#i love my dramatic french boys

[cassiopeiasdaughter]

august

Theodore Nott x fem!reader

summary: Theo asks you to be his fake-girlfriend but you understand the assignment a little too well. No Voldemort/war AU

warnings: !not proofread! underage alcohol consumption

word count: 4k

ao3 - Theo masterlist

You weren’t mine to lose

Theodore Nott knew that one day he would be asked to marry a pureblooded witch and have a family with her; not because he wanted it, but because that’s what is expected of him.

What he didn't know is that in his 7th year, his father would begin throwing women at him, witches he didn't know and didn't care to get to know.

He did his best to avoid his fathers constant complains and lectures, but time was not his friend and he needed to come up with a solution to his problem or he would soon be marrying a stranger.

You and Theo became somewhat friends during quidditch practice. Neither of you played quidditch but attended your friends practice meetings, since you had nowhere else to go.

You bonded over not being into sports and falling asleep during first period every Monday. You always knew you would find him near corners at parties, watching the crowd but never intending to join them.

You were a pureblooded witch, not part of the Sacred 28, definitely not a blood purist. He liked those things about you, it felt refreshing being friends with someone who did not care about such insignificant things.

You were also kind and thoughtful and always helped him when life felt heavy, that is why he was brave enough to ask you a very important favor.

"Absolutely not!", you shouted

"Shhhhh", students whispered.

Madam Pince walked to you, with a scowl on her face and her hands crossed tightly in front of her,

"Mr Nott, are you and your friend aware this is a library?", she said displeased.

"I am sorry, Madam Pince, it won’t happen again", you whispered fast

"Well that is what I expect of you, next time I hear you, you'll be jinxed off of here.", she replied and walked away.

Theo was looking at you innocently, begging you with his eyes to accept his proposal.

"Theo I will not pretend to date you", you whispered this time.

"Please, it won't be for more than three months, I just need my father to back off!", he explained

"Please, please, please!", he continued, "He will marry me off to a snob French witch, I am sure of it, and then I’ll be forced to have a bunch of kids with her, for the sake of the family line"

"I will end up 30 and more miserable than Snape!", he finished dramatically

You rolled your eyes at that and said, "Firstly, that is a bit dramatic and secondly, if we 'date' there is no way it will be only for three months."

He smirked at that "Well, love, if you wanted to be with me for more than that you could have said so from the start."

You hit him with your notebooks after that and he burst out laughing.

You saw Madam Pince behind him -not so entertained- mouthing "OUT" with her eyebrows raised.

He shouted your name while following you down the hallway,

"Please, think about it.", he begged

"Theo I told you-", you started but were cut off by a figure walking past you.

"Hello there.", says Finn with a smile that could persuade you to do anything he wanted.

Truth is you have had a crush on the boy ever since you met him. He is in a different House than you and you never get the chance to talk to him. You always try to master up the courage during parties but you can never find the right time. He hangs out with your friends but you feel too foolish to admit your crush to them, so you are stuck with greetings in hallways and daydreaming during class.

"Hi", you respond with a blush on your face and an awkward smile.

Finn continues walking; but your mind is stuck on the way he looked at you and his smile and;

"So that is why you won't be my fake-girlfriend."

"I- what?", you turn to find him smirking like an idiot and reply "Shut up", as you walk by him, taking long strides.

"Wait wait.", he says while trying to catch up to you.

"Maybe this can help us both.", he says after running in front of you to stop you.

"How could this help me?", you say back, "Not that I want any help!", you add quickly

"Well in the case that you did want my help, I can - as a teenage boy- testify that jealousy goes a long way."

"Please, jealous? He doesn't even know my name, why would he care if we dated?"

"Along with jealousy, being seen with someone else makes you more attractive", he adds quickly

"That is stupid and disgusting."

"It is the way the world works, love." he smiles deviously "So what do you say will you be my fake girlfriend?" he says as he extends his hand into a handshake

"No" you reply, smacking his hand away.

"I will see you tomorrow for breakfast, I'd tell you to ask Pince, she's a proper catch and your dad would approve, but I’m not sure she'll say yes after what happened today.", you say sarcastically

"Oh you wound me so.", he sighs dramatically "Maybe I'll ask McGonagall with a flock of birds to impress her."

You laugh at that before wishing eachother goodnight.

You lie on your bed thinking about Theo and his proposal; about Finn and how stupid your crush feels. About how stupid boys make you feel, how you wish you had more experience with them, more confidence.

You wished you were one of those people who went out to get what they wanted, the ones who fought for themselves, didn’t sit around in the corners with a comfort blanket draped around their shoulders.

“Maybe this can help us both” he said

Would it honestly be that bad to pretend to be Theos girlfriends for a few months? 

You trusted him and knew he would never do anything to make you feel uncomfortable. Maybe you would have to set a couple of rules to be sure there would be no misunderstandings, but things could work out.

You quickly got dressed the next day and found him eating breakfast alone; like he did every morning, being the first of his friends to wake up this early.

You sat across from him and begun putting fruit and pastries on your plate while he filled your coffee cup; another habit of his.

“I will do it”, you said calmly

His eyes shot up at yours and before he could say anything you let out a hiss of pain and stared at the coffee spilling from the overflowing cup to your hands and plate.

“But-“ you continued more serious now “we need to set up a few rules.”

“I love rules” he replied while drying your hands with a napkin and then switching your plates so he got the drenched-in-coffee one.

"Okay well, firstly I would appreciate it if this arrangement stayed between the two of us- I am not exactly thrilled to be mocked by the whole Slytherin house for the rest of the school year.", you said looking him in the eye

“Easy- done”, he exclaimed “You have to come with me to a Ball and meet my father.”

“I- you should know it will be very awkward”, you said apologetically

“No need to worry, it will take no more than ten minutes, he isn’t a people person, I just need him to believe that I am dating you.”, he explained quickly.

"Fine, I guess, but after we end this won’t he keep on pressuring you? We can’t keep this on forever you know.", you said

"Well, of course not; I just need him to get off my back until we graduate, then I can be free of him."

"Okay then, do we need to pretend at school? Your father won’t be here to see us.", you asked

"Yes, but the children of his friends will be and then he’ll find out Slytherins are terrible gossipers, you know.", he joked

"Fine okay, but we won’t do anything extreme", you said with a serious tone

"Not unless you ask me", he said grinning like the devil (wink wink)

You throw him a blueberry and he laughs before he picks it up and eats it

"What about you and loverboy? How do you want us to approach it?", he asked

Us rolls off his tongue way too easily, you think and feel a flutter in your stomach as you play it back

"Well , I haven’t thought about that, I am not sure I want to do anything really, I just want to forget it even happened.", you awkwardly say

"What 'happened', your feelings? It isn’t exactly something you can control .", he joked

"Don’t be ridiculous. Of course it is; if you are reasonable and smart." you say looking him in the eyes "Anyways, I got too distracted from the constant what if but now I have something else to focus on." you continue

"I can assure you I'll be the best fake girlfriend there is" , you say and smile

"It is a deal then.", he says extending his hand

"Yes.", you say shaking his hand this time.

The pretending started slowly, small touches in front of other students in the library, the Great Hall and on quidditch matches.

Spending weekends at Hogsmeade together, sharing butterbeer and going for walks with his arm behind your back or hands clasped together.

He would lend you his sweater and you would lend him your scarf, the one with your house colors.

He pretended he smelled you in his Amortentia and made a spectacle out of it in class; leaving you a blushing mess.

Eventually the Ministry planned a Ball; and you dreaded every second leading to it.

Theo helped you pick out a gown for it and walked you through the experience of a "Ministry party for the Miserable", as he called them

"Most of them will be boring themselves with talks about work; others will be drinking their boredom away and then there will be dancing. It will be over before you realize it, truly", he calmed you down

You agreed to meet him at the venue and you found him by the door playing with his wand while waiting for you.

"Some boyfriend you are-", you joked and his head immediately shot up to look at you "Making me come here alone, not walking me from the car, what will everyone say?", you said smiling and looped your arms around his, while he stared at you.

"My fair lady you have to forgive me, I will make it up to you." he shook his head and lead you both inside.

He spotted his father quickly and walked towards him. You felt terrified, couldn't exactly understand how a man sweet and kind; alive like Theo could have come from a man like his father.

He looked cold and mean and from what Theo had told you about him he was.

"Father" Theo said in a voice reserved just for his father and introduced you to him.

"I am sure you are familiar with her parents; they have an active role in the Wizarding community.", he said

You smiled at that; at his Slytheirn traits showing up when he needed them most.

"Ah yes, I remember your father in our Charity event a few months back.", he said with his strict voice, "I just wish Theodore would have bothered to tell me back then you two knew eachother."

You smile awkwardly and look at Theo who gives you a tired look.

"As I understand you are seeing eachother; how long has that been going on?", he asks

"A few months; but we have been friends for a few years now", you reply as calm as you can

"And what are your plans for after you graduate? Theo is going to work in the Ministry, I have friends in departments that can show him the ropes", he questions and you try to picture Theo in a Ministry 9-5 job and think it is just wrong.

"Well I am not sure yet; I was hoping to continue my studies and maybe get a master in Potions or Transfiguration. Passing NEWTs is the only thing on my mind right now.", you explain nervously

"Right. Well excuse me, I have to greet a few friends.", he says and leaves the two of you alone, once again.

You both leave out a breath you have been holding for a while.

"Didn't go that bad, right?", you ask

"No, uh it went fine.", he says with a troubled look, "Do you mind if we go outside?"

"Not at all, come on.", you say with a comforting voice and let him lead you outside.

You find a quiet place in the garden away from everyone. Finding company in the stars and each other.

"I hate him", Theo breathes and you don't know what to say back, how to comfort him.

So you take his hand in yours and hold it tightly.

"I am not taking the job at the Ministry, I won't.", he said

"What do you want to do?", you encourage him

He shakes his head before he answers.

"Slughorn offered to write me a recommendation letter, so I can study where he did. If I do well on the exams",

"But my father doesn't care about what I want, has not even bothered to find out.", he scoffs

"Well he can sod right off, respectfully, because he scares me." you say and he laughs

"You'll do great, you are so smart Theo, everything will work out, I am sure of it.", you say holding his hand

"Thank you.", he says smiling, "for everything."

You spend the rest of the night talking about life and the future, with your head on his shoulder and his thumb drawing circles in your hand.

As the school year progressed stress and anxiety were starting to get the best of everyone. Students were either practicing for a quidditch match or studying in the library.

That is why a few Gryffindors decided to host a party, to take a break from studying and celebrate the success that would surely be coming; "very Gryffindor of them" commented Theo.

While getting ready for the party you realized this would be the last time everyone would be having fun together and you felt nostalgia crash on you like the waves that destroy rocks.

What happens after school? You think.

Will you lose your friends? Will you lose Theo? Where will you go? What will you do?

There are questions you don’t know how to answer and that scares you.

Then your mind drifts to Finn and how you never did anything to get close to him no matter how much you liked him; liked because now he is a thing of the past, thanks to Theo you think, who took your mind off of him, kept you company.

Maybe, you think, faking a relationship with Theo made something deep inside you think that it wasn’t pretend. That Theo liked you more than a friend and that maybe you did too.

Did or do?, you think

Did, definitely did. Theo will get a masters in Potions somewhere and you will have to find your place in this world. Liking Theo isn’t something that should be happening right now- or ever with his terrifying dictator of a dad.

You laugh as you picture family holidays with the Notts.

“Knock knock”

You snap out of your thoughts and turn to find Theo leaning on your door, with his hands in his pockets .

“Ready?” He asks

You nod and he extends his hand “After you my lady”

“Shut up” you laugh as you let him hold you

Ronald Weasley waits for you by the portrait of the Fat Lady and lets you inside.

Everyone is dancing, snogging, drinking or doing all of those things together.

"I am going to get us drinks." shouts Theo and you give him a thumbs up as you walk into the crowd, trying to find some familiar face.

Suddenly you feel a hand on your shoulder and see Finn smiling at you.

"Hi!" you beam at him

"Finally decided to let yourself have fun?", he asks playfully

"What do you mean?", you ask

"Well I haven't seen you in a party since you and Nott became a thing, come to think of it, before that you two would always find a quiet corner and stay there together.", he says

Before you get the chance to reply you feel an arm snake around your waist and Theos scent fills your lungs.

"Here you go, love" he says and hands you your drink "Finn, how are you mate?"

"I am fine Nott, preparing for Quidditch finals, nervous about the NEWTs?"

"Obviously, but what can I do besides studying?", he responds.

Awkward silence lays between the three of you. You cant wait to laugh with Theo about it, once Finn leaves.

"You are lucky your girlfriend is such a good listener. I remember once she let me explain the Star Wars films to her without falling asleep or complaining.", he said laughing

"How do you even remember that, it was ages ago", you say surprised

"You would be surprised. Now if you will excuse me, I need a refill."

You watched Finn leave and turned to see Theo looking at you with a calculating look.

"Looks like loverboy is back", he said

"Stop" you say and drag him with you to greet your friends and dance.

After a few hours you both decided you had enough social interactions for one night, so you decided to go back to your dorms.

As you were leaving you spotted Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley, laughing and kissing eachother before disappearing into a broom closet together.

“Ah broom closets; the perfect shagging spot”, joked Theo

“What, you..” you stammer “in a…”

“Shagged in a closet? Yes”, he said smirking at your awkwardness

“Right” you replied

“What, you haven’t?" he asks and you shake your head

“Not even for a dare?”, he continued

“No, Theo I haven’t.” you say annoyed

He laughs and says “Don’t worry you aren’t missing much. Besides, the best shagging spot is the restricted section.”

“You are impossible.” , you say to him as you walk together side by side

“I am joking, nothing tops the comforts of a bed.”, he says jokingly

You remain quiet, I wouldn’t know, you think to yourself.

“Wait” he says “-have you ever?”

“Have I what?” You say annoyed

“Been with someone” he asks

“I, well, have you seen me date anyone, all these years we have been friends?”

“No, but you also never told me you like Finn, so how would I know what else you keep to yourself. "

“Liked, Theo, and can we please forget about that?”, you plead

“Alright I am sorry” he answers raising his hands

“Do you think it is weird I haven’t been with anyone? Yet?” You ask nervously

“Weird? No of course not, why?”

“Well you sounded very surprised, that is all”, you say

“No it isn’t weird, but if you want me to show you what it is like I-”, he said slowly

You hit his arm and cut him off “Shut up, honestly, you can sometimes be so annoying!”

He laughed and said “Sorry”

You continue walking without saying anything before he breaks the silence.

“I think he likes you”

“Nonsense, he talks to everyone”, you say while rolling your eyes

“Well then, he is an idiot”, he responds with a serious tone

You shake your head and laugh

“He really is”, he says again

And as you look up at him you see his eyes deeply focused on yours. The look on his face: something entirely new to you. Up until now you always thought Theodore Nott had shown you his real self, almost every part of him; but the way he looks at you now proves how wrong you have been.

His cheeks are flushed and you are sure if you were to touch him he’d burn you. His usual smirk is nowhere to be found; his lips are relaxed and asking for something; as if they have a mind of their own. His eyes are wandering over your features, not calculating but admiring.

His hand flies up to fix a strand of hair that has fallen in front of your face and gently places it behind your ear.

You look at his lips and at him, lost and surprised.

See you tomorrow, he whispers and before you get the chance to respond he walks away to his dorm.

What happened? you think for the rest of the night

Had you grown closer to Theo these past few months, without meaning to?

Had your feelings shifted and if yes when did that happen?

You felt empty as you woke up the next day. Did you feel for Theo what you had felt for Finn once? A made up scenario showing you what could have been?

No, you knew Theo, the version of him inside your head was the one that already existed.

He is kind and smart; he cares about you, always have; even before this agreement.

He always makes sure you feel safe, never pushes things too far. 

What he said last night, the way he looked at you sends butterflies to your stomach. Would it be that ridiculous of you to think he has feelings for you? 

And if he does have feelings for you, how do you feel about him? 

Is he a friend or something more?

Have you just grown used to the attention he gives you? The pretending and faking.

Or do you want-need it to be real.

You will ruin everything and that scares you.

This is too much thinking before coffee, you think and head to the Great Hall.

You find him then with a mug in one hand and a book in the other, once he sees you he smiles, innocently, not a smirk; a greeting.

And that is enough for you to break down your walls, leave your fears behind.

You want him to smile at you; only you every time he sees you. You want to be with him, not only in front of others, always.

You want to tell him I love you and you also want to hear it from him. You want him to tell you his dreams and encourage yours. You want to spend every night with him and wake up in his arms. You want him to show you what it is like to be cared for, truly.

And that desire is enough for you to shed your fears away, because even if things go bad, at least you've tried; fighted.

"Goodmorning", he says as you take the seat next to him.

You smile at him "Goodmorning"

He fills your mug with coffee like he always does

"I don't want to keep pretending to be your girlfriend.", you say

His face darkens and his smile disappears, "Is it about last night? Did I make you feel uncomfortable, I-"

"I can't keep pretending.", you continue "If you want to be with me we have to stop pretending, I want to be with you for real."

"I-" he is speechless now, playing what you said over and over in his head.

"I am in love with you. And it is okay if you aren't, but I had to tell you. I can't fake it anymore.", you confess

He smiles now and grabs your face to kiss you before whispering in your lips, "Who said I was pretending?"

fin

dividers by the wonderful @saradika

not proofread, sorry for mistakes

#theodore nott #fake dating #Theodore Nott x reader #Theodore nott imagine #theodore nott x y/n #theo nott #harry potter fanfiction

[vanteguccir]

Kiss Cam | Matt Sturniolo

Matt Sturniolo x reader

Summary: Where Y/N, the triplets and Justin are present at the Bruins game, and the Kiss Cam chooses Matt and Y/N to share a kiss.

Warning: None.

Requested?: Yes, by anon and @iammattswife

Author's note: That is my work, I DON'T authorize any plagiarism! | English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there's any grammar error.

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"...I know! Did you see Pastrnak's? It was incredible what he did with the puck!" Y/N commented excitedly to Justin while pressing Matt's jacket tighter around her own body, watching the oldest Sturniolo, who nodded while lightly biting the nail on his ring finger.

"Yeah, Marchand was very agile in that-"

"Oh, it's starting!" Nick's excited shout cut through Justin's sentence, smiling as he still chewed on a piece of his own hot dog, momentarily pointing forward.

Y/N raised her eyes to the indicated point, seeing the pink heart taking up the edges of the big screen, along with some smaller hearts and "Kiss Cam" written in the bottom corner.

A look of amusement took over her expression, exchanging glances with Chris - who was sitting next to Nick -, excited to see the funny and romantic - or disastrous - kisses that would occur during the break of the game.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway and people moving their legs to make room caught her attention. The girl looked over Chris's shoulder, smiling when she saw Matt returning with a tray in his hands that looked heavy, full of things.

"Hi baby, I'm back." The boy sighed dramatically, sitting down, leaving her between himself and Justin, who fished his phone out of his hoodie, alternating his eyes between the device and the big screen.

"Babe, I just asked for fries." Y/N's eyes widened, noticing not only a big serving of french fries on the tray but also two cheeseburgers and two drinks, a Diet Coke - her favorite - and a root beer.

"You only had breakfast today. French fries won't take away your hunger." Matt countered, carefully opening the packaging of all the items so that Y/N could eat them without getting her hands or clothes dirty.

The girl rolled her eyes playfully, smiling and bending slightly to his side, softly sealing Matt's right cheek with her lips before picking up some fries, bringing them to her mouth. Her action was quickly interrupted by her boyfriend, who held her wrist gently.

"Wait, I bought you ketchup." He lifted the package of fries, showing the small closed container with the red sauce inside.

"Oh, thank God." The girl sighed in relief, waiting for Matt to open the lid so she could dip her fries before finally eating them, rolling her eyes in exaggerated pleasure.

Matt let out a breathy laugh, shaking his head. His hatred for ketchup was the same size as Y/N's love for it.

Y/N quickly took the package of fries, turning to Justin and offering, smiling as she watched him fish out some, slowly eating them while observing the arena.

Matt's fingers worked on opening the can of Diet Coke, passing the transparent straw through the hole - knowing that his girlfriend didn't drink anything without one - before opening his own.

Chris and Nick's excited screams caught the attention of them, who quickly looked at the two with wide eyes, surprised by their sudden reactions.

"Matt, look!" Chris leaned over Nick, extending his right arm and slapping Matt's knee as he pointed at the screen with his left one.

Y/N followed the indicated place with her eyes, raising her eyebrows when she saw the Kiss Cam screen showing herself and Matt, Chris's arm appearing as well.

Justin let out a loud laugh, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his bent knees, keeping his eyes forward, not wanting to see his brother and sister-in-law making out right by his side.

Matt pressed his lips into a thin line before shrugging, quickly lifting the tray and passing it to Nick - who caught it instantly. The brunette turned to Y/N, seeing her already looking back at him, an awaiting look in her eyes.

His hands snaked up to her jaw, lightly pulling her closer, slamming their lips in an intense kiss, a surprised sound scaping Y/N's throat. She gave in quickly, closing her eyes and feeling like she could hear her heartbeat pounding in her ears as her cheeks burned, definitely taking on a reddish hue.

Y/N's hands flew to his hair, threading her fingers through the soft strands. Matt ran his warm tongue across her bottom lip, requesting entry, which was granted instantly, deepening the gesture. The girl sighed through her nose in pleasure, intertwining their tongues in a dance, feeling goosebumps rise through her skin.

The crowd was going crazy; excited screams were heard from all sides, some people jumping in their seats, others recording or taking pictures of the screen.

Nick and Chris pretended to be disgusted, wrinkling their noses or playfully closing their eyes with their hands, but matching smiles decorated their expressions. Justin smirked, keeping his eyes fixed on the big screen, shaking his head in amusement.

Y/N was sure their kiss was much longer than the time the camera focused on the two of them - probably already having found the next couple to record.

When the air was running out, Matt slowly pulled away, his eyes still closed as he tried to savor the taste of his girl still in his mouth. His lips were swollen and pink - probably just like hers - while his chest rose and fell with excitement and lack of air.

She sighed deeply when she saw him finally open his eyes, his long eyelashes caressing his cheeks and his blue orbs meeting hers. The girl bit her lower lip at the intense look Matt held, his dilated pupils visible.

"You guys are so disgusting." Nick's voice seemed to wake them from their trance.

Matt rolled his eyes, licking his lips quickly, wetting them. He straightened in his seat and raised his hands, silently asking Nick to give him the tray back.

Y/N cleared her throat, tucking the loose strands of hair behind her ear. She adjusted her posture, rolling her eyes when she heard Nick laughing at her shyness - as if she wasn't just kissing his brother like her life depended on it. Justin shook his head, exchanging looks of mock disgust with Chris.

"You're just jealous because if they had focused the camera on you, you would have had to scream that you don't have anyone to kiss." Matt shot back, instantly silencing them.

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My asks are always open. Feel free to send requests or anything at all 🩷💋

And remember to treat people with kindness always!

~ taglist:

@lustfulslxt @ladybunny44 @worldlxvlys @earth2starkey @remussbitch @freshloveforthefit @il0vebeingdelulu @sturniolowhore @mimi-luvzyu @alorsxsturn @urfavgirllyyyyy @domizzzsstuff @sturnizd @hearts4chris @cupidzsq @dracoflaco @leah-loves-lilies @tylerthecreatorsrealwife @rootbeerworshiper

(If you want to be added to the taglist, please comment here)

#x reader #chris sturniolo #matt sturniolo #nick sturniolo #sturniolo x reader #sturniolo triplets #sturniolo #fanfic #fanfiction #imagine #oneshot #fic #matt sturniolo x yn #matt sturniolo fic #matt sturniolo x you #matt sturniolo x reader #matthew bernard sturniolo #matthew sturniolo x reader #matthew sturniolo #matt x reader #matt au #matt fanfic #matt #matty #fluff #kiss cam #hockey game #boston bruins #justin carey #justin sturniolo

[poeticallyspiteful]

hiii! could you please write a regulus black x potter! reader? maybe something like reg and reader secretly going out and getting discovered by James?

thank you!! have an amazing day 💗💗

his muse (pt. one)

regulus black x reader

fluff / angst

cw: unedited as always 😌, a sex joke but it’s a titanic reference lol, marauders being overprotective, kissing, cuddling, someone may threaten to pull out someone’s teeth and put them on a necklace (it seemed like a very regulus threat), artist!regulus because 🥰

summary: you’re the honorary little sister of the infamous marauders; what happens when they catch you with a certain someone?

notes: hey love, thank you so much for the request!! just so you know, i don’t like to write readers to be related to another character, because i want my readers be able to relate to the ‘reader character’ without altering their preferred fancast for another one based on things like race or ethnicity. that is totally on me for not putting that in my request post and i will do that asap, but i hope you enjoy this anyway <33

more notes: i did get just a tad bit carried away and decided to divide this request into two parts, just to make it less overwhelming for me and y’all as well. anyways, enjoy <333

“oh reggie, paint me like one of your french girls,” you giggled, draping yourself dramatically across regulus’ pristine sheets.

he looked up from his sketchbook, brow furrowed in a way that made you want to kiss him until you both passed out from lack of oxygen.

god, you loved him.

“what?” he asked.

“nothing.”

evan and barty had both left the slytherin dorms, off to some place or another, giving you the perfect opportunity for some alone time with your lovely boyfriend. you’ve made sure to do this at least once a week since you started dating in your fourth year. now that you’ve reached sixth year, the tradition had only grown more cherished; precious were the moments spent with someone you’d been otherwise forbidden to see.

“he’s dangerous, (y/n),” sirius insisted, only just finished with his dramatic act of fake vomiting. you had made the grave mistake of assuming your friend would have a normal reaction upon hearing who had asked you to the yule ball.

“a slytherin, (y/n), how could you?” james moaned, collapsing onto the auto-man like he was faint in the heart. “you have been my little sister all my life—”

“you met me when you were twelve and we are not related,” you corrected.

james feigned offense. “how dare you question our bond? blood does not matter! we are family and that is that, young lady.”

“leave her alone, the both of you,” remus laughed, throwing an arm over your shoulder and pulling you to his chest. “our little girl had to grow up someday.”

sirius looked appalled. “not with my bastard, slimy, death eater of a brother—”

“he’s not a death eater, we’re fourteen!” you exclaimed, pouting dramatically at the older boy. “just one dance, i promise padfoot, if it’s that weird to you, i’ll never see him again.”

you lied.

sunlight peaked in through the curtains, the golden rays hitting regulus in such a way that made him look angelic. so focused on his sketchbook, glancing up every few moments to gaze at you like you were something to be revered.

you sat up in his bed, fiddling with the hem of his sweater that lay around your mid thighs; though you loved to, you rarely got the opportunity to wear reggie’s clothes, given sirius would recognize them in an instant. so, you took advantage of these moments whenever they came your way.

you loved wrapping yourself in the soft, strong, warm smell of him: minty cologne, sea salt, and pine trees. the scent was practically woven in the fabric, making everything feel so much softer, so much more him.

you did have a couple shirts and sweaters you’d stolen over the years, but they remained in your dorm at all times.

well, mostly.

it was a moment of stupidity. a dreary saturday morning, a hogsmeade trip, and you had slept in. naturally, you had to rush out of your dorm to get to breakfast in time; but, you didn’t need to change, did you?

why not wear the sweater you had slept in and save yourself a little time?

so, after changing into more appropriate pants, you made your way down the breakfast and sat in your regular spot; in between remus and james, and smack dab across from sirius.

he noticed his brothers favorite sweater the second you sat down.

“what’s that?”

you’d barely sat down by the time sirius spoke and continued making your morning coffee as the group grew silent around you. finally looking up, you glanced between your friends in confusion.

“what’s what?”

you lifted your sleeve to rub your nose, breathing in quickly through your stuffed up sinuses; stupid fall allergies.

you froze as the familiar sent cooled your insides, eyes darting over to the slytherin table across the great hall.

oh.

that’s ‘what’s what’.

“who’s jumper is that, (y/n)?” james asked, arm draping over your shoulders to tug the sleeve on the other side. “doesn’t look like one of mine—”

“or mine,” sirius chimed.

“or mine,” peter chirped, though you hardly stole borrowed his sweaters anyways (too scratchy).

“it’s mine!”

you were surprised to hear remus’ leap to your defense, as you knew damn well the sweater wrapped around you wasn’t his— still, you weren’t about to question it.

“mhm,” you hummed, taking a sip of your coffee, hoping the boys didn’t notice your shaking hands. “i don’t know what all that third degree was about, but i stole this from moony a month ago.”

“what’re you thinking about, lovely?”

regulus was suddenly just inches away from you, sketchbook tossed to the side, instead opting to look at his muse more close up.

“nothing,” you mumbled, smiling as he dipped down to kiss your collarbone, working his way up to your lips with featherlight kisses that made you wish you could stay with him forever.

though at this point, everything he did made you wish you could stay with him forever.

“you’re beautiful,” he whispered, eyes scanning every curve and point of your face like a work of art; his work of art, his muse.

he’ll never get tired of that word.

you breathed in deeply, the smell of him practically making you glow like some sort of protection charm; you’d never felt safer than you did with regulus near. you felt untouchable with him, like nothing could ever hurt you.

“what are you doing here?”

lovely.

a grating voice to disrupt your already terrible day.

“hey,” severus called. “i’m talking to you.”

you spun around, glaring at the greasy haired boy across from you with as much contempt at you could muster. “piss off, severus!” you shouted; you’d never bit back like this before, but the shocked look on his face was worth it. “really, cornering a younger student in an empty hallway? pretty cowardly, don’t you think?”

before you could debate the consequences of your actions, severus’ hand was gripping your cloaks and you were shoved up against the wall.

“you filthy little—”

just as quick as snapes hands were on you, they’d been torn off, and you scrunched to the ground. regulus shoved him up to the wall opposite you.

“defending your little mudblood, huh?”

“shut your filthy mouth about her or i swear on merlins grave, i will rip every single one of your teeth out and put them on a necklace like a string of fucking pearls,” regulus bit, baring his teeth like an emphasis to the threat. “you got that?”

that night, you ended up in a very similar position to where you were in now; wrapped up in your lovely boyfriends sweater, curled in his arms, and having sweet nothings whispered in your ear.

“y’know, i mean it when i say you are beautiful,” he muttered, pressing a kiss to your temple as he spoke, breath fanning over your face. it tickled, but you didn’t care; you just wanted to hear his voice. “breathtakingly gorgeous, inside and out.”

“really?” you teased, nuzzling your nose further into his chest, arms wrapped around his torso.

“really,” he laughed. “i could stay like this forever.”

you pouted, pulling yourself half on top of him. “but my daft friends just have to get in the way, don’t they?”

you hear a gasp from the doorway.

“did you just call us daft?”

#regulus black #regulus black x reader #regulus black x y/n #regulus black x you #marauders x reader #marauders #marauders x platonic!reader #harry potter #regulus black imagine #request #regulus black request

[lewisvinga]

princess of the paddock | esteban ocon x fem! reader / daughter

summary; selina ocon steals the hearts of the paddock during the monaco grand prix.

warnings; suggestive comment at the end

notes; requested !

masterlist !

The flashes of cameras was something that was sure to scare every little child on the paddock. Selina, however, was not like most 3 year olds.

Y/n was quick to notice the sudden lack of a sassy toddler beside her. She felt her heart stop for a moment until she heard a familiar giggle.

Little Selina was busy posing for the cameras. She had her hand on her hip and a pair of sunglasses resting on top of her button nose.

“Selina!” A familiar gasp was heard. Y/n turns around and sees her husband appear beside her with his hands on his hips. “What’d I say to you before leaving today?”

The sassy three year old lets out a huff, crossing her arms over her chest as she walks over to her father. “No leaving Mama for photos.” she mumbles as Esteban leans down to pick her up.

“That’s right, ma ours. [my bear] Now what do we say to Mama?” He asks with a cheeky smile, glancing at his wife.

Y/n had an entertained smile adorning her pink lips. She makes eye contact with Esteban’s mini. The young girl still had her lips pursed up as her father brushes away any loose dark strands from her pale face.

“Sorry, Mama.” The young girl finally gave in.

Before either parent could reply, Pierre suddenly appears in front of them. “Making Princess Selina apologize? Why? She must be allowed to do whatever!” The French driver dramatically exclaims, causing the young girl to let out a laugh.

She reaches her arms towards Pierre and he quickly takes her in his arm. Charles and Carlos noticed the French driver holding onto the mini Esteban and quickly made their way.

“Is that Princess Selina?” The Monegasque says with a wide smile, reaching up to gently pinch her rosy cheeks.

“Duh!” Selina replies with her signature giggle.

Esteban and Y/n share a knowing look. Soon enough, most of the grid was already by Selina’s side just like they predicted. They didn’t know how but she had managed to capture the hearts of the entire grid. But it seemed like a sassy personality and a cheeky smile was key.

Selina was a fiend for attention. Being on the paddock was her favorite thing. She knew she had every driver curled around her finger. Not only the drivers, but the workers for Alpine adored the mini Esteban and were glad to watch her.

Fortunately for Y/n, that meant she always had a baby sitter during race weekends at some point.. Whether it was a driver or engineer or even Esteban’s PR manager, Selina was always with them.

After a long day of playing with seemingly everyone on the paddock, poor Selina was dead tired by the end of the race. It was all a blur for the 3 year old— not like she could remember much anyways.

The weekend was amazing for Esteban. He even claimed 3rd place during the Monaco Grand Prix. Monaco was a place where he would always go party and get drunk despite whatever position he ended in. However, ever since he had his daughter with the love of his life, Esteban opted for a quiet dinner on a yacht.

The sun was still beaming in the distance as the family of 3 finished their dinner. Selina barely got through, managing to fight her sleep so she can mess with her papa. She lost her battle with sleep the moment her papa picked her up and held her in his arms

Esteban laid down beside his wife on the cushioned seat, a sleeping Selina on his arms. Y/n lets out a chuckle, grabbing the throw blanket on the seat and wrapping it around the 3.

“The boys and even the engineers played tag with her all day. I think Lando wasted the most energy on her. Poor girl barely made it to the end of the race!” Y/n exclaims with a chuckle, leaning over to gently run her fingers through Selina’s black waves, the same hair that matched her father’s.

“But we did, with a small 10 minute nap in between. We’re so proud of you, Esteban, so unbelievably proud.”

“If I didn’t have either of you, I wouldn’t be where I am now.” Esteban replies, wrapping his arm around her shoulder and bringing her close. “My beautiful girls, I love you both.” He whispers. He kisses the top of Selina’s forehead before leaning over and placing a kiss on Y/n’a plump lips.

“I couldn’t have wished for a better father for our Selina.”

A comfortable silence fell upon the family of 3. The sun began to set in the back. The view of Monaco was something Y/n adored ever since moving there. It was a sweet moment until something popped up in Esteban’s mind.

“Wanna try for a 2nd? Maybe the same position might get us a sassier one this time.” He says with a suggestive smile.

“A sassier one? I can barely keep up with Selina!” Y/n exclaims with a gasp, lightly slapping his shoulder. “We’re doing any position but the one we did to get her. She out-sasses the both of us.”

“Amour, she out-sasses the entire grid. Have you not seen her with Charles?”

“That poor guy…”

#f1 scenario #formula one imagines #formula one imagine #f1 imagine #f1 x reader #f1 scenarios #f1 fanfic #formula one x reader #formula one scenarios #esteban ocon x reader #esteban ocon scenarios #esteban ocon imagine

[haruhar-u]

“A rose upon you”

Rook x g/n reader, fluff

A/N: damn this is finished earlier than I thought it’s be finished. I did struggle to write his dialogue so I apologize if it’s ooc

edited but not beta read

The first day, it was a red rose that smells vaguely of apples. Then it was a box of your favourite chocolates. The rose had a velvety garnet bow with gold trim around the edges. In gold embroidery was the initial "R.H." Seriously, who is this admirer of yours? You sat on the couch in Ramshackle’s lounge, holding the two items in your hands. Oh, Ace was there too. Your flaming tuna cat and Deuce were out buying snacks at Sam’s. 

"Oooh,” Ace cooed at you in a teasing manner, almost like when in elementary school a boy and a girl get called to the board together, or even in the same group, for that matter.

“Shut up.” You elbowed Ace in the ribcage, not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough for him to get the message at least. You looked closely at the ribbon around the rose, softly tracing your finger over the embroidered initials. Ugh. Everything this person did made your heart race. You weren’t even sure you could think straight.

“Yo, look.” Ace pointed out the embroidered initials. "Obviously, that could be Rook Hunt…..he’s the only one crazy enough to do this anyway.” 

Rook Hunt….? The vice of Pomefiore. You will admit the two of you have gotten oddly close as of recently. He’d always try to help you with your work and would suggest you two go to the oddest places together. Such as the woods. At 3am. Why????

“I’m gonna go on a….walk?” You tell Ace and get off the couch and put on your fuzzy jacket and boots. You all but gently open the door. The icy winter air blasts on your face as you step out, snow crunching under your boot.

You don’t have to trek out much further until you hear someone call out “mon trickster” from the bushes. At this point, you’re not going to question why he was in your bushes in the first place.

“Were you the one behind... well, all this?" You ask bluntly, approaching him with the rose in hand. He steps out to hold the rose in his hand, gazing at the ribbon.

“Of course it was me. I thought you needn’t have to put much thought into it!!” He says all dramatically. “-Name- do you accept my confession of love??”

Your name instead of a nickname in French?! Does that mean he’s more serious than you originally thought? You take a moment to think about it. After all that happened in Styx, the Pomefiore vice was with you every step of the way. He always made sure to check on you to make sure you’re okay, both physically and mentally. Sometimes it’d be by tapping on your window at 3 a.m., but that was his way of showing affection. “I do.” You say when you finally come to an agreement with yourself.

“Magnifique!” He grabs your hand abruptly, causing your heart to skip a beat. “I have so much for you to witness.” He pulls you off into the nearby forest, presumably to read you some poetry. The snow-capped trees looked a lot more inviting with him by your side. Forever and always.

Taglist : @xen-blank @krenenbaker @edith-is-apparently-a-cat @whspermy-name @the-banana-0verlord

#rook hunt #rook x reader #rook hunt x reader #rook hunt x yuu #rook hunt x mc #rook twst #twst x reader #twst fanfic #twst wonderland #disney twst #twisted wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #pomefiore #pomefiore x reader #Brief appearance of ace trappola

[asahicore]

we’ll always have this summer - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader synopsis. Your mom ruins your summer plans by sending you to the equestrian center your grandmother owns in the south of France, wanting you to spend some time away from the city and take a break from your med studies. Although you’d been determined to spend the worst time ever there, you soon find out that maybe the cold but cute horse nerd next door who doesn’t want to talk to you might actually turn this summer into the best one of your life. genre. summer au, strangers to mutual dislike to friends to lovers ig, city girl x country boy type beat, mainly fluff and smut but also angst cause i love pain word count. 25.9k a/n. hi sisters i'm super excited to repost this, it was really fun rereading and editing it, and i hope that all of you who had enjoyed reading it last summer will still like it this time around and that those of you who hadn't read it will enjoy it now <3 i had also posted an sfw version, so if anyone would like that too, pls lmk! ok thats it let me know what u think love you bye

Sunghoon was going to have a very normal, uneventful summer. He would take a very much needed break from his studies and take care of the equestrian center he lives in, letting his parents take a breather and enjoy their summer. He’d wake up early and do everything he needed to, then spend the afternoon on horseback or sleeping in a random field. It’d be a routine his body is used to and likes, and he’d be able to let his worries go for a while. But then, you came along.

You, who’d had big plans for the summer. You, who should’ve been going on a two-week vacation with your friends to Mallorca as a treat for having aced your second-year medical school final exams and as a celebration for getting an internship in the hospital of your choice. You, who would’ve done nothing for those two weeks but sunbathe, read trashy romance novels, and get margarita-drunk at 2pm, and would’ve spent the rest of the summer hanging out with your friends in Paris, your home, and taking day trips to random French cities. This summer would be your last fun, carefree summer before you were thrown into real semi-adult life, and you were going to make the best of it. That’s what you had planned; to your utmost despair, your mom seemed to have other ideas in mind.

“We’ve gone over this a thousand times now, sweetie. You’re going. It’ll be good for you.”

“You know what will be good for me?” you say, close on her tail as you descend the stairs. “Relaxing and having fun with my friends for two weeks. Not cleaning horse manure and having to walk ten kilometers to get service.”

“It’ll be one or two kilometers at most, dear, not ten.” 

“Ugh!” you groan ostentatiously. Your mother only shoots you a don’t-be-so-dramatic look. You glare back at her.

“It’ll be good for you,” she repeats, turning back to whatever was occupying her in the kitchen before you started arguing with her as you plop down on one of the stools at the center island. “You’ve seen neither your grandmother nor the countryside in ages, so it’ll be a nice change. What’s more, they say the best doctors are the ones who’ve done different jobs, you know.”

“Who’s ever said that…” you mutter under your breath, a clear look of distaste on your face. “But anyway, I see Mamie every Christmas at Auntie’s in Perpignan, and even if I didn’t, whose fault is it I never go to the countryside? You never bring me there.”

Your mother lifts her head and looks at you. “I’m too busy to make the journey all the way there. You’ve seen it, there’s two trains and two buses, I can’t do all that. Which is why we settle for Marseille. Direct train, easy. You, on the other hand,” she says, pointing to you with her wooden spoon, “will have plenty of time this summer.”

“Yeah, time I could’ve spent on a beach in Spain or with my friends here!” You know you’re being annoying, but you can’t help it. You really want to go to Mallorca.

She sighs. “I just need you to trust me on this one, honey. You’ll have tons of other summers to do all that. Your grandmother is getting old, so I want you to have at least some memories with her before… you know. I know it’s our fault you didn’t see her more often, so this is our way of making up for it!”

Your father walks in the kitchen, materializing out of nowhere as he often does. “Your mother’s right, you know.” They both peer down at you, and you know then you really don’t get a say in this. “I had an amazing bond with my grandfather, and I want for you to have something similar with your grandmother. She’s the only grandparent you’ve got left, and I promise you, you don’t want to let that go to waste.” You still don’t look fully convinced, so he adds, “Plus, you already get along well, right? You always talk lots when you see each other at Christmas.”

Your father does have a point. You know the problem isn’t being with your grandmother, anyway. Truth be told, you were quite looking forward to spending more time with her. She had a great sense of fashion, and you were sure she had many stories to tell you. It was the fact that you had to spend your summer in a godforsaken town of Southern France where the nearest town was seven kilometers away and the nearest city almost a forty-minute drive. Where you lived in Paris, you had everything you needed in a five-minute walk radius, and you just needed to hop on the Metro or the train to go anywhere else. And it was an equestrian center, of all places. You didn’t even like horses.

“Also,” your mother starts, dragging out the vowel, “the family that lives in the house next door has a boy your age. I heard he’s cute.” She wiggles her eyebrows and you groan at her, which just makes your parents laugh more. You don’t want to stereotype, but you highly doubt a boy who lives in an equestrian center in the middle of God-knows-where is anywhere as handsome as the boys you see everywhere in the capital city. Hot people live in cities; to you, that’s always been a fact.

And as if a stupid boy could make this any better anyway.

-

Your mother wasn’t lying when she said the journey was long. You took the Metro from your apartment to the train station, then a rapid train to Perpignan, a regional train to Argelès, and a bus to the town of Laroque-des-Albères. And that wasn’t even it - there could’ve been a second bus, but your grandmother had arranged for the neighbors’ son to come and pick you up and drive you to the small commune named La Pierrerie where the equestrian center was. 

To your dismay, there was another thing your mother had been right about; the neighbors’ son being cute. When you get off the bus, you look around the almost empty parking spot with no idea of who you’re supposed to look for. But he must see your lost expression and all your luggage and assume you’re the one he had come to pick up, so he calls out your name. Your head snaps towards the direction of the voice, and the moment your eyes settle on him, you have to hold yourself from gaping at him like a dead fish. For someone who supposedly spends his weekends and vacations outside, taking care of horses, cleaning stalls and doing handiwork, his features are… delicate. The perfect blend of sharp and soft - a round face contrasted by a knifelike jaw, plump lips, his eyebrows forming a straight line over his almond-shaped eyes. But you find roughness on his face is in the crease of his eyebrows as he peers down at you. You haven’t done anything yet, but he already clearly disapproves of you.

There’s a scowl on his face - he may be pretty, but he’s definitely not welcoming. You walk towards him, dragging your luggage behind you, and he doesn’t move to help you until you reach the car, and finally he opens the trunk and hauls one of your suitcase in. 

“Thank you,” you breathe, looking up at him, “um?”

A beat passes as your eyes lock, and he looks so bored you think he might not even bother to give you his name, but thank God he does. “Sunghoon.”

You decide not to let his rudeness get to you and put on a bright smile, but by the time you’re done saying “nice to meet you,” he’s already gotten in the driver’s seat. He starts the car without another word, and your efforts at any sort of conversation are so fruitless that you give up after two minutes of asking questions that are only met with two-word sentences. You can only hope that his family isn’t as unfriendly as he is, otherwise you’d be in for one hell of a summer.

When you arrive in La Pierrerie, it’s almost nine p.m., and you’re exhausted from your long journey and from carrying around such heavy suitcases. Still in complete silence, Sunghoon takes two of your bags and heads towards what you can only assume is your grandmother’s house. You go to follow him, but you soon notice your grandmother and another woman, who you guess is Sunghoon’s mother, sitting at a table, sipping on some lemonade. As soon as they see you arrive, they rush towards you (well, the woman does - your grandmother walks as fast as she can), helping you with the rest of your baggage. They kiss you on both cheeks as a greeting, starting from the right but you’re used to starting from the left, which almost makes your lips bump into each other. Thankfully, they laugh it off, and you make sure to remember the local custom to avoid future potentially awkward encounters.

The woman introduces herself as Mrs Park and tells you she lived next-door to your grandmother, just like you’d guessed. She says that she’s happy to meet you and hopes that you had a nice trip and that you weren’t too tired for the meal she and your grandmother had prepared for tonight. You like her instantly - her kind eyes and warm smile make you feel at home right away. 

Your grandmother hugs you too, and you had to admit it felt nice seeing her after such a long time. Such a sweet welcome revives you a bit, and a nagging voice in your head tells you, see, this isn’t that bad, this summer might be good after all, but you quickly shut it down. Your stubborn nature wants you to hate this for at least a little bit, especially after the excruciating car ride you just had to sit through. You won’t show it to your hosts, obviously, because you want to be respectful, but you can at least scowl and curse your parents when nobody’s looking.

There’s no time for awkward silence and looking back and forth between the two women because as soon as the greetings are over, Mrs Park announces she’ll go heat up the food and get the last things ready while your grandmother shows you around her home, which would be yours for the next two months and a half, and lets you unpack for a bit.

Your grandmother’s house is on two floors. The ground floor is basically one big room, which the front door leads directly into. There’s the kitchen, the dining room and the living room. It’s all very open and bright, and you can tell it must be very warm when the sunlight poured directly through the large windows into the room at the right time of day. It’s simply decorated, with furniture that probably hasn’t been updated in a while but that is well maintained and looks cozy enough. Black-and-whites and photographs of fuzzy quality are hung on the wall of the dining room and you’re eager to take a closer look at them later on.

Upstairs are two bedrooms and the bathroom, as well as a mezzanine that’s a few steps lower than the rest of the floor and that looks over the living room. This is where your grandmother keeps her books and her trophies from her past very successful horse riding career. There are a couple armchairs in the corner and a window to bring more light in, and you’re sure this would make an amazing reading nook for late evenings or stormy afternoons. 

Your room is not much more than a double bed, a chest of drawers, a cupboard to hang your clothes in and a few empty shelves. Your grandmother had told you you were welcome to bring any kind of decoration you wanted to make this room yours for the summer, so you’d taken with you a few posters and framed pictures as well as some babbles you liked looking at. She’d picked out some daisies from her garden and made a bouquet out of them, livening up the vase on your bedside table. 

She sits on your bed as you put your clothes away (which you had brought so many of, you weren’t sure there’d be enough room to put them all in) and tells you how she’d come to live here with the Parks. This is something you like about her - she has many stories to tell, each more fascinating than the other, and she’s always willing to tell them.

Your grandmother had actually grown up not too far from here, on the other side of town. Her parents had signed her up for lessons every Wednesday afternoon for a few years, until her instructor recognised her potential and told her she could ride professionally if she wanted. So, she started having two-hour lessons four times a week. When she started winning local, then regional, then national championships, she moved to Perpignan to be taught by more qualified instructors in a more renowned riding club.

Years forward, she got pregnant and her career as a rider was over. When her kids were old enough, she got a job as an instructor and even managed a few athletes of the club in Perpignan, but she continued to visit her old club in Laroque once in a while, as she always did throughout her career. She’d seen it wear down and lose customers over the years to the point that at the end of the nineties, it was under threat of closing down. Her old teacher had long passed and her son and his wife had taken over. This son, who was a bit older than your grandmother, had worked there his whole life, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do - as the only son, he’d had no choice but to stay and take care of the club. However, he hadn’t wanted it to close that way, and he was still desperate to keep the club alive, especially because his own son truly loved it and wanted to take over and manage it once he was done with high school.

Your grandmother, with more money than she needed from her successful career and the inheritance she got from her husband’s passing, offered to buy the club from the Parks and manage its finances while they took care of the horses and of lessons. Her only condition was that she could move in in the other house on the property that wasn’t inhabited and needed a few renovations. They agreed immediately.

Mr Park graduated from high school in 1998, got married to the now Mrs Park in 2000, and they had their first child, Sunghoon, in 2002 - the same year as you. His parents moved out to the city and got new jobs that they liked a lot more while the club, thanks to your grandmother’s donations and Mr and Mrs Park’s hard work, prospered once again. It did help that an Olympic rider sometimes helped out with lessons and gave out advice for aspiring athletes.

And now, here you are, twenty years later, visiting her for the first time since you were probably six. You don’t have many memories from those few times you’d been here, so it was all new to you. Especially that Sunghoon boy, whom your grandmother was sure you would get along with based on how chummy you were back in 2008. When you were both six. You didn’t have the heart to tell her how he had been with you in the car.

“Sunghoon’s a bit shy, but once you get to know him, he’s a really good kid. Very passionate and hardworking. So is his sister Yeji, but she’s got different ambitions,” your grandmother muses.

“Oh yeah? What does she want to do?” you ask, genuinely interested, as you try to somehow fit another t-shirt into one of the drawers. You’d started out by folding them nicely but you’d soon given up and started stashing them into the corners.

“She wants to become a professional rider. Says she wants to become like me,” she explains with a small chuckle. “Well, she’s definitely got what it takes. I got her a spot in that bigger club in Perpignan I told you about, so she goes there after school twice a week, but she still trains here with me every weekend.”

“You give her lessons?” you ask, some surprise in your voice, which makes your grandmother laugh.

“What, you think I’m too old?” she jokes and you shake your head rapidly, but she doesn’t take any offense to it. “I can’t stand for hours and shout like I used to, but I can sit in the center of the riding hall and watch, then tell her what she needs to work on and what she’s doing well. She says it helps her, so I’m happy to do it,” she adds with a shrug. You nod as you open another drawer and decide this one will be for your underwear.

“What about Sunghoon?” You can’t help but ask, a bit curious about him. You doubted you could really chalk up his impoliteness to shyness, but you could still listen to what your grandmother had to say about him.

“He’s more like his dad, wants to take after the club. But he’s a very decent rider, too. If his sister hadn’t said she wanted to go pro so early on, I’m sure he would’ve. You know one thing that’s great about getting old?” she asks suddenly.

“No?”

“You observe people a lot more, and you understand them a lot more too. Well, now that I think about it, it might be just me,” she says, making you chuckle. “I don’t have a lot going on in my life, so I have more time to be nosy and see what others are up to. He’d never admit it, I don’t think, that he gave up on a potential riding career for his sister. He’s the type to make quiet sacrifices, and he loves his sister to death. He’d rather take over the club and watch her be happy than the opposite.”

You nod, an approving expression on your face. “Sounds like a good guy,” you say honestly, surprised that someone supposedly so kind could also be so rude.

“He is. Handsome, as well, by the way, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” she adds, a knowing smile playing on her lips, but you just roll your eyes playfully.

“That’s what mom said,” you reply, not wanting to admit that they are both right on the matter of Sunghoon’s handsomeness. 

Sunghoon’s the one who opens the door when you and your grandmother knock. His expression when he sees you is the same as earlier, but you don’t have the time to ponder over his behavior, because quickly enough, two figures appear behind him. He steps to the side, letting enough space for you to come in, his harsh gaze never once leaving your face. You turn your attention to the figures, namely his father and a young girl who you guess is Yeji, and, thank God, they’re looking at you with wide smiles.

“You must be Y/N!” his father beams, and you nod, returning his smile and saying hi. He kisses you on both cheeks, and this time you remember to start from the right. “Welcome. We’re very happy to have you here, aren’t we, Sunghoon?”

He seems oblivious to his son’s clear distaste of you as he loops an arm over his shoulders, happily shaking one of them under his grasp. “Right,” Sunghoon says, voice monotone. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you reply with a slightly confused tone - what the hell was his deal? Usually, whatever energy someone gave you, you’d give it back to them. You’d have no problem being as rude to Sunghoon as he was to you if only his family didn’t seem so nice.

“I’ll go help Mom in the kitchen,” he announces and walks away. His father turns back to you and gives you an apologetic smile.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just shy. He’ll warm up to you eventually.” You nod, saying it’s okay. 

Yeji then takes a step towards you, introducing herself as she goes in for the usual two kisses on the cheeks. “Hi, I’m Yeji!”

“Hi, so nice to meet you!”

“Me too, I’m really happy you’re here! It’ll be nice being with another girl,” she says, gesturing towards her oblivious brother with a tilt of her head. It takes a lot more effort to be nice than to be rude, you think, side-eyeing Sunghoon in your head.

“Are there not a lot of girls that come here for lessons?” you ask as she leads you inside the house, showing you where to take off your shoes and jumper.

“There are, but they only come here once a week and stay for a few hours, so it’s not the same. I’m stuck with my anthropoid of a brother most of the time,” she says, lowering her voice to make sure only you can hear what she says. You both laugh at her diss; nothing like bonding over hating boys with another girl. You can already tell you’re going to like her.

You ask if there’s anything you can do to help, but the Parks tell you to not worry about anything and sit down. You and Yeji join your grandmother who’s already sitting at the dinner table, and the three of you chat, or rather, you and Yeji chat while your grandmother listens. Or maybe she isn’t listening, you’re not sure. 

Yeji is in her first year of high school. The prestigious riding club she is being taught at doubles as a school, so that’s where she’s been studying for the past few years, and she boards there as well, coming home every weekend unless she’s got important competitions coming up, in which case she stays there for a few weeks. Competition season is about to start, so she’ll be spending most of her time there this summer.

“And do you like it there?”

She looks slightly taken aback by your question, as if she’s not quite used to being asked about that. “I mean, yeah, yeah, I do. It’s nice being able to ride so often, and not having the stress of needing to figure out what I want to do next. But it is… you know,” her voice gets quieter, “a lot of pressure sometimes.”

Sunghoon walks in then, plates and cutlery in hand, and starts setting the table. Yeji’s face lights up at her brother’s arrival, using it to change the topic. “Sunghoon is studying to become a vet. He’s finished his two years of preparatory classes, so now he’s going to a vet school in Toulouse.”

He glares at his sister, but she doesn’t pay him any mind. “He graduated top of his class, you know.”

“Why are you telling her about me?” he interrupts.

Yeji just shrugs. “I’m telling her about us.”

“Well,” he says, putting down a plate in front of you and a fork and knife on each side of the plate, “she doesn’t need to know about me.” You can’t see his face but the cold tone of his voice and his presence right behind you are enough to send shivers down your spine. What the hell is his deal?, you wonder.

You look at Yeji, a confused look on your face, and she rolls her eyes as a dismissal of her older brother’s behavior. “Don’t ask me, cause I don’t know what his problem is, either,” she says, and you can’t help but chuckle.

Mrs and Mr Park walk in then, bringing in the main dish of duck confit as well as roast potatoes, vegetables and some bread. Mrs Park gives you the biggest chunk of meat and a load of sides, saying you must be famished after such a long trip even though you tell her you’d brought things to snack on. She says she’d hesitated between cooking Korean food or a typical French Southwestern dish but had opted for the latter, wanting to welcome you properly in the region. You thanked her and told her it looked amazing.

When everyone is served, you wish each other ‘bon appétit’ and start eating. You’re chewing on your first mouthful of duck and potatoes when Mrs Park asks you what you study. “Your grandmother said you were a med student?” she asks with a smile. Everyone looks at you except for Sunghoon, who only has eyes for his food.

You nod, waiting to swallow before answering, and Mr Park tuts his wife for not letting you eat. “I am. I passed my second year,” you say, earning yourself some congratulations, “and I’m starting my residency in a hospital in Paris next semester.”

“Do you know what part of the hospital you’ll be in?” Mr Park asks.

“We get to do turns, so we can see what we like. We give our school our top five choices, and then they put us in three departments for three months each, and then choose our favorite one based on the offers we get for the summer. I’m in the children’s ward first, then cardiology, then reeducation. We’ll also get to watch over surgeries.”

He nods, humming at your words. “And is that what you want to do later? I mean, work in one of those departments?”

“I’ve got time to change my mind, so I guess it depends how much I like being at the hospital, but I think I’d rather have my own cabinet after some time. I feel like overtime, you build more of a relationship with people, and it’s a lot less stressful, too,” you add with a chuckle.

Mr Park smiles and nods again. “Ah, I see. That’s nice. And would that be in Paris?,” he asks, and this time, it’s his wife that tells him to leave you alone, but you say it’s okay.

“Probably. It’s the city I know best, but nothing is set in stone.”

“You should come here!” Mrs Park perks. “Most people who live here are quite old - no offense, Nadine - ” (“None taken,” your grandmother says with a smile), but we’ve only got two doctors, and one is probably retiring in the next six to ten years.”

“You tell me to leave her alone, and then you tell her to move here,” Mr Park mutters, earning himself a small slap on the arm. They start bickering, and your grandmother just sighs and shakes her head.

“Young love,” she says, making everyone laugh. Even Sunghoon cracks a smile, and you get a glimpse of his dimples. As soon as he catches your gaze, his smile drops, and you turn your eyes away, your cheeks heating up. Yeji starts a new topic and soon enough you’re all chatting again. If it wasn’t for Sunghoon making it very clear he didn’t want you here, you’d already feel at home, just sitting at this dinner table.

When dinner is over, you insist on clearing the table and doing the dishes, saying you felt bad not doing anything. “I need to earn my keep,” you tell Mrs Park with a smile.

She laughs and says, “Oh, no need to worry about that, with Sunghoon showing you the ropes the next few days, you definitely will.”

Sunghoon perks up at the mention of his name. “What’s this about?” he asks, that crease still in his eyebrows. You find yourself wanting to stroke them with your thumbs and brush that frown away, but you quickly snap out of it. He may have a pretty face, but from what you’ve seen, that’s about all there is.

Mrs Park lets out a small puff of air through her nose. “We’ve talked about this, dear. You’re showing Y/N around the club tomorrow and Monday. It’s so you know how everything works before summer lessons start,” she explains, turning towards you.

“Why does it have to be me, though?” Sunghoon almost whines, and you want to scoff at him.

“Because your father and I said so,” his mother says, ending the conversation there, and you’re reminded of your own parents.

Sunghoon looks at you and frowns, so you raise your eyebrows back at him. It wasn’t your fault you were here or that his parents had designated him to show you around, so there was no reason you should make yourself small or apologetic for him. He scoffs and looks away. “Just be outside by eight a.m. tomorrow morning, okay?”

He doesn’t let you answer, just gives you one last hard look and walks away.

-

“Why are you wearing a dress?” Sunghoon asks as soon as you step outside the next morning.

“Good morning to you too, Sunghoon,” you reply sarcastically. You roll your eyes when he doesn’t say anything, just stands there, arms crossed over his chest, so you add, “Because it’s going to be hot today. And because it’s pretty.”

“This is an equestrian center, not a fashion show. You won’t be comfortable. Go put on a t-shirt and some shorts or some leggings. And wear sneakers, not sandals, Christ.”

You scoff and mirror his posture. “You don’t get to tell me what to wear, you know.”

He lets out a dry chuckle and rolls his eyes, a disbelieving smile on his face. “This might be a holiday for you, because it’s sunny and there’s nature everywhere, but this is work we’re gonna be doing. So, for your own sake, wear the right kind of clothes. But if you want to get horse saliva on your dress or step in horse shit wearing those shoes, be my guest.”

You glare at him for a few seconds, realizing that he’s right, and huff out an annoyed “fine,” stomping back into your grandmother’s house. “Be quick!” he calls after you.

You come back out five minutes later, wearing a tank top you usually use for sleeping, a pair of denim shorts and old sneakers your mother had told you to pack. “Took you long enough,” Sunghoon says, a true ray of sunshine, but you decide it’s better to ignore him. He barely talked to you yesterday, but now that it’s just the two of you and he has to, his words are somehow more annoying than his silence.

You stare at him unfazed and ask, “So, what’s first?”

He raises his eyebrows, seemingly surprised, but answers anyway. “Right. Follow me.” He heads towards a part of the farm that is attached to the riding hall and that your grandmother had pointed out yesterday evening as the reception and office area. 

Sunghoon fishes a keyholder out of his jean pocket and slides open the door using one of the many keys he has. He goes to stand in front of a postboard and points to it. “This has the daily and weekly schedule on it. It’s a routine, so things don’t change much, but when they do, we add a post-it to the board. For example, the blacksmith is coming next Thursday to check horseshoes. That’s a post-it. Today, we’re cleaning out all the stalls and adding fresh straw. We do that every Monday, so it’s on the schedule. No post-it.”

“Right. That makes sense,” you nod. “Is that all we do today?”

“We do rounds first, but basically, yeah, because cleaning takes a long time. And Monday is technically our day off. No one comes in for lessons so we use that free time to clean out the stalls.”

You nod and Sunghoon chuckles at you, but you don’t have time to question him about it because he’s already off and you have no choice but to follow him. He leads you to a part of the farm on the other side of the courtyard and pulls out another key, pushing the door open to a wide three-and-a-half-wall room with rings attached to the walls every few meters. Three and a half because behind that space on each side are stalls, as Sunghoon points out.

“This is the prep room, where we get the horses ready before a lesson.”

“What do you do to get them ready?” you ask, looking around the room.

“You clean their coat and their hooves, brush out any tangles in their manes and tails, then saddle and bridle them. The club saddlery is over there,” he says, pointing to a door on your right. “Horse owners have their own stuff in lockers in another room.”

Apparently, you’re not checking out the saddlery today, because Sunghoon is already walking over to the stalls. 

“Hi everyone,” he greets softly. You follow him closely as he walks on one side of the stables, petting each horse as he walks past them or peering over the door to see how the sleeping ones are doing, and then does the same thing on the other side. He greets each horse by name, and even though it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he remembers each and every one of them, it still does. You tell him exactly that, and he chuckles.

“What would you think of a teacher that doesn’t know their students’ names? This is kind of the same,” he explains. He shows you the stacks of hay and straw at the end of the stables, and explains that they bring it here from the fields every once in a while because it’s more convenient, and that this is what you’ll be using later.

When he’s checked that everything is okay, he opens the door on the other side of the room leading outside. On your right stands a huge pile of manure, and you can’t help but make a stank face at the odor hitting you right in the nostrils. Sunghoon chuckles again (can he please stop chuckling at you for no reason?) and reassures you by saying they’re emptying it soon. “The farmers use it for their crops,” he explains.

On your left, there’s another barn that you guess hosts more horses. He gets out yet another key and pushes the door wide open. Light fills the barn instantly, making the dust particles in the air visible, and you hear a few grunts and huffs from the horses - of annoyance at Sunghoon waking them up or of happiness at seeing him, you’re not yet qualified enough to say.

There are two other smaller, one-sided stables next to the riding hall where he takes you and does his rounds again. When he’s all done, you follow him to the riding hall where he opens two doors on each side, that way you can walk through it to get to the pastures in the back rather than walk around the whole center, and takes down the electric cables that serve as an entrance to the pastures. He doesn’t explain any of this, however, so you sort of have to guess. Wordlessly, you head back to the last stables you were in and there, he throws a bunch of what you think are harnesses at you.

“What are these?” you ask dumbly, looking at the thing in your hand.

“They’re halters,” he says, and when you just stare wordlessly, he adds, talking as if it were obvious, “you put them around the horse’s head so you can take them places?”

“Right. Can you show me how to put one on?”

He sighs but obliges; he doesn’t have much of a choice anyway. Not your fault that he’s lived here all his life whereas you’ve encountered a horse maybe three times in your twenty years of life. 

He demonstrates how to put a halter on and watches over you as you practice it on an old and tired-looking white horse. When you manage to do it somehow quickly, he says, “there you go,” and you’re surprised to not hear any sarcasm in his voice. However, when he pats the horse’s forehead, you have a feeling the praise was more directed towards her than you.

You walk side-by-side to the pastures, you with the white horse, whose garrot reaches your shoulder, and Sunghoon leading a small pony in each hand. They have to walk quickly to keep up with his strides and you can’t help but laugh at their cute swaying hips.

“How old is she?” you ask Sunghoon, head tilting towards the horse you’re walking with.

A soft smile cracks on Sunghoon’s lips, perhaps the first smile you’ve seen on him today. “That’s Nellie,” he answers quietly, looking at the horse in question. “She’s turning 20 this December. We were only born a few days apart.”

“Wow, so you grew up together, that’s pretty cool,” you say honestly, and Sunghoon’s eyes settle on you for a few seconds, eyebrows raising a bit as if surprised by your words. 

“Yeah, it is,” he says, looking back in front of him. “My parents taught me how to horse ride with her. And she’s the only horse that belongs to the club whose papers actually state that I’m her owner. All the others have my parents’ name or the club’s on theirs.”

“Ah, so she’s your horse,” you say, looking at Nellie and smiling. You’d have imagined a much taller, handsome and dark-haired horse for him, but this somehow matches as well. It makes Sunghoon appear sweeter, for some reason.

“Yeah,” he says simply, but you don’t miss the small smile on his lips. So maybe there is a way to get to know Park Sunghoon, you think.

Once in the pastures, he shows you how to release a horse safely in case they get excited about being outside and hurt you accidentally or run away. Thankfully, these horses know better than to do that sort of stuff, so it’s very unlikely that anything will happen, he explains, but you’re always better safe than sorry. You head back to the stables in a silence a bit less awkward than before and do the same things with the three other horses in those stables. Not much is said, but you don’t want to force the conversation. He just explains to you that these few horses work well together in the pastures, but that it’s not always this easy.

“Horses have a herd instinct, so they need to be with each other, but also not with anyone. You know how wolf packs have alphas and betas and stuff?” he asks, and you nod. Your friends and you had an obsessive Teen Wolf phase when you were in middle school. “Well, horses kind of have that too, because there’s a hierarchy in their herds. So there’s usually one leader, a mare, and some others that just get along.”

“How do you know which horses get along, though?”

“You just have to observe. You can tell pretty quickly which horses are going to have a leader or a follower type personality. Just put two leaders together, and they’ll clash instantly. It can get pretty bad pretty quick, so the first few times you put certain horses together outside, you really have to watch over them and be careful.”

“That’s so interesting,” you say after a few moments. “I never knew horses to have such complex relationships,” you say, and he smiles.

“Horses are really cool,” he says, and immediately grunts. “That was such a loser thing to say.”

You can’t help but laugh at his self-realization, but quickly reassure him. “No, it’s not. It’s something you’re passionate about, of course you’re gonna find them cool,” you say, and the smile he gives you as an answer shouldn’t make your heart beat that much faster, but it does, and you don’t know how to feel about that. You’re just glad he’s being nice to you - bare minimum, but still, a small victory.

“Time for the hard part, now,” he says when all five horses are happy in the pasture. You follow him to a toolshed where they keep tools, of course, but also two empty wheelbarrows and snacks for the horses like grains, carrots and salt blocks. He tells you to grab a shovel as he rolls out a wheelbarrow and you head back to the stalls together.

There’s nothing complex about shoveling dirty hay and horse shit into a wheelbarrow, but by God is it a draining task. The shovel itself is heavy, so having to pick all that stuff up, heave it back into the cart, and then repeat for who knows how many times is a real burden on your poor back and arms. You definitely let Sunghoon know how hard this is for you, what with all the sighs and loud breaths and grunts you’re letting out. You’ve barely finished cleaning one stall out when Sunghoon is starting his third, and you can tell he’s not happy about it.

“If you complained less, you’d work faster, you know,” he says, that scowl back on his face.

“I can’t help that I’ve never done anything like this in my life,” you chide back, out-of-breath and wiping some sweat from your forehead.

“Yeah? All the hard tasks usually done for you, princess?”

His scowl turns into a small smirk as he looks at you, and you curse your heart for doing a flip when he chuckles at your dumbfoundedness. It’s just a stupid nickname, you tell yourself, no need to get so worked up over it.

“I’ve never had any hard tasks like this in the first place,” you say, moving on to the second stall. “My body isn’t made for it.”

“Well, it’ll have to get used to it.” Yesterday, his mother had also told you you’d get used to it, as a way of reassuring you; but Sunghoon’s words are a far cry from his mother’s, and are more of a threat than anything.

Another few minutes and you’re done, Sunghoon watching you as you finish cleaning your designated stall. You dump everything at the manure pile, then head to the straw pile and fill the wheelbarrow to replace the dirty straw with fresh one in the stalls. And then, you only have to do that four more times. Easy enough, right?

No. Not easy.

The only semi-easy part is taking the horses out of their stalls and tying the rope that are attached to their halter to a ring in the prep room, except some horses are less compliant than others and you end up having to call Sunghoon a couple times so he can take care of them for you.

The whole time you’re heaving manure into the wheelbarrow, you’re complaining. At first, it was the stank that had really gotten to you - as one can imagine, hay infused with horse piss and shit doesn’t smell like fresh linen. But somehow, you got used to it - maybe the physical exertion forced you to forget about the smell and focus on the pain taking over your whole body. 

You huff and puff as you feel the heavy weight of the shovel in your arms and shoulders every time you need to lift it up and bring it back down. The pain in your upper back from years of carrying your backpack on one shoulder makes itself known, and after half an hour you’re whining that you can feel muscle scores coming in your whole body.

“They’ll probably stay for a whole week too,” you mumble to yourself, but still loud enough for Sunghoon to hear.

“You’ll get used to it, I told you. In a few weeks this will feel like nothing.” When you only grunt in response, he adds: “I usually do this on my own, you know. You’re lucky you’re only doing half of the work. Or more like one fourth, with the speed you’re going at.”

“Why don’t your parents or sister help you out?” you ask as you lean against the stall wall, using the distraction of a conversation to take a break.

“My parents already work all week when I’m not there, giving lessons and taking care of the club, so it’s the least I can do to help out on weekends and during my breaks. And my sister already works hard enough at her school so I want her to relax when she’s here,” he replies, never stopping his shoveling.

“But you work hard too, don’t you? I mean, your sister said you were top of your class. You should get a break too.”

His movements halt for a split second only. If your words have any sort of impact on Sunghoon, he doesn’t want to let you know.

“I just study hunched over my desk all week. It’s nice to do something physical, and I don’t mind the time alone.” You’re not sure whether this is an excuse he’s come up with for himself or if he’s telling the truth, but his tone is so final and you understand that he’s done with the conversation, so you pick up your shovel and get back to work. You don’t complain for the rest of the morning.

When you’re finally done with the stalls, you bring back the horses you had walked to the pastures so that others can enjoy the free space and green grass. That’s when you run into an obstacle.

No matter how much you pull, coax, or stare impatiently, this horse won’t budge. Sunghoon rests his back and one foot against the plastic half-wall of the riding hall, chuckling at how awfully you and Dona are getting on. He’s already brought back the other five horses to their stalls and has nothing better to do than be useless, apparently. 

After a few minutes of you trying to negotiate with Dona, to no avail, Sunghoon finally speaks up, just loud enough for you to hear. “Stop staring at her. Horses get nervous when you stare too much.”

You scoff. “But she won’t move! I’m trying to show her the desperation in my eyes!” you shout back, and turn to the horse who only peers at you with empty black eyes.

“Don’t shout. Horses don’t like it when you shout,” Sunghoon simply answers, propping himself off of the wall and taking his sweet time walking towards you. When he reaches you and Dona, he takes the tether from your hands and says, “C’mon, Dona,” without even looking at the horse, who immediately follows, no questions asked.

You stand there dumbfounded and mouth O-shaped as you watch the two of them stride away calmly, running after Sunghoon when your shock dissipates. “Don’t run,” he says when he hears your quickly approaching footsteps, “horses don’t like it when you run.”

“My God,” you say, already out of breath, “how many things do horses not like?”

“Quite a few,” he answers matter-of-factly, although you meant your question more rhetorically than anything.

“How did you do that, anyways?” you ask when your breathing returns to normal.

“Well, mainly, it’s just because she knows me and knows to listen to me,” he explains, turning his head just a bit to look at you as you walk back to the main stables, the sun making itself shy behind the tall trees even though it’s nearing midday. A warm breeze blows, sweeping your ponytail to the side and rustling the leaves on the trees. “But also, horses need to be told what to do, not asked. Your attitude needs to be, ‘we’re going back now,’ not, ‘hey, wanna go back?’” You nod slowly at first, then faster when the words start making sense in your head. Sunghoon wants to make fun of you but finds it sweet that you’re at least trying to understand.

“Right,” you say after a few moments. “It’s not very nice, though,” you add, causing Sunghoon to tilt his head and frown his brows, silently asking you to go on. “Well, I’m sure Dona would like a say in the matter.”

He once again contains his laughter because you look so serious and he doesn’t want to make you feel bad, but ultimately fails and snorts at your comment, making you look up at him, bewilderment written all over your face. “What? I’m being serious!”

“I know you are,” he chuckles, “but don’t worry, Dona doesn’t mind having to go home. And if it was up to her, she’d stay out all night.” 

Sunghoon tells you some anecdotes about the club and its occupiers on your way back, making you giggle at some of the mischievous things the horses have gotten up to. He’s more talkative than this morning which takes you slightly aback, but you’re not going to complain about the change. You were dreading having to spend your summer annoyed at a cute boy you’d have to see every day, so you’re glad his first impression is drastically different from what he’s actually like.

You and Sunghoon part ways a bit before noon, and you plop down on the couch as soon as you get to your grandmother’s house. “Tough morning, huh?,” she calls from the kitchen. You only have enough energy left to hum a small “yes” back. She chuckles at you, then tells you to take a shower before having lunch. You spend the rest of your day sunbathing on a deckchair in the backyard, taking some time to relax before what you’re sure will be a tiring week.

-

One thing you learn during that week and the weeks after that is that Sunghoon has his fair share of fangirls. As a female-dominated hobby, most of the club members are teenage girls who love horses and cute boys.

Tuesday morning before lessons start, he shows you basic things like how to properly groom a horse and how to put their saddles and bridles (which is actually a lot harder than it looks - putting your thumb in a horse’s mouth seems a bit counterintuitive), just in case you ever need to get a horse ready for whatever reason. You’re going to be here for two months, so might as well learn things like these. 

While you help him walk some horses to the pastures, he explains that summer lessons are different in that instead of learners coming once or twice a week, they come all day from Tuesday to Friday and then pass an exam on Saturday morning if they want to. Since both his mother and father teach, they’re able to have two separate groups, one for riders who come for more laidback lessons with games and walks in the fields nearby, and one for those who want to improve their skills in an intense week of both practical and theoretical lessons.

There isn’t much you can do on your own, so after you’ve gone around the stables giving grains to the horses that need them, you join Sunghoon outside in the courtyard as he cleans and greases some saddles and bridles that are starting to wear out. It’s fairly easy to do and he lets you help out, so you sit outside together in silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun on your face. That is, until you start noticing the girls.

You don’t want to pay them any attention, but what with the way they wave shyly at Sunghoon and giggle when he waves back, a smile you can’t describe as anything but dazzling adorning his lips, it’s impossible not to. Some of them even call out his name, saying “hi” in the sweetest way they can. You don’t blame them: had you been fifteen and seen a boy as pretty as Sunghoon, you probably would’ve acted similarly, especially if you got to see him on a regular basis. 

What gets on your nerves, however, is how much Sunghoon enjoys it: you can tell by the smirk that won’t leave his face the whole time or the way he makes them all swoon by remembering their names. Bare minimum, you think to yourself once again, but you don’t say anything. Even if slightly infuriating, it’s also entertaining, seeing Sunghoon enjoy himself this way. You would’ve thought he was the type to want to be by himself at all times, unbothered by anyone, yet here he was, blushing at all the attention he was receiving.

After a girl who had come up to him (sparing you a confused “hi” when she saw your unfamiliar face but quickly turning her attention back to Sunghoon), wanting to know how his year at school had gone, skips giddily away, you can’t help but tease him.

“I can’t believe you’re liking this so much,” you say with a smile, keeping your attention on greasing the leather parts of the bridle.

Sunghoon looks up at you, a semi-offended look on his face. “I’m just being nice.”

“I didn’t know ‘just being nice’ entailed letting yourself be showered in compliments and winking at fifteen year-old girls. Aren’t you turning twenty?” 

“I’m not- I didn’t- Whatever,” he gives up, a pout on his face as he returns to work. You nudge his shoulder, making him crack a smile, and you feel like you won the Grand Prix of something.

Another thing you learn that week is that there’s a lot of going back and forth with Sunghoon. One minute he’s laughing at your jokes and acting like a normal human being, and the other he’s giving you the cold shoulder as if he suddenly doesn’t want you around anymore. Sometimes, these changes in his attitude are so quick, they give you whiplash.

You learn to not pay too much attention to these mood swings, not wanting to create any problems for yourself. He seems to be happy when you ask him about horses, so you often come up with the most random things you can think to ask, and he always patiently answers even the dumbest of questions. However, his patience is much quicker to run out when you complain about any task you’re given, so you settle on glaring at the back of his head.

Thankfully, you’re actually a lot less busy than you thought you would be. Your tasks consist mainly of cleaning the stalls, feeding the horses, and taking care of the ones who are too old or have some kind of illness and can’t be mounted. You bring them to the pastures, where they spend a lot of their time, then brush out the dirt and dust embedded in their fur after rolling around on the ground. These horses are often the most affectionate, gently nuzzling your hands when you try to clean their face and huffing happily when they see you arrive.

You do this a couple times a week and Sunghoon often joins you, bringing Nellie out and attaching the rope of her halter next to the horse you’re taking care of so he can groom her as well. These are the moments when he’s in his best mood and he lets you blabber away, talking about random things and concerns in your life as he listens and nods, sometimes sharing some of his as well, letting you take a peek into his closed-off world. You find that you have actually quite a lot in common, with you being in med school and him in vet school, which are both intense and high-pressure. Yet, there’s always something that’s quite surface-level about these conversations; students will always easily bond about the stress of deadlines and horrible professors. You want to dig deeper, but something tells you that Sunghoon will quickly shut you down, and you’re okay with waiting for a bit. You’re just glad he hasn’t been the way he was with you that first day the whole time and that he’s actually talking to you and even sending a smile your way once every now and then.

You also hang out with Yeji quite a lot. Even though she’s on her summer break, competition season means she spends four days a week at her boarding school to train and the other three days at the club, trying to enjoy her summer like any other normal high schooler as best as she can. She doesn’t say much more on how she feels about training so much, only slightly hinting at her level of stress and fatigue like she had done at the dinner table, and you can tell it’s a touchy subject, so you don’t pry.

It does take your body a few days to get used to being outside in the sun and walking around all day, so your first week at the club, you head home as soon as you’re done with your tasks and take a shower then help your grandmother with dinner, spending your evenings reading or playing Scrabble with her (she’s an impressive player, by the way, and has taught you many words). Every Sunday night, you have dinner with the Parks, although Mrs Park also sometimes urges you into her house at one p.m. with the promise of delicious food.

On your second Wednesday there, however, you feel like going out in the evening. After a really hot week, it had stormed during the night that made Tuesday turn into Wednesday which had made the air feel less heavy and more refreshing, so doing anything was a lot less energy-consuming than it had been before. It’s nine p.m. and the sun is low in the sky when you tell your grandmother you’re going to explore the property some more. You know there’s a path that goes behind the pastures to a forest and that is used for horse rides and walks, so you make your way there and follow it.

The mud is still a bit soft from all the rain of the night and morning and you can tell apart footsteps as well as hoof and dog paw prints. The trees on each side on the path are so full of leaves that they make a sort of arch overhead, barring any of the remaining sunlight from entering and casting a shadow all over, and you wish you’d have brought a thin jumper with you. It feels nice to be outside when the sun isn’t making you feel like your skin will melt right off of your body, though. 

You’ve been walking for about fifteen minutes, stopping here and there to look at a flower or snap a shot of the clouds you can see through the trees when you reach a clearing. It’s completely empty, the trees making way for a vast patch of just grass and small daisies, so of course you see him immediately.

A couple hundred meters away from where you’re standing is Sunghoon on a tall, ginger horse, galloping in circles. You don’t know much about horse riding, but you can tell that he knows what he's doing from the way he holds himself and directs the horse. His back is straight and his legs are pressed against the horse’s flanks, his hips moving in perfect synchronization with the horse’s strides so that he stays seated on its back rather than bounces like you’ve seen many less advanced riders do. The horse’s neck rounds and its head stays down, making its steps light and refined, and Sunghoon holds the reins long and low on each side of the horse’s garrot so he can gallop in a continuous circle.

The sight is breathtaking.

You’d always thought that horses had a certain grace to them, especially such tall and slim horses like the one right in front of you, and Sunghoon, with his perfect stance and control, somehow brought even more of that grace out. It was clear that it took a lot of work and talent to reach such elegance.

Although he seemed highly concentrated on what he was doing, Sunghoon noticed you after a minute of you standing there, all but gawking at him. You see him chuckle as he subtly changes his position on the horse and slows to a trot, heading towards you.

“Hey,” he calls out when you’re within hearing distance of each other. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just… taking a walk,” you say, pointing to the path behind you with your thumb but your gaze not leaving Sunghoon, still wearing an expression of astonishment on your face. “Sunghoon, that was- I mean, just, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You looked amazing,” you say, unable to keep your honesty at bay. If the girls from the club had seen him ride like this, then you were definitely starting to understand why they were so smitten over him - you felt almost starstruck.

He chuckles again and looks down bashfully, hoping the dim light hides his growing blush from you. “Thanks. I wasn’t really doing anything special.”

“Not anything special, are you kidding? I’m serious, that was awesome. It was like- like a figure skater gliding, or like a ballet dancer doing turns or something,” you say, shaking your head in disbelief.

Your grin gets even wider when he lets out a giggle at your words, immediately covering his mouth with his palm when he hears the sound he’s made. He really does have a thing for being paid attention to and praised, you note.

“So you were just on a walk?” he asks awkwardly as a way of changing the subject, scratching the back of his head.

“I needed some fresh air, I guess. Plus, I’ve only been staying in the club, so I thought I’d take a walk around.”

“I can show you around when I’ve got time this week, if you want.” His offer seems to come as a surprise to the both of you, but you nod anyway, grateful for the extended hand.

“That’d be nice,” you say. You’re not sure what’s happening when you two stay there for a few seconds, just smiling shyly at each other, but you don’t hate it. 

“Have you ever been on a horse?” he asks, breaking the silence first.

“Well, just a couple times, but it wasn’t lessons or anything, so I don’t know if it counts- wait, wait, what are you doing?”

A sudden mischievous smile has made its way to Sunghoon’s features as he dismounts, bringing the horse next to you. “Wanna try, then?”

“No,” you say with a pointed look. “No way. That horse is taller than me, Sunghoon, I’m not getting on him.”

“Oh c’mon, I promise you it’s not scary, and I’ll be holding onto the reins the whole time. We can just walk back to the club like this.” His eyes are working hard to convince you, and his small pout makes what little resolve you had crumble.

“Fine. But you better not let go of that horse.”

“I won’t,” he says, and something about his tone makes your qualms dissipate.

You walk over to where he’s standing on the left hand side of the horse and hook your left foot in the stirrup. Sunghoon instructs you to place your hands on each end of the saddle and hoist yourself up. It requires a lot more arm strength than you’d have imagined after seeing so many riders do it effortlessly, but Sunghoon is there to help you up as soon as he sees you struggling, two strong hands coming up to hold you at the waist and lift you onto the horse. You tell yourself it’s the physical exertion and not his touch that renders you breathless.

“Wow,” you say when you look around you, almost two meters above ground.

“Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

A small giggle escapes your lips. “Yeah. Pretty cool.”

“How does it feel? Are you sitting okay? Here, I’ll change the stirrup length so they fit you. Or we can just cross them over the saddle, since you won’t really need them, anyway.”

“No, I’d rather wear them, please,” you say, and your slight anxious tone makes Sunghoon chuckle.

When he’s done adjusting the stirrups for you and made sure you’re comfortable, he shows you how to hold the reins properly and tells you how to get the horse to start walking. “We usually teach beginners that you knock your heels against their flanks, but because Flame has only been mounted by more advanced riders, he might not like that. Don’t panic,” he reassures as soon as he sees your eyes go wide, “just press your calves against him instead of using your heels. Here, see? I’m holding him by the front of the reins, so he won’t run off.”

“Right, right,” you breathe out. Sunghoon’s right there, so there’s no reason to stress about this.

“Good. Just a small pressure from your calves, and we’re good to go.”

Flame is very reactive, already started walking when you’ve barely squeezed your legs against him. With Sunghoon practically directing the horse for you, you realize there’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the ride.

“This feels nice,” you say as you try to get used to Flame’s quick but steady rhythm. Sunghoon’s smile is better than any other spoken answer he could’ve given you. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, you decide to speak up.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Sunghoon replies, looking up at you.

“Why were you so mean to me the first night I got here?”

He seems slightly taken aback by your question, but you get a glimpse of a guilty expression before he looks back down. “Right, sorry about that. I’ve kind of been feeling bad about it all week, but I was scared to bring it up.”

“It’s okay, I’m just curious about the sudden change is all,” you say.

“I just-” he starts, but then seems to think for a bit. “I’m not the best with strangers, for one. Plus, you were going to stay for the whole summer. I’ve built a routine for myself every summer here, and I don’t like it when something, or someone, disturbs my peace. Also, no offense, but I’m not a huge fan of you city folk. So many people at school have this weird prejudice against me for being from the middle of nowhere, so I’ve kind of got a low tolerance for them. So before I even met you, I didn’t really like you. Sorry, that’s harsh.”

You tell him not to worry about it. His words make you understand him a bit more, and you’re glad it doesn’t seem to be anything too personal against you. You tell him to go on and he sighs. “And you know, I talked with my parents and they told me it’ll be nice to have someone else around to help, and that your grandmother always talks highly of you, and that it was stupid to have decided in advance I wouldn’t like you, and I sort of agreed, but I couldn’t bring myself to be okay with it all. It’s like, we’ve been fine all this time, so why bring in someone new? My parents told me that technically this whole property belongs to your grandmother, and that she could bring anyone she wanted, and I couldn’t really say anything against that. But anyway, I told myself that if I just was cold and pretended you weren’t here, that it’d be fine. But then I- I saw you, and…” his words trail off here and he looks down as if embarrassed to say what comes next.

“And?” you pry, too curious not to.

You really have to focus to hear his words because of how low he mumbles them. “And you were really pretty…”

This confession that seemingly comes out of the blue makes your heart swell with satisfaction and you can’t help but tease him about it. “What was that? I didn’t hear you clearly.”

“Oh c’mon, you heard me. Don’t make me say it again.”

“I want you to say it again, though.”

He sighs and gives in. “Fine. I said you were pretty.”

You laugh, way happier than you should be at his words, and he whines at you to not make fun of him. “So you were mean to me because I was pretty? Doesn’t make much sense,” you taunt.

He sighs again, shaking his head a bit as if in disbelief he’s actually talking about this. “It’s just that… I wanted to be nice, I promise you I did, but I just… I’m not even sure myself. I think it just pissed me off even more, because it wasn’t like having to ignore some rando, it was having to ignore a really pretty girl, which obviously I don’t really want to do,” he says, and you laugh again. “But then you ended up being really nice as well and even funny, and I felt like an asshole for being mean. Which I should never have been in the first place, I know. I’m just… bad with strangers, like I said. Not used to them. It’s not an excuse for my behavior, though, so I’m sorry.”

You look at him with a smile and thank him for apologizing. Sadly, it’s a lot more than most nineteen-year-old boys would do, so you appreciate it. You spend the rest of the ride teasing him about how he thinks you’re pretty and how he was really acting like a tsundere, earning a few embarrassed chuckles from him. Something about getting him flustered just gets you going: his shy smile that reveals a pair of dimples and another of fangs, the blush creeping on his cheeks as he looks down at his feet. Too adorable.

When you reach the entrance to the club, he helps you get off the horse, holding you when your knees almost buckle at the impact of your feet against the ground. For some reason, you weren’t expecting to be so high up, even though you had been on a nearly two-meter horse for the past fifteen minutes.

“You know, I could teach you how to mount, if you’re interested,” he says as you brush some horse hair from your leggings.

That’s the second offer Sunghoon makes you tonight; he’s really showing you his nice side now, you realize with a flip of your stomach. You could just say yes, that sounds fun, but instead, you decide to annoy him some more. “Didn’t know I was so pretty that the Park Sunghoon would offer to give me lessons!”

He rolls his eyes playfully and starts to walk away with Flame. “Forget it then.”

You giggle as you catch up to him and nudge his shoulder with yours. “I’d love to.” 

-

From that day on, it’s a lot easier to be around Sunghoon. He still doesn’t let you complain, and you can tell the walls he’s built around himself have only shrunk by a few bricks, but at least his attitude doesn’t flip around anymore. He reveals a side of himself that’s goofier than you’d have imagined, cracking random dad jokes and making side comments that never fail to make you laugh. He’s also quite sensitive to your teasing, always looking away with a blush, mumbling a small whatever at your words, but his shy smile lets you know that he doesn’t actually mind it.

The riding lessons usually happen in between work breaks or at the end of the day, and after a few of them, you know how to get a horse to start, turn, and stop, and you don’t like a complete fool when the horse’s pace goes up to a trot, having mastered the art of sitting and standing at the right time. Sunghoon had shown you a few horses you could practice on and you’d gone for a piebald horse named Picasso whose garrot reached your chin, because the agglomeration of white hairs at the top of his otherwise black head formed a small heart.

Although you’d noticed from the get-go that Sunghoon was nothing less than gorgeous, it hadn’t hit you in the face until now that you could call him a friend, and every time he smiled or that the light hit his eyes a certain way, your heart skipped a few beats. At first, you told yourself that that was it - you found him pretty. That didn’t mean much more than you being able to recognise beauty, and it certainly didn’t mean you actually liked him as anything else than a friend.

That was until this one day, when he was giving you a lesson after everyone had left the club. In the south of France where temperatures often rise to the high thirties in the summer, heavy storms are bound to break out. This was one of those days - it had been raining the entire day, but it had calmed out a bit at the end of the afternoon which was why you had gone ahead with the lesson. However, twenty minutes into it, the rain got heavier again and thunder suddenly rang, loud and resonating in the emptiness of the fields. Horses are generally skittish creatures, and Picasso was no exception, the sound frightening him so much that he took off in a rapid gallop. In less than a fortnight of lessons you hadn’t developed the strong legs and quick reflexes of an advanced rider, and you were unable to keep up with him, falling off of him with a yelp, everything happening in the fraction of a second.

You fell right on your butt, the pain shooting off from there and spreading to your whole body and taking away your breath for three long seconds. You had barely the time to register what had happened that Sunghoon was already next to you, frantically asking if you were okay and telling you to stay still. He pulled his phone out and called Yeji, telling her to come to the riding hall quickly. 

From your peripheral vision you could see Picasso pacing back and forth at the other side of the hall, as if to calm himself down. Sunghoon held you up with one firm hand planted on your back, his other hand resting on your arm as his thumb brushed your skin comfortingly. He helped you regain a normal heart rate by making you mirror his long and controlled breaths, worried eyes never once leaving your face. 

Yeji got to the riding hall in no time and immediately spotted you sitting on the floor and Sunghoon crouching over you, but her brother asked her to please take Picasso back to his stall before she could walk over to the two of you. She nevertheless asked if you were okay and you nodded, trying to give her a faint smile that reassured both her and Sunghoon.

“You feeling better?” Sunghoon asked when your tears had finally stopped falling, wiping away the ones that had rained down your cheeks and reached your jawline. 

You nodded, taking a deep breath through your nose that turned out to be useless when you opened your eyes and realized how close Sunghoon was, face merely inches away from yours and arms wrapped around you, taking your breath away more than the pain had. “Y-yeah, I’m fine, more shocked than anything.”

He let out a chuckle of relief and brushed the hair away from your face, fully putting your heart and lungs out of order. “I’m glad. Falls always happen when you first start out riding, but they’re still really scary. I was worried you got badly hurt for a second there,” he says simply, and before you can even process his words, he asks, “Are you feeling ready to get up?”

You can only nod, looking up at Sunghoon like he saved you from a near-death experience as he helps you up. If he notices your gawking, he doesn’t say anything, and you’re thankful for it. In your three weeks of knowing each other, you’ve been the one to tease Sunghoon and make him unable to say anything. Even just in general, you’re used to being the flirt that makes boys blush - very rarely were they able to do the same to you, even though they all tried their hardest. Yet Sunghoon, without even realizing it or doing it on purpose, had just made your heart flutter and your brain draw a blank. You wished you could blame it on the shock you just had and the pain still making your legs weak, but you’re reminded of all the times a simple smile or passing touch had put you in the same state, and you know you’d be a fool to continue on ignoring them.

It takes you literally falling flat on your ass to realize you have feelings for Park Sunghoon.

-

Unsure what to do with this newfound information, you decide to keep things between you and Sunghoon as they were. You’ll be leaving at the end of August anyway, no need to make things awkward for the remainder of your stay. Although some moments make you wonder if he might feel some kind of way for you too, you try not to think too much of them and enjoy your friendship as is. 

When you’ve reached a level where you being on a horse isn’t a danger to yourself or those around you, Sunghoon keeps his promise of showing you more of the premises and you go on horse rides together, allowing you to discover random creeks and benches that were placed in the middle of nowhere. You go on these a few times a week when you’re all done with your tasks of the day and the raging heat of the sun has somewhat calmed, and to your surprise, you actually really enjoy being out in nature, even though bugs are still a very much unwelcome part of it.

One day he mentions vet school and you’re reminded of your grandmother’s words on your first night here about how it wasn’t particularly what he wanted to do, so you ask him about it. He turns to you with a stunned look on his face. “I didn’t know she knew about that.”

“She told me she noticed a lot of things like that.”

He turns his head again and gazes up at the sky. “Well, she’s not wrong. It’s my parents that wanted me to go to vet school. I’d be happy just taking care of the club and making a living that way, but they say they don’t need my help year round and that it’s better for me to take up a better job.”

“For someone who doesn’t want to do it, it’s very impressive that you’re top of your class.”

He chuckles shyly and a blush appears on his cheeks. “Did Yeji say that? I only got the top grade for a couple of subjects, not all of them,” he says, making you scoff as if to say ‘still, very impressive.’ “And you know, I still like it and find it interesting, and if I’m doing it, might as well give it my best and make my parents proud.”

“Yeah, I get that. My parents are both doctors so there was never any doubt in either their or my mind that I’d become one too, until I started my first year and realized that maybe I could’ve done something else.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

You turn your head to look at him and he mirrors you. “Cause if I’m doing it, might as well give it my best and make my parents proud.”

You both look away with a chuckle. “Guess we’re more similar than I thought we were,” he says, taking you aback, but you’re very glad he thinks that way. You turn to your side, leaning against your elbow as you peer down at him.

“What about a riding career? Had you ever thought about that?”

“God, yeah,” he answers without any hesitation. “My parents signed me up for a few competitions when I was younger, and I won a couple. It made them happy, so I was happy, but I also actually really liked it. My parents never really asked how seriously I wanted to take it, though, and I didn’t say anything, so when Yeji started showing a lot of interest in competitions and becoming a professional rider they focused their attention on her and assumed I didn’t really mind, I guess. I never tried to prove them wrong. As I said, I’d be fine just taking care of the club.” He sighs and pauses for a second. “She was really young when she said she wanted to have a horse riding career, and my parents just ran with it. Now that she’s older and it takes up basically ninety percent of her life, I can tell it’s a lot of pressure on her. But it’s too late to switch places and she’s the same as me, doesn’t want to let down our parents. I just hope she won’t push herself too much, you know.”

You nod, listening intently to his words. “I’m sure you’ll be there to watch over her if she ever does. You seem like a good older brother.”

He smiles and looks up at you. “I try to be.” He reaches a hand up to your face and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. The sudden, unfamiliar and intimate gesture takes you by surprise and as soon as he registers your wide eyes and agape lips he retracts his hand, apologizing. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to be weird, I just- I don’t- I’m sorry,” he stammers, looking away with a blush.

You don’t say anything for a few seconds, too stunned by what just happened, and he looks back at you, calling out your name in a small voice. His worried expression immediately crumbles when you start laughing. “It’s fine,” you say between giggles. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

He breathes out a sigh of relief and smiles again. “Sorry, I just did it without thinking. My friends and family are always super touchy so I’m just used to that sort of thing.”

“I’m the opposite,” you say, and Sunghoon raises his eyebrows. “My parents aren’t very affectionate. I mean, they tell me they’re proud of me, and buy me gifts and stuff like that, but we never hug, or say we love each other. You’ve seen my grandma, right? The only time she’s hugged me in the almost three weeks I’ve been here was the very first day, and that’s because we hadn’t seen each other in six months.”

Sunghoon nods and hums at your words. “Yeah, now that you say that, your grandma isn’t the type to hug, or, I don’t know, pet your hair or anything, even though I’ve known her basically my whole life. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says, and you shake your head.

“No, don’t worry, you didn’t. It was actually… kinda nice,” you admit, looking away from him quickly.

“Really?” he asks with one of the widest grins you’ve ever seen on him, and you can’t believe this is the same boy that glared at you as he opened the door just a few weeks ago. You look at him from the corner of your eyes for a few seconds, trying to hide your smile, but give in and nod.

He opens his arms wide and says, “Come here,” and you look at him in disbelief.

“As in…” you say, pointing with your index finger to his chest, and he nods, blinking slowly. You scoff but do it anyway, resting your head on his chest, and a weird but warm bubble envelops your insides as he circles your waist with an arm and caresses your hair with his other hand.

“Is this okay?” he whispers, sending shivers down your spine.

“Yeah,” you whisper back. “This is okay.”

-

One Friday morning when he’s grooming Nellie and you’re braiding Picasso’s mane, he tells you he’s driving to the city tonight to meet up with his friends. “We’re just going to McDonald’s and then the cinema… and they’re kinda losers, you know, but it’d be fun if you came too. If you want to, I mean,” he offers, his shyness preventing him from looking you in the eyes. When you say you’d love to, his whole face lights up.

The day passes and when the clock strikes six p.m., you walk out of your grandmother’s house and find Sunghoon who’s waiting for you, back resting against his parents’ car. Hands in his pockets and sunglasses on, you can tell he’s trying to look cool and it makes him all that much more endearing to you. He fixes his posture and takes his sunglasses off when he sees you approaching, as if trying to get a better look; he’s seen you wear cuter outfits than tank tops and denim shorts for the dinners with his family but you’ve never worn such a pretty dress, and his heart speeds up at the mere sight of you.

“Like what you see?,” you say when you’re closer to him, twirling around in your dress.

“You look beautiful,” he says, and the look on his face must not be far from the one you wore when you saw him with Flame in that clearing a couple weeks ago.

His honesty makes you a bit shy, and you thank him as you ruffle his hair on your way to the passenger seat of the car. He stands there dumbfounded for a second until you call out his name, getting him back down to reality.

On your way to Perpignan, he tells you about his friends Heeseung, Jay and Jake, and how they all met two years ago. He shared a dorm with Jay and Jake in their first year of preparatory classes, and Heeseung, in the year above, was assigned as his mentor. They all clicked instantly and have been practically inseparable ever since, although they all live quite far away from each other, which is why it’s easiest to meet up in Perpignan when they’re on break from their studies.

“Heeseung’s girlfriend will also be there. Her name is Yunjin, she’s really nice, so if the guys get annoying you two can just talk together.”

“Why, do you guys have a tendency to get annoying when you’re together?,” you ask lightheartedly, making Sunghoon chuckle.

“Not always, but it’s a possibility. They’re nice though, so don’t worry. Jay and Jake especially are outgoing, even though Jay kinda ruins the mood sometimes cause his jokes are just awful. Heeseung is a bit shy though, just don’t take it personal if he like, doesn’t really talk to you or anything.”

“That’s funny, that reminds me of someone,” you say with a smile, unable to stop yourself. Sunghoon just replies with one of his famous whatevers.

It takes you about an hour to get to Perpignan. When you arrive, his friends are waiting outside of the McDonald’s, the boys waving with their whole arms in your direction while Yunjin watches them cross-armed, a smile on her face. “Oh, God,” Sunghoon murmurs, already embarrassed by his friends. “They’re not always like that, I promise,” he says as you walk over to them.

“Really,” you deadpan when they’ve started chanting Sunghoon’s name, watching as his face turns a deeper shade of red.

“Hi guys,” he greets them, bro-hugging Heeseung, Jay and Jake and kissing Yunjin on each cheek. You remind yourself once again to start from the right and not the left, and greet the boys first. They all say “hi, Y/N” and give you their names, and you’re quite flustered that you don’t need to tell them your name.

“Sunghoon’s told us a lot about you,” Jake says with a knowing expression, and you all chuckle when Sunghoon mutters “shut up, Jake.”

You go to greet Yunjin next and you’re surprised when, rather than simply pressing the corner of her lips against your cheek like most people do when they greet someone they’re not particularly close to, she actually kisses your cheek, an extra-friendly gesture. “I was so relieved when Sunghoon said he was bringing a girl,” she confesses, reminding you of Yeji, “I can’t deal with having to babysit these four all the time. Look at them,” she says, gesturing towards the quartet with a nudge of her head. They’re sizing Sunghoon up, ruffling his hair, pinching his cheeks and brushing away invisible creases in his t-shirt as he tries to swat their hands away, to no avail, and you can’t help but laugh at them along with Yunjin.

You all head inside the McDonald’s, getting into pairs of two to pick your order on the giant touch screens. You choose a McChicken, potato wedges and ice tea, and Sunghoon chides you for getting wedges instead of fries.

“People who get those think they’re better than everyone else,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Because we are,” you say with a smile. You touch the screen to get to the payment page but Sunghoon goes back, saying he’ll order too.

“But I need to pay?” you say, looking up at him questioningly.

“I can pay for the two of us,” he says nonchalantly, and you tease him with an ‘ooh.’ “Shut up,” he mutters, already blushing, “just let me do something nice for you.”

“Fine,” you smile, nudging his shoulder with yours a bit. “Thanks. I’ll get the cinema tickets then.”

He turns to you abruptly, his eyebrows drawn in together. “But then that cancels out me paying for this…” he whines, and you give him a look as if to say, “yeah, exactly.” 

“I don’t mind getting the tickets,” he says. “I get paid for my work at the club but I never spend any money, so, you know, I can get this for you. It makes me happy,” he mumbles, avoiding your teasing gaze.

“Thanks, Hoon,” you say, the nickname escaping your lips before you can stop it. He doesn’t seem to mind it; if anything, his blush gets deeper. You think he might end up eternally red at this rate.

“Of course.” He orders a double Big Mac, fries and a coke, and you tease him for getting such a boring meal. “They’re classics for a reason,” he defends himself. 

You swear you’ve never seen him so red and so stuttery as when you get on your toes to press a kiss to his cheek as a thank you for paying, and you think there’s no way he could get any cuter than this. His friends don’t miss it and Jake punches him very obnoxiously in the shoulder as what you can only assume is a weird congratulatory gesture.

His friends are a bit annoying, but in a funny way, so it’s okay. You’re so unaccustomed to their very unique sense of humor that everything they say and do makes you laugh, whereas they’re used to behaving like that and don’t even question their weirdness anymore. Contrary to what Sunghoon told you, Jay’s jokes land with you every time, even when the whole table grunts. 

Most of the conversation, to Sunghoon’s dismay, is spent telling embarrassing stories about him, which his friends have a lot of after having seen him drunk so many times. Heeseung asks you about how it’s been being with Sunghoon at the club, and you don’t really notice the sly smirk on his and Jake’s faces until you’re done answering. You tell them about all the things he’s made you do, but when you notice him about to complain, you add that it’s also been nice, learning how to ride a horse and spending time in the countryside.

“So you’ve seen Sunghoon ride, then?” Jake asks, and Heeseung’s snort tells you it’s not an innocent question.

“Yeah, I have,” you say, but it comes out more a question because their behavior confuses you.

Jake gives you a pointed look. “And, what did you think? I mean, it’s not the coolest sport out there, is it?” he asks, and the way Sunghoon looks down at his half-eaten burger is enough for you to put the puzzle pieces together.

You frown slightly. “Well, I think it’s a lot cooler than running after a ball and pretending like you’re gonna die when you twist your ankle,” you reply, remembering Jake’s mention of him playing soccer. Jay is quick to diffuse the tension when he sees Jake about to bite something back, saying to just talk about something else. You back off and look at Sunghoon, who seems to have completely spaced out and left the conversation. You rest your hand at the top of his knee, his attention snapping back towards you and he gives you a small smile, then turns to his friends and the conversation starts again as if nothing had happened. You’re thankful for it, because you don’t wanna create trouble the first time you meet them and make it awkward, but you really don’t appreciate his friends making him feel like he’s not “cool” because he’s a horse rider; there’s already enough stigma about it being a girls’ sport, he doesn’t need any added pressure from them.

The rest of the meal goes well, Heeseung and Yunjin throwing fries at each other, and the table making fun of Jay for eating his McFlurry so messily. Apart from the horse riding comment and the fact that they love teasing him (which you do too, to be fair), Sunghoon’s friends are nice and make him laugh, so you relax around them once again, although you and Jake exchange a few tense eye contacts. You won’t feel sorry for defending Sunghoon, even if you’ve known him for three weeks and Jake has for two years. 

When you’re done eating, you walk to the movie theater that’s just two minutes away, the boys ahead and you and Yunjin in tow. “I’m really glad you spoke up for Sunghoon earlier, and I’m sure he appreciated it too,” she says, just loud enough for you to hear. “I’ve tried speaking about it with Heeseung, but he and Jake just don’t seem to get that it actually annoys Sunghoon and they say it’s just for fun. I did horse riding when I was a kid, so I know how hard it actually is, and Jay is just a bit more mature than them, so we try to get them to stop, but they still do it a bit. Their humor is basically just making fun of everyone in their group, so sometimes they don’t know when to stop.”

You nod at her words, the situation a bit clearer now. “He should bring them to the club and show them how good he is,” you say. “Or better yet, make them get on a horse so they can see firsthand that it’s not the horse doing all the work like everyone says.” Yunjin laughs and agrees, saying she’d pay to see those boys on a horse. 

You reach the cinema as you make a note to talk to Sunghoon about this later before you can forget. You ask Yunjin what movie you’re seeing, realizing you had no idea, and she rolls her eyes. “I wanted to go see the new Marion Cotillard movie, but the boys said it looked boring, so we’re going to watch some horror movie. I don’t even know the name, but I’m sure it’s just a rehash of the same tired haunted house plot.”

While Sunghoon gets the tickets, you sneak to the food counter and get two bottles of coke and a large popcorn to share with him. He complains that he could’ve gotten that but you shut him up with a tut. 

“Are you good at watching horror movies?” you lean in and whisper when you’re seated and waiting for the movie to start while ads play, and you see him shiver slightly, but that might just be because of the aircon in the theater and not your proximity.

“What do you mean, am I good at watching them? Do you mean if I like them?” he asks, eyebrows slightly furrowed as he looks at you.

“No, I mean if you get scared easily. You can like them and watch them a lot but still get scared. I feel like you’d scream at all the jumpscares,” you add that later part just to tease him, and you know you hit bullseye when he looks away with a scoff, straightening in his seat.

“I guess they’re fun to watch, but no, I don’t get scared. And I’m definitely not going to scream.” He looks down at you with a smirk, his confidence hitting him out of nowhere as it sometimes does. “But I know you will, so feel free to hold onto my arm when you get scared,” he says, and it’s your turn to scoff and look away.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be alright,” you say just as the lights start to dim and the movie starts playing.

It takes a while for the movie to pick up, so the first half hour, you’re not really into it, paying more attention to the way your hand brushes against Sunghoon’s whenever you reach for the popcorn at the same time rather than to what is happening on screen. However, when a ghost with a very unpleasant face suddenly pops out, you can’t keep yourself from jumping in your seat and letting out a small gasp which Sunghoon would’ve made fun of, had he not been twice spooked as you were, the pieces of popcorn he was about to eat discarded somewhere at his feet because of the jumpscare.

You share a look with Sunghoon and when the both of you realize the other was completely bluffing, you burst into quiet giggles. He offers you his arm to hold onto again and you roll your eyes but take it anyway, glad for the reassurance his warmth brings you. You wrap one hand around his bicep and place the other in his hand, interlacing your fingers together, and for once you’re the shy one and can’t look him in the eye, keeping your gaze on the screen when you feel his eyes on you, surprised but pleased by your cute action.

You spend the rest of the movie like this, bodies turning towards each other every time something scary happens on screen as if instinctively going to the other to find comfort. If you weren’t in a public place, you probably would’ve ended up in his lap. Or he in yours, perhaps.

The loss of his warmth when the movie ends and the lights turn back on makes your heart a bit sad, and you already find yourself waiting for the time you’ll get to feel him next to you again. When you walk out of the theater, the sun’s finally set and the sky is starting to get dark. You all walk back to the parking lot, Heeseung, Jay, Jake and Yunjin ahead, talking about the movie excitedly and recalling their favorite scenes, but you and Sunghoon hang back a bit. He’s silent and for a second you’re worried all the hand-holding has made him awkward but when you look up at him, he gives you a smile that calms all your nerves in an instant.

Jake suddenly turns around to face you, walking backwards. “What did you two lovebirds think?” he asks.

“It was alright,” Sunghoon answers. “It had some scary scenes but I couldn’t really get into it.”

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause you two were too busy being all- ow!” Jake starts but is interrupted by a kick in the shins, courtesy of Jay.

“Can you read the room, just once in your life, bro?” he says, and Jake rolls his eyes but turns back around anyway, leaving you and Sunghoon to laugh at his friends’ antics. 

When you reach the parking lot, you say goodbye to everyone, saying it was nice meeting them and you hoped to see them again soon. “If you can, you should try and visit the club at some point, it’d be nice seeing you there,” you tell Yunjin as you hug her goodbye.

The car ride home is silent at first, betraying both your and Sunghoon’s shyness. “Tonight was nice,” you start, wanting to start a conversation after a few minutes of just looking out the window.

Sunghoon responds immediately as if he’d been waiting for you to say something. “Yeah? I’m glad. I was scared you weren’t going to like my friends or something…” he says, glancing at you with a worried expression on his face.

“Well, I really liked Yunjin and Jay…” you trail.

“But?”

“But…” you sigh, too late to turn back, but unsure whether it’s your place to bring this up. “Heeseung and Jake were nice, you know, but that comment they made about you horse riding really brushed me the wrong way.”

“Aww,” Sunghoon coos, and you roll your eyes at his fake saccharine tone. “Did it make you upset for me?”

“It did!” you say, wanting Sunghoon to know you were serious. “Friends shouldn’t make fun of your passions. Plus you’re really good at it, and I’m sure they’d be impressed by you. I talked about it with Yunjin, you know,” you add before he can cut in. “She said it happens all the time and you’re used to it, but it’s not something you should have to put up with. You should have them over at the club some day.”

Sunghoon hums, pouting his lips a bit. “I don’t know… It’s not that big of a deal. It’s how we mess with each other.”

“You looked really down when they were saying those things, Hoon. You’re allowed to say when something bothers you. And if they don’t listen, then they’re assholes. I know you’ve been friends for a while now, and I’m not trying to make you cut them off by any means, but I think you should talk to them. If they’re good friends, they’ll understand and not want to say something that hurts you. At least I hope so,” you say, looking out the window again to hide how upset this truly makes you. Sunghoon’s next words come as a surprise to you.

“Thanks, Y/N.” You look back at him with a questioning look, wordlessly asking him to go on, and he sighs. “I’m sort of used to keeping everything for myself. Taking a step back so I don’t take things personally, not complaining and just doing what I’m told even if it’s not what I want to do, stuff like that, I’m used to it. I just- I don’t wanna bother anyone, you know. I think you’re the first person who’s ever told me I’m allowed to voice things out.”

You don’t know what to say for a few seconds, shocked by this revelation. It’s very fitting of him - sacrificing his potential career for his sister, going to vet school to please his parents but taking care of the center whenever he’s on break. You didn’t know this behavior went deeper than that, and it was ingrained in him to just take it all and never put up a fight.

You say, “You’re allowed to put yourself first, you know. Sometimes, you even need to,” and it’s an unfamiliar breath of fresh air that blows away some of the weight on his shoulders, hearing those words. He chuckles a bit, hoping that the tears pooling in his eyes don’t accidentally overflow.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that, but it’s nice knowing I have the option. Thank you, Y/N,” he repeats, and you smile at him, relieved when he smiles back.

The rest of the car ride goes by in a flash as you make fun of each other for being so scared of the film and jump from topic to topic like frogs bouncing around lily pads, somehow neither of you ever losing track of the conversation. You tell him someone with such a boring McDonald’s order doesn’t deserve to have opinions and he says that of course you’d think that since you chose potato wedges instead of french fries.

Without noticing it, you soon reach the center, and Sunghoon walks you to your doorstep after parking the car. You stand in front of each other at the door, and you seriously feel like the main lead in a teen rom-com, butterflies in your stomach and all the works as you look up at him, expecting a little something.

“So…” he starts, pressing his lips into a flat line to hide his smile.

“So…” you repeat, nudging your foot with his as you both look down.

“Tonight was nice,” he says sheepishly and you can’t help but laugh, him soon imitating you.

“It was. But we’ve already established that, I think.”

“Right.” His gaze finds yours, and the look in his eyes makes your heart feel like it’s on an acid trip. You stare at each other for a few seconds, unable to look away, and you’re about to run off into the house, the tension too much to handle, when his eyes finally drop to your lips. Knowing him, he probably won’t do much more, so you take a small step towards him and raise your lips towards his, closing the distance between the two of you inch by inch, getting closer, closer, closer, until-

“Sunghoon!” Yeji’s voice rings out in the night, taking you aback as you gasp and stumble a few steps back, not wanting her to see you almost devour her brother’s face. Sunghoon closes his eyes and shakes his head, then lets out an exasperated “what.”

“I can’t believe you went to see that new movie without me. I saw it in Jay's story. I told you I wanted to go see it!”

He sighs and looks at you, mouthing a “sorry” before walking towards her, hooking his arm over her shoulders as he walks her back to their house. 

“Sorry, lil sis. We can go watch it together, I don’t mind seeing it again. Also, why do you follow Jay? Unfollow him,” he commands, and after that you can’t hear anything because they’re too far away. You watch them walk with a smile on your face, appreciating their little moment together, and your heart does a little somersault of joy when Sunghoon turns around to wave at you from his door.

-

After that night, you’re more determined than ever to turn that almost-kiss into a actually-happened-kiss. However, your resolve soon seems to have been for nothing when Sunghoon tells you about how he wishes he didn’t have to leave with his parents, but they won’t let him stay, and you’re reminded of the Parks yearly vacation that starts the next day, exactly three days after the night out.

It’s a late Sunday afternoon and you’ve done everything you needed to for that day, so you and Sunghoon went off on a horse ride as you often do, deciding to take a break when you reach a field in which a bunch of haystacks rest. You only had to exchange a look to understand the other immediately, so you tied your horses to a tree and raced over to the closest stack, helping each other get to the top and laying there.

“I wish you didn’t have to go either,” you say, playing with a loose strand of hay peeking out from the stack in the small space between you and Sunghoon.

“You gonna miss me?” Sunghoon teases, grinning as he lightly nudges your shoulder.

“As surprising as it sounds, I think I might,” you say, and from the corner of your eye you see his grin get wider.

“I think I will too,” he replies, and he giggles when he sees you try and fail to suppress a smile. “Actually, I definitely will,” he adds just to see you smile bigger, and it works.

“When are you leaving again exactly?” you ask to change the subject.

“Early tomorrow morning. I still haven’t packed,” he says and sighs.

“We should head back so you can pack,” you say even though you don’t want to do that at all.

“Yeah, we should, but I don’t want to,” he replies, practically reading your mind. “I wanna stay here for a while.”

A small silence settles between the two of you, but it says more than a thousand words. The tension that has been hanging over your heads for a while now but only thickened after Friday night is almost palpable now. You’re laying so close that your arms are almost touching, occasionally brushing when one of you shifts, and if you turned your head, his face would be right there, which means his lips would be right there. Well, one of you is going to have to do something about this tension, you think, and it’s definitely not going to be him.

“Sunghoon?” you call out, turning your head towards the boy next to you. He does the same and your eyes meet. In this late afternoon hour, the sun is right behind you and he has to squint a little bit and use his hand as a shield to look at you properly. He looks a bit stupid like that, but you think he’s cute.

“Yeah?”

The warm feeling that spreads over your whole body at the sound of his voice is what gives you the confirmation that you want to say what you say next, and the courage to do it.

“Can I kiss you?”

His eyebrows raise slightly but he’s quick to hide his surprise and starts grinning instead, revealing those fangs of his you love so much. You have a feeling they’d leave the cutest marks on your skin. “Sure,” he says, letting his eyes drift down to your lips just like that other night.

So you do.

You lean in close enough to press your lips onto his, letting them touch for a brief second before leaning back again. A small pout forms on his lips at the fleeting contact. “That’s it?”

You could just eat him whole, you think. A kiss will have to do. “What did you want?” you ask, trying and failing to hide a smirk.

“That wasn’t a proper kiss.”

“Yeah? What’s a proper kiss then?”

He looks away with a huff. “I’m sure you know what a proper kiss is. Why would you ask to kiss me if you’re not even gonna do it properly…”

“How about you show me then?”

This makes him look promptly back at you, his eyes a bit wider. When he just gulps without saying anything, you add: “Or should I try again? Properly this time?”

He nods, eyes set on your lips. He’d always found them pretty and inviting, and he’d caught himself daydreaming about this exact moment a few times, but now that it was right in front of him, his brain was short-circuiting. All he could do was close his eyes and wait for you.

You find it cute how he screws his eyes shut before you’re even kissing him, making him look like a k-drama female lead during the first kiss scene. You can’t help but smile a little even as you bring your lips to his once again, this time a bit firmer, a bit deeper. He waits for you to move your lips against his before he does so too, but once he’s started, he’s unstoppable.

In fleeting conversations and off-hand comments, you’d learned that Sunghoon had had a couple girlfriends but that it always ended after a few months. When you’d accused him of “virgin behavior” after he did something embarrassing for an almost twenty-year-old, he’d fervently defended himself of very much not being virgin and very much having had sex before, which you’d said was what a virgin would say, but you knew he was saying the truth because he wasn’t the type to lie, especially about this sort of thing.

What was sure was that he kissed you like he knew what he was doing, and he was doing it well. His shy demeanor from a minute ago is completely gone as he tilts his head and deepens the kiss, holding you tight against him. His hands were shy at first, but when yours made their way to his hair so you could gently tug at the strands there, he understood he didn’t need to be so polite. One of his hands found your waist while the other cupped your cheek, his thumb coming under your chin to tilt it up towards him. 

Your lips move against the others’ like you’d done this your whole life, and you’re unable to keep it Disney-friendly for long as your feelings and the fact that you were finally touching each other like you’d been wanting to take over any reason you had left. The kiss turns hungrier, needier, hotter, as if catching up on all that time you lost to dilly-dallying around each other. It’s easy to slip your tongue inside his mouth and you swear you hear him moan when your tongues come into contact, the small sound making your brain turn into mush and giving you one goal, and one goal only: hear him again.

You pull away and press a palm to his shoulder, and he lets you push him down on his back as you straddle his lips, positioning your core right over his growing erection and watching with a smirk as he bites his lips and furrows his eyebrows, humming at the feeling of you against him. You press your lips back against his and note with satisfaction that his movements are messier than before, kissing you mouth open and letting you take full control of the kiss, almost unable to focus on kissing you and on feeling you grind very lightly, almost teasingly against him. Slick pools in your underwear at the angelic sounds he’s making, and you’re very happy he doesn’t seem to be shy about being vocal because his moans are the prettiest sound you've ever heard.

You move away from his lips and trail wet kisses on his cheeks and jawline, moving down to his neck and his Adam’s apple, gently biting and sucking the skin at the base of his throat, enough to make him squirm underneath you but not enough to leave a mark, even though you’d love to, the thought of other girls seeing him all marked up because of you filling you with a sense of pride you didn’t know you could have.

You find his sweet spot at the juncture of his neck and his shoulder, so you kiss him more there, tracing the other side of his neck with your fingernails. He’s so sensitive and those actions alone are enough to have him whine a small “fuck, Y/N, that feels so good,” and you think you might actually go insane with lust for him. 

You’ve just started kissing him on the lips again, his hands holding your hips so tightly you think they might almost bruise your skin and his kisses desperate and needy, when his phone buzzes. Taken aback, you pull away quickly, and he whines at the loss of contact. He goes in to kiss you again but you tut and tell him to check his phone in case it’s important. You note that he does what you say, and you wonder whether that’ll hold up for other situations. You observe him as he unlocks his phone and reads the text, and you curse yourself for waiting until he leaves to do this. You could’ve had him heaving, cheeks rosy, lips slightly swollen and eyes blown out for some weeks now, but your hesitation prevented you from doing anything, and now you’ll have to wait ten more days to see him like this again - that is, if he wants to do it again.

“It’s my mom,” he says with a sigh, snapping you out of your reverie. “She says I need to come home and pack my bag and have dinner.”

You pout at each other and he sits up, wrapping his arms around your middle and nuzzling his face in your neck. The rather intimate action surprises you a bit, but mostly you find it endearing, and it was pretty obvious Sunghoon would be the clingy type. You’re happy he feels comfortable enough around you to show this side of him - plus, it makes him ten times more adorable than he already was in your eyes.

“I want to go even less now,” he murmurs, voice muffled and you giggle at him as you caress his head.

“Same. But ten days will go by quickly, right? And I’ll be right here when you come back,” you say, leaning back so you can cup his face in your palms and look at him, his cheeks a bit squished. “You’re so cute,” you whisper with a smile, and the compliment makes his cheeks heat up but for once he doesn’t look away and keeps your gaze locked in his.

You peck his lips quickly and get off of his lap. “Right, we should go then,” and when he whines in protest, you add, “your mom will be mad, Hoon,” which is enough to convince him.

You head slowly back to the center and walk the horses to their stalls, talking about this and that as you often do, but you grow silent as you near his house, dreading having to say goodbye. The only difference with Friday night is that you’re standing at his door and not yours; the tension and heart-fluttering awkwardness are the same. Well, maybe not exactly the same, because you had your tongue down his throat just fifteen minutes ago.

“You’ll be alright when I’m gone, right?” he asks, taking your hands in his and letting them hang between you two.

“Yeah, I will. Plus, your parents’ friend is coming to take care of the club, right? I’ll help her, and I’ll hang out with my grandma while you’re on vacation and the ten days will be over before we know it,” you say, more trying to reassure yourself than him.

Sunghoon sighs but nods as if trying to convince himself too. “Right.”

“Right,” you repeat, and look up at him with a smile. The thought that this might look completely dramatic to any outsider crosses your mind, but you ignore it because you’re really not looking forward to spending ten days without Sunghoon here. When he comes back, you’ll only have three weeks left, and that simple fact already makes your heart ache.

He takes you in his arms and holds you close to him for a few moments. “Okay. I’ll see you soon, Y/N,” he whispers in your hair. “Don’t miss me too much. But not too little either. Just the right amount,” he jokes, and usually you’d have punched his chest or something but right now all you can do is chuckle. He pulls away and pecks you on the lips, and when you take a step back, he opens the door and waves at you goodbye, then disappears inside the house.

-

Not to be dramatic, but those ten days are probably the longest of your life. The Parks’ friend, Madame Rasson, is nice enough, and you enjoy helping her out and having dinner with her and your grandmother every night, but she’s no Park Sunghoon. You don’t really have the urge to gallop away with her and kiss at the top of a haystack as the sun sets behind you, nor do you feel like a small part of your heart stays with her when you’re not together.

Sunghoon calls you every night under the pretext of wanting to know how the horses are doing, but you know Mrs Park and Mme Rasson are keeping in touch and that he just wants to talk to you. You don’t call him out on it though and let him tell you about his day when he’s done pretending he cares about who did what and who went where. After a few days, as you’re nearing the end of a call, he tells you he misses you then hangs up right after as if he hadn’t been basically crying into your shirt about how much he didn’t want to leave and how much he’d miss you just a few days prior, but you just giggle and text him that you miss him too, which he texts a heart back to.

Yunjin also comes around one day, saying she missed horse riding and wanted to hang out again, so you show her around the club and go on a horse ride together, taking her to all the spots Sunghoon took you to, pointing with a giggle to the spot where you made out. She gasps when she hears that and lightly slaps your shoulder. “You two made out?” she says, surprise and excitement all over her face. You only giggle some more and nod, face heating up.

“I mean, it was obvious it would happen at some point. You guys were giving each other major heart eyes the other day.” You roll your eyes and say you weren’t even though you know you very much were. “Plus, the guys send a lot of voice messages on their group chat and I sometimes listen to them with Heeseung. The way Sunghoon talks about you is so cute it makes me want to throw up sometimes.”

The thought of Sunghoon talking about you to his friends makes your heart jump and swell with pride a bit. “Really? What does he say?” you ask, not looking at Yunjin to hide the stupid smile you’re wearing.

“He just talks about your day and what you guys did, but he’ll focus on a random thing like the way you said hi to the horses or how you ate your food and he’ll be like, it was the cutest thing ever. He doesn’t go into too much detail cause he knows the guys will make fun of him but it’s still really sweet. Heeseung told me he’s never talked about any other girl like that, you know,” she says, looking at you pointedly. “And you probably also know Sunghoon isn’t the easiest to get to know. But he’s clearly let you in, and he really wanted you to meet the boys, so I think he really, really likes you.”

You give yourself a few moments to process Yunjin’s words, but all you can say in the end is “Well, I really, really like him too,” and Yunjin laughs at you.

She stays over for dinner, charming your grandmother with her jokes and willingness to help, and spends the night as well. You two stay up until late talking about your families, school, how she met Heeseung and how cute you and Sunghoon are, and the fact that you have to stay quiet so as not to wake your grandma up makes you want to laugh even harder. When she leaves the next morning, she mentions that she saw the sea was really nearby and asked if you’d been.

“I haven’t yet, but Sunghoon did say he knew a spot and would take me sometime… I’ll ask him about it again,” you say, and she nods fervently, saying she hasn’t been to the beach forever. You hug each other goodbye and you wave at her until you can’t see her car anymore, and you get that empty feeling of being alone again, so you go find your grandmother and bother her with tons of questions which she answers patiently. Five days to go until Sunghoon comes back.

And then these five days are over, and Sunghoon finds you in the middle of the afternoon, taking a nap in your grandmother’s backyard and oblivious to the fact that the boy you like the most is back. He wakes you up by taking your sunglasses delicately off of your eyes and pressing his lips to the top of your head. You frown and open your eyes bit by bit until you recognise the boy hunching over you and then open your eyes all at once, sitting up in your lounge chair and wrapping your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, pulling him down towards you.

“Hi,” he giggles, chin hooked over your shoulder.

“You’re back!”

“I am.” He pulls away to peck your lips, and it’s like he hasn’t even left a day. “I’ll go get changed and check on Nellie and then we can go for a horse ride, if you want?”

You nod excitedly. “Sure. I’ll go get the horses ready.” You both rush to your respective destinations and meet again fifteen minutes later in the grooming hall just as you finish buckling Picasso’s saddle. Sunghoon pecks your lips once more just because he can, and then you’re off.

Sunghoon’s prepared a blanket so you could lie in the grass in the clearing. On your way there, you ask him about his vacation and he admits it was actually really fun. They drove down to Spain, spending a couple days in Barcelona and then a week in a smaller seaside town. In terms of weather and landscape, it wasn’t very different from their hometown, but the food was amazing and the people very welcoming, and Sunghoon and Yeji could finally put their years of learning Spanish in school to the test.

“I took a lot of pictures because there were so many things that reminded me of you or that I thought you’d like,” he admits bashfully, taking out his phone from his bag once you’re settled on the blanket. You rest your head on his chest and rest your hand on the side of his stomach, feeling the vibrations of his laughter against your ear and commenting on the pictures he shows you, giggling when he starts rapidly scrolling through fifteen consecutive selfies.

You try to keep up a conversation but it’s a bit hard to do when his neck is right there, close enough for you to press kisses on or to nuzzle your face in if you just lifted your head a bit, and his skin is soft and warm and you want to feel all of it under your palms. Even Sunghoon, who usually never shuts up when he’s with someone he’s comfortable around, is quiet. His sigh when you trail your hand up from his waist to his shoulder tells you he’s probably thinking the same as you, and as soon as you graze your fingers through his hair, he’s rolled you onto your back and his lips are on yours, kissing you with all the need that’s built up over the past ten days. You have a feeling just kissing won’t be enough to satisfy either of you today.

There’s a sense of urgency to all of your movements, the way all four hands are restless and travel each other’s body tirelessly, pulling on the other’s hair, kneading the skin here, caressing it here. Sunghoon bites down on your lower lip and the action makes you moan, so he takes that opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. Your kisses are open-mouthed and wet and messy, but you wouldn’t have it any other way because they translate all the desire you have for him and you want him to know exactly just how he’s making you feel.

You remember how much Sunghoon likes it when you compliment him, or tease him using your words, so you decide to do just that. When he starts trailing kisses your jaw, then sucking and biting at your neck, leaving tiny marks there, you whisper his name, making him hum. 

“Hoon. I want you so fucking bad.” 

You feel him trembling at your words and he nuzzles his face in the crook of your neck, whining as he continues pressing wet kisses there. He ruts his hips into yours, seemingly more by reaction than deliberately. “Want you too,” he murmurs, and slips his hands underneath your t-shirt, the flesh on your stomach burning everywhere his hands touch it. You lift your arms so he can take the piece of fabric off, and he’s quick to find the back of your bra as well, unclasping it and revealing your breasts to him.

In no time he’s already delving into your body, pretty pink lips circling and sucking on one of your nipples and deft fingers playing with the other, warmth spreading all over you at the intense pleasure he’s finally giving you, wetness already starting to make your underwear stick to your core.

Your fingers find purchase in his hair, pulling whenever it feels particularly good, and he seems to like the pain that comes with it because it’s enough to have him moaning around your nipple. “Fuck, Hoon, that feels so good,” you breathe out. Despite your praise and to your confusion, he pulls away, trailing kisses down your stomach until he reaches your shorts and looks up at you when his fingers are around the button, asking for confirmation to go further. He whispers “thank God” when you nod your head yes.

“Wanna make you feel good,” he says as he drags your shorts and underwear down at the same time, eyes fixated on your glistening folds.

You hold yourself up on your elbows, admiring him and his blown-out pupils and disheveled hair - he’s never looked hotter. “You already were, baby.”

“Wanna make you feel even better,” he says before diving right into your pussy, giving you no time to get used to the feeling as his tongue licks up a long stripe up your folds before finding your clit, alternating between giving it kitty-licks and sucking it. You’re a moaning mess in an instant, pulling even harder at his hair and sometimes holding onto his shoulders as if your body might start levitating at any moment. As if that didn’t already feel good enough, he then adds a finger, and quickly a second one into your hole, his thin and long digits feeling better than yours ever have. He must be some kind of fingering expert because he finds your g-spot in thirty seconds, pressing the sensitive spot again and again until you come apart for him in an embarrassingly quick orgasm, moaning his name and how good it feels like a broken record.

That doesn’t seem to be enough for Sunghoon, however, who doesn’t relent and sends your body into overstimulation until you find the energy to tell him to stop. “Was that good?” he asks innocently when his lips find yours again, letting you taste yourself on his tongue.

“Was it good?” you repeat, almost scoffing. “Baby, it was amazing.”

“Really?” he asks, a childlike grin on his face that is worlds away from the things he just did to your body.

“Really. Let me show you how good it felt,” you say with a mischievous smile, pushing his shoulder down so you switch positions and he’s the one laying, back against the blanket. “Let’s get this all off, yeah?” you say, hands fiddling with the hem of his shirt, and when that’s gone, with the band of his sweatpants and underwear. He gulps when he’s fully naked under your curious gaze, but he’s brave and his eyes don't leave your face, patiently waiting for what you’ll say or do next.

“So pretty, Hoon,” you purr as your hands trail from his thighs up to his neck, applying some pressure there, not enough to cut off any oxygen but enough for him to feel it. “And all for me,” you add as you mark his neck just like he did yours, before pushing yourself down his body until your face is level with his now fully hard cock. You press wet kisses to his thighs and hear his breaths get shakier when your kisses get dangerously close to his crotch. “Haven’t even touched you, and you’re already this hard, baby?” you tease, and chuckle when his cock twitches at your words.

“Please,” he implores, voice small.

“Just a second, baby. Be good for me, yeah?” you ask and he nods, eyes screwed shut as if in pain. You had a feeling that Sunghoon might like to give control rather than have it, but you hadn’t thought he’d let you have full power over him like that. You can’t say you dislike it, though.

You don’t want to make him wait for too long, and the sigh of relief he lets out when you finally place your tongue on the base of his shaft and lick a stripe up is worth it. Your baby is loud and lets you know exactly what he likes, and what he likes is when you pay attention to his tip and his sensitive balls at the same time. You alternate between having your lips around his tip, hands massaging him, and your palm circling his tip, taking his balls in your mouth and letting them out with a pop. In just a few minutes, his whole body is shaking under your touch and his moans are getting louder and louder, almost shout-like. He calls out your name and pleads with you to stop, and you look up at him with a worried expression. Before you can ask if he’s okay, he says, “Wanna cum inside you,” and how can you refuse him when his blush has spread to his whole face and his eyebrows are furrowed in concentration and pleasure, trying his best not to cum?

“Of course, baby.”

He sits up and you straddle his lap, telling him you’re on the pill when he’s about to pull out a condom he’d sneakily brought from his bag. “Fuck, okay,” he says, voice shaky at the idea of feeling your bare walls around him.

You raise yourself over him, your arms wrapping themselves around his neck and his around your waist, you line your entrance up with his dick and then sit back down onto his lap, his cock stretching you out in the best way possible as it slips right in, your wetness serving as natural lube. You waste no time before moving your hips against his, first rocking them back and forth and then raising them up and down, the both of you letting out loud moans and breaths at the pleasure taking over your bodies.

“Y/N, feels so good, gonna cum quick,” he breathes out into the crook of your neck, biting the flesh there which feels surprisingly good.

“That’s okay baby, you’ve done so well, cum whenever you want.”

“Want you to cum too, though,” he whines, and you can’t help but chuckle.

“You already made me- fuck!” you scream out of surprise when Sunghoon’s hands suddenly grip your thighs tightly and he holds you steady like this as he ruts his hips up into yours, the angle hitting right where it needs to. Your brain can’t form sentences that make any sort of sense so you’re left blabbering praises and curses at the same time, feeling your second orgasm rapidly approaching.

“Fuck, baby, just like that, fuck- so close, Hoon…”

The feeling of your walls clenching as your high washes over you is enough for Sunghoon to tip over the edge as well, your releases mixing together in a loud and sticky mess. You’ve never felt closer to heaven as you do now.

The seriousness of it all soon starts to fade as you and Sunghoon lock eyes and burst into giggles, breathing still heavy and irregular. You help clean each other up and put your clothes back on, but you don’t head home until the sun has long set, feasting on the snacks and water he’d brought along.

You check the time before you go to bed that night. 00:57, Thursday 11th August 2022. Twenty days left with Sunghoon. 

-

Eighteen days left with Sunghoon. Your last days together feel like a montage, like you’re watching a movie in which you play the lead role and you know the ending credits will have to start rolling at some point. You hate to be thinking that way, but the first thing you do when you wake up every morning is check the date and tell yourself how many days you’ve got left with your summer love. 19 days, 18 days. If Sunghoon feels a change in your attitude, how your gaze lingers more, how your touch softens, he doesn’t say anything.

You mentioned how you and Yunjin would like to go to the beach, so he called up his friends and got them to drive all the way over here. He said another time when you told him this is the perfect opportunity to show them his horse riding, and you didn’t push it.

He drives you all to what he calls ‘his’ beach spot, and indeed, it feels like it’s yours and yours only. It’s a bit of a trek getting there, having to walk up a dirt road and climbing some rocks before heading down to a small sandy beach where the sand is so hot it burns and the water only feels refreshing for two minutes, but you love it. He side-eyes Jake and Jay when you take off your dress and reveal your bikini-clad body, and barks at them to stop salivating even though they weren’t looking at you.

Yunjin on Heeseung’s shoulders, Jake on Jay’s and you on Sunghoon’s, the six of you play a tournament of who can make the others fall faster. Your boy has amazing balance, robust legs, a strong core, and decent (surprisingly impressive) arm muscles, so you win, a victory peck turning into a makeout session that everybody groans at, except for Jake who whoops. 

You apply sunscreen on each other’s backs and complain that evening when you’ve got weirdly-shaped sunburns anyway, you along the lines of your swimsuit and him on the back of his knees. You eat the watermelon Jay brought and the boys spit black seeds at each other, not daring to do it to you or Yunjin after the stank look you gave them.

When you get home and everyone has driven off, neither of you is quite ready to call it a night yet. Sunghoon eyes the backseat of his car and you understand what he wants immediately. His skin smells like sun, sweat, sunscreen and sea water, and it’s all so him. It smells so good, it’s almost intoxicating, and you think you’ll never be able to get enough of his scent, of him. You won’t be able to look up at the bright star in the day sky or at an orange bottle of sticky sunscreen the same way ever again. 

You’ve had many things in your life. You’ve had dolls, and you’ve had books and CDs. You’ve also had and still have friends, sometimes even boyfriends. You’ve had fun, and times that were not as fun. You’ve had sex. But you’ve not had anything like what you have with Sunghoon. He’s the one who gave you the intense feeling of truly loving and being loved, the insatiable craving of wanting more, the overwhelming need to see and talk to and feel and smell. 

He’s the one who gave you the best summer of your life, and it’s the best thing you’ve ever had. It overpowers everything you’ve ever had to the point that it feels like it’s the first thing you’ve ever had; it might be the only thing you ever have, because you don’t understand how you could want anything else now that you’ve had him. He’s all you need.

Seventeen days left with Sunghoon. You’re having your joyful weekly dinner with your grandmother and the Parks when you feel something hit your foot gently. You feel it again, and when you look up at the boy sitting right across the table from you he’s trying to hide a small smile, but you know him too well to miss it. His clothed foot caresses the ridge of your own and you suppress a giggle at the ticklish feelings. You tease him back, and you realize you’re playing footsies at the ripe age of twenty years old, but it doesn’t bother you. You both end up failing at not laughing and when innocently, his mother asks, “what are you two laughing at?”, he coughs and says it’s an inside joke.

Fourteen days left with Sunghoon. The last two weeks of summer lessons have started again and Sunghoon and you can’t run around and lay in random fields at any time of the day anymore, but you still try your best to spend every waking second of the day together, to the despair of his fangirls. However, you still find moments where it’s the two of you in an empty stall and one exchanged look is enough for you to push him against the walls, your lips finding his in the fraction of a second. Sadly, before it can get too heated, a nearby horse always neighs or huffs as if telling you to get a room.

Twelve days left with Sunghoon. Conveniently, Sunghoon’s sister and their parents are out for the night at a party in celebration of the competition season that’s about to end, so you finally get to spend the night in his room. You technically could’ve done it before, but the house is old and the walls are thin, and you didn’t need that kind of humiliation. 

Maybe Sunghoon feels that your time is slowly running to its end too, because as the days pass, he melts under your touch like a candle to a flame even more than before, he kisses your lips with more desperation and he holds your hips tighter as if you were going to disappear from between his hands at any moment. He always asks to please, please let’s cum at the same time and please, please say my name and you do it because you’d do anything for him.

You do it three times in a row, both of your bodies weak and sensitive with overstimulation yet unending desire, and you feel tears pouring down your cheeks as your third orgasm of the night hits you. There’s no way anything will ever feel as good as this. You tell him this, and he says, “I know.”

Seven days left with Sunghoon. He asks you what you’ll do when you go home, and you reply that you don’t know, because even though you’ve been thinking about what little time you have left together, you haven’t been thinking about the time after that, simply because it puts a bland feeling in your mouth whenever it crosses your mind. “I’ll start studying again and I’ll start my internship. I’ll get black out drunk at least once a month to forget all the stress and pressure of being a med student. I’ll think about you. That’s probably about it. What about you?”

“I’ll study too and I’ll have an assistantship at some point too. I’ll get drunk on Thursday nights and take care of the club during the weekends. I’ll think about you, too. More than you, I’m sure.”

“That’s not possible. You won’t ever leave my mind.”

“You won’t either,” he whispers.

Two days left with Sunghoon. He tells you you’re going camping for your last night together, not wanting to leave your side for even a second. “We’ve only got so much time left, we need to make the most of it,” he says, and you wished he knew that that had been your exact thought for the past twenty days.

That night, everything goes much slower than it usually does. You take your sweet time taking the clothes off of each other, reveling in discovering the smooth skin underneath the fabric as if you hadn’t seen it dozens of times by now. You find all of his moles and kiss them one by one, and he takes a full minute kissing down from your lips to your core. His thrusts are slow but deep, and your lips don’t leave the other’s the whole time.

-

Ten hours left with Sunghoon. You wake up the next morning when the sunlight the thin walls of the tent are unable to keep away gets too bright for your eyes’ liking. The warmth of this late August night has made you two drift apart while you slept, but you quickly find his body again and you wrap your arms around him, nuzzling your nose into the crook of his neck. He smells like sleep and like himself, which is comforting.

He calls out your name and you lift your head to look at him. When he doesn’t turn his head as well and only gives you his chin and jawline to look at, you know he’s about to say something important. Something he doesn’t dare to say while looking in your eyes. 

Your mind goes back to all the times you’ve laid down next to each other and you hope that those will be what you see whenever you think of Sunghoon in the future. The sun not quite ready to call it a day, a slight breeze picking up, the hay a semi-comfortable mattress that sometimes poked you at the back of your neck and arms. Sunghoon right next to you. You were always happy then, hoping you wouldn’t regret anything later. You wouldn’t have known what to do to prevent that anyway.

All you know is you don't want your memory of Sunghoon to be tainted by this moment right now, this moment in which he avoids your gaze and your heart feels heavy because you’re leaving soon and you won’t get to have him in your embrace like this. You want to be happy when you think of him; you don’t want to feel his absence.

“Yeah?” you answer. He still doesn’t look at you, and you get a bit nervous.

He sighs a deep breath like you’ve never seen him do before. “Is it okay if I say something a bit selfish?”

You love him so much. You realize that maybe that’s what you’ll end up regretting. “Go ahead.”

“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” he says, and you almost laugh out of relief.

“That’s not selfish, Hoon. I don’t want to leave, either.” You reach for his hand and he lets you take it, your fingers intertwining immediately as if made to hold each other. To hold onto each other. He still doesn’t look at you, and you know there’s something more there.

“It’s selfish because I’m scared I’ll resent you for leaving,” he says, voice a whisper. 

Ah. There it is.

You squeeze his hand, wordlessly asking him to go on. He takes another breath, a shakier one this time, and he chuckles at the tears he feels pooling in his eyes. “You showed up here out of nowhere and you made me so, so happy. You listened to me and got me to open up, which I usually hate doing. You told me that I was good, that you were proud of me. And now you’re leaving and no one will tell me those things anymore.” The first crack in your heart happens when you hear his voice quiver at the end of his sentence.

“You don’t need me to tell you those things. You know them now, and you have yourself,” you try to reassure him.

The second crack happens when he finally turns to look at you, lips trembling and eyes full of tears. “But I want you to tell me those things.” It takes everything in you to not burst into tears, but you want to be strong for him. For the both of you.

“I can still tell you those things. Phones exist, you know.” A small smile appears on your lips as you try to alleviate the tension. Sunghoon’s eyebrows crease and he pouts his lips; you can tell he doesn’t want to laugh in this moment, but the nudge you give him and your smile make his facade break.

You laugh as he whines, telling you this is a serious moment and to not make him laugh. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you say between chuckles and you wrap your arms around him, bringing him to lay his head on your chest. You kiss the top of his head and graze your fingers through his hair. “Laughing is all I can do to stop myself from crying, baby,” you whisper. When you feel a tear roll down your cheek, you add, “And it’s not even working that well.”

Sunghoon buries his face deeper between your breasts and sobs. No more, no less, he sobs, loud, choked sobs that make his whole body shake against yours, and you hold him as tight as you can so that they don’t break him in two. “I’m gonna miss you so much,” he manages to say, and that’s when the third and final crack happens and your heart shatters. It breaks into a million tiny pieces that fall all over your body; some of them make their way to your throat while others travel to the tips of your fingers and others lodge themselves behind your knees or in the pits of your stomach. Your heart breaks into sharp pieces and you feel them piercing under your skin everywhere. You feel like you’re gonna throw up.

You and Sunghoon aren’t even technically dating. You’ve known each for two months. You live far, but not halfway across the world; you can see each other again. You will see each other again. It’s not supposed to hurt that much, yet it hurts even more than that. 

“I know, baby, I know,” you whisper into his hair. “I’ll miss you so much too. But we’ll see each other again, right? Paris isn’t that far away.”

His sobs calm down and you hear him sniffle as he catches his breath. “Paris isn’t far away, but we’ll be worlds apart. You’re going to study and become a doctor, and I’ll stay here. You know what medical school is like, you’re going to be flooded with work for at least four more years. I can’t expect you to stay in touch all the time.”

“Well, it doesn’t need to be all the time, does it? I’d annoy you if it was.”

“You could never annoy me,” he says, and it makes you laugh. He’d never have said this two months ago.

“Plus, I’ll still get time off. I can come back next summer.”

He raises his head to look at you and you can see all the hope and sadness in his puffy eyes. You want to kiss away the tear stains on his cheeks. You want to right everything wrong just to see him smile again. “Next summer?” he echoes in a small voice.

“Next summer,” you promise, a smile you hope is comforting on your lips.

-

Next summer doesn’t work out. The one after that either. Your internship is going swimmingly, and so is his assistantship, and you simply don’t have the time to make a trip all the way down there. A part of you is also worried that if you see him again, you won’t have the force to leave.

Those years you don’t see him, you’re reminded of the ten days you were apart during that summer, and how you’d felt like he’d kept a small piece of your heart with him, because it still feels that way. There’s something that’s keeping you tethered to that summer, something that the strongest scissors or the sharpest knife in the world couldn’t break.

For a short period of time, he was all you needed. But reality quickly seeped back in, and now you needed good grades and then a good job, a decent flat, a decent income. You didn’t need anyone like you needed him, but you still wanted them because even if they weren’t as pretty, or as patient, or as kind as your Sunghoon, they were still good, and sometimes that was all you could ask for. You were always sorry that you couldn’t give them your whole heart, because a piece of it had stayed in the south of France and you didn’t have the courage to march down there and demand it back. Selfishly, you hoped you also kept a piece of Sunghoon’s heart in yours.

You did call once in a while, but those calls made both of you more sad than happy, and after a couple years the calls were so spaced out that they only happened on birthdays and special events. The next time you see him, it’s five years later, at your grandmother’s funeral. You can only stay for three nights and you spend most of your time there with relatives, celebrating your grandmother’s life, so you don’t see him much. When you do, you get to catch up for a few hours. He’s almost done with vet school and he’s specialized in equine studies. He’s an intern at the horse vet in Laroque which means he gets to stay in the center and help his parents out. Yeji is on her way to becoming one of the best in the country, he adds with a proud smile. You’re finishing up your last years as an intern in a Paris hospital, but you haven’t changed your mind about becoming a general practitioner, which you need just a few more years of experience for. You don’t miss how his face falls slightly when you tell him you have a boyfriend and that you’re thinking of getting engaged to him. He tells you he’s happy for you with the saddest eyes. The hug he gives you when you have to leave brings back so many feelings and memories, and even after all these years there’s nothing more that you want to do than stay in his arms and never move again.

You break up with your boyfriend as soon as you get home.

On a random Thursday, you’re done with your decade-long studies, and you’re free to go out into the world, a medical diploma in hand. You get a job in a cabinet owned by a friend of your parents, and you like the job, but you know you’re just passing the time until the opportunity you’ve been waiting for comes around.

Every week, you check whether a spot opens up for a general practitioner in the small town of Laroque-des-Albères. It doesn’t for about eighteen months, until suddenly it does, and in a week you’re packing your bags and taking that trip you took twelve years ago.

Sunghoon doesn’t even know. He could be married with a wife and three kids, for all you know, and it’s foolish but you hope he’s been waiting for you. He’s just finishing up a health check on some of the older horses when you get out of your car, eyes finding him immediately. From the other side of the courtyard, he smiles at you, and it’s like the summer you first fell in love all over again.

permanent taglist: @ozymandia-s @bbujiikseu @sd211 @lalalalawon @sunghoonmybeloved @w3bqrl

© asahicore on tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, plagiarize or translate my works. feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

#sunghoon x reader #enhypen x reader #sunghoon smut #enhypen smut #sunghoon fluff #enhypen fluff #sunghoon angst #enhypen angst #sunghoon au #enhypen au #sunghoon fanfiction #enhypen fanfiction

[chrisevansonly]

𝐚 𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐢𝐧 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞

✯charles leclerc x latin!female reader

✯when charles wants to learn some more spanish, he knows he has the best teacher around

✯no warnings v fluffy:)

✯this was requested!! it’s a little short but i hope i did it justice! i cannot speak much spanish, i only really speak english, italian and french so this will probably mostly be written using a translator😅🫶🏻

You looked at Charles, almost wanting to giggle at how sweet he looked, mere moments before this he’d come over asking you if you’d help him with with Spanish. You’d moved to Monaco from Colombia almost 6 years ago, your father expanding his business to the rich and wealthy of Monte Carlo. Of course being a motor sports fan you attended the grand prix in the city a few times, which is where you met Charles almost 2 years ago now.

“You want me to teach you spanish mi alma?”

Charles simply nodded

“What, Carlos can’t teach you?”

“I mean he does, but I’d rather learn from you…”

You couldn’t lie hearing him admit that made your cheeks flush, after thinking about it you nodded, patting the spot on the sofa beside you

“Well you know some at this point, I’m not sure what you want me to teach you”

Charles thought about what exactly he wanted to learn before smiling

“Maybe something about racing, about the cars and you know..”

Now that made you laugh but you obliged

“okay so, el coche se sintió bien hoy, that means that the car felt good”

Charles nodded

“El coche de sintió bien hoy”

You smiled

“You can use that in an interview if you want, something else you can say is estoy orgulloso de correr para Ferrari”

“So something something Ferrari?”

Laughing you hit him gently, knowing he didn’t let you translate first

“It means I am proud to race for Ferrari”

Charles smiled before repeating that back to you once again, his eyes watching yours carefully and meticulously so he wouldn’t miss any tricky words. In reality part of the reason he asked you to help him touch up on his Spanish was because he loved listening to you in your native tongue. He found the language intoxication when you spoke, yet he still struggled if you and Carlos got into heavy conversation: conversation he wished he could be apart of.

“Te amo mi corazón” (i love you my heart)

Smiling you leaned forward to gently hold Charles’s face, pressing your lips to his

“Te amo mucho mi amor, para siempre” (i love you so much my love, forever)

Pressing a kiss to your lips again Charles couldn’t help but smile, you were truly his everything, even if he couldn’t keep up with your language all the time, he made damn sure to make the best effort and get lessons from you.

“You know I might start charging you for Spanish lessons baby…you never know”

Charles laughed, his eyes squinting like they usually did when he smiled or laughed, one of your favourite things about him.

“What my love for you is not payment enough?”

You paused pretending to think about it as Charles placed a hand on his heart

“Chérie tu ma blessé!” (darling, you hurt me) F

If there was one thing you loved about Char it was how dramatic that boy could be, but it didn’t stop you from placing kisses across his face, getting him to smile once again, even if it was his plan all along

“Oh my poor Charlie, how will you ever survive”

“Un beso per favor…?” (a kiss please?)

Smiling you cupped his cheek gently, his eyes watching you intently

“Cómo podría decirte que no.” (how could i ever say no to you)

Happy when your lips met his, Charles knew right then and there you’d be the only person to ever teach him Spanish again.

Especially if he got to request a little extra loving from his favourite girl in the world.

#rueswrites #ruesanswers #ruesanons<3 #ruesasks #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc x female reader #charles leclerc #charles leclerc x girlfriend reader #charles leclerc x wife reader #charles leclerc x y/n #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc x latin!reader #formula 1 masterlist #formula 1 #formula 1 fanfic #charles leclerc fluff #charles leclerc f1

[leclvrc]

from crush to girlfriend ♡ cl x reader

summary: charles manifested himself a gf with one (1) interview

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liked by charles_leclerc, zendaya, vogue and 281.289 others

yourusername in my 'just killed my sugar daddy' era 🖤

view all 31.973 comments

zendaya the era we all aspire to have 💖

liked by yourusername

ynhottie ugh it's the all black aesthetic and black heart for me

yourbestie pop OFF girl

charleslechair not me innocently scrolling through the account of my fave actress only to see charles lurk here 🤕

honeybadger i noticed too and ???

yourusername

liked by f1, mercedesamgf1, pierregasly and 187.297 others

yourusername racing movie starring me when @.f1?

view all 17.483 comments

f1 visit us again and we will make it happen!

liked by yourusername

pierregasly who did you root for?

yourusername not alphatauri that's for sure 🤣

gaslytsunoda not pierre shooting his shot and she shutting him down 😭😭

yourbestie you were awfully focussed on a certain red car 👀

liked by scuderiaferrari

ynfan YOU'RE SO GORGEOUS!!!!

enews 👀👀

f1gossip have we found another tifosi?

charleslechair

liked by f1gossip, ynfan, fe44ari and 3.287 others

charleslechair EXCUSE THE SHITTY ASS QUALITY BUT HELLO??? HE DID THAT WITH HIS WHOLE CHEST??? AND HE DIDN'T SOUND DISTRACTED BY THE SIM???

view all 563 comments

ynfan losing my entire fucking MIND he did not just say this and expects us to be normal???

tifosi55 now im just imagining him going through all her movies, kicking his feet and twirling his hair as he watches her be GIFTED on screen

honeybadger that's all I'll be thinking about from now on 😭

f1gossip which movie was his fave place yalls bets. the one where she is in a wet dress almost the entire time or the one where she gets rid of her husband to get together with the hot french pool boy

ynfan ten bucks he saw himself in the french pool boy even tho he's not even french 😭😭

yourusername

liked by landonorris, charles_leclerc, florencepugh and 233.298 others

yourusername monaco you have been brilliant but it feels good being back home on set 💞

view all 21.289 comments

yourbestie living THE life and leaving all of us in the dust 😔

yourusername you're so dramatic babe

landonorris drinks? without any of us?

yourusername next time if I feel generous 😌

ynhottie humbled his ass 😭😭

charleslechair the way he's just. out here liking posts. not caring what he does to my mental health.

liked by charles_leclerc

charleslechair HELLO??

charles_leclerc

liked by scuderiaferrari, carlossainz55, yourusername and 217.298 others

charles_leclerc this weekend wasn't quite as well as monaco has been, but we keep pushing 👊🏼

view all 33.287 comments

scuderiaferrari onto the next one!

calamar16 we will get them next week charles!! keep your head up!!

yourusername maybe all you need is a lucky charm? 😉 (you were still impressive on track today)

honeybadger y/n flirting with him and simultaneously praising him... we love a queen that can do both

pierregasly looking forward to racing you next week mon ami

yourusername added to their story

f1gossip

liked by charleslechair, mercmaids, y/ngoddess and 12.281 others

f1gossip with @.yourusername in Italy, posting a story about a date night and charles being spotted kissing someone that many fans thought to be the actress, we for one cannot wait to see how this story unfolds! what are your thoughts on it? is it a fling or something more?

view all 1.881 comments

charleslechair on my knees begging them to be the real deal because i CANNOT take any hot insta baddie being linked to charles anymore

y/nfan her last relationship went down in flames with someone that wasn't half as busy as he is. it's not going to last 😒

honeybadger trying not to let the parasocial relationship get to me but they'd be sooo cute. yes I'm basing that assumption off of two blurry pics and half a story no i don't take criticism

liked by f1gossip

charleslechair girl you're so real 😭😭😭 I thought I was the only one

yourbestie 👁👄👁

tifosi16 now THIS is an interesting development

mercmaids y/n suddenly appearing at charles' home race... charles saying she is his celebrity crush... the lucky charm comment.... date night.... stalker pics... connecting the dots but fr fr

comments on this post have been limited

yourusername

liked by scuderiaferrari, alexademie, charles_leclerc and 387.281 others

yourusername on sunday's we wear red ❤ thank you for having me @.scuderiaferrari!

view all 23.837 comments

scuderiaferrari we still have to talk about that movie @.f1 😉

liked by f1

yourusername you got it!

f1gossip all I'm saying is that the next pics of them kissing aren't far away...

charleslechair stalker behaviour off the charts

charles_leclerc pierre is still not over the alphatauri comment

yourusername the comment still holds true 🤣🤣

honeybadger trying so hard not to fangirl rn

yourbestie the jacket and comment and everything ugh

yourusername you're too much girl 😭💖

y/nfan she's SO pretty oh my god

y/nhottie the banter is giving besties so now I'm confused

y/ngoddess biggest mood... y/n still in her single era would be hot tho

mercmaids they also never addressed the alleged kissing pics I'm SO confused

comments on this post have been limited

charles_leclerc

liked by pierregasly, yourusername, f1 and 299.281 others

charles_leclerc winning in formula 1 is always an incredible feeling, but winning in front of the tifosi in monza is one I will chase year in and out! grazie to the team and tifosi and everyone that rooted for us this weekend 💪

view all 28.271 comments

f1 🔥👊🏼

pierregasly next year is my turn again then 😁

carlossainz55 in your dreams mate

liked by charles_leclerc

tifosi16 YES CHARLES THAT LAST OVERTAKE WAS SO 🔥🔥🔥

charleslechair i was at the edge of my seat!!! you know how to keep us hooked

yourusername incredible race, charles. I was rooting for you the entire time 💖

liked by charles_leclerc

yourbestie so you're really his lucky charm huh

yourusername text me rn 😒

honeybadger i was so caught up in the euphoria of charles winning that for a moment i lived in a world where you confirmed a relationship

charles_leclerc added to their story

yourusername

liked by zendaya, florencepugh, charles_leclerc and 217.291 others

yourusername from italy to france! award season is getting kicked off in the city of love and lights <3

view all 27.281 comments

y/nfan THAT DRESS

y/ngoddess we will get so fed with content!!!!

zendaya we need to hang more

yourusername you decided not to show up 🙄😉

charleslechair charles’ story and now this I’ve had ENOUGH (jk never stop)

yourbestie I spy with my little eye... a hot girl off the market after this weekend :/

honeybadger the bestie of y/n being the real mvp was not on my bingo card

yourusername

liked by alexademie, pierregasly, charles_leclerc and 483.291 others

yourusername from celebrity crush to girlfriend in six months <3 @.charles_leclerc

view all 11.281 comments

charles_leclerc mon amour 💖

liked by yourusername

honeybadger SJAKJSKAKSKAKSKAKKSKAKKSJAJSKKW ?????

charleslechair I feel you girl

yourbestie my reaction when I found out

liked by charles_leclerc

pierregasly finally

yourusername says you 😒

alexademie 🖤

f1gossip this was only possible in parts to us 😁

mercmaids he manifested himself a girlfriend in six months meanwhile I'm over here struggling to manifest an iced coffee 😭

tifosi16 I'm not jealous I'm not jealous I'm not jealous I'm not jealous I'm not jealous I'm not jealous I'm--

y/nfan pretends to be shocked 😶😶

comments on this post have been limited

#f1 instagram au #charles leclerc fanfic #charles leclerc x reader #charles leclerc x you #charles leclerc image #**mine #if the last few posts look funky look away 😭😭😭 the formatting is so little on tablet

[sparkling-ariaria]

Marauders Era fics I read and want to keep...no°3

*Complete fem or non-specific reader insert fics*Updated: 14.04.2024

Falling for you by milunalupin - Peter x Reader A drabble about having a crush on Peter Pettigrew with Valentine's day coming up.

Dating Peter Pettigrew headcanon by maraudersmylove

Pickup lines by milunalupin - James x Reader With Valentine's Day coming up, James knew that this was the time to shoot his shot with you...

Lovesick Sirius drabble by theemporium - Sirius x gf!Reader Him pining over and loving cottage core you.

First introduction drabble by luveline - Remus x shy!Reader

Lovesick Sirius drabble by theemporium - Sirius x gf!Reader Him just pining hopelessly after you.

My girl by alwaysmoncheri - James x gf!Reader No one makes James Potter feel the way that his girlfriend does and he definitely knows it.

You two being in your own bubble drabble by luveline - Remus x shy!Reader

Sirius always needs your attention by ddejavvu

Clingy drunk drabble by inkdrinkerworld - modern!James x gf!Reader James who gets a little too drunk at a party and starts showing everyone photos of you because he just misses you.

Takin' a breath by familyvideostevie - modern!Sirius x gf!Reader Simply put, you love being in love with Sirius. You just never realized other people noticed all that much.

Lovesick James headcanon by volturissideslut

Lovesick Remus headcanon by volturissideslut

Lovesick Sirius headcanon by volturissideslut

Matching nail colours blurb by moonstruckme - Sirius x gf!Reader

Endless empathy by dwindlinghaze - Remus x gf!Reader Post full moon Remus who just wants to be with you.

Flirtation by moonstruckme - Sirius x shy!gf!Reader When Sirius won't stop tormenting you with pet names, you think to take revenge, but he doesn't react as you expected.

Prettiest girl at Hogwarts by kitkathockey - Remus x gf!Reader Remus is answering some of the first years questions and one of them asks who is the prettiest girl at Hogwarts.

Sirius helping you discover your right hair routine by moonstruckme - Sirius x gf!Reader

Home in each other's arms by ell0ra-br3kk3r-writes - Sirius x gf!Reader

Sirius drabble by moonstruckme - Sirius x gf!Reader Sirius speaking to you in french.

Borrowing his jumper for the first time by ohwowimlonley - Remus x gf!Reader

Remus drabble by lizard-on-a-window-pane - Remus x gf!Reader Remus is irritable before the full moon, his senses heightened and his temper short… but one person soothes him even when the rest of the world is anything but soothing.

Sirius drabble by luveline - Sirius x gf!Reader Shy!Reader being surprisingly cuddly when tired.

Sirius with a cold drabble by ddejavvu - Sirius x gf!Reader

James falls in love at first sight drabble by luveline - rugby player!James x cake decorator!Reader

Bumps by writtenbymoonflower - Sirius x gf!Reader You bruise easy and Sirius likes to be dramatic.

Lavender Haze by whorediaries-09 - Sirius x soft!Reader Sirius with a soft reader who's doing lovey-dovey little things for him.

He loves you no matter how shy by luveline - James x shy!gf!Reader

Puppy by messers-moony - Remus x gf!Reader Remus has a long day at Charms. (Prompt: Listening to them while they vent.)

Pretty Boy by alwaysmoncheri - James x Reader You think James is really pretty—unfortunately for you, Sirius notices and decides to take matters into his own hands

#fic rec #harry potter fic #marauders x reader #marauders x you #marauders x y/n #james potter x you #james potter x reader #james potter x y/n #sirius black x reader #sirius black x y/n #sirius black x you #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin x you #remus lupin x y/n #peter pettigrew x reader #peter pettigrew x you

[bellaxisworld]

february 29, @jegulus-microfic prompt: address. word count: 1,019.

James checks and double-checks the star shaped silver tag, glancing out the car window at the street sign. “Are you sure this is the right address?” he asks Remus, running a gentle hand along the black cat’s fur. The cat, Lune, purrs and pushes her head into his palm. He smiles, warmth blooming in his chest from her unabashed affection. They’d only just picked her up an hour ago, finding her stranded but clawing gently at their door. James’ heart immediately latched onto her, melting everytime she nudged him with her paw. 

“This is definitely the address from her collar,” Remus mutters, looking at the small flower beds lining the walkway. The home was rather lovely, looking strangely antique but well taken care of. 

James had no clue how Lune managed to find herself halfway across the city. 

He and Remus walk tentatively up to the green-painted door, and James already mourns the loss of Lune, aching with the thought of having to let her go. She’s curled up against his chest, eyes half lidded with sleepiness. James wants to hold on forever. 

The door opens, and James thinks his world realigns itself, or maybe it falls apart and rebuilds into something new, something utterly wonderful. 

The most lovely boy James has ever seen stands before them, pouting and adorable, with flushed cheeks and black curls ruffled against his forehead and around his ears. He looks rather disturbed that anyone dares bother him, and James thinks there should be art dedicated to the glory that is this man standing before him. James thinks he is the art itself. 

His pretty gray eyes widen almost comically as he sees the cat in James’ arms. 

James’s heart flips and turns and squeezes when he grumbles something unintelligible in French, and he’s silent, stuck staring at this beauty in awe. 

Remus clears his throat. “We found her clawing at our door this afternoon. I’m not quite sure how she made it to our part of town, but—”

“My idiot brother, that’s how,” the man says, rolling his eyes and huffing. James wants to touch and feel him under his fingertips, completely enraptured by this downright angelic being. “He was babysitting her this weekend while I was out of town. Obviously, he cannot be trusted with babysitting.” He reaches forward with pale hands to scoop her from James’ chest, but James is transfixed, lips parted as he thinks about the French lilt to the man’s words. He might be falling in love. 

Remus elbows him and he’s sharply brought back to reality, highly aware he was staring for a moment too long. He releases Lune to her owner’s arms, and she purrs again, nuzzling into the man’s neck. James is full of butterflies as he sees the man smile, hands lovingly cradling Lune. He feels less sorry for returning her, now that he sees the love she is returning to. 

James also plans on infiltrating the man’s life, wiggling his way into his beautiful arms, so he knows he’ll see her again. 

“Thank you both for bringing her home. It’s quite a ways from your home, I imagine, but your effort is very appreciated.” He speaks so formally, and James wants to dig his fingers into and tug and tug until something breaks. He’s feeling rather insane about this stunning stranger. “I’m Regulus, by the way. Your names are—?”

Remus chokes, coughing rather dramatically. “Regulus?” he croaks. “As in, Regulus Black?”

What a pretentious name, James thinks, again staring at him wistfully. Then— “Black? Like, Sirius—”

“I am Regulus Black, Sirius Black’s brother.” Regulus says, monotonously. Ah, the French makes sense. “Stupid bastard couldn’t even properly babysit my cat.” He huffs. “Are you all neighbors, then?”

Sirius Black is James’ enthusiastic French neighbor turned good friend. He was also blessed with unnaturally good looks, and James sees the resemblance now, looking at Regulus. 

Beside James, Remus blushes and mumbles, “Not my neighbor—” 

Sirius is James’ neighbor, and Remus’ current European conquest. How fitting, James thinks, for him and Remus both to fall for the Black brothers. 

James is free-falling off the deep end, preparing for a brutal fall. 

“I’m James,” he manages to say. Regulus’ rapt attention turns to him and he burns under it, feeling overwhelmed immediately. “Sirius’ neighbor.” He extends a hand and a smile, waiting for Regulus to take it. 

Take my hand, he begs in his head. Free fall with me. 

Their hands meet in the middle, and James swears he feels a spark ignite between them. He thinks he sees Regulus blush under his gaze. 

Their hands fit together perfectly, like puzzle pieces clicking into place. They both linger in the other’s touch, reluctant to pull away, brown eyes caught on gray ones, stuck in this charged moment. 

“Thank you, James,” whispers Regulus, and James grins, soaking up every second of his attention, feeling a rush of affection towards him. His name spilling from Regulus’ lips feels like a form of worship. 

James takes a leap of faith, free-falling off the very edge of which he was unprepared to fall from. “Can I get your number, Regulus?” Catch my fall, catch my fall, catch my— 

“Yes,” he breathes, hastily running into his apartment and returning with a slip of paper. He’s blushing fiercely, and James wants nothing more than to kiss his pink cheeks. He’s beautiful and soft, worth being cherished. 

James winks on his way down the steps, and when they make it into the car, Remus cackles. “Both of us! The Black brothers, James, both of them!” He’s wheezing. 

They drive off, and James looks back to see a black head of curls peeking through a curtained window. James smiles, and Regulus waves back, a soft smile tugging at his lips. 

If James is free-falling, so is Regulus—and that’s what love is all about, doing the scary things together. They’ll hold each other through the fall, and the crash might not hurt so bad. Maybe the pain will vanish with the first touch of a lover’s kiss. Either way—they’ll come out of it, together.

✩ part 29/29 of my microfic-fic on ao3: february, i'm yours.

#jegulus microfic #jegulus microfics #jegulus #jegulus au #jegulus fic #jegulus fanfic #jegulus fanfiction #fanfiction #marauders #regulus black #james potter #starchaser #sunseeker #ao3 #marauders era #the marauders #fanfic #writer #regulus black ao3 #james x regulus #regulus x james #marauders fanfic #hp marauders #bellaxis ao3 #bellaxis microfic #bellaxis #bella writes

[uthseikoashx-goingmyway]

things in IWTV season 2 i'd lose my mind if it actually happens (or when. because some of those things will happen.). sorry for the mistakes btw

1. Claudeleine romantic relationship

Claudia finally having a vampire lover she can be herself with. the romantic & sexual tension. the heart to heart Louis and Claudia would have before changing Madeleine. the yearning. the tragic ending. the change of dynamics in the De Pointe du Lac family. the disruption of it all.

2. an exploration of Armand's relationship to religion, faith and God

specially in 2022. past religious crisis. how he articulates his vampire nature, his faith and his despair. lots of hints of TVA. God and art. religion, Armand and Louis. his religion (conversion from being christian to being muslim in this universe? if so, why?). "i serve, a God," would you mind to develop?

3. dramatic irony about Daniel's past and Devil's Minion

the rent boy. Daniel actually realising he had been a dick about that. "oh." after understanding the irony of it all. Armand talking in riddles and hinting at something Daniel is totally ignorant of. young Daniel's life and messy, loving and weird relationship with Armand. some activism. 2022 Daniel getting old, sicker and sicker. laughs. angst. tension. yearning. longing stares. petty remarks. revelations.

4. Loumand complex relationship

the love and the suffering. how they are both deeply attached to each other. how they show their care. the place Lestat holds right in the middle. how they deal with Claudia's death. what Louis really thinks about it. the tension. the yearning. how their relationship actually developed. the extent of Louis' memory alteration and how it plays a role into their dynamics. the after: how Armand helped Louis. messy divorce vibes. petty moves. to what extent their relationship is doomed. how one person can love several persons and in different ways, and how complex and delicate it is.

5. The Groan™

what is that. a metaphor for sexual arousal? Lestat scratching the walls? Rashid trapped? some clues. what the fuck.

6. Antoinette alive and kicking

and coming back right on time for the trial, because it would be 1) so fucking funny 2) utterly tragic, considering Claudia would be killed for killing nobody.

7. amazing outfits

amazing outfits

8. lots of french

i'm french

9. Claudia and Armand's relationship

Claudia being protective of Louis. Armand dealing with it. some sort of bond rivalry. both of them aware that something's wrong with the other. Armand and Claudia's similarities being acknowledged (age, killing a human they loved — Charlie, Ricardo — and complex situation regarding their maker), even a possibility for some kind of understanding and compassion (making the end more tragic). Armand seeing a some of Lestat in Claudia. Claudia seeing Armand's love for Lestat. a common love for theater and spectacular shows. that awful experience before Claudia's death.

10. Louis and memories

the photos he takes (where are they in 2022? will they clash with Louis' tale?). the metatextual dimension of themes such as: unreliable narration, memories and perspective, autofiction. Daniel calling out Louis' avoiding strategies. Louis calling out Daniel's rudeness and biais. how Louis really sees his relationship with Claudia? the gap between Louis' and Armand's recalling. a deeper exploration of his superimposed identities (black, queer, american man; in 1940, 1973, 2022). learning how to trust someone new after being abused. the rain metaphors. Louis saying the most poetic and heartbreaking thing you'll ever heard. his relationship to vampirism as he joins Armand's coven. grief and loss of a family member. hallucinations and how they are filmed / manifesting. guilt. loving Claudia and Armand. loving Lestat, still. etc.

tysm for coming to my tedtalk. it was very self-indulgent but very much pleasant. i won't be mad if it doesn't happen (obviously!), or not like i imagine. still, it's fun to imagine and put that here on tumblr. no shame on lestat, i just have no special things i'm waiting for about him, and will be very happy indeed to see him again. salut

#amc iwtv #iwtv #claudeleine #claudia de pointe du lac #louis de pointe du lac #the vampire armand #daniel molloy #devil's minion #iwtv season 2 #iwtv s2 #loumand #claudia de pointe du lac analysis #iwtv claudia #iwtv madeleine #armandaniel #armand #iwtv antoinette #iwtv analysis #amc iwtc #iwtv spoilers #iwtv speculation #the groan iwtv #le théâtre des vampires #loustat #lesmand #lestat de lioncourt #interview with the vampire season 2 #amc interview with the vampire #interview with the vampire 2022 #interview with the vampire

[cloudysleepingzone]

Heya^^ could we possibly get some romantic hcs about dazai, atsushi, and possibly fyodor with a artist s/o, they sometimes doodle on unimportant papers when the meetings are way too boring for them , and sometimes when they have free time they draw their lover in their sketchbook, maybe a painting or two of their lover <3 anyways love your writing and don't forget to hydrate! Have a wonderful day or night!!

BSD with an Artist S/O

Decided to add Chuuya and Tecchou due to a very similar request!

Contents : Dazai, Atsushi, Fyodor, Chuuya and Tecchou x Reader (separate), gender neutral reader (they/them used), fluff, suggestive for Dazai's part and sorta Tecchuu? Not really. Pet Names.

Dazai Osamu

Doesn't matter what your drawing, he's watching.

Can you blame him though? He just loves watching his lover just doing something they enjoy!

If you draw him he will start acting like a dramatic prince for a solid 10 minutes.

"(Name), draw me like one of your French girls~"

You sit quietly at your desk, the surface covered with your sketchbook and a handful of pencils and pens. "Belllaaa~!" Though your peace is interrupted by your loving boyfriend trying to get out of doing his job again. "What are you drawing beautiful?" He leans over you, his arms wrapping around you from behind as he props his chin on your shoulder. The sketchbook page had small doodles of the two of you, mostly just small cute doodles of holding hands, Dazai tilts his head slight to the side, pressing a kiss to the side of your neck. "You know, if you need any ideas you could always draw us with less clothes~"

Atsushi Nakajima

Our sweet boy

He's so supportive of your work he loves seeing the look on your face when you make something your proud of

You draw him? Oh boy...he can't even form words

"You're getting even better sweetheart, you keep improving!"

Your a mess, your finger tips covered in different shades of blue and grey, just like the tip of your paintbrush. Atsushi was behind the canvas, laying comfortably on your shared bed with a soft smile on his lips. "Am I doing alright? I'm not moving too much?" He was doing an amazing job. A perfect job. "Your doing good sweetheart, I'm almost done". You've drawn him from memory plenty of times before, but it feels so much more romantic with him right in front of you. "You look really pretty when your focused..." He mumbles under his breath, even if your the one painting him, he's the one doing the most admiring <3

Fyodor Dostoevsky

To a non familiar eye he seems completely uninterested or even annoyed at your interests. But that's far from true

He adores your work though he sucks at showing it

Got a piece you're really proud of? Yep he's putting it in a fancy frame

You? Drawing him? Aren't you just a sweetheart...

It was already late at night, the curtains had been drawn and you were currently in the shower. Meanwhile your husband Fyodor was already dressed in something more comfortable and was waiting for his dear. Fyodors finger tips gently run over the cover of your current sketch book, which laid on top of a desk in your shared bedroom. He picks up the sketchbook, flipping through the pages slowly before a certain page catches his eye, a page seemingly dedicated to just him. His normally cold and hard gaze softens a bit at the sight, some being full line art and color and others being simple messy doodles. His admiring is interrupted by the sound of the bathroom door opening. "Sweetheart what are you doing?". Your husband gently closes your sketchbook, setting it down onto the expensive hard work surface. "Just admiring your work my dear..."

Chuuya Nakahara

New art supplies? He's buying it. You want a new set of expensive as hell paint brushes? Pfft, pocket change.

If you even mention getting into a new form of art he's already handing you his credit card without another question.

"It looks pretty already doll, make sure to show me when it's done yea?"

Like Fyodor, he puts his favorite pieces in fancy frames <3

You walk into Chuuya's at home office, not bothering to knock (not like he minds) "Chuuya, I finished that painting you wanted to see!" He slowly turns his chair around, a small smirk on his face, completely ignoring his task of sorting through files for now. "Let me see it babe". You turn the canvas around, showing him your paintwork you've spent a few weeks on. He stand from his seat, walking up to you and placing a gloved hand on your cheek, planting a loving kiss on the other. "It looks beautiful sweetheart, just like you. I'll be hanging it up." Chuuya had already started a small selection of your art that was displayed in fancy gold and silver frames over a fireplace, in the style as if they were million dollar paintings. To him they may as well be, to him your art is priceless. Your priceless.

Tecchou Suehiro

You could make something weird and he'll like it

He will just silently watch you draw whatever, doesn't matter what.

"That looks good sweetheart"

Drawing him? God I don't know if his heart can take something so sweet!

Here you are, sitting on your boyfriend's back while he does sit ups. It was actually pretty normal at this point. The only sounds in the room was the huffs coming from Tecchuu throat and the sounds of pencil scratching against paper. "Hm...maybe I should draw you like this, it would be pretty good anatomy practice" you quickly sketch up some messy line art you can fix later, shifting slightly to show Tecchuu. "Huff Looks good" Despite the slight strain in his muscles he's able to respond pretty easily. I get up from your seat on his back, letting him get up with a groan before stretching his arms. Moving your pencil back to the paper, you continue to look from your boyfriend to the paper back and forth. "This is a bit better" you your sketch book around, it was just a simple sketch of his muscular figure but it was like fine art in his eyes. "You've been improving a lot haven't you?"

#fanfic #fluff #bsd x reader #bungou stray dogs #bsd #bungo stray dogs x reader #bsd fanfic #atsushi x reader #request #atsushi nakajima x reader #dazai osamu x reader #dazai x reader #bsd dazai #fanfiction #fyodor x reader #fyodor dostoyevsky x reader #fyodor dostoyevsky bsd #chuuya nakahara x reader #chuuya x reader #bsd chuuya #bsd tecchou #tecchou x reader #bungou stray dogs tecchou #tecchou suehiro x reader

[forever-rogue]

Hello! Could I request something where Eddie is Bi and he’s dating female reader and Eddie used to have a crush on Steve and reader knows and teases him about it such as in the boat where Steve takes off his shirt and throws it at him and reader knows he’s low key freaking out about it and she finds it cute how he reacts. Yk he obviously won’t cheat but he’s reminded of why he had a crush on him, that kind of thing you know?

AN | Okay but Bi!Eddie is canon to me and it would be so fun to tease him about his little crush 🥰

Warnings | Language

Pairing | Bi!Eddie x Fem!Reader

Word Count | 2.9k

Masterlist | Main, Eddie 

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Hello handsome,” Eddie practically melted when he heard your sweet voice cut through his thoughts. You walked into the back of his shop, trying not to startle him if he happened to be under a car; luckily you heard him closing a hood before you were greeted with his smile. You weaved your way over to him, all soft and smiley and sugary sweet - a complete contrast to his current environment. You held out an ice cold bottle of water to him, which he eagerly took and started to chug, “figured you could use that today.”

"You're right baby," he closed his bottle and leaned in to give you a wet, minty kiss. You grabbed the front of his coveralls and pulled closer, kissing him again, "you're killing me."

"You've been gone all day," you teased softly, playing with a chocolatey rogue curl that had escaped his bun, "can you really blame a girl for missing her man?"

"Fuck no," he scoffed, "missed you too, baby. You look pretty today."

"You think this looks pretty," you dragged your fingers along the soft fabric of your dress' strap. Eddie was a simple man at the end of the day, and seeing you in a dress sparked some sort of primal urge, "you should see what's underneath."

"You're playing dirty," he groaned, trying to control himself so he didn't get a hard on in the middle of work. He wondered if it was either pretty lingerie or nothing at all. He'd find out soon enough he hoped, "I'm going to get you back for this."

"I hope you do," you patted his chest and gave him a soft, playful little push back, "so -"

"Aha," he sighed dramatically as he often did, "you have an ulterior motive. I should have known."

"Calm down, Edward," you laughed fondly, a sound that seemed to go straight to his heart and made butterflies flutter in his tummy, "its a good thing! I was talking with Steve and Robin today and they suggested we all spend the long holiday weekend at the cabin. What do you think?"

"You've already said yes for us."

"I've already said yes for us," you confirmed sweetly, "I didn't see why not. Unless you can't handle being stuck with your little boyfriend all weekend.”

“Stopppp,” he groaned, cheeks turned a pretty shade of bubblegum pink as tried to pull up his coveralls over his warm face, “I regret ever telling you I had a crush on Steve Harrington.”

“Baby boy, I am not blind,” you pulled the dark blue fabric away from his pretty face, “I know when you’re looking and when you’re looking. I think it’s cute, Eddie. Besides, you have good taste - Steve is a handsome guy.”

“Excusez-moi?” over exaggerated, in a horrible French accent. You loved this absolute dork.

“You didn’t let me finish,” you leaned in and pressed a kiss to his lips, “Steve is a handsome guy but you, Eddie Munson, are the handsomest and hottest man alive. My loins burn for you!”

“I…I can’t believe this is how the love of my life, my future wife, and the future mother of my children is acting,” with a hand on his chest, he hung his head and sighed deeply. Meanwhile your heart was rapidly pitter-pattering as your bones felt like jelly at the future wife and mother of my children comment. Eddie, loud and boisterous, had many times declared he was going to marry you and that you’d have all the children you wanted. But hearing it now still felt as electric as the first time. 

“I could say the same for you, future husband and father of my children,” but you were all fond smiles and soft eyes, “I’ll let you get back to it. Don’t work too hard, okay?”

“I’ll be home soon,” he reached for your hand and squeezed it gently, “wanna do Chinese for dinner?”

“Hell yeah,” you cheered excitedly, “I’ll call in and order-”

“And I’ll pick up on my way home,” he grinned.

“Excellent teamwork,” you loved him. You really, really loved him, “don’t forget - this weekend at the lake house!”

“Ugh!” 

He was still grumbling under his breath as you waved and walked out of the garage. How was he going to survive a weekend with you and Steve in bathing suits? He wasn’t going to, short and simple. 

But it would still be fun. Right? Right.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

 “Alright,” Steve Harrington was a natural leader. It was something he’d picked up quickly when he’d begun being everyone’s babysitter. But it was a role that suited him well and he looked so natural standing on the dock in front of the whole gang, arms outstretched as he tried to gather everyone’s attention. You were standing off the right with Eddie, hands entwined and fingers laced together. Robin was square in the middle, Nancy shyly tucked into her side; the newness of their relationship still strong. Jonathan and Argyle rounded out the group along with Chrissy Cunningham. A ragtag group of survivors that had turned to friends to found family. 

You wouldn’t have it any other way. 

You knew Eddie was excited to be with everyone but you also knew that he was lowkey freaking out about Steve. Sweet, golden, wonderful Steve that was oblivious to the fact that Eddie had harbored a crush on him for several years before you came along. Steve was his best friend and his former crush, but you were the love of his life. He knew that much, and so did you. It was still just a little fun to tease him. 

“Listen up nerds,” Steve looked between all of you as you started to playfully boo him, “this weekend is all about being lazy and having fun. So, don’t drown, remember sunscreen, and if you’re going to have sex keep it down and safe.”

“Hell yeah,” you heard Argyle and Jonathan snickering among themselves as you pressed a kiss to Eddie’s bare shoulder. Your friends were absolutely ridiculous sometimes but loved them all.

“And don’t forget - bonfires at nine o’clock sharp. There will be s’mores and beers,” that had you all excited, “now go and have fun, children!” 

Everyone started to scatter as you took Eddie’s hand and started to pull him along to the house. He pretended to huff dramatically as you grinned at him. He looked so good with black shorts and a cut off tank, tattoos on full display, dark ink against pale skin. His mess of curls was pulled into a bun at the stop of his head, a few curls framing his face. He had on a pair of black ray bans and beat up vans on his feet, the pure essence of cool. 

“Come on handsome,” naturally he obliged you and let you drag him along, “let’s get changed and go swimming. It’s so hot and the water looks perfect.”

“Did you bring-”

“The red two-piece that has you practically drooling?” you barely managed to get your words out before squealing as Eddie picked you up and threw you over his shoulder, practically running into the house, “Edward! I didn’t even give you an answer!”

“I presume the answer is a big, fat yes?” He opened the door to the room where you would be staying during your trip. You huffed as he gently set you down on the bed before caging you in between his arms and kissing you softly. You leaned into his touch, pressing to pull away from him until you were in desperate need  of a fresh breath of air, ��baby, baby, baby.”

“The answer to your question is a big fat no,” he rolled on his back and threw his arms out in mock exasperation, “calm down and let me finish.”

“You’re a cruel mistress!”

“I got a whole new bathing suit,” you rolled onto your stomach so you could face him. You reached up and touched his face, tenderly brushing your fingers along his cheek, “and I think you’re going to like it.”

“Sweetheart, you could be wearing a potato sack and you’d still be the most beautiful girl in the entire world,” your entire face softened at his world and you almost melted into a puddle, “and on top of all that, you’ve got the best and biggest heart of all.”

“And great tits-”

“And great tits,” he confirmed as if there was ever any doubt to that, “you’re the whole package baby. I love you.”

“I love you, Eddie,” you took his hand and pressed a gentle kiss to his knuckles, “you are the best man. Just so you know.”

He smiled at you, letting out a small wistful little sigh, “before we get too mushy, let’s get changed and get some sun.”

“That sounds excellent, my love.”

-

Okay. Okay. You hadn't been lying when you'd told Eddie that he would like this bathing suit. Bright pink and looking like it was made for you, fitting just as you liked and showing off all the curves you wanted to. You owned it and that in and of itself made you dangerously sexy. Eddie had to work to make sure he didn't get a hard on in front of everyone; he was glad for the cold water of the lake. He might have been drooling though…that was hard to control when you looked like that.

But - but - it got worse. He didn't think it could get worse than trying to control himself around you but then it did. He wasn't sure whether to curse you, Steve Harrington, or everything out in the universe. 

Once he'd calmed down enough and the two of you were playing around in the water, Steve Harrington came out to join you. He was wearing a pair of navy blue swim trunks and nothing else besides a pair of flip flops and sunglasses. He looked good and he knew it. 

And so did Eddie. His eyes raked over Steve's lithe, tan figure, which you quickly caught onto. Eddie studied his golden skin, littered with freckles and delicious chest hair. He swallowed thickly, the lump in his throat enormous.

You hadn't realize that Steve had come out at first but when Eddie suddenly fell silent you knew something was wrong. 

"Babe?" On his back on his float, chest already getting tan from the hot summer sun, was Eddie with his mouth hanging open as he stared straight at the dock. You followed his eyeline and almost laughed out loud when you realized what was going on. He quickly glared at you as you stifled your laugh which turned into a horrible snorting sound, "Edward."

"Sweetheart," he huffed like a child, pretty plush lips pulled into a pout as he looked at you, "affectionately - shut up!"

"You are the least conspicuous person ever! At least try to act like you're not drooling!"

"I am not drool-"

"Hey there."

You grinned at Steve as the boy swam over to you, a lazy smile on his face as he treaded water without effort. You splashed some water at Eddie as he remained silent, only a pained look on his face.

"Hey," he snapped to attention and looked between the two of you, brain overloaded with the amount of attractiveness between the two of you, "looking good, Harrington."

If there had been a wall in front of him, he would have been banging his head already. You snorted in amusement before floating onto your back and slowly swimming away with a wave. You were going to let them have their own moment.

"You too man," Steve had a smile so pretty that it was almost cruel. Eddie returned the grin with what he hoped was an equally lovely one, "being in love looks good on you."

"I-I'm not in love with you," Eddie's voice stammered and shook as he looked at Steve with wide, worried eyes. Steve tossed his head back with laughter. Oh. That wasn't what he was insinuating? Awkward.

"I know that," he reached over and gently tugged on one of Eddie's loose curls, "still hope you've got some love for me though."

"Duh," the two of them exchanged shy smiles, "always."

"Me too," Steve agreed and Eddie's heart started to rattle wildly in his chest, "wanna know a secret, Munson?"

"S-sure."

"It would have been cool if it would have been you," and just like that, Eddie was sure his heart stopped beating. The flow of the river around him seemed so loud and he was trying to convince himself that he was hearing incorrectly. Judging from the look on Steve's face, he hadn't heard incorrectly, "but I think we're on the right path regardless."

“Yeah,” Eddie knew that Steve was already devoted to Chrissy. The two of them clearly shared a deep bond despite only having been dating for a few months. When Eddie first learned that Steve was dating someone new, and then when he realized it was another of his friends, he could admit that some jealousy flared up. It was natural, and that was what you tried to explain to Eddie. Even though the two of you had each other and you both knew that you loved each other, it was a normal human emotion to still feel things for other people, “I agree.”

“And just so you know, you’re the most attractive guy I’ve ever met,” Eddie’s cheeks were already pink from the sun he’d been getting - he wasn’t good at remembering to apply sunscreen despite your insistence - but they just turned about ten shades darker when he heard Steve’s confession. Steve bit his lip as he blushed as well, “and you’re my best friend.”

“You’re my best friend too, handsome,” Eddie broke the bit of awkward tension that had settled in between the two of them. There was a moment of silence before the two of them broke into a fit of laughter. You’d found Robin and Nancy and the three of you were watching the boys in amusement. You’d all been taking bets on when, if ever, they’d reveal that they had had crushes on the other, “wanna go and grab a beer?”

“Hell yeah,” he agreed as the two of them high-fived. Steve started to swim towards the dock but Eddie paused for a moment as he turned around to wave at you, a goofy smile on his face. You couldn’t help but return the smile, your heart melting with nothing but affection for your man. 

He might have been a fool but he was your fool.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

It was late by the time all of you made your way back to your bedrooms. The bonfire had gone late into the night and all of you had been reluctant to go to bed despite the fact that you’d be there all week. This was a much needed trip for everyone.

“Hey,” you let yourself fall into the bed, laughing as Eddie copied you and jumped in next to you, easily putting his arm around you and pulling towards him. You couldn’t help yourself as you pressed kisses to his forehead, cheeks, and nose. He giggled at the soft touch of yourself before sighing softly as you draped yourself over him, “I love you, honey boy.”

“I love you,” he reached for your hand and laced your fingers together, giving your hand a small squeeze, “did you know that Steve had a crush on me?”

“I didn’t know,” you stretched out his arms and pressed kisses to his pale, inked skin, “but I knew. We all did. Wasn’t hard to see the two pretty boys oogling each other all the time.”

“We didn’t…oh,” his face between a range of emotions as he processed what you said. Suddenly it all seemed so obvious, “we did, didn’t we. Well, that would have been good to know a few years ago.”

“Excuse me?” you pretended to be shocked and hurt as you turned floppy in his hold, “are you telling me that you think Steve would have been the love of your life and the two of you would have been together living happily ever after?!”

“No way, princess,” he tenderly put his hand on your cheek and turned your face up to his, “you and I were meant to be. That’s never going to change. You’re it for me, baby.”

“I know,” you offer him a cheeky grin, “I just wanted to hear you say it, my love. Never gets old.”

“Then I’ll continue to remind you,” he pulled you down to his lips and kissed you sweetly, “every single day of my life.”

“Promise?” and yeah. He would do absolutely anything in the world for you.

“Promise,” he replied, voice low and soft, “but I’m still mad at you.”

“Mad at me?! Why?” you huffed and started to tickle him, causing him to dissolve into a fit of giggles.

“Because it should be illegal to be this good looking,” he huffed, “gonna be the death of me.”

“What about you?” you kissed him slowly, “you’re just as bad. Good thing we’re stuck together.”

“Forever,” he confirmed, “ahh, baby, I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Eddie. Lots and lots and then some more, goofy boy.”

#eddie munson x reader #eddie munson x fem!reader #eddie munson x you #eddie munson #eddie munson one shot #eddie munson imagine #bi!eddie #joseph quinn #stranger things

[chibieggplant]

Confessions with Penguin

My boy Penguin doesn’t get enough love. No warnings just banter and fluff.

You sat eating your lunch watching your other crew mates converse and joke with each other when suddenly you were jolted out of your little world feeling a nudge on your shoulder.

“Hey! I told you to stop doing that” You grumble as you rub your arm.

"What, this?" Penguin nudges your shoulder again as he takes the seat next to you.

You swipe his hat from his head in retaliation as he sits down.

"Hey, give that back!" he protests with a smile as he tries to grab his hat back.

“Nuh uh!” you pull the hat down snug on your head sticking your tongue out him.

Penguin lets out an exasperated sigh. "Fine, but can I at least get my hat back after lunch?" He didn’t take his hat off…ever, but he couldn’t deny you did look pretty cute in it so he would make an exception.

“You’ll get it back when you promise to stop nudging me”

"Fine, fine. I swear I won't nudge you again" He said, crossing his fingers behind his back.

“Do you think I’m an idiot? That wasn’t a proper promise” you smirk adjusting his hat on your head proudly.

"What do you want from me? Blood?" he says in a pouty voice, crossing his arms.

“Yeah! I want you to make a solom vow”

"You're impossible" he rolled his eyes as he nudged you again.

“And you’re annoying” you say with a smile not really meaning it.

"Shut up" he said playfully, punching you in the arm lightly this time.

“Point proven” you laugh punching his arm back.

"Oh, you wanna go?" he asked playfully, pretending to throw a punch your way.

“You’re the one who punched me first!”

"But it was just a light punch, not like yours, you nearly took my arm off!” he says dramatically, feigning an exaggerated expression of pain.

“I’m sure you’ll survive” you chuckled rolling your eyes.

"No, no I’m pretty sure i’m dying." he says dramatically again, grabbing his arm in ‘pain’.

“Well can you die quietly then please?” You smile as you go back to eating your lunch.

"Well, thanks for your concern. My final seconds on Earth and you can't even show a little sympathy for your favourite crew member" he said with a fake sad expression.

“I’ll make sure to put on your tombstone that you went out from a light punch to the arm” you deadpanned.

"Make sure it's carved in marble too” he said sarcastically with a dramatic flourish.

“You’ll get a wooden cross at best” you chuckled.

"It better be mahogany at the very least”

“I’m sure I can find some nice looking sticks outside”

"They have to be the perfect length, not too short but not too long either. Oh, and make sure the shape is nice and straight, no twisted branches"

“I’ll do my best…just for you” you smile as you throw a french fry in your mouth trying not to laugh.

"Thank you for doing the bare minimum" he said, faking a dramatic sigh before shoving a handful of fries into his mouth.

“What happened to ‘my final seconds on earth’? Shouldn’t you be dead by now?” you smirked. “I’m pretty sure dead guys don’t steal other people’s food”

He tried hard not to laugh, his lips twitching. “I'm fighting for my life here”

“Shut up” You smile throwing a french fry at him.

He catches the fry in his hand and pops it into his mouth. “So rude, even in my dying moments”

“You’re insufferable” you smile shaking your head.

"But you still like me, right?" he said leaning on the table.

“Someone has to” you shrug.

"Oh, please, you secretly have a huge crush on me” he teased, batting his eyelashes.

“You wish” you grin throwing another french fry at him.

He quickly catches the fry again in his hand and eats it. "Don't even try to deny it. We've been friends forever, there's no way you're not in love with me"

“By that logic that means you’re in love with me too” You smirk before quickly realising what you just said…did you just admit to being in love with him?

It takes him a second but then his eyes widened in realisation. Was that an actual slip-up? Did his crew mate, his crush, actually just admit she felt the same way?

“W-wait…what did you just say?”

You looked away suddenly, your eyes fixating on an empty spot across the room. You could feel yourself starting to flush. Had you really just admitted your feelings to him?

You try to backtrack quickly “N-no y-you- I mean…like as a friend…” but you just end up fumbling your words.

He noticed how your words faltered and caught onto the way your cheeks blushed red. Were you just messing around with him?

“No, no, hold on a second. Back up. What did you just say?”

You looked away, embarrassed. “I-it was j-just a joke. I wasn't being serious, really”

His eyes were on your every move. He saw your blush grow deeper, your eyes darting across the room. In that moment, he knew your words had been genuine, not just a funny joke.

“You're lying”

You stayed silent for a few moments, hesitating to respond. Your heart raced as you realised he had read you like a book.

"It was just... I... I just meant by your logic that would mean you’re in love with me…too” You said the last word so quiet that you’d be surprised if he heard it.

A hint of a smile appeared on his face. He couldn't believe it. Did he actually hear what he thought he had? He knew he wasn't imagining things when you started stumbling over you words. He knew you felt the same way as he did. Now he just needed to confirm the answer.

“Say it again”

“S-say what?” The blush across your cheeks refused to leave your face as you still couldn’t bring yourself to make eye contact with him.

He leaned slightly closer to you, lowering his voice so that it could only reach her ears.

“Say that you're in love with me…”

You looked at him through the corner of her eye, completely shaken up by this whole situation.

“D-do you really want me to say it?”

He took your face in his hands so that your eyes met. You shivered at the touch of his hands, a wave of butterflies washing over you as you felt his eyes gazing into yours. Your heart was racing, pounding rapidly in your chest but what you didn’t know was his heart was also beating just as fast.

“Just say it…please”

Your words were breathless, barely even a whisper. “I-I’m... in love with you”

A smile spread across his face as he brushed his thumb over your cheek. He could barely believe this moment was actually happening, that the person he had loved for so long also shared those feelings with him. He wanted to kiss you, to hold you forever. But he knew he needed to hold back, he didn't want to rush anything…not yet anyway.

“Well look at that, here I was thinking I was the only one...”

#one piece penguin #penguin x reader #one piece #one piece x reader #penguin #heart pirates #penguin one piece #anime

[riordanness]

crazier - p.jackson

1.1K wordcount

warnings: slight slut shaming??

requested: no

“You’ve gotta be kidding.” I stare at my best friend, half in shock, half in horror, half in amusement. Fine, I know that technically that equals 150%, but I failed maths in school, okay?

Percy laughs, a mischievous glint in his sea-green eyes. “I'm never kidding,” he says. “Especially not with you.”

I shake my head slowly. “I am not getting on a skateboard, Jackson.”

“Come on!” he pleads with me, and it takes every single bit of willpower I have to resist his puppy dog eyes. They remind me of a baby seal, cute and sweet and innocent.

“Why?” I whine a little, swinging my legs underneath the cafeteria table. I stare down at my ‘food’, something that I think is supposed to resemble mac’n’cheese and is actually just smushy looking yellow stuff.

“Cause it’s fun,” Percy says. “And I’ve wanted to teach you since forever.”

“Really?”

“Well, okay,” he relents. “Not forever. I haven’t exactly known you for forever yet, so… I guess I’ve wanted to since we first met.”

I raise an eyebrow. “And, tell me, how did we meet, Percy Jackson?”

Percy grins, shoves an extremely gross and greasy french fry in his mouth, and scrunches his nose at me. I’d never admit it out loud, but that nose scrunch of his was the single most adorable thing under the sun.

I toss my ponytail. “C’mon. Tell me.”

“Well, basically… I saw you, thought you were cute, you saw me, thought I looked like trouble, and we became friends.”

I roll my eyes lightly, but I’m pretty sure my slight embarrassment is obvious. Percy had thought I was cute? Yikes.

“I didn’t think you were trouble,” I tell him. “I knew you were trouble.”

“Oh yeah?” Have I mentioned how cute Percy looks with his eyebrows raised in that slightly teasing way? I shouldn’t love it as much as I do, but… well. I can’t help what reaction I get from this boy’s good looks.

“Hi Percy.” A girlish voice from behind me greets my best friend with a flirtatious smile. “Don’t you just hate sitting here with her?” Ruby shoots me a distasteful glance, and I make a face at her. “Wouldn’t you rather sit with us?”

Ruby is the prettiest and most awful girl in school, and she’s obsessed with Percy. Not that I can really blame her…

“Uh, no thanks,” Percy says, his lips tight in a thin, polite kind-of smile. “I’m perfectly fine sitting here with y/n.”

“But she’s so… boring!” Ruby sighs dramatically, widening her blue eyes wide. “And you and I are so… interesting.” She steps over to him, and traces a finger up his hoodie sleeve.

It’s Percy’s turn to make a face. “Uh- thanks again, Ruby, but no, really. I’m good.” He looks at me, and a little bit of his calmness washes over me. Somehow, I feel a whole lot less threatened by Ruby, almost like magic.

Ruby rolls her pretty eyes. “Well fine.” She gives me another glance, looking me up and down. I shoot her a fake smile.

“Have fun with… her,” Ruby says, her dislike for me practically dripping from her mouth. “I’ve heard good things about her abilities with boys.”

Percy is on his feet in an instant. “Don’t talk about y/n like that.”

Ruby laughs, somehow sounding both pretty and delicate and ruthlessly cruel. “Oh honey. Just telling it how it is.”

“You won’t say anything of that sort about her again.”

“And why not?” Ruby gives him the eyes.

Percy hesitates, looks at me, then his gaze hardens. He stares down Ruby. “She’s my girlfriend. And I do not like you talking about my girl like that.”

I’m frozen, half impressed, half confused, half in love. And yes, I know that’s too many halves. We already discussed this.

Ruby doesn’t exactly know what to say. “Oh,” she squeaks, and then turns on her heel and makes a hasty exit.

Percy doesn’t look at me as he sits back down. There’s silence for much longer than I can handle.

Finally, I find my voice. “Your girl, huh?”

Percy almost flinches. “I’m sorry.”

I laugh, a little breathlessly. “No. It’s fine, honestly. It was… kinda cute.”

“Oh.” Percy’s cheeks are pink.

Before I could say anything else, the bell for the end of lunch rings. Kids all around us get to their feet, scrambling to get back to class.

I glance at my best friend. “Wanna ditch?”

“Thought you’d never ask.”

Twenty minutes later, the two of us are sitting side by side atop the skate park, our legs dangling.

“Still want to teach me to skate?” I ask.

“Course I do,” Percy says.

Neither of us have mentioned the girlfriend thing, but I kind of want to. I’ve been crushing on Percy for years, and it’s honestly about time he finds out about it. I love the guy, but bloody hell he’s oblivious.

“Teach me then,” I say nonchalantly.

“Wait, for real?” Percy twists to face me.

I give a shrug. “Why not? It’s not that likely I’ll die.”

“I won't let you die.” Percy grins. “Come on!”

I honestly thought skateboarding would be easier. Turns out I have absolutely terrible balance, and can barely even stand on the stupid board, let alone move around on it.

“Here.” Percy’s hands are on my waist, steadying me. Well, steadying me physically, but sending so many butterflies all through my middle I almost die right then and there. “Just breathe,” Percy says, “and don’t panic.”

“I’m not panicking,” I say, my voice clearly panicky.

Percy laughs, and I decide that it is my favourite sound in all the world.

“I love you.” At first, I think I must be so scared about this skateboarding thing that I’m hallucinating, but no. It’s real. Percy Jackson really just said that.

I struggle for words. “What?”

“I love you, y/n,” he repeats, a little more hesitant this time. “I’ve been loving you for as long as I can remember knowing you. And when I pretended you were my girlfriend earlier with Ruby, well… I realised how much I wanted that to be true.”

I have a stupid smile on my face. But right now, I don’t even care. “I love you too, Seaweed Brain.”

Percy grins, tucks a loose strand of hair behind my ear, and presses a kiss to my forehead. “Ice-cream on the beach tonight?” he asks. “I’ll prepare everything and ask you to be my girlfriend properly.”

I laugh a little. “It’s a date.”

“Yeah.” Percy’s smile is like melted chocolate, warm and smooth and gorgeous.

“Now, get me off this ridiculous skateboard.”

#percy jackson #fanfiction #fanfic #pjo #percy jackson x reader #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo fanfic #percy jackson fanfiction

[tommiruewrites]

tewkesbury hc's !!

a/n: some of my random (and somewhat self-indulgent) flower boy headcanons after watching enola holmes 2! enjoy :)

requested: yes | no

requests: open | closed

request rules here

remember to like, comment, and reblog to support my writing <3

❀ loves the combination of chocolate and orange

❀ just loves citrus in general

❀ favorite color is purple, second favorite blue, third yellow

❀ knows an insane amount about plants and will sometimes randomly spew out a random fact

❀ the two of you are walking down the street, chatting about topics not at all related to nature, and all of a sudden, he's like, "did you know-" {proceeds to tell you the most insanely obscure plant fact ever about a flower you've never even heard of}

❀ loves animals

❀ and he's always so proud of himself for knowing it too

❀ random plant facts are also his go-to conversation starters

❀ is extremely clumsy and constantly knocks things over, trips over his own feet, etc. but all of a sudden, all the clumsiness leaves his body when dancing or fencing ?? he has beef with coordination idk

❀ his favorite flower is the one that reminds him the most of you

❀ he knows the meaning and symbolism of every flower, so he always has a reason or message with each on he gives you

❀ he also looooves poetry

❀ not afraid to pour his heart out to you poetically

❀ but only once you've been close a while, in the beginning he's a hot, awkward mess, tripping over his words left and right

❀ he does much better writing out his feelings at the start

❀ hides poetic notes in your flower bouquets, or leaves pressed flowers in your letters

❀ extremely dramatic

❀ the type of dramatic to claim he's on the brink of death after getting a single paper cut

❀ in fact, he's so dramatic that when little things happen to you, he overreacts for you. what a gentleman

❀ definitely a hopeless romantic 

❀ extremely good with kids

❀ slightly afraid of the dark

❀ his favorites are deer and horses, but he also just loves birds

❀ was a late bloomer when it came to walking, but started talking super early as a baby (it just makes sense okay)

❀ sometimes dances around in his room, alone, pretending he's dancing with you

❀ also practices romantic things to say to you in the mirror

❀ has super fancy-dancy penmanship and makes it look effortless

❀ really likes art, specifically romanticism style paintings

❀ plays the piano beautifully 

❀ also understands latin and is fluent in french because he's fancy

❀ very easily entertained

❀ also has a very short attention span for most things and gets distracted easily

❀ main love language is words of affirmation, followed closely by gift giving and acts of service

❀ loves his hair being played with

❀ owns a journal where he logs each day

❀ absolutely loves jam

❀ avid lover of jasmine tea and green tea

❀ also puts a ridiculous amount of honey in it

❀ oddly afraid of frogs and toads

thats all i can think of for now, hope you enjoyed that. 

side not, posted this on 11/11 at 11:11 my time bc im so cool like that. you're welcome.

#enola holmes #enola 2 #holmes #enola x tewkesbury #enola holmes x reader #viscount tewksbury #enola holmes 2 #lord tewksbury #viscount tewkesbury marquess of basilwether #tewkesbury imagine #tewkesbury x reader #tewkesbury fluff #tewkesbury headcanon #tewkesbury hc #tewkesbury #tewksbury #tewksbury x reader #requests open