#when i was in high school it was the highlight of my day to see these bags

[sweetbans29]

Teach Me: The Art of Kissing - PB

Pairing: Paige Buecker x Reader

Previous Part

Summary: You and Paige have been best friends for the last 6 years. You trust her completely. And it is because of that trust that you ask her a rather forward question. AKA - You ask Paige to teach you.

Warnings: best friend vulnerability, smitten Paige, kissing (obviously), suggestive, masturbation (not explicit - but there)

Word Count: 5.4k

Teach Me Masterlist & Sweetbans Masterlist

AN: Here we go.

It was junior year of high school when Paige first noticed her feelings for you were shifting. She realized she was feeling more when the two of you decided to take a spontaneous trip in the middle of the night.

You and Paige were lying in your bed, scrolling through IG when a reel appeared on her screen highlighting a 24-hour diner that looked like it served the best breakfast food.

"Yo, look at this," she says as her arm comes over to you showing you the spot. "This looks so freaking good."

You grab her wrist, stabilizing the hand so you can watch what she is trying to show you. Your mouth instantly waters once they start showing some of their menu highlights.

"My mouth is watering." You say and release her arm.

Paige takes a second and you hear her groan.

"What?" You ask.

"It is Rochester," Paige says in a disappointed tone.

"Let's go." Is all you say to get Paige to shoot up from where she is laying.

"Wait, are you for real right now?" She asks, trying not to get her hopes up.

"Let's go get it," you say, sitting up yourself.

Paige jumps on you, tackling you back into the bed, and shakes you out of pure excitement.

"B!" You yell taken back by her excitement. You can't help but laugh as she finally lets you go and jumps out of your bed.

You grab a hoodie from your closet and look over to Paige - you toss it over to her knowing she is going to get cold. I mean it is 11pm. You grab another hoodie for yourself and the two of you take off on your mini road trip to get some bomb diner food.

You put directions into your phone and begin the 2-hour drive. The drive is filled with carpool karaoke and laughs. When the two of you arrive at the diner you order what feels like half the menu. The two of you sit there grubbing on the food.

"This is so much better than the video," Paige mumbles as she takes another bite. You nod in agreement, savoring the pancakes that you just put in your mouth.

When you are both stuffed to the brim, you check out and begin the journey back. It is on the drive that Paige puts on softer music. You thought she would fall asleep on the drive back but she seems wide awake. You are about a half hour from home and you take a little detour.

"Where are we going ma?" Paige asks.

"Ma?" You asked with raised eyebrows, this was a new one. She just shrugs with a little smile. You shake it. "You'll see B."

You make your way away from the town, away from the street lights to a little park. You kill your lights just as you park your car and Paige looks around.

"You didn't bring me out here to kill me did you?" She asks. "Because if you did, I am too full to try and run away from you right now." She says with a little laugh.

"That was my plan," you say now laughing with your best friend. "Fill you up with food so you can't run. No dummy. You don't recognize where we are?"

Paige looks around, taking longer than you thought it would for her to figure out where you are.

"Bonding day freshman year..." you say trying to re-jog her memory.

You see it click in her brain as her eyes get wide.

"I am still so sorry for that day," she says with a laugh.

This is the park where your dad brought all of his teams for a team bonding day at the beginning of the season. It just so happened that Paige her freshman year almost sent you to the emergency room. You turned out to be okay but it didn't help with your freshman year feud.

"You're just lucky I am okay," you joke with her as you get out of the car.

"Where are you going?" She asks but doesn't follow yet. You open your trunk and grab blankets from the back.

"Come on B," you encourage her as you begin walking into a pitch-black field.

"Wait for me!" She calls to you and you slow down for her.

You find your spot and begin laying down the blankets. You see her shivering and throw one of the blankets you have at her. You lay down and pat the spot next to you. She lays down next to you and you help put the blanket over her and cover yourself as well.

Once you lay back down, you let out a sigh - everything releasing from your body.

The two of you lay there looking up at the stars.

You scoot closer to Paige to draw some of her body heat. She brings her arm out for you to hold onto. Being physically close was nothing new to the two of you.

"This is one of my favorite places." You say, eyes filled with the wonder of the stars. "Whenever I feel overwhelmed or stressed I come here and just look up."

Paige lies there listening, wondering why this is only the first time you are bringing her here. She doesn't speak, waiting to see if you will let her learn more about you. Her heart swells when you do.

"I grew up coming to this park - it is where my mom and dad taught me how to play ball. I would spend hours here watching different people play on the courts over there and just absorb everything my dad would tell me about them." You say. You bring your head to her shoulder, trying to get more comfortable. "From then on, my mom would occasionally bring me here at night to see the stars whenever my dad was out of town for work. We would spend hours here pointing out shapes and just being present with one another. Those are some of my favorite childhood memories."

Paige hums.

"Give me your other hand," you say bringing the arm that isn't entangled with hers out from under the blanket. She does the same and offers it to you.

"Hold it up like this," you lift your arm, palm facing the stars. She reciprocates your movement.

"Whenever I feel like I am failing or like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders I do this." You say looking at your hand. You are so locked into your hand at the stars above that you don't see Paige looking right at you, ignoring the hand she has placed in the air because you told her to.

"It puts everything into perspective. It shows me how big the world is and how small I am. It keeps me grounded in knowing that there is so much more out there than what I am facing." Your fingers wiggle a little and a small smile finds its way to your lips.

"You do that for me," Paige says before she can stop herself.

You turn your head to look at her and realize she is looking right at you. You smile at her and give her arm a squeeze.

"Well, I am honored," you say. "I'm glad you are my best friend."

She feels her heart swell and then crack. It was then that she realized she doesn't know if she will ever truly be content being just your best friend. But doesn't want to say anything to ruin this moment. To ruin your moment.

It is later on in your friendship that Paige realizes you mean too much to her to say anything about the feelings stirring inside of her. So Paige threw herself into meaningless relationships or flings with girls that all had some sort of resemblance to you.

You release Paige from the hug. Part of you is surprised that she actually agreed to this but are super grateful that she said yes not knowing what you would have done if she were to say no.

"So when do you want to start?" She asks slightly scratching the back of her neck. You never made her nervous before but now she is standing before you, her heart rate picking up, and trying to keep her cool.

"Well considering the date is on Friday, maybe tomorrow?" You say. "You get out of practice at 8pm ya?"

Paige nods.

The next 24 hours feel like a week to Paige as she anticipates what the first 'lesson' will be like with you. It is finally right before practice that she snaps out of her nervousness and is reminded that she has hooked up countless times and that you will be no different.

Paige gets through practice, not thinking of you once. It was one of the best practices the team has had and all the girls are on a high.

You are sitting on the couch doing homework when Paige gets back,. She walks in the door and you look up.

"Hey B," you say wrapping up your assignment. "How was practice?''

"Practice was solid - one of the best we've had so far," Paige says plopping down on the couch. She watches you as you finish up your assignment, occasionally pushing your laptop in a playful manner.

Paige loved bugging you while you were working. She would do anything to get a little reaction out of you in your focused state. And your reactions were some of her favorite things in the world. Now was no different.

"I am almost done, just let me finish this and then I am all yours," you say typing away to get it done.

Paige's cheeks heat up as she sinks back into the couch, opting to scroll on her phone while you finish.

Once you're done, you close your computer and let out a big sigh, leaning back into the couch with your eyes closed.

"That assignment was the definition of dumb, there was no point. It was just busy work for points." You say eyes still closed, now rubbing your temples.

"I'm sorry ma, if you're tired we can put on a movie," Paige says. It was a common thing for your tired nights to be filled with movies and you fall asleep within the first few minutes of it. Paige never minded, as she would typically be right behind you with sleep, then waking up with credits rolling and having to wake you up to move to your bed.

"No, no," you say sitting up. "We have a lesson, remember?"

Paige lets out a little laugh, "Oh I remember. How could one forget when their best friend/roommate asks them to show them how to kiss." She says teasing you a little.

"I mean I could always go ask Azzi, I am sure she would help me if you don't want to," You say knowing Azzi would never but wanted to poke at Paige.

"Oh hell no, she wouldn't be able to teach you like I could." She says in a cocky manner.

You let out a laugh. "Oh I know, Little Miss Campus Player." You say and Paige's demeanor changes.

"Hey, you know I don't like that," she says and you immediately feel bad. Leaning over to her, you grab her arms, unfolding them from her defensive position.

"I am messing with you, you know nobody thinks that." She begins to loosen up again. "But you do put yourself out there and girls love you which is why you are the one who is going to teach me." You say now sitting up, excited to begin your first lesson.

Paige sits up as well.

"Okay, what do I do?" You say looking at Paige and she just gives a little laugh.

"I think we should talk about some ground rules first," Paige says and you give her a questioning look. She continues. "I only have two. First, I need you to talk to me whenever we do anything. You need to communicate what feels good and what doesn't. You got to let me know what you are thinking okay?"

You nod and she gives you a look.

"Yes, okay. Got it." You say already breaking Paige's first rule.

"Second, if at any time you feel uncomfortable or any of it is too much, we stop. Okay?" She says.

"Okay," you say understanding the seriousness in Paige's voice.

"We are going to start slow," Paige says, and you kind of slump a little. "Today we are going to ease you in with how to kiss."

For some reason, you blush but give an attentive nod to your best friend. She stands and you follow wanting to question but deciding not to.

Paige speaks as if she knows what you are thinking, "It's less of an awkward position to start if we stand."

You are now standing there like an awkward child, arms by your side.

"Can I?" Paige motions to your hair and you nod. Her hands come up to take your hair out of your braid. Hers is already down, and dry from the shower she took after her practice. You get a whiff of her shampoo and take a deep inhale.

"Did you take my shampoo?" You ask getting distracted.

"Maybe." She says with a smile. "I ran out yesterday and took your bottle this morning." You scoff and take a step back. She gives you a look of 'now is not the time' and you step back to her.

"Okay, okay - sorry. I am just a little nervous." You say wiping your hands on your pants.

"There is no need to be nervous, I got you," she says and takes one of your hands.

You look up at your best friend and her eyes meet yours. You lick your lips and her eyes fall to them.

The number of times Paige has had to swallow the thought of kissing you has been too many times to count. She has to keep her cool now that it is finally happening. It still baffles her how you haven't been in a relationship or even been kissed for that matter throughout all these years. There have been countless parties where you have wandered away with someone for some time and Paige has just assumed things were happening. Paige would never stick around to really find out, taking a girl home of her own to get you out of her head. The morning after, the two of you would never really talk about what had happened and just go about your day.

Paige leans in and your eyes still don't leave hers. Your breath picks up as you feel Paige lift the hand she had been holding to place it on her waist. Her hand comes up to cradle your cheek.

"Are you sure about this?" She asks.

"Yes."

"I am going to kiss you now. Nothing major, just a simple kiss." She says and you nod. She doesn't move a muscle waiting for your verbal confirmation.

"Okay." You say and close your eyes, waiting for her lips to meet yours.

Paige leans down and her lips meet yours.

It's as if time stops. Neither of you move. You are taking in the feeling of somebody else's lips on yours and Paige is taking in you.

It was just a simple kiss but you wanted more.

Paige is the first one to pull away, already missing the feeling of your lips on hers.

Her eyes are still closed as you open yours.

"How was that?" Paige asks, monitoring her breath.

"That was nice," you say. "I wanted more." You admit and Paige's eyes shoot open. "Teach me more," you say starting a fire in Paige.

Paige's hands fall from your face and find your hips. Your hands are on her hips, accidentally giving them a little squeeze.

“Okay babe - just follow my lead,” Paige says as she reminds herself that she needs to go slow. You nod at her.

“I need to hear you,” she says already leaning in. Her eyes burning into yours.

“Kiss me B,” you say as your eyes flutter closed.

Paige takes one good look at you before bring her lips to yours for a second time. This time with a little more force. Her hands slowly finding the skin under your shirt, squeezing your hips.

You let out a little gasp and she uses it as an invitation. Her tongue collides with yours, savoring the newfound taste of you. You let her take the lead as her tongue explores your mouth.

Your hands come up around her neck, pulling her closer to you. Her body is already against yours but you want her closer.

Paige is overwhelmed by you. As much as she has imagined this, she never imagined it would be this good. You are sweeter than she imagined and your touch is electrifying. She’s enamored by you.

Her tongue continues to massage yours until both of you are out of air. Reluctantly you pull back, completely out of breath.

“That was hot,” Paige says and you blush. "Not bad for your first kiss."

"Well I have a good teacher," you say and it is Paige's turn to blush.

"Can we do it again?" You ask and Paige nearly falls to her knees. She would do whatever you asked but can't show the effect you have on her.

"Of course, ma," She says and brings her hand to your face again. "Do you want to try to take the lead this time?"

You shake your head no, "Not yet." She nods and leans back into you.

Her lips meet yours again and you notice it is a little different this time. Paige isn't going as slow as before and there is a fire behind her movements. Your hands come up to wrap around her neck and her hands slide down your backside. They squeeze the backside of your thighs and you take the hint - jumping to wrap our legs around her waist.

You let out another moan. Paige doing everything in her power to keep this just in the realm of kissing.

Paige sits down on the couch, hands coming back to your waist. Your legs straddle her hips, the kiss not breaking once.

Pressure builds in your center as Paige's tongue works yours so perfectly.

You begin to rock your hips - wanting to relieve any of the pressure in your core. It is now Paige's turn to moan as she feels your hips lightly grind into her.

Her hands stop your actions and you let out the lowest whine.

She continues the kiss, too caught up in it realizing when her hands begin to ease on your hips. allowing you to begin moving them again. Your hands come up to Paige's hair - running your fingers through the hair at the base of her head, giving it a light pull.

Paige's next move is unexpected. She lifts you up and throws you on the couch next to her as she immediately stands up. You look at her confused but she just grabs her keys and walks out of the apartment.

You are left on the couch - turned on and confused.

Paige didn't mean to bolt the way she did but she knew if she had stayed she wouldn't be able to stop herself.

She gets in her car and begins to drive. Once she’s on the road, she figures is a safe distance away from you she stops. She puts the car in park and sits there for a second before hitting her hands on her steering wheel.

How could she think this was going to work? Just casually being intimate with the only girl she has ever truly loved and be okay. The way Paige wanted to lay you on that couch and cover every inch of your body with her lips has her head spinning. You had her head spinning when she was so used to it being the other way around with girls. Her eyes close and her hand comes up to her face - her mind beginning to replay the events that happened not an hour before.

Your lips meeting hers for the first time. Your tongue moving so seamlessly with hers, allowing her full control of you. You straddling her on the couch with her hands on your hips. The way your hips moved on hers.

Paige's other hand begins to make its way down to her core as she remembers the sounds you made. The sounds you were making just for her. She begins relieving the tension she has been holding. She reaches her climax in no time, panting and cursing your name as she does.

When she was finally in a place to collect her thoughts, Paige thought about the whole situation again. She thought about whether it would be a good idea to continue with what you asked from her or if she should call it.

If she continued - she would have to figure out how to control herself when you would take the lead. Paige was so used to taking the lead. She knows that when it is your turn she is going to have to display more control of herself than she did today.

If she called it though - she would need to explain why she wouldn't do it anymore, why she couldn't. And sitting here facing the fact that there is a possibility of her having to admit her feelings for you, possibly ruin your friendship and lose you forever diminished the thought almost immediately.

After thinking it through - there was no choice, she had to keep going.

Not checking the time - she picked up her phone and called Azzi.

"P?" Azzi's sleepy voice rings in Paige's ear. "What time is it?"

Paige looks at the clock in her car and curses.

"Sorry Azzi, it's 2..." Paige says regretting bugging her friend. "I just -I..." Paige doesn't know what to say.

Azzi lets out a sigh having a gist of what Paige is going through as the blonde called her late last night explaining what you had asked of her. Azzi was the only person on the planet who knew Paige's feelings for you, she had an inkling when all the girls Paige would hook up with all somehow resembled you. You were oblivious of course.

It was when Azzi confronted Paige about it for the 50th time that the girl admitted she was completely and utterly in love with you but couldn't do anything about it. So whenever Paige would get overwhelmed by you, she would always call Azzi to help pull her back to reality.

"How did it go?" Azzi asks, knowing the sleep she had just awoken from is not long gone.

Paige sat there and talked for what felt like forever - talking about how she had never felt such a connection with anyone before and how easily you had her bending to your will. She talked about how scared she was and didn't know how she was going to keep her cool as the lessons became more and more intimate.

Azzi sat there listening to one of her closest friends, feeling the conflict and knowing Paige was bending herself backward over all of this.

"P, you need to tell the girl how you feel or you are going to combust," Azzi says with a sigh.

"You know I can't," Paige says frustrated.

"Well, how did you leave? Was she normal after your 'first lesson'?" Azzi asks.

"Well...I kind of just ran out," Paige mumbles recalling how she left you on the couch.

"You WHAT?" Azzi yells as she curses herself for being so loud.

"Her hips began to rock against mine and I couldn't take it so I bolted before I could do something I regretted..." Paige instantly fills with regret as the words fall from her lips. Her fleeting moment coming back to her. She threw you off of her and left without as much as a second glance.

"Paige...you need to go fix this," Azzi says and she says her goodbye.

Paige looks at the time, her clock reading 4:12am.

She makes her way back to your shared apartment, not sure what she is going to find when she walks through the door. What she found, broke her heart.

You were sleeping on the couch, in the same clothes as she previously left you in, curled up with your phone in your hand.

Paige looked down at her own phone not thinking about the possibility of you trying to reach her until now. She unlocks it and sees about 30 notifications from you, the last one coming not 30 minutes ago.

She comes up and squats next to you, brushing the hair from your face. Her touch jolts you awake. Your eyes find hers. Yours are filled with sleep as your body relaxes. You sit up slightly.

"Where have you been? I was so worried. Is everything okay? You ran out of here so fast." You say grabbing her arm, trying to find answers in her own tired eyes.

"Let's just go to bed, baby," she says as she helps you up from the couch and leads you to her room. You don't fight her as you slept in hers every other night. You crawl into bed and curl up next to her, sleep already plaguing you once again.

"Don't leave me like that again, B," you say as you drift off to sleep.

She kisses your head and mumbles something along the lines of 'I won't' before sleep takes over her body as she finally feels at peace.

You awake the next morning entangled in your best friend. At some point during your slumber, your places switched. She ended up wrapped around your torso, holding you tightly in place. You look down at her and admire her. She looks like a little kid.

Your hand makes its way through her hair and you feel the vibrations of her groan all throughout your body.

"Just 5 more minutes," she grumbles as she squeezes you tighter.

"Anything for you B," you say and continue to run your fingers through her hair.

Shortly after, the two of you get up and get ready for the day. Neither of you says much which causes a weird tension.

You walk out of your room and into the kitchen where Paige putting together some food.

"I'm sorry," you say to your best friend.

Paige's hands come to a stop and her shoulders fall. If anything she was the one who should be apologizing to you.

"If anyone should be apologizing it is me," she says still not looking up at you.

You timidly make your way to her, stopping a few feet away but now on the same side of the kitchen island.

"If I did something wrong or that made you uncomfortable, I am so so sorry. The last thing I want to do is affect our friendship B. If this is too weird we stop." You say not really knowing what could have caused her to run out like she did other than you doing something wrong.

You are giving Paige an out. The one thing she wanted almost as much as she wanted you.

It takes Paige a moment to gather her thoughts before speaking.

"No, no. I don't want an out. I am good. I just forgot that Azzi asked me to do something really important last night and I forgot." She says as she really hopes you don't see through her lies.

You don't push it, giving her a nod.

"I need to hear you, babe," she teases you, instantly lightening the mood.

A smile makes its way to your face.

"Got it B." You say as she goes back to finishing putting together her food.

You speak again, "I am ready to take the lead."

Paige nearly drops the knife she was holding and looks over at you. Her eyebrows raise and you see the Paige you know and love come back.

"Are you now?" She says, putting down the knife and making her way to you. "What's changed ma?"

"Well after you left, I had a lot of time to think about what we did." You say. "And I may or may not have looked up some 'How To' videos," you are blushing now.

Paige lets out a laugh of disbelief.

"You watched videos?" She says.

"Ya, well you left me and I took matters into my own hands," you say.

Paige's heart falls a little but refuses to make that known.

"Ok ma, go ahead. Take the lead." She says as she crosses her arms.

You slowly make your way to her. Paige's heartbeat picks up as she anticipates the feeling of your lips on hers again. Your hands come up to unfold her arms.

She lets you as they find their way to your waist. Your hands plant themselves on her upper chest as you begin to lean in.

"Make sure you communicate what feels good," you say teasing at the rules that Paige initially set between the two of you.

A smile makes its way to Paige's lips and you take the opportunity to bring your lips to hers.

You start off slow, trying to gain confidence.

Once you feel a little squeeze to your hips - something you are finding as Paige's way of signaling you are doing a good job, you ever so lightly swipe your tongue along her bottom lip.

She opens up immediately for you, allowing your tongue to explore hers. She lets you lead, just like you wanted. You feel Paige hum into the kiss, fueling you.

You push on her chest, causing her to get caught in between you and the counter. Paige gasps at the bold movement. You ease up on the kiss, pulling away slightly.

As you do, Paige follows you wanting more causing you to smile.

"How am I doing?" You say out of breath. Your face stays right in front of hers.

Paige's mind is spinning as she tries to form words. You decide she is taking too long and take her bottom lip and give it a little suck, followed by a little kiss to it.

Paige snaps as she goes absolutely feral by your movements.

In one swoop - Paige flips the two of you around, so you are now trapped between her and the counter. Her hands pressing you into the counter as she takes the lead. The shock comes with a gasp in which she takes the lead.

Her lips are working hard against yours, tongues fighting for dominance which only fuels her more. She is feeding off the fact that you are finding your confidence with her.

She lifts you up so you are sitting on the counter and your hands make their way to her hair, tangling it and pulling her closer to you.

The two of you spend the next few minutes savoring each other. Only pulling away when you hear Paige's phone ring.

Both of you are panting.

Paige walks over to her phone and answers it, having a brief conversation with whoever is on the other end. She hangs up and walks back over to you, you are still sitting on the counter.

She makes her way back in between your legs and you smile at her.

"I don't know what kind of videos you have been watching but you are more than capable with those lips lil lady," she says as her eyes fall to your lips.

You bite your lip and Paige knows she needs to step back before she caves. Before she does, she brings her thumb up to remove your bottom lip from being bit.

You watch as she steps back, still facing you. Only turning to go into her room and close the door.

Still sitting there, you watch her retreat into her room. You feel your heart squeeze as you try to swallow the rising feelings that are blossoming for your best friend. You have only one thought as you remove yourself from the counter and eat whatever Paige was making before your makeout session.

Well, shit.

AN: This wasn't supposed to be this long. Sorry. Let me know what you think about this and the series in general. And as always, thank you for your love and support 💙

#paige bueckers #paige bueckers imagine #paige bueckers masterlist #uconn huskies

[crushmeeren]

🍰Todoroki/Fem Reader SFW & NSFW Headcannons

Everyone involved in this fic is aged up/18+; continue scrolling or block if you’re not into this

Warnings; cursing, making out, Shouto is a champ at eating pussy (he has a tongue ring in this), ass eating, vaginal fingering, small bit of spanking, Shouto is a little bit subby in this (his moans & some of the things he says), dirty talk, Shouto has a bit of a praise kink, Shouto holds your hands behind your back when you ride him😮‍💨

Authors Note; sorry if this is too long- I had to complete the headcannons for my favorite three MHA boys sooner rather than later. I love Shouto, he deserves all the good things and a lot of hugs.

Hope you all enjoy these headcannons as much as I enjoyed writing them!

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Shouto who comes off as cold, uninterested, maybe a bit of a dick, but who is actually so sweet & so loving, who is actually the kind of person that writes down facts about you so he doesn’t forget them (you found the list in his notes app—you definitely cried), who always buys extra of what he’s eating —so you can have some too (even if you said you weren’t hungry)

Shouto who doesn’t get social cues very well, who tilts his head when he’s confused, who wears a blank, spaced out expression on his face often, who lets you teach him how to read the room a bit easier, whose smile could actually melt ice with its warmth (Shouto makes the most facial expressions when he’s with you— you take that as a win)

Shouto who you met in high school, but weren’t really friends with— or dated until after you all graduated, who you crossed paths with while battling a villain, who you caught mid air when he was falling from the top of a building, on the verge of passing out (he says he swears he saw you with a halo, because he fell in love with an Angel that day)

Shouto who loves to drink strawberry milk, who has so many cartons cluttering the fridge in your home, who also brings you a glass when he’s drinking some, because he’s learned he can also show you he loves you by sharing what he likes with you (you think it’s so motherfucking cute when you are handed a glass of milk out of the blue)

Shouto who decides to be a bit rebellious after he gets out of high school, who wants to try new things, who decides to cut his hair shorter, who gets a nose ring, who pierces his ears (not to mention his tongue ring— you almost fainted when you noticed it the first time🥵) who goes with you when you get your own tattoos & piercings—he often wears jewelry that reminds him of you

Shouto who says his absolute favorite thing in the world is to snuggle up with you on the couch, when it’s raining, when the two of you are wrapped up in a fluffy blanket burrito, watching movies & napping (if it gets a little X rated, who can judge you😮‍💨)

Shouto who is a fucking dry texter, but who sends you pictures of things he knows you love while he’s out on patrol, especially pics of dogs that he encounters (he even ends up bringing one home for you), who gets so happy when you respond with pictures of things you know he enjoys—sort of making your own language with one another

Shouto who likes to wear more of a streetwear style when he’s not working (to your never ending delight), who likes to wear matching clothes with you (shoes, shirts, even matching colors, etc.), who even bought you both a pair of matching underwear (because it makes him feel like a part of you is with him—you did feel a bit smug, knowing you were technically sitting on his face all day)

Shouto who sucks ass at almost every video game, but who can annihilate anyone at Mario Kart, bitter because you don’t think you’ve ever beaten him, (although whenever you and your friends gather at your home, the highlight of the night is watching Bakugou lose to Sho over & over)

Shouto who has stayed close to Midoriya, considering the man as his brother by extension (you love the green haired man & see him often), who goes to the #1 hero for help planning you a surprise party by sending Midoriya a series of increasingly concerning emojis until he agrees (he was nervous he would mess it up—he didn’t)

Shouto who loves to eat peach gummy rings?? (not the only peach he likes to eat👀), who you have woken up to eating the candy at 2:00 am (you just take one and go back to sleep), who memorizes your favorite candy and leaves it for you to find everywhere— even your car (you love Shouto so goddamn much)

Shouto who has told you the story of how he got his burn mark, about his father, his brother and all the horrors of his past, who opened up to you—trusting you completely, wanting to share a side of himself others don’t see (you absolutely cried), who you trust in return—telling him everything about yourself & your own past

Shouto who has taken you to meet his family, meet his mother, who added you to the group chat with all his siblings (they are actually a lot of fun, even if Shouto only replies with one word answer or gifs), who tries to fit his face with more than one expression when he meets your parents (you tell him it doesn’t matter, because he’s perfect for you either way—that earns you another million watt smile)

Shouto who loves you wholly, deeply, completely, who is your soul mate, who is your best friend, who planted the seed of his love in your heart that has grown bigger than a California Redwood tree, who becomes your husband, who you love more than life itself—you’d start a war for this man (he’d do the same)

🍰Warning NSFW Below🍰

Shouto who enjoys kissing, who loves to lazily make out with you, who feels his cock start twitching in his briefs when the kiss starts to get heated & messy, lips slick as they glide together, who gets half hard when your tongue plays with his, whining gently when you tilt your head—flicking the tip of your soft tongue against his

Shouto who likes to lay you on your back in the bed, stripping you until your only in one of his large T-shirts, who likes to push it up your belly—slowly letting it get caught on your tits until he can watch them fall and bounce, who makes you keep the shirt up around your collarbone as his warm, wet mouth sucks on your nipples, pussy throbbing—no doubt wet as fuck now

Shouto who bites over the skin on your sternum, plush lips trailing down your belly until he gets to your pussy, who grips the bottoms of your thighs pressing them backwards to your chest, who gets onto his belly, looking up at you as he licks a stripe from your pussy lips up to your clit, making sure he swirls the cold metal of his tongue ring on the heated flesh (immediately you’re gripping the sheets, whimpering fuck Sho! when warm tingles radiate down to your toes)

Shouto whose eyes flutter closed while he eats you out, who moans into your pussy—vibrations you can feel throughout your groin, who makes you squeal when he sucks your clit—tongue ring feeling electric with every swipe of his tongue, who eagerly says pussy tastes s’good Angel, can I eat your ass? pretty please baby? (you flip over immediately)

Shouto who gets you both completely naked, whose cock is standing straight out when you take a look at it, who gets your ass in the air, face shoved into the sheets, who rains his hand down on your ass cheek, pain flaring brightly up to your hip, who gives you no break—gripping the thick flesh of your ass and spreading you open, kitten licking at your asshole (you almost scream—once again the sensations increased ten fold by the contrast of his chilly tongue ring)

Shouto who shoves his middle two fingers in your pussy with no warning, tearing a gasp from your chest, who finger fucks you and sucks on your tight hole until your lower belly tightens, pussy clenching his fingers, cumming hard, who fingers you through your orgasm— stroking his cock as he whines to you Angel your pussy is so fucking tight, wanna fuck you so bad, please can I? (you say yes immediately)

Shouto who knows you’re a pillow princess, who loves it, but has actual hearts in his eyes, cheeks flushed a sweet pink when he’s able to convince you to ride him for a little bit—reverse cowgirl style, who props his back against the headboard with a couple pillows, who pulls your hands behind your back—holding your wrists together in one hand

Shouto who spreads your ass with his free hand, whimpering uncontrollably as he watches his cock disappear into your pussy as you bounce in his lap, whose dick throbs and who sucks in air sharply between clenched teeth when you moan f-fucking hell Sho, your cock is so good, so big, gonna make me cum as you throw your head back

Shouto who can only take it for so long before he pushes you off his cock, manhandling you onto your back whispering in your ear gonna fuck your sweet pussy now, okay Angel? as he grips his shaft, feeling how slippery you’ve gotten his cock, sliding his dick all the way in with one thrust—making you cry out and dig your nails into his shoulders

Shouto who bends you in half, knees hooked over his shoulders as he squishes you into a mating press, who fucks you hard, hips curling up into your sweet spot, making you feel each drag of his cock, cumming within the first five strokes—& then again and again and again, orgasms popping in you like water balloons, pleasure gushing all the way up to your brain

Shouto who chokes on his moans as your slick, warm pussy squeezes his cock over & over, voice low & needy when he whines into your ear Angel please, cum on my cock one more time, need it baby, pretty please-m’gonna cum soon

Shouto who does make you cum one more time, who makes you start to feel dizzy from cumming & the angle you’re pretzeled into, you’re able to focus just enough to speak in between moans, saying Sho, hah—oh fuck! Sho, you’re such a good boy, fuck me so well, love your cock Sho, love you baby—who cums instantly when he hears your sweet voice praising him, high pitched, needy sounds falling from his lips as he grinds his hips against your ass, cumming in warm, sticky ribbons

Shouto who makes you feel like you have noodles for limbs, breathing heavy as you both feel giddy with the post orgasm glow, who unravels you slowly, pulling out & letting you spread out like a starfish, who flops down on your side, who lets you collect your thoughts—lacing his fingers with yours as you both relax into the mattress

Shouto who eventually gets up to clean himself, who brings you a warm wash cloth and cleans you, who finds the shirt you were previously wearing and some clean panties after he gets dressed, who pulls you into a hug—telling you how much he loves you, planting kisses all over your face & you do the same—Shouto who goes to the kitchen & then brings you a glass of strawberry milk 💕

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[joelsmochi]

Dirty Lies

SUMMARY: Joel realized how much you matured since he last saw you 4 years ago and can’t resist you. WARNINGS: age gap [reader is 22, joel is 35], smut minors dni, no descriptions of reader aside from having shoulder length hair & having a girly sense of fashion, pervy!joel, shy-ish!joel, needy!joel, reader seduces joel. 18+ WARNINGS: infidelity if you squint (technicalities people), brief objectification, masturbation (f), oral (f receiving), dirty talk, reader was a lying little shit in high school but it paid off WC: 7.3k [please read author's note]

A/N: this was originally going to be a 15k word long smut as part of my LDR series, but........ I figured the more parts I can make out of it the more content I can produce, so here is part one of Us Against The World. Enjoy :) Edit: I’m rereading this and noticing a few typos, I apologize about those! Grammarly isn’t so helpful sometimes…

There you were in your blue tank top and yoga pants laying with your father’s dog in the middle of the front yard. You had just returned from New York a few days earlier from college, which your father amicably told Joel about over a few beers the week before.

Joel was expecting to see your 18-year-old self: long hair, sparkly eyeshadow, dressed in your late mother’s hand-me-downs from the 80s. But that was no longer you.

You dressed more modern and age-appropriate. Your hair was shorter, looked curlier, and you had highlights. Your eyebrows were thinner and your face was free from the loud makeup your teenage self was accustomed to. Joel would make jokes from time to time about how he believed you were just born with glitter all over your eyes.

Joel felt a little silly thinking you wouldn’t have changed. Who doesn’t make a drastic change when they leave high school? He hadn’t found the time to stop by and say hello but he wasn’t necessarily rushing it.

He’d met your father when you guys moved in next door in 1993 and he remembered you introduced yourself the second you saw him and Sarah playing outside despite your father’s protests.

You told Joel about how your dad was only being grumpy because he’d just turned thirty-six. Something about getting old. You didn’t bother to retain that information.

But here you were: all grown up. It reminded Joel of the day he overheard you and your best friend talking about how handsome you thought he was. He wondered if you still felt that way.

You sat up, feeling the sense that someone was watching you; your eyes scanned around until instinct made you look to the same window Joel was standing in.

For some reason, he didn’t feel embarrassed about being caught staring. He offered you an energetic smile and you took in his appearance.

He hadn’t changed much — his hair was a little longer and he had a few more fine lines across his face, but he was still the handsome man you remembered and admired.

You stand up and walk over to the window prompting him to open it.

“Hey, creep,” you teased with a big grin, “how ya been?”

Even your voice sounded different with its blend of Texas and New York. It was sultry with a hint of confidence. He tried not to let his weaknesses show.

“I’m doing all right… Sorry for starin’. Could hardly tell that was you,” he responded.

You just barely saw his eyes glance down to your chest, and it made you smirk.

Had this been any other man you’d have your fist meeting their jaw, but it wasn’t any other man. It was Joel. You hadn’t forgotten that he was attractive, but you did forget just how attractive. Or maybe his sexiness came with his age.

Not like it mattered anyways. It wasn’t like you could make a move.

“I been gettin’ that a lot… Dad tells me you’re a contractor now with Tommy.”

Joel nodded and said, “Yep, hated workin’ for other people, so…”

You were unsure if you were being awkward or if it was just… Awkward.

“Cool. Yeah, no, I get that. How is Tommy, by the way? Is he still really cute?” You giggled.

This made Joel roll his eyes. “Not cuter than me,” he answered begrudgingly. You watched how his eyes faltered again, trailing from your lips to your belly ring. “Your dad let you get that?”

You scoffed and waved your hand lazily as if you were swatting his condescending tone away. “One, Dad can’t tell me what to do with my body. And two, Tommy was always the cuter one.”

“S’that so?” Joel grunted as if he were tempted to laugh.

You gave him a cunning look and nodded. “Yeah. But you were always more handsome.”

Joel found himself blushing at the compliment, trying to wipe the redness away with his calloused palm to no avail.

You let out a quiet teetering laugh and looked back to make sure your dog was okay for a moment. “He get that dog after I left?”

Joel focused on you again and confirmed it once he noticed the dog again. “Yeah. I think your dad likes having something to take care of.”

You looked back into Joel’s eyes and bathed in them for a moment. He seemed more like himself, more certain of who he was. It made you a little sad to know how much time has passed, but maybe it was better this way.

“He was always like that. I think it started after… Well, you know.” You took a deep breath and tried to change the subject. “How’s Sarah? She still my little rockstar?”

“She’s more of a pop star, now,” he said. “She still wears that bracelet you let her have, the… The silver one.”

Your chest swelled with joy and you couldn’t contain your excitement. “Really?! Aw, man, that’s so cool. I remember I would throw a fit if I didn’t have that damn thing on.” The dog barking grabbed your attention once again. He was just barking at the mailman but settled once the worker started petting him. “Sorry!” You shouted before returning your focus to Joel. “Well, Joel it was nice seeing you. We should… Catch up. I could use some… Life advice.”

“I’m free tomorrow night if that works?” He tried to contain his excitement.

You slowly backed away, giving him one more nod and smile. “Perfect. Just come over whenever like old times.”

Joel decided to be respectful enough to not ogle over your ass as you walked away. He turned away from the window wondering how the hell he was going to get over this… Crush?

Is that what this was? A crush?

He decided to not torture himself with his intrusive thoughts.

“Hey, kid,” Joel greeted. You rolled your eyes at the nickname but greeted him back. He entered the backyard slowly trying to get a feel for the mood. He sat next to you in the extra papasan chair and snatched your beer out of your hands. You glared at him, unable to hold it for long when he shot you that infamous smile. “Everything all right?”

He tasted your strawberry chapstick around the rim of the glass and let the taste linger on his tongue. His eyes fell to your lips as he thought about how the chapstick would taste coming straight from you. Raw and unfiltered.

You held your breath, wishing you had enough courage to ask your father these questions. It wasn’t that you didn’t trust your father, you just wanted an opinion from an outside perspective. You were hoping Joel wasn’t as inclined to protect or embarrass you as much as your dad.

“There’s this guy I’ve been dating for a few months now… I…” You sigh frustratedly with the tension surrounding the question meanwhile Joel grew tense and jealous? He asked himself why that was the way he felt about you having a boyfriend.

You apprehensively said, “We had sex a few times before I left and it wasn’t…good.”

“Okay?” Joel asked as a way to tell you to keep going.

“How should I go about telling a guy that?”

He cleared his throat uncertain of how to answer your question. He didn’t want his newly discovered feelings to cloud his judgment as the chances of you two becoming a thing were slim to none. He wouldn’t want to sabotage you or your relationships. Especially when you trusted him enough to ask such a burdening question.

Joel accepted the awkwardness of the topic and put it aside. He didn’t want you to feel embarrassed. “Well, have you tried suggesting things that he can do to make you—it feel good?” He asked.

“Yeah, but I’m starting to wonder if it’s me,” you admitted.

“Does he do the things you ask him to?”

“Kinda?” Your cheeks flushed and your eyebrows furrowed tightly.

He gave you a look that said come on now.

“He like… Does half of it?” You could just die of embarrassment right now.

“Wh—? How does he do half of it?”

You groaned obnoxiously and chugged some more beer. “I don’t know?! He does what I ask for like five minutes and then just does what he’s used to I guess.” He watched you poke your bottom lip out to pout as you stared into the glass bottle. “I really like him, Joel.”

“Does he like you?”

“Well, yeah,” you said as if it were obvious. “Fuck is that supposed to mean?”

He inhaled sharply through his teeth and stole your beer bottle again. “All I will say is that a man that truly likes you would try harder, especially during sex, and especially if you’ve told him how he could make you feel good.”

“So… What do I do?”

“Do you think he likes you?” He asked again. “Think about it for a second. What does he do for you?”

“Well, he…” Your voice trailed off into silence as your mind went blank. Surely this guy did something for you to make you like him, right? But anything that did happen to come to mind was the bare minimum. You didn’t want to give Joel the satisfaction, so you said, “I think it could work.”

“Who’re trying to convince? Me or yourself?” He saw the frustration on your face and propped a finger below your chin to make you look at him. “If a guy really likes you, sweetheart, you wouldn’t have to ask more than once,” was all he said after he took a sip of your beer.

“What do you mean?”

Joel’s sigh almost sounded irritated. “I mean… A guy that truly likes you and deserves you won’t make you suffer through sex. A real man’ll take care a’you.”

“A real man, huh?” You bantered.

“Mm-hmm.”

“Like you?”

“I’d like to think so.”

“Do you like me?”

Why the fuck did I ask him that?! You thought as soon as the words left your mouth.

Joel didn’t couldn’t answer right away. His voice just stumbled over his tongue and out of his mouth.

“I think you’re a sweet girl,” he finally said, “and you’re smart enough to know who’s worthy of your time and attention. Doesn’t sound like it’s him.”

You couldn’t defeat the growing smirk on your face as he fought the urge to look over your body. He wasn’t so good at hiding it.

You turned your body in the chair slightly and dauntingly lifted your leg to touch your bare toes against his calf. You watched his breath get caught in his throat and your mouth fell open in awe at how easy it was to get him riled up.

He looked at the ground, not moving a single inch of his body. He was overwhelmed by your confidence.

The amount of attention Joel’s given you in the last ten minutes already seemed to surpass the attention your “boyfriend” (can you even call him that?) had given you.

Your foot trailed up Joel’s leg before you rested it upon his knee; Joel’s eyes screwed shut as if he were praying to not get caught like this, but your voice brought his gaze back to you.

“You didn’t answer my question, Joel,” you whispered seductively. Your foot left his leg and you got on your knees in the chair, then you leaned forward, hands around the rim of his own seat, and leaned in devilishly close to his face. “Do you like me?”

He swallowed hard, his fingertips turning white as they pressed into the bottle.

His lack of an answer caused an impatience to grow inside you. You leaned in even closer and strengthened your eye contact with him. Your fingers absentmindedly trailed over his knee to the midpoint of his clad thigh.

His spine shivered and his arms grew goosebumps. “Why don’t you have this attitude with your boyfriend?” He asked lowly in a poor attempt to further evade answering you.

You snickered and looked over his beer-covered lips, craving to taste them. “If I’m being honest he’s technically not my boyfriend… You’re tellin’ me things about men and how they should act. It’s making me feel like… He just can’t handle me.”

He smirked at you, fighting the way his body pleaded to touch yours. “If that’s the case then, sweetheart, I don’t think he’s the one for you.”

“Oh?” You got even closer, your nose touched his and you heard him choke on his breath. “Do you think you could handle me?”

He chuckled rashly and straightened his posture, now sensing you tense up. “I could,” he confidently confessed. “But this ain’t right, sweetheart.”

“Please,” you scoff, “you can’t keep your eyes off of me.”

“If you keep actin’ like a spoiled brat you won’t be able to keep my hands off of you.”

“Maybe that’s what I want,” you retorted, a cocky essence in your eyes.

“That so?”

“Maybe you can show me how a real man should be taking care of me.”

Joel had to stop himself from speaking as it would have potentially led to consequences. His flustered cheeks and wide lustful eyes created a hunger you’d never felt before.

However, you wanted Joel to earn it. Push him to the point of begging for just a taste of you. You needed to know if he craved you. Something you longed for from other men that just could not deliver.

You hovered your agape lips over his so dangerously it tickled his nerves. You gave him a soft kiss on the cheek then sat back in your original position.

Joel was both relieved and disappointed with the kiss. Relieved it didn’t end up with his head buried between your thighs, and at the same time disappointed that it didn’t.

For the next few days, you settled into your room as best as you could and got everything how you wanted it to be. Well, almost. You wanted a shelf to go over your closet so that you could display your most prized possessions.

When the idea sparked in your head you remembered that your dad said he was going to be gone for most of the day. You figured you could hold off for one more day. That was until you heard some power tools and heavy grunting from beyond your window.

Joel.

Joel had followed your lead as best as he could and you had to admit that the lack of physical contact was making it harder to resist him.

You felt a bit strange, however. After all, this is Joel. Sweet, caring, next-door neighbor Joel. You and your friends had a crush on him and his brother, Tommy, sure, but this wasn’t that. And you surely weren’t a child anymore. But still, you couldn’t help but think of how strange the dynamic is.

It wasn’t enough to stop you from taking your sweatpants off and changing out of your t-shirt into a stretchy tank top. You poked your head out of your window and shouted Joel’s name a few times until you successfully got his attention.

“Hey!” You said with a proud smile.

“Hey, kid!” He shouted back.

“Can you build a shelf for me? I wanted to get my room done today, but my old man’s gone!”

“Right now?” He tried to seem indifferent.

You just smiled harder and motioned for him to come over. “Please?!”

He huffed and looked at his half-done project, ultimately deciding to help you instead. The sooner he helps you the sooner he could create distance, he figured. Though deep down he knew that wasn’t the real reason.

You patter downstairs to unlock the door for him. He could see from the corners of his eyes that you were half naked, only in white panties and your top.

“Couldn’t a’put pants on?” He asked grumpily as he walked past you, not giving you the satisfaction of staring. You shut and lock the door before guiding him upstairs.

“Yeah, but I figured since you were doing the job for free I could at least give you something to look at,” you flirted. He didn’t even bother trying to stop you.

“What d’ya need done exactly?” He asked, stuffing his hands into his pockets.

“I want those shelves to hang over my closet right… Here. I have a power drill here already, I just couldn’t figure out how to get it.”

He was doing a decent job at keeping his eyes anywhere but on your body, but in his mind he had already taken your clothes off and fucked you against the wall.

“S’alright, I can get it for ya,” he said while giving you an earnest look.

“What?” You asked after a moment of silence.

“Nothing,” he answered with a shrug and a smirk. You lightly smack his arm and plop down on your bed.

You lay on your stomach and flipped through a fashion magazine, occasionally smelling some of the perfume samples. You snuck glances at Joel’s broad back as he made sure everything could be lined up, smiling to yourself at how efficiently he worked.

“How’s your boyfriend?” Joel randomly asked after about ten minutes. You looked at him through your eyelashes as he peaked over his shoulder. 

You stifled your laugh and began looking at the magazine again before answering him. “He actually ended things with me two days ago. But like I said, he technically wasn’t my boyfriend. He never asked.”

“Oh… You doing okay? Seemed like you really liked him.”

“I like someone else more,” was all you said. Joel took a second, then just nodded even though you weren’t looking at him anymore.

“This someone have a name?” He asked after a few more moments of silence.

Joel’s internal conflict was teetering between giving in and giving up. He wasn’t sure why he was so drawn to you, but that’s what fueled his filthy thoughts even more.

“Yep, he sure does.”

Your tone was the exact opposite of what you were feeling. You felt hot and desperate, but you (almost) fooled him by sounding bored. He didn’t want to give into your childish game of beating around the bush, so he kept his mouth shut and began hammering a nail into the wall.

Suddenly you had an idea. An awfully sinister one.

You tossed the magazine on your nightstand and sat up in the bed, leaning into a few pillows and angling yourself so that Joel could get the perfect view if he dared to look.

Your hands traced uneven lines and patterns over your clad breasts and you gasped softly at your nipples perking up quickly. He couldn’t hear you over his hammering.

You rid yourself of your wet panties, kicking them to the edge of the bed. You spread your legs and began working big and slow circles over your sensitive clit. You used your free hand to pinch your nipple over your shirt, the combination of stimuli making you give a more audible moan.

Joel didn’t think much of it at first — he figured you were moving around on the bed to get more comfortable. So when the next moan came and he stopped his work to look at you he was taken aback, to say the least.

He said your name, but you shook your head in protest. “Is this okay?” You asked, innocence spreading across your face.

He couldn’t speak, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t breathe.

“Joel?” You snapped him out of his daze. “S’this okay?”

He nodded and watched your trembling hands dip down into your glistening slit, collecting your wetness and coating it over your clit. Your body was stiff with anticipation, watching him watch you.

He took in all of your beauty like the way your eyes fluttered halfway shut and how you bit your plump lip to quiet your mewls. One hand cupped your breast so gently and the other rubbing steady, taunting circles over your sensitive bud. He watched the way you pleased yourself and let this picture of you engrave itself into his memory.

One day, Joel thought, I’d be able to make her feel as good as she makes herself feel.

He ignored the hardening of his cock pressing against his jeans, not caring enough to touch himself if it meant he didn’t get to feel you. He found the situation quite sexy and the lack of physical contact made him feel good.

You were showing him that he didn’t need to touch you or talk to you. He didn’t need to do a damn thing. All he needed to do was stand there and let you look at him.

Your moans were quiet and soft, barely heard by him. You squeezed your nipple harshly and jolted at the shock of electricity it sent throughout your body, your eyes screwing shut and your legs curling up into an almost fetal position at the feeling.

He saw you swallow the lump in your throat as you looked into his eyes again, soon scanning over his body and imagining how he would feel on top of you. The imagination was more than enough to get you going.

You imagined he felt strong and heavy above you, trapping you with his burly arms and using his lean thighs to keep your legs open for him as he rolled his hips to meet yours.

You absentmindedly curled your middle and ring finger into your creamy pussy, chasing after the feeling of being stretched out by Joel. Your pussy effortlessly squelched as your discharge poured out of you like a waterfall, coating your plump ass cheeks in your juices.

You got a bit louder but remained mindful of the open windows just a few feet away. You watched the movement in his jeans from his cock that twitched, longing for just some fucking relief. But he didn’t move, he didn’t even adjust his pants. He wanted you to know that you were the one in charge and that he was willing to suffer just for you.

“Joel,” you breathed out in between helpless murmurs.

He almost caved at how sweetly you said his name like you were asking for help. You reached even further into your sex, pressing into your sweet spot carefully. You pretended it was him.

Allowing your eyes to shut and your mouth to open, your mind dove deeper into the fantasies of Joel. You imagined him fucking you slowly, steady enough to not make your bed squeak too loud. Your fingers followed your mind, bumping against your g-spot the same way you wanted him to: carefully, yet forceful.

Joel felt awkward just standing there watching you, but you looked so beautiful. Sprawled out just for him with your fingers dipping into your sopping cunt as if you were made just for him. He saw your shoulders twitch and a hiss escaped your lips.

A ripple of ecstasy shocked your nerves, your walls tighten around your fingers, and your clit tensed up with a tickling sensation.

Your face twisted from the overwhelming feeling that began to encapsulate you from your core to your mind. Your moans became shallow and louder. Your clit throbbing beneath your palm motivated your to work your fingers faster. You fucked yourself with more desire than you had before, still twisting your perky nipple between your other fingers.

You were a lot more gentle with yourself than Joel would have expected. You took your time, didn’t overwhelm yourself.

He knew he loved it when the ever-growing pressure inside of you burst into a million flames throughout your trembling body. He saw that the slower you were with yourself the more intense the orgasm was.

He accidentally groaned at the sight of you: clinging to your bedsheet with the very hand that toyed with your breast, eyes refusing to open from the immense pleasure soaring through your veins, curling up into a ball because your body couldn’t comprehend just how good you were feeling.

He noticed how your cum gushed around and below your fingers creating a wet spot on your blanket. He carefully watched as you opened your eyes, still slowly fingering yourself. You continued to feel your orgasm, exploring how much of it you could endure.

You moved your free hand to your clit and rubbed tiny and fast circles around it. Your eyes rolled to the back of your head and you refused to moan anything but his name.

You shoved your fingers deep inside of you to press against your g-spot relentlessly. Your toes curled at the mix of pleasure.

You knew your orgasm was coming back more powerful than before already, and you braced yourself when your walls flexed against your fingers basically forcing them out; you chewed hard on your lip and laid your stiff fingers flat against your clit to rub from side to side at the arrival of your squirt. You squealed behind your swollen lip and let your squirt splash everywhere.

Joel palmed his rock-hard cock for some relief as he watched in awe at how you came for him. You looked so fucking delicious soaking yourself in your juices. His heart punched against his chest and his mind nearly blank, only filled with you.

Your lips formed an ‘o’ shape as you eased up on your clit. You let out sweet hums of bliss and you opened your eyes again, carefully analyzing his body language.

He practically reeked of inferiority. He was your marionette, your toy, whatever you wanted him to be. He didn’t recognize you in the best way possible. You were an unwrapped present that he couldn’t wait to open and play with. Your confidence grew at his puppy eyes that were low and dark, filled with a need to serve you.

Your fingers collected some of the creamy nectar between your folds before you brought it to your mouth and darted your wet tongue out to taste it.

You never broke eye contact once, observing how his body shuddered at the filthy action. His breath was heavy, his chest heaved in anticipation. You stuck your fingers inside of your mouth moaning at the salty goodness coating every single taste bud.

It wasn’t until your fingers dropped back down to your side and you gave him a shit-eating grin that he finally looked away, sighing loudly.

He felt ashamed of himself.

He’d known you since you were a child.

How could he ever look you in the eye again?

How could he ever look your father in the eye again?

You slipped your panties on again while he wasn’t looking and just grabbed your magazine, flipping through the pages again like nothing ever happened though the wet spot on your bed clearly said otherwise.

When Joel saw you had returned to your previous activities he did the same. Drilling and hammering your shelves onto the wall like nothing fucking happened.

“Here you go sir, you have a lovely day,” you chirped at the customer as you handed him his food waiting until he left. You turned around to straighten up the counter behind you when the bell on the door jingled. “Hello, give me just one moment and I’ll be with you!”

You gave the counter a lazy wipe with the wet washcloth before tossing it into the sink nearby and turning around, being met with a smirking Joel.

“My, my, you working at a burger joint? Never thought I’d see the day,” he teased.

You made a face and told him to shut up. You tried not to notice the sheer layer of sweat that coated his partially exposed chest. “What can I get you, sir?”

His face contorted with arrogance and he placed a hand over his chest. “Sir? You callin’ me sir now? Oh, you are just too cute.”

With a roll of your eyes, you huffed out a stream of air, waiting for him to stop fucking with you.

“Okay, okay,” he laughed, dropping the act. “Can I get a burger and some fries?”

“You don’t want a drink?” You asked before writing his order down quickly and sliding it through the kitchen window.

“Are you tryin’a make me tip you more?”

You shrugged. “Nah, it’s just that the cola here is really good.”

“Mmm,” he hummed as if he didn’t believe you.

“If you want a cola I’ll make it extra cold for you,” you whispered as if you were telling him a dirty secret.

“Mhm, okay. Fine, I’ll take your word for it. Gon’ and get it f’me then.”

“You can ask that a little nicer,” you scoffed. You walked off, breathing in a gust of smoke on your way to the soda machine. “F’here or to-go?!” You shouted.

“Mm, I was gonna get it to go, but I think I’ll stay and keep you company.”

You could just hear the smile in his voice.

“Awe, how thoughtful of you,” you bantered before rinsing out a clean cup and filling it with ice. The cook called out the order was ready and you thanked him before finishing up with Joel’s drink. You grabbed the tray and walked over to the end of the counter where the stools sat, setting the food in front of Joel with a weak smile.

He watched you closely as you leaned onto your elbows waiting for him to try his food.

“What r’ya doing workin’ in a restaurant? Didn’t you graduate for like… Fashion or some shit?” Joel asked, unable to keep his smile down at how pretty you looked in your uniform: a teal skirt and a mustard yellow shirt, but so, so tacky. You hated the fucking outfit, it was everything you would never wear, but Joel thought you made it look good.

“I did,” you confirmed, “but I wanted a humbling job before I truly entered the world of fashion.”

Joel’s thick and somewhat dirty fingers unraveled his greasy burger after he dumped the fries out chaotically. He took an unnecessarily big bite, not seeing how your eyes watched the trail of juice trickle down the corner of his mouth to his chin before he swept it set with his thumb.

“Humbling, hmm?” He questioned before swallowing his barely chewed bite. “You’re a wise girl, you know?”

“So I’ve been told,” you smugly replied. You stole a fry off of his tray and smiled at his frowning face while eating it before washing it down with his fizzling soda. “Best drink that ‘fore it goes flat.”

You walked away momentarily to help a customer that just walked in; she only wanted a dollar milkshake so you told her not to worry about paying. You took a dollar and some change from your tip pocket and put it in the register before grabbing a styrofoam cup and packing her cup.

Joel noticed halfway through you making the shake that whenever you tapped the bottom of the cup against the counter your breast jiggled against your arm. He felt the lady nearby staring at him so he turned his head just enough to see the mix of disgust and concern on her face.

If only she knew how filthy you were for him just last week…

He didn’t care enough to stop though, he just went back to looking at how your clothes hugged your body.

You finished up her shake and popped a lid on it before grabbing a straw and walking back to give it to her.

Joel heard the lady ask if you were okay, and he promptly rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and tried his best to not laugh. You were confused by her question, simply nodding your head and saying, “Yeah?”

She looked at Joel once more, choosing not to say another word before leaving.

“Fuck was that about?” You asked, watching her walk away.

“She saw me starin’ at your tits,” he said between obnoxious bites. “If only she saw—“

Your eyes widened. “Do not finish that sentence.”

“Whatever you say, doll,” he teased before taking another bite.

You pretended to be grossed out by seeing the chewed-up food in his mouth as he spoke, swatting his hand gently. “You’re so gross.”

“You love me,” he quipped with a simper. He took a sip of his drink, humming at how refreshing it felt. “This is good,” he told you.

“Told ya.”

“What time are you out?”

You looked at the door when your manager came in, apologizing for taking longer than she expected.

“You’re fine, it’s a slow day,” you told her as she walked to her office. You looked at Joel and slammed your book and pen on the counter near the register. “I’m out now. Why?”

“Your dad asked me to pick you up.”

You felt a rush of worry. “Why? Is he okay?”

“Yeah, honey, everything’s fine. He forgot about pickin’ you up today and got drunk with his buddies and called me—well, he called Tommy. Said he wouldn’t be back home ‘til tomorrow.”

You raised an eyebrow at the mention of his brother’s name. “Oh? Well, why isn’t Tommy here?” You strutted around the counter and stood next to Joel as he inhaled the last of his food.

“Think you know why,” he grunted.

Anxiety pang inside of your chest, but you convinced yourself it was excitement. You were hoping that he wanted to get you alone somewhere and fuck you into the next week.

But you didn’t want to seem desperate. You kept a straight face, waiting for your boss to come back out before getting your things and punching out.

You followed Joel to his Chevy and thanked him when he opened the door for you. He huffed when by the time he got inside the car himself you were already flipping through his book of CDs.

“I got a good one in already—“

“Is it The Writing’s On the Wall by Destiny’s Child?” You interrupted after you found said CD.

“No, b—“

“Then it’s not what I want to listen to.”

Joel endured your (arguably bad) singing for the ten-minute ride back to your house. He thought about a few things in that ten minutes:

-Sarah wasn’t home, so he didn’t need to worry about food (or getting caught), so this time was optimal to make a move on you.

-If he were to make a move on you, then you two wouldn’t get caught.

-If he were to make a move on you, how exactly would he do it?

Once he arrived in his driveway, you both stepped out of the car and he walked over to your side.

“You not working tonight?” You asked.

“No, we finished early.”

You looked at him with lush eyes and bit the inside of your mouth, a flirty smile coaxing your lips. He looked hopeful for something, anything.

“I was just gonna watch TV all night,” you started, “and maybe make some dinner. I know you just ate, but you and Sarah are welcome to come over.”

“Sarah’s at a friend’s tonight, doing some studying,” he answered. His voice trailed off as if he weren’t finished speaking his thought aloud, but you picked up where he reluctantly left off.

“Do you want to come over, then? Just you?”

He looked around the quiet neighborhood as if he had to think about what he wanted. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

You lead him to your house, kicking your shoes off at the door and he followed. He felt unsure of his decision. He wondered if this night would play out platonically and just be filled with conversation and dinner, or if this was truly the beginning of a secret he’d have to keep forever.

“Spaghetti okay?” You asked him once you both entered the kitchen, decorated with oranges and reds, and yellows, reminiscent of your late mother. You tossed your half apron on the island before making your way to the refrigerator.

You heard his feet patter on the linoleum quickly but before you could turn around on your own Joel did it, pinning your back against the refrigerator and knocking down some of the bottles inside of it.

You gasped when his fingers peacock over the outsides of your thighs, gripping at the hem as a means to pace himself.

His eyes were bright yet lustful as his proximity alone sucked the air out of your lungs. Your chests heaving against each other’s created the only other physical contact you had with him.

He then dropped to his knees before you got the chance to speak; his calloused hands rose beneath your skirt, hiking it up enough for him to pull your wet panties down to your ankles. You stepped out of them for him and he lifted one of your legs over his shoulder before meeting his mouth to your clit tongue first.

You moaned at how he just dove into it, not bothering with kissing or easing you into it. Your digits laced through his messy curls while his tongue coated itself in your juices.

His tongue did crazy laps around your clit and he smacked a couple of firm kisses in between his licks. You tried to watch his work but your stupid fucking skirt was in the way. You settled, however when his eyes opened, the only visible part of him from your view.

You tasted so good to him, he tasted your day of work mixed in with your salty precum and he couldn’t get enough of it. He moaned when you tugged at his hair, burying his face as deep as he could and closing his eyes.

You let out a stream of obscenities while using your calf to push into his back, afraid that if you didn’t hold on tight enough he’d vanish.

He wrote out his full name over your clit like he was casting a spell that anything you or someone else touched you there you would only think about him.

You were amazed at how good he was eating you out — you didn’t think he’d be bad. You just didn’t know it could feel this good. It was like you felt him touching and kissing and licking all over your body, swimming in an endless pool of dissolution.

His touch was decadent through remembering how careful you were with yourself. He wanted to cater to you and to make you feel as good as you made yourself. And on top of that, he just really wanted to eat your pussy.

Savor it.

Taste it.

Drink you until you fucking ran dry and begged him to stop.

Nothing could have torn his lips away from your pussy. Hell, someone could have walked in and he’d still keep going.

“Joel,” you gasped, throwing your head back and grinding on his face.

He loudly moaned, tightening his grip around your thighs and wagging his head furiously from side to side to provide more stimulation.

Your hips bucked into his face roughly and you screeched, pulling even tighter on his hair.

“Joel, oh—fu-fuck!”

He smirked and pulled at the skirt to unveil his eyes again. His dick angered in his jeans, but he ignored it. He’d much rather focus on the way you writhed from his touch. Your panting growing heavier fueled his already intense movements. He began to suck while still shaking his head earning another screech from you.

You never felt out of control with how loud you were before. Every motion sent a million shockwaves throughout your body. You always did a good job at keeping quiet enough so that the neighbors wouldn’t hear, but fucking hell was Joel the one to break that evergreen streak.

You felt his hot breath collide with the fluids coating your sex and his nails leave indents on your flesh.

His tongue darted out to collect a stream of your cum, but his nose butted against your clit as he continued shaking his head making your hips buck once more. Then he realized… He got to stimulate your sensitive bud and lick between your folds.

He loved it.

Your moans became more distressed and uneven; he felt you chasing that high. He wanted you to cum so fucking badly. To let all of your pent-up cum pour over him.

You held the back of his head gently and he angled it just right enough for you to ride his face.

“Use my fucking face,” he moaned loud enough between your legs for you to hear. “Use my fucking face to cum.”

Your body gave in finally at his hoarse voice; your hops sped up, still using his nose and lips to overstimulate yourself. The orgasm was forceful, your moans strident.

Joel felt a pool of your cum leak out and drip down his chin onto his neck. He watched you crumble and curl into him and he was attentive enough to hold you steady while your balance dissipated.

Your head was dizzy and your vision blurred. You slowly halted your movements and just stood there being held by him while he placed light, but loving kisses along your dripping cunt.

He finally pulled his face out from underneath your skirt and carefully put your leg down before standing. He tucked some loose hairs back or behind your ears, then caressed your cheek and gave you a peck.

You wiped some of your cum off of his wet chin with your thumb and held it up to his mouth which he gladly sucked on. He grinned at you afterward and fixed your skirt for you.

The silence was soothing because frankly, neither of you knew what to say. It left you speechless, but that could just be the aftereffect of your climax.

The night was beginning to close in sooner than either of you wanted it to. You two just talked, truly catching up on the past four years. He was a lot funnier than you remembered, your cheeks were aching from how much he was making you laugh.

"You are a real gentleman, Joel Miller. What can I say? Dinner and an orgasm?!"

He lifted you up from your spot on the couch and pulled you into his lap so that you were straddling him. "I don't have to be," he murmured against your lips. His fingers flexed into your feverish skin, holding you upright and close by. He chased you with his lips until you finally let him kiss you. "Be honest with me... Did you really think I was handsome in high school?"

Your face grew warm and you hid behind your hands in embarrassment. "Oh, my God."

"Why are you actin' all shy now?"

"Because you weren’t supposed to know about that."

"Know about what exactly?"

You crossed your arms, deciding to let him win this time. "You want details?"

He smirked and leaned back to get more comfortable.

"Well... I used to lie and tell my friends that we fucked," you admitted.

"Really?" Despite his surprise the smirk never left his face. If anything it grew wider.

You sheepishly nodded. "I used to tell them how good you were. Everything you would do to me."

"What would I do to you?" His cock was already throbbing against his jeans, and just like every other time, he ignored it.

"You would fuck me up against the wall," you explained. "Sometimes, you would bend me over the edge of the bed and spank me for being naughty. Or just 'cause you felt like it. I'd even tell them about how you played with my ass so gently because you didn't want to hurt me."

Every word went straight to his dick, making it jerk and prod your thigh.

"Maybe I do need to bend you over and spank you for all that lyin' you were doin'. Your friends probably think I'm some creep now," he said; his tone wasn’t scolding or cold. He sounded thirsty for more of you. Like his throat had already run dry despite how much of you he drank earlier.

"I'd tell them the truth, but if I were to do that now then I'd be lying again," you whispered against his lips.

"We certainly cannot have you spreadin' no more dirty lies, now. Can we?"

-

Read Part 2 here.

#joel miller smut #joel miller #joel miller fluff #joel miller fic #joel miller fanfiction #pedro pascal #pedro pascal fic #pedro pascal smut #pedro pascal fanfiction #tlou smut #joel miller blurb #the last of us hbo #the last of us

[cordeliawhohung]

pornstar!gaz because my brain cannot control itself. unedited because i'm a whore

Whoever turned the AC up in your dressing room was going to get an earful of it when you were finished with your makeup, because you were certain you were going to freeze to death. Really, it made sense why they turned it up so high. Studio lights got very hot very quick while filming, and with all the... physical activities that would be shot, stars were known to pass out if it got to hot. But not even the warmth from the bright vanity lights could defrost the ice forming on your skin, and you tried to keep your hands from trembling as you applied your foundation.

Or, at least you tried to tell yourself you were only shivering. You were filming with Kyle Garrick that day, after all.

You'd seen his videos. You always made it a habit to sleuth through the history of anyone you were going to be on set with just to see what you were dealing with, so it wasn't like he was anything special. Except he was. He was the sweetheart most viewers fell in love with, and the darling of the film studio. Half of the income the studio made last year was from the videos he was, which meant the video you were about to shoot that day was certainly going to be viewed at least a few million times.

It was easy to see why. He was attractive enough to draw in a female audience, and even you had to admit he was rather pretty. Even if he wasn't, his voice was alluring enough he could still draw in an audience just by dirty talk alone. Men enjoyed his skills and how he could seem to draw orgasm after orgasm out of his co-stars. Theoretically, anyway. Female porn stars were the best actresses in the world.

As you dipped the tip of your finger in the basin of your highlighter, a soft knock rapped at the door. You threw a cautious glance at the door as you rubbed the highlighter on the tip of your nose. It was unusual for someone to bother you while you were getting ready. It wasn't like makeup was all that important when it would get smudged on every surface imaginable half an hour after application.

"Come in," you hummed.

It was difficult to act distracted when Kyle Garrick, the bastard himself, walked into your dressing room. He was even more beautiful in person. Cameras could never quite catch the warmth of his skin or just how easy and intoxicating his smile was. What made it worse was that he wasn't at all bashful. No, he was completely confident as he strolled into the room and shut the door tight behind him.

"What's up?" You tried to act nonchalant, but if anything you were a little weirded out. Never in all your time in the industry had you ever had your partner enter your dressing room like you were school girls gossiping in the bathroom during passing period. Still, he kept his distance, which eased your nerves a little, yet did nothing to quell your confusion.

"Just figured we could have a chat before the cameras start rolling," he answered simply.

"A chat? You make it sound like I'm in trouble," you teased.

He chuckled at your comment, and you swore you could feel the way the waves of it shook your chest. "Not at all. I just always feel more comfortable getting to know my partner's do's and don'ts."

Comfortable? Like some sort of debrief? You couldn't say you ever had someone come to you about boundary setting before a shoot (not when you filmed with men, anyway) but you had to admit, the idea was rather refreshing. Giving him your full attention, you placed your makeup back in your back before gesturing to the seat next to you.

He took the seat without hesitation, and you tried not to be jealous at how poised he was in doing so. He treated you as if you had known one another for years rather than seconds, and he slouched back in the chair like he was right at home. An odd lump formed in your throat when you noticed how wide he had spread his thighs, and though you were sure he was used to it, you tried your best not to stare.

"Alright then," you prompted. "Shoot."

A warm smile bloomed on his lips as he leaned his arm against the counter. If you hadn't known any better, it felt like the two of you were just hanging out rather than getting ready to fuck one another in front of the cameras and a half full studio.

"Tell me what you like," he said with a nod.

You shrugged. "The usual stuff. I'm pretty vanilla, honestly."

"That so? Or are you just not wanting to get so deep so quick?" Kyle teased with a boyish smirk.

"Deep? I'll probably have your cock in my mouth in the next half hour, I think we're a little past acting shy," you retorted playfully.

That got him to laugh. Not chuckle, not some deep hum in his throat, but truly laugh. So much so that he leaned forward and had to readjust his position.

"Right, well part of the job isn't it?" he said with a tilt of his head. "Well then, what about hard no's, then?"

You hummed as if you had to think about it, but in reality you were well aware of your boundaries. Having them usually meant very little in that line of work, but if your partner asked about it so casually, you might as well be honest.

"Degradation. Not a big fan of it. Or slapping," you admitted simply.

Kyle nodded in understanding. "Right, so praise then?" You nodded. "And no slapping. What about spanking?"

"That's fine. Just nothing hitting my face."

"Right. So, no pain play?" he asked.

"Well, I'm not a total normie," you joked.

"I'll keep that in mind."

A small stretch of silence settled between you filled with nothing but the dull hum of the AC unit, which suddenly felt like wasn't working as well. His eyes studied you carefully, remaining surprisingly intent on your face rather than anywhere else. There was a delicious richness to their color that made you feel like you would get lost in them, and maybe that was his intent. You quickly broke eye contact with him before that could happen.

"What about you? We've been focusing mostly on my desires," you said in an attempt to steer the conversation elsewhere.

"But that's what I like. Focusing on you," he admitted.

Kyle caught sight of the slight quirk of your brow at his comment, and quickly amended his statement.

"My partners, that is. Whoever I'm on set with. I like doing the work. As long as you're having a good time, so am I," he concluded.

He didn't have to tell you that much, you were able to gather that from the videos he filmed. His grunts while eating his co-stars out, the way a smile always seemed to tear across his face whenever they came, fake or not; he truly did seem to be a pleasure dom. You were excited to see if that theory was correct.

"Any hard no's then?" you asked.

"None that you'll be able to push," he replied.

Your brows raised incredulously at his comment. "Underestimating me?"

"Not at all. I just plan to have you so fucked out you won't be capable of much," he admitted.

Those sickly teasing words of his left your mind completely blank, and you weren't sure why. Was it the prospect of it? The tone of his voice? Whatever it was, it stole the words off of your tongue, and the only response you were capable of mustering was a slick grin.

"Well, I'll let you get back to it," Kyle said as he pushed himself up from the seat. "If you think of anything else between now and then, let me know."

"Will do," you said, chest quaking with breathlessness.

Just as he was about to leave, Kyle paused for a moment with his hand loosely on the doorknob. His body turned to you, just enough so that he could glance at you from over his shoulder. Except his glance wasn't something quick and innocent; no, it was the first time you caught him giving you a full once over as if he inspected his meal before eating it.

"Excited to work with you, doll," he said with a slight lick of his lips.

When the door shut behind him, you let out a breath like you finally got your lungs to behave properly again. You felt like you needed a cold shower after that conversation with him, and had you not just put on your makeup, you probably would have. A thick layer of sweat formed on the palm of your hands, and you cursed to yourself as you wiped the moisture off on your shirt.

"Jesus christ," you muttered to yourself.

Perhaps you shouldn't have complained so much about the AC after all.

#pornstar!gaz #kyle garrick x reader #gaz x reader #kyle gaz garrick x reader #f!reader

[infoactionratio7]

call it fate, call it carmen - c. berzatto

summary: after carmy runs into a pretty stranger in a coffee shop that morning, he never thinks he will see her again... until she walks into his restaurant.

pairing: carmen berzatto x fem! teacher! reader

word count: 2,506

note: kinda set during season one when the bear is still the beef. no warnings really, some cursing, that's it! :)

read part two here! and part 3 here!

sunday morning -

The bells of the little cafe on West Erie St chimed as you glanced up from your book, you were waiting for your name to be called by the friendly barista who had just taken your order. You were new in town, and wanted to explore all the different things Chicago had to offer. A man walked into the shop, inhaling the sweet scent of freshly brewed coffee as he went up to the counter and read an order from his phone,

"Can I get a small iced dirty chai latte and a triple shot iced espresso to go? Please, thank you " His voice was soft, as he ran his hand through his messy curls.

He glanced over to where you were standing, bundled up in a winter coat, scarf, and hat (Chicago winters got cold fast). He gave you a once over, taking note of your book, 'Chicago: A Food Biography'. You seemed to be completely enthralled in the page you were reading, captivated by every word. He was not one to ever go up to a stranger, but he felt that he had to take a chance. The barista gave him his receipt and a small smile, telling him to wait over near the pickup counter.

"You ever been to Chicago before?" You look up, wide eyed, not expecting the man to be speaking to you.

"Oh," you exclaim, flustered. "Once or twice with my family when I was a kid, but not that I can really remember."

He smiles and glances at your book, you realize this was the reason he is asking you. It was a very touristy book to be reading. Especially because the cafe you were currently standing in, was highlighted in the book. You had made a list of all the places you wanted to visit that day before you had to arrive at the elementary school down the street to start your new job. "I love trying all the foods that are in the cities I visit, it's like an obligatory tradition when I move in to find places near my new apartment." You spit put your words, not even thinking that you are telling a random stranger in Chicago that you live near this cafe and just moved in. Blushing and looking down at your feet, you hear your name called from behind the counter, rushing to grab your drink and chocolate croissant before the conversation could get uncomfortable. You put the pastry in your bag and quickly wave at him.

"Have a good day, hope you find some nice restaurants" He waves back as you open the door and walk into the blistering wind that had taken over the streets that cold winter morning.

-

You arrived at your apartment building, it was not the nicest apartment you had ever stayed in but it was not the worst either. You walked up the stairs to your door and unlocked it with the hand that was not holding the coffee you just purchased. Rushing into the apartment, you put all of your things on the kitchen table and just took a breath of the cozy air of the room. As you stood there and took off your winter layers, you could not help but think of the man who had approached you in the cafe, realizing how attractive he was, his tattooed hands running through his hair, and biceps anyone could see just from glancing at his bundled up figure. You took a sip from your coffee, thinking how could he get two iced drinks in the middle of winter was beyond you.

You went into your room to grab some of your papers from the desk you had just built from Ikea the night before. You had to do some lesson plans before you did anything else, you had not even started any for that week. It was sunday and all you could think of was when you were in high school, and using your sundays to finish all the work you had neglected to do the week before.

Deciding to just get your work done you opened the package with the croissant, and took a bite. Tasting the buttery and chocolatey pastry seemed to bring a jolt to your brain and body, motivating you to get started.

-

Carmen could not stop thinking about you, he had wished he had formally introduced himself and told her that he was in fact, the owner of a restaurant that was a block away and it would be great if she wanted to visit and try something to commemorate her moving into the city. But no he just waved and let her go, watching her leave into the bitter cold.

"Jeff, you need to focus, you almost cut your finger off," Tina pulled him out of his thoughts with her concerned tone. "What's going on Carmen, you gotta be more careful than that, take a break if you need one."

"Fuck, sorry Chef, sorry" He put the knife down and put the carrots he had finished cutting into the giardiniera container for service later that night.

"You seem more distracted than usual, I can finish the cutting, just go to the office to cool off." Tina glanced over at him as he nodded, cleaning off his knife and putting it away. Right as he walked away, Richie walked into the kitchen.

"Cousi- Where is he going Tina?" He looked from Carmy to his empty station next to Tina, still chopping vegetables.

"He's distracted or something, just let him be Richie, don't bother the poor kid," She turned around to go into the walk-in, grabbing more fresh veggies to prepare for service later. Richie, as he does, ignores Tina completely, beelining to the office, where Carmy is running his hand down his face and pacing around like a madman.

"Cousin, what's your deal? You look like you're goin' fuckin crazy" He grilled, leaning on the door. Carmy shot him a glare, sitting down in the swivel chair that squeaked every time he actually tried to swivel in it.

" There isn't a fucking problem Richie, leave me alone." Carmy pushed himself into the desk so he could look at some paperwork he had been putting off for the past week. "I gotta finish this paperwork."

Richie raised his eyebrows, looking down at the younger man, he wasn't going to push Carmy any further, because the whole kitchen knew what would happen if the chef got mad before a service.

"Fine cousin, just don't take that shit out on the rest of the kitchen." He walked out of the office dorway as the rest of the kitchen crew started to file in to prepare for dinner service.

Carmy blankly stared at his paperwork, thinking about the interaction at the cafe this morning he just couldn't stop thinking about.

sunday night -

You walked down the stairs to your apartment complex, having finished your lesson plans just in time for dinner. Before you left, you had read of a few classic dinner joints in the neighborhood, one of them was called 'The Beef', known for their italian beef sandwiches and spaghetti with meatballs. After looking at some reviews online, you decided that it was necessary to visit this local staple. The reviews talking about how some days it was as calm as anything in the restaurant, but others the employees were screaming at eachother while getting the orders out.

You approached the building, right next to a big parking lot where many people were just standing around with sandwiches. Someone pushed the door open, smells and noise leaked out of the warm dining room. You could hear the screams from in the kitchen,

"We are down five italian beef, sweet and hot dipped, two ravioli, and one spaghetti meatball, Lets go Chefs" A tall man yelled into the kitchen.

The swinging door to the kitchen opened and a woman with a blue apron and white chef's coat replied "We are only down all those things because YOU never fired them Richie, why the fuck are you not firing the orders?"

"Calm down Chefs, just fire the orders, we can catch up if you both shut up and work, okay?" A voice you had heard before cut between the two arguing, they both got quite and looked at the man who had just exited the kitchen with five sandwiches in his hands. They nodded and went back to their respective tasks, "Okay, thank you chefs. I have 5 italian beef, sweet and hot dipped for Chelsea."

You were looking at all options on the menu and had not noticed the man calling out the order was someone you had met before. Carmy scanned the room, trying to find the woman who had ordered the five sandwiches he was about to drop. His eyes stopped on a familiar figure, the same he had been distracted thinking about all day. He didn't even notice when a woman came up asking for her order, scrambling to put the sandwiches in a to go bag and giving it to the woman.

"Excuse me, you're next sweetheart, What'll you have?" A rough voice pulled you out of your focus on the menu as you stepped up to the register. You looked up at the tall man who was smiling down at you like he had never seen a woman before, when he was pushed aside and a familiar face entered your field if vision.

"Cousin what the fuc-"

A woman's threatening voice came out of the kitchen "Richie I swear to god if you don't shut up, I'm going to stab you again."

He stalked into the kitchen, mumbling something about how unappreciated he was in this restaurant. You brought your focus back to the man standing in front of you, beet red as he watched the taller man walk into the kitchen. He turned back to face you and awkwardly smiled,

"Nice to see you again, what'll you be having today?"

You scanned the menu one more time and decided to have a little fun with the man, "Can you surprise me?, I heard that this restaurant is pretty big with the locals."

He looked at you with a pointed look, "Okay," he softly said your name, "What do you want?" After a long pause he wrote down the order, then looked back up at you with his foggy blue eyes. You were flattered he had remembered your name, did he really care that much about a stranger he had spoken to for less than two minutes earlier that morning? You didn't even know his name, but his warm gaze softened you like butter.

"It's on the house okay, I promise it'll be the best meal you've had in the city since you moved here. Be ready in 10 minutes" You were quick to reply,

"No, I can't let you do that, how muc-" He cut you off,

"This one time, I'll cover it, and if you like it, next time I'll let you pay, deal?" He held out his tattooed hand for you to shake,

"Fine..." You smiled, slipping your hand into his rough palm, he shook your hand firmly, then letting it go, gestured for you to wait at one of the tables near the door. You smiled and walked over to the table sitting down. He walked into the kitchen and you could hear his faint yells through the wall, telling the kitchen your order.

"God damn Cousin, you just took my job for no reason what's your problem?" The tall man, who you remembered was named Richie stalked back out of the kitchen to get to the line that had formed. You realized you hadn't even asked the name of the man who had just offered you a free dinner. Richie stopped in his tracks when he saw you, realizing that this might have been the reason his boss had been distracted all day. Thinking about the pretty girl that he had met, and clearly liked her enough to give her a free dinner. He laughed to himself, taking a mental note to make fun of Carmy after service for getting distracted because of a girl.

The blue eyed chef burst out of the kitchen door with a to go bag, and made his way to the table you were sitting, waiting for the food. He placed the bag in front of you as you looked up to meet his eyes,

"So what are you serving me chef?" You tease, "Well that it a surprise you will just have to wait to find out" He grins as you stand up to meet his height.

"Well thank you..."

"Carmen, Carmen Berzatto"

"Thank you Carmen, I'm sure I will enjoy this, and if I don't, I'm afraid I'll have to come back and try something new." Placing your hand on his shoulder and squeezing lightly as you started walking toward the door. "I'll see you Carmen"

You turn around and start walking out of the door when you hear a yell from Richie, "Cousin has got a little sweetheart don't you"

"RICHIE I swear to God-" The door closed behind you before you could hear what the woman who just barged out of the kitchen had to say to the pompous cashier.

You silently laughed as you walked through the street, it was around the time for sunset and the sky had turned a beautiful blend of orange and purple. You reached your apartment in around ten minutes, getting out of the cold and eager to see what Carmen had packed you for dinner.

Putting the bag of food onto your coffee table, you grabbed a plate from the kitchen and started to unpack the meal. The first thing you pulled out was an italian beef, 'sweet + dipped' written on the side, then you pulled out a small side of fries, and lastly there was a plastic container of spaghetti and meatballs, with a piece of chocolate cake. You unpacked everything in front of you and the scent of the food engulfed you. It was a heavenly smell, so you dug in.

When you finished all you could possibly eat you noticed something at the bottom of the bag. A small piece of lined paper, that looked like it was ripped out of a notebook, it said your name on one side in messy handwriting and on the other it had a phone number and more of the messy chicken scratch,

hope you like dinner, would love to show you around the city sometime. call me x

carmy

You immediately opened your phone, putting his number into your contacts, then opening your message app to send him a text.

to: carmen

loved dinner, too bad i won't have to come back and get something else. i guess you'll have to show me around to see if any spots can top this one. let me know when you're free ♡

#the bear #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto #carmy berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto x you #carmen berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto x you #the bear fx #x reader #female reader #x you #the bear hulu #jeremy allen white #jeremy allen white x reader #the bear season 1 #the bear season 2

[starsstuddedsky]

What? Like It’s Hard?

gn reader x soonyoung

summary: With the help of a little bit of bleach, Soonyoung is certified legally blonde–complete to last minute-dedication to scoring as high as Elle Woods on the LSAT. While he has no interest in law school, he’s notorious for never turning down a dare. So how does a frat bro in serious danger of failing his senior year get a 179? He asks the smartest person he knows. 

Or, studying for a law test has never seen this much chemistry.

genre: fluff, angst, non-idol au, uni au, friends to lovers, opposites attract

warnings: swearing, drinking, food, arguing, a couple sex jokes, one spicy scene at the end but no actual smut, refusal to acknowledge feelings, what's the word for beyond oblivious????

full wc: 24.3k

playlist! - i'm not very good at this but i tried to add songs alternating between yn and soonyoung :)

a/n: hello!! first of all, sorry this so long! it's been a very very busy summer. thank you to everyone who has continued to show interest in the story, it's really kept me going. i honestly have no idea what this is anymore but i hope it does not disappoint :) as always i appreciate feedback of any form <3 thank you again for reading and have a lovely day! finally, happy scoups day :)

a/n2: a special shout out to @chocolatemilk139 for being my beta and for helping me fact check... why do i keep writing about lawyers when i know absolutely nothing about the field.......

“Nope.” You grab your backpack, shoving your laptop inside, but he gets to your water bottle before you can reach it. 

“Come on.” Soonyoung pouts his lips. 

“I won’t do it,” you say. 

Soonyoung hugs your water bottle hostage against his chest, dark blue hiding in the crook of his elbow, bright against the pale pink sweater he wears. It’s an unusual choice for him, normally clad in baggy jeans and loose t-shirts. Still, the color highlights his new hair, blonde bordering on white. Hardly the first time he’s done something insane for a bet. 

“Please! I’m desperate!” He cries again, stepping closer, though he keeps a firm grip on your water bottle. You never should have told him how emotionally attached you are to it; you should have known it would be held against you. 

“No,” you say. You sling your backpack on, just in case he gets any other ideas. The other students shoot dirty looks at you, actually in the library to study (like you were, until Soonyoung arrived). So you grab him by the arm, rolling your eyes at how he jerks the water bottle out of reach. 

“Walk and talk, we’re not doing this here,” you say, folding your arms over your chest. 

“Come on, how hard can it be?” Soonyoung asks. “It’s just a test.”

“Just a test?” You snort. “Soonyoung, you are aware that most people don’t apply to law school on a dare?” 

“I don’t have to get into law school!” He says, “just get a 179 on the LSAT.” 

As if that makes it any better. You eye Soonyoung and his tight grip on the plastic. Maybe it’s a lost cause and you should just swing by the bookstore to get a new one instead. But that water bottle has butterfly stickers that have survived since freshman year and a dent from the time Jun tried to use it as a weapon in a fight against Jihoon (that was declared a draw when the bottle busted open and doused both of them equally); it holds memories better than water and you’ll be damned if you let Soonyoung hold it hostage. 

“That’s actually harder,” you mumble. From the corner of your eye, you can see him tucking the blue bottle under his right arm, farthest from you. This won’t be easy, especially since you saw the poorly disguised thirst trap of him and one of his frat bros at the gym: those arms are not to be underestimated. 

“I’ll pay you!” 

“With what money?” 

Soonyoung pauses. You’ve reached the exit by now, sunlight warming you through the glass doors. He turns to the sunlight, and you know he’s pretending to be a main character from an artsy film (not that he’s ever seen on). He takes a deep breath, as if he already regrets what he has to say next. 

“Okay, I’ll offer you the only services I have.” He turns to face you, eyes on the floor. 

“Oh my god, Soonyoung!” You shove his shoulder. “You are not selling your body for a test!” 

“But it’s all I know!” He says. He pokes your arms. “You could have so much muscle if you lifted just twice a week.” 

“Oh.” You blink at him. “You meant working out?” 

“What did you think I meant?” 

You feel heat rush into your cheeks. You push the door open, praying Soonyoung doesn’t notice. “It doesn’t matter,” you say, not daring to check if he’s following. “I don’t have time to workout.” 

“Then what do you want?” Soonyoung asks. He stays just out of reach, adjusting his grip so that the water bottle hangs from his hand. “Please, I’ll do anything!” 

“Why do you need me?” 

“Because you’re the smartest person I know,” he says without hesitation. In the three years of your friendship, you’ve learned that the only time Soonyoung isn’t serious is when he flirts. 

“You are,” he insists. “Plus you’ve already taken it, so you’re my best chance. My only chance, it’s not like I have a good track record with tests.” He gives you a lopsided smile as he tries to pretend like he’s joking. But Soonyoung has always been easy to read. You see the sparkle in his eyes dim, and you remember freshman Soonyoung–when he failed the midterm and holed up in his room in the frat house for two full days, not even venturing out to drink. It’s that damn sparkle that gets to you. He isn’t paying attention anymore, water bottle hanging loosely from his hand, but you can’t bring yourself to snatch it. 

“You can pass it,” you say with a sigh. “It’s about studying correctly.” 

“I don’t know,” Soonyoung says. “I’ve never really studied.” 

“Well, that’s what I’ll teach you.” 

Soonyoung freezes, grabbing your arm. “Seriously?” When you turn to face him, his smile is so bright it warms you from the inside out, hotter than the actual sun on your skin. He throws his arms around you, wrapping you in a hug so tight he lifts you off the ground. Your heart does this strange thing where it hops into your throat. Your arms come up as a reflex but his embrace is too tight for you to even hug him back.  

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He shouts. He doesn’t let go, even when he sets you back down. He loosens his arms just enough to look at you, the full force of his smile directed at you. “I swear you’re welcome at the frat house any time, I’ll buy you anything you want when I have money, I’ll drive you wherever you want if I can get Seungcheol’s car, I’ll do whatever, just thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

You know you should answer, or say something, but thinking is too much when he’s so close you can smell the strangely sweet combination of laundry detergent, cologne, and sweat. You push out of his arms, snagging your water bottle on the way out. 

“It’s whatever,” you mumble. Though his arms aren’t around you anymore, you feel strangely hot, like your blood is boiling, and your heart still pounds. 

“It is not whatever,” Soonyoung declares. “I swear, whatever you want, I’ll do it.” He holds a hand over his heart and if it was anyone else you’d think they were joking but it’s Soonyoung: he’s deadly serious. 

You can’t handle his gaze anymore, turning to study your beat up sneakers. “Really? You’ll get my first edition copy of Pride and Prejudice from Jun?” 

“I’ll get that book back.” He glances at you. “It is a book, right?” 

“Yeah,” you say. “Though there’s been some good adaptations.” 

“That’s the one with the zombies?” 

“Zombies?” You frown. “Oh my god, do you mean Pride and Prejudice and Zombies?” 

“That’s not the original book?” 

“No,” you say, laughing. “The original is Jane Austen, in the 1800s.” 

“Oh,” Soonyoung says. 

“I’ve actually never seen that one,” you say. “It’s the only adaptation I haven’t seen.” 

“How many movies are there?” 

“Well, there’s the 1940 adaptation, the BBC series that’s widely regarded as the most faithful adaptation, the 2005 Kiera Knightley movie that’s iconic, plus the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, which is a vlog-style Youtube adaptation. Then of course there’s Jane Austen’s other works, like Persuasion, which, the new one, for the record, was a terrible adaptation.” You stop when you realize you’re dangerously close to going on what Jihoon calls ‘an Austen tirade.’ 

“I liked the movie,” he says after a pause. “I don’t know if it was that good, or close to the books. But it was fun.” 

“I’ll have to watch it, then,” you say. “I know it’s the obvious choice, but Pride and Prejudice really is my favorite Jane Austen novel. Good luck getting it back from Jun though. He’s studying abroad this semester.” 

“He’s the friend from your history class?” 

“No, that’s Jihoon, my roommate,” you say. “Jun was in my language class.” 

“I thought you hated everyone in that class.” 

“Oh, I did,” you say. “But Jun is friends with Jihoon, so he sort of just became my friend too.” 

Soonyoung hums, saying nothing else. You don’t recognize the song, though you tend to mostly listen to classical music when you study or whatever Jihoon blasts from his room, so it’s not that surprising. The melody is nice, though. Well, Soonyoung’s voice is. 

“I really am grateful,” Soonyoung says. “I know I was begging, because I don’t think I can do this without you–well, I don’t know if I can do it with you, but you’re my only hope and–I’m rambling again.” He flashes a smile. “The point is, thank you.” 

You shrug, feeling shy under his gaze. “It’ll help me study anyways,” you say. “You learn a lot when you teach.” 

“I thought you already took it?”

“I only got a 150,” you say, sighing. “I need at least a 165.” 

Soonyoung nods, forehead creasing like it always does when he’s lost in thought. “Thank you anyway.”

“Well, you swore to do whatever I tell you,” you say, desperate to change the subject. “Don’t think I won’t abuse that.” 

“Oh, YN,” he says, “I’m counting on it.” He even winks. 

You cough, choking at the outright flirting. Soonyoung hasn’t tried a line on you in so long you thought he’d used them all. He isn’t serious–it was engraved in his DNA the second he became a fully fledged member of Sigma Beta Tau but it’s not like many people flirt with you, so it’s hard to stop your heart from jumping. 

You check your phone, unable to look him in the eyes. It’s 2:18 now, prime naptime if you can get back to your apartment before Jihoon gets back. But if it’s past two, unless he lied to you at the start of the semester, that means Soonyoung should be in his data ethics class. “Hey, don’t you have class right now?” 

Soonyoung glances at the time on his phone. “Shit.” He takes off, sprinting across the grass, dodging three picnics and narrowly avoiding getting rocked in the back of the head by a frisbee. He pauses at the edge, turning back around to wave wildly at you. 

“Thank you!” He shouts. The picnickers glance between you and him and you can feel the blush returning. Soonyoung doesn’t notice all the eyes on him, waving like a goofball one final time before sprinting off again. Like a whirlwind, he’s gone again, leaving you to stroll across campus and wonder what you just signed up for. 

.

.

Soonyoung’s brow furrows into a frown, lips pulling together in a pout. He rests his chin on his hands, looking up at you from the table like a puppy that knows he’s in trouble. “That bad?” 

“Your analytical reasoning was good!” You say, not wanting to destroy him just yet. “The logical analysis wasn’t that bad either, you just need practice.” 

“Wasn’t there a third section?” 

“The score for reading comprehension was pretty bad.” Horrendous, actually, but you can’t tell him that, not when he’s deflating faster than a balloon at a knife throwing contest. He sits back, head knocking lightly against the back of the stiff library chairs. 

“We can work with this! It’s really not that bad,” you say. You reach out instinctively, wrapping your hands over his hands. Your thumb rests against the soft smooth skin of the back of his hand, the rest of your fingers brushing lightly against his calloused fingers. You jerk back when you realize what you’re doing, patting his hands once and grabbing the workbook in front of him as if it’s what you meant to do all along. You study the upside down words, not daring to look at the disgust that’s probably painted on Soonyoung’s face. 

“You can start with practicing the logic problems,” you say, flipping through the work book. “I’ll figure out a strategy for the reading portion.” 

Soonyoung heaves a sigh, sitting up and hunching over the workbook. You flip open one of your old workbooks and try to pretend like you’re not trying to melt away from embarrassment. 

“This isn’t very much teaching,” Soonyoung says without looking up. “Lots of problem solving.” 

“I don’t really know what I’m doing either,” you say. “I just watched a lot of youtube videos when I was studying last year. I should have known better than to take it over the summer, though.” 

Soonyoung glances up. “How come?” 

You chew on your lip. You’ve known Soonyoung for a while now, but you’ve never talked to him like this, mentioning any real things other than complaining about roommates. Soonyoung would listen, probably say the ‘right’ things, but it’s a study session, so you just say, “Just not good timing.” 

He nods, returning to his humming. You turn to your own workbook, trying to figure out how to get Soonyoung to actually read the passages for the reading comprehension. Twenty minutes pass in an instant and Soonyoung drops his pencil, sliding his journal with the answers back in front of you. You flip to the answer key, scanning between the two. 

“When are you taking it again?” Soonyoung asks while he waits. 

“Just before Halloween,” you say. Exactly 38 days from now, according to the IMPENDING DOOM countdown clock on your phone. 

“That soon?” 

You shrug. “I wanted to give myself time to take it again in case I bomb it and it had to be before midterms, so, yeah.” 

“Is it really that bad to take all your tests at once?” Soonyoung asks. 

“I mean, finals week pretty much kills me every semester. I actually thought I was cutting it close with only two weeks between it and midterms.” 

“Is November cutting it too close?” 

“Depends on when in November you plan on taking it,” you say, “though you probably won’t be able to take it again if you don’t like your score.” 

“Not a problem for me,” Soonyoung says. He doesn’t waver against your raised eyebrow. “I’m getting that 179, first try.” 

“You’re that confident?” 

“In you.” He winks. “Also the bet is off if I don’t get it on the first try.” 

You nod. “Yeah, that makes more sense.” You glance at your calendar. “

“November 18th.” 

“That’s not too bad, you dodged between midterms and finals, there should be plenty of cram time.” 

Soonyoung shrugs. “I just scheduled it so that I would get the results before the Christmas party.” 

“I didn’t think you would be the religious type.” 

“Oh, I’m not,” he says. “The frat has this annual post-finals party before people go back home for holiday break, usually on the last day of finals. There’s no way I’m letting Seungkwan get away with my hard earned Playstation, and there’s no way he’d miss the party.” 

“You can’t just buy your own game?” 

“It’s a console actually,” he says, “and that’s not the point.” You prepare for some lecture about honor or frat code or something overly dramatic and inspired by any of the countless war propaganda movies he loves, but he closes his mouth. 

“I guess it doesn’t really matter,” you say. You turn back his sheet, half the answers marked with a dark blue X because red feels too cruel. “You’re clearly committed.” 

He sighs at the answers, flipping back to the first question and frowning. You think the conversation is over, but without looking up from glaring at the right answers, he says, “You should come.” 

“To?” 

“The Christmas party.” 

You stare at the top of his head but he doesn’t seem to notice. You wonder how he manages to keep his hair so blonde without ruining his scalp but you don’t see any dandruff. “Me?” You finally say. 

“You said you’d come, like, freshman year,” he says. “You never did.” 

You did promise, back when you saw him for class every day. But frat parties weren’t your scene back then. They aren’t your scene now. Nothing about blasting music and binge drinking appeals to you, and yet Soonyoung peeking at you from his notebook makes you feel guilty anyways. He looks at you like he really doesn’t understand why you wouldn’t want to go.

And that’s the worst part: for Soonyoung, you would go. When he looks at you with the damn Soonyoung Sparkle, you’d do anything. 

“I’ll… think about it,” you finally say. 

He looks at you for a moment longer, then nods, like he didn’t really expect you to say yes. You try not to feel like you’re letting him down. 

“Can you explain this one to me,” he asks, turning the book so you can see it from across the table. 

You skim the question, which turns out to be a series of questions about stained glass windows. You take a moment to glance between Soonyoung’s answers and the correct ones. 

“Walk me through your process,” you say. 

“Okay, I start with…”

.

. 

“Soonyoung, are you even listening?” 

He blinks at you, lifting his head from his arms. “Something about strategies? For reading?” 

You snap the book shut, shaking your head. You open your mouth, speech on responsibility and studying on the tip of your tongue but one look into Soonyoung’s Sparkle Eyes (patent pending) and all the words are gone. You really need to figure out how to get around that super power. 

“Come on, it’s so nice out,” he says. “We should be outside.” He grabs your hand. “This is not studying weather, this is dating weather.” 

“Soonyoung your test is in two months, you seriously want to skip?” You don’t dignify the second part of his complaint with a response. The idea of Soonyoung on a date makes your stomach flip. 

He sighs. “No, but it’s October, we won’t get many more nice days, so can we at least go outside?” 

You hesitate a heartbeat too long and Soonyoung jumps up. He closes the workbook, knocking loose papers off the table and sending highlighters of every color flying in every direction. The chaos earns a couple side eyes from the people around you and a full on glare from the person directly next to him, but Soonyoung, as Soonyoung as ever, doesn’t seem to notice. He picks up the papers and highlighters, shoving them into his backpack without a folder and slinging it over his shoulder. You can only follow him, grabbing the drinks before he tries to carry them along his laptop. When it comes to Soonyoung, mixing liquids and technology is more dangerous than mixing alcohols. You haven’t forgotten The Coffee Incident, flooding his backpack at 8 in the morning. 

He drags you out of the library, though you don’t put up much of a fight. Soonyoung makes you want to relax, just a little, and when he smiles back at you as soon as he steps out of the sunlight, you find you don’t regret a thing. 

Soonyoung pulls his emergency blanket out of his blanket, passing it to you. He’s more prepared for naps than any class he’s ever taken but the thin fabric is soft so who are you to judge? He heads straight for the quad, which is already filled with people, some groups of friends, too many obvious couples with heads in each other's laps or arms wrapped around each other. Soonyoung settles down in a relatively unpopulated corner, taking the blanket back to shake it out the blanket a few times before laying it flat on the ground. 

Soonyoung groans when you pull out the workbooks as soon as you sit down. “There isn’t anything more fun to study?” 

“Soonyoung, it’s the LSAT,” you say. “It’s not really meant to be fun.” 

“But–” 

“You’re the one that wanted to go outside,” you remind him, tapping his arm with a pen. “If you’re too distracted we’ll have to go back into the library.” 

He gazes at the other people laughing for a long moment before turning to face you again. You raise your eyebrows and he takes the workbook from your hands, flipping it open to the sticky-note bookmark. 

The next twenty minutes are relatively quiet, the only noise coming from the chatter of the people around you, too far away to clearly hear, and Soonyoung humming while working through practice problems. You’re not sure if he even realizes he’s doing it, though he bobs his head slightly. You wonder what Soonyoung is like when he isn’t trying to get out of studying–even outside of the party invites you’ve avoided, you rarely see him on campus (because you aren’t on campus when you don’t have to be). You almost went to dinner with him to celebrate passing the business class freshman year where you met him, but you got food poisoning and he never rescheduled. 

It’s for the best, though. Even like this, tutoring him minus payment of any kind, you can tell that spending too much time with him will be dangerous. He flirts so easily it feels genuine, and even though he can be ridiculous, he’s never been anything but lovely to you. And it doesn’t help that he’s hot. He glances up, as if he can feel you staring, but he just flashes a smile at you and ducks his head again. Damn frat bros with endearing charms that melt you like the perfect grilled cheese. 

Perfectly blue without a cloud in sight, the sky is an empty canvas above you. The air is just the right temperature, just between hot and cold, the sun ensuring that it never dips into the latter. Just the slightest breeze kisses your skin, lifting the edges of the papers but never flipping them. Soonyoung was right: the perfect date weather. 

“Soonyoung?” You turn your head to see a dark haired man standing over you. Wearing a t-shirt with the sleeves cut off and sides ripped open, you figure there’s a 80% chance he’s one of Soonyoung’s frat brothers. 

“Seokmin?” Soonyoung frowns. 

“You were actually serious?” Seokmin asks, gesturing to the books. “You know Seungkwan said it as a joke, right?” 

“Yeah, but a bet is a bet,” Soonyoung says. “And I really want his Playstation.” 

Seokmin snorts. “You know he only said it because he knows you can’t do it.” 

“I’m not like I’m losing anything by trying.” Soonyoung sets his lips in a sharp line of determination (which you recognize from the dining hall when he sweet talks his way into free cookies). Seokmin raises his eyebrows at his aggression but eventually decides it’s not worth the fight. Instead, he plops down on the blanket, making a little triangle between the three of you. 

“You must be YN,” he says, extending his hand. His easy smile and the way he sat down without waiting for an invitation reminds you of Soonyoung. Unlike the faux blonde, it feels foreign and you shift a little closer to Soonyoung instinctively. 

“It’s nice to meet you,” you lie. Seokmin’s eyes curl into little half moons when he smiles, apparently not noticing your awkwardness. You can’t help but feel like he’s intruding as he turns to Soonyoung and asks him to explain what he’s doing. Soonyoung explains it well, though it helps that he was working on the analytical reasoning section. 

It’s because he’s interrupting Soonyoung’s studying. That’s why it bothers you that he’s here, even though Soonyoung doesn’t seem to mind and Seokmin seems genuinely interested. Unfortunately, the revelation doesn’t stop you from wishing Seokmin would just leave.  

“I don’t know how you do any of this,” Seokmin says after Soonyoung explains the next problem. 

“It’s easy!” Soonyoung says. “Half the time the answer is in the question, you just have to know where to look!” 

“Quoting me?” You raise your eyebrows. 

“Well I did learn from the best!” 

“So cliche,” you mutter but the compliment gets you smiling anyway. You look up to find Seokmin looking at you. He has a strange look on his face, frowning, but not angrily. He looks a little bit like when Soonyoung can’t decide between the right answer and the second best option. He doesn’t look away when you catch him staring. 

“What?” 

He pauses a long moment before answering, as if pondering how to answer. Finally, he says, “I like you.” 

You stare at him. Soonyoung had been diligently working on practice problems but his head jerks up at the words. 

“I mean, you’re a cool person,” Seokmin quickly says. “Good tutor for Soonyoung.” After hearing his name, Soonyoung grins and turns back to underlining in the workbook. 

“Tutor?” You say. “I really don’t think I’m doing all that much.” 

Seokmin shrugs. ”I don’t know many people that would spend this much time with someone if they aren't helping. Besides, either way, I’ve never seen Soonyoung this dedicated before.” 

“That’s because you don’t dare to bet against me,” Soonyoung says without looking up. 

“He might have a point there,” you say. Soonyoung takes a moment to smile at your support. 

“What I’m trying to say is that you’re cool,” Seokmin says. 

“Thank you?” You wait for him to say something else but he sits back and rests his hands behind him, stretching out in the sun a little more. Sighing, he tilts his head toward the sun. 

“Seems like the weather will turn cold soon,” he says. “This might be the last warm day of the year.” He glances at Soonyoung. “And you’re spending it here instead of pre-gaming the Tau party.” 

Soonyoung’s pencil freezes. He peeks up at Seokmin, then at you, then shrugs. “I take my bets seriously.” 

“Whatever,” Seokmin says. He lays back fully, half of his body sticking off the blanket into the grass. “What are the Ke$ha lyrics? ‘The party don’t start ‘til Soonyoung walks in?’” He doesn’t wait for a correction. “I think I’ll wait until you're finished and we’ll tear it up together.” 

Soonyoung glances at you, then unsuccessfully tries to hide his laughter at your expression. You don’t mean to be rude, but Seokmin really just invited himself all on his own and crashed your picnic. Study date. Outdoor study session. The name doesn’t matter, what does matter is it’s only supposed to be you and Soonyoung. 

“He’ll fall asleep in about five seconds,” Soonyoung whispers. “He doesn’t actually care about the party, he just likes my nap blankets.” On that point you can’t really blame Seokmin. 

“As long as it doesn’t disrupt your studying,” you say. 

“Right,” Soonyoung says, more to himself than you. “That’s what’s important.” 

You aren’t so oblivious that you miss his bitterness, but you are enough of a coward to decide not to ask about it. How do you even ask about something like that? You can barely answer his questions about the LSAT, so feelings? No chance. 

You flip open your own workbook and set a pencil case down to keep the book open and ignore the soft snores from Seokmin. Soonyoung hums, the soft breeze carrying the gentle tune to you and easing you into a false sense of comfort, planting the idea that it’s always been like this and it always will be. But Soonyoung will take the LSAT in November and you will graduate in the spring and there won’t be any more excuses for seeing him, let alone laying out in the sun with him. Letting yourself enjoy this moment has dangerous consequences for your heart. 

And yet you enjoy the warm sun on your skin and hum along with Soonyoung anyway. Seokmin is right: this kind of day won’t last long. 

.

.

You jump awake at the sound. It takes you a moment to register where you are, to blink the sleep out of your eyes and recognize the stiff library chairs, the yellow tinted lighting of the study rooms on the third floor. Built like a prison cell with no windows and stained linoleum floors, you aren’t entirely sure how you fell asleep. The last thing you remember is working on your essay on Sense and Sensibility, which was rather difficult since you haven’t had the time to finish rereading it. Your book rests on the table next to your open laptop, screen dark. 

A second knock reminds you why you woke up in the first place and you turn to the door. Through the glass door you see a student with a backpack hanging off their shoulder, half smiling. They turn the knob, opening the door just enough to stick their head in. 

“Hey, sorry, I think I have the room scheduled,” they say. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I lost track of time,” you say, slamming your laptop shut and shoving everything into your backpack. To their credit, the other student doesn’t rush you, even apologizing and telling you to take your time. But if you’ve lost the room, that means the two hours you had booked the study room for–the two hours you designated for writing the essay and doing problem sets–were spent asleep, which means the LSAT cram schedule has been completely thrown off with only three days before the test. 

You groan as you step into the elevator, pressing the button for the fifth floor. The farther up, the more intense the quiet levels get. Hopefully it won’t be so quiet that you fall asleep, but since you got a nap, you should be able to power through an all-nighter. It wouldn’t be the first time. You brace yourself to check your phone for the time, though being kicked out of the room means you already know your fate. 9:08 means that you have a little less than three hours until the library closes. You’ve done more with less time. 

The first couple desks are occupied by students but you don’t stray, heading for a familiar corner, ignoring the empty desks that line the stacks. Your corner, that you found freshman year during finals season when you couldn’t find an empty desk, is perfect: hidden behind the encyclopedia shelves with a light directly above it, only three dicks carved into it–all on the underside (discovered on a particularly bad day where you found it most comfortable to lay underneath and rethink your entire life). You smile at the small comfort, striding through the stacks with Sense and Sensibility still in your arms. 

You nearly drop the book when you see the backpack, abruptly turning despite the fact that it must have been obvious to whoever stole your corner that you were headed there. You feel rage boiling up and threatening to spill. You close your eyes, reminding yourself that the corner isn’t actually yours. Still, as you settle into a desk facing a giant window that reveals the dark campus, you can’t help but feel bitter. Your thoughts stray to the desk that should be yours, even as you pull out your computer. 

BATTERY LOW

The words light up your screen, mocking you before the screen falls dark again. You dig in your backpack for your charger that you always slip into the main pocket. You feel your underused pencil pouch, the single journal since you keep most of your notes on your laptop, LSAT prep book, your three folders, and no charger. Even when you look inside and lay the entire contents of your backpack on the desk in front of you, the only charger you find is for your phone. Which means the longer laptop cord is probably sitting on your desk, all the way back at your apartment. 

A twenty minute walk back, twenty minutes less for writing your essay. You can start it on your phone, maybe, though the thought of switching between reading the Sparknotes and typing already exhausts you. It’s moot anyways, since all you can do is sit and stare at the desk, covered in the contents of your soul. This is what your life has become: a stack of paper that weighs less than the digital universe on your laptop that’s all contingent on a $15 charger that abandons you when you need it most. 

In the end it isn’t the rage that gets to you. It’s the hilarity of it all, how silly it is that your life is dictated by something so stupid. 

The fifth floor decrees silence, so you make sure that your sobs don’t make a noise. You can’t control the tears but you can hold your breath. When your head starts to feel light and your lungs are desperate for air, you can breathe through your mouth and inhale as slow as you can to keep the shakiness to a minimum. You can do everything you can to hold it together, even when you’re falling apart. 

Someone taps you on the shoulder. You lift your head, ready to face a tired librarian kicking you out but instead you see bleach blonde hair and a forced smile over a furrowed brow. 

“What are you doing here?” You whisper, glad for the quiet because you don’t trust your voice to support you. 

He holds up a thick, leatherbound book. LSAT for Dummies. “Extra reading couldn’t hurt, right?” 

You blink at him. The only times you’ve seen Soonyoung in the library on his own has been with a thick blanket and closed eyes (it’s how you know he sleeps with his mouth open, just a little). You can’t quite believe he’s in front of you and yet he takes a step closer and doesn’t vanish. 

“What are you doing here?” He asks. 

“Shhh,” you say, holding your finger to your lips to get him to quiet down, even though there’s no one in sight. “Quiet floor.” 

He nods, looking around as if he’s waiting for someone to kick him out. He turns to look at your desk, the contents of your backpack still strewn about. He tilts his head but doesn’t dare raise his voice to ask. You know he hasn’t missed the tears, still wet on your cheeks. 

You done? He mouths. 

Not even close, you think, but you nod anyways because it’s the easier answer. Soonyoung doesn’t hesitate, gently closing your laptop and sweeping everything into your backpack. You watch as he dumps it all into the biggest pocket, zipping it up and slinging it onto his back. He tucks the law book under his arm and holds out his other hand for you to take. 

“Come on,” he whispers. And you take it, let him pull you out of your chair. The walk to the elevator; out of the library; toward the edge of campus; nothing feels far when Soonyoung doesn’t let go of your hand. You follow him in a daze, clinging to his hand in the off-chance that all your luck rides on him–like if you let go, you’ll lose your tether to this planet. 

Soonyoung rarely walks in silence and today is not an exception. He rambles about the only member of the frat capable of cooking that apparently can’t do anything without creating a giant mess. Even as he complains about the guy, Soonyoung can’t help defending him, explaining in mouth-watering detail how good his food is. 

“One time he crowd sourced some steaks and did a grill for the new pledges and they all thought it was a prank or something and nearly cried when he actually let them eat them. I think they burnt their mouths from eating it too fast, afraid someone was going to take it away from them.” Soonyoung stops at the edge of campus. He glances at you, a question in his eyes. Where are we going? 

“Soonyoung,” you say. Squeezing his hand feels natural. “I don’t really want to go back right now.” 

He nods, squeezing your hand back. “You want to go for a ride?” 

“You have a car?” 

“Nope.” Soonyoung fishes his phone out of his pocket and makes a call. You can only hear Soonyoung, who says, “I need a ride,” and “Pick me up by the duck statue,” and then he hangs up. 

The edge of campus that Soonyoung drags you to is right next to the athletic fields, which explains why there is a giant statue of the mascot that towers over you. It has three of its own personal spotlights and shiny claws from fans rubbing them for good luck, despite there being no official tradition. You only went to one game, mostly to confirm you would rather be anywhere else (except maybe the bathroom of the stadium). Either way, the only thing you do know about the statue and mascot for your school is that it is not a duck. 

“That’s a raven.” You point at the statue. 

Soonyoung frowns between you and the hunk of metal. “Oh, Larry?” 

“It has a name?” 

“Well, there’s the official name, which is like, Midnight Rain or something, and the frat name.” 

“And the frat name is Larry?” 

Soonyoung shrugs. “I didn’t choose it.” 

“And you call it a duck, too?” 

“It looks like a duck.” 

You study the statue. You aren’t an ornithologist, but you’re pretty sure ducks have webbed feet instead of talons, and different beaks. Plus you’ve never seen a pure black duck. But you’ve spent enough time with Soonyoung to know it doesn’t have to make sense when the frat is involved (in fact, you’ve found sense is rarely involved in their decisions). 

“We just call it the duck. Or Larry, when we want to be formal.” Soonyoung jumps at the honk of a horn. You turn around with him to find an obnoxiously red convertible parked against the curb. The driver’s smooth black hair is styled to look effortless, hair falling just above his eyes, and he wears sunglasses despite the fact that the sun went down three hours ago. He might be attractive, if he wasn’t trying so hard. You never thought you had a type, but someone like Soonyoung, who wears clothes that he likes and sticks his hair straight up because he thinks it looks funny–that’s more your style. 

“Here’s our ride,” Soonyoung says. He starts walking, pulling you with him, still holding your hand. You aren’t sure if he even realizes, but you’re in no hurry to remind him. 

“Hey Josh,” he says. 

Driver (Josh, apparently), finally pulls off his sunglasses. “Soonyoung, you have a friend.” 

“I’m YN,” you say, wishing your voice didn’t sound so scratchy from crying. 

 “Oh, I know,” he says, a twinkle in his eye that flirts between danger and fun. “I’m Joshua.” You try not to feel unsettled by it. He raises an eyebrow as Soonyoung slides into the backseat and you sit beside him. “Am I just an Uber to you?” 

“Seungcheol is out and I knew there was no way you would let me drive your car,” Soonyoung says. 

“So, yes?” 

Soonyoung shrugs and laughs at Joshua’s expression. 

“Where are we headed?” He asks with a resigned sigh as if he’s used to Soonyoung’s antics. Has he done this before? You frown. Why does it matter to you if he’s done this with someone else? You’re so busy with the internal war, you miss Soonyoung’s answer. 

“Seriously?” Joshua asks. “It’s a weeknight.” 

“Like that’s ever been a problem for you.” 

Joshua glances at you. “You’re okay with this?” 

You pause. You don’t actually know where Soonyoung said to go. But it’s Soonyoung, your heart says. You're inclined to agree with it tonight. “Yeah.” 

He shakes his head and mutters something you don’t catch and kicks the car into gear. Before long, you are flying down a two lane road you didn’t even know existed. The wind starts to pick up with the top of the car down, blasting your face. Though your nose is still stuffed from crying, the air fills your lungs, tasting like dead leaves and unnatural warmth courtesy of climate change. For the first time tonight, you can breathe. 

.

.

The clock reads just shy of 1 am by the time the car stops. As soon as the rumbling engine cuts out, another noise takes over, drowning everything else out. Crashes too rhythmic to be thunder, the blows softened by tall dunes illuminated by the car’s headlights that Joshua didn’t turn off. 

Soonyoung turns to you with a grin. “Ready to have some fun?” He doesn’t wait for an answer, jumping out of the car instead of opening the door, ignoring Joshua’s shout. He sprints toward the crashing waves. 

Joshua shakes his head, opening his door and ushering you out from the back. He even closes the door behind you, folding his arms over his chest and walking slowly to the beach with you. The headlights cut out but the moon and stars shine enough to see where the boardwalk ends and the sand begins. Soonyoung’s movement gives him away more than any light, running alongside the water and dancing with the tide. 

You clear your throat. The ride cleared your head enough for you to feel properly embarrassed about meeting someone right after sobbing. You shudder to imagine how terrible you looked when he first picked you up, clinging to Soonyoung like he was the only thing keeping you alive. A blush forms just at the thought of it. 

“So, you do this often?” You ask. 

“Do something truly insane because of Soonyoung? All the time.” Joshua laughs. “We don’t usually end up this far away though, and usually someone’s life is in imminent danger.” 

“That doesn’t surprise me,” you say, watching Soonyoung strip his socks and shoes off and toss them behind him. One sock gets caught in the wind and blows back toward you and Joshua. 

Joshua stops before the two of you can catch up to him. You turn to look at him. It’s difficult to read his expression in the moonlight but he frowns like he’s not sure he should say something. Eventually he says, “I’m going for a walk down the boardwalk.” He glances at Soonyoung, then back at you and smiles. “Have fun with him.” 

You watch him turn around and trudge back up the sand, wondering if all of Soonyoung’s friends are this strange. Maybe it’s just being in a frat. You grab Soonyoung’s sock and set it with his shoes, smiling when he turns around and waves like a maniac. 

“It’s the ocean!” He shouts over the crashes. 

“You’re soaked!” You shout back. He glances down and apparently finally realizes his shirt is wet, clinging to his shoulders already. He strides back toward you, grabbing your arm and pulling you closer. 

“My shoes are not coming off!” You warn him. 

“Just come closer!” He says. “It’s amazing!” You stand with him at the edge of the water, watching it rise in the darkness and draw closer and closer. It crashes on the sand first, a violent move, kicking up wet sand and mixing it with white water. The frothy white water creeps forward, until you have to dance backward. Soonyoung stays in the water, letting it wash around his feet. 

“It feels better like this,” he says. 

“My feet are covered in enough sand,” you say, though he does look like he’s having fun. The water must be freezing this time of the year–it would feel so nice running over your skin. But you’d end up with wet socks and even more sand in your shoes to clean out. 

Soonyoung holds out his hand. “You’d like this.” 

You chew on your lip. Normally you’d laugh in his face and say ‘not a chance.’ But normalcy has never been running three hours away to the beach in the middle of the night when you have class at 9 in the morning. You pull off the sneakers without untying them and pull your socks off, setting them next to Soonyoung’s and joining him at the edge of the water. His hand isn’t out by the time you return but he slips it into yours when you join his side. 

Another wave crashes and you watch the water creep forward, faster than you expect it to be–and you’re right, it’s freezing, but Soonyoung’s right too, it sends an icy shock throughout your body that sends a tingly rush up from your toes to every nerve in your body, setting them on fire. You squeeze his hand and laugh. 

“Good?” He asks.

“I love it.” 

You don’t know how long you stand there, holding onto Soonyoung’s hand and letting the water wash over you. After a few waves, it doesn’t feel cold anymore. You stand until your feet are buried in wet sand, each wave sending you lower and lower. 

“My feet are freezing,” Soonyoung eventually says. 

“Mine, too.” You lift your feet reluctantly, already missing the coarse sand and cold water. You have to let go of Soonyoung’s hand to put on your socks and shoes, shuddering at all the sand in your socks. The cotton became damp from sitting too close to the water, your shoes faring the same. Yet you don’t regret a second of it. 

You stand up and stretch, feeling your spine pop. When you turn back around, you almost scream. You manage to contain it to a gasp, a wheezing Soonyoung’s name. He blinks at you innocently, like he isn’t standing in front of you with his shirt in his hand. 

“What are you doing?” You choke out. 

“We’re at the beach,” he says. “I have to take pictures.” 

“And you need to take off your shirt for that?” 

“Why? Does it bother you?” He smirks. 

Muscles have never been a selling point for you. The “people” you’ve crushed on have all been smart or kind, crushes of intellect rather than bodies. His toned abs, sculpted shoulders, the way his body curves gently as he allows you to stare at him–normally it wouldn’t get to you at all (other than the embarrassment of being this close to a shirtless man for the first time in a long time). But it’s not just the muscles. It’s Soonyoung, your Soonyoung who calls you at four in the morning to tell you about the movie he just finished and is too endearing for you to truly be annoyed at. It’s the Soonyoung that gets lost in the Engineering building even as a senior. It’s the Soonyoung that drags you to the beach in the middle of the night just to make you smile. Yes, it bothers you. No one should be this incredible and hot. 

“No,” you mumble, failing to convince yourself of the lie. 

Soonyoung seems to be done teasing you, dropping his shirt into your hands. He walks a little closer to the waves, apparently not bothered by the chilly ocean breeze. He starts to pose, then raises his eyebrows. “Aren’t you going to take pictures?” 

“Where’s your phone?”

“The camera’s broken,” he says. “Just use yours and you can send them to me.” He continues to pose, flexing his arms as subtly as he can which isn’t particularly subtle (though the muscles are even more impressive in person). You are tempted to reach out and feel the tension, before you realize you are staring again. 

You numb to Soonyoung in this half-dressed state as you take the pictures. The frat must have a professional photographer or something, because Soonyoung knows how to pose. Despite some of the angles and positions seeming awkward, each picture comes out as if from a photoshoot. He only gives you a few instructions on taking pictures, and compliments you way beyond your talents. 

“Just like that!” Soonyoung says, breaking his model face to grin at you. “You’re really good at this.” 

“You can’t even see the pictures,” you say. You bite your lips so you don’t smile. Apparently that doesn’t matter, because he keeps posing. It’s a good thing you just upgraded your phone storage because you estimate at least a thousand pictures are taken for each pose. 

“Are you guys done?” You jump at the voice next to you. Apparently Joshua returned from his walk, sneaking up using the crashing waves as cover. “We should head back soon if you want to make your morning classes.” 

“Definitely want to,” you say. You haven’t gotten any work done, but that’s no excuse to skip class. Soonyoung pouts but doesn’t argue. 

“Perfect!” Joshua claps his hands together. He shoves you toward Soonyoung and grabs your phone. “One more picture together and we’ll go.”

Being at a distance worked perfectly fine but those muscles have you frozen in place again. Soonyoung throws an arm over your shoulders and grins like you do this all the time. His biceps press through your jacket, the flex of the muscle exactly as you imagined it, not that it stops your heart from thundering. 

You can’t help but steal a glance at Soonyoung. Despite feeling like you’ll malfunction at any second, there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. Soonyoung’s features look soft this close, even the sharp cut of his jawline. You want to study every line of his face, each curve, memorize it until the way his lips slowly curl into a smile is carved into your heart. Spending the rest of your life here doesn’t seem too bad. 

“Let’s go,” Joshua says, breaking whatever magic froze time for you. You are left with cold toes and sand in your sneakers as you march up the dune and back to Joshua’s car. 

“I just cleaned it,” he groans, looking at all the sand you and Soonyoung tracked in. 

You mumble an apology but when you try to offer to clean it for him, he shakes his head. “Nobody touches my baby.” 

You glance at Soonyoung, who followed you into the backseat again. He rolls his eyes at Joshua, smiling in a way that you know means he isn’t serious. You smile back at him and click your seatbelt into place. 

“Address?” Joshua asks, handing you his phone. You punch it in and hand the phone back. 3 hours and sixteen minutes. 

Joshua whistles, seeing the arrival time of 4:53. “Remind me never to do this again.” 

“The beach was your idea,” Soonyoung says. His words slur a little. 

“Just go to sleep already,” Joshua says. The engine rumbles on and he pulls away from the empty boardwalk. 

“‘m not even tired,” Soonyoung says, fighting a yawn. He slouches and leans against the headrest, rolling his head to look at you. “You have class in the morning?” 

“Not until nine.” 

“That’s good.” He doesn’t succeed in fighting the yawn this time. His blinks become longer and longer, eyes closing more than opening. It’s like watching the energizer bunny shut down. 

“Soonyoung?” 

He opens his eyes and you think maybe he’d wait for the rest of his life for you to say something. 

“Thank you.” 

“Always.” He smiles lazily. “I swore I’d do anything.” 

His sworn loyalty. It should be fun, having a boy like him dedicated to fulfilling your wishes. But what would it be like if he wasn’t sworn to you? If he did these kinds of things just because he wants to? 

You didn’t think you were tired but the next thing you know, Soonyoung gently shakes you awake. 

“We’re here,” he says in a quiet, very un-Soonyoung voice. 

You blink at him, trying to figure out why your neck hurts so much, frowning at the unfamiliar surroundings. From the rear view mirror, Joshua watches you. Right, instead of writing your essay, doing the problem sets, or any of the readings, you went to the beach. You wait for the guilt to set in but it doesn’t come. None of the anxieties from earlier in the evening (the technical part of your brain reminds you it was the night before) overwhelm you. 

“Right,” you say, clearing your throat. Your mouth tastes nasty but before you can say anything, Soonyoung hands you a water bottle. You take a sip before saying thank you. 

Soonyoung unbuckles his seatbelt. “I’ll walk you up.” 

You nod, grateful you don’t have to ask him. The night has been a full adventure on its own yet you aren’t quite ready for it to be over. At least you aren’t ready to say goodbye to Soonyoung. 

There’s still something you want to tell him. You want to tell him that you like his blonde hair, even though everyone else thinks it’s ridiculous. You want to tell him that you lied earlier, you nearly lost your mind seeing him shirtless. You want to tell him that you feel proud when he gets the right answer on the first try, that you think his concentration frown is cute, that you’ve never enjoyed studying like you do when he’s by your side. You want to tell him that on your worst days, days like today, just being Soonyoung makes it better. 

But you learned a long time ago tired ramblings and drunk confessions are siblings. They both end in heartbreak and twelve packs of ramen. 

So you ride the elevator with him and watch the lights flicker. You never cared when Jihoon brought his friends (well, Jun) over, but the carpets that look dirty no matter how many times they’re cleaned and beige walls are even worse tonight. You can stand to live in a boring apartment, but not a dirty one. 

“This is me,” you say, gesturing to 808. You turn your back on the door, facing Soonyoung instead. He looks radiant under the fluorescent hallway lights, which really isn’t fair. They make his bleach blonde hair look natural, highlight the blemishes on his skin, easy to see when he’s this close. 

You should go inside and he should go back down but neither of you move. For the second time tonight, you are frozen in time with Soonyoung. 

The floor creaks and you jump, turning around at the same time, accidentally knocking into Soonyoung’s chest as you turn to face the noise behind you. Jihoon, gym bag over his shoulder, frowns at you across the hallway. 

“Are you seriously just getting back now?” 

Shit. You never texted him. “Um, Jihoon, this is Soonyoung,” you say. He waves behind you. “Soonyoung, Jihoon.” 

Jihoon folds his arms. “I’ve heard about you.” You glare at him, which he ignores. “You’re taking the LSAT on a dare?” 

“You’re the one that wants to be a music producer?” 

Jihoon raises his eyebrows and looks at you. “You’ve mentioned me?” 

“Only the worst,” you say, smiling at him. 

“I thought you were at the library all night?” Jihoon says. 

“We went on an adventure,” you say. You show him your sandy shoes. He raises his eyebrows but doesn’t say anything. It’s clear he knows he interrupted something, but the stubborn asshole doesn’t move. 

You turn back to Soonyoung. “Goodnight,” you say, resisting the urge to hug him. 

“It’s morning,” Jihoon says. 

“Goodnight,” Soonyoung says, glancing at Jihoon. He pauses and fidgets with the hem of his shirt but finally gives you a half hug that feels more like a bro hug than anything else. He disappears into the elevator then pops his head out a final time “Send me the photos!” 

You turn to Jihoon. “I forgot to text you.” 

“I figured I’d wait until the morning to call,” he said. “Even if you were kidnapped there’s still a 90% chance you’d figure out a way to show up for class on time.” He turns the key in the lock and strides into the apartment. You’re too tired to argue back, especially when he’s right, so you just follow him into the apartment. 

“I like him,” Jihoon says before you vanish into your room. 

“Should I find you a wedding dress?” You say. “Soonyoung is single.” 

Jihoon rolls his eyes and grabs a protein shake from the fridge. “Why do I even bother?” 

You don’t wait for him to leave first, peeling your shoes off in the entryway where you can sweep up the sand and practically fall into your room. It’s race to change into an old t-shirt before you collapse onto your bed. 

You set an alarm for 8:30 and check fifty times to make sure it’s actually set. Then you open your camera roll, shaking your head at the countless pictures. You choose twenty non-blurry ones before your eyes start to droop. You scroll to the bottom and click on the pictures Joshua took. Soonyoung grins for the camera, his easy smile as captivating on your phone as it is in person. You are staring at him, a soft smile on your lips and hearts practically bugging out of your eyes. It’s so ridiculously obvious how you feel. You send him his thirst traps and keep that picture for yourself. 

It takes a week for you to realize Soonyoung never posted the pictures. 

.

.

The weight of the world has the decency to wait until you’re home to fall on your shoulders. You hold your keys up and can’t push it into the lock. If you didn’t do well today, it means the past two months have been a complete waste–all the studying, the assignments you got low grades on because you were studying, the nights you spent at your desk–wasted and doomed to repeat. 

All but the time you spent with Soonyoung. Even if you fail (again), he should at least score decently, and you can’t consider that a complete waste. 

You raise your key to insert it into the lock but the door flies open. Jihoon glares at you, arms folded over his chest. “What the hell is taking you so long, your boyfriend is here.”  

You peer past him and find Soonyoung lounging on the couch, feet resting on the coffee table. He sits up when he sees you, grinning and waving. You wonder if he’s been there since you told him you were finished. You make a mental note to get Jihoon his favorite protein shakes. 

“How did you know I was here?” 

“Me and your boyfriend heard you shaking your keys in front of the door for like twenty minutes,” Jihoon says.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” you mutter, praying Soonyoung didn’t hear either of you. You push past Jihoon, letting him lock the door behind you. Soonyoung jumps off the couch as soon as you drop your bag, almost tackling you in a hug. You pretend not to hear Jihoon’s scoff as he locks himself in his room again. 

“How’d it go?” He asks, squeezing you one more time before letting go. You try not to feel disappointed about it. “I mean, I know you did amazing, but how do you feel? Was the room super hot or super cold? Did the proctor give you the evil eye when you turned in your paper because they were secretly trying to sabotage you?” 

“No?” You frown. “And the room was fine, I felt pretty good about it, but I felt good last time, so I don’t really know, I just really don’t want to take it again.” You sigh. “I know you want to know as many details as possible for your test, but I really, really don’t want to think about it right now.” 

Soonyoung grins and pulls out a package of White Claws and a bottle of vodka from a plastic bag that you just noticed sitting on your coffee table. “That’s perfect because I brought a gift from the whole frat.” 

“That seems pretty on brand,” you say. 

“And a gift from me.” He digs again and pulls out a DVD. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. 

“You’re kidding.” You say. “I think I have to be drunk to watch that.” 

“You don’t have faith in my taste in movies?” Soonyoung asks but he pops open the first drink and slips something shaped concerningly like a knife out of his pocket and stabs the can, chugging it before it can really spill on your carpet. Before you can register what he did, he tosses the empty can on the coffee table, immediately scrambling to straighten it. “Sorry, force of habit.” 

“Soonyoung, I don’t think I can keep up with you,” you say, sitting slowly onto the couch. 

“Oh, don’t worry, I’m a lightweight,” he says. “I definitely should not have chugged that.” 

“I guess I better catch up,” you say, unscrewing the vodka and pouring a shot in the little paper cups that Soonyoung brought. The acrid scent curls your lip but you knock it back as fast as you can, forcing it down when you miss the back of your throat and it burns your tongue. Soonyoung hands you a can, the lime flavored seltzer pushing the nasty flavor out of your mouth. 

“Yeah, I’m terrible at that,” you say. 

Soonyoung shrugs. “I’m not one to judge. You should have seen me as a pledge.” 

You grin at the mental image of Soonyoung wearing a fake toga made of bedsheets. “I bet you were adorable.” You take another sip of the drink (which tastes significantly worse when you aren’t comparing it to straight vodka) and miss Soonyoung scrambling for words. 

“I can’t drink this,” you declare, setting the can down. You cross the room to the fridge, opening it and studying the contents. Soonyoung follows you, resting his chin on the door and glancing inside. 

“Jihoon does most of the cooking,” you say, feeling self-conscious. Not much populates your fridge, a package of chicken breast and a carton of eggs. A couple containers of take out that are either two days or two weeks old sit in front, and the drawer of fruit that is filled with apples from Jihoon’s mother definitely smells funny. 

“I live in a frat house, this is heaven.” 

You flash him a smile and grab the orange juice, shaking it as you grab a glass from the cabinet (thank god Jihoon did the dishes last night). Soonyoung follows you back to the couch and waits for you to pour a glass and add two shots of vodka. You raise the glass and he takes your rejected White Claw and clinks it. 

“Cheers,” he says, sipping this one instead of chugging it. He sets it down and leans against the armrest so that he can face you. “How did you meet Jihoon, by the way? He seems like a pretty reserved dude.”

“Yeah, sorry if he was short with you, he isn’t half as mean as he pretends to be,” you say. 

“We actually talked a lot.” He pauses, tilting his head as he thinks about it. “Well, a lot about working out. I think I could turn him into my gym buddy with enough pressure.” 

“I would pay to see that,” you say. Jihoon tried to bring you to the gym exactly once, and you have regretted it ever since. The soreness haunts you, but you think Soonyoung might be one of the few people on the planet that could keep up with him with those arms. 

“I didn’t know you were into that,” Soonyoung says with a giggle. You roll your eyes. 

“You know for a fact that’s not what I meant,” you say, “and to answer your question, we lived in the same dorm freshman year. He was next door, and both our roommates were psychotic, so we ended up trading. We’ve been living together ever since because I’m the only one that can put up with his annoying ass. Also he cooks and keeps me alive during finals.” 

“I can’t believe I was a dorm assignment away from living with you.” Soonyoung shakes his head and pretends to sigh. “Fate isn’t on my side.” 

“Don’t you live in a frat house?” 

“Semantics,” Soonyoung says. He pauses. “Semen-tics.” He starts to laugh and though the joke is far from funny, you find yourself giggling too. 

“You’re drunk,” you say. 

Soonyoung points at you. “I’m pretty sure you’re drunk too.” 

You tilt your head from side to side, trying to think at first but the motion feels nice, toeing the line between dizzying and comfortable. Right, you were checking if you were drunk. You have your answer, but you don’t want to stop spinning just yet. 

“Do you really want to be a lawyer?” Soonyoung asks. You freeze with your head on your right shoulder, frowning at him. “I mean, like, how do you know?” 

“It makes good money,” you say. “Well, corporate law does. Everything going according to plan, I’ll be out of debt before I’m thirty, retiring at 65.” 

“But how do you know that’s what you want?” Soonyoung asks. You wonder if he’s asking you or himself. You think about the first day you met him. 

It was the first day of your sophomore year, 8 in the morning in the worst classroom in the Armhayer Building at the end of a dead end hallway with no windows. The business program had a required career building course and some cruel administrator decided to make the other available class clash with the other required business class for the year, so half the class was people you were stuck with for the full year. Despite its reputation, the business school at the university seemed to only accept idiots. 

You settled for a long semester of biting back your eye rolls and yawning through class, choosing a seat in the front so that at least you won’t have to look at anyone else. And for fifteen minutes, you struggled to keep your eyes open. 

Then Soonyoung walked in. 

He was out of breath, telling the professor that he got lost several times and someone gave him the wrong directions. You didn’t really pay attention to him until he dropped into the seat next to you. Fully prepared to give him a side eye and judge him for the rest of the semester, Soonyoung flashed a smile at you and apologized for disrupting you. He was so obviously not your type, yet when his head dropped on your shoulder, you didn’t wake him up. Two classes later when the professor told the class that you would be in a semester-long partner project, you didn’t hesitate to say yes when Soonyoung asked you. 

Soonyoung hadn’t ever taken the class seriously, going through the motions and doing the bare minimum for most of the assignments. You never paid any attention to it, but you realize that he never actually told you what he planned to do with his life, always asking you what you planned to do with your copious amounts of money. Now you wonder if it was because he really doesn’t know. 

“I want stability,” you finally say. “This plan is stable. Safe, as long as everything goes according to plan. I guess it’s not as cool as dreaming about being an astronaut or whatever, but it’s what I want.” 

“I think it’s cool. Knowing what you want to do.” Soonyoung says with little enthusiasm. 

“You don’t have any idea?” 

He shrugs. “I have to be smart to do the things I want to do.” 

“You are smart.” 

“You don’t have to pander to me, I’m not looking for your pity.” 

“Soonyoung.” You wait for him to look you in the eyes. “You are smart. This isn’t pity. Sure it takes you a little longer to read things, and you have to work a little harder to answer some questions, but that doesn’t mean you’re not smart. You’re just as capable as me, more capable when it comes to emotional intelligence. Have you ever noticed that wherever you go, someone is always waving to you? I don’t think there’s a single person in this world that doesn’t like you. Don’t downplay how important that is.” 

He chews on his lip and you know he doesn’t believe you. How many people have told him he’s dumb? You want to drag every single one of them here and make them apologize, make them realize how special the boy in front of you is. Eventually he shrugs. “I’ll just end up being an intern, and then I’ll be so charming they’ll promote me without realizing I don’t know what I’m doing and I’ll become a CEO that pays people to do the job for me.” 

You smile and shake your head. “We can vacation together in the Bahamas.” 

“Please, that’s where the semi-rich people go,” Soonyoung says, lifting his head from the back of the couch. “We’ll have our own islands and sail past each other.” This time when he smiles, the sparkle glints, just a little. His bleach blonde hair sticks in strange angles from rubbing against the couch, looking a little like a fuzzball. You reach a hand out and pat it down, except the hair is fried from being bleached so many times and almost breaks under your hand. 

When you pull your hand down, Soonyoung is staring at you. Except staring isn’t the right word. He looks at you like no one else ever has, a thousand unsaid words behind his eyes, a language like no other that maybe only you can understand. Those dark eyes, so soft and warm, begging you to drown in them. He’s a siren, luring you in with a song of desire that only you can hear. 

You don’t realize you’ve leaning closer until you fall forward, catching yourself on his chest. Soonyoung’s hand flies to your waist, moving so fast it must have been reflex. 

“Sorry,” you mutter but you don’t get off him. Resisting his eyes from this close is impossible. Soonyoung blinks at you, frozen. It occurs to you that you’re almost kissing him. All you have to do is lean forward, press your lips against his. Would his lips be chapped? Would he kiss you back? Would he make fun of you for being a terrible kisser? You hold your breath, wondering if you are about to find out. 

You jump at the bang of a door slamming shut. You push off Soonyoung’s chest, back to your side of the couch until your back slams against the armrest. The pain is almost enough to sober you up and you realize exactly what you were about to do. You can’t bear to look at Soonyoung staring at you so you look at Jihoon instead, who doesn’t seem to realize that he interrupted anything by walking into the kitchen, headphones blasting music so loud that you can hear it. He grabs one of the takeout containers from the fridge and finally notices you and Soonyoung staring at him. 

“What?” He shouts over his headphones. You shake your head and he stares at you all the way back to his room, slamming the door shut behind him with enough force to make you jump again. 

“We should probably start the movie,” you say, turning to face forward, anywhere but Soonyoung. “I’ll get my laptop.” He doesn’t say anything but you can feel Soonyoung’s eyes on you as you jump up. Ignoring the spinning in your head, you walk to your room. You lean against the door as soon as it shuts behind you, closing your eyes and taking a deep breath. 

You wish you could blame the idiocy on the alcohol, but you aren’t drunk enough for that. Besides, regardless of the reason, it was a mistake, it would be a mistake, to kiss Soonyoung. No matter how badly you want to do it. 

Your computer sits on your desk. The longer it takes for you to get back, the stranger it will be, so you grab it and return to the couch. Dizziness gives you an excuse to peer at the floor, perfectly valid reason to avoid Soonyoung’s eyes. 

“Are you ready to have your mind blown?” He asks when you insert the DVD into your laptop. 

You raise your eyebrows but still don’t have the courage to face him. “It’s that good?” 

Soonyoung laughs easily, as if nothing happened. “You have no idea what you’re in for.” 

You peek at him from the corner of your eye. He faces the computer, sitting back against the couch. Other than his red tinted cheeks, you can’t tell he’s drunk at all. You have no idea what you’re in for, he said. He has no idea how right he is. 

.

.

You hold Soonyoung by the shoulders, staring him down. Your eyes begin to water but you hold them open, determined not to lose. Soonyoung squints, tears forming in the corner of his eyes. You just have to hold out a little longer, but your eyes begin to ache and the air pierces into them. 

“Damn!” Soonyoung cries, throwing himself back onto the couch and squeezing his eyes shut. You let go of his shoulders and resist the urge to rub your eyes, settling for blinking as fast as humanly possible. Your eyes burn but you smile anyways, wiping tears away with the back of your hand. 

“How are you so good at that?” Soonyoung asks. He gives into the impulse, hands pressed against his eyes. 

“I’m really not, I think you’re just bad at staring contests,” you say. “Now hurry up, you lost so you have to answer.” 

He sighs as if he didn’t beg you to help him study. With only a day before his test, you’re not sure how much this is really helping, but at least he isn’t partying with the rest of his frat (who do a pre-finals bar crawl, apparently). Instead, Soonyoung is on your couch, again. You try not to think about the last time he was here. Not productive thoughts, especially not when Soonyoung is one day away from taking the most important test of his life. 

“Is it B?” 

“Are you asking or telling?” 

“I hate when you say that.” He peers at the paper, eyes moving slowly as he rereads the line. “No, it’s C! Wait, no, B. No, A!” 

“Pick an answer.” 

He chews on his lip. You have to force yourself to keep your focus on his eyes. “B,” he finally says. 

You’re tempted to drag it out and make him wait but he puts on the Soonyoung Sparkle so you go ahead and nod. 

“I knew it! Trust your gut!” 

“You’re quoting me now.” You pretend to wipe tears from the corner of your eyes. “You’ve grown up so quickly.”  

If it were Jihoon, he’d roll his eyes but Soonyoung perks up, as if you’ve given him a real compliment. He pauses before asking his next question, eyes flickering to the papers separating you from him. 

“You really think I’ll do well?” He asks softly. 

You study him, the way his unnaturally blonde hair has been strategically gelled to stick up in all the right places, the way his plain white t-shirt hangs loose on his shoulders. You wonder what he sees when he looks in the mirror because the way he sits now, waiting for an answer as if you’d actually say no, breaks your heart a little. He really has no idea how brilliant he is, in every sense of the word. You don’t know how to make him see it so you just take his hand and wait for him to look you in the eyes. 

The second the glittering dark irises meet yours, you see the desperation. He tries to smile, to hide the fear but Soonyoung has always been easy to read. You fight the urge to brush your fingers against his cheek. 

“Soonyoung.” You squeeze his hand. What you feel isn’t a passing crush, you’ve known that for a while now. Admitting it doesn’t give you the bravery to do anything except pull the shield of cowardice around your heart a little tighter. “I’d be an idiot if I said I didn’t.” 

He holds your gaze a little longer, until it almost looks like he believes you. Then his eyes light up. “I have a surprise for you!” 

He digs into his backpack, pulling out a blanket (not the one he used when it was still warm enough to sit outside in the grass), a plastic water bottle half-full of bright green liquid, three crumpled flyers for events on campus, and finally, a small rectangular item, carefully wrapped in paper towels. 

“I was a little worried it would get damaged in my backpack,” he says. “I really, really tried to walk gently and didn’t bring it near any coffee.” 

You choose not to point out the unnatural liquid in the plastic water bottle, instead appreciating his efforts to protect whatever your surprise is. Besides, it’s not like he didn’t try. He carefully pulls the paper towels off, revealing a navy blue leather bound book with gilded lettering. Not just any book. 

“You got it back?” You cry. Soonyoung pulls the rest of the paper towels off to reveal the intricate design on the cover, the golden pages, with Pride and Prejudice inscribed on the spine. “My baby!” 

You hover over the book, not wanting to ruin it with the dirt and oils from your hands but so desperately wanting to caress the beautiful book. It’s just as you remember it, down to the tiny dent on the front cover where you accidentally knocked it against a railing. You can’t wait to put it back on your bookshelf where there has been an empty space ever since Jun managed to snag it. You remember Soonyoung is there when you hear his laughter. 

“You like it that much?” 

“Of course,” you say. “It’s my baby.” 

“It’s a book.” But he smiles and you know he’s just teasing. So you figure, why not? 

You throw your arms around his neck, pulling him into a hug. His frat-bro instincts must take charge because he doesn’t hesitate to hug you back, pulling you against his chest and squeezing you like he’s the one getting a gift. 

“Thank you,” you say. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” 

“This is my thank you,” he says. You can feel his voice rumbling in his chest, a strange sensation that sends butterflies tumbling around between your stomach and your heart. “It’s the least I could do for you. 

The awkward position isn’t exactly comfortable, twisting your body to face him with your shoulder overtop of his forcing your face into his neck but you don’t want to let go. You give yourself five more thundering heartbeats before you let go, turning to study your book again so you have an excuse to avoid his eyes. 

“How did you get it back?” 

“Same way you lost it,” Soonyoung says. “I made a bet.” 

“On what?” 

Soonyoung shrugs, turning to look at the book that still sits in his lip. He gently places it into yours, using the paper towels to prevent smudging with his fingers. 

You frown. “How? Jun is in another hemisphere.” 

“Don’t underestimate the power of video calls and express shipping,” Soonyoung says. “By the way, I’m wearing your friends down. Pretty soon they’ll like me more than they like you. 

“Oh really?” You raise your eyebrow. You ignore the vole gnawing at your gut whispering that he might just be right. 

“I got Jihoon to go to the gym with me and I got him to admit I was friends with you before he was,” he says, holding a finger out. “Jun says that he wants to meet me the second he returns to the country.” A second finger goes up. “Who else can I add to the list?” 

He’s only joking. He doesn’t mean it the way it sounds, but your skin wants to crawl inside out. The truth is, they are pretty much your only friends. Jihoon, Jun, and Soonyoung, the latter two having wormed their way into your life. My only friends. 

“You’ve got to start going on the offensive,” Soonyoung says. He avoids your eyes and you know he didn’t miss your discomfort. Great, now he pities you. “I’m serious, Seokmin and Joshua have been asking about you, and Seungcheol keeps complaining that he hasn’t met you yet.” 

You snort. “They’re frat bros, they just want more people to party with.” 

“I’m a frat bro,” he says. 

“Yeah, but…” But what? He’s Soonyoung? Once again, you wonder why he is so different to you–why the epitome of frat boy chaos doesn’t repulse you like he should. But he isn’t some one-dimensional steroid-infused party boy, not the type to bully the freshman trying to join just because he can. He gets drunk after two shots and makes his pledges follow him for 24 hours a day as “hazing,” only to take them for a dinner he can’t afford and skips his own classes so they don’t miss theirs. 

He’s not a typical frat boy. But Soonyoung loves his frat, and you can’t find a way to tell him this without making it sound like you are looking down on the rest of the members. 

So you just say, “Isn’t this supposed to be a study session?” 

Soonyoung sighs, pulling the book in front of him and staring at the words. Even though you can see that he isn’t reading, he doesn’t say anything else. 

“Your test is tomorrow,” you say. 

“Yeah, I know.” He doesn’t pick up the pencil. 

You’ve never struggled to read Soonyoung. He can’t hide when he’s upset, shoulders slumping, a little pout forming over his lips. He doesn’t fully frown but his eyebrows comes together, just a bit. And it’s usually easy to figure out what’s wrong–he’s tired, or wants to be at a party instead of studying. But now? He was fine just a moment ago, even while he was cramming earlier. 

“Is something wrong?” You don’t know why you’re so scared of the answer. 

“I just thought that… nNever mind.” He sighs again. “You’re right, this is a study session. I should be studying.” He doesn’t look at you and you can’t help but feel like you messed up. But Soonyoung eventually picks up his pencil and asks you to check his answers and the feeling slowly fades. 

Will the rest of your feelings fade when you aren’t with him like this anymore? When he takes his test and has no reason to see you every day? Will your heart still beat at the mention of his name? Will you spend the rest of your life thinking about all the almosts with him? Or will it fade until Soonyoung is just a boy that you helped because of a silly bet?

Even as you consider it, you know the answer. He isn’t just a boy, and he never will be. Maybe that’s what really scares you. 

.

.

You glare at Soonyoung. “Do you know what time it is?” 

Jihoon glances at his watch. “7:43.” 

Soonyoung grins beside him, arm over his shoulder. Both boys stand in your bedroom doorway looking far too composed for this ungodly hour. 

“It’s a Saturday.” Just two minutes ago you were in blissful sleep. Okay, maybe not blissful, since you stayed up until three in the morning because you couldn’t fall asleep, and you were having a weird dream where you were looking for something and ended up by the stadium staring at a giant duck statue instead of the raven. But the point is you were asleep until two fists banged on your door so loud you thought it was going to fall apart. 

You can’t even be that mad at Soonyoung, not when he smiles like that. So you glare at Jihoon.

“Honestly, I figured you would be up,” he says. “You were the one that said you didn’t think you were going to get any sleep.” 

“I’m sorry,” Soonyoung says. “I really just wanted to help distract you for the last hour.” Right. The last hour until your entire future would be determined by a triple digit number. No biggie. 

“Let me get dressed,” you say. They step back before you have the chance to slam the door in their face. You’d like to be able to dress up nicely, but you’re already shivering, so you grab your comfiest sweatpants and the sweatshirt Soonyoung lent you (that still smells like his cologne). You dart into the bathroom and meet the two boys in the doorway of the apartment, pulling on your sneakers. 

You pull the hood over your messy hair and tighten the strings. Soonyoung grins at you and taps your nose. 

“Ready to go?” 

“How did you get out of bed this early?” 

“Oh, I never got in,” he says. “Long story, but we gotta go, they won’t wait much longer.” 

“They?” You ask but Soonyoung doesn’t hear you. He turns to Jihoon, waving. 

“See you tomorrow!” He says, throwing an arm over your shoulders to pull you out the door. “I’ll let you know how it goes!” 

Jihoon rolls his eyes. “Whatever.” But he looks at you and smiles. “It’ll be fine.” Before you can thank him, he shuts the door. 

Soonyoung doesn’t let go of your side, pulling you to the elevators and squeezing you against him. “How are you feeling?” 

“Like I should be asleep.” 

Soonyoung smiles, as if your grumpiness is funny. You decide it’s moot since there’s no way you could fall asleep now that you are an hour and seven minutes away from finding out the results of your future. 

“I figured I’d save you from wallowing in worry,” Soonyoung says. “We can do fun things while we wait. I planned out the whole morning, we have options! There’s going to the gym, or for a job around campus, breaking into the science lab and petting the rabbits, going to Barb’s for breakfast–”

“Breakfast,” you say. You aren’t a huge fan of getting in trouble with the college when you have just over a semester before graduation and though you aren’t sure if your stomach will accept food, working out is a guarantee for throwing up. Besides, a hot cup of coffee could clear a little of the fog in your brain. 

“Barb’s it is,” Soonyoung says, practically bouncing on his toes. He really seems to only have two settings, and today he’s at 120%. 

He lets go of your side when the elevator opens and you step to the ground floor of your apartment. You rub your arms and pretend like the chill is from the weather even though the lobby is still warm. He holds the door for you pretending to be a doorman, bowing and gesturing with his arm for you to pass. You turn so that he doesn’t see that the silly gesture made you smile. 

Parked outside is a white jeep that looks larger than normal, and is apparently the asshole that’s been blasting their music for the past ten minutes. You aren’t surprised in the slightest when Soonyoung strides up to the car.  

“I don’t have a car,” he says, belatedly apologetic. The two men in the front seat don’t seem to mind, though you suspect they have been up all night along with Soonyoung as soon as the door opens and you hear their voices singing off-tune over the blasting music. 

“Boy, you got my heartbeat runnin' away,” The driver cries, using a water bottle as a mic. You recognize Seungcheol from Soonyoung’s descriptions, half from his voice and half from the back of his head. The person riding shotgun is also familiar, a mess of dark hair that must be Joshua. He doesn’t look much different in daylight, sunglasses resting on his forehead. Thankfully they turn the music down a little and stop singing when you get it. 

Seungcheol grins at you through the mirror. “So I finally get to meet the infamous YN. You know, you still haven’t shown up to any parties.” 

“I’ve been busy,” you say, glancing at Soonyoung who focuses a little too much on his seatbelt. 

“Hi, YN,” the passenger up front says, waving at you through the rearview mirror. 

“Joshua,” you say. “Get into life and death scenarios with Soonyoung recently?” 

“Well, Soonyoung jumped out of a car window.” He pauses. “It wasn’t moving,” he adds when Seungcheol jerks his head towards him. “Though I wouldn’t put it past him.” 

“I have done it before,” Soonyoung says solemnly. It takes him a moment to realize everyone is staring at him. “It was a dare.” 

“Why am I not surprised,” Seungcheol grumbles, turning back around and putting the car into drive. Though you were thinking something along the same lines, the way Soonyoung deflates a little makes you wish Seungcheol hadn’t said anything. 

The rest of the drive is quiet–at least in terms of conversation. Seungcheol cranks his stereo up to the loudest setting and blasts the Spice Girls until Joshua starts singing along. Apparently car karaoke for “Wannabe” is sacrilegious to the frat leader. 

You can hear yourself think again when the car pulls into the parking lot and he finally cuts the engine. A few cars line the parking lot of the 24 hour diner that sits on the outskirts of campus. The giant neon red Barb’s that hangs over the entrance flickers in the cloudy morning light teeters the line between quaint and electrical fire waiting to happen. 

The workers, a host and three waitresses, wave at the boys, and do a double take at you. You swear you hear the host whisper “Is that really them?” to Joshua as he leads the group to a table in the corner but Soonyoung distracts you with the menu. 

“I had this thing memorized since freshman year, I can’t believe you’ve never been here. The pancakes are my favorite for hangover cures, not that I’m hungover by the way, I’m actually running on my third energy drink.” He taps the picture, a golden stack of perfectly fluffy pancakes that can only be photoshop. 

“Aren’t energy drinks bad for your heart?” 

Soonyoung shrugs. “Joshua invented this to get through finals, you mix Red Bull, Bang, and Coke and it keeps you up for three days straight. Great for when you’re nervous because you physically have to do something about it.” 

“I don’t think that’s how it works,” you say. “Wait, why are you nervous?” 

“Your test results come out today,” he says too quickly.  

You consider debating with him but a waitress approaches, wearing a fifties frock and a high ponytail with a ribbon that probably looked like a bow at the start of her shift but has drooped down and now just looks sad. Her face is a mask of emotions, not a smile, not a frown, just emptiness, a contrast to the button clipped to her collar making her “Happy.” 

“The usual?” She asks, pausing at you. She tilts her head and you can see the mask twisting at the edges, a frown almost forming on her brow. She glances at Soonyoung. “Is this who I think it is?” 

“Who do you think it is?” Soonyoung asks at the same time that Joshua and Seungcheol say, “Yes.” 

The corner of Happy’s lips turn into a tiny smile that seems to be her equivalent of a grin. “I’ve heard so much about you.” 

“Okay, haha, very funny,” Soonyoung says. “Stop harassing my friend. We’ll order when we have a chance to look at the menu.”  

Happy raises her eyebrow just slightly at the word “friend,” but closes her notepad. She returns to a pastel pink bar where you can clearly see her whispering and gesturing to you. 

“Why do so many people know me?” You mutter, shrinking into the corner of the booth. 

“The thing about Drunk Soonyoung is that he doesn’t really shut up,” Seungcheol says. 

“That’s being gentle,” Joshua says. “One time he spent four hours describing Finding Nemo. That’s longer than the actual movie.” 

“It’s a good movie,” Soonyoung says. 

“The point is,” Seungcheol says, glaring at Joshua, “he tends to talk when he’s drunk. Usually about good things, things that he… Well, things that he likes.” 

You turn your head to look at Soonyoung, who is once again pretending to study the menu. “You like studying for the LSAT that much?” 

Joshua unsuccessfully tries to hide his laugh with a snort while Seungcheol gains slightly more success with a fake cough. Soonyoung doesn’t react at all, staring at the painted flowers on the menu. Eventually, he shrugs. “I’m dedicated to the bet.” He points at a stack of pancakes covered in bananas and chocolate. “That’s what I usually get.” 

“Isn’t against all rules of gym core and muscle building to eat decadent things?” 

“Did you just call working out ‘gym core?’” Seungcheol asks. 

“Am I wrong?” 

“Nope!” Soonyoung says brightly. “And cheat days are a thing, so do you want to split it or not?” 

“You know I can’t say no to bananas and chocolate.” 

“And pancakes!” He waves down the waitress and points to the stack. 

“Ah, the new Soonyoung,” she says. “You guys getting your actual usual?” 

Joshua and Seungcheol nod and she doesn’t bother to write any of it down. Then again she already knows their orders. Except she called Soonyoung’s “new.” Before you can ask what she meant, a shout makes you jump. You turn around to see a stream of boys entering, enough of whom you recognize that you realize at least half the frat has rolled into the diner. The waitresses roll their eyes and groan but somehow they don’t look all that upset. 

“Mr. President!” The tallest boy, Johnny according to Soonyoung’s Instagram tags, holds a fist over his heart and pounds it a couple times. Seungcheol nods and greets each of the boys, most of whom seem to still be in various stages of inebriation. Almost all of them glance at you and whisper to each other, and you get the feeling they know exactly who you are. 

Just what has Soonyoung said about you? 

“How are we doing on time?” One of them calls out. 

“46 minutes,” Joshua says. You frown. 46 minutes… until 9? Do they all know about today? 

You tap Soonyoung on the arm. “What’s going on?” 

“You see, the thing is,” he says, “apparently I was nervous?” He tries to fake a laugh but it sounds strained. “I don’t really know but the guys made me tell them about today and then I didn’t really know what was happening but I guess they followed us here? Thought you might like moral support, or something.” 

You peek out at the booths crowded with frat bros and cringe back into your seat when they grin at you. “They’re all looking at me.” 

“Well, I guess I do talk about you a lot,” he says, only loud enough for you to hear. He won’t meet your eyes. 

Ask him why. You want to be brave. You want to be right about the answer you think he’ll give you. You chew the inside of your cheek. 

“Because of the bet?” 

Soonyoung doesn’t answer for a moment. “I guess.” 

Coward. 

“Why are we whispering?” Joshua asks, leaning across Soonyoung towards you. “Are we gossiping?” 

Soonyoung pushes him off. “Butt out.” 

“Just telling Soonyoung that I’ve never had an army of drunk guys rooting for me before,” you say. 

“Could have had it sooner if you came to a party,” Seungcheol says. 

“You really want me at a party that bad? We just met.” 

Seungcheol glances at Soonyoung, who shakes his head. He sighs. “If only I could tell you why you need to come.” 

You frown between the three men. “I don’t like when people talk in circles over me.” 

“Just promise you’ll come to the Christmas party. It’ll all make sense then,” Seungcheol says. You’ve heard a lot about Seungcheol from Soonyoung, and the more you listen to him, the more you believe it. He’s a strange man. 

“I’ll think about making an appearance.” 

“Really?” Soonyoung whips around to face you and you know that you have to come now. You haven’t seen him this excited since you let him skip studying to party. No, he’s even more excited now. “You’ll come?” 

You can’t stand his gaze so you study the placemats. “Maybe.” 

He grabs your hand until you meet his eyes. “Please?” 

The Soonyoung Sparkle. You never win against it. “Fine.” 

“Get a room,” Joshua says behind a very fake cough. You pull your hand back into your lap and pretend like you aren’t embarrassed. 

“How long now?” You shout out.

“40 minutes,” someone answers. You groan and lean back into the sofa. Studying was hard enough but waiting makes you want to pull out each individual hair on your head. You stare at the ceiling, trying to decide if the stain looks more like a horse or a flower. 

“Look at this.” Soonyoung passes his phone in front of you, forcing you to look down. His Instagram is open to a picture of a kitten looking drunk, face covered in milk. Such and obvious attempt to distract you but you smile anyway. 

“Sweet,” you say and even you aren’t sure if you mean the cat or Soonyoung. He shows you cat pictures until the food finally arrives (33 minutes to go). You have to wait another five minutes because Soonyoung insists on having a photoshoot, despite your protests that you look like you just woke up (he raises his eyebrows at that). You stop fighting when Joshua makes him cut a piece of the pancake and feed it to you. Chocolate nearly drops in your lap but Soonyoung shoots his hand out at the last second and catches it. 

“Okay, can we please just eat,” you say. Joshua and Seungcheol shrug and pretend like they weren’t instigating the pictures and telling you and Soonyoung how to pose. 

Soonyoung was right about the bananas and chocolate. Rich and decadent, they’re delicious. When he cuts you a slice and pushes it toward you, you can even forget the countdown to the end of the world. Or, more accurately, the end of the world doesn’t mean anything to you when Soonyoung smiles at you like that. 

You eat slowly enough to bring you to the ten minute mark. Fear mixes with the dessert for breakfast in your stomach, twisting it until it threatens to jump out of your throat. Soonyoung takes your hand under the table and holds it. You don’t run away this time. 

He holds you to the planet again, keeps you from floating away and disappearing before you can reach the stars. It’s Soonyoung that keeps your heart beating. Always Soonyoung. 

Seungcheol and Joshua chat, Soonyoung piping in a few times, but their words don’t reach you. Stuck somewhere between crushed beneath the weight of the world and floating away, you focus on the clock, watching the seconds tick closer and closer. 

“Last minute!” Someone behind you finally shouts. Soonyoung squeezes your hand. You pull up the website on your phone and put in your login information and hover over the SUBMIT. At thirty seconds, they start shouting it out. 

“Ten!” 

“Nine!” 

“Eight!” 

“Seven!” 

“Six!” 

“Five!” 

“Four!” 

“Three!” 

“Two!” 

“One!” 

Half the guys start cheering already, probably forgetting the count down doesn’t mean as much as the results themselves. You hit SUBMIT and watch the little wheel spin around and around and around until it finally refreshes. The number stares back at you, impossible to read right in front of you. 

169. 

“Congratulations!” Soonyoung shouts, throwing his arms around you and squeezing while you try to comprehend what that means. 169. The number should be all you can think about but Soonyoung holds you, shouting how proud he is, how he always believed in you. 

“169!” Seungcheol shouts, miles away from your bubble. You can hear the guys break out into cheers, hear them chanting the number (which turns into 69) but it’s just you and Soonyoung. The world didn’t end and Soonyoung is still by your side. 

The rest of the morning is a blur. Every member of the frat insists on congratulating you, which mostly means a lot of hugs, though one of the more drunk guys tried to spin you around on his shoulder. You laugh when you’d usually frown and find your way back to Soonyoung’s side like a magnet. 

Maybe it’s the euphoria that gives you courage. 

“Hey Soonyoung?” 

“Hm?” 

You say it before you can think too much. “Maybe just the two of us next time?” 

He grins before you can finish speaking. “I’d love that.” 

.

.

You have the courtesy to let Soonyoung sleep in as much as he wants. You wait for him at Barb’s, trying to figure out how to call this a date. 

You’ve seen him a couple times since you got your score back, but you needed to study for finals and he had to make up for missing a lot of frat activities. You’ve only seen him in passing, nothing to fill the Soonyoung shaped hole in your heart. But today that will change. You will celebrate together and you will tell him how you feel. And then… you have no idea. 

It’s just Soonyoung there’s nothing to be nervous about. Too bad your body doesn’t agree with you. Every nerve stands at attention, jumping at the bell that rings when the door opens. You don’t worry when Soonyoung doesn’t get to Barb’s by 8:30 like he said he would. Even at 8:45, you aren’t worried. 

It’s only at 8:55 that you really start to wonder where he is. Maybe you should have picked him up. Knowing him, there’s a 50% chance he’s lying in a ditch after a failed attempt to recreate an impossible stunt from Fast and Furious. At 9, you call him. Between each silence in the ring, you wait for his voice but it never comes. He uses the automated voicemail, so you don’t even get his voice telling you to leave a message. 

The anxiety turns to fear while you wait. The door rings and you see a fluff of bleach blonde hair and jump up. But though you recognize the face, it isn’t Soonyoung. 

Chan, one of the younger members of the frat, with Mingyu and a guy whose name you forgot. They all have the same look in their eyes when they see you, far too much like pity. 

“You’re YN, right?” Mingyu asks. “You’re supposed to meet Soonyoung?” The two guys with him, easily identifiable as frat members between their unkempt hair and sweatshirts plastered with Greek letters, stop mid conversation and glance at each other. 

“Is he okay?” You ask, still standing in the awkward position in the booth. 

“He’s got his score back,” Mingyu says. 

“We were supposed to–” 

“Yeah, I know,” Mingyu says. “It was a 167. You should really talk to him yourself.” He pauses, glancing at his frat brothers but they shrug. “He’s at the house. See if you can talk some sense into him.” 

You’re too afraid to ask any other questions so you just watch Mingyu and the other two walk past, and pretend that they aren’t whispering and stealing glances at you. 

Going to a frat house was never on your bucket list but your feet travel without guidance. You find yourself in front of a rather nondescript house. No bodies hang out from windows, no one is passed out in the yard. Then again it’s a weekday. 

You pause at the door, wondering if you should knock. You tap your hand on the door and it slides open, the latch bolt pushed completely in. You step inside tentatively, peeking around but it’s quiet. You turn the corner to find an open room and Soonyoung sitting on a couch, glass with a bright liquid in his hand. He doesn’t even look at you. 

“Are you seriously drunk right now?” 

Soonyoung just shrugs, taking another sip from the glass. Even from here you can smell that it’s more tequila than fruit punch. 

You shake your head, crossing the room sitting beside him even though he didn’t invite you to sit down. He was considerably cuter the last time you saw him drunk. You’ve gotten used to the power of Soonyoung’s facial expressions, his smiles, his frowns, the way his eyes glaze over when he’s bored, the way they gleam when he daydreams; they’re as precious to you as Soonyoung himself. But his face is a clean slate now, not a smile, not a frown, just a blank stare. 

“You know a 167 is still insanely good, right?” 

He shakes his head. 

“Soonyoung.” He doesn’t look at you, so you grab his drink. Any other day and you would have failed miserably but his alcohol-impaired senses make him slow enough for you to get a hand on the half-empty glass. He glares at you but you don’t yield, tightening your grip and pulling the bottle even harder. 

“Let go,” you growl. “Talk to me like a normal human.” 

He shakes his head, pulling on the glass so you yank back, except you overestimate how weak he is like this, and the glass flies out of his hand, the contents spilling all over you. The red liquid sinks into your blue sweater, soaking you through all three layers. 

“What the hell?” Soonyoung says. 

“That gets your fucking attention? Spilling your drink?” You say. “You know, I really thought you were different.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“You’re acting like a child. So you didn’t win the bet. Who fucking cares? Do you know how hard it is to get higher than a 160? Soonyoung, you are smart, and you worked so hard for this. You could go to law school with that score. You could graduate above a 2.3 if you stopped acting like a stereotypical fuck bro and actually studied. 

“You know, you could actually be something if you wanted. You don’t have to get a degree and work at a corporate job that sucks your soul away until the Soonyoung that actually matters is gone. I know it’s easier this way, but if you actually tried to dream, you could do something. I don’t get it, honestly. Because everyone thinks you’re an idiot you act like one? Is that what it is?” 

“You don’t have to pretend like you don’t think the same thing.” 

You snort. “I don’t, but clearly you won’t believe me. You think that if you have to work for something then it’s not worth it when you could be so much more.” 

“Why do you even care?” Soonyoung asks, looking you in the eyes for the first time. For a moment, you think you might actually be wrong, because all you see in his eyes is pain. A physical force that constricts your heart and makes you weak in the knees, Soonyoung looks at you like he’s been fighting a war you never knew about, like he’s been suffering in silence for a lifetime. He looks at you like you’ve broken his heart. 

Why do I care? You could scoff. Because I’ve been in love with you ever since you fell asleep on my shoulder. I’ve been fighting this stupid crush for so long that I don’t know who I am without it. I don’t know who I am without you. I care because every day the world proves that we aren’t worthy of this planet, that love can’t solve all problems yet you make me question it all. You don’t just bring light into my life, you make it glitter. And I can’t tell you any of this. 

“I don’t know.” The lie tastes bitter but it’s still sweeter than rejection.

“Then why are you here?” Soonyoung looks away. Without his eyes pinning you down, you can breathe again, but every inhale still drags against your heart. You stand up. Afterall, you don’t have an answer for him. 

“I take it back. You are an idiot,” you mutter over his head as you walk past him. You make it to the corner of the street before the tears finally spill over your cheeks, and all the way back to your room before you can’t breathe. 

.

.

Without the distraction of finals, you are left with your own thoughts, your words and Soonyoung’s floating around your head. You have always been something of a hermit but you’ve become J.D. Salinger himself, only leaving your room to sneak into the kitchen and scrounge for scraps of junk food that Jihoon hasn’t thrown away yet. You watch so much reality TV that you start to dream about it. 

Every episode the people, a family living on a homestead that just happens to dress in brand name clothes and drive a Benz, fight and cry and make up. You yell at the mother when she forces her daughter to change because she didn’t think polka dots are appropriate and cry along with the daughter when she starts to sniffle in her confessional, wondering if her mother would ever approve of her choices, whether it was clothes or the people she wants to date. 

You bet your confessional would be a hit if it was ever filmed. Tears run down your cheeks as you practice it in the mirror, choking out an apology for calling him an idiot and telling the whole world what you aren’t brave enough to tell him. 

Jun calls but you can’t answer. He leaves three voicemails: an apology, a goofy one telling you he’ll be back soon, and a final one, yelling at you to pick up or at least let him know you’re alive. You text him an apology you don’t know if you mean. He says thank you anyway and doesn’t call again. 

You have no plans to change your schedule (wake up, steal food, cry, sleep) but on the third day you run out of goldfish and can’t find anything in the kitchen that doesn’t make you nauseous. To make matters worse, despite the fact that it’s seven in the morning (the earliest you’ve woken up since the Fight), Jihoon catches you. 

You’ve successfully avoided him and his inevitable lecture, slamming your door shut and ignoring his knocks but he catches you off guard today. He sneaks in from his morning workout wearing a black t-shirt and slides that he somehow manages to walk stealthily in, scaring you when you close the fridge and find him standing where the door was. 

“Are you done hiding?” 

“I’m not hiding,” you mutter. 

He folds his arms. 

“Fine,” you say. “I’m not done hiding.” 

“Well too fucking bad,” Jihoon says. You try to step past him but he holds his arm out. You’ll never beat him in a physical fight so you step back, shaking your head. 

“Have it your way. Go ahead.” You wave your hand. “Get it all out. Yell at me or lecture me or whatever, I don’t care. You’re going to tell me that I’m an idiot? That I shouldn’t be so afraid of rejection, that I’m blind to how he feels? 

“Or are you going to tell me that I shouldn’t trust someone like him? That I shouldn’t be crying over a goddamn frat boy, I’m better than this, I’m better than him.” You choke back a sob, not sure what words are coming out anymore. You wipe at the tears in your eyes and are so focused on trying not to cry that you don’t notice Jihoon walking away. You do see him come back, blurry shape coming into focus as you blink away the tears. He holds something in his hand, a navy blue square. A throw pillow from the couch? 

He shifts it in his hand until he holds the corner with the zipper, swinging it a couple times back and forth. Then he yanks his arm back and arcs the pillow in a wide loop, landing directly on your head. 

“Ow!” You cry but Jihoon just swings again, hitting your arm this time. He hits you so hard it knocks you off balance, sending you to the floor. Jihoon doesn’t hesitate, swinging the pillow into you again and again, every inch of you. 

“You. Are. An. Idiot.” He grunts out each word with a blow. “You really think you’re better than him?” 

He finally pauses, not even breathing heavily. You shake your head to answer him. “Of course not.” 

“Good,” he says. Then he hits you again and again and again. 

“Ow, Jihoon, what the hell?” You bury your head in your knees and hold your arms over you, trying in vain to protect yourself. 

“I’m not your babysitter,” he says. “I’m not your father, or your brother, or any of that shit. I’m your best friend and you’re being an idiot and I’m not going to stop hitting you until you get some sense knocked into you.” He freezes, as if realizing exactly what he said. “Wait, no–that’s not what I mean, shit, sorry, but–” 

You peek out from your arms and find Jihoon opening and closing his mouth, trying to figure out what to say. He looks like a fish out of water, and it occurs to you he is a fish out of water. He’s never had to comfort you before, probably never had to comfort anyone. No wonder he’s so bad at it. 

You wouldn’t laugh at him and borderline abuse, but your emotions are beyond fried, and he just looks so funny standing over you with a pillow raised, still sputtering half apologies. You try to stop the laugh before it comes out but it turns into a snort and then you can’t stop laughing, tears that you tried to push back falling freely. You lay back on the floor and laugh until your sides hurt, only vaguely aware of Jihoon laughing above you. Eventually he joins you on the floor. 

“You know what I meant,” he says. The pillow rests on the floor between his legs, all the fluff on the far end from the one-sided pillow fight. 

“I knew what you meant without the pillow.” 

“Too bad,” Jihoon says. “I’m tired of listening to the theme song of that god awful show. You could at least watch something like–” 

“I swear if you bring up an anime, you’ll feel exactly how hard that pillow can hit.” 

Jihoon laughs, patting it a couple times. “I saw him the other day. He looked tired.” He pauses but you don’t dare speak. “We didn’t speak. I don’t even think he saw me. But it doesn’t matter because I’m not the one he needs to talk to.” 

“I know,” you say. 

“Then why are you still on the floor?” 

Because you’re scared. Because it would be easier to just give up now, for once to ignore putting in the hard work and just let it pass. But just because it’s the easy option doesn’t mean it’s the right option. At the very least you need to apologize to him. 

“What if he hates me?” 

Jihoon snorts. “Then he’ll get some pillow violence too.” He pauses. “He doesn’t, though.”

“It doesn’t mean that it will turn out okay.” 

“No, it doesn’t,” Jihoon says. “But no matter what happens, you’ll deal with it. And even if it absolutely sucks in the moment, eventually it will be over, and it sure as hell will be better than that stupid fucking show.” 

You nod, setting your chin on your knees. Your stomach turns in anticipation for what you will have to do, but he’s right. It’s time to stop running. Tonight is the Christmas party, and you were never formally uninvited. Somehow you doubt Seungcheol will throw you out. It’s time to get off the floor and get ready. 

“Have you ever thought of being a life coach?” 

“Hell no.” 

.

.

What am I doing here? You fake a smile at Seungcheol and swallow the shot as fast as you can, grimacing as the vodka burns everything from the inside of your mouth to the depths of your stomach. You should have just stuck to your mixed drink only policy but Soonyoung always has you breaking your rules. Even when he isn’t with you. 

Seungcheol disappears as soon as you take the drink, and you don't see anyone else you are comfortable enough to chat with, though that list is quite short. You do a turn of the house, which looks marginally better than the last time you saw it ,the benefit of bad lighting. It’s already crowded with more people than you’ve ever seen on campus. You make your way through each room on the lower floor, finding more than a couple bleach blondes. None are who you’re looking for. You stop in the living room, where you saw him last. 

“He isn’t here.” You turn at the voice. An unfamiliar boy stands next to you, holding a half-empty Smirnoff Ice. “He went to visit family or something.” He pauses, looking you up and down. “At least that’s what he said.” 

You nod. You find it doesn’t surprise you that he seems to know who you are. You suppose you’ve grown used to it, just one of the side-effects of being close with Soonyoung. Though it’s still strange, it doesn’t make you uncomfortable anymore. Or it wouldn’t, if you didn’t think this stranger is implying that it’s your fault Soonyoung isn’t at the ‘Party of the Year.’ 

You can’t stand his gaze so you make your way back towards the drinks, grabbing the first bottle you could find and chugging half of the lukewarm drink. It tastes like a fruit you can’t recognize and carbonation and the more you drink the harder it is to swallow but you force it down. 

You came to apologize. He isn’t here, so why do you stay? Because you promised him? Do you really miss him that much? That you would come here and suffer through all this chaos, just for the memory of him? It doesn’t make any sense but you think that might be a side effect of the alcohol. You get another drink just in case you’re still sober. 

.

.

Your head pounds, the aching feeling of the stage between drunk and sober. Normally you’d like to be sound asleep by now, or at least in the comfort of your home, but you can’t bring yourself to leave. It’s hot and sweaty, the music is way too loud, and you can’t find water anywhere, but you stay anyway, because you’re an idiot that fell in love. 

You curl up on the couch, opposite of a couple making out as if the room isn’t full of people, waiting for just a glimpse of him that will never appear. Even drunk, you think it’s pitiful, but you can’t stop. 

You didn’t think you could fall asleep in all the noise but you open your eyes when you feel the world tilt sideways. You’re vaguely aware of the arms underneath your legs and back, cradling you against someone’s chest. No, not just someone. 

Because you aren’t enough of an idiot, you can tell it’s him, his sweet scent, maybe even just his arms. Soonyoung carries you out of the living room and up the stairs, the blaring music fading only slightly. 

“I thought you weren’t here,” you mumble. 

Soonyoung frowns down at you. “You okay?” 

You shake your head, suddenly realizing there are tears in your eyes. No, I’m not okay, I love you, you want to say. He squeezes you a little tighter, trying to hug you while still carrying you. 

With your head resting against his chest, you can fully appreciate his beauty. His hair is black, which suits him even though he looks nothing like your Soonyoung anymore. You reach up and trace the lines of his face that are unchanging, the sharp straight line of his jaw, the gentle curve of his nose, his soft eyebrows. You drop your hand when you realize he’s staring at you, belatedly realizing you never got to his lips. You can only imagine how soft they’d be, soft like Soonyoung himself. 

“You’re crying,” Soonyoung says softly. You can’t tell if he’s talking to you or not. He pauses in front of a door, struggling to open it without dropping you. Finally the door swings open and he sets you down on a bed, taking a deep breath and sitting beside you. 

He brushes the tears from your eyes, as Soonyoung as ever. Sweet as ever. Sweet and Soonyoung. They should be the same word. You make a mental note to email Merriam-Webster’s dictionary and make the suggestion. 

Soonyoung doesn’t say anything, just watching you with those perfect eyes. His hand rests on your face even though the tears are long gone, thumb tracing shapes on your cheek. 

“You swore you’d do anything for me,” you say. 

“Anything,” Soonyoung repeats. 

You turn to the walls, knocking his hand off your cheek, not daring to look him in the eyes. Even drunk, you are a coward. He’s put up pictures on his wall, a couple Polaroids but mostly printed pictures, with the frat, some childhood pictures, and one that you recognize. The picture of the two of you at the beach that you thought you didn’t send, where you are looking at him with all the love in your heart. You trace his smile, blinding even in paper form. 

“Could you maybe try loving me back then?” You mumble. Your eyes feel heavy between the alcohol and the tears and you’ve said what you needed to say, so you let them take over, closing your eyes and letting the blasting music from downstairs drown out any thoughts. And because it’s so loud and you’ve already drifted off to sleep, there’s no way you could hear his answer. 

“I already do.” 

.

.

The first thing you do when you wake up is throw up. You make it out of the bed but not to the bathroom, mostly because you don’t actually know where it is. You grab the nearest bucket-shaped item, which happens to be a mostly empty trash can. You lean away as soon as you’re done, breathing through your mouth and looking away from the mess. Belatedly, you realize someone is patting your back, brushing hair out of your face. 

“Better?” Soonyoung asks. His knees rests against your lower back, one hand resting on your back, the other caressing your face. Thank god you already threw up because looking at him makes your stomach twist again and if there was anything in you, it would come up again. If you could throw up your heart, you would. As it is, the organ is trying to climb its way up your throat, whether it’s guilt or heartbreak you don’t know. 

 You nod in answer to his question, letting him help you up. Your head pounds and though you know you won’t throw up again, your stomach flips. Right, your policy of mixed drinks is definitely reinstated after this. 

“Sorry I threw up in your trash can,” you say. 

“Believe me, that is not the worst that trash can has seen,” Soonyoung says. “Wait, that sounds bad, I didn’t mean it in a weird way, I just mean–” He stops himself, shaking his head. “It’s a frat house.” 

“It’s your room,” you say softly. With sober (albeit heavily hungover) eyes, you take in the room again. It’s tiny, one bed pushed against a wall with a desk set right next to it. Unsurprisingly, it’s stacked with protein powder and a pile of frat flyers, laptop balancing off the edge, not a paper in sight. Except for the one next to his bed, the walls are bare, an ugly shade of beige except for a circle filled with white plaster that looks suspiciously like the reformed crime scene of a fist going through drywall. It must be from whoever owned the room before Soonyoung. 

The wall next to his bed is covered in pictures. You remember being amazed by them last night. Your eyes zero in on the picture of the two of you, right next to the pillow that’s still dented from your head. 

“Did I steal your bed?” You frown except the movement hurts your head. 

“I slept in Johnny’s room since he’s decided to disappear off the face of the planet instead of accepting the fact that he graduates next semester,” Soonyoung says. “I actually just came in here for some clothes, which reminds me.” He rummages through a drawer, pulling out a wrinkled t-shirt and handing it to you. “If you want a change.” 

You glance down and feel like throwing up all over again. Your favorite shirt is covered in stains, alcohol, vomit, and something you definitely don’t want to name. If you weren’t feeling so terrible already, you’d cry that Soonyoung is seeing you like this. 

“I’ll get you a toothbrush, too,” he mutters, disappearing and leaving you to scramble to switch shirts. The white dri-fit is meant to be a workout shirt, though it’s clear that it would be oversize on Soonyoung. Either way, the soft fabric is gentle on your skin, much better than the jeans you slept in. Too bad you’re stuck in them until you get back to your apartment. 

You could run away right now. Soonyoung probably wouldn’t be surprised. But he’s being nice to you, so much nicer than you deserve. Sweet and Soonyoung. But you came here to apologize, and though last night got derailed, you can’t keep running from it. Besides, it’s not like the morning can get much worse. 

So when Soonyoung comes back proudly brandishing an unopened toothbrush that he may or may not have stolen from Seungcheol’s bathroom, you accept it gratefully. You stare yourself down in the bathroom, fighting nausea and an impending migraine because you have a mission to achieve, a real mission unlike last night. It’s still a haze, but you don’t think you’ll ever forget how gently Soonyoung cradled you against his chest, the brush of his fingers on your cheek. If he didn’t show up this morning, you’d think it was a dream. 

Soonyoung’s door is open when you finish but he isn’t in his room. You grab your bag from the floor and venture down the stairs, leaning heavily on the railing. There’s a couple people passed out in the living room, and one person snoring softly in the kitchen, head folded in his arms in a position that must be incredibly painful for his neck. But it’s where you find Soonyoung, digging through the fridge and finally pulling out a water bottle. He hands it to you, along with a bottle of pills. 

“Thank you,” you sigh, not even bothering to check the label for the brand. You take a couple and chug half the bottle, gaslighting yourself into believing that it will instantly revive you (it doesn’t work and your head still pounds). 

“Are you hungry?” Soonyoung asks. He opens the fridge again, this time wide enough to show the shelves that are filled with beer, vodka, and White Claws. There’s a pizza box and some eggs, but not much else. 

“How are any of you alive?” You ask softly, glancing at the snoring person on the counter. 

“Yuta can sleep through an apocalypse, don’t worry about him,” Soonyoung says, waving his hand. He closes the fridge, leaning against it. “And most of us keep our actual food in mini-fridges. I just cleared mine out for break, so I don’t have anything in it.” He doesn’t say anything else about vanishing. 

“I’m pretty sure that pizza has been in there since the start of the semester and I’ve never seen eggs in here before though, so I don’t think you should risk any of this,” Soonyoung says. “McDonald’s fries are a far superior hangover cure, they’ve never failed me.” 

“There’s a McDonald’s nearby?” 

Soonyoung grins, pulling keys out of his pocket and spinning them around his fingers a couple times, except they fly off and clatter on the floor. The man asleep on the counter, Yuta apparently, stirs but doesn’t move. You can’t help but smile as Soonyoung scrambles to retrieve them from the floor. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was flustered. 

“There isn’t one,” Soonyoung explains, leading the way to the door. “But I have the keys to Seungcheol’s car.” 

“I’m not really comfortable with grand theft auto,” you say, though you don’t stop following him to Seungcheol’s giant white Jeep. 

“He gave me the keys last night when I walked in,” Soonyoung says. “Something about owing me. He was pretty drunk.” He darts around to the passenger side before you can, opening the door for you. He waves his hand when you frown at him, as if you’re the one acting strange. Thinking with this headache is too hard so you just get into the car and strap the seatbelt on. 

“I can’t believe you thought I’d steal a car,” Soonyoung says. He turns the engine on and scans the front of the car before finally settling his right hand on the gear shift. 

“You have driven this car before, right?” 

“Of course,” Soonyoung says a little too fast. You grab onto the door handle and hope that your stomach really is empty. 

Soonyoung’s driving isn’t the worst you’ve ever experienced; that title goes to Jihoon, who was banned from touching car keys after his Mario Kart driving. That said, you think he’s a good second place. He slams on the gas and the brakes too hard and drives altogether too fast. He blasts the radio and sings along purposefully off key. You should be terrified but it’s the most fun you’ve ever had riding in the passenger seat. 

“I’m never riding with you again,” you say, breathless from laughing. He pulls to a stop at the red light, the Golden arches of your destination still one light away. “You know yellow lights mean slow down right?”

“I stopped at this one!” Soonyoung says. “I’ll have you know I haven’t been in an accident.” He pauses. “Since I was nineteen.” 

You nod, pursing your lips to stop yourself from smiling fully. “That’s what I figured.” You peek at Soonyoung and he’s smiling too. 

So different from the last time you saw him. You don’t deserve this. You shouldn’t be able to laugh and joke around with him so easily, not when you still haven’t apologized. And Soonyoung shouldn’t be looking at you like that, genuine fondness in his eyes. 

“The light’s green,” you say. His smile fades a little when he turns his head and drives ahead, stepping lightly for once. You’re so close now, but a car going straight in the right lane prevents him from turning. 

The pain medicine must have kicked in because your headache is slowly fading, replaced by heartache that no medication can cure. 

“Why are you being so nice to me?” You blurt out. 

The blinker beeps a steady rhythm in the empty silence. “Isn’t it obvious?” 

“Nothing’s ever obvious with you, Soonyoung,” you say softly. 

“Oh.” The light turns green and he guides the car slowly into the parking lot, stopping in a spot instead of pulling up to the drive through. As soon as the car is in park, he turns to face you. There’s a crease in his forehead that you recognize from the rare occasions that he would actually talk to you seriously. “YN, I genuinely thought I was being clear about this from the beginning, but if you still really don’t get it, then I’ll say it straight up: I like you. I’ve liked you since the day we met and then I fell in love with you. 

“Did you know you’re the first person that’s ever genuinely believed in me? I mean, I know I have friends, and my family means well, but they always get this look in their eye whenever I talk about trying for things, like it was cute that I was trying, but they never actually believed in me. And I started to believe them too. I started to believe that I couldn’t believe in myself.” He frowns. “That makes no sense. The point is, you are the reason I started to believe in myself again. 

“No one’s ever looked at me like you do. No one’s ever told me to get my shit together–well, they have, but you’re the only one that told me it was because I could be better. 

“You say it wasn’t obvious, but I’ve tried to tell you a thousand times. I flirted, I tried to ask you on a date so many times, and I finally accepted that you’d never see me like that, so I was a dick. I told you off, even though you were right. I’m so sorry for that, and I’m sorry I ran away, and I’m sorry it took me so long to apologize.” 

“Stop,” you say. Soonyoung’s eyes widen, tears welling up, and you realize he thinks you’re rejecting him. “Stop apologizing!” His brow creases in confusion, an adorable frown. Summoning all your courage, you reach out, resting your hand on his. “I’m the one that’s sorry. I didn’t have any right to judge you and the choices you were making, and I shouldn’t have yelled at you when I knew how much the bet meant to you.”

You squeeze his hand, closing your eyes. “And I think I was a little oblivious on purpose. I’m not the kind of person that has crushes, let alone crushes that like me back, so I freaked a little and missed all the signs.” You open your eyes and grin at him. It’s easy to feel brave when he smiles back at you. “But I like you, Soonyoung. I like you so much, I don’t have enough words to express it. My whole life has been about my future, my career, and it’s exhausting, but being with you makes it all exciting again. Like, no matter what happens, if you’re with me, it won’t just be okay, it’ll be fun.” 

Soonyoung beams. “Really?” 

You squeeze his hand. “I like you.” Like the first time you took the LSAT, you can’t think of a single word, except instead of damning your future this feels like the start of it. Soonyoung sits across from you and you don’t need words. 

You don’t know how long you sit there, but reality sets in when your stomach growls. You glance outside the window and remember where you are. “Did you just confess to me in a McDonald’s parking lot?” 

“Better than drunk in my own bed.” 

“I didn’t!” You let go of his hand to hide your face. 

Soonyoung grins. “You were cute!” 

“I don’t remember it, it doesn't count!” 

“Whatever you say,” Soonyoung says, leaning over the center console. He gently pulls your hands away from your face, hand circling your wrist gently. You instinctively hold your breath, though you don’t lean away. Soonyoung leans a little closer, forehead resting against yours. 

“This okay?” He whispers, breath kissing your lips, and you remember that less than an hour ago, you were throwing up. Your head still aches and your stomach is still queasy and your whole body feels disgusting. 

“We are not having our first kiss in a McDonald’s parking lot,” you say, leaning back. Soonyoung sighs, but he sits back in his chair, settling for grabbing your hand and interlacing his fingers with yours. 

“Fine,” Soonyoung says. He rubs his thumb back and forth, and when you meet his eyes, you see a familiar glint of trouble. “You know I’m still sworn to you. Whatever you want.” 

The words go straight to your heart. You could live a thousand lives and never meet someone as genuine as Soonyoung. You know that he means it, heart and soul, that he’d do anything for you. And it should be terrifying that he’s willing to bear his heart for you, that you are willing to do the same. But it’s Soonyoung. It’s easy to trust him with it, because even though he breaks half the computers he touches and can’t hold onto a pencil for his life, he won’t ever drop your heart. 

I love you. One day you’ll be able to say it, one day you’ll scream it like you so desperately want to. But until then, you settle for his certified brilliant smile and the gentle brush of his lips on the back of your hand, only letting go to turn the engine back on. 

“Let’s get you some fries,” he says. “Then kisses?” 

You shake your head and laugh, slipping your hand back into his. 

Before he can put the car into gear, his phone rings. He stares at the screen for a moment, frowning like he can’t decide whether he should answer it or not. Finally he slides the green across, turning on speaker. 

“Hey Seungcheol, I’m with—” 

“Where the hell are you? And where is my car?” Seungcheol’s voice is somewhere between angry and concerned. “You think it’s okay to vanish and then show up only to steal my car?” 

“First of all, you gave me the keys,” Soonyoung says. He glances at you. “And I’m at McDonald’s because YN desperately needed a hangover cure.” 

“Hey,” you say so Seungcheol knows you’re there. 

The line is quiet for so long you think Soonyoung’s phone has finally given up on him but eventually he says, “You’re with YN?” 

“We talked,” he says. “And we’re good.” 

You snort. “That’s how you’re going to describe it?” 

“Are we not good?” 

You glance at your hand still intertwined with his, the Soonyoung Sparkle glittering back at you when you look him in the eyes. Good? There’s not a word to describe how you feel right now. 

“We are beyond good.” 

.

.

“Are you crying?” You whisper. Soonyoung shakes his head, chin brushing against your head but when he inhales again, he sniffles. You reach up to pat his cheek and are entirely unsurprised when it’s wet. On screen Elle Woods continues her speech, for once not wearing pink. 

“She’s just so cool,” Soonyoung says. You lift your head off his chest so you can look him in the eyes. The temptation to tease him is hard to resist but he pouts his lips and you see another tear slip out. You kiss his cheek, out of habit more than anything. Strange how much can change in two weeks, how something you’ve never imagined doing has become natural. But being with Soonyoung is just like that. New and old at the same time, the kind of comfort that has you planning how to make this last a lifetime. 

Soonyoung wraps his arms around you tighter, so you nestle back into his chest, turning away from the end of the movie to close your eyes and breathe in his cologne. 

“I can’t believe you’ve never seen this,” you whisper, lips brushing against his neck. “The whole bet was based on a movie you haven’t seen.” 

“You’re missing the end,” he says. His voice rumbles in your ear, drowning out his heartbeat. 

“I’ve seen it before.” Your bed really isn’t built for two people to lay down together. You are laying more on Soonyoung than the mattress but it’s not the first time. From the way he holds you, you doubt it’ll be the last. 

The credits roll too quickly, but Soonyoung still doesn’t let go. He pulls you up so that your head is next to his, nose centimeters away from yours. 

“So am I officially qualified to go to law school?” He asks. 

“You are Elle Woods certified,” you say. “But you’re sure that’s what you want?” 

“I mean I have to get in. But I figure if I’m going to waste away at a desk, I might as well do it for something I believe in.” He pauses. “With someone that believes in me.” He presses a kiss to the side of your neck, breath tickling the sensitive skin. You can’t help but sigh. 

“That doesn’t mean it’s what you want,” you say, after several heartbeats of struggling to think. 

“I want…” His words “To be with you. However you’ll have me.” His arms loosen, hands sliding down to your waist. 

“Still not answering the question,” you breathe out but you can’t even remember what the question is, not when he’s shifting to lay on top of you, lips inching their way up your neck. He kisses your jaw, your cheek, the corner of your lips, then stops, pulling away and meeting your eyes again.

The Soonyoung Sparkle. The grinch has nothing on you–your heart swells so large it feels like it’s going to explode out of your chest–Alien style. Does he know what he does to you? How he’s made everything in your life shine? How happy you are when he’s with you? 

“I love you,” you whisper. 

Soonyoung blinks at you. “You…” 

“I love you,” you say again, this time with more confidence. “I really, really love you.” 

Soonyoung grins, leaning down and pressing his lips to yours, moving like the world outside has stopped. He makes a bubble around you again, or maybe it’s your own heart; either way the only thing that exists is the way his hands inch up your shirt, the way his lips begin to press harder against yours. You give up on coherent thoughts, settling for wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him closer. 

“I love you, too,” Soonyoung whispers between kisses. “If that wasn’t obvious.” 

Soonyoung who always treated you like you were enough already. Soonyoung who does everything with 100% of his heart. Soonyoung who has always been sincere with you, from the first day you met him. Soonyoung, who you are so lucky to be loved by. 

You don’t know how to say any of this in a way that makes sense so you let his fire melt you until you are putty in his arms. He pulls away, and the Soonyoung Sparkle burns, your personal stars flickering back at you.  

“You want to–” Soonyoung starts to say, but the door slams open. Then Soonyoung falls on you, pillow rolling off his head. 

“I’m taking this back!” Someone shouts while you hear Jihoon cursing. 

“Read the room, idiot!” Soonyoung pushes off of you, sitting up and pulling your shirt down as smoothly as he can. You sit up, trying to decide if you should be embarrassed or angry. Facing Jun, frozen midstep with his jaw hanging open a little and Jihoon in the doorway with his arms folded, shaking his head slightly, you opt for the latter. 

“Does no one knock in Colombia?” You frown at him. “And when did you get back? Why didn’t you call?” 

“It was supposed to be a surprise,” he mumbles, staring at his feet. “And you were supposed to be alone, according to my sources.” He glares at Jihoon. 

“YN didn’t say he was coming over,” he says with a shrug. 

You turn your frown to him. “You walked in halfway through the movie, I literally shouted ‘Soonyoung’s over.’” 

“I had my headphones on,” he says, though he’s avoiding your eyes too. Typical of your friends, never claiming responsibility for their actions. 

“So this is Soonyoung,” Jun says, turning to face him. Soonyoung moved to the edge of the bed, too far away for your taste but probably an appropriate distance for your friends, especially compared to what they walked in on. Jun tilts his head. “You dyed your hair.” 

“Yeah,” Soonyoung scratches the back of his head. “Spur of the moment thing.” You miss the blonde, surprisingly fitting considering it isn’t his natural color. But the black suits him too, and probably will help him with law school interviews. Then again, knowing Soonyoung, this color won’t last long either. Good thing there isn’t a color you don’t think suits him. 

“We should do this properly,” Soonyoung says. “Go out for dinner or something.” 

“Hey, I didn’t get dinner,” Jihoon says. 

“You want to get dinner with me?” Soonyoung perks up. 

“No, I’m protesting unfair treatment.” 

“It’s not unfair, I’m just clearly his favorite,” Jun says. 

“Can you guys stop fighting over my boyfriend?” You say. 

Jihoon and Jun stare at you. When Soonyoung turns to face you, he grins, eyes sparkling. 

“What?” 

“You just called him your boyfriend,” Jun says. 

“Well… he is.” You feel your cheeks flush. “Why are you guys making it weird?” 

“It’s not weird,” Soonyoung says. He scoots closer to you, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. “It’s cute,” he whispers in your ear. “Adorable.” This only makes you flush even more. 

“Well, I don’t want to interrupt, so I’ll just grab this and you two can get back to… whatever.” Jun takes a step towards your bookcase. You grab the pillow that he threw at Soonyoung and nail him in the chest, earning a laugh from Jihoon. 

“Don’t even think about it.” 

“The book is mine, Soonyoung never fulfilled the bet!” Jun says. You stand up, blocking him from your Pride and Prejudice. 

“Hey, I followed through!” Soonyoung says. “We’re dating!” 

“I remember the bet stating that you had to ask YN out after you took the LSAT.” Jun turns to him. 

“And I did,” Soonyoung says. “You never said it had to be right after.” 

Jun eyes him. “That’s cheating.” 

“That’s being a lawyer,” you say. “And I think he’s going to be really good at it.” 

Jun glances between you and Soonyoung and shakes his head. “Whatever, I’ll get my book back another day.” 

You step closer to Soonyoung and he links his pinky with yours. You glance at your friends. “Are you going to stand there forever or are we getting dinner?” 

“You two don’t want to get back to what you were doing?” Jihoon asks. 

You slip your hand into Soonyoung’s. He meets your eyes and he’s only been your boyfriend for two weeks but looking at him is like looking home. There’s no need to rush. 

“Sounds like someone doesn’t want to pick where we go.” 

“We should make them pay, too,” Soonyoung says. 

You grin at him. “You are the smartest person I know.” 

#🌟 stars galaxy #seventeen #seventeen x reader #svt #svt reader #seventeen fanfic #seventeen fanfiction #seventeen fluff #kwon soonyoung #hoshi #svt hoshi #soonyoung x reader #hoshi x reader #hoshi fluff #soonyoung fluff #hoshi angst #soonyoung angst #soonyoung #svt x reader

[megumishotgf]

pov: megumi has a crush on you

summary: more megumi headcanons i fear… ya’ll like my texts way more so this is definitely written for me.

warnings: reference to catcalling? other than that sfw + gender non-specified!!

masterlist

reserved! megumi who takes his time getting to know you. he studies all your qualities and aspects personality as if one day he’ll be quizzed on your features. megumi admires your ambition and drive but most of all your tenderness and selflessness. he’s drawn to people with good and expressive hearts. people who like to help others and perform nice gestures just because they can.

attentive! megumi who focuses diligently when you’re speaking, concentrating on every single trivial detail, even those that slip absent-mindedly past your lips without much thought. he listens to you ramble on and on about your interests yet it never bores him (and he gets bored of people alright). speaks so softly with you in a tone that surprises everyone around you (mainly nobara and yuji who have never seen him so interested in another human before… he’s always this soft to animals, though).

nerdy! megumi who prefers reading non-fiction but will pick up your favourite fantasy novels just because he wants to feel close to you. seeing your eyes light up when he mentions the titles to you makes his heart swell. highlights his favourite quotes and annotates in between pages. he’ll share them with you, gaze fixated on you as your eyes scan over all of this thoughtful comments. you feel such genuine happiness knowing he has gone so far to do this for you.

sappy! megumi who picks up one of your romance suggestions next, finding himself relating to the hopelessly enamoured protagonist. again, he annotates his copies and scribbles exclamation marks when he comes across passages that resonate with his growing feelings for you. doesn’t show you these ones, of course. at least not yet.

shy! gumi who admires your kindness from afar. all the little things you go out of your way to do just to help someone else. when you assist yuuji in the kitchen with his high-protein meals or paint nobara’s nails with great precision. when you’re the first to offer your seat up for an elderly woman on the metro or when you bounce out of your seat to help your teachers carrying piles of school documents.

observant! megumi who notices all of your little habits. the kind of things that make you feel so loved and cared for when he mentions them back to you. those things that no one else really noticed even if you badly wanted it to be seen.

love-sick! megumi would configures multiple playlists about you. one playlist containing all your favourite tracks and another with all those that you recommended to him directly. the type to listen to ‘i wanna be yours’ and fall asleep to thoughts of being with you. so many random romantic playlists often come up on his spotify profile. one time he made you a physical mixtape. yes, it was mostly just love songs… you swore it was just a coincidence. mostly.

insecure! megumi who constantly thinks he could never be good enough for you. dismisses your concern when you notice him distancing himself (because somehow you can distinguish between this and his usual quietness) but can never fully push you away. feels his heartbeat accelerate when you offer him physical comfort (with less reluctance than with anyone else). hugs from you are so comforting.

touch-starved! megumi who craves your physical affection all the time and it gets very noticeable. his arms instinctively circle around your waist whenever you greet him, rushing over for a hug. at first it was always you initiating the affection, but it’s starting to feel so natural reciprocating it. your hand will subtly slip into his when you are walking around central tokyo together or you’ll cling onto his side for comfort and warmth. he worries that you’ll be able to hear his obnoxiously loud heartbeat when you do so, but nothing could make him pull away.

annoyed! megumi who glares at his friends when they tease him about your physical affection (or when they hear your nicknames for him). but at least they have the decency to wait until you’ve left, he thinks. i give them one more week, yuuji says to nobara as megumi walks away in the same direction you just went.

if looks could kill… nobody would want to experience angry! megumi. even yuuji and nobara started to feel unsettled seeing him like that after some old loser started to catcall you. you had barely registered what was called out to you before he fearfully disappeared around the corner.

kind! megumi who opens his arms for you when he sees you’re upset. sometimes struggles with verbal comfort, but he remembers how nice it is to be hugged by you, so surely this should help. it does help - and he feels his heart swell when you thank him for being there for you.

even more nervous! megumi who finally musters the courage to confess his feelings for you. rehearses the speech in his head (and surprisingly to yuuji) tens of times only to be left astounded after you make the confession first. finally kissing you felt like the sun rising after months of darkness.

megumi who has infinite amounts of layers!! getting to know him is truly a magical experience. ultimate green flag he is perfect end of discussion!!

haven’t published anything in so long… hey ya’ll. how is everyone doing. pls send requests i am out of ideas!!

#jjk x reader #megumi x reader #megumi fushiguro x reader #fushiguro x reader #megumi comfort #megumi headcanons #megumi my beloved #jjk drabbles

[wcbblife]

could you do paige with either a black gf or a volleyball player gf hcs??

Paige x Volleyball player!gf HCs

a/n: I've had this idea in the drafts for quite a bit of time. So glad you sparked my mind to finally finish it

Bit of background about you two ig:

What first stood out to Paige about you was the ability to absolutely spike the ball with an insane amount of power. The first time she saw you play she was with KK because they were both oh so bored on their free day. Next thing she knew you were elevating off the floor and slamming your palm against the ball with an insane amount of strength. They both let out a synched “DAMN” as the ball quickly made its way down to the floor with a resounding bang. One after the other, she was literally left with her jaw on the floor at how good you were and how you were able to carry the team to a flawless victory.

She definitely went home and searched all of your highlights, slowly being more and more captivated by how high you could jump and how fast you could react to get some saves. After that, she would literally make up the stupidest excuses to just see you absolutely dominate on the court.

Noticing her growing attendance, fans began to joke around on the internet (with pics and vids). You take notice of this. Especially on how she cheered extra hard whenever you helped on scoring a point.

Funny enough I think you two would meet in the library. She would pass you and the look on her face is hilarious (something between a mix of amazement, shock, and something else). She tries to stop the absolute sound of excitement that she wants to let out.

"Dude, you’re an awesome player.” She says, smiling super bright.

"Well if it isn’t my biggest fan” You tease. “But are you serious? You’re the cool one here.”

You both continue to absolutely geek out about one another and compliment the other's play style. It’s then that you find out that she absolutely loves when you spike.

You both get closer after one particular game where your famous strong spikes literally sealed the deal for the team to win. After a particularly impressive spike she literally jumped while screaming as loud as she could and you couldn't even deny that trying to ignore a tall blonde jumping erratically up and down was getting harder after each game. So you just turned towards her and pointed to mess with her. It worked though cuz Paige went absolutely crazy.

After that, you two started talking some more and you even started showing your face to some of her basketball games. And she asked you out after one of her hard games, caught up in the high of the game. You two immediately become the school's hottest topic after it.

Some actually normal HCs:

She absolutely is your biggest fan. No one ever cheers louder for you than Paige Bueckers.

Is eager to learn how to set for you so that she can help you with your spikes. Like seeing it first hand because it makes her feel so starstruck seeing it first hand.

Absolutely loves to play beach volleyball with you. Idk why she just seems like it.

Lovesssss to see you in your uniform. Especially with those shorts. Makes her go crazy.

Goes nuts when you react fast and save the ball. "YEAH BABY! YOU SHOW EM HOW ITS DONE!"

Will 100% challenge you to a 1v1 but immediately regret it as she watches you jump to slam the ball. “Chill! You're gonna kill me if you do that.”

She loves to learn and break down each set with you. Especially if you tell her it helps you better your game. And vise versa. You love to watch her games and hear her break down her own playing.

Outside of sports and school, Paige will literally show you off to everyone (like imagine a family Christmas party and she's literally holding someone hostage while showing them you play. “Isn't she awesome? I mean just look at her!").

Acts like a concerned mother whenever you fall one too many times in a game while diving to save the ball from touching the ground.

Loves it when you wink or smile in her direction while you're playing. It actually drives her a little crazy.

#wcbb #women's basketball #uconn huskies #uconn wbb #paige bueckers #paige bueckers x reader

[inspiringimarah]

update** all mods should be good now 🥰

I am keeping an eye on the Scarlet's Realm list so I will continue to update the list and with any new mods I add to my game 💕💕

overrides

Refreshed Main Menu - mine is Glade

Urban Erotica (functional books)

No Tune After Loading

Nap Replacement Mod

Restaurant Default Menu

MyxDoll Fenty Beauty Override 

HighSchool Years Textbook Override

Toothbrush override by dsco

Paintbrush Override

The Ultimate Default Underwear Collection by vixonspixels

Paired Selfie (in game photo overrides)

iPhone 12 Override OR H&B Smartphone Override (ONLY CHOOSE ONE)

UNO Card Replacement

 Photo replacements (in game)

Pink Build Buy UI 

Black Sitcom TV Overrides 

San Sequoia Bridge Override

Realistic TV Mod (Reality TV)

Realistic Phone Icons (multiple available on CoCo Games patreon)

Phone Wallpaper Kit OR Phone Wallpaper Override (only pick one)

Control Any Sim

San Myshuno Billboards

PC Game Overrides 

CocoGames Video Game Bundle

Starbucks on Campus

My Wedding Stories Engagement Ring Recolours 

Stand Still in CAS Poses

Hidden Highlight 

Functional Airpods

Hello Kitty Infant Seat

The Missing Plumbob

No zzz (when sim is sleeping)

Towel After Shower

Functional PS5

Black Art Painting Mod

The Sims 2 Font or Life is Strange Font (only pick one)

Gallery Poses (female)

Gallery Poses (male)

Gallery Poses (couple or duo) 

Take Off Shoes With Animation

Stop Random Accessories on Townies

Parenthood Recolour - link is at the bottom of the thread

lighting

check my updated lighting mod list here

cas & loading screen

CAS background

Loading Screen Plumbob Replacement  OR by pinkishwrld

Minimalist CC Wrench Override

More CAS Columns (I use 5)

Map Replacements Overhaul

I alternate my CAS backgrounds so see below for my fave creators:

- MeekGames

- Ellcrze  

- LadySimmer

- SlimmazSimz

- Essemelle 

- BougieChloe

- SierraTheSimmer

- Xurelia

- DonavinGames

- NeriSims

food

Somik & Severinka (I use the Realistic Cooking Mod & all others they have)

ONI Custom Food

QMBIBI Stirring the Pot

QMBIBI Thee Kitchen Tablet

Functional Breakfast Cereals

Airfryer

Waffle Maker

Pressure Cooker

gameplay

misc

Computer Side Gigs

Kuttoe Mini Mods: Small Additions

Bed Cuddle

Carry & Kiss

Longer Parties & More Guests

Functional Magazines

Better Social Media Sponsorships

Higher Lifestyle Brand Payouts 

QMBIBI Skincare Mod

QMBIBI Express Delivery

QMBIBI BabyCare Overhaul

Online Skills 

It’s Movie Time 

BabyCare Mod

Basemental Drugs

Basemental Gangs

Celebrate Adoption

Sip & Paint Event

Luxury Real Estate Career

Recipe Notebook

Sulani Events Calendar and Flyer

Functional Personal Care Products

Go For A Jog... Together

Morning Routine

Everyone Can Sleep Together

Spa Day Face Masks From Mirrors

Pole Dance Mod

Online Apprenticeships 

Turn the TV on

Ask For Money 

UI Cheats

MC Command Center

Self Manicure & Pedicure

Make Functional Perfumes

Shear Brilliance - Active Hairstylist Career

Cute Romance

LOT 51

- Ring Doorbell 

- Dust Buster 

- Plumbros (heating, plumbing & cooling)

- Alarm Clock 

- Simlink (wifi)

High School Years

Fashion Authority   KimbaSprite has a tutorial on this mod here

More Classmates

Adeepinigo

I have many mods by this creator, check out their website here

Lumpinou

There is an index on Lumpinou’s Patreon with all the below mods listed, see here

- LGBTQIA+

- Memory Panel Mod 

- Open Love Life

- RPO Collection “Realistic & Pregancy Overhaul”

- Science Baby Tweak

PandaSama Childbirth 

SimRealist 

- Mortem 

- Real Estate

- Private Practice

- Sim National Bank 

- Sim National Bank Bills

- Sim National Bank Financial Center

SimWithShan

- Cyber Teacher Career

- Homebody Prefences

- Housewife Aspiration

pose player mods (for in game photos)

- Andrew Poseplayer 

- Teleport Any Sim 

Go to creators for poses & animations: 

- KatVerse 

- King Black Cinema 

- Frxsk0sims

- helgatisha

- AfroSimtricSims 

- Gawdly Games

- Hardswae

- Maysbat

- TS4 Poses (tumblr blog)

♡

#the sims 4 #the sims 4 mods #sims 4 mods #ts4 #ts4mods

[kairismess]

was thinkinnnn~ kuroo, sugawara, makki(or iwa if you dk how to write makki), and osamu with a twitch streamer girlfriend 😉

his streamer girlfriend. (part 1)

🍥 author's note: this is kind of set during post high school, ig college timeline? just after high school and before the timeskip arc (ㆁωㆁ) !! and y'all live together ~~~

kuroo tetsurou.

"chibi-chaaaaan, you wearing my jersey again?"

your rooster headed boyfriend walked into your room, clad in nothing but those red shorts you got him last week. you immediately closed your camera, and the chat went wild. of course you were the highlight of your streams, your audience loved you–but they loved seeing your boyfriend more sometimes, especially when he was provoking and teasing you, such as now.

"ooh, what could they be doing rn?"

"SELL ME HIS JERSEY !!!"

"unfair. how could someone so handsome get someone so pretty as u wtf... !"

kuroo chuckled as he saw the flurry of messages by the corner of your screen, with you all flustered as you tried to muster an excuse as to why you were wearing his jersey from high school. "comfortable in it?" he asked you in a husky voice, pressing his hands against the arms of your computer chair, making you squeak out a noise of embarrassment, much to his (and your chat's) delight.

you turned off your camera, but you forgot to take care of your mic; so even if you didn't show your audience how cute you two looked while your boyfriend teased you, they could sure hear how adorable you two acted together–it made everyone jealous at how hot yet cute your dynamic together was.

he loved hearing you try to tell him in such futile little whimpers and mewls as he kissed your neck and caressed your waist that you were busy streaming, that you'd give his jersey back later–but he knew you'd soon forget when later will be. and besides, it'd be more fun to give your audience a show, right? you're liking this anyway, your facial expressions and body language are giving you away.

"mmm... fine, keep the jersey for a bit–but just remember, after this stream... you're all mine for tonight. the jersey looks amazing on you, but you're drop dead gorgeous when you've got nothing...– nevermind, we'll talk later, dearest. your chat's going crazy, better not let them wait, hmm?"

sugawara koushi.

"love! look at what my students drew for me!"

your eyes widened as sugawara knocked on your door and came in with a wide smile on his face. he didn't realize you were streaming today, he was just so excited to show you what his star students made for him to show their appreciation for him. sugawara always came off as quite motherly, he was always so down-to-earth and sweet–and your audience always loved it whenever sugamama, as they called him, came over and blessed the chat with his wonderful energy.

it was always wholesome whenever you two were on the stream, the chat would always go crazy whenever he'd act all sweet and tender to you.

"where to get gentlemen like these? 😭😭😭 i love sugamama so much !!"

"you two are just SO 💗💗💗"

"ARE YOU TWO GONNA GET MARRIED ONE DAY ...?"

sugawara's face got flushed when he saw that you were streaming right then and there, you didn't need to tell him you were streaming for him to get the point. he chuckled awkwardly and smiled, apologizing softly as you told him it was okay, he wasn't interrupting.

the chat loved seeing sugawara embarrassed, your chat was flooded with your fans losing it over him. you asked sugawara if you both could look at the drawings over the stream, and sugawara agreed. he showed the pictures his students drew for him (keeping the students' identities secret, of course) and you swore you could see his face brighten up a thousand times as he went on and on about his students.

your chat was not opposed to the idea of watching sugawara stream his lectures online, even if he was only training to be a teacher and only taught elementary students, they'd all flock to see content of you two together.

iwaizumi hajime.

"could you end the stream now and help keep the bed warm now, babe?"

your boyfriend was extremely impatient, he had spent the whole day out at the gym and was exhausted. he couldn't get a kiss from you when he came home because you were busy streaming, and he couldn't eat dinner with you tonight because, again, you were still streaming.

his eyebrows furrowed and his lips formed a pout, his olive green eyes bearing into the back of your head as you felt his need for your love and attention increase by a hundredfold. you told the chat you'd have to leave for a while to tend to your grumpy, overworked boy–but you didn't need to end the stream to give him your attention.

in a flash, iwaizumi picked you up, slung you over his shoulder–and much to your squeals and cries, he gently set you down on the bed and said in a gruff voice, "sleep. you've been at this for hours, and i've been needing you for the whole day. let them watch, just sleep with me, babe."

"DID YOU SEE THOSE BICEPS?"

"oh to be carried by a man like that... (◠‿◕)"

"i demand to be loved like this NOW 💥💥💥"

"and you'd better not be thinking of squirming out of my grasp." he grumbled as he wrapped his big, bulging arm around your waist, nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck. well... this was gonna be the longest stream you've ever had.

miya osamu.

"have ya eaten, sweetpea? you've been in front of the computer all day, hon."

you nearly jumped out of your computer chair when osamu came by, with a plateful of your favorite food for dinner. he understood that your job had quite hectic schedules, and he supports you wholeheartedly; though he does wish you won't forget to feed yourself and take a break every now and then.

you tried to whisper to him that you were currently streaming, but he didn't see that as a reason not to eat. "ah, what do i care if you have people watchin' ya right now? it ain't obscene ta eat, if anythin', y'all better tell m'sweet t'eat, set yer clocks to remind 'er ta eat, that way she will." osamu told your audience, with them all agreeing, making him smile down at you as you stared at him, embarrassed that he made your audience remind you to eat.

"you heard him, SET YOUR CLOCKS GUYS"

"DON'T THINK IT'S UNIMPORTANT TO EAT, EAT UP GIRLIE !!!"

"please don't forget to eat for our sake 😭😭😭"

"now, eat up hon." he tells you softly, leaving a kiss on the side of your head, making your audience go crazy over how affectionate and caring your boyfriend was for you.

#kuroo tetsurou #sugawara koushi #iwaizumi hajime #osamu miya #haikyuu #haikyuu!! #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu fanfiction #haikyuu imagines #haikyuu x female reader #haikyuu scenarios #kuroo x reader #haikyuu kuroo #sugawara x reader #sugawara kōshi #haikyuu sugawara #iwaizumi x reader #haikyuu iwaizumi #osamu miya x reader #osamu miya imagines

[secretgamergirl]

How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

#computers #computer science #history #electronics #education #relays #transistors #vacuum tubes

[secretmelanie]

Desire For The Forbidden - Negan Smith

dbsf!negan x reader

word count: 3,3k

A/N: First of all, I have to apologize for accidentally posting this before, because I'm fucking stupid and I don't know how to use tumblr properly (yeah, I didn't go through that phase when I was a teen...)

But well... Shit happens to everyone 🤷🏻

This is the first time I've written a TWD fic and the first time I've published a fanfic... I have no idea how this is going to turn out. This story is just something that was in my crazy little head.

Warnings: Teasing, age gap (reader is 23, negan is mid 40s), fingering, face fucking, semi-public sex, unprotected sex, cum play, p in v, dirty talk, praise, rough negan

━━⊱✿⊰━━

Your father and Negan have been friends for as long as they can remember, Negan held you when you were a baby, took care of you when your parents were busy and he was your gym teacher throughout high school.

When the outbreak began and you lost your mother to the rotters, or "walkers" as you call them nowadays, You and your father fled their city, ending up moving away Negan, not hearing from him for a long time, thinking he had died.

Almost a year after it all started, you came across a group called The Saviors, and your reunion with Negan came to light. You and your father didn't expect to see Negan in this situation, a powerful and dangerous leader, who had communities in his hands.

Now, you guys live in the Sanctuary, your dad is one of Negan's "henchmen," and you're, well, you. Negan hasn't given you any trouble since you arrived, you basically help the weakest people in the Sanctuary to protect themselves and slash walkers when the Saviors let you out. It's quite boring to be honest.

Well, it WAS quite boring.

Your room and your father's room were on the same block as Negan's, since you are very close. This can be counted as both an advantage and a disadvantage. An advantage because it is an extremely protected and safe place, and a disadvantage because you had to deal with the noise that came from his room when he was with his wives.

One day, it was pretty late and the top of the Sanctuary was practically empty, your father and Negan were celebrating with a bottle of whiskey the acquisition of another community. You were with them, just watching them and listening to their conversations, with a glass of wine in your hand, practically the only thing you drink, as it was the only thing your mother drank. You can't help but notice the way Negan's throat moves as he swallows the drink, how the liquid sometimes runs down the corner of his lips and onto his neck and how he licked his lips after. "He had no right to be so hot." you thought, as you took a sip of your wine.

A few hours passed and your father crawled into bed, and Negan went to a small room that contained a TV and a couch, a room that only the three of you had access to.

You saw him heading there, and decided it would be a good idea to go with him, but first, you needed to get comfortable.

You put on your pajamas, a tight white shorts and a tight white tank top, the print on them is some black kittens. These pajamas highlight your curves and breasts, and it's pretty clear that you're not wearing panties or bra. You know damn well how wrong what you're going to do is, but hey, is it your fault that Negan is so fucking hot? No, it isn't.

After changing, you go to the small room where Negan is, he's sprawled out on the couch, legs spread, and a glass of whiskey in his hand. You look at the TV, but completely ignore the movie that was playing. Some VHS tapes are scattered near the TV.

Negan looks at you, you notice his eyes roam your body and he takes a sip of the drink in his hand.

"Hey, kiddo... It's pretty late, I thought you were already asleep." he says, his voice a little hoarse from drinking. Unlike what he does with his wives, blatantly looking at their bodies, he avoids checking out your body, focusing on your face.

You shrug, sitting next to him, and he closes his legs, looking at you. "I'm not sleepy." You respond, resting your head on his shoulder.

"What film is that?" you almost whisper, looking up at him and meeting his eyes, You notice that he is avoiding touching you as much as possible, something that is definitely not normal for Negan when it comes to a woman desiring him, but you completely understand him, after all, you are his best friend's daughter.

"Just a stupid western movie, we don't have much choice here." you nod to his anwser, your eyes focusing on the TV.

You notice that his eyes are now focused on your body, roaming over your curves and your breasts, focusing on your cleavage, but you ignore it completely, pretending to be focused on the movie. He keeps checking you out, and you smile inside, everything is going according to how you planned.

After a few minutes, you stretch and spread your legs a little, getting more comfortable next to him. Negan obviously notices this, and he holds his breath, biting his lip. He takes his free hand to your thigh, as if he didn't want anything, and you ignore it too, as if just one touch from him wouldn't make you melt inside and your intimacy get soaked. You hug his chest, your hand passing teasingly across his stomach until it reaches the other side of his body, moving closer to him.

"Why don't we find something else to do, sweetie?" he clears his throat before saying it with a little mischief in his voice. "Oh, sure..." you get up from the couch, crossing your arms, highlighting your breasts even more. "I'm going to sleep." a smile spreads in your face as you say this and he frowns.

Your body moves closer to his again, and you lean down, kissing his forehead, your cleavage right in front of his face.

He looks a little shocked when you pull away, and you smile at him, saying goodnight and leaving the room, closing the door. Negan couldn't help but look at your ass when you left, your shorts barely covering that area of ​​your body.

When you closed the door, you stood there, and you could hear Negan saying "Damn, she's going to drive me crazy someday." and the sound of his pants zipper opening, followed by the noise of his pants being removed, and a sigh of relief, which you deduced was when he touched himself. You stayed there for a while, listening to Negan's low moans, and smiled when you heard your name escape those lips.

You walked to your room smiling, your intimacy wet from hearing him moan your name, which made you satisfy yourself before going to sleep. Your plan is working.

You woke up the next morning, and headed to the meeting room, which was where you, your father, and Negan usually had breakfast together. You were no longer wearing your pajamas from the night before, but a pair of sweatpants and a loose blouse, which you stole from your father when the outbreak began and you barely had any clothes to change.

Negan and your father were talking about the group's achievements, and you sat next to Negan, greeting them.

They both said good morning to you, and continued talking. You pick up an apple and bite into it, the fruit probably came from some group, you feel a little bad about consuming products taken from other communities, but you couldn't do anything about it.

You listened to their conversation for a long time, until you felt Negan's hand on your thigh, smoothing it and squeezing it lightly. You ignored it, once again pretending that it didn't make your whole body shiver. Everything was going well, until Negan looked at you for half a second, and his hand touched your intimate area, still covered by your pants, caressing it gently, you didn't know how to react, you thought it would take him a while to create the courage to do that out of respect for your father, especially since you two were in front of him, you just opened your legs a bit, giving him permission to continue. He smirked, and quickly got his hand into your pants and panties.

His fingers began to explore your pussy, gently passing through your folds, and his thumb caressed your clit, as he teased your entrance with his index and middle finger. You had to control yourself, because your father is on the other side of the table, but this is so difficult, since now Negan's fingers are slowly entering you.

Your eyes are focused on the wall in front of you as you try to control your breathing and eat your apple normally, but when his fingers get knuckles deep inside you and curl, you let out a gasp, having to pretend that you choke on the apple when your father asks what happened, earning a chuckle from Negan.

Your intimacy is increasingly wet, and this makes it easier for Negan, who fucks you with his fingers, going as deep as he can, reaching your g-spot, and increasing the speed of his thrusts. You do your best not to moan, your breathing is labored, and a drop of sweat runs down your forehead, you notice how slow your father is, because he didn't notice your strangeness, but you and Negan are obviously grateful for that. Your thoughts don't stay on that for long, as Negan's stimulation brings you closer and closer to your orgasm, making you bite your bottom lip hard, causing your lower lip to bleed a little.

Your orgasm hits hard, and you close your eyes tightly, your legs shaking and your body squirming surreptitiously, as you try as hard as you can to not moan, causing a small noise to come out of your throat. Negan gives a satisfied smile, and only now do you pay attention to what they were talking about again, your father is going out with some of the Saviors, to look for other communities, deep down you hope they don't find any, but you know that not everything goes as you expect.

You finished your breakfast feeling Negan's eyes on you, but every time you looked at him, he wasn't even looking at you. Your father got up after finishing his coffee, and kissed you on the forehead, leaving the place.

Negan looks at me as I take a sip of my orange juice. "Have you seen the time, sweetie? I can't believe you woke up so late..." he teases you, since you're always one of the first person to wake up in the Sanctuary.

"I don't believe you woke up early, Negan, since you stayed busy late." you say it back, and he understands right away that you know that he jerked off thinking about you, and it definitely doesn't bother him.

"Oh damn, you heard it, huh?" his tone of voice is provocative, and he has that fucking smirk on his face. "What did you think, did you like it, sweetie? I know you did..." you just roll your eyes when he says that. "If I say no, I'll be lying."

And that was it, that was the trigger for him to get up, pick you up and take you to his room.

"What the hell are you doing?" you ask, trying to get down, making him chuckle. "Shit, sweetie, you teased me like hell last night, and now you don't want me to fuck that delicious pussy of yours? You let me finger you and now you don't want me to feel your pussy contracting around my dick like I felt it around my fingers? Damn, you're selfish, huh?" he opens the door to his room, entering and closing it with his foot, placing you on his bed, looking down at you.

You feel your cheeks blush, and you avoid eye contact with him, he certainly notices this, and holds your chin, making you look at him. "Are you embarrassed now? It doesn't even look like you were almost naked in front of me, and rubbing your fucking tits in my face when you went to say goodnight." you bite your lip as he says this, and takes a deep breath, you really didn't expect Negan to react this way so soon, apparently he doesn't even care that you're his best friend's daughter.

"You were a bad girl, you know that? Teasing me like that... Damn, I never thought I'd want to fuck someone as much as I want to fuck you" you couldn't help but end up smirking, licking your lips as you looked at him. Negan pulled you close, kissing you with so much intensity that surprised you, but you quickly kissed him back, moaning into the kiss when his tongue touched yours. He makes you lie down on bed, and he climbed on top of you, kissing you violently, while his hands hungrily explored your body, making you moan and squirm when he gave your right breast a hard squeeze. The man pull away from the kiss by biting your bottom lip hard, and he starts to attack the skin of your neck, sucking it, leaving red marks all over your neck and throat. He quickly removes your shirt, biting his lip as he sees your bare torso.

"Fuck, sweetie, you're so fucking beautiful." he sighs, before sucking one of your breasts while his hand massaged the other, he did it in a delirious way, your pussy desperate for his touch once again, as it gets wetter and wetter with every little thing he does to you.

"Negan, please..." you whispered, and he looks at you.

"Please what, doll?"

"F-fuck me, please..."

Negan chuckles, shaking his head.

"Don't think I'm going to do it before I fuck that pretty little mouth of yours..."

You moan at his words, imagining what it would be like to suck his dick, and you smiled.

"Let me suck you then, please, I want to taste you."

He smiled, there's no way he could deny a request like that, especially since you look so pretty asking for it. Then, Negan gets up, and you quickly do the same, kneeling in front of him, "Goddamn baby, are you that desperate for me?" you nod quickly, clumsily opening the button on his pants as he took off his jacket and t-shirt, throwing them on the bed. He had to help you remove hid pants, as your hands were shaking, making him more turned on than ever to see you so desperate to suck him.

As you pull down his pants, you see his dick almost slipping out of his underwear, and you quickly take off that last piece of clothing, his dick almost hits your face, and your mouth waters when you see it, he really wasn't lying when he talked about how big his dick was, you didn't know if you'd be able to make it all fit in your mouth.

You licked the tip, staring into his eyes, which sparkled as he looked back at you. You licked his entire length, and sucked the pink tip gently, making him let out a sigh. You spat on his dick, letting your saliva run from the head to the base, and began to slowly masturbate him, sometimes licking the head, teasing him, but you saw that he was getting impatient with so much teasing and little real action, so you take as much of his cock as you could in your mouth, and he moaned softly, grabbing your hair. You knew he would want to control it, so you opened your lips in an O shape and now he could make you suck him the way he wanted.

The hold on your hair became tighter, and he began to move his hips back and forth slowly, fucking your mouth. You didn't take your eyes off his. Negan quickly increased his speed, but he wasn't going deep enough to choke you, well, not yet.

He stopped for a few seconds, letting you run your tongue all over his cock again, and then he started moving again. His tip started to hit the back of your throat, and he stopped, forcing his cock deep, making you choke and your eyes water, but he didn't take it off, you tried to make him move away, but you couldn't, he stayed like that for a few more seconds, and took his dick out of your mouth, making you take a deep breath, still looking at him.

You kissed the head of his cock, and once again he fucked your mouth, his balls hitting your chin, while his tip reached the back of your throat, until you got used to it and stopped gagging. The noises he made were like music to your ears, he moaned hoarsely and praised you, pulling your hair hard.

When his orgasm hit him, he left his dick buried in your throat, his cum filling your mouth and you swallowed it all. He took his dick from your lips, and lifted you up, holding your chin. "Open your mouth for me, sweetie." you obeyed, and he smiled proudly, "That's it, darling, you swallowed it all", he kissed you deeply, feeling his own taste in your mouth, but he broke the kiss too quickly, biting his lips as he looked at you.

"Lie face up on the bed." you obeyed again, he opened your legs and removed your sweatpants, looking at the puddle in your panties.

"Damn, sweetie... You're soaked. That's all for me, huh? How cute." you just nodded, and he teasingly brushed the tip of his dick against your pussy, which was unfortunately still covered by your panties.

"Negan..." you're almost begging.

"What, princess?"

"P-please..."

"Please what? Use your words."

"Fuck me, fuck me until I can't barely walk." you begged, and he ripped your panties, throwing them away, and penetrated you deep without warning, making you feel like you've been torn apart, and you moan with him.

"Damn baby, you're exactly how I though you would be, so fucking delicious..." he moans, starting to move, not caring if it was hurting you or not, because he knows that that annoying pain will soon become immense pleasure.

He picked up the pace quickly, thrusting into you deep and hard, almost drooling as he heard your moans and saw your breasts swaying in rhythm with his thrusts.

He leaned over you, getting into a position that made him hit your g-spot again and again, making you almost scream as he was going as fast as he could. You hugged him, and he began to leave marks on your neck as he fucked you violently, one hand on one of your breasts and the other holding your hip so hard that it would mark you.

You feel a delicious and somewhat desperate feeling in your stomach, your orgasm coming quickly, making you bite his shoulder hard while scratching his back, your liquids dripping down his cock, making him moan as your pussy got even wetter now.

Your breaths were labored, and just by the way he moaned and fucked you, not caring that you had just reached your peak, you realized he was close too.

He went to take his dick out of you when the time was coming, but you didn't let him, you want him to cum inside you.

"What a naughty girl, do you want me to fill you up?" you nodded desperately, looking deep into his eyes, and so he did, He continued fucking you until he came and filled you, making you throw your head back at the sensation.

He slowly came out of you, and took two of his fingers to your pussy, taking some of his cum that was mixed with your juices, and brought it to your lips, you opened them, and sucked his fingers, tasting your mixed fluids.

He smirked, and looked at your pussy, his cum dripping from it, and he pushed back inside.

"Keep my cum inside you, sweetie." you just nodded, looking at him, his hair is wet, and his breathing labored, just like yours.

He lay down next to you, and you quickly hugged him, resting your head on his chest, sighing.

"That was so fucking wrong" you muttered, and he nodded, shruging.

"It was, but I don't give a fuck."

"Yeah, me neither."

#the walking dead #twd #jeffrey dean morgan #jeffrey dean morgan smut #negan smith smut #twd smut #negan smith #smut #twd negan #twd x reader #negan x reader

[candycandy00]

The Doll House - A Gojo x Reader Fanfic Part 4 (Final)

You sell yourself to the Doll House to pay your mom’s medical expenses, only to discover your trainer is the guy who bullied you relentlessly in high school: Gojo Satoru.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Read Geto’s Part Here!

Read Toji’s Part Here!

Read Nanami’s Part Here!

Read Sukuna’s Part Here!

Read Choso’s Part Here!

Note: Please remember that these stories don’t take place at the same time, or even one after the other! Consider each one its own timeline. So if you see Geto and Toji with other dolls, don’t be alarmed lol. I had to do it this way because if I don’t, by the time I get to the last trainer, there won’t be any other trainers left to interact with!

AU! Each trainer will get their own story! This is Gojo’s. If you’d like to be tagged in future parts, let me know! You must be an adult to be tagged! Any feedback whatsoever is adored!

Smut. 18+. Fem Reader. Chubby Reader. Dubcon. Pet Play. Bullying. Collars/Leashes. Fingering. Anal sex. Vaginal sex. Bondage. Dildos. Humiliation. Oral sex. Tons and tons of cum. Gojo being an asshole.

Gojo looks confused, as if you just spoke a different language to him. “Hurting you? Was I too rough with the training? I’m sorry, I thought you liked-“

“No, not the training!” you yell. The training was the only part of this whole thing you enjoyed. “It’s all the sarcastic remarks about me being cute or little or ‘highlighting my best features’! Saying all those things when I know what you really think of me! And now saying you love me?! You want to keep me?! How stupid do you think I am? How cruel do you have to be to try to get my hopes up just so you can laugh at me?!”

“What are you talking about?” he asks. “Why would I try to trick you? I wasn’t being sarcastic! Fuck, why are you so insecure?!”

You stare at him with your mouth dropped open, totally stunned. “You made me this way!” you scream, tears flooding your eyes. “You gave me this insecurity!”

He actually looks offended. “How?!”

“You made fun of my looks for two years! You, the most beautiful person in the school, laughed at me, said horrible things about my clothes and body, gave me that awful nickname, made me feel ugly and disgusting… made me hate myself!”

“I never made fun of your looks!” he says, his voice getting loud. “I thought you were beautiful! Why would I make fun of your looks?!”

“You called me Chubby Bunny!”

“It’s a cute nickname!”

You shake your head in disbelief. “Even if you thought that, didn’t you notice that everyone was laughing at me because of it? You started that! And you laughed right along with the others! You made my life hell!”

He draws back as if he’s been slapped. “I… I just teased you… I-“

“That was more than teasing, Gojo! I was terrified of you! You were my boogeyman. If I heard your voice coming down the hall, I ducked into a room or hid around a corner until you were gone, because I was so afraid of what you would say or do to me!”

“What? No! I never hurt you! I couldn’t have… I was crazy about you!”

You can’t believe what you’re hearing. Is he actually rewriting history to make himself feel better? “What about when you tripped me in the hallway? I twisted my ankle. I couldn’t even get up by myself. Geto had to help me! And while I was on the floor, another boy walked by and said I looked like a seal! A few of them made seal barking noises at me for days after that!”

The outrage in his expression is gone, replaced by a look of uncertainty. “I didn’t know anyone said that. I was just joking around. I tripped my friends all the time, even Shoko! I just wanted to see your reaction.”

“So you saw it,” you say, your voice a little more quiet now. “Did you enjoy it? Watching me limp away in tears?”

“No! I actually felt bad about it, I swear! I even thought about apologizing, but Suguru said I should just leave you alone.”

“But you didn’t leave me alone, did you? You took my things, you made constant comments about my clothes. You laughed so loud whenever I made a mistake in class or even dropped a pencil, which got everyone else laughing too. You made me the laughingstock of the class! Why did you do that to me?! What did I ever do to you?!”

He looks hurt, almost sad. “I wanted your attention. You always ignored me. Every girl in the whole school paid attention to me, except the one girl I wanted. And the only way I could get that was to make you mad. I just… wanted you to look at me.” 

“I did look at you then, didn’t I?” you ask. “I looked at you with fear. You made me dread going to school.”

“I’m sorry,” he says, taking one step toward you. “I didn’t realize I hurt you so much. I was just a dumb kid back then. I can make it up to you, I can-“

“No, Gojo, you can’t.” Tears are running down your face. You wipe them with the back of your hand before going on. “Do you remember when you grabbed that love letter I was about to put in someone’s locker, and read it out loud?”

He flinches. He definitely remembers. “Yeah, and I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have done that, I know!”

“There’s something you don’t know about that letter,” you say. “I actually wrote it two years before that. I wrote it for you, back when I was in love with you. But I was too shy to even anonymously sneak it into your locker. I was afraid you would somehow find out it was from me, and be disgusted. But I couldn’t throw it away, just like I couldn’t completely throw away my feelings for you, no matter how badly you treated me. So I held onto it. And when I started liking someone else, I realized all those same feelings applied to him. So I tried to drop it in his locker. But you grabbed it, and read it, and laughed. What you were laughing at, Gojo, were my feelings for you!”

Horror is written on his face. He has the same expression as someone who has just been informed that a family member has been in an accident. “I didn’t know… I was jealous… I’m so sorry!”

You don’t engage with his apology. You don’t have the mental strength to do that right now, so you continue airing your feelings. “Even after graduating, I had a complex about my body. I wouldn’t let anyone see me naked, not even my boyfriend. He probably broke up with me because of my hang ups. Eventually I was able to bury my feelings for you, the love and the hate. But then… I came here…” you say, your voice breaking as you begin crying again. “And all those feelings came rushing back to me! I worked so hard to forget about you! And now… now my heart is in tatters!”

There’s a flicker of light in his eyes. “So you do have feelings for me! Even now!”

You scoff, wiping your eyes again. “Yes, but that’s the problem! Loving you is hurting me! Because it makes me feel low and weak and pathetic. I even started feeling lucky that someone as perfect as you could hold back their disgust long enough to fuck me.”

“Don’t say that!” he practically yells, his face twisted in pain. “This whole time I thought I was the lucky one! Fuck, I’ve practically been permanently hard since you got here! I spent my high school years dreaming of touching you. Even when I’ve been training dolls, even when I was fucking them, I imagined they were you!”

You shake your head. “It’s too late. You already did the damage. I can’t be your doll. Whether you knew it or not, you’ve owned me for far too long. I can’t let you literally, legally own me for ten more years. It would destroy me.”

He seems to be at a loss for words, his eyes shimmering and wet, like he’s about to cry. 

You wipe your face again. “I can’t stay in here tonight. If you touch me, I might crumble. If you’re serious about feeling anything at all for me, you won’t do that to me. I’ll ask the owner if I can sleep in one of the empty rooms.”

“No, I’ll go. You can stay here,” he says, his voice unusually gentle. He grabs a few things and then heads for the door. Before stepping out, he looks at you again. “I really am sorry,” he says to you, and then he’s gone. 

************************

Not long after, Gojo is knocking on Suguru’s door, not caring what he might be interrupting. It takes a few minutes for his friend to answer, his long hair slightly messy and his face annoyed. “What is it, Satoru?” 

Gojo doesn’t even say anything, just looks at him. 

Suguru’s eyes narrow. “Let me guess. You told her you’re keeping her and she told you to go to hell.”

“It was so much worse than that!” Gojo practically whines. 

With a sigh, Suguru says, “Let me clean up in here and I’ll meet you in the dining hall.”

An hour later, the two friends are sitting at a table, cups of tea in front of them. Gojo has told Suguru every word of the conversation he had with his doll, twice. 

Suguru takes another sip from his cup. “I tried to warn you when she first got here, but you wouldn’t listen. You never listen.”

Gojo is leaning over the table, his head on his arms. “I thought it would work out. I thought making her fall in love with me again would be easy. And it sort of was. She said she still has feelings for me!”

“Yes, you’ve mentioned that part a dozen times already,” Suguru says, sitting his cup back on the table. “But for her, you’re the person who ruined her life just to get attention. Loving you only makes her feel worse. I don’t blame her for wanting to get away from you.”

Gojo looks up. “But I didn’t know! I didn’t know so many other people were making fun of her because of stuff I did, I didn’t know about the letter. I didn’t know I was hurting her so much!”

“Now you know,” Suguru tells him. “The question is, now that you know, what are you going to do about it?”

************************

The next morning, you wake up in Gojo’s bed. It smells like him, and you can’t help remembering all the things you’ve done in this bed with him. 

But it’s over now. You’re going to talk to the owner and tell her to find a buyer for you as soon as possible. Gojo can move on to his next doll and hopefully both of you can put this whole mess behind you. 

The owner agrees to meet you in the welcome room to discuss your situation, and you find her standing in the center of the room. A folder is tucked under her arm.  

You open your mouth to speak to her, but Gojo suddenly rushes in. “Did you bring it?” he asks the owner, not even looking at you. 

The owner opens the folder and pulls out a paper. “Here it is, her contract. She is now your doll.”

“Wait!” you yell, confused and angry. How dare he do this after everything you said last night! You read your contract, you know you can reject him as your owner if you give sufficient reason. You’re pretty sure your history with Gojo would qualify. Still, the fact that he’s ignoring your wishes makes you livid. 

Before you can approach him, he turns to face you and holds your contract up in front of him. “You probably won’t believe me, but I planned to do this from the very start.”

With that, he rips the contract into tiny pieces and lets them fall to the floor. 

You freeze, watching the shreds of paper falling before your eyes. 

“You’re free,” he says. “You’re not a doll anymore.”

Your eyes widen. The owner sighs and shakes her head, saying, “Gojo, do you understand what you’re doing? This was your one doll to keep. You can’t ever pick another.”

“I know. I’ll never want another doll anyway,”

he says, then looks at you again. “I know this doesn’t make up for what I did to you, but I hope it can be a start.”

You feel your eyes becoming wet again. You’re free! You don’t have to give up ten years of your life after all! You glance at Gojo, unsure of what to say. 

“I never wanted to own you,” he says, his face a little sad. “I just want you to be happy. If you believe anything I’ve told you, believe that.”

“I… uh…” you flounder for a moment, trying to decide what words to use before finally settling on, “Thank you.”

He smiles at you. “Maybe someday, if you want to, we could try being friends? No pressure or anything. Just think about it.”

You nod, somewhat dazed. In the end, you leave with his phone number and return to your normal life. 

It takes over a month for you to text him. Just an awkward, “How are you?” that he replies to within seconds. You can almost feel his excitement to hear from you. 

“I quit my job as a trainer,” he tells you. “I just wasn’t all that into it anymore.”

You wonder if it’s because of what happened between the two of you, but don’t ask. A small part of you is relieved that he doesn’t currently have some other woman on a leash in his room. 

For the next couple of weeks, you and Gojo talk via text and phone calls. He never asks to meet up, and never tries to pressure you in any way. You do discuss your past some more, calmly this time. He listens quietly to everything you say, apologizes over and over, and (only when you’re ready to hear it) explains why he did all those things. 

His reasons were so childish and petty, it makes you realize he was just fifteen or sixteen years old when he did those things. Maybe it’s not fair to keep punishing someone for things they did at that age, if they’re trying to make it right as an adult. 

One night you have another anemic spell, and your friend is at work. The only family you have is your mother, and she’s still hospitalized. Nervously, you text Gojo. He’s already told you to let him know if you ever need anything, but the thought of seeing him face to face again makes you uneasy. 

Still, he shows up at your door in a flash, a bag full of food and DVD’s hanging on his arm. Seeing him standing there in your living room, so tall and so beautiful, makes your heart race.

“Did you faint again?” he asks, looking so worried. 

“No, I just felt dizzy and weak,” you tell him. 

“Then just relax,” he says with a smile. “I’ll take care of you.”

And he does. He cooks for you, brings you hot tea, and sits on the couch with you watching movies. He stays until the next morning, and you’re a little surprised that he never tried to tempt you into sleeping with him. You remember that the last time you weren’t feeling well, he did the same thing. 

To be honest, you’re a little disappointed. 

After that, the two of you are officially friends. You talk often, always checking in on each other’s days, getting to know each other’s habits and schedules. 

The friendship doesn’t last long. 

The first time you go to his place to “hang out just as friends”, both of you give in. 

One minute you’re sitting on his couch, laughing and talking, and the next you’re wrapped in his arms, his tongue in your mouth, his hands tugging at your clothes. 

He spreads you out naked on the cushions and eats your pussy like a man starved, saying how much he missed you, missed tasting you, missed watching you cum. He goes at it for over an hour, making you climax so many times you practically forget how to speak, only able to whimper and gasp. 

Then, he fucks your ass, absolutely railing you. You’re so overstimulated by this point that you just want him inside you, no matter what hole he uses. Overwhelmed by your own feelings, you start crying. Gojo holds you close to him, hugging you gently, rubbing your hair, whispering sweet words into your ear as he fucks you relentlessly. 

“It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re so beautiful. Feels so good inside you… Fuck, you’re incredible!”

You know what he’s doing, and it only makes you even more emotional. He wants you to know what he thinks of you. He doesn’t want you to question how attractive he finds you. He doesn’t want you to feel insecure. 

The two of you begin dating after that. You couldn’t ask for a sweeter, more supportive boyfriend. He takes care of you, pampers you, treats you like a queen. He even goes with you to visit your mom in the hospital. And through all this, you feel like you’re finally beginning to heal. 

And when the two of you are alone, and very horny, sometimes you go back to being his Bunny. Not Chubby Bunny, he’s never called you that since finding out how much it bothered you, but just Bunny. 

Right now, you’re in the living room of his apartment, all the curtains closed and the door locked. You’re wearing your collar, bunny ears, and thigh high stockings, and nothing else. Your hands are handcuffed in front of you, and you’re on your hands and knees, your legs trembling as you crawl toward Gojo, who is tugging on your leash. 

It’s hard to crawl with two huge dildos shoved inside you, one in each hole, both of them vibrating and rotating wildly. Earlier, Gojo got on his knees behind you and jacked off until ready to cum. Then he stuck just the tip into your pussy and filled it full. With his fingers, he scooped up the cum that leaked out and pushed it into your ass. Then he put the dildos in, leaving them to churn and stir up his cum, telling you not to let them fall out. 

It feels so good, being full of his cum, the sensation of it swirling inside you. But there’s one more hole that hasn’t had any yet. So you crawl between his spread thighs while he sits on the couch, looking down at you lovingly. You nuzzle his clothed crotch with your face and say, “Please fill my mouth, Satoru~”

You’ve only recently started calling him that. It felt a little weird at first, after calling him Gojo for all these years, but you love the effect it has on him when you purr out his name like that. 

You hear his breath catch in his throat, but he manages to compose himself. “Such a naughty, greedy Bunny! I’ve already filled two of your holes! Why don’t I just put the third dildo in your mouth?”

“No, please! The real thing… in my mouth… please,” you whine, staring up at him with glossy eyes. “Your cock tastes so good, Satoru… please feed me your cum!”

His eyes go wide, and you can just barely hear him mutter, “Holy fucking fuck!”

You’ve leaned by now that he’s totally weak to your begging. You’re the one handcuffed and leashed, but Gojo would move heaven and earth to please you, to watch you lose yourself to pleasure. 

“Th-then I guess I’ll fill that pretty mouth,” he says, his hands fumbling with his pants in his hurry to get them open. He stands up, towering over you. There’s a faint blush across his pale features, and he’s breathing a little harder than usual as he pulls out his cock. You open your lips, your tongue partially out. He grins. “You’re gonna have to open wider than that, Bunny, or this huge dick won’t fit.”

You lick your lips, then open your mouth wider, and he immediately shoves in. He fucks your mouth, thrusting into it, hitting the back of your throat, groaning when your tongue laps at every inch it can reach. 

“F-fuck! Your fucking mouth… so good…”

These moments together are so much hotter now that you can fully enjoy them, knowing he finds you irresistible. It makes you feel sexy, desired, loved. Knowing you can make him lose his mind gets you wet every time. 

Just when your jaw is starting to get sore, he pulls out so that he’s barely in your mouth, and shoots his load inside it. There’s so much! 

“Don’t swallow it yet,” he says, his face slightly red, his hair messy. He grabs the third dildo and pushes it into your mouth, turning it on low so that it can slowly stir his cum in your mouth, spreading it to every inch. Then he stands back and watches as all three of your holes, full of his seed, are fucked by the gyrating toys. 

You moan around the dildo in your mouth, locking eyes with him. He’s panting, his eyes wild with desire. Before your eyes, his cock gets hard again, standing tall and gorgeous just like him. 

He drops to his knees behind you and uses his hand to pump the dildo in your ass, in and out, making obscene squelching noises. With his other hand, you feel him pull the dildo out of your pussy. He holds it up, and you look at it over your shoulder. It’s dripping with his cum and your wetness. 

“Gotta be inside this pussy,” he mumbles, and then he’s thrusting into you, deep and hard enough to make your body jerk with his motions. You’re sore from being fucked by the dildos, which are almost as big as Gojo’s cock, but you wouldn’t pass this up for anything in the world. He pushes the dildo into your ass to the same rhythm as he fucks your pussy, making your eyes roll back as you release muffled cries. 

Gojo is grunting behind you, losing himself, babbling out words. 

“Fuck… fuck… I love you so much… this cock belongs to you… every ounce of my cum belongs to you… everything I am… yours…”

He thrusts in deep enough to make you scream, and shoots loads of hot cum into your core. After pulling out, he quickly pulls out the dildo in your ass, sticks his cock in, and shoots out the rest of his load. 

He’s panting as he turns you over, so that you’re lying on your back, your legs splayed, creamy cum dripping out of both holes. He reaches over and gently pulls the dildo from your mouth, watching as your tongue continues to lick at it, collecting any remaining cum from the sticky object. 

“Just how much do you love my cum?” he asks, staring down at you in awe. 

You run your tongue around the edge of your mouth. “It’s delicious,” you say. 

“God, you’re beautiful,” he says, pulling you up and unfastening the collar. 

You snuggle into his arms as he helps you to the bathroom, enjoying how incredibly sweet he is during after care. 

The two of you have come a long way.  Even now, you’re not certain you’ve one hundred percent forgiven him. And occasionally you remember something terrible he did to you and it makes you uncomfortable around him for a few days. But he’s putting in the work to make it up to you, and you’re having a wonderful time enjoying being his girlfriend. You couldn’t ask for a happier ending than that. 

Tag List:

@suguguro @kaedear @onyxsphynx @poopoobuttsy @butterskyy @collectionofdolls @akaotv @witchbybirth @bloofinntoona @wasurenagusaa @tclbts @tojirin @lucyrocks86 @badbyeyoongi @97britt @aydene @lzaj19 @lyn-lotte @missthatgirl @peachedtv @ladytamayolover @nanam1nx @deegausserr @voids-universe @hinata7346 @maflorex @issracollen @xkittiecatx @ryumurin @emrys3456 @mysecretesc8pe @typicalloser3 @gabriiiiiiii @fvsm4x @tyunhyukamyloves @rottmntrulesall

#gojo x reader #gojo #gojo satoru #gojo smut #gojo satoru smut #jjk x reader #jjk smut #x reader

[aestheticaltcow]

The Social Media Manager: The Series (Part 2)

Another installment of the social media manager series

Another shout out to @thebearsoc for the inspiration!

The Moodboard/OG blurb

Part 1 Introductions and Donuts

Meetings, Meetings, Meetings

~

“Wait, wait, wait-” Richie started rubbing a hand against the back of his head, “You’re tellin’ me, Marcus’s party girl 20-somethin’ year old friend is getting access to our social media? That’s bull, and you know it, Natalie.”  

Natalie rolled her eyes and glanced in Marcus’s direction, “Marcus, Rusty has done this before, right?”  he nodded before explaining, “Nat, Richie, I’m tellin’ ya’, Rusty is really good at this shit. Just give her a shot.” 

Carmy entered the sitting area of The Bear and sat next to Natalie without saying anything, “I don’t think we can afford this, Marcus. I’m sure Rusty is a wonderful social media manager, but the budgets tight.” Natalie sighed, staring at her computer screen.

 “That's the thing- you guys have a hookup.” Marcus grinned, hoping that this would be enough of a selling point. “Rusty owes me one. She’d probably do the setup for free, and I can do all the posting. She helped me redo my account when I came back from Cophegan- I went from like 100 followers to like 1,000 in a month.” 

Carmy looked around the group before nodding in Marcus’s direction, “Call her.”

Carmy stood up and walked out of the dining area through the kitchen and into the office, where his phone had been plugged in to charge. He quickly opened his phone, went to the seldomly used Instagram app, typed in your handle, and smiled as your account came up. He’d been Instagram stalking you since he’d heard Marcus giving Syd your handle. She’d laughed about it being a reference to a K-pop group he’d never heard of; granted, he’d never really listened to any of those groups. So far, he’d learned that you have an eclectic taste in music, an affinity for putting googly eyes on potted plants, a love for fancy coffees with overpriced pastries, and had, in fact, known Marcus since high school. He liked your style. There was something free about it; he admired your creativity. Carmy took notes about you through the account. Your highlight reels being indicative of your personality, the ‘Rusty cooking??’ highlight reel was particularly traumatizing. He wondered how you’d gotten into your 20s without knowing how to actually chop an onion, but he could show you how to do it properly; just the idea of that made his heart flutter. Carmy was incredibly attracted to you, but when you’d posted a boomerang of you kissing a guy’s cheek and tagged the guy’s account with a heart emoji, he was worried this would be another unrequited crush. 

When you walked into The Bear the next day in a pair of trousers with your hair up and a pair of glasses perched on your nose, Carmy felt like his heart was going to explode. He beelined for the bathroom to make sure he didn’t have anything in his teeth and washed his hands in an attempt to get the smell of cigarettes off his hands before going to talk to you. 

“So that’s what I would recommend doing for TikTok. The algorithm is tricky, but once you get on its good side, it can be really great publicity.” Carmy swallowed as he listened to you explain your strategy to Natalie and Richie. Natalie seemed impressed, while Richie seemed wary. “This is all really great Rusty. Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.” Natalie smiled as she shuffled a pile of documents into a yellow folder. You shrugged and responded with a playful laugh before explaining that work had been slow at the moment, so you had some extra free time to take a peak at the analytics you could see without access to the account details. 

After Richie and Natalie said their goodbyes, Richie was still seemingly cold toward hiring a social media manager and you in general. The two of them discussed it as they walked toward the kitchen. Carmy waited until they had walked through the kitchen door before approaching you. If he struck out with you he’d prefer not to do it within earshot of his sister and Richie; he’d never live it down. “Hey.” Carmy greeted awkwardly, rocking on his heels.

You smiled back, “Hey you. Long time no see.” Carmy blushed at your flirtatious tone. “How you doin’ Carmy? Spendin’ a lot of time on Instagram, huh?” 

Carmy needed some clarification on the comment. You noticed and giggled before explaining, “You liked a picture on my account from like two years ago.” Carmy tightly grinned out of embarrassment. He hesitantly nodded, “Uh yeah—Marcus recommended you do our social media stuff… I just wanted to check out what you post.” 

He hoped he saved himself, but self-doubt was taking over. He watched as you began twirling a strand of hair on your index finger. “It’s okay, Carmy. I think you’re cute, and I’m going out on Friday with a couple of friends… if you happen to show up at this bar across town called The White Rabbit, I might let you buy me a drink.” 

Carmy was speechless. He was by no means an experienced dater, and within that limited experience, he’d never had a girl come onto him like this. You noticed his awkwardness and found it endearing. “No pressure. You can also just call me sometime.”

 You pulled a Sharpie out of your bag and grabbed Carmy’s wrist to write your number across his forearm, “Bye, Carmy.” you winked before walking past him, making sure he’d get a whiff of your perfume. 

“B-bye Rus-sty.” Carmy managed to stutter out as he watched you walk out of the front entrance. He pushed the heel of his hand against his jaw. You were different, and it scared him, but also found it enchanting.

#the bear #carmen berzatto #carmy berzatto #carmen berzatto imagine #carmy the bear #carmen berzatto one shot #carmen berzatto x reader #carmy berzatto x reader #carmen berzatto x you #carmy berzatto imagine #carmen berzatto fluff #the bear fx #the bear hulu #the bear fic #marcus the bear #natalie the bear #richie jerimovich #sydney the bear

[katyawriteswhump]

Livin’ the dream (steddielovemonth day 3)

After High School, Eddie and Steve’s lives don’t exactly go as planned… For @steddielovemonth day 3 prompt: Love is being terrified but not letting that stop you from taking a leap (@unclewaynemunson) Thank you <3

Rating: M. CW: Unhealthy/abusive relationship (NOT steddie!) Tags: No Upside Down AU, angst. WC: 2,225

…

“I’d never have dreamed,” said Eddie one morning, during his daily stop at Dave’s Diner, “that Steve Harrington pouring my coffee would become the highlight of my day.”

Steve smirked. “Wasn’t exactly how I saw my future either, Munson.”

While Steve poured, Eddie left his hand on his coffee cup. He always did—even if the cup got too hot. Even if it scalded him. He’d not miss a chance to have Steve that close. Nor to enjoy staring at those lickable arms, today exposed to the shoulders by a snug-fitting vest top.

“I guess you really dig lousy weak coffee, man,” said Steve.

“Sets me up for a busy day fulfilling my childhood ambition of hauling bricks, darlin’.” He’d gotten away with ‘darlin’’ last week. Steve didn’t chew his head off today, either, so… “Living the dream, huh?”

Steve sighed hard, started wiping the counter near Eddie, over and over, as he always did. “How’s your pay?” asked Steve quietly.

“It’s a day rate. Not stellar, not the pits. Why? You looking for other work?” Panic rocked through Eddie. “You’re not leaving this place?” Though it would be awesome if we worked together. Eddie was already fantasising about those hot summer days on the construction site, when Steve might strip his shirt off.

“Nah, not really,” said Steve, “I’m kinda tied to this job.” He ran his free hand distractedly across his eyes. Tied to this job—what the heck did that mean? Steve often seemed world-weary and withdrawn. Incongruously so, given the confident guy he used to be. But that was adult life, so it seemed. It sucked.

All the same, Eddie experienced an uneasy urge to probe deeper. Steve got in first: “Hey, how’s the band?”

Eddie beamed. Yeah, there was one other thing, other than coffee with Steve, that he lived for: “We got a gig Saturday night.”

“Let me guess—the super bowl came begging?”

“Haha, just you wait, big guy. It’s at that new bar in town. You wanna come?”

Steve paused his scrubbing. Something sparked in the depths of those big, beguiling eyes that made Eddie’s throat tighten, and his pulse beat faster. “I’m working,” said Steve. I’ll try and get away aft—”

“Hey, kid! You gone blind or you really this lazy?” That was Steve’s boss, Dave, who’d gotten the biggest arms Eddie had ever seen. “There’s more than one punter in this place. If you can count that high?”

“Jesus, he can be such an a-hole,” mumbled Steve. He shot off, even as Eddie bleated: 

“See you tomorrow?”

…

Only seven people turn up for Corroded Coffin’s gig. It was a total dud, and Eddie didn’t give a shit. 

Among the seven, was Steve. 

The crappy too-bright venue lighting revealed Steve undressing Eddie with his eyes, as surely as Eddie undressed Steve. Eddie was so blown away, he almost messed up the finger work on his most bodacious solo.

After the final number, Eddie placed down his guitar and made a beeline for Steve: “Hey, you made it.”

“Figured I might as well. Jon Bon Jovi wasn’t returning my calls.” Steve snickered, and Eddie literally drooled. Metal thrummed through his every vein, and his blood rushed madly—most of it heading south. Steve Harrington CAME TO MY GIG AND STAYED FOR THE NON-EXISTENT AFTER-PARTY. Steve’s vest top was sadly missed, but his tight t-shirt still afforded Eddie a glimpse of that tasty chest hair, and the skin-tight jeans were… Gnnng! And as for the touch of eyeliner? 

Slayed Eddie dead.

“You wanna come backstage?” Eddie’s voice came out embarrassingly high-pitched.

“I’d like a drink. Preferably something stronger than coffee, and that I don’t have to pour.”

After his sixth shot, Eddie went in for the kill: “You are literally the hottest fucking thing I have ever goddamn seen.”

“Not exactly slick.” Steve leaned close, and Eddie inhaled his fast, bourbon-spiced breaths. “But I guess it’s a step up on ‘do you come here often.’” 

Eddie silenced him with a blockbuster kiss, which Steve returned instantly. Within moments, Eddie was up off his barstool, hands roving wildly over Steve’s delicious torso. Okay, also wandering around to pry under his tight t-shirt, and to grope that mega-hot denim-clad ass. Steve pawed Eddie with equal enthusiasm, setting his barstool rocking till it toppled back. 

He jumped off, straight into Eddie’s arms. Wow! There was nothing better than kissing somebody roughly your own height. Back at school, he’d figured Steve was a lot taller than him—like most jocks, he’d had that early spurt of growth, Eddie guessed. Then Eddie had more of less caught up, and now..? Yeah, everything had changed, all his preconceptions thrown to the winds. Best of all, Steve had turned out to be a good dude.

Also, the best kisser ever.

They made out like their lives depended on it, tongues sliding together, slickly and keenly. Meanwhile, despite the hotness, all those sweet moments over coffee crammed together in Eddie’s head.

You are the highlight of my life… The light of my goddamn life! How come this took so long?

Then, as abruptly as it started, Steve broke the kiss. He staggered back into his stool, setting it rocking again. “Shit!”

“Oooookay.” Eddie felt like he’d been punched. “Used to that in gig write-ups, but—”

“Oh God, no… It’s not you. It’s so not about you. This was a terrible idea.” He knocked Eddie’s fingers from where they lingered on his hip, and sidestepped, placing the barstool between them.

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s about me, Munson, so you can quit the goddamn kicked-puppy-dog eyes.” Erm, back at ya, Harrington. “I’m with another guy, okay?” He laughed, and somehow, it was one of the most miserable sounds Eddie had ever heard. “I didn’t think we’d… Look, I really shouldn’t have come.” 

With that, he bolted.

…

Eddie got to the diner super-early on Monday morning. He’d barely thought of anything other than Steve, who was no longer simply his secret crush. Or even the light of his life. 

Without exactly knowing why, Eddie was pretty much dying with worry for him.

Steve didn’t pour Eddie’s coffee. He dumped the pot on the counter, emoted unwelcomingly with hard-set features, and hurried off to take a table order. Which he then headed out back to prepare.

Eddie waited. He was gonna be late for work, and his boss would give him an earful, and he really couldn’t give a crap.

The diner emptied out, and eventually, Steve emerged from the back, mouthing:

“What the Hell?”

“I needed to see you, Steve.” Steve glared at him, and Eddie did a double take. Steve looked more exhausted than ever, shadows stark as bruises around his eyes. “Are you okay?”

“Saturday was a big mistake. Huge. Had an argument with my boyfriend about it, that’s all. Scram, will you?”

Steve’s boss came out from the back. Steve emoted wildly again, shooed Eddie, and the truth dawned. And was slammed home when Dave slapped Steve’s butt—scowling at Eddie, as he did so—then grabbed Steve’s shoulders, spiralled him about, and shoved him off in the direction of another table awaiting service.

“Either you place another order, or get lost,” said Dave to Eddie.

Eddie ordered pancakes and waited.

“Dave? Seriously?” hissed Eddie, when he finally got Steve’s attention again. He begrudgingly admitted Dave was okay looking. All the same: “He’s a dick! And he’s gotta be old enough to be your dad.”

Steve edged close, talking so fast and hushed Eddie strained to follow. “My parents threw me out. I was on the streets! Dave was… good to me, took me in, and now… I’m kinda stuck. He takes my rent out of my wages, and there’s never anything left, and—”

“You need to get away from him, man.” Eddie felt sick. Somehow, he burbled it out: “Leave the son-of-a-bitch. Right now. You can crash with me.”

“You live in your uncle’s trailer! He’d be beyond thrilled, I’m sure, and Dave would…” Steve’s mouth hung open a moment. He’d what? Come after you? “Look, I’m okay. Dave’s all right, really. Gets grouchy sometimes, that’s all.”

Eddie spouts the next question before he can stop himself. “Do you love him?”

Steve tossed his arms up in despair: “What kinda dumbass question is that?” Yeah, Eddie wants to facepalm. In retrospect, it was truly dumb! “Look, he doesn’t know who I saw on Saturday, but he’s already bitching about you hanging around too much. Just fucking go already!”

Eddie didn’t drive on to the construction site. Instead, as his brain screamed, You’re batshit crazy, he pawned all his meagre possessions, even his beloved Warlock. His plan only faltered when Wayne caught wind of him going to a loan shark. His uncle literally dragged him from their office and insisted on lending Eddie all his scant savings.

Eddie refused. Wayne refused harder. They headed to the second-hand dealership and purchased the cheapest RV in the yard.

Next morning, Eddie trundled his rusty 1960s Volkswagen into the forecourt of Dave’s Diner. He gritted his teeth, squared his shoulders, and moseyed through the door like a gunslinger and about to unleash hell. One that was also trembling like jello, packing zero heat, and practically pissing himself.

“Got my own place now,” he said to Steve.

Steve looked mad, refused him even a coffee cup, though Dave didn’t seem to be around. Yet. “This isn’t happening, Eddie.”

“My place has got wheels, darlin’.” Eddie motioned to the RV outside, dropped his voice to an undertone. “It’s a big country. We can go anywhere. I’ll park up half-a-mile along the road. Wait all day. All night, if you need.”

Steve eked tight words from between gritted teeth: “Look, I don’t wanna sound ungrateful. It’s still a ‘no,’ man. You must have gone cuckoo. I mean, what about your band?”

Yeah, that brought a pang to Eddie’s chest: “Honestly? The rest of the guys are losing interest fast. I can fly solo. As long as you’ll fly with me?”

Dave strode out from the back. The flash of fear in Steve’s eyes cut Eddie to the quick, because it also hollered, You’re making things worse!

Oh God, what’ve I done?

“You’re barred,” yelled Dave at Eddie. “I see your long-haired loony mug one more time, you can kiss my fist.”

“Subtle you ain’t, asshat.”  Eddie retreated, literally a mangy, kicked dog. He drove the RV that half-a-mile along the road and waited. And waited. By midnight, he felt like his heart had been wrung dry, and eventually, he fell asleep.

A loud thudding roused him. He sat up, blinked at his unfamiliar surroundings and then… Shiiiit! He dashed to the door.

Steve perched on the step, his wide eyes glowing with something… unfamiliar. Some sparkle that might just be hope. He’d gotten a very small bundle slung over his shoulder.

“I hope you were serious?” asked Steve.

“Deadly serious, darlin’.”

Steve took Eddie’s face in his hands, and kissed him, briefly, almost chastely. Totally mind blowing. “So good to do that without feeling guilty,” he murmured, smoothing kiss-wetted lips together.

Eddie grinned; he wasn’t even quite sure if this was real: “Let’s get the Hell out of Dodge,” he said.

They hit the road, and they never looked back.

…

Three months later

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” cooed Eddie, as the Hawkins pawn shop owner handed his Warlock back across the counter. “I missed you soooo much.”

“Ugh, seriously?” bitched Steve, as soon as they exited the store. He blocked Eddie’s path along the sidewalk, planted his hands on his hips: “Should I be jealous?”

“Nah. We’re a proper family now.” With his guitar safely stowed in its case, he slung an arm around Steve, and they walked on toward where they’d parked the RV. “Tho’ when we get to Wayne’s, I might have a moment with my long-lost beloved. While you two watch the game.”

“No funny business, Sweetcheeks, or I’m absconding with a second-hand Yamaha keyboard.”

Eddie beamed broadly. It felt so weird, being back in Hawkins, and with hope, at least, for a better future. Not even having to worry about… “You know, I kinda want to thank Chief Hopper in person for arresting your douchebag ex.”

“Yeah, well, he put a guy in the hospital.” Steve shuddered. “They’ve charged him with attempted homicide.”

God, I’m so relieved it wasn’t you, thinks Eddie.

Steve rattled out a joyless laugh that Eddie hadn’t heard for some time, and said, “Jesus, I’m so happy it wasn’t you.”

Suddenly, Eddie’s eyes brimmed with tears. It’s too much. He can’t bear to think of what might have been. “Love you so much,” he blurted, fumbling for the keys for the RV. He couldn’t get up the steps and inside with Steve fast enough

“Love you too,” whispered Steve, once the door was closed, and sounding slightly choked, also. Which isn’t like him.

They clasped each other tighter than ever, and did their darndest to kiss the bad memories away.

#steddie #steddie fic #steddielovemonth #steve x eddie #steddie fanfic #steve harrington x eddie munson #stranger things fanfic #steve harrington #steve harrington whump #eddie x steve #eddie munson #steddie fanfiction

[corruptedcaps]

Contraband

"Miss Black, how many times have you been told you that running shoes are not part of our uniform?" said the kind but stern Principal Kent, catching Kelly between classes. "I know, sir, but my shoes were taken by the other girls, Samantha and her gang. I only have my trainers left."

Kent looked at her, still stern, but a flicker of empathy registered in his face. "One of these days, Kelly, you're going to have to stand up to them. You need to be more aggressive. For now, here take this key, it will get you into the confiscation room, there is surely to be a pair of shoes in there you can borrow. Quickly now!" he said hoping no one would see his obvious favouritism to Kelly.

Kelly nodded, feeling the weight of isolation as she walked down the corridor. Bullied and friendless, the boarding school seemed like a never-ending maze of hostility. As she entered the contraband room, she wondered if there would ever be a day when she could break free from the clutches of Samantha and her gang.

Kelly scoured the room, scanning through a sea of forgotten and illicit items. She passed a whole host of things that ranged from cigarettes all the way to dildos. There seemed to be items from every decade in there.

Finally her eyes fell upon the box marked 'shoes.' Inside, an array of styles and vintage greeted her, but one pair seized her attention immediately. Sky high white stilettos, barely acceptable within the dress code, beckoned her. These were shoes she would have never considered before; too sexy, too trashy, she thought, for her plain, boring body.

And yet something about them was nearly daring her to try them, to step outside her comfort zone. Hesitant, Kelly pulled the stilettos from the box. As she ran her fingers along the shiny material them, a rebellious spark ignited within her. Perhaps it was time for a change, a departure from the identity imposed on her by Samantha and her gang. She tried them on, the unfamiliar sensation of height and confidence taking hold.

She unsteadily walked a few feet to a nearby lengthwise mirror and took in her reflection. The shoes looked ridiculous on her, her messy hair, glasses and oversized clothes clashed immediately with the shoes. She cursed to herself. For even thinking they might look good on her.

However as she reached down to take them off the stilettos suddenly seemed to tighten around her feet of their own accord. A strange sensation washed over her, making her lightheaded. Dark purple wisps wafted off the shoes, swirling up her legs and around her body. The room crackled with an energy both electric and foreboding.

Kelly gasped as the purple cloud shot into her mouth and slithered down her throat making her cough. Despite the discomfort she felt a most pleasurable sensation start in her stomach and radiate outwards. She felt her very bones creak and her skin stretch and go taut in equally measure. Her body somehow changing.

The shoes, now snug against her feet, seemed to sculpt her legs, elongating them with an ethereal elegance. Her posture shifted, adopting a more defiant stance that hinted at newfound confidence. The curves of her silhouette became more pronounced, as if the magic sought to highlight a beauty that had long been overlooked.

“Ohhh god what’s happening to me? I feel so… nasty.” She groaned as the changes continued.

Her clothing, seemingly touched by the same mystical forces, clung to her transformed figure with a provocative allure. The ordinary uniform tightened around her increasingly shrinking stomach. Her shirt tied up at the middle to expose her new flat midriff and to act as a bra for her now bigger tits. The once modest knee length skirt shortened to a length that would expose her privates with the most subtle of breezes.

The very thought would have made Kelly blush previously but was now turning her on. So much so that she was delighted when she felt her underwear dissolve away leaving her pussy bare.

“Oh fuck yes it’ll be so much easier to fuck studs like this. Oh god what am I saying? That’s not the kind of girl I am! Mmmm but I could be.” She groaned in pleasure.

Her messy brunette locks underwent a startling change, gradually transitioning to a lustrous and thick mane, gaining several inches in height as if was made of hairspray.

Simultaneously, fake nails snapped on her fingers. As if guided by an unseen hand, they took on a polished white sheen to match her new shoes. Finally her skin took on a bronzed fake tan look from head to toe and thick sexy makeup covered her face.

As Kelly eyed herself in the mirror, a personality crystallized in her mind. The girl staring back at her wasn’t some delicate well spoken wallflower who bent to the orders of anyone, not least Samantha and her clique of stuck up princesses.

No, Kelly was now a girl who did whatever she wanted and fuck the consequences. She was a trashy bitch who lived for life’s pleasure’s. A wicked grin crept across her face. "Fuck, look at me now, I’m proper changed, innit? No more being the soft target for those posh sluts. I feel so nasty and mean, I fuckin’ love it!"

She played with her thick hair, and started chewing on gum that had somehow appeared in her mouth. "Gone from plain Jane to a fuckin' babe. Never thought I'd look so good as slutty chav."

Her eyes glinted with a rebellious fire. "Those slag bullies won't know what to do with me. I'm not a fuckin’ pushover anymore.” She laughed to herself as she picked up the box of cigarettes she had seen earlier and sparked up on.

She breathed in deep its smoke, letting it coat her lungs. She blew a perfect ring as if she had done it a thousand times. She ran her fingers along the shelves of the room pocketing or wearing anything that caught her eye. She quickly lost track of time and ignored the bell ring signalling the end of class.

She was just eying a huge dildo when Principal Kent, concerned by Kelly's prolonged absence, entered the room with a purpose. However, as his eyes fell upon the transformed figure before him, shock and disbelief painted his features. "Kelly, what in the world..."

She looked at him first like the authorial figure he was and was about to scowl but then something started to grow inside of her, a sudden lust. Kelly had always been fond of Kent and that fondness had transformed into a newfound need to fuck him. She couldn’t help but salivate at the thought of tasting his dick and making him cum inside her. She stubbed her cigarette on the ground with her new heels and walked over to him like a panther.

She walked past his open mouthed stance and closed the door. With a turn of the lock she sealed the two of them in. She put her hands behind her butt and arched her back at him, pushing out her cleavage. Kent gulped.

“Ohhhh sir, I’m so glad you came, I got locked in here by mistake. You’re my knight in shining armour.” She said with a dangerous smile as she slowly approached him. He backed away into a shelf, pinned in by the new Kelly.

“Miss Black, I think we need to find you some help, why don’t we…” He began nervously.

Her wicked grin cut through his words as she stood confidently in his path. "Principal Kent, no need for help. I’ve learned the one thing you’ve always said I needed to be. Aggressive. And call me Kelly, babe."

In a bold move, Kelly seized Principal Kent by the head, pulling him into a deep and unexpected kiss. As their lips met, the magic within her stomach rose up and out her mouth entering Kent’s body. Kelly pulled back from their kiss and found Kent to be in a sort of trance.

“Well isn’t this a surprise?” Kelly said waving her hand in front of his face to no reaction while tasting the lingering magic on her lips. Smirking to herself she undid his belt buckle and let his pants slide to the floor. Pulling his underwear down she was dismayed to find a fairly insignificant penis staring back at her.

“Let’s see what my slutty magic mouth can do about this.” She grinned as she wrapped her pink lips around his cock and began sucking. To her delight she felt it grow larger in her mouth. However Kent seemed to break from his trance by her slurping but rather than stop her he grabbed her hair and guided his cock in and out of her mouth.

“Oh fuck yes you dirty slag, suck my big cock. Oh what am I saying? What are you doing to me.” He groaned in confusion but finding it hard to stop himself. Kelly looked up at him with satisfied dirty look on her face as she watched the magic start to spiral out from her mouth, down his shaft and infect the rest of his body.

His body began to bulk outwards along his arms and legs, becoming strong and muscular. His flabby middle aged stomach sucked in and became a toned six pack. He aged backwards, going from his 40 something self into an 18 year old hunk with a stylish haircut and chiselled jaw line. His muted suit turned into one of the school uniforms that barely contained his new bulging form.

He couldn’t help but look at himself in the mirror as Kelly continued to suck him off. He flexed his muscles and practiced a scowl. Like Kelly before him he found a new persona emerge the more he looked at his reflection. One that was mean, cruel and loved to bully. The only thing he loved more was his bitchy girlfriend Kelly.

He felt his huge dick start to spasm as he let the new personality take over, he was about to cum but Kelly had other plans. Pulling his dick out of her mouth she started to stroke it slowly as she stood up and slipped her wet pussy onto it. They both moaned in unison as she did.

“Ohhhh fuck babe I don’t know what you did to me but I fucking love it. I feel like such a bastard now.” He grinned.

“Stop bloody talking will ya and fuck me!” She said with a cheeky grin as he lifted her off the ground and pushed her against a wall. She groaned in ecstasy Ashe rammed his member into her wanting pussy again and again.

“Cum in me you fucking bastard!” She groaned loudly that she was sure most of school would hear. Kent obliged by thrusting long and hard into her. The magic that she had imparted on him was now re-entering her body. With each drop of cum coming in Kent started to revert back to his older form.

“No! No! What’s happening to me?” Kent cried out as he slowly dropped Kelly to the ground unable to hold her with his weaker arms. Kelly smirked to herself as she watched Kent turn completely back to his normal self.

“Sorry babe, but the magic likes to come back to me, I can’t help it can I? But tell you what, you be a good little principal and let me do whatever the fuck I want and we can make this a daily thing. Deal?” She said as she toyed with her hair.

Kent looked at her tight body and her sexy smile and knew he would do anything she asked. Anything to feel strong again and anything to feel her warm pussy again. He nodded. With that Kelly disappeared into the shelves to retrieve something.

“Good. First things first, the uniform code doesn’t apply to me anymore got it? I can wear whatever the fuck I want from know on got it?” She called out from deep in the room.

“Oh I don’t think I can do that, it will be obvious favouritism….” He started but trailed off as Kelly emerged dressed in a new outfit. He gulped and felt his dick get instantly hard.

“Don’t worry baby, I’m going to be your new student liaison, or something proper like that, so I’ll need to stand out from the rest of school or make up whatever excuse you want I don’t fucking care. Either way we’re going to be spending a lot more time together and you’re going to help me rule this dump. Aren’t you babe?” She said more as a statement of fact than a request.

She didn’t need to sink to her knees and suck him off again but she had gotten so horny thinking about what a mean bitchy queen chav she was going to be that she wanted big strong Kent back and Kent wasn’t going to argue.

THE END

#f2f #corruption #bitchification #magic #evil bitch #evil couple #corrupted couple #corrupted shoes #corrupted clothing