#i don’t have an eloquent bone in my entire body

[yutaleks]

let me out, I'm starving

yuuta x female reader, length: 4.0K CWs: yandere // reader and Nobara are eating food // explicit sex // allusions to rough sex/roleplay A/N: This is a repost but I have combined it with another post and edited it so this is much longer than the original post I made on my old blog. banner by @/cafekitsune.

Part of Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing series

“He what?”

You wince as you’re met with Nobara’s screech right beside you, and choose to ignore her outcry coupled with the clattering of dropped chopsticks. You punctuate your willful silence with another mouthful of noodles, and Nobara continues to gape at you with an accusatory stare.

It’s “girls night” as she so eloquently (forcefully) declared naught but a few minutes ago, showing up to your shared apartment with takeout and a mission. 

Said mission? 

Getting you to quit seeing that situationship of yours, Yuuta Okkotsu.

It’s not that he is a bad guy per se; he’s incredibly polite, with a voice and countenance so sweet and timid anyone would find him charming. But he gives Nobara the creeps. She swears if you ever turned up missing, his basement would be the first place to check. 

(The second time she said that to you, your first thought was to wonder if his basement wasn’t so bad a place to be).

You don’t have it in you to confront the fact that she’s right: Yuuta is weird. 

Outwardly, there wasn't actually anything weird about him when you first met. He's handsome—not 'People Magazine's Top 100 Sexiest Men' handsome, but handsome enough to get your attention. He dressed inconspicuously, stuck to the back of classrooms, and kept mostly to himself. But he had friends, that much you knew from the times you'd seen him around. And he was always kind: opening doors for you, offering you a smile, and later sticking around and chatting with you as acquaintances would, once you got more friendly. He wasn't exactly serial killer material; not to the exaggerated level that Nobara had placed him in the very first time you ever mentioned an interest in him. Sure he was a bit of a loner, but that wasn't a crime.

It took a few more intimate encounters for you to find that Nobara's intuition wasn't far off. Despite her disinterest in them, she's never wrong about men, it seems.

It’s the eyes. 

He has this stare that roots you in place, that makes the bones beneath your skin feel like the layers around them aren’t thick enough to hide away from him. You wonder if he can see the reds and yellows of your bone marrow beneath the layers of compacted calcium. 

Just that deep, endless blue looking down at you makes your knees too weak to stand. As confident a person as you are, you're reduced to a newborn fawn, struck down to the earth with no strength in its feet. Those first few moments where you're bare beneath him it's like you've never taken a step and are too afraid to. But the fear has never pushed you away—in fact, it’s only drawn you nearer to him, your body a willing addict as it asks for more, more, more. 

It's like a person who's afraid of heights becoming addicted to skydiving. The fear is there, it's heavy on your chest when you look down and out of the plane. But you come back and make the jump—over and over, the adrenaline and fear a nitrous; an incredible blood rush.

Perhaps any other prey animal would feel skittish in the presence of a predator such as him, even if he's tamed. But it doesn’t work on you, not entirely. He makes your skin crawl but your heart race, like watching a horror movie from the comforts of the sticky, dirty seats of a cheap movie theater. The seats aren’t remotely comfortable but the movie’s too good to tear your eyes away.

Besides, you wouldn't get up and dash out of a movie theater for being scared. The threat is contained. The movie isn't real, no matter how much adrenaline rushes through your veins—at least, your mind is convinced that it can't hurt you. Because the serial killer or the scary zombie in the screen can't jump out at you, can't actually harm you... can it?

Anyway, that’s what it feels like to be with Okkotsu Yuuta. 

Everything he does seems to be both gentle and intense, purposeful and impertinent, yet mindful and considerate. Like he's apologetic for taking up space, for existing, but not so for feeling. He's unapologetically a bleeding heart, and he offers it to you. It makes for a dangerous combination—a man with no self-preservation, but the most intense hunger imaginable. More than once had he compared his desire for you to starving. And you believe him, having felt the intensity of his feelings in the strength of his grip and the bite of his teeth.

He’s never done anything to truly make you fear for your life—but you don’t doubt that he could.

“He asked me to marry him,” you repeat the words after you swallow your noodles. The phrase feels like a foreign language on your tongue, sounds like your speaking through the bottom of a glass bottle. It doesn’t feel real when you say it aloud, not like it felt when he whispered them to you this morning over your shoulder.

“He’s fucking insane,” Nobara guffaws, incredulous. Like it’s the most ridiculous thing she’s ever heard. “You’re not even dating him.”

“I don’t think he cares,” you reply. There’s this weird grin on your face, to Nobara’s horror. Are you even entertaining something so—

“He should. He should ask you to date him—”

“Well we—”

“—do normal shit like going out to dinner or something—”

“But he does take me out—”

“—get down on one knee—no, both his knees—”

“Nobara.”

“—first he needs to beg you for forgiveness for all those fucking bruises—”

“But I—”

“—Then, he needs to promise to stay a hundred feet away from you for at least a year—”

“Nobara, that’s ridiculous. I—”

She holds up a finger. “I’m not done.”

Your shoulders sag as she continues:

“You need at least a year of dating normal guys to remember what normal, not potential serial killer men are like. And then maybe I’ll allow him to breathe the same air as you again. Maybe.”

"He's harmless."

She quirks a brow in silence.

"Okay maybe not harmless, but he never did anything I didn't agree to."

That’s a bit of a lie, but Nobara doesn’t need to know that.

"You know," she starts, as she picks up her chopsticks and starts picking up another pinch of noodles, "You were so innocent before you ever let crazy stick itself between your legs. Normal."

"I resent that."

"It's true!" She stuffs the noodles into her mouth, but continues talking. You've seen each other at rock bottom, so she's way past something as small as talking with her mouth full. "Before Okkotsu you hadn't even shown a guy your tits before. You were a virgin when you met him! Now he's got your wrists tied to his bed and got you calling him nii-san—"

You flush, "That was one time!"

"He's fucking weird! The hickeys you come home with are nasty, dude. What if he's a fucking vampire?"

"That'd be kind of hot."

"You're beyond saving," she sighs into her noodle carton. "No man's dick is that good." When you're silent for more than a beat, she groans. "Okay, even if it is, he's, like, two steps away from chaining you to a radiator or something. Some Ted Bundy shit,"

"That would never happen," you shrug, digging into your noodles once more, "Why would he wanna date me so bad if he just wanted to do some shit like that?"

"He'll Stockholm syndrome you into it. Don't call me when he's got you tied to a toilet."

You chuckle. "You don't know him, okay? He can be a little intense but he's harmless. Devoted, even."

She rolls her eyes. "Yeah, yeah, spare me the story about him eating you out the entire night on the first date, okay. I refuse to be jealous of you and him."

"It was amazing though," you grin like a fool. "I think he's more into eating pussy than sex."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Okkotsu supposedly being the world's number one munch aside—" she ignores your chuckling, "—what did you tell him when he said that?"

"What, the marriage thing?" She nods, and there's a snap and fizzing sound as she opens a can of beer. "He was literally balls deep in me, what was I supposed to say?"

"Uh, push him off and run the fuck home, maybe? Anyone with sense would," she retorts as she takes a sip of her beer. 

"But I like him."

That has her spitting out her beer dramatically. She is one for theatrics sometimes. "I thought you said you'd never date him."

"I've always liked him! He's just... intense, you know? It put me off before but..."

"But?"

Your thoughts fall back to the early hours of this morning, right before the whole 'marry me' sex thing, when you'd woken up first and got a glimpse of his sleeping face. His lips parted just a little, locks of black strewn across his forehead, an innocence about him that made all those intense, scary moments feel trivial. An unconscious arm around your waist as you cuddled up to his chest, prey safe in the arms of its captor. He'd never hurt you, he'd keep you safe—a feeling as soothing as it is addicting.

You find yourself just as wanting of moments like those as you are of the thrill. Is there ever a moment that you haven't wanted to be in Yuuta's grasp?

As soon as his body began to twitch awake, eyes slowly blinking the sleep away, you had turned over and faced away from him, embarrassed at the way your stomach felt like worms when he stirred to life. The arm around your waist tightened, pulling you closer.

"You stayed."

His voice was thick with sleep, his warm breath fanning against the nape of your neck. Judging by the still dark sky beyond the windows, you'd maybe only fallen asleep for an hour or two. Your eyes widened at the realization that, despite sleeping together for several months, this was indeed the first time you'd slept in his bed after sex. It was what later prompted Nobara's 'intervention' of sorts: her fears that whatever you were doing with Yuuta had reached a point of no return.

"Is that," you paused to clear the sleep from your throat, "Is it okay that I stayed?"

"I always ask you to," he rubbed his palm up the curve of your side. "You can stay in my bed forever," he muttered as he kissed the bruise on your neck, a bite he'd left just a little while ago turning dark as the blood under the skin pooled. "You know I wouldn't mind."

"Yuuta." you angled your head as he continued to mouth at your neck. The way you said his name felt like a warning. Perhaps 'Down dog' would've had the same effect.

"I know," he leaned closer to your back, shameless as his length, hardened, pressed against the back of your thighs. "I'm a little stubborn though... and patient. For you, at least. I'll wait until you say yes."

He always said it like it was inevitable. The question of you agreeing to be with him, for more than just sex, was never a matter of if, but when.

And when he soon after pushed you down gently, propped your hips on one of his pillows, and fucked you lazily from behind as you hid your flustered face into your arms, he wondered if he'd finally had you. Because if he was stubborn you were downright impossible, always immediately rebuking his advances with an 'I'm not ready for a relationship right now' or some similar excuse. To which he'd tuck his tail between his legs and brush off the rejection, man up, and fuck you like he owed you the best night of your life—every fucking time.

But today no such rejection came. He said he'd wait until you'd say yes and you didn't say no. When he soon after had caged in your body with his, his body entirely surrounding yours as he pressed you into his bed, he'd gotten carried away, spurred on by your first lack of rejection in months.

"I wanna marry you," he'd told you as he grinded his hips into your backside. The angle in this position was incredible, you had to bite down on your arm to stop from moaning awfully loud. Yuuta wished you would. "I can't stand the thought of anyone else doing this with you. I think I'd kill them."

"Yuuta," you moan his name into his mouth, and it always sets him off to hear you say it. "D-don't joke around like-like that."

Despite your words, you didn't think he was kidding.

And, you realized, you didn’t think you minded if he wasn’t.

A sound, something like a laugh, or maybe a breath of relief, tumbled out of his throat when you squeezed down on him in response. He'd angled your head to the side, to kiss you roughly, full of bite. You returned his kiss as his words made you a combination of afraid and excited. Would you ever get tired of the feeling?

Yuuta was like a rabid dog collared, restrained only by your previous rejections, and for a moment you wanted to know what all of him felt like. What would a Yuuta Okkotsu be like if he were set free, if he were given the ability to satiate this hunger? Would he finally consume you whole, or would he stop baring his raw, beating heart so desperately and relent?

"I'm not joking," he pulled back a little, just to rest his head against your nape. Every word felt hot as his breath warmed the skin between your shoulder blades. "Wanna be with you—marry you and everything. Whatever you want, I'll do. I don't care how it sounds, I just—"

"It sounds crazy," you replied, not a hint of malice in your words.

"I know, I—"

“I like you, Yuuta.” You interrupted what was sure to be another round of ramblings from him about how badly he wants to be with you. You’d heard it so many times, and slowly but surely each attempt had helped his feelings worm themselves deeper and deeper into your guarded heart.

He, who had you pinned down to the bed under him as he fucked you from behind, tensed up at your confession.

"Just... slow down a little, okay? Dating comes first. Do it properly, yeah?”

“What?” He completely stopped everything, pulling out and sitting on his knees absolutely star-struck.

You turned around underneath him and matched his posture, finding yourself breaking out into a smile at his look of surprise. Of all the things, this was what broke him?

"I like you… I think about you doing this with someone else and get jealous too… you scare me a little, but I like you. But we should date first, I think." 

His lips started to turn up into an incredulous smile. "Can I... be your boyfriend, then?”

In a voice that’s a little too playful to be considered scolding, you replied, ”Will you stop talking about killing people if I say yes?”

Among all the things he’s said to you, about how badly he wants to marry you or how many kids he’d give you, what stood out in your mind was the way he said he’ll kill anyone who stood in his way. But could someone who blushes as hard as he was blushing at that moment, possibly take a life with his bare hands?

He nodded, suddenly feeling sheepish. You’d turned him into a whole different person, practically.

“Then yes… I want you to be my boyfriend. And you can’t be my boyfriend from prison if you kill people.”

He laughed—god, of all things, he couldn’t stop laughing. His arms reached out to you and he cradled your jaw in his big palms. He leaned into you, and even when he kissed you he was laughing, giggling like a fool. Disbelief surrounded the love that made his heart ram against his ribs, and the feeling left him so incredulous he could only laugh.

“I can, as long” kiss “as I” kiss “don’t get caught.” kiss 

He could barely keep his lips off of yours, and as his kisses became deeper, you found yourself being pushed back down into his bed, facing him this time. You wrapped your arms around his neck and let him slot himself between your legs. He held himself up by the forearms, and as his nose brushed against yours, the ends of his hair falling across your cheeks, his eyes found yours again. They were still as captivating as ever.

“Do you really mean it? You have feelings for me?”

His stare was intense, like he was searching for any sign of deception in yours. He found none.

“Yes, I mean it, Yuuta… I really do.”

It’s impossible to explain, even to yourself. How his obsessive feelings somehow had fueled your own—how you spent the days leading up to this seeping in jealousy at the mere thought of anyone else being in the position that you were in now. It made no sense, falling for someone like Yuuta—who’d stalked you, hurt others around you—but somehow it made all the sense in the world.

He slotted his lips against yours again, in a kiss that was absolutely smoldering. He was intense, as always, but it felt different too. An arm hooked around your thigh, hiking it up to his waist, and without even breaking the kiss he quite easily slid his cock back into you, picking up where you’d left off moments before your confession. You moaned against his lips as you lifted your other leg, hooking it around his other side, and felt yourself being pushed up as he carved himself into you once again. Could anyone else mold themselves into you so perfectly the way he does? Would anyone else even be given the chance to try?

“I love you,” he said, forehead pressed against your own. It was not the first time he had said it, nor will it be the last, but certainly it was the first time you’d ever accepted it wholly into your heart. “Please—tell me you love me,” he begged against the throbbing pulse of your throat. He sounded like he would fall apart if you didn’t say it, his soul so weakly held together by his feelings for you.

You’ve come to accept it as a part of him: that as long as Yuuta Okkotsu loves you, you are his entire world.

And right at that moment caged under his arms and pinned down by his gaze, it felt like he was your entire world, too.

“I love y—oh,” you were cut off by your own gasp as every ounce of his strength was suddenly hooked under your knees, pushing your thighs flat to your chest, weighing you down and robbing you of your breath. A whine, like a dying animal, escaped your lips as your body was kneaded and contorted in his heavy palms, pliable like dough. The way he touched you, fucked you—it was so different from before. He’d always done it with a desperation to please you, to convince you that he’s worthy of your love. But now that he had it, he wanted every last drop, and planned to pry it out of you himself.

“Again,” you crossed your ankles at his nape, toes curling as his pelvis made contact with your body. “Say it again—pleaseplease—“

“I love you,” you told him—though it’s less spoken word and more an exhale, your lungs were barely able to take in a breath with the weight that lay on your chest. “S-so don’t—don’t hurt anyone,” you gasped. “I’m right here, Y-Yuuta,” you implored him, eyes wet with unshed tears.

“Thank you,” he breathed into your mouth—for what you were doing was less kissing, and more trading breaths. Your nails dug into the meat of his shoulders, nails like grappling hooks as you hung on for your life. You squeezed down on him, enamored with the beautiful, pitiful strain in his voice, and he smiled. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

You’d never felt closer to God in your life.

“I’ve loved you for so long,” he started to mumble, the words barely perceptible to you. His thrusts onto your body didn’t stop, in fact, they only got messier, needier. “So many times I thought you’d let someone else in—someone who wasn’t me—“ he pried your fingers off his shoulders, the bloodied crescents marking his skin. He pinned your hands down to the bed, his fingers slotting perfectly in-between, and squeezed hard enough to tempt your digits to bursting, leaving nothing but bone. “But it had to be me—who else can love you like I do?”

He paused long enough for you to open your eyes, to look into his, so glazed over with lust and devotion that there was no other answer to give. “N-No one—ah—No—“

“I know,” he pressed his forehead to yours as your legs fell to his sides, his eyes closing in rapture. “No one else.”

Was that the side of him that you always refused to see? The rabid animal that keeps itself trained, claws at bay; the raw, unfiltered strength that lies in every inch of his body masked by the tenderness he holds for you. You love it, despite how much you shouldn’t; you love every single fucking moment that this man is turned into an absolute lunatic over you. Perhaps you are just as bad as he is, for reveling in it and allowing him his moments of heresy.

Your brows drew together as you reeled in what could only be described as a whole-body experience: an orgasm that felt like every organ beneath your skin had been squeezed of its juices, pulp rendered and offered to him as you wailed into his mouth. He accepted it with an offering of his own, spilling himself into you when you kissed him. He kept his body as close to you as he could while he trembled, throbbed. His chest heaved against your own; and he kissed you so many times across your face you lost count, the waves and aftershocks of orgasm claiming you both until there was nothing but soft panting and the slightly awkward stare from his blushing, sweaty face.

Your stomach lurched at the sight. If only you could tell the you from a few months ago, the one who was so afraid of being with him, that the only thing to be afraid of is the thought of doing without such devoutness. 

To those who’d ask why you’d kept crawling back to Yuuta’s bedsheets, even after you’d learned the depth of his devotion: once you’ve had a taste of such fervent piety, it’s impossible to imagine a moment without it. 

Color pools over your cheeks as you sift through that memory, much later now, over noodles in front of your best friend Nobara.

"Yeah he's intense but I think it makes my boyfriend even cuter," you smile bashfully. “I don’t want him to feel like that for anyone else… I like that he’s crazy about me… is that weird?”

"Did you just say boyfriend?"

When you nod she shakes her head and groans.

"Fuck, you're just as insane as he is."

#jjk x reader #yuuta x reader #yuta okkotsu x reader #cw.yandere #every time I think about him and prone bone I just. claw at the walls yk #I’ll be reposting them as I edit them so just give me a bit for each one 🙏🏽 #yan!yuuta #writing tag

[echo-rambles]

use my body against me [part2] summary: when a drunk text to your ex gets answered in a way you never expected, it leads to falling right back into old habits. tags: past established relationship, ex-boyfriend chan, swearing, 18+, oral sex. notes: it took me a hot minute to finish this part, but I had a lot of fun! I do have plans for a part 3 btw 👀I hope you enjoy this continuation of my chan fic! it ended up getting a lot spicier than I had initially planned, which is why I've added the 18+ rating! it's not extremely explicit but it does get... very suggestive. almost bordering on explicit. be warned. part 1

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

You stumble from the bedroom, trying to be as quiet as you possibly can, tip toeing through the hallway. The sun has barely risen and the entire apartment is silent. As you round the corner into the main room, you come up short, almost tripping on your own feet. 

“Oh.” Changbin greets, standing there with a protein shake in hand. Blinking at you.

“Oh.” You say back, eloquently. Heels gripped in your hand and skirt most definitely not sitting right on your legs. 

With a little nod to himself, Changbin sips at his shake. “Is this a thing now?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“Sneaking out of Chan’s room before he wakes up, clearly barely awake and definitely raiding the fridge before you run. Is it happening again?”

“Ok, fuck you Binnie.” You practically hiss, moving closer so your voice doesn’t have to carry and accidentally wake anyone else up. “It’s- listen, it’s nothing. It was one night, a mistake that we’ll both awkwardly laugh at later.”

“Sounds an awful lot like what you said when you guys first started dating. Weird.” 

“If you’re not going to offer me a ride, I’ll be leaving now. Thank you so much for your insight.” 

“Wait, if I drive you home can we pick up breakfast on our way?”

“Of course.”

(“Honestly though, is this a thing again?” Changbin asks, taking a large bite out of his breakfast sandwich. 

You're both sitting in his car, idling in a parking lot between the little cafe you grabbed food from and your apartment. The way he says again makes something in your stomach somersault. 

“I don't know. It was just one night.” You can't tell who you're trying to convince. “It was...”

“A mistake?” He finishes your sentence, remembering what you said earlier. Looking at you like he always has. Willing to listen to whatever you have to say with minimal judgment. 

You're quiet as you pick at your waffles. The word mistake doesn't sit right with you. Even though you're the one who said it first, now that you're more awake and watching the sun rise, it feels like the wrong word. “It was definitely a bad decision.”

Changbin just hums and finishes off his sandwich.) 

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Walking into your apartment in the same clothes you were wearing the night before isn’t particularly shameful, but it is embarrassing. Solely because you know, in the deepest recesses of your bones, exactly how annoying your roommates are going to be about it. 

If they witness your walk of utter embarrassment, they will never shut up. 

Which is why you try your hardest to be as quiet as possible while making your way through the hallway, heading straight for your room. Unfortunately you get caught by Hyunjin as you creep into the living room. He’s sitting on the couch with his sketchbook propped on his knees.

It feels almost like deja vu, standing in the middle of a living room, caught in the act of sneaking around. Your skirt still isn’t sitting right on your legs. Hyunjin blinks at you. The deja vu intensifies. 

“You’re awake early.” It’s the first thing you can even think to say, mostly because the fact alone comes as such a shock. The curtains are drawn, but there’s the barest sliver of morning sun spilling through the crack. Hyunjin is the type of person who never wakes up before noon unless it’s a national emergency. 

Hyunjin sucks on his teeth. “And you’re home late.” 

See? Annoying. “I mean- I guess. I don’t have to explain myself to you.” You cringe at the tone of your own voice after the words tumble from your mouth. 

“Oh wow, he must’ve fucked you really good for you to be defensive about it.” 

Annoying, annoying, so fucking annoying. Why is he even awake? With a huff, you turn towards your bedroom. Maybe you could’ve been nicer about it, but you really don’t owe him an explanation. If he’s going to be all irritating about it, then he doesn’t deserve to know the details.

Even if you are dying to tell someone. 

His laughter follows after you, but then it’s suddenly interrupted by a shocked little noise. When you glance over your shoulder, Hyunjin is staring at his phone, wide eyed. 

“Holy shit, no way. You weren’t joking when you said early- the sun is out?” He’s looking towards the curtains now, at the sliver of sunlight that’s been steadily crawling across the floor as the sun rises. 

“Ah.” You hum in understanding. “You’re not awake early. You just haven’t slept.”

“Hey, you’re not in any position to judge questionable decisions.”

That immediately shuts you up. 

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

Accidentally running into Chan out in the wild really should’ve been less of a surprise. It’s not like you lived miles away from each other, so of course it was inevitable that you’d see him at some point. Yet here you are, shocked and surprised and maybe panicking. 

It took some time after the break up, but eventually you had settled into a sort of civil understanding. You were able to wave a half-hearted greeting whenever you'd catch sight of each other in public. 

But now, after the other night, it almost feels reminiscent of the early days, when the break up was still fresh. When it felt like seeing him going about his daily life was enough to send you spiraling. 

Ducking behind the nearest surface, you fall into a crouch. Hands over your eyes and a sense of embarrassment washing over you. You are in no way mentally or emotionally prepared to see him this soon after everything that happened between you that night.

And there was a lot that happened. 

“You feel so good- no one ever feels as good as you.” Chan pants into your ear, nosing at the skin of your jaw. It’s not like you expected him to be celibate since you broke up, especially since you weren’t either. You’ve hooked up with a few scattered people after Chan, but he was right, none of them felt like this. He squeezes at your waist. “It’s like you’re made for me. No one else.”

No, now is not the time to get distracted with memories of the way he touched you and held you and pressed you into the mattress- stop it. Get a hold of yourself. 

This is exactly the reason you don’t want him to see you. How are you meant to be trusted around him? There’s an equal mix of panic and excitement at just the prospect of hearing his voice. Balanced on a knife’s edge and not sure if you’re looking forward to an awkward conversation about hooking up or dreading it completely. 

So what if you're hiding? It's not like anyone will ever witness this moment.

“Are you ok?” Comes a voice, interrupting your spiraling as your stomach turns cold and makes the decision all on its own to settle firmly on bone chilling dread. 

Looking up, you're met with Chan's worried eyes. Fuck. 

“Yeah- yes.” You cringe at your own voice and the way you stumble over your words. “I'm- don't worry about it.” 

“You're curled into yourself behind a vending machine… I feel like that deserves a little worry.” 

“I'm having an existential crisis. I'm fine.”

He doesn't look like he believes you. Fair. 

In the next moment he's crouching down beside you, joining you behind the vending machine. Chan positions himself perfectly, his wide shoulders acting as some sort of barrier between you and the rest of the world. If it was anyone else you’d feel trapped, you know this without a doubt. You’d be a cornered animal with nowhere to go.

But with Chan you just feel safe, and that knowledge sits a little bit weird in your chest. The feeling is too familiar. 

“Since you’re obviously not hiding and you’re perfectly ok.” Chan begins, and you squint at him. “Can we talk?”

“About?” Deflect, deflect, deflect. 

He just notches an eyebrow at you. “C’mon, you know what about.” 

Looking up and over his shoulder, you can see a few scattered people staring at the two of you, curious gazes itching along your skin. You must look like two crazy people, huddled beside a vending machine of all things. With a sigh, you reluctantly agree. 

You knew this conversation would have to happen eventually, especially since you’ve been trying to be more of a responsible adult recently. That doesn’t mean you’ve been looking forward to it.

The feeling of his hand in yours as he helps you up feels like a brand. Searing into your skin and leaving you a little dizzy. You wish you could hold him close forever. Turn back time to before things were strained and weird, when you could just hold his hand and he’d smile at you. 

You don’t let yourself linger. Instead you turn and begin walking, ignoring the way he looks at you. Things will go back to normal once you’ve ironed everything out and admit that nothing like the other night should ever happen again. 

Somehow you find yourself back at his apartment. Maybe it's because it was closer than your own. Or maybe it’s because the route is one that you’ve walked hundreds of times, muscle memory taking you there before you could really question it. 

The kitchen feels like the most neutral, non-sexual space in the whole apartment. Neither of you could get sidetracked while standing under the harsh overhead light, with the ambient sound of a refrigerator humming in the background. 

Chan offers you water, and you gratefully accept. It'll give you something besides his searching gaze to focus on. 

“You wanted to talk about it.” You fiddle with the water bottle, unscrewing the cap only to tighten it again. “So talk.”

All of those excited emotions you had when Chan first texted you the other day seem to be extremely hard to conjure up currently. All you really feel is some restless itch settling into your bones.  

He sighs, setting his own water on the counter. “Ok, fine. I’ll get right to it since you’re so keen to get this over with.” Chan states, in that voice of his that brokers no argument. You try not to let it fizz against your skin. “I want you to know that it wasn’t a mistake, not for me at least. Whether it happens again or it’s a one time thing- I still don’t regret it.” 

Oh, it’s going to be that type of conversation. Somehow you had convinced yourself that it was going to go in the opposite direction. He was going to explain, as kindly as he could, that it could never happen again. Because you broke each other's hearts and just the memory of touching each other again pulls at newly healed heart strings. You continue to fiddle with your bottle cap. Twist, twist. 

“What about you?” Chan asks, chin tipping down to try and meet your eyes.

You can't seem to look at him, because every glimpse you get makes your entire body flush. You want to blame it on the way he’s standing; against his kitchen counter, the muscles of his arms defined as he leans his weight back onto them. There’s something so deliciously distracting about it. 

The blame can also be put on the way he looks at you. Eyes dark and heavy, assessing you.

You wished he had put his foot down, instead of gently nudging an offer your way. Whether it happens again. Suddenly, that’s all you can think about.

Eventually Chan must get tired of the lack of eye contact because he pushes himself from the counter and stalks closer. Caging you up against the small little table they have tucked away in the corner. He’s ducking his head to meet your eyes, asking so softly if you regret what happened. 

“Do you regret my hands on you? My mouth?”

Just the tone of his voice makes you clench your thighs together. At his words, you chew at your bottom lip and shake your head, because of course you didn’t regret it. You wanted to, but it’s almost impossible. There’s no conceivable way you could ever regret the feel of him. His hands, his mouth. Any part of him, really.

Normally you’re more mouthy than this, words snapping out from your razor tongue. But he gets you like this, sometimes, and he’s the only person who really can. Who can turn your words liquid in your mouth, rendering you speechless and a little desperate. 

For a fraction of a moment, as Chan leans even closer, you think he’s going to kiss you. But he doesn’t, and you're honestly very disappointed. Instead he ghosts his lips far too close to your own and it draws a frustrated whine from the back of your throat. 

It causes Chan to hum a smug little noise before he's dropping to his knees in the next instant, mouth grazing against your bare leg on his way down. Your thighs clench once again at his proximity. 

He kneels there, waiting for your permission before doing anything. It makes all of your insides flutter violently. 

You look down at him, with his eyes that seem to sparkle in the overhead lighting, his plush lips slightly parted, and it’s overwhelmingly easy to shift your legs wider. Just the smallest bit as you practically whisper his name. You’re not sure why you’re whispering, no one else is home, but there’s this little contained bubble around the two of you that you don’t want to break. 

His hands move over over your knees, nudging them even farther apart, traveling even higher until he’s lifting the hem of your dress. Leaning in, he presses his closed mouth against the fabric of your underwear, nosing at the crease of your thigh. It makes you shudder, your breath getting all tangled up in your throat at the sensation.

One of his hands slides along your skin, anchoring itself at your hip. Fingers grasping firm as the other travels back down, over your thigh and slipping behind your knee, and in one fluid motion he’s tugging you closer, hooking your knee up and over his shoulder. Pulling you impossibly closer, making you gasp. 

“I missed this-”

“Chris.”

“What? You can send me fifty texts about how badly you miss the feeling of me, but I can’t return the sentiment? Seems unfair.” He hums in disapproval, mouth still pressed against your body. 

Before you can say anything in response, he’s promptly shutting you up. Moving his mouth even closer, choking a moan from you. You can’t take your eyes away from the sight; Chan on his knees for you, fingers and mouth working, expertly wringing obscene sounds from the back of your throat. Your hand reaches out, fingers tangling into his hair. 

Pulling him even closer. 

You lose track of time like this. All you know are the sounds the both of you are making, overlapping and bouncing around the kitchen, and the feeling of Chan touching you. The pleasure that builds and coils and threatens to snap. 

Suddenly, like a knife cutting through the haze of Chan’s mouth on your skin, there’s a scream. High and sharp and it immediately causes the both of you to jump away from each other, as quickly as humanly possible. You manage to bang your hip into the counter as you scramble away, and when you finally whip your attention around, you see Jisung standing there in the doorway. 

Headphones half hanging from his head and a hand slapped over his eyes.

"Are you kidding me! I eat here!"

Well, shit.

˗ˏˋ ♡ ˎˊ˗

By the end of the day the rest of your friends know what Jisung had walked in on, and while none of them outwardly give you shit about it, you try to ignore the knowing looks they share between each other. That’s the downside to you and Chan sharing a friend group and somehow managing to stay friends with them all even through a messy break up. 

Everyone is connected to each other and knows your history and knows without having to ask how incredibly messy of a decision this is for the both of you. 

You end up ignoring Chan for the next few days, refusing to indulge in any of the texts he sends asking to talk about what happened. You tried to talk, and see where it landed you? Twice already any attempts at talking have ended with his mouth in places it really shouldn’t be. 

The only solution is to try and cut yourself off cold turkey. Ignore his texts and decline his calls and cover your ears whenever your friends mention his name around you. It’s a flawed system, absolutely, but it’s better than somehow making things even messier with Chan. 

(Minho just raises his eyebrow when he catches you staring at the incoming call, Chan’s contact lighting up the screen. He doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. You flip your phone face down and let it ring.)

#stray kids #skz #bang chan x reader #skz x reader #echo writes #if there are any warnings I forgot to include PLEASE let me know! #I don't know when part 3 will be out tbh but im WORKING ON IT #please enjoy my first real exploration into smut...

[kelsiersshadow]

i read we hunt the flame and we free the stars too fast. i need a book circle to talk about books with cause it’s unfair that no one warned me to slow down. i’m hoping that talking about it incessantly in the foreseeable future will help cause as i’m typing this i’m sobbing. i don’t have any more to read. both of them they’re just done.

why did no one stop me

#i don’t have an eloquent bone in my entire body #the ending was absolutely great but i’m so so so sad!!! #i feel like the end of titanic when rose asks jack to come back #and her voice cracks?? #cept this is actually making me sad #im not even a little bit ready for this to be over #book talk #the amount of time actual physical tears have left my body my entire life is less than the amount of days in a month #and i’m blubbering like a baby because i have to just...be done #there’s no more the characters aren’t with me anymore they’re literally part of my past #i want to brain wipe myself and reread but guess what #i’d still go way too fucking fast #cause i have no self control and am DUMB

[cursestothemoon]

A Cruel Favor

Regulus Black x Fem!Slytherin!Reader

Request: Could I get and angsty and sad blurb with Regulus? Nothing specific in mind, Regulus’ entire life is pretty tragic already- just throwing some strained and kind of heartbreaking romance into that mix sorry i like pain this is how i cope

Summary: Your relationship with the youngest Black brother in the form of memories seen in a pensieve by Sirius Black.

Warnings: Death, sadness, crying, the dark mark, ghosts

Word Count: 3265

Author's Note: babe you asked for a blurb and i just did not listen i am so sorry, if you'd still like a blurb let me know and i'll whip up a little short piece but regardless i hope you enjoy this 😌

“You didn’t know him! You didn’t want to know him!” Your voice bellowed, trembling with the burning anger you held in your heart for the eldest Black brother.

It was true, back when the war was just ‘politics’ and the ‘Dark Lord’ a name whispered behind closed doors, Sirius Black had already made up his mind about his family- Regulus included.

“He was my brother.” Sirius spoke the statement as if just the mere fact of relation was supposed to trump that he hadn't even spoken to his brother in the months prior to his death.

You let out a bitter laugh, “Don’t lie for the sake of saving face, you never saw him as a brother; not then and certainly not now.”

Sirius seemed taken aback by your accusation, his words getting lost on his tongue for a moment before he quickly regained his fiery passion for argument.

“He betrayed me.”

“You were the one who betrayed him!” Your accusatory finger pointed at Sirius.

The eldest Black brother’s features went stoney, “The moment he decided to get that mark, was the moment he lost his name as my brother.”

Everything in the mangey old house seemed to still, a silence falling so powerful you could hear a pin drop. Your slow footsteps were exaggerated in the quiet, each creak ringing in both yours and Sirius’ ears. With a tired hand, you pushed a small pouch onto the surface of the dining room table, the vials inside clinking together softly.

“They’re numbered.” You breathed out. “There is so much you don’t know, Sirius.”

You walked through the door and onto the street hastily, not wasting any time to apparate back home.

Sirius sat down in the nearest chair with a huff, his knees spread as his shoulders slid down the back of the chair. He hadn’t remembered just how far up his brother’s ass you were.

Roughly, he rubbed his face with his palms before lazily reaching for the dark velvet pouch on the table. The emerald green reminded him not only of his brother, but of his entire family, the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black. Sirius couldn’t help the groan that left his mouth at the memories of his family that seemed to plague his mind.

Fittingly, Sirius opened the pouch to reveal just that. The silvery, viscous tendrils that floated through each vial were immediately recognized by the pureblood. You had given him your memories...and a letter.

You deserve to know him.

Y/N L/N

Sirius’ curiosity regarding what secrets of his brother’s seemed to be swimming in the vials bubbled over, he was sure 12 Grimmauld Place was harbouring a pensieve somewhere within its walls, he’d just have to get up and find it.

17 October 1974

Barty Crouch Jr. was an insolent child, the type to collect bones and listen to them rattle. He had a nervous tick, his tongue slithering past his lips every so often in a manner that was so serpentine it made your skin prick.

“Come on then, L/N, be a good little girl and do as I say.”

You threw down your quill in frustration, “Bugger off, Crouch. I’ve said no.”

“Don't be like that,” Barty smirked, coming closer to where you were sitting. “It’s only some homework. You were going to do yours anyway, why not get some extra practice in by doing mine too?”

“I’d rather have unforgivables practiced on me than do anything you ask.”

His sickly sweet smile wasn’t one you were expecting, his voice low and threatening, “That can be arranged.”

Your blood ran cold as you watched his nimble fingers move toward his wand pocket in his robes. Truthfully, you should’ve known better. Being in the same house as Barty allowed you the luxury of hearing all the gossip surrounding him and his hobbies, dark magic and curses being at the top of that list.

“Barty.”

The cold baritone made the sandy-haired menace stop in his tracks, his face contorting into an expression of mild annoyance and frustration.

“There’s no need for you to be acting like a child. Quite humiliating asking someone else to do your work, isn’t it, Crouch? Are you too thick to get it done yourself?”

Barty turned to look at his friend, words jumbling as he tried to figure out how to get himself out of the hole he had dug.

“Reg-” The stone-like stare had Barty cowering and mouth snapping shut, the boy seemingly trying to fold in on himself.

With a simple nod of his head, Regulus directed the him to make himself useful elsewhere, but you were far too taken by the handsome boy in front of you to notice the stomping footsteps of Barty’s as he left. Of course you had known of Regulus Black, seen him from afar and even once had Transfiguration with him, but seeing him up close was an experience in and of itself. His skin was ghostly pale, hair dark and wavy as it fell just below his ears, and his cheekbones were high accentuating the slant of his nose. Regulus Black was beautiful, everything about him seemed to be placed just right and sculpted with the utmost care and attention.

He turned to you, your eyes meeting before he gave you an appraising look.

“Regulus.” His hand struck out, a rather rugged introduction.

Slowly, you took his hand in yours and proceeded to shake it. You couldn’t seem to rid yourself of the feeling that your hand was far too dirty, far too boring to be touching his, to even be near his.

“Y/n L/n, thank you- for that.” You were proud of yourself for not allowing your voice to shake.

“I’m sorry he was a bother.”

Regulus seemed to lack the ability of holding a conversation, he nodded- you assumed a goodbye- and got ready to make his way to the dorms.

“Wait,” Your voice came out before you could stop it. “You could stay, I’m almost done anyway. We could...talk.”

The suggestion had the boy's ears turning pink, his words coming out stuttered and jumbled, a stark contrast from the boy who had told off Barty so eloquently.

“If you- alright.”

You thought for a moment before speaking again, “You’re not very good at talking to people are you?”

“Excuse my blatant honesty, but you make me quite nervous.”

It was your turn to have your ears turn a soft hue of red, “I could say the same about you.”

5 April 1975

“Haven’t you got your own side of the blanket? Must you be so close to me?” You giggled, trying to roll away from Regulus while still avoiding the grass.

Regulus smiled, his eyes closing and nose scrunching in thought before he spoke, “I prefer to be close to you; making sure you won’t run out on me.”

Both of you began giggling, his head falling to nudge your shoulder. Ultimately, Regulus shuffled away from your side, allowing just about a foot of space in between your bodies. The wind rustled your hair as you turned your neck to look at the youngest Black as he sat up, his legs stretched and crossed at the ankles, arms propping himself up as his palms pressed flat against the floor.

It was no secret that Regulus was beautiful. His dark hair- now gently flowing in the cool breeze- stood out against his pale skin, freckles were dusted delicately over his aristocratic nose and sharp cheekbones. You could tell he’d never worked a day in his life with how handsome and soft his hands were. His fingers were long and slender, never dry or rough, and his nails perfectly trimmed and always clean.

Regulus Black was absolutely perfect and you were regretting ever complaining about his proximity.

You were quick to right your wrong, bashfully you raised yourself onto all fours and crawled over to your boyfriend. Regulus tried to hold in his smirk, avoiding turning to look at you directly but you could tell his resolve was breaking.

“Regulus…” You spoke his name with an innocent lilt, sitting back on your shins once you were close enough to have your knees touching his thigh.

He hummed, not giving you the satisfaction of having his full attention.

A huff of frustration fell past your lips at his stubbornness as you threw your leg over his thighs, straddling his legs just above his knees. His composure was thinning, a wide smile threatening to spread across his thin lips.

“You’re far too close,” he teased, his hand coming up as if trying to stop you from getting any closer. “I believe you are on my side of the blanket, L/n.”

“Don’t be so fickle, Black.”

Regulus’ pale blue eyes found yours, his delicate hand coming up to run across the delicate collar of your dress.

“It’s in my nature isn’t it?” His eyes held a certain sadness that you could not place, one you wouldn’t see again until a few years later.

Your lips parted to respond to him, only to be interrupted by a Hogwarts ghost floating nearby. It was a ghost neither you nor Regulus were familiar with and as she passed she mumbled something- rather spitefully- about young love. The event had your train of thought derailed, a quiet giggle erupting from your throat as the transparent, deceased woman floated on.

Regulus seemed to find the woman just as amusing as you did, his eyes crinkling with laughter as you two now looked at each other in fits of hysterics.

“Oh her poor soul!” You exclaimed, eyes looking off in the direction she had gone. “If you were a ghost, Reg, where would you haunt with your undead presence.”

His expression contorted into one of reminiscence, “Uncle Alphard’s cherry orchard just a few kilometers from Monts de Venasque. When we were little, Sirius and I would play in the trees. I could sit in those cherry trees for hours, everything just seemed to disappear. Alphard’s been burned off the tapestry since, but he’s left the property in my possession along with the small house on the land. I think if I were to choose one place to spend eternity, it would be there.”

You smiled softly at his answer.

“And you?” He asked, bringing you out of your lovesick haze.

“Me?” You chuckled. “I’d suppose my eternity would be well spent as long as I was somewhere with you.”

28 June 1976

It seemed the entirety of 12 Grimmauld Place shook with how hard Sirius had slammed the front door.

He was gone.

Completely and entirely gone.

And Regulus was completely and entirely alone now.

Regulus swiftly made his way up the stairs and to his room, just barely avoiding a collision with the poor house elf.

“Y/n’s room.” The words were spoken clearly and concisely as the floo powder fell from his shaky hands.

The time of night- 2:27 am- was of little importance to Regulus, he needed to see you.

You woke up with a jolt, the sound of someone stumbling into your room and panicked mumbling doing nothing to ease your nerves though the mop of dark curls had your heart calming down.

“Reg?”

He turned to look at you with heartbroken eyes, watery and bloodshot.

“He’s gone.” He choked out.

You kicked the blankets off yourself and stood up from your bed, bare feet hitting the cold floor.

Keeping a calm tone you slowly got closer to him, “Who’s gone, love?”

His pain was so evident, rolling off him in waves, “Sirius- he’s not coming back.”

“Oh,” You sighed, treading lightly. “I’m sur-”

“No!” He cried, “Burned off the tapestry, probably with the Potters- he’s gone an-and he left me with them.”

Regulus’ anguish, tear stained cheeks, had your own eyes welling with unshed tears. It was clear words would do nothing to calm him, instead you opted for pushing yourself into him and taking his crying form into your arms. His body seemed to give out as you held him, his tears soaking your shirt as he wailed into your neck.

Neither of you could tell how long you stood in the middle of your room seemingly holding him together, but his cries subsided into gentle whimpers and the occasional sniffle as his nose nudged the side of your neck.

His voice came out rough and strained, just barely above a whisper, “Please don’t- don’t leave me like Si- like he did.”

You could feel your heart shatter, “Wouldn’t dream of it, darling.”

“I don’t know how I would’ve survived in this mess if I had never known you.”

Your breath came out ragged as you spoke the truest words you've ever dared to speak, “My heart beats for you, Regulus.”

30 December 1979

His forearm itched.

It seemed to always have an odd itch ever since he was sixteen.

Regulus watched your form get closer, bundled in a thick overcoat and a dark blue scarf- Christmas present from himself- wrapped neatly around your neck. You were the picture of beauty, like a living doll with your soft smile and adoring eyes.

“My love.” You greeted him, leaning in to place a soft kiss against his cold cheek.

His eyes seemed distant, your only greeting a tight lipped smile.

Your eyebrows knit together, “Everything alright?”

Regulus nodded, his eyes swimming with a sadness so familiar, “Just taking you in.”

He pulled off his leather gloves, stuffing them deep in his coat pocket before reaching his hand out to hold your jaw, his thumb running across your skin. The action was comforting and you couldn’t help but close your eyes to savour the feeling of his thumb caressing your cheekbone.

You let out a small gasp when you felt him take your lips in a slow kiss. It was passionate, loving, yet there was a certain finality to it that had a shiver run up your spine in the most unpleasant way.

“I have the cruelest favor to ask of you, and I can only hope you’ll forgive me once I do.”

Your stomach dropped, “What do you mean, Regulus? What- what favor?”

“Please, try to understand-”

“What favor?”

“I couldn’t-”

“Tell me what the favor is, Regulus.”

Your voice had an edge to it that made him compose himself almost instantly.

He took a breath before speaking, his eyes looking off somewhere behind you as he spoke, “He’s getting stronger.”

You didn’t need to ask who this ‘he’ was, the tone made it very clear.

“He has these… horcruxes. Incredibly dark magic, I don't know how many but I know of one. It’s hidden and I’ve found out the location, I can destroy it I know I can but-”

His tone was hushed and your heart rate had started to pick up speed.

“But you don’t know if you’ll live to tell the tale?” You asked with a humorless laugh.

The look in Regulus’ eyes had told you, you were right.

“I can’t let him continue. If this could stop him, weaken him even, it’s worth whatever the consequence to myself may be.” He argued.

You pushed yourself further from him, “I can’t- I won’t lose you. No, there’s no way.”

His expression shifted into one of sorrow and pleading, “I have to.”

And you knew there was no changing his mind.

You bit the side of your lip anxiously, looking at the ground before asking, “And this favor?”

The heartbreak was almost palpable, his voice going raw.

“I cannot be fully prepared to do anything that is necessary to destroy this horcrux if-”

He cut himself off with an intake of breath.

“If I know you’ll be waiting for my return, if I know what I have to leave behind I may be tempted to not go through with my plan.”

You couldn’t help but feel and look horrified, “What are you asking of me, Regulus?”

He seemed to flinch at the tone of your voice, a tone you’d never used before and one he couldn’t name.

“I need you to obliviate yourself from my memory.”

It felt as though your chest had collapsed in on itself, “I-I couldn-”

“You have to!” Regulus cried, his arms gripping the sides of your face as you couldn’t help but let a choked sob escape from your lips. “It’s the only way I’ll be able to go through with it, I can't know that there’s a possibility of leaving you.”

“Please, Regulus, you can’t ask this of me.” You choked out, searching his eyes for some sort of humor, something that told you it was all a cruel joke.

He pressed his lips against your forehead, both of your eyes closing as you two took in short, ragged breaths.

Everything seemed darker. The flowers in the Black garden were cold and dead, the snow wasn’t snow at all, instead dangerous sheets of ice. It was then you realized the war, the death eaters, everything had become so real.

“There is a letter on your bed at home, I’ve settled everything for you. I’m going to stand against the pillar, my back to you, and you are going to do it from behind the hedges so we won’t see each other after. You need to leave once it’s done alright?”

You nodded solemnly, knowing there was no use in fighting it. The cause was bigger than you, bigger than Regulus. Everyone made sacrifices, this just had to be yours.

“My heart beats for you, Y/n, whether I know it or not.”

“And mine for you, Regulus.” You smiled sadly, pulling his wrist up to your face and pulling back his sleeve to reveal his dark mark, pressing a kiss to the skin you spoke, “You aren’t them, you never were and you never will be.”

Regulus smiled but said nothing as he lowered his arms and put his gloves back on. With slow steps he walked to the pillar and looked back at you one last time.

“I’m just taking you in.” He whispered, before slowly turning.

You took your wand from your coat as you took even slower steps to stand just far enough for him not to notice you after it had been done. Regulus felt his resolve crumble with each crunch of your boots against the frozen ground, his eyes screwed shut- tears rolling down his face freely- as he prepared for what was coming.

With a shaky hand you raised your wand.

“Obliviate.”

Present

Sirius seemed to be thrown back from the pensieve, as if the memory had rejected him from viewing any longer, still sensitive. He felt an odd tickling sensation run down his cheek, his hand raising to brush away a stray tear as he fell into a nearby chair.

He never knew…

***

You pushed open the backdoor of your small home, the warm scent of cherry trees welcoming you. The sun was just barely starting to set as you looked off into the horizon of the vast field of trees, if you looked long enough you could make out the handsome silhouette of a boy you once knew sitting up in a cherry tree.

Only a few short months later, the lone figure would be joined by another… a brother.

tags:

@amourtentiaa

@vsawyer1989​

@lifeofkaze

@siriusement

@erinruby003

@maybesandohnos

@onlyfreds

@tayyx

#regulus black x reader #regulus black x y/n #regulus black blurb #regulus black imagine #regulus black x fem!reader #marauders era

[gukyi]

into the wilderness | pjm

summary: alright, so last summer’s camp was... disastrous. from the murky green showers to the wasps nests, it was all-around a bad time. but none of those things could be quite as catastrophic as the end-of-camp counselor campfire, when you told park jimin that you were in love with him. and if telling him was terrible, then seeing him again this summer, one year after your fruitless confession, just might be the death of you.

{camp counselor!au, unrequited love!au, friends to lovers!au}

pairing: park jimin x female reader genre: angst, fluff, comedy word count: 27k warnings: unrequited love, camp shenanigans, awkwardness, secondhand embarrassment/hurt, ot7 cameos a/n: hello and welcome to the one thing that guyi has wanted to write for literal years now but never go around to! finally i can cross camp counselor au off my list. anyway, it’s been over a year since i wrote for jimin so i hope that this monster 27k fic can make up for that !!! i swear the ending is happy. i swear. i promise.

Something about last summer sucked. 

Maybe it was the record six wasps’ nests you found around the cabin, leaving you with more bee stings than mosquito bites by the end of camp. Maybe it was that weird murky green color of the water in the showers and the sinks that didn’t go away until three weeks in, when you were already positive you had contracted some sort of pond disease from brushing your teeth. Maybe it was the lack of Namjoon, who had an internship and couldn’t come, therefore removing all sense of order and leaving you and the rest of the counselors in a state of chaos.

Or maybe it was the fact that, on the very last night, at the very last counselor campfire, you told Jimin that you loved him. 

Truth be told, you weren’t sure how badly it would go. But telling him was so much easier than keeping it hidden, than letting it drag on and on, this boulder sitting on your chest for the rest of time. You had spent the whole eight weeks of camp rationalizing it to yourself, so much so that by the time the last counselor campfire rolled around, you were convinced that it wouldn’t be that disastrous. 

There was no part of you that thought Jimin would reciprocate your feelings. No part of you that secretly hoped that maybe he felt the same, and that you could end the summer with more money in your bank account and a boyfriend on your arm. You knew he didn’t. Jimin was sweet, and thoughtful, and gentle, which is exactly why you fell in love with him, but he was like that to everyone. You didn’t think that telling him would suddenly make him fall in love with you.

You told him because people like Jimin deserve to know that somebody loves them. 

You told him because you thought that nothing would change. 

What you didn’t really expect to happen was this:

Your marshmallow is burnt beyond recognition, poking off of the edge of a stick like a sad piece of coal rather than a sweet treat. At this point, it’s even darker than the chocolate sitting on the graham cracker in your lap, waiting to be smushed together into the sugar-fest known as a s’more, so eloquently named because you will apparently always want some more. 

“Uh, hello? Earth to Y/N?”

Taehyung’s hand waves furiously in front of your face as he leans forward to make eye contact with you.

“Huh?” You ask, shaking yourself out of your thoughts. Your mind has been awfully cloudy these days, overcast like the weather around here. It’s a wonder you’re able to make your way through. 

“Are you alright?” He asks, an eyebrow raised. “Your marshmallow looks like what happens when I try to make scrambled eggs.”

“Your scrambled eggs look like that?” Seokjin interrupts, pointing accusingly at your charred marshmallow. You’ve seen Taehyung in the kitchen. It’s not that bad, is it? “Next year you should sign up for some of Yoongi’s cooking classes. The six-year-olds can cook better than you.”

“You’d have to pay me way more than the shit they’re giving us to get me to teach Taehyung how to cook,” grumbles Yoongi. 

“I’m fine,” you promise Taehyung as Yoongi and Seokjin launch into a tirade about raising minimum wage. “I just—” You glance at your marshmallow. You don’t even think the fish monster at the bottom of the pond would eat it. And he apparently eats people whose hearts have turned to stone. Like Seokjin, who swears that it had eaten the tip of his pinky finger. “—like my marshmallows really cooked.”

Taehyung looks skeptical but drops the subject nonetheless, turning back around so he can find a different conversation to barge his way into. You’re willing to put money on him finding some way to annoy Jungkook. 

Insecure about your apparent lack of marshmallow-roasting skills, you pull your stick away from the campfire, blowing on it until you decide that you’re willing to risk burning the tips of your fingers. You pluck the marshmallow from the skewer, hissing to yourself as you quickly plop it onto the graham cracker, squishing the whole thing together. 

The marshmallow is so burnt that it barely gives underneath the press of your fingers, bouncing back up like rubber. You frown at your s’more, which clearly should be renamed to something else because nothing about the thing in your hands makes you want some more. 

Next to you, Jimin laughs at your pitiful attempt at a classic campfire treat. 

“You want mine?” He asks with a smile, holding out a flawless s’more, the kind that they make in movies to perpetuate the illusion of perfection. You look up at him and in the light of the fire he glows, like a spark from the flames had created him right then and there, like he had been born with light in his eyes, a halo surrounding his body. 

You wonder if Jimin knows how beautiful he is. How beautiful he has always been, radiating kindness and joy and laughter. He must know, right? It must be impossible for him to notice how everyone falls in love with him. You certainly aren’t an exception. 

He holds out the s’more in his hands, laughing as he looks at you because there must be something endearing about being a shitty s’more maker, and you think, what’s the worst that can happen?

“I’m in love with you.”

The s’more drops to the ground, hitting the grass with a thud. 

Jimin’s eyes meet yours, and for once, they are unreadable. This tragic sort of confusion, like he can’t believe the words you’re saying to him. Like his mind refuses to accept them as true. 

He opens his mouth, but you answer for him. 

“It’s okay,” you assure quickly, reaching a hand out to rest on his own. The touch makes him look away, like your fingers are the flames of the campfire, burning him where they touch his skin. “I—I know you don’t feel the same.”

It’s not a secret. Not to him, and not to you. Jimin purses his lips because he feels guilty for not loving you back. Because he is so good, so kind, that he feels as though he has wronged you because he doesn’t love you the way you love him. Like it’s his fault. 

“Y/N—” He starts, but he does not finish. 

“You…” you interrupt, looking down at your feet. You can’t look at Jimin because looking at him hurts, and you can’t look anywhere else because Jimin is all you think about. All you ever think about. “You don’t have to say anything.”

He speaks, and it’s as if the words don’t belong to him. Don’t belong to anyone. 

“What are we supposed to do?” He asks. 

You shrug, resigning yourself to this. You knew that he wouldn’t feel the same. You didn’t know how terrible he would feel because of it. “Nothing,” you tell him. “I just thought you should know.

He nods, because he knows, and he nods, because he can’t do anything else. 

The fire crackles beside you, s’mores forgotten on the ground as your friends laugh and cheer, distant sounds that echo in your head like white noise. Jimin is all you can think of and right now you’re thinking about what happens next.

“I’m sorry.”

Maybe telling him wasn’t such a good idea after all. 

“Me too.”

Your busted-up sedan revs angrily as you rally up the mountain, shaking your head in an attempt to rid the memories of the campfire from your mind. Unfortunately, the nasty thing about memories is that the more you try to forget them, the more you seem to remember.

You sigh. Something about last summer sucked. 

Nothing about this summer makes you feel like it’ll suck any less.

The good thing about being thirty minutes late is that you’re still thirty minutes earlier than Taehyung, who does not have a single punctual bone in his body. You can count on one hand the amount of instances where he’s actually been on time, all of which are because you and the other counselors conspire to tell him that events are an hour earlier than they actually are just to make sure he doesn’t stroll in an hour late and improperly dressed. 

The bad thing about being thirty minutes late is that everyone besides Taehyung is already here, waiting for you. 

Your sedan crawls to the clearing at the top of the mountain, fighting against gravity and itself as it chugs up the last few feet, coming to a rough stop in the dirt, sunken in from countless tires tracking across it. 

Through your windshield, you can make out two figures with two clipboards, only one of which has something genuinely useful on it. 

“Y/N!” Hoseok cries out excitedly, splaying his arms out as if to hug the entire front of your car only to reveal the near-blank clipboard in his hand. All that’s on it is a neon green Post-it note with a caricature drawing of who you assume to be Yoongi, if the grouchy expression and chef’s hat are anything to go by. There’s no signature or name, but Hoseok’s art skills are on par with those of the campers you work with and Jungkook has a fun and quirky habit of vandalizing all drawable surfaces with pencil sketches of the counselors, so you take a wild guess as to who the artist is. 

You pop the door of your car open and step out into the sticky weather, warm and muggy despite the clouds above. It’s the same as when you step into your bathroom after your two roommates have showered, using up all the hot water and leaving a layer of fog on the mirrors for you to all play hangman on. Only, this steam never goes away. 

“Hoseok!” You cheer, letting the man wrap you up in a sweltering hug, your hands gently patting the top of his back so as not to come in contact with the dampness soaking through his thin cotton t-shirt. You haven’t seen each other for nearly a year, though, so you give in more than you usually would and relax into his hold. “You look good, I like the hair,” you compliment, two fingers coming up to twirl at his bright red locks, deep and vibrant like the cherries you pick. 

“Dyed it just so I could tell the kids I’m a superhero!” Hoseok grins. He’s already heading over to the back of your car to pop the trunk and pull out your duffel bags so that he can park your car in the garage at the other end of the campsite.

“Then who’s the villain?” You call, tossing him your keys.

“I guess that would be me.”

You whip around to find a platinum-blonde Namjoon standing happily before you, looking at least a little bit resigned as he grins at you. His hair is longer this year, like growing it out would somehow compensate for frying it with layer after layer of bleach. And with his silver-white hair and the fact that he is the only counselor any of the kids are genuinely afraid of disobeying, you suppose he would be the antagonist after all. 

“Namjoon, nice to see you again.” You go in for a hug even though Namjoon clearly had no plans on instigating one himself, because someone as hardworking and patient as Namjoon deserves a little platonic affection every one in a while. What, with everyone else constantly conspiring with the campers to oust him every summer. 

The truth is that all of you know that without Namjoon, this camp would be nothing but chaos in its purest form, with the counselors unable to wrangle the kids and the kids using that knowledge to their fullest advantage. Take last year, where everything seemed to go wrong because Namjoon had his stupid internship with a business firm and spent the entire summer drilling finances into his head instead of losing brain cells watching kids eat sand.  

If you had any dignity left you’d blame your rotten confession to Jimin on Namjoon’s absence as well. 

“Nice to see you, too, Y/N,” Namjoon says when you part, checking your name off of the list on his clipboard. “I feel like it’s been ages since I was here.” You can see red marks all over the page, blank only where the name Taehyung is written. 

Some things never change, you suppose. 

“Well, we definitely missed you last year,” You say with a chuckle, trying not to immediately associate your personal misjudgements with the lack of Namjoon, who you can hopefully keep from ever finding out what happened at last year’s end-of-camp counselor campfire. The problem is that Namjoon picks up on social cues and body language like a sociologist, so your only hope is pretending that the campfire never even happened. “Camp was pretty much a mess without you.” In more ways than one.

“Namjoon!” Someone calls. You and him both jerk around to the source of the sound when you see a figure barreling towards the both of you, face obscured in shadow. 

You almost don’t recognize him, with his pitch black hair and thick voice, like he has somehow become a new person in the nine months you’ve gone without seeing him. But the moment he comes into view, you know, and you can’t even pretend to not know, not with the way your heart freezes in place, mid-beat, like the sight of him has turned you to stone. Not with the way that Namjoon is right beside you, and how you don’t think you can bear explaining to him why you and Jimin aren’t as close as you used to be. Not with the way that Jimin looks as beautiful as he always has and always will be, no matter how many summers pass, this timeless portrait, this piece of art that’s come to life. 

There’s a part of you that’s shocked still at seeing him, like you had almost thought that after last summer at least one of you would bail on this shitty summer job, filled with mosquitoes and mud and wifi that only works in the room that doubles as the gymnasium and the mess hall. It’s the same part of you that wants to go back to pretending that nothing ever happened last summer. 

But Jimin is here, in front of you, eyes wide and out of breath and gorgeous, and pretending that last summer never happened is the same as pretending that you never fell in love with him at all.

“The water in the boys’ cabins sinks is green,” he says with a tense smile, making Namjoon nearly smack his clipboard into his forehead. 

“Ugh, seriously?” He asks, and you can’t tell if you’re thankful or hurt that Jimin’s failed to acknowledge you. “Fine,” he scribbles something down on the clipboard, this handwriting scrawl that only he can read, “I’ll figure out what to do with that later. In the meantime, just don’t drink it.”

“Seokjin’s already made lemonade with it, though—”

“Great,” Namjoon says, exasperated as he takes off towards the main cabin, where Seokjin is sitting on the balcony with his feet up on the railing with a glass of suspiciously murky lemonade in his hand, one that he’s offering up to Yoongi with a devilish grin on his face. 

His disappearance leaves only you and Jimin left standing at the entrance, rocking back and forth on the balls of your feet in the hopes that one of you will either leave or spare the other the torture of a conversation. 

“Hey,” Jimin says quietly, trying to meet your eyes. 

You look away, pretending to smack an imaginary mosquito on your arm while an actual one bites your leg. “Hey, yourself.”

“It’s been a while.” The last time we saw each other you told me you loved me. 

“Yeah, it has.” I know.

“How are you doing?” Do you still love me, or was the distance and time enough?

“I’m alright. Same old, same old.” I never stopped. “How are you?” What about you? Did you stop seeing us as just friends?

“Doing well, thanks.” No. You’ll always be just a friend to me. Jimin sighs, looking up at the overcast sky with his hands shoved into the pockets of his shorts, taking in the scenery before him. He exhales, long and heavy, before turning to you with a soft little smile, the kind of grin that almost makes you feel like forgetting might not be the best thing to do after all. “I just feel like this summer is a fresh start, you know? Like, I feel like there’s something different about being here this year.”

Maybe this summer, you can learn to move on from me, too. Because something’s gotta give. 

“I hope you’re right about that,” you tell him, because being around him hurts and being away from him makes you replay that night over and over, wondering what would have happened if you had just kept your stupid mouth shut. You open your mouth to say something, anything else, anything to break the ice that didn’t used to be there before, cut between the tension that has settled between the two of you, but your tongue is dry and your heart is sore just looking at him. 

Defeated, you walk over to where Hoseok’s left your duffel bags, hiking them onto your shoulders and heading towards the girls’ cabins, ready to end this conversation before it tears you in two. 

Jimin seems to flounder, standing awkwardly for a few moments as he watches you walk towards the cabins, skirting around him a few feet away because brushing by his side seemed too close for comfort. But then he says, “Hey, Y/N?” 

And it makes you stop dead in your tracks, unable to deny him an answer. 

You turn around to look at him, and he offers you a grin. 

“Are we good?”

Your love for me, will it affect our friendship?

You swallow.

It already has. It always has. From the very beginning, loving you was part of our friendship. I don’t know how to be friends with you without it. Even when you didn’t know it, I loved you. In a way, it was easier back then. Telling you was the one thing I shouldn’t have done. 

“Yeah, Jimin,” you tell him. “We’re good.”

The trek to your cabin from the main buildings of the camp is nothing if not familiar. Familiar in the way that the ground curves beneath your feet, leading you up to the top of a small hill where the building sits, looking out over the rest of the clearing. Familiar in how the scent of the woods that surround you fills up your senses, this fresh, airy feeling, like the very oxygen is smothering you. Familiar in how this place reeks of the memories of summers gone by, summers spent beneath the stars and by the campfire. 

Summer memories that make your heart burst with fondness and summer memories that… don’t. 

The fact is that it has always started and ended here. 

When you kick open the door to the cabin, there is only one other occupied bed. It belongs to Hazel, a counselor in her sophomore year in college who joined the crew last year and assumed that the Namjoon-less pandemonium that was camp last summer was just the norm. Hopefully she can take a much-needed break this year now that Namjoon’s back and she’s not the only one fruitlessly trying to cajole the campers into behaving. 

You beeline towards the bunk bed that has been your summer home for the past three years, the one shoved right up against the back right corner, giving you a perfect view of the entire cabin. The downside is that it’s the same corner that spiders seem to prefer as their location of choice for their webs, but better you, a stone-cold college student, than a terrified six-year-old. 

Plopping your duffel bags on top of the mattress, you let out another sigh. You wonder what it is about this summer that is so damn tiring, so exhausting that you can’t help but outwardly exhale every ten seconds, like merely being here is wearing you out, bit by bit. 

You’re looking forward to when the campers arrive tomorrow. Sleeping alone (well, nearly alone) in a cabin feels uncomfortably empty. Plus, you’re hoping that they’ll provide you with some sort of distraction so you don’t have any free time left to spend dwelling on the what-ifs and the should-have-dones. When there’s only a dozen of you, it’s much easier to run into him. 

The moment you collapse on your bed, a messy brown head of hair comes bounding out from the shared bathrooms in the center of the cabin. 

“Y/N!” Hazel cries out, launching herself across the room and into your arms for the tightest hug you’ve had in a long while. 

“Hey, Haze,” you greet in return, offering her a squeeze back. You didn’t often mix in your camp activities, with Hazel in charge of the nature walks and animal conservation activities while you hide in your air-conditioned arts and crafts room, but living together brought upon you a closeness you otherwise don’t share with anyone else. Plus, Hazel keeps a family-sized pack of Oreos and a gigantic jar of smooth peanut butter by her bunk at all times for emergencies. 

“I feel like it’s been so long!” She laments when she finally releases you, looking positively thrilled to be here right now. 

Not long enough, you think to yourself, though you don’t suppose any more time apart from Jimin would make seeing him again any easier. “Yeah, but the year goes by so quickly,” you agree half-heartedly. Too quickly. 

“I’m so excited for this year.” Hazel grins, clapping her hands together. “I have so much planned for all the nature walks and everything. I spent all of last week reading up on edible plants and berries found in this part of the country. I’m gonna teach all of the kids what they can eat in case they get stranded in the forest!”

“Fun,” you say with a hesitant nod. It’s not that you don’t trust Hazel to have done her research, it’s more that, knowing the campers and knowing the counselors, someone’s going to try and get lost in the woods around the camp, eating everything they can. Not to mention the fact that Hazel’s so innocent she’d probably reveal to someone like Seokjin or Jungkook which plants were poisonous without even realizing it. 

Camp last year was a mess, but at least nobody died. 

“Hey, aren’t you excited, too?” She asks, a hand on your shoulder as she notices your reluctance. “Apparently Namjoon’s a great leader so this year isn’t going to be as bad as last year.”

“Last year wasn’t bad just because Namjoon wasn’t here,” you comment vaguely. Hazel doesn’t need to know about all of the drama that goes down between the counselors. Hopefully she can get out of here without being dragged into something by one of you. 

“Well, this year is supposed to be better!” She cheers you on, determined to get you to feel as enthusiastic as she is. “No matter what did or did not happen last summer. Plus, you know that if anything bad happens I always have my secret stash, counselors only.” She winks. 

“Thanks, Haze,” you say, sighing again like it’s your job to be worn out by life. “I think I just need a bit of time to get back into the swing of things.”

“That’s the spirit!” She rallies. “I’m gonna head back to the main camp and see if there’s anything good to drink. I’m thirsty.”

“Stick to soda,” you advise, eyes wide at the thought of her downing anything that Seokjin’s had a sneaky hand in making. 

She doesn’t seem to notice your worry, already bounding towards the door, light on her feet. “I was feeling a Fanta anyway. See you at the camp counselor meeting if I don’t see you around beforehand!” She pulls open the heavy wooden door, half outside when she stops to turn back at you, wagging a finger in the air. “Remember, Y/N, leaves of three, let them be!” 

The door slams shut behind her, creating a cloud of dust in its wake. You watch helplessly as the particles dissipate into the air, as the silence that was once so comforting begins to terrorize you once more. 

You collapse back onto your bunk. If only last summer’s murky green water had poisoned you. Then maybe you’d finally have a good enough excuse for your utter lapse in judgement, and you wouldn’t be sighing so much.

There were no camp counselor meetings last year. There were only haphazard caucuses, irregular get-togethers where no one knew quite what was going on and there were no real announcements to be said, no real orders to be given. You had almost forgotten what it was like to have someone with genuine leadership skills working here. 

The problem last year was not getting everyone into the same room for thirty minutes. It was keeping everyone focused in that same room for thirty minutes, which was essentially impossible because, at your age, submitting to someone of authority is the very last thing you want to do. Especially when the consequences pretty much only amount to having to drink Seokjin’s murky green lemonade.

But like with everything else, Namjoon has, somehow, made the impossible possible. 

“Guys, guys, can we stop drawing on the board, please? I need that,” Namjoon begs as he walks into the room to find Jungkook and Taehyung with chalk in their hands and a chalkboard at their disposal. What they’ve accomplished so far is an expert drawing of Spongebob and Patrick with their faces missing, waiting to be filled in by one of the unlucky people in this room. 

“Okay, so who’s Patrick?” Taehyung asks the audience. 

“Hoseok!” shouts Seokjin.

“You!” shouts Hoseok. 

“Seokjin!” shouts Hazel, too, just because she likes being involved in things. 

Jungkook lets out a cackle at that. “Are you kidding?” He asks. “If anything…” He does a quick sketch on the board, hand flying across it so quickly you’re actually a little bit impressed, “Seokjin would be Plankton.” 

He steps away from the board to reveal a scarily-realistic drawing of Seokjin’s angry face on Plankton’s tiny, antennaed body, making everyone—even Namjoon, who usually tries to keep the roasting between counselors to a minimum—laugh. 

Seokjin scowls, and normally you would feel bad for him always being the butt of Jungkook’s endless jokes, but you can see a half-empty glass of green lemonade by Jungkook’s side, and you decide that he can hold his own just fine. 

“I think you guys would be Spongebob and Patrick,” Jimin pipes up from the back. You freeze, turning your head slightly just to see him sitting on the table pushed up against the wall. You hadn’t even noticed him. Or maybe you had, and your brain just decided to pretend that you hadn’t. 

Nevertheless, hearing his voice doesn’t make it hurt any less.

“Jimin’s right,” Jungkook agrees, already beginning to fill in the blank space where Spongebob’s face would normally go with a caricature of his own. “I’d be Spongebob because I have a wider face than you, Tae.”

Taehyung doesn’t object, instead moving his hand to an empty spot on the board. “Yeah. Oh, and Namjoon’s Mr. Krabs, obviously,” Taehyung says, adding his own drawing of Mr. Krabs with Namjoon’s camp get-up on—cargo shorts, a short-sleeved flannel shirt, a baseball cap, and high-tops.

“I would not be—hey, give me that!” Namjoon shouts, indignant, before ripping the chalk from Jungkook’s hands as he cackles wickedly, clearly pleased with himself. Namjoon shoos the both of them away from the board before wiping it with the eraser, which has very obviously not been cleaned since last year, leaving a trail of pale yellow dust in its wake wherever Namjoon drags it across the chalkboard. “Chalkboard for official matters only.” He glares at Jungkook and Taehyung, who high-five each other. 

The chatter soon subsides as Namjoon writes down the meeting to-do list on the board in his same old scratchy handwriting. Namjoon’s one of those people that writes exclusively in capital letters, simply enlarging any letters that actually need to be capitalized. You’re almost one-hundred percent positive it’s to establish written dominance over the rest of the counselors. 

“Okay, first order of business,” Namjoon begins after coughing to get everyone’s attention. “It’s come to my attention that the entire cabin water system is green.”

“Hasn’t it always been—?” Hazel asks, innocent eyes wide in confusion. 

“I called the utilities people and they’re coming tomorrow to fix it, so in the meantime, do not drink the water. Showering and using the bathroom is fine. I would use water bottles for brushing your teeth, though,” Namjoon says, crossing off something on his clipboard as the rest of the counselors murmur in approval. 

“See, this is what happens when Namjoon’s here,” deadpans Yoongi, motioning up to him where he stands at the front of the room. “Shit gets done.”

“Okay, secondly, no swearing in front of the kids,” Namjoon says, adding that onto the board as a final reminder. “The fact that I have to tell you guys this multiple times every year is ridiculous.”

“Fuck you, I can do what I want!” Taehyung shouts, earning a chorus of fuck yeah’s. 

“You guys do know that I have the power to fire you, right?” Namjoon says pointedly, making Taehyung shut his trap. “Okay, moving on. Everyone’s been assigned to the same things that they were assigned to do last year, and if you weren’t here last year, then the year before that.” Namjoon receives some cheers and some groans in response to this, the former mostly from people who work indoors, and the latter mostly from people who don’t. 

“Seriously?” Seokjin whines. “I don’t think Yoongi has stepped foot out of the kitchens in literal years.”

“And I would like to keep it that way, thank you very much!” Yoongi counters. 

“Oh, shut up, at least you get to spend some time indoors teaching all of the kids how to play Hot Cross Buns on their guitars,” Taehyung counters. “I got more mosquito bites than freckles last summer.”

“My students have long advanced from Hot Cross Buns,” Seokjin says proudly and a little bit devilishly. “We’re working on something more technical now.”

“Like what?” Jungkook challenges.

“Okay, continuing…” Namjoon says loudly, eyeing Seokjin suspiciously. “If you’re new, you should have already received notification as to what activities you’re in charge of, but if you’re not sure, come and talk to me.”

“Oh, so Jimin’s still on first aid, then?” Taehyung asks, wiggling his eyebrows. “What do you think Y/N’s gonna do to get herself sent down to his tent? Glue her fingers together? Burn herself with a glue gun?”

“Shut up,” You mumble tensely, embarrassed that somehow you and Jimin’s relationship has turned into a counselor affair. 

Last summer, you had accidentally given yourself a palm full of splinters from the birdhouses that you had the campers paint to bring home with them, and the first aid tent is the only place that has bandages. Jimin was there, as he always is, and the two of you spent the evening plucking out all of the pieces of wood from your hand and patching it up with Band-aids that had Spiderman and Moana on them. Contrary to apparently popular belief, it was not on purpose, even though the hour of hand-holding was rather nice. 

“Or Jimin can just find some excuse to visit Y/N in the arts and crafts room,” Seokjin tacks on unhelpfully. “You know, last summer I don’t think I saw them eat lunch in the counselor room at all. They were always finding secret places in the woods.”

“Maybe we were just busy during lunch?” Jimin suggests, clearly equally uncomfortable. 

“Busy fucking, probably,” Taehyung mutters. 

“It’s none of your business,” you snap, because the last thing you want to be talking about right now is how wonderful your relationship with Jimin used to be, when all that’s left this summer are the burned remnants of it, the ashes of something that could have been. You don’t need a reminder of why you thought that you and Jimin would be alright, of why you thought that telling him wouldn’t be that bad. It was terrible, and now all you can do is pick up the pieces, patch together a friendship whose thread has come loose. 

“Alright, let’s keep going,” Namjoon says, picking up the weirdly tense atmosphere and doing his best to bring the attention back to him and the meeting at hand. “You guys should know that this year, Hoseok is thinking of adding in a counselor dance to the end-of-camp show…”

You look over at Jimin, who immediately turns away when he spots your gaze, making to pick at the rips in his jeans, doing anything and everything he can to avoid eye contact with you, and your shoulders sink. 

Jimin had asked you, “Are we good?”

And you had responded, “Yeah, Jimin, we are.”

And the two of you must have both known that was a lie. 

You turn back to face the front, focusing on how Hazel is rubbing your forearm and not asking questions, and you try to feel a little bit better. 

After the meeting, you and Hazel decide to spend the night holed up in your cabin eating from her Oreo stash instead of eating dinner with everyone else, half because it’s only the first day and already being around all of the other counselors is tiring, and half because you don’t think you can handle seeing Jimin any more today, but not before Namjoon stops you on the way out of the door. 

“Y/N,” he says, making you pause in your tracks. “Can we talk?”

“What about?” You ask, hoping to God that it’s not about everyone thinking you purposely injure yourself just so you can see Jimin at the first aid tent. 

“Just quickly, you and me,” Namjoon says casually, pulling you to the corner of the room, away from any windows so no one can see you two talking. “Did today’s meeting make you uncomfortable?”

“No,” you lie like a liar. “What are you talking about?”

Namjoon’s too observant for his own good, you decide, when he frowns at you, clearly not buying whatever it is you’re trying to sell him. “You don’t have to tell me everything,” he says quietly. “But I know that something happened between you and Jimin.”

You open your mouth to object and tell him that you and Jimin are fine, but Namjoon raises his eyebrows at you, like he’s challenging you to tell him another lie. 

“Well…” you begin, resigning yourself to the truth. “Yeah. Last summer.”

Namjoon purses his lips, nodding in understanding. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

“You’re not my mom, Namjoon,” you say with a smile, even though maybe telling someone about it might not be a half-bad idea after all. Plus, Namjoon’s your friend and the only one around here who’s any good at keeping secrets, so getting the words off of your chest could be good.

“You don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to,” he reminds you, because he’s wonderful like that. 

“No, it’s alright…” you sigh. “I guess someone else has to know.” You close your eyes, willing the words to come up from your throat, willing them to not hurt you as they leave your lips. “Last summer at the campfire I told Jimin that I loved him.”

Namjoon doesn’t say a word. 

“And he doesn’t love me back, which is not the problem because he shouldn’t change how he feels about me just to make me feel better. It’s not his fault, and I’m not angry at him or anything. I knew that he didn’t love me back when I told him,” the words come up like bile, slowly and carefully before spilling out in front of you. “But I was an idiot, and I thought telling him would make me feel better, or something. And it didn’t, because now Jimin and I don’t know how to act around each other anymore, and everything sucks.”

Namjoon offers you a careful, hesitant smile. 

“So yeah. That’s what happened.”

“Sounds like you and Jimin should talk about it,” Namjoon suggests, and maybe he’s smart, and a good leader, and attends a prestigious college along the coast, and studies business and sociology, but that is the worst idea he has ever had. 

“No,” you immediately say, shaking your head. “It’s no big deal. Jimin and I are still friends.”

“Are you, though?” Namjoon asks. 

You sigh, reaching up to rub at your forehead. “Yeah, we are,” you insist, perhaps more to yourself than to Namjoon. He looks skeptical, but doesn’t ask any questions. “It doesn’t even matter. I made a mistake and now I’m gonna deal with the consequences.”

“I can try to get the rest of the boys to stop teasing you and Jimin. I know it must be weird for you both right now,” Namjoon offers, always wanting to help. You scoff. Weird would be the biggest understatement of the century. 

“Jimin and I can handle it,” you say, not wanting to disrupt the rest of the counselor dynamic just because you and Jimin are dealing with things right now. Besides, the teasing has always been in good fun, and you know the boys well enough to know that they aren’t doing it out of malicious intent. “But I appreciate your concern.”

“Just doing my job,” Namjoon says proudly. You stand there in silence for a few more seconds until he coughs awkwardly to fill up the space. “You can go now, by the way, Y/N. I just wanted to make sure you were doing alright.”

“I’m fine,” you promise, silently hoping that one day, when you talk to Namjoon, you won’t have to lie to him anymore. “Thanks for checking in.”

“I’ll always be here for you,” he says in that comforting way, that warm way that wraps around you like a mug of hot cocoa on a cold winter night. 

You crack open the door to find Jimin, Taehyung, and Jungkook tossing around a frisbee on the open lawn as Seokjin and Yoongi watch from a picnic bench, soda cans sitting next to them. Someone must have mentioned the green lemonade. Jungkook purposely tosses the frisbee too high for Jimin to reach, making him jump wildly in a fruitless attempt to grab it. He falls backwards onto the soft grass, laughing alongside Taehyung and Jungkook as Taehyung pulls him back up to his feet. 

You smile to yourself, the longing and the pain and the love settling deep within your heart, finding a home amongst the wishes and the dreams. Seeing him there, the widest smile on his face as he tosses around a frisbee with some of his best friends, letting the rays from the setting sun fill him up with joy, it reminds you why you fell in love with him. It reminds you why you’re still in love with him.

Something seizes up at your heart, clenching it between its fingers. That used to be you, the thing whispers. You used to make him laugh like that. 

You did. From the moment you met him, you let his laughter fill your senses, burned the sound of it into your brain. You used to be so close. You used to think that maybe, just maybe, Jimin might love you back. 

You should have never told him, it murmurs, grip growing tighter. Look at where it got you.

If I could turn back time and redo that night, I would, you fight back. 

But you can’t.

The wicked thing releases your heart, lets it drop to the floor. You don’t pick it up. 

Every year, you and the other counselors keep a scorecard on the chalkboard in the meeting room to see how quickly someone gets sent to the first aid tent, whether it be from stumbling over a twig or contracting poison ivy or drinking the green water. Last year, it took two hours and thirteen minutes. 

This summer, it happens barely an hour after all of the campers have arrived. 

You make a mental note to write down the time on the scorecard as you run over to help the poor boy off of the ground after slamming into a spruce tree while playing an early game of tag with his friends. The side of his cheek is imprinted with the texture of the tree bark, and he has some scrapes on his hands and knees from the fall. 

“Whoa, hey, you alright?” You ask, leaning down to help him up. “You gotta watch where you’re looking, okay? Don’t want you to get hurt.” 

The beauty about young children is that very little actually causes them great pain. If it weren’t for all of the overprotective counselors, the kids would probably run themselves into the cabin walls and trees for the entire duration of camp.

“I’m not hurt,” the young boy says, standing up proudly. “I’m fine. My mom says I have thick skin.”

“What’s your name?”

“Eli,” the boy tells you matter-of-factly. “That’s my cabin.” He points to the one to the west of the camp that Taehyung and Jungkook are in charge of. Why Namjoon continuously assigns them to the same cabin year after year is beyond you. Once, they convinced everybody in their cabin that Seokjin and Yoongi’s cabin was haunted, and the only solution was to out-scare the ghosts by yelling and screaming right outside. 

“Is this your first year at camp?”

“Yup,” Eli says, rocking back and forth on his feet. He is not at all fazed by the blood and broken skin on his hands and knees, nor the pieces of wood and bark sticking out of the side of his face. 

“Alright, Eli, even though you have thick skin, I have to take you to the first aid tent. Really quickly, okay? Just to make sure you aren’t gonna get an infection. Then you can go and tell all of your friends how thick your skin,” you say, already beginning to usher Eli towards the first aid tent.  

“I think I have the thickest skin out of everyone here,” Eli says, as if goading you on. 

“You know what? I have to agree with you,” you say. “I get hurt really easily. My mom always says that I need to be extra careful here.”

“I’m sick of listening to my mom,” Eli pouts, stomping on the ground as you lead him towards the first-aid tent. 

“Me too,” you agree. No point in telling him that he needs to yield to his parents when he probably won’t even remember this conversation by the time he wakes up tomorrow. Besides, it’s never too early to begin teaching kids about rebelling against authority figures. “But you won’t have to listen to everything I say, okay? We’re just gonna be really good friends.”

“Like with my babysitter,” Eli says. 

“Exactly,” you say, stopping right outside of the first-aid tent. You’re not even positive that anyone’s inside, especially since it’s barely been an hour since camp officially started. Hopefully, Jimin’s somewhere else so you can just patch Eli up yourself. 

The first aid tent is not so much a tent as it is a shed with a fabric entrance, two curtains attached to a rod above the entryway to provide some semblance of privacy since nobody in the camp is handy enough to actually install a working door. But calling it the first aid tent is better than calling it the first aid shack, which, in the wise words of Yoongi, makes it sound like “a hospital where people go to die.”

When you push open the curtain, the first thing you notice is Jungkook and Seokjin in the far left corner, each with ice packs and suspiciously identical markings on them. They’re both making desperate attempts to patch each other up, fighting with the gauze and bandages that are laid out on the table beside them, as if in a competition to see who can better take care of the other. 

Besides that, Jimin is lounging along the wall, leaning back against it as he gazes into nothing, deeply lost in thought. His eyes trace the lines of the shed, foot tapping to an imaginary beat, brows furrowed. You wonder what the hell it is that Jimin could possibly be thinking about so intently, what it is that is making him not even pay attention to the two overgrown children in the corner of his tent, attacking each other with first-aid materials. 

Watching him, you almost don’t want to disturb him. Almost want to grab one of the kits on the shelf by the doorway and pull Eli outside, partly because you don’t think Jimin absolutely needs to be present for you to clean Eli’s wounds and give him some Spiderman Band-aids, and partly because you don’t think you can bear having to say hello to him. 

Eventually, and only because Eli would start thinking it was weird you weren’t talking to each other (and not because a part of you just wants to hear his voice again), you take another step forward, coughing. 

“Wha— oh, hi,” Jimin says, the sound of your arrival breaking him out of his trance. He rubs at the nape of his neck, clearly trying to brush off any awkwardness. “How can I help you guys?” His voice is unrecognizable. 

“Eli here crashed into a tree while playing tag,” you say tensely, doing your best to look around the room, anywhere else, literally anywhere else, just so you don’t have to look at him. “I just brought him here to make sure he’s alright.”

“I’m fine,” Eli insists. 

“Well, Eli, we just have to double check that,” Jimin says comfortingly, reaching down to bring Eli over to one of the benches. He sits him down and kneels so that he can be at eye-level with him, and says, “Sometimes our bodies say that they’re alright even when they really aren’t.” Out of the corner of his eye, Jimin meets your gaze, looking at you like there’s nothing left that you can do, looking at you like there is so much that he wants to say but no way to tell you. 

You open your mouth, willing for the words to come out, but your throat is dry and your heart is pounding in your ears, a painful thud with every breath that you take. He must have known that what you said was a lie. He must have known what you were going to say when he asked, but he asked anyway, not to get the truth but to see where your relationship stands. 

As it seems, your relationship doesn’t seem to be standing at all. 

It lies in front of you, shattered into a million pieces like a broken mirror, cursed but still doing its job, still showing you this fragmented reflection of yourself. Mixed together like this, you can’t see where your friendship ends and your love began. Mixed together like this, it is impossible to repair. 

“Y/N—” Jimin begins. 

“I should go,” you say at the same time, making the two of you stop in your tracks once again. “Thanks for, uh, patching Eli up. Just make sure he gets to the mess hall in time for dinner.”

“I will,” Jimin says with a nod. There is so much that he wants to say but you don’t think you can bear listening to another word come out of his mouth, to another apology for not loving you back when it wasn’t even his fault to begin with. 

You ruined your friendship but Jimin seems to think that he is the one to blame. 

“I’ll see you at dinner?” Jimin asks. 

You look back at him, wanting so desperately to say yes, to pretend that everything is back to normal, to act like this is the beginning of last summer instead of this one, where you loved him and he didn’t know and everything was alright. But you can’t, because it’s not last summer. It’s this one, and you still love him but he knows now. He fucking knows and just thinking about it makes your heart shake in its cage, holding itself together but unable to stop itself from cracking from within.

Jimin must have known you wouldn’t have agreed. Why did he ask?

“Wait, Y/N, hold up!” 

You’re already halfway out of the makeshift door when you turn around to see Jungkook barrelling after you, leaving Seokjin in the dust as he joins you outside, pulling you away from the entrance instinctively. No one has ever been particularly good at keeping secrets here. 

“Can I help you, Jungkook?” You ask, blinking at him, trying to act as normal as possible. 

“Are you alright?” He leans in close, looking into your eyes, concern washed over his features. 

“Everybody seems to be asking me this,” you say, acting like you don’t know why. “I’m fine.”

Jungkook, for all of his wide-eyed innocence, for the way that he views the world as perfectly imperfect, doesn’t buy it. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” he says. “I don’t know what went down between you and Jimin.”

“Nothing happened,” you say, forcing a laugh just so you don’t sound miserable. 

“Whatever it is, I just want you to know that it doesn’t always have to be like this,” he says, reaching out to take your hand in his own, his calloused thumb rubbing soothingly against your skin. “But you should be honest with your feelings, don’t you think?”

“You and Namjoon both think that I don’t have a handle on this, when I do.” You don’t. And being honest with your feelings is what got you into this mess in the first place. 

“Come on, Y/N, you don’t think we haven’t noticed, have you?” He asks, soft and sad and desperate to get through to you. 

“It’s no big deal,” you insist. “Jimin and I are alright. We’ve always been alright.”

“If you say so…” says Jungkook, no less skeptical than he was when he initiated this conversation. 

“Are we done here?” You ask, already pulling your hand from his grasp so you can go back to your cabin and pretend that the rest of the world doesn’t exist. 

“Yeah,” Jungkook says, resigned as he lets you go. “But you know I’ll always be here for you, right?”

“I know, Jungkook,” you promise, because he always has and he always will be. “Thanks for looking out for me.” You begin to scurry away from the first aid tent, praying that Jimin didn’t hear you and Jungkook and wishing that everything was the way that it used to be.

“Be honest!” Jungkook shouts when you’re a hundred feet away, rushing back towards your cabin. 

Jungkook wants you to be honest?

Telling Jimin that you love him ruined your life. It ruined camp, it ruined your friendship, and it ruined your future. Seeing him now makes your heart ache and your brain dizzy. Every night you replay that conversation in your head, over and over, wondering if there was something that you could have done differently, something that you could have changed so you wouldn’t have ended up like this. Jimin wants to be friends again but you don’t know how to do that without him feeling guilty for not loving you back. 

You want to be honest?

Jimin makes you feel like there is a fire beneath your skin that you can’t extinguish, the flames creeping towards your heart. 

The only solution, it seems, is to smother them. 

The worst part about being in love with Jimin is that he’s impossible to avoid. 

You peer into the mess hall to see if lunch that day is any good and you see him laughing at a table surrounded by elementary schoolers munching on hot dogs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You go hunting in the storage shed for some extra packs of popsicle sticks and find him cleaning out the old flower pots to use in the greenhouse. You lead your group of campers from the arts room to the lake and see him and Taehyung setting up the net for some friendly water polo, laughing as they try to tie each other up in the rope. 

It feels like you’re watching a movie unfold in real time, one where he is the star and you are nothing but a background character, the desperate loser who confessed to him in the beginning of the film just to develop his character arc, make him seem personable and relatable, then forgotten about until the end when you spot each other on the street and nod silently to each other, as if to say you’ve both inexplicably reached a peace between the two of you. 

Is that what the future holds for you? A wordless camp, an empty conversation? Will you simply go the rest of the summer without speaking, then nod to each other right before you leave? Will this be the last time you ever see each other?

The worst part about being in love with Jimin is knowing that just because you want things to be different doesn’t mean they will be. Just because you want Jimin to love you back doesn’t mean he will. Just because you want everything to go back to normal doesn’t mean they will. 

As it turns out, love confessions don’t always end in fireworks.

Park Jimin is impossible to avoid not only because he’s everywhere but also because he is everybody’s best friend, the campers’ favorite counselor and the counselors’ favorite companion. He is kind and thoughtful and electric. He is magnetic. He makes others laugh without even trying, he names the plants in the greenhouse after the people he loves, he stays behind after activities to clean up when no one else will. 

Falling in love with Jimin wasn’t you picking out your favorite traits of his, wasn’t you seeing him do one selfless thing and deciding that he could do no wrong. It was submerging yourself in the lake, little by little before you dive in headfirst. It was catching glimpses of his goodness until you were consumed by it. It was knowing that you prefer yourself when you’re around him.

Falling in love with Jimin was like the heat in summer—endless. 

If only falling out of love with him would be just as easy. 

The weather has been unusually nice today. There isn’t a cloud in the sky as the sun beats down on you, rays peeking through the tall branches and leaves of the spruce and oak trees that surround you, casting hazy shadows on the grass beneath your feet. It isn’t too muggy, isn’t too sticky and sweaty, this perfect medium between warm and hot, between dry and humid. It’s the sort of day that you romanticize every day of summer being, only to realize that summer actually consists of sweating through three different t-shirts and needing to eat your ice cream in ten seconds before it melts into a puddle on the concrete. 

Nonetheless, camp policy has always been that when it’s a beautiful day, the campers are going to spend every hour they’re awake outside, going on nature walks and playing capture the flag and eating watermelon on the splinter-y picnic benches. It’s nice, because it gives you a break from having to tell the kids not to touch the tips of the glue guns, but it also stinks, because it forces you to leave your sweet, air-conditioned paradise in favor of a mosquito-infested summer hell. 

Luckily, the kids have been washing off the summer heat in the cool water of the lake with the counselors that actually prefer being outside, playing volleyball in the shallows or canoeing out where it’s deeper. Sometimes, you wonder why Namjoon will let so few counselors supervise so many campers, and sometimes, you decide that it’s better them than you. 

You take a seat on the picnic bench by Yoongi, who is drinking notably clearer lemonade than in days past, so you assume that Namjoon got the water problem fixed like he promised. The two of you have never been outdoorsy people. Why you’ve been working at a summer camp for the last three years escapes you both. You and him lean back against the edge of the built-in table. From here, you have a perfect view of the lake, clear and blue and filled to the brim with rambunctious children, keeping at least somewhat of a watch over them so that Namjoon can’t shout at either of you for slacking off. 

“You know that Seokjin gave you murky water lemonade earlier, right?” You ask, just to make conversation. 

“I know,” Yoongi says, wholly unfazed. He takes another sip and sighs, feeling refreshed. Without batting an eyelash, he deadpans, “You know that you and Jimin aren’t going to get any better if you don’t talk to each other, right?”

“What are you talking about?” You scoff, playing dumb. 

“Just because all of those other idiots didn’t hear what went down between you and Jimin last summer doesn’t mean I didn’t,” Yoongi mutters monotonously. 

You jerk up, stick straight at his words, eyes wide as you glare at him. He heard you?

Yoongi laughs at your reaction, reclining back impossibly farther. “Relax, I haven’t told anyone. You know it’s none of my business.”

“Well,” you sputter out, “if it’s none of your business then why are you talking to me about it?”

Yoongi frowns. “Because you’re my friend, Y/N. And I hate seeing you like this,” he says, that soft lilt to his voice peeking through the rigid words spilling from his lips. “I feel like I don’t even know who you are anymore. A lot of the other counselors do.”

You purse your lips together, guilty. 

“Especially Jimin.”

“I just need time,” you say, trying to be honest for once in your life. Loving Jimin was never going to go away without a fight. 

“You need to talk to each other,” corrects Yoongi. 

“Talking is what got us into this mess,” you huff out, dejected. Yoongi heard it himself—your confession sent you and Jimin’s relationship down the garbage chute. 

“And talking is what’s going to get you out of it,” Yoongi tells you pointedly, truthfully, in that horrible way where you know that he’s right but refuse to accept it. “Promise me you’ll try?” He reaches out to place a hand atop yours, looking into your eyes with hopeful promise. “We want you back.”

“I’ll try,” you sigh out, because it’s never been worth fighting with Yoongi. Not when he cares so deeply. 

“Try what?”

You and Yoongi whip your heads around to find Jimin standing on the opposite side of the picnic bench, helping himself to a piece of sliced watermelon. 

“Try enjoying the outdoors more,” Yoongi covers for you instantly, making you breathe out a little sigh of relief. “We both hate when Namjoon makes it an outside day.”

“It’s not that bad,” Jimin says with a smile. The only reason Jimin doesn’t mind it is because he gets the best of both worlds—half the day spent inside the first-aid tent, the other spent inside the greenhouse by the woods. “There’s beauty in everything.”

Yoongi scrunches up his nose. “Like that?”

In the distance, you spot three things: Jungkook and Taehyung, laughing evilly as they run down along the rocky beach. The clothes clutched in their hands, crumpled up in their grasps while they hoot and holler. And Seokjin, hair sopping wet and half-naked, with nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist and ugly lime green water shoes on, chasing after them. 

“I’m out,” Yoongi says without missing a beat, grabbing his lemonade and dashing off to safety. Yoongi’s exit leaves you and Jimin standing there, stranded, frozen in place, as Jungkook and Taehyung rush by you, each grabbing a piece of watermelon on their way. Something falls from Jungkook’s hold as they pass you, and Jimin reaches down to pick it up. It’s one of Seokjin’s socks. 

“Give that back, Park Jimin!” Seokjin’s banshee screech rings in your ears. 

“Run,” Jimin says, and you don’t get another say in the matter before Jimin is grabbing your wrist and pulling you along with him, Seokjin’s angry caws echoing throughout the clearing. 

Even though Jimin didn’t even actually steal his clothes from the locker room by the lake, Seokjin has determined that anyone who runs from him is automatically guilty, thus lumping both you and him into a wild goose chase alongside Jungkook and Taehyung, who are almost always the guilty parties when it comes to practical jokes like this. For a few moments, it’s the four of you running across the open field with Seokjin hot on all of your heels, desperate to catch up to at least one of you despite being severely out-matched, both in athletic ability and footwear, and then suddenly Jimin is pulling you behind the shed as Jungkook and Taehyung make a sharp right, headed in the opposite direction. 

Crouched behind the shed, you and Jimin stop for a minute to catch your breath, chests heaving after doing more exercise in the last thirty seconds than you have in the last week alone. You’re pressed up against the back siding, and only after your heart rates finally slow down do you become faintly aware of Jimin’s hand still gripping your wrist, like he’s simply forgotten to let go. 

“You think we lost them?” He asks with a wicked grin, and it’s impossible to avoid his gaze when he’s so close like this, when there’s barely a foot of space between your bodies, when his fingertips still press against your skin. 

“I think so,” you heave out in response. 

“Better stay here for a bit longer just in case,” Jimin says, and it’s the flirty sort of thing that he would say if it were last year, the flirty sort of thing that he would say if you two were friends like you used to be, but you aren’t anymore, and now it feels like Jimin is trying too hard and you aren’t trying hard enough. 

“I… I mean,” you say, pulling your wrist out of his grasp, rubbing at where your skin sizzles from his touch. “We’re probably fine.”

“Are we?” He asks, and this is exactly why you shouldn’t try to talk to him, exactly why talking won’t erase the tension that has settled between you two, repair the cracks in what you are. You’re not fine, because everything changed when you told Jimin that you loved him, and you’ve never been good at adjusting. You’re not fine, because for the first time in your years-long relationship, loving him is getting in the way. 

“I hope we are,” you admit, more to yourself than anyone else. Oh, how you so desperately wish that things were back to normal. Oh, how it would be so easy if only things were just a little bit different. 

“Me too,” Jimin says, and he smiles and, oh, how it makes you feel real and true and whole. He stands back up and reaches an arm out to help you do the same. For once, it doesn’t feel like a Band-aid on top of a stab wound. It feels like a lifeline. 

You let Jimin help you back to your feet, and for some reason your heart feels just a little bit lighter. 

“You think we’re alright?” Jimin asks. 

“Yeah,” You respond with a nod. “I think we will be.”

One thing that Namjoon is big on is interdisciplinary recreation. This is half due to the fact that he attends a private liberal arts school on the east coast and half due to the fact that he doesn’t always trust some of the counselors when it comes to chaperoning a whole group of kids on their own. You aren’t going to name names, but they’re the same people that steal clothes for fun. 

He’s got a list up on one of those massive sheets of lined paper filled with suggestions for all sorts of things that combine two or more of the basic activities the camp offers, ranging from making handmade bird seed treats in the kitchen to put out on nature walks to dodgeball in canoes. Some of Namjoon’s ideas are a lot more feasible than others. 

Namjoon’s never been a pushy person. He’s repeatedly said that he purposely avoids telling people what to do within their activity sectors because he doesn’t want the counselors to think that he’s stepping all over them or doesn’t trust them to come up with their own entertainment. The list in the counselor meeting room is titled: ACTIVITY SUGGESTIONS, bolded and circled, just so everyone knows that he isn’t forcing you to do anything (if you’re being honest, the emphasis on suggestions somewhat works against his whole niche). But sometimes, especially for someone whose greatest fear is stripping away others’ creative freedom, he can be rather insistent. 

Take, for example, the two stacks of plain flower pots left anonymously inside the arts and crafts room when you walk in to set up the activity for the day. You were originally going to have the younger kids color in their own guitars to hang up in the music room—an activity that was not on the activity suggestions list—and give the older ones some clay and let them go to town, but you suppose that decorating flower pots will be just as entertaining. At least you didn’t have to go hunting for the materials. 

The only problem with decorating flower pots is that, once the campers have painted streaks and polka dots and glued charms all over them, the flower pots have a rather specific place to go. A place that is part of a notable Park Jimin’s domain. 

A sneaky little feeling beneath your skin suspects that someone may have let it slip to Namjoon that you and Jimin could do with a bit of relationship repair. And Namjoon and Yoongi have been bunking in the same cabin for as long as you can remember. 

Sighing to yourself as you begin to set up the flowerpots on old newspapers spread out on the wooden tables, you decide that spending an hour with Jimin in the greenhouse (maybe even less if you can find an excuse to get yourself out of there!) couldn’t be any worse than being crouched down behind that cobwebbed old shed with his hand on your wrist and his eyes gazing into yours. At least you’ll have thirty campers to maintain the distance between the two of you. 

You suppose that you do have the easier of the two jobs. Arts and crafts is a rather simple activity to oversee, barring the occasional papercut or glue gun burn. Luckily, painting flower pots means that you will really only have to worry about the campers mod-podging their fingers together, and even then, the bathroom is just down the hall. Jimin, with his having to wrangle the kids to garden neatly and not hit each other with the trowels, is going to have it much harder. 

There’s a part of you that knows you’ll stick around. Not just to lessen the load of campers for him, but just so you can spend a little more time in the same room, breathing the same air, pretending that things are the way that they used to be. 

When you leave the arts and crafts room to hike the ten minutes to the greenhouse, followed by all of the campers dutifully carrying their brand new flowerpots in their hands, you feel like a young bird leaving the nest. Taught to fly little by little, but one day forced to face the real world and exist without the safety net you’ve called home for so long. The arts and crafts room hasn’t always been your favorite place in the camp, but this year it’s felt like you’ve been holding on particularly tight.

Jimin is already waiting happily in the greenhouse for your arrival, this stupid old gardening apron tied around his waist with a faded picture of a cartoon cactus on the front that says free hugs. He watches fondly as all of the kids shuffle into the greenhouse, the whole room just barely big enough to fit all of you, wide eyes peeking out from behind seed packets and green leaves. 

You stay in the back corner as Jimin gets to work, having all of the campers place their pots on the tables in front of them, bright plastic buckets of soil at the ends of their tables, flower seeds waiting to be planted. 

As much as Jimin is fantastic at patching kids up inside the first aid tent, the greenhouse is where he really belongs. The harsh rays of the sun are softened by the glass walls as they beam down on him, surrounding him with this warm yellow halo, painting him into the scenery behind him. Here, amongst the lush vegetables and flowers and ferns, Jimin doesn’t look like an underpaid camp counselor carrying the weight of thirty children on his back. He looks like this fairy in the woods, this forest sprite that has grown up amongst the trees and the moss and the wildflowers, who has learned to tend to the world’s greatest garden. He looks like someone whose mere presence makes the plants smile a little wider. 

Jimin’s like that with everyone. It should come as no surprise to you that the plants feel better when they’re around him, too. 

Jimin has always been so good with kids. More so than any of the other counselors, really, though they all try their best to be fun and friendly and gentle and stern all at once. But there’s something in Jimin’s nature that just makes him the best at it, something about the way he cares for them so deeply, something about the soft lines of his face that earns him their trust the fastest. He’s good with everything that camp throws at him, from frisbees to murky water to lake monsters, but nothing has ever seemed quite as right for him as his connection with the campers. 

The children don’t know how lucky they are to know someone like Jimin. Someone who believes wholeheartedly in the goodness of others, someone who will stop at nothing to fix what has been broken. 

You think about how lucky you are to love someone like Jimin every day of your life.

“Mr. Jimin?” A squeaky little voice pipes up. It’s a young girl named Zoe, whose flower pot is decorated with a painting of her entire family, a group of four stick figures with red shirts and purple dresses holding hands together, loopy smiles drawn onto their faces. 

“Just Jimin, alright?” Jimin corrects. 

“Are you sure these seeds are going to turn into flowers?” Zoe asks, looking skeptically at the packets in front of her. 

Jimin laughs, and it is as warm as the rays of the sun that stream through the glass walls. “I can’t promise that they will, Zoe.”

“Then why are we doing this?” She pouts. 

“Because,” Jimin says, pointing to the packets in front of the campers, “the only way that I can promise that these seeds will turn into flowers is if you guys can promise to love them. Because no matter how much sun they get, no matter how much you water them, they will only bloom if you really, really love them.”

“How do they know?” Another girl pipes up. 

“Flowers are just like us,” Jimin tells her gently. “They can feel when they’re loved, and they love us back by blooming for us.” He shuffles around the back of the greenhouse where he stands, fishing through the shelves lining the walls until he emerges with a rather large pot in his hands, placing it down on the table beside him with a thud. “Take this hydrangea, for example.”

Your breath catches in your throat, the blue flowers flashing before your eyes. 

You planted those together. Last summer. You and Jimin snuck out to the greenhouse while everyone else was eating potato salad for lunch and spent the hour listening to pop songs from the eighties and planting a baby hydrangea. 

They will bloom every year, Jimin said. 

So they’ll always remind us of us, you responded. 

It’s the first time that you and Jimin have looked at each other since you entered the greenhouse. He catches you off-guard, eyes wide as you stare back at him, suddenly feeling this gut-wrenching ache from deep within your belly. And Jimin—

God, Jimin looks like he’s tried everything under the sun and moon to keep that damn hydrangea from wilting. 

“They were planted early last summer. And they bloomed, right? But they look so sad,” Jimin explains, rallying himself and turning his gaze away from you. “And I gave them new soil and watered them regularly, but I’m still missing something.”

“Love!” Zoe shouts. 

“Right,” Jimin says with a tense nod, eyes flickering to yours once more. Your shoulders slump. “But I have a lot of love to give, so hopefully they’ll be alright soon. You guys just have to remember that love is the most important thing that you can give to your flowers. Just like you and me, the flowers need to know that there is someone who loves them.”

But you do know, you want to shout out to him. You’ve known this whole summer and you knew back at the campfire and you probably knew even before that. You’ve known for so long and still the flowers that we planted together are fucking wilting. Like they can’t even bear that this is what we’ve come to. What do you mean, they need to know that there is someone who loves them? You do. And I love you. You must know that, don’t you?

You feel the vines of a thorny rose wrap around your heart, clenching it tight. It’s been in bloom for a year now, thick red petals filling up the empty spaces between your bones, nectar swimming within your veins. And when you picked it, cut it off at its stem to place in Jimin’s hand, it grew only stronger, bloomed only harder.

Oh, if only that hydrangea knew how much you loved him. 

Afterwards, you stay back to help clean up. There’s soil all over the floor, buckets knocked over in the campers’ frenzy to go play games in the gym with Jungkook, discarded paper seed packets and trowels left littered across the tables. 

Jimin doesn’t put on any eighties music. Instead, you stand there in silence, brushing the leftover soil into dust pans and buckets, placing the gardening tools on the rack by the entrance. 

Even though you know flowers don’t wilt that fast, it feels like with every second that passes, the hydrangea is a moment closer to death. The color seems to fade every time you look at them, going from its vibrant pale blue to a sallow green, no longer able to tolerate being in the same room as the two of you. 

Your love doesn’t seem like it’s going to fix it this time. 

“I didn’t know that it was doing so badly,” you say, and the words don’t even feel like they belong to you when you hear them back, making Jimin stop dead where he stands. 

“What?” He asks. 

“The hydrangea.”

Jimin looks over at the pot on the table, and he sighs, helpless. “I’ve tried everything. It just doesn’t seem to be working with me this year.”

It’s no secret to the both of you why. 

“Hopefully you can figure something out,” you offer alongside a half smile. “I would hate to see them die after only a year in bloom.”

“Me too,” Jimin sighs. 

“How have you been?” You ask him, because you never really did get a real answer when you asked him that very first day. And because no matter what you do, you’ll always be curious about him. 

“Alright,” Jimin says, and it’s not a lie. “I’m looking forward to graduating next year.”

“Yeah, me too,” you say, even though you’re only looking forward to the not-being-in-college part of graduating. Not so much the being-chucked-into-the-real-world part. “How’s the major coming along?”

“Well, physics never gets any easier,” Jimin jokes, and even though it’s a little bit forced it makes the two of you both laugh, desperate to get back to the way that things used to be, step by step. “What about you? Still going for English?”

“With a side of business so that I don’t end up a broke poet,” you remind him. “But yeah.”

“Maybe you can write me into one of your stories,” Jimin suggests. 

Oh, but doesn’t he know already? He’s the main character in every single one. All of your poems are about him. He is your inspiration and your muse. He fills up each blank page all on his own. Doesn’t he know? 

“Maybe,” you agree, even though there has never been a ‘maybe’ when it comes to him.

You nearly drop the plastic bucket of soil on your toe when you hear his next question. 

“Have you, uh, been seeing anyone lately?” Jimin scratches at the nape of his neck, clearly nervous. Your heart sinks. Out of all of the possible questions he could ask you to keep this relatively casual conversation going, he chooses that one? 

You look up at him, wondering why on earth he’s asking you this when your love has already been laid out bare in front of him, every corner unfolded so he can read across the lines like a map, memorize the splotches of color. You look up at him and you are helpless, desperate for him to realize that even with thousands of miles and hundreds of days between you, for you, it has always been him.

You wonder if the only reason he’s asking is to see if you were starting to move on. 

“No,” you mutter lifelessly. “I haven’t.” And then, like a devilish whisper in your ear, “Have you?”

You almost expect him to say yes. You almost expect to hear him recount all of the fantastic dates he’s been on, all of the loving relationships he’s been in, but instead, he says, “Me neither.”

And that? That makes your heart stop dead in its tracks. 

“I tried to, you know,” Jimin says, and each word is a puncture wound inside of you. “But I just couldn’t. Nothing really stuck.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” you tell him, because you are. Because Jimin deserves to love someone who will love him back. Someone that isn’t you, someone who hasn’t been hopelessly pining after him for a year. 

“No, it’s alright.” Jimin shrugs. “I’m kind of glad that nothing stuck.”

And if hearing the words “me neither,” leave his lips made your heart freeze up, then hearing these words set it aflame. You don’t respond, instead choosing to let the words etch themselves into your memory, carve themselves into your heart, give you hope, if only a droplet of it. Any is enough to have your heart beating a little faster.

“I miss this,” Jimin breathes out, and if you closed your eyes and pretended that you were somewhere else it would almost sound like a confession. You glance up at him, and he is so empty, clinging hopelessly onto the remnants of things past just like you, and you realize that being honest is really the only option you have left. “I miss doing stuff like this.” 

The with you goes unspoken, but it rings loud and clear in your ears anyway. 

“I miss it too,” you say, because Jimin must know already, doesn’t he? How if you could choose to go on loving him without him ever knowing, then you would do it in an instant? How loving him silently was painful but loving him like this, unbearable. “I feel like it’s been a long time.”

A long time since you both really spoke to each other. A long time since you were friends the way you used to be. A long time since you first began to love him.

“Can’t we go back?” Jimin asks, a foolish question. He should know better than to ask for something he already knows he can’t get. 

“You know we can’t,” you tell him. You’ve already tried.

“Then can we begin again?” He proposes, the two of you meeting in the middle of the greenhouse, right in front of the hydrangea. You hadn’t even realized you were barely three feet away from him until you were already there. “Please? I miss us, Y/N. Don’t you miss us, too?”

Gazing at Jimin, you feel your heart tremble. One thing that hasn’t changed is how weak you are to his touch, to his eyes, to the way that they make every part of you feel like jelly, feel like you’ll collapse without him to hold you up. You’ve never been able to say no to him. It’s one of the things you don’t think you’ll ever outgrow. 

“We can try,” you say, because being honest may be hard, and talking even harder, but now you would rather try to piece yourselves back together than spend the rest of the summer wondering what to do with the shattered remains on the floor, stepping around them instead of cleaning them up, repairing what has been broken. 

It’s like the words are music to Jimin’s ears, the way he lights up, grinning wide and real and true. He inhales and it feels like a breath of fresh air, like a brand new season has come to rest upon the two of you. It feels like relief. It feels like hope. It feels like new.

You hadn’t realized it before, but you’ve been dying to make him smile. 

Next to you, the hydrangea seems just a little bit brighter. 

It’s getting easier. 

No longer are you turning in the opposite direction whenever you see him hanging around the center of camp, praying that he hasn’t spotted you from where you stand. Nor are you making excuses about having to go help Namjoon with something or run back to your cabin whenever he shows up to spend time with you and the other counselors. 

And even though it’s still a little tense when you accidentally look up at the same time and meet eyes, even though it still feels like you two aren’t quite the same, it’s getting easier. 

You’ve even begun to eat lunch together again. 

It’s not exactly like it was before, not like when you would scurry off to the greenhouse or the shed or some other hidden place, spread out a picnic blanket and bask in each other’s company, laughing about anything and everything, but it’s better. It’s better than how it used to be, when you would always bring your lunch back to your cabin to eat in silence, drown yourself in your comforter and your thoughts, letting them pile on top of you, one by one. It’s better than how you used to pretend that you didn’t even know each other. 

Slowly, step by step, things have almost started to feel normal again. 

“You guys seem happier lately,” Taehyung commends mindlessly as he sits down across from you and Jimin, three pieces of meat lover’s pizza on the paper plate he sets on the tabletop. 

You and Jimin smile at each other. You suppose that you have been.

“Three, Tae?” The moment gone too soon, Jimin’s focus is immediately redirected to the behemoth meal in front of Taehyung. “Seriously? Aren’t you lactose intolerant?”

“The meat balances it out,” Taehyung says matter-of-factly, even though it definitely doesn’t. He takes an enormous bite out of one of the slices, eating nearly half the pizza in a single chomp. “But seriously, I mean it. You guys look a lot happier. Yoongi!”

Yoongi freezes in his tracks from where he’s walking by your table, spilling his open soda can all over his plate of pizza at Taehyung’s shout of his name. 

“Don’t you think that Jimin and Y/N seem happier?” Taehyung asks, motioning to the both of you. 

“I don’t know,” Yoongi says with a shrug, aloof as always. You chuckle to yourself, knowing fully well that it was him who got Namjoon to leave two stacks of flower pots in the arts and crafts room to give you an extra push towards talking with Jimin. Taehyung huffs, disappointed but not surprised that Yoongi contributed so little to the conversation, but he doesn’t notice how Yoongi gives you a smile and a thumbs up as he heads over to where Namjoon and Hoseok are sitting. 

“Well, I think you guys do,” Taehyung says pointedly. 

“Did we seem… unhappy to you?” Jimin asks, an eyebrow raised. 

“No,” says Taehyung. “I don’t know, you guys just seemed different. You know, I was talking with Jin and he and I were convinced that the two of you were dating last year and then broke up sometime before this summer because you guys were acting so weird earlier.”

“Really?” You ask, cracking an awkward smile just to keep the mood light because god, Taehyung really is a lot more observant than you give him credit for. “That’s so funny, honestly.” It’s not. “You know that we’re just friends, Tae.”

Next to you, Jimin is staring down his lunch like it’s insulted his family. Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as he opens his mouth to say something, anything, goddamnit, anything that will make you feel like you’re not the only one who wants you two to be friends again. Anything that will remind you that being friends is all you have left because he will never love you back. 

“You could have fooled me,” Taehyung acknowledges. “Seokjin was pretty convinced, too. We even had a bet going to see which one of you would admit it first.”

“You guys bet on us?” Jimin asks, a little horrified and a lot of something else, something that you can’t quite place. 

“Not with money!” Taehyung defends. “Marshmallows for the end-of-camp counselor campfire. But neither of you ever said anything so we ended up just dropping it and ate as many marshmallows as we wanted.”

Oh, if only Taehyung knew. Oh, if only he had heard you that night, heard you pour your heart out in front of that fire. Oh, if only he had noticed, noticed the warm yellow glow that made Jimin look like he had been bathed in candlelight, noticed those roasted marshmallows over the heat, noticed the words that replay in your head like a broken record. 

There’s a part of you that wants to know who Taehyung was betting on. A part of you that is wondering why on earth would either of them ever assume that Jimin would be the one to confess first when he has only ever seen you as a friend and you have always seen him as something more. Seen him as this dream come to life, seen him as the answer to all of your prayers. 

Jimin never would have confessed first. That hasn’t changed. 

“Thinking back, it was kind of stupid of us to bet on you guys when you hadn’t even confirmed anything,” Taehyung says with a sigh, pursing his lips together tightly. “I don’t know. I guess that Seokjin and I both really, really wanted you guys to get together.” He chuckles, but it isn’t funny anymore.

Believe me, Tae, you think to yourself. You guys weren’t the only ones.

“Eh,” Taehyung hums, shrugging to himself. He clearly isn’t as caught up about it as you and Jimin, who wonder every day how different things would be if you had just kept your damn mouth shut that night, if you had never loved him in the first place. “I guess I’m just glad to see you both smiling again.”

“Thanks, Tae,” you say, because even if Taehyung doesn’t know the whole story he’s still hit the nail on the head, and even if he can’t pick up the way that Jimin’s body has tensed up beside you, even if he doesn’t notice how normal feels like the furthest thing to describe the two of you right now, he has always wanted the both of you to be content.

“Makes me kinda sad to know you guys are just friends, even though I’m obviously not going to force you into anything.” Taehyung takes another bite of his pizza, the words just conversational to him even if they clearly aren’t to either of you.

Slowly, Jimin looks back up from his lunch, like he’s finally made up his mind. You meet Jimin’s eyes when he does, and for once you don’t dare jump into the swirling sea of his irises, for once you can hardly tell if the waves are calm or rough. For once, it feels like Jimin is looking at you the way you look at him—helplessly.

Taehyung smiles, looking fondly at the both of you. “You guys would have been cute together,” he says it because he means it. “You make each other so happy.”

He means that part, too.

The end-of-camp show is a longstanding tradition where all of the kids, divided by age group, celebrate the best part about summer and going to a sleepaway camp: being away from their parents. There are dance performances choreographed by the counselors (namely Hoseok, who has the most free time because his other job mainly consists of making sure Namjoon doesn’t lose his head), a guitar performance organized by Seokjin (who has promised not to rickroll everyone this year), and an art show setup by you to display all of the treasures that the campers have created. But your favorite part of the show is how, no matter how much time time is spent practicing and rehearsing, the performance will always end in chaos. The only predictable thing about it is its unpredictability. 

This year, as suggested by Hoseok and immediately implemented by Namjoon, the counselors are being roped into a performance of their own, one that is bound to be even more disastrous because even though you can all listen to directions, you are all also just as capable of purposely disobeying them. 

Part of you suspects that the only reason Hoseok even recommended that you all do this is because he enjoys watching the camp counselor collective crash and burn. Like there’s something cathartic about watching you go up in flames.

Nevertheless, you do it, because if not for yourselves then for Hoseok, and if not for him then for Namjoon, both of whom tirelessly to make sure that camp is a place where you and the other counselors can do the dumbest things without repercussions. If it weren’t for the two of them, camp would be a lot less fun.

Hoseok also just absolutely relishes in being in charge of something, something that involves dancing and singing and performing, which are his favorite things to do, and it would be cruel of all of you to deny Hoseok this opportunity, if only for a silly little camp performance. 

Hoseok manages to wrangle a time and space for rehearsal thanks to one of those magic scientists that perform cool things with chemicals, one that Namjoon has arranged to visit camp to give you and the other counselors a much-needed break from the endless excitement of children. 

And so, you all trickle into the empty counselor meeting room at three in the afternoon exactly, waiting to see what the hell Hoseok has come up with now. 

All of the tables, chairs, and other miscellaneous furniture has been pushed up against the walls, leaving just enough room for all of you to fit relatively comfortably, with Hoseok standing smack in the middle of the room, looking proud. 

“I’m scared,” Hazel admits to you as you pass by Hoseok to stand where the rest of the counselors have gathered. You sneak a peek at the clipboard in Hoseok’s hand, which isn’t empty this time, and is instead filled with sheets of paper that look like they belong in the hands of a sports coach, X’s and O’s and arrows littering the pages. 

“Don’t be,” you say, though the tremble of your voice is probably doing very little to calm her nerves. You end up grouped together with Jimin and Yoongi, who are both standing in silence, waiting for something to pull them out of their thoughts. “Hey,” you say softly, giving Jimin a nudge. 

“Hey,” Jimin responds, face lifting a little when he sees you. From behind him, Yoongi is eyeing the both of you, but he doesn’t seem very worried. Jimin laughs tensely. “I’m nervous about what Hoseok has in mind for us.”

You glance over to Hoseok as he talks animatedly with Namjoon, who looks a little bit in over his head. Namjoon must have known that Hoseok would spare no expense when it came to a counselor performance. 

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad,” you assure him with a squeeze to his wrist, making him smile weakly at you. 

“First Namjoon makes us sit outside, and then he makes us do exercise?” Yoongi huffs. “When will it end?”

“High time he got you out of the damn kitchens,” Jungkook mutters to himself, making all of the other counselors within earshot laugh. Yoongi turns around to give Jungkook half of a noogie before Hoseok claps to get everyone’s attention. 

“Alright, hi everyone!” Hoseok cheers. “Glad you all could make it.”

“Did we have a choice?” Seokjin asks. 

“Nope!” Hoseok grins. “Anyway, as you know, this year Namjoon and I have been thinking of doing a counselor performance at the end-of-camp show to show unity and entertain the kids, since they’re the ones who have been doing all of the work thus far to make the camp show a reality. And I, as your assistant head counselor and dance choreographer, get to set it up!”

“Oh, God,” Taehyung says. 

“It’s not going to be a super serious thing because this is camp and we’re literally performing for prepubescent children, so don’t worry!” He says, doing nothing to ease people’s worries. He turns around to face the chalkboard, and begins to magnet the pieces of paper from his clipboard onto it, page by page, as the rest of you stare on in horror. “But I have come up with a bit of a dance for us to perform…”

“Oh, God,” Seokjin repeats dramatically. 

“Anyway,” Hoseok says, clapping his hands together once more to redirect everyone’s attention from the mess on the board back to him. “It’ll be a bit of a partner dance for the first half, and then everyone gets about five seconds worth of a solo in the middle where you can do whatever you want—” when Hoseok spots Jungkook, Taehyung, and Seokjin already beginning to scheme, wicked smiles widening, he quickly adds, “—within reason, and then a big old group thing to finish it up. Does that sound good?”

“Whoop,” Yoongi deadpans.

“Great!” Hoseok says, fumbling for another piece of paper in the stack that he still has left on his clipboard. 

“God, a partner dance?” You ask awkwardly, feeling noticeably more worried than before. It’s not that you’re dreading having to dance, or even having to perform in front of a bunch of kids, it’s the idea of having to dance with someone else, a specific someone else in particular, that has your stomach doing flips. “Why did Hobi think that was a good idea?”

“It might be fun, don’t you think?” Jimin says, trying to keep the mood light. It’s clear he has no worries about the potential for being paired up with you, which might have been able to fly last year but this summer, you’re not so sure. You and Jimin just managed to start eating lunch together again without wanting to curl into a ball and hide. What’s going to happen if you have to dance with each other?

“I’m not a very good dancer,” you admit, a weak excuse for your real fear. 

“Then I’ll teach you,” Jimin says, and the words are hopeful and filled with light as he works so desperately to remind you that not all has been lost. That you can begin again. 

“Okay, partners,” Hoseok says, looking at his list. “Namjoon and Yoongi, Jungkook and Seokjin, Taehyung and Hazel, Maria and Ruby, Jia-yi and Quinn, and Jimin and Y/N.”

Shit. 

Yoongi, noticing your alarm, immediately interrupts, “Uh, is it possible for us to switch partners?”

“Why?” Hoseok asks innocently. 

And in that split second, that moment of pause, you look from the wide-eyed Yoongi to Jimin, who is gazing back at you like he’s finally got it right, like he’s finally been given an opportunity to fix what you had broken, to repair your relationship, brick by brick, if only for a stupid counselor performance. Jimin, who is smiling and smiling and smiling because you are finally eating lunch together and you are finally watering that damn hydrangea and you finally get to dance together, and everything in the world is slowly beginning to feel right, the dust is beginning to settle after a month’s worth of storms. 

You inhale, then you exhale, and you say, “I’m fine with my partner. I don’t think we need to switch, do we?”

And you swear, your heart feels lighter already. 

Jimin pops into the arts and crafts room more often these days. Sometimes he actually does it because he needs to drop something off, because a camper left something in the greenhouse or because Namjoon is making him, but most times, he does it just to say hi, just to charm all of the campers as they make collages out of old magazines or glue together fabric for no-sew pillows. 

And every time he does it, every time there is that familiar knock on the door, you nearly tumble over yourself from excitement. The best part about it is how normal it’s all beginning to feel, how familiar it is. You are almost back to where you used to be. 

Almost back to when you loved him, and he didn’t know, and everything was alright. 

Today, the kids are making cards for you to mail back home before the summer is done, before camp comes to a close and they return to their lives and you return to yours. Normally, you’d automatically send the letters back to the parents, but this time, you offer up an alternative. 

“These cards are going to be mailed back home to the people that you love,” you say, holding up your own as an example. It’s a basic one, yellow cardstock with daisies made out of construction paper glued onto it, but it serves as a good guideline for whatever the campers want to do with their own. “You just need to provide their address so that we can make sure it gets to the right person.”

“It doesn’t have to be our parents?” One boy asks.

“Nope,” you say with a smile, shaking your head. “You can send it to anyone you love. It’s just to let them know how you are, and that you miss them.”

“Who are you sending yours to?” A different girl, Rose, asks. 

“I’m not sure yet,” you say, because you don’t really need to let your parents know how you are when you text each other constantly, and all of your friends from back home can see all of the shenanigans you get up to on your social media, but a letter is no fun if only one person ever gets to read it. 

“You should send it to Jimin,” Rose suggests matter-of-factly, making you sputter out the water you were taking a sip of all over the table in front of you. 

“Jimin?” You repeat, forcing a smile. “I see Jimin all the time.”

“But you really like him, don’t you?” She asks, even though she obviously already knows the answer. Goddamn, kids pick up on everything. “I can tell.”

“Is that so?” You return, eyebrows raised. 

“Yeah, me too!” The boy chirps up. “You always look so nervous whenever he comes to say hello. Like you don’t know what to say. That’s what my mom looks like whenever she comes home from a new date with a boy she really likes.”

You do? That is news to you. 

“It’s okay, though,” Rose interrupts. “I think that he really likes you too. Otherwise he wouldn’t just be popping in every other day to say hello!”

“Maybe he really likes seeing you guys, instead!” You offer, feeling your cheeks heating up at the thought that you and Jimin have laid yourselves out bare like a board book for everyone to read. 

“I don’t think so. He looks too happy when he sees you.” The girl shakes her head. “You should send your card to him, so he knows that you love him.”

Oh, he knows, that’s for sure, you think to yourself. There’s no way that Jimin hasn’t already realized that you still love him. That you have always loved him. Even the campers have it figured out, and they’re still in elementary school. But you think that the worst part of this, the worst part of all of these freakishly observant children verbally beating you up with reminders of your relationship with Jimin, is how they seem to think that Jimin likes you back. That Jimin sees you as something more. 

Because he didn’t, last year. And he didn’t, earlier this summer. And there is no way things have changed that much. 

“You guys should keep working on your cards,” you say, desperate for the subject to drop, desperate to talk about anything, literally anything, besides Jimin. “We want to send them by the end of the week so that the people you love will get them before camp’s over.”

“So you do like him!” The boy exclaims. 

“Cards, Oliver!” You reprimand him, earning a chorus of giggles, though there is no mistaking the way your body has tensed, the way your words are shaking. No mistaking how your heart trembles at the thought of Jimin, sweet, wonderful, beautiful Jimin, actually liking you back. 

It can’t be. 

You and Jimin have always just been friends. That’s all you’ll ever be. You swear. 

You swear.

“The hydrangea looks better,” you comment as you enter the greenhouse, eyes immediately darting towards the pot on the table at the front. In it, the hydrangea has blossomed fully, its petals a vibrant sky blue, basking in the faint glow of the sun as it streams into the greenhouse, peeking between the misty gray clouds, painting everything with a hazy yellow warmth. 

“It does, doesn’t it?” Jimin asks from where he’s wrestling with an enormous packet of soil, pausing his battle to turn and look at the blossom, smiling to himself. “I think we must have worked some sort of magic.”

“Or maybe it’s just your expert gardening skills,” you tease, hauling in some plants by the door that Jimin has been meaning to bring inside the greenhouse for days now. “I’m not in here enough to make any sort of noticeable difference.”

Jimin scoffs disbelievingly. “You’re in here almost as much as I am nowadays.”

“Just to help out,” you defend weakly, pouting to yourself. It’s not like you’ve completely abandoned your air-conditioned arts and crafts room to fool around in the balmy greenhouse, soil underneath your fingernails and seeds stuck to your clothes. You just prefer to spend your free time here. Nothing criminal about that.

Plus, Jimin sure doesn’t seem to mind. 

“And for that, I thank you,” says Jimin with a grin, the bag of soil finally beginning to cooperate with him. He hauls it over his shoulder to bring into the back room, where he keeps all of the bigger tools and plants that are too advanced for the campers, and you pretend not to ogle the way his biceps bulge as he carries the soil away, the bag easily fifty pounds or more. 

What? You didn’t fall in love with Jimin just because of his electric personality. 

“Besides, you come into the arts room so often that all the kids are starting to think you work there instead of here,” you remind him pointedly. He laughs, and the sound bounces off of the glass walls, filling up the room. 

Jimin comes out of the back room, a little bit of soil smudged onto his cheek from his gloves, and he’s smiling. “Maybe I just like seeing you.”

“Next time we do a craft I’ll make sure to prepare an extra one so you can do it with us,” you joke, ignoring the way his words warm you from the inside out, convincing yourself that this is what it was like last year, too, so Jimin doesn’t mean anything by it. 

Convincing yourself that Jimin has never loved you the way that you love him. 

“Am I going to be allowed to sit next to you?” He asks as he walks up to where you’re working, that same flirty lilt to his voice, that teasing tone that he always used to use on you, especially whenever it came down to spending time together. 

“Only if you’re good,” you chide in response, leaning over to pick up a flower pot just so you don’t have to see his damn face, so you don’t have to see the way his eyes glint in the sun as he toys with you, as he presses all of your buttons with ease.

Obviously, you had seriously miscalculated how far away he was, because by the time you’re standing up straight he’s right behind you, playfully pinching at your waist, the sensation sending an electric jolt through your veins. You jump and gasp at the feeling, nearly dropping the goddamn flower pot, body suddenly turning to jelly. Behind you, Jimin is in stitches. 

“I could have dropped this!” You scold him as he doubles over in laughter, giggling and giggling and giggling, so much so that you can’t even pretend to be angry at him, too endeared by his happiness, by his pure joy, to shout at him any more. 

“You’ve always been so ticklish, Y/N,” Jimin says between puffs of air, trying to catch his breath.

“I am not! You just surprised me!” You defend, even though Jimin’s right and he knows it. Your outrage leaves him in hysterics still, amused by the way you so easily fall right into his trap.

“Whatever you say,” he singsongs, helping you haul in the last of the flowerpots. “I think that’s the last of them.”

“Next time I show up, a whole different part of the greenhouse will need work,” you say with a sigh, because no matter how much you do, no matter how much you clean and reorganize, there will always be something left. 

“The work is never done,” Jimin says with a smile, having already resigned himself to this fate. “But I think it looks pretty good.”

And looking at the greenhouse, looking at the vibrant hues that fill the room, from the rich golden marigolds to the bright pink lilies, from the rich green leaves to the soft blue hydrangea, you have to agree. It’s no wonder why Jimin loves this place so much, spends so much time in it despite its severe lack of circulation and the absence of reliable shade. It’s because everything in here he has had a hand in making. Everything in here is here because of him. 

This place will never not remind you of him. 

“It’s getting late,” Jimin says, checking his watch. “You think they have dinner ready for us?”

“God, I hope so,” you say with a sigh. “I’m starving.”

“Then shall we feast?” He asks, holding his arm out for you to take. 

You wrap your arm around his own, and you grin. “We shall.”

Then the thunder cracks, and the sky begins to sob. 

You’re barely three feet out the door before you feel the wet splotches on your shoulders, cold drops on your skin, made thicker by the leaves above your head, forcing you to retreat back into the greenhouse. Thanks to the glass, the raindrops that hit the rooftop ring like mallets on a drum, booming and loud, echoing throughout the room. 

“Damn,” Jimin says, staring out at the once sunny clearing, now shrouded in a grey haze. “It was sunny two minutes ago.”

“It’s just a summer storm,” you assure, arm still wrapped up tight in his own. “They never last long.”

“Think we should wait it out?” He asks. 

“Whatever you want to do.”

Jimin grins, squeezing you tight. “How about this? Five minutes, and if it doesn’t stop, we make a run for it?”

You nod. “Five minutes.”

Five minutes pass and the rain has no intention of letting up, seemingly getting heavier as you count down the seconds, the light grey fog that has blanketed the clearing turning to an angry deep blue, thick and endless. The alarm on Jimin’s watch goes off, signifying your wait’s end, and you open your mouth to suggest that maybe you should wait here a little longer, but barely get the first letter out before Jimin is flinging open the door to the greenhouse and pulling you out into the rain. 

You shriek as the drops hit you, little pellets of water striking you like beads, soaking your clothes and your skin everything in between. Jimin looks back from where he’s running in front of you, one hand still wrapped around your wrist, and his hair is in strands and his shirt is sticking to his torso, and you don’t think that, in your three years of knowing him, you’ve ever seen him happier. He pulls you out into the rain and he looks like a shot from a movie scene, looks like the hero in a coming-of-age film, letting the rain wash away his worries and his insecurities, letting himself be reborn beneath the crying sky. 

And he stops, and you stop, and you stand there in the pouring rain just looking at each other, picturesque frames, moments in time, letting the water soak into your skin, letting it trickle down your cheeks, decorating your eyelashes. You feel his hand sink down to your own, feel your fingers intertwine. And he is smiling, God, he is smiling so fucking wide, smiling at you like there is no place he would rather be, smiling at you like you smile at him when you think he isn’t looking, like you are the reason he is filled with light. Jimin stands there in the rain with his hand on your wrist and droplets of rain dotting his skin, and he is brand new. And you watch him, watch the way it rains down upon him, and you wonder what the hell he is thinking. 

You wonder what on earth he sees when he looks at you. 

(Is it the same as what you see when you look at him?)

“Aren’t you cold?” You ask him, feeling like your voice is a distant melody, feeling like it’s coming from somewhere else. 

He shakes his head, and you can see the rain spraying from the ends of his hair, soaked strands framing his face. “Isn’t this wonderful?” He asks up to the sky, tilting his head up to let it rain down upon him, let the droplets drizzle down his cheeks. “Don’t you love it?”

“It’s nice,” you admit, because there’s something refreshing about being here, about being caught in the midst of a summer storm, washing away the dirt and sweat and worries. 

“It’s perfect,” Jimin corrects, voice trampled by the rain, thick and heavy. “I feel like this is just what I needed.”

“Needed for what?”

He looks back at you, looks at the way your bodies are still connected, at the way you’re standing barely a foot apart in the pouring rain, and he grins and says, “Just what I needed to know.”

You don’t have time to ask him what he needs to know, what he has been so desperate to learn, before he’s pulling you back into him and up onto the deck, wet footsteps on the wooden porch as you heave yourselves out of the rain and into the counselor meeting room, drenched from head to toe. 

“Oh my God, what the hell happened to you guys?” Seokjin asks, shocked when he spots the two of you, still holding hands. 

“Got caught in the rain,” you say sheepishly, still feeling out of breath. 

“In the rain?” Taehyung asks. “For how long?”

“Long enough,” Jimin answers this time, finally letting you go to run towards the back of the room. You watch helplessly as he does, your hand clenching around nothing, missing his touch. When he returns, he’s got a dry windbreaker in his hand, crumpled up from being in his backpack for so long. “Here, use this,” he says, placing it over your shoulders, pulling the collar tight at your front. 

“Thanks,” you say breathlessly, wondering what the hell Jimin is going to use to dry himself off, clothing so soaked not even a day in the sun could dry it. 

“That was fun,” Jimin says, fixing the windbreaker over your shoulders to make sure it’s covering as much of you as possible. “Who knew, right?”

“Right,” your voice trails off, too focused on the way his brows are furrowed as he tries to dry you off with a jacket made of fabric meant to repel water rather than absorb it, mouth pressed into a pout as he shuffles it around, drying off whatever he can. 

“Maybe we can do it again sometime,” he says when he’s satisfied, gazing into your eyes, trying to get you to gaze back into his own. When you falter, he chuckles, this little huff of air dispelled from his lungs. “I’m gonna go bother Hoseok for something dry. Don’t stay in those clothes too long, or you’ll catch something.”

With that, he disappears into the other room, soggy footsteps leaving prints in his wake. You’re so busy watching his back disappear from view that you don’t even notice Namjoon coming up to you, a sage expression written all over his face. 

“What?” You challenge, not liking the way he looks so suspicious. 

“Nothing,” he says with a laugh and a shake of his head. “I just… don’t know if you really do have anything to worry about when it comes to him.” He nods his head in the direction of Jimin before vanishing, called over by Seokjin and Jungkook to complain to him about something, leaving you floundering in the doorway to the counselor’s room. 

Does Namjoon know something you don’t?

Are you missing something here?

Because as far as you’re concerned, you and Jimin are finally getting back to where you used to be. As far as you’re concerned, you and Jimin did these same things last year, worked in the greenhouse together, planted flowers together, ate lunch together (okay, maybe you didn’t stand in the pouring rain together), and you are positive Jimin didn’t love you back then. As far as you’re concerned, this isn’t different. This is normal. 

Outside, the rain has stopped, a rainbow hidden behind the trees the only reminder that it was ever there in the first place. 

Despite the fact that you will literally only be performing for a bunch of children, Jimin is insistent on teaching you how to dance. 

At least, that’s it looks like, when he asks you to meet him in the counselor’s room one day half an hour before the mandated practice that Hoseok’s arranged for the whole group of you while the all the campers are off on a nature hike with some of the local rangers from the reserve nearby. You don’t know why this couldn’t wait until during practice, when Hoseok puts on some upbeat dance music and lets everybody do what they want, which usually ends up in someone getting twirled (usually Seokjin), but you don’t really mind. Your other option was to lie around in your cabin waiting for the next social event. 

Jimin’s already inside by the time you arrive, this smooth, soft jazz playing from the little speaker that he brought with him, set up on a table at the front of the room. The furniture hasn’t been moved back to their original spots since the first practice, so anytime Namjoon calls a meeting everyone ends up sitting on the floor like a kindergarten class, but at least it makes dance practice easier. 

Even though he’s not really dancing, his body is still moving, absorbed in the music as it echoes around the room, hips swaying and head bobbing. He loses himself in the melody so easily, letting each and every note pluck along to the strings of his heart, this deep, mellow sound that fills him up like a wine glass, dulcet and sweet. 

“Hey,” you say softly from where you stand, watching him from the doorframe. 

Jimin jumps a little bit at the sound of your voice, almost embarrassed that he hadn’t spotted you sooner. “Hey,” he says in return, coming to a halt. “I didn’t, uh, see you there.”

“That was kind of the point,” you joke, walking into the room and joining him where he stands in the center. “Why did you want me down here?”

“You mean I need a reason to see you now?” Jimin teases in return, a little smirk playing along his lips. You frown, narrowing your eyes at him, unimpressed. He gives. “Alright, you got me. I promised you a dance lesson, didn’t I?”

“This isn’t the kind of music that Hoseok puts on, though,” you point out, even as Jimin intertwines his hand in your own and pulls you in close to him, the two of you stepping in time to the beat, not too slow but not too fast, either, this even, steady swing, the sort of thing an old bar would play during the evening rush. Jimin doesn’t pay your comment any attention, instead focusing on his hand on your side, your fingers laced together between your bodies. 

You have, admittedly, never been much of a musical person. You never go out to clubs because sweaty, drunk people just aren’t your style, you don’t ever dance, and you can barely keep a beat when you sing in the shower. Your body has always been stiff as stone despite your (and your friends’) best attempts to achieve otherwise, and as such, you had long resigned yourself to the fact that you do better with your mouth than with your feet. 

But still, Jimin rallies on, because you’re here, goddamnit, and even if you never dance again after this, at least you can say that you have. He moves you around the room in time with the honeyed melody, even daring to pull some advanced tactics like spinning you beneath his touch, hand held above your head as you twirl in place. And you try to let loose, try to lose yourself in the music like he does, but it’s hard when you have always been more of a wordsmith than a dancer.

What’s also not helping is how every bone in your body always seems to freeze up at his touch. 

“Relax, alright?” He says, guiding you across the old wooden floor, boards creaking beneath your feet. “It’s just me.”

That’s the problem, your brain supplies unhelpfully. 

“I told you that I wasn’t a very good dancer,” you say bashfully, unable to look Jimin in the eye when he is so close, when his body is practically pressed up against yours, when his fingertips leave burn marks where they press against his skin, sparks flying. 

It’s different than when it was raining, because when it was raining, even though you were close, there were other things for Jimin to look at besides you. He gazed up at the sky and thanked it for its tears, gazed around the clearing and surrounded himself in the navy blue haze, closed his eyes and felt the drops on his skin, felt them wash away his nightmares and replace them with dreams. 

It’s different now, because there is nothing impressive about the counselor room. Because the janky old tables and dirty windows aren’t something to be gazed at. Because Jimin’s focus is on you and only you, and it makes you feel like he’s staring right through you, like he’s gawking at your heart where it sits in its cage, trembling beneath his eyes. Jimin makes you want to board yourself up, wall yourself in, and reveal yourself bare all at once, like there is so much that he already knows but so much more that he could, if only things were just a little bit different. 

“You’re doing just fine,” Jimin promises, voice as soft as his steps, padding on the hardwood. You’ve lost track of the number of times you’ve circled the room, Jimin guiding you without reason or rhyme, just rhythm. He makes sure you’re always looking at him, reaches a hand out to tilt your chin back up if you dare glance away, keeping his steely gaze trained on you, determined to have you do the same. “Isn’t this nice?” He murmurs. 

“It is,” you agree. You don’t even have to think about your response, letting the words fall off your tongue, because even if you do feel tense, even if your bones are stiff, there is something about this that sets you at ease. 

And you stay like that, wrapped up in each other, swaying to the beat of this song, a beat that is strikingly similar to the drums of your hearts, and the moment feels as though it’s freezing. Feels as though the rest of the world is fading away, leaving only the two of you and the warm, rich tune that floats through the air, slowing down as time seems to come to a halt. 

“Do you still miss us?” You breathe, and you can see the words as they leave your lips, see them written out in puffs of smoke between you before they fade into nothingness. 

“No,” Jimin responds, equally as speechless. The word disappears quickly in front of you, replaced by his next ones, “because this is what I had been waiting for.”

The words stare down at you angrily, your eyes raking over them, line by line, letter by letter, hoping to imprint them into your skin and your brain and your heart, hoping to keep them locked up besides your love for you to replay, over and over, one of many memories that keep you up at night, that you flicker back to watch like an old film, reminiscing of who you used to be, what you used to do. 

They disappear far too quickly, and suddenly time begins again, and you get dizzy just from how much the rest of the world needs to catch up, whizzing by you in fast forward. Or maybe you’re just dizzy because Jimin has always made you feel this way, always left you gasping for air, weak in the knees, heart pounding. 

God, he makes your heart pound. He makes it drum in your ears like the Nutcracker, like thunder during a summer storm. 

“Don’t you want…” he asks, trailing off, eyes hazy and deep, absolutely unreadable. 

“Want what?” You respond, and you swear you aren’t doing it on purpose but you feel yourself leaning forward, closing the gap between you, inch by inch—

“Want to see me lift Seokjin up in the air?” Jungkook’s voice rings out into the room. “I can, you know, he weighs like two pou—whoa, alright.”

A hoard of people stop behind Jungkook as he stands in the doorway like a floundering fish, blinking at you and Jimin. His arrival does not give you enough time to part without things looking suspicious, without all of the damn counselors already making their assumptions, leaving the two of you separating awkwardly, smiling tensely. 

“What were you guys doing?” Taehyung asks, breaking the silence that has blanketed the room. 

“Practicing,” you say quickly, looking as far away from Jimin as possible. Not even you are buying into your excuse. 

“Sure thing,” Taehyung responds, eyebrows raised in understanding, already having formulated his own, likely more realistic answer. 

“Alright,” Hoseok says, appearing from behind the crowd with a clap of his hands. “I guess that means that Y/N and Jimin don’t need to be joining us today, off you guys go.” He gestures for the two of you to leave, but the only exit doubles as the entrance, which means the two of you are left to shuffle past a crowd of counselors, all of whom are staring at you as you pass them by. Jimin doesn’t reach out his hand, and you don’t make any attempts at changing that. 

You nearly suffocate on the way out, overwhelmed by the tension that has filled the atmosphere, leaving everyone helpless to it. 

Jimin goes in one direction and you go in the other, the both of you clearly too stupefied to say anything meaningful to each other, determined to spend the rest of the night apart in an effort to dispel the dozen rumors that you know have already begun to circle the camp. 

On your way back to your cabin, alone and lost in thought, you finish your conversation. 

“Do you want…” Jimin asks, voice trailing off. 

“Yes,” you say. “I want it all. I want you.”

You wonder if Jimin feels the same. 

There is something eerie about the camp late at night, when the only lights that shine are the dim yellow wall sconces outside of the cabin doors, when everyone is sound asleep in their bunks, when there is only the moon and its stars to keep you company, watch over you from their place in the universe. There’s something eerie about the quiet, not because you have a reason to feel unsettled but because you’re so used to camp being this lively, bustling place, filled with things to do and people to see. 

When you see it like this, empty and silent, it almost makes you think you aren’t even in the same place anymore. 

The one and only place that you go when you cannot sleep is the pier, extending out over the lake, the cool, clear lake, looking out into the midnight horizon, a perfect view of the stars and their reflections, cast over the water, twinkling endlessly. You take a seat on the edge, legs dangling over the water, and you stare out into the world, a cool breeze tickling your skin. 

You wonder what it is that’s keeping you awake tonight. What it is that is holding sleep just out of your grasp, your dreams suspended above your head. Camp ends in three days and for once you finally feel satisfied, feel as though you have done what you wanted and accomplished what you had hoped. The last few days of this summer are a far cry from those of last summer, where you were wearing yourself thin thinking about your confession, thinking about what you would say and when you would say it, and what you would do based on the fifteen thousand different things that Jimin could say in response, so hung up on telling him that you barely focused on anything else. 

But this summer, you and Jimin are finally starting to be alright again. And even though you don’t think you will ever move on from loving him, you have moved on from the fact that he will probably never love you back, moved on from your failed confession, and you are learning to be okay with what you have, even if it’s not what you want. 

The truth is that you and Jimin have never felt closer. Driven by your mutual desperation to be friends again, to return to the way that things were when you were together, when you were inseparable, you have been pulled together like moths to each other’s flames, like the thunder and the lightning. You can’t think of anything from this summer that you have wanted more than to be by his side again. But things are different from last summer, different because you and Jimin are not only friends but friends who have had to reckon with love, with its disastrous effects. 

So maybe that’s why you’re awake tonight. Because this summer feels inexplicably stranger than last summer, and you feel like you’re missing something. 

“I thought I’d be the only one still awake.”

You whip your head around at the voice to find Jimin standing at the other end of the pier, ink black hair hanging over his eyes, stars swimming in his irises. You can barely make out his face this late at night, when there is nothing to cast upon him a glow besides the moon and its lonely companions, but you will never mistake his soft, honeyed voice, never mistake the way his eyes sparkle and shine. He is grinning at you, warm and kind, as he slowly makes his way towards you, footsteps tapping along the worn wooden planks, until he sits down next to you, feet hovering above the water. 

“You and me both, I guess,” you feel yourself whisper, not daring to speak a decibel louder. 

“Lots on your mind?” He asks, looking out into the horizon. You sigh, too tired to respond. He understands anyway, just like he always does. “Mine too.”

You let the silence wash over you like a wave that bathes the shoreline, gazing out into a world that carries on no matter the time of day, no matter who watches over it. Like this, you and Jimin don’t need to explain yourselves to each other. Don’t need to force a conversation just for the sake of filling up the quiet night. Like this, your presence is enough, the knowledge that he is here beside you, staring out into the same sky, into the same moon and stars, is all that you need. 

Something has long gone unspoken between the two of you. Something that you can’t quite place. Jimin has had something to say for a long time but he lets his body do the talking, lets you fill in the gaps. But this time, it feels like the more you try to read between the lines the less you understand, and goddamnit you wish that he would just tell you, would just say it so you don’t have to keep wondering and wondering and wondering—

“I never did tell you,” Jimin says, breaking you out of your reverie.

“Tell me what?”

“Tell you what I was thinking, that night.”

He doesn’t need to elaborate any further for you to know what night he’s talking about. You stare down at the lake, at the way it seems to move into itself even though there is nothing to disturb it. 

“I guess I was just so shocked that you, you know, liked me like that, that I didn’t really focus on anything else. Didn’t think about why, or how, or when, or what to do. It existed separately from all of that,” he admits, breaths heavy. 

“You didn’t need to focus on that stuff,” you assure him softly. “It was my burden to hold. I was the one who chose to tell you. It wasn’t your fault.”

Does he know? Does he know that you never hated him for not loving you back? That you didn’t expect him to do anything about it? 

“I just felt so bad,” he says, and you hear the way the words prick at his tongue, leave burn marks along his lips. “Because I didn’t know what to do after that. I wanted to love you back so badly but I just couldn’t.”

And even though you already knew this, even though you were already well aware that Jimin has always only seen you as a friend, for some reason hearing him say it aloud still hurts, still pierces your heart, wounds that your love for him alone cannot fix. 

“It’s not your fault,” you promise him, because throughout all of this, no matter what, you have never, ever blamed him for not loving you back. “I didn’t expect anything. At all. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

“Don’t I, though?” Jimin asks, and God, he sounds so helpless, sounds like he’s tried everything under the sun to figure things out and still, nothing has felt right. “We had always been so close. I wondered why I couldn’t fall in love with you and the things that we did together when you could. I thought that I was doing something wrong. You deserved someone who would love you back, and I so desperately wanted to be that person.”

“You owed me nothing,” you declare. “You still don’t owe me a damn thing. All I wanted was for you to know.” And look where that got you.

“Knowing didn’t feel like enough,” Jimin divulges. “I wanted to do more for you than just acknowledge it. I replayed that night in my head, over and over, wondering what more I could have said to you.” He sighs, deep and slow and filled with weight, filled with a year’s worth of thoughts he never told anyone else. “You told me you loved me and it was all I could think about. Then and now.”

“You still think about it?” You wonder aloud, sad because Jimin doesn’t deserve to have this weight on his conscience when you are the one at fault, and hopeful because maybe, just maybe, your confession meant just as much to him as it did to you. 

“I can’t stop,” he confesses. And then he turns to you, turns to you in the glow of the moon, his eyes drowning in starlight, and he says, “Every time I look at you I think about how you love me.”

You don’t know what to say. You are too absorbed in the swirling sea of his irises, letting the warmth wash over you in waves, filling you up before emptying out again, shocks of cold before the heat races through you. Jimin is right there, right here, and he is gazing at you and you wonder. 

You wonder, what if. 

You wonder, what if he loved me back?

“Even when I was away from you I thought about it,” he chuckles to himself, amused at his own obsession. “I thought about you, that night, at the campfire. You were wearing this neon pink camp t-shirt and your marshmallow looked like coal and you had this warm orange glow on you, and I swear to God, that image is imprinted in my brain. I see it every time I close my eyes.”

You didn’t know that. 

“When I went on dates, I saw you instead. I would be sitting in a booth with some girl and she would be trying to talk to me about the menu and all I would see is you.” Jimin exhales, filling the pauses that he leaves between his sentences, eyes raking you up and down as if he’s trying to commit this scene to memory, as if this night on the pier is something worth remembering. “They knew, too. All of them told me that I should get over my ex before going on a brand new date.” 

Get over you? What about you was there to get over? Your love has always been one-sided. You have never known a world where it hasn’t.

“And I wouldn’t even try to explain to them that I didn’t have an ex to get over, and that you were the one who confessed to me, and that I didn’t love you like that,” he forces another laugh, like he doesn’t even believe the words he’s saying himself. “Then this summer rolled around, and I saw you arrive and I just can’t tell you in words how happy I was to see you. How looking at you just lifted my spirits.”

“I hardly recognized you at first,” you admit shyly. 

“I dyed my hair,” Jimin reminds you. That’s right. He had brown hair last summer. “And I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t know how to without bringing up all the shit that happened last year, and things were awkward between us, and I guess…” he trails off, thinking for a moment. “I guess I just really, really wanted us to get back to the way things were, but I didn’t know how to. And I didn’t know what had changed.”

“Nothing changed,” you say, even though everything did. But loving Jimin has always been a constant in your life, a truth, and this summer was no different. “I wanted to go back to being friends with you, too.”

“I thought I wanted that, too.”

This time, you are the one who turns to look at him. What could he possibly mean by that? 

(Can it be?)

“At first, that’s all I wanted,” Jimin begins. “I wanted us to go back to being friends, I wanted us to eat lunch together and have it not be weird, I wanted us to spend time in the greenhouse and the arts and crafts room together, I wanted us to hang around the rest of the counselors without them noticing how different we were. But then I noticed that the hydrangea was wilting no matter what the fuck I did to keep it alive, and I realized that wanting our friendship back wasn’t enough for me anymore.”

You are frozen in place. You are locked into his gaze, body turning to stone, unable to even utter a single word. To breathe a single breath. And you look into his eyes, Jimin’s beautiful, ocean eyes, Jimin’s sparkling, ink eyes, and you pray. 

“And then Hobi partnered us up for the stupid camp counselor performance, and we got caught in the rain, and then we danced in the counselor meeting room and I just—” His chest heaves, words flounder. As if he has so much to say, as if the words are practically spilling off of his tongue, and yet they are still not enough. He closes his eyes. Pauses. Catches his breath. And then he asks, “If I asked you if you still loved me, would you say yes?”

“Yes,” you breathe out. 

“If I asked you if you wanted me to love you back, would you say yes?”

“Yes,” you whisper again. 

Jimin blinks.

“If I asked you if you wanted me to kiss you, would you say yes?”

You barely get out the first letter before Jimin is pulling you into him and pressing his fiery lips upon yours. His hand cradles your cheek, the other one splayed out on the wooden pier to keep his balance, dragging you into a messy, desperate kiss, one that sends sparks ricocheting throughout your body, turning your blood into liquid flames, that fills you up from the inside out. The feeling of his lips pressed upon yours makes your heart shake so wildly in its cage that it frees itself, growing a thousand times wider. The rose inside of you vanishes, finds itself replaced by a blooming, bright blue hydrangea, one that settles deeply within your soul. 

Your legs dangle off the pier as your arms wrap around Jimin’s body, curling around his torso in a futile effort to bring him closer than he already is, to feel the warmth of him press against you, sending jolts down your spine, into your bones. You feel yourself getting dizzy just at the feeling alone, kiss drunk, the rest of the world spinning like a goddamn teacup ride, but you cling onto him and you know that he will always be there to catch you if you fall. You know that he will always be there to steady you when you feel the world slipping out from beneath your feet. 

You have him, you have him, you have him. You have him, and he is right here, and he loves you like the sun loves the moon, and you love him like the waves love the shore.

When you part, you almost lose your balance and fall right off the damn pier. Jimin reaches out to grab you just in time, saving you from a watery grave (or just major embarrassment), and the two of you laugh, letting your voices fill the moonlit air, heads light, bodies blissed out. 

“Honestly, I was a little nervous you were going to say no,” he admits with a laugh. 

“Impossible,” you chide. “You know I’ve always loved you.”

No matter what, that will never change. 

“And now,” he says, pressing another kiss to your forehead, this one gentle and plush, “you know that I will always love you, too.”

It doesn’t feel like something long overdue. It doesn’t feel like something that you have been waiting and waiting and waiting for, something you have expected from the moment you told him. 

No. This feels like something new. 

This feels like your heart is in bloom. 

The end-of-camp show, no matter how much time and effort Namjoon puts into making it go smoothly, is a train wreck. But it is a train wreck in that wonderful way, in that way where you would be suspicious if things actually went according to plan, in that way where chaos and disarray reign supreme. Quite frankly, when it comes to the end-of-camp show, you never expect anything less. 

The truth is that the majority of the end-of-camp show performances are just for the counselor’s entertainment, an afternoon of fun to wrap up the end of camp, topped off by a fun meal (usually pizza) and a night around a bonfire, letting the heat warm your bodies from the inside out. Unless Jungkook and Taehyung pull some extremely ridiculous prank, the last official day of camp is usually everyone’s favorite, filled with snacks and music and laughter.

The performances by the campers go about as well as any performance by a bunch of elementary schoolers can go—that is to say, the kids remember the first five seconds of the choreography before they devolve into pandemonium, dancing as many weird, trendy dances as they can, and some you don’t even think have been invented yet. Nonetheless, Hoseok is proud, and beams at all of the campers as they scurry away from the center of the gymnasium once their dance is done, grabbing little snacks on the tables by the windows before settling in to watch the next stage. Hoseok does a good job of keeping the music current and upbeat so that nobody falls asleep, and gives the campers enough creative liberty so that it doesn’t feel too practiced. 

Lightly rehearsed, Hoseok likes to say. 

Absolute madness, Yoongi usually corrects.

After the dances, Seokjin and his hoard of campers with guitars the size of an overgrown ukelele make their way to center stage, and you and the other counselors bet on what stupid song he’s taught them all. He starts it off with everyone’s favorite and the most timeless of all tunes—Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star—before the musical highlight. 

(“It’s gonna be Fireflies,” Taehyung insists, so confident in his choice that he even wagers two of the homemade Rice Krispie Treats that Yoongi got all of the campers to make for today’s celebration. 

“It’s been too long since he rickrolled us,” Jungkook says, eyes narrowing suspiciously to Seokjin at the front of the room. “I’m just waiting for it.”

“Wonderwall, obviously,” Hoseok contributes, even though Seokjin got all of the campers from last year to play that. 

You and Jimin are both almost positive Seokjin has chosen to perform Let it Go, a song that will never truly escape you, but you keep your comments to yourselves. 

“I’m thinking Photograph,” Namjoon comments mindlessly, late to the conversation.

“The Nickelback song?” Yoongi says with a scoff. “Dude, we’re the only ones old enough to even know that song. No no, I think it’ll be Despacito.”

“If I have to hear Despacito one more time, I’m going to jump out of the f—” Taehyung stumbles on the syllable as Namjoon turns to glare at him, making Taehyung sputter for a replacement. “F… -reaking window. Watch me.”)

In the end, none of you guess correctly, because Seokjin has chosen to teach all of the campers how to play Country Road, Take Me Home, and honestly, none of you can even be mad about it because by the thirty second mark, you’re all singing along. There’s just something about that song that forces you to belt out the lyrics, something magical and irresistible. 

Afterwards, it is finally time for the counselor’s performance, which, if the camper’s excited screams are anything to go by, is apparently the peak of the afternoon. Hoseok puts on the same upbeat dance music and all of you go to town, following his choreography without any hitches before jumping into the solo section. Namjoon and Yoongi both attempt a trendy Internet dance and fail miserably, Taehyung and Hazel do a little tango that involves no accidents, and then it’s you and Jimin’s turn. 

The music isn’t really appropriate for the slow dance that Jimin taught you in the counselor meeting room, but he makes it work and you follow along, tracing his footsteps and laughing at the prickly sensation his hand on your waist sends shooting through you. You really have always been ticklish there. Hoseok only gives everyone thirty seconds before they’re booted off to the sideline, but thirty seconds is just enough time for Jimin to spin you once before pulling you into a kiss in front of dozens of campers and all of the counselors, whose hollers and hoots fill the gymnasium, bouncing off of the walls and ricocheting into your ears, when they watch you. It has your cheeks heating up something fierce, all embarrassed by Jimin’s big reveal, but the great big smile on his face makes it all worth it. He looks so happy to be here with you. He looks so goddamn happy to have you. 

It makes you feel like you can do anything. 

Ultimately, Jungkook and Seokjin get the greatest applause, because Jungkook lifts Seokjin into the air figure-skating style before Seokjin comes crashing down on him, and they land in a puddle on the gymnasium floor to the screams of all of the campers and counselors, who have never seen anything quite as artistically dramatic in their lives. 

Afterwards, you and Jimin retire to the snack tables alongside the rest of the counselors as the campers are free to roam the building, check out the art on display and eat as many ants on a log and homemade Rice Krispie Treats as they can get their grubby hands on. 

“Congrats, you guys,” Namjoon says, raising his dixie cup filled with lemonade. “It worked out after all.”

“I’m proud of you,” Yoongi murmurs to you, a soft smile gracing his features. 

“Love always prevails,” Jungkook declares, sighing happily, always a hopeless romantic at heart. You sure hope that one day, Jungkook will fall in love with someone who loves him back unconditionally, because he deserves it. 

“Which one of you confessed first?” Seokjin says, Taehyung nodding furiously behind you. You see that the bet is still on. 

“Me,” you say. 

“Me,” Jimin says. 

You both look at each other, eyebrows furrowed, clearly on separate wavelengths. 

Seokjin narrows his eyes. “Alright… which one of you said ‘I love you’ first?”

“That would be me,” you admit sheepishly, having a year’s headstart on Jimin when it comes to love confession. 

“I fucking knew it,” Seokjin says, palm out. Taehyung begrudgingly smacks five dollars into Seokjin’s hand, muttering to himself about how he was convinced that Jimin would tell you first. It makes you wonder, just a little bit, how long Jimin had known.

You open your mouth to defend yourself and your weak, weak heart, when you feel a tap on your side. Behind you is the same girl from the day that you were making cards to send back home to people you love, the one who absolutely grilled you about your feelings for Jimin. 

“Yes, Rose?” You ask happily. 

“So did you send it to him?” She questions. 

“Send what?”

“Your card. Did you send it to Mr. Jimin?” She elaborates, eyes wide in curiosity. You make a mental note to remind her to never stop being inquisitive. It will take her far. 

“No, I didn’t,” you say with a laugh, shaking your head. You look back at Jimin, where he’s laughing with Seokjin and Taehyung about their stupid bet on you, and you grin. He is so beautiful. It’s still hard to believe he’s yours. “Jimin doesn’t need a card to know that I love him.”

Not when he’s right here, and not when you know he loves you back. 

The counselor campfire is held on the day very last night that you spend together, after all of the campers have left the mountain, returning home, and you finally have the place to yourselves. Namjoon and Yoongi light it because everyone else has been banned from doing so after the Great Flame Incident two years ago, and then you all sit on the logs around the fire pit, reminiscing of the summer gone by, musing aloud about what the future holds. 

You and Jimin snuggle up together, and this night faintly reminds you of the one from last year in the way that Jimin still glows, warm and yellow, in the light of the fire, in the way he seems to make perfect s’mores no matter what, in the way that he laughs at everything that you say. But even with all of the similarities, nothing, literally nothing, could top how you feel right now, dancing on cloud nine with Jimin by your side. 

Never in your wildest dreams did you imagine you’d have him. Never in your wildest dreams did you think your confession would amount to anything more.

“You’re burning your marshmallow again,” Taehyung points out crudely, the side of your marshmallow already turning an ashy coal color. 

“Ah, fuck,” you mutter to yourself, yanking it away from the fire as you blow on it. 

“You’re never gonna learn, are you?” Jimin teases. He plucks his off of his stick, perfectly toasted, and holds it out for you. “Here, have mine.” You open wide and he pops it onto your tongue, the crisp, sweet flavor melting in your mouth as all of the other counselors groan, clearly wishing that they were somewhere other than here. Jimin’s fingers reach up to your chin, tilting your face towards him, before a thumb comes out to wipe away at the smudge on the side of your lip, a sticky white crumb that he pops into his mouth, earning another round of whines.

“Gross,” Seokjin says, nose scrunched up. “Just because you guys are in love now doesn’t mean you have to keep showing us. We get it.”

“Oh, just leave them alone,” Yoongi chides. “They’ve been pining after each other for so long, let them have this.”

“Thanks,” you murmur to Yoongi. You have a lot to thank him for. He has always been on your side, even when you weren’t. 

“Anytime,” he promises. 

“If they’re gonna be like this next year, then I don’t know how long I’m going to last,” Taehyung admits with a fond sigh, because no matter how much he pretends to be annoyed, you know that he’s happy for you. 

Namjoon sucks in a breath. “Uh, yeah, about next year…” he says, wringing his hands together. “I’m not going to be coming back.” You fall into silence, the only sounds the crackle of the fire, the rustle of the wildlife in the woods. “I have another internship at a firm, and then I’m going to be going into the job market, so I don’t, uh, I don’t really see myself coming back here.”

“Me too,” Yoongi chirps up, earning a surprised look from everyone else. “I’ve just been given an offer to produce music for this small record company, but they’re located across the country, so I’ll be moving soon. I guess—well, I guess now’s as good a time as any to tell you all.”

“Congrats,” you tell him, sad to hear he won’t be back but thrilled to know he’ll be doing something he truly loves instead. “Seriously, Yoongi. That’s amazing.”

“Yeah, man, that’s sick,” Jungkook pipes up. “When you’ve won your Grammy you have to remember to mention us.”

Yoongi chuckles to himself, small and quiet, but even in this orange light you can see the way his cheeks are turning cherry red, relishing in the praise. “I’ll miss you all,” he says. 

And slowly, one by one, you all begin to admit that even though you love it here, being a camp counselor had always been temporary, and it just wouldn’t be the same without everyone else here with you too. You and Jimin will be graduating this coming school year. So will Taehyung. Seokjin has a Master’s degree in acting that he wants to pursue. Even Jungkook, who is younger than all of you besides Hazel, has said that he plans to travel with his college lacrosse team next summer. 

“Damn,” Taehyung says when everyone is finished, as you all begin to count how many of you there will be left for next summer. “Who’s gonna do Namjoon’s job?”

“I already asked,” Namjoon says with a proud grin, “and Hazel said she is happy to take on the responsibility.”

“Oh, fuck yeah!” Seokjin shouts, giving Hazel a massive hug, nearly crushing her in two. “Hell yeah, Haze! You are going to be kick ass at that. I’m proud of you!”

The rest of the counselors soon follow suit, congratulating Hazel and cheering for her future. It almost makes you want to come back, but you know that Hazel will be fine without you. As long as she still has her secret stash. 

“Nice work, Haze,” you tell her, earning a shy smile from her in response. “You’ve always been a leader.”

“I’m just nervous I won’t be as good as Namjoon,” she admits timidly, clearly a little overwhelmed at such an enthusiastic response. 

“You have nothing to worry about,” Namjoon assures her. “I know you’ll be fine. Plus, you won’t have all of these losers to worry about, so your workload will be much lighter.”

“Hey!” Seokjin, Taehyung, and Jungkook all shout at once. 

“Don’t get me started on the two of you,” Namjoon chides, eyes narrowed. “You’ve caused me more stress than my senior thesis.”

“Out of love,” Seokjin swears, Jungkook and Taehyung nodding enthusiastically next to him. Namjoon rolls his eyes, even though you know that he secretly loves the extra work that they give him. It keeps him young, in that old-timey kind of way. 

“Then I guess this is it, isn’t it?” Hazel asks, standing up and holding out a finished s’more, already taking on her newly-bestowed head counselor duties. “I suppose I’ll do the honors. Congrats to Y/N and Jimin for finally figuring their relationship out, congrats to Yoongi for getting into that record company, congrats to Namjoon for getting his internship, and congrats to everyone else for doing what they love, and for not letting their dreams be dreams. This summer feels sort of like the end of an era, in a way, don’t you think? I mean, lots of us are moving on to bigger and better things, celebrating the past and aspiring to become people that we hope will be admired in the future. And I guess that I just want you all to know that no matter who you become, no matter what you do, I’ll always be someone who admires you.”

If you were a little drunk or just a little more sentimental, Hazel’s words would almost bring tears to your eyes, but instead you just join everyone in cheers, standing up and clinking your s’mores together.

And in a way, it really does feel like the end of an era. No more summers on the mountain, no more late-night camp pranks, no more hydrangeas in the greenhouse. You’re moving on, not only from this part of your life but from your almost-fruitless quest for love, from the place that led you to fall so deeply for Jimin, the place that has housed every memory you have ever saved of him. You’re moving on to a world where Jimin is with you every step of the way, where you know that he will always be there for you, where you no longer have to fight yourself to keep from loving him, where you have to do everything you can to preserve an already-fragile friendship. 

No. Now, you can take your first step forward with Jimin by your side. 

“Cheers!” Everyone shouts. 

“Cheers,” Jimin says to you, pulling you in for a quick little kiss, and no matter how hot the campfire burns Jimin’s lips upon yours will always be what warms you from within. “Cheers to us.”

You grin against his lips, pressing back because you can never get enough, and you murmur, “Cheers to us.”

“Hey! Jungkook!” Seokjin shouts right as Jungkook hops into his car. “When we text you in the group chat you better fucking respond!”

“I will, I will!” Jungkook screams back, voice so loud you can hear it despite the fact that all of his windows are rolled up. 

“No, he won’t,” Yoongi deadpans as he passes you by, duffel bags hanging from his shoulders. “You know he won’t.”

“He never does,” you agree. Getting a text from him is almost as impossible as winning the lottery. “I’ll call you, alright? I know you don’t really like texting, either.”

“Talking is just easier,” he says with a nod. “I’m looking forward to it. Call me whenever you need me.”

“I will,” you promise, watching as Yoongi bids you one final goodbye before heading to his own ride. He plops his bags into the trunk of Namjoon’s car before getting into the passenger seat. Namjoon pushes his head out of the window to wave, smiling wildly at you as he starts the car. You grin, waving back, and watch him, Yoongi, and Jungkook, disappear down the mountain. 

“You’re next, right?” 

You whip around to find Jimin standing behind you, a frisbee in one hand and a suitcase in the other. He won’t be leaving for another couple of hours, when Taehyung’s finally ready to go. They live close to each other so they figured they’d save money by splitting an Uber, which will be waiting for them at the bottom of the mountain.

“Yeah, gotta get back before college starts,” you say, dropping your bags at your feet. “But we’ll see each other before then, right?”

Jimin and you attend universities on opposite sides of the country. Loving each other is the easy part. Staying in love is what will challenge you. 

“Of course,” he promises. “I’ll visit whenever I can. And I’ll come see you on all my breaks during the semester, too. You and Jungkook.”

“Good, you better,” you say, and you pull him in for a bruising hug because you know that this will be the last time for a while. Not a long while, but a while, and even if you have committed every slope of his figure, every inch of his face to memory, you still have to remember how warm he is when you hold him, how soft his lips are when they touch yours. Those things… those are new. “I’ll miss you.”

“I’ll see you soon,” he assures you. “But I’ll miss you too.”

Several feet away, Hoseok honks the horn of your car to let you know that you’re all ready to go.

“I’ll call you when I’m home, okay?” You promise, pulling him in for another hug, one last time, feeling this strange desperation rush through you, like you won’t see him for weeks and this is all you’ll have left. “Isn’t it weird? You’re right here and I miss you already.”

“We’ll see each other again before you know it,” he says, pressing his lips to yours in a sweet, quick kiss. No matter how many times he does it still sends sparks shooting through your veins, but you suppose that that’s just another thing you’ll have to remember. When you part, he notices your worry, eyes softening at the sight. “Hey,” he says, lifting your chin up so you look at him. “I love you.”

You crack a smile. “I love you, too.” 

It’s not a goodbye. 

It’s an until I see you again.

You grab your duffel bags and hike them over your shoulder, footsteps heavy and weighted as you slowly make your way towards your car. Every four steps or so, you turn back just to make sure that Jimin’s still there, and sure enough, he’s watching you, this lopsided, love-drunk smile lacing his features. 

You place your bags in the backseat of your car before heading to the driver’s side, hand on the handle as you look up one final time. 

There Jimin stands in the middle of the clearing, the warm afternoon sun bathing him in a halo. There he stands, beautiful, and kind, and lovely, and in love. And you are so in love. You wave. He waves back.

And you know that you two will be alright. 

You jump into your car and tug the door shut behind you, keys in the ignition, engine revving, and you sigh, content and feeling confident in life. You peer into the rearview mirror to see Taehyung running up to Jimin, wrapping an arm around his shoulder and waving goodbye to you. You lift your hand up in response, watch as they bid you farewell as you creep towards the slope down the mountain. 

As you drive down the mountain, you take a deep breath, inhaling the fresh summer air, and you smile. 

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

#jimin angst #bts angst #jimin fluff #bts fluff #bts fic #jimin fic #jimin x reader #bts x reader #jimin au #bts au #w: into the wilderness #UHH THATS THE FUCK RIGHT THATS WHAT I SAID !!!!!! #okay but also i havent felt as emotionally redeemed abt a climax scene in a long time #anyway i hope you all enjoy !! this is my baby so you BETTA TREAT IT THAT WAY

[sciderman]

It’s International Women’s Day, and I realised that I preemptively wrote just the thing to celebrate. 

(I don’t know how strict Tumblr’s unsexy policy is now when it comes to writing, but there’s no real sexy, it’s just dialogue, as usual.) 

Yes, it’s the @ask-spiderpool boys... (and yes, everything I write for them is canon to the blog, by definition.) So, Happy International Women’s Day! 

----------------------------------------------------

“Have I ever told you your ass is super fine?” 

Peter was caught off-guard by the abrupt direction shift in the conversation. But, ever able to land on his feet, he delivered a sarcastic “No. Never. I don’t think you’ve ever mentioned it.” 

“It truly is,” Wade paused for something Peter could only interpret as dramatic effect, “the greatest ass in the Marvel Universe. I know. I keep an extensive ranking list.” 

“Who’s second?”

“Daredevil, actually.” 

Peter gave it some consideration, pursing his lips. He conceded with a small nod. 

“The pyjama boys get an unfair advantage. And there might be some color psychology at play,” Wade said, clearly having given this topic a significant amount of thought. “Red makes you hungry, you know. It’s science.” 

“I love science,” said Peter, dumbly. 

“Have I really not told you how much I love your ass? Because that seems like an incredible misdeed on my part.” 

“You used to never shut up about it on patrol”, Peter replied. He hooked one of his fingers around one of Wade’s belt-loops, fiddling. “I don’t know if you knew I could hear you. I had half a mind to start up a harassment case. You’re lucky I’ve got such a good sense of humour.” 

“I’ve got enough outstanding court cases against me as it is so, much appreciated.” 

“...You’ve kind of shut up about it recently, though - present moment in exception.” Peter admitted after a small pause. “My ass just not do it for you anymore?” 

“Oh, I have an extensive list of things I’d like to do to dat ass.” Wade emphasised, giving one of Peter’s cheeks a firm squeeze.  

Peter groaned. Mostly to do with Wade’s appalling use of words, but also partly his body’s reaction to this new kind of attention. 

“I’ll bite”, said Peter, “Why haven’t you started working your way down that list?” 

Peter was mildly disappointed when Wade’s hand ceased it’s exploration.

“Well, you’re a newly christened bisexual, and,” Wade said, “I didn’t… want to rush you into anything that might, y’know. Weird you out. I know all about your fragile masculinity.” 

“That’s not –“ Peter sounded insulted, “That’s not. Entirely true.” 

Wade raised an eyebrow at Peter. Or he would’ve, if he had eyebrows. 

“Besides, I’m not entirely new to this either.” 

Both of Wade’s eyebrows raised. 

“…You mean butt-stuff?” 

Peter sighed.

“Your eloquence never ceases to amaze,” he said dryly. “Yes. I mean butt-stuff.” 

“But Peter, I’m the first dude on your ever-rotating roster of fuck-buddies! Which means…” 

Wade’s facial expression was wide-eyed and adorable before he started piecing things together. Then his face twisted into something so smug and so knowing, that Peter felt embarrassed before Wade had even opened his mouth. 

“Black cat?” Wade said, cloyingly, “…It was Black Cat, wasn’t it?” 

Peter buried his face in Wade’s legs, and grunted. 

Wade’s hands resumed a gentle massage at Peter’s lower back. 

“You know, I kind of had her pegged as that kind of gal.” 

“Har har.” 

“Oh, this is going to give me so much fantasy fodder.” Wade closed his eyes and tilted his head back. He overplayed a delighted “Mmm-mmm”, like he’d been fed the most delicious fucking food he’d ever had. 

“I’m glad you’re having fun.”

“Oh, I really, truly am.” Wade savoured it just a minute more, before he turned down to look at Peter. “Did you have fun, though? How did you like it? Details, details!” 

“It was”, Peter considered his words, as though the fact that he was half-hard in his pyjama pants wasn’t giveaway enough, “It was… fine. It, uh, wasn’t something I wanted to do again, though.” 

Peter turned to lay on his back, head resting on Wade’s lap. Wade’s hands took the new position as an invitation to explore Peter’s stomach, running over washboard abs. 

“Why not?” Wade addressed Peter, quiet and sincere. 

Peter opened his mouth, but didn’t have an answer immediately. He flushed, feeling bare under Wade’s gaze. 

“Probably s’mthin’ t’do w’th mh fr’gile m’scul’nity…” Peter mumbled at last, completely embarrassed. 

“Peter Parker.” Wade spoke up, gravely. “I’ll have you know I have been pegged by every single girl I’ve dated. It’s a courtesy. All good boys deserve it.”

“Mm.” The information didn’t come as a surprise to Peter. He knew exactly how much Wade loved it. He’d participated in it. That didn’t stop the imagery from flooding Peter’s already flustered brain. “And is that what you are? A good boy?” Peter teased, a hand running up Wade’s thigh. 

“Peter Parker.” Wade repeated in earnest, “I think you can acknowledge that lately, I have been a very, very good boy.” 

“And a good boy deserves a reward?” 

“Are you gonna give a dog a bone?” 

Peter snorted. 

“If that’s what he wants,” Peter said, stretching out. “Otherwise, he wins this fine ass for the evening.” 

There was a beat of silence, and Peter could swear he could hear the fizzle and pop of Wade’s brain short-circuiting.   

#spideypool #ask-spiderpool #writing

[gohyuck]

pairing: head knight!jeno x monarch!reader (reader has genitals attributed to those considered biologically female but no pronouns are actually used)

genre: fluff, mild angst (they discuss an oncoming battle they must prepare for), smut (it’s mostly smut)

word count: 6.5k

warnings & notes (nonsexual): mentions of war/battle, mentions of injuries retained from past skirmishes, jeno is as tall as you need him to be in order to rest your head against his chest without leaning down, it’s kind of cheesy tbh they are disgustingly head-over-heels in love with each other, also a peryton is a fantasy creature that’s essentially a stag + a bird, also i know y’all must be tired of royalty aus but i swear this is almost pwp (except there’s context so there’s plot) so give it a chance (if you’re legal) i guess

warnings & notes (sexual): oral (giving and receiving for both parties), fingering (reader receives), spit kink (lmao sorry), general messiness honestly, mild knife kink (no blood drawn, he just uses a dagger to tear apart clothing), gratuitous usage of the name ‘lionheart’, jeno has a big dick because i cannot stop myself from doing that to y’all for some reason, some choking

special thanks to @moonlit-jeno​ @domjaehyun​ @waithyuck​ for reading parts of it/all of it beforehand!

the soft hours of twilight have their holds on you, chilling you to your bones even as you pull the heavy fur cape tighter around your body. you should’ve pulled something over your thin nightgown, you suppose, something to act as a middle layer between silk and skin and peryton fur, but it’s too late for that. you’re already out on your private balcony, overlooking a kingdom you’d do anything to see the sun rise on day after day. 

far, far past the outskirts of your humble realm, barely visible to your own eye, an unsettlingly large camp of soldiers is finishing setting up camp for the night. you watch as tiny, tiny orange pinpricks - no doubt the fires they’d set to make food, to alert you of their presence - begin to get snuffed out. finally, they sleep.

if you were any worse of a person, of a ruler, you would send your army after them now, hours before the battle is set. perhaps, if you were any less selfish, you would do so regardless of keeping your status as a good and just monarch. if you were any less selfish, you would shake awake the love of your life and hand him his cape after shedding it from your shoulders. you would tell him to rouse his men and women, to arm them to their teeth, and to fight for what is right using means that are entirely wrong. 

as if privy to your thoughts, your head knight stirs in the too-large bed behind you. you turn just in time to see him sit up and twist his body left, right, left as he stretches to rid himself of sleep. it’s too late - or maybe too early - for either of you to be awake. maybe you should have stayed within his warm embrace rather than gotten out of bed to size up the army of the kingdom of crithage. 

even now, you can’t help but strategize, at least on a basic level. crithagians are unused to the cold of your beautiful - but often frigid - ekoria. they won’t expect your people to fall upon them from the icy cliffs that surround their camp, nor will they be able to see over the oncoming blizzard your royal sky-reader has predicted. she has not been incorrect in many, many years. ekorians have, over the years, grown accustomed to heavy snows, among other weather phenomenon, so your army’s visual acuity is not to be questioned. 

that, and your troops are in the hands of the best warrior ekoria has ever had.

jeno. your jeno. your lionheart. you rein your thoughts in just as he pulls open the balcony door, closing it behind him with a soft click as he steps over the threshold separating in from out and warm from cold. goosebumps rise across his bare flesh the moment his skin meets air, and you don’t hesitate to slide his cape off and thrust it towards him, knowing full well that his arms will provide more than enough heat for you. he fastens it with ease, seeming slightly amused at how you’d been using it as a blanket, and gently grabs ahold of your wrist before pulling you into his chest and wrapping an arm around your waist. with his other hand, he takes a corner of his cape and wraps it around you, leaving you enveloped in both his hot-to-touch skin and the comforting fur. 

“they’re out in the valley, aren’t they?” he finally murmurs, leaning to place his mouth against your ear. jeno’s voice is thick and sleep-ridden, still raspy in a way that settles around you, inside you, within you. you lean back slightly, raising a cold hand to rest against the tattoo of a lion that adorns his left pectoral, mane stretching up to his collarbone and encroaching on his bicep. the lion has a scar on its right cheek. you pull away more, eyes landing on the thin discolored line underneath your lover’s same eye. 

it had been a longsword, meant to slash across your throat. jeno, with the speed of a star falling from grace and enough adrenaline to fuel a hundred men, had leapt across you in order to take it across the face. for crown and for country, bard’s songs later regaled of him. for you, he’d whispered to you that same night as you’d stitched him up, using the threading tactics you’d learned from the castle medic as a child. for you. always for you.

“my love?” jeno prods, and you realize you haven’t given his rhetorical question any acknowledgement. you hum, meeting his eyes with your own, and watch as he allows one corner of his mouth to turn up. 

“they only just put out their fires.” you finally respond, moving to be against his chest again. you rest your head against the intricate ink against jeno’s skin, finally letting out a breath of what one might consider worry. the air that leaves your lungs manifests into wisps out in the cold world that surrounds you. your lionheart pulls you ever closer. 

“you need not stress.” he says simply, and an outsider to your relationship would see no cohesion between your statement and his. still, you know precisely what jeno means, why he’s said what he’s said. you turn, pressing your lips against the lion’s forehead. above you, your own lion brushes his lips against your temple. 

“i have an army, a kingdom, even, to worry about, and yet i only fear tomorrow for whatever outcome befalls one man.” you whisper, and even you are surprised to find tears catching in your throat. you do not cry easily, not when you know firsthand how cruel the world can be. 

you only reign because your parents no longer breathe. 

tomorrow’s battle could easily bleed into next year’s war, and while your kingdom is prepared for such a thing, your heart may not be. your people are not belligerent, and neither are you. crithage had been the one to throw the first stone, had sent word that if you refused to relinquish your throne and bow your head, they would aim the first arrow, draw the first blood. no tears had been shed then, not even when you’d paced around your bedchambers, reading and rereading the note signed with blood red ink until jeno had physically pulled it out of your tight grasp. you hadn’t cried, not even when he’d said that he was willing to die if it meant keeping crithage out of ekoria, out of the kingdom you’d both built from ground up after the war that had taken your parents, out of the home you’d created together. 

“wherever you take us, i will follow. wherever you need me, i will lead.” he’d murmured the words against the lobe of your ear, standing beside and slightly behind your throne as you’d written out your reply to crithage in a room full of your advisors. nobody else had moved a muscle then, not even as you closed the envelope with hot wax and the royal seal. 

you’d sent back a much, much shorter letter than their own in response. 

a time and date for battle. nothing more and nothing less.

that had been so many months ago, so far away that the concept of time dissipates when you attempt to organize it in your harried mind. with a hostile army on your doorstep, everything suddenly feels far more real than it has before. your people have been evacuated, your troops have been trained. your lionheart is unafraid to the world, standing tall and proud at your side as he always has.

a sigh that starts from deep in jeno’s chest brings you back to the present. tomorrow is it, you’re reminded. crithage has seiged almost every other state between themselves and your beloved ekoria. if they get to you, they’ll have your head, raised high on a stake they’ll erect outside of the gates they’ll install to the place you call home. if they get to you, it means they’ll have gotten through jeno.

you can’t live in a world without him. it’s a dangerous attachment for a ruler to have, you’re well aware. if other kingdoms find out that your weakness is a person, one that lives and breathes, you’re not likely to ever see your love again.

it’s little comfort that jeno can’t live in a world without you, either. 

“i worry about not being here, at the castle, to protect you,” he mumbles into your hair. “i know that you are perfectly capable, and that you’ll have your own faction of our knights with you, but i- it feels as if i’m about to open my chest and leave my naked heart unguarded, right there for any arrows to pierce.”

jeno’s confession is simple, beautiful in the way the most ornate of daggers are: that is, you feel as if he’s just dragged a sharp edge down the length of your sternum, taking you apart piece by piece. his words cage you in, force you deeper into your own head in a way you can’t afford, not right now. 

“eloquent,” you hum, unable to resist teasing him even as the moment does not call for it. it’s to save yourself from your heavily beating heart. “it isn’t too late to make you my poet laureate, you know. no need to wield a sword tomorrow then.”

“and who would be your head knight then, hm? the current laureate? you want renjun to lead the charge against the crithagians? to be your lionheart?” your lover draws back to ensure that you can see his eyes, glimmering with mirth. renjun is an able man, and one of your best friends, but he is not the warrior jeno is. 

nobody is the warrior that jeno is. 

“such a foolish thing to say,” you smile up at him, lips folding from joking to earnest within moments. the merriment fades a little from jeno’s eyes at recognizing the change in your expressions. “you’re my only lionheart. always have been and always will be, even when you’re too old and gray and slow to be my head knight.” 

“someone seems confident of that happening.” he says quietly, raising the hand at your waist to come up and rest over your own hand that lies against his chest. you swallow, your own spit feeling too heavy for you to stomach, your throat dry and scratchy. 

“who else can have confidence of a victory rather than a monarch?” you ask, a smile that isn’t quite sad - but isn’t quite self-assured either - resting on your lips. jeno raises your hand to his lips, pressing one, two, three chaste kisses to the back and then repeating the pattern against your palm. he does not let go.

the two of you stand there for a stolen moment. you lay your head back against his chest, listening to the thundering of his heartbeat below the ink and skin and muscle and bone. he is real, and he is here. 

he is real. he is here. 

“the monarch’s lionheart, of course,” he murmurs, finally dropping your hand to reach back and push open the balcony door. “we only have four more strokes of time until i must go, my love. is this truly how you want to spend it?”

it’s evident that jeno no longer wants to mull over the what-ifs, not when he prefers living in the present more than anyone you’ve ever known. unsurprising, you suppose, for someone whose livelihood involves strategizing away his own mortality. you allow him to pull you back into your bedroom, immediately more comfortable when the door closes behind you, keeping you in with the body heat of your lover and the warmth of the crackling fire on the hearth in the corner of your room. jeno sheds the cape, draping it over the nearest chair, before bringing you back to his chest by placing his large hands against your waist.

it takes feeling his fingers against your skin through the thin silk of your slip to remember that jeno has nothing on. he’s always preferred to sleep naked, unlike you. though you hardly have any undergarments on, you at least wear a sheer gown most nights. 

you’d ridden him passionately before bed, tiring both of you out in order to get any semblance of sleep. as your lionheart pulls you flush against him, though, it’s difficult to avoid the way his cock hardens against your hip once more. you want to quip about how jeno’s insatiable, but he trails a hand up, up over your body to swipe a thumb over one of your hardened nipples, and you can’t help the sigh that escapes through your prettily parted lips. 

“will you get on the bed for me, love?” jeno’s voice is smoother now that he’s more awake, though you can’t help but miss the low growl that had come with the earlier rasp. he may be asking you a question, but you know that it’s an order in disguise. wordlessly, you step back, back, back until the wood of your bedframe presses against the soft plushness of the back of your thighs. jeno has not moved, choosing to stay put and appraise you instead. his eyes are hooded now, and as his gaze trails from your neck - he’d marked it up earlier, the kiss-bitten bruises not yet having faded from your skin - down to the curve of your chest, over the expanse of your thighs, he can’t help but reach one hand down to his dick, swiping two fingers over its head to collect his precum on his skin. 

jeno says nothing else, makes no other move. it’s to give you an illusion of control, you suppose. not that you need one. 

“should i rid myself of this, lionheart?” you ask, the words coming out breathier than intended. the nightgown leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination, and you’re sure he can even see the slick wetness that’s pooling against your inner thighs. jeno adores seeing your body more than anything, but the gown does not inhibit that. 

it’s no surprise, then, when he shakes his head no, instead finally moving to stand at the edge of the bed, slotting himself between your thighs as they naturally move apart to fit him in. his clean hand slides up under your gown, resting just above your cunt, as he raises his other hand to your face. 

“lie back, and open.” jeno states, no air of leniency about him anymore. you oblige, and your love leans over you, his dark gaze centered on your parted lips. 

he lays his two precum-coated fingertips against your tongue, pressing in and then down and revelling when you don’t gag but instead run your tongue over his fingers, cleaning them off for him. you haven’t gagged in a long time, your reflexes getting used to him in the way the rest of you is. when he withdraws his hand, your mouth stays open, and jeno can’t help himself as he leans over you and, after gathering it in his own mouth for a moment, allows his own spit to fall from his own tongue and onto yours. 

your eyes go wide at the action, and you know that he notices it even as he does not acknowledge it. even so, you don’t miss the smirk that crosses his face upon hearing your breath hitch. jeno has you in his palm.

satisfied, he stands, and you close your mouth and swallow a part of him with a part of you. jeno’s no longer looking at your face, but you can’t bring yourself to care, not when he’s ruching up your nightgown with growing hunger, not when he’s kneeling on the stone ground just to make himself eye-level with your pretty, pretty pussy. 

“i took you hardly any time ago,” he murmurs, breath hot against your skin as his mouth nears where you so desperately need him. “and yet here you are, laid open once more, all for me. only for me.”

“always you, jeno, please - ” you can’t get any more words out, the air being pulled out of you as he dives in and circles your clit with his tongue, bringing his two spit-soaked fingers up to press into you with almost no resistance. your reaction is instantaneous, walls clenching like a vice around his fingers as he lays a filthy kiss against your bundle of nerves, hips jumping up only to be kept down by jeno’s other hand, pressing down against the bottom of your stomach. 

“patience.” he pulls off of your clit just to growl the word out against the skin of your inner thigh, and the wet heat of his mouth directly against your flesh has you practically gasping out. when jeno sinks his teeth into your thigh as he’s often wont to do, you let out a full-bodied whine, the kind that starts in the back of your throat and rises up through the inner column of your neck, meant only for your lover’s ears. jeno laves his tongue over the marks he’s just created, as if to wash the pleasurable pain from your body. 

he does not reattach his mouth to your core, choosing instead to fall back and watch, eyes trained, as he scissors you open. with hardly any warning rather than his gaze jumping up to meet your own momentarily, jeno presses his thumb into your clit, using your slick wetness to eliminate any raw friction as he rubs slow circles against your nerve endings. he’s never failed to bring you to the edge with ease, and now is no different. you’d be embarrassed at how easily you fall apart just from his simple simultaneous motions, in and on you, but it’s jeno, and he knows your body maybe even better than he knows his own. 

keening, a loud, gasping wail, falls from your lips only for jeno to rise from his place in between your thighs and swallow your sounds with his open mouth, his clean hand coming up to cage you in against your sheets. the way you raise your arms to loop them around his neck is akin to the way a drowning man would grab on to a lifeline, and once he rises you pull him back into a longer, filthier kiss, where your teeth click against his and his tongue opens up your mouth the same way it feels like his touch opens up your body. 

you feel as if you’re being flayed, as if hellfire is the only thing comparable to the heat against your skin. jeno steps closer, just by the tiniest bit, and you feel his hand - the one shining with your arousal - brush past your hip before he uses it to wet his cock with one, two, three firm strokes. copious amounts of precum arise from the tip before being pulled down against his flesh with expert downstrokes. your mouth waters as you watch.

“my mouth, lionheart, please?” you finally gain the courage to ask what is on your mind, sitting up on your elbows as you begin to slowly find your strength. your love raises an eyebrow, and not without reason: jeno is a big man, making even you - a literal monarch - feel small at times, and this does not end with his personality or his person: you have never been able to take all of him into your mouth. the ache borders on painful, frankly, and jeno himself refuses to harm you in that way. 

“this, now, is about you.” he responds, and your heart cracks as you register that as a ‘no’. still, you speak again. you need him in your mouth, suddenly. it isn’t just a want. something has to anchor you to the here and now, it may as well be the head of his cock, heavy against your tongue.

“what is about me is about you as well,” you respond, and before he can lay his refusal down out flat, you slide onto the floor - warmer than expected - and tuck your heels behind your bare ass. “i need this. please.”

you’re directly in front of him now, face parallel to his strong thighs. jeno strokes up, squeezes tighter just below his frenulum, and you watch, struck, as precum beads at the tip and then splits into two streams, half sliding down his hard dick and the other slowly-but-surely falling to the ground, hardly a quarter of a step from one of your knees.

“give me your hand, then,” your knight murmurs from above you, drawing your gaze from his leaking cock up past the dainty curve of his lip to his hard eyes. “now.”

when you raise your hand up, you only put it up limply, unsure of what he means to do with the limb he’s asked for. your eyes must be swimming with questions, because jeno gives you a hint of a sweet, reassuring smile before allowing his expression to become stoic again… right before he grasps your given hand and straightens it out, gentler than expected from such a great warrior but harsher than he truly ever treats you. 

he’s passionate. this demonstrates it. 

before you can react, your body following your hand up off of your heels, though only slightly, as he yanks up your hand, jeno leans down and licks up your hand, from the bottom of your palm to the top, all while maintaining eye contact with you. he lets go, though you keep your hand raised, your gaze obviously dumbfounded. 

“a dry hand would rub me raw,” he explains, though the smirk that’s tugging at one corner of his mouth shows that he finds your wide-eyed expression at least mildly amusing. “we do not want that, do we?”

it’s amazing how easily he can get you under his thumb when you give out orders that hold his life in the balance on a day-to-day basis. maybe that’s why he finds taking charge in private so easy. maybe it’s his way of evening your dynamic out. even now, as he asks you an innocent question with no hidden meaning or reaction, you find yourself shaking your head along enthusiastically. no, of course you don’t want to rub him raw. of course you and him don’t want that. 

you raise the hand now deemed ‘not dry’ up as jeno watches, finally, finally wrapping your hand around it. your thumb and middle finger do not meet, no matter how tight you squeeze. your lover lets out a fulfilled groan at finally feeling a touch other than his own on his hard cock, and it’s a beautiful sound. you want more of it. you want more of him. 

as if mesmerized, you lean closer, darting out your tongue to lick experimentally at his slit. he holds his breath, a large hand coming to rest lightly against the back of your head and base of your skull, waiting. you take this as a sign to stretch your lips wider, engulfing the entire tip of his cock in your hot mouth. his grip tightens in your hair, and, in return, you clench around nothing. 

as you struggle to take more of jeno in your mouth, you do your best to stroke the rest of his cock with a tight enough grip to make him feel everything, but not tight to the point where you’re hurting him. regardless of how little you can take on your tongue - not your fault, by any means - jeno seems happy, barely able to stop himself from bucking up into the back of your throat. at this point, you’re essentially just warming his cock, so you pull off with a slick pop to look at him with slightly watery eyes. a string of precum and saliva connects your bottom lip and his tip, and when it breaks, you’re acutely aware of the mixture dripping down your chin and onto your nightgown. it’s no matter.

jeno’s thumb runs over your scalp, just above the bottom of your skull. you close your eyes momentarily to take in a deep breath. 

“you can force yourself down my throat, you know,” your voice is raspy when you speak, eyes fluttering open almost drearily. “i’m not too delicate for it.”

there’s something simultaneously raw and pure about the way you speak, and jeno recognizes that your headspace has changed, just a little. your need truly is all-encompassing now. he must tread more delicately than usual.

there’s so much love, so much adoration in your wide-eyed gaze. he only wishes to return it with the same intensity and double the care. 

“i know, love,” jeno responds, finally moving his hand in order to place two fingers under your chin. he tilts your face up, taking note of the way your eyes run over his tattoo before looking at his chin, then his jaw, then his nose, then his forehead, until, finally, you land on his eyes. you’re a tad bit unfocused, full of need, but that’s okay. you’ll always come back to him. he continues speaking. “you’re so strong. always so strong for me. that’s why you deserve to be rewarded, yes?”

“rewarded?” you’re confused, to say the least, though you do not dislike the direction jeno is suddenly moving towards. he only smiles, gentle and kind and good and yours. all yours. 

“on the bed, (name).” he tilts his own head, jutting his chin towards the bed you’d slid off of earlier. you don’t hesitate to follow, pushing yourself up onto your feet and all but scrambling backwards to be seated against the soft mattress. the blankets are all haphazard and the pillows aren’t straight, but that’s the least of your worries right now. jeno gives no other orders, only stepping closer and, without warning, winding his arms underneath your thighs and propelling you backwards, causing you to land, back flat, in the center of your bed. 

it had always felt inescapably large when you’d slept in it alone. now, it feels welcoming. safe. 

“you’re ready for me, yes?” the tone of voice jeno uses is soft, even as his rough palms push apart your thighs. you nod, murmuring a small ‘yes’ once you realize he’s waiting for you to verbalize your thoughts. this is all jeno needs to climb onto the bed and move in between your spread legs, settling back on his calves as his hands smooth over your hip bones and waist. it’s evident that he’s bent on taking his time with you tonight, likely under the illusion that that is what you want. 

it is not what you want. it is most definitely not what you need. 

“i need you within me, lionheart,” one of your hands clutches at the sheets beneath you while you stretch the other towards your lover, imploring. “soon. now. please.”  

“absolutely impatient,” jeno only chuckles in return, drawing an indignant whine forth from the base of your throat. he looks over your barely covered body once more before finally - almost in slowed motions as if to tease you further - rising up onto his knees. his hands stop moving against your skin, finally circling around the soft meat of your upper thighs. swiftly and fluidly, jeno pulls your body towards his, wrapping your legs around his own waist. his wet cock lies heavy against your pelvis, leaving slick precum against the apex of your thighs and the bottom of your stomach. he smirks. “is this what you wanted?” 

the motion of being pulled into your knight had forced the air from your lungs in a surprised yelp, and the feeling of his warm skin - he’s always supplied so much heat, it baffles you to no end - against your own momentarily blanks your mind. jeno repeats his question twice, cocky grin growing with each utterance, before you nod vigorously and sputter out something vaguely affirmative. yes. yes, this is exactly what you wanted, exactly what you want. 

you’ve been growing steadily wetter the longer your foreplay had drawn out, but jeno, ever-caring, still pulls back - his cock sliding against your thigh has you moaning - to slip two thick fingers into you, adding a third when he’s absolutely sure that you can take it. in no time at all, you’re grinding your clit against his rough palm, the friction absolutely heavenly. jeno makes no move to stop you, only gently forcing his fingers in deeper. 

a fourth finger is added just as your abused clit can’t take anymore, and you spasm on his hand as you fall past the point of no return. your second orgasm of the night washes over you, and you can’t help the muted but harried gasps you let out as your hips buck up, driving your head back into the mattress. jeno draws his fingers out slowly, licking your essence off of them with practiced ease. once your body has calmed down, you can only let out a small whimper, still basking in the intensity you’ve just experienced. 

jeno knows your limit, and knows damn well that you haven’t reached it yet. it’s because of this that, even as your walls are still clenching around nothing due to aftershocks that wrack your body, he places the fat head of his cock against your hole and slowly but surely slides in. the hands on your thighs move up to wrap around the sides of your waist, and his grip is bruising as he pushes deeper and deeper. even as he goes at a snail’s pace, you feel as if you’re being pulled apart only to be pieced back together again. you hold your breath.

jeno is halfway in when he realizes you still aren’t quite wet enough. he shifts slightly, carefully moving one of your legs up just a little bit higher, before swiping over your raw clit with a thumb he’s wetted with his own tongue. a moan flies forth from your mouth immediately, and a gush of wetness coats jeno’s cock anew as he circles over your bud with abandon. he’s finally free to surge forward and bury himself within your warm walls without fear of repercussions on your own body… so he does. the breath you’d been holding in is punched out of you, replaced with an honest-to-god wail. tears bud at the corners of your eyes at the stretch, falling as he pulls out almost entirely and slams into you again. 

jeno does everything in his life in order to live up to the name you’ve given him: lionheart. he is just and loyal and thoughtful as an advisor, and analytical and fearsome and ruthless as a warrior. sex is where both sides of him meet. it is where he is not just the kingdom’s bravest knight, or the crown’s right-hand man. it is where he is your lionheart, and yours alone, where your souls intertwine at the place your bodies meet. 

he notices how your hands come up to reach for him, leaning down so you can place one hand against his heart - against his tattoo - and throw the other one over his other shoulder. jeno’s nose is almost touching yours, though your bodies shift continuously as he keeps drawing back and driving his hips into yours with force.

he never ceases to make you feel full. 

your walls grip his cock tightly, amplifying every movement jeno indulges you in. the slide is slick and wet and perfect, but it is not easy. the head of his dick catches on your clenched walls every time he pulls out just to slam back in, forcing you to feel him with everything you have. it’s exactly what you want. 

he slows down his thrusting for a moment as he moves forward slightly, leaning closer still as he places one forearm against your head and raises his other hand to fondle your chest over your sheer clothing. somehow, this is no longer enough for you. jeno’s cock is fully sheathed within you as he swipes a thumb over one of your nipples, and the feeling of his skin pushing the cloth against one of your most sensitive areas has you shuddering in a way that causes you to squeeze even tighter around him. his hips stutter slightly, driving him impossibly deeper into you.

“jeno,” you rasp out, tongue heavy and dry. “my pillow. beneath my pillow.”

his eyes go wide as he processes what you’ve just said, his shallow thrusts slowing down. jeno gulps audibly. 

“your- love, your dagger?”

“need you to touch me.” you respond, holding his gaze and watching it clear up from confused to comprehending you entirely. he pushes himself up from his forearm to his hand, sliding out of you in the same movement. you whine sadly at the loss of contact, but jeno mutters a good-natured ‘be quiet’ almost immediately. 

“you know,” he starts, voice teasing, even as he pulls your dagger - black steel, quillions and hilt encrusted with blue jewels, black tempered glass at the pommel - out from beneath your pillow using the hand that had been fondling you earlier. he moves back down to his prior position, and your breath hitches as he presses the apex of the knife against the collar of your nightgown. “i’m already touching you.”

“more,” you moan out, the end of your word coming out almost breathlessly. one of your hands slides against his tattoo once more, as if feeling the lion will make it roar to life. “touch me more.” 

jeno chuckles, albeit darker than he had been earlier, and digs the dagger into the cloth in front of it without any further ado. you hold your breath willfully this time, not wanting to actually nick yourself on the blade, as he moves down your body, cutting the sheer gown open down its direct center. your lionheart dots his lips against your flesh in a trail in his wake, scraping his teeth against your skin as he sees fit. 

he leaves a quick, but filthy, kiss against your clit for good measure, eyes lighting up as you attempt to close your legs around his head on impulse, only to have them pushed apart even farther than before by his strong hands. once he gets to the hem of the slip, he throws your dagger somewhere on the stone floor - neither of you pay any heed to where it clatters - and rips it apart with his bare hands, hardly able to bear not feeling you around him for much longer. 

before you can do anything or say anything or even think anything at all, your lover surges forward and presses himself back into you with a grunt that sounds almost like a growl. his hands knead at your thighs as he finds his rhythm with ease, pounding into you with practice as if you’re an art medium and he’s a skilled master. he’s everywhere, all around you and inside of you and in the air and in your skin, and it’s all you’ve ever wanted.

“touching - ha - touching you enough now?” he asks, resolve crumbling bit by bit as he fights to keep himself from tumbling over the cliff’s edge before you do. you can’t dignify him with a response, unable to do anything but claw at his back and pin yourself further against his chest as if it’ll make even more room for you in his heart than there already is. he doesn’t need a response, anyways. jeno already knows. 

he knows just how close you are, too. just as close as he is. it’s because of this that jeno moves a hand up to curl around your throat just as he circles your clit with two fingers of the other hand, continuing to fuck into you at the same rate as best he can. with a sharp cry and the arching of your back off the bed, you clench around him for one final time before he comes to a halt, barely holding himself up over you as he releases within you with a shuddering, gasping groan. 

moments pass, stretching into longer than they typically are. jeno takes care as he slides out of you, climbing onto the bed and flopping down next to you right after. the feeling of his release, sticky and wet against your inner thighs, is unpleasant at best, but you can’t bring yourself to clean up just yet. instead, you turn your head to your side, your nose immediately brushing against jeno’s sternum as you realize that he’s turned his entire body towards your own. he lets out an airy laugh at the sensation, pushing half of the sliced cloth off of your body in order to run a wide open palm down your naked side. 

“good?” he speaks first, asking an arbitrary question. ‘good enough to make you forget?’ is what he means, knowing full well that you could never lose thought of what awaits the two of you. the sentiment is what’s important, though, and you let out an agreeable hum as a reply. the sex itself was great, of course. he’s well aware. 

“sleep, lionheart,” you say just as silence attempts to cloak the two of you. “we must be ready soon, as it is.”

jeno gives you no response, and you do not require one from him. instead, he pulls you even closer into his chest as if doing so will protect you from the crithagians across your kingdom. his entire world rests between his arms. you are both tired enough that sleep forces your eyelids closed swifter than expected, and as you fall asleep to your lover’s slowed breathing and muted heartbeat, you can’t help but, just this once, allow your worries to slip off your body as your torn nightgown does. 

just before the rise of the sun, jeno will have to get out of bed and clean you up as best he can before donning his clothing, his armor, and his cape. you’ll put his helmet upon his head, pull his visor down over his face after sharing a kiss that could be your last. it is always like this. jeno will rouse the army, you will dress and arm yourself, and meet with your own private troops. 

as the sun begins to take its place in the morning sky, luckily opposite your gaze, jeno will lead his people into battle, riding his steed far, far from you. you will watch him go, but he will not look back. doing so is unfortunate luck at best. you’ve ingrained this into his mind. 

you do not know whether he will be back or not.

you desperately need him to come back.

all of that will happen in due time, but now, you drift to dreamland, safe in the arms of the man you’ve sworn to be with until the end. he tightens his hold around you, and that is how you spend the night before battle, in total comfort and full of love. no matter what tomorrow brings, at least you have this now. at least you will always have this moment. 

the lionheart and his liege. your lionheart and his love. 

for now, you are at peace in the calm before the storm.

#first #five #tags #dont #work #jeno #jeno smut #jeno fluff #jeno angst #jeno x reader #nct jeno #nct smut #nct fluff #nct angst #nct dream smut #nct dream angst #nct dream fluff #nct dream

[lockefanfic]

White Silk

Parts One, Two, and Three of this series of oneshots.

-

There were only few moments in your life when you truly cared about the weather.

Once when your much-anticipated camping trip was spent inside your tents hiding from a torrential downpour. Another time when your apartment’s air conditioning broke down during an unprecedented heat wave. A final time when icy roads brought you close to you wrapping your car around a tree.

This was another one of those moments. Outside, what seemed like the storm of the century battered the building relentlessly, turning the day into a dark, stormy mess.

Inside, however, Lee Jieun somehow still managed to shine.

She was utterly beautiful - no, beautiful seemed inadequate to describe the sight. She stands with her back half turned to you, her perfect silhouette framed by the window. And while it is dark and stormy outside, she somehow still manages to glow, her very presence seeming to battle against the gloom that pervaded the rest of the day, seeming to defy it, seeming to tell it “No, your rain and clouds will not dim my brightness.”

She turns when you enter the room - and time slows to a crawl. It was like one of those moments in the movies when the female lead meets the male lead for the first time. As she turns her head, her hair, unstyled and seemingly also unbrushed but somehow still flawless, whips carelessly over her bare shoulder, almost as if in slow motion - a shampoo commercial come to life. 

Wrapped around her lithe, thin frame is a white silk dress. Made of the finest of materials and woven by the most talented of seamstresses, it is almost a work of art in and of itself - but without the young woman on whom it draped it is little more than a useless scrap of overpriced fabric. No, the woman made the dress, and not the other way around. It is she that makes the dress beautiful.

From the second you met her so many years ago you’d thought she was the most beautiful woman you’d ever met - but right now, as a bride on her wedding day, you knew she’d never been more beautiful. All women are beautiful - but on their wedding day they glow just a little brighter.

Jieun’s eyes meet yours. A glimpse of a surprised reaction - one she quickly hides. She opens her mouth to speak, and you expect some eloquent, powerful observation on the storm raging outside, and how it will not affect her spirits.

“I need some fucking alcohol,” she spits.

You smirk a little at her first words of the day to you. She looked like a princess, but sometimes she had the tongue of a sailor.

“Sorry,” you answer as you step towards her, “there’s no bar on the premises, unfortunately, although I hear the reception will have one. Cash bar, though, so best hit up an ATM before arriving.”

Jieun sighs and returns her attention to staring out the window. You feel the room get a little dimmer as she takes her attention away from you.

“Of course not. Nothing today can go right, apparently.”

You stand beside her, staring out the same window at the angry grey skies and the seemingly endless torrential downpour.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she says after a few shared seconds watching the raindrops trace random patterns on the glass.

“You’re not exactly kicking me out.”

Jieun scoffs. “Well everything else today is going horribly wrong so yeah, why the hell not have you show up?”

“What else is going wrong, exactly?”

“The photographer came down with a cold, so the best we can muster is my cousin and his fucking iPhone. The hair and makeup artist I hired is stuck in traffic on the other side of the city and probably won’t make it here on time, which is why I currently look like a fucking college student on the wrong end of a weed bender. The florist thought the wedding was tomorrow, so the only flowers we have are those sad looking almost-dead bouquets from the fucking gas station. Oh, and the reception hall had a goddamn double booking and neglected to tell us that the banquet hall won’t be available until 10pm, once the fucking high school math olympics has finished its awards ceremony!”

You frown. There wasn’t really much you could do to ameliorate the situation.

“Clusterfuck and a half,” you state.

“Clusterfuck and three quarters,” she counters, “coming real close to two full clusterfucks. Compared to all the bullshit that’s already gone down today, yeah, fuck it, you may as well be here, even when you very clearly shouldn’t be. I’m getting married today, if you didn’t notice.”

You glance over to her for the first time, and even though she is currently wearing a frown on her cute little features, you are nonetheless still struck by her beauty. Such a cheesy thing to admit to - being awestruck by a woman. It was something that surely only happened in books and movies and on Netflix; surely in real life no woman could ever be so beautiful as to render a man temporarily physically paralyzed.

But Lee Jieun had a way of doing that to you. She did it when she walked into the busy downtown Korean barbeque place that your mutual friend had dragged her to on that fateful day so many years ago. She did it when she just so happened to sit next to you, and again when she reached out her slim, pale hand and introduced herself with a cute handshake and a blinding smile. 

And she did it every single day you’d met her since. Today was no different, even if it was one of the most important days of her life.

“I overheard one of the bridesmaids saying you weren’t doing so well,” you say. “I had to make sure you were going to make it up the aisle.”

“Well I feel nauseous as fuck at the moment so I might make it up there only to barf all over the goddamn groom when I get to the altar.”

“What a lucky guy.”

“Damn straight. He gets to spend his entire life boning this hot piece,” she says with an exaggerated flourish of her hand over her body that was more sarcastic than serious, a deadpan frown on her face.

“I’m jealous,” you say.

Jieun buries her face in her hands, where she lets out a long sigh.

“Are you sure you don’t have a shot of soju in your jacket or something?”

“No,” you say. “I do have these, though.”

“I swear to god if you’re referring to your balls I’m gonna punch-”

When she lifts her head from her hands, she finds you with your arms wide open and the cheesiest of smiles on your face.

It begins slowly - just a slight crack of an upward tilt at the corners of her mouth, like a small ray of light piercing dark clouds. Eventually her soft pink lips and cute cheeks follow suit, and soon the metaphorical clouds part, her face surrendering to the reluctant smile and short chuckle that she allows to escape her mouth along with an adorable little snort.

She steps forward into your embrace, and you wrap your arms tightly around each other.

“You’ve always been there for me,” she says, her words muffled by your chest.

“I always will be.”

“Even when I’m married?”

“Especially when you’re married. Married guys can be dicks.”

Jieun chuckles again, and the soft vibration of her laugh against your chest makes your heart sing. She presses herself closer against you, as though she were fleeing from the accumulating problems of the day and had just found a hiding spot in your arms.

“How much time do I have?” she asks, barely audible.

“About an hour or so, I’d say,” you reply. Only a few of the guests had arrived and the groomsmen and bridesmaids were occupied with putting out the myriad of little fires that came up during weddings. There was still some time to yourselves before the start of the show.

“Then kiss me,” she says, lifting her head from your chest.

Time slows again. Time moves slowly, almost incrementally slowly, as you bend your head to kiss her.

It felt so wrong, so dangerous - but it also felt so right, so perfect. You should not have been there, not on her wedding day, mere minutes before she was to walk down the aisle. You could have, and perhaps should have, been anywhere but here.

But Jieun had always had that hold over you. You didn’t think yourself whipped for any other woman in your life, but when Jieun called you answered - no questions asked. You hated yourself for it sometimes, hated that a woman could have such overwhelming control over you, could have you wrapped around her finger like she did. 

But one smile - and sometimes, one kiss - was all it took to remind you why you did it: you were in love with her.

The kiss deepens, becoming something more passionate, more needy. Tongues begin to explore familiar mouths and find their counterparts willing and ready to touch and taste. Hands tighten around torsos. Hips press against hips. The bride tries to find solace from a day of ruined plans in the kiss and embrace of a man that meant so much to her.

You are happy to leave it there - merely seeing her was already probably a mistake - but Jieun was never one to stop things she had started. She breaks the kiss and pulls at the back of your head until your mouth is on her neck, and you begin devouring the sweet, pale flesh there with your hungry lips and tongue. She cranes her neck up and back, offering up more of herself to you.

Her hands slip between your bodies to work at your belt, which she quickly undoes.

“Here..?” you manage to gasp in between kisses. She was taking your breath away, again, although this time for another reason.

“Here,” she snaps, as though she were surprised you would even dare to ask, “Everything else is going wrong. I need this now. I need you now. Fuck me like you always do. One last time.”

Before you could say anything further she has you out of your boxers, her slim fingers suddenly cold and chilly around your quickly hardening shaft. Soon she has you at full stiffness. It doesn’t take you long. It never did. Especially not now, given the circumstances. Given the knowledge that the hand wrapped around your shaft and pumping it up and down would soon have a shiny diamond ring on it for the rest of her life.

You groan into her neck as the pleasure she is conjuring inside your body begins to overtake your senses. You feel her cheeks move against the side of your face - a wicked smile on an angel’s lips.

You are content to let her have her way with you, but you are reminded of her request - to fuck her the way you always did. And when you fucked, you were the one in control. Her innocent, girl-next-door exterior belied the fact that she loved to be taken, loved to be called names and used - and you weren’t one to disappoint her, even today, on this most important of days. You hated yourself sometimes for how much control she had over you in your day-to-day life; but you relished the fact that in your most intimate moments the roles were very much reversed.

You bring your hands to her shoulders and turn her around until she is facing the wall. She lets out a gasp of surprise - one that turns into a low moan as you press yourself, and your stiff shaft, against her. She braces herself against the glass, her forearms and palms flat against it.

Your hands, still on her shoulders, trace the top edge of the perfect white dress wrapped around her like a second skin. When they reach the front of her dress, you grasp the top edge and pull downward.

Jieun gasps as you pull the dress down to expose her breasts, and you grin devilishly over her shoulder as you watch her reflection in the glass as her small, perfect round mounds bounce free from their silk prison. Before she can react further your hands are already on them, squeezing them none too gently, enjoying the feel of her body molding itself into your hands, her already stiffened nipples poking between your fingers.

“You gonna let me fuck you on your wedding day, Jieun?” you hiss into her ear.

“Fuck yes,” she hisses, her breath a mist upon the glass, “I want you to fuck me right fucking now.”. She reaches down, pulling her long, flowing skirt up to bunch it around her waist. It takes her a while - her skirt is so long - but soon the pale, perfect round cheeks of her pert little ass are laid bare, your cock pressing impatiently against her lower back. 

You smirk at the sight of her, the perfect little bride on her wedding day, now a wanton, needy little thing, begging for it, begging to be fucked in a dress that was supposed to symbolize her innocence with its pure color. She wasn’t even wearing underwear, as though she knew this would happen, was expecting to be fucked wearing this dress.

“Fuck me,” she snaps, as though every moment you kept her waiting was making her more and more upset. “Fuck me please. I’m so wet for you.”

“Such a slutty little bride,” you observe. ‘So wet and hot already, and I’ve barely touched you.” You pinch her nipples. She sighs. You grin at the sight of her in her pristine white dress, an angel engaged in an act that was not at all angelic.

“Fuck yes. I’m such a slut. Such a slutty little bride. Now fuck me!”

“You want to get fucked against this glass in your pretty little white wedding dress?”

“Mmmm!” Jieun gasps, every sound that leaves her throat dripping now with need, “Please, fuck me now. Fuck this bride’s tight little pussy until you cum in it.”

You let go of her breasts, but not before giving her stiff nubs one last pinch that elicits a sharp gasp from her throat. Your right hand drifts to your cock, you line up your tip with her entrance, and within moments you slip inside Lee Jieun’s body.

You’d had her plenty of times, but today is different - and you wonder if perhaps the circumstances and the sheer audacity of what you were doing somehow added to the way she felt around you. She was slick and hot and wet and so, so very tight. It almost drove you insane to be inside her. Judging by the way her fingers curled against the hard glass, seeking something to claw into as she is filled with your cock - Jieun felt the same.

“Fuck,” she hisses, the curse word leaving her mouth in a breathy sigh. You both take a moment to savor the sensations - hers of being filled, yours of her wet, hot body wrapping itself around your stiff, aching shaft.

You don’t waste any time. You had little to waste, nor did you have any desire to deny yourself the pleasure her body promised. When you withdraw your shaft from between her round cheeks to find it glistening with her juices, you quickly drive yourself back in - this time to the hilt.

Soon you are fucking Lee Jieun against the glass, her naked breasts pressed against it, stiff nipples crushed against the cold surface as she is taken roughly, your cock pumping in and out of her wet, slick pussy at a frantic pace. 

If she had problems with the liberties you were taking on her body she was not showing it. Her reactions told you much the opposite - that she loved each thrust into her needy pussy, loved feeling you piston in and out of her at the quick, hard pace you had set for yourselves.

“Oh my… oh my fucking god,” she hisses, her face pressed now against the glass, a soft mist forming on it with each hot breath that leaves her lips. “Fuck me, fuck me like this.”

You are almost afraid to look down, almost afraid to watch your cock pump in and out of her needy body - but you eventually tear your eyes from her pleasure-stricken face to glance down between your torsos.

Her juices are flowing freely, lathering your stiff shaft with a thick sheen of her slick, glistening  wetness. Her lips grip every inch of your shaft, parting softly to welcome it in with each thrust, grasping it tightly with each withdrawal as though not wanting to let it go. You reach down and squeeze her tight little ass with both hands, filling your hands with her cheeks, parting them slightly to give you a better view of each thrust of your cock into her slick, wet pussy.

“Oh… oh fuck!” she gasps as you reach a new depth, bottoming out your thrusts now as you fill her with every inch of you, filling the mewling young bride as deeply as you could with stiff cock. 

“Fucking take my cock, Jieun,” you snap, bringing your hand up to her chin to tilt it toward you. “Fucking take it.”

“Y-yes! Fuck me… I’m yours. I’m yours!”

The filth of her words, of her submission to you, would have been pleasurable any other time. But now, mere minutes from her marriage - it meant something more, something more perverse - and something more deliciously sinful.

You reach around her torso to grasp a round breast with your free hand, finding her stiff nipple and teasing it at first before pinching and twisting the sensitive bud. You turn her face toward you with the hand on her chin, wanting to watch as every thrust into her body twisted her small, adorable face with little spasms of pleasure. For a few long, delicious minutes you fuck the mewling, squirming young bride against the glass, the pleasure you both found in each others’ bodies far outweighing the filthy wickedness of your act.

“Is your husband going to fuck you like this every single day? Fuck your needy, slutty little pussy whenever he wants?”

“Y-yes!” she manages to gasp, her words interrupted by each thrust of your cock into her juicy pussy, “Yes… whenever… wherever… however he wants!”

“And you want my cum dripping down your legs while you walk down the aisle? While you get married?”

“Yes! Oh fuck please I want it, I want your cum inside me, I want it dripping out of my pussy oh please oh fuck, cum inside me oh fuck cum inside me please, fill my pussy, fill me with cum, fuck me, fuck me, oh, oh I’m cumming, oh--!”

You always dreaded Jieun’s orgasm during sex, because it was so powerful, so overwhelming -  not only for her, but for the both of you. And it usually meant that you came soon after.

Jieun turns into a mewling, quivering mess of flesh, held up against the glass only by your hands on her chin and breast - and the cock still pistoning in and out of her pulsating pussy. You fuck her through her orgasm even as you feel your own beckoning, concentrating on each thrust, pushing yourself as deep as you can inside the young bride before pulling out only far enough to thrust right back inside her.

The random pulsating of her slick pussy, the wordless cries of pleasure brought upon her by her orgasm, and the soft breast in your hand - it all combined to push you dangerously close to the edge. But the thought of it - of fucking this needy young woman mere moments before her wedding - and at her demand, no less - it pushed you right over it.

You push yourself as deep inside her as you can go before you finally allow your orgasm to overtake your senses. Your mind tunnels, becoming focused solely on your pulsating cock as it spurts hot, thick semen deep inside Jieun’s tightly gripping pussy. The bride gasps - a soft, lustful sound - with each rope of cum that splashes into her depths, each stream further adding to the mess you’d made inside her body.

You both spend a long minute trying your best to piece your realities back together after your respective orgasms have shattered it, both reduced to heavily breathing, barely standing masses of suddenly weak flesh. It was a quick little session - not more than a few minutes from her first kiss to your mutual orgasm - but it still left you both exhausted, chests heaving in an attempt to refill lungs drained of air.

You reach up, tilt her chin to yours once more, and you give her a kiss - one that was more affectionate than perhaps either of you were ready for, but one you find her returning willingly and passionately.

Slowly you draw your softening shaft out of her body, and Jieun tries her best to clean herself up and look presentable, doing her best to look as though she didn’t just have rough sex minutes before walking down the aisle.

There is a knock on the door. It opens just wide enough for the maid of honor to poke her head inside - and you are thankful that she didn’t decide to do so a few minutes earlier, lest she catch you fucking the bride against the glass. She gives you a quizzical look.

“Isn’t it bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding?” she asks.

“I think we’ve used up all our bad luck for today, Nayeon,” Jieun answers. “What’s a little more bullshit on top of the shit sundae that is our wedding plans?”

Nayeon frowns, confused by the bride’s nonchalance towards the day’s ruined plans. “Aish. Anyway, the makeup lady is here. And one of the groomsmen managed to track down a photographer. One of you should talk to him.”

“Thank you, Nayeon. We’ll just be a few minutes,” you reply.

The maid of honor gives you both a look before she closes the door behind her.

“I can’t believe we just did that,” Jieun says.

“Me neither.”

“I’ll see you up there. You’re walking down that aisle first. Try not to trip.”

“Try not to drip.”

Jieun gives you a punch in the arm, but her hand lingers there for a moment, before sliding down and grasping your hand in hers.

“I love you,” she says.

“And I, you,” you reply. 

You kiss her, and the peck on the lips turns into a soft but passionate kiss. She gives one last look out the window and the cloudy, stormy weather that continued unabated outside, although it all seemed to matter a little less to the both of you.

“Let’s go get married,” she says, the smile on her lips all the sunshine you ever needed.

-

Author’s Note: Short but hopefully sweet. :) I had to sneak in an “I, you” (IU) reference in there somewhere lol.

So I felt kind of bad about the way Green Silk ended and wanted to have a similar twist but this time with a happy ending lol. Also lol at maid of honor Nayeon, I bet being IU’s maid of honor would be a dream come true for her haha.

#kpop fanfiction #kpop fanfic #kpop smut #male reader #pov smut #lee jieun #iu

[words-etched-in-her-skin]

So with such a large powerful woman I like to think where would I start? Have you considered it? There is a lot of her to satiate.

Personally I think I would start warmly focused right at the base of neck and shoulder. Hot breath on her skin coupled with soft nipping and kisses. With one hand gripping on the other shoulder and my free hand caressing just below her breast. For me, it’s natural to start moving up to her jaw. Just gently teasing and listening for her command. I want to know how my beloved react? Does the Countess need a slow burning passion to be kindled? Or is has dragoness truly awakened and wild fire deep within already ignited ? It’s up to her, I just want fuel the inferno deep in her soul. Idle hands are unacceptable. They always work for my goddess. My fingers gently tracing her collar bone. The praises I’m giving her are only for her to hear. A deity of fire, sex, and war deserves to be worshipped fully. The thumb of my hand still below the breast traces over her ribs. Everything is left up to her command. I look forward to serving Alcina’s deepest indulgences.

My mind foolishly wanders about her orders. I feel heat roll across my face just considering the possibilities. If she wants to be rough, if she wants something slow or she wants to put forth no effort and I get the full honor of pleasing her.

Certainly you have considered this?

Well, I ... Ahem.. 👀👀👀👀👀

First of all.. sorry for the delay in answering this ask, anon.. I wanted to make sure I was in the proper thirstspace to do it justice ... djdkskjsksks.. fuck... I'm .. okay..

Yes. I have absolutely considered where I would start if I were lucky enough to ever worship Alcina like the goddess that she is. While I don't think she would let just anyone indulge her like this... She would definitely be in control the entire time. The length of her stretched exquisitely across her bed. Her glowing eyes following your every move. A slight click of disapproval to her tongue when whenever your mouth ventured to a place she wasn't ready for. The low moan that will resonate deep within her throat whenever you venture somewhere she was. You could follow the sounds of her body and know exactly what she needed. Exactly what she desired. From her exquisite neck down to the fine lines of her collar bone. A slight moan to her lips when you found her nipples, tugging at them lightly as you pulled away. Soft kisses across the curves of her stomach, worshipping the fine lines that so eloquently decorated it. Her hips adjusting as you made your way down. The flush that'll sweep across her body when you reach her thighs. No clicks to be heard as you nipped at her skin - her supple flesh just asking to be marked. Her fingers on the back of you head, guiding you lower down, spreading her legs for you eagerly. .. "Go on, my pet. Have a taste."

I ... 🤤🤤🤤💦💦💦

#depravity answered #anonymous #im just #fuck #fhdjsjkaaka #🤤🤤🤤🤤🤤 #💦💦💦💦💦 #re8 asks #lady alcina dimitrescu #lady dimitrescu x reader

[naralanis]

little bumps in the road (pt. 26)

Previously, on LBitR...

Lena has never given much thought to what happens after death.

She’s heard all about feeling cold—she’s felt that cold, more than once. She’s heard all about darkness—which she has seen, but not exactly in a near-death context. She’s also heard all about the light.

She does see that—not exactly a light she has to follow or whatever it is people see when they die, but a blinding expanse of white, as far as her eyes can see, though a little fuzzy, darker around the edges of her vision.

Considering the way she went out, Lena’s very surprised she doesn’t see any green.

Green. Kryptonite.

Kara.

Something that feels like a sob wrenches itself out of her chest by force. That dumb, stupid, idiotic Kryptonian—if Lena’s dead, then Kara is for sure—how dare she—

“Lena?”

The voice is familiar, and close; physically close, something that Lena didn’t think was possibly in this ethereal, post-death realm. Lena turns her head and realizes that, despite the brightness of the light she’s seeing, her eyes are most definitely closed.

Huh.

She opens them, then blinks, because the only difference seems to be… a lot of fuzzy shapes.

“Lena?” the voice calls to her again, closer still.

“Eugh…” is Lena’s less-than-eloquent reply. She could have done worse; her throat constricts painfully around something, and it’s like she’s pulling air the wrong way in, which causes a coughing fit that rattles her to the bone.

“Hey, hey, it’s OK, take your time,” the voice continues, and Lena knows that voice, but right now her brain feels like actual Jell-O sloshing around in her skull, and her entire body lights up with pain, so it’s understandably taking her a little while to get her bearings.

She blinks the crust out of her eyes; the speaking blob at her side begins to take shape and look like a person.

“Lena, don’t worry. You’re alright, you’re at the DEO. You’re hurt, but we could take the implant out—there will be an adjustment period, but you’re alright.” The voice explains, and Lena finally, finally places it.

“Agh… ah—ugh… L-lex?” she tries; her tongue feels like a wad of cotton in her mouth, and her throat is just burning.

The voice grows soothing. “We got him, Lena, don’t worry, we got—”

Lena shakes her head, which is a terrible decision—there is s sharp jolt of pain that shoots down her temple and settles all the way at the base of her spine; it makes her clench her teeth, which in turn just worsens the throbbing in her head.

She attempts to raise a hand; that fails when another painful shock travels from her shoulder across her collarbones. Lena groans in frustration, she needs to ger her words out, but it’s like her entire body has decided to call it quits.

Finally, she manages.

“Ah-Alex… Alex?”

The figure releases a breathless little laugh, and a reassuring hand comes to rest very gently at Lena’s shoulder.

“It’s me, Lena. I’m alright, you’re alright. Rest now, OK? Your meds will be kicking in again any time.”

Lena is equal parts relieved and panicked; there’s the obvious relief that comes with the knowledge that Alex is fine and right here next to her. But the agent doesn’t say a word about her sister, and that fills Lena with a dread she cannot express in her condition; especially now, as her lids grow heavier by the second, as her body sinks into an undoubtedly double-padded mattress.

“K—K..agh…” she tries, needing to know that Kara is alright, that she’s alive, because if Lena made it, Kara has to be alive. The alternative is unthinkable.

She manages another unintelligible gurgle before the meds do kick in, and then she’s out like a light.

Lena dreams.

This time, she does see green—a lot of it as the entire space of her LuthorCorp office is awash in the glow of the fully-armed Kryptonite cannons, and when Supergirl—Kara—lowers herself onto her balcony, Lena realizes this is not a dream at all.

It’s a memory.

She watches Kara raise her arms in surrender, sees the crinkle of confusion on her brow as the Kryptonian stares at her as if she’s seeing someone else entirely.

Lena watches her fall once she’s hit by what was meant to be a lethal dose of Kryptonite.

The memory shifts.

They’re in the Jeep, this time. It’s the dead of night and Kara’s in the driver’s seat, hair cropped short—Christ, Lena had forgotten just how short it was during those first couple of weeks. Kara’s driving, but she’s not looking at the road—no, in this snippet of reality, she’s staring straight at Lena, her gaunt, pale complexion fixated on her passenger. She looks perplexed, but also, inexplicably, relieved.

The memories keep shifting—they’re at the diner where they finally spoke to one another again, then they’re at a gas station, a phone booth, on and on and on—until everything seems to move and merge into a blur of colours, shapes, and sounds. It’s a convoluted, puzzling mental kaleidoscope, but surprisingly, Lena finds it remarkably easy to make sense of it all.

After all, how could she not? These are her memories. She’s lived through it all before.

Lena blinks into awareness slowly, this time. Her dream—or actual trip down memory lane—fades away softly, giving way to the soothing darkness of eyes gently closed for sleep.

There’s warmth at her side, and movement, too. It’s the up-and-down, in-and-out steady rhythm of deep breathing.

Lena instinctively tucks into the warmth and feels it in a solid, unmovable presence on her bed. She blinks once, twice, registers the lower lighting of her room, the tell-tale beeping of hospital equipment…and a very warm Kryptonian, glued to her side, squeezed so tight into the MedBay bed she cannot be comfortable.

Lena shifts—she needs to get a better look, needs to touch, to make sure she’s not dreaming, that her mind (which hasn’t been extremely reliable as of late) isn’t playing a cruel trick on her.

When she moves, blue eyes rimmed by dark circles snap open; they crinkle at the corners with a smile as they meet Lena’s gaze head on, and Lena releases a breath of pure relief.

“Hey,” Kara murmurs, her voice a soft breath ghosting over Lena’s cheeks since they’re only inches apart.

Lena can’t really help it; the tears are running down her cheeks before she realizes she’s crying, and she breathes in through sniffles as she reaches out to touch Kara’s face.

She’s there, inches away, warm and soft, and alive, and Lena lets the sobs rip through her chest. Her breaths are short little stuttering gasps, really, and she can’t stop smiling.

“Hey,” she whispers back, leaning into the warmth of Kara’s touch once the Kryptonian delicately wipes at her tears with her thumb. Her hand stays there, cradling Lena’s face as they smile like idiots after one-too-many near-death experiences.

“I have to admit,” Kara says after some time, smile unwavering and bright despite the pallor of her features, “that wasn’t the reaction I was expecting.”

Lena chuckles—she does so lightly, since her ribs (most likely broken) protest at the slightest movement. “What, crying?” she asks. She can’t really move her arms, or really anything at all, so she settles for slightly craning her neck, leaning further into the hand Kara has kept in place at her tear-stained cheek.

Kara just nods, laughing a little. There’s a warm yellow hue around them—Lena surmises someone probably moved a sunlamp to her bed once Kara invited herself in—and it makes Kara’s hair, growing at awkward, adorable angles, glow golden and beautiful.

Lena soaks it all in.

“Is this real?” she can’t help but ask. She doesn’t think she would survive another trick of the mind, especially one so cruel.

Kara shifts on the thin mattress, impossibly closer, body practically melding along Lena’s. She’s still smiling, and there’s such certainty in her gaze, Lena practically melts with relief before Kara can even reassure her.

“Yes,” Kara says. “I have to admit the details are a little bit fuzzy,” she raises her arm with some difficulty to poke playfully at her own head, “but it seems I uh, ripped the Lexosuit apart and tossed it just before it exploded.”

Lena furrows her brows, trying to remember. All she can recall was the countdown clock and the split-second feeling of weightlessness before she began falling to the earth once the suit powered down.

“And then?”

Kara shrugs—Lena notices how her movements are stilted, like moving pains her, and wonders just how close to dying Kara had been. Again. “As far as I know, J’onn got to you in the nick of time.”

Lena narrows her eyes. “And you?”

Kara looks sheepish. “I uh. Hit the pavement.”

It’s said so… matter-of-factly, so casual and off-hand. It wrenches another sob right out of Lena, and her ribs ache in protest, but all she can think is Kara falling again, crumpling limply onto the pavement again, being on the brink of death again, and she can’t—Lena can’t cope with the image at all.

“Hey, hey, no, it’s OK,” Kara moves in, ready to calm and soothe, wiping at Lena’s tears with both hands. Her lips find Lena’s forehead, and while the gesture is entirely unprecedented, it has the desired effect—Lena’s body instinctively relaxes, and her sobs begin to abate. “I’m here,” Kara says, lips still on Lena’s skin, “Good as new, I promise.”

Lena doesn’t believe that for one second—there’s an unhealthy pallor to Kara’s complexion that tells her she still has a lot of time to spend under the sunlamps, and Lena can tell just how much it hurts for the Kryptonian to move. She bets there are slow-healing bruises all over her skin under the DEO-issue henley and sweats.

Though—she considers as her own body twinges with pains she hasn’t yet had the mental fortitude or will to catalogue in their entirety—she supposes she also has a long way to go as well.

“How long have we been out?”

“A few days,” Kara replies, chin resting atop Lena’s head and showing no inclination of moving. Good. “I just woke up a few hours ago.”

Lena grins. “And then the first thing you did was come to crowd my space while I recovered?”

Kara laughs. “Of course not. I went to pee first.”

It’s worth the twinges in her ribcage to chuckle a little. Lena lets out as deep a sigh as her injuries will allow, and her breathing adjusts to follow the steady rise-and-fall of Kara’s chest, still melded to her side.

“So, what now?”

Kara’s sigh is deep, and when she speaks, her voice grows heavier with sleep by the word. She’s probably exhausted and just about ready to conk out.

Lena thinks she’s got the right idea.

“Well,” the Kryptonian murmurs, voice so soft Lena has to strain to hear over the faint hum of hospital machinery surrounding them. “Nia caught Lex—gave him a good ol’ trashing, from what I hear. Uh, your name’s been cleared. LuthorCorp is yours, or will be after Lex’s trial—again. Supergirl is alive and back, sort of. Kara Danvers, meanwhile, is due to return from a mysterious illness… or something, I’m not sure what lie Nia made up at CatCo. Oh, and…”

Lena nods, barely processing Kara’s words. She’s just sinking into warmth, and Kara’s rambling in earnest now, and it feels so familiar. Comfortable, even here, cramped in this tiny MedBay cot.

Especially here.

Lena tucks further into Kara’s neck, and that stops Kara’s talking just enough for her to get a word in edgewise. “OK,” she whispers against Kara’s skin. “But for now… we just rest?”

She feels Kara’s slight nod, and Lena’s smile stretches wider while her eyes grow heavier. “Together?”

Another nod. Another whisper. “Together.”

<<<Previous||

That’s it! It’s done! Oof! Thank you all for humouring me in this wild, bumpy ride. All chapters (plus an epilogue!) will be posted on my AO3 within the next few days.

#THAT'S IT FOLKS #CAN YOU BELIEVE #Special thanks to the anon suggesting the use of the handy-dandy Read More feature #because it means I can put fake mini cliffhangers in stuff now #mwhuahuahua #you have unleashed a monster #anyway #CAN YOU BELIEVE IT'S OVER #I sure can't #y'all have been great #what a ride eh #could I have drawn out the angst #maybe #but frankly #it felt like a good place #and I also have about 5 different projects to finish in April #so ya know #ya gotta do what ya gotta do #anyway now for the actual necessary tags #nara's word vomit #LBitR #supergirl #supercorp #kara danvers #lena luthor #femslash #fic writing

[amarimaryllis]

I Do Not Think I Would (Bokuto x Reader)

Pairing: Bokuto/Reader

Prompt/Summary: The rational side of you tells you to leave, but for Bokuto Koutarou, you choose to stay. Alternatively, Bokuto Koutarou’s fangirls are ruthless.

Tags: Angst, Fluff, Haikyuu Timeskip Spoilers

Note: I used she/her pronouns for the reader, Bold Italicized sentences are excerpts from the poem “Love is Not All” by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Warnings: Mild Swearing, Mentions of self-hate, Mentions of insecurity, Bokuto has toxic fans

Part of A Sensitivity to Ephemera

You met Bokuto Koutarou in your 3rd year at Fukurodani, but you had known of his existence for longer. It was hard to not know of Bokuto Koutarou if you studied in Fukurodani. Hell, it was hard to not know of him if you studied in Tokyo in general. Aside from the fact that he was the embodiment of solar energy, Bokuto Koutarou also had a ton of admirers.

Fangirls

Fanboys.

And everything in between and beyond.

However, the first time you ever interacted with him was in Honda-sensei’s room. It was quick, a brief encounter that promised longer ones. Bokuto’s grades had been slipping, and you were his assigned tutor.

“Bokuto-san, this is L/N-san from Class 6.” Honda-sensei introduces you two briefly. “She’ll be tutoring you until your grades are back to… Satisfactory. I trust you to not give her a hard time.”

“Nice to meet you, L/N-san!” Bokuto bows briefly, the grin plastered on his face, unfading. However, there’s a sense of urgency in his stance, vibrating, itching to run off. Probably because he had volleyball training, and nothing in this world could keep Bokuto Koutarou from his beloved sport.

You didn’t know why, but your heart was beating a little bit faster than normal.

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain;

After a few weeks of tutoring, Bokuto’s grades were slowly getting better. It wasn’t “satisfactory” yet, according to Honda-sensei, but you guys were getting there. As a celebration, right after volleyball practice, Bokuto drags you to the closest cafe and tells you to choose anything you want because it was “on him” as he enthusiastically stated.

“Bokuto-san, you didn’t have to.” You mumble bashfully as Bokuto sets a tray down and seats across from you.

“Don’t worry about it!” Bokuto grins as he slides the food over to you. “It’s the least I can do since you’ve been such a great tutor.”

A small smile makes its way to your face. “I guess I’ll take it then. Thank you for the food!”

As you eat, you can see Bokuto’s eyes continuously flitting back and forth between a spot on your face and away from it. He looked hesitant, but your sudden speaking urges him to reply.

“Is there anything on my face?” You furrow your brows, raising a hand to wipe at your cheek.

“Ah yeah, wait, not there.” Bokuto reaches over the table, a large hand cupping your cheek before he presses his thumb to the corner of your mouth and swipes to remove whatever it was on your face. “You had sauce on your face.”

Fire and ice could co-exist at once, you concluded. Because if it didn’t, then you would like to present yourself as evidence. You were frozen, but inside you, there was an inferno of different emotions swirling, sparked by a single touch on your skin.

That night, after Bokuto had walked you home and you had settled in for the night, you dreamt of black and white streaks paired with the brightest golden eyes. You let yourself dream. You knew that this was the closest you could get to him. The real world wasn’t as kind to you after all.

While you slept soundly, Bokuto walked home. It was raining, but it didn’t matter to him because as the rain drops onto his skin, he wished that it was your touch that fell upon him instead. And for a second as he imagines, it almost felt like it was.

And though he so desperately wished for it as he lied in bed, slumber never came. Instead, in its place, were a hundred different stories, a hundred different futures, a hundred different lifetimes, and they all ended with the sight of a bashful smile, and the prettiest eyes.

Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath,

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone;

You gripped at your skirt tightly, fighting back the tears that threatened to escape your eyes. Fear gripped your chest as you watched Bokuto’s sleeping figure from your place on the chair beside the bed. There had been a small accident during Fukurodani’s practice match, a small collision, but it was enough to send him to the infirmary and you running after him.

It was stupid, you think to yourself. You had rushed to the clinic the moment your break started, and by the time you reached the room, you were a mess. The nurse only gave you a cheeky smile before she patted your back and said, “Don’t worry about your boyfriend. It’s a minor injury and it was probably just an ant bite for someone like him.”

Ant bites didn’t usually require sleep for recovery.

Also, he wasn’t your boyfriend, but you’d be the biggest liar on earth if you said that you didn’t want him to be. You were just his tutor. Sure you’d been tutoring him for a long time, and that was enough to form a friendship of sorts, but that was all you’ll ever be: a friend. So why were you acting like you were something more? Friends get concerned, they’ll drop by, check on you, go off once they realize it’s minor and you’re in good hands, and then wait for you to recover. They don’t stay, fussing, practically crying, and worrying over something so small.

You’re so caught up in your thoughts that the sudden placement of a heavy palm on your head startles you.

Bokuto chuckles as he takes in your disheveled state. Your eyes are damp, your hair is slightly messed up, and your skirt is still tight in your grip, but even then, he still couldn’t help but be mesmerized by the way you looked. “Hey hey hey, did I make you worry that much?”

You can’t help it. He’s recovering, you know that, but you couldn’t stop yourself from lunging at him and enveloping him in a hug. “I hate you so much. Promise me you’ll never make me worry like that ever again.”

Bokuto chuckles and you could feel the vibrations since you two were practically chest-to-chest. “If making you worry means you’ll hug me like this, then I don’t think I can make any promises.”

“Bokuto-san…” You attempt to pull away, but find yourself unable.

Sturdy arms wrap around your waist, and your frozen figure is pulled tighter against Bokuto’s body as he engulfs you with his larger frame. “Do you like me, Y/N-chan?”

You freeze.

Oh hell no.

Out of all the conversations in this world, this one was the one you did not want to have, especially not when you were emotionally vulnerable. You didn’t know if you had enough control over yourself to give the proper answers.

“What? No! I mean yes? You’re my friend, of course I like you.” Your fight or flight response to this conversation seems to have given you ample strength to pull away. You attempt to stand straight and face this problem head on, but your feet are pointing you towards the exit.

Ready to run. From this conversation. From your feelings. From rejection.

Bokuto raises a brow, a teasing grin on his face. “Oh, really?”

Contrary to popular belief (see: Honda-sensei), Bokuto Koutarou was not stupid. Very far from it. While he’s not academically gifted, he’s definitely smart on the people side of things.

You were an open book, and Bokuto was taking his time rereading every page.

“I…” You’re unable to answer, unable to find the words that would make the impending rejection hurt less.

“Well, if it helps—“ Bokuto sits up and sets his feet on the ground, lightly grabbing you to make you stand between his legs. “—I like you a lot.”

Your heart stops. Your world stops. Everything just stops. You’re gaping at Bokuto, mouth closing and opening as you try to find the proper words. You want to reply, eloquently, confidently, to save what’s left of your dignity, but you can only blink back at him.

You weren’t expecting this. Bokuto wasn’t expecting this.

A wave of uncertainty flashes through Bokuto’s eyes, and for a second, he wonders if he misread the situation. “Hey, it’s ok if you don’t feel the same—“

“Wait, no! That’s—“ You take in a deep breath, attempting to calm your racing heart as you try to find your next words. For someone who usually kept a level head, you sure weren’t acting like it. “That’s not it at all. I just… Are you sure?”

Bokuto is confused. He could understand the words individually. He could understand the sentence too, but he couldn’t understand its relevance in this context. What did you mean by ‘are you sure?’. Would he tell you if he wasn’t? Why wouldn’t anyone be sure about you? I mean, it’s you.

“Yes? Why wouldn’t I be?” Bokuto grabs your hand, and he laces his fingers through yours.

You don’t answer as you attempt to arrange your whirlwind of insecurity into one coherent sentence that could sum it all up. You didn’t want to burden him with an entire monologue of self-deprecation, but you couldn’t find a way to express the years of insecurity into one sentence that could do that feeling justice.

Bokuto sees this, and his heart breaks for a second. He was familiar with it. He knew those feelings all too well.

Uncertainty.

Doubt.

Self-Hatred.

“Can I kiss you?” Bokuto blurts out, and as he watches you get flustered, he thinks that this is a much better look on you compared to the one you were previously wearing.

You don’t speak. You just nod.

With that, Bokuto grabs you by the waist and reaches up to press his lips against yours.

It was Bokuto who broke the kiss, breathless as he pressed his forehead to yours. It was almost as if you had taken his breath away to breathe a new life into him with a simple kiss. You can feel his warm breath against your lips, his calloused hands gripping at your waist, and at the same time, you feel nothing. Maybe this is what it felt like to know of everything and nothing all at once. Hyperaware of every feeling, every part of your body that was connected to his, but at the same time you felt weightless, floating on a plane that didn’t seem to exist on earth.

“Can I do that again?” Bokut asks with a grin.

You don’t answer, simply grabbing at his collar and smashing your lips against his.

That was how your love story with Bokuto Koutarou started.

And you wish it ended there.

It well may be that in a difficult hour,

Pinned down by pain and moaning for release,

Bokuto’s fans were ruthless.

Bokuto’s fans are ruthless.

The toxic fangirls? Even more so.

Not all of them are terrible to you, some are kind, but there are enough bad apples that you start wanting to run away the moment you see the tree. His fangirls during highschool only ever went as far as gossipping and making snide remarks, but now that you were older and Bokuto was part of the MSBY Black Jackals, they had gotten worse.

Facebook? You don’t spend time there anyway.

Instagram? You’ve always avoided that place.

Twitter? Ah, good luck.

People are ruthless when they hide behind a screen and a fake name. Anonymity has a way of sparking bravery in even the most sheltered souls. There wasn’t a single tweet on your account that had no comment telling you how you’re not good enough, how Bokuto probably only stayed out of pity, how he’d probably break up with you soon, how they could make him happier than someone like you ever could.

Bokuto doesn’t know. He doesn’t have to know. You don’t want to tell him.

You’re never going to tell him.

It’s pathetic, you think to yourself. You’re afraid that if Bokuto saw these comments, the rose-colored glasses he wore would shatter. You were afraid that these tweets would tip him off the edge and plunge him into the sea of realization. The realization that he could do so much better than someone like you.

You were tired. So tired that you just want to give in to the comments and leave. It’s logical, after all. Bokuto would find someone much better than you. He’d go off, marry a girl deserving of him, and she’ll give him a family, a future, and a life worthy of someone like him. And you? You’d be free. Alone, heart destroyed beyond repair, but free. You could move on, move away, move as far as you could: out of sight, out of mind. It was so easy.

Or nagged by want past resolution’s power,

But you couldn’t.

The only thing you could do was stare at the tweets that dissected each and every single one of your insecurities and laid it bare, waved it around freely for the world to see and judge. You could only let the tears fall as the laptop screen glared back at your face. Everything is numb and you don’t feel like yourself as you scroll through every single comment and find yourself agreeing with each and every single one.

Sobs wrack throughout your body as it all becomes too much.

You’re too weak to stay, too weak to leave. So where do you go? Where the hell are you supposed to place yourself in this world when it feels like everything is going against you? Why was the world doing this to you? Why did it have to be you? You weren’t strong enough for this. You weren’t good enough for this, you never were, never are, and never will be--

“Love?”

You immediately slam the laptop shut and throw the covers over your body as if you had been there the whole time instead of sitting at the edge of the bed and crying over comments.

“Hey…” The side of the bed sinks. “Bad day?”

The fucking worst. You thought to yourself, but you only shook your head before burying your head deeper into the covers of your shared bed.

“Don’t wanna talk about it?” You can hear the worry in Bokuto’s voice as he places his hand on your waist over the blanket, rubbing up and down to soothe you.

Some part of you finds the courage to speak, and the words tumble out of your mouth faster than your brain can process them. “Why are you still with me?”

“Because I love you.” Bokuto doesn’t hesitate as he looks at your still-covered figure.

“What if you stop?” You mumble, but it was loud enough for Bokuto to hear,

“Not possible.” Bokuto gently pries the blankets away from you, uncovering your form that was curled up into a fetal position.

“But— Just—“ You turn the other way, unable to look at him. “What if you do?”

“Like I said—” You can feel the mattress behind you dip lower, sturdy arms moving to wrap around your waist as Bokuto nuzzles his face into your nape. “—not possible.”

With that, the tears start flowing once more.

You bury your face into the pillow, not wanting to show Bokuto because you knew that the sight of you crying wasn’t something he liked. He hated seeing you in distress, and he hated that the only thing he could do was talk you through it and comfort you.

“Hey hey hey…” Bokuto pulls away and makes you sit up straight before he sits against the headboard and pulls you to sob into his chest. “Where’s this coming from? What’s wrong?”

“Everything’s wrong.” You spat angrily, your grip on his shirt tightening. Anger at yourself, anger at the universe, all summed up in a single sentence. “Nothing ever goes right anymore, and I’m just—“

Your speaking is interrupted as another wave of sobs. “I’m so tired.”

You can feel Bokuto freeze, his hand that was rubbing your back stopping as he takes in your words. “Of what?”

“Everything.” You murmur, your grip on Bokuto’s shirt loosening as you press your forehead against his neck. “Just everything.”

“Does that include me?” You can hear Bokuto’s voice waver as his grip around you gets weaker. “Are you… Are you breaking up with me?”

You’re silent for a while. Was this it? Was the universe making the choice for you?

Whatever it was, you take it.

You pull away and look down, unable to stare into Bokuto’s eyes. You didn’t know if you could pull through if you could see the look on his face as you say your next words. “If it means that it will all stop, then maybe I should.”

Bokuto’s heart shatters, and his world follows in its footsteps. He can feel the tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. He knew you had been acting off the past few days, but he gave you some space so that you could sort it out until you were ready to finally approach him. But this? He wasn’t prepared for this.

“Why?” There’s a painful tug at your chest as you hear Bokuto speak in such a broken tone. “Did I do something wrong?”

“It’s not you. It’s me.” You cringe inwardly at your statement. Of all the things you could’ve said, you just had to say the most overused line in all of break-up history. “Bokuto, you—“

“It’s Kou.” You can hear Bokuto’s voice crack at the end. “It’s not Bokuto to you, Y/N. It’s Kou. Whatever it is just tell me, please I can fix it—“

“I’m the problem, okay?!” You couldn’t stop yourself from raising your tone, standing up from the bed to distance yourself from Bokuto. “I’m not good enough for you. I don’t deserve you. They’re right when they say that you could do so much better than me—“

You’re cut off as a sob pulls itself from your chest. Your chest is tight, your head is throbbing. Your legs are shaky and you couldn’t stop yourself from falling to your knees as you continue to cry. “I-I just… I know I don’t, but I-I’m so tired of b-being constantly r-reminded that I’m never g-going to be enough.”

“Y/N, none of that is true. Who told you that?” Bokuto’s tone gives away the pain he was feeling, but there was a hint of anger underneath it all.

You don’t answer, shaking your head, continuing to sob as Bokuto moves from the bed to kneel in front of you.

“Love, who told you that?” Bokuto places a comforting hand on your thigh as his other hand lightly grabs you by the chin to make you look at him.

“Everyone.” You wondered how pathetic you looked in his eyes right now. “Not a single day passes by where I’m not reminded by your fans. It’s stupid to keep listening to them, but they’re right—“

Bokuto cuts you off with a brief kiss, just enough to shut you up to give him a chance to speak as he moves to cup your cheek in his palm. “No, they’re not. They never will be.”

You don’t reply. You don’t argue, but you don’t agree either.

“Don’t break up with me, please.” Bokuto cups your face with both of his hands, occasionally brushing his thumb over your cheek as he presses his forehead against yours. “You mean the world to me. You’re absolutely perfect the way you are, and I know you don't believe that.”

You sob at that, and Bokuto is quick to press a kiss against your forehead and pull you into his chest. “If I have to spend my entire life reminding you of that then I will.”

I might be driven to sell your love for peace,

Or trade the memory of this night for food.

Bokuto hovers over you, his arms on either side of your holding him up as he looks at you with the most lovestruck look you’ve ever seen on someone.

“You’re perfect.” Bokuto whispers against your lips before he presses a searing kiss against your lips. “Absolutely perfect.”

Bokuto presses his weight against yours, pulling your bodies closer to each other as he continues to kiss you breathless. You wrap your arms around his neck, an attempt to blur the boundaries of skin, muscle, and bone that separate your soul and his. He pulls you closer against him, his fingers digging deeper into the flesh of your hips as he trails his kisses down your neck and every expanse of skin that was laid bare for him.

“I love you so much.” Bokuto whispers repeatedly against your skin between every kiss he puts on you. “So much.”

As you laid beside Bokuto, his arms wrapped around your waist and your face nuzzling into his bare chest, the thoughts of ever leaving slowly become more distant and fade away into oblivion. His chest rises and falls, and you find your breathing slowly matching his as you observe his sleeping face, peaceful, unbothered by all the troubles of the world beyond your bedroom.

You smile to yourself. All rational thought tells you to leave, but for Bokuto Koutarou...

It well may be. I do not think I would.

A/N: That’s two parts of the collection down, and three more to go! This one was supposed to be the lightest out of the five, but my finger slipped so... Whoops? HAHAHAGDHDHSJHS Anyway, I hope you guys like this one! 💖

#bokuto x reader #bokuto koutarou #haikyuu #haikyuu x reader #haikyuu imagines #genre.angstfluff #cont.spoilers #tw swearing #tw self deprecation #tw insecurity

[senju-sekhmet]

'Hot’ is just a matter of definition

Summary: It felt like any other morning - you surely felt like every other morning - except for a certain kind of warmth. Perhaps some soreness that made your muscles ache? Of course you wouldn't slow down simply for feeling a bit hot - Tobirama strongly disagrees. 5600 words I really wanted to do a funny comfort piece, so this is a little self-indulgent! It sat on my shelf for a while before I was happy with it, smh. Thanks for all the help, @avversiera-writes 🥺 Warnings! Illness, fever talks, and slightly suggestive undertones (SFW though!) Read on AO3!

The first sign should’ve been this awful chill that ran through your bones the moment you opened your eyes. It was an early rise, like usual, but something was different. Blinking slowly, your lazy gaze found the window and the brilliant, red sunrise that was hinted at by how the crimson hues were hitting the buildings you could peek at. 

And unsurprisingly, the man whose arms were wrapped around you, legs intertwined with yours gave a rather disgruntled huff as he registered your movement. Tobirama would fiercely deny being clingy (That’s ridiculous!) but despite the two of you usually falling asleep on each side of the bed (that is, if you went there at the same time or haven’t been down to friskier activities before), he’d  always  find his way around your body during the night somehow to completely enclose it with his. No, he wasn’t just a bit clingy, he was a real cuddler. One time you dared to make a small tease about such being the case, but you were only met with fierce denial, a bright red face and incoherent mumbling (Childish… I do not  cuddle…). It was adorable, really.

Honestly though, you wouldn’t deny loving it, either. To know that in the privacy of your bedroom, one might argue the most private room of a house, he’d become this relaxed was endearing - charming, even - especially considering in public, he was vastly different about physical affection.

Except when you wanted to really rise up; then the complaints started. Unless Tobirama got up before you did, his limbs would tangle yours more and he’d make miffed grunts. All within the time limit the two of you had for the morning, of course.

This morning, though?

You shifted a little bit from your position to lay more on your back, to which Tobirama gave yet another unamused sound. Your muscles ached slightly. Maybe you needed to stretch a bit today. 

“Nnnghn…”, he mumbled, and the arm that was wrapped around your chest to hold your shoulder tightly snuck a little higher to caress your neck.

“Tobi…”, you sweetly began, a whisper. 

“Hm,” came the answer, but this time a lot more conscious - and ponderous. One scarlet eye blinked open and Tobirama’s forehead was worried by fine wrinkles. “Hmmm,” he hummed again, the hand on your neck trailing up even higher, to your cheek.

You chuckled a little bit at the comical embrace he was giving you. “What’s up?”

His other eye opened and out of nowhere - “You’re hot.”

You blinked. “Why, I wasn’t expecting such unabashed, eloquent flattery in the early morning.”

He rolled his eyes and sighed exasperatedly. “Your body temperature is above average. Quite a lot, in fact.” You let your eyebrows tilt up in a rather hurt pout. “That is the least sexy way I’ve ever heard someone say ‘You’re hot’.”

Tobirama gave a low growl then suddenly and you only felt the bed shift - then he was above you, steading himself with an arm on each side of your chest, legs still tangled. If it wasn’t for the deep frown etched into his mien, you’d find this, in fact,  hot  . “That is because I am in no way referring to your looks, Y/n!” Although momentarily - momentarily - his gaze flickered down your body, covered in nothing but a light nightgown.

You raised an eyebrow expectantly. 

His scarlet stare was right back at you, burning in intensity - and yet there was a glint of something in them. “I am, of course, not saying you could not be considered metaphorically ‘hot’,” he began then, his baritone voice low and sultry, clinging to something.  Something that was wiped away in the blink of an eye when it became stern only. “But right now you are also hot  literally.”

You wanted to roll your eyes at him and tell him that has got to be the second worst way of being told you’re hot, but before you could get a word out, the man had plastered his hand on your forehead and you felt his chakra connecting to your network; smoothing over it gently in an inward caress you reciprocate swiftly, tenderly. You’d never grow tired of this. Of course, it lasted only a moment - he intensified the connection to gain a closer look at your body, his presence inside of you growing stronger as he took to examine you briefly in order to ascertain the origin of the ‘hotness’ you chose to flippantly call it.

Except you were not having any of it. “Tobirama, I’m fine, honestly.” Your hand moved to grasp the wrist of his arm to gently remove it from your forehead.

His presence inside you instantly flickered - bristled. “Y/n,” came the prompt, stern answer and you could swear the pressure on your forehead, hips and legs increased slightly.

This was getting ridiculous. “This is absurd. I feel good, so what if I’m  extra hot? Might be getting a cold, there is no need to fuss.”

His eyes flew open again to spare you a furious glare. “For a common cold it’d be very unusual to be burning up as you are,” he began firmly and you had to forcibly bite back on commentary or another eye roll lest his lecture would grow. “Now if you’ll keep your smart mouth closed for a few more moments, I could finish this.”

You jutted your lower jaw forward. “You love my smart mouth.”

His eyebrows rose slowly and for a few seconds, he seemed entirely impassive. Suddenly, you felt his chakra inside of you jolt, zigzagging through your network so abruptly you gasped. It wasn’t unpleasant so much as it was unexpected - and intense. Momentarily his presence within you was so strong, so potent, you felt you could nearly grasp his thoughts and emotions with your own chakra - and yet at the same time, he was so active, so seizing - it felt quite possessive.

“You’re-”, you huffed, ready to retaliate letting your chakra swell to retort.

“Quiet, let me work,” he grunted, closing his eyes again, focusing on the connection you two shared. The smirk in his voice had been unmistakeable, though, as was the slight tilt of the corner of his mouth.

Unfair. He was being unfair. However you weren’t swayed, either. “There’s no need for this. And you need to relax.” Again you felt the connection swell though, much more gentle as he continued the examination and you were given just a low, warning rumble to let him get it done. Only a moment later he gave another disgruntled hum, his scarlet gaze now mustering you now.

You crossed your arms in front of your chest. “Well? Happy now?” you snapped, perfectly miffed. On the one hand the concern was endearing, on the other hand...

His face was scrunched in deep ponder. “I’m unsure. I can’t pinpoint anything for sure, but perhaps there was something about your lungs-”

You felt yourself bristle. “I’m not staying here on some cryptic ‘perhaps’ from my very overprotective husband. May I, now?” Already, you wriggled beneath him to free yourself and get up. Your muscles really did ache a bit - you definitely needed a stretch.

Tobirama’s gaze narrowed again. “I don’t think you should be moving around today, Y/n.”

That did it. Darkly, you articulated every word perfectly clear: “Tobirama, I’m not joking. Move.”

Reluctantly - as you could tell by his stiff body - he shifted to the side to release you. His intense gaze never left you, though you couldn’t spare him more than another roll of your eyes at this point.“This might only be the tip of the iceberg," he warned, you could  hear  the frown in his baritone voice still.

However, you had already gotten up and were standing, staring down at Tobirama with equal sternness. “Or you need to rein it in again.” You shrugged as though that’d ease the soreness in your muscles - it didn’t - and then tilted your head a little. “I feel a bit cold, in fact, so how about that.”

His scarlet eyes widened slightly at that statement. Promptly he scrambled to get out of bed himself. “Y/n-”, he began, downright chastising - but you had already spun around and were heading for the bathroom of your house.

“Enough fussing, dear husband, we have a lot of work to do,” you reminded him in a playful tone. Talking of work was bound to get his focus elsewhere than your imaginary symptoms.

_______

Or so you thought.

Once you finished in the bathroom (admittedly, you did feel a little bit lightheaded) you headed to join him in the living area for a small breakfast (and maybe, just maybe also a bit shaky?). The heady smell of tea hung in the air; you couldn’t help but smile lightly. However the room felt quite cold - had he opened the windows? Tobirama already was sitting cross-legged at the low table, reading documents he had strewn over it last night. When you entered the room, his head snapped up and the scarlet gaze had you pinned, eyes narrowing again.

“Don’t,” you sternly cut him off before he could even say anything like ‘Get back into bed’, shaking your head before sitting down across from him, pouring yourself a cup of tea for yourself.

Tobirama rested his chin on his balled fist. The frown must be etched into his face at this point. “You look pale.” His baritone voice was deceptively smooth.

Your hand clenched around your cup of tea, eyebrows furrowing. “You know, I could say the same about you.”

A single white eyebrow arched up. “Unsurprising, as my complexion is rather pale.” The fine smirk tugged at the corners of his mouth again.

You crossed your arms defensively. A shiver ran down your spine. Since when was the room so cold? “I am very well capable of judging myself to see if I am fit for work. Which I am.”

The smirk faded and he dropped his hand to the table, straightening himself. You had to drag your hand over your face in order to keep yourself from rolling your eyes at him again. As you did so you couldn’t help but notice - your face  did  feel a bit warmer.

“Why are you being so stubborn about this, Y/n?”, Tobirama began, his deep voice stern again. You blinked to find his scarlet eyes staring at you intensely again, his facial features hard as ever. Maybe it was your imagination, but there might have been a tinge of worry to his tone. “I’m not imagining anything. If I had to take a guess, you’re actually not telling me everything.” He tilted his head. “Are you feeling dizzy?”

An exasperated groan escaped your mouth before you could help it, but this time you did roll your eyes. Your hand slapped down on the table. “For the last time, Tobirama - I’m fine. It’s just a little fever - did you open a window or something? It’s so cold in here, I’m shivering.” You ran your palms over your arms, feeling the chill creep into you.

You didn’t think this was possible, but the wrinkles of Tobirama’s frown became even deeper. “I did not, Y/n.” 

You blinked in surprise. “Huh.” As much as you hated to admit it, Tobirama’s fever theory might hold more merit than you wanted to give him credit for. Worse yet, you had to tell him.

Tobirama’s intense stare was wrought with worry at this point, bereft of any of the smugness you might’ve been expecting from him. “Are you ready to believe me now?” he inquired drily, his voice carrying a caustic note.

You sighed and crossed your arms in front of your chest, leaning back slightly. Momentarily you dared to close your eyes - when you did, your eyelids felt weird against your eyes, the ache in your muscles seemed worse - you couldn’t help but sigh. “Maybe.”

Tobirama was rubbing his temples with his thumb and index finger when you were eyeing him again, the fingers of his other palm were drumming impatiently against the table. “A monumental progress, compared to earlier, I’d say,” he commented, still rather drily.

“I’ll just work on what paperwork I’ve left at home, then.”

His palm slammed so swiftly on the table you jolted in shock, concerned for the paper under his cup of tea. Luckily though, he had drunk enough of it already. However his gaze - the scarlet stare was burning from intensity again. He didn’t just look pissed - he was furious. “What is it going to take to make you rest? Lie in bed? Sleep?”

Your mouth hung slightly open at his sudden outburst. Of course, you had guessed he wasn’t  pleased  with your negligence of your symptoms, but this right now seemed rather over the top. “I can… read in bed?”

Tobirama continued to stare as though you had just suggested to strip naked and run through the village.

“It’s just reading, Tobi.”

“What’s so difficult about staying in bed and recovering?” he snapped, perfectly exasperated now. Suddenly he sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, ran a hand through his white, spiky hair and rose to his feet swiftly. “Alright. Let’s get you to bed first.” The tension in his tone was tangible and briefly, you contemplated just… humoring him. For a bit?

He rounded the table to offer you his hand in order to get up, which you gingerly took. With a courageous tug he helped you to your feet - and your vision blackened momentarily. You swayed forward; Tobirama already seized your waist with his free arm pulled you flush against his body to steady you. His deep voice was next to your ear when he spoke; your hand grasped his black shirt for support. “Y/n?”, he was done veiling the concern in his tone with fury.

You shook your head. “Just a brief dizziness.” Already, your vision cleared; though your heart still pounded in your ears. “I’m - I’m okay.”

Tobirama didn’t take time to comment that but rather started guiding you towards your shared bedroom. His frown was etched into his forehead again, his lips a tight line. All the time he’d glance over to you with his sharp glance, but the tension never left the taut muscle of his jaws. His arm remained tight around your waist for the whole way back to bed too; he wasn’t letting go at all. Not that you minded. You did feel a little bit wobbly, and even if it just was to humor him, you wouldn’t take any chances now. Once in the bedroom his grip turned utterly tender; carefully he helped you lie down and pulled the blanket up to your chin. 

You gave a wistful sigh as your sore muscles finally got their rest again and the blanket was warming you. “Maybe… this isn’t such a bad idea, after all,” you mumbled, hopefully quiet enough Tobirama wouldn’t hear you.

He did, of course. With a dry chuckle he was already turning towards the window. “You’d be astonished how many good ideas I have, Y/n,” he quipped, closing the blends of the bedroom to render it a lot darker.

“How am I going to read like this?”, you promptly inquired, propping yourself up on your elbows again to rise in protest.

Tobirama cast a dark glare your way and instantly stalked over to your side again; sitting down on the bedside to push you back down onto the mattress with a certain kind of stern finality that still held a marvellous amount of gentleness to his touch. “You aren’t. Sleep now. I’ll leave you water and tea here and get you your documents later.”

With a sigh and yet another roll of your eyes you allowed him to pull the blanket up again once you were back on your back. “Are you, now.”

Tobirama rose to his feet again and simply regarded you with one quirked up eyebrow. “You are correct. We should wait and see how you are feeling later, actually.”

“You’re impossible. As if you’d be lying in bed just because of a little fever rather than work,” you bit back, perfectly miffed again.

Tobirama was unimpressed, though. “I’m being realistic. And unluckily for you, I’m not the one running a fever. Now, I have to drop off some documents for elder brother and check some other things at the office, then I’ll make sure to stick around,” he announced, but before you had any chance to tell him how truly, utterly, lucky you felt to have him hound your recovery, he was out of the door - which he closed, of course.

He had all but ignored your notion that he, in fact, would never stay in bed.

Well, maybe some sleep really would help you.

________

 Tobirama’s steps were spurred on by the same urgency that he had coaxed you into bed with earlier in the morning. He despised that out of all the days at the Hokage’s office, today seemed to be tedious and slow going. Naturally, everyone around him was subject to his mood, but right now his patience was thinner than usual. As a result, everyone kept out of his way - which was good, because then he’d work quicker - but also bad, because some of these things he couldn’t finish alone. Did he feel bad for snapping at someone for a simple slip up in the inbox? Absolutely not. Order was vital. Or shouting that some instructions for the training regimens at the academy still had not been finished? Please, these things had been due for one day already. 

If everyone just worked a tad faster -

It was futile.

He had to blame himself in part, really - he had been foolish enough to think he’d be done here swiftly and therefore had not left a shadow clone with you. Better yet, sent a shadow clone here to deal with these  menial tasks as he had dubbed them by now.

But that admission of guilt didn’t exactly do anything to improve his mood. Right now, he was standing in front of his elder brother’s broad desk while he was signing off permits for the growing commercial district of the village. Once that was done - Tobirama could finally use his hiraishin seal to get out of here.

That also most likely was the reason he was staring Hashirama down like a hawk, arms crossed in front of his chest, muscles tense. The scarlet glare was dark enough, bystanders might think he’d go for his brother’s throat any time.

Hashirama wasn’t fazed in the slightest, though. Tobirama’s moods have long since stopped to really impress him. Now, he didn’t make a point of being extra slow, but he made sure to keep track of all these things he was supposed to sign.

Even so - “You seem extra sour today, Tobirama.”

“Really? Whatever made you notice, elder brother?”, he answered drily, physically restraining himself from barking at his brother to just keep reading and not talk to him.

Hashirama raised an eyebrow. “Are you going to tell me, or will you keep spewing sarcasm?”

Tobirama rolled his eyes and gazed at the ceiling momentarily - was there any point in delaying proceedings to tell him? But then again, maybe his brother could help. His gaze swept back to Hashirama. “Y/n is sick. I want to get back home quickly.”

Hashirama sat down the paper he’d been holding and furrowed his eyebrows. “Sick? What’s wrong?”

“She’s running a fever. Now, the quicker we finish, the quicker I’ll be back to check on her.” Tobirama’s grip on his arms tightened. While his brother’s concern was charming - it was just delaying his return to you. He was late anyway. What if you were worse off now? Inadvertently his mien darkened a fair deal, and the glare he regarded Hashirama with was nothing short of lethal now.

Hashirama’s concern wasn’t subsiding, either. “Then go. I can finish this alone. If I have any questions, I’ll ask you later. Do you want me to come by in the evening?”

Tobirama blinked. The suggestion was convenient - too convenient for his liking, almost. His duty towards the village came first. Hashirama’s even more so. You, on the other hand…

He pinched the bridge of his nose, clenching his teeth. Why was nothing ever easy? He hated himself for it right now, he didn’t want to say this - no, he wanted to say, ‘Very well, yes, thank you’ - but no. “The village comes first.”

Hashirama sighed - and then smiled. “Very well. Then I order you to get back home.”

Tobirama’s eyes widened slightly. His brother couldn't seriously be ordering him to - but no, actually he could. He opened his mouth to protest - but with a wave of his hand he dismissed himself. He’d take this gift for what it was. “Thank you, elder brother. It would be good if you visited later.”

He simply nodded. “Give Y/n my well wishes.”

Already, the world lurched around Tobirama as he invoked his hiraishin seal in your shared living room. And in the blink of a second, he was standing in it - heading straight for the bedroom. Finally. He should have been here much sooner.

Before he entered, he could hear it - wheezing sounds. Quiet, but laboured breaths from the room you should be resting in. And by the sounds of it, you had been - a miracle. He frowned. Or, a very bad sign. Your adherence to medical orders was almost as bad as Tobirama’s. He quickened his steps, his heartbeat uncomfortably fast now. “Curses,” he muttered under his breath - why, why had he not left a shadow clone with you? 

With more force than intended he slid open the bedroom’s door. You still were in the bed, tucked in - and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on your skin. Your breaths were sounding rattled.

“Y/n,” Tobirama called, chastised almost, as though somehow it was your fault it had gotten this bad. The truth was he was shocked - utterly shocked - and worried. This wasn’t just a fever anymore; he didn’t need to examine you to know his hunch had been correct this morning: Pneumonia.

“Tobi…?”, came your slurred reply, the sheets rustled as you were sitting up.

Instantly he crossed the room to sit down at your side on the bed, his forehead drawn into a deep frown. You were glancing at him through glazed eyes, blinking a few times just before a coughing fit wrecked your entire body.

“M’sorry… Tobi…,” you whimpered after you were suitably recovered.

He had to blink at that. Were you apologizing? “What?” Tobirama’s hands grasped around your upper arms, he shook his head. “Lie down again, alright?” Your skin was scorching now. You whined uneasily again, tilting your head a little. “Y’sounded so mad right now… you were so mad this morning, too…”, you murmured, but you allowed Tobirama to coax you into lying down again, pulling the blanket over you. If the paleness was anything to go by, your blood pressure was low.

This wasn’t looking good.

“I’m - I’m not mad, love,” he churned out as his hand moved to your forehead to assess your condition again. What nonsense-

But before he could place it there, you had seized it with both palms and pressed it to your chest, your eyes comically wide now. “You’re… not mad? But… you were right… I think… I am a little sick, Tobi. Maybe?”

Tobirama couldn’t have prevented the coarse grunt he gave even if he had wanted to. “Not just a little, Y/n.” Gently, he tried to move his hand out of your grasp, but it only served to tighten it around it.

Your gaze was trained on him, and for a moment, you did nothing but stare. Tobirama’s frown deeped - then suddenly, you shook your head so slowly, he wondered if you even registered the movement. “Nah… You’re right… but I’m not  that  sick. You can be so… smug when you’re right…”, you mumbled - no, you …  giggled?

Tobirama’s gaze widened slightly as you spoke. Had you taken any medicine that didn’t agree with you? Was the focus of your infection perhaps not the lung, but the brain? “... Y/n? May I examine you?”

Your lower lip quivered. “Tobi,” you wantonly moaned now. “I don’t… want you to be mad ‘cause I didn’t… believe you, though,” you gave a sigh - at least that’s what Tobirama thought you wanted to do - but it ended in more coughs.

With a cocked eyebrow he continued to observe the theater that unfolded before him, your grip on his hand was steely. At least your strength seemed to be faring well. The same couldn’t be said for your mind.

“You get so… snappy when you’re pissed,” you continued suddenly, your gaze sweeping down to the hand you clutched like a stuffed animal. Your thumbs started caressing it and your lips formed a small pout. “That’s kinda… exhausting… but also funny sometimes, you know? … your sarcasm, mhm…,” you continued, trailing off into more incoherent mumbling.

Tobirama restrained himself from rolling his eyes at your nonsense and simply opted for using his other hand if you weren’t going to relinquish the one you were  cuddling  now. Softly, he placed it on your cheek and closed his eyes. Already, his chakra began to graze over your network -

Except then you  nuzzled  into his touch, throwing off his focus. His eyes flew open. “Y/n,” he reprimanded sternly, “Let me focus for a moment here, alright?”

You hummed contently, though. “You’re always so… focused, Tobi… Super focused...”

Tobirama really fought to say his next words in the nicest way possible - “Y/n, you aren’t just hot right now, you are burning up, please let me-”

You giggled then suddenly, your face turning so the tip of your nose would brush over his palm. “You said it again.”

Tobirama huffed exasperatedly. “What?”

“I’m hot. You said I’m hot.” More giggles followed - which were interrupted by another coughing fit of yours. Surprisingly, you had the decorum to turn your face to the side Tobirama’s hand wasn’t facing.

However, Tobirama’s patience was running seriously thin - and the last thing he wanted to do was snapping at you of all people. Not to mention in your current state, you probably would not take it well. He didn’t think he could stomach you crying on top of all this.

But then you were nuzzling into his hand again as your hands kept coddling his other to your chest and Tobirama seriously wondered if there was no way to just… gently knock you off whatever trip you were on.

“Y/n,” he began sternly, “You’re seriously ill. I need to examine you now, alright? Will you please let me do that? And stop doing… that?”, he tried to keep his voice even, calm - pleading - but what came out was annoyed.

Your eyes widened instantly. “T-Tobi,” you stuttered, “I’m… s-sorry… you don’t think I’m hot…?”, you asked, as if that was the most important thing in the world right now.

With those doe eyes you were giving him, Tobirama was sure you were convinced it was.

He gritted his teeth.

His dignity didn't want to do this. His logic considered this a stellar idea, though. 

“My love, you are the single, hottest being in the world. Nothing, not even a volcano, compares to your hotness. I see you, I feel you, and every time I’m in awe because of said hotness. I’d never, ever question just how hot you are,” he retorted instantly, with ground teeth, comically tilted up eyebrows and sheer desperation made him fall in line with your utter nonsense if this was what it took to make this work, somehow. 

It did the trick. Your eyes lit up as though he’d just recited a love poem he’d carefully written, no, crafted just for you - in fact, he was surprised you weren’t reaching up to try and kiss him or something like that. Tobirama on the other hand was proud he hadn’t choked on the sheer idiocy he had just uttered.

“Tobirama,” you sobbed happily, grinning broadly. “I knew you do think so…”, you continued, nodding fiercely, “You sometimes give me these… stares… and when we-”

Tobirama’s eyes flew wide open. “Y/n?”

You stopped mid-sentence, your mouth open, eyes wide. “Yes?”

“Can my very hot wife keep still for a moment?”, he inquired, mustering all the pitiful shreds of his patience - and pride - that were left to make his baritone voice sugar-sweet.

Luckily, it worked. You smiled broadly and nodded before stilling completely.

Finally. His hand rested on your cheek more firmly now and once more he closed his eyes. Usually he’d let his chakra caress yours first, but right now he was convinced that’d just do all kinds of  funny  things to you, and before this could get any more embarrassing, he increasing the connection right away to begin examining you. His chakra pelted your network as the workings of your body were revealed to his inner eye: what had been subtle, and easy to miss this morning was a roaring fire now. Undoubtedly the source of your ‘hotness’ - your left lung’s upper lobe was ridden with infection. The whole area was stuffed with mucus. Your heart beat with an elevated frequency, and your blood pressure had dropped.

Surprisingly your brain showed no abnormality at all. It must be the fever talking, literally.

Providing serious medical support in cases of infection went beyond his combat medicine skills. All he could do was support your lung a little by clearing the alveoles a bit - letting his chakra chop away at the stuffed airways that were supposed to be free. Tedious, straining work that wouldn’t help permanently unless the root of the problem was tackled effectively, but it should make breathing easier and lower the burden of infection. 

You on the other hand were making satisfied hums that barely reached his ears as he was sunken in his concentration, entirely wrapped up in the microscopic surgery he was performing, basically.

When he was finished - rather, when the labyrinth of your lungs’ smallest airways was beginning to drive him insane for how his chakra always seeped into yet another corner that was ridden with disease - he retreated.

By the time he opened his eyes, you were sleeping soundly - a fact he was thankful for. He needed to organise some antibiotic medicine for you, and somehow he had a distinct notion you wouldn’t take well to him leaving.

 ________

 Luckily, medicine was easily available as was his brother’s aid - Hashirama came swiftly when a shadow clone of Tobirama’s informed him of your state. With his brother’s medical jutsu and the medicine, your recovery was fast. Around evening, your fever had gone down substantially.

By the next morning, the fever’s haze had cleared. Tobirama was sitting on the edge of the bed with a scroll in his lap as you were blinking slowly at him, wiping sleep out of your eyes. You felt uncomfortably warm - too warm. With a sweep of your arm, the pushed the blanket aside.

Tobirama looked up and his scarlet eyes mustered you intently. He raised an eyebrow, but the smirk that was plastered on his lips was reaching his glance. “How’s your hotness feeling?”

You rolled your eyes and groaned. “Too hot.”

The smirk became a sly grin as he bit back on laughter. You could tell by the way the corners of his mouth wrinkled. Already, he began to sit up, setting his scroll aside. “To think such a thing was possible - I’m in  awe,” he supplied ironically, heading for the door.

Your eyebrows shot up. Time to strike back - it was one thing to quip about your silly remarks during your high fever, but he'd get his share, too. "And to think I made the very eloquent Tobirama Senju say things like not even a volcano compares to my hotness." The smirk on your lips grew as you watched the blood rush to your husbands cheeks.

It did the job. Instantly, his jaw was taut. "Y/n you are well aware I only said so because-"

"Everyday you are in awe because of my  hotness. How  lewd, Tobi," you continued, licking your lips.

He balled his fists, his expression darkened. "You were seriously ill and all you were concerned with was cuddling my hand and being complimented on your looks." Slowly, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his own smirk returning to his lips as he raised one eyebrow. "What does that say about your priorities?"

You turn up your palms and grinned boldly. "I'd say my priorities are damn fine. Just like my looks, as you testified," you winked and raised your hand to blow over a kiss at Tobirama. 

Who caught it, entirely unfazed. The fine eyebrow arched even higher. "I'm glad at least one of us is thinking of the important things then," his tone was perfectly sarcastic now. He turned to leave again. "I'll still see what I can do to tame that incredible amount of hotness."

You whistled to call him back quickly. "Can't you come and lie here, use your calm and cool body for that?"

His head tilted to give you a glance from the side again, an eyebrow rising slowly. "You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

You flashed a grin. "I'd love it."

For a moment, Tobirama was silent. A fine, sly grin spread over his lips as he dipped his head towards you - his baritone voice soft. "Well, too bad for you. A couple of wet towels will do a lot better to lower your temperature than my body, which, by the way, is just a few degrees less, ah, hot than yours." With a wink of his own he was out of the bedroom’s door.

With a dissatisfied grunt, you slumped back into the bed.

Did he just call himself hot?

#tobirama #tobirama senju #tobirama x reader #tobirama senju x reader #sekhmet writes

[teeth-farie]

Strained Eyes In The Candlelight

Julian/Named Apprentice(GN)

Notes: nonbinary apprentice, named apprentice, pre-plague setting, face sitting, oral, dirty talk, handjobs, 3.8k wordcount

Taglist:

@bluhhhdee (if you don’t want to be tagged in this one anymore let me know!)

The sound of scratching quills and murmured hums are the only white noise in the stuffy chamber, something at least to keep the ringing of silence out of Salem’s ears. They flick through the large, tattered book silently, eyebrows furrowing as they read. Salem remembers reading constantly as a child, yet now it seems like a chore to do. Perhaps it’s the looming threat of death hanging over everyone’s shoulders. Possibilities, possibilities. Dr. Devorak is hunched over his desk, back rounded as he writes quickly, occasionally pinching the bridge of his nose and smearing faded ink from his fingertips onto his skin, unbeknownst to him. Salem closes the book with a sigh and pushes their glasses back up their nose. They’ve gathered all the information they can tonight. They want to start trying magic alongside medical treatments, though they know that Dr. Devorak would be opposed to the idea. “Doctor, our shifts ended.” Salem announces, gesturing to the small clock ticking away.

“Hm? Oh, right.” He hums, though he still stays where he is, never looking up from his work.

“Doctor, did you hear me?”

“Certainly, do what you need to do.”

Salem huffs, taking the few strides the room allows and waving their hand in front of his face. Dr. Devorak jumps up then, a scowl on his lips. “Salem-!”

“You need a break.” Salem cuts him off, hands planted on their hips. Dr. Devorak stares, unwavering, then gives a firm shake of his head. “There’s much to do, I can’t stop now.” He refuses, going to dip his quill back into the jar of ink. “If you’re too tired you’ll mess up. Do you really wish to repeat your work?” Salem quips, gently laying a hand on his wrist, halting his movements.

“I’m not tired—besides, the plague won’t cure itself.”

Time for another approach. Salem rounds back behind him, hands gripping tight on the back of his chair. “What are you—ack!”

Salem pulls and tugs Dr. Devorak from his spot at the desk, scooting him back while still seated in the chair. If one thing’s for sure, Salem is a lot stronger then they let on. “If I have to, I will make you.”

That certainly gets his attention, sitting stiff as a rod in the seat he was just pulled from his desk in, now acutely aware of the situation. Perhaps he was a little too aware—a heat rising to his face. Was it that easy to tug him around? “And how will you make me?” He ponders, looking over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of Salem.

They can see the bright flush on his face, the lazy grin stretching his lips and they start to think that their actions have given them a different response than what they were expecting. Though, it’s not unwelcome, especially with how much Dr. Devorak had flirted with them on their breaks—they could work with this.

“I had a few ideas, though it seems you may have others.” Salem presses their fingertips to the top of his skull, turning his head back straight, no longer in his line of vision. They lean forward, breath ghosting his ear and Salem can feel the shiver he makes. “I assumed we’d go out for a few drinks, but..” they grip his hair tight now, a stifled groan rumbling from his throat. “If you’re going to be so stubborn, I could just tie you to the bed, how does that sound?”

“Oh, that sounds lovely.” He downright purrs, catching his bottom lip between his teeth. “Though..” Salem trails off, pulling their hands away from him entirely. Julian makes a noise of disappointment. “You’d just ramble then too, wouldn’t you?” They muse, thoroughly enjoying the newfound power dynamic.

“Not if you gave me something to keep my mouth busy.” Julian counters with a slightly slurred tone, low and provocative.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Very much so, yes.”

Salem inches their small hand to Julian’s long neck, a contrast of warm golden bronze and cool peach white. He shivers, feeling the fingertips press against his pulse point, firm and assertive. Salem tends to have an air of something domineering around them, wiser than their years in a way that makes Julian feel safe in a way. Perhaps he’ll discover a new side of that tonight. They don’t squeeze as hard as he’d like, just a firm reminder that he should listen to them. Not that he wouldn’t want to.

“You work yourself down to the bone, doctor.” Salem releases his throat, turning to meet him face to face and swinging a leg over his, taking their place on his lap. They’re still shorter than him and Julian hunches down to appear lower. “Let me take care of you.” Salem guides his head down, lower to their face with a gentleness that he could pull away if he wanted to. He doesn’t.

Julian bridges the gap and kisses them with a hunger not fitting his exhaustion, eager hands gripping their waist, long fingers prodding into the plush of their skin. Salem indulges him, keeping a grip on his fiery hair, curls caught tight between their fingers. He tastes of bitter coffee and his breath is a hot flush against Salem’s face. They catch his bottom lip between their teeth when he starts to get too eager, tugging hard enough to draw a petulant whine from the older man. They lick their lips, tugging him back by his hair. “Don’t forget who’s in control.” Salem taunts.

“I don’t want to be in control.” Julian musters after swallowing his complaints of a kiss ended too soon. “I won’t make you. Like I said, I’m taking care of you.” Salem wipes away the small trace of saliva at the corner of Julian’s mouth with their thumb, tender in a way that has him weak.

“I know you don’t like taking charge—you just want to be babied, don’t you?” Salem’s voice has a sweet lilt to it, like they were talking to a puppy rather than a grown man. Julian doesn’t think he’d quite mind being their puppy. He stiffly nods his head. “Don’t worry, when you’re with me, you don’t need to have a thought in that pretty little head of yours, does that sound good?”

Julian feels utterly bewitched, falling into Salem’s grasp willingly and eagerly. It sounds very good, to not be required to think, something that had Julian constantly fretting over. When was the last time his mind had been blissfully empty? No second guessing himself or fearing over things he can’t change—not since before the shipwreck he was sure. “It sounds good, I-I want that,” Julian’s voice comes out breathless, his heart lodged in his throat and excitement buzzing from his stomach to his fingertips.

“You can have it.”

Salem lifts themselves from his lap, unbuttoning the first few buttons of their blouse and loosening the collar. Julian stands, hands at his side as he waits for an order—guidance. The mage gestures to the far side of the room, telling in itself. “Go lay on the bed.”

The bed itself is a lackluster comparison to what it really is, rather stiff and cheap, but that isn’t an issue here.

Julian doesn’t hesitate, nearly stumbling over himself in the process. Salem’s already unlacing their boots, setting them aside by the time Julian’s made himself comfortable, taking off his own. “Have you thought of this before?” They ask, taking Julian’s hand in their own and working off the gloves. His breath catches in his throat. How is he getting so worked up already? “With you? A, uh, a few times.” How eloquent, Julian mentally kicks himself. Then again, he doesn’t have to be.

Salem smiles, setting the leather glove aside and pressing a kiss to the back of his hand before moving to the other. “Tell me about it.”

Oh. Oh. Julian feels like he’s going to melt.

“You, you were a little meaner,” he rasps, watching Salem place aside the second glove. “Is this not sufficient for you?” They ponder, tracing the pad of their thumb over his knuckles. “I like this!” Julian immediately blurts, backtracking just a little. “You make me feel...safe.” Loved. He sighs, shoulders slumping forward. Salem holds no distaste in his confession, an expression of understanding. Had any of his other ‘flings’ been this easy to talk to?

“Next time, I’ll fulfill your fantasies. Just for you.” Salem makes work unbuttoning the rest of Julian’s blouse, admittedly easier with how low it usually hung. Next time, it repeats in Julian’s mind.

Julian suppresses a groan, warm hands skirting across his chest as Salem pushes his shirt off his body. “There’s one part,” Julian begins, eyes caught flickering to Salem’s chest as they begin to unbutton the rest of their shirt. “Oh?” They tilt their head just a touch, interest peaked at his half confession.

He nods. “In my, in my fantasy, you had me on my knees,” Salem sheds their shirt, baring their naked chest. Julian stares longer than he thinks is appropriate.

“And I had my mouth on you,” their hands find the laces of his trousers, untying the knot and tugging the band of it down his hips. Julian lifts his hips, assisting Salem’s endeavors of undressing him. “And you—you made fun of me while I did it.”

Salem sets his trousers aside, listening intently in what he had to say. “Is that what you want? For me to tease you?” They unbuckle their belt, sliding it from the loops of their trousers. “Yes.” Julian answers immediately, swallowing at the sight of more tanned flesh becoming exposed. They slide their pants down their hips and thighs, kicking them off next to where Julian’s lay. Now, both lay in their underwear. “Do you want me to take advantage of you? Do you want your only job to be to lay there and take it?” Salem pushes Julian’s knees aside, his gangly legs falling apart and his soul nearly leaves his body when the heel of their palm presses between his legs.

“Yes! Yes I want that—I want all of that,” Salem offers a smile full of teeth and mischief. “You really want it?” They muse, giving his throbbing length and squeeze through his underwear. Julian groans, head lolling to the side, his cheek presses to his shoulder. Salem inches their fingers further down, pressing their fingertips against his clothed taint. A sharp gasp tears from his throat and a pleased smile stretches over Salem’s lips. “Beg for me.”

Julian swallows, finding his voice in between the pitiful noises. “Please, please, I want you to touch me, use me, a-anything—fuck!” A firm squeeze hitches his voice higher in octave, his lower lip catching between his teeth.

“Lay down. I’m going to sit on your face and you’re going to put that mouth to work, just like you wanted.” Salem sits back, giving the doctor room to stretch out when he lays back, his head against the pillows where he eagerly waits. His heartbeat thumps in his temples, breath catching in his throat in pure anticipation.

Salem hooks their thumb under the band of their underwear, tugging it down and tossing it aside. Julian’s eyes flick from their face, down their chest, to their navel where a happy trail of dark hair begins, leading down the soft expanse of their stomach and to what lays between their legs. They straddle his chest, a taste of what’s to come as they stare down at him. “Are you ready, Julian?”

He nods quickly, as much as his position allows. “I want you to smother me.” Julian groans, his hands finding purchase on Salem’s thick thighs. They snicker, inching up higher, knees pressing into the pillows on either side of his head. “Dirty little doctor,” they tsk and Julian’s core tightens in impatience. “You’ll get exactly what you want.” Salem sinks down and Julian is all too eager to get started, kissing over their vulva before dragging his hot tongue over it.

Salem grips his hair with one hand, the other bracing against the headboard of the bed frame. They rock their hips against his face, a flutter of heat filling their body. “That’s it,” Salem coos, the feeling of Julian’s tongue pressing against their clit downright addicting. His hands dig into their thighs, pulling them down firmer against his face, eager as he wraps his lips around them and sucks. They reward him with a harsh buck of their hips and a tug on his hair, one that has him groaning into their sex. Julian buries his nose in the thick patch of curly hair, unable to force down the noises of delight that reverberate from his throat. It only adds a bumbling vibration on Salem’s end.

They’ve never been loud in bed, only deep sighs and little noises their partners have had to work for. Conversation, though, is another story.

“Good boy..” Salem’s praise comes out as a purr, their thighs tightening around Julian’s skull like a vice. Even with his ears muffled, the doctor can still hear every little thing they say.

“You must have dreamt about this, huh? Mmm..about being pinned under me, a helpless little thing,” Julian gives his eager agreement in the form of a harsher suck, his tongue lathing over their clit until Salem’s hand starts tugging at his hair almost violently. Shallow breaths puff from his nose and Salem glides their hips down, off Julian’s mouth. He gasps sharply, lips and chin shining with spit and slick.

“Don’t stop,” he croons, eyebrows furrowed and his eyes barely staying open. The glimmer of the dimming candles around the study illuminate from behind Salem, their body casting a shadow over him and outlining their form in a flickering orange halo. Julian’s breath catches in his throat. “Did you want to choke, little man?”

Julian makes a noise of something akin to a dying animal, too caught up in the moment to be properly flustered by the sound. Salem glides their thumb over his wet lip, a flutter of arousal shooting between their legs when he desperately pulls their thumb into his mouth. A low noise escapes Salem, one from deep in their chest at the pure debauchery of the man below their thighs.

“I won’t hold back then,” they swallow thickly as they pull their thumb from his mouth, scraping his teeth as Julian reluctantly releases.

“I never said I wanted you to.” Julian counters, his voice heavy in his throat as the words pass his lips.

Salem doesn’t quite have a playful retort to that, so they grip his hair tight and slide back to his mouth. Julian, far more eager and needy, dives his tongue back in, gliding the hot wet muscle against their sex. He teases the tip of his tongue to their hole and receives a firm tap to his temple in return. His eyes flick up. “Uh-uh, off limits, I’m not into anything going in.” Salem corrects his attempt and Julian focuses elsewhere without complaint.

His tongue glides through their folds, massaging the sensitive flesh in circular strokes before wrapping his lips back around their throbbing clit, the blushing tip resting deliciously on his tongue.

The dull sting of Julian’s nails digging into their thighs is what adds fuel to the fire, his fingers adding reddened indents along the dimples of Salem’s skin. Salem tightens their thighs around his head, the sweaty flesh sticking to the sides of his cheeks and jaw, holding him in tight until there’s no room to budge—Julian’s nose is buried in the thick curls of Salem’s mound, his face damp with their arousal, and the beating of his heart in his ears. He’s getting lightheaded, blocked by soft skin and muscle that form a prison wall around his head; though that implies he’d want to escape.

Julian rubs his svelte thighs together, seeking friction and relief, though he doesn’t dare touch himself—he wants to be a good boy after all. His hips buck slightly, uselessly thrusting into the air as another gush of arousal coats his tongue.

“Mhmm, I’m close. Oh, Julian, this is what you wanted, right? For me to, ah, use you? To cum on that pretty face of yours?” Salem rests their palm on his stomach behind them, leaning back as they give lazy thrusts against his face, watching the way his eyes nearly roll back into his skull. And oh, he whimpers, thick eyebrows furrowed and eyelashes damp with budding tears. A humming, “mhm!” is all he can muster without ripping his mouth away from them.

Salem catches their bottom lip between their teeth, pupils blown wide enough only a slim ring of deep hickory visible. Julian’s mind has long turned to syrupy mush, turning to a one track focus of pleasuring the mage above him.

Salem’s hips start to stall and Julian feels excitement bite through his chest. Their eyes clench shut, lips parted in heavy breaths, the knot deep in their gut finally snapping. Julian sucks them through it, relishing the bitter tang of cum that splatters onto his tongue. His hands finally loosen from their thighs, knobby fingers leaving shaped bruises in their wake.

It takes a moment for Salem to collect themself, finally rising off his face and settling back on the bed by his side. Julian gasps in a breath, chest heaving, coated in a bright ruby blush. He pushes himself up onto his elbows, eyes focusing in and out. Salem guides him up to sit, cooing over the mess they’ve made of him. “Good boy, do you want your turn now, hm?” Their small hand traces down his chest, going with the groan of chestnut hair and down his navel, a shuddering sigh echoing from Julian’s throat in response. “I'm afraid I won’t last,” he warns, sucking in a breath as Salem tugs off his underwear, damp with precum.

Julian’s cock bobs free, smacking against his stomach. “Who said we would stop after you came?” Salem smirks, running a pointed finger up his shaft. A blubbering noise spits from his mouth, hips bucking uselessly. “Oh my,” is the only comprehensible phrase he can muster, leaning his head back against the wall behind him with a thunk. His legs spread, pulling up towards his sides for plenty of room as Salem makes themselves comfortable between his thighs. “Hm, do you have lube?”

“Huh? Oh, by the, by the desk,” Julian gestures weakly to the desk a few strides away, taking the moment to catch his breath. Salem sits up from the bed and finds a small tub of lube by the foot of the desk. ‘Medical Lubricant’ is printed on the front, and they doubt that’s what he had been using it for. They unscrew the top on their way back, scooping out a generous amount and rubbing their hands together. “Medical lubricant, huh?” Salem teases with a grin, wrapping their fingers around Julian’s cock, slowly stroking under the head.

Julian sucks in a breath, fighting the urge to bite down on his raw lip. “It’s, ah, it’s b-body safe,” he defends, gripping under his knees as he holds his skinny legs up. “One of these days I’ll have to give you a thorough examination. I’ll be the doctor for a change, how about that?” Salem circles the flat of their palm over his head and Julian’s stomach tenses, a low keening sound reverberating from his throat. “Ohohh, yes, anything- anything you want,” he babbles and Salem doubles down on their efforts, noting the way his jaw goes slack and stomach crunches with each glide of their palm over his weeping head. Julian leans his head back, neck stretched long as he stares at the ceiling.

���Look at me,” Salem commands.

“I-I’ll cum too quick if I do,” Julian pleads, that knot in his stomach growing tight, heat pooling into his gut and spreading out to every limb.

“Julian, look at me. Now.” Salem forces a strict tone and Julian whimpers, lifting his head up to see the concentrated gaze of the mage. “Good boy,” they coo, their left hand finding his sac, giving a gentle tug while their right digs its thumb under the head.

A full body shudder runs through him, every joint tightening and his eyes rolling into the back of his skull as he comes—long ropes of cum splattering onto his stomach and chest, barely reaching his chin. Julian finds himself reaching forward, gripping onto the back of Salem’s neck and pulling them close, lips crashing together in a frantic embrace. Salem’s eyes widen in surprise, before closing as Julian rides out the aftershocks, muffled sobs against their lips. They push their tongue into mouth, gliding against his and licking over the blunt edge of his teeth. Julian sinks his fingers into the curls of their hair, disturbing the already loose bun they had it in.

“Mm, ha-ahh, Salem,” he pulls back with a heavy gasp, thighs trembling. “T-too much, too much,” he begs and Salem only then realizes they’ve still been stroking him. They pull their hand away and Julian breathes a sigh of relief, leaning his head back against the wall. “Oh, oh my,” his chest heaves, body slick with sweat and his own spend. Salem fumbles around the pile of clothes for their handkerchief, wiping off their hands, and starting to wipe down Julian’s chest and stomach. “That was, uh,” he stumbles over his words.

“Good, I hope?” Salem looks up from their lashes at him, giving his thigh a pat of finality as they finish cleaning him.

“Unprofessional,” Julian manages to get out between his stammering. “Not that it wasn’t good! In fact it was really good, but you’re my apprentice, and- and I don’t want to take advantage of you—“

Salem sighs and the action alone takes Julian off guard. “You didn’t take advantage of me, I wanted this. Besides, you weren’t the one in charge, were you?”

Julian slowly shakes his head, bashful.

“We’re both adults, Julian. Technically, this was off the clock.” Salem snickers at the last part, the whole reason they’re here because the doctor wouldn’t take a break. Julian sighs through his nose and chuckles lightly. “I suppose that’s right. But I’d say we did this in the wrong order.”

“What do you mean?” They cock their head to the side.

“I thought I was supposed to take you on a date first.”

Salem snorts and rolls their eyes. “It’s not too late for that,” a devilish smile spreads on their lips. “If you’re still able to walk, that is.”

Julian’s face blooms a bright scarlet, floundering for a moment before a smirk breaks on his face. “Ohoho, you’ll just have to make good on that promise.”

They think for a moment. Was this truly ok? In the middle of the plague, to be seeking comfort in another person, their boss of all people? Salem halts that train of thought before it goes off the rails. They’re being safe, they’re both healthy; what’s the harm in a little fun?

“I just might have to, won’t I?”

#spicy #julian #salem #the arcana smut #original character

[otonymous]

The ABCs of Shaw (MLQC Headcanon - NSFW)

Dearest Nonny,

Thank you so very much for your lovely comments!  💕 And I'm SO GLAD you asked for Shaw’s dirty alphabet because god knows my thirsty ass can’t think of anything else 🤣  Take care of yourself as well and hope you enjoy the read!

Warnings: NSFW/18+: Explicit/graphic language - reader discretion is advised.  Specific spoilers noted in the appropriate section(s) below.

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Surprisingly sweet and tender.  Shaw is actually a bit of a teddy bear once he's decided to let you in his life

Sex is very passionate with him: often hard and fast, at times desperate and rough — the two of you will typically come down from the high of release with your foreheads pressed together, feverish bodies cooling as you both gasp for much needed air in between deep kisses, punctuated by the occasional chuckle at the fact that neither of you can keep your hands off one another

A marathon cuddler: his lithe yet strong arms will wrap tightly around you, as if the strength of his emotions could be conveyed through his embrace alone

Chatty Cathy: Shaw actually loves to talk after sex.  Topics could range from something as mundane as what to eat for dinner to contemplating the meaning of life.  He’s a great conversationalist (partly because he’s got such a wide range of interests).

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Shaw loves his cock.  It’s huge — long and thick.  He also loves the way you respond to it: immediately on your knees with your mouth wide open 🤣

He loves your eyes.  He loves how expressive they are.  He loves their honesty - the way you can never truly hide what you’re feeling.  And when they crinkle at their corners when you smile?  That’s the best thing in the world, as far as Shaw is concerned

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum)

Loves to pull out just enough to cum on the folds of your pussy.  Will then proceed to use the head of his cock to slowly smear it along the length of your slit, still trembling in ecstasy

Sk8ter Boi is instantly hard again if you dip a finger in it and bring it to your mouth (tbh though, his refractory period is pretty much nonexistent)

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs) - ***SPOILERS***

He’s in love with his brother’s girl

Loves the smell of your pussy on his hands

If he could, he would never wash them after fingering you

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

Don’t judge a book by its cover: despite his youth, his sex game is strong

Not only is he experienced, he is also adventurous and up for experimentation (grad students need to conduct research after all 🤣)

F = Favourite Position

Pressed up against a wall: because 85.72% of the time, this man can’t wait until he’s in a bedroom

Neither will you, to be honest, especially if Shaw’s engaging in one of the following activities: playing bass guitar, cruising effortlessly on his skateboard, speaking oh-so-eloquently about his archeological research and studies, blinking, breathing, etc.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc.)

Post-coital giggles and a few seductive chuckles leading up to intercourse, but Shaw is nothing but serious when he’s actually making love to you

Sex is raw and intense

At times, it actually feels spiritual: identities merge and unseen wounds are healed

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Your man is nicely trimmed and neatly groomed

And no, the carpet is not lavender as well 🤣

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

Very intimate and romantic — Shaw is actually quite the sensitive soul.  This is true even when the sex is rough and fast, such as when he’s banging you to within an inch of your life beneath an overpass or backstage before a set

There are rare moments (usually when he is particularly frustrated) when Shaw’s tough-as-nails façade slips and you get a glimpse of the melancholy that resides in his heart.  You cannot help but sense that he’s been deeply hurt in the past.  This won’t be something he’s readily willing to talk about at the beginning of your relationship, only when he feels like he can really trust you

Thus, there are times when sex feels like a form of emotional healing for this man.  It is more than a means by which to sate his physical desires.  The intensity of his love and feelings for you remind him of his humanity.  The fact that you can love him reminds him that he, too, is deserving of love and affection

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

He’s young, healthy and a grad student.  Of course he jacks off 🤣

On average, a few times a week

The frequency increases during exams as a way to relieve stress (though this guy remains unflappable most of the time)

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

Director’s Cut: Shaw LOVES, LOVES, LOVES to film your sex sessions

Even better: making love while watching clips of the two of you going at it

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

Shaw isn’t really that picky tbh — any place is fair game when the urge hits

Still, he has to admit that your bedroom is pretty comfortable

That time he fucked you doggy style against a lectern at Loveland University was pretty hot too - he often thinks about that experience 🤣

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Shaw is most turned on when you show him that you love him — please give this guy plenty of care and affection

The swing of your hips when you walk also makes his cock twitch

He also loves watching you eat: he thinks you’re absolutely adorable when you react to tasty food with unadulterated joy

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn-offs)

Not into name-calling during sex (e.g. “slut,” “whore,” etc.), although he would do it if you so desired

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc.)

As much as Shaw loves to have your lips wrapped around his pole, he’s actually a bigger fan of eating you out

Sk8ter boi isn’t afraid to get down and dirty: he will bury his ENTIRE FACE between your legs when he goes deep sea diving, refusing to surface until you’ve come several times and made his face a shiny mess

P = Pace (Are they fast and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Capable of both, but tends towards fast and rough because y’all are typically boning all over the place

Guess that’s what happens when you can’t keep your hands off each other

You also don’t really have the leisure to be slow and sensual when there’s a line-up for the restroom at the Live House

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

(please see “Pace” above)

Quickies happen often and thankfully, are just as enjoyable as proper sex

Let’s be real: any sex with Shaw is great sex

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

As mentioned previously, this grad student is quite adventurous and game to experiment

Take your bag of kinks and feel free to have him root through it for something that might intrigue him — he’s down for whatever and would never judge you

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Can generally last pretty long during a given session

But his true talent lies in frequency — with a practically non-existent refractory period, Shaw is raring to go in no time at all

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?) - ***SPOILERS***

this man charges them with his Evol

Boy’s got that Hitachi Magic Wand and isn’t afraid to use it (What?  He’s got stiff shoulders from all that studying!)

Is definitely down to use electronic aids on the both of you

U = Unfair (How much they like to tease)

Despite being snarky when you’re both fully clothed, Shaw is actually quite straightforward when it comes to activities of a more lascivious nature

He would like to be able to tease you, but most of the time he’s already got his pants down around his ankles by the time thoughts of sex run through his head

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

FUCKING LOUD

(Rapid, heavy breathing + ample dirty chatter) x (moans so sexy it should be illegal coming from a man’s mouth) = such a bad combo for discrete quickies but a turn-on nonetheless

W = Wild Card (Get a random headcanon for the character of your choice)

Shaw is also a b-boy.  He knows his windmills get you hot.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

You have to see it to believe it.  Shaw has actually been hiding an ANACONDA in those ripped jeans all this time!

This snake happens to be circumcised

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

HIGH AF.  Nuff said

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

Typically likes to cuddle and chat for a bit before falling asleep in that nice, post-coital haze

Please forgive him in advance: Shaw has been known to wake you up on occasion with the slide of that juicy boner between your legs LOL

Thanks for reading! Check out more of my work here!📚

#q&a #all request line #anonymous #thank you so much #mlqc #mr love queen's choice #love and producer #mr love dream date #mlqc shaw #mlqc ling xiao #mlqc smut headcanon #my writing

[1800sunaarinn]

ADULT TRIO + TORTURER READER

anon asks

hiii! and thanks for enjoying my writing, idk idk i always feel like i can’t write for shit lmaoo. not even going cap, i legit got chills when i read this ask, this definitely right up my alley!! pls enjoy, anon!! :)

tw. torture, manipulation, uwu.

♰ Chrollo Luclifer

pause.

you were dangerously cute, so cute that you bordered on looking naïve. seriously, chrollo could spend hours eloquently describing how cute you were, how your actions made you even cuter, and how your words made you cuter than cuter. mans could even spend hours explaining how naïve you were. and, he could spend even more hours explaining just as eloquently that you were a manipulator.

both in nen abilities and mentality. god, you were a literal demon disguised as an angel, or something. you look cute, spoke cute, acted cute, but those hands were not cute. those soft hands have ended lives, have taken out eyeballs, yank teeth, broke bones, ripped out things that should definitely stay inside the body.

it was scary, but to chrollo, it was sexy. besides the point.

the first time he encountered your torture session was three years ago, when you had joined the phantom troupe as a pseudo member. you were an incredible informant, better than their last one.

when chrollo had left the base with his usual entourage of machi and pakunoda, it had been quiet as mouse. upon returning, he could hear the horrified and pained screams a few kilometers away.

chrollo’s first thought. feitan was torturing someone.

chrollo’s first sight. their sweet little informant torturing someone.

wait, stop the mfing music. [F/N] torturing someone?!?!

his initial reaction was to be frozen in shock, but doesn’t appear as if he was actually in shock by the events unfolding before him.

once he processed the entire thing, he could only stare for a few seconds in morbid fascination before it donned on him that you, [F/N], was actually torturing someone.

but what officially ko’ed him, was the expression on your face.

you looked completely frazzled, hair frizzy, clothes ruffled and spotted with blood. your eyes were wide like plates, pupils so tiny. the skin underneath your eyes dark and bruised. but it was the excitedly wide and sadistic smile on your face that caused him to actually sweatdrop.

chrollo was a refined young man, but seeing you look nothing like the cutesy naïve girl you had was a whole lot of shocking.

when the man had gave one last scream of pure, unadulterated fear, you had ended his life with a slow tug of his heart, pulling it free from his chest. it took a few seconds for him to truly die, you swinging his heart in front of his face with haunting giggles.

you had turned then, meeting chrollo’s eyes, appearance changing in a blink of an eye. you were back to looking cutesy, clothes clean and hair groomed. if you still weren’t holding the man’s heart, chrollo wouldn’t have known that you had just tortured someone to death.

“oh, dancho!” you had smile a true heart tugging smile, eyes forming little smiles as well. “i didn’t see you there~”

“yeah...” chrollo had trailed off, looking behind you and toward the dead man. “what’d he do?”

“hm, i want some cake. do you want cake, dancho?” you asked, before shrugging. “i’ll tell you everything over cake, pinkie promise!”

chrollo could only follow after you.

and, even now, three years later with you as his girlfriend. watching you torture someone will always cause him to sweatdrop.

he lowkey feared you.

🃏 Hisoka Morow

wait.

hisoka in a relationship with a girl who looks way too innocent to even know what —inter 🤢 interco— 🤢 intercourse🤮 is!! now that’s a sight to see.

first off, no one’s going to believe that hisoka, resident bitch clown, could bag someone like you. hell, you can’t even believe it because he is a bitch. b i c t h!

but anyways. hisoka thinks torturing is too slow, too drawn out for him, he likes fast pace things, like fights, and sex. but if it really came down to it, hisoka wouldn’t be opposed to some quality time torturing.

it was supposed to be a normal day, you know? hisoka actually showing up to the area to fight, and to secure his place in the two hundreds. you know, the usual. popping up at your house unexpectedly, and uninvited, was a normal thing. he even had a key.

but what wasn’t normal was hearing screams coming from your house, it was faint and you had to be up on your front door to hear it, but hisoka had good ass hearing.

the screams only grew louder as he entered the house, stalked around a bit to found it and then locating you and your victim in the basement.

you had a basement???! hisoka was bamboozeled.

but, no. what had him shivering his timbers, was you. his cutie pie girlfriend, looking not so cutie pootie anymore with frazzled hair and dark bruised eyes. covered in blood and wearing a bloodthirsty smile that put his to shame.

no, wait,

hold up

let him move his bangs real quick

...

nah, he saw that right

his initial reaction being “hah? why didn’t you invite me, [F/N]-chan, so rude~”

actually processed what the hell just happened. instant turn on. pervert face on, moaning immediately!

not only did you get a fright for your life, but the poor man you were torturing looked scared, disgusted and scared even more.

“oh, hisoka! hi!” you gave the man the biggest eye smile with a cutesy flustered expression, actually hearts and sparkles exploding around you. you didn’t even give the poor man a last thought before you sliced his neck so deep, his head nearly fell from his shoulders.

“what are you doing~” he had practically moaned.

“well, i’ll tell you over cake!” you all but skipped over to him, snatching his hand and bounding up the stairs for cake!

he’s totally using torture as a form of spicing up y’all’s sex lite. damn, perv.

📍Illumi Zoldyck

as the wife of a zoldyck, your ass better know how to torture. literally, it’s a requirement.

but, illumi had thought he would have to teach you how to torture. and how to kill, and how to manipulate, and how to do everything it require to become the best assassin wife.

you see, he was definitely fooled by your cutesy, naïveté act. your innocent smiles, glossy words, and dreamy stares. yes, that was it. you, a fine manipulator yourself, had fooled an even better manipulator.

poor dude was so confused when it came time to teach you how to torture.

like sorry dude, but you’ll be showing illumi a few pointers on which nerve is the quickest to receive a knee jerk scream.

his initial reaction was so stale. all he said was oh and looked on with the same dead fish eyed look.

processing... processing... completed.

“oh, oh! this is good, i don’t have to waste time teaching you.” the man sounded cheery, but he looked so dead.

you strived to have that sorta of resting bitch face.

you see, illumi can also make the weirdest, bizarre, downright ugly faces when it comes to actually releasing his bloodlust. so, seeing your features convert into something out of a horror movie only left him feeling a bit tingly.

why was he feeling tingly? what does it mean?,?!,

he lowkey enjoyed the way you lost yourself when torturing someone. you looked absolutely horrifying, and your sweet tone only added to the affect and your nen abilities working on your victim’s mind only strived to make you even more terrifying.

proud

this man was actually feeling proud of his wife

gah dayum 👨🏾‍🦳!! he found the right one, ladies it’s a wrap.

he definitely demanded little assassin babies.

like,,,,

“who taught you how to torture?” he had asked.

“a friend from my home city, he was so aggressive for such a tiny man.” you had answered absentmindedly, before bursting into horrible giggles as the man gave his last scream.

O.O —.— O.O, that type of beat.

“can we get cake?” you had turned to look at him then, smiling cutely.

“after we have intercourse. i want children, now.”

^.^ -> o.0 “hah???”

📍. 11/20/15

note — i hope you liked it. i absolutely hate the word intercouse, oh my god 😭

#illumi 📍 #hisoka 🃏 #chrollo ♰ #hxh #adult trio #hxh scenarios #hxh headcanons #hxh imagines #hxh illumi #hxh hisoka #hxh chrollo #illumi imagine #hisoka imagine #chrollo imagine #tw.torture 🍴 #tw.manipulation 😈

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

2020 reading roundup

feat: every book I read this year!

Favorite fiction:

Witchmark (C.L. Polk) 

Kindred (Octavia E. Butler) 

Fledgling (Octavia E. Butler)

The Killing Moon (N.K. Jemisin)

The Shadowed Sun (N.K. Jemisin) 

Circe (Madeline Miller) 

Freshwater (Akwaeke Emezi) 

The House in the Cerulean Sea (T.J. Klune) 

My Sister, the Serial Killer (Oyinkan Braithwaite) 

The Affair of the Mysterious Letter (Alexis Hall) 

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) 

The Traitor Baru Cormorant (Seth Dickinson)

Further fun/fabulous/fruity fiction:

The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia)

Stormsong (C.L. Polk)

The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home (Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor)  

Rat Queens, vol. 1-4 (Kurtis J. Wiebe)

The Deep (Rivers Solomon)  

The Song of Achilles (Madeline Miller) 

Gods of Jade and Shadow (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) 

Books that left me furious at death for taking Octavia Butler before she could write another sequel and tell us just what the hell Earthseed was getting up to out there in space:

Parable of the Talents (Octavia E. Butler)

Books that gave me a new appreciation for the short story as an art form:

Falling In Love with Hominids (Nalo Hopkinson)

Books that I didn’t get into right away but then they REALLY picked up and by the time the Big Reveal happened I was screaming like a howler monkey and feeling like a fool for not catching on sooner:

The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin)

Novellas that made me cry in record time, which is entirely unsurprising given the author:

To Be Taught, If Fortune (Becky Chambers) 

Books that frankly took me by surprise and made me think I should be reading more horror, or at least more Stephen Graham Jones:

The Only Good Indians (Stephen Graham Jones) 

Sequels that were good but also made my head hurt because Jesus Christ, oh my god, WHAT is going on:

Harrow the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir)

Books that I LIKED but wanted to like more than I actually did:

The Taste of Marrow (Sarah Gailey)

The Ballad of Black Tom (Victor LaValle) 

In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard) 

Upright Women Wanted (Sarah Gailey)

The Devourers (Indra Das) 

Sister Mine (Nalo Hopkinson) 

Mexican Gothic (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) 

Axiom’s End (Lindsay Ellis)

Totally respectable literary fiction that I cannot in good conscience lump into literally any other category:

Real Life (Brandon Taylor)

It was fine and I feel bad for not having anything particularly positive or negative or interesting at all to say about it, but it really and truly was just kind of alright:

My Lady’s Choosing: An Interactive Romance Novel (Kitty Curran and Larissa Zageris)

Favorite nonfiction:

In the Dream House (Carmen Maria Machado)

How We Fight for Our Lives (Saeed Jones)

An Autobiography (Angela Y. Davis)

Feed (Tommy Pico)

Ace: What Aseuxality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Angela Chen)

Black Women, Black Love: America’s War on African American Marriage (Dianne M. Stewart)

Heavy: An American Memoir (Kiese Laymon)

Notable nifty nonfictions: 

The Dark Fantastic: Race and Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games (Ebony Elizabeth Thomas) 

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? Big Questions from Tiny Mortals About Death (Caitlin Doughty)

So You Want to Talk About Race (Ijeoma Oluo)

A Curious History of Sex (Kate Lister)

Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power (Anna Merlan) 

Pleasure in the News: African American Readership and Sexuality in the Black Press (Kim T. Gallon) 

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women White Feminists Forgot (Mikki Kendall) 

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower (Brittney Cooper) 

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality (Jane Ward)

Other people’s lives that I happily devoured:

Dear America: Notes From an Undocumented Citizen (Jose Antonio Vargas)  

Wow, No Thank You (Samantha Irby)  

I’m Afraid of Men (Vivek Shraya)

The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays (Esmé Weijun Wang) 

Uncomfortable Labels: My Life as a Gay Autistic Trans Woman (Laura Kate Dale) 

Brown Girl Dreaming (Jacqueline Woodson)

When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir (Patrisse Khan-Cullors) 

Poetry & personal essays that I wanted to Get but didn’t quite:

Homie (Danez Smith)

Something That May Shock and Discredit You (Daniel M. Lavery)  

More Than Organs (Kay Ulanday Barrett) 

Junk (Tommy Pico)

Nonfiction that was interesting but also incomprehensible in many places because I don’t have a degree in biology, which I guess is my bad:

Dr. Tatiana’s Sex Advice to All Creation (Olivia Judson) 

Nonfiction that was interesting but also felt lacking in its analysis, perhaps as an inevitable side effect of trying to publish it quickly enough to stay topical:

Rage Becomes Her: The Power of Women’s Anger (Soraya Chemaly) 

Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger (Rebecca Traister)

Sweet graphic novels:

The Prince and the Dressmaker (Jen Wang) 

Shadow of the Batgirl (Sarah Kuhn)

Books that are significant for various reasons and good to read but sort of felt like homework:

Stone Butch Blues (Leslie Feinberg) 

Are Prisons Obsolete? (Angela Y. Davis)

Books I reread during quarantine even though I am not generally much of a rereader:

Her Body and Other Parties (Carmen Maria Machado)

Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) 

A Small Place (Jamaica Kincaid)

Books that weren’t really for me but probably would have rocked my socks if I read them when I was like 14:

Internment (Samira Ahmed) 

The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls (Mona Eltahawy) 

Periods Gone Public: Taking a Stand for Menstrual Equity (Jennifer Weiss-Wolf) 

The Bone Witch (Rin Chupeco) 

Pet (Akwaeke Emezi) 

#bookblr