#bring it on all or nothing is my all time fav movie

[husbandhoshi]

title: eat. play. love.

pairing: seungcheol x f!reader

wc: 19.4k

summary: being one of new york's top food critics comes with a lot of perks: free dinners, nice awards, and a linkedin profile your parents could be proud of. that doesn't stop you from wanting a lofty promotion to editor, and the only person standing in your way is choi seungcheol. just one problem: his romance column has half of new york under his grimy little thumb. that, and you hate him.

in which your love language is food. seungcheol doesn't have one.

notes: romcom with mild angst, coworkers!au, slow burn enemies to lovers, playboy!cheol, suggestive (one moment in particular) + mentions of sex (otherwise sfw), swearing, lots of alcohol, also you will probably get hungry reading this. extra special thanks a million times over to my fav person @wuahae for bearing with me through literally all 20k words of this. i love you:')

It's underneath a layer of paper-thin egg yolk pasta where you think you see god.

Spoon meets whipped ricotta, white truffle, sage oil. A sip of 1979 cabernet, punishing and oaky. Rinse and repeat.

None of these words are in the Bible, yet you are having nothing short of a religious experience.

"Well, this seems like good news for the place," Jeonghan says. "Wine's tasty. Three stars?"

At this point, you're fairly sure Jeonghan has tuned the explanation of your elaborate rating process out (he's there for the wine, anyway), so instead you top him up and help yourself to a generous portion of his pappardelle.

"Four, then?" He leans forward on his elbows. "Or critic's choice?"

Candied lemon, pecorino, garlic. Derivative, but it's a good bite.

"You're distracting me." You point your fork at him. "You're like 80% alcohol, anyway. Bad opinions."

"Sue me," he laughs. "I would take a client here, is all I'm saying."

You pass on the opportunity to bring up that Jeonghan once brought a client to a Bubba Gump because he was craving coconut shrimp. But Jeonghan isn't a food critic—he's a business analyst and your best friend from college, back when all you cared about was Friday's house party and writing pizza joint reviews for the university paper.

It's a good arrangement. You appreciate his company, and he's never one to turn down a free meal. The both of you keep a small circle—such is the price of discernment.

There aren't many things that can come between you and a delicious meal. But, you have notifications turned on for just three things (all work-related) and you both watch the linen tablecloth light up under your face-down phone in true horror-movie fashion.

Jeonghan raises an eyebrow. "Popular on a Saturday night," he jokes. "Copy on your ass again?"

"Nothing's in production," you reply, letting the evil claws of your terrible work-life balance encircle you once again as you open your email.

URGENT: LIFESTYLE EDITOR TRANSITIONAL PLANS, it reads. It's from Wonwoo, your editor in chief, who has sent it with priority, as if the caps lock wasn't scary enough.

"So Joshua decided to quit. Just like you said," Jeonghan says, but it's like he's speaking to you through a wet paper bag because it takes every working brain cell of yours to read the email.

As you may know, Joshua has decided to step down from his position as our current Lifestyle editor.

Not a surprise, given his wife is having a kid. You had called it six months ago over the paper's Christmas dinner at Eleven Madison Park, when Joshua spent half of it outside on a phone call and the other half browsing the Baby Gap website.

I have decided to hire internally to fill his position. I and upper management believe you would be a good fit for the position. Please plan for a meeting 9 AM Monday to discuss transitional plans.

It's that part that you have to read over three times. And then you read it over a fourth, just for good measure.

"You're starting to scare me." Jeonghan puts down his glass, which is something akin to a baby separating from their bottle.

Sometimes you need a dictionary to understand Wonwoo, but the email seems clear as day to you. Good fit. Transitional plans. Suddenly you wish Jeonghan hadn't had so much of the wine because you're in desperate need of a drink.

"I-I think…I think I'm getting promoted."

How funny to think your lifelong dream would be realized over a 40 dollar plate of pasta. You want to cry and hug the maître d' and eat the entire complimentary bread basket.

"It's about time." The glass finds his relieved hand again. "You breathe journalism. I'm afraid one day you'll text me in AP style."

You read over all of it again, trying to memorialize the words that undoubtedly will launch your wonderful and long career in the upper echelons of media.

Looking forward to talking with the two of you.

Wait—two?

Then the proverbial cherry on top, the laughably convenient other thing your eyes had glazed over before.

CC: Choi Seungcheol.

"Choi Seungcheol?!"

Nothing is ever that easy and it then dawns on you that this is a competition type thing because never in the history of the printing press has there been two editors for a section.

Jeonghan stares at you blankly. It would be funny if you didn't feel like you were being double deep-fried like terrible fair food, all the thrill and elation of the moment boiled down to lead in your chest.

"I—he," you stammer.

Jeonghan mouths check to the poor waiter assigned to watch your table. God bless him.

"Words," he tells you. "You went to journalism school."

You take a syrupy breath that sits in your lungs unhappily. Your food is cold. This is a disaster.

"Well, actually, I'm not getting promoted."

Jeonghan's eyes soften, just enough without making you pity yourself more.

"There's this guy," you start. "He's the love and relationships columnist, the one I complain about all the time." Jeonghan makes a small ahh sound, your predicament finally dawning on him. "I guess we're both under consideration for the position. I didn't-I didn't even think of him. I—"

You slump into your seat, the arancini your only solace despite your complaint that the breading was too salty earlier.

"So? I bet you're a way better fit than him. It'll be a shoe-in. Easy decision."

Jeonghan's confidence in you makes you want to cry.

The problem is that Seungcheol is the human equivalent of Cosmopolitan Magazine. You can't recall the last time he walked into the office with a fully buttoned up shirt. You also can't recall the last time one of his advice columns wasn't in the end of quarter recap for popularity.

It's not in you to explain this debacle to Jeonghan. This whole situation is so cosmically awful that all you can do is ask for dessert in a takeout box and watch Jeonghan calculate tip without a calculator because that's all you learn in business school.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Jeonghan asks when you're both in the Uber.

"Yeah." You have a headache. You also can't decide whether or not to give the restaurant three or four stars, and you always know by the time you're out the door. "It's fine."

The tiramisu is cold in your lap. Jeonghan squeezes your shoulder. You refresh your email.

Choi Seungcheol's name stares back at you.

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The meeting goes exactly how you would expect.

Wonwoo, in his lanky taupe sweater vest, says that Joshua is leaving and you and Seungcheol are standing toe-to-toe in the space left behind.

"I'm sure you two are well-acquainted," he begins.

You stifle a laugh, but Seungcheol's cat-like grimace says more than enough. Neither of you have the heart to tell Wonwoo that your very first impression of Seungcheol was that he tried to hit on you at the new recruit party, or that Joshua probably deserves reparations for how often he mediated fights between the two of you during weekly meetings. (Maybe not reparations, but at least an Edible Arrangements.)

For better or for worse, Wonwoo's genius does not extend to social cues, and he follows with a blithe, "Therefore, I hope you two will treat this as a friendly competition between equals."

You almost laugh again, but this time it's because you need the promotion more than you need air, and you cannot allow some Buzzfeed reject with the face of a model take that from you. And you don't doubt Seungcheol wants it as bad as you do, considering how often you've seen him try to schmooze his way up the ranks.

He may have become a columnist by rubbing elbows with the right people, but you'll never forget the late nights you spent sifting through hours of interview transcripts, on the grueling climb up the totem pole to earn your position.

"We'll evaluate an article of your own submission at the end of the month before we decide. Best of luck."

At least Wonwoo knows to quit while he's ahead—he closes the meeting with a succinct nod before returning to his seemingly infinite unread emails.

"Exciting," Seungcheol says. He claps his hands together, Rolex gaudy under the office lights, and sends a nauseating smile your way. "May the best writer win."

He offers you a handshake. You think he has real life cooties, so instead you close your planner and shoot him a very pointed look.

"There's only one writer here. Thrilled to read your next thinkpiece on how men should spend more time on Tinder and not therapy."

That earns you a chuckle from Wonwoo, but Seungcheol is not easily fazed.

Instead he rushes to hold the door open for you on your way out, likely his favorite piece of advice to give his poor, indolent readers.

"I'll book a table for us at Avra next month," Seungcheol gloats. "Consider it a gift from your future boss."

"They don't have a kids menu, you know."

"No problem. I'll have my darling food critic order for me." He places a wicked hand over his polyester covered heart. "Ending misogyny in one fell swoop, huh?"

You wait for the door to Wonwoo's office to close before looking at him right in his wet, cow eyes with the most malice you can possibly muster. You feel it collect in your bones, enough to feel like you can physically hack it up and hurl it at him.

"You have no clue what you're talking about, huh? Do you actually attract women with that attitude? Or are you just a really good liar?"

You are so close to him, you could kiss him if you wanted—luckily for the both of you, you would rather die a thousand fiery, terrible deaths, and then die all over again. Instead, you watch his pout unravel into a grin from hell, and he leans in closer, the scent of Old Spice and break room coffee heavy on him. This morning's matcha latte churns in your stomach, and you wonder if you should have gotten oatmilk instead of dairy.

Up close, he's worse. His hair reminds you of the sad, tired swoop of the washed-up lead of a daytime soap opera. And he has no pores, which is deeply upsetting because he looks like the type to wash his face with Palmolive and a prayer.

"You know what?"

His breath hits your lips and your skin prickles like you have an allergy.

"What?"

"You just gave me the winning idea for my next column." No way, you think. Mind games. Classy. "See you at dinner, sweetheart. Looking forward to it."

The pet name makes you seethe. There are a million things you want to say, all colorful and none workplace appropriate.

"I'd rather starve."

"Better not let Wonwoo hear you with that bad attitude. I'm sure management loves a team player." His cheshire grin somehow gets bigger, all white teeth and pink lip. "Try to smile a little, huh? Have fun writing about snails and black garlic and cwa-ssants, or whatever it is that you do."

you watch all the laminated syllables of croissant go through his paper shredder smile and you think you black out.

He spins on his heel triumphantly, almost bowling over Minghao from Arts & Entertainment, who is undoubtedly wondering if you did, in fact, kiss.

Seungcheol laughs as he walks away, linebacker shoulders rippling under his one size too small shirt.

The metal-red knot of anger swells in your gut as you watch his perfect silhouette and his tiny little waist disappear into the staff room. Then you realize what you've been looking at and let yourself get mad all over again.

He does have a nice ass, though. You'll give him that.

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"You'll never guess what I have."

"Is it better than this lox bagel?" You answer, mouth unattractively full.

Seungkwan's answer is the sound of a straw hitting the bottom of an empty cup and the grating jostle of ice. Phone calls with him are like ASMR because he's always doing a million things at once, but you wouldn't have it any other way.

"Infinitely," he finally says, after procuring the last milliliter of what's likely his second coffee of the day. "Besides, we all know pesto is way better."

"Wrong, but okay," you reply. "What is it?"

"You're not gonna thank me for being the best friend in the world? Me, an editor, keeping nepotism alive for you? A mere columnist?"

"Senior columnist," you laugh between bites. "You need me. Who else would you text during content meetings?"

"Whatever." His eye roll is audible. "I guess I won't tell you."

He shakes his cup again, all ice and no patience.

"Fine! I owe you. My career and my life."

"And a seat at Momofuku."

"And that."

You take another greedy bite, letting the everything on an everything bagel get all over your chin. You love dressing up and going to restaurants that cost more than both of your kidneys, but there's something sacred about eating a $10 bagel behind the shield of your computer screen at a cafe where no one knows you.

There's someone laughing really loudly somewhere, and if you weren't otherwise preoccupied, you would look for the offender and give them a hard glare. You don't know what could possibly be that funny at 9 AM, but, then again, you never were a morning person.

"So, I have intel. About Seungcheol." You can picture the glint in Seungkwan's eyes, glittery and caramel. Unfortunately, the news that it's related to your worst enemy makes you sit up a little straighter. "At today's content meeting, Joshua said that he's working on some kind of challenge to go on as many dates as possible. He might make it a series."

"How tacky," you say, but the information clanks around in your brain like shoes in a washing machine. The indulgent, clickbaity headline just falls together perfectly—I Went On 50 First Dates So You Don't Have To. Exactly the kind of article your mom sees on Facebook and sends to you.

"You have to admit it's a decent idea. Not as good as yours, but it'll get engagement," is Seungkwan's reply, but you can barely hear it over the swell of another sitcom-esque laugh, this time, from a woman. "The other editors are very invested in this whole thing, by the way. Of course, I'm betting on you."

You're about to very openly stress about people gambling on your success when your eyes wander to the backside of the Sports Illustrated model getting napkins at the counter. Not bad at all, you think. It may be too early for the comedy club, but appreciating the male figure has no schedule.

And then he turns around, and you're able to see past the curly hair, muscle tee, beauty pageant smile—it's none other than Choi Seungcheol, fully outfitted with the audacity to trespass on your bagel place. You have never been more disgusted by your heterosexuality.

You hide behind your computer screen.

"Helloooo?" comes Seungkwan on the line. "Are you making out with your breakfast or something?"

"Seungkwan, I gotta go," you hiss. Your eyes follow Seungcheol as he makes his way back to his table. "There's a…situation."

You watch him sit across from a beautiful girl in a sundress and Prada sunglasses, and her lips tumble into a brilliant red smile.

It would be really fucking funny if he was on a date, you think, but then you see him make the kind of eyes you last saw in the deepest, stickiest recesses of a frat house on thirsty Thursday. Then you realize he is on a date, that he's been on a date, and it's his laugh that is equally annoying as it is loud.

Seungkwan works hard, but the devil always works harder.

"Ok, talk to you later. Bye!" You can hear the beginning of one of Seungkwan's protests, but you hang up before he's able to properly complain. Maybe you'll have to do a little better than Momofuku—that's a problem for later.

Over the rim of your laptop, you catch glimpses of their conversation. You notice Seungcheol talks a lot with his hands, and you wonder if that's another one of his tips or if that's just him. Him and those big clown hands, illustrating a story that you're unfortunately too far away to hear.

But you can hear her laugh again, and you try to guess what he's talking about. His childhood dog. The insurmountable burden of being prom king and captain of the football team. This little not-competition and this little not-rivalry between the two of you. How the PB&J bagel is the best thing on the menu (it's not, but you see the berry compote all over his fingers and you know that's the hill he's dying on).

No matter how you spin it, it's a hard pill to swallow. Choi Seungcheol is good at what he does, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.

You hear the careening lilt of what seems to be Seungcheol whining, and there's a brief flash of something like endearment in your stomach before the repulsion sets in.

Nothing you can do to stop him, huh?

The question, sinister and burning, writhes in your brain as you chew on the ice from your coffee and stare at a blank Word document, the cursor blinking like a heartbeat.

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Beware the wrath of a woman scorned.

It's number 3 on Seungcheol's article titled Revenge and Other Stories. Unsurprisingly, he must not practice what he preaches, because you currently have all nine circles of Dante's Inferno inside you right now.

Play nice, Jeonghan had told you. Looks better to upper management.

And you did, until one of your photo requests mysteriously got deleted. Then Joshua told you to cut 500 words from this week's column because Seungcheol's just "happened" to be a little longer this time.

The knockout punch was yesterday when Seungcheol told you he was using your January critic's choice pick to take Wonwoo out for a friendly dinner, his treat. If you had known, you would've called ahead and told them to poison the hamachi. (No matter. Any foodie worth their salt knows Thursday is the worst day for sushi).

Now you sit on the C train, dressed to the nines, because you have a date with destiny at Nai. Sometimes destiny is a big pan of paella for one, but this time, it's Seungcheol and his next victim on date night.

Getting him there was so easy, it was almost criminal. An obnoxiously loud elevator phone call in which you name dropped the executive chef, a friend of yours, at least four times. Seungkwan very strategically asking you if a press pass can bypass reservations for a booked-out restaurant. Gossip in the break room with the intentional use of "intimate," "sangria drunk," and "affordable."

Affordable was a lie, but you're learning quickly that a hungry fish will take any bait. And seeing Seungcheol's face is never a joy, but you're not opposed to watching him open the menu for the first time.

"I have a killer Spanish accent," Seungcheol told you on the way out today.

Hook, line, and sinker.

The subway car rumbles under you. You're almost in East Village. You don't normally spend your Friday nights crashing dates—you actually don't really spend them outside your apartment at all, but Seungcheol is the exception to the rule and you're making a lot of them for him. A small price to pay for the glory of dethroning Casanova.

The plan is to "accidentally" run into Seungcheol and his Friday night exploit, and then to casually, non-bitterly mention a, that she is about to become a statistic, b, that his idea of chivalry was birthed in the basement of the Alpha Omega house, and c, that you're surprised he's still single because you always happen to catch him on dates. Something like that.

This is admittedly the best you could come up with. Like you said, you don't really crash dates. You don't really sabotage people either, but Seungcheol declared war the minute his Folgers breath hit your face outside Wonwoo's office.

Then you think of all the ways things can absolutely backfire. Seungcheol's warm, carefree whirl of laughter when he explains you're office rivals, or worse, lies and says you're nothing but a jilted, jealous ex. Or this whole thing could simply be immortalized in his winning article as a jaunty sentence about making the most out of a bad situation, yada yada yada.

You picture watching another girl, spellbound, as you dig into your table-for-one paella.

In your mind's eye, she laughs, floaty like his date at the bagel place, and for a moment you understand what it might feel like to want Choi Seungcheol.

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Friday night at Nai is red and glittering and heady with saffron.

You remember when you first ate here, two weekends after the soft open, early in your career at the paper. After a three hour conversation over wine and octopus with the owner, you wrote the restaurant a glowing review that, to your surprise, helped land it several ritzy awards. Now the dining room is never empty, but they always find space for you.

That was the first time you learned that all of this work meant something. Yeah, you loved an excuse to stuff your face and get paid for it, but what was even better was the chance to tell the stories of a working father's hand-pulled noodles, the drunk, midnight origins of a tasting menu, the caramel-greedy fingers of a well-loved childhood.

This is the long way of explaining how you bypass the two hour standby wait time, and how you walk in on a first name basis with the manager.

You're fully prepared to see Seungcheol mid-churro, perhaps four pick-up lines deep and wondering if he still has a condom in his wallet.

That's why you almost miss him on your way to your table. His is empty, other than a lonely, watered down martini on the rocks and two menus.

"Seungcheol?"

He looks up at you, and something like genuine surprise melts into relief, then intrigue.

"Look at who crawled out of her dungeon," he chuckles. "You clean up good."

Whatever pity you may have felt for him vaporizes instantly. Although, when he beckons for you to sit in the empty seat across from him, you do take the bait—you're not about to pass up a good opportunity to humble your least formidable foe.

"Refreshing to see that our love guru isn't above dining solo," you reply. "I have to admit, your acting is impressive. What an elaborate ruse to get another poor, single diner to pity you enough to sit with you."

"It worked, didn't it?" He takes a sip of his cocktail, which is almost a brand new drink because it's 90% water, 10% martini by now.

"I'm no expert, but pretending to get stood up is not a tip I would give the general public."

"Who said I was pretending?"

No fucking way. Your jaw drops. It's too unreal to believe. Even if the slutty cut of Seungcheol's shirt wasn't persuasive enough, surely the prospect of enjoying a free Michelin star dinner would warrant an appearance, even for you. Breaking News: New York's Hottest Bachelor Ghosted at Top Restaurant. If only that were as wonderful to the average reader as it is to you.

Because waiters are trained to enter conversations at the best possible time, you're forced to pause and order a wine for the table and some tapas. (No paella for one? Seungcheol asks, and you try to reconcile your annoyance with the fact that one, he's read your review of this place, and two, that he looks mildly turned on that you can pronounce all the menu items. You tell the waiter to add a paella.)

"You got stood up?" You cross your arms over your chest. "You may think I'm dumb, but I'm not that dumb."

"You have no idea how flattering your reaction is." He laughs, and the air shifts around him, drawing you further into his eyes, inky under the lowlight. "I understand you think I'm irresistible, but, alas, not everyone shares your opinion."

"I never said that."

You hate how easy it is for him to push your buttons. You hate how in control he is, and you hate how he's looking at you like you're on the menu.

The waiter returns with the wine, and you decide you're feeling equally as terrible.

"Truly, you can't be that irresistible. After all this time writing about relationships, you would think you'd actually be in one."

Touché, you think. Normally, it would be too low a blow, even for you, except that his column-related debauchery is one of the four thrilling conversation topics he subjects you to at the office. And who are you to bury the lede?

"Coaches don't play," Seungcheol says, leaning back and popping the martini olive in his mouth offensively, as if he's not at a restaurant that takes months to get a good table at.

"Bullshit." You lean forward and chase his gaze. He doesn't shy away; rather, he meets you with an appraising raise of an eyebrow. "Coaches should at least know how to throw the ball."

"What do you think we're doing right now?"

"Oh, please." Your wrist twitches as you fight the urge to down your entire glass of merlot in a single gulp. You picture the title of his next article: Top 10 Ways To Get A Woman Drunk. And then the oh so charming punchline: 1. Be so insufferable she cannot last a conversation without her real life partner, wine.

"See? I've already got you laughing." He notices the generous sip missing from your glass and tops you up.

"No, you do not get to make this about me."

Somehow, you are laughing, but you chalk it up to the spiteful little man in your brain writing headlines for Seungcheol's column.

How To Antagonize Your Date In 5 Easy Steps.

"Need I remind you I'm only here because your actual date stood you up? Too soon?"

"I prefer you anyway," he answers, his expression half-challenge, half-something else that you don't really want to think about.

"Crazy, because I'd rather be literally anywhere else."

Signs You Are In A Hostage Situation, Not A Date.

"You should stick to food. You're a bad liar." He cocks his head to the empty table next to him. "It's still open if you want it."

"I'm no quitter."

Maybe The Male Gaze Isn't So Bad: A Thinkpiece.

Definitely not that one.

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"So, before I try anything," Seungcheol says, leaning across the table. "Teach me how to be a food critic."

"Why, so you can steal my job?"

"You can keep it," he laughs. "I'm gonna be your boss, not your replacement."

You notice he'll linger on the tail end of his sentences, betting on the response you haven't even come up with yet. He's picking apart the furrow of your brow, the marrow of your brain. It's like one drawn out interview, but you suppose that's all dating really is. Maybe your journalism degree wasn't a waste of money after all.

You won't give him the satisfaction of a fight (plus, you don't want the food to get cold), so you change the subject.

"Well, I take pictures first," you say, waving away his overeager fork.

"Genius. They really scammed you out of your Pulitzer, huh?"

You ignore him in lieu of repositioning the chorizo. Unfortunately, Seungcheol is unrelenting. You hear the snap of his phone camera, clearly taking a photo of you and not the meal—clever, but you won't bite.

"Wanna be in my story? I can tag you."

In your periphery hovers his wry, wanting smile.

"Sure. So the world can know I'm a charity worker too."

He whistles, clutching his heart. If he weren't so annoying, you would find him a little cute. Just a little. You blame the kitchen for whatever aphrodisiac is in the food today.

"Live update: date with food critic going about as well as an episode of Hell's Kitchen."

He says this leaning forward, elbows on the table, so close to you that your knees might touch. You tense at the thought.

"Any date of mine would be on better behavior."

"So you're admitting this is a date?"

"This," you wave your hand over the table. "This is not a date. This is me regretting ever pitying you."

"Well, pity looks good on you."

And there it is again, that accursed, perfect smile. This time, it works, and you fight the losing battle of the wine flush undoubtedly all over your face. It bothers you that there's a little part of you that enjoys this, but that's a confession you plan on taking to the grave.

"Enjoy it while it lasts, because you're not getting any again."

"Fine. I'm still waiting for your grand secret," he says, now biting the tines of his fork like an untrained dog. No rest for the weary, you suppose. "Food is food. Prove me wrong."

Despite the betrayal of your basal human instincts, you're determined to make this a bad encounter. Maybe you hadn't anticipated the full force of Seungcheol's overgrown fratboy persona, but you came here for a reason and you do plan to see it through.

"There is no secret." You split apart an empanada, the guts steaming and fragrant. "You eat."

"Like this?" He crams an entire piece in his mouth, and you watch him recoil and huff the heat out. "Mmm, 's pretty good, though."

Your eyes almost roll back far enough to see the wrinkles of your brain. Of course he wouldn't get it, but you don't know what you were expecting from a guy who thinks Hot Pockets are fine dining.

You put on your most pretentious food critic face. "Eating is about respect. Storytelling. He's retelling the first time someone made him this dish. The ingredients—they're words on a page. An autobiography." Your hand finds your chest and you sigh, a final touch to your Oscar winning melodrama that would certainly annoy anyone with even half a brain.

"Huh. Poetic," he says. He's still fanning his (very full) mouth, but he chews a little more slowly. "I'm respecting. I'm taking it in."

You don't know if he's actually doing any of that, but, when he takes his next bite he asks about what's in it (tomato, raisin, egg) and if someone really made the chef an empanada when he was younger (yes, on the flour-printed counter, every Sunday morning).

You press on. It shouldn't take much to bore him, but with every question, food-related factoid, and snide comment you have, he matches you with genuine curiosity. Either he's an excellent actor or he's secretly culinary school-bound, because you can't actually imagine anyone putting up with any of that, nonetheless I like dick jokes and football Choi Seungcheol.

You spend the rest of the evening like this, spoon to heart to cherry mouth. The wine is abundant, and Seungcheol spends more time listening than talking, which he admits is a first for him.

"You really know a lot about food," he says, likely fighting the urge to use his finger to get the last of the chocolate sauce off the churro plate. "I like that."

It's a cheap compliment in a game of low blows, but it sits warm and content in your chest. You have to force yourself back to the night you met him, when he was all cognac and one-liners and he gave you his spare hotel room key. A good reminder of his true nature, you think, despite the fact that he just listened to you talk about all the different grains of rice, ad nauseum.

"It's my job," is your reply, adequately distant for your liking.

"Fair. You gonna ask me about mine?"

"What more is there to know?" You hold up the check. "You're paying, right? Chivalry and all that?"

You're waiting for him to mention the company card, the only one allocated to your section that Seungcheol couldn't possibly have because it's sitting snug in your purse. The one you'll say you conveniently forgot so you get to see a grown man squirm at paying the bill.

"Already did. Gave the host my card when I got here. You're holding the customer copy." His chuckle disappears under the lip of his wine glass. "Bet you were excited to use the company card, huh?"

If shame were a physical object, you feel like your own personal Atlas. Your only option is to stare at the wasteland of empty plates before you and wonder how deep Seungcheol's pockets really are.

"Hardly. More excited that I burned a hole in your wallet." You click your tongue, out of options on how to ruin Seungcheol's night. You would spill wine on him but there's none left. "Anyway, I'm heading out."

"Running away?"

"Bored," you lie.

He calls you a taxi, and you walk out together, night heavy with the rhinestone glare of Friday night traffic.

"I actually had a nice time tonight," Seungcheol says, emphasis on the actually.

"Unfortunate."

"How do you think I feel?"

The taxi pulls to the curb, and he sighs, weighty with exaggerated relief. You can't even take it seriously because he's looking right at you and badly failing to push down the smile at the corners of his mouth.

It's only now that you notice his eyes are really brown, like he's from a cartoon or something. Worse, you'd daresay they're nice, less menacing, when they're tempered by a good meal and semi-public humiliation.

"Text me when you get back to your villain lair."

"If I were a real villain, you would have a lot more to worry about."

Seungcheol opens the cab door for you, and you catch a whiff of the cologne he undoubtedly smeared on in the toothpaste-streaked mirror of his five by five studio bathroom. Pine, leather, and citrus, which is the most pedestrian combination of smells to exist and yet you doubt it hasn't done him any favors.

"I'm terrified. Shaking." You clamber into the backseat, and he smiles at you again, as if you've forgotten what all his other ones looked like. "By the way—"

You have half a mind to shut the door in his face, but you can't find it within you—maybe it's the wine, or perhaps pure defeat. Probably the former.

"This job. It's—" He clicks his tongue and looks at the tops of his leather shoes. He's actually thinking, and you don't like it. "Never mind. See you Monday."

And then the words are gone. He shuts the cab door, and they're left in a plume of exhaust and Seungcheol's tiny waving figure in the rearview mirror.

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"So you're telling me you went on a date with your worst enemy."

It's 8 AM, and Jeonghan isn't pulling punches. Even through the phone, you can see his lazy grin, the pen he's flipping in his hand, the green ribbon of the Dow Jones on his desktop.

The newsroom is refreshingly near empty, except for Joshua, who hovers around the water cooler like a fly on the wall, if flies wore Armani ties and cigarette jeans.

"It wasn't a date, and I wanted to ruin it so he would have nothing to write about."

"No one goes on a date to ruin it. You could have just left."

"Clearly you haven't seen How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days."

"Are you serious." Jeonghan laughs, crackly and bright. "Care to tell me how that movie ends?"

"Except he isn't Matthew Mcconaughey. He says spaghetti like pah-scetti and doesn't use Oxford commas."

Mid-laugh, you endure another beat of extended eye contact with your editor until he beckons you over. He'd likely been waiting for the perfect time to interrupt the conversation he was so subtly eavesdropping on—oh, how you love a newsroom with an "open floor plan" to "facilitate communication." Sometimes you think the reason Joshua's stuck around this long is because reporters can't stay away from drama, especially if they're not the ones reporting it.

"I gotta go," you tell Jeonghan, whose version of a goodbye is a triumphant cackle.

You find Joshua putzing around, plastic water cup incriminatingly full.

"I take it you had an enjoyable weekend?" he asks, eyes sequined with all the secrets they hold.

"Yup. Just working on that Dining Through The Years article." Not entirely a lie—you are hedging your bets on this story, one where you revisit the restaurants you wrote about when you first got your start at the paper (Nai included, although admittedly yesterday's food was the least of your concerns). "You needed me?"

"Glad to see New York's finest chefs are well-versed in Kate Hudson's filmography," he says, grinning something beastly. If he weren't your boss, you'd knock that little water cup clean out of his hand. "Anyway, if your interview is over, I need you to go on a field trip."

"Field trip?"

Surely you're better than a task for the interns. You wonder if they're off fighting their own demons, seeing as you missed the circus in the elevator this morning, the usual juggle of hazelnut lattes and lemon poppyseed muffins for the higher-ups.

"Wonwoo needs you to help pick out catering for the corporate event later next week." Joshua tips his head back at Wonwoo's glass-plated office, where you see him redoing his tie in the reflection of his computer monitor. "My guess is that Yerim is going to be there, and he wants to make a good impression. Like an 'I consulted a food expert' impression."

Classic gossip queen Hong Joshua, always with the unnecessary but incredibly cogent commentary on office politics. You think you're actually going to miss the bastard.

"Flattered," you remark dryly. "Catering from where?"

"That's the thing. It's from this Thai place like two hours out from the city."

Two hours: code for an all day endeavor. He wasn't kidding when he said field trip.

You graciously resist the urge to groan out loud. No one told you taking the high road is one big slog through the mud, but here you are. You tell yourself this will help your campaign to be editor—the stinky, dirt-smeared silver lining.

"Before you ask—yes, I know you cannot take the subway there." You blink at him, wondering why this all feels like the set-up to a terrible joke. "Luckily, as you probably know, Seungcheol drives here every day and has offered to help."

Ah. There it is. You look for the blinking applause sign hanging above your head and the chorus of riotous Seungcheols making up your own personal laugh track.

"Only back to the office, though—" Joshua adds, as if that provides you any solace. "There's a one-way bus going up there at noon."

"N-not both ways?" you croak.

"Something about funds," he replies, shrugging. "Hey, don't shoot the messenger."

"You're not the one I'm thinking of shooting."

"Who knows? Maybe he is Matthew McConaughey." And when your glare turns sharp as the edge of a santoku knife, he holds his hands up like he's getting arrested. "I'm just saying. As your friend, not your editor."

Whatever.

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You have to admit, Wonwoo does have impeccable taste in Thai food.

Three noodle dishes, two curries, and the best mango sticky rice you've ever had: that's what it took for you to finally say "not all men." Certainly not Wonwoo, who's in deep enough to send his goons cross-state for a girl he's tried to woo for almost a whole year now.

A tamarind sunset blankets the countryside in milk and honey. You're sitting on a bench, ridiculously full with leftovers to spare, waiting for your chauffeur from hell.

Two years and you still don't know what car Seungcheol drives. Your last memory of it is it being flashy, impractical, and loud, much like him.

You know this, and yet you are still surprised when a gnat of a BMW rips into the curb in front of you. The passenger window crawls down, and Seungcheol has the gall to whistle at you.

For someone so predictable, he sure does manage to find new ways to piss you off. Unfortunately, on brand— according to him, Consistency Is Key (number 2 on Keeping the Spark Alive, August 2022 issue). You've done your reading.

"You're welcome," is the first thing Seungcheol says to you after cranking down the volume of the radio and watching you fumble with the seatbelt.

"You really didn't have to." You look at the array of gas station snacks bubbling out of the cupholders—Sour Patch Kids, a Big Gulp, and Flamin’ Hot Fritos. You didn't even know they sold Sour Patch Kids to full grown adults.

Still, you do feel a little bad. You can count on one hand the amount of people you would do this for and still have one or two cheese-dusted fingers left.

"But, thank you."

"Joshua made me," he says, and what happened this morning starts to make a lot more sense. "Plus, I was a little jealous. I would kill for a day frolicking in the sun, eating delicious food, far, far away from the big city. Not trapped like me in the newsroom, exhausted, toiling away on my magnum opus."

The sigh that crawls from his chapped lips practically shakes the car.

"I'm retracting my thank you."

"I'm devastated. Really."

You choose to watch the strip of shitty New York highway unravel through the greasy passenger window. No point in picking a fight when you're in a leather quilted jail cell for the foreseeable future.

It's at the thirty minute mark where Seungcheol casts the first stone of terrible, stilted small talk.

"Why'd you get sent all the way out here anyway?"

The red taillight flush of rush hour floods the car, an unpleasant reminder of the real sunset left far behind you.

"Thought you knew it was Wonwoo."

"Yeah, but why?"

Why does it matter? Is your first thought, but you realize he's attempting to actually have a genuine conversation with you, which you suppose is better than him flinging around another rude remark. Either that, or he's falling asleep, and you'd rather not have the last moments of your life be in Seungcheol's chick magnet car.

"Joshua thinks it's because he wants to impress Yerim at the corporate meeting this week. I guess she likes Thai."

Traffic is slow enough for him to turn to look at you, really look at you.

"Come on, he can't like her that much."

"Yes, he can." you try to read his expression, neon-glossy. "This isn't even that much effort."

"Nah," he shrugs. "There's gotta be some kind of ulterior motive. Maybe he wants to move into corporate."

"Hot take for a romantic." You frown. "Not everything people do is a career move, you know."

You omit the unlike you that sits heavy in the back of your throat, although, his cavalier approach to relationships is starting to make a little more sense. You wonder if this whole thing—the dates, the watch, the Invisalign smiles—is just a long, drawn-out joke to him.

"Seems like a lot of effort to go through for an office crush." His gaze drifts back to the road. "The extravagant birthday present. Always having her favorite flowers in the office. That one cringe voicemail we all heard him re-record ten times. No one likes anyone that much. Come on. Her dad is the CEO of the company."

Suddenly his winning smile doesn't seem so triumphant. It almost feels like a betrayal, but you don't know why.

"Maybe he just likes her," you reply. "I dunno. I choose to believe that. I think it's sweet."

"Maybe you're the romantic." The words come out like an accusation; Seungcheol laughs, but all the joy's been sucked out of it.

"Who hurt you?"

"No one did. I'm just being honest."

You would laugh at the irony if it didn't feel like there was a vine wrapped round your throat. Life is funny, but never so funny as to curse New York's favorite romance writer with cynicism and a lying streak.

"Controversial, but I actually want to do nice things for the person I like."

"And when was the last time that happened?" He's deflecting, which is predictably on brand for him. His grin, now playful, is propped up by a pair of frustratingly well-formed dimples.

You can't even find it within you to protest because he's right—you haven't dated in a long time. Joshua stopped asking if you were bringing a plus one to office parties ages ago.

But it's not that you can't—in fact, the last time you did, you think it broke you a little inside. It's certainly not a story Seungcheol's privy to, though. You already feel strange, cut-open, trying to convince him that people are capable of meaningful relationships.

Childishly, there's also a part of you chasing the truth about him because it takes him further and further away from you. So you do what you do best and deflect again. Two can play at that game.

"Not taking criticism from a guy who's dated half of the city and has nothing to show for it."

"I wouldn't say nothing."

He opens his mouth then closes it again, as if he's revising the words on his tongue. Journalist behavior, which you didn't even know he could still exhibit.

Now you're really thinking. Who hurt him, and how? The development that Seungcheol is more than the playboy slime haunting page 3 intrigues you more than you'd care to admit.

Before you can pry, Seungcheol's stomach growls, almost offensively loud.

"Sorry," he says. "Who would've thunk that corn chips aren't a balanced meal?"

You stare at the takeout boxes snug in your lap. There is a cosmic message being sent right now.

Seungcheol's sad, Frito-filled belly. Fresh noodle that won't keep well in the fridge. Tax and tip for a four hour car ride back to the city. Expanding your repertoire of blackmail so that you can claim your rightful helm at the paper.

These are all the reasons you give yourself for what you ask next.

"You in a rush?"

"How could I be—do you see the blinding speed we're driving at?" He laughs at his own incredibly unfunny attempt at a joke. "No, I'm not."

"I may or may not have an actual balanced meal for you."

That’s how you end up in the parking lot of a random 7/11 off the freeway. In any other circumstances, it would be a cruel and unusual punishment, but you've already been whittled down enough to actually care about Seungcheol, even if just a little.

That's what you tell yourself, anyway, as you watch him finish the last of the takeout.

"So I'm bad at food, and you're bad at love. Why the fuck did Wonwoo even think of promoting either of us?" Seungcheol kicks his shoes off and props his feet up on the dashboard. You notice his socks have dogs on them, little linty brown ones, and you feel a little worse about openly bullying him about his fashion taste in front of the entirety of copy staff.

"I may be bad at love, but you're worse. Especially for someone who does it for a living," you retort. "Don't think I forgot our earlier conversation."

You try to read the tiny text on a receipt he's got stashed in the center console, among his graveyard of snack wrappers. (2) CHEESY GORDITA CRUNCH…8.78. (1) M MT DEW BAJA BLAST…1.00.

Definitely bad at food, you muse to yourself.

"You think I'm not kicking myself right now? That I have a beautiful girl in my car right now, and all we do is argue?"

Now that—nothing could have prepared you for that.

It gets awfully quiet. The noise of the freeway seems to screech to a fever pitch, all horns and the thrum of the asphalt. You wish anything but John Mayer was playing on the radio.

You will the headlines man in your head to make you laugh. Instead, your brain presses the word beautiful into your neurons and you feel all the heat in your body float to your face, traitorously, dizzyingly. John Mayer croons, your body is a wonderland and your stomach knots into itself over and over again.

"Stop that."

"What?" Seungcheol's head lolls to his shoulder so he can look at you from the corner of his eye. " 's not a big deal. Never been called beautiful?"

A grin plays on his lips, expression dancing on something grim, like he's spoken his final words.

"I'm serious! Stop trying to get me to like you." You huff and cross your arms over your chest, like it'll somehow make you feel more normal. "I'm not some experiment for your column."

"Is it working?"

You don't answer. How can you? There's a yes resting on the roof of your mouth, surely the product of the handful of real, actual moments you've now had with him—far too many for your liking. This whole charade has been a balancing act on the razor edge between rivals and something else, and now you're feeling the sting.

"For the record, I have been called beautiful before."

"And for the record, you're not an experiment for my column. You never were."

There's a relief that pulses through your chest, a breathless, wonderful kind of dizziness. You grab hold of it as soon as it's reared its ugly head. You're flying way too close to the sun, chasing cheap validation from the same guy who ate your lunch out of the fridge last week.

He's no better—he looks like the vulnerability cracked him open a little, and you're the one holding the hammer. It makes for a grubby, unflattering portrait of two emotionally inept people trying to play feelings.

However, much like all other things Seungcheol, any glimpse of something real is gone before you know it. He takes a loud, noisy pull of Diet Coke, and the spell is broken.

"Want any?" And when you shake your head, grateful to swallow the words pressed to your tongue, he says, "Should we wait out traffic here?"

This is an easier yes. You tell yourself you're getting sick of brake lights and reading the license plates on the back of other people's cars. Certainly that makes Seungcheol's gaze, lingering and moonlight-warmed, a little more tolerable.

For once, you don't talk about Wonwoo or your job. You don't talk about love, either.

Maybe this is the reason the next few hours slip through your fingers. Three folded takeout pagodas and a secret—somehow this is all it takes for you to hate Seungcheol just a little less.

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Usually, a good eggs benedict can solve the majority of your problems. Today seems to be the exception. The hollandaise is broken, Jeonghan is already laughing at you, and nothing will ever erase the fact that Seungcheol drove you home last night and now he knows where you live. If you wake up one morning and see a sniper laser pointed at your forehead, you have no one to blame but yourself.

"You look exhausted." An eighth of a buckwheat pancake disappears into Jeonghan's mouth. "You literally eat for a living. There is no reason for them to keep you late."

Jeonghan has a funny way of caring about you, but he's right. You did get home at 2 AM yesterday, but that was on you, not Wonwoo.

"I'm not going to let a corporate slug tell me what is and isn't a real job," you sigh, taking a swig of your half-flat mimosa and reminding yourself to figure out which staff writer gave this place 4 stars in last week's paper.

"Says the girl who needs the company card to afford bottomless brunch," Jeonghan replies.

"At least I'm not a slave to my career."

"What do you call this whole thing with your coworker then, huh? It's all you text me about." The smirk on Jeonghan's face is miserably, tragically righteous, and you can't even be mad about it.

"Seungcheol is my enemy, remember?"

"You sent me a five minute voice memo the other day ranting about how he went on a date with another girl." And just like the little shit he is, he even pulls up your mile-long text history, just to rub it in your face a little harder.

"Am I not allowed to wish for his demise? Since when were you the mature one?"

"I wouldn't call keeping track of his whereabouts wishing for his demise." Jeonghan takes a well-timed bite of your hashbrowns. "Something tells me you're wishing for something a little different."

You almost choke on a blueberry.

"Absolutely not."

You watch Jeonghan power down another mimosa, half-fascinated, half-appalled he would even dream of suggesting something so vile.

The memory of Seungcheol, leant back in the driver’s seat, lowering greasy spools of rice noodles into his mouth, crosses your mind. He had laughed until he cried when he asked you if a pineapple had really fried this rice. That was the kind of man you were dealing with. You can't believe you laughed with him.

"I think it'll be good for you to get back into dating again. Mingyu was, what, three years ago?"

And that's the chocolate chip studded, syrup-covered nail in your coffin. Of course all roads had to lead back to you and your relationship trauma Jeonghan considered unresolved.

You had dated Mingyu when you were younger, softer. It was a love of firsts, of sun-washed mornings and farmer's market Sundays, of raw, black currant midnights and whatever long-winded conversation you had spent all day on.

Mingyu was a chef. His hands, his lips, his eyes—that's how you fell in love with food. Strawberry kisses into fresh pasta into the first time someone had ever cooked for you. What a wonderful, terrible thing to see all your history on a plate, the I could never eat peas, the once I ate mangos till I was sick, the guilty spoon in the vanilla ice cream after a bad day and the dark chocolate you keep in your purse. He remembered that you like your noodles just a little bit overcooked, and you don't even think you told him that.

Food, like some shitty piece of home decor would say in that swirling, curly font, really is some window to the soul. It didn't fully hit you until, one day, you were at the grocery store alone, and somehow you knew exactly what brand of everything Mingyu liked.

You opened a restaurant together after you graduated from college. Then it closed, and you lost Mingyu to Naples or New Orleans or Seoul—somewhere, anywhere to escape the corner of 5th and 40th, the December-pleated memory of his hands in yours and a promise you could never keep.

You're sure you're over it by now, but you'd be lying if you said you didn't look for him in a bowl of his favorite ramyun, the one you could never replicate even though he insisted he just added hot water (Food tastes best when it's a gift, he'd say. You never understood until now.).

Jeonghan doesn't believe you because every time you try explaining this to him, you end up sounding like the most chronically lonely person on planet Earth.

"That is the wrong guy to suggest then," you instead reply, feeling all the food dry up in your mouth.

"I'm running out of options."

"Don't you have a hot coworker or something?"

You shut your eyes, pushing Mingyu back to recall literally any face from one of the many swanky corporate parties Jeonghan bullied you into attending. The only person coming to mind is Lee Chan, and even more than his face, you remember the fat platinum band around his ring finger (Better luck next time, Jeonghan had said, mid-cheese cube).

Worse, amidst all the fuzz, a grainy recollection of Seungcheol's wet cow eyes washes up against your eyelids, and it's not going away this time.

"I thought we were all corporate slugs," Jeonghan replies, enjoying the way you glower at him over your fork. "I was kidding, anyway. Relax."

Your entire body heaves with the sigh that escapes you.

You thank god that Jeonghan is never serious, because otherwise you'd have to consider the fact that he really thought you should date Seungcheol. Jeonghan, who knows the pizza column you, the Mingyu you, and now the you that works late because there's nothing else left to do, really might have thought you should date grifter by day, con artist by night Seungcheol.

The fluorescent glaze of the gas station lights. Seungcheol's hand on the gear stick. His voice, warm and gauzy. It's like there's a flash drive of last night plugged into your head, and you can't take it out.

The stem of the champagne glass finds your hand, and you down the whole thing.

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Monday is uneventful. So is Tuesday, and you wonder what good deed you'd done to deserve such a blessing.

Wednesday, you realize you're just three interviews away from what could possibly be the best article of your life. Unfortunately, two of those won't pick up the phone and the third keeps rescheduling on you.

That's fine—Rome wasn't built in a day, and the same hopefully applies to your future noodle empire.

You're using your lunch break to write an email to number two when you notice Seungcheol hovering around your desk, a plastic straw in his mouth and evil in his eyes.

He's taken to publicly annoying you at work more than usual—Progress, Joshua had told you in the elevator this morning. Towards what? you had asked. He shrugged, letting his crafty, knowing look do all the talking.

"Me, you, and date number two?" is today's opening line. Before you can peel yourself away from your computer and give him a good lashing for whatever the fuck he just said to you, he continues with, "How's that for a follow-up text to my speakeasy date?"

"Lame," you reply, hackles still raised but now re-reading your email for typos.

"Wrong. You were supposed to say incredibly romantic, extremely witty, and unfairly charming." He perches his baseball player ass on the corner of your desk, waiting to be humbled. This is the usual order of things, which has shockingly become more of a familiarity than anything else.

"Do you even have a romantic bone in your body?"

Seungcheol raises an eyebrow. "Just one, but it's the only one that matters."

"Ew. Gross." You wrinkle your nose and attempt to soothe your temper with a sip of the terrible protein shake you got for lunch. "No wonder your column sucks."

"If mine sucks, I'd hate to see what people are saying about yours." And when your reply is a tired, hungry swig of your sad drink, he says, "No lunch today? Even I had something better."

"Lucky you."

The bigger truth is that that the deadline for your article, looming before you, is getting to you more than you'd care to admit. Seungcheol isn't helping, not with his bottomless magic hat of date stories that seems to only grow deeper by the day. Now you're forgetting to pack a lunch, and the highlight of your day has been reduced to punching numbers into a vending machine.

Things are bad, but you'll never say that aloud, especially not to the guy who'll spend the next five years dunking on you if you keep this up.

You stare down the lip of your bottle at the faux-chocolate dregs streaking the bottom.

The month before Mingyu opened his restaurant, you were so preoccupied with making sure everything was just right that you also forgot to eat. One day, leftovers from his work started magically appearing in your fridge. Chow fun (miss you!), salt and pepper shrimp (don't forget to drink water!), a gargantuan vat of hot and sour soup (love you most!).

It was a perfect coincidence until you realized there was no way Chinese takeout was coming out of a very French restaurant, and it was then you learned that love is never really a coincidence.

Now you have no coincidences, mapo tofu, or romance. Just muscle milk and a front row view of the struggling inseam of a man who must shrink his pants in the dryer.

He's peeling a tangerine. Your worst confession to date is that it's easy on the eyes. For once, his hands, always made busy with some scheme, now still over the rind, steady, practiced. Plus, it looks like a marble in his huge hands, which is unfortunately both funny and a little hot.

"Stare any longer, and I'm gonna forget how to peel this."

"Don’t flatter yourself. Just hungry," you half-lie.

Hungry, Stressed, And Delusional—The New Holy Trinity.

It's a catchy headline, but not a great look for you. Never in your life did you think you'd be ogling a man peeling an orange. He even takes all the pith off, and you don't have the heart to tell him that's where all the nutrients are.

"Exactly," he replies. Then he plops the naked, shiny fruit right on your bare desk. "Here. Eat."

You’re so taken aback, all you can do is stare. First at the orange, then at Seungcheol, who suddenly cannot make eye contact with you. Instead, he stacks the peel in his hands, dimpled piece over piece.

"Payback for the, uh, Thai," he says, and although you wouldn't equate a tangerine to James Beard awarded pad kee mao, all you can think of is an lime green sticky note in your fridge and a smile.

A gift. A pithless, wrinkly one.

The idea that Seungcheol was capable of being genuinely nice to anyone, nonetheless, you—probably the most undeserving person of it in the world—makes you feel something close to guilt.

You push through the feeling, instead taking the fruit in your hand and splitting it between your thumbs. The flesh caves so easily, and it's then you remember that food, unlike people, doesn't have to be complicated.

You can feel a better person somewhere inside you, someone easier to care for and with less of a bad attitude. You're not there yet, but there's a dark, satisfying comfort in not being good enough for the indulgence of that kind of intimacy. An arm's length was never too far away for you, except now there's someone sitting on your desk and they gave you lunch. Worst of all, you don't think you mind.

You hold out the half—sticky, guilty fingers and all.

Seungcheol wordlessly accepts it. There's no surprise or confusion—he smiles, you say cheers, and you both take a bite.

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On weekends, the Korean place down the street from your college apartment sold corn dogs until 3 AM. That was when words came easy and love came easier.

It was with sugar all over your nose, eyes pressed to the once forgiving half-moon, where you told Mingyu you would become a writer.

The thing about youth is that it can float anything, no matter how holey, desperate it was. So you sailed through college, that gasping hope wound tight in your fist. Then you started freelancing, just in time for Mingyu’s soft open. You wanted to write, but more importantly, you wanted some way, any way to be useful to the person who had given you so much.

In retrospect, there was no way your crude attempts at actual journalism could ever generate real publicity for him. Not in the heart of New York, where a new restaurant opened every two days and someone wanted to get published every three.

So you eventually sank, and so did Mingyu, leaving you with all this creased, no good love in your chest to shrivel up with nowhere to go.

All of that landed you here. A degree, a dream job, and a laundry list of accolades, but the fruit of that love still hangs heavy and joy-rot on the vine, as you wait for it to be good enough for the taking.

Ironically, it reminded you of cooking. No one ever teaches you when to stop, and now every other joint has dry-aged steak and some version of a three-day demi glacé. But at least demi glacé tastes good—you don't even know what the fuck you're doing some days, and the feeling's never been worse than now, waiting on a call you were supposed to get two days ago.

The phone rings, just in time to distract you from the top button of Seungcheol's fitted shirt, which looks like it's holding on for dear life. He's currently deep in conversation with Mina from design, but every so often, he'll glance your way to see if you're just free enough to be bothered.

The unspoken perils of working late—less people around to pester on Wonwoo's dime.

Mina stuffs her laptop in her bag and checks her watch. Strike three for Seungcheol.

Working Hard Or Hardly Working: A Guide To Office Romances. You're surprised he hasn't written that one yet. Maybe Joshua shot it down.

"Hello?" The dial tone breaks into the warm, risen-bread voice of the woman you know to be the owner of one of your favorite hole-in-the-wall noodle spots. The Friday night after your review was published, there was a line out the door. It honestly felt like a no-brainer to you, and you had no hesitation telling the owner that you were sure her place would become a local mainstay. You watched her crow-footed eyes go moony and you couldn't help but picture the day your yellowed newspaper would be posted up on the wall, framed and prophetic.

You're ready to profusely apologize for not stopping by—truthfully, no bone broth has come close to hers. Instead, she apologizes to you, which you aren't sure is flattering or a sign something terrible has happened.

You hope it's the former, but you should have known that hoping has never been enough.

She tells you that she closed the doors to her restaurant yesterday. It all comes spilling out, one gut punch after the other, the bills and the empty tables and how things just weren't the same the year after your review was published. She thanks you for your time, your writing, and your belief, and then she hangs up.

Not a thing in your body feels capable of moving. All the phone static passes right through you until the week's canned up dread balls up in your throat and some darker-than-black feeling swallows you whole.

The fluorescent ceiling lights sear into you. You think you're going to cry, and that's the last thing you want.

To anyone else, it wouldn't be that serious. Restaurants close all the time, and you know an entry in your silly little column is a far cry from a Hail Mary. But all you can think of is Mingyu’s neon sign on 5th and 40th and the two pairs of hands that had to take it down. You think your fingerprints are still on it, right over the blue shock of the I and the N.

One more dream taking on water, and once again, you're at the sad, cruel center of it.

You try to imagine the gumpaste walls, bumpy and water-stained. Maybe a pale square where your review used to hang.

No, you're definitely going to cry.

Fuck this, fuck work, fuck the article. And fuck Seungcheol, who's packing up his annoying, jingly messenger bag and is the only thing standing between you and an empty office to lose your shit in.

You squeeze your eyes shut and try to remember if you're wearing waterproof mascara today. Unfortunately, the cowbell of Seungcheol's bag sounds like it's catching up to you, and, like it or not, you are two shaky breaths away from breaking down in front of the last person in the world you want to see.

"Final touches on another titillating piece about pineapple on pizza?"

You have no stomach for yelling at him. You can't even look at him. Instead, you bury your head in your hands and tell him to never use the word titillating again.

"A little too soon to play editor, in my humble opinion."

You don't reply. You're trying to scare him off without really scaring him off because god knows you've done that with enough people. Either way, he's calling you a crazy bitch at the next holiday party. You can just hear it.

But you should've known Seungcheol, of all people, doesn't flinch at a little silence. You still feel him hovering behind you, probably wondering if it's the half-full vanilla protein shake on your desk that's turned you sour. Or if you'll really make good on your threat to shank him with the plastic knife you keep in your top drawer.

Just walk away, you think. Go the fuck home.

Seungcheol, who gets paid to play cupid like it's fantasy football, would never understand that bite of the dial tone. Not like that. Half an orange is a hell of a toll to pay for your unfortunate work-related trauma.

You count the seconds till he walks away.

One. Two. Three.

Four is cut short because instead of doing what he should have done and left, he places a hesitant hand at the base of your neck, between your shoulder blades.

"Hey, you ok?"

Easy, noncommittal words, but something in you cracks. You don't know what it is—maybe it's because it's late and you're running on nothing, maybe it's because you can't remember the last time a hand was so warm.

And so, against your better judgment, you lift your streaky, raccoon-eyed face (definitely didn't use waterproof today) from your hands to look at the same eyes you looked at not more than a month ago and swore at.

You're glad you have no idea what you look like, because it's bad enough that all the corners of Seungcheol's face fall.

"Whoa," he breathes.

Now he'll know when to leave me alone, you think, but then that hand slides to your shoulder and his expression becomes impossibly soft and what you thought was confusion, pity even, dips into affection, stinging and raw.

"Listen, I—," he clears his throat nervously. Perhaps he's running through his repertoire of Wikihow phrases to say to a sad person, but you, inexplicably, don't believe that. "I don't know what's going on, but if you, you know, ever needed to talk…" Then he points to himself because that's probably the longest he's gone without attempting to tell a joke.

You're two and a half shaky breaths into this conversation, and the likelihood you will start crying has not changed. If anything, the odds have gotten much worse because the stubbornness of Seungcheol's expression is fooling you into thinking he actually cares. The illusion is comforting—after all the fighting and sabotage and inconveniences, he's still made space for you. That, or he's keeping his enemies close.

Then his thumb rubs over the plane of your collarbone, and all the little walls and hurdles and dams and shields in you drop.

Close friends, closer enemies, and the infinitesimal space between you and Seungcheol.

You'll blame your sorry state of mind for what you're about to do because you can't really cope with any other explanation. That's a tomorrow problem.

Today, you trust Seungcheol. Today, you tell him not everything, but enough.

"Forgive yourself," he says. And before you protest and tell him, through the waves of tears and snot and lightheadedness, that your heart has yet to catch up to the rest of you, he interrupts you before you even start. "I get it. Just try."

You’re all too familiar with his sugar-floss, candy-coated platitudes that make everything seem so simple, but he looks you in the eye, or somewhere even deeper than that, with so much belief, it's contagious.

The words are ripped out from under you. All you can do is what you wanted to do in the first place. So you cry, and when Seungcheol takes you into his arms, at first tentatively and then all at once, you cry even harder.

"Is this ok?" he asks, so quietly, you almost don't hear him.

"Yeah, I-I think so."

You let him hold you, and all the noise and the heat and the static fades into a hum. His chin finds the top of your head and you let him do that too.

Neither of you say anything more. You don't need to.

All that matters is the welcome sound of someone else's heartbeat, a kind hand in your hair, and Seungcheol, with none of the charms and boasts and failed, half-baked insults he hides behind.

Just him, and you decide you like this version best.

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The emotional hangover you wake up with rivals that of every vodka-flavored morning you had when you were in college, plus another two shots.

There is nothing worse than the aftermath of a particularly bad episode of oversharing. There's a reason you don't talk about your personal life at all, but something about Seungcheol makes every single thing claw its way back up your throat.

A need to prove yourself. A tiny, whispering hope that if you give a little, you'll get a little in return. Or your pride, the familiar knife you keep wedged into your side. A million excuses rattle around in your head, but nothing will ever take away the fact that it felt good.

Shields down, heart bleeding—never did you think that's how you would find yourself in a state where you actually liked Seungcheol. It felt good to be taken seriously, to say that all the talk about foie gras and peppercorns and microgreens was just tableside service for a great love and an even greater apology. And you'd like to think somewhere between the tears and the linen of his shirt, you were finally understood.

Just try. The words, sun-warmed stones, float in the hollow of your chest. It felt a little more possible, coming out of Seungcheol's mouth, with that dumb, resolute expression of his.

You don't even know if you would do the same for him. If he came to you, rosy-eyed and breakdown-adjacent, would you drop everything and listen to him? Clearly his problems ran deeper than a pretty girl not calling him back, but you had never really cared to listen.

And that's something you'll give Seungcheol credit for—he puts up with you, with everything, really, albeit with clumsy hands and the mask of reluctance.

You roll onto your side to reach for your phone. There's a text from Jeonghan asking if you're still up for grabbing drinks this evening. (Always). You have your final interview at 2. (Thank god).

And no text from Seungcheol. (Damn.)

Somehow this is disappointing, which makes your day that much worse. Maybe the runny mascara wasn't as flattering as you thought.

8 Totally Normal Texts To Send When You're Overthinking.

Not a good headline for a worse situation. Honestly, you shouldn't care, but now you're here, staring at your phone and undecided on if you even want Monday to come or not.

You'll order one (or three) margaritas tonight. You'll ask Jeonghan about his upcoming trip to Seoul. You'll make your favorite overnight oats and you'll go to sleep and Sunday will pass just the same.

You won't think about Seungcheol's arms around you or his head on top of yours or the way he insisted he would drive you to the subway so you didn't have to walk. You almost brushed against his hand on the gear stick and the nearness made you want to throw up.

But you're not thinking about it. You can't. Not without falling in love just a little.

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"Here. Drink."

You set two cups on the table before sitting face-to-face with Seungcheol, who decided to roll up to a coffee date in a somehow flattering polo and slacks.

But it's not a date—you're just talking. It's a meet-up. Not a hangout, which sounds too familiar, and definitely not a date.

Yesterday did not go as planned. Margarita-buzzed and under Jeonghan's terrible influence, you texted Seungcheol. Just to clear up some stuff, you told yourself. Friday night's like a scab, and you just can't help coming back to it.

"So, you're a coffee connoisseur too, huh?" Seungcheol says, tipping his head to the side.

"Not nearly," you reply. "Just wanted to pay for something for once. I'm pretty sure I owe you at least fifty of these."

"I'll hold you to it." He's doing that thing where it's like he stares past you. It's the most impressive eye contact on the planet, and it's making you nervous.

Then the silence, once welcome, becomes awkward—the air turns stiff, clinging to all the things you haven't said yet.

You play chicken with the idea of being an emotionally intelligent person and just talking about what most certainly is on everyone's mind right now. The cup between your hands is burning your palms. Seungcheol smiles.

"I'm—" The exact moment you start, the words crinkle up on your tongue and all the walls come back up again. It's a terrible, inevitable instinct. "I'm sorry. For Friday."

"For…what?" Seungcheol pauses mid-sip to say this. "Also, this coffee is really good."

Arabica, orange, and honey, you want to say. But you can't deflect this time. Somehow Seungcheol has cornered you into this tiny cafe chair with that disarming grin and an overabundance of patience.

"Everything, I guess. You were just trying to leave."

"No, I wasn't." And he laughs, which makes your stomach fold over trying to figure out what there possibly is to laugh at. "I actually liked getting to know you. You…care a lot. And I didn't expect that."

Seungcheol's sincerity staggers you. You could ask what the hell he just meant by all of that, but you decide to take him for his word. You think you've experienced the most honesty from him in the past three days than you have in the entire span of time you've known him, and it almost feels like a privilege.

"Thanks…?"

"Don’t let it go to your head, though," he adds, as if to erase what he just said. "Can't have you walking around the office with a bigger stick in your ass."

"Poetic." You sigh. Once again, the illusion is shattered. You wonder if his kindness has a time limit. "How's your article coming along?"

"Nice try," he replies. "I'm not that easy."

"You're literally the definition of easy."

"Is that a compliment?" There's that challenge in his eyes again, that same look that he gave you outside Wonwoo's office. "You did ask me out on a date, despite saying that you'd rather eat glass. So I guess either there's a half-eaten plate in your trash or you've finally come to your senses."

"This is not a date. Dream on."

"You're right. This isn't a date." He leans forward on his elbows. "Just like our dinner date wasn't a date."

"It wasn't."

"Of course. If it was, I'd be asking stuff like…Where you're from. But I already know—h, e, double hockey—"

"Chicago."

"Same difference."

Your conversation continues as such.

Not a date, but where'd you go to college? Not a date, but do you have a pet? Not a date, but can I walk you home?

You realize your talk in his car two weeks ago involved everything but your pasts, but you suppose neither of you are the type to unwrap old wounds. Sometimes the bandaid is better on, but, in your case, there's really nothing left to tell.

You divulge that you went to Northwestern for journalism. You have a family tabby, and no, you wouldn't mind being walked home.

You also realize before today, you knew less about Seungcheol than you thought, but there's some give to his secrecy. He went to USC because his parents wanted him to. Played football for half of it until he tore his ACL and got adopted by the sports section of the school paper. He even captained the advice column for three semesters—something he wants to return to, but you're happy to tell him you wouldn't trust his advice as far as you could throw him. (What was your alias? Samuel. Sounds kinda like Seungcheol, huh? You say no. He laughs.)

After circling the same park three times, you reach the doorstep of your apartment building. You cycle through some one-liners to end on a high note, but none of them seem quite right.

It's not a date, but you've noticed Seungcheol keeps glancing at your lips, and it almost seems like one.

It's not a date, but Seungcheol asks some stupid question about if coffee could be considered tea, which you start to answer before you are rudely interrupted.

First, the bump of his nose against yours, then his lips, slow, insistent, dizzying. Your heart jumps all the way to your throat and you think there's so much heat in your cheeks that he can feel it.

It's not a date, but Seungcheol just kissed you and you liked it.

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The next time you see Seungcheol is in the elevator to the newsroom on Monday.

He sticks his dumb, big arm out of the cabin to hold the door open for you, and his smile bruises your overripe heart.

"Hi," he says, sneaking a glance like a guilty child.

"Hi."

The floor indicators flicker like fireflies, one by one. He sidesteps toward you so that your shoulders touch. You watch the 4 crawl to 5. The air in the cabin is sticky, electric.

And as if taking a great big dive, you kiss him, a fleeting, tender thing that you rolled around in your head for a good thirty minutes earlier this morning—and you never thought the fruit of overthinking could be so sweet.

The elevator dings.

Before the doors open to your floor, Seungcheol slams the close button, takes your face in his hands, and kisses you again.

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You have three reasons to get drunk.

1. It's Friday.

2. You finished your article.

3. You and Seungcheol are no longer mortal enemies, but now you don't know what you are.

(The other day, you both worked late, and he ordered takeout to the office. You sat crosslegged on his desk as he tried to explain what a touchdown was and why he was obsessed with the Steelers. Normally a two hour long conversation about football would be a punishable offense, but that night he made you laugh so hard your stomach hurt the next day.)

After Wonwoo's dinner with corporate, he went to the market across the street and picked up a few handles of soju and the fattest bottle of cheap vodka you've ever seen.

You're all getting a raise—you guess the Thai must have worked out well, although Wonwoo must have struck out with Yerim since he's spending his Friday night drinking with you guys instead.

So you get drunk.

Drunk enough to tune out of Jihyo from Sports giving Wonwoo dating advice—riveting, if not for your near double vision—and follow Seungcheol to the staff bathroom.

"Anyone—," you manage. His lips are hot on your neck, and every dizzy neuron in your body seems to be reaching, grasping for him. "Anyone ever tell you that your forearms look really good when you roll up your sleeves?"

"All the time," he replies, and he swallows the laugh right off of your tongue.

"You are so annoying." Your palm finds his heartbeat, and you revel in how it leaps towards your skin every hurried beat. You don't want to think about how many girls came before you, leant back against the bathroom counter just like this, but having a body against yours never felt so good. You guess that's what a three year hiatus will do to you. "Bet you hear that one a lot too, huh?"

"You got that right."

Another kiss, just a nudge of his nose and you're leaning up to him; your lips feel swollen and warm and somehow they still crave the feeling.

"How is it that we still bump noses," you ask, half words, half air. Seungcheol's hands, skin-greedy, skim over the back of your thighs like they're water and find the swell of your ass.

"You make me impatient." Cheshire grin across heart lips and you're toast. "Anyone tell you that you have a great ass?"

"All the time," you squeak out. It's a lie and a half but who cares. His fingers drag under the seam of your underwear and you've never been so thankful you forgot to wear shorts under your dress.

"Need you," he says, lips flush to the skin behind your ear, and your lower half would give out if you weren't propped against the sink.

The idea of Seungcheol on his knees, your thigh hiked over his shoulder, crosses your mind. He'd probably be really good at head, and that makes you dizzier than any ungodly combination of alcohol would. Or would he press you against the mirror, want your skirt pushed to your waist so he could fuck you from behind?

Anticipation tumbles into anxiety into some primordial, horrible shyness because you haven't had sex in years. You feel hot and damp and sweaty and you can't remember if you shaved or not. Plus, you're already seizing in his arms and he hasn't even touched you for real yet.

"H-home," you breathe. "Let's go home."

"Hm?" His hand slows in the dip between your thighs. "You wanna stop? We can stop."

"No, I just…I just thought it would be better if we went home. To…you know."

"Yours or mine?"

"Mine’s closer," you answer after a considerable amount of mental gymnastics trying to figure out if you're both drunk enough to not mind the mess.

You know your apartment and you know your bed and you know where the bathroom is in case you have to pee. There's a box of condoms under the sink. You have an extra toothbrush for him. Less variables to worry about because nothing else has really gone to plan. You watch Seungcheol misbutton the top two buttons on his shirt and all the fondness in your heart feels like a welcome stranger in your body.

How To Ruin The Moment In One Easy Step!

You feel incredibly horny and guilty all at once, but Seungcheol kisses your cheek on the way out and it's like you're able to breathe again.

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It seems that the car ride to your place sucks all the sobriety back into the both of you.

You're lying stomach-down on your bed, Seungcheol against the headboard with his shirt undone. You're in your bra and your still sticky underwear, and somehow, despite being ready to break your three-year spell, you like this much better.

"Imagine if someone needed to piss," Seungcheol groans. "I think we would have gotten fired. Lifestyle would have no editor."

"I honestly think that's why Seungkwan was standing outside for so long."

Upon hearing this, Seungcheol's eyes shoot open. If your phone wasn't charging, you would take a picture. He fell asleep on your shoulder in the car, and now, even with all the affection you can muster, you can only describe his hair as broom-adjacent. Einstein-core. How far you've fallen from grace.

"Don't worry, he won't say anything." And as you watch the color return to his face, you add, "Also, it's not that I didn't want to have sex, I just…" you trail off, hoping he'll get it even though you're making no sense.

"No, it was the right call. I wanna do it when we're both sober."

It smooths your frayed-out nerves knowing that none of this was a performance or a test, just two shy, touch-starved people stumbling in the dark.

"Lemme guess—this is just a typical Friday night for you."

"Flattering but no," Seungcheol replies, grinning something stupid. "Do you always spend this much time wondering what I'm doing?"

"No!" His hands, once busy with scrunching up the fabric of your bedsheets, now find yours, and he runs a careful thumb over your knuckles. You notice he has the care-worn hands of a line chef, or maybe even a baker, which is funny because you don't even think the man knows how to turn on an oven. "I dunno. You just seem so experienced. What about all of those other girls?"

He flips your hand over, tracing the creases of your palm.

"Just dates. Nothing serious."

You want to ask—What about us? Are we serious? But you swallow it all down. You watch Seungcheol's eyes, midnight-weary, fall back upon you, and it feels like he's trusted you with something important.

"Don’t get it twisted, though," he adds, before yawning big and wide without covering his mouth. "I'm a loser, not a virgin. Definitely not."

You bite back a laugh. Killer journalist bio, but that's something to pitch next content meeting.

"Definitely a loser. I think you make me a loser by association."

"Good. So we're both losers. I like that." He smiles at you with so much warmth, it makes your heart physically hurt. Then he clamps down another yawn. "God, I'm exhausted. I think if we fucked in the bathroom, I'd have passed out. Or pulled my back."

"Then sleep," you chide, shucking a pillow at him. "Also take your shirt off. I don't like outside clothes on the bed."

"Say less," Seungcheol says. "I’ll blow your back out another day. Save the date." Between your almost audible gulp and his unfortunately attractive physique, you almost forget the place you're in-between.

Did everyone fit into his arms? Did he lift a hand for just anyone? Two silhouettes in the lamplight—was that how every day with him ended? Or just you, the only other person competing with him for his dream job? The convenient reality scares you.

The thought never seems to cross Seungcheol's mind. His head hits the pillow, and he's out like a light. But not without a not-so-subtle scoot to your side of the bed, near enough that the heat of his skin plays off yours.

You lean into it, liking how your skin buzzes with the closeness.

You're lulled by the sway of Seungcheol's breathing behind you—probably the most quiet he'll ever be. The moonlight oozes into the room; sleep comes over you like water, a slow, gentle wash.

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You can't remember the last time you cooked for two.

You open your fridge, and the hollow insides stare back at you. Rows of condiments and two water bottles. You have finally reached K-drama CEO status.

"Is this the part where I get kicked out?" Seungcheol says, shrugging his shirt back on as he walks out of the bedroom.

"This is the part where I cook breakfast for you."

"Really? You don't have to." He sounds genuinely surprised, which tips your heart a little off-axis.

"I want to," you reply, double checking the fridge as if opening it a second time would repopulate it. "That's what people do when they care about each other."

"Or if they're trying to poison you."

"Will you just let me do something nice for you?" You yank your head out to glare at him, and he looks stung.

"Thanks." He says it after so much pause that you wonder if this is the first time someone has done this for him. You wish you had a better offering, but surely the man with the worst palate in the world could spare his judgment for one meal. "No really, 'cause I am starving."

You let him bask in the rare glory of the unobstructed refrigerator light while you rummage through the pantry for a plan B.

"Holy shit. You live like this?"

"Not always. It's been…a week." All you have is the ramyun Mingyu likes, which feels like a weird, culinary betrayal. But you're hungry, and Seungcheol is eyeing a strange bag in the freezer that you don't even remember putting there. "You good with ramyun?"

"Honestly, I'll eat anything," he whines, gnawing on the ice straight from the freezer drawer.

At least he's self-aware. But he makes all the spaces Mingyu left behind seem a little less empty, and you can't find it in you to be mad at that.

You wait for the water to boil and Seungcheol finds a seat at your tiny dinner table, a misaligned, wobbly product of Mingyu’s inability to read an Ikea manual.

"I'm hoping your week got better?" Seungcheol asks, referring to your capital W week.

You tentatively nod before dropping the noodles in.

"Of course it did—you woke up to me in your bed. Can't get better than that."

"Actually, it's because I finished my article yesterday."

Seungcheol pauses before laughing to himself. "Congrats," he replies, now wiggling the table on its bad leg. "Can't say the same for myself."

you watch the starch-foam wash over the mouth of the pot, precariously close to the edge. You overfilled it, which mildly surprises you until you consider that you're cooking double the food.

There's a stretchy, anxious tumble in your stomach. It's not like you were expecting him to cheer or anything, but it just reminds you that you are, still in fact, competitors. When all of this is said and done, one of you is losing, and from every angle, it seems like quite the death knell for whatever you've got going on now.

It's a pity because you actually kind of like this arrangement. If Seungcheol was in your banged-up flea market chair next Saturday morning, you wouldn't be mad. Maybe you would even make him waffles. From scratch, even.

"What, too many dates to cover?"

He laughs again, somehow to no one in particular. "Something like that."

Past the bruising swell of his smile is the much sharper, more unforgiving edge of an unspoken hurt that you're neither trusted with nor owed, and yet you refuse to drop it. What about me? It feels like you're almost there, wrapped around something bigger, a scoop you can't pull your stubborn teeth out of.

"Is there a reason none of those were serious? Come on."

"What's so wrong with that?" And when you don't say anything, he says, "Trust me, it is never that serious."

His voice ticks up at the end like a teenager trying to play cool and the noodle water boils up around your chopsticks as you try to get your portion cooked through.

You won't—can't—turn to face him. You committed to the line, and now you must see it through, no matter how bad an idea it may be.

"That's not true," you finally squeeze out, finding the right footing for your voice. "It was serious for me. I'm sorry it wasn’t for you."

The table stops rocking.

"I'm glad. Really." He claps his hands together like a cruel punctuation mark, and it's then you remember that the only person as ill-tempered as you happens to be sitting two feet away.

Like an injured animal, your heart wants to cower back into your chest. You knew this was a mistake—this being everything—but an open wound can't help but bleed and your pride can't do without seeing the knife.

"Look, I don't know what your problem is." The pot hisses, astringent and pleading, beneath your fist. "I don't know what happened with your love life, but don't take it out on me."

"You asked."

"Yeah? Well, what is this?" You turn to face him, feeling the air between you tense, pulled like a rubber band. "You can't sit in my kitchen and tell me you don't care about whatever this is."

After all of the terse meetings, elevator spats, and foul-mouthed encounters in the parking lot, you can now recognize the fresh twist of Seungcheol's mouth and the livewire of a temper you've become so familiar with.

"Who said I didn't care? I'm just tired of you trying to lecture me about my life. I—"

"I'm not lecturing you, I just know you can't really believe what you're saying." Every word stumbles out, trembling and doe-legged, barely audible over his attempts to interrupt you. "There's nothing wrong with admitting you were in love with someone. And if you can't, I just feel really fucking sorry for you."

There’s an incredulous look in Seungcheol's eyes. But it's the worse part of you, ruthless and hungry for acceptance, that makes you say, "Maybe the fact that nothing lasts is your fault."

"Oh, really?" Seungcheol's voice, half-laugh with none of the warmth, rips through you. "You're really gonna act like you're better than me? As if you don't write in your pretentious little column every week, just waiting for your ex to read it and decide he wants you back again?"

There’s a red hot flash behind your eyes and everything inside you feels like it breaks at once.

"You know, at least I had someone who cared about me. Can't say the same about your miserable, sorry ass. Now get the fuck out of my apartment."

"Wh—"

he stands up, table croaking underneath his fists, and you realize you've crossed a bridge that can never be uncrossed.

"Get. Out."

It feels like a stitch in you has come undone. The water has long boiled over the pot and there's no joy to be found in watching Seungcheol stumble over his pant legs on the way to the door.

"I didn't want Mingyu. I wanted you."

it's not an apology, nor is it an indictment. You don't know why you say it, and you guess Seungcheol doesn't either. The door slams behind him, and all you're left with is a bloated pot of ramyun you never really wanted anyway.

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Celery. Red wine. Short rib.

If you had one day left on earth, you think you would go grocery shopping. It was like a prayer to you—you could close your eyes and know exactly what aisle had the beef broth, or feel the stone weight of a can of San Marzano tomato paste.

That's one thing you can thank Mingyu for—it's true that you don't love him like you used to, but you refuse to believe that any love worth having is also worth leaving behind.

Fingerling potatoes, the red ones. A Vidalia onion.

You recite your shopping list, slowly, quietly, a rosary.

Baguette is the next item, with a question mark next to it because sometimes your local bakery sells out after 3.

You pass by, expecting to see the shop window cleared out. Instead you see a familiar crown of cowlicked black hair and a horribly well-worn grin that only looks good because it's on Choi Seungcheol's face.

He's paying for a pretty girl's sourdough, and thyme, rosemary gets washed out by a dizzying riptide of heartache.

It was never personal, you tell yourself. Just another date. That's the angle.

You think it hurts a little less, knowing that it all was a business transaction. A long interview.

The thyme is next to the dill. The rosemary is next to the chives, at the end of the shelf.

You watch Seungcheol lean over the tiny cafe table to take a sip of his date's Americano. Did he always laugh like that? Were you really any different?

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Monday feels tilted.

There's the usual gust of cinnamon sugar and cold brew—today's offering from the interns, who have begun to master the art of pressing the elevator buttons with full hands. Wonwoo is wearing his Monday outfit, a wrinkled cream button up under a navy blue sweater vest. Your cubicle is empty, just the way you like it, save for the ass-shaped spot cleared off on the desk edge.

You like days like this, except today you don't and you know exactly why.

"Today's the day," Joshua says, nose buried in a bakery-style muffin, the top pillowing out of the wrapper.

He stares over your shoulder at your article, locked and loaded for submission to copy.

You are not exaggerating when you say you would die for these four thousand words. You ate and cried and argued for them in what you can only describe as the worst literary coliseum of your life, and now their (and your) fate rests in Joshua’s massive Mickey Mouse hands and Wonwoo's bespectacled whimsy.

"Well, don't let me stop you." He laughs and then totters away, sucking a crumb off a finger. Just another Monday.

Your cursor hovers over the SUBMIT button. You've always been a little scared of it—unsurprising, since you're also the type to triple read an email before sending it—but there's a new kind of fear boxed in those little pixels.

Last night, you emptied out your freezer. Stuck on the back wall was a neon green sticky note, behind all the bags. See you when you get home, it said. You laughed and then you cried and then you ripped it up because that's probably what Seungcheol was looking at the morning you chewed him out.

All of that heartache must have been good for something. To say you wasted it on a no-love situationship wouldn't do any of it justice, not when all that's left is most definitely a crude shoutout on Seungcheol's next listicle. If you weren't already getting one earlier, you sure are now.

You wonder what you'll be:

10 Signs She Is Clinically Insane.

It's Not You, It's Them!

Help! My Friend With Benefits Isn't A Friend Or A Benefit!

At least that one is funny, although if it's the winning line, you don't think you can ever show your face in the office again.

The beginning and the end and the muddy in-between. Entrenched in all of it was this article and this job, and you'll be damned if you let your misplaced faith get co-opted by a sweaty-palmed Casanova.

(8:19 AM; the smell of summer and dried-down cologne. A hand on your ribcage, just beneath your heart. Good morning, Seungcheol says, as if emerging from a long, wonderful dream.)

You picture the byline with editor tacked next to your name. To run your finger over the ink spackled serif of a paper hot off the press, as if somehow it would radiate the misery you had to endure.

(11:41 PM; jajangmyeon and a pack of rice crackers. Seungcheol had given you his chopsticks because you dropped yours. The hum of the broken light outside Wonwoo's office sings in the silence of an empty newsroom. Your eyes meet, and you don't look away.)

There's a sinking feeling in your chest. You close your eyes and hit submit.

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Ask Samuel!

It's 6 PM on a Thursday and if you weren't already on your last thread, you are now. The angry red of the Daily Trojan website glares back at you from your phone as you step into the elevator with none other than your editor-in-chief.

You've resorted to reading Seungcheol's old advice columns. Not because you miss him, but because you want to know if he was ever a competent writer capable of talking about something other than how to score on a second date.

That's the only way he's beating you.

(There's also no way you miss him. The thought would make you laugh out loud if you weren't standing next to your boss).

One column became four became ten. After thirteen you concluded Seungcheol must have sustained a head injury some time before starting his job here—you can find no other explanation for how someone so generous and intuitive could've gotten lost in the chaff of articles with more pictures than words.

"Congrats," Wonwoo says, seemingly speaking into the void.

"Pardon?" You close out a particularly riveting query about estranged childhood friends to look up at him.

"Congrats."

"F-for what?" You get that head rush again, the same one you got a month ago at the Italian restaurant with Jeonghan.

"The job. You got the position." Wonwoo clears his throat calmly, as if he's not delivering the most important news of your life. "I wanted to let you know in person before we sent out Monday’s email."

For once, you have no words. In a wonderful instant, they are all zapped out of your brain. You feel hot and clammy and anxious all at once and you half expect to close your eyes and see either god or the flare of a hospital light, waking you up from an impossible coma.

"Holy shit," the primordial ooze inside you says instead. "T-thank you."

"No need."

"What about Seungcheol? Does he know?"

"I haven't told him yet, but he should be aware." Wonwoo pauses. "He didn't submit anything."

"What?!"

There are only so many surprises your body can handle. You feel like you are being held together by a fast-unraveling string on a poorly made sweater. Your stomach is somewhere in your feet and you don't even know where your heart is. Part of you is waiting for the elevator to stop so the entire office can jump out of the walls and laugh at you.

"I too was surprised," Wonwoo says, now checking his smartwatch for messages. "He must have changed his mind. No matter—I'm confident you will be an excellent fit."

The elevator jerks to a stop at the first floor. You feel boneless, like a can of cranberry sauce.

"Forgive me, I have a dinner appointment." Wonwoo ends the conversation the best way he can—with his trademark parentheses smile and a nod of the head—and leaves you in the elevator cabin alone.

All the times you've dreamed of this moment, you're tear-dizzy, joyous, fumbling with your phone to call your parents.

Instead you stand motionless, waiting, emptied.

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To make croissants, you fold a slab of butter into a square of yeasted dough. You roll it out thin and then fold it into itself before leaving it to rest in the fridge. Then you take it out again, roll it, and fold it. You do this until you've forgotten how many times you folded it and you no longer crave croissants.

When you were five, you pressed your nose to the window of your favorite patisserie and decided this is how your mind works.

You've had ample time now to flatten out Saturday morning, to watch all the little layers of doubt and loathing form, and now you're sick of it. It's not often you're star witness to your own unhappiness, but, as if you were called to the stand, you can easily play back the moment you lit the match and then watched everything explode.

You're not sure what either of you were expecting. A playboy and you, who loves so insistently, almost as if out of spite—there is truly no reality in which it makes sense. The fact that you fought over a literal pot of ramyun only proves this.

And now he's saddled you with the final blow. The position of your dreams with none of the glory because he gave up.

He gave up.

None of this should matter to you.

You're standing outside the office, waiting for your ride to your celebratory dinner (this time, on Jeonghan). The little headline man in your brain is silent for once. Instead, you try to enjoy the breeze, honeyed with late June, and not dwell on the horrible twist in your stomach every time you think about your new position. It's been 24 hours since you found out but it is no less raw.

It's then that you catch Seungcheol, creeping out the double doors of the office like some sort of criminal. You're not sure if it's the plod of his Sasquatch feet or that bag you hate so dearly, but you could recognize that walk from anywhere.

His pace quickens when you turn to face him—he's running away. You won't grant him the satisfaction. Not when he's fucked up what little you had left, and then some.

"You're an idiot, Seungcheol."

That does the trick.

"Funny way of saying hi," he responds, bracing himself on the sidewalk as if you're about to hit him.

"Why didn't you submit anything? What the fuck were you thinking?"

"What does it matter to you? You got the position."

"Look, I—" You shut your eyes, feeling the frenetic ice-cream churn of your brain try to put together a million broken up words. "I'm sorry for Saturday. But I never wanted to scare you off from the job. You deserve it as much as I do, and, as much as I hate to say it, I care about you too fucking much to watch you throw away your shot."

Saying the words is like cutting something loose from your chest, a million strings coming undone.

Seungcheol takes a deep, unsteady breath. You watch the crest and fall of his shoulders and the inescapable tar pits he calls eyes get big and shiny.

"No, I—" He pulls himself from your gaze. "I'm sorry. I should have never said that to you. And I should have never treated you like that."

The silence between you ripples, as if after a long rain.

"I was scared. A long time ago, I threw myself into a relationship. I thought we had something really, really good, and then I found out she was also seeing someone else."

Being right never felt so bad. It's even worse that something you would look forward to—the I told you so, the jokes really write themselves—no longer holds any satisfaction, only a sense of loss and a terrible urge to make it right again.

"And it's not right, but I decided that it was a mistake to take chances like that again. And it was fine, fun even, going on all of these casual dates and getting paid for it. Then you just had to mess it up."

"H-how?"

"You were so dead-set on convincing me otherwise. You wouldn't let it go, not with your weird sayings and the way you talked about your ex and when you told me you were making me breakfast. I started believing you, and it really fucking scared me."

There's a sharp pain in your head. It feels like, at once, you were skinned like a fruit. Like the interlude between dream and waking, all the sheets of sleep yanked from your person.

"What…what about the article?" you ask, scrambling. You don't really want to contend with what he just told you. You don't think you can.

"You deserved it more. And you really love what you do. I used to think it was all bullshit, but I was wrong."

You take a hard swallow. The image of Seungcheol, head bowed, a nervous hand on the back of his neck, swims in front of your eyes.

"Whatever. I don't even know what I'm saying anymore," he laughs, mirthless.

"No, wait," you say. "I-I also…never took you seriously, not even when I should've. You know, I read your advice columns. Crazy, I know."

"I do have to say that is one of your more insane claims."

"No, I thought, they were actually, you know…really good." You watch him blink, mouth already twisting up as he fights a smile. "What I'm trying to say is that I think we messed up. In a lot of ways. But I want to be friends again. Or at least not enemies."

Seungcheol takes a long pause before he sticks his hand out.

"Choi Seungcheol. Writer. It's nice to meet you."

Some force, as if you had always been connected, pulls your skin to his. You shake his hand for the very first time, and starting over never felt so good.

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"You're booking Eleven Madison for the office dinner again, right?"

Wonwoo pops his head into your office, his Monday uniform now festive with a holiday tie. Today, it's snowmen with glasses.

"Naturally," you reply. "Unless you have plans on that Friday."

You're referring to last week, when Wonwoo took a call in the middle of a staff meeting and revealed that yes, he would most definitely be available for drinks with Yerim that evening. He ended the meeting thirty short seconds later, and you think you saw him skip to the elevator.

He laughs, deep and caramel. "Not this time. Also—don't forget to review those job applications. Sent them to your email."

Before you can tease him again, he leaves, and you are forced to look at your teeming inbox, the only unfortunate side effect of your new position. But you've never been happier, and a hundred new unread emails never seemed so wonderful. The first time Jeonghan saw you in your new office, you were so giddy he thought you were coming down with something.

You take a hefty sip of today's coffee (ginger, molasses, cinnamon). On the side of the cup, the one you keep facing away from the door, reads SEUNGCHEOL and OAT, in loopy marker letters.

After you shook hands in the parking lot, you agreed to take it slow. You thought bringing everything to a simmer would cure you of your affection, but it wasn't even a month before Seungcheol was back in that same seat in your kitchen, eating the blueberry waffles you promised him.

But if slow meant long phone calls and the nervous twine of your hands after an ice cream date, then you think you like slow. You could do slow for a while.

He's taken to bringing you coffee in the morning. He claims it's your editorial right, but you think he just likes having an excuse to barge into your office. (And close the door behind him. And kiss you. But that's aside the point.)

Plus, Seungcheol's had plenty of legitimate reasons to be in your office. The newest one is the launch of Ask Sunny! , which you think is the best idea he's had since deciding to get you coffee every day. He spent the last few days campaigning to reuse his old alias, but you're pretty sure he was just looking for reasons to argue with you.

"Afternoon, boss."

Speak of the devil, and he shall appear. You always seem to learn the hard way with Seungcheol.

He swaggers in, ear-to-ear smile on his face, before taking a seat at the designated corner of your table.

"I think I like this desk better," he says, folding at the waist so he can lean close to you. Instead of reminding him it's the same desk, you just choose to make space for him, you let him press his nose to yours.

"Friendly reminder we're at work."

"Everyone's at lunch, genius."

He interrupts you with just a touch of his lips, which should be considered no less than a war crime by now.

"You are the worst."

"Not what you said last night. Not even close." He places another wet kiss on your nose before sliding off the table edge to his feet. There's a horrible warmth in his eyes as he watches you very clearly remember what exactly he's referring to. (A wandering hand. A cherry. Dark hair, wound through your fingers). "Anyway, I've got serious problems to solve. Or should I say Sunny? I still think we should have gone with Samuel."

"Executive decision," you tease. "Now if you don't need anything, scram. Out of my office."

"Just wanted to remind you I made reservations for us at Avra today," Seungcheol says, lingering in the doorframe with the shit-eating grin he tends to sport nowadays. "I'll even let you order."

There's no fighting the familiar bloom of laughter in your chest. It boils up, sparkling and citrusy, as you roll your eyes and watch Seungcheol return to his desk no less starry-eyed than how he walked in.

If cooking is a language, then love is the words, and you finally think you're learning to speak them.

You open the email at the top of your inbox: Seungcheol's last draft of the article he never published. You urged him to let you consider it for the next issue, and he finally caved (although you're learning that he really doesn't take much convincing when it comes to you).

Eat, Play, Love: A Guide.

Maybe you'd put it through. Maybe.

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#mine #seungcheol #seungcheol x reader #seungcheol fluff #seungcheol x you #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #seventeen scenarios #scoups x reader #scoups fluff #scoups x you #seungcheol imagines #seungcheol scenarios #scoups imagines

[hopelesslyromanticshark]

Hi! Can you pretty please do a Percy x child of Hebe headcanons where they both are out of Tartarus and healing? Thanks ur the best! 💜

⋆⭒˚.⋆ percy jackson x child of hebe! reader hcs

content: percy jackson x child of hebe hcs warning: in depth conversations about trauma and all the icky stuff that surrounds tartarus author's note: a little short but so so sweet!! comfort like you've never been comforted before. this is actually such an interesting concept that i wish i could dive into with the other boys like...what would jason do in tartarus??? my fav boy leo??? franky-poo???

one year out

it's been one year since you and percy finally got out of tartarus

so why did you still feel like you were trapped down there?

the nightmares were never ending and the tears felt just as bad

it helped that percy, your beloved boy, was going through it with you too

there were nights in which he couldn't let you go, scared you'd slip away in the darkness and he'd never see you again

scared you'd fall, this time with no one to catch you

he couldn't be apart from you on this nights, even following you into the bathroom, sitting on the lip of the bathtub while he waited

it was exhausting for the both of you and you rarely got full nights of sleep anymore

so on this horrid anniversary, you and percy had a plan

you'd talk to clover over in the hypno cabin, kindly requested anything to help to the two of you sleep

he'd been more than happy to hand over his demigod level melatonin gummies, in the shape of pegasus and sheep and little lions

the two of you stocked up on favorite childhood movies, snacks, and - your favorite - coloring books

and you sat inside the poseidon cabin, determined to not be bother the whole day

every interaction with anyone outside of the pair of them would be a reminder of what day it was, which would bring all those terrible and gross feelings bubbling to the surface

and you two were determined to have a care free day, DAMN IT!

you were coloring and smiling and cuddling and just enjoying each other's presence

as a child of hebe, you loved coloring books!!

made you feel like a little kid again, that innocence of no one telling you whether or not it was good or bad.

it just was

then, as the night was coming to an end and you and percy had just started to reach for the melatonin gummies, a huge bang! rang through camp

followed by shouting, tons and tons of shouting, leo's voice easily heard above the rests

"I SAID NO, YOU LITTLE SHITS!! YOU THINK THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT?? FIREWORKS?? TO CELEBRATE WHAT, EXACTLY?? GET BACK HERE, YOU-"

your breathing had picked up and your hold on percy's bicep had tightened nearly enough to draw blood

he froze too before pulling you into his chest, shushing with a broken voice as he ran his hands through your hair

and you were getting flashbacks, your brain tricking you into thinking you were hearing rushing wind again and the way percy was holding you was just so similar and-

"breathe, y/n. it's me and you, always, but you gotta breath," percy whispered, his voice cutting through your thoughts like a sword

"okay, okay," you muttered back, resting your forehead to his chest and attempting to match him the best you could

admittedly, his breathing wasn't exactly even either, but it was better than yours

"i love you. so so much, baby." percy whispered this and similar sweet nothings into your ear, desperate to sooth you and himself

"you know, you're the best thing that ever happened to me, percy jackson," you managed to get out, looking up at him like you've never looked at him before, something more than devotion and admiration and love all combined. a look that rivaled aphrodite's definition of love

"i'd say im the luckiest guy in the world to have a girl as precious as you by my side. i- i don't deserve-"

"don't you dare. not today, percy, not today of all days," you cut in, shaking your head against his chest.

and percy could breath again, unknowingly needing that reassurance more than anything on that day

that cursed day that they were determined to stain with good memories, memories so fond and love-soaked that the bad ones simply faded away.

#postcards from covey ౨ৎ #all my love ౨ৎ #pjo #pjo fandom #hoo #percy jackson #percy jackson x reader

[azulock]

I said Sunday? Well, it's 1am of the 29th here, happy Sunday. Also this was gonna be a drabble so make of that what you will. I should write more dubcon and intox kink cause those are two of my fav things (+ somno), esp the intox kink part, love getting railed while I'm high beyond cohesive thought

summary. you and Nagi have been having a thing for a while, but recently you've taken to avoiding him, and that has been making him more upset than he can take. so when he finds you alone at Reo's Halloween party, he finally decides to take action. too bad you are too high for a conversation - well, maybe not bad at all.

pairing. Seishiro Nagi x F!Reader

wordcount. 3k

warnings. nsfw (minors back off) cw: intox kink, dubcon, piv, unprotected sex, creampie, semipublic sex

halloween party.

For all intents and purposes, Nagi never really liked Reo's Halloween parties. They were a hassle, too many people, too loud, and he was always forced into a costume. He always left early, staying only long enough to appease his friend. But this time he stayed longer - just because you had come to the event.

Nagi had every so often seen you out of the corner of his eye, never in his groups, but still around. For the past couple of months, you'd been having a fling - a situationship, maybe? Though, recently, you'd started ghosting him. And with his poor social skills, there wasn't much he could do about it.

Reo had said he should just approach you, easier said than done. Nagi had spent most of the party ogling you - and for once he was thankful for having to wear a costume. He had bought a Ghost Face mask to wear with a black hoodie, the laziest thing he could think of. Every now and again he'd put the mask back on, despite how hot the fabric covering his head could get, he was glad the damn thing covered up how he kept staring at you.

You'd come to the party with a costume from that one horror movie with - was it Megan Fox? He was pretty sure it was. Jennifer's Body - yeah, that was the one. It didn't matter. What mattered is that the costume made you look even hotter than usual. The white coat, covered in fake blood, did nothing to hide how tight your top was, nor how your jeans' miniskirt hugged your ass tight and left little of your legs to the imagination. Nagi was losing his composure already, he couldn't stare at you for too long without his cock getting hard.

It's later into the party that he finally finds you alone, in Reo's kitchen, further from the crowd. Nagi is careful to approach you slowly, steps silent until he is close to you - and shit, he can already smell your perfume. It was sweet, and made his body heat up like crazy. When you finally notice him it's too late, he is already close, almost boxing you against the counter, tall frame looking over yours. Fuck, he wanted to take you right here, right now.

"Why have you been avoiding me?" Nagi asks in a low grunt, but you only mumble in response. That's when he notices something, underneath the overpowering sweetness of your perfume. It's a smell he recognizes, and with how slow you are speaking and the red tinting your eyes - oh yeah, he is sure now. "Are you high?" Your stutter is confirmation enough, but Nagi still brings his face close to yours, taking a sniff again. Yep, that's weed.

"Seishiro, no," you whine, eyes droopy and voice almost slurred, and he can't help snicker, barely swallowing a laugh. Your hands collide with his chest as you try to push him away from your personal space. But Nagi is much too strong for that, all you manage is to make him straighten up again, narrowing his eyes with a smirk. "You didn't answer my question? Why have you been avoiding me?" He leans in your direction, holding his body up with one hand on the counter, chuckling at the annoyance crossing your face - there was some weird pleasure in pestering you while you were in that state.

You take half a step backwards and hit your back to the counter, almost stumbling. It's cute, your hazy eyes look around, like a confused animal. "Sei, can we not do this now?" You are slow to answer, mumbling again, your gaze struggling to focus on his own. Your dazed state is sweet, but too bad, he wants to solve his problem now. "No. Now, why?" You grunt, frustration bubbling through you - you are usually far more controlled than this, which makes everything just adorable. Oh, you look so vulnerable and so pretty. It really makes him want you even more.

"Ugh, I have other things to do with my life too, you know, I actually have a life," you sneer, and it doesn't sound quite as cutting as it usually would. He watches you fidget, body swaying slightly, eyes looking at him through heavy lids and long lashes. You look beautiful, but he doesn't much like your answer. "Other things or other guys?" Nagi's voice is restrained, but he is jealous, he can't deny that - and the alcohol in his system is making him all too open about it. He brings his body closer to yours, invading your space even more.

You huff and groan, a mix of frustration and confusion noticeable in your expression. Your hands make contact with Nagi’s chest again, trying to shove him away once more, still to no avail as he just lets you keep on trying. "Really? We have nothing, don't act stupid," you shoot back, and while it's true, there is nothing between you, that still doesn't stop Nagi's jealousy. He can be as stubborn as he can be lazy sometimes, and his mind had been stuck on you for a while now. The solution is simple, getting you back on his bed - and while he may not be a charmer, like Reo, he has gotta try something.

"You know they can't fuck you like I do, right? Why even try, it's a hassle," Nagi lowers his face close to yours, trying to see if the proximity bends you towards falling for his smug boast. You freeze for a second, taken aback by the heat from his breath touching your skin, hazy eyes finally focusing on his. There is a silent moment before you grunt and try to push him off again, still failing against his hulking size. Nagi uses his free hand to hold one of your wrists, keeping your fist glued to his chest with a grin.

"This is stupid, let me go, Nagi," you groan out in a tired voice - and using his last name, something you only did when frustrated. Your half lidded eyes move from his face to his hand as you weakly try to struggle, lips almost coming into a pout as you speak. Once again, it's cute, your mind too slow to properly react. He can feel your breath speeding up, chest rising and falling with your pants - Nagi can't tell if you are scared or aroused, you always did like being restrained. To him, it could go either way.

"I missed you," he came closer, breathing out in your ear. "I missed fucking that pretty pussy," it's crude, but it's the truth - and it makes him sound less clingy. You struggle, groaning his name as he holds your hand to his chest, fingers wrapped tight around your wrist - he can feel your pulse on his fingertips, your heart beating fast. Nagi's mouth hovers over yours, hot breath fanning your skin. "Come on now, if you don't want it, just say it," he doesn't give you time for that, crashing his lips against yours in a flash.

His kiss is rough and desperate, assaulting your soft lips with passion. You still squirm, but Nagi is just too strong, one hand caging you against the counter, the other holding your forearm tight to his chest. When you try to say something, he slips his tongue in your mouth, exploring your warm wetness. You try to push him off but fail, and it doesn't take very much for your protests to begin to fade. You just let him push you against the kitchen counter and explore the taste of your mouth, mind too dazed and tired to tell the body to fight back, your own muscles too heavy to react.

It takes a little longer for you to kiss him back, hands still trying to push him away for a long minute before you finally give in. When you do, though, Nagi is all too eager to pounce on your heavy and sluggish body - if you smoked enough you'd generally turn out like him, and he remembered spending a good few afternoons lazying with you just like that. But now there is no slow afternoon, only the rushed beating of his heart as his hands desperately travel over your body, groping and kneading whatever they touched in a frenzy. The body haze caused by the weed made your body feel even more pliable to his touch, which only made things better, your skin welcoming his long fingers in a warm embrace. Shit, when he notices it, he is already rubbing his clothed hips against your body, rutting into you like a damn dog.

When his patience finally runs dry, Nagi drags you into the bathroom near the kitchen - you are so easy to just manhandle when you are high, it takes almost no effort at all. The minute he locks the door, he already has you shoved against a wall, your yelps being drowned by the muffled music coming from outside. He takes one moment to look at you again, and fuck, you are so pretty like this, looking vulnerable and small against his towering frame. He feels like his cock is already about to burst just from the sigh alone, pants feeling way too tight for his comfort, so he doesn't take very long to go back to kissing you.

"Sei," you manage to cry out when his lips wander to your ear, kissing your soft lobe, feeling the velvety touch of your skin. "Seishiro, we shouldn't - hmmf," your words a cut by a whimper when Nagi bites into your sensitive skin. "We are in Reo's bathroom, we gotta stop, you can't," you try to squirm, but he holds your body tight between his and the wall - all your moving around does is make the tightness in his pants even worse.

"Hah, Reo is busy with some random girl, he isn't even gonna notice," Nagi responds in a grunt, warm breath fanning over the skin of your neck before he bites at it, making you tremble. " 'sides, you say to stop, but your body says something else," he punctuated his words by rubbing his clothed thigh against your crotch. You react with a whine and deep shudder, whole body trembling when you feel one of his hands grope your breast over your shirt, teasing your already perky nipples with a smirk. Honestly, Nagi was surprised you still had the mind to try and resist, but your body's increased sensitivity made it hard for you to actually put up any fight.

Nagi sucks and nibbles at your neck, pulling a reluctant moan from your throat, your shaky noises growing deeper and more lowed. His large hands travel down and slip under your clothes, feeling the heat of your skin on his fingertips. The thin fabric of your shirt poses no challenge to him as he exposes your breasts. You whine and whimper, clinging to his black hoodie, muttering things he can't really discern. Nagi gropes your tits as his lips crash into yours, pulling you into a rough kiss again. When he is finally satisfied with exploring your mouth with his tongue he moves to a new target. You cry out his name when you feel his lips on your nipple, fingers tugging at his hair, soft white locks messed up from the mask he'd worn for the first half of the party.

While Nagi's mouth is busy with your breast his hands roam lower, rubbing over your thigh and then trailing up until they find the edge of your skirt, feeling the rough touch of the jeans. He unceremoniously pulls it up - and it's not even that long a climb until your skirt bunches around your hips, exposing your panties. Nagi has no interest in the soft black material so he pushes them to the side, rubbing his fingers over your wet lips before sinking them into your plush pussy and earning a breathy gasp from you. You call his name again and Nagi's lips once more find yours, silencing your words with his tongue.

He thrusts his fingers into your damp cunt, feeling your soft walls like a welcoming touch. His free hand kneads your breast as your tongues dance against each other in a sloppy mess of a kiss. You tremble against him, moans silenced by his mouth as he uses his thumb to massage your clit while his middle and index finger are sunk knuckle deep into you. Oh, yeah, you feel so warm, so wet and soft inside, he can't wait to be balls deep into that hungry pussy of yours. It doesn't take long for you to be giving into pleasure - weed did always make you more sensitive, and he fucking loved taking advantage of your state whenever you got like that. In a few minutes he has you clenching around his fingers, juices dripping down his hand and onto the floor, body trembling in ecstasy as the only sounds you make are broken gasps.

Nagi doesn't wait a moment longer, long fingers fumbling with his zipper while trying to open his pants and free his aching cock. The thick length throbs, veins popping all around the shaft, the swollen head leaking precum already, begging for the sweet touch of your tight pussy. While you are still basking in the fading light of your own orgasm, eyelids fluttering with every shaky breath , Nagi pulls you up by the hips, pressing you against the wall again to keep you in place as he shoves his cock into you in one swift movement. The gasp you give out when you feel him sinking all the way inside is loud - and for a moment he thinks that maybe it could have been heard from the outside, but by this point he doesn't give a shit.

You whimper and grab onto his shoulders when Nagi begins moving, keeping you tight against the wall as his hips move back and forth in a wave motion, slamming against your own with each thrust. He fucks you like a beast, indulging in the multiple sensations ravaging his body at the moment - the smell of your perfume, the warmth of your skin, the way your pussy clenches around him so tight. Nagi wastes no time to get to what he wants, hammering into you hard and fast until you are both moaning and groaning along the sloppy noises of your sex. Once again he feels like a damn dog, but he doesn't really mind - not when your cunt feels so snug and so warm around him, soft, gummy walls stretching to fit his massive dick. Maybe that's why he was so addicted, your pussy took his thick and long cock better than any he'd fucked before.

He fucks you on instinct, mind blank from the pleasure, only taking in the sensations and nothing else. Every nerve on his body is lighting up, making everything feel so clear and intense, from the sweat beading on his neck to the loud drumming of his heart. Nagi can feel clear as day the heat of your skin like lava to his touch, wherever his fingers sunk they could burn down to the bone, it's like your flesh could melt together.

You are making noises he can't even categorize, weak little sounds that die on his tongue whenever he assaults your lips, but they still sound loud to his ears - loud and erotic. All you can do is cling to him, arms and legs wrapped around his frame, your body so vulnerable under his touch, eyes even more dazed and unfocused than they were before. God, that's his favorite sight, for sure, he loves it when you are that gone - mind too lost to the drugs and the sex to even register the world around.

Soon Nagi begins speeding up, chasing after his own high. He can feel the coil in his gut tightening, pleasure climbing until it nears pain. Every thrust pulls at the edges of his sanity, his movements becoming more erratic as his mind starts to slip into that blissfully emptiness only sex could bring. Part of him wanted to prolong the moment, but he is far too gone for that, far too lost to the pleasure of your body. Your warm pussy clenches around him and Nagi shudders, his cock throbbing and twitching in response. His groans turn more and more into guttural sounds as the sets on fire every nerve in his body. He can feel his balls tight and heavy, begging for release, begging to fill your pussy with his cum.

And that he does. When his orgasm finally hits him, Nagi sees starts take over his vision, all the muscles in his body tightening at the same time as ecstasy floods his system. He buries his cock balls deep into you as it shoots rope after rope of his thick, sticky cum, flooding your quivering pussy with it. Shit, he'd missed that, missed painting your walls white and feeling like he'd claimed you'd body for him. It's almost nasty, you are both sweating, breathless, and he is still pumping a big load deep into your cunt - it's so big that he can already feel the cum spilling from your lips and down his balls, until it drops onto the floor. That's when the door opens.

"Oh, come on," Reo breaks the eye contact he'd held with Nagi for a moment with a pissed off grunt, slamming the door and making you flinch. "The bathroom? I gave you a room in this fucking house, man!" Oh, yeah, Nagi had been too horny to remember that - well, what's done is done.

#seishiro nagi x reader #nagi x reader #nagi seishiro x reader #nagi seishiro #bllk x reader #blue lock x reader

[bonny-kookoo]

Off Duty drabble request 😄 I love reading them having fun together away from work, so maybe on OCs Birthday and Jungkook giving her presents with her getting super excited and her puppy side coming out more? They're my fav :)

It's not often that you can just be you, off duty, nothing holding you back, not even himself.

But your birthday is a special day, one he always has you both take a day off to just do whatever you personally want. Last year for example, you had a full on spa-day; from facial treatment to massages and skincare at home, you'd been pampered to high heavens as a birthday present, and you loved every second of it.

This year, you've stayed home and had some visitors over, before you ate the cake and opened the presents you got- one of them yet another squeaking toy Seokjin had bought despite Jungkook's eager words not to.

But he can tolerate it.

Well, it's not really about tolerating it. But more so about what he gets to see whenever you get stuff like this- your carefree self, laughing, smiling, running after the toy Seokjin had been throwing for you while Yoongi watches fondly.

Jungkook's heart aches at the sight. You should get to live like this all the time.

"Are you okay?" Taehyung asks from the side, having noticed him go quiet. "You seem a bit.. in your head."

"Yeah no- I'm fine." Jungkook waves off, though he knows his friend doesn't believe him at all. The younger officer instead watches you just to make sure you're alright- always a little on edge, unsure why. He just can't shed it off.

"Jin said you two had some trouble connecting at first." Taehyung says, sitting next to him. "That you wanted to switch even. Is that.. still an issue?" He wonders, but Jungkook shakes his head.

"God no.." he chuckles a bit dryly. Absolutely no way in hell will he switch- the problem nowadays is exactly on the opposite end of the spectrum. He likes you too much- making it hard to stay professional and detached at all times.

"Hm. Well, she clearly likes you a lot." Taehyung chuckles, especially when you now visibly get too exhausted to continue playing, instead bringing the squeaking bear to the table Jungkook sits at so he can put it away later.

"Done?" Jungkook asks, and you nod, breathing heavily as he automatically offers you some water, a bottle you eagerly take after he unscrews the cap for you.

He's glad that no one questions him any further for the rest of the day, because he already knows how deep in he is. Especially when you fall asleep over his lap later that night after watching your favorite movie together, his heart breaking a little when he has to wake you up so you can get ready for bed by yourself.

But this is for the best.

The stronger the line between you two, the less it'll hurt when it'll be over.

#bts imagine #bts fanfic #bts fic #jungkook imagine #jeon jungkook x reader #jeon jungkook imagine #hybrid imagine #bts jungkook imagine #bts jungkook fanfic

[httpseiki]

Hello hello! First time requesting! Can I get prompt 68 from fluff and 29 from smut where reader and Han are besties and one night they get together for movie night and find out they have feelings for each other? I love your fluffy smuts the most you are one of my favorite writers! No rush at all but I’m excited to see what you come up with 😍

building forts and confessions.

han jisung x fem!bsf!reader

note: hi lovely!! glad to be ur first request page(?)!!! and yes, fluffy smut is my fav genre too, I have like 15 drafts with soft dom lino, aaanywayyy, hope you'll enjoy this heheheheee. and I might also make a part two to this one, who knooowssss :)))

·˚ ༘₊· ͟͟͞͞꒰➳ the prompts!!

29. "don’t tempt me"

68. “Let’s build a fort!”

tw: afab!reader, NSFW content, ftl obvi🙄, mentions of alcohol and drinking, pining, teasing, slight nipple play(?), oral sex, slight fingering, orgasm denial. might make a part 2 out of this, who knows:))

song choice: cupid - fifty fifty

"I made us popcorn!!" han announces, running from the kitchen.

you smiled at his childish behaviour, telling him to be careful not to drop them. he sits back on the couch next to you and places the bowl in your lap.

"ugh, this month's session was terrible!" you groan, placing your feet on the small coffee table.

"and you're the one talking," he leans after the remote. "I had to finish a whole fucking mixtape in less than two weeks!"

you giggle at his exasperated facial expression. you exhale a breath you didn't know you were holding when the corner of his lips turned upwards. there is it, the smile that has your stomach turning upside down.

"sucks to be you, I guess, " you stuff your mouth with popcorn.

han scoffs, turning on TV to search for something to watch.

"oh, there's this movie that was released yesterday," he says. "I wanted us to watch it in premiere, but we went to that party."

you hum, waiting for him to finish the struggle of writing the name of the japanese movie. jisung has a thing for watching things in premiere. three days ago, when you told him about the party your classmate was throwing, he got a bit upset at the idea of not being the first people to see it.

the party was lit, though. you danced all night, it was exactly what you needed. the alcohol ran through the air as everyone got more than drunk. you did get tired of the crowd faster than your friends, so you opted to sit on the balcony, next to jisung, who was just as drained of energy.

the moonlight was shining on your faces as you talked about nonsense. that was the moment you realised just how dear he was to you. that you actually like him more than you expected to. your heartbeat suddenly went up to the thought that jisung was probably not seeing you more than just his best friend.

you hid your heartache until now, but being next to him since last night was terribly tensionate.if that's a real word. you sigh, not focusing on the movie at all.

"what's bothering you?" his voice was soft, yet tot you, it felt like sirens roaring through the night.

"nothing... "

he nods and turns his head back to the tv. you liked how he never pressured you onto telling him anything.

his hair was so soft, though. not that you touched it, but it looked so nice to run your hand through... and his round glasses atop of his nose. the way his eyes gleamed...

you tilt your head, how could someone be so endearing?

"okay," han turns towards you, "you're not interested in the movie, aren't you?"

"oh, no. no, no, no- I mean, yes. yes, of course I am, I-"

you stop your blabbering when he starts laughing, a stupid smirk drawn on his face.

"am I that attractive to you?"

"what?" your eyes widen.

"you're literally scanning me inch by inch, " he runs a hand through his perfect locks.

"dont bring your high school self out," you sigh, folding your arms.

he knows what he's doing. he wants to get you flustered, that's why he's laughing again. this seems incredibly funny to him. how your cheeks were bright pink and shining. how your leg was bouncing. it was all funny to him.

"fine, I'll stop, I'll stop," han adds, manspreading closer to you. "but just say you're not that interested in the movie."

....

nothing.

"── ? cmon, I was just jokiiiiing" he whines.

nothing.

again.

"sweetcheeks, why are you like this???" he coos when pinching your face.

he gasps when you push his hand off of your face, contemplating whatovr to do next.

"oh, I know what will get you to speak," his expression lights up. "let's build a fort!!"

the happy look he was displaying was slowly falling while awaiting your response. jisung felt like hours, even decades, were passing by, as he watched your eyes settle upon him,

"ok, fine," you finally give in.

he sits up, jumping and clapping. then you get to work. you go to his bedroom to bring more pillows as he demolishes the couch.

"there you go," he finally sits down, "isn't it so cozy?"

"yeh, a bit crowded but yeah," you both giggle.

the fort didn't end up especially spaceous. you were sitting on your knees, facing jisung who did the same, legs touching.

"so, did you know that frogs drink water through their skin?"

"what the hell, jisung?" you burst into a fit of laughter.

"yeah, I'm not joking!!!" he protests.

"I'm sorry, they what?"

"drink water through their skin!"

the seriousness he displayed only amused you more, body throwing itself on him, the sudden movements shook the fort.

"and they eat through it too??"

"no, I'm ju-"

you stopped breathing. oh, he was so close. a pillow behind you was threatening to fall, so han leaned in towards you to catch it. his face was just centimeters away from you, noses touching. his eyes were fixated on your lips, and you smiled,

"you really want to kiss me, huh?"

it was your turn to get him back for the teasing of earlier.

"don't tempt me."

heat was rushing up, as his words betrayed himself, since he attached his lips to yours immediately. it was so sudden, a yelp left you. you couldn't complain though, he was so good at kissing.

it didn't take long for you to sync, arms wrapping themselves around his neck, deepening.

"j-jisung, I... " you say breathlessly.

he hums.

"you, what?" he grabs your chin when you look away, embarrased.

"I don't know..." you avoid telling him.

"you do, spit it out."

how you hated how he always pressured you to tell him. you were pathetic to think he would return the feelings. and you didn't want to ruin your whole friendship, even if he just kissed you, it didn't mean nothing, you guess,

"plus, how do you tell your best friend you're in love with them?"

"... just like that," han whispers.

your blood turned cold, you just thought out loud. your instinct was to apologise, but you were cut off by him kissing you again.

this time, it was more heated, tongues colliding. your fingers got tangled in his hair, and it was soft. you pulled at his locks, earning a whine from him.

jisung went down to your neck, placing wet kisses down to your collarbones. you tried your best to keep in your moans, small sounds escaping every time he sucked too harshly at certain spots.

his hands played with the hem of your hoodie, tips of his fingers tracing the goosebumps of your hot skin. not long after, he took it off, revealing your bare chest.

"oh my god, you're driving me crazy," jisung chuckles.

you fall on your back when his hot mouth attached itself to your nipple, sucking and flicking his tongue over it. his thumb toyed with the other one, moans spilling out of you.

"sung..."

"too far?" he raises his head to look at your face.

"no, continue, pleaseee... " you push his head back to your skin.

jisung obeys, biting on your sensitive buds. at this point, your pajama shorts were probably leaking with your own arousal. as if he read your mind, he cupped your pussy. you whine, needing more. his fingers rubbed your clit, air hitching in your lungs. he was already bringing you to see stars.

"can I, sweetheart?" han asks for consent before taking the further step.

"yeah, sure, " you agree, "just..."

his glance never searched for yourd this quickly ever. what did he do wrong?

"i-it's my first time doing something like this... "

jisung smiles, placing a kiss in your forehead. he promised to be gentle.

his fingers pushed down the soft material of your shorts, revealing your soaked cunt. the cold air of midnight hit you hard, making you squeeze your thighs. his palms parted them, thumb rubbing at your skin. you watched as he lowered himself, positioning himself between your legs.

"jisung~" you moan at the feeling of his tongue on your clit.

han swirled it around your folds, slurping the mess you left on yourself.

han growls when you push his face deeper, one hand grabbing your hips to stabilise you, while the other traced the outline of your nub, before entering two fingers inside your desperate hole.

"shit, you feel so tight~" he sighs.

he starts moving his wrist faster. your eyes were fixed on his furrowed brows and how they complement his face so well.

"how does it feel, lovely?"

"s'good, " you answer between pants, "don't stop, please."

jisung hummed, suddenly going knuckles deep. you almost scream when his pace also picked up. a warm knot felt heavy inside you, and as if feeling it as well, han stopped every ministration,

"sorry, babes, " he apologizes while getting up to undress himself, "you're only gonna be coming over my cock."

©️ all rights reserved, httpseiki. 🕷

#hehehehe #im in a silly goofy mood #and this came out #yea #pretty decent if you ask me #han jisung #han jisung smut #skz x reader #skz fluff #stray kids x reader #skz scenarios #skz smut #stray kids #han jisung x reader #han jisung hard hours #han jisung hard thoughts #han jisung drabbles #han jisung scenarios #han jisung imagines #skz han jisung #han jisung x yn #han jisung x you #skz hard thoughts #skz hard hours #skz drabbles #skz x you #skz x yn #skz imagines #seiki's prompts 🕷

[damianbugs]

You need to tell us what you think of your favorite Bruce ships. Pls

i should preface by saying i usually prefer bruce (in my own works and others, including comics) to not be in a relationship at all because i can't think of a time he's like ever emotionally stable enough for that. like ever. THAT BEING SAID isn't that all the more reason to throw him into a ship? doomed tragic romance you will always be famous to me

and because i am insane, here are some comic recs to go with my fav bruce ships!!

>batcat

a classic favourite, batcat!!! i will admit i am not the biggest fan of their rebirth stories, and the whole wedding fiasco and most of what tom king wrote about them (and in general) was. not enjoyable. but pre crisis/golden age batcat? MY PARENTS. just. silver and bronze age batcat too. what a refreshing and entertaining couple. the thing that really makes them compelling is at the end of the day they have the same goal; protect the people of gotham. the ways they go about it can be different, and selina especially faces some serious mischaracterisation in order to make bruce look like the "hero" in the relationship, but at their core and simplest expression of love, they share the same dream, and they both know that. it's this selflessness that connects them deeply.

> "The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne" (Batman the Brave and the Bold #197) is, in my opinion, essential batcat reading. a very bittersweet story!

> for a more modern read, "Only Takes a Night" (Catwoman #32) is a delightful read about how hopelessly in love they are. bruce is such a devoted loser.

> ghostbat

every character needs that one irreparably damaging young adult tragic romance that changed their life forever and that is what ghostbat is. khoa is the perfect foil to bruce, in that ultimately, they are two ends of the same spectrum. fiercely stubborn and confident in their own moral code but in the opposite way. this ship is particularly fascinating because even now, the respect and love they have for each other years later is so deeply consuming that it is prevalent in how they interact now. i don't think bruce would have been the person he is without his relationship with khoa pre-batman, in both a good and bad ways. i also really love the hc that khoa is bruce's first heartbreak (refer to: the Snow and Gun incident).

> "Batman The Knight" is like ghostbat religious text. this is all you need. let it destroy you.

> batlantern

no long paragraph about this one because its my silly guilty pleasure. sometimes u need a ship in which they just don't get along except for the times they do. hal brings out such an irritating (said fondly) side to bruce and its even funnier because it works mutually. i think another really wonderful thing about this pairing is that they are really not so different from each other (nothing says romance than being consumed by your guilt and stubbornness), but they both think otherwise, so they knock heads while also begrudgingly respecting about one another in a colleague-friend-crush way. they want to make out so bad it makes them look stupid.

> "Batman: Universe" is a great and short silly story that shows their dynamic really well. amused me greatly. not ship focused though hal is there for like. a single issue unfortunately. but fun!!

> i usually never recommend any new 52 books to get INTO a character, but if you're interested in this pairing and its most 'popular' fanon interation, then "Jutice League (2011)" is the best place to start. you can get to their better stuff afterwards! (there's also an animated movie about it!)

> brutalia

AND BEST TILL LAST. THE BRUCE SHIP OF ALL TIME. ruined my life. CHANGED my life. i wish i could explain how insanely important this relationship is in words. i love my pairings tragic and there is quite literally no other ship quiet as dramatic or poetic than brutalia. talia is often seen as bruce's "one true love" with great reason, and him hers, and despite that they will probably never actually get back together. in a wider lense, the al ghuls and bruce have an insanely complicated dynamic, and this inherent conflict about missions bigger than themselves makes brutalia's forbidden love drama all the more compelling. talia brings out the best in bruce, and bruce respects and loves talia in a way i don't think he does anyone else in his life.

to complain for a moment, it's no wonder that because their relationship (since it's very first introduction) was so irrevocably pure and consensual (they were both so ridiculously obsessed with each other), that Certain Writers had to pull out the most out of character and disgusting stories to make it clear the tone of batman was changing. talia is always a victim to racism, misogyny and just unbelievable ooc writing — most evidently in her stories with bruce, unfortunately.

AND YET. recent comics have realised how truly ridiculous it is to write her as anything but kind and strong, and bruce being anything but hopelessly infatuated. i think my favourite thing about brutalia is that bruce and talia is a relationship that has been separated for actual Decades and so both their characters have been developed to have their own tragic stories and growth. then when we get small moments that bring them back together and letting that past show through the cracks in their carefully constructed walls, it's all the more romantic.

beautiful heartbreaking ship. the kind of relationship historians would cry over. would have the romantic period publishing fifteen books over.

> "Batman: Son of the Demon" is ESSENTIAL brutalia reading. also, if you are insane and delusional enough, it can be the true origin of damian.

> the comic moment that inspired all romance the moment of forever the blueprint even is in the famous "Batman (1940) #244"

> for a more modern take, very recently in fact, is her appearances in Ram V's run of detective comics, starting from #1062. its not brutalia focused, but a great take on how natural and yearning their relationship is now.

#for a guy who is notoriously shit at relationships he sure does find himself in them constantly #but truly is there a single fail loser man that yearns as much as batman #bruce wayne #batcat #ghostbat #batlantern #brutalia #saki comic talks

[smooth-perceval]

“You still love me?”

Max Verstappen x Fem!Reader.

Summary: Max and reader have decided to separate for the benefit of their child. Reader and max was always arguing and they both agreed it wasn’t fair to bring their baby up that way. Only when the reader attends one of his races for their kid they realised it was a break that they needed not seperation.

Warning: Swearing, angst, Google translate, not proof read.

Key: Y/N (Your Name), Milo (Baby boy name, baby is nearly 3, slowly learning sentences)

Word count: 4,768

A/N: Max and kids is like my fav fics. Anyways, hope you enjoy this as much as I did writing it!! 🖤 maybe some movie quotes in here cause I like movies :|

When did the constant arguing happen? Pfftt no idea I couldn’t tell you. What I could tell you is that I have had enough.

I had enough of playing the waiting game and making excuses for Max’s absence in his own little boys life. We tried attending majority of the races for Max, and even the ones we could attended we might as well been at home, we would’ve seen more of Max on the tv.

Whenever I brought up this situation with Max, he always would shout about “Being world champion” and that “I have a priority to the team” which I would always clip back with “What about your priority of being a father?” To then he would slam the door on my face and go on his simulator, or end the call on me.

It was the same shit different day, it was just killing me knowing this is all effecting our Milo. The countless days and nights of me lying for Max, it was getting tiring wiping our baby’s eyes, and promising him his dad really does love and care for him his just busy doing championship things.

10:38pm

Still no sign of Max, no text, no call, nothing. Milo tried staying awake but the struggle was getting unbearable for him and I decided to do the battle of attempting to get him to bed.

“Come baby, it’s time for bed. Pa is busy…” scooping him up in my arms as he yawned, he started mumbling his protests and I knew it’ll be another long night… and all I could think was, damn you Max Verstappen.

After trying to settle Milo down for the last 20 or so minutes, we finally compromised Milo was going to stay in our bed, with a bowl of fruit because he really wanted it.

Finally Milo settled his head next to mine on the pillow, I was laying on my side watching him a small smile on my face. He really is perfect, his Max’s double, absolutely perfect, the temperament was defiantly the same as well, I sure had my hands full with them.

“mamma, is pa home?” His eyes diverted from the tv to me as he laid on his side also now, clearly getting tired by the way he reached his hand out putting it on the side of my face, a comfort thing he does when his tired. “Not yet baby. I’ll wake you when he does” I place my hand on top of his smiling at him leaning it kissing his nose. “Night mamma…” yawning again his eyes flutter closed as he takes a deep sigh. “Night Schat” (darling)

Once I knew Milo was fully asleep I turned the tv off and leaned over to check my phone again, still nothing…

Now yawning also, I gave up. Milo doesn’t deserve this- I don’t deserve this… all we asked for is 5 minutes of his time. But the team comes first.

01:19am

The bed dipped, and I felt Milo stir against my chest, his small arm wrapped around me as much as he could, I soon felt another arm slide over us both and a deep sigh leave the person. Opening my eyes a little I already knew who it would be.

“Don’t wake Milo.” I mumble cradling our baby.

“Nice to see you too.” He scoffed back rubbing Milo’s back.

“He waited up late again for you Max.”

“Well put him to bed earlier.”

Shushing Max I soothed Milo again, I knew I promised to wake him up but he needs to sleep. Maybe we both can’t keep our promises…

“Sorry…” Max whispered closing his eyes.

“For all of it.” He mumbled afterwards.

“I don’t care anymore…” I whispered back pushing Max arm off me… yes I did and yea I just wanted Max to hold me, but that means his won and I can’t let him win once again. Max gave in rolling onto his back and letting the sleep take him. While me? I laid awake for another hour or so just watching them both, they both looked so peaceful, Milo had clearly felt Max presence and turned over cuddling into him. As soon as Max felt him a small smile crept to his face, even while asleep… and it’s times like this that make me regret the bad thoughts I have… but I had to do it for us to work-

The next morning I slowly woke up, when I glanced over Max and Milo was still asleep, Max now on his back and Milo laying on his chest with Max’s arms both wrapped around him securely. It was an adorable image, they both looked so calm when together and again, so peaceful.

Deciding to start making Milo’s breakfast, I head downstairs knowing soon he will be awake and our little morning routine will have to start, so why not get ahead?

I started making some pancakes and fruit for him as he loves pancakes, seeing as I’m able to get 5 minutes to make them, normally once me and Milo get up his already asking for breakfast- and boy, that kid gets hangry. And boy he can eat.

Just as I was setting his food at the table I heard someone behind me.

“Morning.” I already knew it was Max, by his deep husky voice that he always gets in the mornings, and for the fact that nobody but Max was here who’s voice would be like that. “Morning.” I mumbled back going past him to wake Milo, if I don’t wake him now he won’t sleep later unfortunately.

When I opened the door to the bedroom Milo was slowly waking up, his head just rising from the pillow, like he had sensed Max not being there. I smiled at him sweetly and walked over to the bed brushing his hair back with my fingers. “Morning baby” but he couldn’t care for me being there he straight away looked around the room, “pa?”

“Pa is downstairs, you coming?” I held my hands out to Milo who stood up slowly and climbed into my arms, head resting on my shoulder. Some may say his too old to be carried but his my baby, if I could I’d carry him for the rest of my life. When his in my arms I feel like no danger could come to us.

Once I had made it back downstairs I sat Milo at the table, as he insists his a big boy and can eat like his dad. Max was sitting there already with a bowl of cereal and phone in hand.

“Papa.” Milo stared at Max a sleepy smile on his face “Hi, mijn ventje” (my boy), glancing up from his phone he smiled at Milo, there is no denying Max loves his kid with his whole heart… but Milo is still young. He needs to be shown it. Like now, putting your phone down and enjoying breakfast with one another, was that too much to ask.

“Max.” I crossed my arms over my chest staring him out. He quickly looked up with raised eyebrows. Nodding my head towards Milo with pointed eyes, praying he got the hint. However, he just looked back at Milo confused and then back at me.

With a defeated sigh, I pulled a chair out next to Milo cutting up his food a bit more and handing him his cutlery. “I need to go, shit. I didn’t realise the time.”

“But you’ve barely been here five minutes…” I looked up at him with pleading eyes praying he would just sit back down.

“Papa leaving?” Milo looked between me and Max, I could see it on Max’s face he was praying I made some excuse up.

Shaking my head I looked down at Milo food picking his fork back up for him and handing it to him. “Eat up, otherwise I’ll eat it all.” I was on the verge of tears… the point that he couldn’t even stay here for me, didn’t both me I knew I signed up for this… but Milo didn’t. Max said we was at a good time for kids, truthfully he meant it was a good time for me and not him.

Max ran off upstairs getting changed and packing a few items ready for his next trip. By then Milo had given up with food, I took his stuff out to the kitchen letting him play for a bit in the lounge.

“I’ll call you tonight, make sure Milo is awake.” Turning around Max was standing in the kitchen door way. I just stared at him, I get he has a job I do but it’s not fair-

“Don’t bother making a promise if you don’t intend to keep it.” At my response Max rolled his eyes.

“Y/N don’t start this again- I got to go.”

“So have I. Max I can’t keep doing this…”

I finally got his attention. He stepped further into the kitchen confused.

“What you mean you can’t do this?”

“I can’t keep waiting around for you, you said we could start this family yet you haven’t been here-” I already felt choked up, this wasn’t a conversation I expected to be having first thing in the morning but I knew it was brewing…

“I’m doing my job- what did you expect me to do? Drop it all because you got pregnant?” The realisation showed on Max face as soon as he said it. He stepped even closer hands out waving in front of him.

I leaned my head back trying to hold back any tears that were threatening to spill, taking a few deep breaths.

“Y/N I didn’t mean that- it was just, it just came out-”

“You needed to go Max.” I turned back around putting the last remaining cups and plates away.

“Don’t, don’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Shut me out.” He now came and stood next to me, trying to get me to look at him.

“You did that in your own.” He glanced down at his watch and then quickly back up at me.

“I need to leave. We will continue this when I’m home okay? I promise.” And he just left with a quick by to Milo, who was practically chasing him out the door.

There I stood alone in the kitchen taking a few more deep breaths before heading out to Milo.

“How about we go to the park baby?” Smiling I held my hands out to him, slowly he walked over his bottom lip stuck out little sniffles coming from him. “Papa’s gone…” I leant down picking him up, hand rubbing his back trying to soothe him. “I know, it’s okay…” carrying him upstairs to his room we picked a cute little set for him, seeing as it was quite warm out in Monaco, I encouraged him into the bathroom where he climbed on his little stool to brush his teeth.

He has always been very good with learning new things, he likes to be very much like his Dad, he see’s Max brushing his teeth, he wanted to do it, Max gets dressed by himself, Milo can do it. That’s why it’s been very difficult these few months with no Max present… it took a toll on Milo, what does he do now the only person he wanted to be like is rarely around?

“Go play, mama needs to get dressed mijn lieverd” (my darling) he nodded his head running off into his room as I got dressed, brushed my hair and teeth, and put on some skin care.

“Milo you ready?” Coming back out our room he come walking out smiling, his got Max’s cute smile, honestly makes my heart swell every time he smiles, maybe it doesn’t hurt me so much Max not being around because I do have my mini Max always. “Mama, we go park now?” Nodding my head I held his hand as we both took the stairs one step at a time.

“Did you want to bring anything?” I grabbed a large bag for us, heading into the kitchen packing a few snacks and drinks for us, going to the medical cupboard and getting Sun protection, “Milo let mama put this on you” I bent down in front of him applying it to any skin showing before putting it in the bag.

“This.” He held out his small replica toy of Max car before putting it in the bag.

I put his and my shoes on before holding my hand out again. “Ready?”

Nodding his head he took my hand grabbing his little hat that was on the coat hanger as we left.

It was only a small trip to the park, Milo absolutely tired himself out, us now both sitting in a nearby spot of grass in the shade, I was meant back against a tree Milo between my legs leaning back on me, eating some snacks.

“Papa home now?” He mumbled before putting another snack in his mouth. I ran my hands through his hair sighing. “Not yet baby…”

“At bedtime?” He turned his head slightly looking up at me.

“Maybe, if his not busy.” Nodding his head we then sat in silence, I took a picture of Milo sending it to Max, when Max was busy I always made sure to give updates on what we are doing, wether he answers or not.

On the walk home Milo ended up being carried as he fell asleep, clearly exhausted. Once indoors I sat him down in the lounge putting some cushions next to him so he didn’t roll off.

I quickly unpacked the bag and cleaned the house thinking about everything me and Max had to talk about, clearly believing that he will be home later, his promise taken seriously once again.

The day apart from that was quiet, Max never responded to my message, Milo was now awake and playing with his cars in the lounge and I was getting dinner ready.

When it got to dinner I messaged Max 20 minutes before dishing up, to see if he was going to be home, but no response. Me and Milo ate dinner with Max dinner now sitting there untouched, after dinner I cleared our plates putting Max dinner in the oven keeping it warm… hopefully he won’t be long-

I bathed Milo and was able to encourage him to stay in his own room tonight, which he settled down quite quickly clearly still tired from the day at the park.

And then I waited,

10:00pm rolled around, no max.

11:00pm still no max.

12:04am I decided to give up, I took his dinner out the oven throwing it away and headed to bed, the final broken promise.

I didn’t sleep, I laid in bed wondering what or who was keeping him away from home, this is the first 2 week break he has be able to have and yet we have seen nothing of him, I felt starved. I felt unwanted, pushed aside… Milo doesn’t understand fully, he only questions why Max is not here… and I have no more excuses apart from his busy…

12:47am the front door unlocked and I heard Max stumbling in swearing to himself, about 10 minutes or so later he came upstairs getting changed out his clothes and climbing into bed…

I just wanted to turn over and lay on his chest, pin him down and tell him he cannot leave. But I didn’t I faced the wall letting the tears silently fall.

“You awake?” The quiet whisper barley heard between us.

“Y/N…” he reached his hand out to which I quickly brushed off. “I’m sorry-”

“Don’t lie…” I whispered back, biting down on my lip, trying to collect myself.

“Are you crying?” I felt him shuffle behind me now sitting up using his arm to lean on. He pulled my arm gently trying to get me to turn over.

“Just go to sleep.” I tried pulling my arm away, but Max was quick to pull me back, now staring up at him, he leant over switching the side lamp on looking down at me.

“You are crying-” as if completely shocked he went to wipe the tears, I turned away swatting his hand away.

“You broke your promise.”

“I couldn’t just leave they needed me there-”

“Bullshit.” Sniffling I climbed out of the bed grabbing a pillow.

“It’s the truth.” I stood there staring at him, praying he would show me everything we have missed these passed few months, I was deprived of his touch his affection, I was deprived of Max.

“Why you looking at me like that?”

“Like what?”

“Like you hate me.” With furrowed brows he moved to the edge of the bed.

“I’m starting to…” mumbling I looked down at the floor like I was ashamed to admit it.

“Your starting to hate me?” I nod my head slowly sniffling again.

“It took a lot of love for me to hate you the way I do…”

“You hate me?” He repeated again.

“Did you expect any different? Your not here-”

“And? that doesn’t mean you hate me-”

“Max your like a different person now. I don’t like this person you are- I fell in love with the guy that gave me that sweet little boy in the next room… the one who kept his promises, the guy that came home whenever he could to be with his family… this-” I looked him up and down stepping back.

“This isn’t him. This is not my Max. Milo’s dad… he asks for you every single day Max- and your not here… I’m surprised his first word wasn’t “Papa is busy.” From the amount of times I repeated it…”

Staring at each other Max in some form of shock and maybe disbelief, “your never here.” I finished my rant hugging the pillow tighter.

“I’m done now Max, I’ve given it my all… I’ve got no more love to give you.”

“Your giving up on us?”

“You did months ago.”

And I left the room, taking the night in the lounge.

Did it hurt the breakup? No… I was already prepared for it, Max said I could stay in the apartment until I found myself a place suitable for me and Milo, things have been better the past two weeks, I’ve had messages from Max, him asking how Milo is, if I had any photos of him that day, he called most nights to speak to him, and when Milo handed the phone back Max would try and questions the subject of us which I would always shut down… if it took me and Max separated for him and Milo to have a better bond then I’ll do it.

Max asked for us to attend a race in Barcelona in a few weeks, I wasn’t too sure seeing as the travelling for Milo wasn’t nice, and truthfully it would be awkward between me and Max… after sitting down and thinking about it, and how excited Milo got I agreed we will come, for the benefit of our child.

Milo didn’t stop talking for weeks, everyone he saw he told them he was going to watch his papa race, every night Max FaceTimed him and Milo would show him his car collection, every single night without fail.

Going back to that night… I don’t hate Max… it was in the moment it came out- but truthfully I love him with my whole heart. And seeing him improve as a parent only made me love him even more… but I was still being to stubborn to speak to him… and I wasn’t going to not yet anyways.

It finally got to race week, me and Milo was flying out on the Friday and should be at the track just before free practice. Milo insisted on wearing his red bull overalls. In a separate bag I had some spare clothing Incase he got to hot, which he will. But he was just as stubborn as me, and refused to change.

Milo was enjoying all the attention, people complimenting his outfit, and even asking to take photos. Which I allowed as Milo was excited to take pictures. We finally got to the red bull garage, everyone was all over Milo, but he only had one thing on his mind Max, and so did I.

“Where’s papa?” He looked around confused, seeing Max car there but no Max.

“His just coming- did you want to sit in his car?”

Nodding his head excitedly I smiled at the engineer thanking them as they lifted him into the car. I leaned down taking a few photos of him, his smile was just contagious everyone around him smiling also, it was a mini Max in big Max car. He was just adorable.

“You think maybe I should get him a car for his birthday?” Turning my head at the voice Max stood next to me arms crossed and a smile on his face as he watches Milo.

“I think he would love it.” Smiling I turned back. “He hasn’t stopped talking about you for 2 weeks straight.”

“Really?” It was max turn to look at me now in shock.

“Mhm, something about ‘Papa wants to play cars?’ ” laughing a little, Max chuckled also, he leaned over the top of the car rubbing Milo’s head.

“Papa!” He quickly jumped up in the seat reaching for Max, and soon settled on max hip as he carried him around.

“Look at your outfit- You look like pa” Max smiled tugging at Milo’s overalls.

“Mama got more.”

“That’s because Mama is smart, shall we go look at the other cars.” Max looked over at me and I nodded my head for them to go. Only then max grabbed my hand pulling me along with them.

All three of us walking down the pit lane, Max and Milo talking about the cars, me trailing next to them bathing in the moment. Max hand still on mine as we walked, it felt normal. Like we hadn’t spilt all them weeks ago…

“Milooo!” In unison we all turned our heads to the voice, seeing Lando come walking out his garage.

“Hello buddy, I hate your outfit…” Lando pretended to be sick which caused Milo to laugh throwing his head back.

“It’s papas.” Smiling happily at Lando, then moving to cuddle Max tighter. “I know it makes me feel sick! You need one of my ones.” Lando poked his cheek smiling back.

“No papa faster.” This now caused max to burst into laughter nudging Lando.

“Wow, I just got told by a 2 year old.” Lando half smiled, before turning to me leaning in giving me a hug. “Y/N sorry- long time no see” I smiled hugging him back. “How you been Lan?”

“Yeah not bad, working with whatever we got you know-”

“Papa- we go red” milo turned pointing down to the Ferrari garage, then looking back at Max.

“You wanna see Ferrari?” Bouncing Milo he said bye to Lando walking off before turning around.

“You coming? Or shall we meet you down there?”

“I’ll be down in a second-” smiling I waved Max off and turned back to Lando,

“Sorry carry on-”

“What is going on with you both?”

Confused I tilt my head looking at him, “what do you mean?”

“Well are you together or not? Cause a few weeks ago he was the most moodiest person in the world. And when I said to him about it he told me use were not together and now his all smiley stopping at garages, walking love loverbirds with you- I’m so confused!”

Laughing a little I looked down to Max, Charles, Milo and Carlos. “I’m just as confused as you.”

Slowly we both started walking down to them discussing what happened, Lando was like mine and Max’s best friend, everything was told to him, and he wouldn’t tell a soul… on purpose anyways.

Me and Max told Lando and Daniel first when we was expecting Milo before family! He is basically Milo’s uncle. Which is why I trust him to tell him our relationship woes.

“Hey Y/N!” Charles smiled and pulled me into a hug once we reached them Carlos following suit. “Hi, how are you both?”

Both nodding slowly, their faces said otherwise. “You?” Turning to Carlos I smiled, “I’m okay thank you, weather here is lovely!”

“I was just saying to Max, why is Milo in a racing suit in this weather?” Charles laughed a little tugging at Milos suit.

“He insisted he needed to wear it because Max wears it.” Shaking my head I laughed a little looking over at Max. Max however was occupied with watching Milo, in complete awe.

“You really said that mijn ventje?” (My boy) Milo hummed nodding his head.

“Oh Max-” checking the time in my phone I grabbed ahold oh his arm. “Practice is about to start.” Pushing him slightly back towards the red bull garage I gave everyone a quick smile and telling them to have fun.

Lando only responded with a little smirk, in response I stuck my middle finger at him behind Max back.

“It’s a good thing your here I would’ve missed that-” Max laughed a little before pausing and shifting Milo to the other side.

“Milo let papa put you down, you can hold his hand okay?” I reached over taking Milo from max putting him on the ground, and as soon as I did he grabbed mine and Max hand swinging our arms as we walked.

“Lando said you have been miserable, wouldn’t come out your drivers room or something?” Tilting my head slightly I sneaked a look at him.

“I haven’t been miserable… just didn’t feel like talking with people.” Max tutted face red slightly.

“And here I was thinking at least I wasn’t the only one.” Teasing him slightly I smiled a little at him.

“You wasn’t… it was hell.” A sigh left his lips as we got into the garage, I then grabbed Milo sitting him on a chair at the side, and sitting next to him while they got prepared. Max getting his gloves and helmet on and doing his race suit up, once ready he came over to Milo crouching down showing him his custom helmet design for this week.

Milos hands were all over his helmet in absolute amazement.

“Give pa his good luck kiss” I pointed to the front of Max helmet and Milo leaned forward kissing the helmet. Smiling max ruffled his hair and stood up, nodding his head at me and touching my arm, I was looking down at Milo and back to Max, maybe I should tell max good luck?

By now max had already climbed into his car and was ready to go out. An engineer already guiding him slowly out.

“Can you watch him for two seconds-” I looked up at another engineer who nodded taking my spot.

Quickly I slid through the people grabbing onto the edge of Max car looking at him from under the halo.

“Good luck.” He looked at me, the corners of his eyes creasing from a smile. Before i stood up letting go of the car.

“I love you-” it was barely heard over the sound of the car, max was already gone. But it gave me reassurance that I had come close to telling him.

Max qualified for Q2 through the practice and come back into a very happy garage- Milo was asleep across two chairs now changed into his other clothes as he got too warm. All he kept saying was “Papa win?” To which I responded with just a simple “yes papa is always a winner”

As soon as max got out the car he was pulling all his stuff off, gloves first then helmet then tugging at the zip on his race suit opening it up, completely ignoring everyone, and when he moved he headed directly towards us.

“Well do-”

“You still love me?” He was heavy breathing, face red, hair slightly damp. And the only thing I could do was nod my head slowly.

And that was enough for Max. Pulling me in and kissing me, he mumbled I love use followed by a kiss after every word.

“I thought you hated me-”

“Never in a million years… if anything I love you even more than when we was 19.”

Max smile grew as he kissed me again.

And once again I thought to myself, damn you Max Verstappen.

A/N: erm yes it was rushed- I woke up and was like I didn’t finish it- and I was posting today so I do apologise with my whole heart 🖤 but with whatever is there I hope you enjoyed it- I kinda like the whole Milo&Max might make them a mini series as Milo grows idk- we will see!

Masterlist

#f1 imagine #max verstappen imagine #formula one imagine #max verstappen x y/n #max verstappen x reader #max verstappen x you

[guerrillateezsworld]

idea from my pookie @memog1rl

Rainy/lazy day inside with bill and tom kaulitz (separate)

there’s like one or two suggestive parts that are pretty mellow and unnoticeable.

—————-

bill kaulitz

honestly, it’s his fav during times like this. it’s just so cozy and a great time to catch up on your guys’ lives.

i feel like he’s someone who constantly checks the weather and always stays prepared incase you do have bad weather. so he’s normally always prepared!!

cuddles are his favorite tho. just chilling together, kissing and cuddling. (maybe a little more…🤷‍♀️)

MOVIES OMG. movie marathons every single time. sometimes you guys watch some of the same movies each time. one rainy day he’ll choose some and another rainy day you’ll choose some

he’s sooooo reassuring when there’s loud thunder and scary lightening. he always holds you close and kisses your forehead. (if you aren’t… just act like it so he’ll do that hehe)

sometimes he likes inviting the boys over for some movie nights (if the weather isn’t too bad). and he asks them to bring whatever snacks they want

if the power goes out, you best bet he will literally stay by your side the whole time. he won’t like go in the bathroom when you need to, he’ll just hand you a flashlight and stand outside for you. unless you don’t mind him coming in with you (nothing dirty 🤨)

tom kaulitz

okay so with tom, i feel like he doesn’t like days like these. like he’s normally so much more outgoing and he’s always wanting to do stuff so he doesn’t find much fun in days like these

but that doesn’t mean he’ll be all sulky. i mean, he’ll complain a little but not to the point where it makes you mad. (unless it makes you mad easily)

i feel like since there’s not much to do, he’ll probably sleep most of the time. or help you cook (if you can haha, i can’t) just please don’t burn the house down

doing like crafts or watching movies are some of his fav things. like making bracelets or drawing. blindfold makeup or coloring. just anything that’ll make you guys laugh and keep your mind out of boredom

he’s soooooo clingy too i’m telling you it’s not even funny. it’s pretty crazy hahaha. like he will not let go of you no matter what. he’s so whiny too like omggggg

don’t leave him be please. he’ll go crazy out of boredom. he can’t really be trusted alone mo matter what tbh. i mean, is it surprising??? it’s not really

——————

okay i hope you guys enjoyed!!!

#post*guerillateezsworld #fluff #tokio hotel #tom kaulitz #bill kaulitz #tom kaulitz x reader #bill kaulitz x reader

[babybluebex]

moment in the vanity fair video i can’t let go of:

Bella: “you look stunning, girl!”

Dom, completely earnestly: “me? Thanks, so do you :)”

i have SO MANY NOTES about this video

first of all, how he answers the door with a drink in hand, can't even be bothered to put down his (presumably) water to do an intro (and his commitment to always looking like he just rolled out of bed needs to be studied)

and the blank expression behind his eyes when he says "cummberbum", he's got nothing inside his pretty head :) and quote "those are good pictures" re: the tuxedo tshirt, NO THEYRE NOT

and the CASE of miller high life is so funny, like it's perfect, and i wanna know what the card that was attached to the box said (bc the envelope clearly had been opened in quite a hasty and messy fashion, which seems to be dom's way)

and the quick clip they play from the movie where it's OBVIOUS dom's real voice is lower than in the movie, and it harkens me back to an interview i read where he said he intentionally affected his voice higher than his regular speaking voice because he didn't think angus's voice would be as deep as his 😭 and his odd little gasping laugh is AGH he's so cute

and the standing but 90 degree angle bend at the waist to play his switch and the double hand wave to greet the girl bringing his tux in

and the SIBLINGS!!!! their energy is so cute, the way he touches her head and she just :] at him (also HER sunnies, is this a sessa family obsession with sunnies, what's happening here)

the awkward maneuvering of the furniture to get the food cart into the room, and then talks about fruit WITH FRUIT ALREADY IN HIS MOUTH

popping his lips to get the product settled in is so cute

AND SAYING HE KEEPS UP WITH PAUL!!! uncle paul fr 🥲

it's also around here that i noticed his lisp for the first time, it's very subtle, but it sure is there, and it's cute

AND AGAIN WITH THE CUTE SIB ENERGY!! genuine love and compliments with a hint of goofy (also let me be real, dom's a hottie and i Desire him, but also.... hey bella sessa what's good <3 looking really pretty there girl <33 call me sometime)

his ass said "Now I Will Get Dressed. Goodbye." spoken exactly like that, and bella holding her hand up to laugh (and he says Woila and not Voila and it's a small detail and yes i'm nitpicky) i also have questions about the bathroom situation in that hotel room??? is the bathtub like?? in its own lil closet?? bc he opens the doors to what i THOUGHT was a full bathroom, but the camera pans down to show the bathtub RIGHT UP AGAINST the doors so??? i'm confused here

his goofy lil spin and the disorientation when he finds the camera again, and my FAV PART OF THE WHOLE VIDEO, his tiny lil "cummbie: secured" HES SO CUTE (what is the purpose of a cummerbund btw, i'm being so fr, like his jacket was buttoned up so far that you couldn't even SEE the cummbie, so what was the reason)

his loud ass accented "BRILLIANT", and the spin and nod and mumbled "amazing" and i'm suddenly humbly reminded he's just an odd ass 21 year old guy and then he TURNS ON THE MODEL MODE for the pics, but i also need to know what bella's reaction to model dom is, she HAD to have been in that room laughing at her baby brother trying to be Hot

AND HIS SUNNIES MAKE AN APPEARANCE AND EVERYONE CHEERED!!!

in the last shot, bella has a tattoo on her wrist, and knowing about dom's tattoo and now BELLA'S tat.... i need to know these people, i wanna be their friends so bad

and that's my play by play of the vanity fair vid :) nobody asked but ye shall receive

#bex answers #anon ask #dominic sessa

[x-liv25-jamieswife]

avery head canons

@ariscats requested these, and avery's my fav girl so of course i'm gonna make them. hope you like them<3! (i apologize for any spelling mistakes). @catapparently helped me with some of these.

avery loves phoebe bridgers

she's also secretly a swiftie (she was a hugeeee love story stan when she was younger bc she dreamt of a love like that)

she relates to nothing new (ft. phoebe bridgers). she's always blasting that song in her room, crying. (jamie finds out she feels like that song and tries to comfort her by telling her she isn't just something that everyone will get tired of eventually).

she lovesss thrifting her own clothes.

avery pretends to hate her new wardrobe but she secretly likes it.

she used to only drink black coffee but then she found out she actually really likes flavored coffee (vanilla, caramel etc). she loves making her own little coffees at home (xander loves it too)

she went to the eras tour with a reputation/midnights crossover outfit

she loves candles, she has a ton of them in her room

the sheffield grayson kidnapping affects her more than she lets on (sometimes she imagines sheffield walking behind her while she's taking walks and stuff or she'll see his face everywhere)

she has an addiction to those shitty app store games

she used to be a huge star wars fan. she would force libby to watch the movies with her.

sometimes, during family dinners, she'll look at all the people around her (libby, max, the hawthornes, rebecca, etc) and think about how lucky she is to be loved by so many people. she sometimes tears up cause she used to wish to be that loved when she was younger. jamie always notices but knows that she doesn't like it when people point it out.

she loves fanfiction (xander and max introduced it to her)

she loves taking pictures of nature (her and grayson have a shared aesthetic insta account where they post all of their pictures) (i personally really love this one)

avery used to have a percy jackson fan account on insta when she was really young (her mom was her biggest fan) (the hawthornes found the account and find it adorable)

she's a huge percabeth shipper

her favorite book genre is murder mystery (holly jackson stan)

she used to love editing (there was this one percabeth edit of hers to my blood by ellie goulding that went viral)

her mom and her used to love watching rom coms

she used to wonder why no one wanted to be her friend when she was younger (cause she only has max)

ok this one's a bit dark and sad, but we all know she grew up poor in a shitty old town, and that's where you find all the weird creeps. based on the books, she seems to not really be comfortable with physical touch from strangers, so i hc that the reason why is bc walking home from school, she'd sometimes be harassed by these creeps.

she has scars from the bombing and the attempted shooting. she's insecure about them, but jamie always tells her they look beautiful (he also tells her they're proof of how strong she is)

she loves the beach (jamie brings her on dates there all the time)

she tends to get hate comments about her looks (this isn't really a head canon since it was kinda implied in tbh when those people were whispering about her looks (i may be imagining this). sometimes she gets insecure, but jamie always makes sure she knows how beautiful she is by kissing her and whispering sweet nothings in her ear etc. (this one was more of an aj one but oh well, i can never escape them)

avery has really good taste in clothing. her fans are always commenting about how hot she is.

she was times person of the year once

(this one is based off of a pic i saw on pinterest) avery once did a shoot for vogue where she wore a suit vest and nothing underneath and everyone went crazyyy (jamie too). (i'll insert a pic at the bottom)

she's convinced people hate her

she sometimes has nightmares about jamie breaking up with her (jamie proves her wrong in bed if you know what i mean)

she loves interacting with fans (she comments on posts, take pics with them in public, etc)

when libby and her used to live together in lib's apartment and they were struggling to buy food bc of money issues, avery would always leave the food to libby and tell her she ate at the diner (she actually didn't bc she once tried to steal some food but got caught. she didn't want to lose her job so she stopped).

avery secretly loves heels (they make her more confident)

her and rebecca vent to each other sometimes (avery feels really comfortable with her).

she lovesss sushi

absolutely love my girl avery (fav character of all time). i sort of see myself in her so i might be projecting in some of these. she's so underrated and it pisses me off (she easily solos all of the brothers).

#the inheritance games #the hawthorne legacy #the final gambit #the brothers hawthorne #averyjameson #avery grambs #jameson hawthorne #grayson hawthorne #libby grambs #xander hawthorne #maxine liu #she's my favorite character ever

[watchmegetobsessed]

❄️HIS FOREVER❄️

A/N: fanficmas is hereee!!!! its honestly my fav time and im always so excited to bring you so much content, i hope you guys will enjoy them all!!

WORD COUNT: 810

SUMMARY: You're decorating your home for the first Christmas you'll spend living together.

MASTERLIST | SUPPORT ME!

This fic is part of ❄️ FANFICmas 2022 ❄️ Read more about fanficmas here!

It’s been hard for Harry to get into the holiday spirit these past years. With the hectic life he’s been living the past decade, he never really had time to do all the little things that would get him all excited for Christmas. He never decorated, mostly because he didn’t even have anything to hang up around his home. He didn’t have the time to bake cookies and do all the holiday activities people love to do and he doesn’t even know when the last time was he went to a Christmas market.

He always told himself he didn’t care about any of it, he was fine with just going home right before Christmas and spend only a few days dedicated to the holiday that’s the most loved. However, deep down he knew he would love it if it was different.

And this year is when it all changes.

It’s the first year he is approaching the holidays living with you, sharing a home. His place went through a lot of changes since you’ve moved in and he loves it all. He loves seeing you in every corner, your touch has turned it into a home.

He’s known since day one how much you love Christmas and he’s been to your apartment around the holidays before. Unlike him, you take pride in dressing up your home, sprinkling the festive spirit all over it. Secretly, he spent more time at yours around December, enjoying the sweet scent of cinnamon and apples, bask in the beauty of the lights you hung up everywhere you could. He envied the kind of vibe you brought to your own home and dreamed of a day when he could share it all with you.

He’s heading home after a long studio session. He’s had a busy week and he wants nothing else than to just relax and rewind with you, maybe watch a movie and then go to bed, sleeping in tomorrow. With everything on his plate, he barely even processed that December has started.

So when he arrives home, opens the front door, walks in and hears the soft Christmas music playing, he’s surprised at first, but then warmth takes over his chest a moment later.

“Babe?” he calls out with a tiny smile, because he knows you’ve finally started to decorate the place.

“Right here!” your sweet voice answers him and he follows it to the dining table that’s covered in boxes, ornaments and all kinds of decorations flowing out of their storage. He stops for a moment, watching you quietly hum to the music as you sort through some tiny ornaments.

As if you could sense his gaze, you glance up, eyes meeting his and you smile at him warmly.

“Hi there, how was your day?”

“Fine. Good to be back home.” Walking over he leans down and presses a kiss to your cheek before sitting beside you. “I see December has officially started,” he teases you.

“Well of course!” You beam before your face falls and you look at him with big eyes. “You don’t mind that I’m decorating, right?”

“No,” he shakes his head smiling. “I love it. Can I help?”

He is not dreading the kind of relaxing he did before, his plans to do nothing are long gone and all he wants is wants to be with you and do anything that makes you happy, because it makes him happy too. It’s a dynamic he never thought would live to have in his life, finding a person who has such a strong effect on him. But he did and he knows he never wants to let go of you.  

“If you want to. You don’t have to though,” you say, peeking at him, but he just leans over and steals a kiss.

“I want to.”

The oven chimes in the kitchen and you perk up.

“Oh, the oranges!” you exclaim as you get up from the table.

“Huh? The oranges?” he asks, following you curiously into the kitchen. He watches as you take a tray out of the oven, full of orange slices.

“I dried them out, gonna put them on a string. It’s pretty and smells amazing,” you explain to him, assessing the slices, making sure they are perfect.

When you look up you catch Harry watching you with a lovestruck look that brings heat to your cheeks.

“What?” you ask.

“Nothing, I’m just… I love you.”

“I love you too,” you reply, his words warming your chest. He steps closer and places his hands to your waist, kissing the side of your head.

“So… we’re putting them on a string?”

“Yeah. Wanna do that? I’ll show you.”

“Sure,” he smiles and he would do just about anything you ask. Whether it’s for Christmas, Thanksgiving or Easter, you’ll always be his happiness, his one and only, his forever.

Thank you for reading, please like and reblog if you enjoyed and buy me a coffee if you want to support me!

#fanficmas #fanficmas 2022 #fanficmas2022 #watchmegetobsessed fanficmas #watchmegetobsessed fanficmas 2022 #harry #styles #harry styles #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles fanfic #harry styles oneshot #harry styles one shot #harry styles fluff #harry styles x you #harry styles x y/n #harry styles x reader #harry styles blurb

[theprestigegirly]

i just rewatched frozen for the first time in seven years and this is MY TAKE on the trolls theory and why hans isn’t actually evil! i’ve been a truther of this since the movie came out when i was 7 years old 😭

first of all these romance scenes are INSANE hans genuinely gets on with her in an insane way they seem absolutely perfect for each other (which is the point i know) but when he expresses his concerns about his brothers it’s about them acting like he’s invisible! which he doesn’t know about anna! and the whole “i would never shut you out” is crazyyyy like this man is not playing

he is also doing good things when people aren’t looking! if he was really evil why would he care so much about the people? why would he try to reason with elsa instead of not killing her immediately when he believes elsa’s death will bring back summer?

HE SMILES WHEN ANNA ISNT LOOKING ‼️ why would he be giving her that lovestruck look if he was acting? it wouldn’t make any sense he has nothing to gain— every time he is nice he has NOTHING TO GAIN— MEANING HE IS TRULY NICE ‼️

you could argue “oh those soldiers attack elsa” BUT THEY ARENT UNDER HANS’S COMMAND— its weaselton’s command PLUS hans isn’t there for that part he’s outside fighting marshmallow— he seems genuinely concerned about elsa for the sake of anna, and accuses weasleton of treason against the two (even though, theoretically, weaselton would be the perfect ally if he were hoping to seize control as he hated the princesses)

and now to move onto THE TROLLS

they are depicted as evil as fuck from the beginning and the things they say to elsa traumatise her and are the reason for the bad events of the movie and why elsa and anna are apart (altho that’s also elsas dads fault fuck elsas dad)

the trolls are also known to do mind magic! they erase anna’s memory at the beginning and change memories completely to exclude magic— it’s not far fetched that they’d be able to change hans’s memories and motives

AND hans’s thematic shift comes immediately after THIS SONG where the trolls learn that kristoff could potentially marry anna if it wasn’t for hans, so they do exactly what they sing about and “get the fiancé out of the way”

BUT WHERE WOULD THIS FIT IN NARRATIVELY? i hear you ask

WELL

kristoff and anna are larking about for a while on that mountain, only rushing back to the village after the song. hans and the guards are making their own way down the mountain, it’s possible that immediately after the song, the trolls find hans and manage to magic his mind into evil and send him back with a STRONG motive to return and take over, him making it back at the perfect time to meet with anna just as the magic is seeping in and he’s switched to evil hans HENCE THE TWIST

TLDR: hans is genuinely awestruck of anna who is lovely, they share one of my fav disney songs ever, hans does good things when people aren’t looking and defends elsa + anna BUT THEN SUDDENLY THE TROLLS FIND OUT ABT HIM AS HER FIANCÉ AND HES SUDDENLY EVIL SO KRISTOFF CAN SWOOP IN???? there is FOUL PLAY involved

thank you for listening <3 hated how this wasn’t the plot of frozen 2 we were all robbed out of hans’s redemption and the mass murder of the trolls

#i also hated the trolls #fixer upper is unlistenable #loved hans #sexy beast #frozen #anna and elsa #elsa #hans frozen #disney

[silverflqmes]

໒⦂ 𝐁𝐋𝐔𝐄𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐍𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄.

synopsis. in which you, an engineer major, are paired with a major in architecture — the blueprints of what you’re meant to bring to life.

academic rivals to lovers ( kaveh’s version )

for my fav, @skywalkiings <3

kaveh x gn!reader.

“it’s that time of the year again, everyone!” your teacher called and you nearly smashed your head into the desk in front of you.

“the end of the year project!” she sang, before pouting at the symphony of groans coming from her students. “would you rather i give you another exam?”

silence.

a huff. “as i thought.” the professor continued before smiling again. “this project will be different from the ones in your past years as it will call for everything that you’ve learned here so far at the akademiya! think of it as a preparatory assignment for your future profession!” she elaborated, handing the information sheets to the front row to pass on. “that being said, once everyone has received their paper, i will announce the architect you will be paired with!”

“kill me now..” you nearly spoke aloud, distasteful of the project already. one thing was being assigned a project — another was one in pairs. it was completely unreliable and irritating having to wait on another person or hear their opinions that more than often clash with your own. an architect would be even more stingy, you could just feel it in the very marrow of your bones.

“y/n l/n!” the woman called from her desk, snapping you from your trance. here goes.. “you’re to be paired with a senior, kaveh.”

kaveh? something about that name sounded oddly familiar, but now.. wasn’t the time to think about that.

just as you inclined your head, the bell sounded from its perch on the wall, signaling the end of the lecture.. and the beginning of your pain-in-the-ass project.

waisting little time, you slung your backpack over your shoulder, descending the steps before beelining for the library

it was lunch hour and the halls were bound to swarm with people like a can of sardines. definitely not ideal for a quick getaway and some piece of mind to figure out what the hell to do with this new project of yours.

however your getaway, didn’t quite go as smooth..

as you turned a corner to the entrance of the library belonging to the university, you found yourself smacking face first into someone’s chest. how lucky.

the impact had thankfully been soft, thankfully — nothing to break your nose or anything. unlike some other guy’s chest you ran into once in high school while rushing to class — which nearly knocked you back a few steps.

you rubbed your nose, letting out a quiet ‘ow’, as your eyes lifted, brows now knitted together. “try watching who’s in front of you next time!” you scolded and the boy scoffed.

“i should be telling you the same, you came running out of nowhere! i almost dropped all of my blueprints because of you!” he fired back, holding the rolled up papers tightly against his chest before brushing past you with a huff. “be more careful!”

you were near speechless, wanting to give the crimson eyed male a piece of your mind, but he was gone. deep within the mob of people headed for the cafeteria.

“coward.” you muttered under your breath, clenching your fist before marching into your destination with a low grumble. should you cross paths with that boy again, it’s on sight.

“unbelievable.” you let out quietly, watching as your partner, the blond from the hall, entered through the door of the café you were meeting at.

it was impossible — the kind of thing you only saw in those silly ‘enemies to lovers’ movies. it couldn’t be him, could it? surely he’d been there for someone else..

the architect pushed his sunglasses up onto the crown of his head, looking around the arrangement of tables and chairs before his eyes fell onto yours.

ipad propped in front of you, a pencil case to hold your papers down, and whatever drink you had decided on opting for today.

“the underclassman in the hall..” he muttered out, realization settling at who his partner had been as he approached you slowly.

an awkward smile replaced the faint grimace he had as he stopped in front of your table. “ah- y/n l/n, i assume?” he asked and you nearly shook your head.

if you’d said no, perhaps he would have left.. but unfortunately, the grade was a priority.

“that’s right.” you answered ( reluctantly ), nodding your head as you moved your papers to one stack. “i’m guessing you must be kaveh, pleasure to make your acquaintance.” not really.

his smile widened, unbeknownst to your true feelings as he took the seat across from you, laying his blueprints down on the free space you’d left him ( begrudgingly ). “the pleasure is all mine! i apologize from my behavior earlier in the hall.. i hope you can forgive me, i didn’t want anything to happen to these.” he chuckled sheepishly, patting the scrolls of paper softly. “they’re the best i’ve come up with! hence why i wanted to bring them to my partner in top condition — which is you, ironically- the person i ran into..”

you nodded slowly, wondering to yourself if he normally spoke this much and in such an odd manner. but you went along with it, anyway. just bear it for now. “no worries — at least your papers are um.. in tact.” the condition was almost flawless, and yet he still made a fuss earlier. “shall we look through them and see which one works best for the project?”

kaveh blinked at your words, seemingly offended. “beg your pardon?” he asked, lifting his hand from his designs. “which works best? we can’t possibly select one and leave the rest untouched! it’d be criminal!”

his outburst caught you by surprise as you rose a brow at him, judging. “you do realize we cannot make all of those. it’s unrealistic, and there’s hardly time to do all of these when i’m the only engineer working on these..” you trailed off, unrolling one of the papers to show him. “like this — this is meant for a city! i can’t make that!”

“you’re an engineer! there are architects far more demanding than myself, with even more to request! this is your practice!” he reasoned and you scoffed.

“more like my funeral.. these are a total nightmare.” you muttered under your breath and the blond gasped.

“why you- you take that back! i worked very hard on those and i won’t allow them to go unappreciated by a heartless engineer who doesn’t understand art!”

now it was your turn to gasp. “i’m heartless? you humiliated me in the hall today for running into you!”

“i said i was sorry!! now you’re holding a grudge?!”

“as if you have any room to talk!” you bit back, rising from your seat before storming off to what appeared to be the counter. likely to order another beverage — possibly even something alcoholic, with how frustrating your partner was being.

meanwhile the scarlet eyed male parted his lips to demand where you were storming off to, only to close them right after.

he didn’t need to make a scene, least of all with an underclassman! he was better than this — he had to be the bigger person here. not like those petty arguments he shared with his blockheaded roommate at home.

kaveh was a gentleman, a kind soul. it was in his good nature!

..and yet right now, in this petty predicament, he found himself fired up. ready to give you a piece of his mind and defend his hard work.. but he held off. as if there was any need to have the last word, that was an “alhaitham thing” to do!

with a defeated sigh, kaveh dropped his forehead on the dark oak table, groaning to himself.

this project.. was going to be a long one.

“no, no- this won’t do at all! it ruins the aesthetic completely!” the blond complained and you fought the urge to slap him.

this would mark your fifth time redesigning the electrical structure of the layout of where all the lamps and switches would go in whatever complicated ass design kaveh felt the need to use.

granted it wasn’t a real building. the project consisted of making a structure out of a certain material that suited the selected blueprints, and having a working setup of lamps and switches. strangely, the only thing you and your partner came to agree on was using lego bricks as the building materials.

“we can’t be bothered with aesthetic yet if the lights can’t even turn on without someone getting zapped in the process! have you not learned?!” you fired back pointing to your sad excuse of a building. it was barely two floors and kaveh wanted five. “first i get the lamps working, and then you can make it look pretty or whatever it is that you do!”

the architect let out a gasp of offense. “excuse me, i do far more than making things pretty, you just don’t get appeal like i do! who in their right mind would want to go into an ugly half built looking building?!” he ranted, shuddering at his own thoughts. only alhaitham would. “we’d be better off in an abandoned or haunted house!”

you took a deep exhale, willing yourself not to rip him a new one. you were calm, the calmest you could be. this was just a trial to prepare for the future with someone even more snippy and nitpicky.

all you had to do was finish the project as soon as possible and hand it back to your professor. done, finished. no more kaveh, no more irking architects for awhile. just you and your work, as it was before this ridiculous assignment.

now ignoring the blond’s rambling, you carefully smoothed your fingers over the surface — where the wiring was meant to go, humming quietly before taking a ruler out.

although you didn’t want to, you handed it to kaveh, biting back a sigh. “hold this here, do not move it. i have to cut how much wire i’ll need.”

with little chance to protest, the older held the the measuring stick in place, eyeing you with great caution. legos were rather fragile, after all. and neither of you has glued yours, in fear that you would need to go back and fix something.

still, as he watched you at work, he couldn’t help but stare a little. the way your eyebrows furrowed together in concentration, the way you chewed on the inside of your cheek, the meticulous work of your hands. it was weirdly fascinating to kaveh, something he found difficulty looking away from.

“kaveh, could you hand me the pliers and that soldering tool from the stand.” you called out to him, not yet looking up.

but the blond was too focused on what you were doing, the gentle part of your lips. he wondered what you were saying, perhaps muttering to yourself regarding your work.

“kaveh!” you voiced out more clearly, causing him to jolt in surprise.

“what- what is it, i wasn’t staring!”

“the pliers and soldering tool! hand me them, please.” you repeated, gesturing with your nose to what you needed.

the upperclassman blinked once and then twice, not having realized you had been talking to him the entire time while he stared like a weirdo.

unknowingly it made his cheeks bloom with pink, a wave of embarrassment overcoming him. “right-! the pliers and soldering.. tool- on it, heard you the first time!” the blond blurted, quickly rising from his seat to head to where you’d plugged the device in.

careful not to burn himself, he grabbed it by the stem along with the device beside it before moving back to where you sat. “these tools, right?”

lifting your head a little to see what he brought, you nodded in approval, holding out your free hand. “hand me the pliers first, i need to cut off what i don’t need before i can continue.” you told him simply, and thankfully — he knew what those were.

he placed the took in your hand, holding the warmer one in his grasp until you would need it. which didn’t take too long.

“soldering iron, please.” you spoke up again, wiping a bead of sweat from your forehead with a knuckle.

“soldering iron.” he repeated, placing it slowly, and gently between your fingers, as he didn’t want you to burn yourself. banter or not, he wouldn’t wish ill on you.

now that caught you off guard, as you felt his fingers brush your own. so soft and delicate from how careful he was with his craft. unlike engineers, his hands would remain unscathed for the most part. maybe a little sore from many hours spent on drawing, but well kept, otherwise.

confused, kaveh rose a brow at your stillness, uncertain of why you had stopped. “hellooo, earth to y/n.” he waved in front of your face, tilting his head. “there’s a wire and lamp that still needs connecting.”

“i-i’m here, i’m doing it now!” you blurted out unthinkingly, forcing yourself to look away as you lowered your head in a sad attempt at hiding your face from him.

a long project, indeed.

it was the final night to finish the thesis with only the conclusion to be written of your paper.

luckily kaveh had finished up with the building and you managed to create a fully operational battery powered light up system for it.

now all that remained was finishing your research paper and handing everything in tomorrow.

part of you felt relieved to be done with the assignment and all the stress that came with it. but were you done with kaveh? that was the real question.

“that should do it.” the blond breathed out, tucking a fallen strand of hair behind his ear. “all we have to do is check it once more and then print.” he continued, raising his arms to stretch before turning to face you when you hadn’t answered. “y/n?”

you blinked upon hearing your name, snapped from your daze as you looked over at your partner, yawning softly. “sorry i was in my thoughts, guess the coffee wore off.” you laughed, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes. “anyway, you were saying?”

kaveh clicked his tongue. “i said we just have to check and then print, though i see my voice puts you to sleep instead!” he huffed out. “please don’t let me keep you up.”

you pressed your lips into a flat line, not fond of his sarcasm. and he said he would never act like his roommate, whom you met a few times while working on the assignment. he was definitely a character.

“haha, very funny.” you commented, rolling your eyes. “well then i guess should be it. if anything we can just check again tomorrow morning.”

the architect let out a hum. “probably.” he answered tentatively, clicking save. “well then that’s it.. did you uh- want to get something to eat? y’know as a celebration for finishing, or something.” why kaveh was asking this, he wanted sure of. last he checked he was beyond annoyed to be dealing with you for as long as he had been.

but in the last few weeks, he felt a slight change in his heart. almost as if it would be strange, not being around you as often as he had been recently.

the offer made your brow raise, surprised to be asked out. not that it was a date, of course! he asked you to eat in celebration of completing your project. nothing more, nothing less.

even still. “like.. a date?” you dared to ask, afraid of what he might answer with — but you couldn’t help the words on the tip of your tongue.

kaveh, astounded that you had asked, let alone phrased it that way, flushed a soft pink. he hadn’t planned on you asking that. was it a date? did you want it to be?

screw it, there was no going back now. “do you want it to be?”

a date with your partner, the one you quarreled with for weeks on end.. but someone you grew oddly fond of being around, and someone you couldn’t quite let go of as yet.

with what little certainty you had left, you shifted closer to him, a warmth rising in your chest. “if i said yes.. would that be a bad thing?”

kaveh paused to think for a moment before smiling at you. “not at all.”

your lips curled up into a grin as you nudged his side. “then it’s a date.”

notes. friendly reminder that ms gurl ( me ) absolutely sucks at anything science-y so if i any terms i used are incorrect — it is either due to the language barrier ( bc i learned all of this shit in dutch ) or my stupidity strikes back with technical things!! anyway hi sky i hope you enjoyed this<3 sorry for the delay :’)

↳ return to main masterlist . request rules . send an ask

#— ; 🏹 ) genshin impact fics. #— ; 🏹 ) sumeru. #genshin impact #gi #kaveh #genshin #genshin impact x reader #genshin fanfic #genshin kaveh #genshin impact imagines #genshin x reader #genshin imagines #sumeru #gi kaveh #genshin modern au #genshin impact kaveh #kaveh x y/n #kaveh x reader #kaveh x you #kaveh fluff #genshin impact x gender neutral reader #kaveh x gender neutral reader

[esshetic]

ARIES SEASON, THE CROSS, THE FINISH LINE, THE BEGINNING

Aries season starts with Mercury in Aries, Venus in Pisces, and Mars in Aquarius. The Moon is hanging out in Leo for the first day of the spring equinox. I foresee warm weather, lighter nights, and a feeling that everything is going to be okay. But why is there so much underlying tension?

The Full Moon eclipse in Libra on the 25th of March why, this is a highly emotional fated time, so whilst things may look good externally there is a sea storm happening with you so you are feeling sea sick. Whilst the storm rages on and it has to, in order to elevate you. I will go into details about the Full Moon in a separate reading, but for Aries Season the Libra full moon sets the tone for the rest of your time during this season.

Moon Square Jupiter and Uranus

Are you taking on the big guys? Do you have what it takes? Do you have the power to overcome?

Let's delve deeper into the season. Aries is fast-paced and busy. The world around you will appear bustling as everyone is busy doing things and going places. The energy is fun, light, and busy. Take things lightly and as they come. You are reaping the rewards of seeds planted six months ago, so this is a time to be in the play and not plot and create. It is about the new, the experience, the present moment.

The Cross, we have Easter weekend, which will come and go. The Finish Line, our Libra full moon, is balancing out power and redistributing it to us, the people. The Beginning is you looking at the next six months towards the end of the season. You will plant new seeds in Taurus season, and also water the seeds that you planted late last year. It's time for you to review your New Year's resolutions

How will Aries Season be for each sign?

Aries, happy birthday, it's finally your season. You may not be in the mood to celebrate the way you would normally celebrate your birthday. We (it's my birthday too) are having a thoughtful, mindful, and introverted birthday. What I mean is, it's not about filling up your schedule with activities. I see a simple, fulfilling day doing something like watching a movie at lunchtime, sitting in your fav cafe spot and sketching away, or looking for something memorable to do - what you REALLY want to do, not what you are supposed to do. Easter weekend is bringing your hobbies alive, your inner child is beaming, or simply, you may spend time around young children which will make you beam from ear to ear. Family and playtime is around you. The Full Moon in Libra is lighting and sending a lightning bolt to your 7th house, it's electric and buzzy. I see partnerships taking form around your work, help being offered to you, and contracts being signed. The beginning Aries, as your season gets going into Taurus season, you are already feeling the lazy, chilling out vibe from your neighbour. I do see things that were planted 6 months ago coming back around. This is around beliefs and dreams.

Taurus, Aries rules your 12th house, therefore Mars rules your 12th and 7th house. Even though it's spring, you guys don't feel the vibes of the season until your season begins. You are still in hibernation mode, running on reserve battery or being on auto pilot. I believe that you want to preserve your energy. It is your power and you, more than anyone, understand the exchange of energy and you're worth. You know how to rest, do nothing, and preserve and store your energy. You know you're worth (you can teach Aries, Virgo, and Cap a little thing about this) and won’t move until you have to, for the sake of it. So yes, it's not time for you to get up so you will enjoy your time where you are. You can lay all day every day without feeling bad. The Cross, Easter weekend feels emotional for you. You are feeling deeply reflective this time and want people to be easy with you as you are in a fragile reflective state. Rest up, it doesn't matter what the world around you is doing, you will know when you feel ready to join the world again.

Gemini, Aries has awakened your feisty side, as you roll your eyes at me for giving credit to another star sign for who you are. I believe that you have been in your plotting and planning phase and waiting for the time to take action. This Aries season is showing you the possibilities if you take that path that seems like lunacy, but this is the only thing that you can think of to do to get you back on the path that you desire. By Easter weekend, you will be in good spirits. I think all the signs will be, to be honest. Something that was causing a lot of pain and anxiety has lightened up, or you have decided to see yourself as bigger than it. So once the full moon comes along and you are provided with choices to make, you already made your decision with your actions and the Universe sees this and allows for things to manifest for you. As we get into April, you are super positive and happy with your new start and choice.

Cancer, the Sun is transiting your 10th house of career, reputation, and public life and is linked to your 5th house of family, romance, and fun relationships. I see a vindication in how those around you see you. Your reputation restored and respect given to you. I see this Spring as a start of a golden period for you. The turbulent times have gone and you are entering a season of enjoyment. Important contracts to sign are coming your way, Cancer. I am seeing imminently. The Full Moon is a smooth journey for you in contrast to the last year's emotional rollercoaster. However, as Taurus season approaches, another hurdle to overcome looms on the horizon as a new chapter begins for you. You have to lean into new learned skills to help you climb this mountain.

Leo, the sun is transiting your 9th house of higher learning, travel, and religion. The sun's transits are always significant to you as you are the sun is your north star and you will always be looking for ways on how to extravert yourself. This transit is an introspective one for you. Maybe you are looking into new religious studies or finding faith, realising that you do not have an internal faith point or compass to lean on and that you rely on your external world to reflect back to you inside. This has been where you have gone wrong as the inside has all the keys. Easter weekend feels like a somber affair. Your inside is somber and sad and you are looking at where this comes from. Don't stop at the sadness, keep going deeper inside yourself. As we approach the full moon in Libra in your 3rd house of community and siblings and with the new year underway, I see new growth taking place as the things that were stunting your growth have been removed.

Virgo the Sun is transiting your 8th house of the occult, emotional depth, and secrecy so what is it shining a light on and reflecting things back to you, this season is asking you to pay attention to those relationships that are triggering to you, what does the person do that reminds you of something or a part of yourself that you cannot see clearly. Easter weekend brings you clarity on a situation where you can finally resolve it within yourself and let it go the Full moon in your second house kicks off a new start and phase, like a health kick or a journal phase or a work out class that you become obsessed with your a new hobby that becomes your personality.

Libra the Sun is transiting your 7th house, where you normally lay your sweet head, but you are in the spot light and its your turn to watch others where you were a few months ago, or even years ago, with enough distance you can now see the past for what is was and forgive yourself perhaps? Easter weekend takes you on a whirlwind of emotions particularly regret and recking your mind thinking of what if, those what ifs will drive you mad if you let them. The full moon is in your first house of yourself, this time you take centre stage with having to make a decision, you know there is only one decision, do the hard thing.

Scorpio your 6th house is being highlighted this season of the day to day living the small, micro which affects the macro, take care of the small things and the universe will take care of the big things. The small things being having 3 meals a day, drinking lots of water this will get you over the finish line. Easter weekend brings showers weather rainy days or not literal its a clearing out and washing away of the old which touches onto the full Moon in Libra arriving in your 12th house more things being illuminated and cleared out where you would not have normally seen it. This is in reference to your physical reality and not spiritual or internal reality but it puts the chips in your hands to make the next move.

Sagittarius your 5th house is being highlighted this Aries season alongside your 12th house which is mars ruled, this season you may feel like you want to get back into the gym or fitness, joining a running club, its time to get physical for you, you don’t want to think or plan or feel, you just want to take action and move all the energy in your body. Easter weekend brings a bit of family stress but it will blow over and the full moon hitting your 11th house of groups and earned income brings a need to balance all the opportunities that are coming in for you, towards the end of the season you feel brighter about your future.

Aquarius this Aries season has you in a happy place, lighter than you have been in a while ( tell cap!) and with the sun transiting your 3rd house and you are feeling chill and happy to be seen to relax to enjoy, no anxiety or doubt. Easter weekend weekend is a good weekend, you guys really feel like you have lit a spliff and are chilling, nothing is phasing you, the waves may crash onto you but you are simply not phased at all. The full moon is in your 9th house but you don’t care lol, you have really hit a sweet spot of calm and this message is affirming your choice of switching off from the noise and just watching everything unfold.

Pisces , last but not least, the whole world in your hands my loves this sun transit is in your 2nd house of your self worth and money earned, you are thinking of ways to really take your creative work seriously in a way that you can build a career in it, you have a lot of rightful fear around it but so what, just try it out it won’t suck that bad if you fail, and failure is really just a learning curve my loves. Finish that painting and get started on the next one, they are eager owners ready to buy what you have created you just have to find them. Full moon is in your 8th house of other peoples money and this is linked to your creative world becoming your work others want to find and buy your creativity do not martyr yourself and give it for free. which ties back to your 2nd house of values and money earned, what are you worth? take that number and triple it. 

#virgo #full moon #lunar cycle #virgo full moon #rising sign #spirituality #astrology #astro observations #astro notes #astro community #astro #astro blog #astro placements #astrologer #astrology readings #astrology signs #astro posts #dark skin #astroblr #astrology chart #astrology fyp #pluto in astrology #astrology notes #astrology observations #astronotes #astro stuff #gemini #mpls #black tumblr #aries

[euijin]

every month of 2023!

got tagged by @strayklds to do the classic yearly wrap up of my most popular and/or favorite things i made this year and it's always fun so i will do both 💓 plus some commentary because i can't shut up. i'm going to do it on this acc instead of yangjeongin so i can tag my non-skz cc friends properly, but i'll include stuff from across all blogs 🥳

i'm not sure who got tagged to do this already and who didn't so i will just tag some pals/favorite ccs and anyone that sees this should feel free to do it and say i tagged them if u would like!

@foxinys @seo-changbinnies @miyawaki @wahgifs @twoce @dinoboos @agibbangs @xiaojuun @exocean @hyunsung @huiracha @seungs

putting everything under the cut let's go

JANUARY popular: slutty hyunchan. i get it. also didn't realize this got That many notes asdlfkasjdlgk favorite: 2022 mbc gayo hyunjin. i just thought my coloring was neat for this. first set of the year also!

FEBRUARY popular: wolfgang ending fairies. these are ugly idk what y'all were on about but okay it do just be like that sometimes favorite: yellow wood era hyunjin bday countdown set. this was in the top 3 of my fav sets from this countdown in general

MARCH popular: hyunjin's 2023 bday set. thank god. looking back at this is making me emotional actually just kidding it was this one. boooooo fine he's cute i get it. favorite: i had a ton of countdown sets this month and i liked a lot of them but in retrospect i think my fav is the christmas evel era one. shoutout to oddinary and in life too.

APRIL popular: this random hyunin set for some reason. ok favorite: dfesta the movie 12 set i guess. these were good hyunjins and april was a flop month for me lowkey

MAY popular: hyunjin just standing there at the one versace event. i still hate y'all for this favorite: i think the hyunjin maniac tour mini vlog actually. kinda surprising myself with this one but i just think it's very cute. makes me happie. maybe this one tho. idk. i like the coloring on these too. whatever! this month was kinda mid no standouts to me

JUNE popular: hyunjin doing That move in s-class. so true favorite: the introducing skz gifset of the era. not my best of these but still my fav this month

JULY popular: TAEMIN AND HYUNJIN DESERVEEEE favorite: maybe taemin and hyunjin as well bc it changed my life but hyunjin's cardboard cutout of chan is also a fav because it makes me laugh every time

AUGUST popular: hyunjin at kcon la. i get this too favorite: hyunin squish compilation. very important 2 me. but a rare main blog contribution, i love this eunbi set i made.

SEPTEMBER popular: we had multiple sets do numbers this month actually but precious nacific hyunjin wins somehow. i made this set so randomly but it be like that sometimes (2) favorite: 230908 hyunjin not even because i like the set that much but just because it's a hyunjin of all time and he deserves recognition

OCTOBER popular: angel rockstar trailer hyunjin. yeah favorite: i don't know guys. everything i made this month was so mid. nothing notable at all. so i'll agree w the people on rockstar trailer hyunjin

NOVEMBER popular: dramatic hyunjin. i don't like my coloring for this but he was so funny so i can accept it favorite: i think 231118 music core hyunjin?? i like the nine set i made for this day a lot as well bc i'm just obsessed w this look but i think i like the stage gifs better

DECEMBER (so far) popular: dancing sweaty hyunjin. y'all are so weird but i'm the one who giffed it so, favorite: hmmm i think the hyunin set just because they r so important to me and i had fun giffing it

thank u to everyone that read all of this and that liked and supported my content this year 🫶 looking forward to what 2024 brings <3

#tag games #cc year in review #i took an extra long lunch break to finish this. now i have to work until 8 pm LKSDJFLJKSDGLJK #but it was fun!! #carly.txt

[hooked-on-elvis]

So, this post made me think about some conviction of mine and I wanted to know your opinions too.

For me, Elvis' voice is better in the 70s, end of story, which is not novelty for any one but naturally we have diverse opinions on the fandom, that's why I like sharing my views on it. I'm not going deep dive about the technical aspects on Elvis' voice because I'm no music teacher, vocal trainer or anything so I'll stick to my feeling as a mere fan. You may love Elvis' 50s voice better, nothing wrong about it since he rocked at all eras - no question about it - but denying his voice was way more amazing in the 70s is like saying Elvis didn't improve himself as a singer over the years which is totally untrue. Let me say it... My fav thing is hearing him singing the 50s songs in the 70s (and late 60s). On the '68 Special when he sang "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again" I was like... literally hollering at my seat (and kept listening to the song over again, each time bringing me closer to watery eyes).

Understand what I'm saying? Both versions amazing, but the 60s one it's just... flawless!

Another of the '68 special's rendition of a 50's song I love happened when Elvis said Scotty Moore asked him to perform "Lawdy Miss Clawdy"… I gotta say, the first time I heard him singing this second song was the '68 version but a few days ago I played the 50s version and… not even close to impress me as much. Although is fairly good, it doesn't hold a candle for Elvis' voice in the late 60' and all the live 70s versions of it.

Anyway... Elvis' from the late 60's on voice is the most! I mean, listening to the 50s version of "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" don't you miss the Sweet Inspirations singing "Bye bye, baby" and "Won't be coming no more..." on the background? The 1972 "Elvis On Tour" version is the best one EVER! And that's what I mean… Elvis kept improving himself as a singer year after year! It doesn't matter how sometimes his sicknesses affected his vocals during the late 70s, because that's very understandable (even tho is a shame) and even when his voice was a weaker (in an Elvis to himself comparison scale), his voice through the 70s is better than his 50s voice alright anyways. C'mon! That's true! By the way, for me, Elvis singing with a sore throat sounds better than 95% of other performers (and the 5% that could possibly outshine him around the time his voice was weak are the 50s-70s ones - his own fellow music performers. Not even one of the today's artist could come close to what Elvis' voice was, even when he sounds a little weak during some late 70s live performances, much less at his voice's best powerful and full vitality moments). That's my opinion.

Anyway... sometimes I wonder: Was Elvis really "the King" in the 50s? I'm not talking about his numbers, the amount of fans, money or fame here, guys. I don't either wanna sound like I'm belittling Elvis' amazing, not ever seen before or after, tremendously impressive successful career. He totally earned being dubbed "The King of Rock Roll" in the 50s considering he's done what no one had ever done before and was really successful at it. We can say he was "the King of Hearts" since the 50's but in music... Okay, all his bold wild dance moves live onstage and his big charisma did it for him to earn the title "the King" too, but even so his voice was great and unique, it wasn't perfect... just yet. I think of him being crowned "the King" in the 50's somehow as "being a promise to be fulfilled" — and it was. During his career he was year after year getting better and better as a singer and performer, showing everyone he indeed was "the King", in spite he was doing movies or recording albums, Elvis never ceased to keep the world's eyes on him and he did it so effortlessly. Even tho he worked his ass off, his charm and talent was natural as day light. Elvis Presley definitely wasn't a regular performer and maybe that's why he was crowned as "the King of Rock and Roll" so early in his career but to me, the moment he absolutely triumphed and proved nobody could ever hold a candle to him was from the late 60's on.

The Elvis we see from late 60s on, performing soulfully onstage is undeniably "THE KING".

What are your thoughts about this? Do you prefer Elvis' voice in the 50s, 60s or 70s?

#elvis presley #elvis the king #elvis fans #elvis fandom #elvis #50s elvis #60s elvis #70s elvis #elvis history #elvis music #rock and roll #Youtube