#i had a few friends at uni but i stopped making an effort with them all very quickly after graduation | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

callsign-bunnie · 1 year

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Omg I'm late but fnaf??? Fnaf pls???

Okay, so I am going to make art for this. But... I had no motivation to draw. I did, however, have the motivation to write. This was going to be one part. A... one shot if you will.

This part, alone, is over 5k words.

Ask for part 2 if you want it.

It had started with a post on a “less than legal actions” forum.

Rodolfo had found himself a frequenter on Deep Web forums. It wasn’t the place the media sensationalized it to be and… he had a few coping habits that got fueled by some of the substance websites on there. There was no better way to find the drugs he needed than some weird guy selling on a site called “Powders, Pills, and Concoctions” with a marijuana leaf next to it.

He had almost laughed when he saw it, believing it was probably bullshit. I’m a 19 year old, looking for other 19 year olds to break into the old Unquatrun Pizzeria with me. It was stupid! Rodolfo had just rolled his eyes and clicked out of it, moving on to the homework he had from Uni.

But then… it’d gotten stuck in his brain. Like a gnat, buzzing around, he’d found himself thinking about it three days later. He knew why he’d been drawn to it… Why his mind kept going back to it… The pizzeria was calling him, demanding he find out what had happened to his best friend.

Hey, so if this is bullshit, whatever. But… I can help you break in. The only response when he’d checked a few days later. Finally, he’d let himself check out the profiles. A soap bar was the profile picture of the original poster. He even referred to himself as Soap. He was like Rodolfo, apparently, and had even been on the previously mentioned drug site, having gotten hooked on pain meds when he was getting treated for cancer.

The other guy was someone who apparently claimed to have first hand experience with the pizzeria on another post about it. He called himself Alex and apparently he’d been having nightmares about the place since he was 14.

Even still, Rodolfo hadn’t found himself entertaining the idea.

Until he’d gotten way too high one night and he’d just… migrated to the post and responded that he would go as well.

Within seconds, he’d been added to a groupchat with the other two. Are you serious about coming? -Soap

I am. I have my own reasons, but I am.

We’re going next Saturday. Can you make it? -Soap

Yes.

Awesome! What’s your name? -Alex

Rodolfo.

We’ll see you then, Rodolfo. 11:00. -Soap

And here he was. Standing in front of the pizzeria.

He clenched his hands and then hugged himself, tucking them under his arms in an effort to stop shaking. He’d been, once again, trying to quit. He couldn’t keep living on this uppers in the morning so he could get through the day and downers in the evening so he could sleep… Cocaine and alcohol was his main vice, but he had found others that he kept around for a pinch.

The building was exactly like he remembered it… Too much like he remembered it. Fuck, the local Pizza Hut looked different in the last five years, but this place was straight out of his memories… Same grey brick building, same red awnings, same Black Panther, Red Fox, and Rainbow Bear on the sign above the front windows and entrance…

He shook it off as he saw two others approach out of the corner of his eye and turned to them. They were a strange pair. One was significantly taller than both Rodolfo and the other. Blonde and… built. Rodolfo found himself blushing slightly, trying not to look over his body too much. “Hey, I’m Alex.” He half grinned, offering a hand. “Rodolfo, right?”

“Yeah.” Rodolfo nodded and shook his head, trying hard and failing to not notice the scars across his wrist and arms when the sleeves of a black leather jacket rode up. He did look dressed to be breaking in somewhere, wearing a black leather jacket, a Led Zeppelin tee shirt, and dark wash jeans.

Then, he turned to the other, who was only just slightly taller than him and had a ridiculous mohawk hairstyle. Look, it was the first thing he noticed. The second thing he noticed was how pale he was, how dark his under eyes were. If Rodolfo remembered the post, right, he should only be a year in remission… He had on a baggy hoodie and sport shorts and despite how shit he looked, he had a slightly husky build. “Hey, I’m Soap!” He grinned. “Or, Johnny Mactavish. You two are helping me break into a restaurant, you can know my name.”

“Right.” Rodolfo nodded. “It’s nice to meet you both…” He cringed back, feeling a bit out of place with the other two. He was a lot more put together, wearing brown academia shorts, a sweater, and his boots. He never thought he’d be insecure about not looking like a mess. “So… How are we doing this thing?”

Alex snorted and then something was jingling and Rodolfo’s eye was caught by a flash of silver. He saw Alex get out a set of keys and then he was just marching up to the glass doors at the entrance, which had three promotional posters on them.

He recognized the three main animatronics on each of them. Ghost, an emo panther who sang mostly kid friendly parodies of 80’s rock. That one was particularly silly. Then there was Mateo, a red fox who could speak Spanish. Alejandro had loved that one… Rodolfo looked away from the poster before the cold could seep into his body. His hands were shaking enough, already. Then, the third, which Rodolfo didn’t get a chance to get a good look at before Alex was swinging open the door, was a Rainbow Bear, named Gaz, apparently after the owner’s kid. He was the main lead of the cast. Of course he was, it was always the bear.

They weren’t the only animatronics, too. There were three more, though one had been decommissioned for four years, apparently, due to a malfunctioning mainframe.

Alex cursed as the alarm started to go off and then he was running to the back of the restaurant. Rodolfo was starting to wonder just how intimate he was with the place… Soap and Rodolfo stepped inside the restaurant and waited for the alarm to stop.

“So… Why did you want to break in?” Rodolfo asked before he could really stop himself.

Soap shrugged. “I want a picture with the Panther.” He answered. “A cool picture.”

“Couldn’t you have came in when the daytime? I thought they had a photo booth thing with the characters?” Rodolfo asked, finding the explanation absurd. They were breaking and entering… For a picture??

Soap grinned. “They do, but it’s a man in a suit. I want it with the actual animatronic. I want it with the real Ghost.”

Rodolfo had to refrain from saying that the animatronic wasn’t real. He was just an… animatronic. That was it. Clearly Soap wanted a picture and… well, he couldn’t judge his reasoning too much. Or shouldn’t, because he most definitely was. Whatever.

Finally, Alex came back to the front lobby, where the ticket desk was. The animatronics were closer to the back, past all of the games and tables. “Sorry, I had to go to the security office and input the code.”

Rodolfo became aware that the alarm was suddenly off and before he could ask how Alex knew the code, Soap was speaking. “That’s alright. Is there a way to get the lights up in here?”

“No. Unfortunately not. They’re on a sensor for the timer.” Alex sighed. “Only the man who owns the damn place has that code.”

“Damn.” Soap sighed, clearly disappointed. “It’s cool. Phones were invented with flash for a reason. Hey, do you think there’s any food? I’m starving.”

Alex shrugged. “I could check. I’m sure they stick leftovers in a fridge or something. Come on, let’s go see.”

Rodolfo shook his head, wanting at least a few answers. “No. No. Dude, you have keys and the security code. What the fuck??”

Soap frowned and then turned to stare at Alex. “He’s got a point.”

Alex winced and then sighed. “You’re right. But… I don’t know. I found them in my mom’s desk. I didn’t even know she knew the owner of this place until a month ago… I… Apparently she used to co-own it with the other owner? John Price? I didn’t know.”

“How the fuck did you not know that??” Rodolfo crossed his arms, not buying it. You don’t just not know your mom co-owned a pizzeria where four kids went missing.

Alex winced harder and rubbed the back of his neck. “I… Fuck. When I was 14, I had a really bad head injury. You can see the scars.” He got out his phone and turned on the flashlight, making Rodolfo realize he could only really see because of the streetlights outside. Alex held the flashlight up to his head, revealing what almost looked a puzzle of someone’s head who had been shattered. Fuck. “See?”

Even Soap was cringing beside him. “Anyway, I don’t remember much before… that. Apparently I had a whole other mom that I barely remembered. Fuck, I didn’t even remember that I was adopted. So… that’s how.”

Rodolfo felt kind of guilty, now. “Oh. Sorry.”

“No, it’s alright. I understand how it could seem suspicious. But… I really don’t remember.” Alex sighed and then nudged his head in the direction of the kitchen, behind a buffet bar. “I’ll explain more after we look for food.”

“Fine.” Rodolfo nodded and Soap agreed, beside him. So, they both followed him behind the buffet bar and to the kitchen. Alex was using his flashlight to see, so Rodolfo used that to see as well, sticking close behind. This place… it kind of gave him the creeps. Though, it’d always had.

Alex got into the fridges in the back of the kitchen. “Bingo.” The fridge he’d opened lit up and revealed a few pizza boxes, which Alex opened and glanced through before pulling out the middle one. “Soap mentioned liking pepperoni.” He glanced back. “What about you, Rodolfo?”

“Pepperoni is fine.” Rodolfo nodded, not having a preference as long as there was no onion. Though, he was pretty sure the pizzeria only offered pepperoni, sausage, bacon, and cheese. The main focus was really on the games and the animatronics.

“Good.” Alex brought the box over and then he was pausing, going over to a nearby table. “Looks like one of the workers left a speaker.” He set the pizza box down and Soap tilted his head. “Oh, cool.” He fidgeted before something on the table was lighting up.

It looked like a little camping lantern, though it was fairly bright. Alex shrugged and put his phone in his back pocket before he picked up the little lantern and then he was guiding Rodolfo and Soap out to the restaurant, again, and they found a table.

It was too dark to do much else than make out the animatronics’ vague outline and… a drip of dread rolled down Rodolfo's spine, making his stomach clench. Maybe this was a mistake… well, he was this far along. He jumped and looked at Soap, hearing something rattle. He watched Soap, vaguely lit by the camping lantern, open a pill bottle and then take three of them.

Rodolfo hated the way his hands shook more, the way his mouth salivated, and he looked away, sitting down at the table and opening the box. The pizza wasn’t half bad, he’d admit. Even as a kid… it was pretty good. When Mateo became an animatronic, they rolled out this taco pizza and while it was definitely not Mexican food… it wasn’t too bad. In fact, both he and Alejandro had enjoyed it.

“So, your turn.” Soap spoke up, staring right at him. “You may look put together, but you’re… still here with us. Breaking into a pizzeria and stealing food.”

Rodolfo winced. “Yeah..” He admitted. “I was actually really high when I agreed to do this… It’s… a long story.”

“I’m willing to hear it.” Alex shrugged, sitting next to him and nudging him. “You know… since we’re here.”

Rodolfo blushed at his close proximity. He was only like this when withdrawing… Normally, boys weren’t even in his mind, but when he didn’t have drugs or alcohol… His mind looked for other destructive ways to cope. “I guess.” He nodded, since he knew the other two’s backstory already. Sort of. Well, he apparently didn’t know more than Alex and Soap… he felt bad about asking a cancer survivor why they liked a kids’ pizza place so much. The answer seemed kind of obvious.

Both of the others were staring at him and he found himself trying to shrink into his seat. But… he took a deep breath, ate a bit more pizza, and then he started. “My best friend loved this place when we were kids… His dad was really abusive and the owner of this place would let obviously troubled kids play games for free… And… it was a place to go to get away from the abuse, I guess. I actually outgrew it rather quickly. Then his dad died… And I guess it was a distraction…

He was really attached to Mateo, actually. Neither of us had any friends who spoke Spanish? So… and this was back before he was an animatronic. So… he really liked having something he could talk to that would respond back in Spanish… We were both second generation immigrants…” Rodolfo fidgeted with his fingers under the table, picking at the scabs he didn’t let heal around his nails. “On his fourteenth birthday… He wanted to have it here and I… we… fought? Over it. I just wanted to grow up… This place creeped me out and I… I was sick of being a little kid… So I didn’t go. He was one of the four kids that went missing.”

Rodolfo looked down, not wanting to see the other two’s faces. They must have thought he was horrible. God knows Rodolfo did. “I keep thinking… What if I had gone with him? What if I had just… got over myself and gone? Would he still be here? I don’t know.”

The other two were silent. That was fine… He was used to that reaction.

Finally, he ran a hand through his hair. “It’s stupid. But… I hoped that… maybe I could find out what happened if I came. Maybe… Maybe I’d find him, I don’t know.”

They were still silent and Rodolfo looked at them. Soap’s expression was almost shocked and Alex was looking away, staring down at his pizza. “You… You did it. You made a dude with cancer feel like his backstory wasn’t tragic enough. Congratulations, you are superior.”

Rodolfo snorted, “I feel like cancer-”

“No. I’m in remission.” Soap shook his head. “Damn. I just… the owner paid my hospital bills because I loved this place. I still have a card that lets me basically play for free. It never expires… I feel kind of bad breaking in but… Oh well. But… yeah. I went into remission last year.”

“Is that why you have that ridiculous haircut?” Rodolfo asked, again before he could stop himself, and gestured to the top of his head.

Soap laughed. “Yeah, so… When I had cancer… The only part of my hair that didn’t fall out completely from chemo was… that spot. So, I got it trimmed and kept it like a mohawk. Now… I let it grow crazy a little but… for the most part, I keep it like this. I know it looks ridiculous but… look at me. It’s pretty obvious I was sick… You guys should see my torso under this. It’s… pretty gross. Purple and gray… Surgery scars.. I had lung cancer.”

“Ah.” Rodolfo mumbled, now feeling really bad. Good job, asshole. “Sorry… It’s just…”

“It’s a bit much.” Soap shrugged. “I get it. Trust me. But… who’s gonna tell the kid with cancer that he’s ugly, huh?”

“That’s fair.” Alex finally spoke up, snorting softly. “We’re three peas in a pod, huh? We all have some tragic tie to this place.” He then sighed. “Odd that we found each other, but it makes sense. Who else would want to break in? Oh fuck-” He cursed, suddenly standing. “I left the camera in my car! Shit! Look, I’ll go get it, real quick. You two just stay here. Don’t eat all the pizza.”

“No promises.” Soap grinned and Rodolfo just mumbled that he wouldn’t. They both watched him fade into a vague silhouette, passing through the entrance door thingy and then going to the outside door. Then, he pushed on it and- the door didn’t open.

It was hard to see, but not hard enough that they couldn’t tell that the door didn’t open. Alex appeared to push a few more times before he was backing up and then coming back. “Fuck.” He muttered when he got back. “The doors won’t open.”

“Why not??” Rodolfo asked, another drip of dread rolling down his spine. “You unlocked them, right?” He shared a concerned glance with Soap.

“Well… it’s an old security measure, I’m pretty sure.” Alex winced. “The report I saw… said it was because of the kids that had gone missing. If the system thinks the store has been broken into… it locks down, completely, and won’t open without being unlocked from the outside. So, whoever got in, can’t get out without tripping the alarm somehow.”

“Fuck!” Soap groaned. “So, what? We’re trapped here until morning?”

Alex shook his head. “No. In Price’s office, there’s a place where we should be able to input a code. Then, we have sixty seconds to get out and lock the outside door. We’ll have to use the back door… So… there’s no point in doing it until we’re ready to go.”

Rodolfo was really starting to regret this. “I don’t know, is a picture worth this? Maybe we should just go.”

Soap shook his head. “No. I want that picture. If you two want to leave… fine. I will stay here all night, but I’m getting that picture. I’m… I am.”

Rodolfo stared at him, watching him glare down at the table. Then, he looked up at Alex. “I’m staying, too.” Alex mumbled. “I’ll get the code and let you out but… I’m not leaving. Price’s office should have the incident report about what happened to me. I need to know. I need to know why I can’t remember and my mom… won’t tell me. So, I’m staying.”

Rodolfo furrowed his brows and then he finally turned his head to the stage, where the outline of animatronics could be seen. Dread was steadily dripping down his back, and he would admit that he didn’t like this. But… well, he didn’t want to leave alone. And… he really wanted to find out what happened to his friend. “No. I’ll stay. But can we do this as fast as possible?”

“Yes.” Soap sounded relieved. “Yes, we can. Right, Alex?”

Alex immediately nodded. “Yes. Alright, let’s go up to the stage. I’ll use my phone to get that picture.” He picked up the camping lantern on the table and so Rodolfo and Soap both stood, following him up to the stage.

Rodolfo tried not to tremble as he followed them. That would be mortifying, though maybe he’d just blame it on withdrawal. He knew they had to have caught onto it by now… In fact, it had started to prickle at the sides of his face and he found himself scratching at them, trying to get the prickles to go away.

“They’re so fucking huge.” Soap said as they finally neared the stage.

Rodolfo felt small. The animatronics dwarfed him and that feeling was only made more extreme by the stage which was as tall as his waist. He shrank back, hugging himself. They creeped him out, really bad. He hated them.

Rodolfo jumped back with a yelp as the stage lit up in bright colors and then three spotlights turned on, lighting up the animatronics with stark white light. The lights around the stage were red, blue, and green, and there were stars on the wall behind them.

“Fuck,” Alex was holding his chest, but Soap was grinning. “I guess they don’t turn off the motion sensors at night. I guess they wouldn’t have to.”

“That’s fucking terrifying.” Rodolfo muttered, hugging himself again.

Luckily, the animatronics weren’t moving, just staying in their rest modes, which were perfectly plucked from Rodolfo’s memory. Ghost had a microphone which was raised above his head and said head was lifted to look almost like he was screaming into it. Mateo had a hand out, the other hand on his chest, and he looked to be about to belt out lyrics, his mouth open slightly. And Gaz was holding up a peace sign, bent over slightly, and winking.

The poses were so… human. But so stark. So uncanny.

Alex and Soap had started to talk about something. It sounded like what pose he wanted to stand in. Rodolfo didn’t particularly care about it, just tuning it out and going over to Mateo, having to cross behind them to do so.

He didn’t get too close to the stage, but he stood in front of Mateo, staring up at the animatronic. “¿Por qué eras tan especial?” He whispered. “¿Por qué te amaba tanto? ¿Valiste la pena?” Rodolfo didn’t think Mateo was worth it. He didn’t think that stupid fucking fox was worth losing his best friend.

His hands shook so hard it made his bones ache and he suddenly felt so cold, despite being aware of sweat rolling down the back of his neck. Nausea traveled up his body and he closed his eyes, covering his mouth. He needed to keep his food down…

Finally, he opened his eyes, glancing over and seeing Soap and Alex were still talking. Soap was gesturing up to Ghost, and Alex was nodding along, his phone out. Rodolfo shook his head and turned back up to Mateo, looking over him again.

That fox had been in his nightmares, taunting him over and over and over. You let him go alone… He’d have come home… if you hadn’t let him go alone… But now you’re alone… Rudy’s all alone… Singing it over and over.

You let him go alone..

You let him go alone…

Rodolfo ran to a trash can, which was close by, thankfully, and threw up, hunching over it as he did so. He grasped the sides of the trash can, trying not to think of how slimy it felt, and panted. His whole body was shaking, and he just felt so cold…

“Hey, you okay?” Rodolfo lifted up, hearing Alex ask. He turned around, seeing Alex was staring at him. Even Soap looked concerned, though he wasn’t fully staring. Just looking.

Rodolfo nodded. “Yeah. Maybe cold pizza wasn’t the best idea.” He went back over to them, hugging himself again in an attempt to stay warm. “This place is kind of cold, huh?”

“Really? It feels hot to me.” Alex frowned, wiping his forehead. “They turn the AC off at night. It’s a shock the animatronics don’t fucking reek.”

Rodolfo frowned. Oh. He couldn’t feel it at all. Whatever. “So, are you going to get that picture?”

“Yeah, we’re just getting the staging right.” Soap nodded. “I don’t want to have to take too many.”

That was fair. Rodolfo hated having to take pictures over and over. He just let them go back to what they were doing, looking up at the stage, again, and looking over their poses, thinking how funny they were. Ghost was mid headbang, hunched over, Gaz was leaned back, appearing to be singing into his microphone, and Mateo had his microphone to his mouth, appearing to reach for the audience.

Such silly, simple poses. Again, so human, but so stark…

Rodolfo finally tore his eyes away and sighed, looking around the rest of the dining area. He paused upon seeing the large rabbit in the corner of the room. That thing just filled him with dread. It was horrid how large it was.

He’d also seen videos of it moving and it was… too human. It almost reached the ceiling when it stood, and it was based off a velveteen rabbit. Even still, the way it walked was identical to the way his own mother walked which… was supposed to be the point. It was meant to be motherly but it just made Rodolfo nauseous.

He didn’t even like the way it was sitting, slumped over like the actual stuffed animal might be.

The funny part was… He’d used to have a velveteen rabbit. It’d been gotten for his older sister, Liliana, but… she’d hated the thing. So, he’d taken over it, since they shared a room. He couldn’t remember what happened to it…

Rodolfo saw movement in the corner of his eye and quickly looked over, startling when he saw that Alex was helping Soap climb onto the stage. “Woah, woah, what are we doing? I don’t think you should be doing that-”

“Calm down.” Soap shook his head. “They’re deactivated, it’s fine.” He stood once he was up there, going close to Ghost. It made Rodolfo’s heart race, Soap shouldn’t be getting so close.

Soap settled so his back was against Ghost’s torso and Rodolfo tried not to beg him to get off the stage, shaking so hard his vision was getting blurry. He didn’t even think this was a good pose, since Ghost had his head back and you couldn’t even really see his face from that angle, especially with how big the animatronic was.

It dwarfed Soap entirely. Soap barely went mid torso for it.

It was too big.

You let him go alone.

Rodolfo squeezed his eyes shut, taking deep breaths. “It’s way bigger up close.” Soap was saying.

Alex chuckled. “Yeah, they’re fucking massive. It’s frightening.”

Rodolfo hugged himself tightly in an effort to stop the shaking and forced his eyes to open, watching Alex move so he could get a good picture. “Throw a peace sign or something.”

Soap shrugged, doing as told, and then grinning. “Do I look good?”

“Hell yeah.” Alex nodded, also grinning.

Rodolfo felt like he couldn’t breathe, trying desperately hard to not throw up again. He wished they’d hurry the fuck up, desperately wanting Soap off that stage.

Movement out of the corner of his eye.

Rodolfo felt sweat mingle with the dread as it dripped down his back and he slowly turned to look. The velveteen rabbit was sitting up. “G-Guys…” He said, reaching for Alex and staring at the rabbit.

“Hang on, I’ve almost got the picture.” Alex said.

Rodolfo forced a breath into his lungs, continuing to stare at the velveteen rabbit. It was meant to look like Red Velvet cake, a joke. It even looked like it had piped cream cheese frosting on it’s head. A red velveteen rabbit.

But… now it only looked soaked in blood. The stage lights became too stark. They were shining in his eyes. He shielded his eyes from the light, blinking and trying hard to remember how to breathe. This was hell…

You let him go alone…

He squeezed his eyes shut and then opened them again, relaxing when he saw the velveteen rabbit was slumped over again. He’d made it up. It wasn’t real. It was just his drug deprived brain tricking him.

He sucked in a harsh breath and then shook his head, turning back to Soap. “Did you finally get the picture?”

Soap was now hopping off the stage, still grinning. “Hell yeah.”

Alex held out his phone, showing Rodolfo. He didn’t like the way Ghost was staring at the camera. It felt uncomfortable. Rodolfo just shook his head, however, and sighed. “Awesome. Well… that’s one thing down.”

Soap nodded, and then suddenly tripped as he was climbing down, slamming his hands onto something on the stage.

It was very sudden. The animatronics started to move and ice spiked through Rodolfo’s blood, terrifying him. Even Soap seemed startled, all three of them backing up. “Oh fuck. I think I turned them on…” Soap winced. “Why would they put the on button there??”

“That is an odd spot.” Alex agreed.

“Hi kids.” Gaz was saying, staring right at them.

They had motion sensors, Rodolfo knew that, but it was still deeply unnerving. Ghost and Mateo were also staring at them… He cringed back. “Turn them off.”

Soap nor Alex did as told. They just kind of watched the animatronics. “I like them.” Soap grinned. “They feel… human.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem.” Rodolfo stepped forward to press the button again, to turn them off, before yelping and jerking back as Mateo was suddenly crouched and in his face.

“Hi! Remember me?!” Mateo almost appeared to be grinning and Rodolfo really didn’t like that. He tilted his head to the side and stared right into Rodolfo. His eyes were empty, they held no emotion. Just… massive balls of plastic.

“Remember him?” Rodolfo asked, backing back up to Alex and Soap. He swallowed before continuing, hugging himself. “That’s an odd voice line…”

“They can recognize past visitors.” Soap nodded. “Another security measure, apparently. They hoped that if they saw whoever… took those kids, that they might point them out. It also made them feel more real to the guests.”

Rodolfo bit the inside of his cheek, digging his nails into his sides through his sweater. “Gross.” He muttered. “I don’t like that…”

Alex frowned. “Wait, but have you been here since your friend went missing?”

Rodolfo paused. “No. No, I haven’t… I avoided this place completely. Wouldn’t even drive down this road…”

“Then… how would it recognize you?” Alex frowned. “Wasn’t that security measure implemented after the event?”

Rodolfo… realized Alex was right. Oh, no, he didn’t like that at all. Soap snorted. “Maybe it’s a racist robot. I mean… I know white people who can’t tell Hispanic people apart. White people programmed it… It could be racist.”

Rodolfo wasn’t sure he believed that but… what other explanation was there? “I guess.” He mumbled. “Whatever, let's just turn them off.” He moved forward to press the button again.

“Remember me?” Mateo asked again, his foot moving in front of the button. “I’m here. Remember me? It’s me. I’m here. Remember me?”

Rodolfo jerked back as Mateo reached for him, staring at the animatronic. It almost appeared to be stopping him from pressing the button. “No. I don’t remember you.” He moved over, reaching for the button again and then crying out as his arm was grabbed.

“Alex!” He cried and then Mateo’s arm was reaching around him, pulling him onto the stage. “Alex!”

“Remember me. Please remember me. It’s me. I’m here. Remember me.” Mateo was repeating and he pulled Rodolfo close to him, almost hurting him from the way he was hugging him. “Remember me.”

Rodolfo’s heart pounded in his chest and he kicked and shoved against Mateo. “Alex!” He screamed. Images of Mateo crushing his ribs ran through his mind, sending fear flooding through every vein in his body.

“Mateo… We don’t just grab children. You know the rules, put the poor boy down!” Another animatronic voice rang through the pizzeria and Rodolfo was suddenly released and then he was yanked off the stage.

Alex almost was hugging him close, pulling him back. “Are you okay??” He looked down at him.

Rodolfo didn’t answer, looking at the Velveteen Rabbit, who was now standing. It’s eyes glowed bright pink and it started towards them, almost striding. “Alex, the rabbit!”

“Guys-” Soap said and nudged them both, pointing to the stage where Mateo was now climbing down.

“Price’s office!” Alex immediately said. “There’s an emergency shut down in there! They also can’t go in it!” He quickly pulled them and all three rushed away, to the back.

“No! Don’t run!” Mateo called after them. “Remember me! I’m here! I’m here!”

Rodolfo could hear his footsteps after them, loud and clanky, and Alex suddenly was dragging him harder. They ran down a short hallway and then Rodolfo was shoved into a doorway, tripping and hitting the floor. Soap hit the ground beside them and then Alex was slamming the door.

Mateo stopped just outside the doorway, staring into the window, and Rodolfo panted, staring up at him. “I’m here… Remember me. I’m here.”

Alex backed away after locking the door and all three stared at the door. The shadow of the Velveteen Rabbit suddenly crossed over what little light was coming through the doorway from the lights of the stage.

“Fuck…” Soap panted. “What do we do now?”

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#remember me cod au #rodolfo parra #alex keller #johnny soap mactavish #five nights at freddy's au #kyle gaz garrick #john price #simon ghost riley #alejandro vargas #captain john price #soap cod #cod mw2 #ghost cod #call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #call of duty modern warfare ii

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sweetdevil-sims · 10 months

Text

Get to Know Me - Sims Edition

I was tagged by several people (thank you!), so I decided to get off my ass for once and answer this 😆

What’s your favorite Sims death? I think the mummy's curse one! There's just something about that ominous vignette during the countdown days, only for the sim to dissolve into dust at the end 😩👌

Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Both! Maxis Match for clothing, Alpha for hair.

Do you cheat your sims weight? Nope! I leave them at whatever weight they happen to be, unless they want to learn/practice the Athletic skill. I do cheat to give them more muscle tone if they're super muscular already, though; EA really should've made that slider move along the muscle mass one :/

Do you move objects? Oh yes. I can't imagine decorating without it.

Favorite Mod? Nraas Master Controller my beloved 💖 Can't forget BrntWaffles's lighting mods, they make the game look so beautiful that sometimes I like to just leave it on 2x while watching the sunset over the sea.

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack? The first EP I got was World Adventures and it's still my favorite. The first and only SP I have is HELS, along with bits and pieces from the others.

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing? The latter, though this question tripped me up the first time I saw it 😅

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? Ohh that's a tough one. Fergus Vane is definitely among my favorites, he was a Johnny Bravo knockoff who eventually got married and I swear that he and his wife could NOT keep their hands off each other 😆 First is him making friends at uni, second is him with his wife.

Have you made a simself? Oh yeah, when I got the game and was trying to figure out how to play. Didn't last long until I started making serial black widows, lol.

Which is your favorite EA hair color? That platinum blonde looks so tacky that I can't help but love it.

Favorite EA hair? I think EA struck gold with: Loose Curl, Dramatic Ponytail, La Dolce Vita Updo, Chorus Girl Curl, Pin-up Pretty, Skinny Dreads, Wavy Bob, Elegance Style, and Wild Fire.

Favorite life stage? Young Adult, because it has the most things available.

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? Ohh it depends. I go through phases when I'm not interested in gameplay at all, mostly when I set up a savefile for the first time. But now I've been more into gameplay for a few months.

Are you a CC creator? Yeah, mostly with CAS items and minor annoyance fixes.

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad? I have a lot of simblr mutuals where I feel like a nosy person sometimes poking their head above the neighbor's fence to see what's going on 😆

Do you have any sims merch? / A Youtube for sims? Nope.

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing? I give my concrete boxes a few more decorative elements now 😅 For once, I stopped playing serial killers (mostly to avoid the NPC pudding spam that ensues), and am making an effort to not micromanage sims as much and to fulfill their wishes instead of ending up with mostly level 10 chefs and gardeners all the time.

Who’s your favorite CC creator? Oh man do I have to name someone?? SimplexSims, @aroundthesims, Mutske, @simtanico, @simaddix, @twinsimming, @bioniczombie, @martassimsbookcc, @simbouquet, @plumdrops, @ifcasims, @sim-songs, @deniisu-sims, @bellakenobi, @brntwaffles, @omedapixel, @wanderingsimsfinds, @simlicious, TheSweetSimmer and on and on.

How long have you had Simblr? 2016! Sometimes I can't believe it's been so long.

How do you edit your pictures? I have a few customized Gshade presets, and only convert gameplay screenshots to JPG. For CC previews, I may change the background color and will combine several previews into one image (and I occasionally correct small issues like unsightly clipping due to the poses).

What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite? World Adventures is #1, followed by Seasons and prooobably Supernatural.

Oof we're at the end! Thank you for tagging me and for reading, and I tag ✨anyone who wants to do this✨!

#nonsims #personal #meme

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whateven333 · 4 months

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How would you have made bonkai canon?

Sorry it took me a while to see this, (even though I was super excited when I saw this -first ask I've gotten 💖 !!!) I was just super busy with Uni stuff, -then when I did see it, I ended up procrastinating for a good few days thinking about how to answer lmaooo, because I've seen how other people have come up with great ideas for this question already and then I felt too much pressure 😭.

Erm, but here I go anyway...🤸🏾‍♀️🥴😺😶‍🌫️

So, I would have them fuck in the prison world.

I know what you might be thinking -I took this long to come up with THIS.

And yes. Yes I did.

...

Okay but maybe also,

I would have definitely loved to see them spend longer in the prison world together.

Kai was shown to be a smart character...MOST of the time, and I think this may have just been another example of inconsistent/ sloppy writing on the show, -but, it never made sense to me how he gave up the ghost so quickly in terms of how he didn't seem to put much effort into stopping Damon and Bonnie from finding out about his sibling murdering stuff. Like, I would have thought, since he had been watching Bonnie and Damon, he had an understanding of how they might react if/ when they found out that information, so you would think maybe he'd try to put off them finding out for as long as possible ? I mean, how hard is it to trash a few newspapers ? But idk, maybe he was thinking -"why put off the inevitable" ??

BUT, had he managed to do so. It would have been an interesting way to make Bonnie less hostile to his advances, I think she definitely would have still been deeply mistrustful of him, considering he would still be..-well, the way he is, (he has that sly, mischievous, aura) and cocky attitude, -and we know Bonnie does not typically fall for that sort of schtick.

However, not knowing he murdered a handful of his siblings probably would have left her way more open to getting to know him- even if it was just out of curiosity, and if they had taken maybe a bit longer to find out how to get out of the prison world/ or maybe Bonnie’s powers hadn’t come back fully and she needed some more time to get back to full strength in order to be able to do the spell to get them out, then Bonnie would maybe have had more moments of prison world boredom (and probably enough irritating digs from Damon) to drive her to interact with Kai more. This could have been a gateway to get them to bond a little, show more moments of tension between the two of them, he would maybe insert himself in her sessions of trying to train her magic back to full strength under the guise of wanting to be helpful but just really in order to facilitate more possible touchy moments like the chest thing lmao, he could’ve shared some gemini spells with her, etc.

And so all of this could have led to what I jokingly (fine, half), said at the start -we could have all this lead up to a super charged moment that leads to them having sex in the prison world. Maybe Bonnie won’t find out about Kai’s past until they all make it back out to the real world, which would lead to a lot of inner turmoil for her (she was the only one of her friends who could say they hadn’t fallen into bed with a mass murderer, but not anymore). When Kai merges with Luke, due to him having had more time to bond with Bonnie, I’d imagine that his hyper-fixation and guilt about Bonnie would be way more intense.

And then…there should be more to this explanation, there’s probably weird gaps in here and maybe not all of what I’ve said even makes sense because I have to admit I’m writing this whilst super tired and it’s 2am and my brain is like starting to buffer and I think this is all I have for now.

But, I really hope this answer wasn’t complete trash anon 😭, (I have no experience with writing any fics of my own, though I am interested and have started dabbling, let's just say its been a little rough lmao -though I am having fun and will keep trying at it, so we'll see what happens, I guess.😭)

Thanks so much for the ask though 💖💖

#bonkai #bonnie bennett #kai parker #ask

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writing-whump · 11 months

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Trouble to the rescue

Julian calls Anneliese when he is suddenly sick at the park. Anneliese is pretty overwhelmed with the situation, not understanding why he would want a practical stranger over his best friend.

Warning: vomiting

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"Juls, we gotta call someone." Anneliese was desperate. She had never seen him like this.

Julian gagged over the bag, his jaw hanging open over it. They sat on a public bench for Christ's sake and she couldn't figure out a way to get him home.

He didn't stop gagging since she found him. And if he didn't call her, she wouldn't have found him at all.

This was ridiculous. Julian was a tall strong guy who had a bunch of strong tough friends. It didn't make sense to call her.

Although she kind of understood. On a very weird emotional level that she couldn't quite put to words yet.

Juls spat in the bag and then lifted his head, a lopsided smile on his face. His face was so white it made his tanned skin look all gray and weird. "Please don't."

How he was able to smile in this situation she had no idea. Stress smiling for real.

"Juls, you-"

His whole body shuddered then, interrupting her. She watched his back spasm and then he gagged and vomited loudly into the bag again. His back was bend over so much she wondered how it didn't break in two.

She tried to be comforting, but this was new. She was knew on this bloody campus, at the boxing gym, at the club, with the boys. They were part of work, part of her ethnographic project, school assignment to get herself into new situations. Becoming friends with them wasn't part of the deal, even if it helped her gain access.

Caring about them wasn't part of the deal either.

Hesitantly, she put her hand on Julian's back. Didn't dare to rub, just held it there, a silent offering of comfort.

More splashing hit the bag. He burped a few times, and when nothing came up, straightened a little. Leaning into her touch, she noticed.

"Please don't-uuurp-don't call him." His face was all sweaty and strained, and still there was that stupid effort for a smile. A pleading smile.

"It doesn't have to be Ryan, but it has to be someone." She tried to reason with him, finally daring to rub his soaked back gently. He leaned back on the bench, exhausted, eyebrows furrowed.

"Juls," trying to get his attention with the nickname again. She never used it before this weird fateful day. It was Ryan's nickname after all.

Why can't it be Ryan though? From his reaction she knew it couldn't, but it didn't make any sense. They were glued to the hip at uni, at the club and they were obviously comfortable with each other. So touchy for guys. Heck, even for friends. She didn't dare hug her roommate and best friend Penn the way Ryan and Julian would hug each other out of nowhere. Or wrap hands around the other's neck or drag each other around. Anneliese envied that kind of casual closeness. She wanted to watch it, study it and understand it, as if that would make it feel any better.

So why was this suddenly off limits?

"Ann," Julian muttered. She blinked. He had never used a nickname on her. Anneliese didn't have nicknames, despite her long ass name. No one ever dared to give her one.

"I would love to help you, Julian. I swear I would. But I don't know how to drive a car here, and you were so mysterious at the phone I just took a tram and I can't imagine dragging you across the city to the campus in this state, and I know I make for a real lousy rescuer after all that confident talk-"

"Ann."

Somehow that little sound made her stop in her tracks as quickly as it got her going.

"I'm sorry. It's fine. I-I panicked and I needed to see someone. It's okay."

"No, it's not. You are not." Anneliese took a deep breath. "Alright that's enough. I don't know why I'm panicking. I will just call us a Bolt and it will be fine." Getting her phone out, she was tapping the app open and calling the taxi before the sentence was even finished.

Anneliese felt really stupid for not thinking of that sooner. But it was such a shock to see Julian like this. He was so strong, so steady, friendly and easy to get along with. Her anchor at this stupid Erasmus exchange programme she did for all the wrong reasons. A polite nice face to greet her everyday that Ryan did something to throw her off her game, when Coleson scowled at her, when Lucian looked like he didn't see her at all.

Freaking guys. She really shouldn't have picked a research project involving them just because boxing was the most far away thing from her comfort zone. (Which was the freaking assignment.)

Julian coughed, then leaned back against the bench, closing his eyes. Anneliese's hand lingered on his shoulder. Then she cupped his neck and then his cheek. Her hands were always cold, but he was truly burning up under her touch, sweaty and strained. His face was changing colours rapidly, from chalk white to blood red to greenish purple.

"I'm sorry for being so much trouble," he sighted.

She scoffed. "No. I'm sorry for being a measly rescuer."

Julian cracked an eye open. "I forced you into a weird situation. It won't happen again."

She winced at that and let her hand fall away, hanging limply beside his. "Don't say that." Her voice was small. "I'm glad you called me." I don't understand why you did, but I am.

At least he asked for help from someone. Maybe it was easier with a stranger he didn't care about. Julian cared too much too quickly about things. And he cared about real stupid things too, like being a burden or imposing or whatever other impolite thing he couldn't imagine inflicting on someone with his presence.

A sweaty hand slipped into hers then. She blinked and looked up. Julian's eyes were closed again, his face relaxed suspiciously, but at least not forcing a smile.

He squeezed her hand slightly. She squeezed it right back. Hard.

They sat in silence for a bit, understanding and awkwardness hanging between them.

"Come on. The car is here," she said, breaking the moment. Hopefully to create a better one.

Part 2

#sickfic #emeto #emeto fic #whump #hurt/comfort #caretaking #Anneliese #Julian #wip: guarded hearts #my writing

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spearheadrampancy · 4 months

Note

So... if you don't mind me asking how've you been?

hoo boy. yeah. tldr: alive!

quite a fair chunk of shit happened i think. when i redownloaded the app i weighed up if i was gonna make a post abt what's happened, but ultimately decided against it bc i wasnt sure how active i was gonna be. looks like the answer is very, so i might as well for anyone who's curious (:

on with the details in no particular order!

just before we stopped posting, we mentioned how the company we worked for announced big profits, an expenses-paid trip for the top employees, and also the tiny small news that the team we were on was getting downsized from 20 ppl total to about 3 (6 to 1 for my role specifically). well, we did end up losing our job completely because the company was unwilling to make reasonable adjustments so we could move to the same role in a different team (we don't have any legal grounds to take action unfortunately). but this was fine for us bc we grew jaded with how management was doing shit anyway. they also laid off about 700 people from across the company a few months later.

we spent months trying to find a job, and eventually applied to university on a whim. we got in! we're studying game design and are currently in foundation year (level 0) of the course. we were pretty worried about "fitting in" and suff but honestly we made friends instantly and it turns out a lot of lgbt autistic folks are studying game design foundation year. strange! (/s). its a little weird being part of the popular clique now.

we built a site. a real one! with colours and scripts and all that! a couple sites, actually, but only one is what we're comfortable sharing publicly (other site is sys member info for friends to reference). the site is on neocities, available here. we got really into coding for realsies around the time that we stopped posting. we also got into something called choicescript, but the site took priority as we use it as a digital portfolio. we also started practicing API work by making little tools for the discord bot pluralkit, but they are. uh. far from finished

we got an rgb bulb that actually works with shortcuts, so it inspired us to actually code shortcuts again. they're pretty advanced now; we have a series of them dedicated to forcing us to sleep (it obviously isnt working given i'm still awake at 4am !!), but they're really smooth and helpful

we started drawing properly again (i know we've posted a lot of art on here but most of it is low effort memes. and also none of it was trad art, which we got back into), in order to prep for being asked for a portfolio for uni. which we eventually didnt even get asked for. we opened an instagram account to post it to while we work on getting our art on our actual site, and recently a deviantart account for crossposting.

i stopped writing. i also largely stopped building on my ideas for games and comics and such. this was more because i had More Pressing Things to be writing about, like our CV, and our applications, but i havent really picked it back up. in a bit of a plateau of inspiration rn. wanna fix that though.

we started playing hotline miami, which we'd been meaning to do for years. completed the first, got halfway into the second before a TERRIBLE AWFUL THUMB INJURY (dramatic. didnt even need glue) rendered us entirely unable to use a controller. it healed but we havent finished the second yet. today's actually the first time since august that we've even touched a controller, let alone played any games.

we got back into making music. we decided the system was going to start releasing music as a collective, so we set up a whole youtube channel and stuff for it. videos'll start january 1st, we hope.

i convinced two people to watch red vs blue. my token cishet guy friend who was my colleague at Shitty Workplace (i sent him slutty locus from earlier and his only response was "amazing") and one of my new uni friends (very autistic i think they will go feral for it). token cishet just finished season 8 and uni friend is in season 3 i believe.

health wise has been. a ride... our normal gp stopped practicing entirely, and we dont trust the other gp's at our clinic, so we've been entirely unmedicated and unchecked since november of last year, barring OTC stuff. except for the part where at the end of october we finally saw a rheumatologist (after being referred in 2019!) who said we probably had fibromyalgia. earlier this month we also caught some Mystery Illness that lasted two weeks and nobody knew what it was. our voice still hasnt recovered fully and the whole experience was weird, but the hospital nurse wasnt concerned and it didnt come back as positive for That One Illness That Got Really Popular In The Last Three Years so its honestly likely that it was just the regular old flu, which we werent used to after only really suffering from Disabled Person Sicknesses for the best part of the last 15 years.

we met steve downes and jen taylor, the voice actors of halo's master chief and cortana! got photos & signatures (: steve complimented my jacket and jen Really Wanted A Nap.

WE GOT THE GRIFBALL PLUSH (: i would make this bigger if i could. it's just one of those Material Gains that has a lot of sentimental value to us. and i found my glow in the dark ring which i cried about. again: material gains of high personal significance.

so yeah! a lot. im probably missing something because i have the brain of a sieve. but we're alive and thats the important part.

#srs09:m:haix #i know this is a long one but hopefully that readmore works ‼️‼️#srs09:t:looking up #its good to be reminded that my presence on this bitch of an earth means something to someone. id like to hold onto that feeling forever.

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kyndaris · 2 years

Text

Once More Into the Fray

This next episode of Dating 2.0 introduces our protagonist: Kyndaris as she ventures to a convention to meet up with another possible suitor. Will she find love? Or will she spend far too much on useless trinkets that’ll make moving a pain and serve to clutter up what space she has?

Catch all that and more in this week’s episode of...Dating 2.0!!

Oft times, I think it is a shame that I remain solely a text-based blog rather than putting in some effort and creating a podcast or YouTube video. But then I think about having to edit them and I pat myself on the back. After all, I don’t need to suffer through the cringe of listening to my voice over and over and over again as I edit. Nor do I have to endure seeing my ugly mug on my screen as I chuck on filters to streamline my appearance to appease my own vanity.

But, back to the topic at hand.

Following on from my first Saturday visit, I was invited to Oz Comic-Con by a second individual that I had met on Hinge. Let’s call him Kaneki. Although I was sure he wanted to meet up early and take a gander around the stalls with a companion at his side, I was a little wary that our first meeting might not go as planned. Easier, I told myself, if we set out time for ourselves rather than push ourselves into each other’s company for hours on end and then find it wanting.

So, arriving a bit late to Oz Comic-Con (and managing to avoid the rain), I headed inside the Olympic Park Dome where the event was being held. Due to the forecast of rain, the event organisers had arranged for most of the food trucks to remain indoors at the far end of the event hall. And while it was a trek to reach them, it also meant that should the storm break and water come thundering down, at least all participants would remain dry.

I’m unsure if, however, that influenced the more cramped layout of the rest of the convention. Several stalls of artist’s alley were pushed up against the side. Coupled with individuals stopping in the middle of the walkway to chat with their friends, it became a nightmare to navigate from one end to the other.

There were times that I had to divert around the die just to get to my destination.

Still, despite the influx of visitors and curious first-timers, I managed to see what was on offer - from tee turtle shirts to posters to board games. In fact, I even managed to sign myself up for a short Dungeons & Dragons campaign. My companions were two kids that looked about ten or under as well as a uni student that had watched quite a bit online but had decided to play for the first time.

Needless to say, it was a simple one-shot adventure where our player characters had stumbled upon a town and were requested to find and rescue a bard that had been missing for five days. The only unfortunate thing about it was one of the kids that was part of our group was keen to mess around rather than take the campaign seriously. This was despite his claims of being the dungeon master (DM) for his own games with friends.

Hopefully, he manages to learn to allow others to do a few interesting things instead of trying to dominate the choices of other players.

I fear, however, that my own biting sarcasm was starting to rear its head every time the kid tried to do something asinine. Props for the actual DM that was running the game for her patience. But considering that they have 5 years worth of experience, it probably stood to reason that they were able to entertain the kid’s fancies without it derailing her more carefully plotted out path.

And as for Kaneki, we finally met up for lunch and got to talking as we waited in line for a food truck advertising Philly cheese and steaks.

I’ll admit, I initially didn’t have the best of impressions when chatting to him on the app, but after actually meeting in person, he definitely seemed much better at conversation than first impressions had led me on the Hinge app.

As we waited for our food, it was clear that he also consumed a lot of pop culture media - naming quite a few costumes from both anime to current television shows. It’s a feat if I’ve ever witnessed it.

But though our time was short, I like to think we had a decent first meet-up to get a feel of the other person.

My current dilemma, of course, is having to pick between the potentials. Were this an episode of the Bachelorette, I’d have to consider who to give the rose to! Certainly, not an easy decision to make when the people I’ve enjoyed chatting to have proven to be such excellent companions.

Google tells me that after the third date, a person should be able to sense if there’s chemistry. So, maybe I’ll wait for the third date with each person to get an idea?

Argh! Why is dating so hard?

In any case, this year’s Oz Comic-Con was much better than my previous ones. I suppose it was mostly because I actually managed to get into a game of Dungeons & Dragons and enjoy an actual one-shot adventure instead of putting my name down for a game of Call of Cthulhu only to be overlooked later because a huge group had rolled by.

Or maybe the exhibitors had much more interesting things for sale?

Regardless, it was a good day out hobnobbing with fellow nerds.

#personal blog #dating #oz comic-con

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secretlittlediary · 1 year

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Story of My Life

The Spoiled Kid

Growing up with disney princess and telenovelas, I always dreams on having my kind of prince charming. someone who adore me, someone who care for me, someone who think I am his world. this feeling might be because I often feel alone at home, with the parents that always absent.

Dreams came true when I was in 4th grade! I had somebody who is attracted to me! ME! back then I always think that I am ugly, coz I wear glasses, and I was extremely thin. I feel like I look a lot like a loser, someone who are supposed to be bullied. Well, someone certainly did not think so!

We were in the same class, I remember that he is annoying. He would always brag that their family have this, and that, that he went on vacation abroad and else, and he make fun of my eyes because it's big. childish? yes coz we were a child. I only found out that he liked me when his best friend told the whole class about it. Later that year, this boy invited everyone to his birthday party in his home. like I said, spoiled. And he do have a lot of nice things! I remember thinking his house is so big and nice, that is when I realize that being rich is nice 😂.

ever since that birthday party, my classmate started to kind of be our matchmaker, they ship us together. and I kinda enjoy the attention they give to me, or us. he would call my house number once every few days (kids don't have their own cellphone back in the day). sometimes his parent would tell him to hurry coz the phone bills is kind of expensive at that time 😂. I think it's cute that he made the effort to call me, even though we really did not have a real conversation on the phone coz I was extremely shy back then and did not say a thing. every night I would wait and wish he would call me after dinner, also I always get worried if my parents asked who was calling me. every morning, school get a little bit better because of him. I started to look forward to lunch break because he will always waited for me to join the games. I remember he would brush his hand over my hand when we get a chance. cheesy i know, but keep in mind, we were only 4th graders, so it felt very dangerous if we were seen by other classmates 😂. We would also exchange small letter in class. One time the teacher found our letter and read it in front of the class, which made me want to disappear right away. but we weren't the only one whose letter being read, so I move past it. My mom had a little shop at the local mall at that time. sometimes I would be there at weekend. I vividly remember he visit me one time, so we were technically dating at the mall. but like I said, I was awfully quiet, so again we only met in silence. what a weird kind of relationship I had.

This happen for a few years, even after we graduate elementary. But things went south in JHS. I was put in different class from mr. spoiled, and 2 of my best friend, they were at the same class while I'm not close to anyone in my class. after a few weeks, phone calls stop. the one who break the sad news to me was my best friend let's call her Ms. Fun, coz she was fun. She dragged me and gave me a letter from Mr Spoiled stating that we should break up. I swear I see it coming, because we did not have a single conversation for a few months. but I still wondering why he loose interest. was it because he met another girl from his class, or I was too quiet, only God knows. even if our relationship is weird, I was still devastated, after all, he was the first guy who like me.

having someone adoring me, is kind of addicting. it makes me feels important, it make me feel like I had a purpose, it gives me hope to go through the day. all thanks to Mr spoiled.

newsflash: we went to the same Uni! together with Ms. Fun too! tho it was still awkward at first, but we became good friend at the end. He was married to a girl from our high school a few month ago! she is the sweetest!! And I am truly happy for them!

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ningyousaiban · 1 year

Text

A warning for this post: It will be long, serious, and it will contain serious and triggering topics. In short, it's a vent post. But I want to let this all out.

Hoo boy, I feel like doing a retrospective on January, even if it's not even halfway done.

My life did a 180° and I couldn't be more happier. I'm genuinely crying tears of happiness from how happy I am that I became better. The funniest part? All I needed was one specific person out of my life.

I had a best friend since 2018, and... They ditched me at the end of November 2022, after going with them to a game con and telling me that I ignored them all the time (even though they were on their phone all of the time while I was with them). I was devastated. I saw them as the only person who loved me and the fact that I made them so angry to the point they left me made me hate myself even more back then. To the point where the intrusive thoughts (if you know what I mean) wouldn’t stop. But honestly, after looking back... It was obvious they were REALLY distant towards me. They lashed out on me several times for not helping them, because I genuinely didn’t know how to help them, and on one occassion, they even threatened (TRIGGER WARNING) suicide because I went a bit silent. Talking with them started feeling more and more like walking in a minefield. Eventually it got to the point where I felt so much like a burden to them that every time I went to their place I would cry and contemplate doing something bad to myself. And I thought this was all love. I tried my hardest, my absolute damn hardest to help them feel better, but all that did was make ME feel worse. Nothing helped them. I am not a saint but I think that I put more effort into this. They still (....most of the time, they once left for like 2 days and when I called them they didn’t answer at all..) were there when I needed them and I appreciate that. But even their partner said that they could tell I cared about them.

After they ditched me, after a few really hard days, without much sleep or eating, I noticed how... Free I felt... No more feeling anxious that they would lash out on me, nothing. I felt calm for the first time in 4 years. And my life finally started going uphill. I took a train to a city with my friends, that I knew before I even knew this ex-friend. It was the most amazing trip of my life so far. I had so much fun playing games in the arcade with them, I went to gigs with them... And then 2023 rolled around, I started going to the gym, went with more gigs with my friends, and just overall spent more time with them, rather than being cooped up inside my room like I was when I was still talking to that ex-friend. My friend group immediately told me I could come see them when I told them about this, and that just makes me so happy... I am genuinely glad to have these friends and I love them. We also play a lot of Gmod, and they got into Half-Life as well!! And they keep asking me stuff about the lore and they know that it makes me so happy! I feel like with them I don’t have to mask myself, I can be a weirdo around them without feeling judged like before... And they don’t mind that I’m weird at all!!! Not to mention that games like Touhou and Half-Life made me cope with these 4 years... Hell, Valve is literally the reason why I am still around, I’d say, because HL2 literally inspired me to be a concept and game artist, and I will go to a uni with that course after I finish high school.

The thing that happened with my ex-friend still stings and I still cry over it, but that is to be expected, I can’t move on from someone who I talked to everyday for the last 4 years so quickly. It hurts to even think about them, especially when they appear in my dreams, sometimes I even see their dad in public and I just start shaking and tearing up from how remembering how much I was mistreated back then. But all that matters is that now I am happier, and that I still work on myself. I am a bit ashamed to admit that I want to befriend some people here on Tumblr that follow me, but I am too scared ^^;;;;;, so I want to work on that as well!!

And, if you read all of this, have cookies, thank you for reading this wall of text...! 🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪🍪

#tw vent #vent #venting

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chill-that-ur-inmyhead · 2 years

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Have you ever cheated at a card game? Yep Tell me what colors you’re wearing right now? Olive green and navy blue Have you ever wandered around drunk with your friend? Ofc Are you longing for the day that you’ll be an adult? (If you’re not already) I can't wait until I am established in my career so in like 6 or 7 years

Have you ever felt like your heart actually stopped? I have felt tightness in my chest which I thought was my heart giving out but I am still here

Are you a fast runner? Nope What’s something you’ve vowed to never eat? Rabbit. I could never get pet bunnies after that Do you have a “poker face”? Yes Are you good at holding back your laughter if needed? Nope Do any of your friends shamelessly burp or fart in public? Nope When was the last time you had a good cry? I cried today but it wasn't a good one so probs been a few weeks. Has anyone ever told you they wanted to marry you? Nope hehe Have you ever had a “thumb war” with someone? Yep Have you ever been so unfortunate to suffer from a hangover? Yep, don't recommend! If you need a job, will you take whatever you can get? I am fortunate enough to be picky with the jobs I pick Time goes by faster as you get older, don’t you find? Yes for sure Have you ever had a panic attack? I think so Are you deathly allergic to anything? Not that I know of Have you ever had a mouse in your house? YEP. We named him Melvin Do you know what you want for your dream house? Yes, it is all I dream of tbh Have you ever seen the movie the Notebook? Yep If you download torrents, what torrent program do you use? Torrents? Huh? If you go to school, will this year be different? It will be my last year of uni, I am taking out a masters loan so no way the government will loan me anymore money after this! Do you know anyone who DOESN’T have an ex? Yep Are you able to count to ten in another language? Yep Is there something you know you have to do, but haven’t done it yet? Yep! Uni application whoops Is anyone you know really religious? Yep Can you sing? Yes. Can I sing well? Hell no. Have you ever read “Gone With the Wind”? Nope Are your eyebrows naturally thick? They are quite full but manageable. Have you ever attempted to cut your own hair? Yep.

Has speaking in front of people ever made you sick? Anxious? Yes but physically sick meh Have you ever wanted to tell someone how you felt, but never did? No I think I get it all out on the table and what they do with that info tells me everything I need to know.

What was the last movie that made you teary-eyed? Lightyear!!! Watched it on Disney+ today Do you check your email daily? Yep constantly Have you ever breathed in helium? Probs once Do you try to be confident and positive about your future? Yes, it comes and goes yenno Have you ever owned a garden? Nope Who was the last person to text you? My friend Have you had two friends that absolutely hated each other? Yep Do you ever find yourself trying to be the referee amongst your friends? Sometimes Has a laptop ever burned your legs? Nope but they do like to get hot! Do you know anyone who has a scar through their eyebrow? Yes, I didn't know them that well tho Who was the last person to flip you off? Me to myself in the mirror probs haha Are you doing anything the day after tomorrow? Mater is travelling back down so just waiting for her arrival Anyone’s birthday coming up soon? Yes, a close friend has a bday in a month Would you ever wear fake eyelashes? Yes but not all the time Do you make the effort to smile at people? Nope but it really is something I am trying to improve on! I just get lost in thought and my face becomes neutral. Are you good at following directions? I like to think so. Have you ever just screamed really loud in an attempt to feel better? Nope but I probs should Are you in any way, still a child at heart? 100000% - aren't we all just feeding our childhood egos? Quality triumphs over quantity, correct? Yep Have you ever danced when there was no music playing? Yep because there was probs music in my mind Do you have someone that you can just act a fool with and not care? Yes From where you’re sitting, can you touch a wall? If I lean forward or to my right, yes Have you received a text today that made you go “wtf”? Nope When at a restaurant, do you put your napkin on your lap? I don't Are you even feeling the least bit tired? Yes

Is there currently any caffeine or alcohol in your system? Nope Do you prefer electric or manual pencil sharpeners? I have no opinion, I don't use pencils enough Are your biceps at all noticeable? Nope Have you ever seen a walrus? In person? no but in a picture? yes When it comes to dropping food, do you believe in the 10 second rule? Depends which surface it is falling on If given the opportunity, would you ride on a camel? sure! Do you believe that cellphones actually do cause cancer? I wouldn't be surprised if they do When people you know cry, does it make you feel like crying too? Yep Were you single last Valentine’s Day? Yes

Do you tend to jump to conclusions? At first yes, but then the rationale kicks in Are you good at remembering your friends’ birthdays? Yes Is there something you need to do, that you’re trying to avoid doing? I suppose so

#surveys #19/08/2022 #spicynightlife

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aberrationatthevampiremansion · 2 years

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Mid-Year Update

I found myself itching to write a blog post this afternoon, so, here. I've finished my first semester of university and am on break, so naturally I have too much time on my hands.

French

...is going well! I'm majoring in it at university, which is ideal, and I'm able to study it in an advanced pathway, so I'm not bored either. I had an awesome professor this semester just gone, and made quite a few friends in my tutorial, so it was great overall! I really appreciated the topics that we got to study, which focused on history decolonised, and allowed for a lot of higher-order thinking in French. I'm really looking forward to next semester's course as well; we're going to focus on this guy who's a musician and writer among other things, study his book and his music etc. Think it's gonna be good.

Korean

Good news - I got accepted into my dream university course that allows me to take two language majors, with a specialisation in translation! So I'm now also majoring in Korean language at uni - beginner's stream. I figured that this semester would be easy because of my prior study. I was so very wrong. Albeit the first 1-2 weeks were boring because we were just learning the alphabet and how to say "A is B", but beyond that we ripped straight into entirely different topics from what I'd been self-studying last year and it was actually a really difficult course. There were lots of assessments and vocabulary that required a lot of time to be dedicated to them. Overall I'm happy with how I tracked and I'm enjoying the major so far but holy hell I underestimated how much effort a beginner language at university level would be. Truly it was so much knowledge being crammed into my tiny little brain. It was enjoyable in a different way from French; less philosophy/sociology and a greater focus on learning how to produce the language itself.

German

So I did the *majority* of the language sprint. Didn't quite finish due to some personal stuff I had going on in my life at the time, but I learned loads anyway. It was really challenging to do while also beginning university at the same time, so I didn't continue with any other German study after the sprint finished, but I still find that I'm able to produce very simple sentences in the language for a laugh.

The Rest of 2022

...is yet to be decided, in terms of goals. There are the obvious ones, like maintaining a good WAM (weighted average mark; it's what my uni uses instead of the GPA) in French and Korean.

I'd also like to finish the French book that I'm currently reading, Le Poing Levé by Simon Stranger (3/4 of the way through it and it's a good read, as far as YA fiction goes). That would make it the first full length novel that I've finished in French.

I'd like to say that I'll continue with some self-study of Korean with my TTMIK textbooks during the winter break, but honestly, it would be more than good enough if I can consolidate what I learnt from uni Korean first and foremost, so that I have a good handle on it going into semester 2.

As for German, I'm not sure if I still want to try to reach A1.1 by the end of this year. I have a lot of languages that already need time dedicated to them, so I think that it will most likely remain a passion/curiosity project rather than being anything too serious (I only just stopped biting my nails and they're so pretty please I don't need or want any extra stress right now).

Thanks for reading if you made it this far! You really didn't have to. Really. This is literally just how I document the big steps I take in language learning for myself. But thanks heaps if you did anyway :D

Merci bien!

감사합니다 !

#languagestudy #langblog #korean #french #german #studyblr #study #university #college #student #language

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seijorhi · 3 years

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Fracture

i apologise in advance.

Miya Osamu x female reader

TW non-con, dub-con, psuedo-infidelity, referenced character death, angst, drunk reader, gaslighting, age gap, the slightest hint of nsfw

‘Yer still coming home for summer, right?’

How many weeks had your sister spent lovingly bullying you into coming down? How many hours had you spent listening to her gush over the phone about how excited she was?

And until about three months ago, you’d been excited too.

Despite the ten or so years between the two of you, there was nobody on earth you loved more than your sister. When you were sixteen years old and your parents passed away in a car accident, she was the one who stepped up to take care of you, putting a roof over your head, making sure you ate, slept and kept up your grades, balancing two jobs to do it.

And she grumbled and you fought, but she’s the only reason you managed to keep it all together enough to graduate high school, and when it came time for you to leave home for university, she was the one blinking back tears and loudly complaining about you ‘abandoning your poor older sister in her time of need’.

As if she hadn’t sat with you for hours, pouring over your options and gently nudging you in the direction of Tokyo.

“It’s just a few hours away,” you’d told her. “I’ll come back and visit you all the time.”

There was truth to that. The first six months of uni, you came home every other weekend arms full of expensive textbooks and mountains of assignments to write, but then she met Osamu.

You’ve never seen anybody fall so hopelessly in love as quickly as she had. Miya Osamu may as well have hung the damn moon in the sky for how your sister looked at him. And you suppose you can’t really blame her; he was stupidly tall, broad shouldered and handsome. Even back then his restaurant was a wild success, the man was talented and clearly knew how to cook. Nice was the wrong word to describe him, but Miya Osamu was good, and so long as he made your sister happy, that was enough for you.

And it wasn’t like he was the one to drive you away.

Osamu liked you – he let you camp out in his restaurant and work on your assignments when you desperately needed a change of scenery, stopping to humour you with conversation if it was quiet. He made you laugh, he was interesting, and the more your sister brought him around, the more you realised that you actually kinda liked the guy.

Things were just easy between the two of you, you never had to pretend to be anything but what you were.

You were the one who started putting space between you and her. It wasn’t intentional, at least not on their part, but somewhere along the way you’d started to realise that Osamu wasn’t the odd one out anymore; you were. She was building a life with him, and fortnightly visits turned into monthly ones, and then eventually it became once every few months and after that only on holidays and special occasions – their wedding being one of them.

At Christmas, cheeks flushed with alcohol, she’d pulled you into a one armed hug, pouting into your sweater. “You never come visit us anymore,” she’d sniffled dramatically, “I miss you.”

But it was Osamu – fingers laced with your sister’s, a hint of a smile curling at his lips – who’d voiced it. “Come spend yer summer break with us.”

Three months later you’d awoken to a call telling you that there’d been an accident. Your sister was dead.

Weeks pass by in a blur. Your classes are a haze of droning voices and mindless typing, you submit papers you don’t remember writing and you get good marks anyway. Your friends don’t know how to act around you, everything feels surreal, like you’re moving around in a dream, nothing touches you anymore. It hurts, but you’ve wrapped up that pain and put it someplace safe, seeking it out only when you’re alone and you just can’t bear the numbness a second longer.

The trip you’d promised to take back home to Osaka is the furthest thing from your mind, at least until Osamu calls you in the early hours of the morning, a week or so before the semester ends.

“Yer still coming home for summer, right?”

The word ‘no’ lingers on the tip of your tongue. The last time you’d seen each other was at the funeral, his face blank and hollow, eyes rimmed in red. He’d barely spoken more than a few sentences to you, but he’d stayed by your side the entire time, calmly thanking those who came up to express their condolences.

You’d lost your sister, but he’d lost his wife.

“Do you still want me to?” you ask him quietly instead. If you were in his shoes, you’re not so sure that you would.

Yet Osamu sighs heavily, and you catch a faint clinking sound on the other end of the line, like a bottle being set back against the marble countertop. “I just–” but he breaks off and something inside of your chest tugs. “I want ya here. The house is empty… she’s gone and I… I want ya here. Please.”

How could you possibly say no after that? Maybe you’ve been selfish, so wrapped up in your own grief and misery. You’d assumed that because Osamu had Atsumu he’d be okay. Not right away, of course, but he’d have that support around him – a support system that you were without.

It didn’t enter your mind that perhaps he was struggling too. That he was spending night after night alone in a house etched with memories of her. And just as you’d thought that Tsumu was the one keeping his head above water, maybe he was offering a hand to do the same for you.

—

He’s waiting for you on the porch when your taxi pulls up on the kerb. The driver’s nice enough to help you with your bags, but Osamu is quick to intercept, waving off the help with an impatient huff that almost makes you laugh.

“Yer here,” he says once he sets them down on the porch, grinning as he tugs you into a warm embrace.

It’s then that you get a good look at him, a proper look – and for a moment, you’re taken aback. You haven’t seen him since the funeral a few months back, granted, but Osamu doesn’t look the way you imagined him to – especially after your call the other night. There’s no hint of pallid skin, no bloodshot eyes with heavy bags underneath or a 5 o’clock shadow on his face. No, even with his dark hair still a mess, dressed in jeans and his Onigiri Miya tee, Osamu looks good. Healthy even, if the way the sleeves of his shirt cling to his biceps is any indication.

It takes you a second to realise that you’re staring, because Samu chuckles, brushing past you to bring your stuff inside.

“Y’know, most people start with a hello,” he calls over his shoulder.

Your cheeks heat, a hint of shame curling inside of you. Were you expecting him to be an inconsolable wreck? You know better than most that grief messes with people differently, and it’s not fair of you to judge him, however unintentionally, for not fitting that image of the grieving husband.

It’s a good sign.

“Hi, Samu,” you reply somewhat sheepishly, following him inside.

He’s already walking towards your old bedroom, the ‘guest room’ now (though you and he both know it’s always been yours), leaving you to trail behind the older man. Your intention is to stop him from going to too much effort, but as you walk past the living room, something catches your eye.

Or rather, the absence of something. Faltering in your step, it takes you a second to realise what’s missing, but as you glance around, brows furrowing in confusion, it hits you.

The pictures of you and your sister, the cute ones with her and Samu, the old family snaps that used to line the walls and sit on the TV unit, they’re gone. And it’s not just the pictures. The artwork your sister had painted that used to hang by the wall next to the kitchen, the little pot plants she’d doted on like children, hell, the throw that she’d knitted one winter that was always lying on the couch; they’re all gone.

The room feels almost alien without them, unfamiliar and cold. He’d hung up some cool photography stuff to fill in some of the spaces, but instead of homey it just felt… modern. Like the pictures you see in magazines of staged houses that nobody actually lives in.

And you must have been standing there for a while, because you don’t notice it when Samu comes back to find you still holding your purse, gazing around like a lost child.

“I didn’t get rid of ‘em, if that’s what yer thinking.”

You turn to face him, except Osamu isn’t looking at you. He’s gazing at the walls around you both, his face strangely impassive – except for his eyes. It’s impossible for you to miss the hurt that swims there, the faint sheen they didn’t hold only moments ago. “I packed them away – they’re in yer room if ya want to look through any of it, it’s just…” he trails off, finally glancing back to look at you. And once again, you feel that flicker of guilt slowly eating away at you. “It was painful, seeing her face everywhere.”

Before you left your apartment that morning, you swore to yourself that you wouldn’t cry today – but the tears come unbidden, and one moment you’re standing there staring at him and the next you’re choking on a sob, hand coming to your lips to try and stifle it.

Osamu’s there in a second, solid arms wrapped around you, pulling you into his chest. He doesn’t say a word (what’s there to say anymore?) he just hums softly, stroking your back with a gentle hand as you fall apart once more.

—

It’s surprisingly easy for the two of you to fall into a rhythm. There’d been some part of you that was hesitant about this whole thing – despite having a relatively good relationship with your brother in law, you knew that the only real connection between the two of you was your sister.

Without her, living in the same space and trying to navigate around the holes that she’d left, you’d expected it to be at least a little awkward between the two of you. But with Osamu working full time, it was kind of a non-issue. Aside from the first day when he’d taken the morning off to help you get settled, he was usually gone before you woke up, and most nights he wasn’t home until nine or ten. How he worked such long hours six days a week without collapsing out of sheer exhaustion was beyond you, but you tried to make things easier for him, cooking dinner for the two of you.

“Y’know ya don’t have to do this every night, right?” he asks you one night, sticking the leftover chicken into the microwave. “I have a restaurant, I can sort out my own dinner.”

You don’t tell him that despite being a rather terrible cook, it was one of the things your sister made sure to do every night in the weeks following your parents’ death. You’d spend most of your day holed up in your room if you weren’t at school, but dinner was the one time you’d sit and talk with her. It became a ritual; something sacred and special between the two of you.

You’re a better cook than she was by far, no comparison for Osamu, of course, but it’s the only way you really know how to help with… whatever this is.

Instead, you just offer him a wry look from your position on the couch, “And yet, you never do.”

He scoffs at that, a hint of a smirk curling at his lips, “Why would I eat there when I know yer cookin’ for me?”

—

Of course, as easy as it is to slip into living with Osamu, you can’t escape what happened there forever.

It doesn’t slip your notice the first night you spend there; the spare toothbrush in your bathroom, the decidedly masculine body wash in the shower, or how one of the shelves in the vanity was stocked with shaving cream and cologne and a few odd skin care products. You’d assumed that they were Atsumu’s, spares stashed away for the odd nights he crashed here. There’s another bathroom off the master bedroom, so you know it can’t be Samu’s stuff.

Except you find yourself proven wrong one night, when fresh from your shower and clad only in a fluffy white towel, you open the door to find a shirtless Osamu filling the space, one arm propped up on the doorframe.

“Anyone ever tell ya yer a bit of a bathroom hog?” he asks, smirking down at you.

And you’re so taken aback, utterly confused as to why he’s standing there half dressed, why it matters how long you take in the bathroom – never mind that the only thing covering you from complete nakedness is your towel – that you can only stand there, gaping like a fish as he laughs, takes you by the shoulders and physically shifts you out of the way as he slides on past.

It takes you until the following morning – Osamu’s sole day off – to ask him about it, clutching nervously at your cup of coffee while he busies himself making breakfast for the two of you.

“Samu, um, about last night…” you timidly begin.

He glances up at you from the stove, a single eyebrow raised. “What about it?”

Your cheeks are already burning, eyes darting between his face and the mug in your hands as you struggle to find the right words to bring it up without making things weird. “Well, I-I was just wondering… um, why you were using my bathroom?”

You’re not sure what kind of reaction that you’re expecting, but the dark look that flashes across his face isn’t it. For a split second, your insides clench, terrified that you’ve said the wrong thing–

But as quickly as it appeared, Osamu’s expression smooths over. He exhales heavily, setting down the spoon in his hand as he turns to face you properly, and when your eyes flicker up once more, you realise with a start that it’s pity that’s taken its place.

And a second too late, the pieces inside your head fall into place.

“Oh.”

Osamu nods only once. “I can’t go in without seeing her lyin’ there… I thought ya knew.”

And it’s like all the air’s been sucked out of the room. She’d died in their bathroom – slipped on the wet tiles and cracked her head open on the edge of their bath, and Samu had been the one to find her.

Weakly your eyes flutter shut, bitter nausea churning in your gut. How could he stay here, sleep in the next room when–

“Hey, hey, calm down, I gotcha,” Samu’s voice is at your ear, and your head’s spinning, pounding, and you can’t breathe. The mug in your hand tumbles to the floor, your coffee spilling across the wooden floorboards as weak fingers clutch at empty air, and then those arms are around you once more and Osamu’s trying to soothe you.

Breakfast is forgotten as he tugs you towards the couch to sit. And as he holds you, speaks to you in that calm, unwavering voice you try to focus on the scent of him (masculine and earthy, a hint of spice and cedar), the fabric of his shirt under your cheek and the gentle, almost lazy circles he rubs into your side and not the mental image of your sister, lying broken and bleeding on the bathroom floor.

—

It doesn’t take much effort to find the stash of your sister’s things that Samu set aside in your room. You lose hours flicking through pictures of her, smiling through your tears as they dredge up old, happy memories of the two of you.

Even the ones of her and Samu, his arms looped around her waist, resting his chin on the top of her head; she’s always wearing that bright grin that makes your heart ache.

There are a few of the three of you – one from the last time they’d come to visit you in Tokyo and you’d dragged them off to Disneyland. You’re standing between the two of them, beaming at the camera while Samu’s arm hangs off your shoulder and your sister, grinning widely and wearing the minnie mouse ears she’d bought at the first opportunity, tosses up a peace sign.

Softly wiping away your tears, you set it aside. You’ll have to ask Samu if you can take that one home with you.

—

“What’re ya doin’ tomorrow?”

It’s late, and the two of you are sprawled out on the couch, watching TV with a bowl of snacks between you like the old days when he asks.

“Not much,” you reply. “I was going to go to the markets at some point in the morning and maybe head to the beach after that, why?”

Grey-ish brown eyes flicker across to you, “A few of my old teammates are in town, we’re meetin’ up for some drinks. I want ya to come with me.”

“Oh,” the word slips out before you can stop yourself. “Um, yeah… if you want?”

It ends up sounding more like a question, a fact that doesn’t slip past Osamu if the amused little snort he gives in response is any indication. And it’s not that you don’t want to give up your plans in favour of going with him; you get along pretty well with Atsumu and you’ve met most of his old teammates at least once or twice, it’s just that you’re a little confused as to why he’d want you there to begin with.

They’re all at least twelve years older than you, and while it occurs to you that maybe he’s just inviting you along to be polite (not that that’s ever been his style before) the last thing you want is to be stuck feeling like an afterthought, all but ignored as he and his friends catch up.

“I said I wanted ya there, didn’t I?” He doesn’t wait for a response, “‘sides, Tsumu already asked if you were comin’.”

Which is how you find yourself dressed up for the first time in months, fingers smoothing out the hem of your dress as Samu tosses you a lazy grin from the driver’s seat. “Relax, wouldja? They ain’t gonna bite.”

You know that. They’re good guys, but no matter how much rationalising you try to do, you can’t seem to quell the anxiety eating you up, and the frustrating thing is that you don’t know why you’re feeling it.

He’d neglected to tell you that they weren’t meeting at some bar or restaurant, but at Atsumu’s condo in the city (‘Showy fuckin’ bastard’ Samu’d huffed as he’d pulled up in front of the building), but you suppose it really doesn’t make much of a difference.

“Ya look good,” he compliments, eyeing you for a moment while the two of you wait for the elevator.

Cheeks warming, you drop your gaze and stutter out a quiet thank you. Apparently unsatisfied, he leans closer, reaching one large hand up to gently ruffle your hair – grinning in satisfaction when you shriek and try to pry it away. “Relax,” he whispers again, the warmth of his breath tickling the bare skin of your neck. “Yer too wound up.”

Distracted by the arrival of the elevator, you fail to notice that instead of returning back to his side, his hand drops to your shoulder.

And it should be easier to do just that once you have a drink in hand. Atsumu greets you with a one armed hug, the only hint of anything out of the ordinary being the way his gaze lingers a beat too long as he studies your face, his eyes sharp and missing nothing. But whatever he sees (or doesn’t see) his expression softens into a smile, “Glad ya came.”

But even as you’re greeted by the others, falling into an easy conversation with Kita and Aran you can’t seem to shift the uneasiness in your stomach. There’s something in the air, a tension nobody really wants to admit to.

And you can’t quite tell if the others are surprised that Samu brought you at all, or if it’s just because you’re a living reminder of a tragedy that’s still fresh and raw, and everyone’s trying to pretend that it’s not. You don’t blame them for it, of course, they only mean the best. But you can see it in the way Suna side eyes you every now and then, how skilfully Akagi skirts anything that could touch a nerve when he comes up to chat.

It’s like they’re all walking on eggshells – though whether it’s for your benefit or Osamu’s, you’re not entirely sure. For his part, Samu sticks close, keeping your drink topped up, an arm slung over your shoulders as the afternoon wears into the evening.

Yet despite that, the alcohol you’re drinking far too quickly starts to work its magic, filling your body with a warm, pleasant little buzz, and you actually start to enjoy yourself. You laugh easier, giggling when the twins start to bicker, gasping in wicked delight when Suna offers to show you certain embarrassing photos of both of them on his phone (he has quite the collection), even letting Gin and Tsumu drag you into taking shots with them.

And all the while, Samu watches you, a soft smirk playing at his lips.

—

By the time he unlocks the front door and you stumble back inside, you’re absolutely plastered, giggling at nothing and tripping over your own feet.

As always, Samu’s there to catch you, strong, muscular arms wrapping around your waist and pulling you flush against him. “Careful there, princess,” he laughs.

You grin up at him, carefree and heartbreakingly beautiful. For the first time in months you feel light, you feel amazing and you don’t want this to end. Kicking your heels off, you skip inside, leading him by the hand. “Samu,” you call back over your shoulder. “I wanna dance.”

“Nobody’s stopping ya.”

“But there’s no music,” you pout, and once again he chuckles, letting you go to settle back into the leather couch as he pulls out his phone. A moment later a familiar, lively melody floods the living room, and you let yourself become lost to it. It doesn’t matter that you’re drunk and dancing alone, Samu’s dark eyes following your every move, you’ve never felt so free.

Arms raised in the air, hips swaying hypnotically to the beat, you lose track of time. It could’ve been minutes or seconds or a whole hour, but suddenly you’re not alone anymore – Samu’s there with you. His cologne invades your senses, why does he always smell so good? His body’s warm, almost hot as he slots himself behind you, caging you against him.

“Fuck, baby,” he growls, his voice sending shivers running down your spine. “Yer a little tease, ya know that?”

And there’s something wrong with that, you know there is, but you can’t seem to think of what it is – not when the weight of his hold’s impeding your movement. A pout adorns your face, a soft, almost petulant whine escaping your lips as you try in vain to untangle yourself, “Samu, lemme go. I wanna dance.”

He huffs out a laugh, but that doesn’t sound right either. “Don’t wanna dance with you, pretty girl.”

There’s something hard pressing against your lower back, and his hot breath ghosts over your neck a moment before lips descend to suck on the sensitive flesh.

In a split second, all that blissful, warm, drunken happiness evaporates. Samu groans lowly, his chest rumbling at your back, but there’s a pit of something cold and urgent that’s seeping through your veins, distant, foggy alarm bells tolling inside of your head and you don’t understand what’s happening, but you know that you don’t like it.

You want it to stop.

“S-Samu,” you whine, shifting uncomfortably against his hold.

This time he listens, drawing back just enough that he can turn you around to face him. And those familiar eyes are hooded and dark, burning with an intensity that makes you want to recoil even as he stares down at you, taking your cheek in hand.

You don’t even realise that you’re crying until his thumb’s brushing away your tears. There’s nothing comforting or pleasant (nothing of the Samu you know) on his face as he studies your fearful expression, but eventually he lets out a heavy sigh.

“She was positive I was cheatin’ on her,” he admits. “Did she ever tell ya that?” He pauses for a beat waiting for a reply, but when it’s clear that you don’t have one for him, he just scoffs, “No, ‘course not. That’d be admitting that not everything about our life was picture perfect, and heaven fuckin’ forbid we do that. Y’know, that's why she wanted ya back here so bad. She needed a buffer.”

Bitterness clings to every word like poison and you flinch, renewing your struggles to get away. Not that he lets you – the moment you start to squirm the arm around your waist tugs you closer, anchoring you against him. The tears come faster, followed by soft, hiccuping sobs, but Samu seems beyond caring at that point.

“Stupid bitch never could see what was right in front of her face. That’s what we were fightin’ about that night; she said she was gonna leave me.”

Your heart clenches, fear pooling in your gut, but Samu just smiles at you, a mockery of sweet tenderness, reaching back to tuck a stray lock of your hair behind your ear. “But you know I’d never hurt my pretty girl, don’t ya, baby?” he asks. “Just want a taste tonight.”

You don’t even have time to suck in a breath before he’s kissing you, cradling the back of your head as his mouth moves hungrily against yours.

And all you can taste is the whiskey on his tongue.

—

You can’t tear your eyes away from your reflection in the mirror, the faint, reddish blemish colouring your neck.

A hickey.

Tentatively, as if trying to prove that it’s real and not a figment of your imagination, you prod at the mark, only to wince at the tenderness. Definitely real.

You’d woken up to an empty house – unsurprising considering it was well past ten and you knew Osamu had work today – with your head pounding and your mouth uncomfortably dry. Wracking your brain, you can’t seem to conjure up a rational explanation for the bruise. Granted, you can’t really remember much of last night, only fragments of being at Atsumu’s place, and certainly nothing after you’d started taking those shots.

Which doesn’t make the uneasiness sitting heavy in your stomach any easier to take, because you know that you hadn’t been cosying up to anybody before you’d lost track of the night, and if it had happened after, then surely Samu or one of the others would have stepped in and put a stop to it.

And that should’ve been more of a comforting thought than it was, because if it didn’t happen at Atsumu’s then that meant it happened afterwards, when you were here with Samu.

Your heart thumps unevenly against your ribs.

Osamu. Your dead sister’s husband, your brother in law.

A hickey on your neck isn’t just a kiss. It’s not a simple, drunken peck against your lips, it meant that somebody had sucked on the skin, bitten at it, kissed until blood vessels broke – it’s not the kind of thing that happens accidentally.

A wave of nausea threatens to overtake you, and you barely manage to make it to the bathroom before you’re violently emptying the contents of your stomach into the porcelain bowl. And you know as you collapse onto the cool tiled floor, shaking just a little, that this time at least, the alcohol isn’t to blame.

You know Samu; you trust him implicitly. Whatever happened, it must have been a mistake or something. You’d both been drinking, and he’s still grieving and–

There’s no point jumping to conclusions or working yourself up any more than you already have. You’ll just bring it up with him when he gets home, you decide.

Yet anxiety and guilt gnaw at you as the hours crawl by, you’re half tempted to pick up your phone and just call him to ask point blank. The clock feels like it’s mocking you every time you glance up, and while you try your best to distract yourself with household chores and then busying yourself with dinner, none of it works for long.

By the time he does stride through the door, a little before ten, you’re an anxious wreck, all but wringing your fingers as you sit rigid and tense at the table. Most nights you eat before he gets home, hunger getting the better of you, but tonight you don’t seem to have much of an appetite.

“Smells good,” he comments with an easy grin, toeing off his shoes and dropping his wallet and keys by the door.

You open your mouth, but the words seem to get stuck in your throat as he drops a kiss down on the top of your head and walks on past to grab a bowl from the kitchen.

“I’m starving.”

Instead, you just swallow nervously as he pulls out the seat next to you and sits, not wasting another second before digging in. Your eyes quickly dart over to study him, but you don’t see any hint of guilt or unease on his face. He just looks like the same old Samu, a little tired maybe, but otherwise totally normal, and so you force yourself to pick up your spoon and follow suit.

And he’s never been one to fill silences with meaningless chatter, but tonight the quiet between the two of you feels oppressive, every clink of metal against ceramic echoing too loudly, every chew, every swallow setting you on edge. You can’t even taste the food, your stomach too twisted in knots for you to feel anything but nauseous after a few bites.

“… Is everything okay?” he asks after a few minutes, and it’s so sudden amongst the tense silence that you visibly jerk, almost dropping the spoon you’d been toying with.

You glance up to find him staring, brows furrowed in concern, and once again your stomach flips. It’s now or never.

“Um… did anything happen last night?” you ask, your voice barely more than a whisper.

Osamu’s frown deepens fractionally, and he tilts his head as your fingers twist in your lap, “What d’ya mean?”

Did we kiss? The words dangle on the tip of your tongue, but as you nervously meet his eyes, you find nothing but confusion and concern there. And for a moment, you almost speak them, but then Samu’s reaching across the table to take your hand in his, and as his warm palm swallows up yours, you lose your nerve.

“You sure yer okay?”

Whatever happened, he doesn’t remember it and neither do you.

Smiling tightly, you nod. “Yeah, it’s nothing. Nevermind.”

There’s no reason for you to drag him through the mud for this, you’re already feeling enough guilt and shame for the both of you.

—

You try to put it out of your mind, but it’s not that easy.

Lying awake in bed at night, your brain unwittingly turns over possibilities of what else could’ve caused the mark if not Osamu. Guilt gnaws at you every second that you’re around him and all the while he’s painfully oblivious to it all.

He’s always been affectionate with you, but all those stray, unthinking touches now carry a different weight with them. You find yourself ducking away from them more often than not, pretending that you don’t see the almost wounded look in those greyish-brown eyes when you do. You start to avoid him, finding other places to be whenever he’s home.

And you hate yourself for it, because Osamu’s been nothing but faithful to your sister for as long as you’ve known him. You’re the one acting like there’s something wrong between the two of you, like he’s treating you any differently than he always has when you know that’s not the case.

You know that, but when you catch sight of the fading bruise in the mirror, your stomach twists into knots all the same.

There are excuses and justifications aplenty, but none of them make you feel any better. You still find yourself sniffling into your pillow, swallowed up by your guilt when you imagine how devastated your sister would be if she knew.

You’d let her husband kiss you. Being drunk and miserable and grieving didn’t change that. Whether he knew it was you or mistook you for her; it doesn’t matter. Maybe it was a mistake, letting him talk you into coming.

Things were still too raw, too fresh. You’d thought that coming here would help, but so far it’s only made everything worse, and unintentionally or not, you can’t kid yourself that your presence is doing anything to help Osamu anymore.

You need to go back to Tokyo.

Somewhat selfishly, you’re tempted to put it off until the weekend, because you know that Onigiri Miya has a stall for the beginning of the summer festival and he’ll be too preoccupied with that to think about anything else – but you just can’t bring yourself to do that to him.

No, it’s better to rip it off like a bandaid; nice and quick.

You’d planned on breaking the news over dinner, but as you pick your way through your noodles, you notice that Samu’s quieter than he usually is. Every time you risk a glance up he’s staring at the table, looking entirely lost in thought, and it just doesn’t feel like the right time to bring it up.

Tomorrow, you decide, you’ll cook his favourite for dinner and tell him then.

—

The knocking startles you from your sleep with a jolt. It’s quiet, hesitant almost, but you’ve always been a light sleeper.

“Samu?” you croak out, fumbling blindly for the phone at your bedside to see what time it is.

The door opens, a crack of light from the hallway spilling into your room as Osamu looks in. “Sorry,” he murmurs, “I know it’s late, but I need to talk to ya ‘bout somethin’.”

He’s shirtless, clad only in a pair of cotton pyjama pants, but he doesn’t look to be in any immediate kind of trouble. Still, he wouldn’t have disturbed you in the middle of the night if it wasn’t something important, so you blearily wipe the sleep from your eyes and force yourself to sit up as he slips into your room and shuts the door behind him.

“What’s wrong?”

He hasn’t bothered to turn on the light, and even with the moonlight streaming in through your window, his face is cast in shadow as he takes a seat on the edge of your bed. And it’s silly, especially considering he’s the one who’s shirtless right now but it’s hard not to flush at the realisation that you’re only wearing a thin, satiny slip. You feel almost naked – he’s seen you in bikinis before, but it feels different here, when he’s the one in your bedroom.

“You asked me the other day about what happened the night we went to Tsumu’s,” he begins, his voice quiet and soft in the early hours of the morning, and suddenly your state of dress is the last thing on your mind.

Swallowing tightly, your pulse quickens and you still, waiting for him to continue.

And you feel, rather than see, the way he stares at you, inching a fraction closer when you don’t immediately answer. “And I lied. Or I didn’t exactly tell ya the full truth.”

“Which is?” you force out.

Samu’s shoulders rise and fall as he takes a deep, slow breath in and exhales heavily. “You were drunk and ya came onto me, tried to kiss me.” You flinch, a choked sound escaping your throat at the blunt admission, but he’s quick to reach for you, his hand coming to rest on your knee, squeezing it reassuringly. “And in the heat of the moment, I let ya.”

Hot tears prick at the corners of your eyes, but the moment you try to turn away from him, biting your lip and trying to blink back the tears, he stops you.

“Osamu–”

“‘Cause I’ve spent years waiting to kiss those lips, an’ I’m tired of pretending we both don’t want this.”

And he’s kissing you; soft and sweet and gentle, his lips molding to yours as he cups the back of your neck. You wonder if he can feel your pulse racing under his fingertips as he draws himself closer, groaning into your mouth.

It doesn’t matter that your hands are on his bare chest, pushing at him, hitting him – those muscles aren’t just for show; he’s immovable. The more you squirm, trying to extricate yourself so that you can plead with him to stop–

This is a mistake. A horrible, awful misunderstanding. He’s upset and grieving and not thinking clearly and you have to stop this.

He doesn’t know what he’s saying.

– the more his grip tightens until it starts to hurt and you’re whimpering into the kiss. Your tears are wetting his cheeks, but he doesn’t care, won’t stop and there’s a panic that rises within you every second that you’re entangled with him.

“Don’t do this,” he mutters, breaking the kiss as a sob rips its way free from your throat, “Don’t pretend ya don’t want this, baby. I know ya do. Stop being a little fuckin’ tease.”

He leans back in, intent on capturing your lips again, and in an act of desperation you reach for his face, cradling his cheek in your hand. “Samu, please,” you beg, wide, imploring eyes searching his face for any hint of a reprieve. “You’re scaring me. Stop, please, j-just for a second.”

Just a second, that’s all you need to try and snap him out of whatever the hell this is. One second.

Osamu stills, his face mere inches from your own, his body hovering atop yours. His breath, ragged and uneven, ghosts over your skin, leaving goosebumps in its wake, but you don’t dare move as he leans into the touch, grey eyes fluttering shut.

He sighs, the sound almost like a shiver. “Ya don’t need to be scared, ‘m gonna take good care of my girl.”

He doesn’t give you the chance to say anything else, not as he forces himself onto you once more. You used to marvel a little at Osamu. Tall, handsome and strong, even in his mid thirties; Samu was fit. Now, straddling your waist, pinning your wrists to the wall with one hand, the other palming at your tits, he dwarfs you entirely. He isn’t impatient, not as he kisses you languidly, not as he slides the soft, satin up your thigh, revealing your underwear.

Your hiccuping sniffles aren’t enough to move him, you’re not strong enough to physically fight him off. He doesn’t pay the tearful, breathless pleas sobbed out between kisses any mind.

Osamu grabs you by the waist and flips you onto your front, lips brushing at the nape of your neck as he smooths your hair back, and you’re utterly helpless to stop him.

And as his hand runs down your side and he coaxes your hips up into the air, you almost wish that he was rough. Because this pretense of gentleness, glinting steel masquerading as silk – it’s too intimate, and you feel complicit.

Like you’re willing.

Like you want this with him.

An act of love as he tugs your panties down to your knees and hums in quiet satisfaction at the sight of your bare cunt, glistening just for him.

There’s a voice in your head telling you you should be screaming and kicking and snarling like a wild, feral thing, but Osamu’s grabbing at your ass, spreading it to get a better look, his thumb gliding along your slit and all you can think about is the picture he’d packed away, the one of the three of you at Disneyland.

Samu’s arm slung over your shoulder, and your sister’s bright smile.

He spits; a warm, fat glob of saliva hitting your pussy, and as it slowly dribbles down the only sound that leaves your lips is a soft, broken whine. You don’t fight him when he takes his cock in hand and guides the flushed head, pre-cum already oozing at the tip, along your cunt, you just lie there, a toy for him to move and manipulate however he wants.

“You’ll forgive me for this, I know ya will,” he murmurs, softly squeezing your hip just once as something thick and blunt presses at your entrance.

But it doesn’t matter, not as his cock sheaths itself inside of you with one hard, brutal thrust, because you’re not sure you’ll ever be able to forgive yourself.

#yandere haikyuu #yandere osamu miya #yandere osamu x reader #yandere osamu #yandere osamu miya x reader #tw: noncon #tw: dubcon #tw: infidelity #angst #drunk reader #manipulation and gaslighting ahead y'all #dilf osamu

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watchmegetobsessed · 3 years

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Tastes Like Strawberries - Harry Styles

a/n: oh this one is a long boi and might not be the end??? i’ve been working on this fic for days and i have an idea for a possible second part, but i wrote this one so it has a fulfilling ending so it can stand as a oneshot as well! i barely just started working on the sequel, we’ll se how it’ll turn out, maybe it goes to shit lmao but whatever, it’s still a nice and whole story without a second part! this is my V-day gift to you all, have this nice professor!harry fic as if it was a box of chocolate! 🍓 🍫 🍬

special thanks to @pastequeharry who put up with my constant rambling and whining while i was writing this, you are a hero, his is dedicated to you!!

pairing: professor!Harry x Reader

warning: sexual content, abusing relationship, it’s got smut, angst, lot’s of banter and all that jazz!

word count: 21.4k

masterlist

There’s just a handful of things to know about Professor Harry Styles and that’s because of one of those very few known facts, the first one being that he is a highly private person. He rarely talks about himself or any aspects of his life, he always makes sure to keep it as professional as possible whenever he is teaching.

Second, he is easily the smartest professor to ever walk on campus, but he doesn’t like to brag about it. You never catch him showing off how much he knows, how big of a genius he is, you’ll just start to realize from the way he teaches and approaches certain topics, how he interacts with others and tries to pass his knowledge down to his students. He is brilliant and he should have all the credits for it, yet he still chooses to keep it to himself.

Third, and it’s the most well-known fact because to see this you just need to have a pair of eyes, he is undeniably the most handsome man to ever teach or if you’re being more precise, walk the hallways of the university. No football crazy, alcoholic fratboy or dreamy looking indie guy from the library can live up to what Professor Harry Styles is. With a face clearly carved by the angels, a nicely built but not too muscular frame, and occasionally displayed tattooed arm that makes you wonder what other artworks his stylish outfits are hiding, there’s no man like him and every female on campus agrees with that.

His lectures and courses are jampacked with sighing and heart-eyed college girls, daydreaming about the man who is solemnly just trying to teach the things he is so passionate about. But it’s not just the students, Professor Styles has managed to charm the female professors of all faculties, you can see them wander by his office way too often, they take any opportunity to talk to the man and try to seduce him. It’s unknown if he is oblivious to the effect he has on women or he chooses to ignore every and any attempts, but this is what leads us to the fourth fact.

Despite all the effort and energy that’s been put into his case by every single woman on campus to break the walls the professor has built around himself, he never let any of his students or colleagues to even think they could be romantically linked for real. Professor Styles keeps his distance and turns down any offer that could be mistaken to anything that doesn’t fit in the professional boundaries.

Anytime a student puts on the slightest flirtatious act towards the professor, he either rejects it straight away or ignores it completely and blatantly, making it his clear answer that he is not interested and then he goes back to teaching. You’ve seen it yourself, having him as one of your professors first year of uni, you fell for him just like every other girl in the lecture hall, dreaming about him in ways you probably shouldn’t think of a teacher while he was just casually talking about his grading system and how he is going to build up the lectures throughout the semester. Some brave girls who you assume were highly celebrated by boys in high school took the courage to openly flirt with him, but he didn’t even flinch before shutting all attempts down, not even a blush appeared on his perfectly cut cheekbones.

You thought of ways you’d try to seduce him yourself, but you never actually tried. You never had the balls to actually give it a go and then suffer from the worst embarrassment of your life when he rejects you. So you kept it all to yourself, only entertaining yourself with your elaborate plans about the seduction of your professor.

Second year passed without any classes with Professor Styles, you had only occasionally seen him come and go, rushing down the hallways holding his notebooks to his chest, a steaming cup of coffee in his other hand as he was heading to his lecture hall that you just knew was filled with girls. You always took a moment to yourself to admire his outfit. He has a tendency to pair odd items and make them look like the most put together fit ever that only he can pull off. However, you and your girlfriends always loved to tease him between each other for his grandpa-like sweaters and vests he seemed to love dearly.

“He confuses me, because I want him to fuck me on his desk but also, I feel like he is about to ask me what periodt means because he is too old to understand slang these days,” your friend, Nat said once when your little group was lounging under the huge oak tree between classes and the professor rushed past you, disappearing in the building without paying any of you a look. He wore a pair of beige slacks and a striped sweater, a wrinkly grey shirt peeking from under it at the bottom. The colors and the style overall once again gave you that old people feeling, but then you looked at his handsome face and couldn’t care any less about whatever he was wearing.

The most intimate way you ever saw him was a few days after your twenty-first birthday the summer before your last year of uni started. You just got back from your hometown, the first person to arrive back to your shared flat with Nat and Eden, so you had a few days on your own. You decided to redecorate your room so you took a trip to IKEA, taking your time looking through the set up rooms, just wandering around as you try to figure out what you really want to buy. Walking through the living room section you spotted the professor and first, you didn’t even recognize him.

He was wearing a pair of bright yellow shorts and a short sleeved shirt with floral prints on it, a pair of white framed sunglass on top of his head, keeping his unruly strands out of his face as he was eyeing a couch, seemingly deep in his thoughts. You stopped in your tracks, seeing him in such a casual and everyday setting. For some reason, he seemed like a completely different person.

A woman was there with him and as you walked closer you could hear a fraction of their discussion.

“I don’t know, Gems. Do I need a couch this big?”

“Looks comfy and I like the color. It would also fit in the space just right, I think you should get the bigger one if you have the space for it,” the woman put her two cents in and you wondered who she could be. Girlfriend? Just a casual friend? Maybe fiancé? She did have a ring that could easily go as an engagement ring so you couldn’t tell for sure.

As you were about to walk past you suddenly took the courage to say hi.

“Hello, Professor Styles!” you greeted him with a warm smile and his eyes flickered over to you from the couch in question. One thing you always admired about him is that he never forgot the faces of his students and as he looked at you, you knew he recognized you even if he didn’t know your name specifically.

“Oh, hello,” he nodded in your way.

“I like the couch,” you commented before slowly moving on. “Have a nice rest of your summer!”

“You too, Y/N,” he called after you and it took you by surprise that he remembered your name. Your lecture he taught had almost over a hundred students in it and you weren’t the most active one to stand out that easily, yet he still remembered you more than you were expecting.

That small encounter kept you thinking about him for way longer than you probably should have, especially because you knew you’d have a lecture with him again in the upcoming semester. Your daydreams about him made their way back into your mind as you spent the last days of your summer mostly with your friends. It got you thinking that if you managed to get him to remember your name, maybe you would give one of your plans a go and shoot your shot. He wouldn’t be teaching you in your last semester so you wouldn’t have to face him after he rejects you.

And this is how you came up with your little scheme.

On your last Sunday evening before school starts, you, Nat and Eden sit in the floor of your living room, drinking some white wine as a way of saying goodbye to the carefree summer moments and getting back to the working days of being a senior at uni. Professor Styles came up completely randomly and you let it slip that you’ve just seen him recently at IKEA with a woman and it all led to you admitting that you’ll finally shoot your shot at the professor. Nat and Eden both did the same already, however their attempts were completely ignored and they always bugged you to give it a try yourself, being the only one in your group who hasn’t tried to seduce the professor yet.

“I’ll tell you, but you can’t tell me it’s stupid because I actually think it’ll be funny and a little bit genius,” you tell them before you start sharing the details on your plan.

“Just spill the beans already!” Eden pokes you before she reaches for the bottle and refills her glass.

“Okay, so you both know I took this psychology class last semester for extra credits, right?” The nod and you continue. “The teacher told us about this thing called classical conditioning or they call it pavlovian response too. The guy, Pavlov, did an experiment where he paired the feeding of dogs with a bell ring and after a certain amount of time the dogs started salivating at just the sound of the bell, because they remembered that it’s connected to food. The teacher said this is literally one of the easiest tricks to pull on people.”

“Oh, isn’t this one of the things Jim did on Dwight in The Office?” Nat asks furrowing her eyebrows.

“It is!” you nod, glad that they are understanding the base of your plan. “So, I’ve heard that Professor Styles loves strawberry flavored candies. I thought that I would bring some every day when I see him and offer him some. Slowly, he’ll pair the candy with the thought of me and he’ll get excited when he sees me because he’ll think I have candy for him and it will hopefully work the other way around and he’ll think of me when he is eating strawberry flavored candy that’s not from me.”

Your friends blink at you for a moment, processing what you just shared with them before Eden takes a huge sip of her drink.

“This is the most ridiculous but also the most genius thing I’ve ever heard,” she nods holding her glass up towards you.

“I can’t believe you will pull a psychological experiment on Professor Styles,” Nat shakes her head with a soft chuckle.

“It’s not a blunt way to get closer to him and if he accuses me of trying to flirt I can just say that I’ve been only sharing candy with him, I literally did nothing,” you point out, pretty proud of your solution to your deep fear of having to take his rejection publicly.

“If you get a Noble for this shit, make sure to thank us in your speech,” Eden laughs and you promise to do so when the big moment comes.

Monday morning you make a quick trip to Target and buy a big bag of strawberry flavored candies, probably enough to last for the whole semester, and then you make your way to campus. Following your first lecture you meet up with Eden who also signed up for Professor Styles’ lecture this semester, so the two of you make your way towards the lecture hall together.

“I really can’t believe you are doing this,” she chuckles when you get the candy ready as you near the room. The professor is always the first one in the lecture hall so you know you’ll find him there already.

“You can’t tell me it’s not a funny plan,” you smirk at her. And just as you walk in, you immediately spot the professor sitting at the desk at the front, going over the syllabus before the start. “Save a seat for me,” you tell Eden who just laughs and makes her way up the stairs along the desks.

Grabbing the pack of sweets from your bag you walk up to the professor, feeling confident with your plan. He lifts his head up when he notices your arrival and your eyes meet with his green ones.

“Hello, professor. Would you like some candy?” you simply ask with an innocent smile.

Professor Styles stares at you for a moment before his eyes move down to the candy in your hand, the opening of the bag facing him in a welcoming manner.

“I, uhh… what flavor?” he curiously asks and you can barely push down your smirk.

“Strawberry.”

“Oh. I’ll… take one, thank you,” he nods, hand reaching into the bag as he grabs just one single candy, unwrapping the package before he pops it into his mouth. “Thank you,” he nods again with a delightful smile.

“Of course. Did you buy the couch?” you ask, taking slow steps away from the desk as he keeps his eyes on you.

“I… did not. Bought another one,” he admits shortly and you know you’ve reached the limit. If you ask more, he’ll get suspicious, so you just nod smiling before walking up to the spot Eden has reserved for you. When you sit down, you catch the professor paying you one last glance before he returns to what he was previously doing.

“You are a genius, because now we can watch him suck on a fucking candy for the next few minutes,” Eden mumbles quietly, making you laugh.

“I knew this would be a good plan,” you sigh, satisfied with the work you’ve done. Now it’s just a matter of time.

Every Monday and Wednesday, you arrive with the same bag of candy to the lecture hall, walk up to Professor Styles and offer him one. And he always takes one. The first few times he seems hesitant when he spots you approaching him, but he slowly grows used to your tiny act of kindness that occurs every time you see him. On week three you expand the plan. You usually have lunch with Nat on Thursdays since you both have a break between one and two pm. The two of you try to take advantage of the warm early autumn days and sit under the pergola that’s near the building where Professor Styles’ office is as well. It’s mere coincidence, you only like that place because it’s close to the lecture hall you have to go to after lunch, but you notice that the professor emerges from Building C around one thirty, walking back to his office probably after one of his classes. The sidewalk runs directly next to the pergola so it gives you a chance to bring the candy out one more time every week. You nicely greet him when he is nearing the two of you and then hold out the bag, asking if he wants some. He always takes one and thanks you with a sweet smile that leaves you a tad bit blushed.

“I can’t fucking believe your plan is working,” Nat chuckles in disbelief on one occasion when the professor just disappeared in the building, probably happily unwrapping his candy of the day.

“It’s funny, innit?” you grin at her proudly.

Frankly, this is just a fun experiment for you. You don’t actually think that the professor will think of you differently even the slightest. You might be able to plant the thought of you in his head, but that doesn’t instantly mean that he’ll start fancying you and actually do something about it. It would be ridiculously naïve to think it’s going to be you who breaks through the wall that hundreds of women had already tried to knock down.

Week six is what brings the breakthrough. After long consideration and discussion with Nat and Eden, you decide to test if the experiment has been successful. You offer one last candy on Monday, but Wednesday brings the change. You go to lecture without candy. Well, you have it on you, but you decide not to ask him if he wants some.

Walking into the lecture hall, as always, he is already sitting at his desk, flipping through the pages of a book when you walk up to him with the intention of asking him a question on the paper that’s due next week.

“Professor Styles?” you softly speak up, catching his attention. “Can I have a question about the paper?”

“Of course,” he nods and you can’t tell just yet if he was expecting the candy or not.

“I was wondering if I can use a diagram to visualize my results at the end. I have a brilliant idea to summarize the data with one.”

“Sure, just make sure to give credit wherever it’s due, if you are using someone else’s work for the diagram.”

“Definitely,” you smile at him and wait a moment. That’s where you see the anticipation in his eyes.

His gaze flickers down to your hands and then to your bag where you always carry the candy and when his eyes meet yours again, you see him swallow hard.

He was expecting the candy. Not only expecting, but he started salivating when he saw you, thinking that he would get the candy from you as always.

“Is… that all?” he asks, the slightest hint of hope appearing in his tone, probably waiting for you to pull the bag of candy out of your bag and offer him one. But it’s not happening today.

“Yes, thank you very much,” you nod smiling widely before you turn around and walk away, a shocked and triumphant look appearing on your face once he can’t see it anymore and when Eden sees you, she gasps.

“He fucking expected the candy, didn’t he?!” she whispers at you in shock and you nod frantically, still not believing your plan worked.

“You should have seen the anticipation in his eyes, he really thought I was gonna offer him some!”

“Oh my God, this is hilarious!” Eden laughs covering her mouth as the lecture hall starts to fill up slowly.

Turning forward, you see that the professor is sitting behind his desk, the book that had his attention before your arrival is long forgotten in front of him, now he is staring ahead of him with slightly furrowed eyebrows, deep in his thoughts.

Is he thinking about you? Or why he was expecting candy from you?

You see him reach for his water bottle and he takes two big gulps probably to wash away his need for the candy before he narrows his eyes and at last they find you in the auditorium. You tilt your head to the side innocently smiling, as if you know absolutely nothing about anything. You keep eye-contact, forcing you not to be the one who breaks it and he is intimidating. You feel like he can read your mind as he stares at you and when he finally turns his gaze back at the book, you exhale sharply.

The lecture goes down just as usual and when the professor dismisses the class you decide to put the cherry to the top. Walking down between the desks you grab a candy from your bag and while the professor is talking to a girl who also had a question about the paper, you place the candy to his desk next to his book. He doesn’t see you walk out and you don’t see him when he finds it, but something is telling you he figured you out. No way a man as smart as him doesn’t realize what game you’ve been playing with him.

Sitting under the pergola on Thursday you are deep in discussion with Nat, helping her with a task sheet she has to turn in after lunch but she completely forgot about it. As the two of you are trying to do the seemingly endless sheet, you don’t even notice the professor walking from Building C, as always, but he spots you.

“No, I don’t think that’s even a thing, you can’t write that,” you tell Nat, but she shakes her head.

“I don’t care if it’s a thing, I just want to fill in the whole thing so the teacher doesn’t think I finished it in twenty minutes before class,” she mumbles, scribbling down her answer as you just chuckle at her.

Suddenly, you see a pair of dusty Vans appear in your sight and as your eyes move up, you are facing none other than Professor Styles, standing right in front of you, holding out his hand with his hand turned upwards, a cheeky smile tugging on his lips. His appearance takes you by surprise and for a moment you just dumbly stare down at his palm, then up at his eyes.

“Very smart. Pulling a pavlovian on me with my favorite candy,” he speaks up, dropping his hand as he cocks his head to the side. Nat looks up from her sheet with wide eyes as you stare at the professor with blushing cheeks.

“I have no idea what you are talking about, professor,” you tell him with a knowing smirk.

“Of course. You know, it took me a moment to realize yesterday, but I wanted to let you know that… I think it was clever.”

“If I knew anything about what you’re talking about… I would say thank you. But I stand up for my innocence.”

“Surely,” he chuckles softy. “Have a great rest of your week,” he then nods before turning around to walk away, but you quickly reach into your bag and grab a candy.

“Professor Styles!” you call out and he turns back just in time to catch the candy you throw in his way. He glances at it in his palm before his eyes snap up to you again, smirking at you shortly before he disappears in the building.

“Okay, call me stupid, but I could feel the sexual tension between the two of you,” Nat says as soon as the professor is out of sight.

“Don’t be silly, it was just… a joke and he liked it.”

“He called you clever, Y/N!”

“No, he called my trick clever.”

“But you came up with it so you’re clever too. Say whatever you want, but I actually think you have a shot at him.”

“I definitely don’t,” you laugh shaking your head and you genuinely believe it. Nat scoffs before she gets back to her sheet, but not without having one last thought about the situation.

“We’ll be laughing at how you brainwashed him into liking you when you’ll be dating for years, living together and all that shit.”

You’ve made some very questionable choices in your dating life prior. Like when you dated a boy in high school and let him take your virginity at the back of his mom’s minivan just to break up with your right after that, or when you briefly dated the guy you met at the mall, but it later turned out he was gay and he used you as his cover up in front of his family. But the worst decision of all was dating an egoistic forty years old loser who just freshly got divorced and went after you at some tacky bar you were at with your friends.

The time you spent dating Victor is way less than the time he has been bothering you, trying to make you go back to him when you’ve actually told him you don’t want anything to do with him anymore. You broke up with him just before you went home for the summer and he didn’t take it well, even drove up to your hometown and showed up at your parents’ house drunk, begging for you to take him back. He never stood a chance, not after that one time he slapped you across the face during a fight the two of you had. You tolerate a lot of things but not violence and you don’t believe him when he says it was just a onetime thing. There’s no guarantee he won’t hit you ever again and you are definitely not waiting around to see if he told you the truth.

On this particular late October evening you are searching through your whole room looking for a book you know you have, but can’t seem to find anywhere. It’s your holy bible about research methodology and you need it for your thesis work, but it seems like the small apartment has completely swallowed it.

“Didn’t you leave it at Victor’s? You were working on that long essay when you were dating him, saw you use the book all the time,” Eden tells you when you ask her if she’s seen it anywhere and then it clicks.

She is right, now you remember leaving the book at his once and you completely forgot to pick it up after things got nasty between the two of you.

“Damn it,” you growl in annoyance.

Not feeling like calling him, you send him a quick text, hoping he still has it and hasn’t burned it after one of your fights.

Y/N: Hey, I think I left my research methodology book at yours. You still have it?

Victor: I do.

Y/N: Cool, can I drop by to pick it up?

Victor: I’m leaving for work, you can come to the bar if you want it.

You sigh in defeat. Victor is a bartender at a place that’s all the way across town, takes almost an entire hour to get there, but you are left with no other choice.

Y/N: Okay, I’ll see you there.

The raining has finally stopped this morning so you feel better leaving the house than you would have if it was still pouring. You take the bus and travel across town, feeling anxious to see Victor again. Last time you met him he cursed you out and threw his phone at you, barely missing your head. You promised yourself you wouldn’t go near him again after that, but it seems like you can never get completely rid of him.

Students rarely come to this part of the town, it’s way too far from campus and has nothing to offer that can’t be found closer to the dormitories or the school’s buildings. It’s not entirely your scene either, the bars around here are liked by older generations, not by people your age, this is another reason why you don’t like coming around here.

The bar where Victor works is a place where they have different local bands perform every Friday and Saturday. It’s not a tacky nook with creepy dudes, they actually have prices on the higher end, not something you can necessarily afford with your part time job’s paycheck from the small accounting office near your apartment where you work as an assistant on your free afternoons.

Walking into the place you immediately spot Victor behind the bar and you take a deep breath before you walk up to him.

“Hey,” you call out for him, taking one of the stools along the bar.

“Hey. Long time no see.”

“Happens when you break up with someone,” you respond with a little spice and he frowns at your words. “Can you give me the book?”

“I’ll have a break in ten, can you wait for that or you have something extra urgent shit to do, as always?” You can tell he is still bitter from how things ended between the two of you, but you’ve learned not to care about it. His way of dealing with the breakup is not your responsibility, no matter how hard he is trying to prove it wrong.

You roll your eyes but nod, knowing well there’s no use to fight him. Ten minutes is not the end of the world. Busying yourself on your phone, you try to stay unnoticed and luckily, Victor can’t keep chatting with you, because customers keep coming up to him and ordering drinks. When he finally has his break he tells you to follow him to the back.

“So how have you been?” he asks as you walk down the hallway that leads to the small break room, there’s an office at the end and some kind of changing room you guess for the bands, along with a storage.

“Fine.”

“You really gonna be a bitter bitch and not talk to me?” he asks you, giving you a disgusted look, but you know it’s just the anger talking from him.

“Victor, I didn’t come here to talk, I just need my book!”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t answer my question.”

“I answered it! I’ve been fine, now give me the damn book!” you growl, losing your patience with him, but he is seemingly in the same shoes.

“When will you stop being a bitch and just drop this ridiculous act, Y/N? I’ve been after you for months yet you keep ignoring me!”

“Did it ever occur to you that I’m ignoring you because I don’t want anything to do with you? Victor, it’s been months, just… move the fuck on! Go cry to your ex-wife or something, I don’t care!”

You didn’t mean to snap, but he always brings the worst out of you. From the corner of your eyes you can see movement at the other end of the hallway where the changing room is, but you don’t get to pay much attention to it, because the next moment Victor grabs you by your arm and yanks you towards him.

“Don’t fucking talk to me like that! You ungrateful slut, I swear…”

There’s little you can do, he is twice as big as you are, his grip on your arm so strong there’s no doubt it will leave a mark. Your heart is racing as you try to pull yourself out of his hold, but he doesn’t even bat an eye at your attempt.

However, before he could drag you into the empty breakroom to do god knows what, he is stopped by a voice.

“Hey! Let her go!”

If you weren’t shocked enough at his violent reaction, now you are definitely think you’re going nuts, because it’s none other than Professor Styles who is now nearing you with a hard expression on his face, two other guys following right behind him and though none of them are bigger than Victor, he knows he can’t just start a fight with three men.

Your chest is heaving when the professor finally reaches you and Victor’s hold lets go of you, making you fall back a little.

“You perform here twice and think you’re some kind of rockstar?” Victor spats at the professor, but you’re a little lost in what’s really going on. Professor Styles gently grabs your wrist and pulls you behind him, eyes never leaving Victor’s burning gaze.

“You alright?” one of the other two men asks and you nod, not finding your voice to actually speak.

“Get the hell out of my sight before I call the police on you,” the professor answers in a calm yet threatening voice

Victor takes a second to himself, thinking about the choices he has before he turns around and disappears in the breakroom, slamming the door behind him, leaving you in complete shock about what just happened.

Professor Styles then turns around, his eyes soften at seeing how shaken you are and quite frankly, you feel like you are in a bad and quite weird dream.

“Are you okay? Did he hurt you?” he asks, clearly worried about you and you just shake your head no.

“I-I’m fine, I think,” you mumble out of breath.

“Come on, let’s get out of here,” the guy who asked if you’re alright suggests and you nod in agreement, following them kind of blindly, the three of them keeping you in their little circle as you walk out to the bar and they don’t stop until you are out of the place in the cold night air. You slowly come back to reality and process that Professor Styles just saved you out of fucking nowhere from your abusive asshole ex. That’s what you call a plot twist.

You finally take a moment to look at the other two guys, they both look the same age as the professor, or maybe a little older, both of them are rocking some facial hair, the one that asked you seems a little more open while the other one quite reserved but friendly looking.

“What… What were you doing back there?” you ask, turning to face the professor. He clearly seems upset, but you’re not sure if it’s entirely because of what happened with Victor back then or because you are standing outside some random bar on a Saturday night, definitely crossing his personal boundaries he keeps so high at school.

“We played here tonight, was just about to leave when I saw you.”

“You have a band?” you ask, shocked at the detail.

“A pretty good one,” the talkative guy chuckles. “I’m Adam, nice to meet you. This is Mitch.”

You shake hands with them introducing yourself as well.

“Y/N is… my student,” the professor adds as if he is clearing the air for his bandmates, a kind of warning for them.

From the direction of the parking lot two women emerge, laughing on something as they walk up to the four of you, both of them eyeing you curiously.

“Hey boys, who is this pretty girl?”

“Sarah, Charlotte, this is Y/N, she is my student. Y/N, these are my other band mates, Sarah and Charlotte,” the professor introduces you as you shake hands with them quickly.

“I-I’m sorry I interrupted your time with your friends, professor,” you shyly apologize, feeling like a complete intruder all of a sudden with all his bandmates around you.

“Interrupt? Sweetheart, that dude was about to do some unforgivable things to you, don’t apologize for needing help,” Adam snorts. “You’re lucky we were there.”

“What? What happened?” Sarah asks in confusion.

“Just… my asshole ex got a little too violent when I didn’t want to chit-chat with him,” you admit with a defeated sigh.

“Oh shit, but are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” you smile faintly, though you still can feel his grip on your upper arm. “I, um… I better get going, I guess. Thank you for… the saving,” you say, a little lost about what should be said in this situation.

“You’re leaving? We were just about to go to a much better place, why don’t you come with us, forget about your ex a little?” Charlotte offers and you catch the professor’s panicked look for a split second.

“I, um… I don’t think I should, but thank you.”

“Why shouldn’t you?” Sarah questions.

“Because I know how Professor Styles hates to mingle with students outside of lectures and I don’t want to cross any lines,” you truthfully admit. The professor furrows his eyebrows.

“I don’t hate mingling with students,” he states.

“Well, you are surely not the most reachable professor on campus,” you chuckle lightly. “But it’s fine, I understand it. So I’ll just head home.”

“Come on, Harry. Let her tag along for just one drink!” Sarah begs and seemingly everyone would be happy to have you join for a little. The professor’s eyes meet yours, as if he is contemplating whether he should say yes or let you go home. When he finally speaks up you’re more surprised than when you realized it was him saving you from Victor.

“I guess you could use a drink after what happened in there,” he says, the tiniest smirk showing on his lips as your eyes shoot up.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, come on,” he nods and your little group heads down the street.

Turns out the place they were heading to was just two corners down, so they left all their stuff at the minivan at the parking lot for the time being. You slide into an empty booth, Adam and Mitch go to get the first round, so it’s just the three of you girls and the professor.

“So you’re in one of Harry’s lectures?” Charlotte asks with a warm smile.

“Yeah, for the second time, actually. Had him in first year, now it’s my fifth semester and I had no doubt I have to take his class if I have the chance.” You pay a glance at him, but he is staring at his hands on his lap, you can’t tell if it’s because he is uncomfortable with you there or if it’s something else.

“It’s so funny, because we’ve heard that he is known to be a good teacher but we never actually heard it from one of his students,” Sarah chuckles. “What’s he like?”

“Sarah, you enjoy talking about me when I’m very much present?” he scoffs, giving her a look, but she just shrugs innocently.

“Come on, I bet even you’re curious about what your students think of you. Now is your time to find it out!”

“I think Professor Styles knows very well that he is one of the best, if not the actual best,” you truthfully say and see him raise his eyebrows a little.

“What makes him so good?” Charlotte questions.

You glance at him again, as a way of asking for permission if you can answer. You definitely don’t want to make him even more uncomfortable by talking about him when he is right next to you. He looks into your eyes, and his expression tells you that he wants to hear your answer as well, but he quickly adds:

“You don’t have to answer, Y/N.”

“It’s not a secret,” you admit it with a smile. “Professor Styles’ lectures always leave you with a question to think about until next week, he is great at getting into your head without you even noticing. He explains the most complicated things in so simple ways, it should be taught,” you say with a soft chuckle. “I think his enormous knowledge about many different fields in science and just life in general is amusing, anyone can learn something from him, it’s guaranteed.”

“Wow, where is this academic genius side of yours when you’re around us, or we only get to see the dad joke version of you?” Sarah teases him and you can’t push down a laugh, imagining him cracking dad jokes feels so alien but still kind of fitting for him.

“That’s what you get when you’re a nosy little thing,” he retorts with a small smirk. He then turns to you, and as Sarah and Charlotte are laughing on something, he lowly tells you: “You can call me Harry outside of school. Feels weird that you call me professor when my friends are around.”

“You sure?”

He nods and you spot a small smile on his lips. He must be getting used to the feel of you being there, but you still don’t want to push his limits too much.

“Can I ask you something?” he questions, leaning back in his seat.

“Of course.”

“If your ex is this aggressive, why were you there with him?”

His question is surprising, you didn’t think he would ask you something personal, but you guess it’s a valid question after he just saved you from Victor.

“I wanted to get a book back that I left at his place. Didn’t even get to the point where he could have given it back,” you mumble under your breath.

“What book?”

“Just this… research methodology book, wanted it back for my thesis work, but I guess I’ll have to buy a new one,” you huff bitterly.

“Is it the one written by William Scott?”

“Y-Yeah, it is. You know it?” you ask, but then realize it’s a bit of a dumb question. He probably knows every academically important book you will ever come across.

“I actually have it myself,” he nods. Just then, Mitch and Adam return with the drinks and you thank them for the beer, already reaching for your money to pay, but Adam shakes his head.

“It’s on me, don’t worry.”

You watch as Mitch sits beside Sarah, curling an arm around her shoulders and though you couldn’t have guessed that they are a couple, seeing them like this it actually makes sense, they look cute together.

You take a sip from your beer, trying to join the conversation Sarah and Charlotte are having, when your attention is pulled back by Harry.

“I can… lend you the book, if you want.”

“Oh, you don’t have to. I’ll just get a new one.”

“No, really. I think I even have two copies, I can give one to you.”

“I couldn’t ask you that, prof—I mean Harry.”

“You’re not asking,” he smiles at you softly. “I probably won’t need both, so why not put the extra into use?”

“Okay, but I’ll pay for it,” you insist, but Harry shakes his head.

“No need, one of them was a gift so I didn’t pay for it either.”

“Well… if you’re sure about it, I would love to have that extra copy, thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So Y/N, what do you study exactly?” Adam questions, pulling you out of your little discussion with Harry.

“I’m majoring in anthropology, but I’ve been taking some psychology classes on the side just because I’m interested in the topics.”

“And what is Harry teaching you?”

“Had him for intro Sociology lecture first year, now I’m in his Methodology of Cultural Anthropology class.”

“All these subjects with their GY endings, I don’t know how you two put up with science on this level,” Sarah huffs in amusement.

“The names sometimes sound fancier than the subject itself,” you tell her smiling.

“But I bet you need to be quite smart to study these stuff on this level you are at.”

“Oh, it’s just a bachelorette degree, I wouldn’t say I’m that smart,” you chuckle shyly.

“She is totally toning it down,” Harry speaks up, catching everyone’s attention. “I know students tend to take my into Sociology class for just some extra credits so I always give them two options for the semester. They can either write a two pages long review of any article related to the topics talked about at lecture and get their strong C with the bare minimum, or actually participate and do a research of their own and turn in an at least seven pages long essay about their chosen topic. Y/N turned in an eleven pages long paper on the history of death sentences in the U.S. in the last fifty years and how society is thinking about it nowadays. It was easily one of the best works I’ve ever read and it was just an intro class.”

“You remember my essay?” you ask in complete shock.

“Of course. As I said, one of the bests I’ve read,” he nods confidently.

“So you’re like… on Harry’s smart level, actually?” Sarah asks, tilting her head to the side and you can feel yourself blushing.

You’ve always been said to be the smart kid at school, but you never thought it to be true yourself. In your book, you were just doing your absolute best, soaking in whatever knowledge was thrown in your way. You never actually understood how someone could just not study for an exam or not do an assignment, because you always felt like it was your duty to do the best you can. You thought yourself to be more of a hard-working student rather than a smart one.

“She is definitely a bright one,” Harry agrees, his eyes meeting yours as a small smile appears on his lips and you think that this is the biggest compliment you’ve ever gotten. “She actually tricked me with a psychological experiment and I didn’t even realize it,” he laughs and you can’t hold your smirk back.

“What? What did you do?” Charlotte asks, dying to know how you played Harry.

“Have you heard of the Pavlovian response?” you ask looking around and you can tell it rings a bell for all of them.

“The one with the dogs and the bell?” Mitch asks and you nod.

“Wait you did that on Harry?” Adam laughs with wide eyes and you just nod with a sly smile.

“I just offered him strawberry flavored candies every time I saw him. Took me six weeks to build up the response but he actually started expecting it whenever he saw me,” you tell them chuckling to yourself.

“And I only realized it when she stopped with the candy and I felt this massive feeling that something was missing,” Harry adds shaking his head with a soft laugh.

“Okay, that’s hilarious,” Sarah snorts clapping her hands together. “Y/N, I adore you, you’re brilliant!”

“It was just… an experiment,” you shrug shyly.

The night carries much faster than you realize. One drink turns into three and before you could realize, it’s already past midnight. Eden texts you, asking where you are since you said you’d just get the book and go home right away, but it’s been hours.

Y/N: Don’t freak out, but I’m at a bar with Prof. Styles and his friends. I’ll tell you everything tomorrow!

Eden: HOW DO YOU EXPECT ME NOT TO FREAK OUT AFTER READING THIS???!?!

Y/N: Lol, chill. Nothing extra is happening.

Eden: It’s already extra that you’re out with him.

Realizing how late it is, you decide you better get going, since it’s a long way back home. When you tell the little group that you’re about to head out, they all agree that it’s time to part ways and leave, so you all slowly make your way back to the parking lot.

“Do you know where the bus stop is back?” you ask, narrowing your eyes, trying to spot where you should be heading.

“You want to go home by bus at this time?” Harry asks.

“Well, I surely won’t pay for a ride, I live almost an hour away from here.”

“An hour?” he frowns. “I’ll take you home, come on,” he tells you, heading towards the minivan.

“What? No need. The bus is fine,” you protest, but he shakes his head.

“You are not taking the bus at this hour, not under my watch,” he simply states and you raise your eyebrows at him.

“Didn’t realize I was under your watch,” you tease him and it seems like your comment caught him off-guard. “Don’t piss your pants, I was just joking,” you tell him, and thought for a second you feel like you are being way too comfortable around him, his smile quickly smashes your doubts.

Sarah, Mitch and Charlotte all take an Uber since they live near each other and Adam is picked up by his wife, so when everyone is off to their own way, you and Harry get in the van and head to your place.

“How long have you had the band?” you ask, in need to break the silence that’s been weighing down on the two of you. “If you don’t mind me asking,” you add quickly when you see him.

“About four years. Used to have another one, but we parted ways.”

“And what do you do in the band?”

“I, uhh… Well I mostly sing but I also play the guitar.”

“You know, I’m not that surprised you can sing,” you chuckle to yourself sinking further down in your seat.

“How come?”

“You have a voice that’s great to listen to at lectures, makes sense that you can sing as well.”

You take a moment to look at his hand that’s gripping the steering wheel, he is the kind that drives with one hand on the wheel, the other one on the shifting gear. He makes it look so easy as he steers the wheel whenever he is turning a corner while his other one easily moves around the shifting gear, his tattoos are peeking from under his rolled up shirt sleeve. He catches you staring and you feel a blush burning on your cheeks as you turn your head to the other side. Maybe you shouldn’t have drunk that third beer…

“Am I really seen that rigid by the students?” he speaks up after a while and you turn back to face him.

“What do you mean?”

“You said I’m known about not mingling with students.”

“Well, you don’t mingle, do you? But it doesn’t mean you come off as rigid. More like… closed-off. Private.”

“I know I should be a little friendlier, but I just…”

“You don’t have to explain yourself, I think everyone gets it why you’re like that.”

“Do they?” he arches an eyebrow.

“Well, you’re obviously a ladies’ favorite, but it doesn’t sit well with you being a person of some sort of power. It’s clear that you don’t want anyone to get the wrong picture about you. I’ve seen how bluntly girls are flirting with you, some of them are quite scandalous if you ask me,” you huff to yourself. “I totally get it that you don’t want even just a rumor to spread about you.”

“Didn’t think I was that obvious,” he admits, running his tongue over his lips.

“Don’t worry about it, you’re still a highly fancied professor, in all means,” you tell him with a warm smile.

“Does this mean you also fancy me?” he suddenly questions and your lips part at his words. He quickly realizes how ambiguous he just sounded. “I mean, am I one of your favorites? Where do I stand in your chart of professors?”

You can’t tell for sure because of the lack of lighting, but you could have sworn there’s a light blush on his cheeks as he corrects himself. Because of this, you don’t know for sure if he really meant it academically. Either way, the answer is the same.

“You’re my favorite,” you confidently state and your eyes meet for a moment before he turns back to face the road.

The rest of the ride is pretty quiet, you keep giving him directions to your place until you finally arrive a little before one am.

“Well, thank you for the ride,” you smile at him, grabbing the door handle.

“See you on Monday,” he nods shortly and watches as you get out of the can.

“Yeah, see you, professor,” you smirk before shutting the door and walking up the stairs and disappearing in your building.

“Was that Professor Styles in the fucking minivan?!” Nat throws the question at you the moment you open the front door.

“Jesus, why are you still up?” you sigh, shutting the door and shimmying yourself out of your coat.

“Because we were waiting for you!” Eden rolls her eyes. “So, care to tell us what the fuck just happened?” The three of you get comfortable on the couch and you give them a quick rundown of your evening from meeting Victor through being saved by Harry right to him offering to drive you home and they listen to you with wide eyes in complete shock that you just spent your entire evening with the most handsome professor on campus who also happens to be the most private as well.

“If I didn’t see him sitting in that van with my own eyes I would straight up think you’re lying, but I saw his tattooed hand over the windshield,” Nat gasps, processing the story.

“I know, I still feel like it didn’t happen, but it did.”

“And what is he like around his friends? What are his friends like?” Eden questions, hugging her knees to her chest.

“He is pretty much just like in lecture, just jokes a little more and he has a looser vocab. His friends are hilarious, I really got along with Sarah.”

“I know you still think it won’t happen, but I actually think you have a shot at him, Y/N,” Eden points it out and you just chuckle.

“Why, because he saved me from my douche ex?”

“No, because he let you stay for the night with him and his friends. This is literally the first ever time a student hung out with him.”

“It’s not that big of a deal, Harry is a reserved and private person—“

“Harry?!” they gasp at the same time.

“You are now just casually calling him Harry?” Nat asks with ogling eyes.

“Well, yes, he asked me to, because it felt weird that I was calling him Professor Styles with his friends around.”

“Okay, I’m giving it… let’s say, he seems to be moving pretty slow, but y’all will be fucking in about six months,” Nat bluntly tells you and it makes you laugh.

“Oh, sure, whatever. I’m gonna shower and head to bed, you two don’t get too crazy with your fairytales,” you wave at them before disappearing in the bathroom.

The rest of the weekend goes by uneventfully, outside of the pathetic attempt from Victor to get you to talk to him, but you’ve had enough of him for a life so you finally block his number and hope you won’t ever see him again.

Both you and Eden oversleep on Monday morning, skipping your early morning lecture and already being late for Harry’s class as well, so you barely make it to Harry’s class in time, just sprinting up the rows, flopping down to your usual seats when Harry starts the lecture. It all goes as usual as if nothing really happened during the weekend, Harry doesn’t seem to be bothered by it at all. Glancing over at his desk you spot the book he promised you and you can’t hold your smile back. Still grinning, your eyes accidentally meet with his gaze and he stops for a heartbeat as if he is questioning why you are so smiley, but you just shake your head and he carries on before anyone could suspect a thing.

“I gotta run, my favorite TA is having his office hours now and I have a few questions for him. See you at home?” Eden asks once the lecture is over and you are getting ready to leave.

“Sure, have a good day!” you call after her and she sings a ‘you too!’ before running out of the room.

You pack up and head down between the rows, Harry spotting you right away and you go up to him without him even asking you to.

“Hey, sorry we were a little late to class this morning,” you tell him and he just shakes his head kindly.

“No worries. How… is your arm?” He furrows his eyebrows, his gaze wandering down to your forearm where Victor grabbed you on Saturday.

“Oh, it’s fine. I just have a little bruise,” you shrug, because it really isn’t that big deal, but you can tell Harry is still outraged by what happened.

“M’sorry about that.”

“It’s fine. Would be worse if you weren’t there,” you smile at him kindly and he nods to himself before turning to his desk.

“I, uhh, I brought the book we talked about,” he shyly says grabbing it from the desk. As people are exiting the room you can feel the glares on yourself, most of them are probably trying to figure out why Harry is talking to you for so long, but you don’t pay much attention to them as you take the book he hands you.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to pay for it?”

“No need, keep it, it’s yours,” he shakes his head with a small smile.

“Thank you then.” You slide the book into your bag before looking back up at him. “Well, I’ll see you on Wednesday, professor,” you smile warmly before heading out.

“See you!” he calls after you before you close the door behind you.

The week carries on as usual, you are working on papers that needs to be turned in before the fall break so you spend some extra time at the library, using every bit of free time you have so you finish everything on time.

Things go back to kind of normal with Harry, he greets you in the mornings when you walk into the lecture hall and other than the warm smile he occasionally gives you, nothing has changed.

Friday however brings a surprise, but not from Harry. You’re sitting at work in the afternoon, typing away on your computer, filling in some sheets when you get a notification on your phone from Instagram.

Sarah Jones is now following you!

You tap on her profile but see that it’s private so without a second thought you request following. Luckily, she approves you only a few seconds later and you gain access to her posts, quite a few of them featuring Harry on them.

Photos of birthdays, weekend getaways, band practices and performances, Harry makes a lot of appearances on her feed and you find yourself scrolling all the way down until you reach the first few posts from 2016. Just as you are about to leave her profile you get a message from her.

Sarah: Hey Y/N! Charlotte and I’ve been talking about you recently, loved having you with us last Saturday! Want to grab a drink with the two of us this weekend?

Y/N: Would love to, but I’m not sure Harry would like the idea…

Sarah: He won’t be there and besides, who is he to tell you who you can and can’t hang out with?

She is right. You enjoyed spending time with them as well and Harry has little to no word in if you want to meet up with his friends or not. This invitation has no connection to him being your professor.

Y/N: Alright, I’m down!

This is how your friendship with Sarah and Charlotte starts. You meet up with them on Saturday and have an amazing time, they are definitely fun people to spend time with and though at first you feel hesitant to get closer to them, you soon forget about your doubts and just enjoy your time with them.

Your little girls night goes so well that they invite you out for dinner on Wednesday with Mitch joining the little trio. You learn that he is a quiet but hilarious guy, he and Sarah make a great couple, you think.

“We have a gig this Saturday at Green Light, want to come?” Charlotte asks at the end of the dinner.

“Okay, I really don’t think Harry would be a fan of that idea,” you point out, feeling like it’s surely over the lines. He still doesn’t know about you meeting some of his friends without him and you’re not sure how he would react if he did.

“Harry can fuck off, not everything is about him. We are inviting you as our friends, he just happens to be in the band as well,” Sarah rolls her eyes, clearly not as bothered by the situation as you are.

“I just don’t want to make him uncomfortable.”

“He is a big boy, he’ll get himself over it, don’t worry. So, are you coming?”

“I guess, alright,” you nod with a soft chuckle.

Next week you contemplate telling Harry that Sarah invited you out for their gig, but at last you decide against it, something is telling you he would try to talk you down and now you’re pretty hyped to see them perform. So you keep quiet and just brace yourself for the worst when Saturday comes.

You don’t overdress for the occasion, decide to wear some light washed mom jeans and a simple sweater tucked into it, a casual look for a night out.

Even when you’re on your way to the place you are having second guesses whether it’s a good idea or not, but you tell yourself it’s not that big of a deal and if Harry flips, you’ll just tell him you came for Sarah and Charlotte.

As you get off the bus and walk towards the place, you immediately spot the little group of three next to Harry’s minivan, Sarah waving in your way as you become visible in the streetlights.

“There she is!” she beams happily and you just chuckle at her.

Harry is standing with his back facing your way but seeing Sarah’s reaction he turns around and you swear for a moment you think he is about to faint when he spots you.

“Hey everyone,” you smile as Sarah pulls you into a hug and Charlotte does the same.

“Hey, if it isn’t our little trouble seeker!” Adam teases you and you just roll your eyes at him before shyly glancing at Harry who is standing on your left, awfully quiet and deep in his thoughts since your arrival. He feels your eyes on him and his gaze meets yours and just by one look you can tell he is pissed.

Just as you thought.

The group chats a little longer outside before Adam suggests they head inside and get ready for their start and you are just about to follow them, but Harry keeps you back.

“Y/N, can we have a word?”

Staying back you nod, hiding your hands in your coat’s pockets as you look at him, lips curled into your mouth.

“What are you doing here?” he questions, eyebrows knitted together and he looks so damn intimidating, the neon lights from the front of the building tinting part of his face green, but you think red would suit him better with this look.

“I… came to see the band playing, what do you mean?”

“Is this your sneaky way of trying to come after me? Because I thought we had a very clear discussion about my thoughts regarding situations like this and you seemed to understand it.”

He comes off way angrier than you think he should be. Yes, it might be uncomfortable for him to see you here, but the tone he just hit is way too harsh for your liking and professor or not, you are not letting anyone talk to you like that when it’s completely not relevant.

“Okay, calm down. First of all, I was invited here.”

“By who?” he spats.

“Sarah and Charlotte, we met last weekend and had dinner this week as well. Had a great time and they asked me to come tonight as well, so get off of your high horse, I’m not here for you.” You can see the change on his face as the information sinks in and he realizes he accused you wrongly, but you’re not quite done with him. “But if I was here to see you, why does that bother you so much? You can’t avoid meeting students every minute when you’re off-campus. If I came here because of you, it shouldn’t affect you this much if you weren’t worried about something else than me just being here,” you point out and he furrows his eyebrows at you. “If I didn’t know better I would think you’re afraid to be around me because you actually like me, huh!” you tell him with an innocent yet suggesting look. His eyes widen and the confidence in himself quickly vanishes from him, replaced by anxiety and nervous looks as he realizes the meaning behind your words.

“I-I, that’s not—I’m not—“

“Take a breath before you pass out, Harry,” you sigh, dropping the hard act. “I didn’t come here for you and if you want to know I actually thought a lot about canceling because of you. But I genuinely like spending time with Sarah and Charlotte so I’m here as their friend.”

Harry stares back at you, completely defeated, regret filling his green eyes. You feel a little guilty for snapping so hard at him, after all you do understand his point of view, but you genuinely don’t think it’s as big of a deal as he makes it to be.

“I-I’m…”

“It’s fine, okay? Let’s just… move past it, alright?” you suggest and he nods as the two of you head inside, joining the rest of the group.

You stay behind while they are waiting for their time to perform, keeping some distance from Harry so he can’t accuse you again, but you occasionally look his way, catching him already looking at you, but you just can’t tell what could be possibly going on in his head. When it’s time for them to go on stage, you go out to the actual bar area and sit by the counter, not too much at the front but close enough to see everything that happens on the stage.

When they start playing you can’t take your eyes off Harry. His energy behind the microphone just knocks you off the stool and you watch him completely mesmerized as if he has put a spell on you. It feels like he turns into an entirely different person on stage, nothing like the man you see at lectures every Monday and Wednesday. He sings perfectly on key, putting some extra charm into the songs with his little additional tunes whenever he is not singing a line.

But what makes it absolutely impossible to look away from him is because he keeps staring at you, eyes locking with yours for way too long every time he catches your gaze. You try to ignore it, but it’s quite hard when his eyes are basically burning into you, it leaves you breathless.

Once the concert is over you order yourself two tequila shots quickly, because something is telling you that you’ll need the boosting if you want to face Harry after his little performance.

But for your surprise, when you join the band again and get near him, nothing really happens. It seems like Harry has come to peace with your presence in his little group of friends and he actually treats you like you’re part of the circle.

The six of you occupy a table at the back of the bar to spend there the rest of the evening and it’s all good, it seems. A harmless night out with a bunch of friends, nothing extra. Harry actually strikes up conversations with you involved and you feel like you’ve overcome a banter finally.

“Do you need a ride home?” Harry asks at the end of the night when everyone is about to head home.

“Only if it’s fine by you.”

“Wouldn’t offer it if it wasn’t,” he smiles shortly before the two of you say goodbye to the rest of the group and head to his van that was previously loaded with their stuff.

The ride back to your place is now much shorter, it takes less than ten minutes to arrive and you are just about to say goodbye when he speaks up.

“I want to apologize for the way I reacted to your arrival earlier tonight. It was… unnecessary.”

“It’s fine, I’m sorry for what I said after that too.”

“You shouldn’t be,” he shakes his head, staring down at his hands in his lap.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that you shouldn’t be sorry for saying something that’s true.”

It feels like all air is knocked out of you as his words process and you stare at him with parted lips and raised eyebrows. When he finally looks up at you, he looks so lost and tortured, you feel the urge to hug him, but you stay still as he continues talking.

“I got mad because I do like you and seeing you outside of school is very… confusing for me. And this is why I’m gonna be very straightforward with you now. I can tell Sarah and Charlotte like you a lot and they are stubborn, they won’t see the situation from my point of view and I’m no one to tell you if you can hang out with us or not. But what I can most certainly tell you is that nothing will happen between us. I’m very serious about this, Y/N. You are very much welcomed to spend more time with us, but I want you to know that it won’t go further than this.”

For a couple of moments you’re only able to stare back at him, blinking completely frozen at his sudden confession. You could tell tonight has been a turning point of some kind, but you were not expecting this speech from him at all and now you are at a complete loss of words. It takes some time before you actually find your voice.

“Okay,” is all you can breathe out, nothing more, but it’s pretty much all you have to tell him. You won’t go against his will and force him to do something he doesn’t want. He deserves the respect.

He nods shortly, seemingly still very torn about the situation and you figure it’s better if you just leave now.

“Thank you for the ride,” you quietly tell him opening the door. “Good night.”

“Good night, Y/N,” you hear him before you shut the door and walk into your building, feeling like you’ve been just hit by a pile of bricks.

Unlike the last time when Harry brought you home, Nat and Eden are not waiting for you in the living room. Nat is probably already asleep and Eden went out for a date earlier and she hasn’t been back. You don’t bother to turn the lights on as you walk inside, just kick your boots off and hang your coat before collapsing onto the couch, just staring into the darkness, Harry’s words repeating in your head again and again.

“… I do like you and seeing you outside of school is very confusing for me.”

“… nothing will happen between us. I’m very serious about this, Y/N.”

“… but I want you to know that it won’t go further than this.”

Harry, your professor, The Harry Styles admitted that he likes you but also told you pretty forward that nothing is ever going to happen between the two of you. It still feels like a fever dream and you’re not sure how you are feeling about it just yet. Hanging out with him was already quite overwhelming, but you were not expecting this confession from him at all.

What are you supposed to do with this information? If he is so set on not taking any further steps, why did he even share it with you? He could have just easily keep his thoughts and feelings to himself and get away with it without you ever figuring it out. It doesn’t make sense.

For the first time in your life, something Harry Styles said doesn’t make sense. That’s new.

Following Harry’s confession you truly have no idea what to do, so you just go with the flow. He seemingly stays the same when it comes to you, friendly, but still keeping his distance. Nothing changes in the lecture hall, he just occasionally asks if you’re alright and you are guessing he only wants to know if you are having any trouble with Victor, but you haven’t even heard from him since you’ve blocked his number and you hope it’s going to stay like that.

You meet up with him and the band a few times outside of school and it’s not necessarily awkward, but you can tell he is keeping his distance from you, he never sits next to you or has one-on-one conversations with you, only if it’s necessary. The only time he dares to be alone with you is when he sometimes offers you to drive you home. You usually say no at first, but he insists, so you end up sitting in silence in the car until you arrive home, say goodbye and end of story.

No one in school even suspects that you’ve made your way into Harry’s group of friends, only Nat and Eden knows about it but they swore to keep it a secret, but you didn’t tell them about Harry’s confession. Whatever it is that’s happening between you and Harry, you would never put him into a situation he is trying to avoid so badly. You sit in his classes like everyone else, but while all the other girls are drooling over him, trying to get just slightly closer to him in any way possible, you sit in silence and think about the precious times when you get to see him outside of school.

Even with him being so distant towards you, you can’t help but slowly start falling for him. He doesn’t have to talk to you or be direct to you, it’s enough that you see him as himself, you see him with his friends, how he acts whenever he is not teaching, standing on the podium. And he is an amazing person, there’s no doubt about that.

The semester is gradually moving forward, once you get back from fall break, you basically move into the library, studying for your exams and finishing up all your papers. December arrives pretty fast and before you realize, the whole town is decorated with lights and Christmas trees everywhere, the shops are trying to lure customers in with all the sales and the Christmas shopping officially starts.

One weekend, when there’s only two weeks left of school before everyone heads home for the holidays, you and Nat go for a shopping trip, trying to buy every gift in time so you don’t have to worry about that at least last minute.

Wandering around the mall you naturally take a trip to the bookstore, always ready to buy something new to read. Nat dives into the cooking books wanting to get one for her mother while you’re just aimlessly looking through the shelves. As your eyes are running through the titles in the psychology department, you stop at one particular book, pulling it off the shelf as you can’t help but smile to yourself.

The secrets of Classical Conditioning.

You flip through the pages and though it doesn’t seem to be a groundbreaking work, it’s just explaining Pavlov’s experiment and further uses of it, you still decide to buy it.

That evening you sit at your desk, the book open in front of you, a pen next to it as you try to think of something to write into it. At first you just wanted to give it to Harry as it is, but you figured it would be a nice gesture to write a few words into it he could always read when he opens the book. After some consideration, you finally grab the pen and start writing.

Dear Harry,

I will always think of you whenever I hear of Mr. Ivan Petrovics Pavlov or Classical Conditioning. Thank you for another amazing semester and I’m happy I got to see you without standing on a podium. You are an amazing man, never change.

Happy holidays,

Y/N

Last week of school, you go to the Wednesday lecture, the last one of the semester with the book sitting in your bag. All through the 90 minutes class as Harry is having an open discussion about the lecture with the students, you keep debating whether you should give him the book or not. When the lecture is over and Harry wishes everyone happy holidays, you grab it from your bag and holding it to your chest you wait until there’s only a few people in the room. Eden has already left to hand in a paper so you walk down the rows on your own, eyes on the man behind his desk who is now packing up his papers and notes, getting ready to leave.

“Harry?” you faintly speak his name, grabbing his attention as he looks up at you from behind the desk. You glance down at the book in your hands and before you could change your mind, you place it down in front of him. “This is… for you.”

His gaze wanders down to the book, then back at you as he stares at you in awe, obviously surprised by the gesture.

“What’s this for?”

“Christmas gift?” you answer unsurely with a nervous chuckle. “I just saw it at the store and… thought of you.”

“Y/N, I can’t—“

“Yes you can and you will,�� you roll your eyes at him, tired of hearing all these negations from him. He can’t, he won’t, he shouldn’t… for once, he definitely will if it’s on you. “Take it as my payment for the book you gave me.”

His eyes soften at you before he looks down at the book again, reading the title before he chuckles to himself.

“Thank you, Y/N,” he then finally says, accepting that you won’t let him return the gift under any circumstances.

“Have a nice Christmas, Harry,” you smile at him shyly, hands holding onto the strap of your bag as you start walking away.

“You too,” he faintly says and turning around you start walking, but then he stops you. “Y/N, wait!”

You stop in your track and face him curiously. He seems hesitant, stepping away from the desk, walking closer to you but still keeping some distance between the two of you.

“Do you… have plans for New Year’s Eve?”

“I, uhh—No, not yet.”

“If you happen to be back in town by then… Sarah is having this little get together. I have a feeling she already invited you, but if you said no because of me, I want you to know that it’s fine by me. Would be nice if you could come.”

He is right, Sarah did invite you over, but you kindly declined thinking Harry wouldn’t appreciate if you spent it with them. You wanted to give him a breather, have a night with his friends without having to avoid you all the time, but it seems like the situation has changed for him.

“You don’t have to invite me just because I gave you a gift, Harry.”

“It’s not about that,” he shakes his head softly. “I can tell you are getting along well with Sarah and all the others. I want you to know that I would never stand in the way and you are very much welcomed at any and all events.”

He seems and sounds genuine, you don’t see any sign of him just saying it because Sarah asked him to or something. No, this definitely came from him.

“Okay, I’ll… think about it,” you tell him with a warm smile. “See you around,” you wave at him before walking out of the room.

You don’t get to see his reaction to the words you wrote into the book and for a while, you’re not even sure he saw it. Maybe he took it home and put it on his shelf without even having a look into it, but two days later, when you’re already packing, getting ready to go home for Christmas, you get a notification that at first confuses you.

Breakfast is now following you!

You open Instagram with furrowed eyebrows as you go to the profile that just followed you. It’s a small account and private, of course and you almost close it thinking it’s just someone random when you see that it’s followed by both Sarah and Charlotte.

Could this be Harry’s profile?

The username is colazione8, it doesn’t give away much but now that you are thinking about it, it’s perfect if he wanted to stay unnoticed by his students that surely can use Instagram way better than him.

You tap on the follow request button and anxiously wait for an approval, hoping that the person behind the account is still online. You wait and wait, slowly losing hope but then the notification finally arrives. Your request has been approved.

You tap on the profile vigorously and three pictures appear in front of you. One is a picture of some random building, the first ever posted is a plate of nicely served breakfast of some sort and then there’s one that features the person you were desperately hoping to see.

It’s a picture of Harry sitting at a big dining table, a glass of wine in front of him as he is squinting his eyes towards the camera. You zoom into the picture just to make sure it’s him, but his features are clearer than daylight, it really is Harry that just followed you.

You’re still stalking his very private and not too eventful profile when you get a message from him, making your heart skip a beat.

Harry: Hey! Just wanted to thank you again for the gift, it’s really thoughtful. Read what you wrote in it… thank you, Y/N.

Y/N: I meant every word. Thank you for everything you did this semester!

It takes a few minutes for a response to arrive from him.

Harry: Are you already on your way home?

Y/N: Not yet, leaving tomorrow morning.

Harry: If I drop by your place in 20, can you come down for a sec?

Y/N: Sure!

Though your response seemed totally cool, you started panicking right away. What does this mean? Why is he coming here? Are you in trouble? You couldn’t be, you didn’t do anything wrong.

You quickly change out of your worn-out sweats and stained shirt, putting on a pair of jeans and a black hoodie, not wanting to see him looking like a total wreck. You sit on your bed, anxiously checking your phone every ten seconds to see if he has messaged you and those twenty minutes never seem to pass.

Then your phone finally chimes again.

Harry: I’m here.

Y/N: Be there in a sec.

You jump into a pair of trainers and grabbing your keys from the little sidetable you have in the hallway you storm out of the apartment, running down the stairs. As you walk out you stop in your track for a second, for some reason you were expecting the minivan, but this time, it’s a black Range Rover that’s parked in front of your building and Harry emerges from it the moment you step outside.

“Hey!” he smiles at you, shutting the door before he jogs around and you notice the little gift bag in his hands.

“Harry, is this what I think it is? Because you shouldn’t have, really,” you tell him right away as he stands in front of you, glancing down at the little bag in his hands.

“What? So you are allowed to give me a gift, but I’m not allowed to do the same?” he asks with a cheeky smile.

“But you already gave me one!”

“That wasn’t a real gift, so no,” he shakes his head, too stubborn to let it go. So instead, he nervously glances down at the little bag before handing it to you. “Here. Happy Christmas. But you can only open it when I’m gone, alright?”

“Why?”

“Just… please,” he breathes out and you not, keeping your curious hands to yourself.

“Alright. Well, thank you, Harry.”

“Sure. Um, have a great winter break and… I’ll see you around,” he smiles, walking around the car back to the side of the driving seat.

“You too, Harry. See you!”

You see him drive away as you walk back into the building, basically running up the stairs to your apartment, dying to see what’s in the little bag. Once you are locked in the safe haven of your room, you throw yourself to the bed and reach into the bag, finding a small box. One that’s usually used for jewelry. You pull it out with shaky fingers and take a deep breath before opening it.

Inside sits the cutest little silver ring you’ve literally ever seen. It’s thin and very detailed, tiny little strawberries lining next to each other and that’s the whole ring. Just the little strawberries, but it’s still the cutest you’ve ever seen. You put it on and it fits perfectly on your ring finger, holding up your hand you take a good look at how it sits on your finger. You’re in love with it.

Rolling to your back on the bed you stare up at the ceiling with a heavy heart aching for a man you know will never be yours, but you just can’t help it. The heart wants what it wants, right?

Reaching for your phone you type him a quick message

Y/N: Harry, thank you so much! It’s beautiful! But you shouldn’t have bought me anything!

Harry: I’m glad you like it :)

Y/N: I love it.

He doesn’t respond, just likes your message.

Christmas is always the same, especially because your family just never had those juicy dramas that could ruin any family events. Holidays have always been quiet and loving, pretty predictable. It’s good to be home again and spend quality time with your loved one, though your mind keeps wandering to a particular someone.

Sarah mentioned that Harry has traveled home to his mom and sister and from time to time you catch yourself thinking about what he could be possibly doing at the moment.

The only interaction between the two of you is when you post a photo with your sister and brother at Christmas dinner and he likes the photo, but nothing more. He doesn’t post or add to his story so you are left with your own elaborate fantasies of what he could possiblybe doing at home.

Sarah convinces you to spend the New Year’s Eve at hers and you are accepting the invitation a lot easier now that Harry has told you he is fine with you joining.

Just one day before the 31st you get back to your apartment and spend the second to last night of the year spiraling about the whole situation with Harry. Where are you two standing as of right now? Was his gift a gesture with a deeper meaning behind it?

You can’t step over the fact that you are not his student anymore. He has officially graded you and you’ve received your credits for his class, the ties are off, but he situation might still be risky and you doubt Harry is willing to change his mind about what he told you earlier. He made it clear that nothing will ever happen between the two of you, however you can’t help but feel a little hopeful that the new semester might bring a change into that.

After two hours spent in front of your closet and at least three mental breakdowns you finally decide to wear a black turtleneck dress which is just the perfect mixture of modest and sexy at the same time. You feel anxious to see Harry again, not sure how to act around him following your little gift exchange. There’s a chance he’ll just shut himself off once again and avoid you all night, you can’t tell.

Sarah’s place is already buzzing by the time you arrive, several guests are lounging in the living room and kitchen, some soft music is playing and it appears that everyone is enjoying the evening so far, judging from the laughter you hear from time to time.

“I’m so glad you came!” Sarah envelopes in a tight hug when you arrive.

“Thank you for inviting me. Here, brought some snacks,” you hand her the grocery bag you picked up on your way, not wanting to arrive empty-handed.

“Oh, you are an angel, some on in, make yourself home, take whatever you want to eat or drink!” she gestures around before bringing the bag into the kitchen.

The cozy home is already filled with a lot of people you don’t know, but you also spot Charlotte and Mitch right away so you take the safe spot in their little circle. You try your best to stay present in the conversation but you keep glancing around, looking for one particular person.

And then you finally see him. Harry emerges from the little hallway that leads to the bedroom and bathroom with Adam, seemingly deep in conversation as he nurses a beer in his hand. His checkered slacks and vintage printed t-shirt makes him appear so casual, if you didn’t know him you wouldn’t even guess that he is actually a professor.

Harry laughs at something Adam just told him and his eyes glide around the room until they find you standing near the kitchen. He stops in his track, gaze running down your figure before it returns to your eyes and he seems to be in awe, like he doesn’t entirely believe it’s you he is seeing even though he knew you’d be coming. There’s nothing you want more than to run across the room and throw yourself into his arms. You spent way too much time thinking about him during Christmas and seeing him in the flesh now is a mixture of feelings you can’t really describe just now.

Neither of you leaves the conversation you are in the middle, but you keep glancing towards each other. You’re nervously moving the strawberry ring around your finger, feeling his burning gaze on your figure all the time. You haven’t taken it down since he has given it to you, it partially made it harder for you to stop thinking about him, because the jewelry was quite a loud reminder every time you glanced down at your hands.

Two drinks later your sister calls you, as always she wants to say happy new year before the lines get hectic at midnight, so you move out to the small balcony facing the street as you talk to your sister. The spicy night air feels amazing on your heated up skin, the turtleneck dress was a good choice, but it’s definitely getting hotter with each drink, especially with Harry’s lingering eyes as well. When you end the call you decide to stay outside a little longer, take a few moments to yourself.

You jump a little when you hear the sliding door open and you’re surprised to see Harry walk out.

“Hey, thought you might need this,” he smiles softly, holding a blanket in his hands.

“Oh, thank you,” you mumble and let him wrap it around your shoulders. It provides just enough heat that your lips are not shaking anymore from the cold.

“What are you doing out here alone? Not enjoying the evening?”

“I am, I was just on the phone with my sister.”

“She’s older than you, right?” he asks and you tilt your head a little looking at him.

“How do you know that?”

“I, uhh… You have a lot of pictures with her on your Instagram,” he admits with a nervous chuckle.

“Have you been stalking my profile?” you tease him, but he clearly takes it way more serious than you intended it to be.

“No, I swear it’s not like that, I just—“ he stammers but you cut him off placing a hand on his arms that are crossed over his chest.

“Harry, I was just teasing you. It’s fine,” you assure him, giving him a gentle squeeze before you are about to pull your hand back, but his hold stops you. He takes your hand in his, gently bringing it closer to his face as he examines the ring sitting on your finger.

“You’re wearing it,” he breathes out, a small cloud emitting from his pink lips as his thumb softly runs over the ring.

“Of course. I told you I love it.”

You can’t ignore the shiver that runs down your spine at the feeling of his warm palm against yours, his thumb delicately running over not just the ring, but down your finger as well before he lets go of your hand. You already miss his touch.

“So, how was Christmas?” he asks clearing his throat.

“Good, nothing extra. What about yours?”

“Same, went home to the family.”

“Do you often visit them?”

“Not as often as I would want to, but I’m trying to go every couple of months.” Harry turns towards the street, eyes running along the not too busy road that stretches past Sarah’s building. His hand comes up to the railing, fingers slightly drumming on it. “How come you didn’t bring anyone tonight?”

“Well, my roommates are still home and I also didn’t think you’d like the idea to have another student of yours around.”

“Right, yeah,” he nods, but you can tell something else is still on his mind. “So… no boyfriend to bring?”

You give him a puzzled look. Is this his way of asking if you are seeing anyone at the moment? Because if it is, it’s kind of ridiculous.

“No, not really. I guess you can say I’m not looking for one actively.”

“How come?” he asks with raised eyebrows, his body turning towards you as he leans against the railing. You give him a ‘really?’ look. You think about getting a little sassy and teasing with him, but then decide to just be straightforward instead.

“Because I’m kind of into my Methodology of Cultural Anthropology professor.”

Harry’s lips part as his eyes pierce into yours and for a moment you really think that he is about to flip, tell me how dare you say such thing to him and curse you out, but a second passes and his gaze softens as he lets out a shaky breath.

“Y/N…”

“What? I just answered your question,” you innocently shrug, looking away from him. Despite this long and weird game the two of have been playing these past months, this is the first time you openly admitted that you have a thing for him.

“You know how complicated it is and I told you that nothing can happen.” He shakes his head in defeat, a hint of disappointment in his tone, but it just grinds your gears.

“What, so you can ask about my dating life but I can’t say that I’m into you? How is that fair?”

“That’s not the same.”

“Well I think it is. Both are highly inappropriate to bring up in our situation, don’t you think? Yet you’re trying to put all the blame on me.”

“Alright, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. Let’s just… forget about it. I really don’t want to fight with you.”

“Because you’re afraid I might actually win?” you sassily reply, crossing your arms on your chest.

“I’m just trying to do the right thing, okay? Would you… let me?”

“If you haven’t realized it yet, I’m trying really hard to stay in my lane, but you’re not making it any easier.”

“I’m trying too, okay?” he growls, clearly losing his calmness at this point. “I’m really fucking trying, Y/N, but it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do!”

“You’re the one making it hard!”

“It’s not my fucking fault I can’t stop thinking about you!”

“Well it’s not my fault either!” you snap at him, both of you raising your voice, the rest of the party oblivious about the screaming match the two of you are having on the balcony. “If you’re so set on not letting anything happen, why do you come to me and act the opposite?”

“The opposite?!”

“Yes! It’s not quite appropriate to gift your student with a ring or ask them about their dating life. Or is it all new information to you?”

“You started with the gifting!”

“So what? You could have just left it there, but you didn’t. It’s not that it didn’t make me happy, but don’t try to put all the blame on me for saying something when you’re already crossing the lines.”

Harry stares at you with a hard look and you’d pay great amounts to actually read his thoughts at this moment. His jaw clenches as he exhales sharply, eyes turning away from you, as if he couldn’t even bear to look at you.

“Make up your fucking mind,” you growl under your breath as you push your way past him and walk inside before he could get a word out.

For a well-respected, educated and smart man, Harry can act pretty fucking stupid, you think. He is not being fair and you will not apologize for anything you’ve said. If he doesn’t want anything to do with you, he needs to stay in his lane and not dance on the line, poking the sleeping lion. He doesn’t get to fuck around and then put all the blame on you, that’s just not how it works and he needs to learn that.

In the last hour that’s left until midnight you mingle with the guests and try to keep your thoughts of Harry at bay, though it’s quite the challenge since he lingers around you, keeping his eyes on you all the time, as if he is trying to piss you off or something, but you’re determined to be a mature adult and keep your composure.

You’re getting tired of this game and you’re not sure anymore if you are willing to wait around until Harry makes his mind up. Not when he doesn’t keep his own rules at least.

“Come on,” you mumble to yourself as you’re trying to open up a new bottle of wine, but the screw just wouldn’t move, no matter what you do. A hand reaches forward and wraps around the neck of the bottle, interrupting your pathetic misery.

“Let me help you.”

You let Harry take the bottle, biting into your bottom lip as you turn around and watch him easily open the bottle you’ve been fighting with the past ten minutes, he grabs your empty glass from the counter and fills it.

“Thank you,” you mumble when he hands it back and you take a sip right away. He places the bottle to the counter, fingers strumming on the surface before he takes a deep breath and speaks up.

“Y/N, I’m sorry.”

“For what exactly?”

“For the way I acted. You were totally right, I called you out for things that I did myself too, that was unfair of me.” He clears his throat, leaning against the counter with his back side as he crosses his arms on his chest. It brings out how toned his arms really are and you give yourself half a second to drool over that before you take another sip from your drink, forcing yourself to keep your thoughts under control.

“Thanks for acknowledging it,” you mumble, not sure what to say exactly. The two of you stand like that in silence, eyes roaming the guests, something clearly weighing down on both of you, but it’s hard to name and address it.

You can tell he is overthinking, the gears are almost visible, turning in that smart head of his, but you don’t want him to go into depths he shouldn’t. He really is making a bigger deal out of the situation that it already is, but it’s going to wreck him.

“Okay, I want to know, what was the worst way someone tried to flirt with you?”

Harry turns to you with a puzzled look, but you just sip on your wine, waiting for his answer.

“Um, I don’t… really keep track of it.”

“Oh come on,” you give him a look. “I know you have a story. I wanna hear it!”

Your eyes meet and he is searching in yours, trying to figure out what’s the sudden change in your mood when an hour ago you were ready to throw him off the balcony. Truth is you are just frustrated, because the situation feels so impossible. You never had to deal with such an amazing man, knowing he is into you as well, but you just can’t have him. The struggle is hard for the both of you but you can’t blame him entirely. Hating on him because he is not willing to take a risk that could easily ruin his entire life but at least his academic career is just not fair and you won’t put him through that.

Harry sees where you’re coming from and he shoots you a thankful smile before it turns into a smirk as he looks down at his hands.

“Professor Davids from the department of linguistics asked me to be her date for her ex-husband’s wedding.”

“What?” you gasp with wide eyes. “For real?”

“Yeah,” he chuckles. “She started swinging by my office all the time, trying to chat me up and then one day she asked if I wanted to go with her, that we would be staying at this nice hotel and all… she really thought it was a good idea.”

“That’s very awkward,” you laugh, entertained by the thought that Professor Davids would go so low when it came to dating. “I assume, you declined the invitation.”

“Faster than ever,” he chuckles making you laugh even louder. “Okay, your turn.”

“What?”

“I told you an awkward story, now it’s your turn.”

“Um, the worst was probably a promposal I got.”

“A promposal?” he asks with a puzzled look, his forehead creasing as he pulls his eyebrows together.

“Yeah, when they ask you out to go to prom.” “Oh, yeah. Didn’t know it had a specific name.”

“Because you are way too British,” you tease him and he just gives you a narrow-eyed look, but you can see the smirk hiding on his lips. “Well, anyway, I was dating a guy senior year, but this other one was convinced he could win me over and take me to prom. He brought a fucking mariachi band to school and gave me a serenade in the middle of the hallway while my boyfriend was standing next to me. He asked me to prom so confidently at the end of the song, like he actually had a shot but it was so painfully awkward,” you laugh at the memory shaking your head and Harry joins, finding it quite entertaining.

“He really did that to himself.”

“He did, I felt bad a little, but what was I supposed to do?”

You slip into telling more and more awkward stories, staying in the kitchen you create a little bubble, the rest of the guests don’t seem to exist as you enjoy yourself with Harry. This is the most carefree and loosest you’ve ever seen him around you and you quite like this version of him. So easy to talk to and even funnier than his usual self.

A little before midnight Sarah runs around with champagne, filling everyone’s glass, getting ready for the countdown. You and Harry join Charlotte, Adam and his wife in the corner of the living room as everyone is slowly getting excited for the last moments of the year.

Looking around you see a lot of couples, holding hands, hugging, clearly planning to snog the moment the clock hits midnight and when you glance at Harry on your right you’re convinced he is thinking about the same thing.

You’re not naïve, you don’t think he is going to kiss you, but you still allow yourself to play with the thought just a little. He is standing so close to you, just the tiniest move and you’d be touching him, skin to skin again, feel him under your—

The thought is abruptly interrupted when you feel his warm palm wrap around your hand, your whole body freezing and for a split second you think it’s just an accident, that his touch will disappear before you could even blink, but it stays there. Harry maneuvers his fingers until they are laced together with yours and he keeps a firm hold of your hand, hanging between the two of you, staying hidden because you’re standing close to each other. Your breath catches in your throat and you’re afraid if you dare to move he’ll let go of your hand.

Another version of yourself would laugh hysterically at how worked up you are right now just because he is holding your hand, but the you that’s actually in the moment is about to burst just by this small touch. You have absolutely no idea what it means or why he chose to do it, but you don’t really care about it. You just want to absorb all the heat you feel coming from him where his palm meets yours, fingers braided together tightly, as if he is trying to keep you next to him, like he thinks you are about to disappear and it’s way of anchoring you to him, but truth is you don’t want to go anywhere.

“One minute, everyone!” Sarah sings in excitement as she turns on the TV and puts a huge clock on the screen that’s counting the seconds as well. You shyly glance to the side, finding Harry standing motionless next to you and when he notices you looking, his eyes meet yours. He looks terrified, like a lost little boy and you can’t tell if he is afraid of your reaction or because of what his actions might bring on him. But you want him to know that you are completely okay with where it’s heading.

“Ten! Nine! Eight!” The countdown begins and you inch closer to Harry so you’re pressed against his side, his body heat radiating into your skin even through the layers of clothes you two are wearing.

Harry leans down the moment you lift your head, his face is so close, it wouldn’t take much for you to finally kiss him, do the one thing you haven’t stopped thinking about for months.

“Y/N…” he breathes out and it’s a tortured plea, he is begging you to stop him from doing something he might regret, but you are dying for him to finally sin. You want him to give it up already, you have absolutely no desire to be the burden that keeps him in his lane. You need him to cross the line and stay there.

“I’m not stopping you, Harry,” you tell him quietly, the urge to close the distance between the two of you is burning inside you.

“Seven! Six! Five!” the countdown continues, but it all tones out, you can only see, hear and feel Harry.

“We can’t,” he whines, closing his eyes as he exhales shakily.

“We can, we just shouldn’t,” you correct him, his eyes snap open and meet yours again. You can tell he is so close to finally giving in and let his feelings and desires take control and you will not try to stop him.

His face inches the tiniest bit closer and his forehead is almost touching yours now, you can see every curly eyelash that frames his gorgeous green eyes that are now filled with fear and nerves.

“Four! Three! Two! One! Happy New Year!” Everyone screams together as the clock finally hits midnight while you just stare at Harry holding your breath, praying that he is finally ballsy enough to take this step.

“Harry, please,” you beg, not too proud of it, but you just can’t take it any longer. His hand is gripping yours tightly as he closes his eyes again and for a second you think that it’s gonna happen. He is going to give up the act and finally kiss you.

But right when the moment is burning the most… he pulls back and your heart sinks.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, his hand lets go of yours and it feels like your arm is ripped off, tears are welling in your eyes.

“Yeah, me too,” you mumble under your breath, chugging down the champagne before making your way through the living room, determined to leave as soon as possible.

“Y/N, wait, where are you going?” you hear him calling after you, but you don’t stop. You get rid of the empty champagne glass and grab your coat from the rack, storming out of the apartment as if you had somewhere to be.

Tears are streaming down your cheeks as you run down the stairs, almost tripping over your own feet. You hear the other pair of feet running behind you and Harry calling after you, but it’s not stopping you.

You push the front door of the building open, but it’s heavy, so it slows you down just enough that Harry can grab your wrist when you are about to start running down the street.

“Y/N, don’t go, let me explain!”

“No!” you snap at him. “I don’t fucking want to hear your explanation! I’m done, Harry! I’m fucking done! I was trying to be patient and respectful, I didn’t want to make it worse for you and let you do your thing, but you kept dancing back and forth and I can’t keep doing this, so I guess I’m sorry too.”

You’re choking on your own words that echo from the walls, the street is almost entirely empty, the world is still celebrating the new year while you’re at your breaking point. Harry stands in front of you, defeated and panic all over his face as he listens to you.

“I will not sit around and let you play your little games any longer, because you can’t make up your mind whether you want me or not.”

“Y/N I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life!” he snaps, throwing his hands into the air. “That’s the problem! This shouldn’t be happening, but I can’t fucking stop thinking about you, I can’t stop wanting you!”

“Then do something about it!” you beg through your tears.

“I can’t!”

“Yes you can!” you scream at him. “You can but you probably just don’t want me enough to actually do it! And it’s fine, but—“

You don’t get to finish your rant because Harry firmly grabs your arm, yanks you towards him and with one swift movement, his lips are crashing against yours.

It all happens so fast but your body reacts before your mind could process what’s really happening, fists bunching a handful of his sweater as you pull him against you, his hands flying up to your face, cupping them confidently as he kisses you hard and demandingly.

It’s like a fucking dam that’s been broken, everything you both kept bottled up and under control just breaks loose and it’s a kind of a wild fight for trying to devour each other now that all lines has been crossed an blurred into nothingness.

He is the dominant one, but you do some pushing and pulling on your own as well. You’re forced to take a few steps backwards, back arching at how forcefully he is pushing forward, lips smacking against each other over and over again, his tongue meeting yours, swirling and dancing around with yours, a shameless moan escaping your mouth.

His hands roam down your sides and you jumps when they reach the back of your thighs, legs wrapping around his waist. He keeps you up easily, fingers digging into your flesh where your butt meets your thighs and this angle allows you to be completely pressed up against him and feel every single inch of his body that burns for you.

It’s beyond anything you’ve ever imagined, you’re not sure it’s because of the build-up that led to this point or simply the chemistry you two got, but it blows your mind, making you question how you could go this long without ever kissing him.

“Harry, I want you,” you moan when his lips move down to your jawline, kissing and biting on the soft skin, tasting you wherever he can reach.

“I want you too, Y/N,” he breathes out resting his forehead against yours before kissing you again.

“Take me home then.”

“Are you sure?” he pants as you run your fingers through his hair and tug on his gently, earning a whimper from his perfectly pink and swollen lips. You love this satisfied dew on his face, especially because you know it’s because of you.

“Never been more sure about anything in my life.”

You unwrap your legs from around his waist and return to the ground, but not without him leaning down to kiss you once more before he grabs your hand and starts pulling you down the street. You spot his Rover right away and start sprinting, Harry following you right behind with a carefree laugh.

Settled in your seats he starts driving, but you can’t keep yourself away from him. His hand that’s not on the steering wheel is gripping your thigh as you lean over the console and start kissing his cheek, jawline and the corner of his mouth as one of your hands runs down his chest until it reaches his pants.

“Love, if you move further down we’re gonna crash,” he warns you with a shaky breath. “I drank a little too and I’m already fucking gone from kissing you, if you touch me I’m gonna lose it.”

You giggle, pressing one last kiss to his lips before sitting back in your seat. You need every bit of your patience and self-control to stay modest on the way back to his place. Hands gripping his you bring it up to your lips, kissing his knuckles gently as he speeds down the empty streets. It’s still barely over midnight, everyone is still celebrating, oblivious to how important this moment is to the two of you.

You really thought this would be the end. When he pulled away at midnight all hope was lost for you and it broke your heart to know that he will never choose you over his better judgment.

It’s your first time at Harry’s but you don’t really care to look around as the two of you make your way inside the townhouse, lips already melted together as you stumble through the dark hallway, not wanting to let go of each other. You successfully make it into his bedroom and Harry turns on the bedside lamp while you’re already eagerly getting rid of your coat and shoes. He does the same, clothes start to litter the hardwood flooring hastily, but neither of you is thinking about them. Harry scoops you into his arms once again, kissing your lips passionately as he bunches your dress up at your hips until he can finally grip the end of it and pull it over your head.

“Oh shit!” you giggle, the turtleneck getting stuck on your head for a moment before you’re free from it.

“That big head of yours,” he chuckles kissing your forehead.

“Shut up,” you smack his chest gently, pushing him down to the bed so you can straddle him, knees on his sides as you sit on his lap, lips meeting again.

He throws his hands up when you start pulling his t-shirt up and once the fabric is off of his body, his arms wrap around you, pulling you close to his chest. Your skin meets his and it feels heavenly, only little clothing separating the two of you at this point.

Harry scoots backwards and then throws you to the mattress, getting on top of you without your lips ever parting. His hips are pushed against yours and you can feel everything through the thin material of his slacks. Without even knowing you grind your hips, your core meeting his erection in the movement and he moans uncontrollably at the sensation.

“Fuck, Y/N,” he breathes against your lips and you can’t push your smirk down at his reaction.

“Yeah, fuck me, Harry,” you tease him before your lips get occupied once again.

His hands work fast. He unclasps your bra without you even noticing, the straps falling from your shoulders before he gets rid of it, throwing it across the room as if it did something against him. When his hungry eyes fall down on your naked chest you see the same kind of torture in his eyes that was there when he was fighting with himself before.

“Harry, stop thinking,” you tell him, fingers massaging his scalp as you lace them through his hair. “It’s fine, we’re fine.”

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he questions again and you pull him down for a reassuring kiss.

“One hundred percent. I want this. I want you.”

“Oh God, I want you so bad,” he whines again, lips kissing down your jawline, neck and collarbone before they attack your breasts.

He cups them, licks and bites them, making you a whimpering mess underneath him every time his tongue meets your hot skin. This man will be the death of you. As he moves down your body, his fingers hook into the waistband of your panties and he glances up at your for reassurance once again, you nod eagerly, lifting your hips so he can easily glide the fabric down and off of your body. Harry sits up, eyes burning down on your naked body lying in front of him as he undoes his own pants, pushing them down his long legs until they join the rest on the floor. You push yourself up when his hands move to his boxers, you want to be the one to take them off. He gladly backs his hands off when you reach out and start tugging them down. He kneels on the bed as you pull the fabric down and his erection finally becomes free, making you ache for him immediately. Once the boxers are out of the way completely you want to reach out to touch him, but he stops you, hands wrapping around your wrist before they could reach him.

Your eyes snap up to meet his darkened gaze, questioning why he stopped you.

“Y/N, I… If we do this, there’s no going back,” he breathes out with a pained look. You push yourself up to your knees so you meet his height, hands cupping his cheeks as you pull him into a sweet kiss that he hesitantly but returns.

“I know what you think about us, Harry, but I assure you, that I’m completely fine with it. But if you don’t want it to happen, we can just… lie here. I’m fine with that too. Kissing you was already such a gift for me,” you smile at him, gently pecking his lips.

“I just don’t want you to wake up and regret it. I’m not pushing you, right?”

“If anyone, it’s me pushing you,” you chuckle softly, a small smile tugging on his lips as well. “You didn’t push anything on me, alright? We are both adults and it’s completely fine. We’ll figure out the rest, I just want to focus on you now. Can I do that?”

Harry nods, still looking a little unsure, but you can tell he is starting to settle in his mindset. It’s not just him that worries about the other regretting something. You know how torn up he is about anything that’s about you and though you want him more than anything, you still don’t want to push him into doing something he is not entirely comfortable with.

“Do you want this?” you softly ask, pressing a chaste kiss to the corner of his mouth.

“I do. I’m just—“

“Then it’s all good, Harry. We both want it, nothing else matters for now,” you tell him, wanting nothing else than to finally see him enjoy himself entirely. “Lay down for me,” you tell him, feeling like you taking the lead is a good idea now.

He does as you asked him to, lying down on the mattress, head sinking into his pillow as he blinks up at you, watching you swing a leg over him before settling to sit on his thighs.

“Can I touch you?” you ask, wanting to make sure he feels completely comfortable with you. Pleasing him is your number one priority right now. He nods, lips parting as he watches your hand reach out and wrap around the base of his erected length. He whimpers under your touch, his eyes fall closed when you gently pump him a few times, his cock fits so well in your palms, like pieces of a puzzle.

Leaning down you kiss his fern tattoos on each sides of his hips before placing one to his leaking tip, sliding your hands to the base before you slowly and gradually take him into your mouth.

You’re not planning to make him cum with your mouth, but you’ve been dying to taste him and it’s just as good as you imagined. The way his body reacts to your touch, the noises that leave his kissable lips, this man is completely out of this world and you want to explore every inch of his body.

You bob your head a couple of times, just enough to wet his length and work him up for what’s coming next. When you let him go of your mouth and you move a little up on his body so that his cock can be lined up with your hole, you look at him to see if he is still down to continue. One hand holding his cock, the other one flat on his naked chest, you ask him a question with your eyes that he answers with his hands squeezing your hips.

“I have the implant. Do you want to put on a condom?” you ask him at last.

“I trust you,” he breathes out. “Do you want me to put one on?”

“I want to feel you,” you tell him shaking your head.

“Okay,” he nods so it’s settled.

Leaning down you peck his lips one last time before you push the head inside and then slowly ease yourself down on his throbbing length.

“Oh fuck!”

“Harry, oh my God!” you both moan at the sensation of him finally entering you. You’ve had your fair share of sexual intercourses throughout your life, but none of them felt this good. None of them pleasured you this good so fast and easily, just the feel of him being inside you is making you lose your mind.

You start off slow, wanting to feel him just right, get used to his size, but as soon as you feel more comfortable, you pick up a faster pace. His fingers are digging into your flesh at your hips as he holds onto you for dear life, panting and moaning at your motions. He glides in and out of you perfectly, setting your senses on fire practically.

“Harry, you feel so good,” you gasp, getting lost in the feeling. Sex has always been a good experience for you, but with Harry it’s a whole different story. As if he just opened a completely new world you never even knew about before.

“Yeah? You’re gonna cum for me?”

“Yes! Oh fuck!”

Harry pushes himself up, an arm coming around your back as he easily flips the two of you over, your back gently hitting the soft mattress. He holds himself up above you, lips crashing with yours as he starts to do the work this time, thrusting in and out of you, his hips smacking against yours forcefully as you both nearing the end.

“You’re making me lose my fucking mind, Y/N,” he cries out, head falling to the crook of your neck and you wrap your arms around him as a shield, holding him tight against you.

It doesn’t take long after that. He is hitting just the right spots, making you moan his name over and over again as your orgasm slowly devours you and washes over your whole body while he is still relentlessly moving.

“Harry! Oh… Fuck!” you gasp, legs and hands shaking and you clench your muscles around him, throwing him over the edge with you. He falls out of his rhythm, his cock twitching inside you as he moans against the hot skin of your neck, coming undone in your arms.

Nothing has ever felt this intense and mind-blowing and you’re now sure you’re addicted to him, there’s no turning back, not that you want that.

He collapses on top of you, still inside you, his body weighing down on you heavily, but it feels just fine. You run your arms up and down his sides, kissing the side of his head as you are both trying to catch your breath. It takes a few minutes for him to come back to reality with you, he lifts his head and moves to the side so he is not crushing you anymore, but an arm remains thrown over your abdomen. His vibrant green eyes are shining like never before when they meet your tired gaze and cupping his face in your palm you pull him in for a slow kiss where you finally have the time to actually taste him without the rushing of your own needs and urges.

“How are you feeling?” you softly asking, knowing well how major this was for him. You wouldn’t want him to spiral and start to self-destruct because of what just happened.

“I’m feeling fine,” he murmurs lowly, his fingers dancing on your naked side. “Just still a little torn if I did the right thing.”

“You worry too much. We did nothing wrong.”

“Not sure everyone would agree with that.”

“Fuck everyone else,” you chuckle and a smile tugs on his lips as well. “I will not feel bad for having the best sex of my life with a hot as fuck man I’m really into,” you bluntly tell him, earning a smug grin.

“Best sex of your life, huh?”

“Not even ashamed to admit,” you nod into the pillow. “How… was it for you?” you shyly ask, afraid his answer might disappoint you. But Harry pulls you closer until you’re pressed up against his chest, his lips capture yours, kissing you fiercely, making your heart skip a few beats for sure.

“Fucking amazing, baby. Probably the best I ever had too,” he admits, lips brushing against yours as he speaks. A satisfied sigh leaves your lips as you nuzzle against his chest once he has rolled to his back.

Silence comes over the two of you, you’re listening to his steady heartbeat, mindlessly drawing patterns over his chest. Lifting your head your eyes meet his and you can tell he has been thinking hard about what this all means for the future now.

“I’m in,” you simply tell him.

“Huh?”

“If you are thinking that I might not want to do this with you, that I just wanted a good fuck, that’s not what I think of this. If you want to give us a chance, I’m totally in.”

“You think we can make it work?” he quietly asks, his voice barely more than just a whisper.

“Of course,” you smile at him warmly. “You don’t?”

“I do, I’m just… there are so many things that can go wrong.”

“Then… we’ll make them right.”

Harry breathes out through his nose, clearly having a hard time to take it as easy as you do and you wish you could magically make all his doubts go away.

Sitting up you put your hands on each of his sides, looking down at him determined to bring out his confidence in the two of you.

“We just have to be patient and careful until I finish. Then we are basically free. That’s just one more semester. It could be way worse, we can make it work for a couple of months before we can finally do whatever we want. That doesn’t sound that bad, does it?” Harry shakes his head, reaching up he tugs your hair behind your ear before running his fingers down the side of your face.

“So we are really doing this?” he breathes out, a small smile on his sweet, pink lips.

“Well, I’m surely not giving up on this, we came a long way to be here,” you chuckle. “Question is, are you gonna give up on us? On… me?”

“Hell no,” he chuckles softly as he shakes his head. You smile down at him and leaning down you peck his lips tenderly.

“Then… we really are doing this.”

SEQUEL: 🌊 AN OCEAN AWAY 🌊

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