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abeautylives · 24 days

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Times I Remember Well

(and Some That I Don’t)

Part 1

author’s note: I’m really excited to have something to share with you guys. It’s written from a diff POV than I usually do, but my main character girly pop has a lot of personality 😘 Big big big thank you to bff @samkiszkasfacialhair for all the help, the ideas, and the motivation 🤍

pairing: female!OCxkiszkas (just read it, you’ll figure it out)

time frame: 2010-2014

word count: 5.7k this part

warnings: language, illicit substance use, rampant teenage emotions and delulu, kissing, josh 🥺

I don’t actually remember the day I met Sam Kiszka.

Not the date, or even the day of the week. I do know what year it was, because it was the year my mom moved us to this quaint (read: weird) little town. Charming, but weird. And boring.

Boring, until I met Sam.

Eleven-year-old Sam was a menace, but twelve-year-old me was bored. So obviously, we became the best of friends. He taught me how to light a firecracker, I had an endless supply of Barbies to blow up. He showed me how to slip out of my bedroom window without making a sound, I told him how to impress girls without grossing them out. In our early teenage years, he introduced me to drugs and I taught him how to unclasp a bra. Chill out, it was weed, and I wasn’t even wearing the bra.

My mom just loved that I’d made such a great friend.

The first time I was allowed to play at his house I met his sister, who was closer to my age, but it was too late. Sam and I were already attached at the hip, though mine sat an inch or two higher than his for a couple of years, until a growth spurt and puberty eventually left him with the height advantage.

That was when he stopped calling me by my name, and started calling me Tiny. Like I said, a menace.

“You’re the coolest girl I know, even if you’re vertically challenged.”

Please note: the first time he said this to me, he had finally just surpassed me in height by half an inch.

Then of course, there were the twins. You’d think the eldest siblings would not have become a big part of my life, but they were just always around, and actually liked hanging out with their baby brother. Close knit family and all that. It’s weird, right? At the wise and worldly age of twelve, the two fourteen-year-olds terrified me. Josh and Jake were both scary in their own way to a pubescent girl on the cusp of teenager-dom. Jake was pretty quiet, but his ego was not. He was hot, okay? In like, a Justin Bieber-y way but also kind of a jock-y way, but a jock with a guitar. Whatever, I’m only human.

Josh was… well, Josh was Josh. Unlike anyone else I’d ever met, and not necessarily in a good way. He was loud, like, all the time. He never seemed to stop talking and ended most of his sentences at an eardrum-piercing decibel level. Fortunately, or not, he didn’t get hot until I was old enough to obsess over it.

I’m sure I didn’t speak a coherent word to either of them the entire first year of my friendship with Sam.

I have a million memories of the time I spent with Sam and his family, but I have no recollection of the day I fell in love with Josh Kiszka.

But once I did, it was a deep, obsessive kind of love that only a teenager can achieve. One day he was my best friend’s eccentric older brother and the next…

Well, the next he was a rockstar.

I mentioned the whole jock with a guitar thing that Jake had going on, and that really hadn’t changed, but somewhere along the way Josh had transformed from a loud, annoying theater kid to a genuine, full blown vocalist. I mean, for a while he was both.

When they first started playing together, I only gave a shit because they’d roped Sam into it too and it took up way too much of his time. I’d watch them play, and they weren’t… bad? They weren’t good either. My time could have been better spent watching R rated movies (scandalous) or, I don’t know, doing my homework. But nope! We were in a band now.

They practiced, a lot. It felt like all they did was practice, for at least a couple years. And I just watched dutifully, every weekend of every month of every year. They did get better.

But here’s the thing. I was there for all of it. I was there the day Jake ran into the living room and snatched Sam up by the back of his shirt. Come on Sammy boy, we need you on bass. I was there the day their buddy Kyle sat down at the drum kit and completed the ensemble. (I was also there the day he got replaced.) And of course, I was there the day Josh pushed his voice past the instruments and the amps, and went from a weak imitation of a rock singer to something else all together. Something totally and completely him.

That’s not the day I fell in love with him (I would’ve remembered), but it was the first time he had ever… impressed me. And not that I cared, but Jake was impressed too. I saw it on his face.

It was cute. In like, a sweet, brotherly way.

Okay, anyway! The combination of Jake’s skill and Josh’s raw talent got them noticed. (Sammy’s talent would develop over time, I didn’t forget about him. Sam, you’re the most talented one in the band.) And then they were playing actual gigs. I wasn’t allowed to go to most of those early ones, because for some reason these dive bars were permitting these pint sized, teenage Zeppelin wannabes to perform at them. Old people like our parents loved that shit. The locals went crazy for it.

They played Fischer Hall a couple times, right there in town, but around their third or fourth gig there, Josh had unbuttoned the flowy, floral, women’s blouse he was wearing and took to the stage with it hanging open, beaded necklaces draped down his bare chest and curly hair wild.

Why was he sort of… ripped? How had I never noticed? Were his pants always so tight? And low cut? I was sweating. I didn’t even know he was literally cosplaying Robert Plant.

Did I fall in love with him that night? Of course not, I already told you I don’t remember the day that happened.

The Saturday after my sixteenth birthday, I left my house around 8:30 to head to Sam’s. To my mom, this was an average Saturday night - I spent nearly all of them at Sam’s house, where his parents were always home. Ya know, or so mine thought. Whether the Kiszkas were actually home or not, we hung out in the garage.

That’s not as weird as it sounds, it was a really cool garage. With furniture and everything. And their instruments, a lot of them. I don’t know how every one of these guys knew how to play every instrument packed into that room, but they did. And by the time I was sixteen, they were really almost good at it.

(Jake was good. Very good… I told you he was hot.)

This particular Saturday though, this was going to be the Saturday that changed my life. And I wanted to dress the part.

In hindsight, I wore something I’d probably worn a hundred times. Then why had it taken me so long to get ready? I changed my jeans twice, my shirt at least ten times, added a sweater, threw it back on my bed, added a flannel, tossed that to the floor. Picked it back up and shoved my arms in, made sure it hung off my shoulder just so. Shoulders are sexy, right? Do guys like shoulders? Oh shit, what do guys even like?

Anyway, I left the house looking exactly as I always did.

I rode my bike slowly that night, already hyper aware of the sweat under my arms.

So I slowed my pedaling even further. When the house came into view, I hopped off the bike and walked it up the drive before tossing it to the grass outside the garage.

Okay, knock twice and just go in.

That’s what everyone always did, what I always did. Just knock twice then lift the door. Everyone was always welcome, come on in!

So go in, idiot.

Look, I did it eventually. Just like always, knock knock, lift the door enough to slip underneath, let it close behind me. Except when it rolled back to the ground, I lost my nerve and stood frozen there for a few seconds too long.

Sam called me out, because he’s a menace.

“The hell are you doing, Tiny? We started without you.”

I moved farther into the space, eyes bouncing between my options through the soft haze of pungent smoke that already hung over the room. There was my usual spot - on the floor, next to the spot where Sam sat cross-legged, his long frame folded and bent, his sharp elbows resting on his knees as he waited for the joint to make its way back to him.

Not tonight, I’m on a mission.

Jake sat to his left, in a well-worn, floral print wingback chair. It was comfortable enough for one person, decades of weight softening the strength of the cushion’s springs before it ever came to live in this particular garage. Jake’s body was slung over it, legs thrown haphazardly over an arm while his own were wrapped around an acoustic guitar. Typical. He tipped his chin at me from under the brim of a bucket hat, then nodded towards the floor beside him. Holy shit, does he want me to sit by him?! I think my fingers lifted in a barely-there wave but I’m not really sure they were functioning correctly.

Okay focus, he did not. Does not. Not in this lifetime.

Still without his next hit, Sam glanced up at me over his shoulder and patted the threadbare throw rug next to him. “Sit down weirdo, you’re making me paranoid.”

Nerves that I’d never, never, felt before in this room fluttered through my stomach, I let my gaze meet Sam’s before continuing the search for a place to plant myself.

There was really only one option left - the couch - and both ends were already occupied. Our friend Danny (Kyle’s replacement, sorry Kyle) was in the process of melting into the corner closest to Jake, his eyes glassy and already tinged pink when he looked up at me. Only his eyebrows lifted in greeting before he mirrored Sam’s offer to sit next to him, tapping the cushion beside him.

This is fine, totally normal! Danny was Sam’s other half. Well, his other male half. I guess we were in thirds. A trio.

I accepted the offering, stepping around the coffee table, scarred with years worth of “art” - drawings and carvings, a few discreet dirty words etched into the surface in between - to drop to the middle of the couch. One of Sam’s brows tipped up when I met his eyes again, his expression asking, “Dude, what gives?”

“Hey, you’re here!” He noticed me, finally. Silvery smoke crept from between his lips as he grinned, and I watched transfixed when they pursed together and he blew a cloud toward the ceiling. My stare was broken when he leaned across the table and passed the joint to an impatient Sam, but to the delight of the butterflies going nuts in the pit of my stomach, he leaned back into the cushions and threw an arm over the back of the couch behind me. EEEEP!

“Hey-“ It was a humiliating and unsexy croak, and I quickly cleared my throat and tried again. “Hey, Josh. Hi.”

His long hair was pulled back, his entire face available for my viewing pleasure. Things were going perfectly.

I joined the rotation, the weed easing the flutters caused by sitting so close to Josh, but amplifying the feeling that the other three were watching and wondering why I was acting so strange.

They were not. They were high.

Aside from the stray curious eyebrow from my BFF across the table, they actually acted like nothing was abnormal about my seating choice, even when I started to scooch imperceptibly to my left every time I adjusted the way I was sitting.

Pulled my legs up under me? Scooch.

Dropped them down so my sneakers met the cement? Scooch.

Crossed my left ankle over my right knee? Scooch.

It was totally subtle.

“I’m gonna grab a pop, you guys want anything?” Sam startled me out of a pleasant reverie as he jumped up from the floor, but my freaking knee was touching Josh’s knee! No I don’t want anything, I have everything I need right here!

It turned out Sam was a huge knee blocker. He gripped me by an elbow and peeled me from the couch as the others murmured at our retreating backs about needing Doritos. He pushed me out the side door and towards the house and had me in the kitchen before I could even tell him he was ruining everything!

Even through bleary, hooded eyes, his death glare was brutal.

“Saaammmmm, what are you doing?!” “What the hell do you think you’re doing, T?”

More glaring. He broke the glare-off first, jerking his head to the side to flick his hair out of his eyes and turning to open the refrigerator, but once his face was inside it, he called me out again.

“Why are you being so weird with Josh?”

I love him, I need him!

“Whaaa.. I don’t know what you mean. You’re just super high.” Yeah, I really thought that would work. Sue me!

Straightening to his full height (seriously, like two inches taller than me… maybe three), he spun to face me again. He actually looked down his nose at me.

“Do you like, like him? What the fuck, Tiny?” He whispered that last part, as if his parents were lurking around the corner waiting to bust him for cussing.

“Look, you wouldn’t understand Sam. I’m much older than y-“

“You’re not even an entire year older than me.”

“Eleven months is basically an entire ye-“

“That’s not the point!” That part was like whisper yelling. I swear it looked like he was yelling, but it sounded like he was whispering.

“Okay!” Yeah, I whisper yelled back. “Sammy, I like him… I’m sorry! I don’t even know when it happened but I woke up one day and I realized that he’s perfect! He’s funny and nice and he’s so… so… cute! Okay? He’s so cute I wanna die and I love him!”

Sam’s eyes were wide, as wide as they could be under the circumstances, and he stared at me like I’d grown another head. With a horn coming out of it.

“You love him. You realize how dumb you sound right now?”

Dumb? No no, this was serious. I pleaded with my best friend for forgiveness. And his help. “Sam… please. Don’t be mad at me, I- I don’t know, I can’t help it! That’s just how I feel, and I want him to like me back!” That’s when it hit me, I needed a wingman for this plan.

“Can you help me get him to like me back?” I gave him my best puppy dog eyes, bottom lip stuck out and everything. As if that had ever worked in the four years we’d known each other so far.

“Fuck no.” His eyes moved side to side, looking for sneaky parents again I guessed. “Definitely not. Why do you have to like my brother, dude? That’s sick, it’s like incest or something!” He stomped his feet a little, and I couldn't help but think it made him look like a child. He was a child! This was serious, grown-up shit and I didn’t have time to play games.

“Ugh, if you’re not gonna help me then at least get out of my way.” I pushed past him and headed back out of the house and into the garage. Not much had changed when I got there, but Danny must have left while Sam and I were gone. The entire couch was empty aside from Josh, still sitting cross-legged in one corner. Damn it!

I flopped into the spot that Danny had vacated, just as Sam hustled back in through the side door, arms full of sodas and bags of chips. My cheeks were warm when I looked up at him, and then they burst into flames.

“Scoot over T, I like the corner spot.”

He’s helping me! Oh shit, he’s helping me. Move your ass!!

Fumbling for a grip on reality, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Sam’s. He lifted his brows and tilted his head in Josh’s direction. I suddenly remembered why I wasted all my days with this kid - he’s my ride or die. And now I owed him, big.

As soon as I stood to shift to the center of the couch, Sam’s elbow snuck out and made contact with my shoulder. My feet tangled with each other and, balance lost, I tumbled. Right into the arms of my beloved.

Okay okay, that’s a reach. But I did land on him. Sam had nudged me just hard enough to send me toward the opposite end of the couch and I landed ass-first on Josh’s leg, still folded and crossed under the other.

Through the mortification, I heard Sam’s distinct snickering as he placed himself gently on the other cushion. Then, through the popping of soda tabs and crinkling of chip bags, I heard the sweetest, most beautiful sound ever.

“If you wanted to sit next to me so bad, you could’ve just done it, T.”

I quite literally had to extract myself from his lap, but Josh just giggled as I clumsily moved off of him. To my extreme delight and disbelief, I didn’t make it too far. He slung an arm over my shoulders and kept me at his side. We are sharing a cushion. ALERT ALERT - OUR THIGHS ARE TOUCHING.

His hand wrapped around the ball of my shoulder and squeezed. Not once, but twice. I felt like I was gonna puke, but I risked turning my head and meeting his eyes. And he. Fucking. Smiled.

“You good, Tiny?” I should’ve laughed. We were the same exact height, I could be calling him tiny. But this wasn’t funny, because he was still smiling at me and he’d lowered his voice to speak directly to me and I felt it all the way to my toes. Somehow I managed to smile back.

“I’m good.” I was soooooo good. Even when Sam shoved a bag of Doritos at me, I was good. Because Josh reached into it and pulled a few out for himself. He reached into my lap! For chips!

Risking a sideways glance at Sam, I found him eyeballing Josh’s hand that was still resting lightly over my shoulder. I gave him my best “holy shit holy shit holy shit” expression, to which he rolled his eyes and shrugged. Before turning my attention back to the love of my life, my gaze drifted past Sam and landed on Jake. Oh, he was still here? Hadn’t noticed.

Except I was noticing. And he didn’t look pleased. He locked in and held eye contact, absolutely scowling. He was pissed. At me?! I must not have hidden my surprise well, because after a few more tense seconds of the longest eye contact we’d ever held, he blinked away and flung the guitar he’d been cradling all night over the arm of the chair.

Look, he didn’t throw it or anything. The stand was right there and the guitar landed safely, if not a little roughly, in its place. But then he tossed the open bag of Lay’s to the table, swung his legs around and stood. He caught my eye again, his hair doing that flippy thing over his eyebrows as he shook his head.

“Whatever. Night, guys.”

Just like that, he was gone. Two down, one to go. GTFO Sam!!

The next hour or so passed in a blur. Sam kept hitting the joint long after Josh and I had turned it down, and by the time he’d deposited the roach in the ashtray he could barely keep his eyes open. I watched his head fall back into the cushion and pounced on my opportunity.

Leaning away from Josh’s loving embrace (shut up, I was in heaven okay?), I slapped Sam’s chest with the back of my hand.

“Sammy… Sam!” He snorted as his head whipped up, swiped a hand over his mouth and looked at me. I was still leaning toward him, my back to Josh, and I spoke to him telepathically. Or with my eyebrows.

Get out of here right now or so help me God.

He answered verbally, like he couldn't even read my mind. “Huh?”

I withheld growling at him like an animal. “Why don’t you go to bed, man? You’re toast.” Go. NOW.

His eyes tried to focus on me, they really did, before he shook his head and tried again. “Shit. Yeah, okay. Are you… do you wanna stay on the couch tonight?”

Yes. This couch. Allll night long.

“Yeah yeah, I will, but I’m not tired yet. I’m just gonna, um, chill here for a little bit longer?” At that, I turned my head and risked a glance at Josh. Thank God I did, because he was already looking at me, and he grinned. EEEEEEEP!

“I’m not tired yet either, we can listen to some music.” I doubted I could hear music at that point, not over the blood rushing in my ears. But then, oh then, he looked up at Sam and said, “I’ll make sure she makes it to bed, I mean, the couch. Downstairs, I’ll make sure she makes it downstairs.”

“Fine, whatever.” See? He’s my ride or die. “See you in the morning, T.” And then he was gone.

We were alone.

HELLO? WE. WERE. ALONE.

Sure, I’d been alone with Josh before. I’d been hanging around his house nearly every day for four years, we’d definitely been left in a room together at some point. But not while his arm was draped loosely over my shoulders, not while our legs were touching, not while my heart was about to beat out of my chest.

But now that we were alone, I had no effing clue what to do. Then Josh stood up. My heart dropped into my stomach, but he walked over to the stacked milk crates that housed a small part of their family’s record collection and crouched to skim through them. He found something he liked and set it on the turntable, the needle bringing the crackling beginnings of a song to life.

When he turned back to face me, I thought for sure he’d sit in that ugly wingback chair. Or at the other end of the couch. Instead, he circled the coffee table and sat on the opposite side of me than he had been all night. And now his other thigh was touching mine!

I’m pretty sure my throat closed up because I had to clear it rather unattractively to speak. “What, uhh, ha, um, who is this?”

Sexy, right?

Didn’t matter, his smile took shape right in front of my eyes and all I could see was the little barely-there gap between his front teeth. I wanted to know what it felt like on my tongue. Would I be able to tell? If I kissed him right now, would I be able to feel that little discrepancy in the perfection of his teeth? I lifted my eyes to meet his and realized he’d spoken, and I’d missed it.

“Sorry, uhh… what?”

His head tilted and his eyes searched my face for… something. “Wilson Pickett. Sammy hasn’t played this for you?”

Sammy? Who is Sammy? Ohhh right, best friend.

“Um, no, I don’t think so. But maybe? There’s always music on, he’s probably played this.”

He just nodded, at first in response to my rambling and then in time with the song. When it ended, he just… looked at me, for what felt like forever but was probably only a few seconds. I was once again hyper aware of my underarms. Sweating. So I slipped the flannel off of my shoulders, keeping my forearms in the sleeves but giving me some airflow to the pits. Josh’s eyes dropped from mine and landed on the now exposed skin. Yes! Guys like shoulders!

The realization slapped me in the face, so I grabbed it and ran. I slid my arms out of the sleeves and tossed the flannel past Josh and onto the chair, thanking God that I’d worn a tank top. He gulped. Like a full-blown gulp.

Omg I’m making him nervous!!

Confidence boosted, I shifted even closer to him, until our bodies were tucked tight against each other. I’d never been this close to him, aside from that one time we’d been crammed in the back seat of his mom’s car with Sam and Jake, their sister sitting pretty in the front seat. But then I had been a scrawny kid, only thirteen (and a half) and he had been a really weird fifteen year old, not yet having grown into his features. I hadn’t wanted any part of his stinky, sweaty, farty body near me and I’d squeezed myself so close to Sam I was practically in his lap.

But on this night? This Saturday after my sixteenth birthday, I was no longer a kid. And he was no longer weird. He was beautiful, and my face was really close to his face. I could feel it when he whispered, his breath actually touched my lips.

“Wha- what are you doing, T?”

He was looking at my lips, waiting for my answer. I licked them because I was freaking parched, but he watched. And I watched him gulp, again! My tongue slipped out and wet my bottom lip a second time.

“Josh?” Whispering is sexy, it’s seductive. I was sure of it. He did it back, just my name - my actual name - lilting at the end in question.

“Do you.. wanna… kiss me?” I leaned over him, placed my left hand on his chest and felt his collar bone under my fingertips through his t-shirt. Holy shit holy shit holy shit.

I saw the panic widen his eyes, then they darted around me, looking at anything but me. It was really so cute how nervous he was. He was eighteen, for Christ sake! And I was making him nervous!

“Kiss me, Josh.” His eyes snapped back to mine, slipped down to my mouth again and then back.

And then. He. Freaking. KISSED. ME.

In a split second that felt like hours, I watched his eyes close and perfect lips pucker. My eyes stayed open at first, I didn’t want to miss this.

Leaning further into him, I settled my lips against his and slid the hand on his chest up the side of his neck (his pulse was out of control, by the way), and then cradled his jaw. My fingertips were in his hair right behind his ear. I pulled his face closer and ramped up the pressure of our lips pushed together.

He put his hands on me. I swear to God, he really did! One reached for my hip and the other came up to rest against my cheek. My eyes fluttered closed and my body took over. Not a coherent thought left in my pretty little head. Especially when our mouths separated, and then he pushed them back together.

With a mind of its own, my other hand came up and gripped his shoulder. Then my leg swung over his lap and I. Was. Straddling. Him.

It wasn’t my fault. My brain had gone haywire, my body moving on instinct. I’d quite literally never done this before. I’d kissed plenty, I even kissed Sam once (barf), but this felt different. This felt mature. Probably a little more mature than I was ready for but like I said, it was not my fault.

A lot of blame fell on Josh, a whole mountain of it, when the hand on my cheek dropped to my other hip and gripped hard, pulled me flush against him. And his lips coerced my mouth open. And the tip of his tongue swept out and touched mine.

Oh, I was in way over my head. But this was Josh, the boy I loved, and he was loving me back!

A sound I’d never made before crept up my throat. Instant embarrassment heated my already toasty cheeks and climbed up my neck, but then. Ohh then. The same freaking sound came from somewhere below me. Josh groaned. Because of me.

My animal brain completely took over. My tongue was already sliding against his, and my hips decided to follow suit. With zero finesse, they rocked into his. Just once.

He broke the kiss and dropped his head back to the cushion.

No no noooooo, you like this! You love it!

I could feel the proof that he loved it. I was sitting on it. I could see it, his chest heaving.

So I leaned forward and pressed a kiss against his throat.

“Stop, T.” His hands fell limp and landed on my thighs. My brain scrambled to catch up. Stop? Go! His fingers spread across the denim on my legs. Go go go!

But then he pushed. I leaned back to see his face, find an explanation, but his eyes were still closed as he pushed me off of his lap. Helped me swing my leg back over. Kept his hands on my thighs until they were planted back on the couch and closed. Firmly. Then they left me, and I felt their absence like a knife to the heart.

“I… wow, okay.” It’s the best I could manage to formulate, but my brain was running in overdrive.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have let that happen.” He rubbed his palms, the ones that were just holding me, over his knees then leaned forward and dropped his forehead into them.

Okay, maybe he just thinks we were moving too fast!

“Josh, it’s okay. I want this! We can just kiss, I’ll stay over here and you stay there and-“

It was so quiet, but it stopped my words on my tongue and slammed my lips shut.

“I can’t.”

Okay. Okay. Okay.

It’s because Sam’s my best friend.

It’s because I’m too young.

He thinks I’m still a kid.

Like his kid sister.

Fuck!

Anger rolled through me. “Why? Is it Sam?”

He scrubbed his hands over his face and turned to me. Looked at me, finally.

“No, I-“

“Am I too young for you? You’re not that much older, Josh and we’ve known eachother forever, it’s not that big of a de-“

“It’s not that, Tiny.” His eyes closed again.

“Don’t call me that!” He’d offended me, I was o-ffen-ded. “I’m not a little fucking kid!” Okay, I was pissed! I was a grown ass woman!

(I wasn’t.)

Both of his hands reached forward and he pulled mine towards him. Held them there. Opened his eyes. Was he gonna cry? Why are his eyes wet?! Shit, am I crying?

“It’s not you, T. It’s me.” Oh please. “I- well, I um, I like someone else.”

Back to angry! “What?! Then why the hell were you kissing me?!” What a scoundrel, what a snake, what an asshole!

“It’s not like that-“

“What the fuck is it like?!” I didn’t normally curse much at that age, but when I tell you I was mad? Hurt? Embarrassed? I couldn’t stop it from happening.

Shit, his eyes were definitely wet.

“It’s a guy.”

He whispered it, and it wasn’t sexy, it wasn’t seductive. It was sad. Scared. Defeated. I snatched my hands out of his.

There was a long silence. Uncomfortable. He stared at his empty hands and we processed.

“What did you say?” His posture shrank, like he was trying to disappear. “Josh, it’s okay. Talk to me.” It was my turn to take his hands. I held them in mine and squeezed once.

“I’m so sorry, I- I just don’t like you. Like that.” His eyes found their way back to my face, “I really like him.” They went wide and I’m pretty sure mine did too. He seemed shocked that he’d said it out loud, right before panic spread across his features again.

“Please don’t say anything, T. I haven’t- no one knows that. No one. Please.”

“No, I would never Josh, I swear. I just… why were you, ya know, kissing me?” Touching me, pulling me in. He pulled his hands away from me this time.

“I just wanted to feel normal. I wanted them to think I was normal.”

I couldn’t help it. I threw my arms around him and held on tight.

“You are.” Normal and beautiful and perfect. And not mine. A heavy sigh slipped from between my lips. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”

He stayed silent, so I did too. I kept my arms around him for a few minutes before finally letting them slip free, rubbing a palm between his shoulder blades.

“I guess I should go… Are you okay?” Look, I was not okay, but it didn’t seem like that was important anymore.

“Aren’t you gonna stay downstairs tonight?”

Definitely not. “No, I think I should go home…” Probably won’t show my face over here for a goooood long time.

“Let me walk with you.”

I did. He walked on the other side of my bike while I walked it by the handlebars. When we reached my driveway, I left the bike propped against the side of the garage and turned to him. And just like in my dreams, he moved close and pecked a kiss into my cheek. Then he pulled me into his arms.

“I’m really sorry… I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings, ya know?” His voice was soft and low, his breath tickling my ear. It should’ve been a literal dream come true.

A half step back and I rubbed my hands up and down his arms. “It’s really fine. I’m sorry for…” Humiliating us both? “Everything.”

“You don’t have to apologize. I mean it,” he emphasized when I shook my head. “Just… please don’t say anything. Even to Sam. Especially to Sam. I’m gonna tell them all when I’m ready, I think.”

Huge, massive sigh. “I won’t. I promise.”

And I never did. Not really.

#greta van fleet #gvf #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fleet fic #gvf fic #sam kiszka fic #sam kiszka fanfiction #sam gvf #sam kiszka #jake kiszka #jake kiszka fan fiction #jake gvf #jake kiszka fic #josh kiszka #josh kiszka fanfic #josh kiszka fic #josh gvf #greta van fleet fanfiction

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am-i-the-asshole-official · 2 months

Note

AITA for not letting someone stream a movie in a server?

So I (27M) moderate a server for fans of a video game who wanna RP together. It's not small but I'd call it cozy, and there are several mods and it's understood things have to stay like... Pg-13/T. We don't mind if you say fuck but we're also in a fandom that appeals to minors.

There are minors in the server. Minors are welcome to join the server.

This is simply context for what follows.

A member (32F) joins the server, and broke a rule here or there, and I am the mod that was most active so I was the one that usually corrected her. It was nothing personal, she just broke minor rules and needed to be corrected, or asked for something the mod team disagreed with, and I answered the question.

One day, this member comes in and announces she will be streaming a movie in the server soon for anyone that wants to join. Specifically she's going to stream Everything, Everywhere, All at Once.

So, on one hand, this might be our bad. We didn't really have streaming rules? Because no one really streamed. Ever. Server's years old and it's only ever been a few art streams.

So the mods quickly huddle up and make up rules about what we do and don't allow to be streamed, and all agree that streaming R rated movies in a server with kids under 18 is a bad idea.

I let her know we have to ask she doesn't stream this movie in here, and announce to the server our new streaming rules. (Which are "no streaming games above T, no movies about PG-13. If you think it's fine anyway, please ask us for permission first instead. If you want to watch something someone is streaming but might be triggered, please ask either the person streaming or consult 'Does the Dog Die'")

She immediately write a several paragraph response informing me that I'm the reason they're leaving the server, that she's tried to extend the olive branch to me several times but every time I've been condescending and rude. But she was having a bad day and wanted to stream this beautiful movie and share it with people but because of me she can't so she's leaving.

I legitimately don't know what events she's even talking about? I try to sound professional, which I guess could make me sound aloof but I also run all my responses past the other mods??? Who all okayed them? None of this happened in DMs, it's not like I could've been hiding it from them or gone rogue to do this, the other mods were aware of any rebukes given to this person, and I honestly don't know what olive branches she thinks she offered. Unless she means that time she asked us if she could be made a mod?

I'm just baffled, and a bit worried because I try to be fair to all members in the group and honestly, we just didn't want a movie with like, rather explicit stuff shown in our server? Where minors might see it? But I guess I really hurt her feelings and made her feel like she had to leave, AITA?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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astoryisaloveaffair · 1 year

Text

Fix You - Chapter 14: Enjoy the Silence

Gif by @hunterschafer

Pairing: Frankie “Catfish” Morales x Fem!Reader

Fic Masterlist

Read on A03

Spotify Playlist

»»———————►

Chapter Summary: The final heat...

Word Count: 7k

Rating: R

Chapter Warnings: Cussing, violence. I will not be warning anything else due to spoiling the story. We are all grown. You can stop reading when you want to.

A/N: Has it really been a year? I wish I had a better excuse than "I haven't been doing great." But that's what it is. I've had huge changes in my life. New job, new career, new goals, and a greater sense of self-worth. I'm feeling a lot better. But my new schedule is busy! Hopefully you can forgive me for such a long cliffhanger.

Finally, a heads up. This has been the arc I have been working towards for almost two years, and I'm not going to waver. Just stick with me like you have been. It’ll be worth it.

I also did the absolute most and made a specific playlist just for this chapter here.

Forever thank you to everyone who commented, reblogged, shared, boosted, made content for, and supported me. It meant a lot and definitely kept this fic in the back of my mind. As always, most love to my girl @musings-of-a-rose who has tolerated me being a shitty friend for a whole ass year, and always talking things through with me in life and in this fic. Cheers.

Suggested Songs: Depeche Mode "Enjoy the Silence", Fitz and the Tantrums: "Out of My League", Lizzo "Truth Hurts", Michael Kiwanuka "Cold Little Heart", Cigarettes After Sex "Cry", Guster "Demons"

Frankie and you decided to break your apartment lease starting October 1st. Fall term started on the 30th of August, and you wanted time to settle into your schedule before planning a move. You spent almost all your time at his house anyway, only stopping back at your apartment for more clothes. Frankie had already given you a row of drawers to keep your things in.

You’d honestly never been happier, both on cloud 9 and it never faded, you were incredibly excited to begin this new start with Frankie and Gabi. It all seemed to have happened so fast. It had only been five months, you hadn’t even told your family about him yet, mostly to avoid comments on the age gap.

You were relieved the hiccup in your relationship settled, you didn’t like feeling unsure or that someone resented you. When you started feeling secure again, you clung to it. That sparkle of joy was hard to keep in check.

You picked your Fall schedule out together and spent the remaining weeks of summer basking in your relationship, playing with Gabi, going out with the guys, and constant fucking. But your most favorite thing was still lying on the couch with Frankie, teasing each other and watching bad TV.

“This is simultaneously the best and worst movie I have ever seen in my life. I don’t understand how they achieved this.”

Frankie shrugs, reaching to your lap for the giant bowl of popcorn, his eyes still glazed to the TV where Mad Max: Fury Road is playing. “I dunno. Who cares? It’s cars and chaos!”

“And Tom Hardy. And Charlize Theron.”

He pinches you on the waist, acting threatened by your thirst just to tease you. “You ever been to a demo derby? This kind of reminds me of it.”

You sit up from where your back is resting against his chest. “Um, no? Isn’t that kind of…for rednecks?”

He laughs, his eyes crinkling. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but Benny and Will are rednecks. But no, it’s for anyone who likes cars crashing into each other. There’s actually one at the fair every year. We always go to it. You should come.”

“I’m not going to a demo derby.”

“Aw come on! It’ll be fun! First time for Gabi too, and there’s rides and games and funnel cake and fried oreos—” He pauses as you hold your hand up to silence him.

“I’ll go. You had me at ‘funnel cake.’”

The fair is packed. The final hurrah of the summer before kids return to school and university students dive back into their studies. The derby started at 8 PM sharp, you, Dali, and the boys got there plenty early to look around a bit, get some food, and find seats.

You forgo any typical entree and go right for the funnel cake, heaping fruit and extra powdered sugar on it until the plate is a big mound of sweet. The guys had talked you up on this for days, Benny wouldn’t shut up about it, and you found yourself excited to watch. Your legs bounce impatiently as you scarf down your cake, breaking off pieces here and there to feed to Gabi and your boys.

The seats were bleachers, hard metal planks that hurt your butt and back and caught vibration from every footfall, but Pope sat behind you so you could lean back against his legs to be more comfortable.

It’s a long wait. The bleachers eventually fill up, you certainly had the best seat in the house (thank you Will), and you could see the hoods up of participating cars behind the commentator podium. The air is musty, the odor of wet dirt from a quick August shower earlier that day.

When the first round of vehicles start revving their engines, Frankie pulls some earphones for Gabi and secures it to her head. Once he’s sure she’s comfortable, he quickly runs you through the basic rules. “So there’s several ‘heats’, and which heat you’re in is based on how many cylinders the car has. Last car moving is the winner, but you can’t just avoid the other cars the whole time. No continuing if your car starts sparking from the engine, no hitting the driver side door, and no hitting anyone who’s already out.”

“Wait, cars catch on fire in this?”

Before Frankie can answer, the announcer calls out the first heat and you almost choke at the state of the cars coming out. They were completely dilapidated, windows punched out and hood frames reinforced with extra steel. It looked like each entry had about 5 different parts all from different cars, horrendous paint jobs, and one of them even had a stuffed dinosaur duct taped to the hood. Some of them looked like they had already been hit by cars, parts hanging off and bumpers pressing in on itself. None of these cars would last at all. There’s no way...

The rink was surrounded by giant cement cinder blocks creating a large “rink” type area. The contestants lined the front bumpers of their vehicles up parallel to each other at the barricades separating the cars from the bleachers, alternately revving their engines during the countdown.

“Okay, so, usually we all pick the car we think is going to win.” Benny says. You lean forward to look over the assortment of jacked up cars for this heat, eventually settling on an old Toyota Corolla painted a matte black. Benny chooses the dino car, Will chooses a Dodge Stealth with it’s headlights hanging outside the socket, Dali and Pope argue over a Ford Taurus whose back end was already smashed into the back seats, and Frankie chooses a Chevy Impala, which you immediately regret not taking because it has such a long front and back end. Lots of room for smashing and being able to keep going.

Gabi jumps up and down on Frankie’s lap as he points out things to her over the sounds of engines and a countdown, and then the cars are off off, engines roaring and dirt kicking up as they all reverse at full speed, several of them crunching up in the middle while others circle around the perimeters.

It soon becomes clear to you that there is no rhyme or reason to which car makes it and which doesn’t. Pope’s Taurus didn’t even start and is eliminated after 2 minutes of no movement, and whoever is driving the boxy piece of shit Honda Accord that Dali had to select is a fucking maniac, winding and weaving at full speed backwards, hitting whoever gets in their way. Her choice is the winner of that heat.

Most of them are driving backwards, and Will tells you it’s because they are trying to protect the engine. You deflate in your seat a little in disappointment, but he assures you that as the heat winds down and there's fewer cars taking up the space, the drivers and announcer will get impatient and they will hit each other head to head.

You’re shocked at how much you enjoy it. At one point a car hits the passenger side door of another so hard that it is pushed up and onto the barricade wall from the inertia, hanging from an angle as the crowd jeers and shrieks in excitement. One car flips over completely, another’s engine bursts into flames and the crowd all starts crying out caution because the announcer can’t see it. You’ve never seen anything like it before and there was so much fire you were sure the whole thing would blow up, but the driver slid out the glassless driver’s side window like it was no big deal and walked it off.

There is something satisfying about two cars hitting each other at full speed, the bodies of them crunching, wheels hanging off axles, bumpers being dragged behind and run over by other drivers, cars with mangled pieces becoming stuck to each other so they can’t separate until another car hits them, tires completely gone and cars only moving on its hubs. It’s chaos in a safe format, a way to experience destruction and violence in a way that feels good and unharmful.

Gabi has never been so amazed in her entire life, her mouth hangs open and she wriggles against her dad to see everything, laughing every time a collision happens. The audience oohs and ahhs and boos and screams and cheers and teases, you and your friends join the clamor as you have your own mini competition with yourselves.

Giant fork tractors come into the arena area to lift the cars that can’t move anymore, some guys are able to get theirs back up and running, driving them to the sides to shape up for the final Battle Royale.

The final heat is fucking wild. All the cars that were already battered enough before they even began to come back out, returned to do another round for the final winner. With all the action you’d barely even noticed that contestants whose cars were still driveable had spent the remaining heats beyond the barricades hammering and reforming their vehicles enough to compete again.

And at the end, the winner of all faces the crowd, pulls off their helmet to reveal a thick curly mass of long hair. The winner is a woman. You and Dali cheer until your throats hurt.

It’s over too soon. There’s a mass exodus the instant the derby is over, the packed stadium standing and pouring down the stairs pressing so tight that you and your boys decide to hang back until it thins out. You lead the way, Frankie’s large and warm hand grazing your waist as you slowly move down the stairs and back out into the fair, turning to wait for the rest of your friends to make it out.

“What next?” Benny says when you are all reunited. “More food? Games? Rides?”

“I’m not eating more before getting on rides, let's do those now.” Says Frankie, grumbling as he hears you tease him with Benny. He whips his head around to glare at you. “Just you wait until you get older and start getting sick on rides, I cannot wait to make fun of you back.”

The wait for the ride tickets is long, but it leaves plenty of time for the group to decide how many are needed. Who is riding what, who isn’t, what pairings and who will watch Gabi on the rides she can’t do. You’re surprised when Will and Pope back out of the Zipper, leaving you and Benny as a pairing for that.

Riding it was a mistake. The ride is basically a giant airborne conveyer belt with completely enclosed containers for people hanging off it that were 360 degree capable. And it lasted FOREVER. You lose some of your funnel cake behind the ride out of sight, threatening violence on Benny if he outs you to the others.

But it didn’t stop you from riding The Freak Out immediately afterwards, a rotating pendulum swing that made you feel like you were going to be catapulted out of your seat. The ride seated 4 groups of 4 so that in between squeezing your eyes shut, you could catch watery glimpses of Benny red-faced and cackling hysterically, Will’s chants of “ohfuckohfuckohfuckOHfuckOHFUCKOHSHIT FUCCCCCCK!”, and Frankie looking…absolutely fine. It was almost disturbing really, he was calm and collected, the only hint that this might have been something other than a nice drive in his truck was his giant smile, the tears leaking from his squinted eyes, his chocolate curls whipping around in the breeze as his hands clutch his hat in his lap with a steel grip.

“How the fuck were you so calm?!” You gasp as you stumble off the rickety landing platform. You hadn’t moved yet you felt like you had run a mile, your heart was beating so fast from the adrenaline it almost felt like you might have a heart attack.

Frankie shrugs. “Feels like a copter in a bad air current.”

You simply stare blinking.

“No, he’s always like this. Like this one time, we were flying in a helo over the Andes mountains, and—”

A sharp stare from Frankie that he tries to hide from you makes Benny backpedal.

“Uhhh yea we were flying over some mountains and the air current was wild but we got over the mountains just fine and everything was fine and we were fine.”

Your heart seizes in your chest, that same feeling of not being told something creeping up. You hate it. You push it back down, swallowing heavily to center yourself. “So I assume you were fine.”

“Yea. Yea. Cat is a good pilot.”

You hum, the panic still not leaving your chest.

Frankie grabs your hand as you walk. “It happened a lot, I just got used to it.”

“It happened a lot?”

“Yea. I mean, sometimes we were flying through shit climates, sometimes even pursued. Doesn’t make for a smooth ride. I’m just used to it. They always scream bloody murder though.” Frankie smiles softly.

“Oh.”

You go silent, continuing to walk to the next destination: the scrambler. You had already established you would not ride and Dali wanted some funnel cake herself, so she heads off while you stay off to the side with Gabi to watch, lost in your own thoughts.

“Just don’t fucking talk about that, none of that. That never happened.” Frankie seethes to Benny as they are strapped into the ride.

“Sorry dude, I can’t read your thoughts. I figured she knew.”

“No. I don’t want her to know. No one else needs to know about it.”

Benny falls silent, looking to Will beside him. Pope lowers his head, choosing to say nothing.

“Catfish…you have to.” Says Will.

“No the fuck I don’t. I never want her to know. If she knows…she’ll actually see ‘real me’. ‘Fuck-up me.” And I don't want her to yet. I don’t want to lose her yet. I don’t want her to be afraid. Stop fucking looking at me like that.”

They stop. But only because the ride starts, and they can’t see anything other than blurs.

You hate this feeling, this fluttering in your stomach like something is wrong but your heart knows, it knows it’s fine. It has to be. Your mind is spinning, trying to combat the rising anxiety clenching in your chest, doing gymnastics to find reasons to not be alarmed.

He’s not lying about something. He’s not. …He promised….I’m just overthinking this…

You can’t. You refuse to even think about it. Confronting the terrible possibility that you might’ve done it again, you might have thrown yourself all in to someone only to—-no.

He’s not lying. He’s not. …He promised….he’s different. I’m just overthinking this…

You can feel butterflies bubbling in your stomach and you feel like you might throw up. Fucking men. You huff in frustration and try to distract yourself with your surroundings, watching people on rides, sharing funnel cake. Your eyes scan over two men staring at you silently by a skewered chicken cart and in your current mood it makes you furious. “What the fuck are you staring at?!” You growl at them. They say nothing and slowly walk away, disappearing into the crowd. Fucking. Men.

You try not to let your emotions show. You sit back while Gabi goes on some rides for her age, using the time to rehydrate and calm yourself down. Living through Gabi’s joy helps.. She’s having a blast, choosing a different person to pair with for each time ride. Pope in the Wacky House, the Helicopters with her dad, Benny on the mini Viking ship. Once you feel better you join in to play bumper cars (Will and Gabi win) and ride the high-rise swings with her seated in the cool metal chair next to you, Benny singing along to the ambient speakers playing “Out of My League” so loud eventually all the other teens on the ride join in.You enjoy the mini coaster more than you thought you would considering it’s for kids Gabi’s age, you and Dali are the only others who can fit in the seats, no matter how hard Benny tried. It was easy to quickly forget.

After the coaster, Gabi begins to slow down, so you hit the fried oreo stand, paying for several batches despite protestation and alternately feeding everyone as the group slowly walks through the agricultural parts of the fair. It’s calmer here, the air warm and quiet. The pathway is less crowded so Gabi is able to frolic around on the walkway in front of you safely.

You walk through every barn, stopping to pet every animal. She’s a natural with them. Completely fearless, not one flicker of apprehension as she approaches cows and horses that are easily 6 times her height, paying close attention to her dad in how to not spook them. Everyone finds the goats to be the favorite because of the sounds they make. Even more so when Frankie engages in a screaming contest back and forth with a bunch of them until someone shoos them out of the pavilion.

Soon, all the sugar Gabi consumed rears its ugly head in the rabbit barn, she throws a fit when Frankie won’t let her get a pet rabbit and you only just catch her upper arm in time to keep her from collapsing on the filthy barn floor. You’re surprised she held out so long. Even you were crashing and getting tired. Also, the rabbits were ridiculously cute.

“Listen Gabi, how about we ride the ferris wheel? Would you like that?” You kneel before her, swiping the tears off her cheeks as she catches her breath. “It goes really high! Higher than the swings!” She nods, sniffing in a snot bubble as she takes your hand. The two of you lead the way, and as you get closer and closer, you start to regret your decision.

It’s much taller than the Freak Out. By more than 100 feet. It doesn’t look very stable either.

“Wait...this…this looks kind of high, don’t you think?” You turn to the guys, trying to conceal the wavering in your voice. You were scared enough at 70 feet. This was more like 200.

“Height requirement says she’s fine. And it’s enclosed, goes really slow. Come on.” Frankie takes you by the hand and your heart leaps into your throat, your feet skidding across the lawn as you try to pull back.

A light shove pushes you forward and you turn to glare at Will as he smirks down at you. “If you don’t go I’m never going to let you hear the end of it. Not after you called us “old and broken down.”

Well shit.

“Fine.”

You’re shaking when it’s your turn, the group mad dashing to three cars next to each other so you could talk throughout. Benny pairs with Pope, Gabi is vibrating with excitement as she’s put into a carriage by Will and Dali, and Frankie is beaming as he motions you towards the left car. He pats your butt as you gingerly step in, waiting until you’re seated before joining you and taking your hand.

“Babe…are you okay?”

You swallow, grateful it’s dark enough he can’t see you trembling. “Yep. I’m good.”

He leans forward in his seat, the glowing phosphorescence of the lights of the ride and around the fair bathing him halfway in a multicolored glow. tThe colors and shadows fold into the angles of his face like rainbow chiaroscuro, an angular stained glass window. He takes your hand again, yours is swallowed in his palm and you close your eyes as he rubs his thumb across the top. The dark beat of Depeche Mode pounds against your chest and echoes in your ears and you briefly imagine this is what it must feel like to drop acid.

“Your hands are really sweaty…and you’re breathing really fast. Are you sure you’re okay? Hey…” He squeezes your palm and you open your eyes to meet his. “It’s okay if you’re scared. I won’t joke anymore about it, I’m sorry.”

You swallow. “It’s just really really high.”

Frankie watches the ride operator out of the corner of his eye passing their car as he makes sure everyone is safely locked in before tugging on your arm slightly. You slide forward minutely, he meets you more than halfway with his large limbs and rests his hands on your hips. You gasp as the ride jolts and begins rolling, lifting the cabs up in the air. His calloused fingertip pushes your head back up.

“How about I distract you.” He murmurs, shifting forward one inch more, tilting his neck as his soft pouty lips meet yours.

You close your eyes, trying to lose your self awareness into him and his mouth and the soft skin of his nose that bumps your cheek and tickles your nose with its little breaths.

The lift mechanism suddenly shudders, clunking over something and it feels like when you run over a squirrel in your car. You inhale sharply against Frankie’s lips as your cab jostles back and forth. Not much, but enough for you to slam yourself back against your seat and clutch the seat bottom as hard as you can. Your heart beats wildly and you imagine the ride breaking and dropping you on the ground to be crushed to death by this stupid fucking metal cab.

You feel pressure on your knees and look down, focusing hard to not see double from fear. Frankie cups both in his hands, thumbs lightly stroking the inside of your thighs. “It’s okay.” He reassures, squeezing your knees once more. “Probably an under-greased cog, it’s nothing. They test these things like 50 times a day.”

You simply stare, forcing yourself to nod.

“Close your eyes.”

You open your mouth to argue then close it and obey. You trust Frankie, and it can’t be any worse.

“Just focus on me. And…you hear the music? It’s called “Enjoy the Silence.” I was obsessed with this song when it came out. And can you hear Benny below us? I can hear Gabi laughing too. We’re all okay, you’re okay too.”

You bite your lips into your mouth, focusing on the song and Frankie’s husky voice. The meditative synth pop calms you, and the carefree voices of your friends below does help calm you, but you can’t slow down your heartbeat.

“I’m okay. Just too much adrenaline.”

The hands on your knees slide up your bare thighs and wrap around the bottoms of them. Frankie pulls you forward in your seat with a smirk. “I’m feeling a little amped up too.”

“Frankie.”

He doesn’t respond, his sole focus on your thighs as his hands slide up and up and up until he is just able to slip the tip of one of his fingers under one leg of your shorts. For some reason, it pisses you off.

“Frankie!” You hiss. “People could see us.”

“Nah…” He shushes you, his finger sliding lower.

You clamp your legs shut and push his hand back in his direction. “Frankie, I don’t want to right here.”

He sits up. “Oh.”

Suddenly you hear Benny’s voice from below. “Hello we are underneath you guys! I don’t want to hear any hooking up sounds!” He trolls, and you fully push Frankie back to his side, your cheeks burning in embarrassment.

It’s the first time you can remember that it’s ever been uncomfortably awkward between the two of you, and you’re not sure why. The silence seems so much more noticeable and weird against the clanking of the Ferris wheel gears and the chattering of random other people.

You’re not even looking at each other, you realize. When did that happen? Your neck cranes to the left as you gaze at the stars, and when you turn back towards Frankie, he is looking to the right and down at the fair.

“…Is everything okay?”

His eyes snap back to yours. “Yea? Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Cause I pushed you away, and…I dunno, you’re being weird..”

“Oh, I’m sorry, that’s not intentional. I’m not upset, c’mere.” He opens his arms wide to you, scooting on his bench so there’s enough room for you.

You hesitate. “Won’t it…won’t it throw off the balance?”

You feel ridiculous asking but he doesn’t laugh at you, just shakes his head slightly. “Nah, they wouldn’t be able to run this ride if people couldn’t sit on the same side.”

You balance awkwardly on the edge of your bench overanalyzing what exact moment during the track of the ride to launch onto his, but you overthink it and end up jostling the cab more than necessary. Frankie’s arms pull you into his side and you burrow your face in his neck as the cab continues to rock. The music fades from Depeche Mode to Lizzo to Lil’ Nas X (Will clearly enjoys that one) and then back to Lizzo, and you forget all about your uneasiness.

He was right. It did feel better being with him.

The ride does one more pass then rolls to a halt, letting off you with Frankie and Benny with Santiago. You hover at the exit for Will and Gabi, who have to wait for their cab to reach the platform before dismounting. Frankie takes your hand as you wait.

Gabby’s adrenaline rush runs out fast, and you spend the remainder of the fair eating more fried Oreos and playing games. Somehow you manage to beat them all at the water shooting game, which amps up the competitiveness to the point you’d rather just watch.

Which is how you end up at the “star” game.

“We’re so fucking good at this game, it pisses them off every time.” Laughs Benny, as he shoots the entire Star out perfectly with the gun that is specifically not given enough ammo to achieve this. You hop up on the far side of the counter to watch, noting the way each of you boys handles their weapon and the differences in each. Benny held his gun loosely, like he was relaxed and self assured. It almost seemed like you would be able to slap it out of his hands but you knew he still had an iron grip. Will was precise and, as you expected, “perfect form”. You could tell just from Pope’s posture change that he was the best shot on the team, you’d never seen him look so focused. Frankie held his with a tense white knuckle grip, the folding stock tucked against his shoulder joint. The tension carrying up his arms as his veins popped out in his forearms and biceps. He looked fucking good. And you wouldn’t consider yourself a “gun person.” In fact, you kind of hated them. But there just was something about a strong non-douchey man holding a rifle like that that activated you. Damn the patriarchy. Even Dali is a great shot, though not as good as the guys.

After a few rounds, the carnie finally stopped allowing your posse to keep playing, frustrated that somehow the rigging system didn’t work on your group. You lean back on your hands, your legs swinging against the wood counter, observing Benny arguing with the carnie with a smirk. Gabi is passed out in her stroller next to you as Frankie sidles up to you, feeding you a piece of Fried Reeses, then promptly kissing you so the taste floats between you.

He hums deeply, stepping closer to you til he’s between your legs. His hands rest low on the top of your thighs. “This ok?”

You smile. “Yes. More than okay. And I want more.”

Frankie beams and cups your face, his lips crashing into yours as he all but breathes you in. You tilt your head and poke his mouth with your tongue. He responds immediately and opens for you, meeting you halfway. You whine softly as his hands leave your cheeks and trail down your back, one hand sneaking a bit lower to discreetly cup your ass. You’ve just wound your legs around his hips and your arms around his neck when you hear a shrill voice cut through the din of the dwindling crowd.

“Are you fucking kidding me?”

Your heart slams to a halt so fast it hurts. You recognize that voice. And so does Frankie. Your heads both snap to the left as a disheveled looking Lex stands there with a bunch of her friends.

Frankie simply stares. She repeats herself. “Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me. The BABYSITTER? Are you fucking your BABYSITTER??? Oh Frankie…come on…how pathetic can you be? She’s like a child!”

You look at Frankie, receding into himself like a silent, terrified puppy. You’ve never seen him like this before, it unnerves you.

“Excuse me.” You snap back. “I am 28.”

She scoffs. I fucking knew something was going on with you two. And you’re doing this in front of my child?”

“Well, actually, Gabi is sleeping. At least she was, until you came ranting and raving.” You make eye contact with Pope, who reads your perfectly and starts steering Gabi’s stroller away so she can’t hear. “We made sure to be careful for her but why do you even care if we are fucking? You left him! You didn’t want him anymore, so it shouldn’t fucking matter who he dates.”

“He’s a drug addict and a pathological liar. He will NEVER change.”

“Yea? And you are a drunk, controlling, OCD bitch who can’t mind her own fucking business. He’s happy with me. I trust him. Unlike you. Bye.” You couldn’t help yourself, you just fucking hated her.

But that set her off. “Did he tell you why he was suspended?”

“Yes, he—“

“Did he tell you he was high, flying a family and he almost injured everyone from a sloppy landing? Did he tell you how he would take Gabi to his drug dealers house with him? How he went on a STUPID fucking mission with these idiots to burglarize a fucking drug lord completely off paper? That I deliberately asked him not to because we had a new baby? That he crashed their helicopter, dropped all their money and shot innocent villagers to keep them from getting it? At children and old men adn women? That because of that, Molly’s husband was shot in the fucking head by one of those people? And then they couldn’t even bring the money back so it was all for no reason?”

She’s shouting now, spittle flying from her inebriated lips. One of her friends tries to grab her arm but she shakes them off. People in the crowd are starting to stop and watch. “Then, THEN, he treated me like shit, saying horrible things to me just when he was mad, throwing things, scaring me!”

You feel like you can’t breathe, it’s too much information all at once. “...What? I don’t…No. no, he said he was on a delta mission–”

“Oh sweetheart,” She sneers condescendingly. “He was on a greed mission. He was retired from delta. This was like a year ago. They all wanted to get rich and robbed a fucking drug kingpin and Frankie shot innocent people to make sure he got alllllll that money. And because of that, his friend was shot and killed and his family has NO idea why. He lied to you.”

You turn to look at him, and all his friends. Everyone is silent, trying not to look up from the ground. Dali looks as bewildered as you. “Frankie…?” Tears water in your eyes and you feel like your heart is going to burst. You thought he told you it was an enlisted mission, but on top of everything else you just learned your thoughts are rushing so fast you can’t seem to remember specifics.

Frankie can’t even look at you. And that’s how you know.

It’s true…

“Lex. Stop.” Will’s Southern drawl cuts through the silence, the commanding officer in him coming out. “It’s over. This shit between you two has to stop. Enough.” His eyes shift to Lex’s friends, who are nodding and repeating the same thing. Lex finally allows them to pull her away muttering under her breath, sending one last glare in your direction.

The walk to the truck is silent. The ride home is a foggy blur. But the minute you step into the house, you crack.

“Frankie please tell me all this is not true.” You can’t read him at all, his face is completely blank as he moves around you towards Gabi’s bedroom to tuck her in.

So you wait.

His hackles are already up when he comes back out.

“Frankie–”

“Yea.”

“Well?”

“Yea. It’s true. We tried to steal money from one of Pope’s cases and it backfired and Tom got shot.”

“Because of you.”

His expression changes then, from blank nothing to vicious defensive anger. “Yea. Because of me. I fucked up the flight back and we crash landed and these fuckin’ villagers were gonna take the money! And it was an accident!”

“You ‘accidentally’ shot innocent people?”

He swallows, his jaw clenching and unclenching. You can see he’s doing mental gymnastics in order to avoid accountability.

“Did your finger slip?”

No answer.

“Frankie. Did your finger slip on the trigger?”

You already know the answer before he says it. And somehow it’s like he morphs into a Disney villain as he says it. “No. My finger didn’t slip.”

It burns, the sharp pain in your heart that makes you feel like it’s having a seizure or forgot how to pump blood or is pumping too much blood. “How many people did you kill.”

He shrugs. “I dunno.”

“You don’t know? How can you not know?! Frankie, you told me this was your job! You- you fucking lied to me! I-I I asked you if you were hiding anything else from me and you fucking lied to me!” You can’t help your voice raising, the tears spilling out of your eyes as you realize how fucking stupid you had been. Somewhere in the background you can hear Gabi has woken and is hysterically crying. Frankie, clearly having enough, turns back towards her room. But you continue, screaming at his back. “And that’s why Tom is dead? And his family doesn’t know why?!”

Frankie doesn’t answer and suddenly you are enraged. You run behind him and shove him forward. “I’m fucking talking to you! How can you just be so fucking blase about this??? And…all that other shit???—I feel like I don’t know you at all!”

He whirls around, that furious murderous face you ‘ve seen him give others is finally directed at you. “Because you don’t!” He screams back, his teeth nash and he shoves a finger one inch from your face. You flinch.

“Frankie, you’re scaring me.”

“I’m scaring you? Really? I thought this was your thing?”

You blink, confused, tears stalling on your face. “Don’t–” You plead softly.

“No, Lex is right. You’re a naive little girl who thinks she can save worthless idiots like me and live some fucking fantasy happily ever after. You won’t. You can’t. I’m unfixable.”

“How can you say that!! Frankie, I love you!

He scoffs. “I know you think you do. And I know you aren’t stupid, you told me you’ve done this before. But guess what sweetie, you aren’t better, you’re still doing it because you’re so fucking desperate for someone to love you. You don’t love me. You just want to feel like some fucking savior.”

“No! No… I didn’t, I don’t…you told me you loved me!”

“I wanted to fuck you.” His eyes are black as far, it’s like you don’t even recognize his face anymore. Lex was right. Lex was right. How…did you make all of it up in your head?

“You…You’re a fucking psycho…I feel like you emotionally manipulated me into caring for you only for you to play games with me! I specifically told you I couldn’t go through this again and you fucking did it anyway!”

“Hey, you kissed me. And you were fun to fuck, I will admit that. Let me do fucking anything. But we both knew this would happen. You set yourself up. I did shoot those villagers. I caused Tom’s death. I just wanted the fucking money. And I wanted to kill a bunch of kids too, when they got in my way. Fuckin’ teenagers and I told Pope to fucking shoot them all. And you know what else? We went back and got all that fucking money we hid, and we are fucking swimming in it. And I didn’t share a goddamn dime with my ex. You’re right. I am a psycho, so it’s a good thing this is over. Pack your shit and leave me alone.”

“Fuck you Frankie.”

You don’t wait another moment. You don’t need to be asked twice this time. You shove him aside on your way down the hallway, doing everything you can not to let the second round of tears fall. He’d seen enough.

You slam the door of the master bedroom behind you, frantically bouncing around different points in the room to grab all your shit. When did all of this stuff even get here? Anxiety bubbles up your chest until you can’t take it anymore and say fuck it, he can just throw anything else out. I have to get out of here.

You rush back down the hallway like a speed demon, praying to whatever that he won’t be standing in the hallway still. He isn’t. He’s sitting on his couch facing away from you, his head in his hands. You hate yourself for wanting to go comfort him. He’s right…I’m

not better…

You pause on the front doorway, struggling to say what needs to be said. Don’t be weak. Don’t keep letting people do this to you over and over. “Don’t contact me.I never want to see you again.” You say to his back.

He doesn’t move a muscle, or even look at you. “You won’t.”

You were able to make it halfway across the lawn before the grief fully hit. By the time you got to your car you were gasping like you were no longer able to breathe. And the minute your car door shut you broke, a wailing sob bursting from your lips as you bury your face in your palms.

Again. It happened again. And it’s just as crushing as every other time, except now it feels like you never healed from the others and now they are all piling on top of the other with this one as the final blow.

Why. WHY? Was there something wrong with you? Why were you never enough? Why couldn’t you make them stay? What did you do to keep having to go through this? It almost killed you last time, your eyes squeeze shut as you remember the look on your parents face as they watched you writhe on your bed screaming and crying hysterically from your latest breakup.

And why did you let yourself fall into it again, like you had never learned a goddamn thing. It was like you were masochistic, you told yourself you would never need someone again so badly, you wouldn’t enmesh yourself so fully that when it fell apart you could barely function. Your heart was once again ripped out of your chest and thrown to the floor, the cracks from before making this shattering into pieces so small you know it can’t get repaired again.

With a trembling whimper, you pull your face out of your hands and wipe your eyes, your nose. You realize you’re still sitting in Frankie’s driveway and you immediately look to see if he's at the window, concerned for you. He isn’t. You hate yourself for it but it breaks you even more.

It’s over.

You drive home mindlessly, your Spotify on shuffle and you aren’t aware of anything else. Just get home. Just get home and then you can cry, try to move on. But you already know you won’t.

You finally tire yourself out of tears, and you try to talk yourself up, turning up the music and chanting “it’s okay” to yourself.

It’s Coldplay. You always liked Coldplay.

When you're too in love to let it go

But if you never try, you'll never know

Just what you're worth

Lights will guide you home

And ignite your bones

And I will try to fix you…

Tears stream down your face

When you lose something you cannot replace

Tears stream down your face, and I–

You slam the on/off button so hard you actually cause the auxiliary cord to malfunction, so you rip it out of your phone and throw the damn thing on the passenger seat. You drive home in silence.

It’s dark in the lot when you arrive. You park in a spot along the side and towards the back because the lot is mostly full. The only light shining is the pole yards away, the bulb switches off and on opposite of the dark one right above you.

You feel numb. You can still feel sticky dried tears on your face, but your ability to utter a sound is gone. You close your eyes and try to compose yourself, simply sitting in your car in the dark. You’re avoiding going upstairs, you know. You’ve pretty much been living at Frankie’s. Walking through that door would make it feel too ‘official’. You cover your face with your hands and rub the tears tracks off your raw face, and are about to take a breath and gather your shit when a THWACKING sound bursts right in your left ear.

You startle with a yelp and look out your window, prepared to tell off whoever is messing with you, but freeze when you find yourself face to face with the barrel of a gun, the only thing separating you from it is the shitty window glass on your cheap car.

»»———————►

Post A/N: Don't yell at me lol

#fix you fic #frankie morales x you #frankie morales x reader #frankie morales x fem!reader #pedro pascal x you #pedro pascal x reader #pedro pascal characters #pedro pascal character fanfiction #pedro pascal x fem!reader #triple frontier fanfic

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bro-atz · 5 months

Text

the first blow

in which: jinsik has much to learn (wink wonk)

pair: idol!jinsik/gn!reader

word count: 3.2k

content: smut, oral sex, imma be real this is just one bj yes 3k words for one bj i'm insane let's move on, whimpering moaning groaning whining crying jinsik makes all the noises you can possibly imagine, completely consensual!

author's note: happy bday to the jinsik to my seeun @eyeryis we discussed this concept in great length so i hope this is what you were envisioning <3 also the title is so cringe but pls give me a break i just got nothin left in the tank

tag list: @eyeryis apply for the permanent taglist here! part one | part two

Jinsik was always a mess when it came to you. The first time the two of you ever met, he blurted out that he fell for you hard— love at first sight. But, you liked that he was flustered like that. You thought it was cute— you thought he was cute. Super cute. So, you took his confession, and the two of you started (secretly) dating. Well, the other members found out within two months because Jinsik wasn’t the best at keeping you a secret, but the fans didn’t know, nor did they need to.

You would usually hang out at their dorm whenever you knew most of them had schedules and Jinsik did not. Whoever also didn’t have a schedule would still leave and give you and Jinsik time to be alone peacefully. Very thoughtful of them, but they didn’t really need to worry about anything because you and Jinsik were vanilla— extremely vanilla. He didn’t even start kissing you passionately until six months into your relationship. You were taking things very slow, but you went at his pace because he was the one with the demanding career. You? Not so much.

One night, Jinsik told Minjae he wanted to watch a movie with you at the dorm, so Minjae took the rest of the members out to watch a movie but in a theater, leaving the entire dorm just for you and Jinsik. Minjae thought it was going to be a little more than just the movie, but you and Jinsik were simply going to watch a movie and that’s it. Or so you thought.

“A Gentleman’s Dignity? I thought we were watching a movie,” you questioned your boyfriend. “Also, don’t you think we’re a little too young to watch this?”

“What’s wrong with it? It’s not rated R or anything,” Jinsik frowned, his cute pout making your heart swell with love.

“No, I know, but… The actors are all in their 40s. Shouldn’t we watch something like True Beauty or Boys Over Flowers?”

“I mean… I guess we can…”

If your boyfriend had dog ears, they’d definitely be drooping by that point. You cupped his cheeks and left a light peck on his lips before saying, “I was just wondering, baby. You wanna watch A Gentleman’s Dignity? We can.”

“Are you sure? Will you enjoy it?”

“Of course I will. I always like and trust whatever you choose. You chose me, after all.”

Just like that, his mood lifted. He eagerly turned the K-drama on, the two of you sitting on the couch with a throw blanket barely covering the two of you. As the drama started, Jinsik immediately put his arm over your shoulder, and you snuggled into his comfy arms.

You could barely focus on the drama, though. Why? Jinsik, with the hand that wasn’t over your shoulder, slipped his hand to your thigh and rubbed it slowly. You didn’t know if he was consciously doing it or not, but regardless, it stirred something within you. Then, he kissed the top of your head. You looked up at him, surprise reflecting in your eyes. He met your gaze and smiled softly at you, your heart fluttering wildly in your chest. His hand moved from your thigh to your face, and cupping your cheek lightly, he left a soft kiss on your lips. You left a small kiss on his lips in response, and the two of you kept exchanging kisses that slowly intensified into a full string of passionate kisses.

His hand dropped from your face to your waist and pulled you in, the hand that was over your shoulder moving to your hair and burying his fingers there. You body slightly jolted when his warm fingertips slipped under your shirt to run along the curve of your bare waist. You couldn’t believe it; what on Earth was happening? What happened to your shy boy who didn’t go past soft gentle kisses? (Not that you were complaining but) why was he kissing you so hard that you felt your lower lip start to feel tender?

Here’s the thing: Jinsik held off for the longest time. He always got super turned on whenever you did the slightest thing sensual. For instance, you were in the dorm with him and a couple other members of xikers, and he had to nurse his erection when you merely ran your fingers through his hair and lightly massaged his scalp. And the reason why he held off was because he had yet to have his first time, and he didn’t want you to know that. He wanted to be confident and all-knowing in front of you, and having zero experience definitely did not make him feel confident nor all-knowing.

You were excited. You were so happy that he made the move because you had been waiting and wondering for so long that you forget sex was even a thing in romantic relationships. You placed your hand on his crotch and fondled it, massaged it over his pants, his dick getting bigger and firmer and pressing desperately against his pants.

Jinsik, meanwhile, was losing his mind. Between the kissing and the touching, he was slowly slipping away from sanity and his control over his body. He hiccuped slightly, but he didn’t even hear himself because his brain was screaming.

Oh my fuck. Oh my God. Oh my fucking God.

You were loving his reactions to you because it made you think he was just as pent up as you. Technically, he was, but it was more than that because he had never done this before.

The two of you leaned away from each other, and you noticed Jinsik’s face was fifty shades of flustered. He was panting lightly, and his eyes were beginning to glaze over from the pleasure of just you touching him over his clothes. He trembled and sharply inhaled when he felt you cradle his steadily hardening dick in your hand.

“Jinsik, baby?”

“Hngh— Y-yes, Y/N?”

“I wanna make you feel good.”

Jinsik, eyes trembling, asked in a whisper, “How?”

You smiled and leaned in to kiss him, Jinsik happily meeting you halfway. While you made out with him like the rowdy youngsters you were, you worked on unbuttoning and unzipping his pants, your fingers tugging lightly at the thick waistband of his briefs.

Jinsik was practically vibrating at that point. His mind was melting. He cupped your face as an attempt to keep his shit together, to maintain his confidence, while his other hand gripped the sofa cushion so hard that his knuckles were turning white. A little moan left his lips while he kissed you when he felt you stroke his dick lightly, your gentle hands driving him oh so fucking insane to the point where he was trying think about literally anything else to prevent himself from cumming so fast.

By the time you stopped kissing and moved down on him, he was completely shivering and his eyes were blurry with tears and lust. You kneeled before him in between his spread legs— you were going to suck him off (he didn’t need years of experience for him to figure that out).

Then, it suddenly hit him. He had to tell you about his inexperience. He didn’t want to lie to you about this because what if he did something stupid, and then you think he’s an idiot? If you knew that he didn’t know shit about sex, then any mistake he made would be excused. But, if he’s supposed to be a seasoned, real man (aka not a virgin), he’s supposed to know better.

His braincells were bouncing around in his head while you, on the other hand, were just completely enamored with his dick. It was so pretty— it was perfectly straight, just the right girth, just the right length— your boyfriend had the model penis, and you were seriously thirsting for it. You held his dick somewhat firmly and were about to take him into your mouth when he stopped you by slipping his hand under your jaw.

“Y/N, wait, I…” Jinsik pressed his lips together and squeezed his eyes shut when he saw you looking up at him with big, beautiful eyes because that view also excited him too much. After taking a little breath, he met your gaze again and said in the smallest voice, “I gotta tell you something.”

“Yeah…?” you eyed him, suddenly worrying about whether or not he had an STD.

“I’ve never done this before…”

“What do you mean?”

“This… This is, um, my first time…” Jinsik’s voice faded as he said the last two words, but you heard him.

“Your first time for…?”

“All of it. Everything.”

When you did nothing but stare at him with wide eyes, Jinsik immediately regretted telling you the truth. Fuck, he messed up and now he was going to die of embarrassment. But, you were shocked at the revelation because it explained so much of his behavior previously in your relationship. You hummed lightly as you thought about what to say to him to calm the poor boy down.

“So,” you started softly while stroking his dick lightly. “Does that mean I’m your first?”

Jinsik blinked a couple times, confused on where the conversation was going. “Yes,” he answered after a heartbeat or two.

You couldn’t help but smile upon receiving the information. You left a kiss on the length— making the boy tremble— and observed it while still dry rubbing. Keeping your eyes down, you whispered, “…That kinda turns me on.”

Completely missing what you said because you were so quiet and the blood rushing through his body was too loud, Jinsik leaned in slightly, only to snap right back into his original position when drew circles on his tip lightly with your fingernails. Before he could let out some raunchy noise, he bit his lower lip— and of course, he had to bite his lip in the way that makes him look sexy because he had to save at least some face.

“We all have to start somewhere, and I’m grateful to be the one that shows you, Jinsik… But, I don’t want to push you into anything. So, if at any point you’re uncomfortable or scared and want to stop, just use the safe word: “Tricky”.”

“Why Tricky…?”

“Because I’ll think about Tricky, and I don’t wanna be thinking about Tricky while being intimate with you,” you couldn’t help but laugh, making Jinsik smile in the process.

“Oh… Okay.”

“Shall we get started?”

Lips quivering, Jinsik returned a small nod, and you started. You took just the tip of his dick into your mouth first, making a satisfying popping sound as you released. You lapped him up like a lollipop, Jinsik gasping sharply at the sensation. He didn’t know what to do with his hands at that point (his brain was so far gone that he didn’t know how to do anything), so he was holding onto the edge of the sofa cushions, the cushion completely flattened under his grasp.

When you stopped teasing him and started sucking for real, a good majority of his cock in your mouth, Jinsik let out a tiny, high squeak, making him immediately cover his mouth. His face was beet red. He hated that he was making all of these mortifying noises for you instead of something deeper like a long sigh, or a groan. He was trying to do that, but no, his body wanted to betray him instead.

You were absolutely obsessed with the noises he was making. Every whimper, whine, tiny moan, squeak, hiccup— whatever he did, you loved it for two reasons: one, you knew for a fact that he was enjoying it; two, it was so much better than some jock moaning lowly and growling about your mouth was made for him or some other shit like that. Jinsik was different; he was refreshing.

Every time you moved your head further towards his waist, you moaned and sighed— fuck, you were enjoying this too because, somehow, his cock tasted just as sweet as he was. Adding your hand to the mix, you blew Jinsik while also rubbing your hand in the same direction, occasionally pressing your fingers into his cock, squeezing it the tiniest bit.

“Mmm… Ah! Hmm-ngh,” Jinsik started vocalizing his pleasure, the noises leaving his mouth getting raunchier by the second, his voice still climbing higher in pitch.

And still, he was trying so hard to contain these noises of his. He bit his lower lip (and would release to take a desperate gasp for air every now and then), and squeezed his eyes shut, trying so so hard to hold off on cumming. But, having his eyes closed just enhanced the warmth of your mouth and the sensation of your hand, lips, and tongue pleasuring him greatly.

Keeping a slower, steady pace, you eyes flitted upwards to look at his reaction. God, the man was ethereal. He looked so fucking beautiful with his face flushed, lips red and sore, eyes closed and making his eyelashes look even more full and long. You could tell he was struggling to keep it together. His hands were all over the place, one hand eternally clutching the sofa cushion while running his fingers through his hair with the other one. You thought he didn’t know what to do with his hands.

Jinsik knew exactly what to do with his hands now. He knows how blowjobs work— he’d just never had one before. Honestly, he really wanted to run his fingers through your hair and hold your head while pushing you into him more, but he was too nervous. He didn’t want to do it wrong and hurt you.

“Mmm… Ahh… Oh, hmm, angh!” Jinsik whimpered out, the pleasure starting to overstimulate him.

You felt his cock quiver in his mouth— he was so close, but he was holding back, and he was holding back as much as he could; he didn’t want to cum so fast because that’s so mortifying. But, you were making it harder and harder to keep his shit together.

Jinsik moaned loudly when you went faster and closer to the base of his cock. Tears filled his eyes— you were sucking him, blowing him so fucking well that he could not hold back any longer.

No! Don’t do it! Don’t fucking cum yet! Resist! You haven’t even— Tricky! Think about Tricky!

There was no way in hell Jinsik was going to use the safe word, but thinking about Tricky did the trick (terrible pun…), and he was able to hold out for longer. That being said, he was still losing it, tilting his head up to the sky and trying to keep the tears in his eyes.

God, you loved seeing this side of Jinsik, and you wanted more. You wanted to see how he’d react to everything that someone could do during a blowjob— everything. So, you slurped. You fucking slurped him up to keep the saliva from dripping and to also provoke another long, sensual moan.

“Y-Y/N! Hnngh— Oh my— Ah! Oh my God, mmm aah! B-baby!” Jinsik managed to say in between moans and pants, sending a rush of excitement through your body.

You responded with a hum, sending him further into the stars.

“F-feels sooh good— haah!”

You looked up to see that Jinsik was still looking at the ceiling, still blinking tears out of his eyes, missing out on a gorgeous view of you blowing him into oblivion. You understood, but you also wanted his eyes on you. Releasing him with yet another satisfying ‘pop!’, you licked stripes along his red, throbbing, quivering penis. You reached for one of his hands and guided that one to the back of your head, your other hand lacing his fingers with yours.

Now that he was holding onto you, he brought his gaze down and looked at you right as you took him back into your mouth. God, you were so fucking hot kneeling before him while you pleasure the shit out of him— his mind was blown.

“Y/N, you… You’re so… This is fucking amazing.”

Blood immediately rushed to your head. Jinsik never swore— he never ever swore, so hearing the profanity leave his lips was actually insane. So, you took him in completely. Entirely. All the way until you gagged. You felt him clutch the roots of your hair, squeeze your fingers tight, and pant hard, moan hard; he was so close yet again.

“Baby, please it,” Jinsik’s loud gasp broke his sentence. “I can’t take it!”

His breathing hitched more frequently, and with every breath came a slight sob. You were a little worried, but when you looked up, he was definitely enjoying it.

“I-It’s too much!” He cried. “I can’t!

Ignoring his cries, you kept going. You wanted to make him cum. You wanted to make him cum so hard to make the long blow job so worth it.

He wanted to hold out just a little longer. Thankfully, you slowed down, trying to regain your breath and energy. His cries subdued to quiet moans— fuck, even his moans sound beautiful, like a fucking song— and was relieved that he could still hold on… Only for about two seconds though.

You blew Jinsik like there was no tomorrow. You sucked, slurped, gagged, moaned, exhaled loudly the faster and deeper you went. Jinsik went back to moaning loudly. He moaned your name over and over again, some profanities sprinkled in between, turning you the fuck on.

“Y-Y/N, baby, my l-love?” Jinsik whimpered out; he was about to burst. “Please, I’m— Ooh! Mmm, I’m— Fuck!— I wanna—”

Jinsik sharply inhaled. He pulled your hair gently (because he didn’t want to hurt you), desperately trying to move you before he came in your mouth. You, instead, moved your head all the way down, shoving his cock deep in you one last time, gagging on his length, hollowing your mouth, and slurping literally everything before surfacing for air. You were gasping and panting as several trails of saliva connected the head of his dick to your lips and tongue, the sight making his body flush with warmth.

You rubbed his cock quickly and said, “Don’t hold back anymore, baby. Cum for me.”

And that he does. Trails of white shot upwards then landed on his waist and thighs as he flung his head back and groaned so loudly that it echoed in the entire dorm. God, and he’s mortified because he just kept cumming like it built up in him because he held off for so long. Tears in his eyes, he look down to see the mess he made, his face so red that you thought it was going to burst into flames.

“Did you like that, baby?” you asked him while licking your fingers (some of his cum ended up on your hand).

“God…” he sighed out, his breathing back to normal. “That was amazing. You’re fucking amazing. Oh, wow…”

He leaned his head all the way back into the sofa, a giddy smile on his face. His first blowjob: fucking amazing.

#xikers #xikers jinsik #ham jinsik #jinsik smut #jinsik x reader #ham jinsik xikers #jinsik xikers #jinsik xikers smut #xikers jinsik smut #ham jinsik smut #broatz #bro <3 dave

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tangyangie · 1 year

Note

OML!!! I absolutely love your work for assassination classroom!!!!

I realllyyyy just wanna eat it up(if thats weird I'm sorry lol)

Can I ask for Future Karma with his kids it doesn't have to be long. Also ignore this if you want to <3

karma with his kids!!

for one... he's totally raising them to be slight troublemakers. he laughed the first time he heard one of your kids curse. you were not pleased.

but, in general, he's a really great dad!! he has a good amount of restraint when it comes to letting them do things.

he's also a really good teacher, actually. if they're having trouble in school, have no fear—karma will step right in and make sure they ace every single assignment in sight. report cards are all A's.

if you have multiple children together, i can totally see him holding the smaller one on his shoulders while holding the older one's hand.

he takes them out for ice cream at least every week. you're concerned it will eventually make them sick, but he orders you one as well in hopes you forget about illnesses for now. (you do, eventually)

if it turns out that one of your kids are being bullied??? well.. let's say some kids may not be coming back to school. or their parents. (karma scared them off with literally a single glance)

he watches tv with them. sometimes he'll even let them watch rated r movies sometimes... with your okay, of course. he then falls asleep with them at the couch and you have to carefully carry the kids back upstairs.

(honestly, you don't mind it. it's actually the cutest thing ever seeing them all together like that)

he calls them cute little names.. like kiddo, pumpkin, and sometimes he calls them pickle. the last one always makes the kids laugh like crazy.

when it comes to romance.. he'd definitely prefer it be later in life, but if they like someone in middle school or high school, he'd encourage them to go for it.

back to when they're younger, though.. he's probably always carrying them and swinging them around (not too hard, though!!)

for example, he'd lift them up and then begin to spin, and he'd smile when he hears the giggles that come from the child. or, he'd toss them gently into the air. whatever it is, the kids enjoy it, so he keeps doing it.

he likes to pretend to be spies with them. gotta get the assassin in their bloodstreams somehow. he'd crouch and sneak up on your room as they follow you, and he'd jump and attack you with a kiss as your kids yell playfully and hug your legs.

overall, he's really good with kids. together, you guys are totally unstoppable.

notes: this was so cute oh my god 🥹🥹 i'm going to cry

but thank you so much for the request and i hope you enjoyed it!!

also i do love eating my writing it's so delicious

#screaming in the void #and the void screams back #assassination classroom #ass class #fluff #hee hee #karma #karma akabane #karma akabane x reader #akabane karma x reader #karma x reader #akabane karma #anyways #live laugh love #reader fic

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hotxcheeto · 8 months

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Chloe as a mom hc’s pls 🤟🤟🤞🤞 I think the idea is cute

━ 𝐂𝐇𝐋𝐎𝐄 𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐌𝐎𝐌

𝙥𝙖𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜(𝙨) - Chloe Price x G/N!Reader

𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙣𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙨 - Cursing?, a lot of fluff y'all I just kept adding to it, slight angst in parts but nothing bad at all, alludes to pregnancy ig? i don't really know?

𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙤𝙛𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙 ? - Yeah/Nope

𝙖𝙪𝙩𝙝𝙤𝙧'𝙨 𝙣𝙤𝙩𝙚 - i love babies sm.. also ty for the request!!

first things first, i don't ever see her actually choosing to mother

but if you have a kid? and she likes you? she also likes your kid

chloe probably meets you later in life, she's matured ( kinda) and explored places she's always wanted and finally she comes across you and that thing.. the little gremlin that's attached to your hip with big eyes and a grand smile

step-father chloe y'all ( nah jk... unless )

she is childish herself and lowkey selfish which is why she for sure questions her parental abilities and never wanted kids young or even at all when she thought about, but you just sprung up and how could she deny herself yours, hers and that little ankle biters happiness

but she's for sure the fun parent, the one that will let your child stay up passed bedtime and eat so much ice cream while watching R rated movies and promising not to tell you

and then you get home, catch them and suddenly everybody getting a time out

including her and probably the cat too

she probably has very loose parenting as well, her main ideas is if there's nothing to rebel against, what's the point in doing the bad stuff?

meaning she is just a very open parent in the sense that she doesn't hide the word from her kids or shelter them, she's honest and let's them choose their own path in life with her soft guidance

and she's just open in general about her opinions on things

you ask? she'll answer, same goes for the little one who has all the questions in the world and she's sure to answer

even if it's 'are unicorns real?'

they sure fucking are kid, and so are leprechauns

speaking of which, her imagination is unreal

remember how she'd play pirates with max? oh yeah, grab your eyepatch, you're in for a long ride with this one

her playtime with baby has lore, bullet point, highlighted text and a few video essays and a whole lot of story telling they have to explain to you

then you have your toddler clapping at you to keep up and chloe trying to throw you into her world of sparkles and sea monsters and you just wanted to know what they wanted for dinner

she's so cool to all of your child's friends as well, she's the cool parent with different colored hair and tats that totally have those prissy moms side eyeing her hard and don't give a single damn

lets them do what they want at your house because they're safe and that's what matters at the end of the day, even if they're getting up to shit in their rooms

if your child wants colored hair she'll get them those fake hair clip ins and temporary die just so they can look more like her and oh my god it's adorable

also the fake tattoos you get at like grocery stores or dollar stores in those machines? your kid will always compare them to mama chloe's or yours if you have tattoos

shows them off and tells people she's matching with her mama

has great bedtime stories

big cuddler too, she's a clinger

when your child is still a baby she just loves to hold them and i mean LOVES too, the baby don't even care about being held chloe just don't wanna put them down

doesn't believe in baby talk

she speaks to her baby like they a grown man and that's it there's not another way

she be talking to it like it understands her while it just stares and drools while giggling because chloe is a very animated and entertaining talker, even you catch yourself listening aimlessly

she loves being and parenting though, even the stresses

sometimes though she feels like she's gonna fail at it but you just have to give her the slight reminder and that she's her fathers and mothers daughter, and they were both was a wonderful people and parents

joyce adores your child, whether you had them before or after chloe, she's in love and spoils them as much as she possibly can

chloe even jokes that joyce loves the kid more than her

which may or may not be true

max also loves them so much, loves taking pictures which actually helps capture a lot of memories free of you freaking out to grab your phone, she never posts them or anything, she actually gives them to most times to keep in the baby book

everybody loves the small human okay

chloe saves so much money up to give you and them the best holdiays ever and birthdays, even if you're struggling with money, she makes it all worth while

handy man of the house as well, will fix toys and put together cribs and bedframes well into the night while you're passed out with your body pillow and noise machine my man

she loves taking care of her family, that's all

but chloe most of all, is both scared and enamored that your little human thinks you and her are the entire world, and she doesn't plan on making that world fall apart like it did for her when her dad passed

yeah, that's not happening

#chloe price x reader #chloe x reader #chloe price #life is strange #life #lis #lis remastered

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panlight · 7 months

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Have you ever noticed the similarities between the vampires in Twilight and The Vampire Chronicles? I mean, aside from how they transform (which I think would suit Twilight better than just the "venom" burning through their systems), there is the allure, immense beauty, how they can have a diet of humans or animals, the way they quickly excel, they are incapable of change (hair grows back immediately if it has been cut), as well as the laws & how immortal children are taboo...

I do find it funny that if an AR vamp gets injured or exhausts their special powers it's naptime for them lol. Also, I did notice a parallel between Twivamps having their diamond skin and AR vamps who all have those "glassy nails" for some reason.

What are your thoughts though?

I've always felt that SM had to be, on some level, aware of the Anne Rice vampires. Maybe she didn't actually read them, maybe she only heard about them, but the whole like "beautiful vampire" thing in the modern consciousness, and the tortured by his nature vampire thing, was really popularized by Anne Rice. Certainly SM's vampires have a lot more in common with them than, say, the Dracula prototype.

The thing she missed, obviously, was the sexual fluidity of the Rice vampires. I don't know how anyone reading the books or watching the original movie didn't get that Louis and Lestat were a couple, however dysfunctional that couple was. I mean they adopted a kid together! But that sort of thing goes against Mormon sensibilities so I'm not surprised she left that out (although again . . . easy to extrapolate from subtext. The Amazons for example always read as a polyamorous lesbian triad to me. And the Romanians finishing each other's sentences is a level of intimacy it's so easy to read as romantic).

When I did my marathon vampire book read several years ago, I read both by the Twilight series and Interview with the Vampire for the first time, and probably within days/weeks of each other. I couldn't tell you which one I read first. But I do remember seeing some similarities in the focus on the beauty, the perfect skin, the glassy nails. That Louis the sympathetic woe-is-me vampire trying to exist only drinking from animals has parallels in Edward (and Carlisle although he always seemed less 'woe is me' about it and more 'make the best of it').

So yeah, part of me suspects she had may have actually read that one. I want to say she mentioned somewhere she saw part of the movie at some point, but I couldn't find the quote and I think generally Mormons tend to avoid R-rated films, but obviously she has her own free will to do whatever.

#asks

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revenge-of-the-shit · 10 months

Text

Just watched Joy Ride (2023) and mixed thoughts.

Spoilers below!!

It was really, really refreshing to see East Asian women being portrayed as unapologetically raunchy and messy and terrible and fucked up. It's the first time I've seen a movie where they're NOT some out together socialite or kung fu badass or a fetishized dragon lady or delicate lotus flower. The characterization was well done and I felt like they were fleshed out pretty well, and it was a very sex-positive portrayal of East Asian women and it was done ENTIRELY without fetishizing them. It's a low bar to pass and the fact that this is the first movie I've seen that passes this bar is... depressing but it was very nice to see that they can be trashy and sexy and just be themselves.

It's the typical sort of humour you'd expect from an R-rated comedy. Not my sort of thing entirely, but I had some laughs for sure and some other reviewers thought it was hilarious.

I could tell that the film was indeed made by diaspora for diaspora. There were just so many little details sprinkled through the whole thing that I could recognize from lived experience

While the film certainly made some commentary on internalized racism, I felt like it never really followed through with exploring this theme, or that when it did, it was somewhat superficial and did not really fully address it. Same goes for exploring the theme of being in-between - something that's very, very central to diaspora - as well as the identity crisis evoked by a twist I admit I was surprised by. All of these, while they had the potential to be weaved more strongly into the film, were not really fully addressed - and while this is a comedy movie, the way that all these themes were set up as serious things to address led to a rather mediocre reaction to its execution.

The female gaze is generally very, very, very present for this film, which is once again rare to see in R-rated comedies with nudity and sex. None of the four friends are ever objectified as sex objects, and anything sexual is something they choose for their own pleasure. It's a very sex-positive take, again.

Sprinkles of queer Asian experience in there too, which is nice to see. I found Deadeye to be a very compelling character as I can relate to them in several levels, and it was really really nice to see queer Asians who can be awkward, be raunchy, be terrible, be unapologetic, a d just be human.

Plot was a typical comedy plot, so not revolutionary at all and with some plot holes, but it's a plot.

One more point under the cut with bigger spoilers but also CW: Mentions of SA.

Overall, I'd give it a 6.5 - 7/10. Not great, not bad. Could've been better. Some weird spots. But it sure is something, and I'm glad to see more Asian American rep all across different genres.

One of the biggest scenes that made me feel off was a scene where Stephanie Hsu's character, Kat, has a bag of coke up her ass, and it breaks. She freaks out because she feels it entering her system and it makes her, as she says, "very horny." At this point, she and the three others are in a hotel with a bunch of hot athletic Asian men who are friends with one of the MCs. One of the men, who's also Kat's ex, tries to hit on her and hook up with her, but she tries to reject him - she also tells him that she's engaged, which he is. He does not back off and he does not take her seriously. She runs off (to the gym). He follows.

While he definitely thinks she's sober (he has no idea she's on drugs), the rest of the gals, FULLY AWARE that Kat is completely drugged out of her mind and being hit on by someone she does not want to be with, decide to go their separate ways while wishing everyone a good time and to "have fun tonight". Nobody checks on Kat.

At that point in the film I was beginning to get extremely worried that they were going to play off a date rape-esque scenario as a humorous, joking one given how the entire tone of this scene was a humorous one.

At the end, they do not have sex, thank God.

The scene between them is indeed sexually charged. What happens is that she pulls a muscle when trying to work off the energy, and he uses a muscle blaster/massage gun on her back. He does not touch her without her asking him to, but she is still under the influence of drugs (which he doesn't know...but still...). She then grabs a basketball and puts it between her thighs, and he uses the massage gun on the basketball. Afterwards, she takes the gun and uses it on his balls, and apparently shatters his pelvis. Wow

This is never addressed afterwards, ever. The scene left me feeling rather confused and more uncomfortable than anything else in the entire movie. Maybe I'm reading too much into it but something about it was clanging bells in my head.

#non sw #Joy ride 2023 #asian representation #spoilers #Long post

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ltwharfy · 7 months

Text

Rewatching "I Love You, Man" and Overthinking Rudy's Iconic Halloween Costume

One night this week, when I was feeling particularly tired after work, I noticed that the 2009 movie “I Love You, Man” starring Paul Rudd, Rashida Jones, and Jason Segel, had just started on one of the commercial-free movie channels, so I decided to watch it. I had seen it a long time ago and thought it was pretty entertaining (I pretty much always find all three of the movie’s leads entertaining in anything, so…_). But I’m pretty sure I hadn’t seen it since “Nightmare on Ocean Avenue Street” came out, and certainly not since I became a person who writes “Bob’s Burgers’ fanfic and posts stuff about the show on this silly website. So, some thoughts on “I Love You, Man” specifically as the source of Rudy’s iconic Halloween costume:

-Man, this movie is R-rated! I had looked that up a while back, and it amused me because Louise also makes reference to R or TV-MA rated stuff (No Country for Old Men, Pan’s Labyrinth, Game of Thrones, just off the top of my head). But, I couldn’t exactly remember why it was Rated R, and if that rating made sense. Rewatching it reminded me that there is a lot of sex-related dialogue in the movie. It could not be cut out or toned down that much. It is actually pretty central to the plot (I’m not going to go into details, since I don’t want to put a content warning on this post, or spoil a 14 year old movie for anyone). It’s not a movie I would feel okay about watching with a 9 year-old that I was responsible for.

-So, did Rudy actually see the movie? There are definitely other times on the show where it is pretty clear the kids haven’t actually seen the more adult entertainment they make reference to (“what’s Caligua?”) It’s quite possible that Rudy may have just been familiar with Paul Rudd from more age appropriate fare (Ant-Man or something) and seen the poster for “I Love You, Man” somewhere and thought Rudd’s outfit looked cool (I mean, it’s a sweater and jeans, but this is Rudy we’re talking about).

-But I think it’s more fun to imagine he actually saw the movie. It’s implied that Rudy has a number of older cousins (we meet Mandy, and he wants her to tell the others about his attempt to sled backwards) so I can imagine him seeing the movie at a family thing with a bunch of his older cousins and just being so excited to watch a grown-up movie with the older kids that he thinks it’s the best thing ever despite a ton of the jokes going completely over his head. (There are a lot of movies I saw with my older sister as a kid then when I revisited them as an adult I realized I had completely missed some pretty racy stuff in them.)

-Also, I then imagine Rudy later innocently asking one of his parents about some term he heard in the movie that he didn’t understand, which leads to the older cousins getting in trouble for letting him see it.

-There are definitely parts of the movie I could see Rudy understanding enjoying. The first conversation between Rudd and Segel’s characters is Segel pointing out how another guy is clearly holding in a fart because he is trying to impress a woman he just started dating. This seems to very much be on the level of humor of most of the Bob’s Burgers kids.

-And it’s pretty easy to see Rudy enjoying Paul Rudd’s character in the movie, because it’s basically just Paul Rudd playing a nice kind of dorky guy in a pretty typically Paul Ruddy manner. His character is into fencing, which I can easily see Rudy thinking is a pretty cool hobby. (I can totally see Rudy and Louise trying fencing when they get older).

-Rudd’s character also plays the bass, and there is a running gag of him saying “I slap the bass” in a bad attempt at a Jamaican accent. I can see Rudy enjoying this and repeating the line to the point of annoying people (“You don’t even play the bass, Rudy, you play the drums!”) I may be projecting because that’s certainly what I would’ve done as a kid.

-If you managed to read this far without knowing the plot of the movie, Rudd and Jones’ characters get engaged and it is pointed out to them that Rudd has always been a “girlfriend guy” who doesn’t really have close male friends. It’s kind of interesting to think about that in the context of Rudy, since it seems pretty clear that Louise is his best friend, and I find it interesting to think about who Rudy’s best male friend is. I have this headcanon that it’s Jeremy just because he is at Rudy’s birthday and his appearance seems kind of random if he’s not actually good friends with Rudy. (It’s easy to see Harley going to that party because she’s super friendly and seems up for anything, and Rudy could’ve gotten to know the Pesto twins through Louise, but why is Jeremy there?!)

-That said, the male characters Rudy has the most friendly interaction with on-screen are probably Zeke and Gene (or as I like to think of them, the World’s Best Future Brothers-in-Law). Of course, Rudy is a minor character who is only in 10% or so of the episodes and we basically only see him when he’s with the Belcher kids. It’s possible he has a really meaningful friendship with Hogarth Haber that is never seen or referred to on-camera.

-So, be on the lookout for my Roudise “I Love You, Man” AU Fic, coming soon! (That’s probably not actually going to be a thing. Honestly, I think I’ve explored this joke as far as I can. Well beyond the point of reason, in fact.)

-I had forgotten what a fun cast “I Love You, Man” has! In addition to Rudd, other “Bob’s Burgers” guest stars in the movie include Aziz Ansari, Andy Samberg, Rob Huebel, Nick Kroll, and Joe Lo Truglio.

#bob's burgers #regular sized rudy #headcanon #character analysis #nightmare on ocean avenue street #i love you man #long post #seriously how did i manage to write such a long post about this?#rudolph stieblitz

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magicshopaholic · 2 years

Text

About You (Namjoon x OC)

Summary: There's something Namjoon isn't telling you. After finally getting out of him, though, you find yourself wishing you'd never asked.

Pairing: Namjoon x OC, minor Taehyung x OC (different OCs)

Genre: Angst, hurt/comfort

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 10.1 K

Warnings: language; arguments; implied mentions of past trauma, particularly SA; mentions of campus assaults

Additional warning: This fic contains discussions of triggering topics centering around SA and r*pe, so please do NOT read this if you are not comfortable. While there is no description of any kind and no member of BTS is involved in it, the fic is meant to depict realistic conversations and implications of past trauma which may be difficult for some to read. This fic is extremely personal, not to mention important for characterization within the series, but please do exercise appropriate discretion before reading.

A/N: This fic is set around six months after Suburbia, on the same day as You Make Me Live. It also consists of important plot points for Taehyung and Dilara, a couple of months before the events of Los Angeles.

Tagging: @kflixnet @k-radio @bbl32 @dreaming-with-happiness, @sweetieguk, @ggukkieland (if you want to be added to the taglist, drop me a message)

Listen to: "nothing's gonna hurt you baby" by cigarettes after sex

namjoon masterlist | main masterlist

“Milk?”

“None.”

“Okay. Sugar?”

“Only if you’re giving it to me.”

Namjoon snorts, spilling a few drops of the Americano he’s stirring. “You mean right now?”

“Depends on how interesting the movie they’re all watching out there is.” Kaya leans against the kitchen counter of the dorm and folds her arms across her chest, watching him sheepishly wipe the spilt coffee. “Any chance we’ll be interrupted?”

“I would rather get caught by paparazzi than by any of the guys,” he says seriously, shuddering. “They’ll make it a whole thing and ten years down the line, they’ll still act like it’s the funniest thing that’s ever happened.”

Kaya frowns. “So none of you have ever walked in on each other, in all these years?” she asks sceptically. “I find that a little hard to believe. Seokjin told me you all lived together in one room or something. You had to have, you know… interrupted each other, some time.”

“Sure we have. It’s why Jimin, to this day, calls Hoseok The Closet Hyung. Or that’s the closest translation, anyway,” he amends.

“Was he… in the closet?” Kaya asks, with a bit of trepidation, biting her lip as Namjoon shakes a small sachet of sugar into his glass.

“No, he was in a closet, with another trainee, and his pants were, well -” He breaks off and winces, shaking his head. “Not something I want to relive.”

She laughs. “How dramatic.” She watches him for a moment, his tall frame next to her, as he takes a sip of the second glass he’s stirring, this one most likely his. “Are you going to put yours in there, too?”

Namjoon chokes. “Put my - what?”

Kaya grins, nudging him as he coughs. “Sugar,” she says, enunciating every syllable.

“You called?” Yoongi’s dry voice enters the kitchen before he does, strolling in and stopping on her other side to look inside a couple of cabinets.

“Here,” says Namjoon, sliding the first glass of coffee carefully across the counter to him. “One sugar.”

“Thanks.”

“Yoongi, you tell me.” Kaya turns to him, resting her palm on the counter. “Have you guys ever walked in on each other in the dorm?”

It takes Yoongi seemingly a second to process this, before he chuckles dryly and glances over at Namjoon. “I don’t know, have we?”

Behind her, Namjoon sighs. “Oh, come on, that doesn’t count.”

“Really?” Kaya turns back to her boyfriend, thoroughly amused. “When was this?”

“Never. We didn’t get caught.”

“It’s true. We just found him sneaking her out of the dorm when he accidentally closed the door on his own hand.”

Namjoon winces, sipping his coffee. “Still hurts.”

“Oh, is this the girl you were telling me about? The hashtag-dangerous one, with the whole bad girl thing going on?” Kaya asks curiously.

Yoongi raises his eyebrows. “You two really talk about your exes, huh?”

“Well, it’s not dinner table conversation,” she says reasonably. “But we know about our exes. It’s healthy.”

“I happen to agree.” He looks up at Namjoon, raising his eyebrows. “She’s a wise one.”

“It’s the Ph.D. On the downside, I have no bad girl thing to speak of.”

“You really don’t,” agrees Namjoon, grinning when she mock-glares at him. “And in any case, if serious exes are what we’re counting, then I only really have Yu-jin.”

“And I only have Nick. College boyfriend,” she adds for Yoongi’s benefit as they start walking outside to the living room, Namjoon slightly behind them. His free hand brushes her waist as they take a seat on the couch, him on the edge and Kaya next to him, with Jimin on her other side. The rest of the group is spread out around the room while a political drama plays on the television. The early evening sun is warm and dim, the last rays skimming the back of the sofa before it disappears over the horizon.

“Nick was much more recent, though,” points out Namjoon, continuing their earlier conversation. “You have to count him.”

“Five years is a lifetime ago. And duration doesn’t matter,” she adds, holding up a finger. “It’s the nature of the relationship that determines its seriousness. So Yu-jin was just as serious,” she concludes.

“Wait, we’re talking about Yu-jin?” Jungkook pipes up in English, and both of them turn to see him grinning from his place on the floor, a can of beer precariously balanced between his knees. “Your Yu-jin?”

“I wouldn’t say my -”

But Namjoon is cut off by a smattering of Korean, Seokjin snorting into his cup of ramen and Jimin laughing out loud at something. Hoseok simply goes “no, no, no” in Korean while Namjoon sighs, and the former notices Kaya and shakes his head.

“He’s saying she was -” His eyes flit to Namjoon for confirmation “- badass.”

“That’s… that’s stretching it a bit,” says Namjoon weakly, but Seokjin waves him off.

“No, no, he’s right,” he says quickly. “Not badass, but like…” He struggles for a bit and finally says a Korean word, and Kaya dubs it in her head as ballsy. “Didn’t she also have a motorcycle?”

“That was her brother’s. Can we -”

“Oh, yeah,” interrupts Taehyung, ignoring Namjoon entirely. Kaya’s once again taken aback by his casual elegance from his spot next to Jungkook, unashamedly sprawled on the ground with his hands behind his head. “She drove us home in her car once, remember?” he asks, looking at Jimin who nods. “She drove so fast, I almost threw up.”

“Doesn’t Dilara drive faster?” Jimin asks innocently, grinning when Taehyung bites his lip.

“Much faster,” answers Jungkook, taking the ramen Seokjin offers him and scooping a mouthful into his mouth. “Explains why she has all those guy fans,” he adds, slurping the noodles.

There are snickers around the room and even Namjoon chuckles, but the name finally clicks in Kaya’s mind. “Wait, Dilara? Dilara Komyshan? You - you guys know who she is?” she asks, not suspecting Formula One was popular in this country at all.

Jungkook’s eyes go wide and Jimin turns to her, comically shocked. From her other side, Namjoon nudges her. “How do you know her?” he asks, a bit incredulous.

“I mean, I know of her. I live in Amsterdam. The whole country is a shrine to Max Verstappen, especially now that he’s started being in the running for world champion… anyway, she’s his teammate.” Kaya waits for him to nod slowly in confirmation. “They’re a legendary pairing. I saw them race in Zandvoort last year. I told you, remember?”

“Oh, yeah…”

“When did you guys meet her?”

There’s silence until Namjoon speaks up again. “We met her in - in Japan last year. We were there for Honda.”

“Oh, yeah, you told me. Did you get to meet Alex Turner, too? Actually, no, they probably weren’t dating back then, but -”

“What?”

Kaya breaks off, realising Taehyung’s spoken in Korean. “Uh, yeah, I don’t think they started dating till earlier this year, actually - or, at least that’s when they became public -”

“Um… Alex Turner?” Namjoon’s spoken this time, and there’s something too deliberate in his tone.

She hesitates. “Yeah… from the Arctic Monkeys,” she says slowly. “They were performing at this club in London and my friend Marianne had an extra ticket because her girlfriend couldn’t make it…” She realises she’s rambling and pulls herself together. “Anyway, Dilara Komyshan was there and… well, it certainly looked like they were a couple.”

There’s not too much ambiguity in the way she says it, despite her refraining from detail as much as possible. The silence is clear now and it’s starting to make her uneasy, as though there’s something everyone but her is in on. She almost jumps when Jimin speaks from next to her.

“Are you sure it was her?”

“Yeah, pretty sure… wait, I have a selfie with her,” she mutters, reaching for her phone and swiping through her gallery, relieved for something to do. She finds the picture and both Namjoon and Jimin lean in from the other side to look at it. It’s in a dimly lit area, with all the members of Arctic Monkeys, her friend Marianne, Kaya herself, and Dilara Komyshan, with three people separating Kaya and Dilara.

Jimin moves away, sighing, while Namjoon leans closer and zooms in. She catches a whiff of his woody cologne and her toes curl automatically on the bare floor.

“Oh. Crap.”

Kaya looks up at him curiously to see him looking in the opposite direction before he closes his eyes, as though just spotting a problem. She turns to see Taehyung stalk out of the room, too conspicuously for it to be a coincidence, and something suddenly falls into place, something so obvious that she can’t believe she didn’t catch it the moment he interrupted her the first time.

“Oh, God,” she whispers, cringing and turning back to her boyfriend, “are they -”

“Something like that,” he mutters, sighing.

“Shit. I had no idea. I -”

“Don’t worry about it,” he says, putting an arm around her shoulder. “Even we don’t, really. We just know they met in Japan and… got close.”

There’s an awkward silence for a moment, the movie playing uselessly in the background, before Jimin gets to his feet. “I should…”

“Oh, of course,” she says immediately, shuffling her legs so he can step out from behind the coffee table. “Tell him I’m sorry,” she adds uneasily, sighing when Jimin nods reassuringly before disappearing into the hallway.

The embarrassment doesn’t disappear, though. It takes a backseat for a while, once the movie is over and there’s some general chatter about dinner and what to watch next. Seokjin leaves midway once he gets a phone call, already pulling on his shoes before the call even ends.

“It’s Nari,” is all he says, in Korean, before ducking out. They carry on from where they left off, Jimin eventually rejoining everyone but making some thin excuse for Taehyung that absolutely nobody believes. Namjoon, preempting her reaction, hugs her to him a bit more before telling her to let it go.

Even two hours later, once they reach Namjoon’s apartment, Kaya isn’t able to.

“You think he’ll be okay?” she asks, stepping out of the car.

“Yes, Kaya, he will,” says Namjoon, sighing and closing his door shut. “I told you. Let it go.”

Kaya frowns. “I just can’t believe I didn’t figure it out,” she mutters after a moment. “I’m usually a lot better at reading people,” she adds, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye.

If he catches on, he doesn’t respond. Kaya bites her lip, deciding that she isn’t imagining his aloofness after all. It had started a little while before they’d left the dorm, but in the midst of five other men talking and laughing in Korean, she couldn’t be certain and it hadn’t been that obvious either.

The walk to the car had been quiet, something she’d chalked down to tiredness, but the actual car ride had been strange, too. They had a running joke ever since he’d gotten his licence last year where she’d give him a dramatic pep talk as he started the car, keeping it up until he hit the road, and making a big show of it once they reached their destination. She’d been about to start tonight as well but before she could even get a word out, he’d reversed out of the parking lot, his jaw harder than usual.

Now, she follows him silently into his apartment, frowning and trying to recreate the night in her mind to guess what might be bothering him. They enter and take off their shoes by the door, Namjoon turning on the light behind her.

“Do you want a drink?” she asks, taking off her jacket and walking inside, stopping near the kitchen island.

“Didn’t we just have a lot to drink?”

“Not really. You drove home.”

Namjoon seems to consider this. “I don’t want a drink,” he says finally, opening the fridge behind her and retrieving a bottle of water.

Kaya is dumbfounded for a moment, noting belatedly that this is the first time he’s ever iced her out like this - if that is indeed what he’s doing. She watches him walk over to the bookshelf and scan the spines, quietly drinking the water. Her guess is he’s already finished the book he started yesterday, but the way his back looks stiff and his jaw is still hard, she doubts he’s actually looking for a second book right now.

Normally, her instinct would be to let him be, knowing he’ll talk to her when he wants to. It was one of the most important aspects of their relationship she’d seen change over time: his reluctance to confide in her, as though afraid he would demotivate her by venting to her. She’d had to remind him more than once that he wasn’t her leader, that he absolutely could vent to her if he needed to. It had been hard for him, but once he’d consciously started opening up to her, their relationship only felt stronger.

But this feels different. She can’t fathom what, but something about this feels directed at her. She’s not one for mind games, though, so she simply sighs. “Okay, do you want to tell me what’s wrong?” she asks softly.

Namjoon’s hand holding the bottle momentarily pauses halfway up to his mouth, before he continues. “Nothing’s wrong.”

“Really?”

The pause is longer this time, as he continues drinking. He’s definitely not focusing on the books anymore. Finally, he swallows a mouthful of water and exhales. “We don’t need to talk about it.”

There we go. “I don’t even know what it is,” she says, somewhat relieved he’s at least responding. “Why can’t you just tell me? If something’s bothering you, I want to know.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing,” she states. “Did you want to stay back and watch the movie? Did I make you leave too early?”

“I wanted to leave before you did,” he points out, turning around to face her and leaning against the bookshelf. His eyes flicker towards hers before looking away, and he crosses his arms loosely against his torso. “And Pulp Fiction is not very high on my list of movies to watch.”

Me, neither. But he already knows that, and he knows why. Kaya moves on without dwelling on it. “Then what? Is it the joke I made about Nick?” she guesses, referring to a throwaway line about her ex-boyfriend she’d made when the boys had been arguing over which movie to watch. It had seemed harmless, but she also knew that Namjoon, for better or for worse, had a jealous streak he wasn’t proud of.

“No,” he mutters.

He’s also proud. Kaya shakes her head. “If it is, I apologise. I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but I can understand if you didn’t like it. If that’s what it is, then I’m sorry.” When Namjoon doesn’t respond and simply looks in the other direction, she sighs in frustration. “What is it?”

His tongue is poking into his lower lip, and his jaw looks as hard as rock. She’s never seen anything bother him so much and the fact that she doesn’t know what it is doesn’t sit well with her at all.

Finally, he speaks. “I don’t want to start a fight,” he says quietly.

“Well, I don’t want to spend the rest of the night wondering what’s bothering you so much that you can’t even look at me.” Her eyes bore into him but he still doesn’t turn. “If it becomes a fight, we have a fight. And then we move on from it.”

“I don’t…” Namjoon trails off, clicking his tongue in what she takes to be annoyance. His eyes flicker to her again before averting. “Can we drop this?”

“Not now that you’re making such a big deal about it.”

“I’m not making a big deal about anything. You’re the one who won’t stop talking about it.”

Kaya scoffs incredulously, her heart already starting to race painfully. “You’re the one being evasive,” she says tightly, trying not to raise her voice as he runs a hand over his face. “Namjoon, you’ve never been like this,” she adds in a smaller voice. “Can you just tell me?”

It seems to give him pause, too, for he closes his eyes and exhales slowly. “I don’t want to upset you,” he says quietly.

There’s a strange and uncomfortable sensation in her stomach at his change in tone. This is bad. “I appreciate that,” she murmurs steadily. “But I’m a big girl. I can take it.”

Namjoon simply looks at her, observing, before pursing his lips and turning away. The dimple appears faintly in his cheek, the one that had popped as he’d grinned down at her in bed this morning, and in the kitchen at the dorm, and on the sofa when they’d been watching their debut music videos.

She shakes her head in disappointment. “I’m sorry, I can’t think of anything that would piss you off this much except for that joke about Nick, which was about something that happened five years ago but if that’s the case, then I -”

“Why didn’t you ever report him?”

Namjoon’s words cut through her sentence, voice deep and steady, yet seeming louder than anything she’s heard him say all night.

“What?” she asks in a low voice, wondering if she could’ve possibly misheard his words.

He’s looking right at her now, finally, and she suddenly wishes he wouldn’t. “Five years,” he says slowly, his voice trembling with barely concealed emotion. “It’s been five years, and he still has a hold over your life. Why didn’t you report him?”

Her breathing feels loud to her own ears. “Please tell me we’re still talking about Nick,” she says quietly. Namjoon doesn’t answer, and Kaya takes that as a confirmation.

“I guess,” he begins after a moment, as though choosing his words carefully, “I can’t understand that after everything that happened, after everything he did to you -” His voice breaks and he bites his lip. “How could you not report him?” he asks softly, shaking his head.

“For starters,” she answers, voice oddly toneless, “I couldn’t see his face.”

“I - I know. But… there are ways for the police to do this stuff, to find people based on evidence…” It’s clear from his words that he’s thought about this before. “You didn’t tell anyone, though. Except -”

“Marianne and Nick,” she finishes. “Yeah, I told my closest friend and my boyfriend. That was enough for me.”

“And they didn’t tell you to go to the police?” Namjoon scoffs softly, but it doesn’t sound directed at her. “Not even your boyfriend?”

“He - he wasn’t my boyfriend anymore at the time,” she stutters, feeling rather like they’re about to digress. “And you know that. Why would you bring up -”

“Because it’s been five years, Kaya!” he exclaims, looking truly hassled now. “It’s been five years, and you still can’t watch a movie without being affected by it! And he’s just - he’s just free! How is that fair?”

She bites her lip, her heart racing. Iconic dialogues of an iconic movie, floating out through a loudspeaker in the common room hours before dawn, all the way into the empty streets of a university campus… her stomach churns.

“I thought you didn’t care about watching Pulp Fiction.”

“I don’t care about - come on, you know that’s not my point.”

“I can watch it whenever I want,” she states, hearing the tremor in her voice. “I have watched it, since then. I can - don’t you dare walk away, Kim Namjoon!” she says loudly, as he begins making his way into the living room.

He halts immediately, however, turning around. “I’m not walking away,” he promises, taking a seat on the cream-coloured couch. She takes a step back and feels the back of a chair dig into her spine. She’d told him about the worst night of her life at this kitchen island nearly a year ago, coming up behind him as he worked on his laptop and wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, whispering calmly to him that if he had a minute, there was something important she needed to talk to him about.

They’d been together officially for six months by then, even though they’d been hovering back and forth for a few months prior to that. A level of trust had been established by then, though, not to mention a profound sense of safety she felt with him, even when he was halfway across the world from her. Later that night, after she’d told him and he’d expressed both anger and support but mostly shock, they’d cuddled on that very couch as they watched Cloud Atlas.

Sharing her secret hadn’t been easy, but no part of her regretted it. As she watches him rest his elbows on his thighs and run his fingers through his hair, she wonders if she’s finally about to.

Namjoon sighs like he’s bracing himself. “I’m not saying you can’t watch the movie, Kaya. I’m saying you don’t, for a reason. And that’s his fault.”

“A lot of things are his fault. Reporting him wouldn’t have changed that. Even if I knew whom to actually report in the first place.”

“You weren’t even drinking,” he reminds her. “Even if all you remembered was the colour of his jacket, they could’ve at least narrowed it down to -”

“No, they couldn’t! It was dark, it was - I could’ve been mistaken,” she stammers, starting to feel anxious now as the edges of her mind start letting in scraps of memories from that night.

“You were not mistaken. You’re the most detail-oriented person I know.”

“Well, unless you were there that night, I don’t see how you could possibly have an opinion on that.”

Namjoon sighs. "This is why I didn't want to bring this up, Kaya.”

“No, please, I’m glad you did,” she says immediately, scoffing. “I’m glad I know what you think now. Have you been judging me for this ever since I told you last year?”

“I am not judging you - how can you say that?" he demands, looking stung. "I care about you. I love you, and I hate that you still have to make sacrifices and compromises, even if it is just over a movie. You’re still haunted by it, and he’s roaming around free!”

“And you think reporting him would’ve helped that?” Kaya exclaims. “Do you think we’d be back at the dorm watching Pulp Fiction right now if I’d gone to the cops? If I’d been neck-deep in paperwork, being asked to recount the incident a hundred times to a hundred different people about a guy whose face I couldn’t see and voice I could barely make out, only to be asked why I was walking alone around campus while wearing shorts?”

“I - I don’t know. I’m not -” He drops his head in his hands, breathing slowly and deeply. “I just… I fucking hate him, Kaya,” he confesses quietly, as though letting her in on a secret. “I hate him so, so much. I want to hurt him - I want to kill him with my bare hands.”

Kaya exhales shakily, never having heard him speak this disdainfully before, with this much hatred, about anyone or anything. “I hate him, too,” she murmurs after a moment. “Of course, I do. But I also had finals in two weeks and believe it or not, I knew my priorities.”

“I’m not saying you didn’t, I’m saying -” He sighs in frustration, his tongue poking into his lower lip again. “I just wish he would have suffered the consequences. Or just suffered.”

The fury in his voice is evident now, and is now starting to show on his face, but Kaya tries to hold her ground. She has to. “I told you: I had finals. I had a masters’ seat in the balance waiting for me in London, I had graduation - I had a million other things that I thought were more important for me. I couldn’t report him,” she adds after a moment, hearing the desperation in her own voice. “I couldn’t afford to get caught up in it.”

“You… you could report it,” he corrects her in a low voice. “You chose not to.”

“Yes, and that was my choice to make.” She grits her teeth, feeling her eyes start to sting. “I didn’t think this far ahead and anticipate that five years down the line, my boyfriend would be making me defend that decision to him.”

“That’s not what I’m doing! I care about -”

“Then listen to me! Listen to what I’m saying! It didn’t matter to me that -”

“How could it not matter? Kaya, he got away with it!” Namjoon stands up now, and his height is suddenly looming, even from across the room. “He’s out there, still, and he’s living his life while you’re -” He breaks off.

Kaya forces herself to breathe. “While I’m what?”

“While you’re still hurting.”

There’s no stopping it now; she feels her vision blur. “I’m perfectly happy with my life,” she says, her voice trembling.

“I’m not saying you aren’t. I just wish you’d -” He breaks off again and sighs, while Kaya turns around and lowers her head, unable to look at him any longer. Her chest feels constricted now, and she realises after a moment that it’s because she’s holding her breath. Letting it out seems dangerous, though, like she’s setting herself up to break down.

It’s a tall order for her to cry in front of anyone; it makes her feel uncomfortable and she avoids it at all costs. She wonders for the first time if it’s got anything to do with this incident, and acknowledges with a heaviness that any comfort she might have had in succumbing to tears in front of Namjoon has disappeared, at least for tonight.

“I just wish you’d see how much more you could’ve done,” he says, his tone taking on a different quality, something that reminds her inexplicably of Nick for a moment. It makes her feel inadequate and her heart hurts, even as Namjoon continues. “Even if he didn’t end up behind bars, you could’ve called him out publicly. You saw his varsity jacket - that college could’ve been made aware that one of their students is a -”

“Stop,” murmurs Kaya weakly, but he doesn’t hear her.

“It’s a world of things, and it only takes one to create change. I mean… how do you know he hasn’t done this again, to someone else?”

It’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and Kaya feels her chest finally unclench as she swallows a sob. Her face and throat burn in discomfort as she tries not to make a sound, her hair falling down the sides of her face and shielding it from his view. Namjoon has fallen silent; whether it’s due to her reaction or because he realises the implication of what he’s said, she doesn’t know. At the moment, she can’t bear to be around him for another moment to find out.

She opens her eyes to see a tear fall onto the white kitchen island and hastily wipes it, taking a shaky breath as quietly as she can. “I’m, uh -” She breaks off, cringing when she hears the tremble in her voice. She turns slightly in his direction, not looking at him. “I’m going to sleep in the guest room tonight, if you don’t mind.”

Namjoon watches her turn and leave with a sinking heart, her smaller figure padding quietly down the corridor and passing his bedroom before she disappears from his view. There’s no point in going after her right now; it won’t be a fruitful argument, if that’s what they’re indeed in the middle of.

There’s a twinge of regret taking form in his chest that stings when he hears the door to the guest room open and close. He sighs; he knew he shouldn’t have initiated this topic.

He’d had no intention of doing so. After she’d confided in him about it, it had probably come up once, and only when she’d brought it up. The night she’d told him, he hadn’t dreamed in a million years that this was the important thing she wanted to discuss. He hadn’t been able to process it past a certain point initially; he’d listened in stunned silence as she recounted that night, skipping the most horrific details (for whose benefit, he wasn’t sure, but he was thankful) and ending it with a short yet heartfelt declaration of how much she trusted him.

Kaya had seemed relieved after that, almost like telling him had been a catharsis of sorts. She’d been just as affectionate as normal after that, and Namjoon had silently gone along with it in a daze, his mind replaying her words and expressions the entire time, including when they were watching a movie on the couch later. It wasn’t until they’d gone to bed that the shock had finally worn off and he’d been able to register everything she’d told him, and the white hot anger at a faceless stranger had coursed through his body in a way he’d never felt before.

Namjoon drops his head in his hands, the living room suddenly feeling far too big and empty. He closes his eyes, trying half-heartedly to search for an apology or words of comfort but nothing comes to mind, not now that his mind is occupied with this.

Earlier this evening, when Yoongi had suggested Pulp Fiction, Namjoon had immediately expected Kaya to say no. But she hadn’t, and one by one the members had voted and before they knew it, the opening credits were playing. He’d nudged her gently, asking her silently if she was really okay with this, and she’d shrugged and given him a small smile before settling into his side.

Even after the movie began, Namjoon’s attention remained on Kaya, observing her for any movements that might signal her discomfort. It was an odd detail that had made it through the incident, the loud volume at which the movie was playing inside the campus common room, the dramatic and aggressive dialogues that floated out being the only thing her mind had been able to process.

She’d given nothing away today, though, not until halfway through when John Travolta, Samuel L Jackson and Quentin Tarantino’s voices had blared through the television amidst gunshots and male voices yelling, and Kaya’s face had suddenly crumpled.

It had been brief, a moment of heartbreaking agony that Namjoon had been powerless to stop, before she’d immediately straightened her expression. But he wasn’t fooled, and he’d taken it as a cue to casually say to everyone else that they were going to be heading out. Kaya hadn’t protested, for which he was glad, because the fury at her assailant was returning swiftly and Namjoon’s only focus from here on out was to ensure he drove them back safely to his apartment.

There’s a soft rattle, like an ominous rumble. Namjoon peeks out from behind his hands, wondering briefly if it’s an earthquake before he realises it’s him. His leg is jerking up and down, as though of its own accord, and the movement is making the wooden coffee table shake.

Just… just a jacket. Looked like a varsity football one. Yellow, I think… there were too many people from too many colleges on campus that week. So I don’t know.

It feels like his limbs are moving with a mind of their own, making him stand up and walk over to the kitchen island where Kaya had been standing a little while ago, his hands reaching for the sleek, silver laptop he’d left there this morning. He’s opened the screen and switched it on before even returning to the sofa, and the moment he’s logged in, he goes straight to the browser.

Here, Namjoon’s stuck. Watching the cursor blink, as though waiting for him to show what he knows, he chews on his lower lip. Finally, he types Colleges in New York, only to get almost a hundred results. He combines it with football team, before realising he doesn’t know if she meant American football or soccer, so he replaces it with sports team.

The results go into the hundreds now, with the swim teams and water polo and chess players popping up on his screen. He sighs, suddenly feeling ridiculous, when he spots a picture. Frowning, he clicks on it until it fits his screen: it’s of a Caucasian male, early twenties, with dark hair and dark eyes. He’s smiling straight into the camera, tall and confident - and wearing a yellow jersey.

It’s like a dull punch to his stomach, for even though Namjoon knows neither head nor tail about this individual - his eyes flicker to the name in the caption to see Mark Rivers - it occurs to him that the person who attacked Kaya, who hurt her all those years ago like a coward in the dark - that person could be Mark Rivers.

Namjoon forces himself to take a deep breath before slowly scrolling down, begrudgingly noting that nearly every male he comes across could have been him. He’s in no mood to back down, though. The image of Kaya all those months ago, her face carefully calm as he told him about that night, her face earlier this evening when Pulp Fiction had been playing, every single scene in Namjoon’s imagination that reveals itself in the darkest of times when he thinks about how it might have played out five years ago… He shakes his head, resolutely opening multiple tabs on his browser, each with a different college and its sports teams on the screen.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there, scrolling from picture to picture, eyes skimming over the names and the sports. At some point, in order to narrow it down, he makes an executive decision to filter out sports that aren’t high intensity, for while she hadn’t ever said it explicitly, she’d implied a level of strength that she hadn’t been able to fight back against.

Swallowing the bile in his throat, he moves on quickly. It also occurs to him soon enough that just because NYU was in New York, it didn’t mean that every college team that had landed up there was also from New York, and Namjoon is thus forced to expand his search to outside the city as well. He restricts it to the tristate area, however, and continues looking for links in the college websites about alumni and galleries with pictures of their sports teams.

He combs through the links, looking for teams or graduating classes that would have overlapped with Kaya’s senior year. Some of the links have members listed by name and Namjoon pounces on them with a vengeance, flipping through picture after picture of former students who eventually start to blur into each other.

There are some faces who, for some reason, just strike Namjoon as suspicious. He starts bookmarking the names, copy-pasting them onto an Excel sheet to maintain some kind of list, some kind of indication that this unorganized exercise he’s conducting in this frame of mind isn’t a waste, that there’s actually something fruitful coming out of it.

Namjoon pauses, his mind still working amidst the tiredness and a dull pain between his eyes that he knows is the onset of a headache. He needs to narrow the search down further - it’s the only way. His fingers fly across the keyboard, the typos increasing both in number and his irritation, and he starts searching for known college campus assaults in Kaya’s senior year, along with two years before and after. He’s mostly met with newspaper and magazine articles about campus safety and the like, but names elude him.

Somehow, he starts getting directed to chat rooms and message boards that have been inactive for years, and while he wishes to interact with none of them, he scrolls through the hundreds of messages, pausing every time he sees a name mentioned. Finally, in what seems to be the fifth or sixth message board started by a former sorority girl half a decade ago, he sees a name that makes his heart leap weakly.

He can’t understand why at first; it doesn’t sound too common but something about it stands out to him. The message doesn’t even mention a school associated but after a moment, he thinks he knows what it could be. Vaguely seeing the pieces in his mind, about to fall into place, he goes back to the Excel sheet, and searches for the name, gasping softly when the name matches.

It’s at that moment that he spots two numbers: the time, showing him that it’s nearly three am, and the row number of the name he’s just searched, showing him row two hundred and thirty-six. He squeezes his eyes shut, unwilling to acknowledge how far gone he is.

It was… it probably didn’t last more than fifteen minutes. It just felt like a lifetime. But turns out it was just one long scene of Pulp Fiction.

Clenching his fist on the keyboard so he isn’t tempted to throw the laptop against the wall, Namjoon tries to gather himself. In a desperate move, he enters the first name into Naver to find a LinkedIn profile. It’s him; it’s the same person, but his profile picture is no longer of a college student with a cocky grin and bangs, but an older version in a suit and tie, gazing calmly at Namjoon through the screen. A half-hearted scroll shows him that this person - Geoffrey Dominic - is currently residing in Dubai and working for an airline company.

Something about it makes Namjoon’s throat close up in frustration, and it takes him a moment to realise it’s the fact that any of these men, or all of them, could be anywhere in the world now. The way Kaya was in London less than three months after the incident, any of these men could be anywhere else, across the world from her or even in the same building as her in Amsterdam, and they would have no way of knowing.

Namjoon runs his hands through his hair, his fingers trembling, and feels a sense of such helplessness that it makes him want to scream. It occurs to him with some regret that Kaya might have been feeling the same, only magnified to proportions he would never understand. He suspects now - or, rather, he’d suspected all the way back then but didn’t want to admit it - that she was probably driven to tears before she’d quietly declared her intention to go to bed, effectively ending their argument.

Keeping the laptop aside, he stands for the first time in hours and winces when his knees cramp. Stretching his legs and making his way inside the apartment towards the bedrooms, he passes by his room; not only is his mind too cluttered to sleep right now, he also can’t imagine doing so in his bedroom, without Kaya. He stops in front of the guest room, his heart hammering when he imagines her in there, at her choice to actively be apart from him for the night.

They need to talk about this. He’s willing to concede that he might have been too harsh, that he may have brought up the topic too suddenly - but he cannot let this argument fizzle out and have them pretend to have moved on from it in the morning. Not this particular discussion, not after the way they left it tonight, and not with how Kaya left.

Namjoon stares at the door, hoping something will knock on it for him. His hand won’t move and with each passing second, his tiredness and frustration with his unsuccessful investigation turns into regret and something that resembles guilt.

He wonders if she’s crying in there; the thought makes his heart twist. If it’s true, if that’s what she’s doing inside, he has to go in there. Maybe he’ll apologise, maybe they’ll agree to pick it up some other time under calmer circumstances.

The moment his hand goes up to the door, however, he realises it’s been hours since their argument; she’s most likely asleep. It occurs to him, out of nowhere, that all her things are in his room. He pictures her, alone in bed amidst the covers, still in the jeans and top she’d worn today. It’s one night out of the ten they have during her stay in Seoul this time, and they’re sleeping apart - and it’s seeming more and more clear by now that it’s his fault.

The fist that’s resting against the door, about to knock, becomes flat. Namjoon leans against it, suddenly exhausted, feeling like it’s the closest he’s going to get to her tonight, wanting to let her know he’s still here. He can’t go inside now, though, even if she is asleep. As much as it may kill him to be out here, on the other side of the door that she closed on him, he can’t not respect her wishes, especially tonight. He doesn’t want to leave either, though, so after a moment, he turns around and slides down against the door until he’s sitting on the floor, knees bent and feet flat on the ground.

Namjoon hasn’t a clue what to expect in the morning, how they’re ever going to move past this. If it becomes a fight, we have a fight. And then we move on from it. He closes his eyes as he replays her words in his mind. They were rational and pragmatic, just like everything about her he’d known he needed in his life from the day he’d met her. This probably wasn’t what she had in mind, though, a small part of his mind chimes in. It’s true, and he simply hopes she’ll remember her own words tomorrow.

He sits there for a while, contemplating more than once if he should quietly step inside. He could slip into bed with her, maybe gently hold her to him, possibly kiss her shoulder in the dark and ensure she doesn’t wake up alone. The thought makes his chest hurt but he knows he can’t, so in a pathetic attempt to distract himself from it, he picks up his phone and scrolls through it for a while, remembering with a dull sort of victory that he’s a day away from his credit card bill being due for payment.

His wallet isn’t in his pocket, though, and when he trudges into the living room, he finds it’s not in his jacket pocket or anywhere else on the coffee table or the kitchen island. Mildly panicking, Namjoon shuffles between both rooms, the only places he’s set foot in all night, and searches behind jars and under the sofa, until he’s forced to conclude - and hope to high heavens - that it’s probably in the car.

It feels like the longest distance, from his penthouse to the building basement, but he takes his keys and heads out anyway. He locates the wallet in between the driver’s seat and the gear shift, lodged in the gap and peeking out apologetically when he reaches over to tug it out. Shutting the door and turning the car off, he rubs his eyes, wondering briefly that if he isn’t able to sleep, if he should head to the studio for some late night editing.

Only somewhat intrigued by the idea, he exits the building on foot, deciding that the solution to being stuck in his living room with the results of his deep-dive into the worst night of his girlfriend’s life probably isn’t another tiny room with a laptop. He walks along the pavement outside, shivering slightly in the chilly air in the absence of a jacket, in nothing but the white t-shirt he’s been wearing all day.

It was late… really late. I went back to my room. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. I just wanted to sleep, possibly forever, but by the time I got into bed, it was already dawn outside.

Around this time of the night, then. Out of nowhere, Namjoon feels his face twist, the memory of her words and her voice feeling like a punch to his stomach. He stops in his tracks, dropping his face into his hands and squeezing his eyes shut, as though hoping it will get rid of everything, every memory of that night she’s recounted to him in the tamest fashion, every horrifying image that his imagination has ever created in his mind, bringing back the particular kind of rage that’s only ever shown its face when he’s thought about how a tall, faceless man had hurt Kaya.

Another cool breeze forces him to snap out of it, and he immediately crosses the street, hearing vague honking and blurred yelling but able to focus on none of it. He enters a coffee shop, a dimly lit one with fluorescent lighting that makes his sleep-deprived brain shirk away uncomfortably, but he rallies, going over to the counter and ordering a plain Americano to go. The moment he picks it up and turns towards the door, he realises he has no desire to go back into the cold.

Taking a seat at a single table in the corner and reasonably sure no one here will recognise him, he takes a sip of his coffee and turns on his phone, his fingers automatically going onto Naver and waiting, once again, for the fury in his mind to tell him what to do. It does no such thing, though, and eventually Namjoon half-heartedly enters in the same search he’d last put in at the apartment, regarding known culprits in New York campus assault cases.

He finds he has no energy to scroll anymore, though, none of that adrenaline that pushed him to search college websites, sports teams, cross-reference them with age and whatnot. His mind is awake, but his anger isn’t as easily in his grasp anymore, not when he’s aware of Kaya back in the apartment, alone. She’s safe, of course; his building has some of the highest security in Seoul’s residential areas, and his floor is only accessible by a select few who possess key cards. Additionally, the only person in the world who has a key card to his own apartment, apart from him, is Kaya.

Namjoon hopes she’s sleeping. She’d been working unbelievably hard in the weeks leading up to her visit here so she wouldn’t have to work as much on the trip; coupled with the lingering jet lag, he’s reasonably hopeful that sleep would have caught up to her by now. His chest aches when he thinks, once again, of how she left the room in tears at the end of their argument. At the moment, he’d let her go because not only had it been evident that he’d possibly pushed her too far, but because a part of him was also frustrated that he would never be able to express to her just how much it hurt to see her hurting, and how much he wished he’d be able to give her the justice she deserved.

His stomach churns uncomfortably when he pictures her again, alone in the penthouse. Despite the security, the fear of her being hurt again, in absolutely anyway, nauseates him. It was the hardest part when she’d told him about that night, the part where she’d made him promise that he wouldn’t look at her differently and wouldn’t treat her like a victim.

Namjoon hadn’t done either, to the best of his abilities; his worry for her safety and security while she lived alone in Amsterdam pre-dated his knowledge about her past. He’d tried never to impose on how she lived, however, apart from reminding her every night to check if she’d locked the door or to let him know when she made it home after a late night in the library. It’s the one thing, even now, that gives him some comfort all the way in a different timezone, but he doubts she’ll ever know the intensity of his desire to keep her safe.

He scrolls down the screen once, the words now truly blurring into each other, until something catches his eye. You’re Not Alone: Supporting a Survivor, with further text undereath. Namjoon hesitates before opening it, spending the next ten minutes on each and every word of the article until he reaches the end and lets out a breath he didn’t even know he was holding.

He clicks on the next suggested link, and the next, and the next, until they’re all basically saying the same thing. A soft ding catches his attention and he looks up to see the last customer besides him leaving the restaurant. The waitress smiles politely at the older man before surreptitiously glancing at Namjoon, and he takes the hint, realising also that it’s half past four now and Kaya’s still alone in his apartment.

After leaving a generous tip, he heads out, the tiredness of the last twenty or so hours finally sinking in. The walk back is cold but the coffee helps and by the time he reaches his building, all he can think about is his comfortable sofa and the stacks of ramen cups in his pantry.

Over an hour later, after two cups of ramen and a small cup of chocolate ice cream he’d had no intention of eating, he finds himself watching a mediocre episode of the latest k-drama. It’s on mute, for any sound right now might make his head explode, but the subtitles work well enough. He wills sleep to find him; he can’t bring himself to get into his own bed right now, but a few minutes of sleep on this couch would suffice for a bit…

His eyelids start getting heavy just as the first rays of light start peeking in through the curtains, but he’s jolted awake by a sound that he realises a second later is a door opening and closing. His heart racing, he straightens up to see Kaya step gingerly out of the hallway, her long hair slightly dishevelled from her sleep. She’s in nothing but one of his white t-shirts, hanging loose on her smaller frame and reaching the middle of her thighs.

She stops at the edge of the kitchen island, close to where she’d been standing last night, and clears her throat. “Did you sleep at all?” she asks, frowning.

“Not really,” he answers softly, hearing the hoarseness in his own voice. “How - how did you sleep?”

“Late,” she says, and offers no further explanation. After a moment, she bites her lip. “I thought you…” She licks her lips and looks at the ground, folding her arms tightly across her chest. “I heard the door close.”

“Yeah… I dropped my wallet in the car.” He watches as she nods, and it takes him a second to realise she was probably thinking something else when she said it. “And went to get a coffee, down the block.”

She raises an eyebrow. “You went to get coffee at four am?”

“I couldn’t sleep.” Namjoon sees her eyes dart to the plastic coffee cup on the table, and a pang goes through his heart. “Did you - did you think I left?”

Kaya doesn’t answer, and it suddenly makes him want to cry. Need to start somewhere. He clears his throat. “Kaya, I want to just -”

“No, wait.” She holds up a hand, her gaze still on the ground. He sees her swallow and take a deep breath before looking up, this time straight at him. “I think there are some things I need to say. I don’t think I was really very clear the last time we spoke about this, but… I don’t regret anything.” She pauses, as though waiting for him to contradict her. When he says nothing, she continues.

“I’ve thought about this more than you know. I’ve thought about every single moment,” she says. “I’ve wondered why I had to have been walking alone on that street on that night, or why I went to NYU or why I didn’t scream louder so that someone would hear me. But it’s pointless. I was walking back from a committee meeting where we were making posters for an adoption drive at a dog shelter, which I don’t regret. I lived in one of the most amazing cities in the world and made friends for life because I went to NYU, and I can’t regret that.”

She pauses again, and this time Namjoon nods, if only to let her know he’s listening to every word.

“I chose not to report him because I was scared, and because I had next to no description of him. I know women have pressed charges with less, and I respect the hell out of that kind of courage. But I had finals, which my masters’ admission in London was contingent on. I had graduation, where I had to make a speech to my entire class. I had an internship to finish up which would round up my entire resumé - I had a world of things waiting for me.”

Her voice is trembling now, and Namjoon has to make a conscious effort to not walk over to her right now and pull her into his arms. The words are tumbling out of her mouth as though she’s been thinking about them all night, with a fear and defiance he’s both sad and proud of.

“I didn’t want to get caught up in - in spending hours at the police station, in having my classmates talk about me behind my back…” She takes a shaky breath. “I’m not saying it was easy to choose not to do it. It haunted me every day for years, but I - I had to choose me. Who else would? I had to choose my future - and I was not going to let him or what he did define me or make my decisions for me.”

“Every single day I’m glad I chose me because five years in, I’m living in a beautiful city, I’m the youngest doctoral candidate in the university, I’m working on a world famous research grant under Professor Woodstock who is a scholar -” She scoffs in mild disbelief, just as she had the day she’d secured the research project, and Namjoon can’t help but smile a bit “- I have good friends, I have a boyfriend who loves me, I have… I have a life. I have a good life, and I have it because I made a decision. You can - you can judge me for it… but I don’t regret it for a second. I just hope you understand that.”

Kaya bites her lip, feeling her vision blur again just like last night, as she watches him nod slowly, as though processing everything she’s just said. She makes no further motion, leaving the ball in his court. It feels like the most vulnerable she’s ever been before him, for she knows it’s a sliding scale. Either he does what the man she fell in love with would do, which would be to instantly understand her… or she finds out something new about him today, and they acknowledge the fundamental differences in their outlooks.

Namjoon rests his elbows on his thighs, running his fingers through his hair. The platinum blond looks slightly darker - or maybe it’s the light - as though making it clear that he hasn’t slept all night. He looks straight at her, though, and for a moment she’s comforted with the expression in his eyes.

“I, uh -” He sighs, his gaze flickering to the floor. “I tried to look him up last night.”

Her heart stops. “You did what?”

He immediately holds up both hands. “I know, it was a - a violation of your privacy, and I’m sorry. It’s not like I found anything,” he adds after a moment, and she doesn’t know if she’s imagining a note of defeat in his voice. “I don’t know if I actually thought I would, but it felt like I wanted to. Looking back, though, I don’t even know if that would help.”

“Kaya, I -” He exhales, and the look in his eyes becomes even more pronounced. “I worry about you,” he says after a moment. “I worry whenever you’re alone in your apartment, when you tell me you’re staying late in the library, when you’re drinking with friends… even last night, when I was twenty minutes away from you, I - I worried.”

She doesn’t know what to say to that. “I can take care of myself. You don’t have to -”

“No, I - I know. You’re more than capable of taking care of yourself. It’s one of the things I love most about you.” He’s quiet for a few seconds, his gaze not moving away from her, like he’s seeing her in the flesh after a long time. “I still worry, though. And it’s okay - I like worrying about you,” he adds, a playful smile flashing in his eyes momentarily, almost as though he can hear her heart flutter.

“It’s got nothing to do with your capabilities. I just worry because - well, partly because it’s the only thing I can do from here - but also because…” He sighs. “God, Kaya, it would kill me if something ever happened to you. If you ever got hurt.” He finally lowers his head, and she feels her heart ache. “To know that you did get hurt and that I can’t do anything about -” He breaks off, sniffing and looking up at her.

“But that’s my problem. Worrying about you, dealing with that anger… I guess somewhere in that manic searching I did all night, something pointed me to the fact that it doesn’t matter how I feel about it. It’s not about me. Or him.”

Kaya nods, not knowing what to say. She doesn’t know what he spent all night searching for and it’s too overwhelming to try to understand, even as her brain automatically begins dissecting the various demographics and data he could’ve started slicing and dicing. “Thank you,” she whispers finally.

“Did you ever consider it?” Namjoon asks after a few seconds. “Therapy? Or counselling?”

She bites her lip and nods. “I tried it for a bit, in London. I stopped because I moved to Amsterdam,” she says, anticipating his silent question. “Finding a new person, telling them everything… It seemed like a lot. We can talk about it,” she offers softly after a moment.

Namjoon stands up then and walks over to her slowly, as though giving her enough time to back away. She doesn’t, though, for his height feels comforting again unlike during their argument last night. He stops in front of her, almost a foot’s distance between them.

“I hope you know,” he begins, his voice low, “that I would never judge you. Definitely not for anything to do with this.” He purses his lips before sighing, his dimple appearing briefly. “I’m sorry.”

Kaya nods. “You should get some sleep,” she murmurs, reaching up to touch the bags under his eyes, his fingers ghosting over his skin.

“I will.”

A few moments pass, and Kaya feels like she needs to say it again, just in case. “You can’t treat me differently, okay?”

Namjoon doesn’t answer right away. He brushes her cheekbone with his knuckle and she feels her toes curl on the bare floor. “Kaya, I’ll always be protective of you.”

It’s not an answer, but it feels like the thing she needs to hear right now. “I’ll allow it,” she murmurs, tugging at the bottom of his t-shirt. It’s almost identical to the one she’s wearing; she’d found it in the closet of the guest room and didn’t imagine he’d have a problem with her borrowing it. Sleeping in his oversized t-shirt, smelling of his detergent… it was the closest thing to comfort she’d gotten last night.

Kaya feels her throat start to hurt uncomfortably. “I need you to understand my decision, okay?” she whispers in a small voice, looking up at him, more vulnerable than she can remember. “I need you to be in my corner.”

As though he’s been waiting forever to do it, Namjoon immediately pulls her into him, kissing her forehead and wrapping his arms around her. “Of course, I am. I love you,” he whispers into her hair, and she feels him inhaling. Coconut and vanilla. Kaya buries her face into his shoulder, having missed his broad chest and strong arms so unbearably last night. “I’m always in your corner. No matter what.”

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