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oddinary4bts · 10 months

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Love is a Laserquest | choi san

☆summary: years after your break-up, Choi San comes to you for help. In an attempt to save his life, you escape to your uncle's cabin in the woods far from civilization. Will nostalgia and longing make you fall again, or is Choi San just spinning more lies to you?

☆pairing: gangster!Choi San x female!reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI)

☆genre: gangster au, exes au, angst, smut, a smidge of the one bed trope

☆warnings: guns/gun violence (mentioned), knifes/stabbing (mentioned), a bounty over San's head, death of a minor character (named Jungkook my bad), blood, injuries, stitches, probably some wrong medical terminology bc optometrists don't stitch up people lmao, a panic attack, cursing, pet names, explicit content: oral sex (female receiving) -> face riding, let me know if I forgot any!

☆word count: 16.5k

☆a/n: Here's my submission for Outlaw: The Project hosted by @ssaboala. It is coincidentally my first time posting about another group than bts, so I hope this won't disappoint! I really enjoyed writing it (even though it's really sad oop). Also my first time making a moodboard so hopefully it works haha

☆a/n pt2: thank you to @moonleeai for being my ever-so faithful beta reader, love you lots <3

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And do you still think love is a Laserquest? Or do you take it all more seriously? I’ve tried to ask you this in some daydreams that I’ve had But you’re always busy being make-believe

Love is a Laserquest – Arctic Monkeys

☆☆☆☆☆

The diner is silent, unoccupied. It always is on late weekday evenings, when most patrons have gone to bed, the city falling under a carpet of hushed silence only night can bring forth. It makes the diner feel like it’s straight out of a 70s movie, and it makes for the perfect study sessions too.

Night isn’t always soundless in your part of town. Hence why you’ve been trying to escape, pursuing an education that has been leaving you penniless, but with a bright future ahead. If you make it out of med school at a certain point, that is.

Tonight, you fear the peace that night usually entails has been ruined for you – there were gunshots earlier, close enough for you to see the police cars racing past as the law officers made it to probably yet another gang fight.

There’s been a gang war on your side of town. The diner has always been safe, a refuge for both sides of the war, where they aren’t allowed to fight. To carry in weapons and hatred. No, the moment they cross the threshold of the diner, the gangsters become one family, sharing struggles that only poverty can cause.

You wipe a table clean before walking back towards the counter. Your open laptop waits for you, and you quickly read the study guide you’ve made for yourself, the cardiovascular system and its pathologies forming a maze in your mind that you’ve yet to decode. Luckily enough, you still have a week before the bloc ends and you have to take the exam.

Plenty of time to cram everything about the heart in your thick little skull, you’d say.

Your lips move in time with what you’re reading, attention solely focused on the bright screen when a thump is heard right outside the door. It startles you, and you turn around to see the empty street out of the glass door.

It takes you about ten seconds to notice the dark form sitting on the ground. They’re leaning against the door, head lolling to the side. You assume it must be someone that’s ended unhoused, something that happens far too often where you live.

You’ve always been kind. When you were younger, you were told your kindness would be your demise. Yet you’ve never been able to be anything but kind, even though sometimes it might put you at risk. So you can’t resist but walk to the front door, trying to push it open.

It’s useless – the weight of the person is keeping it tightly shut, though they do straighten a little, as if coming to their senses. They turn, and the moment their profile comes into view you’re brought back eight years in the past. To a time when the world was still a beautiful place, void of violence and cruelty. To a smile so sweet it made flowers blossom on your heart, and to eyes so sharp you knew they had read your soul.

Choi San is sitting outside the door, and the caked blood on his cheek tells you enough – he’s injured. He pushes away from the door before slowly getting up. He clutches his side as he does it, yet when he turns back towards you and faces your horrified eyes, he still offers you a smirk.

You push the door open, thinking about the years between then and now. You had dated him for a few months that had felt like forever, until you had realized in what kind of business he was getting involved with. You had tried to convince him to flee before it was too late, and he kept promising that he would.

Only he never did, hiding lies with beautiful words that made your teenage self swoon, until your parents had realized and forced you to break up. It had been a nasty break-up, filled with hatred and words you didn’t mean yet had needed to say for him to leave.

You remember breaking his heart like it was yesterday.

“Choi San,” you greet him, and when he lets go of his side, you notice blood on his hand.

Something runs cold inside of you, even though he still sports a smirk on his lips.

He says your name, bowing his head. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

Months, in fact. Because he does come to the diner sometimes. He usually ignores you, and so do you, so it feels strange to have him speak to you. To hear his voice as his words are addressed to you.

“What…” you trail off, glancing down at the ripped fabric of his black tank top.

He’s got a mean cut on his ribs, and it’s only then that you truly realize that he’s badly injured. Because there’s more – one of his biceps has been sliced open too, though blood is barely oozing out of it in small rivulets. The blood on his cheek is from where you assume he’s been punched with rings, and there’s already an underlying bruise under his eye.

“Got beaten up,” he states the obvious, and you immediately open the door wider to let him in.

He limps in, heading towards the nearest booth, where he plops down and lets out a pained grunt. You make sure no one is outside before shutting the door and locking it, flipping the hanging sign on it so it says closed in case a patron decides to show up.

You take a few steps towards San, hands shaking slightly at your side. Because that’s a grown man, bleeding out on the leather seat of the booth, and his eyes are shut though he looks in pain. You don’t know what you’re supposed to do. You haven’t yet started your residency, haven’t really gone from theory to practice… Yet you’re studying to be a doctor, are you not?

“Why are you here?” you ask, though you’re pretty sure you know the answer.

“Didn’t know where else to go,” he says, wincing as one of his eyes opens. He tilts his head to look towards you. “Word around the block says…” he pauses, takes a deep breath before continuing, “that you’re studying to be a doctor”.

So you are right. He’s here because he needs your help, and you’re not quite sure how you feel about it.

“Why…” You look for words, and it takes you a moment to realize that it doesn’t matter.

For all the history between you and him, Choi San doesn’t deserve to bleed out to death on a cheap leather seat in a forgotten diner on the dangerous side of town.

He has the decency to chuckle at the start of your question, which only makes him wince in pain once again.

“Don’t move,” you tell him, and it’s a little stupid because clearly, he’s in no state to move.

He doesn’t question it, and you run to the kitchen to thoroughly wash your hands and grab the first aid kit. At night, no cooks stay around, and you usually only reheat food if needed, which doesn’t really happen. You haven’t had any client coming in at night in weeks… until San, that is. So no one is there to see what is going on, which you reckon is a relief. Because you have no idea what’s going on.

You return to the booth where San is waiting, patiently. He’s clearly wiped his hand on his face because there’s fresh blood on his forehead, and you almost balk at the sight of it.

“What have you done?” you mutter, more to yourself than to him.

It seems he’s still in sync with you because he still hears. “Got involved with the wrong crowd.”

You put the first aid kit down on the table, ignoring his eyes when they flutter open, and he rests his gaze on you.

“I don’t know if I can help you,” you say as you unzip the kit and throw it open. You spare his side a quick glance. “This looks like you’re going to need stitches.”

He makes an effort of looking down at himself, though it mostly fails as he doesn’t raise his head from the seat. “Right.”

You grab everything you think you might need – alcohol swabs to clean his skin, fresh linen to bandage his side and arm, and stuff for his cheek too. He carefully observes you, with that piercing gaze of his that used to make you go crazy inside when you were young and impressionable.

You vaguely motion at him, and he cocks an eyebrow. “What?”

“Are you able to sit up?” you ask. “I can’t reach you if you’re lying back like this.”

His pink tongue darts to wet his lips, and he nods curtly. “Let me…” he trails off, resting a bloody hand on the table while he grabs at the back of the booth to push himself up. It has new blood appearing on his side, and you quickly move towards him, putting some linen against it.

As if it’s going to do anything. He clearly needs stitches, and you’ve got nothing with you to stitch him up.

“Fuck,” he curses lowly as he’s finally sitting. You just keep the linen on his side, eyes a little wide.

Your gazes connect inevitably, and time slows. You think about how he used to smile, how his eyes used to hold a softness you haven’t had the chance to see again since he’s walked out of your life.

Or rather, since you kicked him out of your life.

“I don’t think I can help,” you whisper, and his eyes flicker to your lips.

“I can’t go to the hospital,” he admits, shame turning his features into a mask of regret. “They… If they find me, I’m dead.”

Dread fills every ounce of your being. “San, what have you been doing?”

He looks away from your insistent gaze, scoffing slightly. “You don’t want to know.”

He isn’t wrong; you genuinely don’t want to know. Because he means nothing good, even with all the memories you share with him.

“Is it going to put me in danger?” you ask, as he still obstinately avoids your gaze.

He seems to freeze in front of you, as if you’ve pressed pause to your favourite show. To avoid the awkwardness, you busy yourself with grabbing one of his hands so he can hold the linen in place before you start washing the cut on his arm. It’s not deep, but you’re pretty sure it’ll still leave a mean scar, especially considering he can’t go to the hospital.

The thought has a drop of cold sweat roll along your spine. People want him dead. People want Choi San, the man you know as a young, scared teenager just trying to find a way to make his life better, dead. You remember the innocence in his smile – has he smiled at all in the years apart?

“I should go,” he says flatly. He moves to stand, but you hold him down, two hands firmly placed on his shoulders. It makes him wince, and you quickly release your grip.

“Don’t,” you tell him. “Let me at least patch you up.”

His eyes shut again as his head hangs low. “I am so sorry.”

You don’t even know who he is apologizing to, or why he is. All you know is that it causes your heart to clench in your chest, stealing the breath from your lungs.

When you were younger, you believed San was your star-crossed lover. You believed your high school sweethearts romance would grow until you’d be old and grey and at the end of a very long road. You had dreamed of a future with him, the way only teenagers can dream – with no sense of reality. Because your reality had never been to end up by his side.

His choices had been proof enough of it.

You still remember the day you first kissed. Under an August meteor shower, with just the night sky as your witness. It had been hesitant, slow and soft, just like everything with San. And you had believed the lie, trusted it with every beat of your little heart, until your parents had found out the truth about him.

Until they had broken your heart, even before you had broken his.

If the stars had known then, what was going to happen to you and Choi San, would they still have shone through the night?

He lets out a pained sound as you gently dab at the cut on his bicep. You clean the skin around the wound in and of itself, and he watches you carefully, piercing gaze not missing how your face clouds with memories.

“How have you been doing?” he asks so softly you think his words are a gentle summer breeze on your features.

You can almost still smell the summer night air of that field where you had stargazed, where you’d always meet so long ago.

“I’ve been okay,” you answer, truthfully. Because even though you haven’t seen him, you have lived your life apart from him. Have evolved without him by your side. “Better than you, visibly.”

He didn’t expect the joke. It makes him snort, and then a soft smile grows on his lips, softening the edges of his hard features. “You haven’t changed.”

You have, and yet you haven’t. Like him, you think there’s a part of you that is still sixteen, and will forever be. A part of you that remained stuck in the moment when you watched him walk away in the rain, as if even the sky had to cry for his broken heart.

“Wish I could say the same about you,” you murmur, nostalgia a melancholic song in your words.

He chooses to remain silent, because the proof of how much he’s changed is sitting right in front of you, wounded and bleeding and hurt. The hurt is behind his eyes, in the shadows of the past that have also been obscuring your vision.

“Yeah,” he lets out, barely audible.

And then silence reigns between you, because as much as you once loved him, eight years have made you strangers. You don’t know anything about his life except the dirty, obvious darkness that surrounds him, and he doesn’t know anything except that you are studying to be a doctor…

Which leads you to wonder how does he know in the first place?

You ask him, as you’re wrapping the linen around his bicep to make a makeshift bandage. You’re proud of the result, though your fingers can’t resist but linger on the taut skin over his muscle, surprised at how soft it still is.

“I’ve heard you mention it,” he admits, as you take a step away to look at the material on the table, as if it’ll suddenly make stitches appear for you to put them in his skin. “One of the times I was here.”

“You never said hi,” you reproach him, unable to hide the ghost of a bite in your tone.

“Neither did you,” he points out, and he isn’t wrong.

All you can do is purse your lips as you finally decide to clean his skin. But for that, you have to rid him of his tank top, to make sure there’s no fabric in the wound. You look at him, cheeks somehow burning even though all you’re doing is taking care of a patient.

Though he’s not a patient, and you’re not in a hospital. You’re just a server at a dusty, old diner and he’s just your teenage lover, wounded by his dangerous actions.

“Should I grab scissors to remove your shirt?” you ask, though you’re speaking to yourself more than to him.

He still finds it in him to tease. “You want me out of my shirt?” he enquires, smirk gracing his lips again. “Say no more.”

He tries moving, but you hold up a hand to stop him. “Don’t,” you warn. “You’ll make it bleed more.”

He purses his lips, because nodding. “Right.” He glances at the first aid kit, before his eyes trail to your face again. “You got scissors in that?”

There are. You grab them, before turning towards him. It feels strange: you’ve never undressed him before. You had always wanted to wait, back then, before you slept together. You believed you were too young, and San had always respected it.

“Let me know if I hurt you,” you tell him as you take a step closer to him.

He slightly leans back, furrowing his eyebrows. “What do you plan to do with those that might hurt?”

You roll your eyes, playfully, before taking the two other steps leading to right in front of his legs. You notice that they are slightly parted, allowing you to come closer, and you take a steadying breath before reaching between you, pulling at the fabric of his tank top.

“Stay still and you shouldn’t get hurt,” you whisper, ignoring the heaviness of his piercing gaze on you.

It burns right through you, and you have to tame the beats of your heart at the feeling of the warm skin of his shoulder against the back of your fingers as you bring your other hand forward, until you’ve started cutting his shirt.

It’s stuck to his side where blood has dried, and he winces but remains still and silent as you keep going, pulling on it a little harder to be able to cut. The moment stretches into infinity, because you can’t help but take your time. It reminds you of how you’d used to run your fingers on his back, under his shirt, when you napped in the field in the summertime. In an idyllic world where gangs and violence and war were mere inventions of the media, and not a reality that surrounded you.

You’d loved the field. The wildflowers, the open air, the way it was just you and him and a few lazy bumblebees as clouds lazily crossed the sky above. You were so young then, so innocent. Hands unstained from blood, from his blood.

Because as you cut, the hand touching his shirt stains with blood. You pale at the sight of it, but you keep going, pushing through until you’re done, gently pulling the fabric from his body until he’s sitting there, shirtless, with a long wound on his ribs.

You can’t help but notice his toned chest and the defined abs on his stomach. Though blood mars his skin, turning it into a piece of violence, Choi San is still beautiful. Beautiful in a dark, dangerous way that has you glance outside, making sure no one is looking.

But the streets are empty, void of life at this time of the night. At least, they mostly always are.

“You will need stitches,” you state again as if you both don’t know already.

“I can’t…”

An idea forms in your brain. It’s a stupid idea, and you don’t even know why it crosses your mind.

Your uncle has a hunting cabin far in the woods. He’s a nurse himself, and he’s always kept everything over there in case someone got injured and he had to stitch them up. You haven’t gone in forever, but you still remember the tall trees, the deep forest scent that reminds you of autumn and leaves and grey days spent reading by the fireplace.

You never went hunting, but you did accompany your father when he went, needing an escape from the city once in a while. An escape from a life that was slowly becoming too real.

Your uncle is currently halfway across the country, so you know you’d be alone at the cabin. You glance at your laptop over your shoulder – you have three days off in front of you before your next class on Monday. Indeed, the Friday class is pre-recorded and to watch online in your free time, and you figure you can always watch it some other time.

So you turn towards Choi San, almost surprised that he’s real and he’s still sitting in front of you, honey skin cut open on his ribs.

“I might know a place where you can go,” you admit, with a small voice, surprising both you and him. Because you doubt he expects you to want to help, after tonight.

“What?” he asks.

“My uncle’s cabin,” you remind him, because you’ve told him about it all those years ago. “He should have all that I need to stitch you up.”

San looks down at himself. “You’ve just cut my shirt open.”

It sounds a little dumbfounded, and you can’t help the nervous laugh that falls from your mouth. Because even though it doesn’t look too deep, the wound still is terrifying in and of itself.

“I’ll bandage it,” you whisper. “Before we go.”

He seems like he ponders for a time. You watch the debate across his features, his eyes falling to a spot on your chin. He looks sad, troubled and defeated. “I can’t… I can’t do this to you.”

You ignore his words, carefully washing his side. You avoid the cut and try to be as gentle as you can, but his muscles still flex as he clenches his fists from the pain.

He’s strong. That much hasn’t changed. Because he doesn’t make any sound as you finish washing him and then patch him up with those same careful hands. And when you move to his face, cleaning the blood, his eyes flutter shut, and he sighs softly.

He looks so much like he looked then that your heart aches, and you find yourself blinking away tears for this man who’s had it so rough he believed joining a gang would save him.

“I should have come to you before,” he murmurs. “You’re much gentler than Hongjoong.”

You don’t know the guy he mentioned, and you don’t feel like asking. Don’t feel like acknowledging his words, so you just finish with his cheek before stepping away from the peaceful aura that was treacherously pulling you in.

Like all those years ago, you reckon.

“Let me make a call,” you say, turning away from him as you move to the counter. You feel the weight of his eyes between your shoulder blades as you get your phone from next to your laptop. You call your boss, and as someone that’s never called in sick before, you feel anxiety flush through you.

Because you’re not sick. And how could you tell him that you need to take care of your ex-boyfriend of eight years ago?

Seokhyun picks up on the first ring, voice groggy with sleep when he mutters, “Hello?”

“Boss,” you greet him. You scrape your throat and spare a look towards San who’s watching you curiously. “An emergency came up, and I have to leave the diner.” You swallow the lump in your throat that’s formed from lying, and then you add, “There haven’t been any customers all night, so I was wondering… would you be comfortable with me closing for the rest of the night?”

Your boss says your name, a little reproachfully. But then he sighs, because he knows just as well as you what a good employee you’ve always been. “Are you going to be able to come in tomorrow night?” he asks.

You pull at dry skin on your bottom lip, assessing San’s state. You could always come back to the city for work…

“You know what, I know you’ve got that big exam coming up,” your boss says, sighing into the phone. “Why don’t you take the next week off so you can take care of your emergency and focus on your studies?”

If Seokhyun wasn’t a fifty-three year old married and father of three children man, you think you’d ask him to marry you right now.

“That would be really helpful,” you tell him, gratitude dripping from your voice. “Are you sure that won’t be a problem for the diner?”

“The diner won’t lose profit if it closes for three nights in the week,” he points out. “I’ll see if I can get you replaced for the evening shift on Sunday.”

You thank him again as he grumbles that it’s nothing. He wishes you good luck, and when the line goes silent, you finally meet San’s gaze again.

“All sorted out,” you tell him, offering him a nod. “Let me just close the diner, and then we can go.”

He nods, the ghost of a smile playing on his lips. He observes you as you do so, quickly closing the diner like you’ve done about a hundred times before, though this time you’re far more excited to go. You grab a plastic bag to put away the bloody swabs, and though he groans in pain, San gets up to help you clean the blood that stained the cheap leather of the booth.

Soon enough, you’re ready to go, and you walk outside with the plastic bag in one hand and your backpack on your shoulders as San chuckles, looking down at himself.

“Do you have a shirt for me?” he asks as he follows you out.

You lock the door behind you before glancing at him. He’s quite the sight, naked from the waist up and bandaged like he is, and you can’t help the small chuckle you let out as you glance towards your car, that’s luckily parked right in front.

Though it’s a deadbeat car, you trust it enough to know it’ll make the trip to your uncle’s cabin, even in the middle of the night.

“My ex left some sweaters on the back seat,” you admit as you unlock your car doors and open the trunk to put your backpack and the plastic bag in there. There’s no chance in hell you’ll leave a plastic bag full of bloody swabs near your work.

You see San nod from the periphery of your vision, and then he’s opening the door to the backseat. “Your ex, huh?” he mutters as he grabs a sweater you used to love wearing and that you haven’t convinced yourself to give back to Hyunmin.

He carefully puts it on, and you’re pretty sure just the motion is going to make blood seep through the bandage. Somehow, you don’t care that it might stain Hyunmin’s sweater.

Hyunmin was a cheater, and even though you never really loved him, it took you months before you found the strength to break up with him. Needless to say, he doesn’t deserve his clothes back.

“Yeah,” you flatly say as you move towards the driver’s seat. You sit, and San follows you, naturally, as if you’ve done it a thousand times before.

As you turn the keys in the engine, San asks, “Have you dated a lot?”

You bristle at the question, shooting him an embarrassed look. “Have you?”

“No,” he replies, features fully serious.

You purse your lips, focusing on the road as you start driving. You need to put gas in the car if you want to get to your uncle’s cabin, so you make your way towards the closest one. It takes you a moment before you register how San has stiffened next to you.

“Can we…” he trails off, and he sinks in the seat, trying to hide. “I can’t be seen here.”

You immediately press on the accelerator, and your car speeds down the street as you pass in front of the gas station. You glance at San only when you’re stopped at a red light. He’s pulled the hood of the sweater over his features, and he’s doing his best to hide.

“Where can we stop?” you ask.

“Next town over,” he answers. “I just can’t be seen in Bangtan territory.”

Right. You have no knowledge of how the gangs have divided your city, but you’re not surprised Bangtan has this part of town. It’s the industrial area, and you assume there’s a lot of money to be made around here.

“Sounds good,” you gently say, and then you’re driving again, the light turning green, allowing you to speed away into the night.

You drive silently all the way to the next town, watching your city disappear to be replaced by trees until buildings reappear. San is looking outside the window, and you can’t help but wonder how he’s been doing, truly. How he managed to get injured like he is right now, and mostly, if his dreams of running away still occupy his thoughts.

He had begged you, the evening you had broken up with him. Told you he’d make enough money to be able to move with you across the country and build yourself a nice little life over there. You had wanted to believe him for so long, until your parents had opened your eyes on just how he was trying to make money.

“Do you need anything?” you ask as you finally reach the gas station, pulling into the driveway. You park next to a pump, turning to face him only to find him already watching you.

“I don’t have money to pay for food,” he admits. He shuts his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose. “I lost my wallet in the… altercation.”

You gently put a hand on his forearm. “Hey, my treat. We have to eat.”

He inhales deeply, letting out the breath slowly, before he nods. “Alright. I owe you.”

You reckon he’ll owe you for a lot more than just food at a gas station, but you choose not to say it. Not when you feel like someone’s watching over your shoulder, watching you drive away in the night with the person they are looking for.

You know it’s paranoia. No one followed you out of the city and into this town. It just feels too strange to have him here, with you. In your car, on the way to your uncle’s cabin, as if eight years have gone out the window. As if you can still be young and innocent.

It’s stupid, because you can’t. Time has changed him; time has changed you. And in just a few years you’ll be a doctor, and you’ll finally get out of this hellhole of a city, of its dangerous streets.

Of its equally dangerous man, that you know could probably pull you back in with one of his many well-crafted lies, one of the dreams he weaved expertly, whispering it into your ear.

You take a deep breath before getting out of the car. You go into the station, grab snacks for the next few days and then head to the counter. The guy behind nods as you approach, and you pay for the food and for gas before wishing him a good night and returning outside. San is still squatting in the car, clearly trying to hide, and you put the food on the backseat before putting gas in.

You watch his profile as you put gas in the car. Back when you were dating, his features weren’t as sharp, as glass-cutting as they now are. He used to sport a rounder face, but today you wonder if you’d get a papercut on his jaw. You wouldn’t even be surprised.

When you’re done with gas, you sit back next to him, and you quickly bring the engine back to life before pulling out in the street. As soon as you exit the city, darkness falls on the two of you, tall trees standing on the two sides of the road again. San doesn’t speak much, and it doesn’t take you long to realize he’s dozing off next to you.

“Hey, everything okay?” you ask, suddenly worried that he might have lost too much blood. Which, you reckon, you should have thought about earlier.

He sighs, glancing towards you. “Just tired.”

“Don’t…” you trail off. “Don’t fall asleep.”

He chuckles. “You’re afraid I’m going to die on you?”

“Choi San,” you warn. “Don’t you dare say stuff like that.”

He smiles, but you reckon he’s a little pale. Or at least you think he is, in the silver light of the moon up above. “I think I’m fine. Just…” He offers you a weak smile, though you’ve returned your attention on the winding road. “Just exhausted. I haven’t slept in three days.”

Worry clutches your heart, and you nibble at some dry skin on your bottom lip. “What’s been going on?”

He slightly shrugs. “I can’t tell you. I don’t want to put you in danger…”

“Am I not already in danger by just helping you?”

The silence is telling enough. And it remains for a while until San finally speaks.

“I was in a gunfight a week ago. Accidentally shot the youngest member of the other gang. He didn’t make it, and the gang has put a bounty on my head. Ateez took my gun and told me to run; I laughed in their face and said I wasn’t a coward. Then I got attacked by two guys with knives earlier, and I made it to the diner because I had nowhere else to go.”

Now the silence is deafening, heavy, and you think you’ve altogether stopped breathing. You’re struck with an image of San in the summer sun, smiling wide as he put a flower behind your ear, claiming you were the most beautiful girl he had ever met. The contrast with who he is now – a product of night, shrouded in darkness with no hint of that smile on his lips – is stark. And you wonder when’s the last time he has seen the sun, when’s the last time his life wasn’t violence like this.

When you say nothing, he scoffs, resting his head against the window as if it’d allow him to escape. Because clearly he wants to escape – he’s just told you that he’s killed someone after all.

And you don’t know what to say. Don’t know how to react to someone confessing murder. All you can do is stare at the street ahead, hoping you won’t end up in a gunfight with San. Because where would that lead you, other than in the dramatics of death?

You don’t speak for the rest of the ride. You don’t think he sleeps either, and dawn is clinging to the far horizon when you get to your uncle’s cabin, in a secluded forest that seems straight out of a fairytale. Instead of bringing you awe like it usually does, the sight of it makes you think of all the murder mysteries you had been obsessed with when you were younger, before you realized how horrible the real world truly is.

Neither of you move, as you turn off the engine of the car, and you fall into even more of a tensed silence, though this time you can hear the chirping of the early birds. It’s peaceful, so peaceful you can barely even grasp how tangible the presence of San is next to you. The presence of his actions too, looming between the two of you like a sword of Damocles.

You move first. Putting a hand on the knob, hoping to escape the heaviness into the dawn. San speaks before you can though, and your heart stops in your chest.

“I never meant for him to get hurt,” he murmurs, and you think he’s speaking to himself more than to you. “Everything went too fast, my gun was in my hand and I just… in situations like these, you don’t have time to think.” He leans his head against the headrest, eyes closing. “All I can picture since it’s happened is him falling and blood. Like a fucking blossoming rose, all around him.” He rests his closed fist on his forehead, rubbing it hard. “I haven’t been able to sleep; I’ve been sick every time I’ve tried to eat…”

“San,” you interrupt as you break and break for him. Because this is the San you know. This is the young boy that just wanted to escape and live in a better world. You can almost taste his remorse, taste his regret and shame. It’s poisonous, treacherous, a slippery slope that can’t lead anywhere good. “Let’s get you in. I want to get that cut on your ribs checked.”

He falls silent, and for a moment you feel guilty. Because what if he had more to say? You don’t even think you would have been able to listen. You need the escape, and you know he’ll permit it. Because the man next to you is a broken man, a fracture of what he could have been.

You step out of the car, blinking away tears – from the anxiety, from the exhaustion, and perhaps even from the pain you feel for him. He follows you, wincing as he swings his legs out of the car. He stumbles a little as he stands, but soon enough, he grows steady on his feet, and his attention moves to you. You climb the stairs of the cabin, lifting the rug to find the small trap that leads to the spare key. The padlock is rusted, but it stands strong as you put in the code, and a click is heard when you pull on it.

A few seconds later, you’ve unlocked the front door, pushing it open to reveal the cabin as you remember it. Not a single item is out of place, though dust covers everything, a clear indication that no one has been here in years. You let San in, before going back to the car to get the food you bought, bringing it in and putting it in the fridge. Three full gas canisters hide under the counter, and you sigh in relief – you’ll be able to get the generator on for some electricity.

You motion to the kitchen table. “Have a seat,” you tell San, who somehow looks like a lost puppy. “I’ll get the first aid kit.”

He nods, remaining silent, eyes downcast. You only move when he’s seated, heading to the bathroom area of the cabin, where you startle a spider that almost makes you scream out loud. You keep it in, heart beating out of your chest as you get the kit before moving back into the main area.

San is leaning against the chair, eyes closed. He senses you approaching, and one of his eyes cracks open to watch you carefully, a little like he did earlier, at the diner. It looks so similar to how he used to look at you, when you joined him at the field, that you stop in your tracks, heart squeezing once again.

You don’t like the way Choi San is making you feel, that’s for sure.

“Take off the sweater,” you tell him, putting the kit down on the table. You put some clean linen next to it, to put what you need over it, before washing your hands with the disinfectant you find in the kit. You put latex gloves on after, and then you fish wire and a surgical needle from the first aid kit that you carefully put down on the linen once you’ve torn the packages open.

As you were doing all of that, San took off the shirt, struggling a little as it meant he had to lift his right arm, which pulled at the skin of his ribs, where the cut clearly has started bleeding again. Though, if you’re honest to yourself, you’re pretty sure he’s been bleeding this whole time, even though it probably was just some fine rivulets.

Indeed, the cut isn’t all that deep, you remind yourself. Mostly because you don’t want to even think about the consequences of the blood loss. As long as he stays awake, you figure he’s fine – he would have lost consciousness a while ago if he was losing a lot of blood.

You remove the bandage you had carefully put in place earlier, wincing at the sight of the blood that’s seeped through it. San keeps his eyes close, lets you clean his skin again in peace, and you feel sick to your stomach as you realize you don’t have any anesthetics for the pain that stitching him up will cause. Indeed, the pocket in which your uncle usually leaves the lidocaine is empty, and you remember that he’s had to use it for your dad when he accidentally cut himself with a machete last summer.

“Huh,” you let out. You chuckle nervously. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch.”

His eyes narrow, and he clenches his jaw. “Don’t worry about it.”

You worry at your bottom lip, holding his gaze as you gauge if he’s serious. When his gaze doesn’t falter, you offer him a curt nod, before getting the wire and needle ready under his watchful eyes.

You hand him some linen. “To bite on,” you explain as he just cocks an eyebrow quizzically. That makes his gaze widen a little as if he’s just now realizing how serious you were about it hurting, but he takes it nonetheless.

You think about the theory of how to stitch someone up. It was in your previous block – you watched hours of videos of it in an attempt to desensitize yourself to it. You don’t think it compares to the real thing, but at least you’re somehow confident of what you’re doing when you start.

San startles, groaning in pain, and you offer him a glare. “Don’t move, or it’ll be worse.”

A drop of sweat rolls down his temple, but he still nods. Even as you keep on stitching him, he remains as still as he physically can, though you don’t think he even notices how he’s trembling. Or maybe that’s you – you don’t even know.

Somehow, you make it through the whole thing. You think San might have passed out at some point, but he’s wide awake when you finish the knot to keep the stitches in place, looking up to meet his face.

He’s panting and tears of pain wet his waterline. He blinks them away as he takes the linen out of his mouth, dropping it on the table.

“Fuck,” he curses.

“Let me…” you trail off, mind set on getting something to at least help him cool off, because he’s clearly been heating up.

You grab a washcloth and a small bucket, and head outside to walk down to the lake. You fill the bucket halfway, and take a few seconds to observe the calm surrounding you, hoping that it can ease the nerves rolling inside your heart like dark clouds do on the horizon whenever a storm is coming. You feel it in your bones – you have a murderer in your uncle’s cabin.

You have to keep that in mind. To not let Choi San in like you did when you were a young impressionable teenager.

You sigh, closing your eyes to breathe in the fresh morning air. The sun is peaking over the horizon now, and you bask in its hesitant rays for all of twenty seconds before you convince yourself to go back in. You’ve got a patient to take care of, after all.

San hasn’t moved an inch while you were outside. The only indication that he hasn’t died on you is the groan he lets out as you put the wet washcloth on his forehead. You tap his cheek gently, as if to say, ‘suck it up, I’m just trying to take care of you’.

Which is exactly what you’re doing, isn’t it?

You watch him carefully for a few seconds before tapping his shoulder this time around.

“There’s a bed,” you remind him. “You’d be better passing out in a bed.”

He groans again, cracking an eye open. “I’ve just been repeatedly poked with a needle,” he drawls. “Give me a second.”

It makes you laugh. Because of the nerves, maybe. You’re not quite sure. All you know is that you’re laughing, and San opens his second eye to look at you as if you’re crazy. And you laugh for longer than you should – you’re exhausted after all, especially considering you haven’t slept since yesterday morning. So far, adrenaline has been keeping you going, but you can tell you’re about to crash.

“Sorry,” you apologize once you calm down. “This has just been…”

“A lot,” San finishes for you. “I know.”

You nod once before glancing at the doorway to the bedroom. It has no door, as your uncle and your dad usually come here alone and they don’t mind sharing a bed. It makes you realize that you’ll have to share it with San, which you reckon you should have thought about before. Because there’s no way in hell you’ll share a bed with him, especially after he’s told you why he’s being hunted.

There’s always the option of going into town later today so you can get a sleeping bag and floor mat to sleep on. But you’re far too tired right now to even consider driving, so you motion to the bed once again.

“Stick to your side; I’ll stick to mine.”

He smirks though he’s extremely pale. A lot paler than he was before, and you swallow a sudden lump in your throat. Because what if he dies? What are you supposed to do with him if he dies?

“You’ll have to help me to get to the bed ‘cause I don’t think I can move,” he says once his smirk dies. He curses under his breath. “I’m so pathetic.”

You put your hand on his shoulder again, reassuringly, eyes holding his. “Hey, it’s okay. You’re hurt. Everyone is pathetic when they’re hurt.”

He gulps before nodding once. It takes everything in you not to offer him more comfort because you feel like the slope would tilt forwards far too much if you did. Instead, you help him to get up, wincing as he puts most of his weight on you, clutching his side with one hand. You’re infinitely aware of how his skin is sticky with sweat, but you ignore it as you slowly walk to the bedroom.

You can only hope the stitches will hold because you don’t think he’d be able to withstand another round of them.

You finally reach the bedroom and help San sit on the side of the bed. He sighs, eyes shut tightly, and he doesn’t move for a time. When he does, it’s to stiffly lie down on his side.

“You might want to sleep on your back,” you inform him. “I don’t want you rolling around and messing up the stitches.”

He glares at you, though he looks like he’s already half out of it. You hold his gaze until he gives in, turning on his back with a deep sigh. You arrange pillows around him to make sure he’s not moving, and by the time you’re done, his breathing has already evened out.

For a moment, you just watch him sleep. You see him in the field where young love blossomed like a trillion wildflowers. You can almost breathe his pollen again, can almost feel the softness of his skin under your fingertips.

But he’s not what he used to be. Back then, you felt like you had discovered something new. Love, infatuation, affection, and desire, all in the form of the man sleeping next to you. You’d used to kiss, dance and sing to a song only your souls knew, and now you don’t think you recognize him anymore.

As much as he is him, he’s also but just the ghost of what he was. He’s trouble, danger in the shape of innocence, and you recall his words from earlier. You recall the despair, the regret and sorrow that haunted him after he told you. You can’t let him get to your head.

You reckon sleep might help. Though you’re afraid he’s going to waste away in his sleep, so you set up an alarm every hour, before climbing on the other side of the bed. You don’t pull on the covers, mostly because the cabin is warm, and you can imagine it’s just going to get hotter as the sun goes up and the summer heat slowly sizzles into the countryside.

It’s a good thing you put an alarm on. Because when it rings an hour later, you don’t even remember falling asleep. You’re pretty sure the second your head touched the mattress, you were out to the land of dreams. You groan, mostly because you’ve got a slight headache, but you power through it to make sure San is still breathing.

When you see his chest moving up and down steadily, you let yourself fall back asleep.

This goes on for the whole morning, and you only force yourself to stay up when your phone shows that it’s passed noon. As you had suspected earlier, the cabin has gotten extremely warm, so you force yourself out of bed to open all the windows, and then you use the washcloth from earlier to gently wash San’s face of the sweat.

He doesn’t even flinch in his sleep, but he’s still breathing and for now, that’s all that matters.

You head back to the main room, grabbing a pack of chips from where you had left the food earlier, and then you move outside to sit by the lake. Mostly because you need to put distance between you and San, but also just because the childhood memories of this place have you in their hold, and they’ve decided to make you miss the times when you’d swim around with your cousins before both of them had moved out of town.

One day, it’s going to be you too. You already know where you’d go – on the other side of the country, as far away from here as possible. You just want to forget all about the place you grew up in, and you know that, in a few years, you will have forgotten.

Though you’re pretty sure a certain piercing gaze will haunt you forever, especially after the events of today.

When another hour passes, you head back inside, putting the empty bag of chips in the trash before you check up on San. He’s still asleep, but this time he doesn’t look as pale as he did earlier. You assume it’s going to take him a while before he wakes, so you head to the nearest town to grab more food. Mostly to busy yourself, but also just because you know San will need a place to hide for a lot longer than just the weekend. Might as well make sure you have enough for him to survive a couple of days. In town, you also stop to eat at a small café on a small terrasse in the shade of a few trees, and then you grab the food you think you might need at the grocery store.

It’s the middle of the afternoon when you get back, realizing that you forgot to buy a floor mat. As you spy San, who hasn’t moved an inch since he’s fallen asleep, you figure that sleeping next to him tonight should be fine.

As long as his presence in your vicinity doesn’t drag you down memory lane again.

You bought some meat in town, so you head to the little shack outside where the generator is hiding. There’s a gas canister right next to it – also full – and you busy yourself for the next twenty minutes trying to figure out how to get it started. When it finally rumbles to life, you head back inside to put the meat in the fridge, which has finally come to life.

When you hear a groan, you quickly jog to San’s side, fully expecting to find him awake. Surprisingly, he’s still asleep, and you stay next to him for a full minute, thinking he might groan again, though he remains entirely silent.

If it wasn’t for his chest moving up and down steadily, you’d believe him to be dead. But now that a few hours have passed, you’re pretty positive he’ll make it, though he’s probably going to sleep through the day and possibly through the next one too.

Which leaves you in the most peaceful atmosphere you’ve been in for a while, with the opportunity to study as you listen to the rush of wind in the leaves of the tall trees surrounding the cabin. You sit outside, this time near the fireplace, and you study until your stomach grumbles, indicating that it is time for you to cook.

You cook the meat you’ve bought on the grill outside, feeling thankful that your dad once showed you how to use it. You go back in to grab a bottle of water before you eat, and you’re bent in the fridge when you hear San moan again, and this time it sounds like he’s saying something.

You gently close the fridge, making your way to the bedroom. San hasn’t moved, but his features are creased in a frown, and sweat is rolling down his temples. You wet the washcloth, gently wipe his face, and you’re about to leave when he moans again.

It takes you far too long to realize he’s apologizing. What for, you can’t really tell. Though you remember his troubled eyes this morning, you remember his story, and your heart breaks in your chest.

He’s haunted. You think the ghost of the dead guy will probably haunt him for the rest of his life. And suddenly you’re struck thinking maybe, maybe if you hadn’t broken his heart all those years ago, you could have saved him from the gang.

Maybe you could have opened his eyes.

You still remember the break-up like it was yesterday. You remember the rain, him leaving without once looking back, but mostly you remember the words you had uttered. Ghosts of their own, that feel more real now that he’s come back into your life.

*****

“You’re going to get hurt!” you yelled. “You’ll get hurt, San. What are you thinking?”

He scoffed, shaking his head, and little droplets of water shot all around him. “I’ll be careful. We need the money if we ever want to make it out of this shit town.”

You blinked away tears, folding your arms on your chest as you tried to keep your heart from breaking. Though you reckoned it had broken when your parents had told you what they knew about San. When your father had mentioned Ateez, and you’d truly realized what it meant that he was part of a gang. San, your sweet, soft, and bubbly San, in a gang that had murdered someone just a few weeks ago.

“But that’s not a way to make money!” you screamed, hoping he’d understand. Hoping he’d hear the truth in your words, hoping he’d change his mind before it was too late. “Why don’t you get a part-time job, like me? Then we can go to college and get jobs in a nice city on the other side of the country!”

“It won’t work,” he drawled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I want to be out soon, not in a few years. I barely even have a roof over my head, Y/n…”

“Come live with me,” you choked out around the lump in your throat.

You both knew fully well that your parents would never let him come near you again.

“I can’t.”

You cried, hiding your face in your hands. You cried thinking of the field where you usually met, thinking about its beauty now fading into ugliness. You thought about the wildflowers, withered and dead as autumn had come. You thought about how you were convinced you knew what love was.

“What’s the point?” you asked then. “What’s the point of putting your life in danger? Life isn’t some sort of a game, Choi San. Worse, what if you have to hurt someone? Do you think you’ll be able to pull the trigger?”

He clenched his jaw, hard. “Do me a favour and stop asking questions.”

You closed your eyes, feeling sick to your stomach. Because it couldn’t be. Not San. Not your smiley San, who’d always weave dandelions crowns with you, as you’d pretend you were a queen and a king of that field you had found. An empty field, an abandoned farmland that was just yours and his to explore. That had been home to your first kiss, and all of those that had followed.

Now you wondered why he had always wanted to meet there in the first place. Was he trying to hide?

"If you love me, you’ll get out while you still can,” you said as your tears suddenly ended.

There was a weird sense of clarity in you, suddenly. You remembered the day you had fallen in love, the moment you had first kissed. You remembered the stars in the sky above, the meteors falling for the two of you. You remembered the music on the radio you had brought. Some Arctic Monkeys song about heartbreak, about moving on and failing to do so. As a joke, when it had ended, you had asked San, “Do you think love is a laserquest?”

His answer had been cryptic, mysterious, things that had made you believe he was the one. “Maybe. Maybe it is, and I’ve shot you in the back while you weren’t looking. Maybe I’m that annoying player that won’t leave you alone.”

“I’ll never find you annoying,” you had replied.

But today, watching the rain rolling down his face like tears, you realized that maybe, maybe you should have seen the warning behind his words. Because this betrayal, it came like he had shot you in the back – you didn’t think you’d be able to recover from it.

The past dwindled away as San spoke again, reminding you of the question you had just asked him. “It’s not a question of love, Y/n. I do love you. But it’s a question of survival.”

You laughed, coldly, and then you said, “You know what? You’re full of shit.”

“Alright then. Do me a favour and tell me to go away.”

“Go away.”

A long silence had lingered between you, voided of that summer warmth that had you falling in love. Like a piece was missing from the contract of you loving him, and him loving you. And you realized, maybe you had never really loved each other anyway.

He nodded once when you didn’t say anything else, before turning away. And you watched him walk away. You watched him thinking he was going to turn around and tell you this was just some twisted joke, the prank of the century. Only, he never turned around, and he disappeared behind the bend in the road, never to be seen again, cracking your heart open and splitting it in half.

*****

The sun sets, like an ending to a dream. You’ve always liked the end – you think if you could choose, you’d want to witness the end of the world. The nostalgia, the beauty of endings… it’s something you understand now that you didn’t understand when you were younger. Because you and San ending, it had led to you focusing on high school. It had allowed you to get in the good college in town, with a scholarship that covered most of your expenses before you made it to med school.

There’s beauty in knowing losing San has allowed you to live out your dreams.

There’s less beauty in knowing that San has been sleeping for almost thirty-four hours now. Last time you checked, he was still breathing, but you’re starting to be afraid that he just won’t wake up. It’s irrational, you know �� after the blood loss it makes sense that he’d sleep for a long time.

But it leaves you with far too much time on your hands to think and revisit the past. You’ve been doing it all day – thinking about the fight with your parents that had led to your break-up with San, thinking about that damn rainy evening he had walked away without once looking back. Thinking of the field, of sunshine and star falls and the sweetness of a first kiss. Thinking that, then, you thought you knew what it was like to be in love.

You haven’t dated anyone serious since San. Hyunmin was a distraction for a while, but you never were into it. Not like you were into San. There’s a guy in your class though, that you’ve been chatting with for a couple of weeks. He’s sweet, innocent, and the perspective of a future seems less scary with him around. He’s mentioned he wants to move across the country once too, and since then you’ve started talking more, the similarity of your wishes drawing you closer.

All day today you’ve been feeling like you’re slowly drifting away though. Slowly getting entrapped in a web you’re not sure you’ll be able to walk away from.

You decide to swim, seeking the fresh clarity only cold water can bring to you. You don’t have a swimsuit with you, but since San is half-dead in bed you figure it doesn’t matter. So you strip naked, feet making squelching sounds in the mud by the lake side as you step in the water.

The sharp cold has you holding your breath, but you don’t slow down. You’ve never slowed down in life – when you make a decision, you bring it to completion. And you’ve decided to swim, so swim you will.

The warm summer evening breeze catches in your hair as you take another step forward, the water now lapping at your thighs. You dread the moment it’ll hit your core, knowing that that’s the worst part, but you breathe in deeply, moving forward. Because there’s no moving backwards now.

When the water hits, your eyes flutter shut, and you hold in the wince that threatens to escape the mask of calm your features hold. Soon enough, you get deep enough to swim, and the movements bring welcomed warmth to your limbs as you flop on your back, tits out of the water.

Your uncle’s cabin is the only cabin in a fifteen miles radius. You know you won’t be interrupted, and so you let the water cool you down. Calm you down, hold you in its fresh embrace. It undoes knots in your back that have formed from worrying about San, but also from worrying about college.

From worrying that you will never be enough. You think it’s a normal anxiety to have, something most people must feel as they go through the trials of college, not knowing what to expect on the other side. A nice career, perhaps, though the perspective of failure is there too, looming over the horizon.

You sigh, and your eyes flutter open as your legs move mindlessly under you, making sure to keep you afloat. You look up at the azury ceiling over your head, so far away as it slowly turns gold. Out of touch, out of grasp. You watch the fluffy white clouds that are lazily crossing the sky, turning fiery in the sunset, as if they have all the time in the universe. And you wish you were them, up above. With nothing to worry about.

Without a Choi San on the brink of death lying about twenty meters away from you. You sigh, and you turn in the water, with the purpose of swimming again. Though your gaze catches movement by the cabin, and your head snaps towards it to see none other than the supposedly Choi San, standing on the deck with a hand clutching his side.

You shriek, looking down at yourself. Most of you is hidden, but you don’t know how long he’s been there. Don’t know if he’s seen you naked as you looked up at the sky.

He doesn’t move, only watches you where you’re swimming.

“Can you please look away?” you say from the water, and he has the nerves to lean against the railing, eyes still boring into where you’re swimming. You think his gaze might be so hot the water will boil, and it startles you into action.

You start walking out of the water, pointing towards the door. “You shouldn’t be up, Choi San.”

“I feel fine,” he says as you take another step forward, and the water barely hides your tits anymore.

That makes him turn around, as he offers you a little bit of privacy. You’re quick to get out of the water and wrap yourself in the towel you brought outside, and then you collect your clothes to head back to the cabin. San dutifully keeps his gaze away until you’re climbing the three steps leading to the deck, and it’s then that his eyes trail to you again.

“Thank you for the water,” he says, offering you a tentative smile.

You left water by his bedside earlier today hoping it will coax him to wake up. You’re strangely surprised that it worked.

“You should go sit inside,” you scold him, only half-heartedly. Because seeing him up and about reassures you, somehow.

He cocks an eyebrow, a smile playing at the corner of his lips. “The weather is beautiful, I’d rather sit outside.”

You roll your eyes, but you do let him walk down the stairs to sit by the fireplace while you go inside to take a quick shower and get dressed. You decide to make some food for him, though you know he shouldn’t eat too much right now, after not having eaten for a while. He has to start slowly, and you don’t even know if he’s hungry anyway.

You settle for preparing a cup of chicken noodle soup for him, so at least it isn’t too heavy on his stomach. You bring it to him outside, as he’s just calmly observing the lake.

“Thank you,” he says, voice small as he grabs the cup and the spoon.

You sit next to him, trying not to watch him eat too much. His hair is sticking to his forehead in some places, and you have the distinct thought that he’ll probably need to shower. At least there’s plenty of rain water in the bucket for the water pump.

“What have you been doing while I was out?” he asks.

You spare him a quick glance before losing your gaze in the rocks of the fireplace. “I’ve studied. Checked up on you. Not much honestly.”

He chuckles. “I’d argue that caring for someone is a lot.”

You glance at him, cheeks burning at the sight of his teasing smile. “Not really.”

He chuckles again, but doesn’t say anything more before eating another spoonful of soup. He’s almost done with the cup when he actually does speak, asking, “How long was I out?”

“A day and a half,” you answer. “I’m actually surprised you haven’t slept longer.”

You can hear the smirk in his voice when he says, “I’m made of tough stuff.”

You snicker, but you don’t say anything, just focusing on where you’re kicking at the dirt. When he’s done with the cup, he puts it down on the ground next to him, before sitting back in the chair. He stretches out his legs in front of him, sighing deeply.

“I still feel out of it,” he admits, and you meet his gaze.

“You can sleep more,” you tell him. “I’d just like to check on the…”

You don’t even have to finish your sentence. He immediately turns so his side is to you, and you have to admit you’ve done a perfectly good job with the stitches.

“So?” he asks.

“All good.” You pat his shoulder. “You can sit comfortably again.”

He’s smiling when he does so, and his gaze wanders to the lake once again. “I’m sorry I…” he trails off, and he chuckles softly. “I’m sorry I interrupted your little swim earlier.”

You have the decency to flush furiously red, and you shrug your shoulders. “No worries, I wasn’t expecting you to be up so soon.”

You fall in a comfortable silence, surprisingly so. Rare stars dot the darkening sky up above, and all that can be heard for a moment is the flap of a bird’s wing as it moves from branches to branches in the trees by the water. The breeze picks up as you watch the little bird, and the leaves dance, loudly so. You’d think it’d be deafening in the silence between you and him, but it’s strangely reassuring.

As if, after all, you found your way back to the field. Only this time it’s completely different, as if decades have passed between you. At least, that’s how it feels like.

You notice San has dozed off in the chair next to you when you were about to speak to him again. To ask him how he’s truly been, in the years between then and now. Hoping to avoid mentioning what led to him coming to you, yesterday, a whole eternity ago.

You watch him, heart aching in your chest. Aching to reach out and brush his hair away from his forehead, aching to heal the cut on his cheek with a gentle swipe of your fingers. If only medicine was so simple…

It seems the peace of the early evening wasn’t going to stay around, because you notice dark clouds rolling in the distance, streaks of lightning cutting through them. Slowly inching closer, menacingly so, and you gently wake San up with your hand on his wrist.

He startles awake, hand shooting to his waist, finding nothing there. It startles you, and you both stare at each other for a moment until you realize what he was looking for.

His gun.

“San…” you let out and he runs his hand through his hair, eyes falling shut as he breathes in and out raggedly.

“Sorry.”

“San, I’m so sorry.”

He doesn’t open his eyes, refuses to let you see the vulnerability you glimpsed behind his piercing gaze. Refuses to acknowledge that he’s terrified, deadly so.

“Let’s go in,” you tell him, softly. Because you’re afraid you’ll spook him, when he’s clearly been living in fear long enough. “There’s a storm coming.”

He nods, carefully getting up without sparing you a glance. He heads inside, hand clutching his side again, while you pick up the chicken noodle soup cup before following him.

You’ve refilled the generator before swimming, so you know it’s been charging the batteries for a while now. You don’t fear ending up in the dark with San, and there’s also always the option of using the lamps and candles your uncle always leave here in case of an emergency.

The storm doesn’t roll in until a little later. You’ve forced San to put a shirt on – mostly so your eyes would stop betraying you, dropping to his toned body whenever he talked to you. You’re currently sitting on the couch, and as the rain starts, hammering against the window behind you, you pull your legs to your chest, wrapping your arms comfortably around them.

“How hard do the storms hit here?” he asks, eyes trailed to the world outside.

You follow his gaze, right as wind picks up to make the water hit the window even harder, creating a cacophony that forces you to speak louder for him to hear. “Pretty hard.”

He nods, and he glances once at you. “Fun.”

You smile, because you’ve always liked storms. Have always found them electrifying, energizing.

“Do you remember when we used to go to the field when it rained?” San asks, taking you by surprise.

Making your heart clench so hard in your chest you have to take a wobbly breath in. If he notices he doesn’t say.

“We were always in that field,” you remind him. “No matter the weather.”

It’s his turn to smile fondly. “It got so pretty with all the wildflowers. But you were afraid of the bees.”

“Bees are scary!” You laugh, and he echoes it with a soft chuckle. “You’re the one that almost pissed yourself when we saw the rat.”

That makes him laugh, and he winces in pain clutching his side. “Gosh, is it supposed to keep on hurting like this?”

It douses your enthusiasm and your smile falls. “Well, it was a solid cut.”

His eyes get lost in the void as he takes on a wistful expression. “I’m surprised I didn’t die.”

You gulp, watching his profile carefully. “It wasn’t deep enough for that…” you trail off, even though you spent most of yesterday and today being convinced he’d die. “At least they didn’t… stab you.”

“They would have if… Wooyoung didn’t shoot.”

You remain silent, not knowing what to reply to that. San interprets that as discomfort, and he quickly adds, “He didn’t shoot them. Just… in the air. It attracted the police.”

You remember the cars zooming past the diner a lifetime ago, and you nod your head. “I heard.”

He seems surprised, and his gaze finally finds yours again. “You did?”

“Yeah.” You chuckle, a little awkwardly. “I hear a lot of shootings, in the diner.”

His eyes widen, mouth falling open cutely. “You do?”

You don’t know what he expected. The diner is right between Ateez and Bangtan territory, and as much as it is a safe space, it is also near enough to dangerous grounds, and you’ve heard plenty of shooting in your time working there.

“Always,” you admit. “It can get scary sometimes… but you also get used to it.”

He looks sad. Infinitely so, like a lost puppy. That’s when the first thunder hits, so sharp and sudden you startle. Not quite as much as San, who ducks, wincing in pain as he clutches his side.

“Shit,” he curses. “Sorry.”

“What’s wrong?” you ask, in time with another thunderclap, though this time it’s more of a rumble.

You watch his chest as he breathes in and out quickly. “Just… fuck.”

Now, concern grows in you, and you gently put a hand on his shoulder. “San…”

He meets your gaze, and there’s so much white in his it makes you think of a terrified prey. And then it clicks: he thought it was a gunshot.

“Hey,” you quickly say, moving closer to him. You’re on the side of the stitches, so you still keep a safe distance between the two of you, but you grab his hand nonetheless. “You’re okay.”

“Fuck,” is all he’s able to say.

“I promise, no one’s going to find you here.”

He remains silent this time around, eyes still boring into yours. You take that as a cue to continue, because you don’t want him to panic. You want his thoughts here, with you, and not miles away in a city he should have escaped from years ago. You wish he had, knowing the atrocities that he would have avoided.

Would he have escaped with you, had you stayed just a little longer?

“I killed someone,” he says, and you balk at the silver lining his gaze. “I fucking killed him.”

You don’t know how to help. All you can think to do is cup his cheek, right as he starts breathing even faster. “Breathe with me, San.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes fall to your mouth. You make a good show of inhaling slowly, before exhaling even slower. It takes him a moment but he eventually follows your lead.

It breaks when there’s another sharp thunderclap, and he flinches, eyes shutting instinctively.

“Hey hey hey,” you say again, even more gentle, softer than before. You move even closer, and when a tear slips out of his closed eyes, you pull him into a hug, careful not to brush his side.

His head falls on your shoulder, and one of his arms wrap around your waist. A thunderclap later, he starts sobbing, fist balling the fabric of your shirt in his tight hold, and you let him do it. You let him hold onto you, hoping it’ll keep him here with you. Hoping it’ll keep him afloat during the storm that’s raging both outside and in his mind.

“It’s going to be okay,” you breathe, and you feel like you’re lying to him.

Because how can he ever be safe from the ghosts inside of his skull? The ghosts wandering the halls of him, tainting his soul with their presence?

“He’s never going to smile again,” San chokes out. “Everyone loved him. Even in Ateez… Jungkook was the best of us. The only one who had a shot at getting out of it.”

You don’t know how good he could have been, if he was a member of Bangtan. In your mind, you’d always seen Bangtan as the bad guys, mostly because they weren’t with San. Even when you had been struggling to evade that life, you’d still rooted for him.

It’s strange how you just realize that now, as you’re holding him while he breaks.

“You didn’t mean to kill him,” you remind San, still speaking with the calmest voice you can muster up. “You didn’t want to, San. You’re not a murderer.”

“I’m still a killer,” he says. He sounds angry, and you reckon he might be angry at himself. Might be consumed with his actions, dragged to hell before his time as his mind gets stuck replaying the events.

“Maybe,” you answer. “But,” you quickly add when he stiffens in your arms. “But you can spend the rest of your life making up for it. Repenting.”

He doesn’t respond right away, as he breaks some more, sobs rocking through him. You’ve never seen him like this, not even when you were younger and in love. It makes your gaze wet, yet you hold on strong for him. You keep your head held high, and you allow him to break in the safe haven that your arms represent.

Because to him, you’ve never been tainted. You’ve always been the ideal he was trying to pursue, albeit the wrong way.

“I don’t know how to repent,” he admits when he calms down. He turns his head, and his nose brushes along the skin of your neck, slightly tickling you. You ignore the feeling, especially as he adds, “Ateez… it’s all I’ve ever known.”

You run a hand on his back, soothingly. “It isn’t.”

Because there was you, too. There was the summer field and the twinkling stars and Artic Monkeys on the radio. There was the two of you, petal-soft kisses exchanged in the dead of night and in the brightness of day. There were rainy days, and then there was rain. There was him walking away, and you hate yourself then.

You wish you had stopped him that day, had kept him from going on to become what he’s become now. A person he clearly hates, someone that has a bounty on his head. Someone that doesn’t even believe they’re allowed redemption and you reckon you don’t even know if he is.

You only know that seeing him break is bending your will, the way the wind outside is bending the trees. All you can hope is that, like the tall trees, you won’t break.

*****

The storm calmed down sometime around midnight. San ended up falling asleep on the couch, as you’d reassuringly ran your hand through his hair, trying to keep him with you. Though you think he’s been slipping through your fingers, into his demons.

You’ll find a way to bring him back. You have to. Turns out it comes faster than you think, as the electricity runs out and you busy yourself with lighting some candles throughout the main room. When you’re done, you put a blanket over him, and you almost let out a startled scream as his eyes shot open.

“Hello,” you say, resting a hand on your heart to tame the wild beats.

You’re about to move away, but he grabs your hand, forcing you to sit next to him. You don’t really resist, though you think you probably should. You’re weak – weaker still when he murmurs your name.

“San,” you whisper in return, and you’re aware your voice carries too much longing. Longing for a past when life’s atrocities hadn’t changed either of you yet.

“I’m so sorry,” he apologizes, and a tear rolls on his cheek.

You dry it, fingers lingering there. “It’s okay.”

“Angel…”

The nickname brings you back to laser quests and favours and warmth creeping up your stomach for the first time in your life.

“I’m no angel,” you breathe.

“You saved me.”

You hold his gaze. There’s something hiding behind his pupils. The need, to forget. You don’t think you have the ability to run his mind through amnesia, but still you brush his cheek again.

“You deserved saving.”

His eyes glaze once more, though this time no tears fall. “It’s hard to believe it.”

“Do you still believe love is a laser quest?” you ask him, out of the blue.

As if you’re a line straight of that Arctic Monkeys song you listened to the first time you kissed.

“Maybe,” he says, a parallel to that first time you had asked the question. “Maybe it is.”

You can’t resist. You lean down, and you press the gentlest kiss on his lips. His are dry, but the way he sighs with you against him is soft, for your heart and for your mind, and you kiss him again. He lets you lead, follows the dance of your lips, lets you run your hand through his sweaty hair.

Even if you shouldn’t. Even if you know everything you’re doing right now is a mistake, you still find yourself deepening the kiss, opening your lips to slip your tongue out, teasing his mouth. One of his hands finds your thigh, and he squeezes ever so slightly as his tongue finds yours, and you let out a breathy sound.

When you pull away, eyes fluttering open, you find San’s gaze. You think about the boy he was then, the girl you were then. You think about who you were, together. And when he says, “Please make me forget”, you lean again, capturing his mouth in a languid kiss.

For a reason unknown, the summer sky and falling stars pale in comparison to this kiss. Maybe because it holds longing, nostalgia. Hope that life would have turned out differently. For a moment, you picture what it would have been like, without Ateez. With you and him in the field, in your family house, in a car driving by the beach, windows down as the sun sets and you sing along to the radio, wind blowing in your hair.

You see a whole life there, with you and him marrying in the field, under the sun that had been the host of your first love. You imagine growing up by his side, attending college with him in the big city. You imagine how he would have become the owner of his own construction company, like his dad before him. You picture kids laughing, running around the house he would have built for you. You see Christmas light, late nights antics by the firelight.

You see it all, and you know you’ll never have any of it. But if you can have tonight, then you’ll grab it before it slips through your fingers. Before he walks away in the rain again, only to be a memory you cherish in the deepest corners of your heart.

“How?” you ask him when you pull away.

Mostly, you’re asking how to make him forget. But you’re also asking how it is that the feelings are still there, even stronger now, as if they’ve grown up with you, yet haven’t changed like you have. Like they are a constant of an ever-changing universe.

“Kiss me again,” he asks, begs, and you give in. You kiss him wildly, always making sure not to touch his side and the stitches.

You know sex would be a stupid idea, especially with the fresh stitches. But also because he’s barely had time to recover. But he doesn’t really give you a choice, pulling you on top of him until you’re straddling him.

You sit back on him for a second, eyes trailing to the spot where you know the stitches are. “This isn’t a good idea,” you whisper through the ragged breaths caused by the ministrations of his mouth on yours and of yours on his.

“I’m fine,” he says, and you know you shouldn’t believe him. But when he pulls you down again, large hand holding the nape of your neck firmly so you don’t escape, you want to believe him.

Want to believe the beauty of his lies, like you had when you were younger.

From where you’re perched, you can feel the start of his erection pressing against you, and you moan softly in the kiss, rolling your hips. His mouth falls open, and you capture his tongue, sucking on it once before you pull away, leaving hot kisses on his jaw.

“Sit on my face,” he says, and he sounds out of his mind. Crazed, a little like you too feel at the moment.

“What?”

“Can’t get hurt if you sit on my face, angel,” he explains, and then hisses when you suck a hickey on his neck.

You let him pull your shirt off, unclasping your bra yourself as you sit back on his lap. He cups your breasts, rolling your erect nipples between his thumbs and indexes. You moan again, grinding your hips into his, and he hisses once more.

“You want to taste me?” you ask, head throwing back as he pinches your nipples hard.

“I’d fuck you, but you’re the doctor. Can’t risk fucking up my stitches, huh?” he replies, voice low and husky.

Your core heats up, pussy clenching around nothing. This is a side of him you’ve never seen, though you spy desperation beneath it. Like he thinks he doesn’t have forever, when it comes to you.

He’s right. Because tomorrow, you’ll have to go back into town, into the hellscape you call home. What will be left of the two of you then?

So when he tugs at your pants, you give in and get up, taking off your pants and panties in one swift motion. You step out of them, blood heating up by the way he’s looking at you through half-lidded eyes, gaze burning on you.

You have half a thought that you could probably ride him instead of his face, but when you see his pink tongue darting out to wet his lips, making them glisten in the candlelight, you need to know what it’ll feel like against you.

So you straddle his face as he guides you down, large hands pushing on your thighs until your pussy is a hairsbreadth away from his lips. He blows on it, and your eyes shut with sensitivity. You clutch the cushion of the couch, hoping it’ll help steady you, but the moment his tongue flicks at your clit, you realize nothing will be able to steady you. Yet you still hold onto it, especially as he dives his tongue between your folds, lapping up your juice. He moans in contentment, before moving to your clit again. And his tongue is wicked down there, like it knows exactly what you like.

You grab a handful of his hair, grinding into his face. You’re pretty sure he’s chuckling down there, and then he unleashes himself. Sucking hard, alternating circling motions to teasing you with his teeth. You’d expect the latter to hurt, but the way he does it just makes you see stars, and your pussy clenches around nothing again.

San is deadly good with his mouth. Both with crafting lies and pulling moans out of you, and your thighs tighten against his face as he sucks particularly hard, before dipping his tongue inside of you. His nose brushes your clit, and then he forces you to properly sit on him.

The way his tongue moves inside of you, lapping up your juices while opening you up, has you on the brink of an orgasm in no time. Especially as he makes you grind again, holding you tight into place. When one of his hands moves from around your thigh to reach your clit, you cry out, head throwing back.

He’s quick to rub at your sensitive clit, and you grab one of your breasts, massaging it mindlessly before you pinch your nipple, hard, right in time with a skilled swipe of his tongue. Your orgasm meets you there, shaking through you as it explodes in a blinding flash of light. You moan, loudly, something that resembles his name, and he keeps you going, guides you through your high until you cringe with oversensitivity.

Only then does he let you climb off from his face. You stand on wobbly legs, before deciding to sit next to him, and you catch sight of the smirk on his lips. It makes you blush, right as you realize what you’ve just done.

When you realize what kind of sinful activity he’s dragged you in, this time around.

“Gosh,” is all you manage to say.

He chuckles, clearly proud with himself. “That felt good?”

You worry at your bottom lip, eyes going down to the tent in his pants. You want to pleasure him too, to take him in your mouth and make him feel good, but he stops you with a hand wrapped around your wrist.

“Don’t.”

You still and you meet his gaze with slightly-widened eyes. “Why not?”

His features turn somber, haunted, and the heat of the moment passes so quickly you think it might have been a figment of your imagination.

Were you really riding his face just a moment ago?

“Please just lay next to me,” he says, barely even a whisper.

You don’t know a lot of men that would choose cuddling over getting a blowjob, but if that is what he wants, then you’ll give it to him. You lay next to him, glad that the injured side is closer to the couch. That way, you can cuddle up to him, resting your head on his shoulder while he wraps an arm around you.

“Angel,” he murmurs after a time. “You’re a fucking angel. I think you’re my salvation.”

You highly doubt you hold this kind of power, but you don’t want to tell him. Have never been good at weaving beautiful lies for him to believe.

“We should stay here,” he continues. “Forever.”

And you wish you could. Wish reality didn’t exist, didn’t call for you to go back to your regular life like you’ve never been here with him. But you know tomorrow exists, and you’ll have to leave.

“We should have stayed in the field,” you choose to answer. “Under the shooting stars.”

“I wished for a lifetime with you, then,” he admits. “I wished I’d never have to let you go.”

You’d wished for a similar thing, but life is far too cruel to allow a world of first loves.

“Why did you…” you trail off. The question has haunted your sleepless nights for a long time after the break-up. Even years later, you’d still think about it sometimes, wondering if nostalgia would choke you up. “Why did you decide to join the gang?”

He tenses next to you. But you start tracing a mindless circle on his chest, through the shirt, and it distracts him enough for him to reply. “I thought I didn’t have a choice.”

“Did you?”

His voice holds the weight of the world when he says, “I did. And I made the wrong one.”

You want to cry, but you’re older now. You’re not the teenager who thought she was going to die from losing him anymore. You know what living without Choi San is like, and as much as it hurts, you know that it’s doable.

“You made the one you believed was right,” you say carefully. “But I do wish you had made a different one.”

He holds you a little tighter, as if that will make it so tomorrow never comes. “Me too.”

There’s an eternity of flickering candlelight on the ceiling, of the circles you trace on his chest and of your breathings forming a melody. Outside, the wind has died down, and the world is silent except from an occasional cricket braving the world after the storm.

“Where will you go, once you graduate?” he asks, taking you by surprise.

Because he knows. It’s one of the few things that hasn’t changed.

“As far away from here as I can.”

“I hope you find peace, wherever you go,” he whispers. “I hope you forget all about how we grew up in a hellhole.”

Do you feel bad for saying it? Maybe. But you can’t help saying it anyway. “I will, San.”

And like that rainy day years ago, you think you can see him walk away.

*****

Seven years later

The winter sun is strangely bright, up above. You’d think it will warm you up, but the cold is relentless, violent, and it sneaks into your coat as you walk out of the hospital. You’ve just finished a thirty-hour shift, and you can’t wait to be home.

To take a shower and forget that you’ve lost a patient today.

But you’ve saved another. A young man, with a stab wound in his ribs that should have killed him. But you saved him, stabilized his condition to the point you don’t have to worry about him anymore. Which is the only reason why you’re allowing yourself to leave now.

You’re never able to leave until you know your patients are okay. It’s been that way since your first patient, in a cabin in the woods you’ve done your best to forget.

You’d let San stay, after that weekend. He had given you the number of one of his friends, so you could get some clothes for him, and you’d gone back the next weekend. Bringing him the clothes, making love to him under the moonlight as if that would change the ending.

The following week, you had gone back to find the cabin empty. He’d left a note behind.

I hope I can find you again, wherever you go.

You kept the note. It’s in your bedside table, back at home, in the nice apartment you’ve been able to rent for yourself with all the money you’ve been making now. Enough to pay back student loans from med school, enough to reassure you that never again will you struggle.

You’ve never seen San again after. He hasn’t found you, and you haven’t searched for him. Have only looked up his name a couple of times, in the months following his disappearing, scared you’d find out that he was found dead in a ditch. But his name never came up, and you wondered if he had managed to escape, if he had managed to find a place where Bangtan couldn’t reach him.

You found peace, on your side of the country. Life is kinder here, though it still holds the same atrocities. You wonder if it’s the novelty of the city, or maybe if you’ve just grown old enough to be able to withstand the bad that the world throws your way. It’s hard to tell – you haven’t kept contact with anyone from back home, except Jae-on.

Jae-on, who’s moved with you when you’ve decided to come here, like he said he would. Jae-on, who asked you to marry him in late October, and you said yes. The ring sits heavy on your finger, and you mindlessly play with it.

In another world, you would already be married to Choi San. Sometimes, you catch glimpses of that world – a piercing gaze in the morning, a smile and a kiss to your temple. Talks about angels, children screaming in happiness. In another world, you’d be pregnant again, waiting patiently to add another piece of you and him to this world.

It’s fun to think about, sometimes, but you’ve been good at forgetting. Like you told him you would – most times, you’ve forgotten all about Choi San.

But today, you had a patient that reminded you of him. So you allow yourself to feel, you allow yourself to think about that note tucked in the bottom drawer of your bedside table, hidden under the thick socks you never use.

You allow yourself to think about the cabin in the woods, about the field where you would have gotten married had you been in that picturesque world you like to imagine. You think about laser quests and first kiss and rainy days and meteors. You think about summer, about wildflowers and him.

You’re so lost in thought you miss your stop home, and you begrudgingly get out at the next one. You’re tired, and your hands are shaking as you pull your phone out of your tote bag, wanting to text Jae-on that you’re going to be home late because you missed your stop. You walk to the other side of the tracks, sighing when you see a five-minutes wait for the next subway.

At least the sun is high in the sky, even though it is dreadfully cold. You shiver, putting your phone back in your tote bag so you can hide your hands in your sleeves again, hoping it’ll preserve them from the cold.

In your exhaustion, you forgot your gloves back at the hospital, you realize. It’s strange that you only realize now, and you reckon you really need to sleep, because your brain isn’t even working right anymore.

You sigh, glancing at the display showing the time. Still four minutes to wait. You think at this rhythm you might freeze in your spot before the next subway comes. You try to hide your face in the lapel of your coat, but a movement on the other platform attracts your gaze.

A man is helping an older woman climb down the stairs. She’s speaking loudly, which might be what attracted your gaze in the first place. You follow them as they walk down the stairs, and then when the man turns towards you, you meet his piercing gaze.

He smiles, and you realize that maybe, all those years ago, he was not spinning lies to you after all.

☆☆☆☆☆

Gosh yeahhh rereading it had me ralize that it is a lot sadder than I remembered it to be. At least we got an open ending ... :') What did we think? Should I write about other groups more often? Let me know what you think! All rights reserved to @/oddinary4bts, 2023. Do not copy, repost or translate

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ss-skyearn · 1 year

Text

Walk With Me

❝In love with the idea of loving you.❞

PAIRING : Lee Minho x female!reader.

WORD COUNT : 4k.

GENRE : Smut, Fluff (wow no angst for once.)

WARNINGS/CONTENT : Past angst, established relationship, feelings and emotions, they're in love (to no one's surprise), Minho with long hair, mentioned Soobin.

SMUT WARNINGS : First time together, hair pulling (not the rough kind; minho realises he enjoys his roots being tugged at oops-, this bit inspired by this post by @tasteracha), voyeurism, public sex (late at night, so one witnesses it), unprotected intercourse, sweet lovemaking, so much love and feelings *sob*

A/N : Writting fluff is nowhere near what I'm good at, so feedback is really appreciated. Enjoy, lovelies. ♡

"Everyone can see."

It's a little too late for that now.

But it's not a complaint, not a protest, an objection. It's a simple statement, divulgence of facts, a declaration made by your brain that has long since lost the ability to conjure lucid postulations.

"Let them. Let them see," quickening of thrusts, desperation rearing its head in the most sinful of ways.

"Let me show them how much I love you."

"Meet me outside?"

The laughter of your girlfriends drowns out behind you as you weave your way out of the single room you've all gathered in, despite having been allotted seperate ones.

"Outside?"

"Yeah, outside," you don't need to be next to him to know that he's anxiously bouncing off the balls of his feet, rocking back and forth with his bottom lip caught between bunny teeth you flick your tongue across everytime you kiss him, without fail.

You'd have to make it a point to let him know of your adoration for them the next time he decides to take your breath away with his hot mouth.

And make no mistake, that's what kissing him is like, like losing your breath, like gaining your breath all over again; like being locked in an airtight, evacuated room, like being put on the ventilator with nothing but pure oxygen being pumped straight to your lungs.

It's dizzying either way. Whether it's being deprived of the gush of wind through your airways, or being forced to choke up on all the withheld supply of air all at once, it hurts.

It hurts to be with him. But you'll choose to be hurt, to be on the receiving end of the pain, if it means he's the inflictor, the hand on the trigger.

"Right now?"

"Yeah, if that's okay," he's nervous, something you both are a lot around each other from time to time.

"Uh, okay. Okay, yeah, I'll be out in a minute."

"Okay, good. That's good," you hear shuffling, and imagine him moving from one foot to the other, "I'll be waiting outside the dorms."

"Outside the— what if someone sees you?"

"They know anyway."

Which is the truth. Inherently the private person, you'd asked Minho to keep your newly budding relationship a secret from your peers, a request he'd agreed to almost immediately. Ever the understanding and gentle soul, he'd not once asked to go public with you, even though Hyunjin told you how he sometimes drunkenly mumbles about wanting to hold your hand when Soobin gets a little too close, about wanting to get you coffee on 7 A.M. Tuesday lectures when he knows you haven't slept for more than two hours, about kissing you under the lights on prom night when all couples got their fancy on and indulged in each other after a tough semester.

He wants, yearns, craves.

But you'd been cruel enough to deny him that. Trust issues and fear of commitment aside, you'd been afraid to tell people, to introduce him as your boyfriend, because saying that aloud would make it all the more real, and you'd no longer be able to control the flutter to your heart every time he appeared in your peripheral vision, you'd no longer been able to hold back the intensity of your feelings that seeming only grow with each passing hour, minute, second you spend looking at him.

It had scared you. Understandably so.

Caught up in over your head, you hadn't stopped to consider what it all meant for him, what he might perceive this as. He had no way of knowing what you actually felt, not unless you told him.

It all happened a week ago, when your phone dinged with a notification from Hyunjin. Instead of telling you, he sent you a video this time, a video of Minho slumped back against the wall of the speakeasy you both frequent, eyes shut with his head resting on the concrete.

dumplin [2:57 A.M.]

VID_3653833_219389.mp4

he's been like this for half hr

"I love this place," his intoxicated form had rasped in the video.

Hyunjin who was behind the camera had snorted, asking the reason for the sudden confession.

Minho had grinned, all toothy, bunny smile on display, "I come here all the time with my girlf—" only to stop dead in his tracks, eyes snapping open, neck suddenly ramrod straight with panic all over his drowsy features.

"Your girl..?" Hyunjin had prompted from behind the camera, barely stifling his chortle.

"Uh, my, my. Oh god, I don't know. I don't know what I was saying."

He always was a bad liar. Even in his hazy eyes, even through the shaky video, you could see the hurt, the pain behind his actions as he rubbed the heel of his palms against his eyes, chugged a bottle of water to sober himself up.

"It's okay, Minho. I know. We all know."

"Know what?" he had asked, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

"We know you're dating the dance society president."

His eyes had widened, a fresh surge of agitation creeping its way onto his otherwise relaxed face.

"No. No, that's not true. Who told you that?"

Hyunjin had chuckled and told him he was the one who introduced you guys, and the other six seated on the table were among the very few people who did know of your apparently secret relationship.

"I don't know what you're talking about. She and I are just frei—"

The video had cut off there and half an hour later, you found yourself asking the local security guard for directions to 'The Late Bite'.

The bejewelled smile he cast your way as you entered the dining space lasted only a fraction of a second, him going back to pretending you were mere acquaintances and your heart had all but given up.

Marching to him, you had gotten him up on his feet. Ignoring the confused, almost frightened look to his face, you had for once asked your brain to shut the fuck up, and finally given in.

You kissed him. You kissed him on the mouth, swallowing the gasp he let out, ignoring the gasps the people in the diner let out, cradling his face with care befitting a porcelain doll, for truly, he was. As fragile as fine china, as delicate as the first rays of sun hitting the horizon.

Not the tough guy he pretends to be, the hard exterior, the unbreakable shell. You know him to be none of those things.

The dazed smile, the look of blatant relief he'd given you before collapsing on you, mumbling a small breathy, "thank you," was all you needed to know that you'd made no mistake. This was how it was supposed to be, always.

And so it had began.

He held your hand when Soobin got a little too close, he got you coffee on 7 A.M. Tuesday lectures when you were running on two hours of sleep, he held your nape and kissed you under the nightlights, because prom had passed by then but it didn't matter to him, he had kissed you, kissed you, and kissed you some more, till your head got fuzzy from the lack of air supply, till it was physically impossible to stay connected for even another second.

And that's how you find yourself here, making your way out of the girls' dorm in the quiet of the night, it being well past midnight by now— not before checking your reflection in the common bathroom once, fluffing out your hair, splashing some cold water onto your face.

He's standing under a street lamp with his hands into the pockets of his fleece jacket, unmatching with the track set he wears underneath.

He's the single most picky person you know when it comes to styling outfits, deciding what goes well with what, which colour compliments the undertones of another one. Well, besides you of course. Your friends teased you both about how you were practically cut from the same cloth, the same material but different textures, so alike in all the places that mattered, so different in all the places that didn't so much.

So the beige jacket atop the cherry red track set stands out a little too much, and your heart thumps a little too fast at the possibility of his eagerness to see you outweighing his need to look presentable at all times.

You shuffle forward, heart picking up its erratic staccato, the same way it does every time he's within a mile's radius, threatening to jump out of the confines of your ribcage, trying to lunge for what was once so out of reach, for far too long.

He's reclined against the street lamp, eyes closed, head thrown back against the cool metal pole, allowing the ombre light to fall straight onto his fluffy mop of hair. It's unstyled, freshly washed. The caramel tone compliments the muted yellow light streaming down his face, painting him, drowning him.

Your heart aches from running a mile a minute.

Or from feeling so full. You aren't exactly sure.

"Hi," you squeak tentatively, not wanting to disturb him when he looks so peaceful. And beautiful. God, he looks beautiful.

His eyes flutter open. Your heart breaks open with them.

He forgoes pleasantries in favour of wrapping his arms around your shoulders, pulling you flush against his chest, and you hold him back, hug him back, squeeze him like you never want to let go. Because really, you don't. Not now, not ever.

"Where's your jacket?" he mumbles into your shoulder, stroking his face back and forth against it, much like the stray cat that visits your dorm room at nights does.

"Mm?"

He chuckles, "It's cold out. Why didn't you put on a jacket?"

"Oh," you pull back, there's pink dusting your cheeks, and you really hope it passes as the consequence of the chilly night, "I guess I forgot."

He smiles wide, affectionate and all kinds of pretty, and the tear in the front of your heart deepens, curling a little to the back, threatening to split it into two.

It's not so impossible a situation, you suppose. Lee Minho is very much capable of shattering your heart into a million pieces with a single smile, then healing it back with a kiss to your temple, breaking it along new cracks, then moulding it back together with the same blowtorch he uses to melt sugar atop his Crème Brûlée, the blue flame made all the more hot with searing kisses, aimed at trapping you into this cycle where he plays with your heart, keeping it with him to do as he pleases.

And you'd let him. Let him have his way with you, to make you, unmake you, only to make you again.

You're his clay, and he's your artist.

You're brought back to the present as a sudden warmth engulfs you, and when you look over your shoulder to see the beige fleece jacket dropped around you, it warms you from the inside too.

"Hey, you'll catch the cold, you have an assessment tomorrow too—"

He shrugs, "I'll live."

"Minho, seriously I'm fine, here take it back—"

"It doesn't match my fit anyway," he entwines your fingers together and begins slowly walking, guiding you along.

It's then that it clicks. Glancing down, you take note that the jacket actually goes with your outfit, and you refuse to pick up on the reason for this coincidence, for certainly, it's not one. It's planned, thought out.

You'll ignore it all the same. For the well being of your poor heart that's working overtime, your senses that are on high alert, your hand, so so warm engulfed in his large one.

"Where are we going?" you ask instead.

"Just a night walk," he begins, and you've spent enough time with him by now to know that his voice sounds bashful, the little shy lilt to it endlessly endearing, "wanted to spend some time with you."

You clutch at your chest with the other hand, exhaling a deep sigh, and squeeze his hand, praying that it's appreciation enough, that it compensates for your inability to verbally acknowledge his thoughtfulness.

But if there's one thing that he's, without a doubt, mastered about you, is your tells.

He knows when you're too abashed to outright admit it out loud that you appreciate him.

He knows when you're too overwhelmed to downright confess you're having trouble staying focussed.

He knows when you're too exhausted to unequivocally divulge your reluctance to anything social.

He just knows. But you don't; you don't know what you did to deserve this, to deserve him.

You still don't think you do, truth be told.

When you snap out of your daze, you both are no longer on campus grounds, walking along a lone street you don't recognise, lit by flickering lights threatening to give out any moment, but in a moment of vulnerability that surprises even yourself, you find you're not scared. Because Minho is with you, and as long as that stands, as long as you're lucky enough for that to stand, you know you're safe.

"Where are we going?" you echo your previous question.

But this time, he grins with a mischievous glint to his eye, looks you over and his pupils dilate, as if merely looking at you is enough to kickstart his heart into overdrive, "You'll see."

And see you do. Twenty minutes later, here you stand, bare feet pressed into the wet sand by the shore, both arms wrapped around his bicep, head resting on the trusty shoulder, humming along to the sound the breeze makes as it whisks past you.

"Are you cold?" he whispers, despite there being no one except the two of you on the beach at this time of day, taking your hands in his and swiping his thumb over your knuckles, assessing the answer for himself, lest you lie to not worry him. "Mm. No, you're not," he hums to himself, guiding your head back where it rested against the crook of his neck, only this time wrapping his own arms around, engulfing you in an embrace that speaks of warmth, of comfort, of love.

But for some reason you aren't sure of yourself, you resist, not taking his lead in going back to your previous stance, instead just staring into his eyes with something you don't know, but it seems he does, for his facial expression turns from surprised to lovestruck in the matter of a second.

He leans in, granting your silent request. Really, you don't know how he does it, almost like you don't have to say anything at all, for he hears you loud and clear without you having to utter a single word.

If what people say about having a soul person is true, he is yours.

And as your lips slot together, the waves behind you crash the loudest they have today, as if the nature is rejoicing, the elements exuberating, witnessing the collision of two beautiful souls, their stitching together into a single bracelet in the form of two bright pearls.

He is the black one, burning passion and quiet peace.

You are the white one, inherent perfectionist and loud existence.

You compliment each other, matching almost every piece of clothing in the wardrobe, neutralising when the other gets too much, burning along when the other gets dim.

"I love you."

You don't know what love means, what it stands for, what it entails.

But you're in love with the idea of loving him.

"I love you," you echo into his mouth, forgoing the "too" at the end because it makes it sounds like a passive confession, a favour returned, when it's easily the truest statement you have had to utter in all the time you've spent thinking about him, him, him.

"I love you, I love you," and alas, once you say it, you can't seem to stop, you want him to know, you want the whole world to know. You want to write it on the stars for the universe to read, that you are his, and he yours.

"I love you so goddamn much."

It hurts, it hurts so much, more than it did an hour ago when you caught sight of him standing outside your dorms. Now that your heart is aware of the gravity of what it feels for him, it just hurts.

When he pulls back, it's to hold your chin in the care of his palm, making you look at him, his eyes glittering with the beginnings of perspiration.

"I love you," he says simply.

To any onlooker, it might have seemed tame, insane maybe, for you two haven't been saying anything except the same three words in the last ten minutes.

But you know, only you know that they aren't the same words.

The first time he said it was to test the waters, to see if you would run away.

The first time you said was to check for yourself, did you love him?

The second and third time you said it was to tell your heart that yes, yes you did, you loved him more than you did anyone before, and it's a wonder how it took him saying it first for you to realise that.

The final time you said it, it was to him, to let him know that you did.

The final time he said it was to say yes, he knows, he knows that you do, that he knows the first two confessions were for your heart more than they were for him, that he's proud you've let down your walls enough to let him in, that he's grateful you've chosen him.

You suddenly find yourself descended on the shore, your back pressed into the cool sand that tickles your nape, Minho hovering over you with a look that can only be described with three words.

I love you.

"Be mine?" he says with wet kisses trailing up your jaw, stopping after every one to take in a deep inhale.

It's silly maybe, to say that when you're already dating but you know what he means, for you feel the same.

"I already am," you say as your body cants upwards, up, up, up, towards him, towards safety.

His hands trail down your body to where the waistband of your sweats sits, tracing along the diameter it transcends, looping his arm to the back to lift you up a tad more.

"Can I?"

You don't know what he's asking for, your motor and sensory neurons having stopped working, still chanting the same words over and over, 'iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou'.

So you nod, letting him undo the knot that rests on your lower stomach, letting him expose you in a manner most intimate, letting him have you for him, surrendering to the onslaught of pleasure.

When he sinks down on you, stretching you open for the very first time, it's with a groan you wish you could record, paste onto your eardrum, for every time a sound reaches the tympanic membrane, it would vibrate, carrying with it the symphony of the voice you want to hear every second of everyday.

As the initial euphoria of letting him in wears off, with him buried to the hilt, you look up at him, his soft brown hair falling down like curtains on either side of his temple, spilling over his nape that's suddenly too narrow to contain all the strands. And it's then that you remember saying you loved it whenever he was too busy and pushed back going to the salon, his long locks a guilty pleasure, your indulgence.

You reach your hand forward, entwining it with his silken strands, just holding, feeling, "Did you grow them out for me?"

"Yes," he whispers without a beat, as though waiting for you to take note of it without him having to say it first.

This time, the tears do trickle down your eyes, staring up at what you only appreciated from a distance.

"I can't believe t-this—" you choke out the last word when he begins moving, ever so slightly pulling back, pushing forward with a little more force, a little more ardour, the veins in his neck all the more prominent with the strain it takes to hold himself back from going faster.

You tug at his roots, a sharp hiss emanating from somewhere deep in his throat, the roll to his eyes evidence enough of how there's now another reason for him to keep his locks long enough to pull at.

He presses his body closer to yours, coming down on his elbows, kissing down the trail of your hot tears on even hotter skin underneath. It's his way of saying he's listening, an unspoken encouragement for you to continue, but also that it's okay if you don't.

But today is the day you've decided to bare it all to him, to not coware back, to let him know what only you have for what seems like forever.

"I s-saw you on the day of the orientation," you barely get out, coherence slipping past your fingertips much like the fine sand particles you're currently making love atop.

He stills, looking into your eyes, searching for something, "The very first day of college?"

You nod, stretch your lips into what you hope is a smile for your tears are cascading down with a current, sweeping anything and everything that dares come in the way of your route to him.

"That was like, five months ago," he seems incredulous, unbelieving that you were, in fact, the first to notice him and not the other way around.

Entangling your other hand into his hair, fingers brushing the one already slotted in there, you chuckle, "Yeah, it was like, five months ago. I had my eye on you for quite a while, pretty boy."

He doesn't buy the distraction you only half hoped he would, tenting his eyebrows into an upside down V, "And?" he prompts, yet again knowing that there's more to what you're saying.

"It's silly," you mumble, turning away from his gaze that puts your well being at risk.

A gentle finger to your chin, a swift sway of your face to pin you under the same gaze.

"Tell me." Simple as that, with no way out.

Maybe you don't want one.

"I-I saw you on the first day, a-and… I just, god you were so pretty, I thought— I wanted you already, but I thought you were a little too pretty, you know? And, and that eveyone would want you too, and you'd have so many options, ones better than me, and I'd have to get in line, and then—"

A firm press of lips, locked together in love and lust, in lieu of reassurance that you know is still coming.

"It was you for me, always," he says when he pulls back, "there's no line, no one else, just you. And me. Just us, hm?"

"Mm," you hum, losing yourself in the rhythm of his hips that have begun moving once again, small whimpers escaping right into his ear that is pressed against your cheek. Whether it's deliberate or not, you don't know.

He grasps onto one of your ankles, winding it around behind him, the space thus created allowing him to push in all the deeper.

"Oh god, Minho—"

His pace picks up when you pull his hair enough to cause a faint sting on his scalp, in addition to being a direct result of the way his name keeps overflowing past your lips.

You gasp, fighting for air, clutching onto his shoulders, afraid he'd slip away if you let go, "Everyone can see."

It's a little too late for that now.

"Let them. Let them see," quickening of thrusts, desperation rearing its head in the most sinful of ways.

"Let me show them how much I love you."

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froggibus · 1 year

Text

Stay A While - Jason Todd/Red Hood

Pairing: Jason Todd x reader

Genre: hurt/comfort, fluff w a shot of angst

Word Count: 2.4k

Summary: you’ve always been one to suffer in silence, shutting yourself in your apartment for the duration of your episodes. but Jason Todd doesn’t want to sit idly by and watch you suffer alone, even if it annoys you

CW: depressed! reader, mentions of depressive episodes, negative thoughts/self talk, Jason is overbearing, mentions of insomnia, reader struggles to eat, some violence (out on patrol), the rest of the family kinda sucks in this lmao

this is for the people who followed me expecting Batfam/DC content and didn’t unfollow when I didn’t post any for months 😭 I love y’all. also idk the idea of soft! Jason makes me so emotional. also I WOULD LOVE SOME DC OR BATFAM REQUESTS!!! if there’s anything you want me to write I will gladly do it 🫶🏼 (also let’s ignore the fact that this is like my 3rd angsty post in the past few days oops)

————

It was common knowledge around Wayne Manor that disappearing into your room (or apartment) for a few days meant something different for everyone. Usually, it wasn’t anything to worry about.

Sometimes it would be Tim finally sleeping when he’s pushed himself too far. Other times, it was Dick working a case and refusing to leave until he knew what to do. For Bruce, it usually meant he was injured and trying to hide it from everyone.

Jason was still finding these things out little by little, so when you suddenly disappeared into your apartment, he was worried.

“Honestly, it’s nothing to worry about,” Tim tried to ease his mind. “Y/n tends to retreat when things get bad.”

“And you guys are okay with that?”

Dick shrugged, adjusting the ice pack he had pressed to his forehead. “We tried the first time it happened. After a while, we realized that alone time is the only thing that really works. If y/n needs help, y/n will reach out.”

And the topic ended there. Or at least, it did for Dick and Tim. Jason couldn’t stop thinking about it though—did they really just let you suffer in your apartment all alone whenever you had an episode? The thought made his skin crawl.

He’s had a few bad episodes over the course of his life, and while he managed to deal with it alone, he didn’t think that you should have to.

Maybe that’s what led him to your apartment at four in the morning with a bag of takeout.

You open the door dressed in your pyjamas despite not having slept a wink. You're almost surprised to see Jason standing there with the paper bag. Didn’t everyone know to let you ride it out on your own? You thought they decided to stop bugging you ages ago.

Still, you don’t think it was fair to slam the door in his face, and instead welcome him inside. “What are you doing here, Jason?”

“Just thought I’d check on you,” he sets the bag on the counter. “Haven’t seen you in a while and wanted to make sure you’re okay.”

You squint at him. Did he really think you were that dumb? You figured he would have asked Dick or Bruce right away if you suddenly fell off the face of the earth, and they would have told him about your situation. Jason and you had never been particularly close, either, so why was he here?

He raises his hands in defeat. “I just want to make sure you’re taken care of somewhat. Alright? I’ll leave you alone after that.”

“I mean, I’m fine aren’t I?”

Your words come out harsher than you’d like, but you can’t help but be annoyed at the sudden intrusion. Not to mention the implication that you can’t take care of yourself.

“You clearly haven’t slept in a while so we both know that’s some bullshit.”

You sigh. He’s right, after all. You can’t remember the last time you slept, let alone for more than a few hours. Though used to staying up late on missions and patrols, you never went this long.

“I just have a lot on my mind, I guess,” you admit. “But I can take care of myself, Jason. So while I appreciate the concern, you can leave.”

He doesn’t protest, instead grumbling to himself while you show him to the door and effectively kick him out of your apartment. He stands outside the door for a while, wondering if he should try harder.

He decides against it, and thinks he’ll just have to check on you again tomorrow.

—

You almost feel guilty unpacking the takeout he got you, but then again, there weren’t many days lately where guilt and stress didn’t weigh heavily on you. As soon as you felt that familiar flood of negative thoughts and emotions, you knew it was time to withdraw. Still, through all of your episodes, you were yet to experience one quite this bad.

It’s nice that Jason checked on me, you think to yourself. At least someone thought of you. Sure, you’d told the others countless times over the years that solitude while you sort through your thoughts was imperative, and it was true. Regardless, it was nice to have someone check on you, even if it was annoying.

You dish yourself a plate of Chinese food and sit down on your couch, looking out at Gotham city through the window. It’s a dim, rainy night and the weather does nothing to help your mood. You find yourself picking at your food, having only a few bites before packing it up and leaving it in the fridge.

You didn’t eat much, but it’s a start.

—

Jason tries to push back the thoughts of you on patrol the next night, but he can’t. He just thinks of the bags that line your under eyes and the way your voice cracked when you said you were fine.

It’s only when he damn near loses an eye to a stray bullet that he realizes he can’t ignore it anymore. He ducks around a corner, ready to head back to his bike.

“Hood, where are you going?” Nightwing calls after him.

“I gotta go check on something!”

Red Robin scoffs, “y/n is a big kid, Todd. Just leave it alone.”

He shakes his head at the younger boy. He wants to argue with him but for once in his life, Jason Todd bites his tongue and turns the other cheek.

When you open the door, you’re unsurprised to see Jason Todd standing there in his Red Hood suit. “Jason?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he says, walking past you straight into your apartment. “I’m back.”

“I—welcome back?” You close the door behind him, spinning around on your heel and raising an eyebrow at the man in your living room.

“Look, I know I said I’d leave when I knew you were taken care of but I don’t—you’re not. Like, seriously, y/n, just talk to me.”

You sigh and take a seat on the couch. “Do you really want to listen?”

“Yes,” he says and sits down next to you, dropping his helmet on the cushion next to him. “If it helps you, I’ll listen til my damn ears bleed.”

His words are almost enough to bring a smile to your face, the muscles twitching almost painfully. You nod slowly, drawing your knees into your chest.

Jason analyzes your body language, seeing just how vulnerable and small you really are despite your usual front. He knows to tread lightly here.

“I—,” you tug on your hair slightly, trying to think of how to verbalise it. “Have you ever been so tired, like beyond tired, that you can’t sleep?”

He goes to speak, but thinks the better of it. You don’t need to hear about his own problems right now, but the truth is he has. He’s been where you are before—guilt and misery weighing so heavily on him that he can’t breathe.

“I don’t even know what triggered it. I was fine one day and then all of a sudden….” You gesture to your current state in hopes he gets the idea. “I really hate feeling like this,” tears prick at your eyes and your nose stings with every word, “but I’ve never really found a way to make it stop and—and—“

Jason is almost as surprised as you are when he sets a gloved hand on your shoulder. “Y/n,” his voice is soft, “it’s okay to feel this way.”

His touch helps ground you and you manage to take a deep, shaking breath. “I don’t want you to see me like this, Jason,” you say quietly, voice so soft he almost doesn’t hear.

“There’s no shame in the way you’re feeling.”

“I know that I just—can you just go? Please?”

He opens his mouth to speak, to argue with you, but thinks the better of it. You look so soft and sad and vulnerable. He doesn’t want to push his luck and push you further away from him.

He grabs his helmet and stands up. “Have a good night, y/n. I hope you manage to get some rest tonight.”

You watch Jason Todd walk out of your apartment door for the second night in a row.

—

Jason is surprised when his phone screen lights up with your picture while he’s on patrol. The last person he’d expect to call him at two in the morning was you, especially considering he hadn’t heard from you in a few days.

He tried to come and visit you the next night, but he couldn’t bring himself to knock at your door. Y/n’s tough, he thought to himself. You don’t need his help.

He can’t pick up the phone in the middle of a fight, though, and has to wait until the henchmen are in a pile on the ground. He doesn’t even retort to Damian’s comment on how long it took him to take them down—his mind too focused on you and what could possibly be wrong.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket, pressing redial on your number. Please be okay, he thinks.

You answer on the third ring, your voice sounding soft and defeated. “Jason?”

“Y/n? Is everything okay?”

“I-I just…” you sigh into the phone and Jason’s heart clenches at the sound. “I don’t really want to be alone right now.”

Jason considers this for only a second. “Alright, I’ll be there in 10.”

He hangs up the call and shoves his phone back into his pocket, making the walk back to his bike.

“Todd?” Robin says in his earpiece.

“Pipe down, brat. I have more important things to deal with tonight.”

“More important than protecting the city?” Nightwing says over the comms.

You have no idea, he wants to say. But he doesn’t, opting to turn off the ear piece and focus on getting to you as quickly as he can. He said he’d be there in 10 minutes, but he’s at your apartment door in 7.

You’re waiting at the door when he knocks, a blanket over your shoulders, curled in on yourself. As soon as you open the door, you’re wrapping your arms around him.

His suit is damp from the rain, soaking into your pyjamas and making you shiver. Still, you don’t let go of him. It’s been a particularly rough day, and you needed some company to combat the thoughts filling your head.

“Miss me?” He jokes.

You say nothing, content to hold him as close to you as possible. He rubs your back gently before wrapping his arms around you and half carrying you back into your apartment.

He closes the door behind him, awkwardly adjusting to hold you up with one arm. Not that it’s much of a struggle for him, considering he’s a lot bigger than you are.

He’s torn, he doesn’t want to let go until you do, but he wants to talk to you and figure out why you needed him so badly. Lucky for him, he doesn’t have to make that choice because suddenly you’re pulling away from him and tucking your hair behind your ears.

You look anywhere but him. “Um, thanks for coming…”

“Anytime.”

You try to think of something to say after that, anything to break the ice and explain yourself and not make this a huge waste of time for him. Before you can speak, though, Jason goes first.

“You don’t have to explain it to me if you don’t want to,” he says. “I know it’s hard.”

You nod slowly, every movement of your body feels sluggish and heavy. You got a few hours of sleep the other day, but only out of sheer exhaustion. Now, it seems the exhaustion is catching up.

“I’m just gonna…sit down,” you plop onto the couch cushion and pull your knees into your chest. You pat the cushion next to you, inviting him closer.

Jason takes off his helmet and jacket, laying them on the kitchen island before sitting next to you. “Have you slept much?”

You shake your head, resting your cheek on the cushion and looking into his eyes. “A few hours the other day but…nothing since.”

“Did you want to try while I’m here?”

His eyes are soft, a jarring contrast from his other features. It’s almost as if he’s pleading with you.

“Y-yeah, okay,” you slowly rise from the couch, your damp pyjamas clinging to your body. You usher for Jason to follow you to your room.

You dig through your drawers, looking for a pair of clean pyjamas. You settle on a t-shirt you stole from Dick ages ago and a pair of sweats you used for training. Jason looks away while you change, trying his best to respect your privacy despite the way his face heats up.

You crawl into your bed, trying to rearrange the messy comforter to cover your body. “Do you…is it okay if you lay with me? It only has to be until I fall asleep.”

Jason knows he’s pushing his limits, his heart racing at the thought of being in bed with you. He shakes the thoughts away—this is completely innocent. He’s just taking care of you.

“Yeah, I can stay a while.”

Jason lays down next to you, his broad frame taking up more than half of your bed. Your breath catches in your throat at his proximity, and his warmth draws you in. Somehow, for the first time in days, his presence is enough to let you relax.

Jason lays with you for some time, just staring at the back of your head while you cuddle your pillow. You must have fallen asleep at some point, because your breathing is even and your body is relaxed.

He smiles, it’s the most calm he’s seen you in days. He knows you’re sleeping now and he can leave, but he doesn’t want to. What if you wake up and he’s gone? He doesn’t want to risk upsetting you.

You roll over in your sleep, your head landing perfectly under his arm and on his chest. His breath hitches in his throat at the contact. He tries to adjust his body to make it as comfortable as possible for you to lay on him.

He wraps an arm around your waist, cradling you within his own body. Jason can’t help but think to himself in this moment that he’ll take care of you no matter what, even if you can’t take care of yourself.

#dc #dc universe #jason todd #jason todd x reader #jason todd x you #red hood #red hood x you #red hood x reader #jason todd angst #red hood angst #hurt/comfort #batfam #batman

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kkyaka · 4 months

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Summary: Running into someone who was a key part in making high school hell for you wasn't what you expected when you settled into college Pairing: Ukai Keishin x black!fem!reader Warnings: friends to lovers (kinda), college!au, a handful of angst, reader kinda overworks herself, ukai is whipped for reader, one random bad encounter with an oc, reader was bullied in high school and is still holding onto that LMFAO, making out, grinding, tit sucking, little bit of marking, fingering, i think that's it, if there's anymore please tell me ya girl is tired Word Count: 21,351 (oops) A/N: Um, it's been a while LMFAO. I'm honestly not very proud of this fic, but I wanted to post it anyway as kinda of gateway to getting back into posting my fics cause I have four more (maybe five) that I wanna post. This was a part of my scrapped follower event (RIP). Reblogs are appreciated, and thank you for reading if you do read this trash!

The first week of classes always makes you anxious. This semester, you’ve got some classes in buildings you’ve never been in, and you didn’t get a chance to walk the campus to find them because you moved in so late. You don’t know why the apartment you moved into decided that moving in the weekend before school started was a great idea.

Luckily, you found your first class with ease, a simple elective that you need to graduate, and you hope that the coursework won’t be too hard. You got here early just in case you had trouble finding it, so you scroll on your phone to pass the time as the class fills in. None of your friends are in this class, so you’re not waiting on anybody.

By the size of the room, it doesn’t look like the class size will be that big, so you hope that the people that are taking it with you are bearable. No one is sitting at the desks around you, and that doesn’t bother you, but what does bother you is that someone sits right next to you when there were other seats open.

You try to keep the sigh you make as silent as possible, not even giving the person a look as you keep your attention on your phone. You put it away when the professor walks in, pulling your laptop out of your backpack as she introduces herself. “Make sure you guys introduce yourselves to the people around you because you’re going to be working with them a lot this semester.”

You try to hide your annoyance, putting on a nice smile before you turn to the person that’s sitting next to you, but it drops the moment your eyes land on them. You feel something run through you that you can’t explain, grabbing the corner of your desk in a tight grip.

“You look like you’ve just seen a ghost,” he laughs, but there’s not a single part of you that finds any of this funny.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” you whisper, thankful that you’re in the back of the classroom so no one can eavesdrop.

“Why so hostile? I thought we were friends.”

“We’re far from that Ukai, and you know it.” His name feels heavy, foreign on your tongue, something you hadn’t even thought about saying in months.

Ukai Keishin. Someone that you’d never thought you’d see again. Someone who’s been haunting your past for way longer than you’d like. You thought that college would give you the chance to get away from him, and yeah sure, you picked a relatively small college, but out of all of the colleges, he picks this one? You can’t help but look over him, seeing how much he’s changed; how much he’s grown. He is not the same boy that you’ve known for so long, and you willfully ignore that part of you that wants to examine that even further.

“You’ve always been so mean to me,” he whines playfully, which makes you roll your eyes because that’s rich coming from him.

“Answer my question,” you say, hoping that you get an answer from him, and then you just go back to ignoring him.

“Same reason you are, no?”

“Why this one, specifically?” you press, looking around with your eyes for somewhere else you can sit the next time you have this class.

“You can ease up, alright? I’m being totally honest when I say I had no idea you would be here too.” It doesn’t sound like he’s lying, looking over his face before finding something else to do. You don’t bother to continue the conversation; thankfully, the professor gets the class's attention again.

She asks if anyone wants to share something about the person that they introduce themselves to, and a few people raise their hands. You sigh slowly, resting your chin on your hand after you put your elbow on the desk. After a few people have shared, she goes over the syllabus, but you’re not paying attention.

Even though you’re not looking at him, the fact that you now know he’s sitting next to you, is the only thing you can focus on. You’ve never wished for a class to be over so fast in your life so that you can just get out of here without having to speak to him again. You sigh a bit, feeling like he’s watching you, but you refuse to look over at him to confirm that.

The longer your professor talks, the more uneasy you start to feel. You knew that the class wouldn’t last the whole time today since it was the first class, but you swear that time has slowed down. You see Ukai move a little bit closer to you in the corner of your eye, and you try to act like you didn’t see it.

“When’s your next class?” you hear him whisper, but you don’t answer, only responding with a quick side-eye. You turn your attention back to the front, and you sigh in annoyance, but that’s not enough to deter him because you feel a nudge at your desk.

“Leave me alone,” you whisper, keeping your eyes forward.

“I will when you tell me.” You ball your hand into a fist, sighing again because you’re pretty sure he’s not going to mess with you anymore; figuring he just said that to get a rise out of you. You shake your head softly. It’s too fucking early for this. She’s starting to get toward the end of the syllabus, so you decide to order some food since you skipped breakfast this morning. You leave your phone on your desk while you put your laptop back into your bag, and when your eyes land on your desk, your phone is gone.

Your head immediately turns to the culprit, and he’s looking at the screen, but you can’t tell what he’s doing. “Are you a child?!” you grit, glancing at the front of the room before you try to reach for it. He’s quick to move away from you so that you can’t reach your phone, and right as your professor dismisses the class, he gives you your phone back.

You frown, thinking that he was going to put up more of a fight, and you notice how he steps closer to you when the other students are leaving the classroom, but there’s nowhere for you to move to. When the last student is out, you quickly make your way out, sliding past him when he puts distance between the two of you.

You have a class in about another hour, so you order your food before you check to see if he did anything to your phone. Nothing looks different, and he cleared your apps, covering his tracks, so you’d have to do some digging to figure out what he did. You don’t bother to find it right now, trying not to concentrate on the fact that you will now be in the same room as Ukai.

You cross your fingers that he’ll drop the class, and you could also do that, but there’s no way you’d go through with it. You had left high school with high hopes that you would never see him again, but it’s just your shitty luck that you do. He made your life a living hell before college, and you were hoping that you could start fresh, leaving all of that behind.

But how long has he been here? You’ve been here a year already and you had no clue that he was here. And even if he was, your mom would’ve probably told you about it since she stays in touch with some of the other parents of your peers from high school. So, why were you unpleasantly surprised today?

You check to see how close your food is to being ready when you get a text. Your walking slows when you see Ukai’s name pop up, and seeing it allows you to figure out what he was doing with your phone. You swipe it away, shaking your head before you pick up the pace, but you falter when you see that he’s calling you.

You stop, stepping off to the side so that you’re not in the way of other people before you answer it. “God, what do you want?” you groan.

“It’s only ten-thirty in the morning, and you’re already this grumpy?” he chuckles, and you ball your hand into a fist, taking a deep breath to try and calm yourself.

“I’m blocking you,” you say.

“Aw, you don’t mean that, do you?” You can hear his voice more precisely this time, but it doesn’t sound like it’s coming through the phone. You turn around to see him walking up to you with a smirk on his face, phone by his ear.

You hang up the phone, sighing heavily. “What do you want?” you repeat, way past annoyed right now, and when you look back at him, you see something flash in his eyes, but it’s gone before you can figure out what it was.

“Just give me fifteen minutes, okay?” He’s lost that teasing tone in his voice, and you chew on your lip softly while you contemplate before you finally give in.

“Fine. I’m heading to the student union to get some food,” you tell him, hoping that this will finally get him to leave you alone. You start walking, and he happily steps in rhythm right next to you. It’s pretty silent for the first couple of feet you walk, and you expected him to continue the conversation, but he stays silent.

You definitely don’t have anything you want to say to him; well, in public at least. Your mind is racing as you walk, and you’re starting to wish that he would talk to you so that you can shut your thoughts out. You can’t help but think about how he treated you when you were younger, and how most of the time he was the aid in your bullying.

As far as you’re concerned, you didn’t think he liked you, or either he loved to make your life a living hell, and his actions justified that. But what he’s doing now is completely baffling to you. You can’t help but scoff, rubbing over your head as you smile. Who knew that your day could be turned upside down in a matter of minutes?

“What’s so funny?” he asks, making you realize that you accidentally reacted to your thoughts out loud.

“So, did you transfer, or…?” you say, not wanting to answer the question.

“Nah, I was here last school year,” he answers, shoving his hands in his pockets. You nod softly, looking at the ground. The school isn’t that small, so you may have just never run into him. But on the other hand, the school isn’t massive either, so you’re a bit surprised that you haven’t seen him.

“I’m assuming you’re majoring in something dealing with agriculture?” you ask next, meeting his gaze, and the smile he gives you makes you feel too many things, and you don’t like it.

“Horticulture, specifically, yeah,” he tells you with a nod, looking at the ground before he looks at you again. “Now, how’d you know that?”

You choke a bit, clearing your throat as you look off to the side. “I mean, who didn’t? Farming was all you talked about in high school,” you try. It’s a horrible attempt at taking the heat off the fact that you know what he’s interested in, and you know there’s no way that it worked.

“You were listening to me in high school?” he questions, and the teasing tone in his voice increases your urge to punch him in the stomach.

“It’s not like I had a choice, you and your friends talked so fucking loud all of the time.” That you say with confidence because there’s a ton of truth to that statement. He’s always been obnoxious, but with his friends, it seemed like it would always multiply. Not seeing him was the best part of your high school career.

He laughs a bit in surprise before he nods. “Okay, I’ll give you that.” One of the bigger classes must’ve gotten out because there are a lot more people around as you walk, forcing Ukai to move closer to you. You try to shy away, but there’s no way you can move without falling off the sidewalk, so you just bite your tongue when you feel his shoulder brush against yours.

“Alright, so how’s your schedule looking this semester?”

“Hectic to say the least,” you chuckle, sighing a bit as you think about your future workload. “So, I hope this class will be the least of my worries.”

“Ah, you’ll be fine, just don’t stress too much about it.”

You scoff. “Yeah, that’s a lot easier said than done.” When you get to the student union, he holds the door open for you, and you thank him softly, picking up your pace a little, but he falls in time with your steps.

You quickly glance at your phone, seeing that your order is ready, and you’re grateful for an excuse to get away from him. “Uh, well, my food is ready, so I should probably go.” You try to turn around as fast as you can, but he must notice that you’re trying to leave because he starts talking right when you finish.

“Do you have any other classes today?” he says quickly, and you stop, trying to hide your heavy sigh.

“No,” you lie, but that isn’t enough to let him drop the conversation because he speaks up again, and you wonder why you haven’t just walked away yet.

“You mind if I join you while you eat?” That sounds like a horrible idea, so you promptly come up with an excuse that thankfully doesn’t sound forced.

“Oh, well, I’m probably gonna go sit in the library,” you say. “Wanna make sure I’m not gonna fall behind since I already have homework.” You feel like you might be playing it up too much, especially when he squints after he hears your words.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounds like you’re trying to avoid me,” he infers, and you start to panic a little bit, trying to think about how to respond.

“I’m not. I promise.” You chuckle, waving your hand out right as you feel your phone vibrate with a text. “I’ve already made plans to meet up with my friend, so…” Perfect timing, you think in your head because if that text hadn’t come through, you don’t know what you would’ve said.

He smirks at you before he nods his head. “Okay, then. I’ll let you go.” You almost curl your body forward slightly in relief, but you hold that urge back. “It was good to see you again.”

“Yeah,” you say tersely, giving him a tight smile. You awkwardly wave before you finally turn around and walk away to get your food. You don’t walk fast, but you do try to get out of there as soon as you can because you can feel his eyes on you without even having to look.

It makes you feel a certain type of way that you don’t even want to try and tackle, so you hightail it out of there. Once you get outside, you feel like you can breathe again, but now you don’t know where to go. It’s not like you could sit inside the student union after lying to Keishin, so you look at the time on your phone to try and figure out where would be the best place to go.

Based on the time, there’s a building you could sit in and not have to worry about a lot of people being there, so you head on over there. You slide your headphones onto your head from around your neck and let the music take over the thoughts that you don’t want to hear right now as you walk.

“It’s only the beginning of the week, and you already look like you want it to be over.” Your forehead is pillowed by your forearms on the table, and you lift your head to set your chin on your arms.

“I had a terrible surprise this morning,” you answer solemnly. You didn’t lie to Ukai entirely. You were meeting up with your friend, but it was after your second class, and you weren’t meeting her in the library. So, it was just a tiny lie. Luckily, you didn’t run into him anymore today, but you hate how you were on high alert the whole day.

You’ve never been more aware of your surroundings, looking around when you leave the building, and making sure you’re continuously looking around as you walked to your car. You could say that you’re being dramatic, but another part of you just wants to consider it “keeping your peace” since seeing Ukai again brought back painful memories.

“What? You tripped in front of a lot of people or what?” You sit up, sighing as you lean back in your chair.

“I saw someone from high school that I thought I’d never see again.” Your friend flips through her textbook, already having homework, as she shrugs.

“So? What’s so bad about that?”

“He made my life a living hell.” Your friend perks up at that, lifting her head to give you her full attention.

“Oh, it’s a ‘he’? Is he cute?” You give her a plain look, which makes her chuckle a little. “Okay, so I need a backstory. We’ve been friends for like a year, and I don’t think I’ve heard about this guy.”

And there’s a reason for that. You would much rather leave painful memories behind, but your luck says otherwise. “Well, I would prefer to not talk about a guy that made my life harder than needed,” you start with a sigh, “but today, he acted like everything from high school never happened.”

“What does that mean?”

“He was nice to me.” You can’t help but scoff a little, laughing because it sounds like the bare minimum, but he was nowhere near acting like that back then. “I thought he hated me or something.”

“Why do you think he hates you?”

“Because he messed with me non-stop! He and his friends humiliated me as much as they could.”

“Are you sure that it was him that was messing with you or was he just in the background?” That makes you freeze, and you slump a little at her question. If you think about it, he’s never physically done or said anything to you, but the fact that he was there, and didn’t do anything to stop it was enough to convince you that he didn’t like you. And it was enough for you to not like him.

“What did he say to you today?” your friend asks after you’re silent for a while.

“He put his number in my phone, and he walked with me to the student union. He said he thought we were friends.” You rub your hand over your face, resting your top half on the table again. There’s so much confusion on a Monday, and you’ve barely been to all of your classes.

“It doesn’t sound like he hates you to me.”

“Yeah, I know. It’s making me sound like I’m fucking crazy,” you say lightly, looking at what’s playing on the TV behind your friend. “I’m pretty sure he’s just trying to butter me up or something to try and make himself look good. And then he’ll make my life miserable again once I let him back in.”

“You’ve always been so dramatic,” your friend laughs. “I’m telling you right now, that I don’t think that’s the case. He definitely would’ve acted differently, right? Did he ever talk to you in high school?”

“Barely. I caught him staring at me all the fucking time. He sometimes tried to talk to me after his friends did something to me, but I never let him speak.” Your friend is a hundred percent invested in this story, all of her attention on you instead of her textbooks.

“Okay, give me a couple of instances where you were messed with,” she tells you after she laughs at your answer. You take a deep breath, preparing yourself to re-live through some of those moments.

You tell her about the time they constantly tripped you while you were walking to your seat in a class you shared with him. You tell her about the time they started rumors about you multiple times. Now, that you’re older, they weren’t that bad, but just the thought of people that stuff about you made you hate half of high school.

You told her about all the times you heard them whispering, knowing that they were talking about you and feeling tears welling up in your eyes at the snickers you would hear behind you. You stop soon after, biting your lip to calm yourself before your friend asks where was Ukai in all of this.

“He never said anything, and like I said, he was always staring at me whenever I looked at him.” You tell her about the times he would come up to you after class, usually after the bullying, but you didn’t give him a chance to speak, darting out of the room before he could even get your name out.

“Maybe he was trying to apologize,” she offers. “I’m not saying that I’m condoning him sitting there and letting it happen, but I don’t think he hates you like you say he does. At all.”

“Well, he had a lot of time to apologize, and he never did.” Yeah, you’re still hung up about it, and you don’t care if you sound like a child. He was a bystander and still dared to call them his friends and hang out with them after what they did to you.

“Well, I’m not gonna tell you what to do, but if you wanna hear him out, I don’t blame you. But if you don’t, then you could always drop the class and find another one to fill your requirement,” she says. “But, I know you’re not gonna drop, so it’s up to you,” she tacks on, making you frown at her. She smiles at you before she goes back to your textbook, and you can’t help but copy it, standing up and making your way toward your room, but not without playfully shoving her first.

You spend the rest of your night torn between completely ignoring your friend or taking her advice. Not having homework is a good and bad thing because you don’t have anything to distract you from your thoughts. You kill the time by watching a show that you’ve already seen a bunch of times, scrolling through your phone while you sit on your bed.

Your friend has a point, but there’s a part of you that’s spent a while trying to lock that part of your life away, and you don’t want to go through the trouble of opening it back up again. You don’t know if you’ll be able to handle it when everything you’ve suppressed comes flying out.

When your eyelids start to feel heavy, you decide to call it a night, hoping in the shower before you do your face routine. When you get in bed, you toss and turn for a little bit, hoping that your dilemma stays out of your dreams.

Wednesday rolls around faster than you’d like, and you find yourself in that class once again in the same seat you picked on the first day of classes. You keep your headphones on as you get comfortable, having about fifteen minutes before class starts. You can feel yourself getting antsier as the class time approaches, wondering if Ukai dropped the class.

You shrug off your thoughts, questioning in your head why you’re so worried about him in the first place. It doesn’t do much though because you feel your heart start racing when you can see someone sitting next to you in your peripheral. You don’t look, keeping your eyes on your phone, but you decide to switch your attention to your laptop.

You think the professor talks starting, so you turn your headphones off, sliding them off your head. “Good morning.” You hear it almost as soon as you take the headphones off your ears, and it nearly scares you.

“Morning,” you reply softly, glancing to the side to confirm that Ukai is sitting next to you.

“How was your day yesterday?” he asks, and you shake your head a little as you shrug.

“Uh, it was pretty okay, I guess. It’ll be more hectic next week once my labs start,” you tell him, and it feels weird to be making small talk with him. Your friend’s words echo in your head as you ask him about his day yesterday.

“Mine was pretty okay, too. You know the first week of classes is always dragging.” You give him a nod, deciding to fully turn your head to look at him, but when you see that he’s staring right at you, you quickly look back at your laptop.

Your professor starts talking, so you attempt to pay attention even though you’re more nervous than you’d like to be. Right as she finishes the discussion about what you’re going to be doing today, someone walks into the class.

No one notices because they’ve all started talking to themselves in the groups that they’re in, and since you’re sitting in the back right by the door, she catches your attention. You look over her, commenting in your head how pretty her outfit is, but then Ukai quickly averts your attention to him.

“You did the readings, right?” he asks, and you squint at him.

“Did you?” you say right back, and he smiles a little which makes you think about how you’re feeling about that.

“I did,” he answers confidently before giving you a synopsis of the reading much to your surprise. “I can’t slack off like I did in high school, so I’m trying to start early so I don’t get behind.” His words leave you a little stunned, but before you can even try and form a response, the girl who walked in late walks up to the both of you.

“You don’t mind if I work with you, do you?” She’s only looking at Ukai when she asks, and she must’ve walked up to the professor and had her fill her in on what you’re doing.

“Well, I’m working with her already, so,” he answers, and you make a face when it looks like disdain appears across her face.

“Oh, well, the professor said I could join a group,” she responds, and you can feel the air taking an awkward turn, but you have no idea what to say. Ukai sighs a little, glancing at you before he looks at her.

“Sure, one more doesn’t hurt.” She smiles widely before moving one of the desks closer to him before sitting down, and he leans towards you, which makes you lean back a little. “Are you okay with this?” he whispers.

“Uh, yeah, it’s fine,” you mumble back quickly, overwhelmed by how close he is. It doesn’t look like your words convinced him, but she’s talking to him again, so he doesn’t get a chance to make sure. While he’s talking to her, filling her in on what you’re supposed to be doing, you pull up your annotations from the readings you had to read for this class.

For about ten minutes, absolutely no work gets done because every time Ukai tries to talk to you, she interrupts with questions that have nothing to do with the work. And she’s only talking to him. You have an annoyed look on your face as you stare at your empty word document. Ukai seems to be just annoyed as you, and you truly don’t know why she’s acting like this. You don’t even know her.

You figure that you’re probably not going to get any work done, and by the conversations you’re overhearing from the other groups, they’re not necessarily talking about their group work either. It seems like there’s a lull in the conversation between her and Ukai, so you speak up.

“I like your outfit,” you say, giving her a small smile.

“I didn’t ask.”

Keishin freezes, his fingers no longer typing on his keyboard, and your face drops. She’s giving you an ugly look, and you’re about to turn and face her, but he stops you by asking you some questions about the work. There’s a look in his eyes that you can’t decipher, but after that, he barely pays attention to her.

Every time she tries to talk, he talks over her, and it’s starting to get to you. “Ukai, it’s okay,” you say softly, and you don’t need to say it that loud because he’s practically in your space, moving over whenever she moved closer to him.

“No, it’s not,” he grits, and you never knew that fifty minutes could be so long. You managed to get some of your document filled, and you start to pack your stuff up once there are about five minutes left in class. You wish you could be out of here sooner. The girl continues to talk now that Ukai isn’t occupied anymore, and you can’t even bring yourself to look their way.

You feel a pit forming in your stomach at what she said to you, her attitude not sitting right with you, but you don’t want to say anything to her. The other part of you just wants to get out of her, and you refuse to let her ruin the rest of your day. Your professor lets the class out a little early once she sees that everyone is finishing up, and since your backpack is already packed, you quickly stand.

Ukai stands up almost at the same time you do, way faster. “So, I was wondering–” The girl is standing as well, and she’s still talking to him.

“I didn’t ask.” You choke a bit at Ukai’s sudden response, turning your head to look away as you try to hold in your laugh, but not before you can catch her stunned reaction. You jump when he grabs your hand and pulls you out of the room ahead of everyone else. You have to walk a little faster to keep up with him, and he doesn’t let your hand go until you’re both well away from the building.

“Are you okay?” he asks, slowing his steps.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Why wouldn’t I be okay?” you say. “I’m a little pissed, yeah, but I’m not stressed over it.” He doesn’t say anything in return, and the silence allows you to remember that he’s still holding your hand.

You feel your face grow warm as you slightly tug, and he feels it, letting go of your hand immediately. “Sorry about that,” he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Don’t worry about it,” you say lightly even though your body isn’t taking it so lightly. You grab your hand gently, rubbing over your palm as if you’re missing the feeling of his hand against yours.

“So, it looks like you’re done for the day,” he says without missing a beat, and you frown a bit before you quickly remember that you lied to him about your schedule.

“Oh, yeah,” you respond slowly, wondering if you want to come clean about it. “I would be, but I do have another class in an hour. My professor canceled the class on Monday for some reason.” You don’t know why you’re telling him this, and there’s a small part of you that regrets it the moment you do.

“Really? What class is it?”

“Uh, quantitative chemistry.”

“Oof, sounds hard,” he grimaces, and you chuckle a little, shaking your head a little.

“I don’t think it’ll be that bad, hopefully. Math wasn’t always my best, but it’s stuff I already learned so I should be fine.” You try not to focus on how close he is to you as you walk, and you know there’s no reason for him to be since the foot traffic isn’t bad. “Do you have anything else today?” you ask, trying to use conversation as a way to keep your thoughts quiet.

“Yeah, I have a stats class in an hour as well,” he sighs.

“God, I do not miss taking that. I’m glad I’m done with it.”

“Lucky you then,” he jests, nudging you with his shoulder. “I absolutely suck at math, so this won’t be fun.” You open your mouth getting ready to say that you remember that from high school, but you quickly shut it. You don’t need to expose yourself anymore.

“It might not be that bad, you’re given the formulas on the exams anyways.”

“Well, if I ever have trouble, I know to call you.”

“Right,” you mumble. The conversation thankfully stops without being awkward, but you don’t want to listen to your head right now. There’s so much going on, your brain is trying to process too much, so you try to think about where you’re going to kill time until your next class.

“Are you gonna be getting food again today?” he asks after a while even though you’re not walking anywhere near the student union. Which makes you notice that he’s just been walking wherever you’re going.

You shake your head. “No, I ate a pretty big breakfast today, so I’m just gonna find somewhere to sit while I wait for my next class.”

“You mind if I join you?” You hesitate for a split second before you answer.

“If you want to,” you say, leaving it at that as you try not to reveal how you’re feeling. But hell, you don’t even know how you’re feeling about this.

You find a place outside since it’s nice and not too hot to sit at, and it’s an equal distance for both of you from your next class. Since you already have assignments due for your classes, you try to get a headstart on it, so you pull out your notes and laptop to get started on that.

Ukai sits across from you, and it takes everything in you to not look at him. He’s on his phone for a while that you can see from your peripheral, but then he’s on his laptop soon after that. You get into your work, finding a groove, and you’re almost done with most of it when you hear someone call Ukai’s name.

Both of you look up, and your heart drops when your eyes land on the owner of the voice. You quickly put your head down, hoping that your undivided attention on your laptop screen will cause him not to notice you. You swallow heavily as they greet each other, and you look at the time to see that you still have twenty minutes until your class starts.

You try to pack up some of your stuff since you’re done anyway, but then you feel your body run cold when Ukai says your name. “You remember her, right?” You hesitantly look up, and you can feel all of the emotions that you’ve been trying to suppress bubble over.

The guy says your name again in disbelief before recognition goes across his face. “Wow, it is you! I almost didn’t recognize you,” he laughs, and you wait for it. “You aren’t as ugly as you were in high school.” There it is.

You barely smile at him because there’s no way you can laugh that off, and you see Ukai frown deeply, turning to the guy, you start to close your laptop. “I’m gonna head out,” you start, and Ukai tries to stop you, but the guy won’t shut up about how much you’ve changed, calling you the names he called you back then, and you can feel yourself starting to break down.

“Don’t leave,” Ukai says, catching your hand before you can put your stuff in your bag.

“Yeah, we have to stay and catch up,” the guy buds in, and you know there isn’t a smile on your face when you look at him.

“You can go,” Ukai orders, keeping his hand on yours, and this situation is so awkward and embarrassing, but your body is frozen at Keishin’s words. The guy tries to laugh Ukai’s sudden change in attitude off, not even the slightest put off by him.

“Come on, man. This is hilarious, no? You remember how much she–”

“I remember how much I wanted to beat your ass,” Ukai states. “Now leave before I do.” You try to keep your breathing even as you look around. No one was around to hear the conversation, but some people are looking as they walk to wherever they are going. The guy stops smiling, looking at Ukai like he’s grown a second head.

“Are you serious right now?” the guy questions incredulously as he looks at you. “Don’t tell me you’re feeling this bitch–”

Ukai is on his feet in a split second, grabbing the guy by the collar of his shirt. “You have two seconds to move your ass before I do it for you. You apologize to her now, and I never want to see your face again.”

Your body is shaking so badly, you feel like you could cry, and you flinch a little when Ukai tightens his grip on his shirt, shaking him just a little. “I’m not playing around here. Apologize. Now.”

“Ukai, it’s okay, he doesn’t have to–” you try, but he doesn’t even look at you, pulling the guy closer to him and nearly off of his feet.

“Yes. He. Does.”

“Okay, okay. Just chill,” the guy pleads, and Keishin lets his grip loose just a little, but he doesn’t let him go. “I’m sorry, okay?” At this point, you don’t care for his half-assed apology, but the high school part of you is feeling a rush from hearing him say those words.

“Mean it,” he says angrily, and the guy turns to look at you.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but that doesn’t satisfy Ukai.

“For?”

“For messing with you. I’m sorry for what I just said. I was just fucking around in high school, and I didn’t mean any of the things I said. I promise,” he rushes out, and you’d never thought you’d hear that from him. You’re so overwhelmed with emotions right now, that you don’t say anything, but Ukai lets the guy go with a rough shove.

“Get the fuck out of my face,” he hisses, and the guy fixes his shirt, giving Ukai a searing glare, but he walks off without another word. You take a deep breath when he disappears out of sight, and you jump a bit when Ukai’s next to you. “Are you okay? I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“I’m fine,” you breathe, finally looking at Ukai, and you don’t think you’ve ever seen him look so worried. His hands are on your shoulders, and you give him a smile to try and lessen his worries. “I’m fine. I just thought I’d never see him again,” you say with an airy chuckle, and when you start to relax, he lets his hands slide off of you, but you’re still a little frazzled to notice how long they take to leave your body.

Ukai goes to say something, but you check the time on your phone to see that you don’t have a lot of time until your next class. “Oh, we have to go,” you say softly, packing up your stuff. Ukai stands there, watching you, and you turn to him once you have your backpack on your shoulders. “Thanks, Ukai,” you say softly.

“Of course,” he says just as softly, and you return the smile he gives you. “You go on ahead, I’ll see you on Friday.” You nod, walking off, and he watches you go. He sighs as he starts to pack his stuff up. There’s so much he wanted to say to you.

Maybe next time.

You’re a month into the semester, and your work is already stockpiling. You try to get ahead of it, but it always ends up catching up to you. You’ve piled up on your classes this semester, and you’re starting to hate your past self for doing that. The class you have with Ukai is the only class where the workload isn’t the heaviest, but it still takes a hefty amount of time to do the work for it.

The readings that you have to read before class have gotten longer, and you just barely have enough time to read them. You’re dragging ass when you get to class on Monday, feeling like you might fall asleep at your desk when you sit down. You’re surprised you managed to even remember bringing all of your stuff for class today, and Ukai sits next to you as you slowly take your stuff out of your bag.

“Rough night?” you barely hear him ask, and it takes you a while to blink, your eyelids feeling like they’re tied to weights.

“Something like that,” you whisper before you rub your eyes. “My workload is a bitch especially with midterms coming up, so I’m not getting a lot of sleep.” You yawn as you rest your chin on your hand. He doesn’t say anything else, and the professor starts talking, but he keeps his eyes on you while she does.

You rub your hand over your face, even drinking water to try and keep yourself awake. You feel like you might cry when she announces that you’re going to be presenting in front of the class about the readings you’re doing. Ukai watches you make a face at her words, and then he notices that you’re still working on things all the while.

But when the class breaks off to do work, you immediately start talking about the readings that you had to do for the class. He wants to ask about how you’re doing, but he doesn’t think he’ll get the chance. His concern is only fueled when you keep having to stop to think about what you’re saying. He ends up doing most of the work, which he doesn’t mind, and it seems like class flies by in a blur.

You and Ukai will have to present at least twice this semester, the first presentation being next week, which means you’ll have to get started on your papers now. When class is dismissed, he waits for you to pack up your stuff, and he can tell that you’re really tired especially since you’re not walking as fast as you usually do.

“So, are you going to be free any time to work on this?” he asks you once you’re both walking outside.

“It’s gonna have to be at the end of the week. I’m gonna try and get as much work done as I can so I can focus on this. Sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize, I can make it work.”

“We can try and start on it now while we wait for our next class if you want to,” you offer, and you both find a spot inside this time since it looks like it might rain, which doesn’t help your grogginess. Ukai sits next to you, but you’re too tired to freak out about it. He starts talking about the readings that you have to do, and what you could potentially write about in your paper.

You don’t know if it’s because you’ve chosen a pretty quiet spot, or if it’s his voice, but something starts to put you to sleep. Ukai can see your head bobbing every time you doze off, but he doesn’t say anything, continuing to talk about the material, and while you start to doze off again, he lets his hand gently guide it to his shoulder.

You don’t protest, going without a fight, and he looks down at you, only stopping when he realizes he’s been staring at you too long. He continues working, making sure not to move his arm too much so that he doesn’t wake you, and he opens up another document, typing up stuff that you could add to your paper.

When it’s almost time for you to go, he hesitates to wake you up because you look like you need sleep, but he knows you’d kill him for not waking you up in time for class. He gently shakes you, and you wake up with a start, looking around. You calm down instantly when you look at Ukai, looking at his laptop screen before sighing.

“God, Ukai, I am so sorry,” you say, rubbing your head. “I didn’t mean to fall asleep on you.”

“Don’t sweat it. I wrote down some ideas for you to start with,” he tells you. “I’ll send it to you later. You gotta get to class.”

“Thank you so much. I owe you.” You don’t have to put your stuff up since you didn’t even get the chance to take anything out, and you stand up, stretching when you stand up fully. You check the time on your phone, putting a little pep in your step since you feel a bit energized as you start to walk away. You turn to wave to him as you leave, and the smile doesn’t leave his face even when you’re gone.

“Should’ve taken a picture,” he mumbles.

When you get home, you all but drag yourself to your room. You change your clothes before flopping down on your bed, and sleep is calling your name, but if you go to sleep now, you’ll mess up your schedule. You lift yourself when you hear a knock on your door while you let your roommate know that she can come in.

“Are you getting enough sleep?” she questions the moment she walks in. She sits down at your desk with a feigned stern look, already knowing the answer.

“I’ll try tonight. I just have a lot of work this week. And now I have to write a paper to present with Ukai next week,” you groan, and your roommate raises her eyebrows.

“Ukai? Haven’t heard his name since you mentioned him,” she says. “How’s all that going?”

“It’s going, I guess. I don’t know what you want me to say.” You think about how your head was on his shoulder earlier, and you feel your face start to warm, and your roommate notices the change.

“Yeah, okay. You’re not fooling me. What’s up with you two?”

“Nothing!” you exclaim. “I think,” you add softly, ultimately sighing in defeat, and your roommate moves to sit next to you on your bed, very invested. “I mean, we’ve been hanging on a lot during our breaks in-between classes. And I fell asleep on his shoulder today,” you say, grimacing at the thought.

“So, what? Do you like him or something?”

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “I kinda had a crush on him in high school, but it was mostly bittersweet because he was always there whenever I was being messed with. Speaking of, I saw one of the guys a while ago.”

“What?” your roommate says, her mouth open. “What happened?”

“Ukai threatened him and had him apologize to me,” you laugh which you can do now that the situation is behind you.

“Shit, girl, you don’t think he’s into you too, right?”

“No,” you respond quickly with a shake of your head. “There’s no way he likes me now or back then. It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Don’t say that,” she tries. “I feel like there might be something there.”

“Maybe,” you say reluctantly. “I just don’t wanna read anything wrong.”

“I don’t think you are. I feel like he might have a thing for you. He has had a thing for you.” You try not to fall too deep into her words, but with the way he’s been acting, it doesn’t sound totally out of the ordinary. “Just keep me updated, I’m invested in your love story now.”

“Don’t call it that!” You shove her playfully as both of you laugh, and she gets off your bed, heading to the door.

“Don’t stay up too late, okay?” she says before she closes the door. Once it gets quiet, you begrudgingly decide to start on your work, so you move to your desk, starting on your chemistry homework since that’s what’s taking you so much time.

You play some music to help you focus, and you try to get into study mode. Which takes you a lot longer than it should because your head is focused on a certain someone. You groan softly as you let your head fall on your desk. Maybe if you think about it now, it’ll help you focus.

You definitely had some feelings for Ukai back then. You thought he was really cute, he actually is still very much cute. He looks even better now than he did in high school. But you were never confident enough to even start a conversation with him all through high school. You shared the same classes, but you just kept it to yourself. Not even your high school friends knew how you felt about him.

But then those feelings started to fade a bit when the guys he hung out with started to bully you. You mostly felt anger at first, but then it turned to hurt and a little bit of betrayal because the guy you liked wasn’t doing anything to stop what was happening. And then you hated yourself for being a damsel in distress. Once the bullying seemed to die down by the time you were in your last year, you were “over” him.

You didn’t have nearly as many feelings for him, they were still there, but you sort of suppressed them. And then you attempted to get rid of them when you got to college because you were under the notion that you would never see him again. But of course, you had to run into him, and now those feelings are starting to bloom again.

You never once thought that he reciprocated his feelings, and you never talked to him because it seemed like the only time he was going to say something to you was after his friends did, and the last thing you wanted to do was talk to him.

“Okay, that’s enough,” you say to yourself, picking up your pencil and trying to get back to where you were. Right as you’re about to start another problem, your phone stops playing music and then your ringtone follows. You pick it up to see who’s calling, and you feel your heart start racing when you see that it’s Ukai.

You were thinking about him, and now he’s calling you. You don’t wait to answer it, putting it on speaker as you set the phone back down. “You cut off my music,” you say lightly, and you bite your lip a little when you hear his laugh come through the phone.

“Sorry. I just wanted to check on you. Making sure you’re giving yourself a break,” he says, and your roommate’s words start to play in your mind.

“I actually haven’t been working for that long,” you say, but then you look at the clock, seeing how much time has passed.

“Really? When did you start?” he questions, and when you go silent, he chuckles again. “Okay, so that means you need to take a break.”

“Okay, fine,” you relent. “Is that all you were calling about?”

“Maybe I just wanted to hear your voice.” You don’t know how to respond to that, his words making you silent again. “I was having trouble focusing so I thought you might be able to help me.”

“And how would I be able to do that?” you ask, trying to calm your racing heart.

“Don’t know,” he answers, which makes you roll your eyes. “I guess I could try and listen to music like you.”

“You should, it helps.”

“I’d rather talk to you,” he replies almost too fast.

“But I don’t think it’s helping you,” you chuckle. “It just sounds like I’m distracting you.”

“I’m okay with that.” You put your hand over your mouth to stop yourself from screaming. What is happening right now?

“So, you called me just to distract you then?” you ask after your quick freak out.

“Yeah,” he answers quickly. “Work doesn’t seem so bad now that I’m talking to you.”

You can’t help but laugh. “Well, obviously. A lot of people would rather be doing anything else other than work.”

He goes silent for a second, and you’re about to ask him if he’s still there, but he talks before you can. “Am I being too much of a distraction?”

You let a shy smile appear on your face as you shake your head even though he can’t see you. “No, you’re not. I like talking to you,” you say, feeling your face warm.

“Good. I like talking to you too,” he says, and you quietly laugh, but you stop the urge to kick your feet like you’re in high school. Time seems to fly by as you talk to Ukai, and you’re having such a good time that you don’t even notice that it has until your roommate knocks on your door.

“Hey, girl, I was checking on you. You haven’t come out of your room,” she says, peeking her head into your room.

“I’m taking breaks, don’t worry,” you tell her, hoping that she won’t see that you’re on the phone with Ukai. “I’ll probably finish up here soon.” That seems to be enough to convince her because she gives you a smile and a goodnight before she closes the door.

“Sorry, that was my roommate,” you tell him.

“Don’t worry about it. Glad to know you have someone that’s making sure you’re taking care of yourself.”

“Yeah, she’s like my mom,” you laugh.

“I didn’t mean to keep you on the phone this long, you probably got no work done,” he says.

“I actually did. So, talking to you helped after all.”

“Well, you’re welcome,” he jokes, and you roll your eyes. “...I don’t wanna hang up,” he whispers after he goes silent, and in your head, you agree.

“Well,” you start. “I could call you after I get out of the shower,” you offer, and your eyes dart around to the things on your desk as you wait for his answer.

“Yeah. That sounds good. I’ll be waiting.”

“Okay, well, I’ll talk to you soon.” You hang up the phone, and you have to get it out, so you do a little happy dance before you calm yourself down. You jump violently when your door burst open.

“I knew you were talking to him!” your roommate yells. “You can’t fool me!”

“Thank you for giving me a heart attack,” you sigh, grabbing your phone and standing up.

“So, what’s going on now? A date?” she presses, and you scoff as you shake your head.

“Absolutely nothing of the sort. I’m getting in the shower,” you say, pushing her out of your room so you can get ready.

“Yeah, okay. You better keep me posted,” she tells you again, and you shake your head before closing the door.

You shower quickly, washing your face, and brushing your teeth before you get in bed. You wait for a little just in case he might be showering too, and it takes you a while to even call him at that. Your finger hovers over the call button in your recents until you finally press it. It doesn’t even ring twice before he picks up.

“I missed you.”

“It hasn’t even been that long,” you say, a laugh leaving your chest against your will.

“Doesn’t matter,” he tells you softly as you start to get comfortable. “You laying down?”

“Yes, I am. I might fall asleep on you if I’m being honest,” you say, a yawn following right after.

“That’s okay. You need to get your sleep.”

Ukai ends up doing most of the talking which is fine by him, and he can’t help but smile to himself when he hears your responses turning into soft hums. A part of him wishes he would’ve video called you so that he could see you, but he’ll take this for now. He stops talking once he can hear you softly snoring, but he doesn’t hang up.

Sleep is right behind him, so he rolls over on his side, getting more comfortable. “Goodnight,” he tells you even though you can’t hear him, and it’s not long until he’s asleep himself.

You had gotten enough work done this week that you had enough time to work on your presentation with Ukai. You decided to meet up at his place this weekend, and you feel so conflicted with yourself as you stand in front of your mirror trying to figure out what to wear.

“Why am I being like this?” you mumble to yourself. You’ve been trying to tell yourself not to worry about it and just put on some clothes, but there’s a part of you that has too much of a say to let you do just that. You’ve put on and taken off so many clothes, the pile on your bed and floor only increasing.

You don’t have time for this, having only about twenty minutes before you have to get there. Ukai lives pretty close to campus while you have to drive back and forth between your apartment and campus. That’s something you and your roommate hate, so you’re currently looking for a new place for next school year.

You groan out loud as the voice in your head tells you that you don’t like the outfit you have on. You jump when you hear a knock on your door, and the familiar sight of your roommate peeking her head in fills your eyes. “You okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” you say, but she’s always been good at reading you, and she frowns before pushing the door open further. Her eyebrows crease when she sees that your room looks like your closet exploded.

“You’re worried about what you’re wearing? You going somewhere special or something?” she questions instantly, but even the question doesn’t give you enough time to come up with a lie, because she quickly puts two and two together. “Don’t tell me you’re going on a date.”

“It’s not a date,” you emphasize. “We’re just working on a presentation we have to do on Monday.”

“Well, where are you meeting him?” she asks, and you look away from her, hesitant to answer. “His place?” she says when you don’t respond, and your reaction to the next question is all she needs to know the answer. “This is news to me! Why didn’t you tell me?!”

“Because I knew you were gonna make a big deal about it, and I didn’t wanna psych myself out.”

“Okay, okay. Relax, y/n,” she says, putting her hands on your shoulders. “There’s nothing to be worried about. I won’t make a big deal about it because it isn’t if you think about it. It’s just two people working on a project,” she offers, and that perspective does make you feel better. “It’s only a big deal if you make it, and it’s not like it’s gonna be awkward. You both have been in close proximity before,” she adds, and you admit in your head that she’s right.

“I guess you have a point,” you say, but you’re still looking around at all of the clothes you’ve put on.

“But, I can help you with an outfit,” she smiles, and you roll your eyes.

“You just said it wasn’t that big of a deal.”

“Okay, yeah, but that doesn’t mean you can’t dress up a little. You’re going out, why wouldn’t you?” she says, and you chuckle a bit, starting to consider if her words are a contradiction to what she just said, but you let her do it anyway.

While she’s going through your clothes, you quickly text Ukai to tell him that you’re running a little late, and you can’t help but smile when he responds almost instantly telling you it’s no big deal. Maybe you are overthinking this whole thing.

“Okay, here ya go.” You look up to see her holding one of your worn t-shirts, and some shorts, but when you look at which ones she’s holding, you put your hands on your hips.

“I am not wearing those shorts,” you tell her, taking the shirt from her and slipping it on.

“Why not? It’s hot outside, you don’t wanna be sweaty when you get there,” she tries, but you’re not buying it.

“I only wear those around the house,” you argue.

“And you will be around the house! His house,” she says, and you’re starting to realize that you don’t have time for this, but you know that you won’t be able to pick out anything else to wear.

“Fine. I’m only putting them on because I don’t have time,” you say, taking them from her, and she walks out to let you change into them. They’re not that short, but they’re short enough, and seeing that you only have about ten minutes to leave, you can’t waste time debating over what to wear.

You put your shoes on, making sure that you have everything before putting your backpack on. You walk out, tugging on the shorts when you feel like they’re starting to ride up, and you all but glare at your roommate as you walk towards the door.

“Have fun!” she beams, and you squint your eyes at her.

“Mm-hmm,” you mumble. “I’ll be back later tonight.” You both say goodbye, and you close the door, locking it behind you, putting some pep in your step on your way to your car.

You know where his apartment is, so you make your way over there, and you try to repeat your roommate’s words in your head when you feel yourself starting to get nervous. You know there’s no reason for you to be nervous, but you can’t help it. You know that you’re feelings for him are starting to come back, and there’s a part of you that’s trying to fight it, but so far, suppressing things hasn’t been the easiest thing to do.

Your roommate swears that he’s into you, which doesn’t really help your case, but those words alone are enough to make you sweat. You don’t know how you would feel if he felt the same way. You’ve felt something for him for almost all of high school, and if you think about it, those feelings never really left when you got to college.

You text him as soon as you park, and he meets you outside of his apartment. “Sorry, I’m running late,” you tell him when you get to him.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, and you follow him into the building and up the stairs to his apartment. You pick at your phone case as you will your heart to stop racing because you know it’s not from taking the stairs.

You follow him inside, and you look around, taking in the room. He mentioned having a roommate, but he said he wouldn’t be here while you guys were working. You take your shoes off once you get in, and you see that he already has everything set up on the dining table. It almost has the same layout as your apartment except it’s much nicer. In the back of your head, you think to mention this place to your friend and see if she’d like it.

“Okay, so I’ve already finished my paper, but I wanted you to read over it just to make sure that ours don’t overlap,” he says when he sits down.

You sit down in the chair next to him, taking your backpack off so that you can get your laptop out. “That sounds good, but I’ll admit I haven’t written most of it,” you admit shyly, and he waves you off.

“That’s okay. It shouldn’t take you that long anyway,” he reassures, and you pull up the half-written document. You read over his, and you’re relieved that he ended up talking about something completely different from yours. You tell him what you want to talk about for your presentation, and he helps you out by pulling up the reading and offering what parts of it you could pull from.

Writing your paper takes about an hour, and then you both work on the PowerPoint slides you have to have with questions to ask the class about the readings. Your stomach grumbles suddenly once you’re finishing up, and that’s when you remember that you forgot to eat while you were panicking about what to wear.

“Sorry,” you laugh, and he laughs under his breath.

“I’m getting hungry too,” he says. “There are places around here that we could eat at if you’re okay with that.”

“Yeah, I’m good with that.” You both put your shoes on, and you follow him out onto the street, and there’s a bunch of places that are within walking distance where you could eat. You don’t care where to eat, so you agree on the first place that he offers. You’ve never been there before, but Ukai reassures you that it’s good. You both talk about anything and everything as you walk to the place, and when you get inside, it’s super packed.

“I guess it is dinner time,” he says as he takes the place in. “We can just take it to-go if that’s okay with you?” he offers, and you nod, in no mood to oppose as you look at how many people are in here. Ukai orders first, and instead of paying, he turns to you. “What do you want?” he asks, and you tell him, but then he’s repeating your order to the person at the register, and you realize what he’s doing.

“Ukai, you don’t have to pay,” you try, but he just shrugs you off. You try to memorize the price as you both move to the side while you wait for your food. “I’ll pay you back.”

“Seriously, y/n. Don’t worry about it,” he tells you again, but you don’t look very convinced. “How about you pay me back by helping me with my stats homework?”

“That doesn’t sound like a fair trade.”

“It does to me. I didn’t do well on the first exam, and I need some serious help,” he explains, and you decide that he’s not going to let you pay him back, so you give up.

“Fine. I’ll help you out then.” The smile he gives you makes your heart flutter, and you don’t get much time to take in how you feel because your food is ready.

You walk back to his apartment, and you silently thank your friend for picking out shorts because even though the sun is starting to go down, the air is still really warm. You aren’t walking that fast, so luckily you’re not a sweating mess when you get back to his apartment.

You push your work aside so that you can eat at the table, and he puts on a show that he’s been watching for a while. You’ve never seen it, and when you tell him, he looks at you like you’ve offended him terribly. He starts the show over for you, and it seems like a pretty good show, and you make a note of the name so you can continue to watch it.

You finish eating in the middle of the first season, and you both move to the couch so you can finish it. Ukai tells you that he’ll start on the work once it’s over, and you wonder if he actually means that. Your focus on the show starts to waver when you notice how close he’s sitting to you. He’s wearing shorts, so when his leg brushes against yours, it sends goosebumps across your skin. You try to pay attention because you don’t want to miss anything, but it’s even more difficult when he places his arm on the back of the couch behind you.

You don’t think it’s a cliche move because you look at him from the corner of your eye, and he’s completely engrossed in the show even though he’s seen it probably a million times. You realize how tense you are, and you try to relax, but that means you’d be relaxing into him, and you don’t want to make anything awkward.

You decide to rub over your arms since it’ll keep you from touching him. “Are you cold?” he asks, and you turn your head to him quickly.

“No, no. I’m fine,” you say with a shake of your head, and you quickly turn back to the TV, but you can see him looking over you, so you put your hands on your lap. He finally follows your gaze, and you release a breath you didn’t know you were holding.

The last episode of the season plays, and Ukai groans loudly. “Guess I have to do my homework now,” he says to your surprise. You guess he was serious about actually doing his work.

“Can I use your bathroom?” you ask, standing up and feeling relieved that you’re not sitting directly next to him anymore.

“Yeah, my room’s right there,” he says, pointing at the right door. He’s been fighting it since you got here, but he watches you walk away, and his eyes slide up your legs. He can see some of your ass peeking out from your shorts before you pull them down, and he sighs softly to himself as he diverts his eyes.

He turns his head quickly before he stands and turns the TV off. He sits down at the table while he gets his stuff out, and he hears you come back into the room. You sit down next to him, and he shows you one of the problems that he’s struggling with. You move your seat closer to his so that you don’t have to lean over, and he immediately thinks about how good you smell.

He noticed when he was sitting next to you, and that’s when he also noticed that he had put his arm behind you. He didn’t move his arm because he didn’t want it to be awkward, but he had to strongly fight the urge to pull you into him. He felt his hair stand up on end whenever he accidentally brushed against you, and the entire time he thought about if he should say something to you.

“Keishin.” His eyes snap to yours, realizing that he was just staring at his notebook. “Are you okay?” you ask softly.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Sorry, I just got lost in thought,” he says, giving a smile so that he doesn’t have to explain that he was daydreaming about you.

“Don’t worry about the exam. I’m sure you’ll do fine.”

“Of course, I will. I have you to help me,” he says, thankful that you think he’s stressed about the exam. His smile widens when yours does, and he feels so much right now that he almost opens his mouth, but then you’re turning your attention back to the work. So, he clears his thoughts and decides to focus on his work too.

He’s relieved when he realizes that he’s not doing as bad as he thought, he was just having some trouble remembering when to do what. You have him go over it multiple times, and it helps, and when you think he’s ready, you have him try some practice problems.

He’s definitely nervous to try them out, but your reassurance is what gets him to try them. You busy yourself with some other classwork, and he’s grateful because he doesn’t know what he’d be able to do if you were watching him. He makes sure to check over his work, even putting his work through the calculator more than once to make sure that he’s getting the same answer as before.

He lets you know that he’s finished, and his professor added the answers to the questions, so you look over his work and the answers. He fiddles with his pencil in nervousness and anticipation as he watches you check. It feels like it takes forever and it almost kills him, but then you finally look up at him.

“You did really well! There’s a couple that you messed up on, but other than that, I’d say that you’d got this stuff down.” He takes a breath of relief, running his hand down his chest as he leans back in his seat.

“Thank God,” he breathes.

“You just have to trust yourself. You know what you’re doing, just don’t get nervous,” you tell him. “I know when I do that, I end up freaking myself out so much that I start to forget things.”

“Thank you so much. I owe you one.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s definitely not something I understood at first, so I’m happy to help.” At your words, for some reason, he feels like you might be about to leave, and he selfishly doesn’t want that to happen.

“Do you mind checking over my work again? I wanna go through some more just in case,” he tries, and he tightens his grip on his pencil, hoping you say yes.

“Of course. While you’re working, I’m getting work done too, so it’s a win-win,” you answer, and he’s never felt more elated. He nods, getting to work on more problems, and you switch your attention back to the work you were doing.

You get up to go to the bathroom again, and you stretch when you do, and Ukai’s eyes catch on your shorts again. He diverts his eyes as soon as you walk out of his line of sight, and he shakes his head. Focus. He sighs, getting back on track, and finishes the problem with ease. He gets to the next one though, and he’s stuck.

He tries to do it himself, but when he feels like he’s not doing something right, he stops so that he doesn’t get too far ahead of himself. Luckily, you come back when he stops, so he asks you right before you sit back down.

“I just wanna make sure I’m starting this right,” he says, and you put your hand on the back of his chair before you lean down to see what he’s doing. You lean down a little bit more to look at his work, and he holds the urge to flinch when your shirt brushes against his ear. He takes a deep breath in, your scent filling his nose, and he desperately wants to know what it is.

He thinks it might be like shea butter or something but before he can get a chance to investigate further, you break him out of his thoughts. “Yeah, you’re fine. Looks good to me,” you say, and he makes the mistake of turning to look up at you.

He was going to say something, but the words die in his throat when he looks at your face. He gets lost in your eyes and the curve of your lips, and he can’t look away. He looks back at your eyes, and to his surprise, you’re looking at his lips too. He has half a mind to just say fuck it and lean in, but then he feels you rub at his back.

“Have more confidence in yourself, Keishin,” you say, smiling at him before you move to sit back down. He’s glad that there doesn’t seem to be any awkward air between the two of you, and he realizes that his heart is racing when he looks back at his work. It feels like the motion of your hand rubbing his back is burned into his skin, and he would give anything to feel it again.

Ukai yawns as he finishes the last of the problems, and he passes the notebook to you. He rubs over his eyes as you look over them, and it doesn’t take you long to look through them. “You did great. You got all of them right,” you say with a yawn.

“I guess we better call it a night,” he says around a laugh that you copy, but then he looks at the time. “Shit, I didn’t mean to keep you here so late.”

You blink sleepily as you yawn again, looking at the time. “Oh, God. I didn’t even know I was here for that long,” you hum.

He once again doesn’t want you to leave. “You can sleep here for the night if you want, I’ll sleep on the couch,” he offers, and at the same time, you look like you could fall asleep any minute now.

“I couldn’t take your bed,” you try, but you end up yawning again.

“Seriously. It’s the least I could for keeping you here so long.” He’s really tired himself. He woke early this morning to make sure that his apartment was spotless. He’s never done so much cleaning, but he won’t tell you that.

Surprisingly, you don’t put up much of a fight, but he can’t really blame you. “Alright,” you say. “Do you have an extra toothbrush?”

“Yeah, of course. Just let me use the bathroom first,” he answers, and you give him a nod, turning to your work to finish it up. He mildly panics when he gets to his room because he didn’t think about changing his sheets. He quickly uses the bathroom, brushing his teeth after, and tries his hardest to change his sheets as fast as he can.

He’s nearly sweating by the end of it, but he can proudly say that he set a record for himself. He kicks the dirty sheets into his closet before grabbing the toothbrush and setting it on the bathroom counter. If you noticed that he was gone for so long, you don’t question it, which he’s grateful for even though he prepared a lie just in case.

“My room’s all yours,” he jokes, and you can’t help but laugh before you stand. You yawn again as you stretch, and Ukai finally fights the urge to look over your body again.

“Are you sure it’s okay if I sleep in your room? I can sleep on the couch, I don’t mind.”

“Yes, it’s fine. You look more tired than me right now. I’ll be fine,” he says, and you give him a sleepy smile that only strengthens his words.

“Well, thanks. Goodnight, Keishin.”

“Goodnight,” he echoes, and there’s a part of him that’s ecstatic that he gets to say it to you in person, and he ignores the pang in his chest that he can’t be laying next to you as he says it. You walk to his room, and he watches until you softly close the door. He already grabbed a pillow from his bed before he walked out, so he throws that onto the couch.

He has a blanket on the couch, so he lays down, throwing it over himself and he tries to get comfortable. This couch isn’t the most comfortable, and he’s fallen asleep on it before, but there was no way he was going to ask you if you wanted to share a bed with him. He finds himself thinking about what would’ve happened if you had said yes.

His thoughts start to derail right after that, and he groans before deciding to turn on the TV. It’s the only way he’ll be able to keep his thoughts at bay. He turns the volume down, and he puts on a show that he can fall asleep to. Of course, it only works for so long. He hasn’t heard you say his first name at all. Today was the first time, and he can’t help but smile widely at the thought.

He always wanted to say something to you in high school, but you never gave him the time of day. Now that he thinks about it, he doesn’t blame you at all. His friends weren’t kind to you at all, and he doesn’t even think he would call them friends. His real friends were in different classes with him, and he really only hung with them after school or on the weekends.

There were times that he told them to stop messing with you, and they took it as him having a crush on you, which was very much true, but he didn’t want that getting out, so he kept his mouth shut. Seeing you again and spending so much time with you has made him realize how stupid he was. He was more worried about himself than you, someone that he really liked, and he hates himself every time he thinks about it.

He hopes one day he’ll get the courage to tell you everything. Right now, he’s more than content with having what he has with you, and he doesn’t want to say anything to ruin that. He definitely wants to come clean about high school, there’s no doubt about it. But there is doubt if you’ll even talk to him after he reveals everything.

He plays back your first interaction in his head every night before he goes to sleep. At first, it kept him up at night. You had every right to act as you did towards him, and he tried to play it cool while he was with you, but after you left, he felt like total shit. He put his number in your phone to see how you would react, and he was more than relieved when you kept talking to him.

As he starts to fall asleep, he thinks about what he’s going to say to you. He hopes that when he finally gets the confidence and the chance, he won’t mess it up. He tries to rehearse it in his head, but he falls asleep as soon as he starts.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep, but as he starts to wake up, he hears a familiar voice. “Dude, why are you sleeping on the couch? Get in your bed.” He recognizes that it’s his roommate, but that’s about all he can register. He was a lot more tired than he thought.

He groggily makes his way to his room, and even in the dark, he can easily locate his bed, like it’s calling to him. He sheds his shirt and nearly sighs in comfort at the relief he feels when his body hits the bedsheets. He notices that he can’t stretch out like he wants to, but he’s starting to fall asleep, so he doesn’t worry about it that much. His bed also isn’t cold like it should be, but he gladly accepts the warmth, wrapping his arm around the pillow, and it takes no time for him to fall back asleep.

Ukai notices that the sun is peeking through the blinds as he starts to wake up. He takes a deep breath in, and he swears his nostrils fill with your scent, but this time he’s getting something different. Mango, maybe? He leans further into it, taking another deep breath, and whatever the source may be is soft against his face. He could stay here forever.

He tightens his arm around his pillow, settling in again as the smell starts to put him back to sleep. But he frowns when he faintly notices that his pillow is moving. He slowly opens his eyes, and his heart drops when he realizes that it hasn’t been a pillow all along. His eyes widen when he sees you laying in his arm, and his heart begins to race.

You’re looking right at him, but there’s nothing that can come out of his mouth. You’re just waking up too, and you blink a bit, but there’s no hint of surprise on your face. “Keishin?” you whisper, and he never thought his name could sound so good coming from you.

“Y-Yeah,” he mumbles, and he can feel his face warm at his stuttering, but he gives himself a break because he’s just waking up. You roll over so that your back is fully against the bed, and you rub over your eyes.

“What time is it?”

“It’s only nine-thirty,” he says after he looks at his clock, and you groan softly.

“God, that is too early for a weekend.” He smiles at your sleepy state, and he can’t take his eyes off of you. You raise your arm over your head to stretch, and he notices that your shirt rises, and he can’t help but let his eyes trail down your body. His breath catches in his throat when he sees how high your shorts have ridden up, and there’s only one thing on his mind.

His eyes cut towards you when you call his name again, and he’ll blame his tired brain later, but he leans down closer to you. “Am I dreaming?” he questions, and his hand is itching to touch you, so he carefully puts his hand on your face.

“I don’t think so,” you whisper, and he can barely hear it over the blood pumping in his ears. He glances down at your lips when you lick over them, and there’s no way he’s going to be able to stop himself now.

“Good.” When you don’t make any move to pull away, he takes the opportunity to press his lips to yours. He sighs at how soft your lips are, and he only gets more eager when you kiss him back. You said he wasn’t dreaming, but this sure feels like he is. He pulls away only for a second, missing the feeling of your lips almost the instant he does.

He goes in for another, and you let your arm loosely loop around his neck as you meet him halfway. He groans when you deepen the kiss as you roll over onto your side, and he grabs your leg, putting it over his body. He’s borderline frantic to feel every part of you, and he lets his hand run up your leg, his fingers just barely getting under your shorts.

You move in closer to him, so he allows himself to let his hands drift up further, and your shorts have moved up so high, that they barely get in the way of him feeling even more of your ass. You moan when he pulls back with your lip in between his teeth, and he’s never felt so hot. He stops for a second to look at you, and your heavy breathing is the only thing that can be heard in the room.

Your lips are swollen from his kisses, and your pupils are blown wide as you look up at him, and he thought there was no way you could get any prettier, but right now, you’re proving him wrong again. “Fuck,” he breathes before he leans back in, rolling the both of you over while keeping your leg in his hand.

Your hands rub all over his chest, and you run your hands up his back, and he shudders at the motions, goosebumps rising all over as blood rushes straight to his dick. Your arms find their place around his neck, and he abandons his hold on your leg in favor of letting his weight press into you.

He pulls away to quickly pull your shirt off, and you easily let your upper half lift off the bed so he can do so. His movements slow when his eyes land on your chest, your boobs are basically falling out of the bralette you’re wearing, and his brain short circuits. He can’t think about anything else, and he swallows heavily when you pull the straps down, fully exposing yourself to him.

He lets your shirt fall next to you, and like he’s in a trance, his hands reach up to squeeze at the underside of the fat, and he wants to pinch himself. There’s no way he’s really doing this with you, but he’ll worry about this being a dream later. He kisses you again, feeling like that’s the only way he can regulate his breathing right now as he continues to fondle your tits.

He kisses down your neck, feeling like he might go crazy as he kisses over your chest before he slips one of your nipples in his mouth. He moans when you do, his name slipping from your lips as your hands slip into his hair. He ruts against you, and he’s definitely drooling as he sucks at your chest, but he doesn’t even care.

You pull him back to your face, and he kisses you sloppily, your legs wrapping around his torso when he grinds even harder against you. “K-Kei,” you keen, and he rests his forehead against yours, his pleasure becoming too much for him to continue to kiss you. You arch into him, and he swears when your chest pushes into his. He’s definitely close to cumming, feeling his pleasure start to mount in his spine, and he digs into his teeth into whatever part of your skin he can reach to try and hold himself back as he pulls at your shorts.

Right as he does though, his burst open, scaring the both of you. Ukai quickly falls on his side to hide you, and he looks over his shoulder to see his roommate standing in the doorway. “What?!” he barks, and the guy holds his hands up.

“Sorry, dude,” he laughs before quickly walking back out, slamming the door when he leaves. Ukai doesn’t even want to look at you, the air now becoming awkward in the silence. He slowly turns his head towards you, and when he makes eye contact, you can’t help but laugh. He internally sighs in relief as he laughs with you, and yours dies down when your phone starts ringing.

He hands it to you, and you give him a small smile as you answer it. He doesn’t listen to the conversation because he’s too busy looking at you. His eyes stay on your lips while you talk before they trail down to your chest, and he can see the marks he left on you which causes him to twitch in his shorts.

“Sorry, I totally forgot. I’m leaving right now.” That makes him look up at you, and you hang up the phone, taking a while to meet his eyes. “I forgot I had plans with my roommate today. That was her,” you tell him, and he pushes down the disappointment that he feels, and he thinks that he hears it in your voice; at least he hopes so.

“No, that’s okay. I should probably see what my friend wanted,” he responds, and you quietly grab your clothes and put them back on. He moves over so that you can get out of bed to get to the bathroom, and he releases a heavy breath through his mouth when the door closes.

He runs a hand through his hair as he tries to think about what in the fuck got into him, and he wills his hard-on to go away. He gets off his bed, sliding his shirt on right as you open the door, and he goes in after you. He doesn’t even try to look at himself in the mirror while he brushes his teeth, and when he walks back out, you’re standing by his bed, looking at your phone.

You look up at him when he walks into the room, and he pulls his shirt down to cover himself. “Sorry, I have to leave so suddenly,” you say, and he waves you off.

“It’s okay. We got a lot of work done yesterday, so it’s all good.” You give him a little nod, and he quickly decides to walk towards the door so things don’t get awkward. You follow him out of his room, and his roommate is sitting on the couch when you walk out. He looks over his shoulder just as your grabbing your backpack.

“Sorry for interrupting earlier,” he laughs. “I’m Takinoue.”

Ukai glares at him as you feel your face warm. “Nice to meet you. I’m y/n,” you say softly, and Ukai’s eyes widen when Takinoue’s does.

“Wait, you’re y/n? The girl that–”

“She really has to go, so end of the introduction,” Keishin rushes out, and he pushes you towards the door. While you’re slipping your shoes on, Ukai smacks his friend on the back of the head, but before he can turn around, he’s already slipping his shoes on and walking with you out the door.

Neither of you speaks as he walks you to your car, and he doesn’t know what to say when you finally get there. “Uh, thanks again for the help last night. I really appreciate it,” he eventually says.

“You’re welcome. Just let me know if you need any more help,” you tell him, and that reassures him a bit that maybe you didn’t hate what you both did earlier. But now, he doesn’t whether to wave, hug you, or kiss you. He definitely wants to do the last one; his hands are itching to touch you again, but he doesn’t know if you’d be okay with that.

You break him out of his thoughts when you take a step closer to him and kiss his cheek. His world seems to stop when you do, and you pull away, having a hard time holding his gaze. “See you on Monday, Keishin.”

He’s too dazed to respond, barely remembering you getting in the car, and the next thing he knows, you’re driving away. He doesn’t jump out of it until your car is long out of his sight, and when he finally does, he smiles widely against his will. He softly touches his cheek, and he doesn’t lose the smile on his face as he walks back to his apartment.

But it drops the moment he opens the door and sees his friend’s smug smile. “You weren’t gonna tell me that you’re sleeping with the girl that you’ve been pining over since high school?” he questions, and you Ukai shakes his head as he rolls his eyes.

“We’re not sleeping together, okay? We were just working on a project last night.”

“For what class? Anatomy?” he jokes, and it actually makes him laugh.

“Ha! Good one,” he muses. “But we finished really late, so I let her take the bed. That’s why I was on the couch.” He rubs his hand down his face as he sighs, but it doesn’t take long for him to smile again.

“Well, it looks like you should’ve just taken the bed anyway. You look like a lovesick puppy.”

“Fuck you,” he retorts with no heat behind it, but it’s not like he can deny it. He’s still not sure if he’s dreaming or not, and in the back of his head, he’s waiting for himself to wake up.

“So, what happens now? Are you actually gonna confess to her? You’ve only been waiting for this moment for like, five years.” He hates how he still can’t answer that question. With the way everything is going, he’s thinking that it’ll be better to not tell you the truth, but on the other hand, he wants to come clean to you and tell you everything. And Takinoue’s right, he’s been waiting for a miracle, and it’s finally here.

He thought he would jump at the opportunity, but with the first interaction he had with you, he held back. “I don’t know,” he eventually says.

“Don’t stress it too much, man. As far as I’m concerned, it looks like she feels the same way,” he says, with a hard clap on his back that makes him stumble forward a bit, and it definitely feels intentional. At least now he knows he’s not dreaming. “And that also explains why the apartment was spotless when I got home. Now where’d you put my shit?” he asks, and Ukai lets himself drop his dilemma for now.

When you get home, you close the door behind you and let your back fall against the door. Even if what happened with Ukai was long ago, your heart is still racing just thinking about it. You don’t know what came over either of you, but there’s not a single bone in your body that hated it. You rub your fingers over your lips as your mind starts to replay the events in your head.

You jump when your roommate opens her door, and you quickly stand up. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’m fine,” you say. “It was really late, so I just slept over at his place since I was so tired.” You try to school your expression so that she doesn’t pick up on anything, and you hope the look on your face is convincing enough.

“So, did anything happen?”

“Ah, no. We just worked on our presentation, it was pretty uneventful,” you say, and to be honest, you’re a little bit embarrassed to admit to her what happened. Maybe it’s because you’re still reeling from it. “Just let me hope in the shower, and I’ll be ready to go.”

Surprisingly, she lets you walk past her without saying anything else, and when you get to your room after closing the door, the events of this morning start to hit you. You go from sitting in shock to flailing in one spot just to get it out of you. You take a deep breath, composing yourself before you get in the shower.

Your shower takes a little longer than you anticipated because your thoughts keep running from you in all the wrong ways. You throw some cold water on your face when you get out, telling yourself to get it together. You get dressed, and your friend is waiting at the dining table for you when you walk out.

She looks up from her from, and her words die in her throat when she looks at you. You frown when her smile disappears, and she points an accusing finger at you. “You bitch! You lied to me!” she yells, and you’re still very much confused until you look down at your chest where she’s pointing. Your eyes widen and you feel your face warm when you see hickeys all over your chest.

You don’t know how you didn’t notice until now, but thanks to the low-cut shirt you’re wearing, you almost showed everyone what you were up to this morning. “Um…” you say weakly, covering your chest with your hands. “I’ll go change and we can get out of here,” you try, but you don’t even get to take a step back before she speaks.

“Absolutely not, missy. You sit your ass right here and tell me everything.” You sigh, knowing that she’s going to get it out of you sooner or later, and you sit down across from her. She looks so invested, resting her hands on her face as she leans forward. “So, did you guys sleep together?”

“No,” you start with a shake of your head before you shrug. “Well, kinda. It was really late, and I was tired, so he said I could sleep in his bed. When I woke up, he was there, and…stuff happened.”

“What happened?! Tell me everything!” she presses, and your face gets even hotter just thinking about it.

“We just made out,” you eventually say. “His roommate walked in, so it didn’t go much further than that.” Honestly, you don’t know what you would’ve done if his roommate hadn’t interrupted. You probably would’ve done anything with him at that moment.

“So, how was it?” she presses.

“It was really good,” you gush, a laugh rushing out of your chest. “It was the hottest thing I’ve ever done,” you add, feeling how hot your face is when you put your hands on it.

“I bet,” your roommate laughs. “I can see that you’re flustered from here.” You can’t help but laugh again, putting your hands over your face and sighing. “So, what’s your relationship now?”

“I don’t know. We really didn’t talk about it. Like I said, it was just a kinda spur-of-the-moment thing.”

“Well, I’m getting that it means you’re admitting your feelings for him,” she responds, and move your hands to look at her.

“I’m scared too,” you answer honestly. “I don’t wanna say that, and then he pulls a complete one-eighty on me.”

“That’s understandable, but truthfully, I don’t think he’s the same guy he was in high school. From what you’ve been telling me, it doesn’t sound like he’s going to do that to you.” You let her words bounce around in your head, both of you going silent as you think.

“Maybe,” you say after a while.

“Have some faith, girl. I bet he likes you a lot more than you like him.” Her words make you smile, and then she stands up. “Alright, we need to get a move-on if we want to make it to this thrifting event on time.”

“You were the one who wanted me to tell you about what happened,” you say after you scoff.

“Well, it was only natural. You tell me it was uneventful, but you have hickeys on your chest? I’d be crazy not to ask,” she counters, and she has a point because you would do the same thing if the tables were turned.

You go back into your room to change your shirt, and then you’re walking out the door with your roommate, putting your situation with Ukai to the side for a while.

Monday rolls around faster than you’d like, and you spend all morning thinking about how the conversation with Ukai will go. You’re not dreading it, you’re just more worried about if your conversation will be awkward or not. You get to class pretty early since you woke up early, and you listen to your music as you wait for Ukai to get here.

You pull up the paper that you have to present while you wait, and you read over it just in case. There’s no point in making any changes since you had to submit it to your professor before class, but you still want to go over it anyway. You freeze for a split second when you see Ukai sit down next to you in your peripheral, and you slide your headphone off your head, but you don’t look his way.

“Morning,” you hear him say, and you turn to him, having a hard time keeping your smile small.

“M-Morning.” You pick at the corner of your laptop as you internally roll your eyes at how nervous you are.

“Listen,” he starts, leaning towards you and lowering his voice. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable yesterday–”

“No, it’s okay,” you say, cutting him off. “It was–I, um…I liked it,” you whisper, and there’s no way you can look him in the eyes after saying that. Both of you jump when the professor announces for you to start your presentation.

Thankfully, it goes off without a hitch, the only thing is, you started to notice about halfway through your paper that someone’s glaring at you. You couldn’t figure out who it was while you were reading, but when you start to ask the class questions, you realize it was the girl that tried to talk to Ukai a while ago.

You try not to let it affect you, but you have no idea why she’s staring you down. You don’t know if Ukai notices her too, but before you know it, it’s all over. You sigh quietly in relief when the professor says that class is over, and you both pack up your stuff. You notice that Ukai is walking way closer to you when you walk out of class, and you feel sparks go up your arm every time his hand brushes against yours.

“I’d say we did pretty good,” he says while you both walk.

“Yeah. She seemed really happy with our questions. I have you to thank for that, though. You did most of the work,” you respond.

“I’d say it was pretty even,” he jokes, and you can’t help but laugh. “Our usual spot?” he asks, and you nod even though the both of you are already walking that way.

The area you usually sit in is pretty empty when you get there, and you and Ukai both sit where you usually do. You sit next to him, but there’s no way you can get any work done. Even though it’s quiet, the air between you is stiflingly filled with attraction.

Since you’re not going to get any work done, you carefully lay your head on his shoulder, and you bite your lip to hide your smile when he wraps his arm around you. “You gonna nap?” he asks, you nod as you press further into him.

“Yeah, I’m gonna try.” You turn your face to press it into his shoulder, and you close your eyes as you breathe him in. He smells so good, and it’s nearly too late when you start to realize that you’re getting warm all over. You will yourself to calm down, but there’s no way you’re going to be able to go to sleep, so you keep your eyes open, focusing on what work he’s doing every now and then.

When you feel yourself starting to go to sleep, it’s too late because you feel him shaking you gently to let you know that you have to get to class. He gets up after you do, and you wait for him to put his stuff in his backpack before you leave. When he stands, he’s nearly in your space, but you make no move to step back. You actually want to step closer to him, but you have to remind yourself that you’re not alone.

You look around, and you see that you are, but there’s no way you’d be bold enough to do anything in public anyway. You both look at each other for a second before you move to kiss him on the cheek again. It’s the only thing you bring yourself to do right now. “I’ll see you later,” you whisper when you step back, but you don’t even get a chance to turn around.

He grabs your wrist softly, pulling you into him with his hand on the back of your neck. His lips meet yours for a hungry kiss, and you can’t help but melt into him, and suddenly you’re forgetting about being in public. You’re dazed when you pull away, your breathing ragged as you let your fingers softly touch your lips.

You look around again, and when the coast is clear, you move towards him again, and he holds you closer to him as he deepens the kiss. Fuck, he’s such a good kisser. Every single one makes you feel like you’re floating, but he pulls away the moment you moan. “You should go,” he breathes, his hands resting on your hips. “Cause if you don’t, I won’t be able to let you go.”

You give him a shaky nod, and it seems like it takes forever for you to step back from him, and you nearly don’t, deciding that class isn’t so important anymore. But you really should go. His hands slip from your hips when you move, and it takes everything in you to walk away from him. You give him a small wave, hightailing out of there before you can change your mind.

Turns out, you should’ve just stayed with him because you reply the kiss over and over in your head the whole class period.

“Hey, are you doing anything Friday?” your friend asks, and you look up from your homework.

“No, I don’t think so. Why?”

“Cause my team’s having a mixer, and I can bring a plus-one, and you need to get out. You’ve been studying all week,” she says, and you roll your eyes.

“I don’t know. I don’t really know any of your teammates,” you tell her, and she waves you off.

“Just bring your boyfriend. It’ll be fun.”

“He’s not my boyfriend!” you yell, but she’s already walking to her room.

She has a point though. You’ve been nothing but working all week, and the only time you’ve seen Keishin is during class, which always leads to a heated kiss that has you wanting more. Even when you look back down at your work, you don’t want to think about it anymore, so you decide to take the offer.

You text Ukai about it, and he instantly agrees. You start to feel nervous just thinking about it, especially since you don’t attend things like this very often. You’ve been to a few due to your friend’s outgoing nature, but sometimes you just like to be at home watching your favorite show. But, maybe it won’t be so bad since Ukai will be with you.

When Friday rolls around, you’re waiting on your friend to finish getting ready, so you’re sitting on the couch. You offered to drive since you won’t be drinking that much anyway, and you stand when you hear her heels clicking on the floor behind you. “Why are you wearing that?” she asks, and you look down at your outfit.

“What’s wrong with it? I thought you’d like that I’m wearing a dress,” you muse, even though you’re going to be tugging on it all night. It hugs your body way more than you’d like, but you bought it on a whim and you’ve barely worn it.

“I’m talking about the jacket.”

“What’s wrong with the jacket? It’s gonna get cold tonight,” you tell her, genuinely not understanding what she’s getting at.

She rolls her eyes before she plants her hands on her hips. “You can’t show up with a jacket. Now, he can’t give you one.” You instantly understand what she means, and you can’t help but scoff.

“Are you seriously telling me to ditch the jacket just so Ukai will give me his?”

“Uh, duh. Why else would I be telling you this?” You don’t have much of a choice because she pulls it off of you, throwing it on the couch. You don’t have time to protest because even in heels, she’s moving out of the door quickly.

You must be here early because parking isn’t absolute shit yet, and you can feel your nerves start to hit you as you walk up to the house. When you get inside, you quickly realize that this is nowhere near a mixer; it’s a full blown party. Your friend guides you to the kitchen, handing you a drink once she gets there, and her friends find her almost instantly.

They talk to you for a while, and you check your phone to see that Ukai just texted you. Your friend waits for him to get there before she leaves with her friends, and you both find a corner to occupy as the music pounds in your head. “This isn’t really your thing, is it?” He has to lean down to ask you, and you shake your head as you move your hand side-to-side.

“Not really, but my friend thought I should get out since I’ve been studying all week.”

“She sounds like a good friend,” he yells back, and that makes you laugh.

“When she wants to be, yeah.” The room’s starting to fill up, so you grab his hand to find somewhere else to go. You decide to just step outside since they’re playing music that you don’t really listen to. “Did you drive here?” you ask, finally relieved that you can hear yourself think.

“Yeah. I have a friend that’s on the team, so I’m the designated driver tonight.”

“So am I,” you say, taking a sip of the seltzer, and you offer it to him. He takes a swig before he puts the drink down on the half-brick wall that you’re sitting on.

“Are you not cold?” he asks, gesturing to your body, and you nod your head quickly.

“Oh, I definitely am. My friend told me to ditch the jacket though.” He gives you a questioning look, and you chuckle a bit before you explain. “She said if I ditch the jacket, you would give me yours,” you explain. “You don’t have to though,” you add, but he’s already sliding it off, and your eyes land on his arms which look like they might rip the sleeves of his shirt.

He puts it on you, and it’s so warm that you can’t help but curl into the warmth. You stick your arms in the sleeves, and he moves closer to you. You stand so that you can make your way in between his legs, and his hands land on your hips.

“You look good tonight,” he comments, and you hum as you put your hands on his shoulders.

“Yeah?”

He nods. “Especially in my jacket,” he adds, wrapping his arms around you to pull you closer to him.

“And what are you gonna do about it?” you question, and he grabs both sides of his jacket in one hand to pull you down to him.

“I’ll show you,” he whispers against your lips before he kisses you firmly, and you gladly let your weight fall on him. He easily catches you as you move your arms to hang over his shoulders. He keeps one of his arms wrapped around you while the other falls so that he can trail his hand up your leg. You know the goosebumps that rise on your skin aren’t from the cold because your body starting to heat up and he’s barely started kissing you.

His fingers start to reach under the hem of your dress, and it feels so teasing to you that it makes you leak onto your panties. You’re glad you’re in the backyard because you would be embarrassed otherwise at how easily he’s pulling all kinds of sounds from you. He sucks on your tongue, and you’re pretty sure you would let him do anything to you right now.

He groans when you pull at his hair, and his fingers dig into the fat of your ass as his fingers start to inch further up your dress. You jump away from him quickly when someone yells your name, and you look up to see a girl walking up to you. You recognize her as one of your friend’s teammates, and she carefully steps outside, but Ukai doesn’t let you go.

That’s also when you realize that people could see you from inside since the curtains to the backdoor are wide open, but you don’t have time to think about that because she starts talking to you. “We’re playing seven minutes in heaven. You have to play!”

“O-Oh, I don’t know about that–” She cuts you off with a rough yank of your hand that nearly tips you over, and you grab Ukai’s hand also since there’s no way you’re stopping her. She pulls you upstairs, and you all walk into a room that’s filled with people but not as many downstairs. There’s music playing in here, and when she closes the door, the music blasting downstairs is severely muffled.

She pulls you into the circle, and you quickly fix your dress when you sit down to make sure you don’t flash anybody. “God, it’s like she didn’t stop,” you breathe, turning to Ukai when he sits down next to you.

“Yeah, that’s for sure.”

“I’m sure we can just sneak out of here in like, five minutes,” you say, but it’s too late because someone stands up and starts talking. You look around the room, and you start to feel uneasy when you see the same guy that Ukai nearly beat up. He barely spares either of you a glance, and you definitely feel uneasy when you see the girl that shares the same class with the both of you.

She makes eye contact with you, and she gives you a smile that’s all too friendly. There’s no way you can leave now because there’s no point in explaining the rules since everyone knows how to play. You and Ukai are definitely the only sober ones in the room, and you feel anxious as the girl from your class picks you to spin the bottle first.

You do it just to do it so you can get out of here faster because you’d rather be anywhere with Ukai but here. You chew on your lip nervously as the conversation gets quiet while people wait to see who’s going in the closet with you. You nearly slump in relief when it lands on Ukai, and when you look at him, he has a look in his eyes that gets both of your heartbeats racing.

He gets up before you do, pulling you to the closet faster than you can even process what’s going on. When he closes the door, you try to find a light to turn on, but he’s pushing you against the nearest wall before you can. As he pushes you, you feel something cold run across your forehead, and you assume it’s the string to the light, so you try to pull it while he kisses you frantically.

You manage to turn it on, but the moment it happens, you soon forget about it when his lips find your neck. He pulls the jacket off of you, letting it fall to the floor as his hands rub at your thighs. “Keishin,” you whisper, trying to keep your voice down since you don’t know how soundproof the door is.

“I’m so glad it landed on me. I don’t know if I would be able to handle you coming in here with someone else,” he breathes against your skin, and you’re glad it landed on him too, but there’s no way you’re able to tell him that when he pushes your dress up so that it’s bunched at your waist.

He hikes your leg up so that it’s on his waist, and his other hand runs under the side of your panties. You jump when he finally touches you down there, and you hide your face in his hair to try and muffle your moans. He uses his other hand to pull your dress further up your body so until your tits fall out. The straps of the dress were designed where wearing a bra would’ve looked weird, and you don’t regret not wearing one at all right now.

You can’t even begin to try and get a word in when he starts to suck at your tits at the same time he pulls your underwear to the side. You ball his shirt in your fist when he rubs at your clit, and you dig your teeth into the other side of his shirt. You’re glad he has you up against the wall because you definitely would’ve fallen otherwise.

You wanna try and make him feel good too, but he’s got you trapped between him and the wall, and there’s no way you could, so you just let the pleasure overtake you. You feel tears start to form at the corner of your eyes when he slides his fingers into you, and you’re confident the groan he releases is loud enough for everyone outside to hear.

“Oh, God,” you whine. “Oh, God, Kei–” You stand on your toes to the best of your ability when he presses against your walls, and your fingers hurt from how hard you’re gripping his shirt. He finally abandons your chest in favor of watching your face as he fingers you, nudging your head up with his shoulder, and you bite into your lip as your pleasure builds.

“Fuck, baby, you’re so hot,” he moans as he looks at you, and he pulls your lip out from between your teeth.

“T-They’ll hear–me,” you try to whisper.

“I don’t care. Let ‘em hear how good I’m making you feel, baby.” You can’t fight the urge to bite your lip, and you let your head fall back against the wall. You’re definitely starting to get too loud, so he crashes your lips onto his. He swallows every sound you make, pressing up against you even more when he presses on that spot that has you keening into his mouth.

The knock on the door should startle you but it doesn’t. The only thing you care about now is how good you’re feeling. The second round of knocks are harder, and this time you hear a voice, but you don’t know what they’re saying. He kisses you soundly as he slides his fingers out of you, and you don’t hide your disappointment.

He slides his fingers into his mouth, his breathing just as ragged as yours when he pulls them out. “I’m nowhere near done with you,” he whispers, and he fixes your dress right as the door opens. He picks up his jacket off of the floor, and he grabs your hand, making a bee-line for the exit.

He’s suddenly stopped by a familiar face with another familiar face on his arm. “I knew you could do it,” he says, and he hands Ukai some money. You both frown at him, and the girl laughs.

“You won the bet, Ukai,” she says, and you can feel your heart start to race in the wrong way as your hand starts to slip from his. “It only took what? Like two months?”

“You don’t remember the bet we made before school started?” the guy asks, and you start to feel sick, looking over your shoulder to see everyone looking at you. You feel like you might puke as you wretch your hand from him and run out of the room. You hear Ukai call after you but you don’t stop, running down the stairs and pushing past people, ignoring their comments.

You can’t help but let the tears fall when you get outside once the music starts to fade. Your ears are ringing so badly, and your feet are moving you to your car. You let out a sob as you run, and you don’t even hear your name being called behind you. A hand grabs your arm, and you try to shake it off, but it tightens its grip.

“Let me go!” you scream, turning around to see Ukai, and the only thing you see is the guy that let you get bullied in high school. “You’re a piece of shit!”

“Just listen to me,” he tries, but you continue to fight him. “I don’t know what he’s talking about. I didn’t see him until that day!” he says, but you’re not listening.

You stop moving, and he doesn’t let you go. “You’re still that same guy. Nothing fucking changed and I fell for it!” You take the chance to slip out of his grip, and you succeed, making a run for your car. You unlock it, but right as you try to open it, his hand lands on yours.

“Just listen to me, please.”

“No! I don’t want to talk to you.” He turns you around so fast that it almost scares you, and he pushes you against your car door.

“Are you really going to listen to some people that you barely know instead of me?” he questions. Your lip is still wobbling, and you can’t stop the tears that are running down your face.

“It’s not like I have anything else to go off of,” you bite back, and he presses you against the car a little harder when he thinks you might move.

“Yes, you do. And you know it,” he declares. “I have no idea what the fuck they were talking about. I didn’t even know he was going here until I saw him that day. And I haven’t talked to her since that day in class.” You start to calm down, but your heart is still racing a mile a minute. “I really like you, okay?” he starts. “I have since I laid my eyes on you in high school, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell them to stop messing with you. I was more worried about myself.”

His words hang in the air between the two of you, and when you start to relax, he lets you go. “Nothing that I have said or done with you has been a part of some bet. Everything I did was my choice.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” you ask, and you hate how your voice trembles.

“You think I threaten to beat him up all for some bet? I’m better than that, and you know it.” He lets his hands fall into your hands, grabbing them soft but his grip is firm. “I would never do something like that to you. I’ve been thinking about telling you the truth ever since I saw you that day, but I thought if I did, you would hate me. I couldn’t live with that, so I stayed quiet.”

You don’t respond, sniffling heavily. “And now I’m realizing that that was the dumbest decision I could’ve ever made. Spending this time with you has been the best moment of my life,” he breathes. “Don’t tell me that you don’t feel the same.”

You can’t even tell yourself that you don’t feel the same. You know from the start that your feelings for him never left, and there was a part of you that just accepted it. But you were so scared to let your guard down, to be vulnerable with him like you are now.

“I really like you. I mean that. And I’m sorry for letting you be hurt all this time.” You let go of his hand so that you can wipe your face.

“It’s not your fault,” you eventually say. “I do feel the same way, but I was scared. Back then and now, I blamed you for the bullying, but it was never your fault.”

“Yes, it was,” he presses, but you stop him.

“No. It wasn’t.” You sniffle again, taking a deep, shaky breath. “I was letting the past dictate my feelings. I shouldnt’ve let their words get to me. But I was scared that you would hurt me if I let you back in.”

“I won’t hurt you again. I promise. I’ll never make you feel like that again.” He lets his head fall on yours as he speaks. “I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you, but I won’t let it happen again.” You pull away, looking in his eyes, and you lean forward to kiss him softly. He lets his hands move to your neck, kissing you back just as softly.

“I believe you,” you whisper when you pull away. “I’m sorry I didn’t before. I really like you, too.” He can’t help but smile, and he kisses you again just because he can.

“Thank you.”

“For what?” you ask, frowning a bit.

“For letting me say what I’ve always wanted to say. I thought I lost my chance forever.” You shake your head, wrapping your arms around his neck and kissing him again.

“No,” you say. “Now you have me forever.”

#keishin ukai #ukai keishin #ukai keishin smut #keishin ukai smut #ukai smut #keishin ukai x black!reader #ukai keishin x black!reader #haikyuu!! smut #haikyuu smut #hq!! smut #hq smut #haikyuu!! x black!reader #haikyuu x black!reader #hq!! x black!reader #hq x black!reader #haikyuu!!#haikyuu #hq!!#hq

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jooniperbonsai · 3 months

Text

Thanks For The Sub (ksj) | Chapter One

Pairing: Camboy!Seokjin x Gamer!Reader (afab)

Rating: 18+

Chapter One length: 11-14k 18,371 (OOPS LOL)

Release date: Fri. January 19, 2024.

Genre: Smut, fluff, angst, camboy au, gamer au, comedy, crack, slow burn (?), coworkers/boss/friends to lovers, an exploration of adults in their late 20s/early 30s

Summary: After a clip of you sucking at video games goes viral, you've become somewhat famous, with thousands of subscribers now tuning in each week to see you play. Overnight, you've gone from a sexually frustrated grad student who reads smut in her room to a gamer girl (or rather, a not-gamer girl). This would have been the perfect job, except it was never the job you wanted. Desperate for money to pay for grad school, you bounce between your new gig and working at a local restaurant to pay the bills, where your hot coworker-now-boss Seokjin plays many of the lead roles in your sexual fantasies.

Seokjin, two years post losing his fiancé and job within the same day, is tired of the rut he's dug himself into and wants to start over. Now 30 years old, he's stuck managing his family's restaurant where he harbors an insanely inappropriate crush on you on top of carrying one hell of a secret: Seokjin is also known as Jin, a successful gay-for-pay camboy on the streaming site Worldwide Handsome.

When the stress of the upcoming semester and the pressure to stream becomes more than you can handle, you seek out some much-needed stress relief online, only to discover a man who looks a little too much like your boss is staring right back at you.

Warnings for Chapter One: Swearing, cheating (not between main characters), big age gap between lesser characters that can be uncomfy, sex work, gay sex work when the worker is actually not gay (but everyone is chill about it), <- allusions to queer fetishization bc of this, feelings of shame and guilt, feelings of failure/depression, improper restaurant safety procedures, the existential crisis of your late-20s/30s that we all seem to go through, off-handed references to kpop culture including fanfics because I'm a clown and need to call us out sometimes, silly literary tropes, references to pregnancy (NOT reeader), boss-employee power dynamics, allusions to queer BTS members or relationships, cameos of au Seventeen Members (Wonwoo and y/n are besties). NSFW sex stuff: big dick Seokjin (of course), Seokjin with rolled shirt sleeves and cutting things in a kitchen, Daddy Dom Seokjin makes himself known, blindfolds, camming (obviously), f/m masturbation, lots of dirty talk, sex toys, degradation kink, praise kink, sexual fantasies at the worst moment, kink exploration, a lot cum (sorry), I mention the omegaverse as a joke, a sparkly pink dildo, seokjin has a massive collection of toys and he intends to use them, seokjin and reader are constantly horny, reader is kind of inexperienced, implied exhibitionism kink, implied voyeurism, implied public sex.

a/n: it's here (and longer than I intended but oh well!) this fic is inspired by a combination of fics from the lovely writing community on here, the copious amounts of smut I read, a dabble of my friends or my own experience, & the high drama of kdramas. I felt really compelled to write this fic after rereading "tip 143 (for ∞ seconds of love)" by minilouvre on ao3. I feel like the camboy/person trope is so fun to explore and I wanted to try my own take on it with our Seokjin, who doesn't seem to get as many fics written about him but absolutely deserves it. I also wanted to create space for a fic that explores the weird transition of late 20s-30s that both BTS and I (and maybe many of you) have experienced in the last few years. I hope you enjoy! I keep my inbox open, so lmk your thoughts!

xo - h

That’s it baby cum for me.

Such a good little slut for Daddy.

Wish that dildo was my cock.

Fuck this is so hot.

The tip jar was going wild. The mute button tapped long ago, tonight was by far the most successful night camming Seokjin had ever had. He would definitely be able to afford that new gaming PC after this.

Thank god. After three hours streaming, he was getting tired of riding the glittery pink dildo. It was cute–a Christmas gift from one of his loyal subscribers– but admittedly, he hadn’t prepped well enough before putting it in an hour ago, and when he let out a pained groan as he sank down on it, he immediately knew he would be feeling it tomorrow, and maybe the next day.

His only consolation was the five new top-tier subscriptions he’d received while experiencing searing hot pain. He’d clearly appealed to someone’s kink. Well, there was always something for everyone.

Seokjin knew this well. Today was his two-year anniversary since his first livestream on Worldwide Handsome, an international gay live cam site. During those two years he had seen just about every kink requested, from wax play to autoerotic asphyxiation to something called the omegaverse; he’d sifted through the internet and researched enough on each request to decide which ones he’d be willing to perform, and which kinks were too much outside of his comfort zone.

Now, with an apartment full of gifted costumes and drawers full of just about every type of sex toy known to the human population (and perhaps even some aliens if those toys held any accuracy), it was obvious that Seokjin was a knowledgeable and successful camboy who could fulfill so many men’s fantasies.

Except for the fact that Seokjin wasn’t actually gay.

Which is, as it turns out, also something people are into.

Two Years Ago

It wasn’t that Seokjin ever intended to be a gay sex cam worker, much less a camboy at all, but two years, four months, three weeks, and twelve hours ago, Seokjin hopped on a plane after finishing a week-long conference in Los Angeles. He’d booked the first flight out, eager to come home to his fiancé.

During the week, he hadn’t heard much from her. He understood, of course. She’d mentioned before he left that during that week she would be busy catching up on work and finalizing a really important project with a looming deadline. She’d been stressed about it the morning he left, practically shoving him out the door with his suitcase.

But he missed her desperately, especially with the distance between them, and he was hoping he could regain some of that intimacy by trying phone sex. They’d been having less sex recently, probably from the stress of work, but he still craved her every single day, just like he did when they were in college.

For most of his and Soon Yi’s relationship, they were insatiable. In college, they were known for being embarrassingly public in their displays of affection, with Yoongi once catching them in the kitchen at a party with Soon Yi’s hand down Seokjin’s pants and Seokjin’s hands up Soon Yi’s shirt. At first, Seokjin wondered if he always felt so horny because of his raging hormones and the fact that Soon Yi was the first person he’d had sex with. But even three years later, on the night he’d proposed, they had to leave the restaurant he rented out so they could have sex in the car.

Soon Yi was charming. She matched Seokjin’s wit, always ready to keep up with a joke and take it to the next level. She fit in effortlessly with his group of friends, remembering their birthdays and always showing up with a tiny treat for them, even if they hated celebrating. His parents adored her the moment they met her. She was frequently fawned over when she visited his work to bring him lunch or to just stop by and say hello.

When his boss, Mr. Choi met her during the company’s annual gala, he told Seokjin she was enchanting, she was the moon that lit up the evening sky. Mr. Choi was also incredibly drunk when he said this, but he wasn’t wrong.

Soon Yi glowed through Seokjin’s darkest nights like the moon.

That’s why when she denied every video call request he made during his trip, Seokjin knew something was wrong. He felt desperate and needy, something he’d never experienced during their relationship.

As he laid in his hotel bed, touching himself to their memories, a strange need overtook him: he wanted to remind her that despite all the work stress, they always got through everything together and ultimately, being intimate might help with reconnection.

So at the end of his boring conference, he flew back, planning on surprising her when she got home with a delicious meal and sexy massage. Maybe he’d even use those silly novelty heart-shaped handcuffs Jungkook got him as a gag gift.

He was ready to rekindle his love for the moon.

What Seokjin wasn’t ready for was the fact that when he walked through the door of his house, the only moon he saw was that of Mr. Choi’s naked ass as he thrust into Soon Yi on the dining room table.

As it became immediately apparent, Soon Yi’s “work project” was clearly what was playing out before him as he watched the only woman he’d ever been in love with writhe in ecstasy underneath his much older work superior.

It would have been one thing to lose his fiancé, but in witnessing this entanglement, Seokjin also knew he’d lost his job. Due to the blur of his memory, his brain trying to erase what he’d seen, he wasn’t entirely sure when they realized he was home. However, by the time he had grabbed another duffel with some fresh, non work-related clothes from his dresser–after he breezed past his unmade bed that probably didn’t smell like him anymore–Soon Yi and Mr. Choi were half dressed and sheepishly waiting for him near the entry.

Seokjin couldn’t bring himself to look either of them in the eyes as he stated his resignation letter would be on Mr. Choi’s desk the following morning.

When he arrived at Jimin and Jungkook’s apartment to crash, that’s when reality set in. What would he do now? He had no house to live in, no job to make money from, and he just lost the love of his life.

His head was splitting from the idea of car payments, a mortgage under his name for a place he wouldn’t be living in, having to tell his parents, calling the wedding venue and paying that awful cancellation fee on top of not getting his deposit back. The extra zeros in his bank account were depleting fast and it wasn’t like he would be able to sleep on Jimin and Jungkook’s couch forever.

After two weeks of dodging family phone calls, desperately applying to every job that didn’t sound like a scam, waking up in the middle of the night from the lumpiness of the couch or Jungkook’s horrible snoring, Seokjin felt like he was out of options.

“I’m going to call my parents and tell them. Maybe I can work at the restaurant for the time being while I wait for callbacks. I have some money in my savings for my own apartment. I just can’t keep doing this,” he said.

“Hyung, are you sure? You know that we don’t mind you being here as long as you need. Really, it’s not an issue.” Jimin was gentle as always, the concern on his face knitting his eyebrows together.

But Seokjin knew he was avoiding the inevitable, so when he nodded and then called his parents, their warm voices on the other end felt like a sign he’d made the right decision after all.

The next week, Seokjin began working at his family’s restaurant, filling in for shifts that were short, typically in the kitchen. Chopping and prepping the food for the chefs, dish washing, and anything that kept his hands busy were welcome distractions from the painful reminder of what awaited him outside of the restaurant.

Soon Yi was pregnant. Seokjin found out one day when he stopped by to grab a load of his things to bring to his new apartment. While both he and Soon Yi agreed to sell the house, it appeared she was taking longer than him to pack. He figured this was because she would be moving in with Mr. Choi, who lived in the penthouse of a luxury apartment complex downtown.

During their meeting with the real estate agent, Soon Yi had scribbled her new contact information and mailing address onto some forms with Mr. Choi’s details. Wealthy people always operated on their own timeline, one where they could hire a moving company to have everything neatly packed and stored within hours.

Seokjin, however, was limited to an ongoing loop of back and forth where he crammed his car full of silverware, lamps, and his MapleStory figure collection Soon Yi once mocked him for collecting. As Seokjin continued to pack away his belongings, he saw it. In the guest bathroom outside of the kitchen, there were two positive pregnancy tests in the garbage can.

Soon Yi was pregnant and the father wasn’t him. The last time they’d had sex was three months ago. She would have known by now if that were the case.

A wave of nausea rushed over him, and somewhere between bouts of gagging and wiping tears from his eyes, Seokjin realized that things were truly over.

Two months passed, and still he couldn’t find a job. While the restaurant gig was taking care of some of his bills, it was only a matter of time before Seokjin would be unable to take care of himself. At 28 years old, he’d have to move back in with his parents, which was next to impossible in terms of space, not to mention the fact that his brother and wife were living with them while their apartment was being renovated to better accommodate a life transition of their own: they were expecting their first child.

Given his semi-recent discovery, being around a pregnant woman was something Seokjin didn’t particularly want a reminder of.

“I don’t know what to do. Something has to give,” he said one day as he sat in Yoongi’s living room. A thick coat of snow was covering the earth outside, though from the sweat running down the back of Seokjin’s neck, you would never be able to tell. Yoongi always kept his home at the exact opposite of the climate outside, trying to quell the possibility he would have to experience any physical discomfort if he dared to ever leave his house, which he rarely did.

His friends all sat around him, quietly sipping their whisky or beer while the flashing light from the TV casted a kaleidoscope of colors across the coffee table. Hoseok nudged Taehyung, who’d fallen asleep at some point between the long pauses in conversation. Seokjin couldn’t blame him.

It was late, much later than the invitation Yoongi extended typically lasted, but this meetup was different. Everyone had always known Seokjin to be optimistic. From a goofy dad-joke-making 18 year old until now, he’d consistently been a source of light. When Taehyung’s grandmother died a few years back, it was Seokjin who made him first smile again with a spot-on impression of his own halmoni as they slurped bowls of naengmyeon.

His hair was shaggy and unkempt, his smile fading quickly from his face after cracking a joke. His jokes were also darker, less silly and eye-rolling and more self-deprecating and sarcastic. It was like his life was draining from him before their eyes, and it was becoming nearly impossible to stomach.

But concern doesn’t always lead to action, which is why they were sitting around in Yoongi’s living room hoping the whisky would give them some inspiration to find a solution to Seokjin’s problem that he wouldn’t immediately turn down. They’d scoured job sites together earlier, and anything in Seokjin’s former profession only led to him suggesting his next boss better be a woman or else he might have to keep his future girlfriend away from corporate events or dining tables. Other careers in his field were met with similar disdain.

Seokjin wasn’t always this way. In college, he didn’t know what kind of job he wanted or where he wanted to end up, so he majored in acting, hoping that it would lead him where he would eventually develop some sense of passion.

In a sense it did. During an internship with an entertainment company shortly after he graduated, his attention to detail, natural charisma, and flexibility showcased a skillset he didn’t even know he had, which resulted in him being offered a position in their corporate headquarters the following fall. He’d been there ever since.

But Seokjin didn’t want to return to the same life he’d had. So much of his life up to this point had been the same, and it clearly didn’t work out for him, so why continue on? The only issue was that he once again felt like he was 18, trying to decide on a path to follow when he didn’t even know who he was anymore. Nothing was appealing to him.

“What about video game streaming?” Namjoon suggested. “You love games, and you have all the equipment. You used to talk about doing that all the time.”

“Yeah, hyung. You’re also really good at talking and stuff, so it would be fun to watch you do it!” Taehyung perked up at this suggestion, shaking off his sleepiness to contribute to the conversation. “I’ve seen how much streamers make with all their sponsorships and stuff, they don’t even have to work another job!”

The energy in the room picked up slightly as they waited expectantly for an answer.

Seokjin grunted. “Okay, look. I would love to do that. That’s my dream job. But you’re forgetting something important. Those streamers didn’t just jump on the internet one day and then got thousands of subscribers and sponsorships to pay their bills overnight. Some of them took years to build up their following before they even started making money off of it. A lot of people actually lose money from game streaming. And I need money now. I don’t have that kind of time!”

Taehyung deflated, settling himself back into the couch next to Hoseok, who gave him a tender pat on his thigh.

“But what if…what if you did a kind of streaming that made you money pretty much right away?” Jungkook offered quietly.

Seokjin glanced over at his youngest friend, who was holding his empty whisky glass in his hands instead of looking at him.

“What do you mean? Is there some kind of gaming livestream service that does that?” Now Seojkin was curious.

“Um, well, not for gaming, exactly. I was just thinking. Um, you could always do like an OnlyFans or something? I have a friend who does it and she sometimes makes $1000 a night. And that would take care of–”

“You mean being a camboy? Jungkook, seriously? Listen I know we’ve all had a bit to drink, but that’s a ridiculous idea.” Seokjin snorted. “Besides, the market is flooded with people doing their own sex work. Maybe your friend is just really pretty or something to make that much from it, but I highly doubt I would make any money off OnlyFans because no one would even see me!”

Jungkook nursed his bottom lip between his teeth as he was dismissed, his body mirroring Taehyung as he fell back into the couch cushions.

“Hyung is right,” Jimin added finally, having spent most of the night settled quietly next to an even quieter Yoongi. “He wouldn’t make much money on OnlyFans. All the men on there are either ugly or buff, and Seokjin-hyung looks way too gay to appeal to that market.”

Yoongi, who was sipping his whisky as Jimin spoke, spluttered into the glass as he lost his composure, falling into a fit of laughter. From the other side of the room, Hoseok joined in, clapping and gasping for air between laughs.

“Excuse me? What the hell does that even mean? Yah, stop laughing! It’s not funny!” Seokjin fought the smile that was trying to form on his lips. Okay, it was a little funny.

“Well, hyung, isn’t it obvious? Remember that one time we went to a gay bar and all those guys I tried to pick up tried to pick you up instead?” Jimin sighed as he glanced at Seokjin before reaching across the coffee table to grab a handful of cheese balls.

“We’ve been over this. They weren’t trying to pick me up. They just told me I was really handsome and had fuckable lips. And they’re not wrong!”

“Wait when did you guys go to a gay bar? Where was I?” Yoongi cleared his throat, finally recovering from his laughing fit.

“You didn’t want to come, remember? I don’t know why you’re asking this, you never want to go anywhere. Anyway that’s besides the point. Seokjin-hyung and I went to the gay bar and he stole all of the guys I was hitting on because they wanted to make him their baby girl!”

Hoseok wiped a tear from his eye and chuckled. “Yeah, no, hyung I’m sorry but if Jimin is being passed up at a gay bar for you, you clearly give off that vibe. I can see it. You look all soft and plushy and like you would be the perfect bottom.”

Seokjin tried to fight off the heat that was creeping up his neck into his ears, but after a few glasses of whisky, and the ungodly temperature of the room, it was a failed mission to avoid being flushed.

Jimin shot a glare at Hoseok, who shrugged. “What? I meant it as a compliment!”

“Well, thanks I guess. Now I know I look like I’m gay. That doesn’t seem to solve my problem here!” Seokjin looked over at Namjoon for backup, but all Namjoon seemed to be able to do was give him an apologetic smile.

“No, I know, I know. We got off topic.” Jimin said, “Sort of. Listen, like I said before you wouldn’t be successful on OnlyFans, just because of what they market. But you could always market yourself differently. And I’m thinking, if you really need to make money fast, you could always work with what you’ve got going for you.”

The entire room went silent.

“Wait,” Namjoon said, “you don’t mean…” His eyes flitted to Seokjin and widened in alarm.

Slowly, everyone shifted as they realized what Jimin was suggesting, Seokjin evidently being the last one.

How was he supposed to work with what he had when what he had was apparently drawing a different crowd of people from the one he was interested in? What did Jimin mean by marketing himself differently? Was he supposed to just stream on websites that were exclusively for gay men?

Oh. That’s exactly what Jimin was saying.

“Wh-Jimin what the fuck? You mean I should be a gay camboy? I know we just talked about me being attractive to men, but I’m not interested in them that way!”

Jimin huffed. “Well obviously I know you’re not gay. Otherwise we might not be in this situation.”

Seokjin winced.

“Sorry, that was unfair. It’s just…hyung, you’ve been so not like yourself lately. And you’re right, something needs to change. I know you’re not gay, but this still could help. Haven’t you heard of gay for pay? Like in porn and stuff a bunch of straight actors will fuck each other or some gay guy because it pays more than straight porn. It’s the same thing.”

“Only you don’t have to actually fuck anyone. Maybe you should remind him of that,” Yoongi added.

“Right, exactly! Look, you don’t have to do it. But it could help you get by and pay bills in the meantime until you find something else that you want to do. And there’s a lot of sites where you can stream even once and get a direct payout the next day. It might be worth a shot.”

Seokjin thought about it for a moment. It didn’t sound completely awful. From what he’d seen from the times he saw cam sites out of curiosity, most of what happened was masturbating and talking to people. And he didn’t hate people. But something about it made him nervous.

“I don’t know if I’d be okay with being watched. That seems embarrassing.”

“Oh please, the number of times you and Soon Yi fucked basically in public is astronomical. You’re practically an exhibitionist,” Hoseok teased.

“That was different! I was with her! Now it would be everyone watching just me up close and personal. Namjoon-ah, talk some sense into them. This is crazy, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know if it actually is, hyung,” Namjoon said lightly. “Jimin-ah and Hobi have made some good points. And I think…I think if you weren’t even just a little bit curious you would have immediately said no instead of going back and forth with them over it like how you flat out said no to the other stuff. Maybe you’re feeling a bit shy because it’s been a little while and you are trying to heal through the breakup and stuff, but you also don’t have to do it or you can do it once and change your mind after if you want.

“It just doesn’t seem to me like this is the worst option for you. You get to talk to people, you can maybe have fun. You don’t see the people on the other side anyway, so if you wanted to pretend they were girls instead of guys you could, or turn off the comments probably? It’s not real sex though. And even if it was, is that so wrong? It’s not like you would be cheating on Soon Yi for doing this. I mean-”

“Thanks Hyung! I think we get it!” Jimin interjected, raising his eyebrows at Namjoon as if to say shut the fuck up.

Seokjin felt his stomach sink. Is this why he was panicked at the thought? It wasn’t real sex, but it almost felt like he would be doing something wrong by doing this. Not morally against himself, but someone else. Maybe he was still hanging on to Soon Yi in ways he didn’t fully realize.

He felt almost like a heavy weight was pressing on his chest and forbidding him from moving on. What would happen then if he tried doing this for himself? Would the weight still feel the same? He wanted to know.

“Ah, fine, I’ll think about it.” He looked over at Yoongi, who looked relieved that the conversation was nearing its end. “You have anything to add to this? A final voice of reason?”

Yoongi snorted as he jumped up to stretch. “Nah. Except, as your former roommate, ‘Seok’s got a point about the exhibitionism thing. You were way too into showing me your dick all the time and walking around naked when we roomed together.”

The room erupted into laughter, Seokjin himself joining. This time his smile didn’t immediately fall from his face.

Slowly, everyone else stood, bodies unwinding from furniture and each other. While Jimin ordered Jungkook and himself a taxi, Seokjin waited with him.

“My only issue is, how do I pretend to be gay? Won’t they know I’m not?”

Jimin scoffed as he nudged a sleepy and tipsy Jungkook into his shoes. “I don’t know hyung. You have an acting degree. Use it.”

A few weeks later, Seokjin held his first stream, nervously engaging with the handful of viewers trickling in and tried to deflect the discomfort he felt in his new spotlight.

“Um, hi everyone. My name’s Jin. Thanks for coming. You can probably tell, but this is my first time and I’m really nervous. I hope you enjoy the show.”

Seokjin decided to shorten his name for his streams to help him feel like he was embodying a different persona, someone named Jin who may actually be gay. It wasn’t a big change, but it was nice to give himself some separation from Seokjin, the guy who was doing gay for pay to afford a new life.

Unfortunately, Jimin’s suggestion for Seokjin to act wasn’t as easy to implement as he’d hoped. Within the first half hour, viewers of his stream had noticed he was still nervous, and started asking him questions to get him to unwind, and hopefully undress.

“Ah, yeah, uh, anal. I’ve done it once or twice, it’s nice.” It wasn’t a lie, he’d tried anal a few times with Soon Yi and did find it nice, but he also knew that this wasn’t what the question was asking.

“Do I have a boyfriend? No, I’m single.”

Slowly he began undressing, the heat of his half-truths causing him to feel like he was burning up.

“Are you really gay? Well, what kind of question is that? I’m here aren’t I?”

That question seemed to satisfy his audience for another half hour, until a new thread of people trickled in, asking him the same questions. He was running out of ways to answer.

I don’t care if you’re straight. You’re still hot.

When he read this comment, he exhaled deeply. And from that one reaction, a flurry of others joined in.

Yeah, idc either. You’re still so pretty.

So hot if u were straight. Maybe I’d convert u. ;)

I’d let you put it into my ass and let you pretend it was a pussy.

For some reason, these comments began to fuel him. The attention was kind of nice. It reminded him of how he used to feel.

Maybe he didn’t need to act gay to get what he wanted. Maybe he could just enjoy the pleasure of the compliments and company and see what happened from there? The weight he had been carrying around in his chest was feeling a bit lighter, and the comments were helping distract him from the pinches of guilt that he was doing something wrong. Because he wasn’t.

Here, he was Jin, a sexy, flirty guy who could shine in the sky of his own making.

Jin, the moon.

That’s it. He was the moon.

Present

“That’s it, give it to me. Please, I’m gonna cum.” Seokjin hoped the words he moaned at his camera were true. He was so tired, and he wanted to be free from the stupid dildo.

Lately, Seojkin has been having a hard time cumming on stream. He wasn’t sure why. For so long it had never been an issue, but streaming had begun feeling less like a fun way to relieve stress and more like an actual job.

Never before was he so popular with his stream, and while it’s nice to see a larger deposit being made into his bank account each week, every time he came home from the restaurant and knew he was scheduled to do a cam show, his stomach knotted up with dread.

The last time he felt this feeling was a little over two years ago, when hopping on planes to fly to mundane conferences or sitting in board rooms for morning meetings consumed all his time. Even during the period he was jobless, there was a tiny part of him relishing the fact that the work-related dread was over.

And it returned with a vengeance. Seokjin tried everything, ventured into new kinks and even the game features of the website with the hope that he would feel the rush he used to love from streaming. But nothing really worked. It was now just his job.

He didn’t even want to stream for so long tonight, but because it was his anniversary, he wanted to make sure he ended on a good note to thank his viewers.

One thing Seokjin’s viewers loved was seeing him cum. It was the part of his stream when he always earned the most tips. Jimin had been right.

If Seokjin knew anything now, it’s that he had many assets worth using to finance his life, and his pretty face coupled with his big dick seemed to work for him.

But even as he stroked himself, precum dripping down the head of his cock, and even though he was riding the dildo in a way that would hit his prostate and finally give him an easy out, he could feel the edge pulling away.

“Fuck,” he grunted. He was losing it. He doubled down, rocking his hips to see if hitting a different sweet spot would do the trick. But it was to no avail; his cock was softening.

On his nightstand, his phone pinged, which only could mean one thing. Seokjin always turned his do not disturb mode on during his work hours, only allowing phone calls from his family or one alert from an app to pierce through the silence. This one was the alert.

It meant Y/N was online and you had just started a live stream of your own.

You were one of this month’s top gaming streamers, bringing in more viewers than Seokjin had ever received during his top months of streaming. You were popular not because you were good, but because you were the exact opposite.

You were awful at most games you played, jolting at jumpscares over and over, losing in first rounds of Fall Guys or Dead by Daylight. One time you jumped into a game of Fortnite and were eliminated by a potty-mouthed child the second you landed. Your jaw hung open as the tiny, high pitched voice called you a bitchass before falling into a fit of laughter that had Seokjin himself in tears.

You were inspiring. Sexy. You received dozens of comments every stream about how pretty you were or how great your laugh was, which you often didn’t read out loud but always offered a humble nod and show of thanks when you did. There was something about you that hit up the world around you, and though he wouldn’t so much as utter it out loud, Seokjin had a massive crush on you.

But Seokjin was also sort-of-not-really your manager. Unlike all the people pining over you in your comment section wishing they knew you in real life, Seokjin actually did. He saw you three times a week at his family’s restaurant that he was strong-armed into managing while his parents took the opportunity to finally travel and see other parts of the world.

Seokjin stayed, not because he needed the money. Not that his pay was all that much anyway.

Camming was incredibly lucrative for him, cementing his income in a way that allowed him to pay rent in a very nice apartment downtown. Seokjin was also someone who had always been smart with his finances and knew how to invest in the best trends.

When his house with Yoon Si finally sold (after four months of her taking her sweet time to gather her last belongings and sign off on him putting it on the market), Seokjin took his cut and applied it toward a better streaming setup and some lower level stocks…and a special edition MapleStory figurine to celebrate the new chapter in his life.

Seokjin’s family never seemed to question how he was able to afford his fancy apartment given how much money he made at their business. Well, they did ask once, but Seokjin orchestrated some simple lie saying he worked in cryptocurrency, and that seemed to be enough of an explanation for his family. No one wants to know how crypto works, which in the end worked in his favor.

He’d planned to leave the restaurant about 8 months ago, but then you showed up one day asking about a job. The restaurant was within walking distance to your university, where you were getting your master’s degree in early childhood education. While the program you were enrolled in had some funding, you’d told Seokjin’s mother you were a student and in need of work. The following Monday, Seokjin walked in and found you with an apron tied around your waist, your bright eyes and smile shining back at him. He couldn’t bring himself to leave after that.

A few months after you’d started working there, Seokjin and you had become somewhat friends, sharing stories about past jobs (minus some key details on Seokjin’s part), student observations you had to do for school, and your interests. You mentioned casually you were a livestreamer for gaming, never alluding to how popular you actually were.

Eventually, Seokjin convinced you to give him your username, batting his eyelashes dramatically and promising he would be your cheerleader. For some reason, that seemed to work, and later that night, Seokjin tuned in to your stream, one man among the thousands. From that moment on he let his crush become a safe thing where, like his own viewers, he could fantasize from behind a screen. Maybe soon he would actually ask you out on a date, taking your coworker relationship and transforming it into something more.

And then a month ago his parents left, leaving him with the roles and responsibility of manager. Which meant he was an authority figure who could arguably do whatever he wanted. Similar to how his boss in a way was an authority figure who could get whatever he wanted. That idea turned Seokjin’s stomach sour. He could never do anything about this crush now, not while you worked underneath him. It was too familiar and distorted, and he never wanted you to be in the position he was once in. It was completely inappropriate.

But try telling his dick that.

Two days ago, Seokjin witnessed you in the kitchen bending over to pick up onion peels that had fallen to the ground. You definitely weren’t aware, but your skirt had ridden up a bit while you were working, and that meant he could see a tiniest delicate trim of lace on your blush colored panties.

And despite the fact that Seokjin was 30 years old and had believed he’d gotten past his boner-in-public-just-from-seeing-underwear era during his teen years, he was evidently wrong. Because those panties and soft looking curve of ass didn’t just belong to anyone; they belonged to you.

This wasn’t the only time he got hard for you at work. Sometimes on days when there were no customers, he would watch you study at one of the tables, where you were prone to stretching your body after long periods of staring down, trying to unknot the tense muscles caused by sitting almost completely still as you tried to comprehend what you were reading.

During those stretches, you would often let out the most sexual moans and sighs as you felt relief and it was enough to have Seokjin tucking himself under his belt like a horny school boy. God, what he would do to hear you moan underneath him, because of him.

He thought about recording you stretching. He was addicted to your voice, your soft sighs. It would be so easy to just “leave” his phone in the booth behind you. Then he could hear it forever while he imagined what else made you moan. Did you like your nipples sucked? Did you sigh when you were being stretched open and felt full? How did you taste?

And then Seokjin pulled himself together and realized how sickeningly perverted he was to be thinking about you like this as he stood hard and aching in the middle of his parents’ fucking restaurant.

He wanted you. So much so that now as he worked his cock in his fist, he let himself fall more into fantasy, one where you were watching, curious about the many toys and gifts around his apartment, wondering how you could reach the limits of what you wanted and needed to make you scream. He imagined that across town, you weren’t firing up your computer for a night of cozy games, but rubbing your pussy at the same speed he was stroking himself, wet and begging for him to cum all over those gorgeous tits, that wet tongue–

Seokjin groaned as he came, his entire body trembling as a thick load erupted all over his hands, chin, and chest. Normally he could control the direction to minimize the mess but this orgasm caught him a bit off guard, almost completely lost until it crept up with a burning need and coated him. He hadn’t felt that good in a while.

As he panted and focused his eyes back onto the screen, his comments were flooded with praise and tips, viewers exclaiming how this might have been his best orgasm they’ve ever seen, which was saying a lot considering some of his subscribers had been with him from the very beginning, and there had been some pretty fantastic orgasms.

He wouldn’t deny it, though. He felt looser in his joints, calm washing over him and breaking apart the bitterness that was in his gut from how lackluster streaming had been recently. He wiped his chin with a grin and reached for the towel next to him, ready to wrap up his show. As he delivered his thank yous, one comment drifting through the chat stopped him dead in his tracks. His post-orgasmic high was crashing as panic flittered into his stomach.

Did you guys hear him moaning a name as he came? Who the fuck is Y/N?

She had to leave. If the king couldn’t overcome his malice, she knew she couldn’t stay. No amount of love she had for his son was going to make him see that. She’d told him she loved him despite the scar that ran over his left eye and down his soft cheek. She vowed to be good enough to marry him, do whatever it took. Yet the king and queen had laughed at her, had their guard hold his foot on her back so she couldn't stand up from her deep bow.

Laughed as they stood from their thrones to welcome the guest’s arrival: the consort for their son. The prince stood with them, silent as he followed them through the open doors. Quiet like how he used to be back in the first days of when she met him last summer. In memory, she couldn’t even fathom how he was anything like the man she’d grown to love. Yet, looking up from the pulp of the floor, she’d seen him return to that man.

Hadn’t the days she’d spent walking those palace gardens with him been enough? They’d stood together under the plum blossom tree in the middle of winter and he’d promised that he would love her even while the buds were hibernating.

“We can watch them become flowers together in the spring,” he’d said.

He had taken her to his bed that night. Used his sensuous tongue to lap at her sweet nectar. He devoured her heart and soul. Climaxed with her and held her through the heavy snow.

Where was that man now? She didn’t know.

She waited until well after nightfall, when even the latest bird twitterings were silenced by the call of sleep. She knew she couldn’t bring much, but she managed to slip into the kitchen after dinner to pull together a few scraps for the road. Where would she even go? The nearest village was at least a two-day walk and if he sent his men for her, she knew word would spread before she’d even arrived.

Unless he didn’t send anyone for her, she realized, her stomach dropping with nausea. He wouldn’t send anyone for her. She knew this. It’s why Prince August stood in the throne room, lethal as ever, even with no sword in his belt. August. Sugar. Whichever person he decided he was in the moment. Her nickname for him didn’t matter anymore. He wasn’t sweet. His desire for power showed the bitterness in his heart. He had given in to his parents’ wishes, despite the times he swore he would never give them the satisfaction.

He was cruel. But even worse, she believed he wouldn’t be. She was a fool.

It was the darkest part of the night when she left the servant’s quarters. She’d miss the ladies and all their kindness, but she knew she couldn’t serve August his breakfast in his bedchamber after this. After knowing that the sheets she once laid in with him were now being laid in by someone else.

She took the back route, near the interior of the garden, ducking behind the ornamental shrubs and skirting past the watchpost the guards usually abandoned at this hour with ease. All that was left was to make it through the courtyard and she would be free.

She padded her way along the path. A light breeze of the pre-dawn was catching, fluttering the branches of the newly blossoming trees around her and blowing petals in their wake. She caught one in her fingertips and fought a sob. Plum blossoms.

Should she take one with her? For the memory? So that she could always have a part of him with her?

No, she decided. It would be too much to remember this. Once she passed through those gates, she would not be the same woman she was. Holding her breath, she let the petal go, hoping wherever the wind carried it, it would find the peace she too was looking for. It swept to the end of the courtyard, over the gate that was now her future.

This was a sign, she mourned. Not all promises were meant to be kept.

With a final look at the place she’d learned to call home, the man she’d learned to call home, she opened the gate, ready to forge into the unknown.

“Petal,” she thought she heard his call, his nickname for her. Though when she turned around, he was nowhere to be found.

She must’ve imagined it, wished for the impossible. As she took steps through the gate, she looked out at the world around her, the plum petal a few feet in front of her. Maybe she would take a piece of him with her, after all. It was too tempting not to.

She moved, trying to ignore the tug she felt back toward the palace, the invisible string of fate she thought that tied her to August trying to tangle her back in. She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t go back.

She bent down, clutching the petal tenderly in her palms and letting the first tears fall.

“So that’s it, hm? After all that, you weren’t even going to wish me goodbye.”

She rose swiftly, whipping around to the voice’s owner.

There, leaning against the outer palace wall, was August.

The alarm on your phone chimes, pulling you from the book in your lap. You’ve been reading all afternoon, the sun now taking its final bow before plunging the world into darkness. Soon you’ll have to turn the lights on, then it will be time for work. On your only day off.

You groan, stretching your neck as you allow yourself to come back to reality.

To some, it would be hard to call your job “work”. Many people dreamed of being professional game streamers. Who wouldn’t want to be paid to sit online, play games, and talk to people?

You don’t. That’s the problem.

Your ascent into gaming stardom was a fluke. About 9 months ago, you were in between semesters for your grad program and looking for ways to unwind. Your oldest friend, Wonwoo, was a pretty successful streamer who often hosted game nights to play with his viewers and friends.

You frequently watched his streams, letting his soft voice be the perfect background noise as you studied and formulated the next lesson plan or behavioral assessment. You’d known Wonwoo for what felt like forever at this point, being his first subscriber, first moderator, and first kiss (not in that order). But your middle school kiss outside of the convenience store never led to anything more than that, as desperately as you’d wanted it to.

Once he moved across the country, you let your crush die with the distance. The years turned faster and your twenties were spinning by with the revolving door of lovers you’d watch him pine over, cry over, and in one case, almost marry. Streaming then became one of your main forms of connection, and your role as his moderator tied some part of you to him out of loyalty. To imagine him as anything other than a friend now feels ridiculous.

But that loyalty you have is also to a fault. When Wonwoo’s usual streaming friends bailed one night during a tournament, you subbed in…for a game you didn’t even know how to play.

And to make matters worse, this was a game that required talking to each other on-stream, which meant you not only sucked major ass at this game, but Wonwoo’s 700 viewers that day were also subjected to your constant frustrated squeaks, swears, and embarrassed maws as you tried to key-smash your way to victory but ended up throwing the entire team’s game with your incompetence.

Wonwoo wasn’t mad, though many others were. He knew what he was getting into when he agreed, and his streams operated with very few rules: no hate, no spam, and we are in this to have fun. And he did have fun. By the time the first round was over, he and most of the chat were losing it over your commentary.

As he wiped tears from eyes and took in a breath, he read his comments. “‘Damn, I never heard a chick threaten someone with a plunger like that before’. Yeah, I’ll give it to you, Y/N, you got really creative with your insults in that. Hey, PartyShitty thanks for the sub! ‘I can’t BREATHE’, yeah I’m still trying to get it together. W00000000000000000ziiiiii–damn that’s a lot of zeros in that username–thanks for the 5000 points! ‘Is she hot’ uh, I mean, I don’t—

“Oh shit, LetsGetIt15, thank you for gifting twenty subs! ‘Please, Y/N, start your own channel. I’ll be the first subscriber.’ Actually, no, I’ll be. But really, that's not a bad idea.”

Wonwoo navigated the rest of his stream with ease that night, but after it was over, he called you to try to convince you to start your own channel.

“It could help with school at least! Or you could get that special edition of that one book you like with the dragons or the blue alien porn stars or whatever it is.”

“They’re neither of those things, they’re actually–”

“Whatever they are! The book that has people fucking nonstop and some plot. You know, the special edition cover that you keep talking about in your close friend story that you won’t buy?” Wonwoo said. “The point is, if you start streaming you could finally buy it and then stop talking about it and I won’t need to see sections about how hot you think their alien or fairytale or demon whatever cocks are.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at his exasperation. “That won’t stop with me getting that book, just so you know. And if it bothers you so much, I can take you out of the close friend story. I didn’t even know you looked at my stories that much.” You didn’t know he still used Instagram at all actually. He very rarely posted. He mostly lived on his Discord channel talking about games with his subscribers or other friends.

Regardless, it was nice to know that he was trying to be aware of your interests, even if it was incredibly embarrassing. Although the copious amount of smut you read wasn’t something you always wanted to broadcast to the public, you’d still made some friends from online book communities over the last few years and enjoyed keeping them in the loop of your reading list.

Also, Wonwoo had a point. Streaming could help paying some of your school expenses…or get you more books. You told him you’d think about it, and while you weren’t completely in love with the idea of streaming, it did provide you with some steady income until you landed your job at the restaurant.

After that conversation, you haven’t discussed smut or cocks since, and you’re honestly relieved, not because Wonwoo is hard to talk to about things, but because you are. Which is why streaming always feels a little uncomfortable and your position ironic, because you can barely have conversations successfully unless you really know the person to ramble about your interests to, or you can occasionally eke by with small talk.

But streaming requires the spotlight being on you in some way at all times. It’s your face that is fixed to the corner of the screen, monitoring your every reaction. It’s your voice that echoes into the mic and responds to your chat. Sure, you have mods and some streamers don’t interact with their chat at all, but you don’t want to be like that. You’ve been on the other side before, and know that most people are just lonely and looking for connection. .

From the moment you decided to do this, you were aware that because you were now a “gamer girl” you would be subjected to the three extremes of the comment section: chronic oversharers who tell strangers all their personal baggage perhaps in the hope that you will assume some role of therapist to them, people coming to insult your gaming (which is the point so that can’t impact you) or physical appearance, or sexually explicit comments.

Over the months, you’ve seen many things flitting by on the screen, deleted in haste by your trusty mod squad, but it doesn’t stop the fact that you still see them.

Those things you can handle. They are impersonal and a direct copy-paste of the same thing.

But when people compliment you? That makes you want to bury yourself under your covers and never come out. Because the compliments are always personal and touching a part of you that is authentic.

The people in your chat want to know you. They want to know what kind of music you like, your favorite foods and books. They ask if you have a boyfriend or girlfriend or partner, compliment your hair or the shirt you’re wearing or your gaming setup. It feels intimate. Almost like you could find these people and touch them and let them know you.

But they can’t. Because the only thing that drew them to you, the part where you’re this funny, positive gamer chick who sucks at video games but is down for whatever, isn’t real.

Spring Day Streams Y/N is a persona. You don’t stream because you’re her. You stream because you have to be her in order to survive.

And now she’s taking up more time. Last month’s streams landed you Streamer of the Month, which thanks to the exposure, brought dozens of new subscribers and thousands of points, and that helped take care of some of your expenses for the new semester. Some. You’re still behind on your credit card bill.

Also, more people means more expectations for streaming. So you’ve kicked up your streaming schedule from twice weekly to three times a week, with you occasionally hopping onto Wonwoo’s channel even if you aren’t streaming to mod.

When you aren’t glued to your computer, you’re usually at the restaurant, in a cramped kitchen where you do the prep work, often alongside him, your sexy coworker-but-now-boss, Seokjin.

The man you are quietly obsessed with. You can’t think about Kim Seokjin without thinking about all the positions you want him to fuck you in.

Which is also why you’ve been devouring books lately. When you’re home, you throw all your energy into the escapism they provide, especially ones where you can get yourself off to whatever fantasy Seokjin effortlessly slips into.

For every hot mob boss, corrupt CEO, longterm best friend, dragon-rider, fairy, demon, alien, ghost, or hockey playing love interest you can find, Seokjin is sure to fill the role. A hot merman looking for someone to help him grow legs and something else? Seokjin. A Grinch who inherits his family’s Christmas tree farm and discovers how much he loves to ho ho ho? Seokjin. A god who tears apart the underworld to find his lost lover, and then during the reunion fucks her on the throne of Satan while she wears the crown? All Seokjin.

Unfortunately, his transition from co worker to boss has made your fantasies all the more dirty.

It’s been incredibly difficult for you to handle the fact that any flirtation you two previously shared in the months before he was your boss can no longer continue. But it’s also incredibly hot.

Fantasies of him eating you out on the counter have been replaced with the fantasy of him shoving you in the back office and fucking you on the desk while wearing one of those perfect-fitting dress shirts he often parades around in.

And when he rolls up the sleeves to help in the kitchen? Fuck, it’s humiliating how wet you get.

The entire thing is pathetic really. He’s just standing there half the time, lecturing everyone on proper kitchen hygiene and ensuring one of the cooks doesn’t use expired seasonings for his eomma’s secret sauce.

And you’re standing next to him clenching your thighs together because when you’re this close, you can just make out the freshness of his cologne and feel the heat of his body close to yours.

When someone fucks up, he has a tendency to take over, chopping with unmatched precision and self assurance, trying to keep his voice even and usually failing as everything builds in intensity until he’s accidentally speaking at a million miles an hour and lecturing until his face turns red.

If someone were to pass by the shop, they’d probably mistake his shouting for anger, but you’ve come to understand Seokjin is just passionate about things. Usually when he comes down from his tangent, he’s embarrassed and apologizes, and not long after the entire staff is laughing along with him as he cracks a joke at himself for his inability to tone it down.

Which to you makes him even hotter. Seokjin is able to see his faults and work with them, not against them. He holds himself accountable. He’s nothing like the haughty men you’ve gone on brief dinners with after downloading dating apps for the hundredth time while you’re drunk. He’s actually funny, knowing the right way to use humor and tell jokes, never at someone else’s expense, and definitely without being disgustingly crude.

All those clowns you suffered through drinks with always made comments and digs at other women or referenced their cock like they were setting up some goofy scene from porn and you would find it hilarious and endearing.

Seokjin isn’t like that at all. He probably refers to his dick as a penis and would blush to high heavens if he knew how horny you are for him. He’s unwound you, and he has no clue. Maybe if it hadn’t been literal years since you’ve last had sex you could tone it down.

With working all the time and going to school, it’s already been hard to even go on singular dates here and there. And since the prospects were frankly awful, sex is just something that has had to go onto the back burner for a bit, but you seemed to scorch the fucking pan by forgetting to turn the heat off and now you are burning and hungry.

With a final sigh, you put the book down, annoyed that you didn’t have time to finish it today or at least get to a good part where you could insert yourself into the role of the palace servant and Seokjin as the Prince. Based on the reviews, there’s sure to be a hot sex scene coming up involving using a sword in a particular way that has piqued your curiosity.

In a moment of depravity earlier, you’d snaked one hand down the front of your panties to rub a few damp fingers around your clit to take the edge off.

You check the time on your phone, already aware that you don’t have time to cum before streaming. You already hit the snooze button twice. The spicy stuff will have to wait.

Defeated, you stand up, turning on the lights in your apartment as the sun finally fades away and the dark creeps in. You eat a bowl of cereal while doing your makeup, what little of it you want to put on. Finally, you fire up your PC, trying to ignore the irritation you’re already experiencing from being so high strung and unsatisfied.

The second this stream is over, you’re going to make sure you cum until you pass out. Until then, it’s time for work.

“At what point am I supposed to become good at this again?” You ask Seokjin as you attempt (and fail) to julienne carrots.

When you arrived at work at an ungodly hour this morning to prep for the weekend rush, Seokjin had already started the coffee.

Your empty cup now idles next to your scrap pile of too-wide carrot blocks that’ll have to be pulverized by the blender and repurposed in another recipe.

Seokjin chuckles as he buzzes about the kitchen, reaching tenderly around you to grab your mug for a refill.

“That all depends on how much you practice.”

“So should I expect a large carton of carrots to be delivered to my home this evening with the instructions to have them julienned by Monday?” You tease, as you split another carrot down the center, half of it flinging off the prep counter and onto the floor.

Seokjin smirks and bends down. He picks up the carrot and deposits it into the garbage bin. “Two cartons, actually. Given how many carrots we’ve lost already today, I need to make sure at least some of our inventory lands on the customer’s plate and not just into the trash.”

“How considerate of you,” you chide, and put down the knife, reaching out to accept your newly filled coffee mug. Seokjin’s hands are red from the constant washing and chopping of potatoes, which you recently learned he’s allergic to.

As well as garlic, and you’ve already voluntarily peeled and minced that for the day. That much you can do without guidance, but anything besides your imprecise chopping is on the list of knife skills Seokjin wants you to improve upon.

This is fair, given how dangerous your previous cutting methods have been. Once Seokjin saw the way you tried to stab at a watermelon, it was over. Now you often come in an hour and a half early before each shift to practice.

And to also be alone with Seokjin before he is forced from the kitchen to deal with other duties.

“Thank you,” you say, as you take the first warm sip and shiver. It’s freezing outside, and it’s only supposed to get worse.

There’s snow forecasted for the weekend, which could mean one of two things: everyone stays home and avoids driving, or they all leave the house in one show of silent agreement and fill every nook and cranny of the restaurant to order bowls of sundubu jjigae or crisp and hot pajeon.

Seokjin predicts that because a warm front is moving in afterward, people will utilize one of the only days of snow you’ll likely get this winter to gather together.

Valentine’s Day is soon, and the city has started to prepare. Storefronts have begun switching out new year sale signs for pink and red heart motifs, with spas and restaurants offering couple specials. The perfumeries have moved from campaigns advertising the perfect Christmas gift to ones of sexy, decadent colognes sure to transform a man into his inner beast.

And then there’s the chocolate. It’s like the air in the neighborhood the restaurant resides in smells different, less greasy and grimy and more sweet. Everywhere you turn there’s pastries, cakes, bonbons, crepes, chocolate dipped nuts and other confections that just looking at makes your teeth sore.

With the district washing itself in a pink glow, more and more couples have been braving the cold, landing in the restaurant after weighing themselves down with shopping bags.

You’ve seen what’s in them, often tripping over or kicking at least one bag each shift while you attempt to bring an order to the table and spilling the contents. This year seems to be popular for matching couple outfits. You’ve seen a lot of pairs in their early twenties wearing or recently acquiring sweaters that have the same characters or color combinations. With the temperatures dipping into a bitter chill this week, some have elected to wear cute but inconvenient sets of mittens that allow them to hold hands as they stroll.

When it snows in the city, the world gets quieter, cleaner. Even if people shuffle around in the bustle of novelty experiences, how they show their love, from brushing the snow off each other’s coats or taking kissing selfies in front of snow fallen trees, it always makes you feel a little softer, a little more at peace.

Snow is really romantic.

“What?” Seokjin asks, which alerts you to the fact that you’ve been staring at him as you let your thoughts run, a dopey grin splattered across your face.

“Oh, sorry, I was just thinking about how much I love the snow.” You break eye contact, feeling the heat of embarrassment flood your cheeks.

“Ah, yeah. It’s supposed to start soon,” he looks at you thoughtfully before looking back down at the tofu blocks he’s draining.

A silence falls on you, the once normal pause now becoming a bit awkward.

“What do–”

“I just–”

You both stumble over each other, trying to fill the unnatural pause you’ve reached, which has you laughing and Seokjin cracking a wide grin.

“What were you going to say?” he asks, and then motions for you to get back to your carrot desecrating.

“Ah nothing. You were going to ask something?”

You slice a carrot, this time less match stick and more shaved. Damn.

“Oh, um. I was going to ask you what you like about the snow. That thought kind of came from nowhere and I was trying to follow.” His voice is careful, as if he’s trying not to offend you. Is he nervous?

Your mouth draws into a thin line. Can you risk saying what you were just thinking? Is it inappropriate to talk about romance in front of your boss, who you’ve thought about kissing in the snow at least three times a day? You don’t want to make him uncomfortable. You’re aware of the ways in which Seokjin’s new position of authority weighs on him.

While he’s always had more authority due to being the owners’ son, it isn’t like Seokjin walked around the place with a power complex before his promotion. You two had become something akin to friends in the months you’ve worked together, falling into occasional flirty banter as you shuffled around each other to mop floors or wash dishes.

You know he used to work for a large company a few years ago but quit to help his family with their restaurant. You also know he loves MapleStory and is always showing you his newest splurge from their online shop or the latest piece to his collection.

He doesn’t have any pets, but sometimes debates getting a dog and then when shown support, he dismisses it with boisterous laughter, talking about how he doesn’t have the time and if he ever wants to get a dog, he will have to buy a house. Usually once he lands on discussions of a house, he gets a little more quiet, perhaps a bit sad.

He has an older brother who has one child and another on the way, a major reason for his parents’ decision to travel now, before the new baby arrives. His brother and brother’s wife have visited a few times while you were working, but Seokjin’s mother had mentioned that her son and his wife recently moved into a new house outside of the city, and with the new addition joining sometime in the spring, it can be a bit exhausting to pack up the car for a few hours of visiting time.

While you haven’t experienced Seokjin as an uncle, you know how much he loves being one, excusing himself from the front of the shop to Facetime with his nephew from the back office, where you can hear his voice carry with high pitched impressions and jokes or random songs he babbles to the youngest Kim.

Knowing him in this way feels a bit awkward now that he’s the one signing your paychecks. Since his transition, he’s been a bit more formal with you, you assume trying to be respectful and professional.

You understand where he’s coming from, but you miss the past connection you two had formed. And that seems to dictate your response.

“I like how romantic snow is. How it not only makes the lights twinkle more, but how people do cute things in it. Snowball fights, drinking hot chocolate, building snowmen. They change their behaviors for the snow. To celebrate love in it. Last time it snowed here, I saw one girl push her boyfriend into a snowbank.”

Seokjin laughs as he begins popping the tofu blocks into containers. “That sounds awful,” he says.

Your heart plummets. “Oh,” you squeak.

His head darts up to catch your expression and his eyes flash. “Oh, no no! Not like that. I mean, being pushed into the snowbank. That poor guy was probably soaking wet and freezing after that!” He waves his knife in his hand wildly with his gesture and then quickly deposits it into a sheath before stepping over to your workstation. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to come out that way.”

You recover. “Oh he was. He also got his revenge by pulling her in with him. And she wasn’t even wearing a coat.”

You watch Seokjin’s tense shoulders relax. His broad frame is so close now, towering over you. He smells a little like the earthy starch of potatoes, but you like it.

“I, uh,” he says, his voice becoming more raw. “I like the snow too. You’re right, it is romantic in a way. The snowflakes getting caught in your hair, you huddle closer to someone to share body heat, it’s nice.”

As if on cue, your bodies inch a little closer to each other. Seokjin reaches his arm forward, brushing along yours as he grasps one edge of the workstation to lean in.

“Yeah,” you reply lamely.

You blink up at him and he smiles back. You both sit there for a moment, neither of you moving, just studying the other’s expression.

Then, he leans in.

Your breath catches, and his other arm lifts up above you on the other side, caging you to the workstation.

Your eyes close from the intensity. He’s so close that you feel the fabric of his rolled shirt sleeve graze against your cheek.

All it would take is him leaning in and searing his lips onto yours and you would fold for him. You know this.

This is what you often fantasize about, the two of you in this position. That’s the power he has over you, his smooth seduction, your willingness.

If he asked you right now, you would strip down and bend over this workstation, let him fuck you with your nipples brushing against the cold steel of the counter, carrot shavings squishing against your face as he impales you with his cock.

It would be so easy, he just needs to ask you.

“Y/N,” he says, a bit more distant now, but you shudder at how roughly he says your name.

“Mm?” you hum, forcing your eyes to reopen. Seokjin has pulled away from you. How long has he been just looking at you standing here with your eyes closed?

“Turn around,” he says.

Wait, what?

You stare back at him blankly. Is he reading your mind?

Seokjin rolls his eyes and laughs, holding up the package of dried seaweed that was above you on the shelf. He tosses it on the counter behind him.

“Are you still here or did I lose you? I said turn around.” You freeze, confused.

He did all that to reach above you for some seaweed? Is he fucking with you? And what does he want you to turn around for?

“Wha–”

You open your mouth to ask but Seokjin moves in, his hands on your wrists as he takes you and spins you around so you’re up against your workstation, his stomach resting on your back as you stand sandwiched against him and the cold counter. You clench your thighs, suddenly aware that you are wet.

Fuck.

“You need to focus,” he says low in your ear. You take a shaky breath.

Focus. How are you supposed to focus when you imagined this exact scenario exactly one minute ago?

“I, what?” Your words fail you as you stand there, stunned and aroused but also completely confused about what he wants from you. This entire situation is a mindfuck.

Seokjin’s hands leave your wrists and make their way to your hands as he moves you like a puppet.

“Y/N, were you even paying attention? We just went over this. God, I swear, I’ve told you. You need to be present in the kitchen space. You’re lucky I resheathed the knife for you while you were on another planet. You could have easily gotten hurt.” Seokjin scolds you overhead.

Oh. You look to the right and see the kitchen knife you were using back in its protective shell and not where you left it, which, come to think of it, was incredibly close to where your hands were now on the counter under Seokjin’s. Yikes.

“Sorry,” you mutter, feeling a prick of shame seeping through the fog. Seokjin isn’t trying to fuck you against the counter; he’s trying to make sure you don’t cut your finger off.

He tuts above you, his grip still firm as he directs you to the uncut carrots and chopping board.

“Tsk, honestly. You’re ridiculous. What am I going to do if my best girl is hospitalized after losing her hand because she’s too busy daydreaming about snow storms instead of having basic kitchen awareness? You know, I could send you home over this. Make you unable to come back until you rewatch those kitchen safety videos with the fake blood and awful actors. Seriously.”

You shiver at his words. He’s so busy setting up for a rant, you almost miss it.

“Your best girl?” You ask lightly.

Seokjin stills, your joined hands hovering over the cutting board. “Oh, uh. You know what I mean. You’re the best….girl we have on staff. You know.”

You don’t. You’re far from the best girl on staff. Seha has a degree in culinary arts. She’s usually the one who has everything prepped days ahead with perfectly formed cuts. She manages the kitchen cleanliness with rigidness. She even barks orders at Seokjin when he’s in the kitchen because he isn’t as clean as her.

If she wasn’t out with the flu, none of this work would even need to be done. Maybe Seokjin is getting sick too. He’s been feverish looking and a little uneasy around you all morning, and clearly he’s now being delusional.

“Ah,” you concede, and give your hands a shake to urge him to continue.

“Right, anyway. You’re getting better at your cuts, but I’m losing money quickly with all your sacrifices to the floor goblins. And we don’t have much time left before the others start coming in, so let’s finish this up.”

You let Seokjin guide you, literally hand-over-hand, as he restructures your positioning on the knife and angle of the blade to slice through the carrots a lot more cleanly and easily.

“That’s it, good. You’re doing such a good job,” he breathes.

You feel his exhale along your spine. God, you’re a pervert. He’s just trying to help you better yourself, and all you’re thinking about is how dominating he seems right now and how much you want to please him.

God, if he calls you a good girl you know you’re going to moan audibly. That’s how bad he’s got you.

You keep working, and once you get the hang of it, Seokjin’s grip loosens, allowing you to finish the bag by yourself. But his hands are still on yours, even if you’re the one in control.

After a while though, it’s becoming too much to handle. Him bent over you like this is limiting your range of motion, making it hard to wipe the sweat on your hands or move your scrap pile further down the counter.

He’s also a human furnace, the space between you still so limited that you’ve begun sweating under him.

In one particular cut of carrot, the sweat caused by the joint heat of your hands causes you to lose your grip, shooting it down onto the floor.

Reflexively, you reach down to grab it, but with Seokjin still attached to you, it proves to be an immediate disaster.

You throw your body into a bend, which forces you back, your ass grinding directly into Seokjin and being met with something very large.

You gasp and Seokjin grunts, swiftly releasing your hands, which are actually balancing you in your bend.

You fall forward, smacking your head into the edge of the counter as you go down.

The kitchen echoes with an embarrassing clang as your forehead ricochets off the metal.

“Fuck,” you groan, a sharp pain shooting through you..

You scramble to recover, one hand going to your head as you steady yourself, rubbing the soreness. Seokjin flails above you, panicked.

“Oh shit! Y/N I’m so sorry! Oh my god. Are you okay? I shouldn’t have let go, I just was–” Seokjin rambles as you stare up at him, trying to get him to steel himself.

“No, fuck, ouch, it’s okay! I’m okay. Seokjin, can you please just get me some ice and help me up?” You aren’t sure you can get yourself up as your vision swirls from the heat of the pain. You really went down hard.

Seokjin ceases his flailing and shouting, leaning down and picking your body up off the floor with impressive strength and carrying you to a clean workstation in the center of the room. He sits you on top of it, making you now almost his height.

Holy shit.

Once sure you’re not at risk of flopping over, he walks over to the ice maker with a clean kitchen cloth and folds some ice cubes inside.

You reach for the cloth, but he refuses to hand it over.

“Yah! No. Please let me do this, I can see the bump forming already. I’m the one who caused your injury.” He gingerly lays the cold cloth against your head. You wince.

“‘Snot your fault,” you pout, trying to ignore the pain. “It was an accident. No one caused it.”

Seokjin sighs and places his free hand behind your head, discouraging you from angling away like you’ve subconsciously been doing.

“It is my fault. I let go of you. After just lecturing you about kitchen safety. God, what kind of example am I setting? I’m really sucking at this boss thing.”

You reach up, placing your hand on Seokjin’s wrist to remove it from the ice. But he doesn’t relent. You keep your hold.

“Seokjin, you’re not a bad boss. God you’re literally the opposite. Everyone here loves you. You’ve only been the manager for a little while. Give yourself some time. And keep in mind both of your parents ran this place, and now it’s down to just you.”

You feel the tendons under his wrist adjust, his grip a little looser. Seokjin’s wrists are soft and tan, a thin coating of hair trailing up his forearms and under his sleeve. Your grip loosens too, and you let your thumb brush back and forth through the hair.

“Yeah, well, I wasn’t supposed to be the manager. My brother was supposed to manage the restaurant when my parents were ready to retire. That was always the plan, anyway. But things change. When they were getting their apartment ready for my nephew to arrive, I think they realized how tight space can be living in the city. We grew up in an apartment complex not too far from here and it always felt like we were on top of each other.

“Which, we kind of were. My brother and I shared this tiny room that had bunk beds, and we lived that way until he went away to college. I used to always smack my head against the ceiling when I was a teenager and woke up in the middle of the night. My forehead would get huge bruises on it, probably a lot like the one you’re going to have on your head.” He frowns.

“I guess my brother didn’t want to see his kids living like that either. I never minded it so much, but maybe that’s because I was the younger one. Not having any privacy during puberty or dealing with me during puberty was probably a nightmare for him.”

You shoot him a sympathetic smile. “It was nice of you to take over on his behalf then. I know you used to work for major companies in the business district downtown. This must have felt like a sacrifice.”

Seokjin’s arm falls away from your head, your soft caress pulling away with it. He sets the cloth down next to you. He worries his bottom lip into his mouth and then shakes his head.

“No, it was never like that. I’m sure eomma filled everyone and their brother’s ears with stuff about me. ‘Seokjin is our business minded son! He’ll make a great leader!’ ‘Seokjin is talented in the kitchen and spent his whole life working for us. We trained him well!’ ‘Don’t worry about him abusing his power. He knows exactly how it is for everyone!’” Seokjin’s says, his voice inotating the same pattern of his mother.

“Well, she wasn’t wrong. You are all those things,” you argue, lacing your fingers in his. You know it’s not necessarily appropriate behavior between a boss and his employee, but at this moment, you’d argue Seokjin needs a friend more than anything.

“I’m not, though, Y/N. I didn’t sacrifice anything to do this. It wasn’t some great act of loyalty where the son with a promising future gives up his dream for his family business. In fact I had to beg my parents to let me work here! Because I, their failure of a son, lost everything and had nowhere else to go! And the shit I ended up doing to even keep myself afloat…I’m not a great leader. I’m nothing more than a fraud.”

Seokjin rakes his free hand through his hair.

“I had a good life before this Y/N. A good job, a nice house, a fi-...just..I was living a dream that I no longer have for myself is all. But at the time I was on top of the world and now I feel like such a fucking failure.”

Seokjin looks like he’s falling apart, eyes darting madly as he shifts around, suddenly transforming into nothing like his usual cool, goofy self.

You need to stop this from getting worse. To distract him and stop him from talking himself into a pit of despair. If Seokjin’s mouth is occupied somehow, he can’t continue with all the negative self-talk.

A stupid idea flashes in your head. You don’t even think before you roll with it.

“Jesus, I can’t even manage properly. I messed up Mino’s paycheck a few weeks ago and I’m still not sure how it happened. I’m just not–”

Your lips connect with Seokjin’s, your legs wrapping around his waist to tug him closer as you move your body against his. Seokjin returns the kiss in earnest, parting his mouth to welcome your tongue as you lap the words out of his mouth.

His plush lips feel so soft against yours, his taste a bit bitter from the coffee you both drank earlier, but you find yourself craving more of it, sucking his bottom lip into your mouth with the hope that maybe you can absorb it.

Seokjin groans in response, gripping your hand tighter, his other settling on your lower back as he pulls you closer. If you didn’t know any better, you’d swear every atom in your body is vibrating at a higher frequency from his touch. You want to feel him everywhere.

You break the kiss, and see Seokjin’s eyelids are heavy, almost like he’s drunk. You’re about to move back in, to tongue along his sweaty, long neck, suck on his protruding Adam’s apple.

That’s when you hear it. The slam of the back door as your coworkers arrive.

Seokjin jolts back, breaking the hold you have around his waist with your legs.

His mouth looks a little red and swollen. And his eyes are wide, panic flashing across his face.

“I–I’m sorry!”

Before you can reassure him, tell him that you’re the one who should be sorry, you started this, who crossed this line between boss and employee by kissing him, Seokjin bolts from the kitchen.

You sit for a minute, stunned, and then look around, taking in the scene around you. The carrot shavings all over the counter, the discarded one still on the floor. Your knife is unsheathed again. There’s containers of tofu and seaweed just abandoned in a pile next to a large pot.

And you can feel the puddle forming under you from where the ice has begun to melt. What the fuck just happened? What mess did you just get yourself into?

The rest of your shift, you’re anxious. Especially because you’re short-staffed due to the weather forecast, which has led to three call-outs from people who commute from across town. That means you’re performing multiple roles: taking orders, bussing tables, seating customers, and getting appetizers, drinks, and side dishes ready for each group of people coming through the door.

Seokjin was right in his prediction; you guys are slammed. And because there’s less staff, that means Seokjin is orbiting around you, following behind with cleaning rags as you finish bussing or running into you in the narrow doorway as you both attempt to fetch an order from the kitchen. You’re both flushed and sweating, the hairs on the back of your neck now matted down.

Your mind is swirling around that kiss and its consequences, but you don’t have time to lose focus; the minute you finish one thing, you’re pulled into another task for a temporary distraction.

Only to be thrust back into the reminder of this morning when Seokjin lightly caresses the small of your back as he squeezes behind you to grab more plates.

If either of you ever need a break, you don’t say so, only pausing in between rushes to pee, take a bite of something, and chug water before you’re thrown back out into the mess.

Finally, after you elect to work a double, it’s closing time.

“Y/N!” Seokjin calls you from the front as you scrub the grime off a stack of dirty dishes.

Your pulse quickens. You’re the last one here. The storm kicked up an hour ago, and since you live the closest, you shoved your coworkers out the door so they could get home before the roads were a mess.

You dry your hands on your messy apron, pulling out your phone and wincing at the slew of missed calls, texts and notifications. You were supposed to stream again tonight with a bunch of other girl gamers as a part of a “Galentine's Day” collab, playing dating simulation games as a warm up before jumping into some first person shooters.

You’d reached out to cancel once you saw the stress tugging at Seokjin’s face, his jaw set, his brow constantly furrowed. While the other streamers were completely understanding, you still have a ton of notifications from your social channels asking if you are okay and some texts from Wonwoo and a few other friends asking the same.

You’ll fill them in later. But now, you have to face Seokjin.

He’s sitting at a freshly wiped-down table, counting the drawers and preparing the deposit slip.

He ushers you over and gestures at the stack of cash, silently asking you to verify his numbers. You comply, the room silent less the shuffling of bills or coins under your fingertips and your habitual mouthing of the numbers to ensure you don’t lose count.

He nods at your final calculation, jotting the number down on the sheet and placing the bills together. You turn and begin to head back to the kitchen.

“Wait,” he says, and you freeze.

Your stomach is quickly turning into a bundle of knots. You suck your lips into your mouth as you spin back around, Seokjin’s eyes meeting yours.

“I…” Seokjin takes a deep breath before continuing. “Listen. I’m really sorry about this morning. Today’s just been a whole mess and I really shouldn’t have been airing my frustrations to an employee like that. It was inappropriate and immature. I know better than to behave this way.”

Did you say your stomach was in knots? You mean it’s filled with heavy, sickening lead. “Oh, right. Uh, don’t. I mean, I started it. I just…you were panicking and I didn’t know what to do and I thought maybe this would help.”

Seokjin’s brow furrows, a frown on his face. “Why are you apologizing when I’m clearly the one in the wrong here? Ah, no let me finish! I’ve always prided myself on my professionalism and ability to keep personal matters out of my work. And I failed in doing so, which takes advantage of you since I’m your superior. You not only felt a need to comfort me but also stop me from spinning out. I’m truly sorry Y/N, about the oversharing and the um, kiss. I definitely gave into my emotions in a moment of weakness. Please forgive me, I promise I will never touch you again. This won’t happen again.”

His head droops and he looks down, clearly ashamed.

Oh. So he doesn’t want this. Which, why would he? He’s right in that he’s your boss, and clearly Seokjin values his reputation and his job because they’re a reflection of not just him, but his family. Why risk that with someone like you?

You swallow the lump in your throat along with any response. There is the boundary, you know better than to cross it.

As you move again, Seokjin rises from the table. “Y/N…you know what? You go home. The storm is really coming down.”

“But, there’s still mopping and all those dishes left,” you croak. Your voice is so hoarse from being dehydrated and talking all day that you barely recognize it as your own.

“Don’t worry about those. You look and sound exhausted. It’s not your job to take care of everything. Go home, enjoy your romantic snowy trek,” he smirks, “and get some much needed rest. You’ve more than earned it.”

When you arrive home, your body slugs onto your bed, finally giving into the fatigue you’ve ignored all day. Your feet ache, your stomach now settled enough from your walk that you are starving. And you smell awful.

As much as you want to fall asleep, you know that you at the very least need to eat something.

With a groan, you rise, hobbling to your kitchen to make some instant ramyeon. The collab stream is now over, you learned this while finally checking your phone on your way home and seeing a thank you message blasted out by one of the streamers. Oh well.

You suppose you could get back to your book, see what Prince August and his lover are getting up to in their reunion, but that seems like more brain power than you’re willing to give.

You elect to eat, then take a shower, rinsing the grime of the day off you. When you step out of the shower, you see an ugly looking bump and purple bruise on your forehead.

That’s right, you’d already forgotten about your injury from earlier. You touch it lightly and recoil from the sharp pain. Damn, maybe you should’ve checked to see if you were concussed earlier. You didn’t realize you hit your head that hard.

You decide to ice it before bed, crawling under your covers and trying to rest while you play back your day.

How you started is so significantly different from where you are now. When you woke up, you were eager and excited to be around Seokjin, to learn new skills and feel light and warm in his presence. Now, the idea of going back to work in a few days, to have to muddle through the rejection you got tonight and try to get back to a baseline makes you feel nauseous.

Seokjin wants to make this all water under the bridge, and you want to do that for him. But it��s nearly impossible when he’s, well, him. He doesn’t understand how much more difficult it’s going to be to look at him because you’re not walking around with a face like that: perfectly balanced and delicate features and a full, delicious set of lips.

God, he really did taste fantastic. You wonder what would’ve happened if you two weren’t interrupted. Would giving into his emotional need for comfort have given you more? You know it’s wrong to think about, because you're the one who took advantage of him, not the other way around.

He can say he took advantage of you with his power imbalance or whatever, but you’re the one who was seconds away from licking down that thick neck or grinding back onto that massive cock.

Fuck, that’s right, Seokjin is huge under all those clothes and your ass got to experience rubbing against it today. And maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but he seemed like he was a little hard.

If Mino and the others had been just a little later, you might have seen it. They might have walked in on you on your knees as you choked on it, Seokjin’s moans and whines echoing in the kitchen.

Because now from kissing him, you got a taste of those little noises he makes. And the memory has you becoming slick and needy.

It’s late. Too late to read your smutty book, especially since you’re not at the next smutty scene yet. August and his beloved are just reuniting. You’re sure it’s bound to be good, but you don’t have that kind of patience right now. You need to cum, to get your ideas about Seokjin and what he firmly set as a boundary out of your head once and for all.

Which means you need to give your fantasy of him out of your head too. You shove the ice pack you’ve been holding to your head aside, ready to relieve some tension.

You reach under your shirt and gasp when the chill of your icy hand plucks at one of your nipples. Yes, you need more of this.

You touch the other one with your other hand, disappointed that it’s warm. And then you get a fantastic idea. You grope around for a moment until you feel the cold cloth housing the ice cubes from your freezer and pluck one out. It melts quickly in your hand, but the cold water is stimulating as you feel it run down your forearms, a droplet or two rushing down and reaching the heat of your armpit. You pull the large shirt you use as pajamas up further with your other hand, fully exposing your chest and stomach to the chilly air of your apartment.

The ice cube drips over your navel. You hiss as the new sensation floods your core with warmth. Some of the water pools in your belly button, a satisfying dampness taking over your body. Then, you drip the melting ice cube onto each nipple and relish how erect and sensitive they’ve become from your arousal.

Your breasts are plush, something you love to grab and tug as you play with yourself. They’re heavy, the weight of gravity tugging them down instead of staying up as porn once made you believe was possible.

You can understand why people sometimes get caught up playing with tits all the time. They’re arguably fun to play with.

As the ice cube warms and shrinks, you become more curious, taking it between your fingers and swirling it directly over each nipple, a shock of cold hitting them and your hips bucking in pleasure. More. Whatever you’re feeling right now, you need more of it.

You rip your sleep shorts and panties off in desperation, splaying your legs open and aiming yourself up so the last drips of the ice cube can fall directly onto the folds of your pussy, a few dribbles landing right on your aching clit.

Heat, that’s what you actually feel. Fire and ice swirling together in a decadent and hot pleasure. You reach over and grab another cube, this time skipping the teasing and touching the ice right to your clit. It’s a lot. Too much. Not enough. The pain shooting through your clit is also full of so much pleasure and you don’t want to stop.

You rock against your hand, rubbing your clit with your fingers as the ice melts, mixing the wetness of the water with your own, getting you messier, hotter, hungrier.

The memory of Seokjin holding the ice pack flits through your head, how cold his one hand was as it held yours, similar to the chill of your own hand as you grind it against your pussy. You need something inside of you. Now.

And unfortunately for you, all your toys are currently dirty. When you finished streaming last night, you made good on your promise to fuck yourself until you passed out, which means your collection of dildos and vibrators are now discarded in a pile next to your bed that you’d intended to wash after work today.

You insert a finger and sigh. It’s not enough. The angle is too awkward and you can’t get far enough in. Seokjin’s hands are much larger than yours, capable of pumping his long fingers deep within you, to get to the part of your core that is aching. If he were here right now, he could be itching that scratch, a smug look on his face as he comments on how soaking wet you are for him and commands you to cum.

Ugh. You said you wouldn’t think of him, yet here he is again, stirring up inside your fantasies. You can’t give in, you need to distract yourself, look at another face so you can feel motivation.

You remove your fingers, wipe them on the damp washcloth next to you, and reach over on your side table for your laptop.

You don’t watch a lot of porn, finding the videos often too fake, but you’re desperate. You scroll through the website, quickly losing some of your arousal as you click through pages of straight porn, the ones you know that will have some awful plot, or the woman has some nasal and fake moan that kills your buzz. Or the guys are so ugly, proving that porn always has the male gaze in mind.

You just need to cum. Today has been awful enough, and knowing you have to stream tomorrow again is already causing you to wind up. No, this is necessary stress relief. An unwinding. Make it dirty and to the point.

You click over into the other categories. You need just a man, someone else who isn’t Seokjin. You hover over the male masturbation tag, still disappointed. Then you see a banner ad for a camming site: Worldwide Handsome, Hunks From Around the Globe. That, you think, seems more promising.

Live cams are interactive, more with immediacy. Usually the guys on them are hot or gay or both and just ready to jack off for money and give in to some dirty talk. Even the gay camboys don’t always care if women are viewing. Money is money.

You click the banner, praying this doesn’t immediately give your computer a hundred viruses that will delete all your coursework you’ve saved to the harddrive.

Luckily, it’s a legitimate website, much like OnlyFans, just with the emphasis on queer men from every country. You might just be saved.

There are so many categories to choose from: couples, kinks, trans, bisexual, furries, just chatting, BDSM, interactive games, private rooms. It’s a little overwhelming. You select the “solo” tab, which, of course, has the most videos under it, and begin exploring.

You click on one that seems promising, but quickly exit out because the user has fallen asleep and it feels too intimate.

In another, the streamer is yelling at his chat for outting him to his parents, and you exit out of that as well.

You’re about to give up when you refresh the page, but then a recently started stream catches your eye. It’s quickly gaining views, and has a little “1” next to it, probably to indicate that this streamer is the most popular one in his category.

The title for the stream is Unwind with me. Late night play with Daddy which makes your core throb a little with promise. The thumbnail is black, which is a little odd, but you’re curious who this “Daddy” is and how he plans on helping his viewers unwind. Because that is exactly what you need. In his associated tags, there’s a tiny banner at the bottom that urges you forward “all genders welcome”.

You click the link, and the video itself is black, but there’s still hundreds of comments fluttering through the chat. Is your stream broken? This sometimes happens when you stream too, but after a quick refresh you realize that the screen isn’t black. There’s a little bit of light pouring through whatever is covering the camera, detecting some movement through the veil.

“You don’t know how stressed I am today,” a low voice groans.

Whoa. You lean closer, tapping the volume button on your laptop to the max and leaning back. God, whoever this guy is, he sounds hot. This might actually work to get you off and get over Seokjin.

You balance your laptop on your knees and roll your hand down your stomach and between your legs, finding your aching clit and sighing as you delight in your touch.

“I know we don’t always play games like this baby. I know you usually like it when I beg. But I can’t play like that today. It’s been so long since I got to fall back into what I desperately, absolutely need.”

His voice is so seductive yet also comforting in a way that’s familiar. You feel more of your arousal dripping out of you, and you scoop it up to swirl it around your clit, feeling a little twinge of that white hot pleasure return to you.

“And what I need is to take the edge off, to remind all of you who is in charge. Some of you have been very, very bad lately. Haven’t I given you enough? A two-year anniversary stream? I gave you all my cum didn’t I? All of it.”

The chat is going nuts, comments replying with “yes Daddy” accompanying tips that vary from twenty bucks to one thousand dollars spilling in. You check his timestamp. He’s only been live for five minutes and he’s already getting this much? Even your most successful streams take hours to reach a little over a thousand after royalty cuts.

To his credit, though, if you had a grand to drop on him, you just might, and that’s going by his sexy voice alone.

“I let you watch me spill from my cock, let you see me touch myself. And you were greedy. Don’t think I don’t know what you did. I saw your questioning comments, trying to shame me for muttering someone’s name in pleasure. But I’m not ashamed. I’m proud.”

Fuck, what you would do to have this guy moan your name. You feel your orgasm approaching and rub yourself harder, a soft squelch echoing through your room.

“You took what I gave you for granted, you fucking whores. And now, you need to be punished.”

You’re so close, the little peaks of pleasure starting to build up higher in intensity.

The mystery man stops talking, and you along with the chat, begging for more.

“Please,” you moan at your screen.

Suddenly, you hear it, a wet, slick sound. Fuck, is he touching himself?

“It’s been a long day. All day, I was working and I was so horny because some people in this world can’t stop fucking teasing me, tempting me to punish them, just like you.”

You feel the tremor of your first orgasm, but it’s not as sharp, more like a hint of what is to come. You pinch your clit between your fingers, sighing a little bit at the relief of pressure.

“You’ve all been very bad. And until you show me you can be good, I’m going to pump my cock and not let any of you see. You think you can do that? You think you can be my good little subs and prove to me you’ll behave?”

Oh god. Fuck. He’s insane, he’s so hot and insane, and you’re also insane, nodding along. The condescension is so hot, and it reminds you of earlier in the kitchen, when Seokjin scolded you for not being safe with the knife. His voice got rough just like this guy. And it makes you feel so needy and desperate.

Please, you beg silently, just like how you did this morning. I’ll do anything.

Almost as if he knows this, you hear a moan carry through your speakers. You assume he’s reading the comments and tips with promises to behave. You clench around nothing, really wishing at least one of your toys was clean for you to use to feel less empty. You’re never falling asleep without washing them again.

“Good, that’s what I like to see. Now remember, you don’t get to cum until I get to cum. Go ahead and play with yourself for me, get yourself all worked up. And then be good and listen. I’ll tell you what to do next.”

Whoops. Well, the first one didn’t count. You aren’t satisfied.

He groans, signaling that he’s stroking himself again, rough jerks you can hear from the way his hands are sliding over his (you assume) lubed cock.

“You want to see me cum? You want to earn it all over you? You know what you have to do, my pretty little subs. Work for it. And not a penny less.”

In a frenzy, the tip jar continues to buzz in the bottom corner, the graphic of coins depositing into it glitching out a bit as it fails to keep up with the volume of tips. While he’s the most popular streamer on this site, it’s not as though the website is the only one of its kind, and that means that his couple hundred viewers are putting in the work and the cash.

You watch the numbers rise next to the tip jar as his subs showcase their double entendre: both his subscriber count soars and his comments flood with loyal submissives.

Please, Daddy. Please let me cum.

I’m sorry Daddy. I’ll be good, I swear.

Remove the blindfold please! I need to see your big cock!

Ah, it’s a blindfold. Of course.

The graphic of the jar changes, exploding and sending animated dollars and coins across the screen. This is wild. His viewers have already met the milestone. They’ve just raised ten grand in less than 15 minutes. That has to be some kind of record.

He tuts and the sound of it punches your gut. Why does he sound so familiar? “Tsk, that wasn’t so hard, was it? I knew you could do it. You want my forgiveness that badly, huh? Okay, I’ll give you what you need. I’ll forgive you.”

Your pussy is throbbing. You’ve had to scale back the touching, feeling a weird sense of obedience to this camboy that you can’t describe.

There’s a ruffling sound and the camera jolts before light pours into view, a blur of shapes and colors you can’t make out greeting you until it comes into focus and you’re met with a massive, leaking cock.

“Holy shit,” you moan, finding your footing on your bed and moving your resting hand from your inner thigh back to your clit.

The camera is framed from the user’s toned abs down to just the top of his thighs, showing off his heavy, tight balls and red, angry tip.

“Is this what you’re begging for?”

Yes, you shudder a breath. Yes.

Large hands with long knobby fingers run along his thighs, one sweeping under to cup his balls while the other works his shaft, thumb sliding over his slit to rub precum around the tip.

“Alright, then.” He begins pumping, smooth, tight jerks that have him squeezing his length and encouraging more strands of precum to leak out. He falls into a steady rhythm and you mirror the pace on your clit, gasping for breaths as you become all the more sensitive now that you have a visual to follow.

“My face? Oh, no. You didn’t earn the right to see that. Don’t start with me. If you want to see my face when I cum, you have to reach the next milestone. You know the rules.”

You don’t know the rules, but you hope someone else will be desperate enough to reach it for you. You’re dying to know what he looks like.

Almost instantly, the money animation explodes on the screen again. A $5000 tip. Jesus Christ.

“Ah, of course mapl3stor33, I should’ve known it was you. Always so good to me. Because of you I got to get that new collector figurine. Thank you. Well everyone, because of mapl3’s generosity and mmm…loyalty…fuck. I guess I’ll let you get your full fantasy. Let you see my face as you imagine you get to make a mess of me, milk my fucking cock all over you and let me make a mess of you.” He’s moaning as he speaks, pausing between sentences to pump himself harder as he gives “Maple” a proper shout out.

Your cheeks heat in embarrassment. It’s one thing for you to create the fantasy, but him acknowledging it with some judgment, as though you’re not good enough to even fantasize about him, it’s leading you quicker to your undoing.

His pace builds to a heavy, slick rut. His hands are slightly red, almost like how yours looked after washing the dishes before Seokjin kicked you out.

Wait. Red hands. His look similar to Seokjin’s, with the same knobby long fingers. And the figurine and Maple…like, MapleStory?

There’s no way. No, you’re clearly just losing it with your fantasies. This one is taking it too far.

“Fuck, yeah that’s it baby. Touch yourself. Be good for me. Where do you want my cum? Oh, you dirty slut, fuck, yes. Okay, I’ll cum all over myself. Just for you. Shit. Almost, come on.”

Your fingers are still following his lead, unable to stop, so close to finishing, to the release.

He moans, his hands blurring as he strokes fast and hard, jerking into himself. And that’s when you know. You heard that moan. You caused that moan.

With a final solid, slightly whiny grunt, he backs up. His face coming into frame, and the first strands of thick white release cascades across Seokjin’s chest as you focus in on the pure bliss washing over him, his head thrown back and mouth shaped into a delicious “o”.

“Oh, fuck. Take it, take my cum. Yes, that’s it. That’s my best girl, so good for me. Such a good girl.”

The second you hear the praising fall from Seokjin’s mouth, he takes you over the edge with him. Your body rockets into your orgasm with a heavy clench of your core, feet losing their solid hold below you as you begin to shake and succumb to the feeling.

You’ve unwound, the tension of your body unfurling as you’re cast out to sea, your body bobbing along each wave with a newfound euphoria. Out here on the water, the world is silent except the ring in your ears. You bask in the peaceful ebb until you feel a tingling in your fingertips and toes calling you back, forcing breath back into your lungs with a heavy pant.

Once you recenter, you gaze back at the stream, confirming that this is the smiling and grateful Seokjin you just saw three hours ago.

He called you a good girl. He came all over his sweaty chest. And he’s the top streamer on a gay sex cam site.

#seokjin smut #bts smut #jin smut #ksj #seokjin x reader #jin x reader #kim seokjin

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legitalicat · 3 months

Text

Out of Time

Chapter 5 - "Oh Brother, I've Returned"

an: While it does not fit this chapter entirely, I listened to "Brother" by Madds Buckley a lot during this chapter. As an older sister who moved out when my younger sibling was under 10, I feel the guilt of being gone while your siblings grow up without you. I highly recommend that song.

If you love this header go check out zaldritzosrose for more amazing work! She is tagged on the series masterlist and on my welcome post!

Find the series Master list here!

Summary: "It is not a ridiculous notion to fear what we do not know. Yet you cannot let your fears keep you from them."

TW: Anxiety, profanity, angst, dead daddy issues, literal bone crushing hugs, substance use, fear of addiction, detailed descriptions of Viserys I death, descriptions of severe pain, Vizzy is not a good parent, Aemond and Jace making a scene at dinner AGAIN, very large and physically intimidating men, Jaehaerys being very much a brother, Joffrey and Luke being little shithead brothers,

Romantic Pairings: Very brief focus on Aemond Targaryen x Velaryon!Reader, Very brief focus on Jacaerys Velaryon x Twin!Reader, Aegon Targaryen ii x Velaryon!Reader.

Other characters shining in this chapter: Ser Erryk, Jaehaera Targaryen, Lucerys Velaryon, Joffrey Velaryon, Aegon iii, Viserys Targaryen ii, Rhaenyra Targaryen, Alicent Hightower

Word count: 6.6k (oops)

The fuzzy feelings disappeared by late afternoon. A bright side was that I was absolutely starving when dinner time came. When I stood from my bed, I found I still had no pain. It was great to be able to walk across the room in less than five minutes.

I met Ser Erryk just outside my room. He greeted me as he always did, cheerful and just seemingly grateful. He spoke to me of the apparent menu for the night. We were to have braised goose with roasted chestnuts and cabbage.

“You like goose?” I asked him as we walked.

“I do, princess. It is greasy, so unappealing to some. I believe your mother is among them,” he said, smiling at me.

“It was a joke of sorts, between her and my father. A discussion they had before they were married. She likes to have it every so often as a way to remember him,” I told him.

It was true enough. The reason why Ser Laenor was who claimed us was apparent to me when I thought of him. He was never without the company of a male companion. When we first went to Dragonstone, he brought a young knight. Joffrey is named after a knight he knew in his youth, whose death devastated him in unimaginable ways. He loved them both deeply and in a way he could never love Mother.

It was known to her before they married, so when she spoke to him of the marriage, she assured him it would not impose on his life. She equated it to taste, saying like her, he preferred roast duck to goose. There was nothing wrong with that. Some people just like things and that was that.

After his death, I found Mother would request goose for our dinner. When I pointed out that he had never picked it out himself, she told me that was the point. The goose was meant to represent their effort in marriage, and for her it was a way to honor him. She had so much love for him, and he for her, even if it was not the type of love she shared with my blood father or even Daemon.

I truly believe they were soulmates. Most believed that soulmates were romantic, that it always ended with love and sex and all those things that made people gooey inside. There was not a person alive, though, that could convince me Mother and Laenor did not belong together in life even though they were not in love. You cannot have a best friend like that and tell me that the gods did not design you for that person.

Often I think how there was nobody better than Laenor to have been with her. Yes, my father and her loved one another in a way most wouldn’t understand. Yes, Daemon seems an equal match for her now. And yes, Laenor had loved his male companions the way he perhaps should’ve loved the one he married. But they understood each other on a fundamental level. They never begrudged one another, never showed anything to us that wasn’t pure love and respect for not only us but one another. Even if it were not romantic love, they were made to love each other.

“Ser Laenor was a good man. I think he would be proud of who you are,” he told me. “I truly believe that.”

Sometimes I didn’t know how to feel about Ser Laenor. He was not my blood. His opinions on me truly held no bearing in the grand scheme of things, as he was never who I had to impress. My inheritance would’ve never come from him.

But anytime I heard he would be proud of me, I wanted to beg for more. Blood or not he was my father. He was the man who claimed me. He loved me. How could I not want him to be proud of me?

“Thank you, Ser Erryk. I appreciate it,” I whispered, trying to not let my voice crack under the emotion.

We continued walking along without speaking any further. I could hear music and laughter as we approached the Small Hall. Don’t let the name fool you, though. Located in the Tower of the Hand, it had to be smaller than the Great Hall where the Throne sat, but this hall still held over two hundred people if so desired. With a family so large, it made sense to have our dinners here.

Erryk went to open the door but I reached out my hand to grab his before he could. The sounds of the ones I love being happy on the other side of this door terrified me. We were all mostly happy that night, the night I disappeared. At least we were for a moment in time.

My finger tips went numb and my bottom lip was trembling. It had been hard enough just being alone with those I’ve had time with already. But to see all of them, all at once, felt like it was an impossible task.

I had yet to speak to any of my brothers other than Jace. Trying to face the very distinct possibility of Little Aegon and Viserys disliking me felt like my stomach was being tied in knots. Joffrey was fourteen now, what if he didn’t like me either? Or if Luke was angry with me, somehow blaming me for being gone, I don’t think I could take it.

So much time had been lost. I was newly eighteen when I disappeared, now Jace and I were fast approaching twenty four. Aemond had been nineteen, Helaena twenty, Aegon twenty two, and Luke just fifteen. We all had so much time together. But Joffrey had only been nine, Little Aegon four, and Viserys only two. I had missed such a grand portion of their lives, even more when thinking of the year I was in King’s Landing beforehand, I didn’t think I could fit.

“We can go back if you wish,” Erryk said quietly to me. “I will make some excuse as to why you remain in your rooms. They needn’t know.”

“What kind of person is scared of their family for no reason?” I whispered to him, looking at him as a tear slowly rolled down my cheek.

It would maybe make sense if they had been terrible to me. But even the worst among them treated me as though I was golden. Alicent, who had undoubtedly been abhorrent to Mother and my brothers to the point she demanded all of us be brought to her when Mother was fresh from her labors, had loved me. I could distinctly remember sitting on her lap as a small child while my grandsire told Jace and I about the Kingdoms the would one day be ours.

“The first time Arryk and I went home after we were appointed to the Kingsguard, I was certain our parents would shut the door in our face,” he told me. “How could they not? I mean we were the only two heirs to our house and we both took an oath that forbade us from having lands, having a wife, having children. We effectively ended our house with us. But all our parents cared about was that we were happy and safe. It is not a ridiculous notion to fear what we do not know. Yet you cannot let your fears keep you from them.”

I could not look him in the eye. Part of me was so ashamed to feel as scared that I did. To me, it was a ridiculous notion. I’m the blood of the dragon, how could I fear anything?

He put his other hand over top mine, that still held onto him like my life depended on it. That was what let me meet his gaze. He truly looked at me with nothing but kindness in his eyes.

“When you were a girl, it is not that you were fearless. It is that you have always loved so fiercely your own fears did not stop you. When you sabotaged the soil stores so that the garden bugs would not die, you faced your mother, Queen Alicent, and your grandsire with tears in your eyes. You were scared of being in trouble, of having done something wrong. Even so, you held Helaena’s hand and explained why you did it. The night of Aemond’s injury, you were scared to anger everyone in explaining what happened. Yet, what mattered to you was the truth and so you told the truth,” he explained to me. “I offer again that I can take you back to your room and I will tell them you were not feeling well.”

The faith he had in the person I am felt comforting. At least there was one person who knew truly who I am. He had no reason to make me fit a certain mold. It was not like with Aemond or Jace in which he needed me to be this perfect representation of a person. He did not need me to understand the darkest parts of him like Aegon did. It was truly like he was a friend.

“Do not stray far from me,” I said quietly to him.

Releasing his hand, I stood straight and readied myself. He opened the door and stood to the side.

When I stepped into the room, for a moment nobody really noticed me and I just got to watch. Viserys, Little Aegon, and Maelor were all running around the room in a game. Mother and Alicent were speaking to one another, smiling. Jaehaerys and Jaehaera were animatedly discussing something with Aemond and Helaena. Luke, Jace, and Aegon were all hunched over the table as they laughed about something. Joffrey was in the corner of the room sneaking a little cake.

They were all so happy. Was this truly what it was like all the time now? Had the wounds of the past been so forgotten we could live like this?

Surprisingly, the first to notice me was Jaehaera. She very obviously lit up upon seeing me and got up from her chair near immediately. Wasting no time, she went to the empty chair in between Mother and Alicent and grabbed a bouquet of flowers that had sat in it. It was then others took notice of her movements and all their eyes shifted from her to me.

When I began feeling the fear bubbling up inside me again and my fingertips once again felt numb, I just focused on Jaehaera. This little girl who was so happy when she noticed me, a little girl I adored so much, was now running to me with these flowers in her hand. They were a pretty assortment, consisting peonies, tulips, and lilies.

“Mumma says you like flowers so I picked the prettiest ones,” she said happily when she stopped in front of me. She very proudly held out her bouquet so that I could admire her work.

I smiled softly at Jaehaera as tears welled up in my eyes. “They are lovely, thank you little one,” I said in a voice that was barely above a whisper. Carefully I took the bouquet from her and held it in my hands.

They were not flawless flowers. One of the peonies had not fully bloomed while another had already begun to lose its petals. The lilies had been slightly crushed against the weight of the other flowers. I noticed the tulips had little teeny insects crawling around on them, which Helaena and her children no doubt saw as an added benefit, and as such there were teeny holes in some of the petals. But there was not enough gold in the world that could convince me to rid myself of this bouquet. Despite the flaws, I could not think of it as anything less than perfect. Erryk took them in his own hand before he arranged for a serving girl to take them to my room and put them in water.

She took my hand in hers and began pulling me along to the table. Even in her excitement, she also seemed to be careful with me like everyone else had been.

“Do you want to sit next to me??” Jaehaerys said loudly when I was in arms reach of the table. It caused Jaehaera to stop her path, therefore stopping me.

“Inside voice, bubba,” Jaehaera said softly to him before looking at me. “Excuse him. He forgets we all have ears.”

“That’s okay, Luke was like that too when he was little,” I said to her. It caused them both to grin from ear to ear.

“Did you hear that Jae Jae? I’m like Luke,” he said, noticeably quieter this time, but just as excitedly.

“I am just glad someone else knows about brothers,” Jaehaera said with a giggle.

“I would like to point out that I had no choice but to be loud to make sure I was heard over Jace’s big mouth,” Luke said as he stood from his seat.

When Luke stood I realized he was taller than me. Not near as tall as Aegon, but a noticeable few inches. It caused a great stirring of emotions in my chest. I had anticipated my brothers growing taller than me, in fact it surprised me that Jace was only my height and not taller. Yet, not being here to notice it happening caused an ache.

Especially with Luke. He was only three years younger than me, so I did not remember his birth or his little years quite like I remembered Joffrey’s, Little Aegon’s, or Viserys’. That didn’t keep me from remembering bits and pieces, though. Like, I used to help Mother pick out the clothes he wore as a baby as though he was a doll. I snuck out of bed one night when he was a newborn so that I could sleep next to his cradle. I could remember the first time he got sick and, instead of going to Mother and Laenor, he crawled into bed between Jace and I and leaked snot all over my chest.

The bad parts, the good parts, all of it was not something I would trade for the world. Despite having more conscious thoughts when the younger three were babies, Luke was my baby. To me there was nobody better. He was as good and pure as a person could get. If Mother thought I was the best parts of both my fathers, Luke was the best parts of me. He was every good thing in this world rolled into the sweetest package.

“Now you can’t hold sweets over my head and keep me from getting them,” he said playfully.

“No, but I can still sit on your head until you cry,” I responded. My own ear to ear grin spread across my face. I did not care that it hurt my lip as the skin stretched. Luke was worth it.

“I cried one time! You were crushing my ear!” he defended adamantly.

“I maintain to this day that you should not have taken my book,” I told him with a shrug.

“Hadn’t he already handed it back to you when you sat on him?” Jace asked me.

“I don’t recall asking for your input, Jace,” I said quickly causing Luke to laugh.

Luke was truly a man now. His laugh was deeper, as was his voice. He was twenty now and by no means could he be confused as a child.

He wrapped his arms around me in a near bone crushing hug. Even with the pain shooting through my ribs, I could not ask him to ease up. The world felt right the moment he hugged me. Like the years had not passed without me.

I noticed he smelled like the sea. Salt water and open sky, with just a trace of the smell of the wood the ships were made of. If I had to guess, he spent a lot of time in Driftmark now, preparing himself for when Grandsire Corlys was no longer able to hold the Driftwood Throne. When he was little and we suffered the loss of both Ser Harwin and our Aunt Laena, he feared becoming Lord of Driftmark as he knew the death that would precede that moment. If he had been able to move past that fear, I was grateful.

“Are you a sailor now?” I asked as I pulled back from him.

“Only sometimes. Grandsire has spent two years teaching me how to,” he answered. He had a shy, goofy little smile on his face.

“And I would imagine he regales you with stories of the Velaryon blood ruling the seas every moment of it,” I joked.

“Would he be him if he weren’t the proudest man alive?” he asked.

My three Velaryon brothers and Mother all chuckled at that. Genuinely speaking I could not think of a prouder man alive. Our grandfather had held House Velaryon miles above any house, including Targaryens. I think it was because the Targaryens were dragonlords making him think we were handed power, whereas Velaryons seemed to build everything themselves. There was a pride to be held in that, of course. But Westeros was not conquered by shipmasters, now was it?

With this laughter, I took a moment to look around, turning around the room, and settling to look at Joffrey. Fourteen certainly was not the age of a man but compared to the nine year old I left behind he might as well have been. My little Joffrey, whose birth was the first I truly remember, making the three of us older ones so excited. We were downright annoying when it came to him.

Jace had decided we needed to pick the egg for him ourselves. Without uttering a word to anyone, we snuck away from the dragonkeeper charged in teaching us our lesson that day and delved far into the Dragonpit. Luke excitedly picked the egg from one of Syrax’s clutches. As the three of us had been given one, with only mine not hatching, we had to give the baby an egg that came from Mother’s dragon. Our father found us as we were trying to carry the red hot cauldron to the Keep. With his help, and the enlisted help of a few keepers, we awaited the arrival of the baby eagerly.

We took turns stoking the flames underneath it to keep it warm while we waited for Mother. And when she returned, followed closely by Laenor with the baby boy in hand, Luke and Jace both desperately wanted to get close to him. Laenor and father had to practically bat them away so that our baby brother could meet our father.

For myself, I can only remember looking at my perfect family. While in that moment I had not been told the truth of my birth, I knew. It was not so much a moment of realization that none of my brothers or I looked like Laenor, instead favoring Mother’s sworn shield. It was not even hearing the rumors and embodying them as a sort of self fulfilling prophecy. No, all it took was me seeing how Laenor yielded in that moment to Harwin and seeing the way this mountain of a man became so soft when gazing upon Joffrey for me to know. He was a man who was granted love in undeniable ways and he was a part of our family.

Joffrey looked the most like our father. The four of us all had his hair color and his complexion, of course. Jace and I got his eyes, according to Mother, and I could agree. The colors were the same on all four of us, yet we got the shape. I could see on Jace the little crinkles in the corners that our father had. Luke had his smile to the point that when our father died, I desperately worked to make Luke smile for days so that I could feel the embrace of the man who created me. Yet Joffrey had it all. His eyes, his nose, his smile, even the height and bulk of him. There were traces of Mother, like in the angles of his jawline or the placement of his cheekbones. But one could be forgiven if they thought Harwin Strong walked the halls of the Red Keep again when seeing Joffrey.

How cruelly ironic. The one who only got a few meetings with our father was the one who looked to be a trueborn Strong and not the dirty little secret I always felt like. The one who would never know our father or Laenor and the way they both loved us, who was robbed of the perfect family I loved so much, was everything I begged to be. A perfect embodiment of the father I prayed returned to me sat before me in the form of the last of his children.

“Joffrey, I believe Y/N would appreciate if you could come closer,” Aemond’s voice said from somewhere out of my view. I believed he may be behind me, with Jaehaera on my left and Luke still to my right. I could not be bothered to check.

Joffrey nodded and placed the sweet down on a nearby table before walking closer to me. He wiped his hands against his pants, highlighting to me that he was wearing Targaryen colors of black and not Velaryon ones. I could see the crumbs fall to the floor as he walked. It was almost enough to make me laugh.

“Have you been so short your entire life?” he asked when he stood in front of me. He was taller than Aemond even, wider around the middle, broader along the shoulders than Jace. It was terrifying when one realized most of that was probably muscle, and most likely he had more growing to do.

“I would like to point out I am perfectly normal height,” I said, huffing a bit. “You are just tall.”

“To you. To me, you are short. Perspective, sissy,” he said.

My heart caught in my throat. It wasn’t that I had anticipated him to forget me or all the time I had spent teaching him of the world. But hearing him call me sissy and confirming that I still had a place in his heart made my own ache in unexpected ways.

Wrapping my arms around his middle, I pulled him into a tight hug. It was a hug he returned eagerly, holding me as tight as I held him. Just as with Luke, I couldn’t be bothered to care about any of the pain coursing through my body.

Luke and Joffrey had so much of me in them. Luke was my baby and Joffrey was my sidekick. Where one clung to me the other did just the same. For the longest time you could not find me without them. I did everything for them to ensure their lives. Luke and I spent hours just standing on the deck of our ship so that I could help him overcome his fear of the sea. I was the one who taught Joffrey to read, and then taught him as much as I could of politics and history. Both of them spent so much time with me in the gardens of Dragonstone as I tended to the flowers.

When I finally convinced myself that I could let go without him disappearing, I pulled away from his hold. Concern drew itself onto his face. If the empty yet extraordinarily heavy feeling in my head and the fire spreading through my chest had caused me to look as I felt in this moment, I would imagine I’d look much the same as he did. In truth I could not care to look at everyone else. Leaning forward to lean against Joffrey, I tried to steady my breathing.

“Let’s sit you down,” Luke whispered from behind me. I can only assume I nodded as he and Joffrey both supported me to sit me in the chair between Alicent and Mother. The last note of music that filled the room just moments ago echoed from every wall before the room fell into silence.

“Y/N, you mustn’t overdo it, sweet girl,” Mother said quietly, pressing a cooled rag to my head.

“I couldn’t tell them to stop, mama. My babies still love me,” I whispered to her, gripping her wrist to still her hand. The suddenness of my movement caused me a blinding flash of burning pain.

“Perhaps we should order some milk of the poppy,” Alicent suggested, looking between Mother and me.

“No, no,” I begged her, tears springing to my eyes.

Let me be clear and say I understand the benefits of the medicine. It is extremely effective in easing pain and in large enough quantities, could incapacitate an entire Dothraki horde. Though I dare anyone to watch their grandfather wither to be but a living, skin covered skeleton and he can’t even acknowledge his breathing because he is so addled by the shit.

I am not stupid enough to think back on his life and legacy and think him a good King nor even a good father. But I do know, factually know, that he was a man who loved his family dearly. A man who was taken advantage of in his deepest grief and never fixed the mistakes made in those times. A man who deserved more than to die so slowly while his brain, his very capable and beautiful brain, wasted away because of the only treatment for his pain.

When you watch a man go from being able to tell you about the Kingdom he loves, that one day you will rule, to not even being able to remember your existence, it changes things. When you watch him become so frail and thin that being turned the wrong way breaks his bones, yet remain so puffy under the eye and in his fingertips because of the poison, you may refuse it too. His younger children may not have cared, of that I will not speak on. But I cared, and it terrified me.

Would he have been in so much pain constantly if he hadn’t taken it so regularly? What if he was being treated for an ailment that was caused by milk of the poppy? And if that was true, how much would it take before I could not exist without it?

“Y/N, you cannot live in this pain,” Mother said to me.

“I cannot live like that,” I corrected her.

“Your grandsire was very sick for a long time, you will heal in mere weeks. But you cannot heal if you live in this pain,” Alicent said. Her voice was just as quiet and soothing as Mother’s as she petted my hair.

Very slowly, I adjusted my body in my chair to look to Aegon. He was watching me with silent tears in his eyes. But when our wet gazes locked together he understood what I needed. He did not need anything else from me. He understood my pain as I did his.

After pushing himself to a stand from his seat, he wasted no time in getting to my side. All the while he was reaching in his sleeve to pull out the pouch with the biscuits. Within a moment he was by my side, kneeling to be able to look up at my face.

“Stars?” he asked me. It took me less than half a breath to know he was asking how severe my pain, if it was enough to make me see stars. He knew it went beyond feeling knives in my body but he could not tell further.

“Lightning,” I muttered to him.

He had once theorized the lightning that extended from the sky during the worst of storms would be the most painful thing to be hit by. It was on a late night adventure, one that quickly turned into a two day adventure, that he had dragged me on not long before I had Vhaela. We mounted Sunfyre together and flew to Harrenhal. Quick enough flying on Sunfyre, though it took nearly all night. When we had arrived, a storm had come overhead, and we watched as lightning struck the large castle no less than three times. The stone was surprisingly mostly unscathed, save for the burn marks permanently etched on its side. When we spoke of a human withstanding just one strike, he said you’d nearly die from the pain alone.

It was how I knew he would understand. This was not the pain I experienced falling from my bed when I was six. This was a burning, pulsating pain that caused me to lose parts of my sight. A pain so severe I could not breathe properly.

He helped me eat a significant bit more than what I had earlier. Mainly because every time I moved myself I was hit with another flash of pain. It was just easier to allow his help.

“The larger portion may not quicken the effects but it will help manage your pain better,” he said quietly to me. “Tell me what I can do in the meanwhile.”

“Stay right here and have everyone return to their joy,” I whispered to him as I took his hand. “At the least I wish to see everyone smile.”

He nodded softly and looked to Alicent. Within a few minutes, the music started back up and not long after that the chatter started up again. I would have to be oblivious to not notice the worried looks Mother and Alicent still gave me. Though those looks were nothing compared to the way Aemond and Jace were glaring at Aegon.

Genuinely speaking, it was a lot like watching children. It was as though Aemond and Jace had never once considered that anyone else would want to play their game. They only considered each other and knew what to expect from them. But now they viewed Aegon as a competitor.

Was Aegon a competitor? Sure he had said earlier how he loved me, that I was the only woman he loved. But he did not put his hand forward. He did not express a desire to be with me despite the love he held for me. I could no more count him as a contender for my heart as I could Ser Erryk.

Where Aemond and Jace looked on at him in anger, Aegon paid no mind. His eyes were focused solely on me. And every time I met his gaze, I gave him a small squeeze in the hand.

Six songs passed before I felt any relief. At first it wasn’t noticed until I could take a full breath. It was when I turned my head to watch as the food was brought in that it became clear that I could now manage. It seemed it became clear to Aegon, too, as he left my side and took his place back across from Luke.

Luke, Jace, and Aegon took the seats on the end of the table nearest the windows. Luke and Aegon on the very end, Jace beside Aegon. Joffrey took a spot next to Luke. Then beside Joffrey sat Aemond, and beside Jace there was Helaena. Next to Aemond was Alicent, with Jaehaera across from her. Then you had me and I was sat across from Jaehaerys. To my right was Mother, and across from her sat Maelor. There was two empty seats on Mother’s other side, and across from them was Little Aegon and Viserys. Then a singular chair that looked down the whole of the table sat on the very end, also empty, and that was closest to the kitchen.

Alicent lead us all in prayer. Truthfully, I probably should’ve paid more mind to the words she was saying. It mattered a lot to her, Helaena, and even Aemond. Yet, when I looked down the table and saw Aegon watching my every move, every thought from my head left. So instead, I looked directly at my plate.

The juices that flowed from the goose glistened in the candlelight that danced against every surface in stunning opposition to how the dark gravy absorbed light. The cabbage and roasted chestnuts sat to the side of it, looking decently appealing on their own. There was a basket of bread placed down for every four people. All of the adults, save Aegon and I, had a large cup of wine sitting in front of them. If Aegon and the children had the same as me, we all had water. Once Alicent was done saying her prayers, the only sound to be heard was all of us eating our food.

It was delicious. Though it was not a surprise to me, as the cooks here in King’s Landing had always been phenomenal. Maybe it was the fuzziness in my head that made it more apparent. Yet, it seemed more complex than normal. The meat was almost sweeter, the gravy with a level of saltiness that counteracted it perfectly. The chestnuts were almost like velvet in my mouth, creating a feeling akin to butter. Even cabbage, that I normally did not like, was something I would pick again and again.

“Did you try to come back?” A small voice asked. I looked up, only to see Viserys staring at me.

“Viserys,” Mother said firmly. It was her warning tone. Perhaps she did not think it proper for him to question me.

“I can’t remember,” I said quietly. “But I cannot imagine a reality in which I did not fight to return back to you all.”

“Is that why you are all beat up?” Little Aegon asked me.

“Aegon,” Mother said with the same firmness. I reached to take her hand in mine and gave it a small squeeze. She needed to understand that they were allowed to ask me, I could not fault them for being confused.

“Possibly. But I do not remember,” I told him.

“Do you remember anything?” they both asked at the same time.

“Not from when I was gone, no,” I whispered. “But I remember before I was gone. I remember loving the two of you so much. I am sorry I disappeared, and I am sorry that you both grew up without me.”

All of that was mostly true. I hated my disappearance, as it did take me away from everyone I loved. Yet to say I do not remember anything from the time I was gone may not be true.

In my thoughts, I could wade through the fog that the biscuit causes. Only in this feeling did I get any information from my brain. When I tried desperately to remember the last five years, there were only two things that my mind could conjure up. A glowing vial of shimmering red fire that I am near certain was a potion swirled in and out of my mind’s eye. And there was a distinct feeling loneliness, of knowing that where I existed was not where I belonged.

The shade of red of the potion was eerily familiar. While equating it to fire would be the right way to imagine the way that the liquid flowed, it was poor in grasping the color. One could tell me that someone was able to melt rubies into this vial and I would believe them. That was the only physical thing that was colored correctly.

Until I could explain more or had more answers, I would not say anything. With how desperate Mother and Aemond were for vengeance, giving them half answers could cause more damage that it would repair. It was not worth it.

“Do you want to come to our dragon lessons tomorrow?” Little Aegon asked.

Unable to verbalize my answer, I nodded. Spending time with my two littlest brothers felt like exactly what I needed. They may not be quite sure about me at all, but they were willing to give me a chance. I suppose that is all I could ask for.

The sound of a chair scraping against the stone floor brought my attention to the left side of the table. Aemond stood with his cup raised. My jaw tightened. The last time he gave a toast, he managed to call my brothers bastards while ignoring that it meant I too was a bastard. It caused a fight to break out, with Jace punching Aemond and Aegon slamming Luke into the table. I was not wanting a repeat and I doubt anyone else did.

“A toast,” Aemond said. “To the return of Ali. The Keep had truly existed in a darkness without you.”

A heat rose to my cheeks with his words. It was tame, I suppose, with what he could say. Although, I do wish he would just have not brought any further attention to me. I don’t think I would be able to say anything to him though.

“I wish to take this moment to make it clear,” he said. As always there was a confidence he held that I couldn’t shake. “Byka zaldrīzes, no longer do I wish to hide my affections. It is here and now that I am declaring my intention to marry you.”

My heart started skipping beats. While he had said it aloud to me, he had not voiced it to anyone else. And it wasn’t entirely like it was a secret, as he had always been rather obvious. With this declaration there was no longer a doubt about where I stood with him.

Jace stood up quickly, slamming his hands on the table as he did so. “She is my twin, Aemond, my betrothed. You do not get to decide such a thing,” he said angrily.

Aegon grabbed Jace’s shoulder and pulled him back into a sitting position. I was aware of Aemond smirking as he watched Jace. Leave it to him to make this a little game, a game which he is certain he will win.

“It is not your decision, either,” Aegon told him as though he were spitting poison at him. My jaw dropped slightly. It was not usual that I saw him actually angry.

“And you think you get any say?” Aemond asked his older brother.

“I think the two of you are so focused on this pissing contest that’s been going on since we were children you fail to realize that she is hurt,” Aegon shouted, standing up. Despite being shorter than Aemond and not as broad as Jace, he somehow made himself look larger. He made himself an unmoving force.

“I better than anyone know that she is hurt,” Aemond said darkly, to which Jace voiced the same sentiment.

“Are you both so truly lost in your desires that you are ignoring the anguish she is in? She caused herself so much pain she was barely conscious just so she could feel as though she still has a place! Do not pretend this is about anyone other than the two of you,” Aegon shouted.

“And what of you? What is your plan, dear brother?” Aemond asked, moving himself to appear larger.

The difference between them in this moment was fascinating. Aemond wanted to prove his dominance. He felt he had some claim to me just because of the love he and I share. With Aegon, though, it was because he wanted to prove nothing more than he was capable of protecting me.

Aegon turned to look at me. I could see him ease up almost immediately. It was like just the sight of me was enough to calm him.

“I am here however you choose to have me,” he said softly, addressing me directly.

#dividers by benkeibear #aegon targaryen ii #out of time #jacaerys velaryon #aemond targaryen #tom glynn carney #hotd #aegon targaryen ii x reader #aemond targaryen x reader #ewan mitchell #jacaerys velaryon x reader #house of the dragon

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