends!”

Seungkwan is unconvinced. Unimpressed, even. “Yeah? Who, the fish you surf with?”

“You literally just hung out with Chaeyoung last week.”

He dismisses your defense with a handwave and a shake of the head. “Chaeyoung doesn’t count, she’s the unfortunate product of childhood friend loyalty.”

You feel so wronged. “What about you?”

Seungkwan sighs dramatically, hand to his chest in faux sentiment. “I do have a knack for charity, don’t I…”

“Says the guy who practically begged me to work here with him so he wouldn’t be lonely on shift.”

Boo’s Shave Ice, the go-to local favorite, your place of employment for the past four summers ever since Seungkwan met you in freshman Racket Sports and dragged you up the rankings in Badminton King’s Court until you were reigning champions for the rest of the semester. He had claimed that working at his family’s shave ice place with him was payment for having him carry you all semester (not that you asked), but you figured having an easy place of employment for extra money towards college savings was always a good idea.

“I’m just saying,” Seungkwan insists, and you can almost sense a shred of sincerity in him. “Me and Chaeyoung aren’t gonna be there with you up there, Y/N. I’m worried.”

You let out a long sigh, and you’re about to open your mouth to retort some cliché reassurance you’ve parrotted a hundred times before when the bell jingles at the door. Your best customer service smile slips on your face and you turn to cheerfully greet the incoming customer. “Welcome to Boo’s Shave—” your breath hitches “—Ice.”

It’s Mingyu. With his gaudy board shorts always an inch too short, his button up shirt with too few buttons actually used, his toes exposed in flip-flops just to top it all off. Like you needed your day to get worse.

“Hey, man!” Seungkwan calls, extending his hand over the counter for a crisp handshake. All of your friends are uncaring of the torment this man adds to your mortal coil, you lament. Maybe Seungkwan was right, maybe you should start finding some new friends on the incoming freshman Instagram page. “What can I get for you?”

“Just the usual,” Mingyu responds, fishing out his wallet from his pocket. “With mochi this time.”

Seungkwan nods, reaching for the stack of paper bowls. “On it!”

While he gets to work with the three bottles of fruit syrup and freshly shaved ice in the bowl, you slink away to the cashier to check out Mingyu’s order. “Rainbow with condensed milk and mochi?”

“Yup,” he responds, grinning, his canines annoyingly sharp and obvious. You call out his price and spin the iPad around for him to insert his card, and while Mingyu waits for the payment to process he starts talking. “I saw you do that aerial yesterday,” he says, and you almost startle. “Very impressive.”

You almost want to be defensive about it, badger him on why he was watching you surf when there were clearly more people on that beach yesterday in need of his…attention. But you tamp it down, laughing awkwardly as you look to the side to check on Seungkwan’s progress before looking back at Mingyu. “Thanks, I…” Just what are you supposed to say to that. “Worked hard on it?”

Mingyu laughs, tapping on the screen before taking his card out. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’ve heard a lot of highlights from Gramps about your old surf meets.”

Your smile tightens a little, heart squeezing at the mention. “Ah, yeah. The good old days.”

“You’re going to California for school next year, right?” Mingyu asks, eyes brightening. “Congrats on that, by the way! It’s not every day you hear about someone local going out of state for college. Are you gonna keep surfing when you’re there?”

“I, um—” you make a quick glance at Seungkwan—how long does it take to make a single shave ice—and his eyes meet yours, catching your silent cry for help.

“Your shave ice is ready, Mingyu!” Seungkwan exclaims loudly, half-slamming half-sliding it across the counter. “Have a nice day!”

“Oh,” Mingyu’s attention is successfully diverted, grabbing his bowl. “Thanks, man.” He turns, not before waving at you with his spare hand and a spoon in his mouth. “See you around, Y/N.”

You never thought the door jingle would be such a relieving sound until you heave out a long breath when the door closes, bracing your hands on the edge of the counter as you slump forward, eyes closed. Seungkwan’s presence looms over you, and you know he’s standing arms crossed and foot tapping without having to look.

“So,” he starts lightly. “What was all that about?”

Turning your head slowly to face him, Seungkwan has his lips tilted in a slight frown, forehead with a slightest crinkle of worry. “I know you’re not the biggest fan of him, but you’ve never gotten all tense like that before.” His frown deepens, opening his mouth to choose his words carefully. “Was it because he brought up surfing when you—”

“Seungkwan.” 

It slips out harsher than you mean it to, and you’re already fumbling over your words trying to pick up the pieces, but Seungkwan’s mouth snaps shut, apologies written all over his face. “Sorry,” he mumbles, fiddling with the rim of his plastic glove. “My bad.”

You make a small, pitiful noise, waving your hand to clear the air. “No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to snap like that.”

Crackly island music continues playing through the speaker, air conditioning whirring loudly in the background. Seungkwan tries again, hesitant. “Are you okay, though?”

“Yeah.” Your chest is tight. You can’t breathe. “I’m fine. Look,” you nod your head to the family walking up to the store, chattering away excitedly. You can spot a tourist family from a mile away. “Customers are coming.”

The bell jingles, and a smile plasters on your face again. Like truth, like habit.

“Hi! Welcome to Boo’s Shave Ice—what can we get started for you today?”

The view of the beach was always best looking from above, you think. Feet dangling from the edge of the open back of your Jeep, you soak in the sound of the waves crashing into the rocks and the way the sun warms your skin as you sit parked on the beach lookout.

Chaeyoung swings her feet next to you, bikini top and denim shorts clad, peering over at your acai bowl before pointing with her spoon. Wordlessly, you tilt your bowl over, to which she takes a spoonful with a happy shoulder wiggle and a grin.

“So, what’s the verdict?” she asks, spoon in her mouth as she swipes through her phone gallery. “I think the first three are the best for posting, but also I don’t want to overlap pictures in our posts.” Chaeyoung taps a manicured finger on her chin, then nudges her phone at you. “Which ones do you want to post?”

You hum, swiping through the favorited pictures. The pictures themselves were nothing special, if you were being honest. Just the casual beach day poses and candids, but Chaeyoung had insisted on having as many pictures taken this summer as possible to keep as an archive before you had to leave.

“I like this one,” you point, handing the phone back to her. “I’ll just post that.”

“That’s it?” Chaeyoung questions, eyes wide. “But… but the slideshow…”

“You can post a slideshow,” you tease, taking a spoonful of her acai bowl. “You have all the rest to choose from.”

She pouts at you, taking a bite of her own food. "If you wanna be that way.”

“Send me all of the pictures though,” you add on. They’d be good to add into your collection of ‘The Summer Before College’ memories.

Chaeyoung rolls her eyes, scoffing. “Duh, I’m already on it. By the way, I heard from Seungkwan you were gonna send in a post to the freshman page?”

You groan, flopping back into the open space of the trunk. “Don’t even remind me, he was nagging me about sending one in all shift last weekend.” Spoon held with emphasis, you shake it in indignancy. “Did you know he said I didn’t have any friends?”

“Well, babe…”

“Et tu!”

She winces, and at least you can say she’s more apologetic about it than Seungkwan was. “Aw, don’t be like that. You know you take a while to warm up to people. Besides, I’m your friend!”

You turn over to your side, grumbling. “Seungkwan said that’s only because of childhood friend obligations.”

Chaeyoung blows it off with a small “psshh” and turns to lay down beside you, propping herself up on her arms. “Please, everyone knows that childhood friends have a four-year long-distance expiration date. And look,” she tucks her chin into her hands for extra effect. “I’m still here!”

“Bummer…”

Chaeyoung coos, wrapping an arm around you and pulling you onto your back again. “You know you love me. And Y/N,” she says, poking your cheek. “Stop being a worrywart.”

“I am not—”

“Yes you are,” she insists, bobbing her head. “See, you’re already developing wrinkles right here—” a thumb presses between your furrowed brows “—and college hasn’t even started yet!” Chaeyoung sighs, fretting. “No wonder you’re single—”

“I’m fine,” you counter, exasperated, swatting her thumb away for good measure. “Both you and Seungkwan have nothing to worry about.” You pause, before snapping your head to her. “And stop saying that! You’re single too!”

“But I have options,” Chaeyoung emphasizes, tucking her hand back under her chin. “You know Joshua from the oriental medicine shop?”

“Hong?”

“Yeah, Joshua Hong…” Her legs start kicking and her hands fly to her cheeks. “I think he likes me, Y/N!”

“What makes you think that?” you ask, doubtful.

“You know how my grandma always drinks her medicinal tea, right? Well, last week I went to pick up her prescription ‘cause my parents were busy with work, and when we looked at each other…” Chaeyoung pauses her tangent to look at you with sparkling eyes. “You just had to be there, Y/N, it was love at first sight, I’m telling you! And he was such a gentleman when I asked for the medicine…”

“Chaeyoung, I’m pretty sure he was just doing his job?”

“I’m in love…”

You snort, patting her on the arm. “Good luck with that.”

“Do you want me to set you up with someone too? I know some people!”

“For the last time I’m not dating Soonyoung—”

“But why not—”

“Because he thinks he’s a tiger!” you exclaim, and Chaeyoung pauses before bursting into giggles, falling down next to you. As infectious as ever, your smile rises despite your previous objections, which then turn into matching laughter alongside Chaeyoung. You think it’s nice, not being made to think about your worries when you’re with her.

There’s an unwritten rule, put into play ever since Chaeyoung moved back to the island after four years away: to not mention the future. As trivial as it may have seemed, it was important. To two kids between the cusp of childhood and adulthood, you wanted to at least have somewhere you didn’t have to worry about anything the world threw at you, where you could just be yourselves.

You knew too much of what you were supposed to become, and Chaeyoung knew too little, but at least you had a place where none of that mattered.

“Oh,” Chaeyoung perks up, still giggling. “I almost forgot. Do you have a shirt you could lend me?”

You hum, reaching over to a small bag you have stashed away in the corner of your trunk. “Yeah, why?”

“My shift is a little after this and I forgot to bring an extra shirt,” she agonizes. “And my manager already doesn’t like me.”

You toss your extra shirt to her, and she sighs in relief. “Thank you, you’re a lifesaver.”

“Should we get going then?” you ask, hopping off the back of your Jeep. “I doubt your manager would be happy with you being late again.”

Chaeyoung protests, desperate to prove her innocence. “I was late twice—”

“And you’re gonna be late a third time if you don’t get in!”

You didn’t expect anyone else to be here.

Not at the early daytimes of the morning when the sun has just barely peeked its head out from under the horizon, not when the sky is flushed a soft rose and gold over the ever expansive sea. It was rare to see people at the beach this early in the day, and even rarer to see people at this particular beach at this time. Most people wouldn’t start flooding into the beach until noon, when Mingyu’s shifts would start.

Which is why it shocks you to see Mingyu walking out of the water, hair dripping, surfboard in hand. He doesn’t seem to expect seeing you either, with how he visibly jumps when he catches sight of you.

“Oh, hey,” he says, the greeting still slipping out despite his surprise. “You almost scared me, you’re not usually here this early.”

“Ah, well, I heard the waves would be pretty good today. And you know me,” you respond awkwardly, gaze slipping down to the board at his side. “Always itching to ride the best waves.”

Mingyu laughs at that, carding a hand through his hair, wet tips already starting to curl at the ends. “Yeah, I remember. You used to skip first period all the time when the surf was good. Mrs. Kim ended up giving up on you showing up for class during surfing season as long as you would make up the work later.”

You smile wryly at that, a rush of embarrassment warming your chest, diluted only by the nostalgia of it all. “I never ended up apologizing to her for that. I think I stressed her out way more than I should have.”

“Couldn’t have stressed her out more than me,” Mingyu jokes. “If you ever end up going back to apologize to her, take me with you. I never said sorry for sleeping through all of her classes either.”

You stifle a laugh at that, grinning up at him. “That’s right, I almost forgot. I don’t think you were awake for any classes before lunch.”

Mingyu whines, shaking his head. “Can you blame me? Those classes were earlier than any normal person could be awake for.”

Teasing, you raise your brow. “And yet here you are now, up even earlier than any of our classes ever were. By the way,” you mention, gesturing to his side. “I didn’t know you surfed?”

He pauses at that, like he almost forgot about the surfboard in his hand. If you didn’t know any better, you would almost think he starts fidgeting at the mention, with how he rotates the board up and leans it from one hand to the other. As if he was nervous at being caught, like he wanted it to go unmentioned—unnoticed.

“I don’t, really,” Mingyu says eventually, rubbing the back of his neck. A drop of water falls from a strand of his hair, soaking into the sand. “Gramps just taught me when I was young, and I just do it sometimes for fun.”

“Isn’t that what surfing is though?” you question, tilting your head. “Fun?”

“Yeah, but, I don’t know,” he fumbles hastily, trying to think of the right words to say. “I wouldn’t really say I surf though,” Mingyu settles on eventually, and the word carries a weight you’re unfamiliar with. “Not like you.”

Like me?

Mingyu can see the visible confusion in your eyes and he just smiles, picking up his board. “Nevermind. That probably sounded stupid, huh?”

“Huh? No, I—”

“Hey,” he interrupts, and the tilt of his lips is something you’ve never seen before. It’s appeasing, subdued, almost like he’s let go of something important for the sake of something else. “Don’t even worry about it. Have fun surfing, okay?" Mingyu takes a few steps, before turning back with slight embarrassment on his face. "And if it’s not too much to ask, could you keep this whole thing—” he gestures to the board “—a secret?”

You want to pry for an explanation, press him until he's forced to spill. He was never good under pressure, which is why you’re almost tempted to make him crack to satiate your curiosity, but maybe it's because you know that about him that you decide to bite your tongue. Because the way Mingyu talks about surfing is unfamiliar to almost everything you thought you knew about him—like you’ve stumbled across something you weren’t supposed to see, like you’ve accidentally dug a nail into the soft skin of a tangerine with the secrecy he’s asked of you.

So you utter a single “okay,” and watch the relief wash over Mingyu’s face at your small nod. He thanks you in the same breath he says his goodbyes, and he doesn’t wait for your response before he jogs away.

The moment still lingers in your mind when you paddle out into the ocean, and even afterwards, when you’ve satiated your appetite for a morning surf. It comes back into the forefront in flashes at unexpected moments—the light blush of sunrise, quiet waves lapping at the shore, the sincerity in Mingyu’s smile before he left. The orange stain of the rind doesn’t feel as bad as you thought it would, you come to accept hours later, laying on your bed. 

The smell of citrus is almost nice, the way it lingers.

It was supposed to be a small occasion. Just your parents and a couple of aunties and uncles that were close enough to share your goodbye dinner with. But like all small occasions go, your parents get ambitious and prideful and suddenly there's a feast in the kitchen hefty enough to feed a dozen people.

If you were being honest, the party was mostly for them. 

You personally couldn’t have cared less if they’d thrown an extravagant celebration complete with confetti and party poppers, or if they’d just given you a pat on the back and a gift card for future Starbucks runs—your parents had already done enough for you to feel loved. But for them, they wanted every chance possible to celebrate their little girl getting into college, moving away from home, taking her first steps into adulthood. So you bite down your objections about the festivities your dad insists on hosting, try to match your mom’s enthusiasm for DIY dorm decor and tourist destinations around campus, and let your parents enjoy what’s left of the summer with the child they’ve grown to know.

“Here,” your mom says, shoving a batch of napkins and plastic utensils into your hands. “Set these on the table in the garage, I need to get ready before the guests get here.” And almost as if on signal, your uncles’ muffled guffaws from outside make their way through the house’s walls, and your mom lets out a gasp of panic. “Tell your father to keep them busy,” she says frantically, scurrying out of the kitchen. “They can’t see me like this.”

“Mom, you look fine,” you chide softly, walking to the door. “I’m sure no one will mind if you don’t have makeup on for a family dinner.”

“Tell that to your aunt,” your mom bites back, poking her head out of the bathroom. “I’ll never live down the shame if she ends up looking better than me at our party.”

You give her a good-natured eye roll and twist the doorknob to the garage, greeting the guests outside. At your appearance you’re met with a chorus of overlapping cheers and congratulations from everyone, pulled into hugs by aunties and having your hair ruffled and back patted (way too violently, in your opinion) by your uncles.

As lamely as you say your thanks and try to weave between sneak attack bear hugs, you can’t say this felt like anything but home—the familiarity you’ve grown accustomed to. But still, you have a reputation to uphold, so you quash down the sentiment of it all and set the napkins down onto the plastic table with a firm announcement. “Dinner’s ready in five! There’s more in the kitchen if anyone wants extra.”

There’s a cacophony of cheers, your mom finally enters the garage with perfectly touched up eyes and lips (a smug glance sent to your aunt, with a near identical makeup look powdered on), and the dinner party finally starts.

It starts off good-natured, as it always does. Calls to pass around the mac salad and shoyu chicken, empty beer bottles accumulating by the second at every uncle’s feet, the insistent ushering of aunties for you to have more food. But the topic of conversation veers into California, to the major you're studying and what you're bringing to the dorms and "Y/N, are you bringing your surfboard with you?"

Your mom asks it with the purest of intentions—something about how the surf must be good up there and she's always wanted to know what California beaches were like, and your dad adds with a puff of his chest how you'd only surf the best and you have to break their bubble of excitement with the news. 

"Oh I'm, um, not." Everyone at the table goes quiet. You push around the extra fried rice your auntie had scooped onto your plate. It tastes like sawdust. "Bringing it to California, I mean."

The table blinks at you (your uncles set down their beer bottles on the table in shock), and your aunt asks a single, “But why?”

The heat of everyone’s gaze bores into you, but all you can think of is the wood paneling peeling on the side of the house, the cabinets that your parents never got around to replacing even after the past termite infestation left them eroded and worn, the pictures and decorations your mom picked out and places purposefully on the walls to cover up the bits of chipping paint. “I just don’t think I’ll keep surfing when I’m there,” you say finally, stuffing a piece of chicken in your mouth. You try to resist the urge to shrink in your seat at the silence that follows.

(“What a waste,” your aunt whispers under her breath. She is rarely as subtle as she pretends to be, but you don’t even think she bothered pretending this time. )

“O-oh,” your mom tries, looking around the table to dissipate the mood. “That’s fine, sweetie, I was just wondering.” She nudges your dad, who proceeds to cough on his barbequed short ribs, then joins her in your defense.

“It’s normal for kids to grow out of their interests, we won’t force her to do anything she doesn’t want to do,” he agrees. “Besides, the surfboard is always going to be here waiting for her when she comes back, it’s not like she has nothing to come back to.”

“But what if she forgets everything?” your aunt prods, disapproval in her voice. “Then all those years of hard work would be for nothing.”

“Have some more faith in her!” your mom scolds, standing to get more food from the big platters at the center of the table. “Besides, she’s going to California! It’s only natural that she’d want to try new things!”

Your grip on your spoon tightens.

Want. Isn’t that a funny thing? You’re sure your parents wanted many things too—to finish college, to get a nice job in their respective careers and work to save up for a house in that nice area near the beach that they always dreamed about having, the same one they reminisce on every time they drive past it. Maybe even have enough savings set aside to send their kid to college all four years debt free, to not have to debate between buying monthly groceries and splurging on an expensive item to treat themselves. And you want too, of course you do—what person doesn’t? But ‘want’ is a thing of privilege, you’ve grown to accept. An object of desire for those who can afford it.

You are not one of those people. So you try to not torture yourself with unattainable possibilities, and you accept the things that simply cannot be.

Your mom tries to divert the topic of conversation to other things, tries to dissipate the thick and heavy sense of disapproval in the air. She asks you what else you’re packing for the flight, if you know anyone else from the islands going there, if you’ve made friends yet, to not hesitate if you miss anything from home because she’ll send a care package and all you can hear is the muffled roaring of ocean waves and seafoam at your fingertips and god you can’t do this. 

The chair almost topples over with the speed at which you stand up, half-eaten plate of food growing cold at the table as your mom gapes at you with a sentence left unfinished, still waiting to be spoken.

“Y/N…?”

“I need to go.” You can’t fucking breathe.

And there’s so much you can tell everyone there wants to say. You haven’t even eaten anything, there’s still cake they bought from your favorite bakery waiting in the fridge, you can’t just walk out of your own party and if this were a different day or maybe even at a different time you would have bitten your tongue until you could taste the metal and eat your cake, copper-coated and all, but in this very moment you just can’t do it. So you ignore your mother’s wide eyes and pretend not to hear the words lodged in her throat, and you run.

Past the balloons and banners your dad had strung up on the outside of the garage, past your uncles’ trucks parked along the sidewalk in the front of your house, all the way to your Jeep parked a couple blocks away, your surfboard still tied to the top of it. The sun is already deep below the horizon, the last bit of it turning the sky a rich orange and pink.

(Waves crashing on rocks. Sand troughs at the bottom of the ocean. Seafoam. Everything you love, everything you have to let go of.)

You drive.

By the time you get to the beach, the sky has already turned into more of a dark blue than its previous wash of color. Distantly, you remember the warnings your father had always told you about the sea, the dangers you could find yourself in if you didn’t go in with a clear mind. But through the haze of dinner flashing through your mind and the buzzing in your fingertips as you untie your board from the roof of your car, you can’t bring yourself to care.

Things flood your mind in short bursts yet all at once—care packages and chipping paint and scholarship funds and that look on your parents’ face when you told them you’d gotten into the business program and shit you just want to make them proud and pay them back for everything they’ve done and—

“Y/N! Hey, the beach is closing soon where are you—”

It’s Mingyu’s voice, you register, somewhere within the fray. Funny. You didn’t even know he worked this late. 

The thought is brief before you dive straight into the water.

It’s muscle memory from there, your body doing what you’ve trained it to do for years and years and years. You paddle out a long distance away before stopping and waiting for your next chance. Darkening waters, light dimming from the sky, you’re the farthest you’ve ever gone.

You need this, you tell yourself, eyeing an incoming cresting wave. You need this, you need this now, because you’ll never have it again. You can never have it again.

And as the wave comes, you do what you’ve done for what seems like a million times (you swim towards it and your foot plants onto the board and everything goes right), until you feel your balance shift, the board slips out from under your feet, and you go crashing into the water below.

Immediately, the current thrashes you back and forth, the pressure from above bearing down on you as you try not to flounder your way up to the surface. You feel your surfboard around you in the middle of the chaos, the leash attaching your ankle to the board circling around the coral reef beneath you. Dread swells in your chest as you tug your foot once, then twice. It doesn’t budge.

Water roaring in your ears, adrenaline thrumming through your muscles, you try to break the leash again, and again, and again. Panic fully setting in, you try to pull your foot out for the last time, and in the same second it manages to slip out, a small shadow of a rescue float splashes onto the surface of the water, followed by a much bigger splash of someone jumping in after.

You reach your hand up, a trace of longing within your fingertips, and a hand plunges into the water, traveling the distance to grasp onto yours. 

Grip firm, you’re pulled upwards in a quick surge until you break the surface of the water, coughing and gasping in desperately needed air. You cling with weak arms onto the float, eyes burning with seasalt, and you meet Mingyu’s gaze from across the tube. He holds your gaze for a split second before turning and grabbing the handle of the float, dragging it towards the jet ski he had ridden here.

It's a silent affair, the way he hoists you up onto the jet ski before getting on afterwards. Mingyu collects the tube from the water and speaks for the first time since he pulled you out of the water.

“Are you okay?” he asks, giving you a glance over. You want to say yes, I’m fine, but the words lodge in your throat before you can even start to form them on your tongue. 

In the distance, floating a ways away, is the top half of your surfboard, cracked and split clean into two.

You can only manage a quiet nod, the unspoken words melding into a lump. Mingyu follows your gaze out to where the half floats and he lets out a soft “oh” at the sight. Gently, he guides your hands around his waist to hold as he starts the jet ski again, riding back to shore.

Dusk turns the air cold, the wind drying the water droplets lingering on your skin. The rush of current still echoes in your ears, limbs aching from fading adrenaline, and your mind buzzes in a static standstill all the way back. The flush of embarrassment heats in your chest as you think more about it—the fact that you of all people would have to be rescued like this, that you would wipe out this severely on a wave and routine this simple, something you had regarded innate like clockwork. You almost want to crumple into yourself at the thought, and then you remember that you had left halfway through dinner in a big scene all for this.

(For the shame, for the twist of the weight in your stomach, for a broken board at the end of it all. You were just so tired.)

Mingyu gets off with you when you arrive at shore, leading you to the lifeguard tower and up the stairs with gentle hands, grabbing a towel from one of the tables and a stool for you to sit down on. He flicks on the lamp by the table.

“Stay here,” he tells you, draping the towel over you. “I’ll be right back.”

You almost want to ask where, but by the look he gives you, he doesn’t even have to tell you for you to know.

You clutch the towel tighter around your frame and you nod again, a quiet “okay,” to accompany it, and you watch as Mingyu goes back to the water, his figure growing smaller as he rides out to find the remaining pieces of your surfboard. It’s almost funny, the way everything turned out. You don’t even have a board left to take with you, even if you wanted to; you tell yourself it’s for the best, that lack of temptation.

Mingyu returns a few minutes later, tells you that he placed the board in the storeroom and when you’re ready to take it back you can just grab it from here. You nod again, silent, and he lets the tension stretch until he snaps it himself.

“What were you thinking?”

The question is asked calmly, maybe even with a little underlying heat in it, but you think you would have preferred if he was just angry at you. To yell at you, to tell you how stupid you were to go out and surf a wave you knew you couldn’t handle, that you should’ve known better. But at your silence, he crouches down to your level and asks again; he does everything but yell.

“What happened out there?” His eyes are wide, searching, sincere. Your nails dig into your palm, salt pricking your eyes. “Don’t you know it’s dangerous? I told you the beach was almost closed, didn’t you hear me? Do you even know what could have happened if I wasn’t…”

The sting of sea salt turns into a burn, the heat behind your eyes lodging in your nose, your throat—you can’t just blame it on the sea salt anymore when you sniffle, wiping the first few tears that escape with the back of your hand. “I’m sorry,” you warble, your apology thick and teary as the dam finally collapses. “Fuck, I’m so sorry—”

Mingyu looks positively lost the more tears slip down your cheeks, former scolding evaporating into thin air as he fumbles his way around the shed searching for tissues. “Hey, no, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you cry, let me find you some tissues—” Mingyu knocks over a first-aid kit and stubs his toe onto the desk, stifling a whimper as he continues to hobble around “—I am so sorry please don’t cry—”

You sniffle through a giggle, and Mingyu stops. He turns to look at you with pitiful eyes and you wonder why exactly he looks like he’s about to cry too. Maybe the table leg really did do a number on his pinky toe. He offers you a tissue box, a little helpless. You take it with a watery smile.

A part of you still wants to hold onto the grudge you’ve held against him all summer, the you that stifles a sigh when he sneezes into his hands and laughs when he trips on the sand. It’s what you’re used to, what you’re comfortable with, a tiny slice of normalcy you’ve been aching for all evening. But the truth is—anything left of your pride has washed away with the tide and splintered with your broken board, and you can’t find it in yourself to be mad at him. Not even a little.

Mingyu shifts awkwardly as you dab away your tears, looking out the window before rubbing the back of his neck. “I’m gonna do a last check of the beach, okay? I’ll be back really soon.” He opens his mouth again as if to say more, but decides against it, turning back and forth before finally exiting the cabin and descending down the stairs. Looking down from the balcony, you can hear him muttering under his breath and smacking himself lightly on the head as his shoulders curl in from embarrassment.

You watch the sun dip completely under the sea as you wait for Mingyu to come back, the sky turning almost black in its absence. Trying to repress a shiver, you rub your arms absentmindedly through the towel as you watch Mingyu survey the expanse of the beach for any stray visitors, his single flashlight leading his location in the darkness. The last check is mostly just for warning. There wasn’t anyone to really stop people from trespassing after hours, but you know that Mingyu has to do his mandatory check and announcement that the beach was closed before any uncles wanting to do late night fishing or reckless teenagers hungry for quick thrills decided to pursue their activities at their own risk.

On his way back, the flashlight stops a little distance away from the lifeguard tower, hesitating, until you hear his soft steps outside before the door creaks open. Mingyu’s head pokes in.

“I’m done for the day,” he says, almost timidly. His eyes scan your face in the lowlight, as if searching for any remaining traces of tears in your eyes, and you can practically see the tension leave his body when you smile back at him.

Hopping off the stool, you meet him at the doorway, peering up at him still towel-swaddled. “Are you ready to head out?” Mingyu asks, and in the scattering dim lamplight, your eyes drift to the mole on the cusp of his jaw, the second on the tip of his nose. You wonder why you'd only noticed them now.

“Yeah,” you agree softly, ducking under his arm through the door. “Let’s go.”

The walk back to your Jeep is a quiet one, your feet shuffling in flip-flops as you and Mingyu try to match each other—Mingyu syncing his steps with yours, you quickening your pace to keep up with his long strides. It isn’t until you arrive that he speaks again, between the unlocking and opening of your trunk.

“What are you going to do now?” Mingyu asks, the lightpost flickering above you in short bursts (blink—blink—stay). The question is innocent, earnest, just like how Mingyu normally is. But still, your gut twists at the thought of ‘after.’ 

Sighing, you reach to pull a duffel bag from the back of the trunk to the edge. “Well,” you start out tentatively. “To be honest with you, I don’t really know.” 

Biting your lip, you zip open the duffel bag, rifling through the items. “It’s a little…complicated to go home straight away,” you confess, pulling out an extra pair of shorts, setting the extra undergarments you have to the side of the bag (Mingyu has the decency to avert his eyes). “So I really don’t…” have a plan, you mean to finish, but all that comes out of your mouth is “...shit.”

“Huh?” Mingyu’s head snaps to you before snapping away, squeezing his eyes shut to avoid catching unwelcomed glimpses of underwear. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah,” you respond, but it sort of comes out as a mix between a pitiful moan and a mournful cry. You look at the inside of your bag in utter defeat. Even in the midst of the chaos of unfurled clothes, the absence of your extra shirt is glaringly obvious. You forgot to put another one in your bag after Chaeyoung took it last week. 

Imaginary Chaeyoung’s face appears in your mind, giving you a wink and a thumbs up with such gusto and infuriating enthusiasm that you’re already drafting your fifteen-line malice-filled text message to her, cursing her and her future generations and all. That is, until—

“Y/N?” Right. Mingyu was still here. You’re pretty sure he could see the despair radiating off of you in heavy and visible waves.

"No, everything's fine," you slump, face in your hands. "It's just my friend borrowed my only extra shirt and now I…" The wet swimsuit seems to cling even colder at the confession.

"Oh, I have an extra shirt in my trunk if you want?"

Perking your head up, your eyes practically sparkle. "Really?" You trail after him as he walks to his parked truck, opening the backdoor and taking out a small black bag and a wrinkled shirt inside it.

"Yeah, here—" he begins, but stops himself, taking a small sniff of the cloth before wrinkling his nose. "Actually, um, maybe you shouldn't borrow this after all…"

Your face falls; Mingyu catches it the moment it does.

"My house isn't far from here," Mingyu tells you, jabbing a thumb in the opposite direction of the beach. “I can lend you one of my shirts if we stop by?” His eyes are hopeful when he brings it up, like he wouldn’t be able to sleep well if he just let you go home in a cold, half-wet swimsuit top. “And—”

The distinct noise of your stomach growling interrupts him, and you both stop for a moment to truly register the sound. Mingyu looks down to your stomach, blinking, then turns away quickly to stifle his laughter. Heat flushes up your neck as your hands fly to your face, squeezing your eyes shut. 

There’s no way this is happening right now.

“I am so sorry, please ignore that,” you squeak, willing yourself to shrink down into microscopic particles and disappear, but Mingyu puts a hand on your shoulder right as you’re about to spiral in shame. 

“We can stop by my house,” he says gently, lips still quirking up at the corners, “and then we can get something to eat on the way back, okay?”

By the way he’s talking to you, you have a brief but horrid vision of your uncanny resemblance to a petrified hamster. But the warmth of his hand is still on your skin, and his eyes wait patiently for you to take up on his offer, so you let out a quiet, “okay.” 

(You figure it would be okay for you to run away for just a little longer, right?)

Mingyu grins in response, wide-toothed and lopsided, his hand slipping off of your shoulder to circle around to the driver’s side. You try not to notice the absence as you tug the handle of the car door open.

The little hula girl bobblehead on Mingyu’s dashboard wobbles to the tropical tunes playing through the stereo. 

You try not to stare at it for too long at a time (the rhythm is quite hypnotizing), but Mingyu notices your drifting glances making its way back to the figure and he jumps to explain. “It’s not mine, I promise,” he says lamely, gesturing towards it with a nod of his head. “My dad insisted on keeping it there when he handed the truck down to me; said since it’s older than me it has the right of seniority or something.”

Laughing, you shake your head, lips curled upwards. “No, no, it’s cute. Sounds like it means a lot to him.”

Mingyu exhales, exasperated, but it’s all lighthearted by the ease in his shoulders. “You could say that. A little too much, if you ask me.”

"But it's nice, isn't it?" you ask, peering at him. "To have him pass something so special down to you?"

He pauses, eyes fond when he nods. "Yeah, I guess so."

You soon arrive at a large gate a couple minutes later, sandwiched between two stone walls surrounding the perimeter of the property. It opens with a press of a button, Mingyu casually pulling into a driveway you’ve only ever had the privilege of seeing from a distance—longing looks from the sidewalk before you inevitably had to walk past, pictures online of houses one could only dream of having. Gravel crunches underneath the truck’s wheels as it slows to a halt, and Mingyu looks over at you, gesturing to the house. "Well, this is my place."

Hopping out, you try not to gape as you follow him to the front door, catching on the minute details of it all. The sleek pavement of the sidewalk leading up the front porch steps, the flowers and ferns in the front garden lush and vibrant with color alit with small garden lamps planted in the soil, an unblemished white painted on all sides of the house. The porch light flickers on the moment Mingyu steps on the smooth wood—warm, steady, alive.

Mingyu fumbles with his keys for a second before unlocking the house, shifting to the side for you to walk through first before following after. You wait patiently by the door while he flips on the lightswitch on the other side of the room, and it isn’t until he looks back at you and beckons you over that you trail behind him, feet shuffling in the house slippers he lends you.

“It’s a nice place,” you say softly when Mingyu slips into the laundry room, tossing his dirty spare shirt into the hamper. “Close to the beach, too.”

“Ah, yeah,” Mingyu shrugs, a half-hearted smile on his face. “It’s honestly more of my gramps’s than mine or my parents—he’s the one who bought it a long time ago—but I can’t say it’s not a nice place to live.”

You appreciate the honesty over forced humble pretenses; not that Mingyu was ever the type to try to appear different than who he really was, but you've spent far too much of your life trying to wade through false platitudes that his openness comes as a pleasant surprise. 

But even with its newly refurbished furniture and what Mingyu says to be freshly installed hardwood flooring, as you wander through the house, you realize it shows its age through the people living within it—the worn soles on his mother’s slippers that you’d borrowed, the gallery of pictures frames scattered across the hallway walls, scuffs on the family table you could only imagine came from old, infamous Mingyu mishaps.

Mingyu tells you he’ll be right back with an extra shirt and to make yourself comfortable, and you give him an acknowledging hum and nod in response, brushing your fingers lightly against the pencil marks etched into the wall beside his bedroom door, each line marked with an age as they climb up the wall. As you wait for him to rummage through his drawers, you turn back to the assortment of photos displayed on the wall, a small desk in the corner to display the trinkets that couldn’t fit on the main display. 

Sepia photos mixed with more modern, saturated prints, they’re all shots of who you deduce is Mingyu’s grandfather surfing, posing on the beach, a sweet wedding photo of Mingyu’s grandparents’ wedding reception with a matching picture of Mingyu’s parents’ reception placed right below, interspersed with pictures of Mingyu through the ages, his baby pictures and school graduations and everything in between (there’s a specific one you stop on for a little laugh, his middle school graduation picture with slicked gelled hair and a stiff, awkward smile appropriate for a thirteen year old in a suit too big around the shoulders). You stop on a particular framed film picture of Mingyu’s grandfather, smiling brightly at the camera with a surfboard in one hand and a shaka sign in the other; a smaller picture sits tucked in the corner of the frame—eight-year-old Mingyu, gap-toothed and cheesing, doing the same matching pose with his dad.

You’d be lying if the pictures weren’t adorable enough on their own, but what evokes an uncontrollably fond smile from you is Mingyu’s almost uncanny resemblance to his grandpa, down to the wolfish grin that both wear with ease. Everyone had always teased him about it, especially back in high school, but you had always thought that it was all just cliché small talk from adults until now.

His home wasn’t so different from yours, you think, when it boiled down to it. Beneath all the polished wood and marble countertops was just a place that stored memories, love told through marks of youth and increments of time.

“Hope you’re okay with this spare,” Mingyu calls as he exits his room, gently breaking you out of your rêverie. “If not, I can find something else?” 

You hum in response, glancing at the black shirt in his hands. “No, that should be fine,” you say, holding out your hand. “Is there a bathroom I can use?”

He points down the hall, then crooks his finger. “Go straight and it should be on your left at the end of the hall.”

“Great, thank you.”

Following his directions, you find the bathroom and shut the door quietly. You allow yourself a split second of admiring the interior (what a fancy sink.) before changing quickly into his spare clothes, stuffing your still-damp bikini top into the bag you had brought inside with you. Questionable print on the graphic tee aside, you would rather gratefully accept his kind gesture than be shivering and cold in your damp swimsuit.

When you return, you find him still standing at the photo gallery, the tips of his ears tinged scarlet; you think you’re imagining it at first, maybe a trick of the light, but when you walk closer and look again, his ears still burn, arguably even brighter with you staring at him like that.

Blinking, you almost ask if he’s okay before he speaks, his voice seeped in embarrassment. “You were looking at the pictures before, right?”

“Yes…?”

“Did you see the, um…” Mingyu squeezes his eyes shut, looking away. “Did you see the one from my middle school graduation.”

Covering your laugh with a short, obvious fake-cough, you shake your head vigorously, hands waving in emphasis. “What? I can’t say that I did.”

Mingyu’s voice borders on a whine. “You’re lying, you did see it, didn’t you?”

 “No, no!” You hold your arms out in front of you in an ‘X,’ shaking your head again. “Not a single thirteen-year-old Mingyu in sight! Promise!”

Narrowing his eyes suspiciously, Mingyu grabs his keys from the counter, walking towards the front door. He holds it open for you to walk through first (a common habit, apparently), but you can’t help the teasing remark that slips past when you pass through the door. “You were quite dashing with that hair, though. Did it take long to gel like that?”

“I knew it!”

The diner Mingyu drives you to sits on a wind-up path from the road between his house and the beach. It’s quiet when you enter, the bell above the door jingling quickly followed by Mingyu’s friendly greeting towards the diner staff. The cook waves at him through the kitchen window the minute he spots him, a welcoming holler shouted his way, and the waitress smiles as she reaches for the stash of menus hidden under the counter.

“Sit wherever you’d like,” she calls, “I’ll be right there!”

Mingyu nudges you with a prompting motion, and you rock on your heels looking around the diner before taking a seat at the booth second-closest to the door, Mingyu sliding into the booth across from you. The waitress comes seconds after, handing a single menu to you, along with two glasses of water; you look to Mingyu on instinct, but the waitress has you beat to it.

“The regular for you, right?” she asks, a brow quirked up in amusement, and Mingyu grins.

“You know me so well.”

She pokes at him with the butt of her pencil, teasing. “How could I not—you come here too much.”

Mingyu slaps a hand over his chest in faux hurt, but she ignores him smoothly, instead turning her attention to you. “Hi, I haven’t seen you here before? My name’s Hayoung, by the way!”

You startle at the sudden attention. “Oh! Yeah, I, um,” your eyes flicker to Mingyu, “Mingyu recommended it for a late night snack, I was kind of just following him.”

 She raises a brow at that, nudging Mingyu again with the pencil as she whispers. “Late night, huh?”

He smacks it away, hissing. “Not like that!”

Hayoung hides her smirk behind her notepad, waving his objection with a flippant hand. “Anyway, enough about him,” she says, turning to you again. “Have you decided what you want yet? I can totally come back if you haven’t!”

Scanning through the menu, you point to the first item that catches your eye. “Can I just have a club sandwich? With the fries as a side.”

“Yeah, of course! I’ll be right out with those in a second!”

Hayoung places her notepad back in her apron and skips back to the kitchen, though not without another sneaky glance at Mingyu and his returning exasperation at her not-so-subtle implications. Mingyu shoots her a dirty look with her back turned, ears burning, before turning back to you while he grumbles under his breath about how they were never going to let him live this down.

(Hayoung and the cook gossip in loud whispers a few feet away, something about “he brought a girl here…” and how they were so proud, they thought he was going to be single forever—)

You stifle a laugh behind a sip of your water, and Mingyu looks at you with a hand shielding his face from the other side of the diner. He is just exhausted.

“What’s your regular order?” you ask, throwing a line to help drag him out of sinking embarrassment. It was the least you could do, especially after filing away the knowledge of his middle school photo for a later time.

“A double cheeseburger,” he replies, slowly pulling himself out of his wallowing. “With fries.”

You nod. “Of course. You can’t skip the fries.”

“See! I knew you would get it!”

You settle into comfortable small talk soon after, reminiscing about old classmates and sharing stories from the summer. According to the grapevine, Soonyoung had landed himself into a bit of trouble after he was almost caught running around your old middle school track half-naked after a poorly executed dare. All the security guard’s flashlight had caught was a head of platinum hair and a glimpse of tiger print boxers, but those details could only really narrow it down to one person. 

(You had raised a brow in between laughs at Mingyu's involvement in the whole incident, but he insisted on his innocence and that he only heard about it from other people afterwards. You believe him, if only because of his inability to lie.)

Though, even if Mingyu tried his hardest to act natural, it wasn’t hard to pick up the way he tries to skirt around the elephant in the room. You think it’s more for your sake than his, but with the lull of silence that falls after each brief burst of conversation, his awkward flitting gaze from you to the table to the kitchen and back to the table reminds you of everything that’s happened tonight.

You don’t necessarily want to bring it up yourself either, what with the embarrassment that still clings to you at just the thought of the memory. You were the one who’d made a big scene out of something you definitely could have prevented, after all. And even after everything, Mingyu was still kind enough to invite you back to his house and lend you his clothes, going so far as to invite you out to his favorite diner. It seemed a little too much to ask him to bear the weight of your emotional burdens on top of everything else he’s done for you tonight.

But when Hayoung comes over with both of your plates and Mingyu begins to open his mouth to say something, only to stiffly eat a fry instead, it really hits you. He saved your life.

Mingyu had already seen the most vulnerable parts of yourself, your crumbling and the aftermath—what was a little more of yourself bared? Maybe it’s the clatter of the kitchen cleaning up and the warm, yellow light of the diner that allows your shoulders to drop; or maybe, maybe—

(You’ll be gone in a month, anyway. By the time you’re back, it’ll be winter, and you’ll come back to the eternal sunny skies, and this will all be behind you. But when the wound is still fresh and the sea salt still stings too much to tell the difference between honesty and shame, you allow yourself to indulge in your selfishness a little more tonight.)

“So, um,” you start, nibbling at a fry on your plate. “About what happened tonight.”

Mingyu stops, eyes widening. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, it’s totally fine—”

“Mingyu,” you interrupt gently, meeting his gaze. “I want to.”

And so you tell him everything: the way your graduation dinner had fallen apart, that you ran away in the middle of your own party, the reason why you’d stupidly dove into a wave you knew you couldn’t handle.

“I just couldn’t do it anymore.” Your confession comes soft, an exhale more than anything. It was a relief, in a way, finally saying it out loud after months of stifling it down. It wasn’t that you hated the idea of knowing what your future was going to be—it had always seemed like a given, the foundation for a good life you’d been building since you were in high school: graduate with top marks from a good university, get a good internship and job offer straight after school so you could start earning money as soon as possible. All of that meant you needed to give up any distractions in the process, even if one of those distractions was the thing you loved most. “It’s like there was always this pressure on me, you know? From my parents, my other relatives, my friends…” It’s almost hard to admit, saying out loud for the first time. “But I guess most of it comes from myself. It always has.”

Mingyu keeps his eyes on you, nodding intently when you glance back at him periodically. But after you fall silent, finally relieving everything off your chest, he opens his mouth for the first time since he started listening. “Do your parents know? About the reasons why you’re really quitting surfing?”

You shake your head, a soft “no,” accompanying it. “I know they’d try to stop me. Try to convince me otherwise and maybe even send me that stupid surfboard a week later to make sure I still keep it.” You laugh a little at the image, surfboard crammed inside a big cardboard box taking up half the room in your shared dorm. 

“It’s not like they’ve ever put any pressure on me to do this for them or anything, and they’ve always supported me in whatever I wanted to do, but…” Your voice trails off, eyes falling to the half-eaten plate in front of you. “They gave up their dreams because of me.”

It’s strange, really. You never once thought you would one day expose the rawest part of yourself to Kim Mingyu of all people, but the words spill out before you can stop yourself. (Maybe when the night ends, you can blame this moment of vulnerability on him, on the earnestness in his eyes when he looks at you.)

“They should have completed school like they wanted to,” you say quietly. “Mom wanted to be a doctor, and Dad wanted to be the first one in his family to finish school and graduate. And they never did, because they chose to have me instead.” Your head tilts to the side, observing the diner. Hayoung types something rapidly on her phone hidden underneath the register, to which the chef sees through the kitchen window and tells her to get off her ass and start cleaning tables or something. She snaps back in a hushed voice that ‘Mingyu was having a moment…!’ which you pointedly ignore. “They’ve already given me so much love, I wanna show them that choosing to have me was the right decision. It wouldn’t be right of me to keep doing whatever I wanted without paying them back first, you know?”

So what if you had to give up surfing? That was why you went into the sea in the first place, right? To give yourself this one last thing, because you could never have it again—not really, not like this. Not that it mattered much in the end, anyway. 

The memory of the broken board floating on the surface of the waves flashes in your mind with a pang. With the surfboard gone, so is the temptation. Maybe it was for the best.

You breathe out, almost shakily, steeling yourself to look at Mingyu again. “That’s it, really. And I’m sorry. This wasn’t the kind of night I pictured having today, and I’m sure this…” you trail off, gesturing vaguely, “wasn’t the night you envisioned for yourself on a Friday night either.”

The fries are almost cold now, as you take another one to nibble on gingerly.

“No, don’t apologize,” Mingyu says, shaking his head. “It sounds like you have a lot on your plate.”

You shrug, smiling a little. “I guess you could say that.”

“But…” His next words come carefully, almost gentle, and you get the feeling he’s trying to avoid touching any nerves. “I just don’t think this is what your parents would have wanted for you.”

You must make a face, because Mingyu immediately backtracks, scrambling to rephrase his point. “Tell me if I’m overstepping, I really don’t mean to at all and I’m really sorry if I do, but...” He hesitates, slightly. “Do you remember when you saw me on the beach that one time?”

“You’d asked me to keep it a secret.”

He rubs the back of his neck. “I think I just didn’t want it to get out. It’s a small town, people talk.”

You tilt your head to the side. “Why would it matter, though?”

It was just surfing, wasn’t it?

“It’s like…” Mingyu trails off, pursing his lips in thought. “I like surfing, really. But it’s no secret who my gramps is.”

(His grandpa was the local legend, after all. Both breaking the record of the youngest to win the highly acclaimed annual surfing competition on the island and the one to hold the first place for the most years in a row, he was a pillar in the community, almost a local celebrity with how much he was admired and loved. It was how they could afford the house that they all lived in, why so many older adults looked at Mingyu with a generational fondness in their eyes, why there were so many childhood photos of Mingyu and his dad by the beach even though none of them really indulged in it as professionally as his grandpa did.)

“If people knew that I liked surfing, it would only be a matter of time before they would start expecting things from me, you know? Stuff like living up to my grandpa’s name or taking his mantle because my dad chose not to, continuing my grandpa’s legacy—it’s not what I want, and it’s not what my parents or my gramps want for me either.” Mingyu pauses. “They’ve always encouraged me to do things that I want to do, not things that I think that others want from me… and I think your parents feel the same.

“I get it, I really do,” he says, smiling a little, “but it’s not about what you feel like you owe them, or what you feel you need to do as an obligation. It’s about what you want, right? That’s what your parents would want for you too.” The bell jingles as a group of high schoolers come stumbling in, greeting Hayoung cheerfully, but it all fades to the background. “And I know it feels wrong from everything you’re used to, but it’s okay—it’s okay to have both.”

You swallow hard, your cup of water empty of everything except for the little unmelted ice left. A small part of you wants to let his words bounce off you the way you have in the past, like how you’ve done every time Chaeyoung or Seungkwan tried to offer their own well-meaning advice, but you know it’s different this time.

Because he’s not Chaeyoung or Seungkwan, and you can tell he’s not just saying empty words to lift your burdens. And maybe there are still the differences you’d felt since the moment you met him, his house still a nice place near the beach, the paint not old and peeling, his family never having to live paycheck to paycheck to make ends meet, but he understood you in the ways that mattered. There was love in his house, the pencil marks etched in his bedroom doorway echoing the marker flowers still kept on your living room walls from when you were 3.

When you look out the window, his reflection stares back at you as much as yours does, and you see it clearly now. His desire to return the love given to him, the same steady weight of home that’s been like an anchor to him, all this time. It’s in him as much as it is in you.

You wonder for the hundredth time tonight how you ended up in this position, nearly dying and then pouring out your feelings out to the person who saved you, the same boy you had sworn to yourself you would never think of fondly. But you find that in this small diner, with holes in its leather cushions and chips and scratches on the edges of your ceramic plate, yellow light warm in the beginning of a dark night, you’re almost glad it happened, if it meant it turned out like this.

“Thanks, Mingyu,” you say eventually, fingers wringing together in your lap. The AC thrums faintly in the background. “Really. That means a lot.”

He breathes a quiet sigh of relief, smiling at you. “Of course. Anytime.”

Smiling back, you finally take a bite of your sandwich left to settle into a room temperature on your plate. The lettuce and tomato has grown a little soggy from how long it’s had to sit wedged between the mayonnaise and sourdough, but you keep craving another bite after your last. You’re not sure if it’s because of how hungry you are, or if it’s the atmosphere that allows for it, but you enjoy the taste regardless.

It’s almost 11:00PM by the time you and Mingyu walk back to his car, ready to drive you back. It’s 11:20 when you arrive back at the beach parking lot, waving each other a goodbye that feels almost gentle, the way you linger by the half-open door of his truck before hopping out.

It’s 11:23 when you make your way back to your car, head resting on the steering wheel in the silence, that it finally clicks. A late night dinner. A heart-to-heart. You even saw his goddamn childhood photos.

Did you… just become friends with Kim Mingyu?

Before you fall asleep that night, you make a mental checklist of everything you need to do the next day.

Apologize to your parents. (They probably had to do damage control after you left, and your mom would most likely have to make snippy retorts to your aunt’s passive remarks for the rest of the year.)

Head to the beach to give back Mingyu’s shirt, freshly washed.

(VERY IMPORTANT!) Make sure everything that happened last night is kept tightly under wraps, lest your well-meaning (read: gossipy and overly interested) friends find out.

Only, when you wake up the next day, your carefully curated plans crumble in front of your eyes. Checking your phone for the first time since last night, you find it flooded with messages from Chaeyoung, Seungkwan, the group chat with Chaeyoung and Seungkwan—frantic, all caps, a few missed calls to add onto it. Scrolling further down the notifications, you also find a single desperate email that Seungkwan sent to you at 8AM. (Subject: WAKE UP!!!!)

Squinting, you open up the messages to see what the world-ending crisis plagued them this time. Two weeks ago, it was Chaeyoung’s Hinge match she’d ghosted after the first date spotted at Target, and the week before that, Seungkwan’s favorite breakfast place ran out of almond butter. Needless to say, the panic doesn’t really set in until you make out the letters M I N G Y U in the plethora of texts and your stomach drops.

Chaeyoung: Y/N EXPLAIN Chaeyoung: WHY WERE YOU HANGING OUT WITH MINGYU LAST NIGHT?!?!

Your eyes widen, rapidly sending a text back.

You: ??? who told you? Chaeyoung: YOU’RE AWAKE Chaeyoung: FINALLY Chaeyoung: I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU WERE HIDING THIS THE ENTIRE TIME Chaeyoung: [sent photo]  [Seungkwan laughed at image] You: CHANGE MY CONTACT NAME BACK? Chaeyoung: BUT YOU’RE THE RIZZARD OF OZ…. [Seungkwan loved the message] 

Groaning, you dislike the message with a fervor and try to move onto another topic. 

You: ok can someone please tell me how you know about mingyu i just woke up and i’m not backreading Seungkwan: my cousin works at the diner Seungkwan: asked me why i didn’t tell her about mingyu’s cute new gf Seungkwan: lol

There’s a muffled scream that only your pillow ever hears. So much for taking this secret with you to the grave. Actually, maybe it wouldn’t be too late to start your funeral preparations now.

Chaeyoung: ok well. obviously we need to talk about this. Chaeyoung: secret hideout meeting in an hour!!!

And without any further argument,  you know that your fate is sealed, the final nail in the coffin. You can’t even find the energy to retort back how it’s not a ‘secret hideout meeting’ if all she was doing was barging in before your and Seungkwan’s scheduled work shift.

But regardless, here you were, an hour later, back at the shave ice shop sat at the tables with Seungkwan and Chaeyoung staring intently at you.

“So,” Seungkwan starts out, ignoring the slightly crazed look in Chaeyoung’s eyes as she nearly vibrates out of her seat. “Spill.”

You don’t even try to fight the headache incoming, pressing your fingers to your temples instead to appease the ache. “There’s not even anything to spill. I went out surfing last night, I let my guard down and I almost drowned.”

“What?” Seungkwan blurts out, his and Chaeyoung’s eyes widen simultaneously. “Are you okay? What happened?”

You wave them off with a tired smile. “I’m fine, I promise. Mingyu was there to save me.”

They both look at you with poorly concealed worry, running over your body to make sure nothing was amiss. But then, Chaeyoung interjects lightly. “So you fell in love because he was your knight in shining armor?”

Your face falls straight into your hands. “For the last time, we’re just friends! There’s nothing going between me and Min…”

When you raise your head to make eye contact with both of them to hammer in your point, the bell jingles as the door to the shop opens, and you meet eyes with the man himself.

“...Gyu,” you finish lamely. Speak of the devil.

Mingyu grins and waves. “Hey!”

Chaeyoung and Seungkwan whip their head from Mingyu to you and then back again, zeroing in on him. It suddenly feels like you’ve been dropped in a shark tank and—from the way the intensity of their gaze amplifies as they snap back to you—they’ve caught the scent of blood.  Wading through it, you smile and wave back casually, ignoring your friends mindlessly tapping on their phones, pretending that their ears weren’t twice as big trying to listen.

“Hey, Mingyu. I don’t know if you saw,” you jab your thumb at the window, “but we’re not open right now.”

He tilts his head, frowning. “Oh, really? That’s not what the sign out front says, though?” Mingyu points to the same window, the one that hangs a sign that says in big red letters, ‘CLOSED!’. You frown, brain whirring. If your side of the sign says ‘closed,’ that means that from the outside, it says…

“Seungkwan,” you call dryly.

Seungkwan shoots his head up, dropping his phone on the table. “Haha! Sorry, man!” he says, running past Mingyu to flip the sign over properly. “We’re closed!”

“But I thought—”

“We’ll be open in an hour,” Seungkwan interjects, flashing him a big thumbs up. “See you then!”

Mingyu looks at him quizzically, furrowing his brows in confusion, before responding with a slow, “Okay… See you in an hour then?”

All three of you nod at him, waving goodbye. Mingyu turns around to exit the store, and you almost breathe a sigh of relief. Sure, him appearing right as you were trying to convince your friends there was nothing going on between the two of you would put some extra work on your plate, but it was nothing you couldn’t handle. You’re just grateful that Mingyu didn’t act overly friendly and mention anything else that happened last night that would carry any innuendos, like—

“Oh, Y/N,” Mingyu says, right as the door opens. “About my shirt, don’t worry about it. You can just give it back to me whenever, it’s all good.”

Like that.

The door shuts with a short jingle. Chaeyoung and Seungkwan slowly turn back to you, mouths gaping. You feel like you just witnessed a bomb dropping in the distance and you’re left with the debris flying straight towards you.

You blink.  “I can explain.”

Seungkwan whips out his phone and immediately starts typing something in the search bar, while Chaeyoung leans over, hitting him enthusiastically on the arm, whispering loudly and rapidly. “Make sure to order the cake with custom frosting on the top! I’m thinking maybe in fancy cursive, ‘NOT BITCHLE—‘”

“Stop it!”

Needless to say, you return Mingyu’s shirt as soon as possible the next morning.

If this were Chaeyoung or even Seungkwan, you would have just thrown it in the wash with everything else at the end of the week, but this was different. The chaos that had happened after Mingyu left the shop and leftover cake in the back of your fridge (half-eaten, icing still managing to spell out the letters ‘N—T B —CHLE—’) had haunted you enough to be proof of that, so you cut your losses and piled in a premature load with scraps of other clothing around the house. If, by the end of the day, you had this wretched shirt off your hands, then it would be worth it.

At least, that’s what you tell yourself as you make your way to the beach. The absence of the surfboard atop your car was something you were still trying to get used to, but you try to tell yourself that it’ll get better eventually. That one day, maybe you’ll walk by your car and not have your eyes linger at that empty spot at all.

When you finally get to the beach, Mingyu is sitting at his regular spot at the lifeguard tower: binoculars hanging from his neck, sunglasses resting on his head, shirtless—just like always. Everything is normal. Nothing has to be weird.

“Mingyu!” you call, waving. He glances down somewhere in your general direction before his gaze finally catches on you, grinning the second he realizes who it is.

“Hey!” he greets brightly. “What’s up?”

“Oh, nothing much, just—” you take his neatly folded shirt out of your bag, holding it up so he can see. “I wanted to return this.”

Mingyu’s mouth opens slightly, a silent ‘ah’ forming on his lips before he waves you over cheerily. “Come on up!”

Instinctively, your response is to politely but firmly decline. After all, the last time you were up in that tower wasn’t exactly something you remembered fondly, and you didn’t want to be more of a bother to Mingyu than you already have been. You couldn’t stay for long anyway, so you try to deflect subtly.

“Oh, are you sure? I can just leave it—”

“Y/N…”

Even from a distance, his earnest concern in the gentle insistence makes it hard to say no. So you sigh, admit defeat once again, and respond with a single, “Okay.”

It’s how you find yourself up in that lifeguard tower once again, stepping cautiously past the bags lined against the wall, filled to the brim with miscellaneous supplies. Now that it was brighter, you could see what was in the tower better: the Hydroflask sporting a few dents on his desk next to a walkie talkie station and landline, an old safety protocol manual with its age shown in the sun-bleached pages, a big megaphone laying near the edge of it.

The place looked different in the daylight, none of the quiet intimacy that you had felt when you were here last. The sounds of waves crashing on the shore and families playing on the beach ring out in the air—children laughing as they chase each other around, the crackling of the charcoal as a family grills meat by the picnic tables further down. That night, it had just been you and Mingyu and the weight of everything you still couldn’t face, but now in the sun, the cold sea-chilled wind was now the warmth of daylight on your skin, all the things you had taken for granted given to you again.

“Thanks for the shirt,” you say, holding it out in front of you. “I feel like I didn’t say it enough when you let me borrow it.”

Mingyu laughs, running a hand through his hair while his other hand takes the shirt from you. “Seriously, it was no problem. You could have kept it if you wanted, you know.” 

He says it jokingly, but the implication of the words has your heart stuttering for a split second before you breathe out a slight laugh, pulling your hand back. “No, I’m good. But thanks.”

“What, you weren’t a fan?” Mingyu places the shirt inside his bag, careful not to mess up the folding you’d already done. “And here I thought everyone would have been honored to show off that they were ‘Raised On Rice’...”

You give him a lighthearted chuckle. “You know, I’m afraid I can’t say the same.”

Mingyu turns his head and hits his chest once, with feeling, exaggerated dismay written all over his face. “That hurt. Right here.”

You follow the motion, about to roll your eyes at his dramatics, but all of a sudden your eyes are lingering a little too long to be normal. Or appropriate.

“As much as I would love to agree,” you blink, focusing mostly on dragging your gaze above his bare chest (his eyes are up there), “I really think you’re the only one that could pull that off.”

MIngyu tilts his head, blinking, before the corners of his lips turn up slightly. “I dunno, I kinda liked you in it though.”

What the hell. What the actual hell.

“Do you say that to a lot of girls?” you manage, still trying to navigate your way back to normalcy. You were not doing this with Kim Mingyu, of all people.

Mingyu shrugs. “You’re the only one I’ve ever given my shirt to.”

You were so not doing this with Kim Mingyu! Except you are, and you have been this entire time, and you can practically hear the echoes of Chaeyoung cackling as the devil on your shoulder.

“Okay, well,” you grind out, praying desperately to swat away any memories surfacing where you’d heard other girls squeal about his glistening, defined muscles, or the swim shorts that sometimes rode a little too low on his waist, or the—Chaeyoung’s voice starts to meld in with your thoughts—idea of him having to perform CPR and giving mouth-to-mouth— “I have a shift soon, so I have to go, but I’ll see you around. Thanks again for the shirt.”

“Hey.” 

You stop mid-swivel and turn around slowly, peering up at him. His eyes shine too sincere for you to look away. “I’m serious, it was no big deal. I’d do it any time.”

Not just the shirt, you know he means, but everything that happened that night. The invitation to a safe place, the warmth of the diner, the way he had sat there with his hands cupped ready to catch everything you had spilled out. Heart lodging in your throat, you swallow hard before you respond. “Yeah, um. Same for you—if you ever wanna talk about anything.” 

“Of course,” he grins, the ‘thank you’ you’d almost tacked on at the end of your sentence understood without being said. “What are friends for?”

Before that night, you might have just brushed it off with a polite and restrained agreement and never thought about it again. ‘Friend’ had always been a loose word—maybe ‘former classmate’ or ‘acquaintance’ would have been better fitting to describe what Mingyu was to you. But now, as you stand in the middle of the lifeguard tower, the subtle scent of smoke from the family barbeque floating in the air, a mesh of different music from various speakers playing quietly alongside the chatter of ordinary beachgoers, you’re sincere when you answer.

“Right,” you smile back at him, warm. “Friends.”

You turn the knob to your front door carefully, entering your house with small steps. The lights to the living room were off, the kitchen was quiet, two pairs of shoes were still missing from the rack at the front.

Your parents weren’t home yet. You almost let out an audible sigh of relief.

It’s not as if you wanted to avoid them, but ever since the party, there was something a little awkward hanging in the air that none of you knew how to navigate. They didn’t want to be the ones to bring it up first, and you could never find the right time to talk about it—your parents both working long hours during the day and coming back home with aches in their necks and a plethora of new things to stress over. You just didn’t want to add onto the load of things they already had to think about.

Your mom had tried approaching you the night you came back, gently asking where you had gone and where your board was, but there wasn’t much to tell her, really. You’d settled for a short, ‘I went surfing and it broke,’ and left it at that; they already knew you were quitting, it wasn’t like telling them why your board broke was going to make any difference.

Setting your bag down on the couch, you shuffle into the kitchen in your house slippers and start prepping for dinner. If your parents weren’t home by now, that meant they would both be out until late evening today, which also meant it was better to just make something small for yourself for a meal. 

(The more you think about it, the better it sounds to just leave that night in the past. It would all smooth over soon enough, and you’re certain things will fall back to their normal rhythm well before you have to leave. Keeping it bottled up neatly inside of yourself, it was cleanest this way. It was fine—it would all be fine.)

But after you finish rifling through your fridge for ingredients, after you shut the door with a resonating snap, the old photo stuck to the front of the door stares back at you. Your dad had insisted on taking it in commemoration of your first time surfing—you, gap-toothed and smiling brightly in the middle, and your parents, grinning proudly with their arms wrapped around you.

And no matter how you try to convince yourself that you’ve long grown past that little girl in the photo, you know that she’ll always be a part of you, especially to your parents. The people who would gently blow on your barely-bleeding scratches and scrapes, the ones that would always be ready with a towel and your favorite snack every time you would come back to shore, dripping wet with fists clenched and tears brimming in your eyes. They would always be there with open arms, waiting until you were ready to come to them.

At the very least, you wanted to be a daughter that wouldn’t misplace their trust, someone who wouldn’t keep them waiting forever. You owe that to them; you owe that to the little girl you used to be. It’s why you needed to tell them everything.

(Though, that was easier said than done. If it were really that simple, you would have done it by now.)

You know if you try stalling and plan for the next day then you’ll keep stalling and never actually do it, so when your parents come home that night, you attempt to rip the bandaid off all at once. You ask them if they have time to talk and that you need to tell them something, but when they immediately agree, you worry far too late that you’d ripped that bandaid off before you were ready.

“So, that cake in the fridge,” you start, wringing your hands together. The granite counter is cool against your skin as you lean against it, grounding you in the middle of the kitchen.  “It was pretty good, right? Chaeyoung and Seungkwan said that it was the best they could find at the grocery store, especially since it was so last minute.”

Your parents give each other a confused look before nodding slowly, letting you ease into it without rushing. You’re not even sure where to go from here, if you should tell them only the necessary parts of the truth or lay down everything insignificant as well.  Maybe if you just kept talking, it would come out eventually.

“It’s funny actually,” you continue, palms clammy. “The only reason they got me that cake is because they think I’m dating Mingyu—I’m not, don’t worry! They’re just trying to be funny about it because he and I have gotten close recently. I mean I get why, I’ve been going on and on about how Mingyu working at the beach has made it a lot busier recently and for some reason I just kept seeing him around this summer and—”

“Y/N.”

Your breath catches. “Yeah, Mom?”

“Is this…about the party last week?” Your mom begins to take a step forward, but it doesn’t become more than a slight shuffle of her feet. “Because if it is, I’m the first person to agree that your aunt went too far last time! Don’t worry, we made sure to give her a good talking to after you left.” 

She nudges your dad lightly to back her up, but at his startled nod, your mom shoots him a dirty look before continuing. “Really, you would expect at her big age she’d know what’s appropriate to say and what isn’t! Your uncles came to your defense too, so everyone’s on your side! We made sure to chew her out real good, so you don’t need to talk about it anymore if you don’t want to—”

“No,” you interject. “No, it’s not that it’s…”

You could have taken the offer—and maybe a few days ago, you would have. Let your parents brush off whatever happened that night and leave it in the past, allow it to wash away into the tide with the waves. But they deserved to know; it was now or never.

“That night, I went to the beach.” Your words come out static. “And I tried surfing, and I wiped out so badly that my board broke because I wasn't thinking straight when I swam out.”

Your mom opens her mouth to say something with furrowed brows, probably something along the lines of ‘You should have told me if it was that serious,’ but your dad beats her to the chase. “Why did you go out then?” He has an instinctual scolding born from worry on the tip of his tongue; it was one of the very first things he’d ever taught you, before you even got on the board. “You’re not a child anymore, you should have known better—”

“I know.” Your fists clench at your side as you try to fight the shame that threatens to boil back up inside of you. “I know, it was stupid and a rookie mistake and something I shouldn’t have ever done, but—” Your voice breaks off. “I told you I wasn’t going to surf anymore.”

There’s a confused silence, one where you can’t gather the courage to look at their faces. “It’s not because I didn’t want to keep surfing, it’s because I felt like I had to stop.”

“Y/N, what—”

“I—” you interrupt. You have to get it out or you’ll never get a chance like this again, clumsy as your words may be. “I just—I don’t—” 

Pressure builds at the back of your nose and eyes as you try to fumble your way around the words, vision blurring. “I just wanted to make you proud.”

Your gaze locks onto the kitchen floor, nails digging into your palms. “I’ve only ever wanted to make you proud, and I know raising me wasn’t easy, and I wanted to pay you back for everything you’ve ever done for me. And I figured—” God, it sounds so stupid when you say it out loud, but how else could you say it? This was how you’d felt for the past four years. “If I gave up surfing to only focus on school, then maybe—I don’t know—” (fuck it, you’ve already made it this far.) “Then maybe all your sacrifices wouldn’t be wasted on me.”

There’s a beat of silence, one where your mom takes in a shaky gasp of air and your dad goes quiet, previous anger already forgotten. For a moment, it all feels like a mistake, something you can never take back. 

(But then again, it was better this way, wasn’t it? Like it was a necessary kind of hurting—to cleanse the wound, to feel it once and then let it heal for good.)

“You know we’d be proud of you no matter what you do,” your dad says, finally. He places a hand on your mom’s shoulder, to which your mom nods and touches her hand to his. “As long as you’re happy, that’s all we could ask for.”

The night in the diner comes back to you in brief flashes, Mingyu’s words echoing in your head. At the time, you had let it wash over you, a small warmth you’d allowed yourself to indulge briefly in the night, but it sinks in now, pooling in the pit of your stomach. He was right—of course he was. 

“Besides,” your dad says, joking, “if you really quit, then the real waste would have been all that money we put into surfing lessons when you were a kid—ow!”

Your mom jabs him sharply with her elbow, hissing out his name in a low voice. “What he means to say,” she intervenes, taking a step forward, “is that we would have done it all over again, because it was all for you.” Warm hands cup your face as your mom slowly raises your head to meet her eyes. She gives you a watery smile, brushing away the wetness on your cheeks with her thumbs. “We’re your parents, Y/N. Nothing could ever be a waste.”

Your dad places a hand on your shoulder, and you shift your blurry eyes onto him. He gives you a warm smile and a slight squeeze, and gestures his head to the door. “Come with me.”

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he starts, taking out the flashlight in the drawer. Walking towards the backdoor, he twists the knob and waits for you and your mom to follow, turning on the bright beam of the flashlight as he leads the way outside.

Your mom nods beside you, her hand in yours. You furrow your brows in confusion, realizing they were leading you towards the backyard shed. “We had a whole plan, you know! Complete with balloons and confetti and even a nice bow to stick on top of it.”

Unlocking the shed, your dad holds the door wide open, motioning for you to enter first. “We were hoping to give this to you at the grad party, but then after everything happened, but well…” Your mom ushers you in. “That party didn’t exactly go as planned either.”

“What are you guys talking about—”

The flashlight flicks onto the wall of the shed, and your question is cut short at the sight: a surfboard, brand new and unwaxed, its surface smooth and shining.

“When…” you gape. “When did you—“

“Like we said,” your dad answers, wrapping an arm around your shoulder, “we bought it as a graduation gift. Before everything went down, obviously.”

“And,” your mom continues gently, “if you still decide to leave surfing behind when you go to school, we can always just keep it safe here—for when you come back.”

You wonder if it was always this simple, if you’d agonized over your dreams and your future and your own happiness for so long without even considering that you didn’t need to let one or the other go. All the pieces you’ve been desperately trying to not let spill out of your hands finally click into place, gently, and the realization makes you feel so silly you almost want to start crying again.

“Okay,” you sniffle, pulling both your parents into a hug. It’s almost like you were that little girl again, sand stuck to your damp skin, sea water dripping from your hair, running into her parents’ arms after a long day. Stable, safe, warm. “I’ll keep surfing.”

The rest of summer passes by in a blink of an eye.

After everything that happened the past month, you were grateful that the rest of your days at home were spent peacefully—afternoons working with Seungkwan at the shave ice shop, sleepovers with Chaeyoung where she tries to fit in a whole week’s worth activities into a single weekend, nights spent with your parents in the living room, T.V. playing in the background as you indulge in what little Family Movie Nights you have left. 

It falls into a smooth rhythm, one you come to expect every single day, the same rhythm that has you up in the early morning, sitting on your board as the ocean waves sway you gently atop the water. The sky washes a pale blue, a band of orange barely visible over the edge of the horizon. It’s a familiar sight, one you’ve become accustomed to ever since you’ve made it a habit to come to the beach every Saturday morning.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Hm?” You turn, tilting your head at the boy on the board next to you. “Nothing, really—why?”

Mingyu points at the dip between his brows, furrowing it in imitation. “You get this look on your face when you’re thinking too hard.”

“I do not!”

“Seungkwan and Chaeyoung can attest!”

You reach down to splash him with water, rolling your eyes at the yelp he lets out at the sudden attack. “Don’t even start with them.”

“I’m not even—” Mingyu starts, but shrinks away at the threatening look in your eye as you dip your hand into the water again. “You were thinking about something though.”

Sighing, you retract your hand. Mingyu visibly relaxes. “Just thinking about all the things I still have to pack when I get home.”

“You’re leaving tomorrow morning, right?”

You hum, nodding your head. “It’s an early flight and we have to get everything ready by tonight, so this is my last fun stop of the day.”

Mingyu leans back, water sloshing with the shift in weight. “You’re not hanging out with Seungkwan or Chaeyoung later?”

“I already saw them yesterday,” you reply, exasperated. “They tried getting me another cake but I put them on a cake ban because of what happened last time.”

He looks at you quizzically. “What happened last time?”

“That’s not important.” Clearing your throat, you redirect the conversation. “Anyway, why do you ask?”

“Seungkwan told me they wanted to throw one last surprise goodbye party.” Mingyu pauses. “Well, I guess it’s not really a surprise anymore.”

“Seungkwan just wants another excuse to throw a party where he can smuggle in alcohol,” you point out. “Besides, they’ve thrown me like, five this summer.”

Mingyu laughs. “Come on, I’m sure that’s not all there is to it. You know how he is, maybe he just wants to make the most of your time left and give you a goodbye you’ll remember. He’s really proud of you—you know that.”

After all, you were the only one leaving, really. Seungkwan was attending the local college on top of helping out at the family business on weekends, and even though Chaeyoung had decided to move back to another island, she was still attending the state school there. Seungkwan had induced quite the ruckus when you’d opened the acceptance letters together, complaining about how you were both leaving him to this boring town with his little shave ice shop as only companion. (And then a few weeks later, he’d given you one of the pineapple plushies they had on display at shop so that you could bring it to California without missing home.)

Your shoulders slump in defeat, half-heartedly kicking your leg under the water. “Yeah, maybe you’re right.”

“But the alcohol is probably a big reason too,” Mingyu adds.

You point at him triumphantly. “See!”

The tide picks up slightly, bobbing both of you gently with the water. A couple miles away, the waves crash on the rocks near the cliffs, just close enough to hear the ebb and flow of water on the shore. This far out, there was only you and Mingyu.

“After you leave,” Mingyu says, cutting through the low roar of the ocean, “that means we can’t do this anymore.” His voice carries an underlying hesitancy that you haven’t heard since that night of the diner, and instinctually, you go to deflect.

“You make it sound like I’m leaving forever,” you tease gently, but you know what he’s trying to say. It wouldn’t be the same.

(After you had received your new board, you’d gone almost immediately to tell Mingyu the good news. In turn, he’d invited you to come surfing whenever there was a high tide at sunrise on Saturdays, something that eventually settled into just sunrises on Saturday instead, regardless of the tide. It was why you were out in the water this morning, even without the waves—a habit that still clings strong.)

Mingyu runs a hand through his hair, droplets falling as he shakes his head a little. “Do you even know how many Saturdays are between now and when you come back? It’ll just be me during sunrises again… all alone…”

“You’re starting to sound just like Seungkwan.”

Mingyu counters with a single sad look resembling a sopping wet dog. You roll your eyes.

“Well, what are you going to do?” you ask. “You have a whole year before you go back to school.”

Mingyu contemplates, humming. “I’ve been thinking about traveling—see the world a little before I come back here and decide on anything else.”

You tilt your head, light glistening off the surface of the water. “Really? And go where?”

He shrugs. “Who knows? Australia, Korea, maybe I’ll  even go backpacking through Europe.” Mingyu stops, a teasing look in his eye. “Why, is there any place you want me to go?”

Your breath hitches, clamping your mouth shut. “I mean, not really, I was just—you know. I just thought…”

Mingyu props a finger to his chin and nods sagely, pondering far too long to be sincere. “I did hear California was nice… But it all depends.”

You eye him warily. “On what?”

“If you’ll let me.”

Fighting the initial swoop of your stomach, you stop and try to think realistically. Mingyu would be the same no matter where he went, and when you imagine what it would be like if Mingyu brought his earnest local boy charm over to the mainland, your nose wrinkles. It was already bad enough on your small island, but the image of his crowd of fangirls multiplying and spreading even more gossip about the new ‘hottie in town’ makes your head hurt just thinking about it. Maybe it was best if you waited until Christmas to go sunrise surfing with him again.

Mingyu thumbs the space between your brows and furrows his to mirror you, and you slap a hand over your forehead. “Oh, so you don’t want me in California?”

Your face burns, chest flushing as you whip your head back. “You are so annoying!”

You move to splash him again, but when you meet his eyes, expectation glows so sincere it makes you stop. Briefly, you wonder if the entire reason Mingyu presses so hard is because he knows it would be the only way for you to be honest about your feelings, especially concerning him. (On the other hand, he could just enjoy watching you squirm. It was probably a little bit of both. So annoying.)

“Well,” you mumble, turning your head to the other side. You try to test the words on your tongue, but it all comes out sickeningly sentimental and sweet no matter how you phrase it. “It wouldn’t be the worst. If you came to visit.”

Mingyu nudges you so suddenly you almost topple off your board, water splashing as you flounder to regain your balance. He wears a dopey grin, even as he grabs onto your arm again to stabilize you—cheeky and victorious, like he just caught the biggest catch of the day. “You should have just said so from the beginning!”

“For the surf!” you sputter, still recovering. Maybe a small dunk in the water would cool you off quicker. “I meant for the surf, don’t be ridiculous—”

Mingyu’s grin gets even wider, and even as you fumble for more excuses, you know nothing you can say would really help. He’d latched onto the truth, and no amount of water you tried to drown it under would ever make him let go. 

“So I’ll see you again?” Mingyu asks, and even with the teasing glint still left in his eyes, the sunlight in his eyes sparkles earnest.

There wasn’t much out here this early in the day, just the ocean and each other—and despite the embarrassment that floods your body, maybe you didn’t mind it all that much. The way it was just you and him.

“For the surf,” you repeat, tacking it on at the end of your nod, but the smile Mingyu gives you knows otherwise. Yeah. You didn’t mind that at all.

It’s the small, unexpected things you’ll miss when you leave: the sun-sated and salty skin, not just the paddle out to the open ocean and riding the wave, but the rush that comes from the return to shore, wanting to do it all again. A place you’ll always belong, no matter where you go. But really—

(The sunrise colors the sky in a peach-gold glow, and you follow the scattering of light across the water to meet Mingyu at the center of it all. There’s a fondness you can’t describe, but a feeling you understand all the same; the way the sight of the horizon and the sky and the ocean means love, the way it means home.)

—you think you’ll miss Kim Mingyu the most.

#feedback is very appreciated ! #mingyu x reader #mingyu x you #svt x reader #seventeen x reader #seventeen scenarios #svt scenarios #svt imagines #seventeen imagines #mingyu imagines #mingyu scenarios #seventeen fanfic #mingyu fanfic

[mackjlee9]

HIII

can u write a leon kennedy x trans ftm reader smut ? its ok if not !!

I'm not really taking requests, but I got an idea for this ✌

Leon Kennedy x Top!FTM!Reader [Smut]

Warning; cock stepping, dry humping, collaring, mention of pet/master play, no top/bottom surgery mentioned.

Masterlist.

Resident Evil 4

(2nd person narration lol sorry)

It was safe to say that you no longer cared about not being able to satisfy your boyfriend, especially not sexually.

You loved seeing him like that, even more from your sitting spot at the end of the bed. Keeping a close look on him, kneeling in front of you with tears in his blue eyes, his cheeks colored red from arousal and shame, hearing him whine with every press of your boot against his throbbing cock.

He looked at you with such a dreamy, daze-y gaze that it was hard to resist the urge to just have your way with him, like you knew he wanted you to.

"You're such a good puppy for me, Leon~," he whimpered as you ceased the pressure but kept grinding the sole of your boot against his cock, the wet stain in his underwear let you know just how much he liked that. It made you smirk as you maintained eye contact with him.

Moving your hand, you wrapped it once again around the leather leash you had in a loose grip, tightening it and pulling it hard enough for Leon to understand your command, and you watched him as he inched closer to you, releasing a quiet whine.

You moved your foot away from his leaking cock, simply placing it on the floor in between his spread thighs.

"Hump it," was all you had to say. You saw him opening his eyes slightly wider, glancing down at your foot before pressing his inner thighs against your ankle, his trembling hands holding onto your pants as he slowly started grinding against your boot.

You just silently watched Leon as he tried to get off on his own, only to make himself overstimulated, hot tears trailing down his flushed, pretty freckled face as he released a loud, high-pitched whine.

"I- I can't c-cum..." His hands shifted to grip your leg, his forehead pressed against your knee as he speed up the movement of his hips, crying louder, "Please, I can't- Master, h-help me!"

You felt pity for your poor little puppy, so you decided to be nice to him.

"Puppy," you called and placed your hand on his head, gently moving his blond hair away from his face when Leon looked up at you, visibly holding in his sobs the best he could, "Come here," you added softly while patting your lap.

Leon let out a shaky sigh and stood up with trembling legs, his thighs and hips burning from the effort he put into humping you as you ordered. He lifted his leg and placed his knee on the bed, holding himself up on your shoulders as he managed to situate himself on your lap, loosely wrapping his arms around your shoulders.

You released the leash and placed your hands on his waist, gently caressing his skin, tracing a scar right above his hip bone. Leon closed his eyes as your warm touch brought shivers down his spine.

You stared at his red face for a moment, lifting a hand to hold his face, making him open his eyes again, revealing that beautiful blue colour you loved looking at. You leaned closer to Leon's face and pressed your lips against his.

You felt his body trembling on top of you, his fingers interlocking with your hair and pulling on it. The way you felt his thighs pressing tightly around your hips let you know that he came the moment you kissed him.

And damn, you had never felt so confident about being able to satisfy your boyfriend when it came down to sex.

Especially when he looked at you with an infatuated look in his glossy eyes, "Can we keep going, master?"

++++

Oh my God, I had to get this out of my system y'all

#leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x male reader #re x reader #re x male reader #re4 x reader #re4 leon #leon kennedy smut #leon kennedy #resident evil 4 #top male reader #trans reader #ftm reader #male reader #x reader #reader insert #smut #.mackjlee9 writes

[toruro]

[21:14]

pairing. l. chan x reader genre. smut (18+), requestw/c. 420+

a content sigh escapes chan's lips when he feels it—the wetness seeping through his thin sweats as you press down harder on the thick muscle of his thigh.

"shit, you're doin' so good for me," he murmurs, using a hand around neck to pull you down into a sloppy mess. your mouths slide at a haphazard pace against each other, your body jerking and bouncing every time your clit runs over the fabric in that way that makes your toes curl.

when your lips separate, your brows furrow as you desperately try to grind down harder, attempting to fabricate the feeling of his cock inside of you, 'cause fuck knows chan loves teasing you and you know you won't get to feel full for another hot minute.

"cha-channie," you whine anyways, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he'll give in and fuck you dumb like you want. not that he doesn't usually fuck you stupid, he just likes working you up to it—waits 'til you've cum so many times your vision is bleary and your mind is foggy before finally stuffing you with his fat cock. "please, can i—"

you cut yourself with a moan when chan brings his hands to your hips and pushes you down harder. "can you what, angel?" he coos mockingly, and your mouth hangs open in an attempt to speak but only soft groans and muffled squeaks come out.

chan watches you with dreamy eyes, helping you fuck yourself on his thigh by bouncing his leg up and down to meet your increasingly fervent swivel of your hips. you place your hands on his firm chest to steady yourself, and he circles one hand around your wrist, grounding you down.

"'m never washing these again," he mutters as your core comes down on him, staining his grey sweats 'til there's a darker spot in the center of his thigh.

you let out a breathy giggle, and you and chan grin together, lips meeting for another kiss as you mumble into his lips, "so gross channie." when he pulls away, he narrows his eyes at you teasingly.

"i'm not the one getting off from my thigh."

"fuck," you moan, letting your head fall to his shoulder. "'m sorry—feels so good."

chan chuckles, wrapping his arms around your waist and pulling you flush against his bare chest, hiking his leg up even higher to make things easier for you as you bury your head in his neck.

"don't apologize, angel ... you're about to feel a whole lot better real soon ..."

#dino smut #dino x reader #dino x you #dino seventeen #dino imagines #lee chan #lee chan x reader #lee chan smut #lee chan imagines #lee chan scenarios #lee chan x you #seventeen imagines #svt smut #svt scenarios #seventeen scenarios #seventeen smut #💌 drabbles

[stqr-grl]

╭﹕💜｡♡・touch tank

୨୧⸝⸝﹕synopsis — there’s just something about sharing such intimate moments with you that makes reo so weak in the knees.﹐

୨୧⸝⸝﹕warnings — f!reader, mutual pining[?, questionable at best], fwb, petnames[love, angel, pretty, etc.], reo being down bad[as per usual], porn with little to no plot, couch sex, intimate + unprotected sex, praise, oral[f!receiving], fingering, dry humping, little bit of cum eating. all characters are 18+, mdni!﹐

୨୧⸝⸝﹕wc — 1k.﹐

୨୧⸝⸝﹕notes — i need a reo soo bad HELLO.﹐

upon first arrival you’d questioned if it was really a good idea to cancel the plans you had with your friends for what was probably just gonna be a quick hookup with reo but he promised it’d only be a movie tonight so you agreed, besides you knew this is where you’d rather be than anywhere else in this moment.

splayed out in the couch, limbs tangled with his as you shared quick, wet kisses as his greedy hands traveled your body trying to feel every part of you that he could gain access too while a movie that had be long forgotten played aimlessly in the background.

the feeling of his lips against yours always feeling so intoxicating, his lips moving in such a gentle dance with yours as you ran your hands through his purple locks of hair, trying to use it as leverage to print him closer than what he already was.

a sigh leaves his pink and puffy lips as he parts from you, large hands holding your waist against his as you languidly grind against his. “love,” the nickname always makes your heart swell with something so inexplicable especially with that voice groggy voice, “we don’t have to go any further than this.”

your eyes open with such a dreamy looked captured within then and the sight alone makes reo’s heart stop as he takes your pretty features in, not missing a single change in your expression.

“no, i want too– can we keep going, please?” you can feel the way his breath hitches slightly at your request before he dives into you for another series of kisses, theses ones being much more drawn out as his hand moves to cup your face.

nights like these with reo are usually a bit more rushed than this — always hurried to have your bare skin flush against his as hands grasped at the plush of your body, more than ready to take you but tonight felt different than all those other nights.

things were so slow and almost borderline passionate, the slow, wet kisses and his thumb rubbing gentle circles into the exposed skin of your waist while the other pushed your shirt up and over your head.

his pink, kiss swollen lips pull away from yours, those lilac eyes of his lingering your body taking in every possible feature that he could have missed any other time he’s had you like this. you look absolutely stunning like this; atop of of him, chest heaving slightly as the look of lust took over your eyes.

it almost makes you feel shy, the way he’s sitting here and admiring you before shifting you from his and onto the opposite side of the couch and onto your back, climbing atop of you.

“god, y’so pretty,” —he places another kiss to your lips as he discarded your shorts and anything else underneath— “so perfect.” he mumbles, slipping himself between your thighs and pressing a kiss to your heat, making you whine.

“reo, you’re teasing,” you mutter, attempting to squirm in your spot beneath him as he molds his hands into your thighs with and amount of force that would leave little bruises in the morning.

“‘m sorry princess, y’gotta work w’me for a second.” he whispers, spreading your sticky folds and using the flat of his tongue to lick a line up your cunt, wasting no time to practically start drinking your juices, ripping a moan of his name from you easily.

he groans at the taste of you, the vibrations making you whimper and pull at his hair to bring him closer. “sound so pretty when you moan for me like that.” he groans, tongue running circles around your hole as he used two fingers to push into your gummy walls that have no problem clamping down on his thick digits.

god to finally be able to take you properly in this moment felt like a blessing to the man, having you calling his name with such a pleased look in your face was just heavenly.

sure, he’d seen you in this sense plenty of times before but it felt oh so different this time — neither of you just being here for the sex like usual, but here for the company of each other.

“oh fuckk, reo–” you gasp, chest heaving as your eyes roll ever so slightly, “i need more, please– need you to make me cum,” you cry, his hips bucked into the cushion of the couch beneath him at your pleads.

he happily obliges to your request, quickening the pace of his fingers and sucking your sensitive bundle of nerves into his mouth, a loud cry erupting from your chest as you arch off the couch, babbling for more as he happily gives with almost little to no thought of himself in the moment- only you and your pleasure being on the forefront of his mind.

his eyes peer up at you, admiring the pure bliss on your face, your expression alone could have him cum on the cum on the spot — a needy noise escaping his lips as he ruts into the cushions once but his fingers and tongue never falter, desperate to bring you to the high that your crave so badly.

“so fucking perfect, princess, wanna feel this pretty pussy cum around my fingers,” he fought back the series of whimpers that threatened to spill from his lips as he spoke, feeling your fingers clamp around his fingers.

“shit! like that, keep doing that–!” you blurt, eyes crossed, feeling that tight knot inside you coming close to snapping. “keep going, please, you’re doing such a good job for me– shit!” you squeak, at the sudden wave of release that washes over you, body freezing with a slight shake.

it’s not too long after that a whiney groan leaves his lips, a sticky white substance staining his boxers and leaving a forming wet patch in its wake but he pays little to no mind of it, instead focusing on the little white trail slipping from your cunt.

reo wastes no time using his tongue to push into your sensitive hole, collecting any cum that hadn’t gotten on his fingers, graciously swallowing it before pulling away from you, holding his two digits in front of your agape mouth.

“here, have a taste angel.”

2023 ©stqr-grl.

#╭❕﹕ ˚₊ sealed #╭🤍﹕ ˚₊ love reo #blue lock smut #blue lock x reader #blue lock x you #blue lock x reader smut #bllk smut #reo mikage smut #reo x reader #reo x reader smut #reo mikage #blue lock reo #bllk reo #reo smut

[facioleeknow]

He loves me, he loves me not • Bang Chan

Does he like you or are you friends delulu?

WC: 1906 Genre: smut, fluff, lifeguard!au, highschool/college!au (implied)

TW: kids, smut, not proofread, shuhua x soojin (gidle)

AN: this wasn't supposed to contain any smut but Dahlia (@comet-falls ) made me think about Chris on his knees in the most inappropriate time (Brat).

Taglist: @bahng-chrizz

Working a summer job wasn't the worst thing you ever did, by far but it wasn't exactly how you planned on spending your summer. Especially if the job in question was at the snack bar at the local community pool. You wanted to spend your summer lazing around towns and spending way too much time at your best friend’s house, not yelling at kids not to run around and trying not to melt under the scorching summer heat. 

The job, though, even if it resembled largely your own personal hell most of the time, had its perks. First of all you had free entrance at the pool and the keys which meant that if you wanted to swim late at night you could and you were sure the owner didn’t mind. And second the lifeguard assigned to keep the little demons at bay was Christopher Bang, and he was dreamy. 

It wasn’t like you and Chris went back but you two knew each other as you had a mutual friend, Lee Felix, who was probably the sweetest and kindest person you knew. The friendship between you and Felix was weird, he was a literal angel and you were the biggest people-hating person you knew, he loved the sun and hot weather and you hated light and suffered if the temperature went past 15°C; but he never pointed the differences out and he was one of the closest friends you had, except for Shuhua of course.

You were extremely thankful to Felix, and not only because he went past your discrepancies but also because he was the one who found you the job; thanks to him you were able to freely ogle at Chris with heart eyes and a slightly open mouth.

“God he’s so hot,” you whined. That day was particularly hot so Chris had discarded his tank top and was only in his trunks, basking in the sun. The sight was glorious.

“Can you stop drooling on a man? It’s embarrassing,” Shuhua sighed and kept fanning herself with a random newspaper you found behind the bar and gave her. Her and her girlfriend Soojin finally agreed to visit you at work after you complained for weeks about how excruciating it was to stay around little kids all day without support. She had been side-eyeing you all morning for simping like that for a man, insisting that it wasn’t very girlboss of you and you insisted back that you knew but he was different, he was actually nice, which earned you an even more sour look.

“Leave her alone, I’m sure you were like this when we weren’t together,” argued Soojin, looking fondly at the other girl. 

“Oh my god, she was even worse and I had to sit through it all the time and of course I couldn’t say anything,” you agreed with Soojin which made Shuhua whine quite loudly.

“Excuse me miss,” a little voice interrupted your conversation, “ can you give me another ice cream?”

“I’m sorry sweetie, but you already ate two and your mother told me not to give you any,” you forced a smile. That kid came everyday and demanded all the ice cream and when the mother said no he threw one hell of a tantrum. 

You tried to resume your conversation with the girls, hoping that the kid would spare you that day, but as soon as you turned the child started screaming and crying for ice cream. Like. Every. Damn. Day. Shuhua scoffed once again and looked at him with that one scary stare she always had.

“Kid, didn’t your mother teach you not to interrupt adult’s conversations?” by the tone of her voice you could tell that your best friend was really ticked off and not just pretending to make the kid quiet. You kinda felt bad for the kid, being on the other end of Shuhua’s annoyance wasn’t something enjoyable. At all.

While you were thinking about that time when you had fucked up really bad and Shuhua yelled at you, the kid sprinted towards the counter, grabbed your phone and then started running in the opposite direction.

“Are you fucking serious?” you mumbled to yourself. as fast as you could you got out of the little snack hut and tried to run after the kid, who was extremely fast and wasn’t wearing shoes which gave him better grip on the wet floor. However you were way taller than him and his little legs could only do so much, your hand started grazing his shoulder and you were already tasting victory when your forehead collided with a hard metal surface. The elevated lifeguard seat. Your luck couldn’t be any better. You fell backwards.

Your head hurt like a bitch, that pole was very sturdy even if it looked rusty. You closed your eyes, the world was spinning a little bit. You could feel people looming over you and faint shouting a bit more far away from you. Soojin and Chris were both kneeling beside your slumped form.

“Are you alright?” Soojin whispered worriedly. You groaned, the last thing you needed was a gigantic bruise in the middle of your forehead.

“My phone.”

“Shuhua went to get it, don't worry.”

A big warm hand gently patted your head and started brushing hair away from your face.

“Are you sure you're okay?”a male voice asked. Chris. Your eyes shot open. He was smiling at you and it was the sweetest smile you had ever seen in your entire life.

“Yeah,” you sputtered. Your whole body was on fire, and not in the good way.

Chris put his muscular arm around your shoulders and helped you sit up. The closeness between both of your faces was making your heart beat wildly.

“I'm going to get some nice, wouldn't want a bruise to ruin your pretty face,” he winked at you playfully.

Soojin raised an eyebrow at you but your mind had escaped your current body and was metaphorically running in a flower field.

Maybe the summer job wasn't that bad.

From that day Chris would always exchange small talk in the morning with you when the pool was quiet and the kids were still sleeping. Sometimes he would catch you staring and he'd send a wink your way paired with one of his adorable smiles which made you extremely flustered. Shuhua and Soojin insisted he liked you, you insisted that he was being nice because you had a mutual friend. But after what happened earlier that day you were starting to toy with the idea.

It was extremely hot and everybody was struggling except the kids that still ran around like it was any other day. The snack hut felt like a furnace but the shadow it provided gave you at least some protection. Chris on the other hand didn't look so good, he was wearing a cap to protect his head against the sun but the heat was getting to him and you could see that. Your hand instinctively flew to the small fridge behind you and grabbed an ice cold bottle of water. 

The walk to the chair was agonizing, your nerves we're so taut that you could play violin on them. The universe though, must have not liked you getting close to that particular spit because once again he sent a kid against you. The blonde, giggly, snotty child ran into your brand new t-shirt (a cat shirt) ice cream first and then proceeded to smear it across the front of it. 

“Hehe, sorry,” he giggled and then ran away.

“I like you shirt,” chuckled Chris, now in front of you. You decided to ignore his comment and handed him the bottle.

“It's really hot, you should drink plenty of water.” 

He took the bottle and smiled again, that man was all smiles.

“Go to the staff room, you can wear my shirt, I have the tank anyway, I don't need it.”

You froze. You? Wear his shirt? Your brain was shutting down.

The staff room wasn't far but it was separated from the pool which meant you could freak out as much as you wanted. Chris' bag laid open on the bench in front of you, his shirt was neatly folded on top. It was a plain black shirt and it smelled of laundry detergent and baby powder. 

“Oh my god, he's not stinky like other men, I love him,” you whispered to yourself while you admired the shirt.

Maybe you were starting to like your summer job.

When you told Shuhua about the shirt incident she was adamant he liked you but you were still very reluctant to believe that. She kept bugging you and insisting that you should ask him out and that he was definitely into you. But still, being the stubborn woman you were, you kept to yourself and the summer swiftly came to an end. The last day of the job had a bitter taste to it, how would you survive without your hot lifeguard to gawk at? You didn't know.

The pool wasn't open, you were only supposed to put all of the pool chairs inside and lock up.

It was hard work and it was still very warm but you were getting paid, so you had to do it. Chris had other plans, he sent you in the staff room to make “inventory” while he carried inside all the chairs.

Y/N:

He's taking the chairs inside all by himself

His muscles look so sexy

I'm feeling hot and bothered rn ngl

Shuhua:

Ew

Just fuck already

“I wanted to surprise you but it seems like you were the one who surprised me,” Chris chuckled from behind your shoulder. 

The gasp you let out was inhuman. You were screwed. As a way to escape the situation you started to slowly back away from him, but soon your back hit the wall effectively trapping you. 

“You think my muscles are sexy?”

You nodded slowly.

“Feel them then.” His warm hand gripped yours and gently guided it to his arm.

“Very impressive,” you stuttered trying so hard not to faint on him.

Chris had his eyes fixed on you, he had this look, dark and intimidating. It was hot.

“Can I touch you?”

“YES!”

Your lips met in a soft chaste kiss, it was almost innocent, but his hands wandered your body. He gripped and kneaded your flesh feverishly. His plump lips trailed down your jaw and stopped at your neck. His link tongue darted out to lap at the skin.

Your mind was clouded with so much pleasure from only his mouth on your neck that you didn't notice his hand had slipped past your underwear until he pressed on your clit lightly. He had made you gasp twice that day, but the second one was for a completely different reason.

You were so wet it was easy for him to slip his fingers inside you. You instinctively threw your head back and smacked it a little too hard against the tiled wall.

“Careful baby,” he groaned. His fingers slipped out of you and a whine escaped your lips but your voice got caught in your throat when you saw what he did next. He kneeling. In front of you. And looking at you like you were a goddess.

“We should go out sometimes,” he said while he yanked your shorts down.

You definitely loved your summer job.

#kpop #reader insert #stray kids #bang chan x reader #stray kids x reader #bang chan #bang chan scenario #bang chan imagine #bang chan smut #chan x reader #chan imagine #chan smut #bang chan au #chan scenarios #stray kids reader insert #stray kids smut #stray kids scenarios #lifeguard bang chan #college au #stray kids au

[garoujo]

— 「 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘 𝐀𝐂𝐓 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐘’𝐑𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐄𝐃𝐘 | 𝐎𝐁𝐄𝐘 𝐌𝐄 」

feat : lucifer, mammon, leviathan, satan, asmodeous, beelzebub + belphegor.

warnings : f. reader, some slight exhibitionism but it’s mostly just pda, needy brothers, teasing, slight grinding/dry humping and groping.

note : i couldn’t get this out of my head at like 3am so i had to write it down so i could actually sleep sob ;-;

୪ LUCIFER

— you’d picked up on his tell tale signs pretty quickly, but unfortunately so had his brothers. it was obvious in the way his long fingers seemed to suddenly linger on your skin, a deep-seated desire compelling him to suddenly not be able to take his hands or eyes off you, pulling a few sniggers from his younger brothers when you both a share a long, obvious look and you know what he wants.

it’s painfully obvious the way that lucifer’s eyes seem to lower when you enter the room, he’s sunk into his chair—his head propped up by his palm as his dark gaze drags along your figure and he feels his body burn at the sight of you. “long day?” you sigh and the eldest demon almost jumps, collecting himself before he clears his throat and reaches his free hand to fix his messy hair. you murmur his name, voice like a dreamy hum from a drunken prayer and he feels his cock throb with a familiar need, like it’s drawn in by the sound. “come here.” he breathes, and you cross the room while his heavy eyes stay locked on you, until you’re close enough for his fingers to reach for you—wrap gently around your wrist to prompt you to lean closer, and he feels you shiver under his touch before his neck flares hot and you close the distance, enough for his lips to graze along your cheek. “can ya both get a room, you’re bein’ gross!” mammon calls from his place on the couch, pulling you both from your haze and lucifer shoots him a warning glare to shut him up before his attention is on you once more. “let’s continue this in my room.”

୪ MAMMON

— it was difficult for mammon to keep his hands off you at the best of times but even more so when he was needy (which was also most of the time). his mood always obvious in the way he seems to stick close to your side, drunken giggles leaving his lips as he drops kisses along your cheeks and jawline—pulling you against him as his hands follow the path of your curves and he’s deliberately pressing his cock against your side, in the hopes you pick up his obvious hints through his breathless whines of “cmon, i need ya—t-to see somethin’, c-can ya just follow me already.”

you were alone as you stood in the kitchen, tapping through your DDD while you stood against the counter, leaning over the marble before you hear a familiar huff from behind you. “there ya are, been lookin’ for ya.” mammon hums and with the way your back is facing him you don’t notice the way his eyes drag along your figure with undisguised desire, hot and undeniable, making him swallow heavily as his cheeks tint pink. “you found me.” you giggle, peering back at him and he grumbles something under his breath before he’s pressing himself against you. “what ya doin’ anyway, ya should be entertainin’ me instead ya know.” he mumbles, blinking down at your DDD from over your shoulder and you drape your head back in luxury when you feel his toned chest against your back, almost caging you against the counter and just the feeling of having you close has his cock twitching in his jeans as he burns hot. from how close mammon is you can hear the way his breathing becomes increasingly more shallow, his hands smoothing over the skin of your hips until he’s pulling you closer—his hips involuntarily rolling into yours and you can feel how hard he is, the sudden friction making his mind spin as he bites back a groan. “shit—d’ya wanna go s-somewhere else, just c-cause ya obviously can’t keep your hands off me, just don’t want anyone gettin’ jealous if they see ya feelin’ me up. j-just come on, already, would ya?”

୪ LEVIATHAN

— it was always extremely obvious whenever levi needed you, the blush on his cheeks never leaving his face as he found it harder and harder to concentrate on whatever he was supposed to be doing. it was probably one of the only time he even let him concentration slip while gaming because he’d much rather focus on you instead.

“levi? hellooooo?” you hum from your place on your boyfriends bed, raising a brow at the purple haired demon as he snaps from his daydream and he suddenly feels too warm. “w-what is it? i was j-just thinking about strategies, okay—that’s all it was, uh—anyway,” levi fumbles, clearing his throat a little awkwardly as if you can’t see the way he’s flushed to his chest, his fingers almost breaking the controller under his strong touch as he tries to get comfortable, trying and failing to ignore the way his cock is straining against his sweats. “are you okay?” you hum, voice like honey and it makes his heart pound, inching yourself across the bed, closer to him, and his chest jumps with an inhale when your thigh grazes along his, his blush stinging his skin as his hands squeeze even tighter around the controller and the sound of his character taking even more damage echoes through the room as he inhales sharply. “heh—it’s nothing! it’s n-nothing, do you want to d-do something else for a bit, i need a—uh, break!”

୪ SATAN

— satan thought he was more discreet than he actually was but there was always a certain air that surrounded him when he was needy, something obvious in the way his eyes would drop and you’d be able to see his jaw clench, a smirk stretching his lips as he leans in closer, tries to gather you close to him as his lustful gaze lazes over you so casually, like he’s studying you.

“having fun?” satan hums as he enters the dining room, finding you with beel as the younger demons stuff his face, only offering his older brother a gruff hum in greeting before his attention is back on his food. you can tell immediately when you turn to look at him, feeling his presence approach you, the look he sends you in return stealing your words as he murmurs your name through a raspy sound, clenches his jaw when he looks at you again, eyes dropped and heavy. he’s entranced when he looks at you, truly, and he swallows at how alluring you seem to be whenever you do anything. “are you free right now?” satan grunts and you gulp before standing from your seat, feeling the familiar warmth from his fingers a few moments later as they rest against your jaw—keeping your eyes trained on his while his thumb moves to stroke along your lips, like a wordless plea “i-i need to talk to you about, something.” his tone wavering slightly as a dusting of pink decorates his cheekbones.

୪ ASMODEOUS

— if anyone wasn’t discreet it would be asmo, he has no shame in telling you exactly how much he wants you, needs you. but sometimes he likes to tease you a little more, he finds it more intimate and rewarding when he whispers his thoughts against your skin between kisses, sighing softly in an attempt to convince you to let him drag you away to his room no matter what you’re doing, but he’ll make sure you end up just as needy as he is before he does.

“you’re looking just as adorable as ever this morning.” asmo hums as he meets you in the hall, skipping over to you with his usual teasing smile on his lips. “i do too, ofcourse—wouldn’t you agree? infact, how about you show me that you agree instead, hm?” he giggles and you can’t help but laugh, the sound making something sizzle in his stomach before he pulls you in for a hug, making sure to keep you held against his for a few moments longer than he normally would as you feel his lips against your skin. asmo’s skin feels hot but his smirk remains when he begins dropping a few kisses along the dip of your shoulder, deliberately leaving featherlight touches against the spots that have you wriggling against him with want, likes he’s proving how well he knows your body. “what’s wrong? did seeing me get you riled up? you want me to take care of you?” he breathes, his words whispered low against the skin of your neck and you want to roll your eyes at how annoying he is, but when you feel him pinch at another one or your sweet spots you can’t help but whimper, pulling an almost pleased moan from the brother against you. “i knew it! you just want some attention, well let me give you more—“

୪ BEELZEBUB

— there wasn’t many things that beel felt as strongly as he did hunger, except when it came to you, need came pretty close and it was almost primal whenever it took over him. feeling him press his solid body against yours, almost grinding his hips against your as he shamelessly pants against your skin, his cheeks warm when he looks at you, violet eyes heavy with want and cock twitching against his sweats.

it was common for you and beel to make trips to the kitchen together, you normally keeping him company while he emptied the contents of the fridge but he seemed different tonight—he was quieter and you’d caught him stealing glances over his shoulder at you more often that you could count. “are you finished?” you hum when you watch him approach you, chest broad and puffed before he’s groaning, deep and languid and it echoes somewhere deep in his chest when he presses himself against you, letting his lips rest against your cheek as his eyes close at the contact. “want something else.” beel grunts, something carnal boiling in his stomach when he looks at you, feels the warmth of your body against his until he’s almost panting against you, his primitive instincts making it seem like the room is spinning. “and what do you want?” you hum, even though the way his cock is hard and straining against your thigh through his pants makes it painfully obviously what he wants, but you ask anyway just to hear another deep groan sound from his lips as he grinds himself against you once more. “you look tasty.”

୪ BELPHEGOR

— you had learned his signs pretty quickly, he was discreet in his hints, well to others atleast because they were always so obvious to you. always seeming to feel him nudge a little closer when he sat next to you, hiding everything behind a veil of him being ‘sleepy’ as if you can’t feel his fingers tracing shapes along the inside of your thighs.

you offer the youngest brother a gentle smile when you feel him slide onto the couch next to you, his chin resting lazily onto the palm of his hand as he props himself up against the arm to shoot you a drowsy grin. “are you sleepy?” you mumble, the question like a whisper as you turn to face belphie before he nods slowly and rests his head against your shoulder, and you’re quick to notice the sudden heat of his palm against your thigh that follows. “a little.” he finally replies, squeezing at your skin a little teasingly after his words, and you want to squirm, but you know it’ll draw the attention of the other brothers who are too busy bickering over something mammon did, so instead you find yourself inhaling deep, feeling his fingertips trace their way higher before they return to their place with an almost proud tap against your skin after. you murmur his name, it’s dreamy and breathless when his fingers make their way higher once more and his palm suddenly feels clammier, causing the younger demon to grumble before his hand leaves your skin. “you guys are too loud, we’re gonna go nap in my room.”

© 2022 garoujo. please do not copy any of my layouts or writing and translate or repost onto any other sites.

#݁ . ࿓ : sealed #obey me smut #obey me x reader #obey me x you #mammon x reader #mammon smut #lucifer x reader #lucifer smut #beelzebub smut #leviathan x reader #leviathan smut #satan x reader #satan smut #asmodeus smut #asmodeus x reader #belphegor x reader #mammon x you #mammon x mc

[blondeboyfriend]

𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐋 (𝟏𝟖+)

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐍𝐈

[ PAIRING ] Meguru Bachira x reader [ SYNOPSIS ] You're Bachira's good luck charm. idk there's no plot, don't think too hard about it. [ WORD COUNT ] 1.6k [ CONTENT ] Aged up!Bachira, he went pro (ayyyy), knife play, blood play, sadomasochism, praise, marking, scars, y/n is kinda needy (but so is he), vaginal sex, size kink (I believe in big dick Bachira), teasing, nipple play, overstimulation, pet names (baby), creampie.

You hated away games, loathed them. They were an inevitable occurrence, something you should have grown used to over time. But still the night before every flight you spiraled, lamenting that you couldn’t follow Bachira around. It wasn’t because you were insecure or lacked trust; you just hated sleeping alone. There was nothing more disappointing than rolling over in bed at three in the morning, reaching for him, and then remembering, Ah, yeah. He’s in Sapporo. You had always assumed you’d build up a callus, one to protect you from the melancholy known to overwhelm you on those lonely nights.

Unfortunately every away game was a wound reopened.

In six hours Bachira would be flying first class to Fukuoka, sleeping with his face pressed against the window. His team’s manager was less than enthused with this arrangement. He thought it was ridiculous to spend an extra day at home and fly out the day of the game, but denying the left back was easier said than done. Bachira’s beguiling whimsy and immense talent rendered most people under his spell. The world was effectively his for the taking, his manager no different.

“I’m gonna miss you,” you  sighed.

You tried to ignore the looming dread that hung around you, but it was nigh impossible while straddling him. He fluttered his long, dark eyelashes and looked up, leaving you bewitched by his golden gaze. It radiated a fervent adoration no other man was capable of. He was artful in his mastery, his affection unmatched.

“I know,” he said, pinching your cheek.

You batted his hand away. 

“You sure you don’t want to get some rest? I’ll feel moderately guilty if you fuck up tomorrow.”

“Stop,” he whined. “I’ll be fine. It’s a short flight and it’s not like I’m gonna be playing the second I get there.”

He would be fine, he always was. He had his ways; the absurd things he did in the name of good luck never failed him. So you surrendered yourself and bought into his vision like you had many times before. There was nothing to worry about, all you needed to do was trust him.

Still you couldn’t hide your melancholic expression. You’d miss him all the same, win or lose. 

“C’mon. You believe in me, don’t you?” he asked. He gave you a cat-like grin, one that would make you sign your life over to him.

“Yes, yes, yes. I believe you.”

“Then what is it?” he asked, tickling your sides.

You groaned. “I’m—ugh—I told you. I'm going to miss you, alright”

“Aww. I could come inside you if that’ll help,” he teased.

“You were going to do that anyway!”

He playfully stuck out his tongue as he slipped his hands under your shirt. His hands were big and weighty, but his fingers were elegant. His palms rough; his touch tender. He tugged at the hem of the shirt and giggled.

“You thief,” he said, pulling it off of you. “I was looking for this while I was packing.”

“Not my fault it’s the perfect nightgown.”

He tossed it in the general location of his half-packed suitcase.

“At least it’ll smell like me now,” you said coyly.

He sat up and buried his face in your neck, taking in the scent of your skin. He let out a dreamy sigh as he exhaled. It was such a lovely noise, one you wanted to hear again and again. You reached down and stroked his soft cock. You pulled back his foreskin and rubbed your thumb around his sensitive tip. He shivered with delight.

“I need all my stuff to smell like you. Go roll around in my suitcase for a little bit.”

“How about I give you some pairs of dirty underwear to remember me by instead?” you snickered as you squeezed the base of his cock.

He rutted against your fist. “Fine, but they have to be those tiny, cotton ones. They feel the best against my skin.”

“Anything for you.”

He looked so sweet lying beneath you. You braced yourself, placing your hands on his pecs, and felt the rise and fall of his chest. His warm skin was dappled with water, his sinewy body fresh out of the shower. The towel he haphazardly wrapped around his hair had unraveled, each strand exuding the scent of your shampoo. His cheeks were glassy, a sure sign he slathered on your facial serum and night cream. Even his skin smelled like yours. He wriggled under you, trying to guide your attention to his semi-erect cock. You decided you wanted to tease him a bit, make him earn it.

“Don’t you need a good night’s rest so you can win tomorrow?” you asked, dropping your arms to your sides.

He scoffed. “I have my ways,” he said, eyes fixed on the thin scars etched on your upper chest.

You decided to change your tune. Wasting time was criminal.

“Hm. Remind me of what those are. I forgot.”

He grinned and began to dig around the bedside table for his tools. He pulled out a wooden box with a floret of goldenrod painted on the lid. Inside were some single-use scalpels and a modest first aid kit. He pulled you close, hand resting on the small of your back, and licked the cluster of scars. Each one was a thin line about an inch in length and spaced close together like tally marks. They were all perfectly straight, the handiwork of a master. You were proud to bear them.

Bachira held the scalpel between his fingers, his eyes narrowed and focused. You froze like a statue awaiting the chisel of a sculptor. The blade glided across your skin; you barely registered the sensation.

“Deeper,” you urged.

He ran the blade across the slit once more. Blood trickled freely from the wound. He made another cut underneath. It was deeper and hurt more than the first one. He watched as the blood made its way down your breasts and let out a giddy whine as it clung to your nipple. Unable to contain himself he swirled his tongue around it. Your cunt throbbed as he held it in between his teeth. He looked up at you, his eyes wild with adoration. You loved seeing him like this. You felt special, like you were the only person in the world that mattered.

He licked up the trails of blood before rolling his tongue against the cuts. It was like getting stung by bees. You loved finding ecstasy in the ache. You’d forever be in debt to Bachira for aiding you in  your libertine awakening, for leading you hand-in-hand down the proverbial primrose path. He was the first to show how to walk the line between pain and pleasure.

“Wanna fuck you so bad,” he whimpered before sucking on your breast once more.

You lifted his chin and kissed him. You ran your tongue over his lips, the taste of your blood still lingering on them. He eagerly opened his mouth, overtaking yours. His kisses were always sloppy, wet, and needy. His desperate passion knew no bounds and you wouldn't have it any other way. You slowly stroked his cock, his precum sliding in between your fingers.

He panted, “I need it now.”

You kissed his forehead and slid his cock inside your dripping cunt. He tossed his head back and let out a heavenly moan. You bounced up and down, driving his cocktip into your cervix. His girth was a gift from god. You felt so full, almost like you would burst at the seams.

He lapped at the blood trickling from your cuts. You tangled your fingers in his damp hair, letting the strands snake around them. You wanted to become a part of him, for your bodies to meld into one. Both of you were swept up in a euphoric frenzy. As he rutted against you he pinched your swollen clit. He couldn’t help but smile in the face of your desperate yelps.

“Gentle! Gentle!” you said, squirming.

It was too strong a sensation. You were so full as it was; you weren’t sure you could weather another intense sensation. You felt like his cock was buried deep in your stomach.

“Ah,” you winced. “Me—Meguru, it’s too mu—”

He forced you to look at him, his yellow eyes overwhelmed by dark pupils, and sweetly said, “Your body can take it.”

Five words was all it took to bewitch you. He alternated between pinching your clit and massaging it. You felt like you were ascending as your orgasm inched closer.

“You gonna come all over my cock?” he asked.

“Uh-huh,” you whined.

His thrusts were relentless, not a hint of mercy in his touch. It was maddening. You kept babbling his name, begging him for more. Shame was a concept neither of you were familiar with. Neither of you could quiet yourselves. It was a chorus of panting, whimpering, and moaning. As your orgasm crescendoed all you could do was choke out a few expletives and drool.

“That’s it, baby,” Bachira said, jaw clenched and completely charmed by your demeanor.

He held you close and took the lead, driving his cock into your cunt, lips pressed against your still bleeding cuts. You felt like you were operating on a different plane of existence. The only thing that brought you back to reality was the warm feeling of Bachira’s cum filling you up. You collapsed in his arms, and tried to catch your breath.

“Was… that… helpful?” you murmured.

“Oh yeah. I’m gonna bring you home a win,” he purred against your ear.

#bachira meguru x reader #meguru bachira x reader #bachira x reader #bllk x reader #blue lock x reader #bllk smut #blue lock smut #bachira smut #.fics #.bllk #.bachira #x reader #reader insert

[harfanfare]

Unique Kisses: Heartslabyul!

Hearslabyul || Savanaclaw || Octavinelle || Scarabia || Pomefiore || Ignihyde || Diasomnia || Rollo, Che'nya, Neige || Honest Fellow

Riddle R. (strawberry kisses)

If it wasn’t for this situation, Riddle would consider removing strawberries from a cake a blasphemy.

Fortunately for you, and also his joy, which he could not admit to if it wasn’t the last resort, Riddle isn't sure if his judgement would be a fair one. He is drunk on the taste of strawberries and fluffy cream, but also your fragrance, which has been his favourite aroma even before he thought he would dare to confess his feelings to you.

Riddle knows he doesn’t think soberly, but also believes that Trey didn’t change a recipe for his favourite dessert.

So, it is your fault.

“You should have taken yourself a piece of cake if you crave strawberries so much,” he says, regarding how you stab a little strawberry from his tart on a silver fork. It shimmers softly with honey or frosting or whatever Trey had added. Right now, Riddle can’t remember what his favourite dessert tastes like, and it was your fault as well.

“Kitchen is too far away,” you almost sigh, but don’t do that because it’s not a reason to be disappointed. “And, by the way, you are the one eating your tart. The greater part is still yours.”

“I have an irresistible impression that my serving disappears too fast.”

“You’re such a gourmet then. You will have to take bigger pieces next time.”

You chuckle at his stern facade, face fully covered with blushes, not matching the crossed arms that were probably meant to give his figure a more serious tone.

The strawberry on the fork you put against his lips, and he - used to this, after your multiple pleas - swallows his dignity and bites the fruit enough, not to cut it in half. He blinks a little faster, a little more nervous, and can’t bear to hold your stare when you smile and put the fork aside.

And then, you bite a strawberry held by his lips. A soft crunch attends the moment where your lips brush against each other. You feel how a sweet juice fills your lips and you have to move away to not let it drain over a corner of your mouth.

Satisfied, now less frustrated with your idea, you lick your wet, slightly sticky lips.

You glance at Riddle.

It… was a surprise that he went with your idea. It was a plan to soften him up a bit and have another reason to laugh when he would scold you again for your “preposterous suggestions”.

Surely not for you to stand in bewilderment and quick-paced heartbeat when Riddle pulls out a strawberry on a fork towards you. And as his face is red, crimson almost, his gaze is tainted with warm grey.

“Now it’s your turn.”

And that was an order.

Trey C. (hand kisses)

Trey Clover is a gentleman.

He opens the door whenever you go with him. Helps to carry supplies to the alchemy room at the far end of the school. Forbids you to prepare snacks for yourself, just to serve you beautiful little tarts during a break, that can be eaten in one bite.

His love is elegant and attentive. He likes to hold you in his arms while reading books. By highlighting the most important things in notes he helps you prepare for exams. He doesn’t even complain when you rob his wardrobe and usurp his clothes. He collects - by following all the Queen's rules or while avoiding Riddle's eyesight -- and offers you roses for every greater or lesser success.

A dreamy gentleman.

The only thing that mystifies you every time, is his touch.

You always quiver slightly as he takes your hand in his and entwines your fingers. He turns it over and brings it to his mouth, kissing the back of your hand. You don't know what is more delicate: the way his fingers slide over yours, or your heart, which will probably quickly tear apart itself, not able to bear the darting beat.

It would definitely be a nice death, but more than choosing that, you'd still rather live through this moment.

Trey's lips brush against your skin and move towards your fingers. There, he places another kiss and when he finally releases your hand, he still holds you. A grip slightly tightens when you look at him bashfully.

It was a gentleman's kiss.

Or maybe not gentleman’s, but from a man who pretends. You are not sure if a gentleman would do something like that to his lady: watch her lose her mind with each kiss as she becomes more and more addicted to her gentleman who smiles with a subtle but private smile.

Even as he pulls away, you feel that the spot on your skin where he kissed you tickles you lightly.

"Good morning to you, too, I should say”, you exclaim with a big smile. But you already like that greeting very much, and you're sure Trey knows it as well, as he repeats the gesture every day.

"Ah, and that's not the reaction I was expecting," he snorted as you rolled your eyes. “You got used to this trick already. Should I stop or…” now he smiles, mischievously. Certainly not like a gentleman. “...change the offensive?”

Cater D. (kisses on the eyes)

“Smile!” and snap! With a soft sound, another photo saves itself on Cater’s phone. He immediately enlarges it with his fingers, brings the image closer to your faces and clicks his tongue with dissatisfaction, but doesn’t remove the photo. “No, that’s not it. We look lovely, but- Sweetie, come closer!”

“Yes, yes.”

You take another step towards Cater. He instantly places his arm over yours, drawing you a little closer, as he holds the phone in the other hand. He observes the preview of the photo. And then, he directs you to turn a little to the west, so the sun would colour your faces even more.

An artistic wind begins to blow and ruffles the leaves of the trees behind your back. They form your main background, which Cater wanted to expose as they were famous for their multicoloured flowers. It was the main reason to choose this park as the next place for your date. The strands of your hair began to wave, and you gently brushed a few away from your eyes.

But before Cater can snap that hundredth picture, you lower your head and put hand to your face.

“Ah, I think something is in my eye,” you murmur, with all your will trying not to rub your eyes. “Probably sand, ewh.”

“Oh, oh, wait, wait, wait,” Cater quickly tucks the phone into the pocket of his jacket and with one movement unbuckles his backpack. He pulls out a bottle of water -which he immediately hands to you - and then finds a package of tissues. “Here. Try to wash it out. And blink. You're supposed to blink a lot at times like this, right?” … Luckily for you, you don’t have to vex with it for long, because after a short while you manage to get the sand out of your eye. Cater’s phone is used as a mirror, and he checked himself if there might be any irritation visible in your eye.

You crumple a wet tissue and throw it in the trash can near your bench.

“It’s all right now, I think.”

Cater puts his stuff in his bag and gets up. With a short wave, he says that he wants you to stay where you are.

"I will cast a healing spell on your eyes," he announces and crouches in front of you. He smiles. “Metaphorical one. Please don't trust me when it comes to healing magic.”

And then he moves closer to you, and his hands are on your cheeks. They hold you in place as he gets closer and closer until he completely fills your view and asks you to close your eyes. You don’t have to look at him to know his gaze is trailing your face. And when he stops, it’s because he wanted to turn your attention to the touch as he places warm kisses on your eyelids.

These are some of the softer kisses Cater gave you. They are almost imperceptible and uncharacteristic of him, but you can feel the care in each one... and have a scent of his cologne – jasmine scent, slightly spicy in smell - that he put on himself surround you.

He steps back only when each eye receives at least three kisses.

“I think I feel better now...” You say with a smile which he reciprocates. He pulls out his phone, once again, and points its lens at you. He hums with pleasure, as he finds the perfect angle.

“So~? Will you smile for me once more?”

You can’t say no after such a satisfying spell.

Ace T. (feigned kisses)

“Hey, hey, come here, I want to tell you something...”

You tear your gaze away from your notebook, where the next line of your essay on the history of magic is now cut halfway. Ace's whisper snapped you out of the monologue you've arranged in your head, and you know you won’t recollect it soon. Not even a passive focus spell applied to the library could help, as Ace acted as a truly sterling distraction.

“Come here yourself.”

“It's important”

It’s probably not.

You sigh and shake your head. Ace does the same, but rises from his untouched textbooks. "I lack the motivation to study today," he tells you every time you drag him along to prepare for your next exam together.

He stops in front of you and turns your chair around so that you can directly face him. He smiles mischievously. Almost malevolently, but warm enough.

He places his hands on both sides of your chair and—oh, since when is he so close to you?

It's not that Ace isn’t in the habit of kissing you—he likes it as much as you do, although he never fails to roll his eyes when you ask for a kiss, or tease you ("ah, so you need more of my attention, hm? Heh~") before pressing his lips to yours.

And you are expecting the latter option until Ace stops inches from your face and snarls.

“Heh. You wish”.

He tries to whisper something more, but you don’t give him an opportunity to do so, as you throw your head back. And then he greets you with a look, you could describe as mean.

“Yes,” you admit quietly, genuinely disappointed. You turn your chair around and quickly tuck your books into your bag. Maybe you'll find Riddle or someone who can chase Ace away a bit with their presence, so you will have some peace. “But I'm feeling less and less sorry that it didn't happen. See you later, I'm off to class…”

...

Huh.

He didn’t expect that. Did you have a bad day today? Did he do something wrong or- Did you really care about getting a good grade on that essay? He couldn't guess, but he knew that if he doesn’t make a move now, you will try getting back at him.

“Hey—!” He wheezes, grabbing your hand. “You can't give up so easily. Fight for what you want!”

“Too much work.”

Ace sighs and tilts his head. He pulls you towards him by the strap of the bag you carry, almost knocking you off balance. And then, he presses your lips to his—they are unexpectedly soft and you start to wonder if it was because of the honey he added to his tea at almost every unbirthday party (to break another rule of his dorm)—and then... And then you both lost the air in your lungs that you hadn't managed to take in before kissing.

You look at him from under your lashes as you take a deep breath. “To quote, "Ah, so you need more of my attention?””

“Ughh,” Ace breathes out, and you feel that quiet sigh on the skin of your neck. He is still incredibly close, but for that moment you can’t bring yourself to push him away. “You're lucky I like you. …And, by the way, you choose very wise man’s quotes.”

Deuce S. (forehead kisses)

“…”

“...”

“...Are you asleep?”

“...No. Not yet.”

The quilt rustles quietly as you sat up on the bed. You feel tired, your head aches, and your eyes seem too heavy. You are sure you've already yawned about five times since you said “goodnight”, but even after forty—you counted each one with agony—minutes of lying down, sleep wasn't taking you away.

Neither did Deuce, and that was your current greatest comfort.

“I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight,” you whisper, trying to make out his features in the darkness that merge into a dark room. But you are sure that that darker patch of shadow—Deuce—is looking at you as intently as you are looking at it. “Not after the movie that Ace picked out.”

Deuce slowly gets up and you can finally tell where his face is.

“He picked the wrong title,” Deuce agrees, sighing heavily. “I don't know if I can-... Erm, I mean, I'm not a fan of horror movies, but it's not that, that, I-.”

“Yes, yes, I understand,” you interrupt him gently and squeeze the duvet lightly in your fingers. You turn your gaze to a window where a hint of light shines through the gaps between the curtains. The moon must be very visible tonight. “I didn't like that film. You know what, Deuce? We can't let Ace choose movies ever again.”

“Right,” he put his hands through the strands of his hair. And then laughs at the memory he proceeds to describe you. “...When I was younger, my mother would often kiss me on the forehead whenever I felt I was too upset to sleep. I often tried to watch horror movies on my own so I could talk about them later at school, but... Haha. Anyway, somehow it always worked because I would go back to bed later and then—I think—I would fall asleep…”

“...Do you want to kiss me goodnight?”

“Ah-! N-no! That's not what I meant!” he protests. And then tries to look at you but finds it impossible. “Ah... Was that a request or a question?”

“An offer of a lifetime.”

Deuce remains in his bed for a few more moments but finally gets up. He pushes the curtains a little more and the room becomes much brighter. You could now see the games scattered on the floor that you had vowed to clean up in the morning, the outline of your beds and finally, and most importantly, yourselves.

He approaches you, quietly and carefully. You wait with a smile that you try to hide. You straighten up, put your feet on the floor, but still sit on the bed as Deuce brings his fingers to your face, and touches it with care as if you were a porcelain doll. Or a dream and Deuce was willing to believe in both cases.

He brushes your hair from your forehead and holds loose strands with one hand; the other is placed on the back of your head. He leans in. You hear him hold his breath and feel warmer as he presses his lips to the top of your head. You are sure he must have sensed the scent of his shampoo (you had a good reason for that: you had forgotten to take your own with you) because he quivers subtly as he inhales the smell bashfully.

And he must also be glad that it was still dark in here because, when you raise your gaze, his head is titled, as he often does when conscious of his blushes.

“…Are you calmer?” He whispers the question.

You nod slowly. Deuce carefully, almost reluctantly, steps away from you and sits down on his bed. Although he is no longer beside you, you can still feel the memory of how warm his skin and lips were. You gently touch the spot on your head where he had placed his kiss.

“If we don't fall asleep in the next half hour, we're going to go get some late-night snacks,” you decide, as you lay down, and you even notice Deuce smiling.

“Okay,” he chuckles. “And we can watch a better movie. But now try to fall asleep.”

“If I fall asleep now, I'll regret it.”

“You will say something else in the morning, tired.”

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