#i simply like the baseball au | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

starlightkun · 6 months

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❧ word count: 18.3k ❧ warnings: cursing, renjun gets CONSENSUALLY dosed with a magical aphrodisiac For Science ❧ genre: fluff, humor, one (1) heavy makeout scene but no actual smut, 0.1 seconds of angst if you can even call it that, academic rivals to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, siren reader, human renjun ft. siren ten, same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: in my lore, siren scales are visible when they’re in more human-like forms because of magic, and it’s not an indication of their skin tone at all. so when the reader’s scales are mentioned, please don’t take this as any sort of allusion to them being pale/light-skinned! i tried to take care and make sure i wasn’t implying that in how i wrote it, but please tell me if it reads like that this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: y’all. get ready for this one. no spoilers but renjun and reader r both crazy and nobody should be subjected to them except each other. like they both look at the other and think “i could fix them but whatever the fuck is wrong with them is infinitely funnier to me” but they’re both Wrong. they could not fix the other. i don't want what they have but good for them. anyway as always i had way too much fun writing this that it went over my projected word count and i hope y’all have a lot of fun reading it too

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”

2608, 2610, 2612…

The numbers of the study rooms you passed by went up, up, up, as you continued your hunt. You knew he’d be here. It was the day before the first test in your Linguistics in Magical Creatures Studies class, meaning he was going to be holed up in the library until closing time. Now it was just a matter of finding him. Somewhere quiet, obviously, which was why you’d completely skipped the first floor with its wide-open “collaboration areas.” The second floor was all bookshelves and private study rooms that would hold four or five students at most. You peered into the narrow window on each painted metal door as you walked down the hall. While the first floor was recently renovated with new technology and upgrades such as the “collaboration areas” and bright pops of your university’s school colors that made for great promotional photos to put on the website and pamphlets to hand out to new students, this floor hadn’t had seen anything more than a janitor in a good couple decades. The musty, stale smell of old, unused books was all around you, the air conditioning hummed and clicked irregularly, all the furniture had ugly, outdated patterns, and the exactly three desktop computers they did have in a far back corner were practically as old as you. Which, in the digital age, meant that they were artifacts belonging in a museum.

And of course, sitting at very last one, as if he had been hiding behind all of these bookshelves from you personally, was Huang Renjun.

Renjun was sat in the wooden chair facing the computer, clearly deep in thought. He had one foot propped up on the wide chair seat as both of his hands were on the archaic-looking keyboard, speedily typing something out. He wore a pair of jeans, yellow hoodie, and a red backwards baseball cap kept his hair out of his face. An open energy drink can and empty bag of chips on the desk next to him belied that he had already been there for some time.

Now that you had found your target, you put on a burst of speed, stalking up to him from the side and smacking your hand down on the tabletop beside him. “Renjun.”

The human jumped in his seat, looking up from his screen to you. Taking his hands from the keyboard, he made a couple quick clicks on the mouse as he used the other to take his headphones out of his ears. “Y/N. Fucking hell… is your new strategy this semester to give me a heart attack and kill me?”

“If murder was on the table as part of our little academic rivalry, don’t you think I would’ve just drowned you after our Intro course freshman year?” You asked, tilting your head innocently. After all, you were a siren, that would be much easier than scaring him into an early cardiac episode.

Huang Renjun was not your friend. Not necessarily an acquaintance either, you’d known him for going on four years now, since your first class on your first day of college. The two of you were in the same Introduction to Magical Creatures Studies class. He had sat in the very front row, you just behind him in the second row. When your professor had asked an open question to the class, both you and Renjun eagerly blurted out the answer, Renjun just a millisecond before you. Dr. Li gave him the credit, and also requested that you two raise your hands in the future. And from then on you hated Huang Renjun.

Well, hate may be a strong word. You overlapped in at least two classes every semester being in the same major, and were both chronic overachievers. The first to raise your hands when a question was asked, studying in the library until closing (separately), and visiting professors’ office hours just to discuss topics from class further. Your professors noticed this. Some would pit the two of you against each other, and others would try to pair you up, whether on projects, research, or just in general, as a meeting of the minds or whatever. And you two would get your project done, pocket your As, and part ways again. Academic rival slash frenemy was the best way you could describe who Huang Renjun was to you.

“Who knows, you might still, if they ask me to carry the banner,” he muttered, picking his pen up and spinning it between his fingers.

This was your last semester, both you and Renjun were graduating in just a few months. At commencement, each department picked one “outstanding student” to lead the progression, carrying a flag with the department’s name and seal on it. This semester it was Magical Creatures Studies’ turn to select a student for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and your program head had already heavily implied that they could choose either you or Renjun, but they hadn’t made their final decision yet.

This was actually a pretty good segue into what you were really here to talk to him about. Pulling your lips into an alluring smirk, you nodded, “You’re right. It doesn’t take a rocket surgeon to figure out that—”

“A fucking what?” He cut you off, his face scrunching up as he blinked at you in confusion.

“Obviously it’s going to be one of us two, since we’re the two best students in the program.”

“Well, yes.” He nodded, seeming to let go of what had presumably been another one of your jumbled human malaphors. You admittedly hadn’t been living among humans for terribly long, and for some reason their idioms just didn’t stick in your brain very well.

“I mean, we not only are dedicated to the field itself and the content we study in class, but the program too. We probably know everybody in it, professors and students, right? Between the two of us?”

Renjun considered this for a moment. “Yeah, probably. We’ve both taken on a lot of SI and tutor opportunities for lower-level classes.”

“Right. So, you know those forums the school has on the online class platform? The general message boards?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I’m going to need you to sit tight with me on this until I finish talking, okay?” You pointed at him sternly. He nodded slowly. “Good. Back in the fall, about the end of September, I was on the message boards, just browsing around killing time. I was in the Tips & Advice section and saw this post. It was a gryphon who was losing feathers on one specific spot on her wing, and she didn’t know why. The witch she went to didn’t know why, nobody could figure it out. I was about to reply asking if it was her left or right, when I saw that somebody else already had. It was her left, and she’s a lefty. The same person replied again, asking if she sleeps with her wings out or not. She sleeps with them out. It turns out she was stress-preening in her sleep. Username: dr_magic2303. A couple weeks later, same message board, Tips & Advice, a human is suddenly producing dark purple goop from his feet but it’s so slippery he can’t even leave to go see a doctor or a witch and he was typing the post from his bathroom. Within an hour, this Dr. Magic is back telling him someone’s put an aether ooze hex on him, and to sit down and scoot on his butt to the kitchen and gather up all these ingredients for a cleansing foot bath. And if he doesn’t have them, then he’ll have to butt-scoot his way to an apothecary or call one who does home deliveries. Now people are posting on there specifically asking Dr. Magic to come heal all their magical aches and pains.”

Renjun stared at you, unblinking. The pen had gone still in his hand.

You breathed in, continuing, “I tracked this Dr. Magic all the way back to their first post in the first week of fall semester of this year. Now, I’ve been trying to figure out who they are on my own, and I’ve made a lot of progress on who they aren’t. But I’m going to lose access to those message boards once we graduate at the end of the semester. I know Dr. Magic has to be an MCS major, there’s no way they would be able to have to breadth, depth, and flexibility of knowledge by just Googling this stuff. And you and me, Renjun, I know we can do this. Not only do we know MCS, but we know the department, the people in it. It has to be us.”

He was still staring at you, mouth slightly agape. Then, his whole demeanor shifted. He dropped his leg so that both his feet were on the ground, and he resumed spinning the pen.

“Okay. I’ll help you.” He nodded thoughtfully. “If you’ll do something for me.”

“Do what?” You straightened up.

“I’ll tell you after we find Dr. Magic.”

You crossed your arms. “No, tell me now or no deal.”

“I tell you after, but you can still say no then if you don’t want to do it.” He bargained.

“That just sounds even more concerning, Renjun. Tell me now or I’ll do it myself.”

“I’m hurt. What happened to ‘it has to be us?’”

“I’m a siren, I know how to sweet talk. Don’t take it personally.” You snorted. “Now, what do you want from me?”

“You’re a siren,” he echoed plainly, as if that were all the explanation you needed.

“And you’re a genius.” You retorted. “Tell me now or I walk out.”

“I... want to experience siren venom. For science.”

Oh, you could kiss him right now, no deal necessary. He was meeting your gaze head-on, a slightly unhinged glint in his eye. Not a hint of fear, just a craving for new experiences, unbridled curiosity. Yeah, he was a bit crazy, you were realizing four years on, and you wanted him.

“You’re insane.”

He leaned back in his seat, putting his hands up in front of him in an ‘I-don’t-care’ gesture, “If you don’t want to find Dr. Magic—”

“I didn’t say no, I said you’re insane,” you corrected him with a grin, dragging your eyes up and down his form as he sat so confidently, negotiating with a siren like it was any average Tuesday for him.

“So do we have a deal?” He set his pen down and held a hand out to you.

“You help me find Dr. Magic, then I’ll spit in your mouth.” You momentarily thought about the disparity in division of labor on that, but decided not to point it out aloud. Easiest handshake of your life. “Deal.”

You wanted to eat him alive.

“You’ve tried IP tracking?” Renjun asked, scrolling through your word document of notes that you’d accumulated on Dr. Magic.

“‘You’ve tried IP tracking?’” You mimicked him under your breath, making your voice so high-pitched to the point of mocking.

He rolled his eyes.

This was your first meet-up to try to hunt down Dr. Magic together. It was a couple weeks after he had agreed to help you in the first place. There was a test and some assignments in a few of your classes to get through first before either of you had enough spare time to dedicate to this. But now the two of you were back in the library, having taken a study room on the second floor and set up with your own laptops. You’d sent him your notes to look through on it while you perused the message board for any new posts from Dr. Magic.

“You do know that any geographical location an IP address can give you will just be the city, right? It’s not like the movies,” you snorted, dropping your voice back down to your normal intonation as you shook your head. “Anyway, I did do some extra legwork with the IPs, and matched most of them to desktop computers here in the library. I think the others are a personal device, their laptop or something.”

“They’re all different.”

You tutted at him, “Oh, you sweet Thursday’s child…”

“That’s not the say—”

“They’re all somehow on other continents. Now, I don’t think Dr. Magic teleporting abroad and cross-dimensionally to make forum posts.”

“VPN?”

“Definitely. They’re covering their tracks, they almost never use their own device, and when they have to, they use a VPN to cover up the IP address of it.”

He made a noise of acknowledgement, eyes still focused on his screen.

Then, something on the forum caught your eye. “Oh! Right here. Thirty-six minutes ago, a dryad posted that she can’t sprout daffodils from her body anymore. Every other plant and flower are fine, except daffodils. She posted it specifically asking Dr. Magic if they know what’s wrong with her.”

“Huh.” Renjun’s brow furrowed. “Just daffodils?”

“That’s what it says,” you confirmed, making a few clicks on your computer. “And… ‘notify me.’”

“You can turn on notifications for forum posts?”

“You can’t,” you informed him smugly. “But one of the sirens in my pod, he’s got a bunch of CompSci friends who I paid to write a browser extension for me that bookmarks forum posts and sends me email notifications when anybody replies to them. So I’ll know exactly when Dr. Magic responds.”

“You…”

“Have definitely spent too much time, energy, and money on this, I know. Sunken cost fallacy, look it up.”

“I was going to say ‘are insane,’” he breathed out, his voice a mixture of awe and disbelief.

When you looked up from your computer at him, you saw that he had a curious gaze fixated on you, eyes narrowed slightly, mouth parted, and head tilted ever so slightly to the side.

You leaned forward minutely, holding his eye contact. “Takes one to know one, Junnie.”

He looked down at his keyboard, shifting in his seat before he looked back up at you. “Why are you calling me that?”

“Do you not like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“So you do like it.” You smirked.

He frowned. “I didn’t say that either.”

“Well do you?”

“Answer my question.”

“Answer mine.”

“I asked first.”

“Ooh, how very primary school,” you teased, setting your chin in your hand.

“It’s only fair.” He pointed out.

“We could flip a coin.”

“Y/N.”

“Junnie.”

The human sighed, holding your eye contact wordlessly, looking entirely unamused.

You finally gave in with a casual shrug. “I just am.”

“Seriously? We’ve known each other for four years and you’ve never called me that—you’ve called me plenty of other things—but now suddenly you’ve got a nickname for me?”

“I’m not trying to be derogatory with it, if you’re worried about that,” you clarified. “Just sort of happened. I’m a siren, I flirt with cute people, sorry. Do you want me to stop calling you that?”

He ran his fingers through his hair, pushing some off his face as he turned his focus back down to his screen. “It’s fine.”

“Anyway, I bookmarked the new forum post, so it’ll go on the board.”

“The board?”

“I, uh, I may be using a spare wall in my apartment to host a conspiracy theory board with you know, the red string and thumbtacks and stuff…” You admitted quietly.

“Can I see it?”

“Ho-ly shit,” Renjun breathed out, staring up at the multiple time-stamped printouts of forum posts, pictures of classmates and faculty, sticky notes, and yards of red string that you had pinned to a blank wall in your apartment.

You stood next to him, gazing up at your creation with a strange mixture of pride and embarrassment. This was the first time you’d let someone see this, and you were kind of glad it was Renjun. He actually seemed impressed. You were sure that any of your friends and family would be weirded out at best, and very concerned at worst.

“Yeah, I’m adding color copies off the school printers to the invoice I’m sending Dr. Magic at the end of all this.”

“You’re sending them an invoice for your self-assigned mission to hunt them down?” He snorted.

“Yup. It’s their fault for not using their school-issued login.” You crossed your arms. “Makes them enigmatic.”

Your classmate pointed to one of the headshots. “Is that Dr. Li?”

“Did you think our scope was narrowed to just students? Faculty have access to the message boards, too. And we’ve learned everything we know from our professors, so they obviously have the knowledge and skill to be Dr. Magic.”

“And their names also start with Doctor.” He added dryly, which you took to be a joke.

You decided that it wasn’t at your expense, though, and after giving a short chuckle, continued on with your explanation of why you specifically had your program head up on the board. “When I was grilling Dr. Li for information in the fall, he was giving me very duplicitous answers. Pointed me towards a freshman who I swear didn’t even know the difference between Arctic sirens and glacial sirens.”

“You think it was a diversion.”

“Obviously.”

Renjun tapped his chin thoughtfully. “What sort of questions were you asking him?”

“I couldn’t straight up ask him if he was Dr. Magic. So I was asking him things like... other than you and me, who did he think was the best student in the program, that kind of stuff. Said that kid reminded him of you and me on that first day of Intro to MCS.” You couldn’t help but let out an indignant scoff at the idea. “Can you believe? Didn’t know the difference between Arctic and glacial sirens…”

“Who was it?”

“Some basilisk in one of his Intro classes last semester. Uh…” You snapped your fingers as you tried to remember his name. “Seunghan! Hong Seunghan!”

“Seriously?” The human turned to look at you incredulously, clearly offended at the comparison as well.

“Seriously!”

He clutched at his chest like he was about to have a heart attack. “That’s who he thinks is the next us? I was an SI for that class…”

“I know! He’s not the brightest tool in the shed, huh?”

“So close, Y/N. So close…” He sighed.

“It almost completely threw me off my search for Dr. Magic. I figured I needed to seriously step up my game in his undergrad research or something.” You shook your head at the horrible memory. “Then I realized he might have been trying to get me to do exactly that.”

“Huh.” Renjun folded his arms over his chest as he looked away, pretending not to seem interested. “You did research with Dr. Li last semester?”

“Don’t give me those kicked puppy dog eyes, you’re doing research with Dr. Kwon this semester and she’s like, my academic idol!” You pointed at him accusatorily.

“And Dr. Li is mine!”

You waved your arms in front of you, shaking yourself out of the academic envy-induced frenzy you’d gotten worked up into. “We’re getting off-topic. We’re here to catch Dr. Magic, remember?”

“Right…” He took a deep breath, turning back to the conspiracy wall.

As Renjun studied your work, you studied him. You had a strand of fairy lights clipped up above the conspiracy wall for light and ambiance (mostly ambiance), and they now lit his features from the front. He didn’t have a baseball cap on today, leaving his brown hair to fall over his forehead, down past his eyebrows and just into his eyes. He blinked and shook his head slightly. A piece had presumably been bothering him. The curving slope of the bridge of his nose, his lips, his chin that he still had one hand propped up to hold, a finger tapping against his cupid’s bow like a metronome. You listened closer, curious if it would be mimicking the beat of his heart. The tapping was just slightly slower than his heart, and would stop if he found something that he took particular interest in, then start back up when he moved on again.

Not that you were going to tell him, but you were double motivated to find Dr. Magic now. Seeing Renjun under your venom was going to be a reward all on its own. You understood full well why he felt like he needed to ask you as part of an exchange like this, but he seemed to greatly underestimate his own selling value. Which was good for you. This was a win-win-win in your eyes.

Thinking of the deal made you curious, though. He had that request ready to go almost like…

“So, do you want to be petrified by a basilisk, too?”

Renjun didn’t take his eyes off the wall. “Already have been.”

“Really?”

“My friend Mark is a basilisk. When he had just gotten his powers a couple years ago and couldn’t control them, he kept accidentally petrifying his human roommate. So I figured out when it was most likely to happen, invited myself over and hid his sunglasses. It was strange, being able to think but not speak, see but not blink, and telling my muscles to move and not having them obey.” He casually detailed what sounded like one of the most horrifying experiences ever to you, leaning in towards a specific post from November. “But it only lasted one minute and twenty-nine seconds.”

You stared at him with both admiration and alarm. “You manufactured an opportunity to get petrified.”

“I knew he wouldn’t do it if I asked. He’s a wimp. That, and he couldn’t do it on command at the time, even if he did agree.”

“Have you had your blood drank?”

“Yup.”

“Been flying?”

“How so?” His eyes flicked over to you for a second, and you were glad that you had relaxed again with the more casual conversation.

“With a gryphon, phoenix, take your pick.” You shrugged.

“Uh-huh.”

“Do you have a list for this stuff or something?”

“Written down, no. But I suppose I have a mental list.”

“Poisoned by a wyvern?”

“Would have to find one first.”

You felt your eyes bug out of your head. “You want to be poisoned by a wyvern? You know there’s no cure for that, right?”

“Yes, I took the same class that you did on them last spring.” He reminded you tersely. Your head jerked back minutely, surprised for a second that he had noticed, remembered, and brought it up. The two of you didn’t have a spat in that class, taking an ‘ignore and pretend the other doesn’t exist’ approach that semester when you could, and hadn’t mentioned it since. Seeming to realize what he’d done, Renjun rushed to move on, “So I also know that there’s no cure because they went extinct hundreds of years ago.”

“Supposedly.”

“You think they’re still out there?”

“Maybe.”

“Hm.” He stepped to the side to read over the next post from the first week of December.

You scoffed. “Okay, coming from the guy who believes in aliens.”

“We haven’t explored all of space. But we know what habitats wyverns lived in, and they’re not there anymore.”

“They could’ve adapted, gone somewhere else,” you tried to argue. “I’m not exactly splashing around the ocean right now, am I?”

“Where did they go, then?”

“I... I don’t know,” you admitted, holding yourself by your arms protectively.

“Hmph.”

You tightened your grip, swallowing hard against the lump threatening to grow in your throat. “I just don’t want to believe they’re gone, okay?”

“So this isn’t a scientific hypothesis, but some rosy daydream?” Renjun’s disapproval of the lack of academic rigor in your argument was clear in his tone as his eyes never left your wall, following a red string up to your next connection for Dr. Magic.

“I don’t want to believe that wyverns went extinct because that means that sirens could too! Alright?” You finally snapped, hands squeezing tightly around your biceps as your claws came out with the raw burst of emotion. “I know that Magical Conservation was just some class to you, but I had to sit there and take notes on how exactly the native habitats of sirens—me, my friends, my family—are shrinking, and could theoretically lead to our extinction, and then write a discussion post on it after like it was some intellectually stimulating bit of information. So yeah, maybe I like to imagine that there’s still wyverns out there somewhere, because it gives me a modicum of hope that after everything, there could still be sirens, too. Sorry that that’s not academic enough.”

The image of Renjun that you had been yelling at in front of you was wavering as tears swam in your vision. He’d turned around to listen, mouth parting as he seemed to immediately realize his mistake. The human nodded regretfully, running a hand through his hair before finally picking his words.

“I’m sorry, Y/N. I didn’t mean to be so dismissive. I-I misread the tone of the discussion. Sirens aren’t wyverns, and you won’t meet the same fate they might have. Siren advocacy and conservation groups are making huge progress. The world now is a lot different than it was hundreds of years ago,” Renjun said, and you could hear both the remorse and firm belief in his tone. “And who knows, maybe there are still some wyverns out there. I could be wrong... it’s been known to happen before.”

You took a deep breath, your claws receding back into your fingers and just leaving your normal fingernails. As you looked down at your arms, though, you let out a sigh.

“Damn, I got myself.” You clicked your tongue in your throat regretfully, spotting a few drops of what looked like molten silver metal welling to the surface where you’d punctured your skin.

“Ooh,” Renjun winced sympathetically. “Do you have some… bandages?”

“Even better, I’ve got running water.” You started towards the door, then noted that there were no footsteps behind you. Turning back around, you looked at the human knowingly. “Do you want to watch, Renjun?”

He perked up. “Please?”

“Come on,” you jerked your head, holding your arms level as you shuffled towards your kitchen.

Thankfully, you hadn’t been nearly deep enough to get your scales, just the skin overtop. Turning the kitchen faucet on, you grabbed one of your sleeves, then looked at your classmate imploringly.

“A little help, Junnie?” You nodded towards your other arm, where the end of your sleeve was getting close to your blood.

“Oh, sure.” He surged forward to help you roll up the other one.

“I know you know this but be careful not to touch my blood,” you reminded him, finally pulling up the sleeve you’d started on well enough. Siren blood was a neurotoxin to humans—and not the fun kind like your venom, but a proper ‘kill you in an excruciatingly painful way’ kind.

“Uh-huh, got it.”

A couple drops on your left and a drop on your right had run down to your elbows, and you just managed to catch yourself so that they dripped into the sink and not onto your counter (or gods forbid, Renjun). Looking over to make sure he was watching, you stuck your left bicep under the stream of water first. The ocean blue scales that peeked through your skin shimmered in the kitchen lights directly above your head. Thankfully you hadn’t come anywhere close to nicking one of those. That would’ve actually hurt. Within a second of touching the water your skin had meshed itself back together. You turned your arm to rinse off the blood, then brought it back out to show that there was no scar left. Doing the same with the other, it healed just as quick, no mark left behind to indicate that anything had ever happened.

“Yep…” Renjun breathed out as you grabbed a hand towel and went to dry off your arms. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of that.”

“How many does that make?” You giggled.

“What?”

“How many creatures have you seen magically heal themselves? What number am I?”

“You make me sound so…”

“Like a common MCS whore?”

“I was going to say clinical, but damn, tell me how you really feel, Y/N.”

Both of you laughed, and you put the hand towel back.

“You’re the first siren,” Renjun answered your question genuinely anyway.

You hummed as you mulled this over. “I’ll take it.”

He made a dramatic motion of wiping sweat off his forehead, and you reached forward to smack his forearm. You two laughed again.

After a bout of comfortable silence, your eyes settled on him again, still thinking about exactly how you’d accidentally stabbed yourself in the first place.

“I forgive you, by the way,” you said. “I don’t think I said that.”

“You didn’t.” He nodded. “Thank you.”

“You really mean all that? You think I’ll—we’ll be okay? Sirens?”

“Of course I mean it. Or I wouldn’t have said it. It’s the most scientifically plausible. I did take that Magical Conservation class seriously, you know. I know it couldn’t have meant the same thing for me as it means to you, but I did my final paper on siren conservation projects in the Arctic. The progress that’s being made there is incredible. I-I don’t want to tell you about your own species’ problems, obviously, but—”

“I did mine on siren conservation in the tropics.” You let out a dry chuckle at the flawless symbiosis. “You can tell me about your paper sometime, Renjun.”

“And I’d love to hear about siren conservation in the tropics.”

“Ah, ‘a meeting of the minds.’” You did your best impression of Dr. Li, thinning your voice out to sound like an elderly man, which garnered a smile from Renjun. “Isn’t this what our professors always wanted?”

“Uh-oh. We’re giving them exactly what they want.” He shook his head ruefully. “Quick, you need to start yelling at me about something.”

“Well you need to say something obnoxious first.”

Another gentle lull in the conversation, and you watched as Renjun looked around your apartment a lot more carefully than when you two had first entered. Your destination then had been solely the conspiracy wall, but now he seemed to be really taking it in.

“So why don’t you have like… a fish tank or something?” He asked.

“Because that would be cruel! Imagine if someone kept you in a 2-foot by 2-foot box!” You jabbed a finger into his chest accusatorily.

He held his hands up in surrender. “You’re right. That was a stupid question.”

“I’m glad you said it, because I was about to.”

“So why don’t you reply? To the posts.” Renjun asked curiously, back to trolling the message boards for new Dr. Magic posts. You two were holed up in your second floor study room again. “You’ve been tracking Dr. Magic so closely, you’re getting to these posts before they do, and you can help all these students, too. So why don’t you just reply instead?”

Yours and Renjun’s search for Dr. Magic had been going on for a month now, and he’d been proving himself useful. He’d finally convinced you to rule out Dr. Li as a suspect when he found a message board post made from a school computer while Dr. Li was away at a conference giving a presentation. Confirmed to be done at the exact same time. So you’d found another wrong person, but you still didn’t feel any closer to the right person. The remaining people felt like they were going to turn out to be dead ends, and there was nobody good to rule in either.

Spring break was coming up in a few weeks, which meant that commencement preparations would be starting, which meant that the colleges would be announcing who would be chosen to carry their banners, which meant the actual students who were going to be chosen would be told at least a week or two ahead of time. Every time you thought about that you wanted to bite something. Maybe there was some ancestral link between sirens and werewolves. Another paper waiting to be written.

“They don’t want me. They want Dr. Magic.” You told Renjun, hating the irritable edge in your voice when you addressed him. You weren’t upset with him, you were just anxious in general. He didn’t deserve to have you take it out on him.

“Right. Sorry…”

“No, Renjun, I’m sorry,” you sighed, taking the wood pencil out of your mouth that you had been gnawing on. “I just want to get this Dr. Magic stuff over with before midterms because you and I are both going to get super busy studying for midterms, and then no matter which one of us gets picked to carry the banner, that’s going to suck up a lot of time preparing for commencement too. I shouldn’t have snapped at you though, sorry.”

He offered you a small smile. “It’s okay, I get it. It’s another deadline. But it’s a group project, remember? We’ve got this, Y/N.”

You nodded. “Yeah, I know. Just feeling the pressure. I’m going to get something from the vending machine. You coming?”

“No, I’ll keep chugging along.”

“Okay. You want anything?”

“Nah. Thanks, though.”

“Alright,” you nodded, standing up and rolling your neck out. “I’m going to stretch my legs while I’m up, so I’ll be a few.”

“I won’t sound the alarm then.” He gave you a two-fingered salute as you headed to the door.

You meandered around the second floor, taking your sweet time to get to the stairs. There was a vending machine on the second floor, but it had a limited selection. The good snacks were all in the vending machines on the first floor, by the collaboration zones. Your back cracked all on its own as you plodded down the steps, and you let quiet groans with each one, until you finally landed on the first floor. There was a noticeable hum to the first floor, which only increased as you neared the two-thirds of the floor that was taken up by the collaboration zones. The vending machines were on the boundary of the bookshelves and the open spaces filled with tables and TV monitors and so many students.

Stopping in front of the drinks machine first, you mused over the options for a moment. Picking out your preferred seaweed-infused iced tea—an option you only saw sirens and the really hardcore human health-nuts drink—you then sidestepped to the snacks. It took you just a second to select a pack of mini peanut butter sandwich cookies. Neither peanut butter nor peanuts themselves were in the regular diet of a siren, but Renjun sometimes had the cookies on him for one of his werewolf friends and you’d picked up a taste for them. You would’ve never considered even trying them before hanging out with Renjun. Being an MCS major, you didn’t like to admit it, but your social circle wasn’t very diverse species-wise. You had your siren pod, and you were very happy sticking with them, thank you. Renjun, meanwhile, seemed to be best friends or friendly acquaintances with everything except a wyvern. You knew plenty about other species, after all, you excelled in class. But practical experience, you were finding you seemed to be lacking in. Maybe you should start your own Renjun-esque bucket list. Something to consider after finding Dr. Magic.

Taking a step back over to the drinks machine, you made the split-second decision to get Renjun’s favorite non-caffeinated, non-alcoholic drink. Honeydew melon soda. He had already said that you didn’t need to get him anything, but you wanted to.

“Hey, Y/N!” A cheerful voice greeted you, and you spun around, your two drinks and bag of sandwich cookies in hand.

You already knew who it was going to be, smiling at the familiar face of Ten. He was not only another siren, but specifically a siren from your pod, ocean blue scales and golden eyes matching your own. You threw your arms around his neck to give him a hug. “Ten! Ah, hey!”

“Are those… peanut butter?” He looked at the snack in your hand suspiciously.

“Uh, human study buddy,” you brushed off his concerns nonchalantly.

“Right, gotcha.”

The two of you usually hung out a lot—about as much as you and Renjun were together now, you figured—but since your spare time had been taken up with putting the search for Dr. Magic on full throttle, you were blanking on the last time you’d seen him. The beginning of the semester. Oh shit, you felt so guilty now.

The apology immediately started spilling out of your mouth, “Gods, I am so sorry we haven’t hung out, I wish I could say it was classes, or even research or something, but I’ve got this project. I can’t even really explain it without sounding crazy but—”

“Woah, Y/N, it’s okay,” Ten reassured you with a laugh, the same bright smile on his face as always. “I know how you get when you get really into one of your projects. Just let me know when you’ve finished it, and we can hang. Or if you ever need a break from it, too. It’s fine. If you weren’t a little crazy and obsessive, I wouldn’t be able to recognize you.”

He ruffled your hair with a snicker for good measure, and with your hands full of food, you couldn’t fight back, just huff and try to duck out of the way. But he was genuine about his sentiments, which really did make you feel better.

“Thanks, Ten. I’ll get in touch soon, I promise. I think I’m almost done!” You told him proudly.

“Soon in normal person time or soon in Y/N time?”

“Me time…”

“That’s what I thought. I’ll see you in six months then.”

“I’m not that bad!”

“Remember when I wondered aloud if sirens at the North and South poles were related, and you ended up spending our entire winter break researching that?”

“It only took four weeks!”

“You said it would be a quick search.”

“Exactly! People will dedicate their entire lives to that kind of research! I vastly condensed it!”

He shook his head fondly at the memory, elbowing you gently. “Get back to your project so you can finish early again and we can hang out soon, okay? And scoot, I’m trying to use the vending machine. You’re always in my way, I swear.”

You playfully pretended to block him, laughing as he nudged you out of the way with his shoulder. Starting back off towards the stairs, you turned around to give a cheery, “See you, Ten!”

“Bye, Y/N!” He waved to you with one hand, punching in the vending machine code with the other.

In better spirits having seen your friend, you traipsed up the stairs with extra pep in your step. Except Renjun wasn’t in your study room. Huh. Well, nothing in the rules saying a guy can’t take a bathroom break.

Setting his melon soda down next to his laptop, you plopped back down in your chair and kicked your feet up on the table. You ripped open your peanut butter sandwich cookies and cracked open your tea. The cookies were sweet, and while you didn’t have any oceanic reference for what peanut butter tasted like (you were told that “nutty” was a flavor profile unto itself, which wasn’t very helpful), you had decided that you liked it.

Waking your laptop back up, you saw that you had a new email, and shot up in your seat when you saw the subject.

dr_magic2303 replied to a post.

8 minutes ago.

Holy fucking shit, 8 minutes ago. While you were in the library? They could still be there. You looked around frantically. Where the fuck was Renjun when you needed him? Shooting to your feet, you snatched your phone from the table and rushed to throw the door open. Into Renjun’s face.

He stumbled back, holding his face as he let out a string of curses.

“Shit! Sorry, Junnie!” You didn’t sound all too sorry as you bounced on your feet, antsy to get a move on with your search. “No time for an ice pack though. Dr. Magic just replied to that dragon post we had bookmarked eight minutes ago. Which means that they’re probably still in the library! We need to go look for them right now!”

You took off in the direction of the desktop computers on this floor, keeping your voice at a fervent whisper-yell. The second floor computers were their favorite, according to the IPs.

“I know!” Renjun hurried after you, still clutching his nose. “I saw the email, and I tried to call you, but you left your phone in the study room.”

Checking your phone, you did in fact have a missed call from Renjun from 6 minutes ago. Well shit.

“So I went to go get you, but you weren’t at the vending machines, so I came back up to the study room and then nearly got my nose broken.”

You looked over your shoulder at him with wide eyes. “You went to get me? Not look for Dr. Magic on the freshest lead we’ve ever had? When they were quite possibly around the corner?”

The two of you had arrived at the desktops, and there was nobody in sight. One was awake, on the account login screen, the other two asleep on the ancient screensavers. You let out a heavy sigh, looking over at Renjun.

“I went to get you because this is your thing, not mine. I don’t know, I’d figured you’d want the satisfaction of taking the mask off them.”

You nodded. “Thanks, Junnie. Next time, though, just get them.”

“And how about you keep your phone on you?”

“So we both fucked it up.”

He gave you a one-shouldered shrug. “There’s still three more floors, Y/N.”

“Right, come on. You take the first, I’ll go up to the fourth since I smacked you with the door.”

The other floors were busts, and when you finally met back up with Renjun in your study room, you were glad to have your cold bottle of tea waiting for you. Knocking back a third of it in one go, you let out a noise of relief. Renjun had already opened the soda you’d gotten him.

“Thanks, by the way.” He held it up gratefully before taking a sip.

“You’re welcome.”

“And, I’m sorry. That I let Dr. Magic get away.”

“We don’t even know what floor they were posting from yet. They’ve could’ve been on the fourth floor and would’ve been gone by the time you got there anyway.” You brushed away his apologies. “Or they could’ve been on the second and been a psycho and you would’ve been a poor defenseless human all by yourself.”

“Oh, right, without my big strong siren to protect me.” He scoffed. “Woe is me.”

“Exactly,” you laughed, shutting your laptop. “Anyway, I’ll take a look at the IP later. Who knows, they might not have even been in the library. Might’ve been one of those rogue VPN posts.”

“Yeah, maybe.” He looked over you packing up your things. “You heading out?”

You nodded, zipping up your bag and tossing it onto your shoulder. “Prior arrangements. Sorry to cut this short, completely forgot about it when we agreed to meet up.”

“You’re so popular.”

“I know!” You mimicked his sarcastic tone, holding the door open with your foot as you stopped in the threshold. “Oh, hey— the midterm in MCS Linguistics. It’s my only one this semester, I’ve just got papers in all my other classes. Do you want to study together for that?”

“Yeah, sure, sure.”

“First session Saturday? My place for lunch?”

Renjun grimaced, presumably remembering your typical stock of pantry items tailored to a siren’s food preference. “I’ll pack a lunch.”

“Cool. See you in class, Junnie!” You waved to him cheerily as you took off for the faculty advisor meeting with Dr. Kwon that you were going to need to run across campus to be on time for.

“What is it?” Renjun set his book down where he was sat across your coffee table from you, an inquisitive eyebrow quirked up at you.

“What? Nothing.” You bit down on your lip, eyes boring holes into your computer screen.

“No, it’s not ‘nothing.’ You’ve been staring at me ever since I got here, while also refusing to make eye contact with me. What? Something in my teeth? My hair look bad?”

Normally that would’ve made you chuckle—he was wearing a backwards baseball cap again today—but you just bit down harder on your lip and shook your head.

“Now you’re refusing to talk?” He scoffed. “Did you get hexed or something? I can’t believe you’re refusing to talk.”

“No, I can talk,” you insisted. “What uh, what’d you get for number four? On the review packet?”

“Don’t tell me you’re still stuck on number four. Y/N, I’m almost done, and there’s twenty-five questions on this.”

“I’m not, I finished and went back, it was just one that I didn’t—”

But Renjun had grabbed your computer and turned the screen around, and you knew he could see that you had only done the first one. You buried your face in your hands, your skin prickling uncomfortably with shame. Your friend’s sigh was audible, but surprisingly, the next thing said wasn’t a string of derision. Instead, you heard the shuffle of clothes against your rug, and then he was sitting shoulder-to-shoulder and knee-to-knee with you.

“Y/N, what’s going on with you today? Or, not today, the past couple days? You weren’t all there in class yesterday either. I left it alone then because it was Dr. Hyun, and nobody is ever all there for her classes but— what’s wrong?”

You slowly shook your head.

“You can’t tell me?”

You nodded.

“Okay. Is it bad? Like, dangerous?”

You shook your head.

“Alright, that’s good.” The relief was audible in his voice. “Is it family? Or, pod?”

You shook your head.

“School?”

You nodded.

“Alright, yeah. A lot going on. Is it like burn out?”

You shook your head.

“So, new stuff?”

You nodded.

He put an arm around your shoulders. “I’m sorry, Y/N. I know you already had a lot. Getting this midterm over with will be one more thing off your checklist, right? That’ll open a spot for this new thing.”

With a sniffle, you nodded.

“Ah, but you’re not going to be any good studying like this.” He sighed again, dropping his arm from around your shoulders and his presence shifted away from your side. “Come on, quick field trip. Then we’ll come right back to the MCS Linguistics grind. Sound good?”

You finally took your hands from your face to look up. Renjun was standing right next to you, offering you a hand. You tentatively put yours in his, and he tightened his grip to pull you up to your feet.

The two of you ended up in a froyo shop down the street from your apartment. You gleefully picked a gummy shark off the top of your swirl, biting the head off first before tossing the rest in your mouth. Renjun lifted a meticulously curated spoonful of froyo and toppings to his mouth, satisfaction on his face as he tasted his perfect bite. You watched in amusement as he went to start creating his next scoop that had the precise ratio of yogurt and every single topping he had chosen—each partitioned to their own area atop the froyo. You decided to save your second big gummy shark for last, and took a big spoonful from the melting edge of your froyo.

“Why not me?” Renjun asked abruptly, his gaze still on the dessert in front of him.

“Huh?” Your jaw dropped. How could he have known what—

“You haven’t asked me if I’m Dr. Magic. Why not?”

Ah, Dr. Magic. Of course.

“You were my first guess, and the first person I ruled out back in like September,” you admitted with a shrug.

His head snapped up at that. “What? Why?”

“Because you’re such an arrogant, neurotic overachiever that you’d want credit if you did all this. You wouldn’t use an alias.”

“Oh. Huh.” Renjun looked between you and his froyo, a sheepish smile coming to his face. “Strangely, that makes me feel better.”

You watched a dollop of froyo fall off your spoon and plop back into your cup. “And I nabbed your IP address off your laptop the first time we hung out in January and double-checked it with every Dr. Magic post. Just in case.”

“When I was in the bathroom?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Of course you did.”

“Were you taking it as an insult to your intelligence that I had apparently not considered you as an option?”

“Maybe…”

You laughed, and laughed, and laughed. You laughed so hard your sides hurt, there were tears in your eyes, and you genuinely started wheezing. Renjun pretended to roll his eyes, but you saw the smile on his face and knew what he was thinking: success, no more mopey siren.

Once you had enough air back in your lungs to talk, you pointed your spoon at him firmly. “See? Just proving my point. You want people to know you’re smart.”

He crossed his arms. “As if you don’t.”

“Oh, I definitely do. But I know I’m like that.” You put a hand over your chest, looking him dead in the eye. “Do you?”

With your head screwed back on the normal amount, you and Renjun were able to dive back into your study session at your apartment. Several hours into it, though, you noticed Renjun blinking like way too much and constantly rubbing at his eyes. It was to the point where it was distracting for you.

“What’s wrong with your eyes?” You asked bluntly.

That immediately burst the Renjun griping dam (which was really held together with tape and prayers anyway). “The screens hurt my eyes and human blue light glasses don’t do shit and no fairy has let me try theirs out. I know I should probably just take the plunge and buy them but I really can’t justify the price and—”

“Try mine.” You stood up, walking over to a display shelf on the other side of the living room.

“You have a pair? Why? Sirens don’t—”

“You collect magical experiences. I collect magical things.” You said nonchalantly, grabbing the pair of silver frames from where they sat between a phoenix feather (a gift) and a small wristwatch that would tell the correct time until it was put on, then it would be set on the time and date most significant to the wearer in that moment until it was removed. Walking back over to him, you held them out to him insistently, “Here, try them.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Renjun gingerly took them, sliding the arms over his ears and the frames onto the bridge of his nose. The pair you had was a little older, admittedly. You’d picked them up at a novelty shop, so they had some retro charm to them. An older style of frame, thicker lenses. But you thought it added a quaintness to their look. Especially on Renjun, he just looked downright adorable in them.

You sat back down to watch with your head in your hand as his brown eyes blinked from behind the thick lenses, and he looked around your living room like a newborn woodland animal. His face had already relaxed, and he turned his focus down to his laptop screen next, messing with the brightness up, then down. After that, he took out his phone, doing the same with that device.

“Well?” You prompted him, though you truly would’ve been content with watching him look around as if he’d been born colorblind and it were his first time seeing in color. Which, you had an enchanted pair for that too, but he wasn’t colorblind to your knowledge.

The human looked at you, a giddy smile stretching across his face. “They’re perfect! Thanks, Y/N!”

His hand reached up to take them off, but you stopped him.

“Keep them—”

“No, these had to be so expensive!” He protested immediately.

“Just for a week or so,” you finished your sentence pointedly. He was cute, but not that cute. “Make sure you really like them before you buy, okay? If you end up hating them, give them back. If you like them and buy your own pair, you can give them back whenever yours arrive in the mail.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, it’s not like I’m using them. Superior siren eyesight.” You tapped next to one of your eyes for emphasis.

“Thanks for not rubbing it in or anything.”

Scrambling to dial Renjun’s number, you put your phone on speaker as you fervently flicked through all of your Dr. Magic notes. You’d been laying in bed binging some mindless baking competition to numb your brain from all the studying you’d been doing when an email notification had popped up alerting you to a new Dr. Magic post.

“Y/N?” Renjun answered the phone, sounding utterly confused. “What’s—”

“New Dr. Magic post. I ran the IP and they’re in our city!” You blurted out.

“Okay… Well we already knew that, right?”

“Yeah, but this is an IP in our city that they posted from at midnight on a Saturday. Not any of the school computers.” You hit CTRL + F, typing in the string of numbers to quickly cross reference it with your extensive list. “This could be their IP. Like, their actual one, from a personal computer.”

“Oh, yeah. Could be.”

“Can you give me a little more enthusiasm here, Junnie? Did I wake you up or something? It’s only—” You stopped like you’d just walked face-first into a brick wall, eyes locked on the search result.

“Yeah, only quarter after midnight,” he scoffed.

You clicked the next arrow on the search bar, but that was the only match. 1/1 results.

“Y/N?” Renjun called for your attention. “You there?”

You hung up.

Not wanting to lose your nerve, you pressed the doorbell over and over insistently. You could hear the complaining tone of the occupant before his words were even audible.

“Christ, I have neighbors, you know?” Renjun swung open the door with a scowl. The human was in a big, slouching hoodie and pajama pants. His hair was stuck up in a couple different directions, making you think he might’ve just woken up. Except behind him, you could see that his kitchen light was on, and a couple books and his laptop were open on his kitchen table. Late night studying. And the fact that you’d just talked to him on the phone fifteen minutes ago.

“Can I come in?” You requested, fidgeting with the sleeve of your cardigan.

His face immediately softened. “Yeah, of course.”

“Sorry to just show up like this,” you said as you took off your shoes by the front door before following him further into his apartment.

“It’s okay.” He stopped you two in the kitchen, picking up a colorful, patterned cardboard box. “Uh, I was just about to make a midnight snack. Pizza bites, you want some?”

“I… don’t think I’ve ever had them.”

“Perfect, you can try one now then.”

“Mm,” you made a non-committal noise, leaning against his kitchen counter to watch him pour out the frozen food onto a baking sheet.

The oven beeped, and he put the tray in before pressing a couple more buttons.

“So, I was thinking about the Dr. Magic stuff. Not the IP stuff but like… What even is your plan for when you do find Dr. Magic?” Renjun asked as he put the remaining pizza bites in his freezer.

“What do you mean?”

He leaned against the countertop across from you, though in the narrow space of his kitchen, you were practically knee-to-knee. “Like, say we finally find out who they are, we run up to them in the library or on campus or something. Then what? What are you going to do? What are you going to say? You’ve done all this, and I know why you had to. I get it. But, do you know what you’re going to say to them?”

“Probably something along the lines of…” You trailed off, giving an exasperated sigh. Dropping your chin to your chest, you groaned, “Gods, I don’t know.”

“Hey, that’s why you got me. So you can bounce ideas off someone, do a dry run.”

“I thought the words would just come to me, and now that I’m trying, I can’t—”

“It’s fine, Y/N. Let’s think about why you did this. I know it’s really hard to put into words. I mean, I know why you did. I get it. It’s that need to know. Not because you can, but because you have to, right? It’s curiosity in its rawest form. So obviously it’s not going to be some schmaltzy ‘haha I caught you’ spiel or anything.”

Looking up from the kitchen tile to Renjun’s eager features, you shook your head in disbelief. “You’re still helping me… when I know it’s you, Junnie.”

He tilted his head to the side, a comical noise of confusion coming from his mouth, “Uh?”

“I know it’s you, and you know that I know that it’s you.”

“You already ruled me out, because I’m an arrogant—”

“Junnie, you made a post on the forums from your laptop. No VPN. When you knew I was still tracking Dr. Magic’s IP on every post they made, and that I had your IP. That’s not a whoopsie that you make unless you want to be caught.”

The human crossed his arms over his chest, but otherwise seemed entirely calm about being caught. “And you didn’t come in here guns blazing now that you’d caught me, either. Why?”

“I didn’t know how to say it. I mean, you’re right, I only did all this because I needed to know.”

“And now you know.”

“Why now? Why just give up now?” You asked with a shake of your head. “You started posting as Dr. Magic back in August, and I came to you in January. You knew everything I was doing; you could have cruised through the rest of the semester and I’d have never caught you.”

“You wanted to find out who it was by midterms. One less thing on your plate.”

“And now I know…”

“So how does it feel? Finally catching Dr. Magic?”

You wrinkled your nose and sighed, “Bit disappointing. I was right on my first guess.”

“And you immediately dismissed me out of hand for being an arrogant, neurotic overachiever on your first guess,” he pointed out.

“Yeah, but I didn’t really know you then. If I’d known you then like I know you now, I would’ve known as soon as I saw the first post.”

Renjun batted his eyes teasingly. “Aww, Y/N…”

“Doctor underscore magic two, three, zero, three? Twenty-three, oh-three? That’s your birthday, Junnie,” you deadpanned.

“Right.”

Pushing off the counter to stand up straight again, you said, “Anyway, you did help me find Dr. Magic. So, my turn.”

“Oh, no, you seriously don’t have to do that. I rigged the deal—”

“Yeah, about that.” You took a step forward. “How did you think that was going to end up for you, anyway? Were you going to sell somebody else out as Dr. Magic and hope I wasn’t going to talk to them? Spit in your mouth first and ask questions later?”

“I was thinking on my feet.”

“Maybe think laying down next time, Junnie.”

“Ouch.”

“Anyway, come on, you’ll want to sit down for this.” You grabbed his wrist, pulling him towards the living room.

“You don’t need to feel like you have to do this,” he reassured you.

Stopping the two of you in front of the couch, you turned to face him with a smirk. “Believe me when I say that it is going to be a treat unto itself for me to see you under the effects of siren venom. M’kay?”

Renjun’s surprise was evident on his face. “Oh.”

You stepped closer to him, delicately placing a hand on his chest. “Now unless you want me to literally spit in your mouth, I’m going to have to kiss you, to administer the venom.”

His eyes flicked between the hand you had on his chest and your face as he replied. “I’m okay with that—the kissing—if you are.”

“Renjun, I’ve been ready to eat you alive since you said the words ‘I want to experience siren venom for science’ to me.”

“Really?”

“Mhm. So why don’t you sit?” You guided him with the hand against his chest to sit back against his couch. Swinging one leg over his hips, then the other, you lowered yourself onto his lap. “Is this okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” he nodded, tentatively settling his hands on your thighs. “Is this okay?”

“More than.” You smiled, looping your arms around his neck. “Now, a couple things, before we get started.”

“We haven’t started?”

“You’ll know it when we do.”

“Right.”

“I know you think you know what siren venom is like, but whatever scientific articles you’ve read, or documentaries you’ve watched, or slides you’ve studied under microscopes in lab, cannot actually prepare you for what it’s like. Which, I imagine is why you want to experience it for yourself.” You smirked down at him as you watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down with a gulp. “So before I actually dose you up with it, I need you to tell me what you’re actually okay with doing and what you’re not. Because once you get my venom in you, you’re going to want to let me do anything and everything to you, up to and including kill you, remember?”

“Well that’s off the table.”

“Good to know,” you snorted, running a fingernail down the nape of his neck. You felt a shudder go through him. “Is this okay?”

“Y-Yeah.” He seemed to be fighting to keep his eyes open. You halted your motions to let him think, and watched in amusement as he blinked his mind clear.

Once enough time had passed, you prompted him, “So?”

“I think just kissing,” Renjun answered. “Like, making out, or whatever. If you want…”

You snickered. “What part of ‘eat you alive’ was I unclear about?”

“The ‘eat’ part, actually. How literal is that?”

“Guess you’ll find out,” you teased. Then, you focused again as you sat back a little. “Okay, making out. Making out means different things to different people. So… we know kissing’s on the table. Tongue?”

“Yeah.”

“Teeth?”

“Where?”

“Waist up. You got somewhere you don’t want them?”

He took a moment to think about this. Then shook his head. “No. You can use them. Anywhere.”

“Same goes for you. Hickies?”

“Giving or receiving?”

“Both. You first.”

“Both are okay. You?”

You were already zeroing in on his neck and a small part of his collarbone peeking out from under his hoodie. “Same. Touching over clothes?”

“Okay, as long as you don’t think it’ll be too much with the venom…”

“Oh, Junnie, everything is going to be too much.” You grinned down at him.

His breathing had picked up pace as the two of you were talking. “You? The touching?”

“Good. Great. Touching under clothes?”

Renjun squirmed underneath you, but maintained your eye contact. “Just under my shirt.”

“Smart boy,” you said approvingly. “Me too.”

“Is that it?” He asked quietly, eyes now flicking down to your lips.

“I think so…” You looked around the room to buy a couple extra seconds of thinking time. When you hadn’t come up with anything else, you looked down at the human below you once more. “Ready, Renjun?”

“Yes.”

You took one final look over him like this, how much he already wanted you before he’d even gotten any of your venom in him, and dragged the tip of your tongue over your bottom lip instinctually. His heartrate jumped, and you wondered if it was fear—if the motion had reminded him perhaps of a hungry predator—or need. Or maybe a bit of both.

But you couldn’t tease him nor yourself any longer, swooping down to connect your mouths. You started off with just a couple light, closed-mouth kisses, to ease him into it. You heard him inhale quickly through his nose, his grip on your thighs tightening minutely. Swiping your tongue across the seal of his lips, you were delighted when he immediately parted his mouth in response, his tongue seeking yours out. You hummed contentedly into his mouth as you started stroking a fingernail down the back of his neck again. At the same time, your venom was beginning to mix in with your saliva, being passed onto Renjun.

Once his jaw started going slack in the kiss, and his hands slowly slid off your legs entirely to rest lamely at his side, you deemed him plenty dosed up. Consciously, you blocked off your venom glands once more. When one particularly drawn-out scratch down the back of his neck finally elicited a noise from him, an involuntary whine, you felt something in you snap. You needed more of that.

“So this is what siren venom feels like…” He mumbled breathily, letting his head loll back against the couch cushion as you kissed a path down his jawline and neck. When you felt his breath hitch in his throat over one particular spot, you decided to take your time there, sucking and nipping a mark into his skin.

When humans were… locked in a lover’s embrace, they let off a certain perfume distinguishable only to sirens—which was what made them the favored prey of sirens for so long. A human under the influence of siren venom? Delectable. And every human’s was unique too, so Renjun under the influence of your venom? Absolutely addictive.

With each kiss you stole from his lips, every nip you left on his neck that you then soothed over with your tongue, you got another taste of it. A sweetness that came with a bite, like ginger candy.

Renjun was still talking, though, his vocal cords vibrating under your lips. “My-My heart’s beating so fast, and I’m so warm—that’s so the ocean water doesn’t feel cold, of course—”

“Would you shut up?” You sat back up, grabbing him by the hair.

“Why?”

“I’m trying to kiss you again, idiot.”

“Oh. Right.” He closed his mouth, looking up at you with glassy eyes, waiting. Gods, he was so pretty like this.

You crashed your lips back on his, a mess of teeth and lips and tongue as he tried to keep up with you. But you knew that your venom was in full effect now, every single one of his nerve endings was approximately three and half times more sensitive. So you were sure it was all a little overwhelming. But he was definitely trying his best, kissing sloppily into your mouth with hungry, desperate whines.

Pulling him back off with your grip in his hair, you traced a thumb over his kiss-swollen bottom lip, cooing over how fucked-out he looked like this. “Oh, baby. Oh, poor Junnie. What’s wrong? Can’t even kiss me properly because it feels too good? Baby’s overwhelmed with just a little bit of kissing?”

He opened his mouth wider, darting the tip of his tongue out to brush against the pad of your thumb. You pushed the finger in his mouth, groaning as he immediately closed his lips around it. “Gods, you’re perfect, Junnie.”

Taking your thumb back out of his mouth just to grab his chin with the same wet digit, you attacked his lips with yours again. Ginger candy. His hands that had been lamely resting at his sides the entire time now fumbled at something in the area where your hips met.

“What? What are you trying to do, baby?” You asked, leaning back to look down. He was grabbing at the hem of his hoodie, unsuccessfully yanking it up towards his head as part of it was stuck under one of your thighs.

“‘m too hot. Please…” He panted, dropping it as he looked up at you pleadingly.

You nodded slowly in understanding, knowing that one of the effects of the siren venom was an increase in body temperature, not to mention what you two were just doing. The collar of another shirt was visible underneath the sweatshirt. “Okay, Junnie, we can take your hoodie off. But only the hoodie. Your other clothes are staying on, understood?”

He nodded quickly, hips bucking up against you. Sweat was beading up on his forehead, his hair getting stuck to the damp skin. You shifted back on his lap so that none of the sweatshirt was under you anymore, grabbing the hem and reaching behind him to yank up from underneath him as well.

“Sit forward for me, baby?” You requested in his ear sweetly.

Renjun obliged as best he could, leaning forward to get his back and shoulders off the couch. You pulled the hoodie up over his head, tossing it off to the side, leaving him in a black t-shirt that certainly couldn’t be helping much either. But having that heavy layer off seemed to provide some relief for him, as he let out a sigh, falling back against the furniture again.

You giggled as you settled back into the crux of his lap again, lacing your fingers together behind his neck. “Is that better now, Junnie?”

He shook his head, and you arched an eyebrow curiously.

“Oh? What’s wrong, then?”

Renjun tugged gently at your cardigan where it had shrugged down to show one of your shoulders. “Please?”

Pulling your bottom lip in between your teeth, you thought this over. You had a tank top on under the cardigan, and both of you were still wearing everything else. Not to mention that you were starting to get a bit warm too. Sirens ran naturally cooler than humans, so you were sure that to him, you felt practically refreshing right now, but you honestly were a bit hot for a siren’s tastes.

Giving a contemplative hum first, you finally relented, “Alright, Junnie. But just my sweater. Everything else stays on, because we didn’t talk about that before the venom, do you understand?”

He rushed to strip you of the knit cardigan, his mouth following his hands’ path down your skin. First on your shoulder, then down your arm. You let the garment drop on the floor behind you as he kissed back up along your shoulder, then over the fabric of your tank top until he got to your collarbone, and finally the hollow of your throat. Fondly stroking the back of his head, the pleased purr that had started in your chest turned into a surprised moan when he licked a long stripe up your throat.

Holding his face in your hands so that your noses brushed, and your lips barely ghosted over each other, you let your breaths mingle in the meager space afforded. Renjun ended your little anticipation game quickly, kissing you tongue-first, and you kissed him back just as eagerly, sucking on his tongue with lewd, wet noises. He moaned into your mouth, his hands grabbing at your waist for purchase first, then slipping and curling into the material of your shirt, bunching it in his fists.

Slowing the pace of your kisses, you eventually sat back, appraising the state he was in. You affectionately ran a hand through his hair as you took in his blown pupils, kiss-swollen lips, and pink cheeks. “Junnie? How are you feeling? Need a break?”

You hadn’t given him another dose of venom since the initial one, which wasn’t very large to begin with. But this was his first time experiencing it, so you wanted to check in. He should be just past the peak of it by now, starting to come down but for all intents and purposes still very much intoxicated. Siren venom wasn’t meant to last very long, after all, it took an adult human less than a minute to drown.

“Need you…” He insisted, arching up towards you.

Indulging him in one, two more feverish kisses, you pulled away once again. “I know, baby. And you’ve been doing so good for me. So I need you to tell me if you need a break. Okay?”

“’kay.” He agreed before you sealed your mouth over his again.

Kissing down from his mouth to just under his jaw, at the same time you trailed a finger down the center of his front until it got to the hem of his t-shirt.

He nodded fervently before you could say or do anything more. “Please… please…”

“Shh, shh, shh,” you quieted him down gently. “Doing so good for me, Junnie. The best.”

You slipped your hands under his shirt, just to stroke his waist. His muscles tensed under your touch, and he let out a sound of satisfaction. He grabbed at your thighs again, but you couldn’t tell if it was an attempt at reciprocity or to have something sturdier to ground himself to than your flimsy tank top. The corner of your lips quirked up as you pressed a couple more kisses down his neck to hover your lips over his pulse point, content to start a new mark there as your hands continued to explore under his shirt. It was when you gently raked your nails down over his pecs that you got the loudest moan out of him yet, and you groaned in response.

“Gods, you’re perfect,” you nuzzled your nose into Renjun’s neck, then pressed a couple relatively chaste pecks to his cheek. “Just perfect…”

Taking your hands back out from his shirt, you silenced his whine at the loss of contact by slotting your lips together once more. You cupped his face with one hand, using the other to take one of his hands off your leg and lace them together, palm to palm. This seemed to make him content once more, especially when you brought your connected hands up to the back of the couch, pinning his behind his head. He squirmed under you, letting out a familiar noise of pleasure into your mouth and squeezing your hand tightly.

You knew the venom was well and truly starting to wear off when Renjun began keeping pace with your slow, lazy kisses, his mouth not as sloppy but no less delightful as it moved in tandem with yours. The thumb of the remaining hand on your thigh started to stroke over your skin, and the hand that you were holding gave yours a gentle squeeze. You gave him one, two last lingering kisses, drinking in the dwindling taste of ginger candy while you could, Renjun matching you beat for beat.

Unlacing your fingers and dropping your hand from his face, you drew back from him. Before you could say anything, though, Renjun grabbed you by the back of the neck and pulled you in for one more kiss, sinking his teeth into your already tender, over-kissed bottom lip. You gasped into his mouth, which gave him the perfect opportunity to intertwine his tongue with yours again on his apparent mission to try to kiss the breath from you. A nigh impossible task for a human to do to a siren, but it definitely felt like he was succeeding. He was crushing his lips against yours so hard you were worried about him drawing blood—not because you would mind the pain, but for fear of his safety if he got a direct hit of your blood in his mouth.

In the back of your mind, you were desperately trying to remember if you had maybe accidentally opened your venom glands a second time later on, but just drew a blank. That wasn’t something you did unaware, it wasn’t automatic, it had to be done on purpose. Then, for a brief moment, you were worried about secondary wave syndrome—some humans break down siren venom in two phases instead of one, and the second one almost always kills them if they’re not brought to a human medical doctor for treatment—and you started running through the symptoms as well as the nearest human emergency rooms in your mind. Burst capillaries in the eyes, refusal of food and water, the hospital three blocks over should have an ER, right? But the kiss didn’t feel like when he’d been intoxicated on your venom before, this one felt deliberate, in control. He was in control. You let out a small moan at the thought, and Renjun’s lone hand on your thigh tightened in response.

Once he finally let you go, you both sat there in silence for a good few seconds, you still on his lap. You stared extra hard at the whites of his eyes. They looked normal. He seemed… normal.

It was rare for either of you to be speechless, much less the both of you.

“Well…” you broke the silence. “That was siren venom. You should drink some water. Stay right here, I’ll get it.”

You climbed off of him, heading into his kitchen. Looking at the oven, you were wondering how the timer hadn’t gone off in that entire time when you saw that it wasn’t on. The words ‘TIMER SET?’ were flashing on the screen at you, and the preheat hadn’t been started either. The pizza rolls had just been slowly defrosting on a pan in the cold oven. You couldn’t help but laugh, reaching into his fridge for his Brita filter then securing a couple cups from the cabinets.

Walking back into the living room, you handed the human his cup of water and remained standing as you took a sip of yours.

“You didn’t start the oven, for your pizza rolls,” you informed him quietly.

“Wh— oh, shit,” Renjun groaned, tipping his head back. “I guess I don’t get to give you your first pizza roll tonight.”

“That’s okay.” You dropped onto the couch next to him, shoulder to shoulder.

“So… that was siren venom,” he breathed out, then took a long gulp of his water. Definitely not second wave syndrome.

“That was siren venom,” you confirmed with a laugh, fondly brushing a piece of sweaty hair off his forehead.

“You were right… I was not prepared,” he admitted with a laugh, taking another drink.

“So do you think you would’ve let me kill you?”

“Yeah. I would’ve given you my credit card info, bank password, spilled all of my friends’ worst secrets, let you kill me, killed someone else if you asked me. God, that was…” He said with wide eyes, shaking his head. But there was a familiar glint in his eye as a smile cracked across his face, “Incredible.”

“Glad you think so,” you giggled, patting his chest. “Now don’t become a venom junkie, okay? I couldn’t live with myself if you did and it was my fault.”

“I won’t. Not really what I meant anyway.”

You grinned slyly at what he seemed to be implying, that it might not have just been the siren venom, but that it was you and your venom that made it so incredible. Like how every human had a slightly different essence, every siren had a unique chemical signature in their venom. It’s why using it non-consensually nowadays would be extremely stupid (as well as just an immoral thing to do and also a crime)—it can be matched to the siren in a lab like DNA. In addition, anecdotally, every siren’s venom was said to produce a slightly different high, but no mass studies had backed that up. You were inclined to believe the stories, though.

Renjun was still a bit hazy, though, still riding the high of the venom, so you decided to tuck a conversation like that away for another time.

“So why did you pick Magical Creatures Studies? Other than you’re insane?” You redirected the topic to a more neutral one.

Renjun didn’t seem put off at all about this jump. “When I was a kid, my family traveled around a bunch, for my dad’s job. I got to meet a lot of different kinds of beings, some of them became my best friends, and I never wanted to stop learning about it all.”

“What does your dad do?”

“Government job,” he answered, suddenly interested in picking at his nails.

You furrowed your brow thoughtfully. “Wait a minute… Huang Renjun. As in, your father is Ambassador Huang? That we’ve had to write papers on in class?”

Ambassador Huang was the first human ambassador sent on diplomacy trips to outside nations of magical creatures post-integration. His trips had largely been considered a monumental success, and credited as a big driver behind the huge uptick of immigration that your city has been seeing from outlying areas in the past couple decades. You’d hardly gotten through a single contemporary MCS class without directly learning about him or at least hearing his name. And you’d apparently been going to school with his son for four years and just pumped said son full of your venom and made out with him while he was high on your venom.

“Yeah…”

“Dude! What the hell? You didn’t think to mention that at some point?” You asked incredulously.

“And sound like some uppity nepo kid bragging about my dad? No thanks,” Renjun snorted.

“Yeah, maybe not like day one but like… I don’t know, before I used my venom on you!” You nudged his arm teasingly.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“I just venom-ed Ambassador Huang’s son!”

“Oh my God, could you not call me that?” He snapped at you. “This is why I don’t tell people! Because now I don’t have a name anymore, I’m just Ambassador Huang’s son.”

You immediately realized your mistake, your stomach dropping as you heard the hurt in his words. “Renjun, I’m—”

“Just go.” He demanded, standing up from the couch and putting distance between you two again. “We both got what we wanted, right? You found out who Dr. Magic was, and I experienced siren venom. That’s all this was, so you can go. You don’t owe me anything else.”

You clenched your jaw, setting your cup on the end table beside the couch. Picking up your cardigan from the floor with as much dignity as you could, you pulled it back on. Neither of you said another word as he watched you stalk over to the front door, shove your shoes back on, throw the door open, and slam it closed behind you.

Drumming your fingertips along your keyboard, you squinted at the flashcards on your screen. You were in a sour mood, which had persisted ever since you’d left Renjun’s last night feeling used.

Ten was next to you at your picnic table outside the student union, finishing up a pencil portrait sketch of one of his other friends—one of the CompSci majors you’d paid to write your browser extension, actually. Dejun, a dragon, whose slit pupils, many bejeweled earrings, and a singular fang poking out from under his top lip featured prominently in the portrait. The sketch was part of Ten’s midterm portfolio check-in for one of his classes. Midterms were literally this week. Like, right now. You forced your sharp teeth further into the wooden pencil in your mouth.

“You’re going to ruin your cuspids like that, Y/N,” Ten chastised you calmly, rubbing at a line with the pad of his ring finger to smudge it before flipping his own non-mangled pencil around and continuing to sketch with the graphite.

“I’ll grow another set,” you grumbled, but took the writing utensil out of your mouth nevertheless.

“And have no teeth in the meantime. Real sexy siren stuff. Sure to lure all the hotties to their deaths looking like GamGam missing her dentures.”

“Shut up!” You shoved his head away, earning a loud peal of laughter from your friend. “As if you’ve been pulling anybody yourself. You’re literally a siren art major covered in tattoos that he designed himself, more piercings than a dragon, including nipple rings, and you haven’t been on a date in… what, almost a year?”

“So we’re both disappointments to the good siren name, huh?” He held up his hands in surrender, still grinning. “Just a couple of poor, celibate sirens doomed to be disgraces to their species forever…”

“Can you not yell that to the entire courtyard, dude?”

“What? Not announce very loudly that you haven’t been with anybody in exactly four—”

You lunged to cover his mouth before he could publicize precisely how long it’s been since you’d hooked up with someone. Ten immediately broke down into laughs behind your hand that was covering his mouth, his shoulders shaking even as you smacked him on the back of the head with your other hand.

“Gods, what is wrong with you?” You hissed at him. “You’re a menace to society. And me.”

When you’d finally let go of his face, he said through a couple more chuckles, “Hey, you could easily do it back to me.”

“Why would I want to do that? And the fact that you’re suggesting it makes me think that you want me to do that, which makes me want to do it even less. You freak.”

Before your podmate could respond, you caught sight of a figure approaching your table head-on. Setting your jaw, your body immediately tensed. There was no mistake, Huang Renjun was walking straight towards you. Ten seemed to have noticed the shift in your body language and mood, as he didn’t say anything further, quietly going back to his sketchbook as you watched Renjun get nearer and nearer.

“Y/N,” he said your name quietly, stopping not quite at the end of the table beside you, but next to the end of the bench across from you.

“What do you want from me now, Renjun?” You replied bitterly, pretending to return your hands to your keyboard as if you were going to refocus on your studies.

“Uhm, to talk, I guess?”

Ten interjected, “Do you guys need a second? I can go—”

You held him in place with a hand around his wrist, your voice curt, “No, Ten. Stay. This will be short.”

Your friend lowered himself back down into his seat.

You then set your hard gaze on Renjun. The marks you had left on his neck were still visible above the collar of his t-shirt. Moving your eyes from that to his face, you cocked your head to the side. “What’s in it for me? You established that our relationship is purely transactional, remember? We apparently just use each other. You scratch my back, I spit in your mouth, quid pro quo.”

“Okay, I’m going now,” Ten declared, wrenching his arm from your grasp to grab his sketchbook, pencils, and backpack before taking off.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it. I don’t see you like that at all, I just... I got defensive and snapped. It’s not an excuse, but still, I want you to know that I don’t mean anything I said. I’m sorry.” Renjun shifted uncomfortably on his feet, but you could see the genuine remorse on his features.

You breathed in, then out.

“I’m sorry too,” you sighed, letting your voice relax back to the natural softness that it held around Renjun. “You’re your own person, aside from just ‘Ambassador Huang’s son.’ I’m sorry for treating you like anything other than Renjun.”

“It’s not that I’m not super proud to be his son or anything, I think he’s really awesome. He was my hero growing up; still is. I mean, I’m going into the same field as him. Kind of. You know? It’s just because we’re going to be doing the same kind of thing, I want to be able to be looked at for what I do. Good or bad.”

“Bad? You plan on using your degree for evil, Renjun?” You teased, scooting over on the bench seat to take Ten’s previous spot and freeing up a place for Renjun to scoot in beside you.

“I could,” he played along, gladly taking the seat offered.

The two of you made eye contact, then burst into laughter at the same time.

“What?” He questioned in mock offense. “I think I’d make a great evil dictator, personally. You don’t think so?”

“Not at all, you’d be great at it.”

“Thank you. My friends don’t take my threats so seriously.”

“Which will ultimately be their downfall.”

Renjun looked back out at the campus in front of you two, his voice turning serious again, “But, seriously, I mean, I don’t want people having all these lofty expectations for me and then be disappointed when I don’t change the whole world, nor do I want them making things easy for me because they know my dad.”

“That’s fair. Unattainable, but fair to wish for,” you nodded in understanding.

“Ugh...” He slumped forward, dropping his head into his arms atop the table.

“Look, Renjun…” You rested one hand on his arm as the other rubbed up and down his back supportively. “You can’t change who your dad is, and you said it yourself, it’s not like you’re ashamed of him either. So don’t brag, and don’t be a dick when somebody brings him up either. Just do your best to show people who Huang Renjun is. And if they still don’t get it, that’s their loss. Because I already know him, and I think he’s pretty cool.”

Renjun sat back up to look you in the face with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “You’re such a cheeseball. Aren’t sirens supposed to be alluring and enchanting?”

“Shut up! I will drown you! See how alluring I am when you’re under a siren call,” you huffed, crossing your arms over your chest.

“I’m kidding.” He grinned at you, nudging your shoulder with his. “That really did make me feel better, thank you, Y/N.”

You smiled back. “You’re welcome, Renjun.”

The two of you kept smiling at each other for a moment before he broke the eye contact, looking down at his hands then shifting his gaze back to the courtyard.

“Uhm, while we’re airing stuff out about last night...” He cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Yeah, Junnie?” You tilted your head to the side, watching as his cheeks started flushing.

“I don’t think I ever said thank you. I kind of popped off on you right after... everything. But thank you, for taking care of me before, during, and after. It didn’t even occur to me to talk about what we could and couldn’t do beforehand. Thank you for that, and for getting me the water. And... all of it in between...” His ears were bright red too at this point, but he managed to look you in the eye as he gave you his genuine gratitude.

You nodded in understanding. “You’re welcome. I’m glad that you felt cared for during all of it. In addition to, you know, everything else you felt.”

“Mm, yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck.

Studying his face curiously, you said, “You look like you want to ask me something else.”

“Well, I feel like you still weren’t very clear on the ‘eat me alive’ thing.”

You rolled your eyes. “Gods, Junnie, I’m not going to actually eat you—”

“I mean...” Renjun took a deep breath. “I kind of always feel like I’ve got a little bit of siren venom in me when I’m around you, Y/N. My heart races, and my skin is warm, and everything is just better when I’m with you. I want to see you when you’re not around, and when things are hard for you, I want to make everything better. I like you, and between the Dr. Magic deal, and our stupid academic rivalry, and what we did last night, I don’t know what I am to you, but that’s how I feel.”

If someone had told freshman you that Huang Renjun would ever say words like that to you, you’d have laughed in their face to the point of tears— or slapped them. And yet, in that moment, you weren’t surprised in the slightest. It was the most natural, beautiful, delightful, perfect thing that could’ve happened. Just like you leaning over to give him a modest, near-demure kiss on the cheek, absolutely beaming at him as you pulled back.

“I like you too, Renjun,” you admitted.

His eyes went wide before a broad, tender smile spread across his features and he wrapped an arm around your shoulders. He let out a drawn-out sigh of relief, “Ohh, that’s one weight off my chest for this week.”

You laughed in agreement. “Me too. Actually makes everything feel lighter.”

“Yeah, it does,” he said, squeezing your shoulder. “So how much do I owe you?”

“What?”

“You said you were going to invoice Dr. Magic. For the browser extension, and the color copies, and whatever else. How much do I owe you?”

You tapped a finger against your chin, pretending to think before a smirk pulled across your lips. “Mm, should be exactly the price of one nice dinner and a movie.”

“Dinner and a movie? Just how many copies were you making?” He asked with a chuckle and a shake of his head.

“A nice dinner,” you reiterated. “I paid those CompSci majors fairly for their time.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Friday night after your last midterm, you were knocking on Huang Renjun’s door. The two of you had seen each other this week for your Linguistics in MCS class, but had been utterly locked into academic mode and hadn’t met up aside from that. So, per his invite, you were here in your “midterms best”— i.e., the pajamas you had been wearing at your own apartment since submitting your last mid-semester draft earlier today. You’d been told this wasn’t going to be a fancy affair.

Judging by the pajamas that Renjun had also answered the door wearing—giving you vivid déjà vu to the last time you were here—you were dressed appropriately for the occasion. He led you in by the hand, informing you there was something he wanted to show you in the kitchen.

You came to a stop in front of a plate piled high with small, pillow-shaped pieces of dough, some with bursts of red sauce leaking out of them. You couldn’t help but let out a sputtering laugh. “Pizza rolls? Did midterms scramble the egg on your face so bad that you missed the part where I said nice dinner?”

You might not have ever eaten pizza rolls, but you knew what section of the grocery store they came from.

“I can’t even tell what that was supposed to be… You’re so beautiful…” He was staring at you with a look of pure adoration, and surprised you by giving you a fleeting peck on the cheek, gone as soon as you’d realized what he was doing. Your hand instinctually came up to brush at your skin, almost in disbelief, as he went back to explaining his plans for tonight. “Anyway, I didn’t get to give you your first pizza roll the other night, and I figured that the last thing you actually wanted right after midterms week was to go out to some hoity toity place and be out at the movie theater really late, right? So, I’ve got pizza rolls, peanut butter cookies, your seaweed tea, and like way more snacks and candy and stuff. So we can chill and watch whatever movies you want tonight, unwind from midterms. And then next weekend, we’ll do your nice dinner and go to the movie theater. Think of it as an IOU.”

A fond smile tugged at the corner of your mouth as you nodded your approval. “Mmm… you’re right. This is great, Junnie. Thank you.”

Set up on Renjun’s couch with the assortment of snacks—pizza rolls included—and your first movie chosen, you settled in next to him, knee to knee, under the same blanket as the two of you ate. You decided that pizza rolls weren’t that bad (you still liked peanut butter sandwich cookies better), convinced Renjun to try some of your ocean flakes again—a favorite snack of sirens, which he’d already tasted on one occasion at a Dr. Magic hunting session and hated—to similar results, and finished off a bottle of seaweed-infused tea by the time the first movie was about a third of the way done. At this point, you were pretty satiated food-wise, and set your empty drink bottle on the coffee table to sit back on the couch.

Linking your arm with Renjun’s, you rested your head on his shoulder as he was still finishing up his plate of pizza rolls. “That was good, Renjun. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“I call dibs on little spoon first, by the way.”

“Damn.”

Once he was done eating as well, you laid down to eagerly take your promised place as little spoon. Renjun stayed partially propped up against the arm of the couch so he could see the TV as you were nestled back against his chest, one of his arms slung over your waist. Your fingers played with his under the blanket absentmindedly as you got used to your new place, with him, in his arms.

“Renjun?” You said into the quiet. The only noises were coming from the TV. The movie was nearly done, just a couple little resolving scenes after the climax left. You’d seen it plenty of times before—both of you had, it was a favorite that you’d discovered you two shared earlier in the semester—which was why you’d picked it, an easy watch that you both liked. But nothing that required your full attention, so you could talk or miss scenes if you wanted.

“Yeah?” He responded just as softly.

“This is really nice. Hanging out, just us. No school, no Dr. Magic.”

“I know. Almost doesn’t feel real.”

“What? That we’re hanging out without trying to kill each other?”

He let out a couple laughs, catching your hand that had been playing with his under the blanket and lacing your fingers together. “I think there’s definitely some people that would be shocked to see us right now. But I meant more-so that we don’t have any schoolwork to do right now, and that the whole Dr. Magic thing is finally over. Other than the dinner that I owe you.”

“Oh… I owe you… I-O-U…” you sounded the words and letters out slowly. “I get it now.”

“God, you’re perfect,” he sighed dreamily, brushing your hair away from your face to press two kisses to your temple in quick succession.

You turned over to face him to properly protest, “Hey, I didn’t grow up around humans, you know that, right? I just came here to go to school! I moved here like, two weeks before our first day of freshman year—”

“I’m not making fun of you, Y/N!” He promised, sandwiching your hand between both of his and squeezing it tightly. “I respect how difficult it must have been for you to acclimate to the new culture and city when you moved, and so suddenly, on top of starting school. I just love y- love when you do that. Genuinely, I’m so charmed by it. Endeared. Bewitched. Whatever word you want to use. It’s something I never noticed until this semester, when we started doing the Dr. Magic stuff together. Despite knowing you for so long, in the department, in classes.”

“You know what I never knew about you before this semester, Junnie?”

“What?”

“That you were such a softie,” you snickered fondly. “I thought you were all textbooks and GPA and flashcards and whatever.”

The human ducked his head bashfully. “It’s something I’ve been working on this year.”

“Between this and Dr. Magic, I think you’ve been doing pretty well.”

“Thanks.”

“So, why did you do it, Junnie?” You asked curiously. “Not be a softie, I mean, but…”

“What? Be Dr. Magic?” He clarified, to which you nodded. “I didn’t mean to make a persona like that, really. I had to pick a screenname, and the guys had jokingly called me that a couple times when I helped them out with some problems. That’s all.”

“I know why you started the account. Knowledge. That’s also why you didn’t get the credit. You just needed to know. Though, the story behind the name is cute,” you pinched his cheek, and he tried to deter your hand with his shoulder half-heartedly. “I mean more like, why were you hiding your IP and using VPNs and stuff before you even knew that I was trying to track you down? In the fall.”

“I made the first couple posts from the school computers just because I like to do my work there, I wasn’t trying to cover anything up. Then I pictured what I’d do if I found someone posting like I was on the forums. And I would’ve tried to find out who they were. So I started covering my tracks a bit more intentionally after that. Didn’t want any groupies rolling up on me.” He pinched your side teasingly with the last sentence, and you slapped his hand away with an eye roll.

“Oh shut up!” You scoffed, ignoring his hands as he tried to pull you back towards him again.

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding, I’m sorry,” he apologized through his chuckles. “If anything I’m your groupie, I swear. Your number one fan from the moment you showed me your conspiracy board.”

“Mm, fine.” You scooted closer to him, letting him wrap his arms around you once more. “Glad we got that cleared up.”

Renjun shifted to lay on his back, and you easily followed the move to snuggle in mostly on top of him, resting your head in the crook of his neck and your hand on his waist, fingers innocently smoothing over a patch of skin above his hipbone where his shirt had ridden up. It sounded like the credits were on by now, but you didn’t really care about picking another movie as Renjun hummed along to the familiar song that played over the scrolling names. You’d sing along too, if you were alone at your own place. But now you didn’t dare even hum like the human with you for fear of what it could do to him. Renjun’s voice was plenty lovely enough though, even just this casual little bit humming. You’d see if you could get him to sing for you properly one of these days. If an opportunity came before graduation. Who knew what your days would even look like before then.

Gods, graduation. You felt like you could shrivel up and die just thinking about it. Not to mention that you hadn’t even told Renjun that you’d—

“Hey. What are you thinking about?” He suddenly asked, his disapproving tone clear.

You gulped. “How could you tell I was thinking about something?”

“For one, you’ve got your bad thinking face on.” He pinched your bottom lip. “You pout. It’s very dramatic. You look very concerned.”

“I have different thinking faces?”

“Yeah, you look different when you’re studying. I’ve seen you do plenty of that to know the difference. And you’ve got a third face when you’re contemplating. Usually you do that one when you’re looking at menus.”

“I didn’t know I was apparently an open book.” You covered your face with your hands in embarrassment.

“It’s cute, Y/N. You’ve got a cute face, and you make cute facial expressions with it, don’t cover it up.” He gingerly grabbed your hands to encourage you to take them off. “Except I am worried about what’s making you make your bad thinking face right now. What’s wrong?”

With a sigh, you pushed up into a sitting position. Renjun followed your lead curiously, a thoughtful frown on his own features as he watched you pull your knees to your chest.

“Renjun, I need to tell you something.”

He regarded you with a skeptical eyebrow raised. “Okay… go for it.”

Nervously, you smoothed out some wrinkles in your pajama pants as you confessed, “Uhm, Dr. Kwon asked me to carry the banner at commencement. I said yes.”

“I knew that.”

“What?” You looked up at him in disbelief.

“Well, since it was midterms already, I figured that if they’d picked me, they would have asked me by now and since they hadn’t, then they must have picked you. I was just waiting for you to tell me so I could tell you… Congrats.” Renjun grinned brightly at you, reaching out to rest his hand on your arm.

“You’re not upset?” You asked trepidly.

“We’re not petty little freshmen anymore, Y/N. No, I’m not upset. I’m proud of you, you deserve it.”

“So did you.”

“Not any more than you did.” He shook his head firmly. “So would you just accept my congrats already?”

You gave a small, shaky smile. “Thank you…”

“There we go.”

“This is what I was so freaked about… when we went to get froyo.”

“You were afraid of me being mad at you for being picked to carry the banner?” Renjun asked incredulously.

“I didn’t know how to tell you!” You defended yourself. “And now I have to do the commencement practices, on top of senior capstone and my extracurriculars…”

He wrinkled his nose. “Ew, commencement practices. So glad I didn’t get picked now, actually.”

“And that was so convincing, Junnie.”

“You remember what you said to me when we got froyo?”

Scrunching your face up, you struggled to think back to the exact conversation you had that day—you’d been really stressed. “Uh, ‘exactly two gummy sharks on mine please?’”

“Well, yeah, your hyper-specific froyo order—”

“Throwing stones at black kettles much?” You teased.

“Excuse me?” Renjun’s eyes went wide.

“Is that not—? I really thought I got it that time.”

“Did you mean to say ‘throwing stones in glass houses’ and/or ‘the pot calling the kettle black?’”

“…Yes.”

He turned very serious as he went to tenderly cradle your face in his hands. “I’m going to kiss you in like two seconds after I finish what I was saying, okay?”

“Oh, okay,” you agreed weakly, wishing very much that he’d just do it now instead of making you wait. He then let your face go.

“When we were talking about wanting people to know that we’re smart,” Renjun clarified. “You said that we’re both like that, and you knew that you were like that. And then you asked me if I knew that I was like that. I had tried to swear up and down this entire time that I was doing all of this—the needing to be the best—for myself. But it wasn’t. I’m like that too. That’s kind of what Dr. Magic was, me taking a step back from needing everyone to know I was the smartest person in the room. A quasi-experiment, to see if I could do it.”

“I think that after graduation, maybe we both chill on being the smartest person in the room, and try to just spend a summer working on that magical bucket list of yours?” You suggested.

“Oh?” He perked up at this. “Really?”

“You ever seen a werewolf shift?”

“No…”

“That sounds like a ‘not yet’ to me.”

“Sounds like a plan.” He confirmed with a conspiratorial grin that mirrored the one that you could feel across your own face. “You know how sirens can’t get dosed up on their own venom?”

“Yeah…” You nodded, wondering where he could be going with this.

“Well, I know a witch with a proprietary love potion blend that I think we might be able to modify to produce similar effects.”

“Fascinating.” You thought on this for a second, very quickly running through your knowledge of potion properties to imagine what it could be. “Two-factor blood potion?”

“Yes. But we’d put your venom in it instead of your blood so it wouldn’t kill me.”

“That could work…” You mused. “Speaking of, I should really give you a full dose one of these days.”

He breathed in sharply. “That wasn’t a full dose?”

“Nope.”

“Holy shit…”

“Have you ever watched a phoenix reincarnation?” You added another suggestion to your joint summer bucket list.

“Have you? Wouldn’t that literally blind us?” Renjun questioned, something akin to genuine concern on his face now.

You shrugged. “Allegedly. It’s never been recorded in a lab setting, so who really knows.”

“I think we’re going to get each other killed before we can get our PhDs,” he declared with a fond smile and shake of his head.

“Hey, the betting pools said we’d kill each other by junior year, so I think we’re doing well for ourselves.”

“Do you think we can collect on those bets when we graduate and we’re both still alive and have all of our limbs?”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”

“Oh my god, come here,” Renjun groaned deliriously, kneeling to grab your face with two hands and crash his lips to yours. You curled your fingers in the front of his shirt, pulling him down with you as you fell back against the arm of his couch, still connected.

Yeah, you’d drive off that burning bridge when you got there.

⤷ blog masterlist ⤷ anthology masterlist

#renjun #nct dream x reader #nct x reader #renjun x reader #huang renjun #nct dream imagine #renjun imagine #nct imagine #nct dream fluff #nct fluff #renjun fluff #i: renjun #f: dr_magic2303 #au: strawberry sunday #*100 #*200

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soundspeachytome · 4 months

Text

baby fever - shohei ohtani au

summary: (i don't think this needs a summary, the title says it all lol)

word count: 10,584K

tags: fluff, mentions of sex, impregnation

other notes: midnight word vomit things~ i honestly didn't think i would be able to write something so soon after the one i posted on NYE but i'm blaming that video of shohei playing with some kids on my timeline. my thoughts have secured me a seat in hell.

enjoy and cry in delusion with me.

=====================================

Shohei couldn’t help himself but beam all the way home. He had spent his entire day surrounded by a group of kids no older than twelve years old, the youngest around five, to help facilitate the annual children sports camp at the elementary school he worked at. Being the only teacher who had played baseball during his primary and secondary years in school, he was elected by default to coach a few hours’ session of baseball basics to which he did not object. Aside from that, he also helped facilitate another few hours in assisting the lead teachers during the games like scavenger hunt, capture the flag, and water balloon dodgeball. The last one being his favorite, he was just supposed to be watching and making sure none of the kids get hurt, or if ever they do, he’d play medic when the need arises. Thankfully, his first aid skills were put to the backseat and he was joined in on the fun when one of the twelve-year old campers aimed a water gun at him. He had no choice but to retaliate. With his wide hands and arm support, he grabbed a bunch of water balloons and aimed at anyone within proximity, creating an entirely new chaos between the kids and the other teachers, too.

He had ended the day soaked and sore from all the laughing and running around trying to avoid the kids aiming at him. Thankfully, you had made sure to pack him extra clothes to change into. “Just in case you get a little too fun and get soaked in sweat,” you had said, ignoring Shohei’s initial comments on not needing extra clothes since he was not technically sleeping over for the night. But proven to be always right, he made a mental note to get you something special as a way to thank you for being, well, the best.

After he had changed into his comfy cotton pants and white shirt, he bid goodbye to everyone at camp, especially the kids he had made friends with. They hugged him and some even gave him DIY goodbye presents (one gave him a bracelet made out of plucked flowers and laced it around his wrist), a tall kid with glasses who must be around seven years old gave him his precious Snickers bar, almost melted, and the youngest girl of the bunch clung onto his leg and tried to stop him from leaving. These short but meaningful interactions touched Shohei that he almost felt bad for leaving.

“Will you teach us again next summer camp, Teacher?” one kid had asked.

“Hmm. Maybe, we’ll see,” Shohei beamed, eyeing the other teachers in response. If not for the lead teachers and school principal, he would not have been able to cross the schoolgate and reach his car. He waved one last goodbye to the kids who stood behind the gates and then drove away.

He couldn’t wait to go home to you and tell you about his day.

You were in the kitchen when you heard Shohei’s Corolla park in the garage. You continued tending to the Tsuyu broth and soba noodles that you were saving up for a warm day like this.

While Shohei was out for camp duties the entire day, you were able to finish the flower embroidery design you had been challenged with for over a week now. Being new to the craft, you had a slightly difficult time understanding the patterns in the first place, but once you got the hang of it, you were on a roll and without realizing it, you were already done. You regretted buying only one design thinking it would take you longer to complete it, and also considering that you were the type to abandon something when you feel overwhelmed or had just simply lost the fixation, just like the few hundred other abandoned projects you started this year. This time, however, you were so accomplished that you couldn’t wait for Shohei to come home and brag.

Upon his arrival, Shohei sees you busy in the kitchen, humming to Adele. He put his bag on the countertop and went straight to you, your back facing him. He embraced you from behind, leaning his chin on your shoulder and slightly shifted his weight against your body.

“Hey.”

“Hi.” You angled your face upwards to meet him and he planted a kiss straight to your lips. When you went back to what you were doing, he left kisses on the small spots on your neck and shoulder.

“Hmm, I love soba. I was craving for this.” He murmured against your skin. He still had his arms wrapped around, waiting for you to finish and give him your full attention.

“Really? Didn’t I tell you that I’m a mind-reader?” you joked and turned the stove off and faced Shohei.

“Yes and you are the best.” He did not waste another second and kissed you tastefully on the mouth. As soon as he got your attention, he made sure your tongue was preoccupied with his.

You stayed like that for a few seconds. A slow summer day deserves an equally slow and hot makeout session like this. Shohei put both his hands behind your back and you had no choice but to push your body closer to him while you coiled your hands behind the nape of his neck, tugging a few strands of his thick hair.

“What’s gotten you so worked up today, love?” you asked when you separated.

He pulled back, catching his breath and looked seriously at you.

“Let’s start doing it, love.”

“Do what?”

“Kids. Babies. I want to put a baby on you right now.” He massaged your lower back and showered your neck with more kisses.

“So sudden?” You looked at Shohei with bewilderment. You weren’t angry or anything, just a little surprised that he had suddenly brought it up. You had always known to use oral and physical contraception ever since you started dating and like an unspoken promise, you made sure that your relationship would not bear anything both of you didn’t feel like committing to yet. But this was definitely something new.

“I was just thinking… At camp, the kids loved playing with me… some even clung to me–like this–” he hugged you tightly in demonstration. “--and I almost choked up when I was driving away.”

“And…?”

“I played with kids the whole day, I realized that I really, really want to have kids.” He pouted.

In a way, Shohei had always been great with kids. You saw how he used to fawn over your neighbors’ kids and their tiny steps, how he’d wave to babies in strollers whenever you’d pass by them, smiling extra wide.

“Like, I really, really, really do. We’ve been married for three years now. Don’t you think it’s time for us to get pregnant?”

You were silent the whole time, looking straight into Shohei’s face, and trying to see any hint of him joshing around but he was nothing but serious with his dead set eyes and determination.

“What are you thinking, love?” He asked, getting fidgety after seeing you were quiet for a while.

“Are we even ready for kids? There are a lot of newer parents that get divorced after babies are born…” you trailed off. Shohei noticed your worry and decided to change the topic.

“I’m sorry, I won’t force it if you’re not comfortable.” he kissed your nose and pulled you into a tight hug. “The noodles look amazing! So much about my day, they can wait… What did you do all day without me?”

Dinner ensued and the pregnancy topic was never brought up again, much to your relief. Shohei was quite understanding and never the pushy type. He always made sure that when you both decide on anything, you were both in it, just like when he moved in with you after a year of dating, when you decided to get married a few months after, and then buying a house.

You felt no pressure whatsoever about creating a family with Shohei because he never pressured you or his family. You don’t know if you wanted kids at all. When you were single, you thought there was not a single good man left on earth but meeting Shohei had changed your mind. Maybe, with the right kind of man, it’d be possible to love and still be loved properly while having kids. So yes, maybe. Maybe one day, you’d want Shohei’s children but were waiting for the right time. You hoped maybe someday, bearing kids will not just be a reluctant maybe, but a definite, sure and unwavering yes.

Not until Shohei’s sister came to town to visit a few days later and brought their two year old daughter in tow. Shohei was ecstatic. He had fallen in love with his niece the moment he met her. He’d carry her as much as he could when they visited, buying her presents for every occasion, sometimes even when there’s really nothing to celebrate at all.

This time, when Shohei had picked up his niece, Nora, from her trolley and into his arms, kissing her lightly on the cheek, cooing and swinging her back and forth along with their boisterous laughter ringing around the house, you felt something shifted.

You felt the anxiety on your shoulders lift and leave your body, leaving you with an immense sensation of love and happiness. You sat at the dinner table watching Shohei play peekaboo with Nora while she sits on his lap, and couldn’t help but imagine Shohei carrying a baby–your offspring–while feeding her, or humming it to sleep. It sounds like a beautiful dream, doesn’t it?

Maybe, maybe, maybe.

After they had left and the house was silent again, you cornered Shohei in the kitchen, who was loading the dishes in the dishwasher. He was humming a Cocomelon nursery rhyme which you assumed was the same song he had played on his ipad with Nora.

“Shohei.” You tugged his arm and looked at him straight in the eyes.

“Yes, love?”

“Let’s do it.”

“Do what now?” He said mindlessly, pulling his sleeves down and shrugged off the kitchen apron.

“Fuck a baby into me, I said.” You raised your voice, unsure where to look.

It took him a few seconds to understand but when it finally dawned on him, he wasted no time and carried you into his arms bridal style.

When he pushed you onto the bed, kissing you hungrily, both of you still half-undressed, he suddenly pulled back and asked, “Wait, is this your new kink now? Seeing me with kids?”

“What, no.” Your hands busied on the buckle of Shohei’s belt and when that ordeal was done, had pulled his boxers down to touch him. Like a knee jerk reaction, his hips jerked forward to your hand.

Definitely.

“Hmm, this is going to be a long night,” he whispered, biting at the garter of your underwear and pulling it down with his teeth. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Absolutely.

“I’ve never been so sure.”

You pushed yourself up on your elbows and met Shohei’s lips, while he slowly entered you, both of you adjusting to the size and feeling. He started thrusting in and out of you hungrily, as if on a mission, determined to fill you to the brim. And you, on the brink of pleasure and chasing your high, you couldn’t help but moan Shohei’s name and said, yes, yes, yes, over and over. Like an assurance statement, like a promise.

This is my yes, unquestionably, a hundred times over.

#shohei ohtani au #shohei ohtani imagines #shohei ohtani pov #shohei ohtani #shohei ohtani smut #shohei ohtani fluff

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astvrook · 6 months

Text

2002 | park sunghoon.

genre/au: yandere x reader.

When the Prince of the City also becomes the villain, there is no one and nothing that can protect his subjects from his ruthless reign, even under the deepest darkness.

Sunghoon, the minister's son, always carried the intoxicating scent of Nina Ricci lotion, for which his mother was a loyal fan, and the infectious, carefree, uninhibited smile of a baby. But something about him is unbalanced, so much that the temperature in a room drops, and not just because it is no longer winter, when he enters.

He's a masked angel whose light fades as the demon he harbors appears, because Sunghoon's solely responsible for every crime that has been perpetrated here.

You can imagine Sunghoon playing in the depths of every person's mind, as each time he cries, he apologizes to his parents and promises them that he will not make the mistakes he "regrets" again. His parents know, of course, that he will do it again, but they forgive him every time, for they raised their son to achieve excellence and surpass everyone in this town.

Anyways.

In the world of the moneyed, everything can be corrupt, and Sunghoon was not about to stop.

You, fortunately, were all but invisible. Not in a physical sense, but for the Park family, your economic status was relevant, as it allowed you to be hidden from their eyes.

Until the night of Halloween, when it all went south.

At this moment.

In your boyfriend's room, someone with an intense stare and an unrelenting temper takes over with his flawless aesthetic posture. The explicit image sends shivers down your spine.

He has a traditional Day of the Dead make-up, using a combination of monochrome to create a unique calavera, and mixed with elements such as flames, bloodied roses and scar marks for a truly eye-catching look. But there are no eyes.

Which dark impulse was coursing through Jihyun's flawed brain to molest Park Sunghoon like that?

He wasn't going to stop now.

"¡Please let me go!"

It's too late for you, and you can't do anything to stop what's about to happen, so you just huddle in the corner of the room and cover your ears.

Jihyun's head tilts to the side and the blood drips onto the floor as he emits moans and sobs. Fear and pain makes the whites of her eyes show, and the cries tears at your ribs.

But despite that, you still find him pathetic... to have faced the demon himself without demonstrating even the slightest skill in wielding such a weapon or understanding how to defend himself.

Fool. Fool. Fool.

Sunghoon's smile is all the more shocking when you notice that he seems unconcerned about the suffering of others. He appears to thrive simply on the pain of others.

Oh dear me.

It's only a matter of minutes before Sunghoon puts your boyfriend's windpipe beneath his foot and snaps his life away.

For an instant, you're captivated by just observing him.

And at that moment, the world freezes and everything around you stands still as you meet Sunghoon's piercing gaze.

"Having fun watching?"

Park Sunghoon picks up the baseball bat and brings the head to his mouth, feasting slowly on the brilliant red fluid as the blood collects on his tongue and slides between his teeth.

"It really annoys me when people spy on me, little one." Later, Sunghoon thrusts the bat harder against your boyfriend's ribs, hearing an ominous crack.

Releasing it, he falls to the ground and recoils, feasting your eyes on his close approach to you.

It's a terrifying scene.

"It's something that drives me absolutely insane."

He's entertained because of something.

You.

You're completely unclothed, save for the lingerie you're wearing, and Sunghoon's balls ache at the sight of you.

"I'm sorry, I did not... mean to see. Just leave right now".

You are experiencing shortness of breath, and panic causes abnormal dysregulation in your system. Not only that, but you had to run for your life.

Right now.

You are shaking and trying to escape when, with no warning, he seizes you and pushes you hard against the wall. You can sense his intimidating presence as he snarls in your ear: "You shouldn't run away, there is no crime scene to justify your escape. At least not yet."

"Please..."

"Shut the fuck up". Sunghoon shoots you a malicious look, and licks the tears running down your cheeks, as he senses the sensitive play of sensations on your skin, which oscillates between the warmth and the cold that his touch provokes.

Sweet.

Neither can look away, for this night... you're his favorite mischief.

Pretty and his.

Come on... Why settle for a mere piece of agonising flesh, when you could become the possession of the castigator?

He savours the metallic aftertaste of the blood on his teeth with his tongue, as an expression of horror settles on your face.

"You can't place a lamb in the path of a wolf and expect it to go hungry, right?"

And Sunghoon's famished to death tonight.

ENHYPEN MASTERLIST.

#enhypen #enhypen fanfic #enhypen sunghoon #enhypen smut #enhypen x reader #sunghoon #enhypen imagine #sunghoon yandere #yandere enhypen #yandere fanfiction #sunghoon fanfic #yandere #yandere enha #enhypen oneshot #park sunghoon #sunghoon smut #Spotify

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star-going-supernova · 8 days

Note

Prompt idea: Fnaf Actor au

Actors answering fans questions? Or just shenanigans & bloopers on set

Oooh, I do like a good actor AU, even if I’ve never written one before myself!

Interview

Gregory felt almost comically small in his chair between Freddy and Vanessa. His feet swung freely beneath him, not even close to reaching the footrest. He listened as the adults bantered a bit after Freddy finished answering the previous question; he was maybe a little bored, but it wasn’t too bad. And he’d been promised ice cream afterwards.

The interviewer finally moved on to the next question on her sheet, asking, “For each of you, is there any scene in particular that you enjoyed filming most?”

Vanessa laughed. “Oh, any scene where I got to be absolutely terrible. The plotting scenes with Will in the secret basement were some of my favorites.”

Grinning, Gregory poked her arm. “Running around in your bunny costume, not so much, right?”

Through her laughter, Vanessa explained, “I don’t know why they never changed it, but those bunny feet had zero traction. And with all the tile—I was constantly slipping.”

“You weren’t alone,” Freddy said ruefully. “The animatronic costumes… plastic and smooth tile simply do not mix.”

“I think we were all pretty jealous of Gregory’s sneakers,” Vanessa snickered, nudging him.

Gregory lifted his feet up and clicked them together, setting off the lights lining the sides. “My secret weapon,” he joked. “It’s why you never managed to catch me.”

The interviewer laughed along with them, and once they started to calm down, prompted Vanessa, “You enjoyed playing the villain, then?”

“Loved it,” she agreed easily. “I think this was my favorite role out of any I’ve ever had.”

“It’s been uniquely fun for most of us,” Freddy added. “Being so silly in what is otherwise a horror story—it’s been quite the experience.”

“And your favorite scene to film?”

Freddy reached over and ruffled Gregory’s hair. “It’s hard to choose, but I think the our laser tag scene wins by a small margin.”

“He’s really bad at laser tag in real life, though,�� Gregory told the interviewer.

She barked a laugh. “Oh? Did you all play together?”

“The studio rented out the arena for several days. When we happened to finish filming there ahead of schedule, it simply made sense to put the remaining day to good use.” Freddy ducked his head a bit. “Gregory is correct, though—laser tag is not one of my strong suits.”

“The rest of us had played before,” Vanessa consoled him, reaching over Gregory to pat Freddy’s shoulder. “I hadn’t!” Gregory said.

“Yeah, but blasting robots during filming totally counts as practice!”

He stuck his tongue out at her, and she stuck hers out right back.

“And what about you, Gregory?” the interviewer said before they could escalate. “Did you have a favorite scene to film?”

He’d thought about it while Vanessa and Freddy answered, so he nodded, grinning wildly. Over Vanessa’s good-natured groan, he said, “The final boss battle between me and Vanessa and Will! I had a crowbar!” He mimed swinging it like a baseball bat.

Vanessa leaned forward. “He still has the crowbar,” she said in a faux whisper. “I don’t think anyone from the prop department is brave enough to try and take it back.”

#i answered a thing #anonymous #fnaf security breach #fnaf fic #star's stories #life and times of star

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collisvng · 3 months

Text

CHAPTER 2 | THE MEANING OF PAS DE DEUX

THE END ZONE 🏈🩰✨

Pairing 🤎 Seo Changbin x Fem! Reader︎

Genre 🤎 SMAU, University/College AU, Ballett/Football AU, Fluff, Angst, Crack—all of that good shit lol︎

Synopsis 🤎 By recommendation of his coach, Changbin decides to take a ballet class in order to improve his agility and coordination on the field. It seems like a harmless and fun activity at first. But what happens when his ballet partner starts to make him choose between the two?

Warnings 🤎 Slight swearing, brief mention of food, Felix being annoying (but we love him tho lol)

Taglist 🤎 Open!︎ ✨

Word Count 🤎 2,173 + 10 sm screenshots!

In Collaboration With 🤎 @channie-143

✨️MASTERLIST✨️

THE UNIVERSITY’S FOOTBALL FIELD WAS THE LAST PLACE YOU EVER EXPECTED TO FIND YOURSELF.

After being given very specific instructions to go through a specific way that led you specifically to the perfect spot on the bleachers for you to be easily noticed—courtesy of Felix who totally isn’t the university’s mascot—you found yourself setting your bag next to you as you sat down to watch the boys do their thing.

It was strange being there. You never considered yourself a sports person and knew quite little about anything to do with the sort. The most experience you ever had with even just the topic of sports being brought up was the few times Seungmin would go on one of his little tangents about baseball. There were also the few times Felix would slip up about football, but it was never prominent enough for you to take notice of.

Legs crossed, phone in hand, you stayed in your spot hoping for someone to say something about your presence. After a while, a few guys on the field started to look your way. Most looked confused while others almost seemed as if they were trying to show off. You didn’t see Changbin though. Or at least you couldn’t make out which guy was him.

After Felix’s 5th wrap-around of the field (ignoring you while doing so, I might add) and noticing your phone battery was at a lower percentage than you expected, you almost decided to give up.

It wasn’t until you heard a slight nasally yell followed by a giggly chuckle that you finally spotted the man.

He ran across the field to promptly smack one of his teammates for messing around and teasing him about his height. He started yelling. Curly black hair fell into his eyes as he took his helmet off, continuing his scolding. His incessant bickering was abnormally adorable to you.

And the laugh that left his teammates’ mouth was lighthearted and cheerful… and almost strangely familiar.

It was around this time you started to notice all eyes were on you except Changbin’s. You debated calling for him, but your actions swayed when you noticed one of his other teammates waving at you. He was somewhat taller, his hair was dark and short, and he had what you could only describe as the nose of a Greek god. The guy nodded in your direction as if to ask why you were there, to which you responded with a quick point in Changbin’s direction and exaggeratingly mouthing his name.

A quick, “Oh, okay!” was mouthed to you in response alongside him giving you a thumbs up.

The teammate walked over Changbin amidst his rant and tapped him on the shoulder. He seemed annoyed, probably assuming he was simply about to be told to quit fighting. It wasn’t until his teammate pointed to you standing up from your seat with a shy smile on your face did his expression suddenly change into the biggest grin you had ever seen.

He jogged over in your direction with his helmet under his arm as you made your way down the bleachers. When you reached the bottom, you gripped the handrail barrier separating you from the field. One of your knees rested against one of the smaller beams of the railing as you leaned forward with anticipation.

The moment a small ‘hi’ left his lips, the happiness embedded in your nervous system was hard to hide.

“Hey.”

“What are you doing here?” He questioned, raising his brow. “I didn’t really take you as a sports-type.”

“That would be correct,” you nodded. “Which is why I am not here for sports…”

You quickly unlocked your phone and held it out to him, leaning into the railing a bit more for support.

“… I’m here for you.”

Changbin stood there dumbfounded. He just stared down at your screen as if the concept of giving a girl his number was the most foreign thing in the world to him. His grip on his helmet grew tighter as he let out the most tense laugh in the universe. It became obvious to you that this ordeal seemed completely different to you then it was to him.

“Oh my gosh, stop overreacting.” The roll of your eyes came out a little less playful then you had hoped. “It’s not like I’m asking you out or anything, okay? I’m just asking for your number because we agreed I would catch you up on stuff for class.”

He nervously nodded as he took your phone in hand.

“Right, yeah, I knew that…”

As he proceeded to put his number in your phone, you looked off into the distance to see the teammate he was yelling at previously staring at you as if you seemed familiar to him; akin to the way you looked back at him.

“That guy you were talking to looks familiar.”

“Oh, Jeongin?” Changbin handed you the phone back.

“Ah, that name sounds familiar…” You nodded. “I think he��s friends with my friend Seungmin.”

“We all kinda know Seungmin,” he shrugged in response. “Since he’s also in charge of the sports section for the school paper, we see him a lot.”

“Makes sense.”

After a bit of awkward small talk, the two of you concluded that you would reserve a room in the dance hall over the weekend. You’d go over the basics he needed to know before the next class, and if he had any questions that needed extensive explanation you promised you’d answer them.

He walked back to his teammates with a cheeky grin as they all began asking him questions about who you were and why you had given him your phone. It amused you to see the group of men all huddled up together like a bunch of high schoolers spilling rumors to each other.

Hearing them faintly ask who the pretty girl was…

It strangely gave you a boost of confidence.

As you grabbed your things and began to exit, you gave a quick wave to your roommate. He waved back for a brief moment, dropping his facade for what seemed like a mili-second before halting and turning to walk away.

“You can’t ignore me forever!” You yelled after him. “We all know you’re the mascot Felix!”

He held onto the mascot head for dear life as he began picking up his pace. Suddenly, he was sprinting.

“NO YOU DON’T! ”

The first class of the next week seemed to go well.

Changbin had picked up on things quite quickly, which impressed you.

He obviously wasn’t going to become a dance prodigy overnight, but he did good with the basic exercises and was fairly good at keeping you level while on pointe.

There was a lot less dropping with him then there was when Han was your partner. And in all honesty, that was all you could ever ask for.

You found yourself laughing here and there whenever Changbin would mess up slightly, giving him encouraging words that he would get it right the second time. And thankfully, you’d be right each time. He seemed so determined.

He had even made the effort to get everything you told him he needed for class. When you saw him walk on the first day back from the weekend with a pair of black ballet flats in hand, you let out a sigh of relief. The man sat there on the floor in front of you, carefully putting them on and looking up at you waiting for some sort of praise. It almost made your heart skip a beat.

By the time the second class of the week had come around, there was a mutual acquaintanceship between you both. When he walked into class and met you at the barre, a mutual smile was shared.

“Mornin’ boss,” Changbin winked as he saluted you.

You let out a short groan in response which only made him laugh. His little maniacal giggle filled your ears and you stood in front of him with your head hung.

“You know you don’t have to be so formal with me,” you slowly rubbed your eyes with your middle and index fingers. “I’m your dance partner, not your boss. I’m here to help you, not boss you around.”

“Eh, it’s fine.” He shrugged. “I kinda like it when you boss me around.”

The words came out with a sense of normality behind them. There were no flirtatious undertones, no coquettish teasing—just a statement with an accidental provocative undercurrent.

The affirmation was enough to make you silently turn away. And when your gaze shifted, you could see Minho (who had been standing by) smirking at you.

“Not a word,” you mumbled low enough for only him to hear.

Minho’s smile faltered for a second before staring straight ahead once more.

When the instructor walked in, the vibe seemed very different than usual.

She was dressed more casually, which was strange, and her intimidating sense of self seemed non-existent for once—but not quite completely gone. You had never seen this side of her before and it left the whole class in astonishment. The woman stood in front of you all, hands behind her back, with her eyes scanning the room.

The room was dead silent until she eventually spoke.

“What is the meaning of pas de deux?”

Her question sent the class into a silenced frenzy. Everyone’s eyes darted at each other in the room waiting for someone to answer.

Eventually, Han’s new dance partner raised her hand and spoke.

“It means a dance for two people. Or step of two.”

“That’s its literal definition, Regina. I’m asking for the meaning.”

The instructor went on to explain how pas de deux is about two bodies coming together to create one soul; two partners coming together to produce one palpable emotion. That emotion differed from performance piece to another, and to construct those emotions through nothing but movement took a sense of dexterity to convey.

There were 3 rules of pas de deux:

You needed to trust your partner.

Unity between your partner and yourself was detrimental.

And most important of all, communication was key.

“Without those things, what we do here is simply just dancing,” your instructor shrugged. “What creates the magic of pas de deux is the harmony of two bodies. And in order to have that harmony, you must get to know your partner. Which is what we are going to do today.”

She proceeded to say that class was actually canceled today, and instead she wanted you to use your class time to get to know your partners more. It made sense, given the recent switch of partners that took place in class a few days ago. You and Changbin had already started practicing together a bit outside of class and the two of you barely knew each other. Perhaps this was a sign.

“I expect you to know your partner by the next class. You don’t have to know every dying detail of their life, but you should know enough to give a brief description of them and some of their interests in front of your fellow classmates. You will be graded on this.”

Once you all were dismissed and everyone seemed to be making their way out of the class, Changbin looked at you with a sort of desperation in his eyes.

“Heyyyy… sooo…”

“What do you want?”

“‘Kay so,” he began, “I actually had some homework that’s due later. I was gonna try to do it during practice but since class is canceled…”

“You want to know if I’m okay with you doing it now?”

He nodded vigorously with the most pouty face you had ever seen. “Please? We can meet up on the weekend again or something to make up for it. I’ll even be the one to reserve the room this time if you want. Just…please…?”

Laughing a bit, you realized how different Changbin made you feel. Normally if it were anyone else, you would have made an effort to force them to stay. You were just getting to know each other, but it was still an assignment after all. You took stuff like that when it came to dance very seriously. But something about him made you feel like you could trust him.

And so you did.

“Yeah that's fine,” you smiled. “I have some stuff to catch up on as well so that works out.”

Changbin stood there, eyebrows raised as if to ask ‘are you sure?’

You nodded, telling him to go.

He smiled, pressing a kiss to the palm of his hands then pretending to throw it at you as he bolted for his gym bag.

“I love you, oh my gosh. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

The boys watched the whole ordeal as they began to gather around you, surprised you let him off so easily.

“We’ve lost her guys,” Hyunjin sighed. “She’s becoming soft.”

A swift kick to his shin shut him right up.

“There we go,” Han smirked. “She's back.”

taglist: @marcillfll @jiisungllvr @chrizzlaptop @babrieeee @soupbinlily @pissmori @chlodavids @marnz1990 @worcesheshestershiresauce @hafrenstay @s00buwu @ismelllikechlorine247 @teenyfinds

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phoxey · 4 months

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The White Raven (Bada Lee Gang AU)

Bada Lee x fem!reader

CW: violence, angst if you really really squint, mentions of blood

Chapter 2

Chapter 1 - Have you ever killed someone, Bada?

You were tired. It was three in the morning and it was your fourth night shift this week. You worked three jobs. During the day you tutored kids in English, in the evening you worked for a food delivery service and in the night, you worked in a 24/7 convenience store, so you only ever slept from seven to noon, each day. And you were happy if you had one day off in a month. You worked so much because your little brother needed the money for the private school he was going to, which your mom could barely afford. Your brother had all the potential to get your family out of poverty, so you supported him where you could so he could focus on his school.

You were texting with him when a few girls your age came into the store. You knew them, they were rowdies from around here. They came in laughing and talking loudly. You heard the first glass bottle smash onto the ground followed by more laughter. They came after a while to pay for the beer they wanted.

“Sorry, darling, one of the bottles fell to the ground back there.”, the tall girl said and smirked at you. It wasn’t an apologetic smile; it wasn’t even remotely friendly. It was more of a smile like a tigress who was about to eat you alive if you dared to move. Your heart was beating so fast, you didn’t want any trouble.

“It’s okay, it’s okay. Don’t worry. I will clean that up.”, you said timidly as she was towering over you.

She just nodded and she and her group left. The last time they have also broken some things and you were sure that they even stole some stuff.

You quickly got a mop and a trashcan to clean the floor in the beer aisle. That aisle was directly in front of the entrance so you could see outside. The group was laughing and drinking outside when another group of older men approached them, they seemed to be angry and the group dropped their beers and started to run. But the tall girl from earlier didn’t react fast enough, the men caught her by her jacket and pushed her to the ground, they started to kick and beat her. One even had a baseball bat.

You don’t know what came over you but as if you were in a fury trance, you stepped outside. Mid-air you grabbed the other end of the baseball bat and pulled strongly once, so it slipped out of the hands of the man, who turned around confused. He wasn’t even fully facing you when the baseball bat hit his jaw and he fell back.

“Homerun.”, you said and stared at the other guys. “I will kill you if you touch him again.” They saw the creepy look in your eyes and grabbed their friend to run off.

You let the baseball bat fall and knelt to the girl who was whining in pain.

“Are you okay? Can you talk? Wait… I will call an ambulance.”, you said and wanted to stand up to go inside to your phone, but she grabbed your wrist.

“Don’t. No ambulance. No police.”, she winced.

“You need medical treatment!”, You said shocked.

“You treat me then.”, she hissed sternly, holding her ribs.

Somehow you brought her inside and sat her down on the couch in the break room. You brought multiple ice packs and gave them to her to hold them to her ribs. She winced again when you cleaned a wound on her lip with a disinfectant. She stared at you as she worked on her wounds. After a moment you met her eyes and blushed at her intense stare.

“You were badass, out there.”, she whispered. “What’s your name?”

“Y/N.”, You answered simply.

“I’m Bada.”, she said smiling. “You were like an action movie hero. What did you say to him? ‘Homerun.’?”

You chuckled flustered. “I don’t know what came over me…”

“You saved me.”, Bada stated matter-of-factly.

“What did I save you from, Bada?”, You asked.

“A rivaling gang. They think this is their territory, but they lost this area quite a while ago to us.”, she shrugged.

“You are a gang? I thought you were just rowdies!”, You were shocked.

“Rowdies? No. We are not just rowdies. But I won’t bore you with details.”, Bada said suddenly, she must have realized that she had said too much already. She stood up, still wincing and hissing in pain, but she was determined that she didn’t need her care anymore.

She went to the little desk, grabbed a piece of paper, and wrote something down. Then she turned and gave you the paper. “If there is something I can do to express my gratitude, don’t hesitate to call me.”, she said.

“Actually, there is something you can do. My life is stressful enough, so… if you couldn’t come here again with your friends, it would be much appreciated.”, you said sternly.

She looked at you for a moment then she turned around and walked out, yet you could hear Bada's chuckle linger in the room longer than you expected.

For a few weeks, you didn’t see her again. You had almost forgotten about her when suddenly someone leaned on your head with her elbow, as you were mopping the floor one evening.

“Hey!”

Bada just laughed at you and you rolled your eyes. “I thought I said that I don’t want you to come here again.”, you huffed as you walked away.

She followed you, grinning. “I know, I really tried to stay away. Then I remembered that technically you only said that I shouldn’t come here with my friends anymore. And look, it’s just me.”

“Wonderful. Grab a beer, pay for it, and then go on with your night, okay?”, you said. Your eyes shot to the entrance; you almost expected those men from last time to enter seeking for revenge.

Bada followed your gaze and realized something. “You’re safe. They won’t come. I made sure of that.”

A shiver ran down your spine when she said the last sentence. But you decided to be cocky, something about Bada emboldened you. “What do you mean, you made sure of that? I made sure of that. I broke that one guy's jaw.”

Bada laughed at that when she grabbed a beer. Then she threw money on the counter before opening the can.

“That much is true. I must admit, I was very impressed.”, she said. “Did you once play baseball?”

You briefly thought of the real reason, but quickly shook her head, blinked away tears, and put on a smile. “Yes. Yes, I played baseball in high school.”

Bada tilted her head like a curious puppy, certainly not buying that. “Ah. What position did you play?”

You knew nothing about baseball. “Pitcher.”

Bada frowned. Shit, wrong answer, you thought. “I don’t believe you.”, she concluded.

“You’d be scared of me if you knew.”, You said.

“I’m scared of nothing.”, Bada said and sat on the counter with her beer, when You put Bada’s money into the cash register.

Then it was Bada's turn to have a shiver go down her spine when she saw your eyes next. They were suddenly very empty and almost pitch black. “Have you ever killed someone, Bada?”

Continue reading: Chapter 2

#bada lee swf #swf #swf2 #bada lee x reader #bada lee x y/n #bada lee #team bebe

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blondeboyfriend · 9 months

Text

𝐁𝐄𝐒𝐓 𝐈𝐍 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐖 (𝟏𝟖+)

𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐒 𝐃𝐍𝐈

[ PAIRING ] Eren Yeager x f!reader x Zeke Yeager [ AUTHOR'S NOTE ] I basically wrote a bunch of vignettes and threw in some wordy headcanons. This is a repost. I wrote it in like 2022. [ SYNOPSIS ] You've just adopted two disasters, I mean dogboys. [ WORD COUNT ] 3.2k [ CONTENT ] Modern AU, hybrids (duh), threesome (mmf), knotting, cigarettes (Zeke), voyeurism, exhibitionism, jerking off, fingering, teasing, nipple play, creampie, impact play (Zeke receiving), dacryphilia (Zeke’s the crybaby), panty sniffing, thick Yeager dick, cum play, Zeke has grey eyes because I'm addicted to the manga version of him, this fic is so ridiculous like don't take it seriously. Just enjoy the ride.

When you adopted Eren and Zeke you fully expected to get two normal dogs. The ad on Craigslist purported two mutts, related but not from the same litter. They were a bonded pair that could not be separated. It claimed they had all their shots and were totally healthy, but not neutered which was emphasized for some strange reason. You made a mental note to get that taken care of, if the dogs were to become yours.

You responded to the listing expressing interest. You listed off a few qualifications: you were an experienced dog owner, you had a large yard they could play in, and you didn’t smoke. You received a response almost immediately.

Yard sounds cool. The smoking shit doesn’t matter. Do you have cable or do you stream everything? Would appreciate a response asap k thnx.

You could not imagine why they needed such information, but regardless you responded.

Hi! I have basic cable and Hulu. Is that okay?

Your answer was deemed acceptable. Phone numbers were exchanged and you were asked to meet at a local park the next day. It was a great relief that they wanted to meet in a public place.

That night you couldn’t sleep. You were simply too damn excited. The sun couldn’t come up soon enough. It felt like it purposefully slowed down. Minutes felt like hours. It was unbearable. Of course by the time you were able to drift off, your alarm chimed and it was time to go get your dogs.

You arrived at the park right on time. There were a few kids running around with their parents trailing after them and two young men standing off in the distance, but not a single person with two dogs. You waited around for ten minutes until you got the nerve to call the person. It was perplexing to hear someone else’s phone ringing while you made the call.

“Yeah?”

You heard the voice through the phone and in the air.

“Uh… Wait, are you here? I think I see you.” You squinted and took a better look at the two men loitering. “Where are the dogs?”

One of the men pointed at you which caused the one on the phone to hang up and wave you over. You made eye contact with one of the parents, hoping that would be enough incentive to come to your aid if needed.

��Hi,” you said as you dropped a pin to a friend.

Someone, anyone, needed to know where you were lest you get the Law and Order: SVU treatment The two men looked normal enough. Both were rather tall and well built. One had long, silky chocolate-colored hair. The other was of the wavy, flaxen persuasion. You noted they were both wearing hats: the brunette wore a denim bucket hat and the blonde a nondescript baseball cap.

“Oh hey, sorry for hanging up. I figured since you’re here and my phone is running low on minutes,” the brunette said.

“That’s fine. Where are the dogs?”

The two men looked at each other and then back at you.

“You didn’t say anything about the hybrid thing in the ad, did you?” the blonde asked, hanging his head.

“Do you think anyone would’ve responded otherwise?”

“What hybrid thing?” you questioned.

The men redirected their attention towards you.

“We’re th—”

“We’re the dogs, alright!” the brunette exclaimed.

He dramatically pulled his hat off, revealing two brown button ears. He then proceeded to knock the baseball cap off the blonde by smacking the bill upwards. He too had little button ears. You were filled with conflicting emotions. You were attracted to their good looks and you thought their ears were cute. But you were also disappointed they weren’t normal dogs.

“Listen, we understand if—”

The brunette interrupted him again. “I don’t! Please take us home with you. I promise we’ll be good. Or I will at least. Honestly you can just take me in. I don’t even know who that guy is.”

“I’m his brother.”

“No he isn’t.”

You stared at them, debating whether or not you should take them in. You didn’t have the biggest home, but you could probably get creative and make it work. However there was still a twinge of paranoia. You weren’t certain you could trust them. But on the other hand you could use the company.

“You can both come live with me. The ad said you were a bonded pair so…”

“Eren, you said we were bonded?” the blonde asked, blushing and eyes sparkling.

“Don’t. Don’t look at me like that.”

“Uh, okay! You guys ready to go then?” you rallied, trying to prevent any conflict from brewing.

Their eyes lit up and their bushy tails started wagging. You were powerless against them. They were yours and you were theirs. You couldn’t wait to get them home and let them get cozy. And more importantly shower. They both looked a little rough around the edges.

On the way home you couldn’t help but stare at their ears, curious as to how they felt. You tried to resist the urge to pinch them, but it became too big of a burden to bear.

“Can I touch—”

“Yes,” they sighed.

Zeke was the more affectionate of the two, but only towards you and Eren. He was pleasant yet standoffish with others, keeping most people at an arm’s length. He had no issues wearing a collar and actually preferred it, unlike Eren. It gave Zeke a sense of security, something his life often lacked. He was incredibly intelligent, but prone to getting lost in his own thoughts. And he preferred spending his days in the yard sprawled out in a hammock with no shirt on, chain smoking and reading.

Eren was a bit of a wild one. He only wanted attention on his own terms, but was open to getting it from anyone he was friendly with. He tended to be a bit of a loner, spending most of his time outdoors. He liked being out in the woods, hiking on balmy days. He was significantly more active than Zeke though you suspected that had something to do with him being younger. Eren was also a bit more hardy than his brother, and lacked the seasonal allergies Zeke had been cursed with since he was a pup.

Since neither of them worked they tended to play housewife while you toiled away at work. Zeke was on laundry duty because Eren was a chronic clothes shrinker. Eren did the cooking, priding himself on his knife skills. He was constantly baking bread with a preference for sourdough. Zeke wasn’t a bad cook by any means, but he lacked the passion Eren exuded. He preferred to clean anyway. It wasn’t uncommon to wake up in the middle of the night to pee and find him scrubbing the toilet.

Depending on where you were in your menstrual cycle, they would both get incredibly clingy and flirtatious. If one of them was feeling particularly bold they’d rub their hard cock on you while you slept. It didn’t bother you much. You had developed a bit of a crush on them. Your sick enjoyment fed off of their desperation. Even the more traditionally annoying behaviors were still a turn on. Like how your underwear was prone to going missing. You’d find it crumpled up and stiff in the strangest places. You never bothered to ask because you didn’t want to embarrass them, or give them any incentive to stop.

Your first tryst with them couldn’t have happened under sillier circumstances. It was late one night. You and Eren had crawled into bed while Zeke stayed up watching the Planet Earth episode on caves. Eren fell asleep almost immediately after pulling you into his warm embrace. You nuzzled your face in his neck, letting your nose graze his Adam’s apple.

Just as you were about to drift off Zeke clumsily opened the door. He skulked around before hopping into bed. You were hoping he’d spoon you, putting you in a dogboy sandwich. But alas, he was going to sleep beside Eren.

Zeke yawned and snaked his arms around his brother. You struggled to hold back a laugh as he wriggled and pulled his brother close. Eren groaned and tried to shake Zeke off.

“Don’t be mean,” Zeke whined.

Zeke then proceeded to grope Eren’s chest.

“Oh… That’s not right,” he said, palming Eren’s pectoral muscle.

“I was waiting for you to notice. Can you please stop rubbing your dick on me?”

“I didn’t know it was you.”

“You couldn’t smell me?”

“You smelled like her shampoo. My—my allergies have been acting up. I can’t smell straight.”

“Makes sense considering there was nothing straight about what you just did.”

“You guys are too much,” you yawned, rolling over onto your back.

Eren fixed his verdant gaze on you. Zeke rested his chin on Eren’s head and did the same. They looked hungry, starved practically. Zeke reached out and booped your nose.

“What?” You asked, laughing.

“I’m bored,” Zeke sighed.

Eren nodded in agreement.

“It’s nighttime. Just fall asleep,” you muttered.

“I doubt he could fall asleep with that raging boner.”

Zeke immediately turned pink and rolled over, trying to mask his shame. He pulled the sheets over his head and sighed heavily.

“Maybe you should help him take care of it?” Eren purred.

“I wouldn’t be averse to that,” Zeke concurred, his voice muffled by cool cotton.

You cleared your throat. While you were very much aware your precious dogboys wanted to bury their noses in your cunt, you never actually considered sleeping with either of them. You weren’t even sure what that would entail.

“If you fuck Zeke, I get to watch.”

“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t,” Zeke said dreamily.

Eren grumbled. He wasn’t the best at accepting Zeke’s affection, especially when it was a bit too eager.

“I guess I’m up for it. I can’t remember the last time I fucked someone.”

“I’ll be gentle. Unless you, uh, don’t want me to be. I’m more than prepared to destroy you. I can make it so that no one will ever want you again after I’m through with you.”

“Criiiiiiiiinge,” Eren yawned.

“Be nice,” you chastised, pinching one of Eren’s velvety ears.

“So?” Zeke asked expectantly.

You could hear his tail thumping against the mattress. How could you deny such an excitable boy?

“I’m down.”

Zeke jumped out of bed and started getting undressed. You and Eren made eye contact and laughed.

“Desperate much?”

“He’s not desperate. Just dumb and eager,” you laughed.

Zeke pouted as he pulled his shirt over his head, revealing his god-like form. His chest was covered with hair, the same color as a fertile field of wheat. You never got used to seeing him shirtless even though he often went without one. Every time was like the first time, just you in utter awe of his beautiful body.

“You can get undressed faster than that,” Eren goaded.

Zeke pulled off his boxers and balled them up, beaning them at Eren.

“Happy?”

“Not as happy as you apparently,” you chuckled.

Zeke’s cock was hard as a rock, nearly sticking straight up. It was thick, veiny, and of average length which was a relief. Zeke glanced down at it and then made eye contact with you. It was clear he sought approval; he needed validation.

“Very nice, baby.”

“Baby? You never call me baby.”

“That’s because you’re not my baby, Eren.”

“Yeah, Eren, you’re not her baby.”

“Well, what are you two waiting for?” Eren asked, taking a seat on the edge of the bed. He took the quilt with him, wrapping it around himself.

Zeke returned to the bed and got on top of you. He reached under your nightgown and peeled off your underwear. He sniffed them before he handed them to Eren who did the same. Zeke slipped his hand between your thighs and spread apart your folds. He pushed his rough fingers into your cunt and rubbed your clit with the pad of his thumb. He maintained eye contact the entire time. His grey gaze was heavy with ardor. His face couldn’t have been closer to yours. You reached up and stroked his cheek, feeling his lush beard. He hummed happily and continued to finger you.

“Does that feel good?” He asked, curling his fingers inside you.

A “mhm” was all you could muster. It seemed to be enough for Zeke because he beamed and kissed you. To say you weren’t ready was an understatement. He pushed his tongue past your teeth and rolled it against yours. His lips were soft unlike Eren’s which tended to be chapped. A little, joyous whimper emanated from you as his breath lilted into your lungs. It tasted of tobacco and his overpriced, spearmint toothpaste. You wanted him to consume you.

“Can one of you make some noises or something? You guys are too quiet. It’s weird,” Eren heckled.

Zeke broke the kiss. “You do realize not everyone sounds like they’re in Bang Bros video, right?”

Eren was quiet.

“Maybe so. But c’mon. Do something interesting.”

Zeke placed his hands on the small of your back and lifted you forward. He flicked his tongue against your firm nipple. You draped your arms over his shoulders and dragged your nails down his back. You were careful not to dig too deep. You weren’t interested in drawing blood. Zeke was too delicate on an emotional level. His life had been hard enough. You knew he wanted to be pampered, not mangled.

He didn’t seem to hold you in the same regard because he began to bite your nipple. It wasn’t very hard, but still you yelped.

“Hey! Don’t hurt her, you dingus,” Eren teased.

He pulled on Zeke’s wagging tail.

“What good does hurting me do?” He asked ruefully.

You ran your fingers through his soft hair and gave it a tug.

“Not you too.”

“It’s not my fault it’s so fun to be a little mean to you… Do you want us to stop?”

“No,” Zeke mumbled. “I—I like it.”

Eren pulled on his tail again. Zeke groaned and buried his face into your neck. You patted his head and told him how good of a boy he was.

“How good?” He asked, nipping at your neck.

“The best.”

“What about me?” Eren asked.

“You’re a good boy too, I guess.”

Zeke smirked and began to stroke the length of his cock. He gently nudged you back down, leaving you supine. He rubbed his cocktip on your throbbing clit, leaving a few droplets of precum behind. Eren sighed and moved so that he was lying next to you.

“I needed a better view,” he admitted.

“Fair enough,” Zeke groaned as he slid his cock inside you.

Eren stuck his hand under his sweatpants and began to jerk off. You were ecstatic he wanted to watch Zeke split you in two.

Zeke’s thrusts were slow and deliberate. He let his cock gradually stretch out your tight cunt. You loved the fullness you felt, how his cock swelled inside you. It was a sensation you’d never been blessed with before. You felt like you were seeing stars as Zeke picked up the pace. His balls slapped against your taint, leaving a stinging pain in their wake.

“You can fuck her harder than that,” Eren heckled through gritted teeth.

His sweatpants had a sizable wet spot.

“Leave me alone,” Zeke mumbled.

You pinched his ear and gently pulled on it.

“Are you gonna cry, Zekey?”

“Please do not call me that. And what the? No, I’m not going to cry.”

“You do when you jerk off with her underwear,” Eren laughed.

Zeke lost his rhythm; his thrusts became erratic. His cock was hitting your cervix. You felt a dull ache in the depths of your cunt.

“That was one time. I don’t always cry after I come.”

You grabbed his ass and pulled his body closer to you. He let out a low groan as you dug your nails into his voluptuous ass.

“Come on. Cry for me, crybaby,” you teased.

Zeke knitted his brow and didn’t heed your remark. He just kept thrusting away. You felt your orgasm cresting the horizon. You bucked your hips against Zeke.

Eren moaned and ended up coming all over his hand. He licked his palm clean. You were disappointed he didn’t let you lap up his cum.

“Hey, Zeke,” Eren said, catching his breath.

Zeke asked, “What is it now?”

Eren got up and yanked on Zeke’s tail.

“Goddammit!”

“Pull on it again,” you moaned, digging your nails deeper into his plush ass.

Eren was more than happy to comply. A few tears fell from Zeke’s starry, grey eyes.

“Does it hurt, baby?”

“Nah,” he coughed out as Eren tugged on it again. “Maybe a little.”

“Should we g—go easier on you?” You stammered, trying to stave off your orgasm.

“No. Keep doing it.”

Eren moved one of your hands away from Zeke’s ass cheek and he gave it a firm spank.

“Eren!” Zeke yelped.

“Too hard?”

“Just a fucking little!”

You stroked Zeke’s beard, directing his attention on you. He sighed as you tightened around the length of his cock. He gritted his teeth as you writhed underneath him. Eren spanked his ass again, but this time it was gentler. It was inaudible and your little, flaxen dogboy didn’t cry out in pain.

“I’m gonna—“ You desperately moaned.

Zeke gazed down at you; his eyes were dark with lust. They were the color of clouds right before a thunderstorm. You wanted to get caught in his downpour. He fucked you harder than he had before. His cock continued to swell. Your juices flowed from your cunt, intermingling with Zeke’s precum.

“Is he crying?” Eren asked.

You were too caught up in your orgasm to humor Eren’s relentless teasing. Your toes curled and you saw white as you came.

“You look so pretty taking my co—Fuck! Eren!”

You glanced at Eren who had once again pulled on Zeke’s tail. You giggled as Zeke grunted. You used your thumb to wipe away the little tears that had collected in his lower lashes.

“Are you gonna come for me like a good boy?”

He nodded and bucked his hips. A steady stream of cum filled your cunt to the brim. You were stuffed full of its milky warmth and his throbbing knot. You held him close to your body as he finished. Eren, being the little shit he was, tugged on Zeke’s tail one last time. The blonde let out a few whimpers before he collapsed. He was careful not to put his full weight on you.

“Can I come for you like a good boy now?” Eren asked.

“You gotta w—wait a bit. I’m stuck in her for the time being.”

You rubbed Zeke’s ass and he nuzzled his face into your neck. He could be so affectionate. If you ever tried to tell anyone, they’d never believe you. The only people that ever saw this side of him were you and Eren.

“Don’t worry, sweetie. You’ll get your turn,” you said, gesturing to Eren to cuddle up beside you.

Eren did and weaseled his way under your arm. You gave him a little peck on the cheek. It would only be a matter of time before Zeke could pull out and let Eren have his turn.

#eren yeager x reader #eren jaeger x reader #zeke yeager x reader #zeke jaeger x reader #aot x reader #snk x reader #aot smut #snk smut #attack on titan smut #shingeki no kyojin smut #x reader #reader insert #.fics #.aot #.zeke #.eren

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jinjinies · 2 years

Text

jungkook fic recs | part 1

all jungkook fics i loved

part 2 (coming soon)

a = angst f = fluff s = smut

✨= favourites

Series

mutual help by @personasintro | 51 / ongoing on wattpad | best friends au, fwbs au, fake dating au, slow burn | s, f, a ✨

inevitable by @ahundredtimesover | 8/8 | exes au, parents au, baseball player!JK | a, s, f ✨

hidden stars by @jungblue | 5/5 + drabble | idol au, it's a jk x reader and yoongi x reader so it's a love triangle | a, s

rattled by @gukslut | 8/8 + epilogue | single dad au, healing, enemies to friends to lovers, slow burn | a, s ✨

serendipity by @rohobi | 14/14 + epilogue | best friends/fwbs au, humour | s, f

i'd love you to stay but that's simply insane by @taexual | 22/22 | college au, (ex)childhood friends au, jk is part of a band, fake dating in the middle of the story tho | f, s ✨

falling skies by @fortunexkookie | 6/6 | friends to enemies to friends to lovers, best friend's brother, roommates au, childhood friends, fuckboy!jk, nurse!jk, slow burn, sexual tension, I hate that I like you, smut, hurt/comfort, character death, pining | f, s, heavy angst ✨

puzzle by @kimvvantae | 8/8 | best friends to lovers au, fwbs au, college au, comedy | s, a

all that glitters by @aquagustd | 9/9 | unrequited love au, college au, pining, infidelity, toxic relationship, fuckboy!jk, manipulation | s, f, HEAVY angst ✨

always you by @taestefully-in-luv | 9/9 + several drabbles | best friends to lovers, idiots to lovers, roommate au, college au, slight crack | s, f, a

fight for you by @ahundredtimesover | 8/8 + epilogues | bodyguard!jk x heiress!reader | a, s

animal by @cutaepatootie | 9/9 | boxer!jk, strangers to lovers, didn't expect the ending | f, s, very angsty ✨

take a chance by @crystaljins | 7/7 | hanahaki au, co workers | a

safety net by @pradaksj | 2/2 | enemies to friends to lovers au, roommates au, pining, boxer!jungkook | f, s, a

stockholm syndrome by @taleasnewastime | 8/8 | mafia/gang au, university au, strangers to lovers | s, a, f ✨

comfort inn ending by @joonbird | 7/7 | infidelity au, reader did it | f, very angsty

lowkey by @xpeachesncream | 17/17 | popular!reader x nerd!jjk, college au, fake dating au, friends (with benefits?) to lovers au | f, a, s

effortlessly by @gyukult | 10/10 + epilogue | childhood friends au, college/school au, becomes established relationship | f, s

half a heart without you by @/blaqandwhite (ao3) | 5/5 | unrequited love au, hurt/comfort, character death, lots of pining, bestfriends/childhood friends au, kinda slow burn | f, a ✨

amended by @foxymoxynoona (i read it on ao3) | 67/67 | police officer!jk x single mum named oc, childhood friends au, enemies to friends to lovers, marriage of convenience au, hurt/comfort, slow burn ;D, check tags for tw | love the angst, f, s ✨

i'm on the run with you, my sweet love by @inkofyoonkoo (ao3) | 10 / ongoing | tattooist!jk, fake dating au, fwbs au, (ex)best friends, friends to lovers, road trip au, mutual pining, slow burn | f, s, very angsty

i lo(ath)ve you by @/shookbutinfired (ao3) | 9 / ongoing | enemies to friends to lovers, exes au, love/hate, high school au, mutual pining, slow updates but it's worth it | a

you up? by @/dappleddaisies (wattpad) | 57/57 | college au, named oc, jungkook is a sweetheart, slow burn, exes au, one of the best books on wattpad ong | s, f, a ✨

youth. by @/hoseoksheartbeat (wattpad) | 31/31 | soulmate au, jungkook is 212 years old | a, f

just friends by @kinktae | 3/3 | best friends to lovers au, fwbs au | a, s

bitchin' by @kinktae | 10/10 | 1980s au, based on to all the boys i've loved before, enemies to lovers, fratboy!jk | a, f, s ✨

han by @/-saeris (wattpad) | 41/41 | named oc, best friends/childhood friends au, fantasy au (kinda) f, very angsty - prepare tissues

bonded by @/igotbangtan_7 (wattpad) | 95 / ongoing | fuckboy!tae, kinda a vminkook fic ( theres tae x oc, jk x oc and slight jimin x oc), everyone's got trauma and demons, a bit messed up, one of my fav fics of all time, lots of mature themes beware | f, s, a ✨

colour vision by @/dappleddaisies (wattpad) | 55/55 | strangers to lovers au, named oc, news reporter!oc, world where life is seen in mono or colour, unique fic i loved | a, f, s

kumiho by @/dappleddaisies (wattpad) | 79 / ongoing | mafia au, named oc | s, f, a

baby, my baby by @pjimims | 10/10 | single parent au, writer!oc, class reunion | a, f ✨

brown-eyed baby by @jeonstudios | 2/2 | single dad!jk, exes to friends to lovers au | s, a, f

one-step forward, two-steps back by @oureuphoria | 2/2 | slow burn, friends to lovers, tattooist!jk, roommate's fwb | a, a little fluff

ego by @suga-kookiemonster | 9/9 | college au, fuckboy au, fratboy au, humour, lab partner!jk | s

sugar high by @yeojaa | 16/16 | best friends/childhood friends au, named oc, idol au, slow burn, hurt/comfort, unrequited love | a, f

please love me by @ahundredtimesover | 4/4 | arranged marriage au, childhood friends au, ceo kids | a, f, s

empty space by @ahundredtimesover | 2/2 | undercover police officer!jk, ex-fwbs au, time jump | a, s ✨

you belong with me by @joonscroll | 6/6 i put the link for the author's mlist to get all the chap. links | best friends to lover au, unrequited love, check tw before reading 3, 4 | a, f

a lover's kiss by @hueseok | 15 / last chapter to be posted | friends with benefits au, idiots to lovers au, college au, pining, swimmer!jk, editor-in-chief!reader | s, f, a

moonlight melody by @gukyi | 2/2 | fake dating au, university orchestra au, vacation au, slow burn | f, minor a ✨

One shots

it takes two by @junghelioseok | 29.8k | fake dating au, roommate au | s, f ✨

ruin the friendship by @kpopfanfictrash | 8k | best friends to lovers au | s, f

over the edge by @kpopfanfictrash | 9.1k | established relationship au, sequel to ruin the friendship | s, f

how many drinks? by @xpeachesncream | 12.2k | college au, dance group au, bestfriends/bestfriends with some benefits au | f, s, slight a ✨

idealizations concerning real life relations by @venusiangguk | 40.9k | strangers to lovers au, fwb au | s, very angsty

sweet apple biscuits by @rosaetae | 15.5k | orange au (one of my fav animes) | a

can't be without you by @ahundredtimesover | 30.2k | best friends to lovers au, underground fighter!JK | a, f, s ✨

orange tulips by @kainks | 10.2k | soulmate au, reincarnation au | a, f, light smut

my beauty, my blood by @7cypher | 20k | mafia au, single parent!oc | f, a

my babysitter's a quarterback by @ohpretty-baby | 30k | enemies to lovers, mutual pining, crackfic, qb!jungkook x cheerleader!reader | f, a

the lines between us by @chateautae | 10k | enemies to lovers au, detective!au, partner!jungkook, fwb au, slight fantasy au | s, a

this is how we break by @ahundredtimesover | 20.6k | exes au | a, f, s ✨

snapdragon by @dfdph | 18.5k | college au, fratboy!jk, infidelity au | a, f

daffodil by @dfdph | 21k | med au, exes au, sequel to snapdragon | a, f

everythingoes by @jamaisjoons | 24k | fuckboy!tae x reader and Jungkook x reader, infidelity, toxic relationship, 2 love interests, best friend!tae | s, slight fluff, angsty

(road)tripping for you by @latetaektalk | 31k | road trip au, strangers to lovers au, only one bed, summer au | f, slight a ✨

after i left you by @latetaektalk | 38.9k | exes au, fake dating au, enemies to lovers-ish au, unrequited feelings-ish au | a, f ✨

only for you by @jikookiekosmos | 32.8k | best friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, teeny social media au, mutual pining | a, s, f

first light by @inktae | 24.8k | based on hotarubi no mori e, jk x reader and tae x reader | f, mainly a

changes in between by @taegularities | 24.7k | roommate au, strangers to friends to lovers, some crack, pining | f, s, a

days to morning glory by @sketchguk | 20.6k | exes to lovers au, roommate au, high school sweethearts, based off the movie the hows of us, aspiring rockstar!jk x med. student!reader| s, f, a

show me something by @yoonia | 51.7k | road trip au, friends to enemies to lovers au, first love au, slow burn | s, a, f ✨

microwave (mis)adventures by @bymoonchild | 20k | college au, roommates au, enemies to lovers au | f, s, slight a

milestone by @1kook | 8k | highschool/college au, brother’s best friend au, oc’s first time | s

all in by @iamjungkooked | 13.1k | best friend's boyfriend au, mutual pining, all works out in the end tho | mild smut, tiny bit of fluff, mostly angst

white lies by @noteguk | 13.3k | athlete!jungkook x reader, childhood best friends au, fake dating au, idiots to lovers, so much sexual tension, mutual pining | f, s, minor a ✨

shield by @rmverse | 18.6k | security guard!jk x bartender!reader, jk is cute | f, s

the art of war more by @kpopfanfictrash | 42.4k | enemies to lovers au, college au, althlete au, hockey captain!jk x dancer!reader | s, f, a✨

fortuity by @yoontopia | 7.7k | detective au, childhood friends to lovers | f, a

17 going on 27 by @hansolmates | 22.6k | photographer!jk x editor!reader, crack, timeskip from high skl to adulthood, time travel au | f, a

i can't wait to tell you, i told ya by @moon-write (can read it on ao3) | 16.2k | single dad!jk, idiots to lovers au, mutual pining, best friend au | f, a

here i come by @chateautae | 3k | college au, pwp, tipsy hide and seek gone right? | s ✨

not so honest by @parkmuse | 9.3k | roommates au, pwp, noona!reader, jk is a brat, steamy | s

not like you by @oureuphoria | 28k | dilf!jk, boxer!jk, enemies to lovers, childhood friends/rivals, slow burn, single dad au | f, a

stoic by @blue-jade | 4.2k | ceo!jk, infidelity au, jk is terrible, has a part 2 "redemption" (see author's mlist) | a, s

your every wish is my command by @jeonggukingdom | 13k | genie au, fantasy au, crack | s, f

somebody that i used to know by @astramoonchild | 9.7k | childhood best friends, fwbs au, waterpark au, roommates au, lim jaebeom x reader too | a, s

illusion of choice by @hobibliophile | 7.3k | heir au, arranged marriage au, childhood friends au, character death | a, f, s

that which still haunts us by @nottodayjjk | 17.8k | exes au, jungkook is a hitman | s, a

love alive by @jamaisjoons | 17k | post breakup au, exes au, pining, they still love each other :( | a, f, s ✨

last updated: 02/05/22

note: i can’t add anymore links to this post cos i hit the limit lmao so i’ll be making another one!

#jungkook angst #jungkook fanfic #jungkook smut #bts #kpop #jungkook x reader #jungkook fic recs #jungkook series #jungkook fluff #jungkook x y/n

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tgmsunmontue · 2 months

Text

Saga of Solitude 1/?

Nepo!Baby Bradley and his life at USNA. DADT fully in force. Hangster AU. (Begun prior to 'It's not who you know' - the non-angsty version).

This 3.5k chapter is written on the assumption that you've read the prologue, but you do you (it will still 100% make sense, but He Remembers does set the scene).

PROLOGUE (He remembers) HANGSTER FIRST MEETING (Lonely Nights) Updating irregularly. This is a SLOW BURN

2000 (Bradley is 17)

His hands shake as he holds the envelope. It’s thick. He knows that that’s a good sign. He promised Ice he would wait for him before he opened it. He carries it around the house with him, room to room, nervous that he’s going to somehow lose it if he lets it out of his sight. Mav is meant to be getting back from his deployment this weekend, and the girls are also meant to be coming for the weekend, so it’ll be all his family in one place to celebrate or commiserate with him.

God he hopes it’s celebrate.

He really wants to celebrate.

What if it’s not?

Oh god he thinks he’s going to be sick.

Yep.

Yep, he’s sick, just making it to the bathroom before bringing up the remnants of his lunch and the afternoon snack he’d forced down.

Oh god, he doesn’t know if he can wait until Ice gets home.

He sips the glass of water slowly, lets his stomach settle, reminds himself that his life will be fine if it is in fact a rejection letter. He’s applied to other places, Ice and Mav both insisting on it. He’s an honor student, plays baseball, runs track and is a member of the swim team. All things Ice had suggested to him if wanted to strengthen his application and prepare himself physically for entering the Navy. He’ll be fine.

He’ll be fine.

He turns on the TV, a hopeful step to distract himself but keeps checking the time. When he hears a car he runs out to the drive and it’s Ice’s car, but there is someone in the passenger seat, in uniform and his heart jumps.

Mav.

Mav is home.

“Dad!” Bradley yells, running and wrapping his arms around his father.

“Bradley! Holy shit you’ve grown!”

“Maverick, language…” Ice says, his sigh resigned like he’s just reprimanding him automatically and Bradley lets out a laugh. “Surprise. He got in early.”

“I got my letter. It’s.. here,” Bradley says, shoving the letter at Ice, not wanting the pressure of opening it.

He looks and Mav and Ice; they’ve both grown still, suddenly less happy as they look at the thick white envelope, Ice slapping it against his palm, expression serious.

“Come on, let’s go inside.”

They head inside, and he leans into Mav’s arm around him, barely reaching now, but he won’t say anything. Ice is grabbing a letter opener, holding it out to him along with the envelope and he shakes his head.

“Can you open it please.”

Ice doesn’t bother answering, simply slits it along the top, pulling out the folded wad of paper and flicking the top sheet out sharply, eyes scanning it.

“You’re in.”

He lets out the breath he’d been holding, entire body slumping with relief.

“Like there was any doubt,” Mav mutters, hugging him again, but he can see the tick in his jaw, knows he’s upset or worried about something. He’d seen it a lot when Mav had been teaching him to drive before Ice had decided that maybe he should take over the lessons.

“We should sit down… maybe have some tea.”

“You’ve been spending too much time with that British-raised Admiral, thinking tea can solve everything…”

“Well, Bradley’s eighteen, didn’t exactly want to offer him whiskey.”

“That’s okay, I can offer it. You want a whiskey?”

“Maverick!”

Bradley laughs, his nerves settling a little at Mav’s sheer ridiculousness.

“I’m joking! Stop looking at me like that.”

Ice lets out a long breath and he wonders if maybe he should have a whiskey.

“Okay, so there’s also something we need to tell you.”

“If it’s about sex we can skip it…” Bradley blurts out, wondering if that’s what has got them looking so deadly serious. He’s not stupid, at least not anymore. He’s realized they’re more than just friends, even if Mav has never uttered the words. Ice hasn’t either but he’s seen them, when they think he’s not looking. Heard them when they think he’s not at home, which he’s never mentioning ever. They’re both looking at him in shock and he pulls a face. “What? I’ve had sex.”

“Fuck. Please tell me you’re being safe,” Mav mutters, which Bradley thinks is hypocritical considering the shit Mav pulls, although of course he is. Ice and Sarah have that shit covered.

“Yeah, of course. I’m not stupid.”

“Good to know. Not what we were going to talk about, but, uh, still good to know,” Ice says, looking at the ceiling like it will somehow give him strength. Maybe he’s thinking of the sex talks he’s going to have to give Tamsin and Petra, although they’re only five and three, so at least he’s got years to prepare himself.

“It’s about your mom.”

Bradley sits back, going silent. His mom has been gone nearly eight years, he can’t even begin to imagine what they have to say about her now.

“She didn’t want you to join the Navy. I’m pretty sure when she said Navy, she meant any branch of the DoD, but we won’t split hairs. It was something we argued about. A lot.”

“She wanted us to make sure you never joined. You’re eighteen and we wouldn’t be able to stop you enlisting. However we wanted you to know what she wanted.”

“What do you want?”

“We want you to be happy.”

“Safe.”

“But it would be hypocritical of us to stand in your way if you really want to join the Navy when we’re both… in the Navy,” Ice explains.

Mav hums you can sail the seven seas and Ice shoots him a glare and it makes him laugh, Mav giving him a wink.

“Bradley, we’ll be proud of you regardless of what you do, as long as you’re proud of it as well.”

“You don’t need to feel like you have to join just because your dad was, or just because we are…” Mav adds and Bradley nods.

“So, if you decide to accept this… and you do still need to accept it, just because they’re offering you a place doesn’t mean you have to accept it. If you decide to accept it there are some things that you need to be aware of…”

“Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. So this is a sex talk…” He notes the look that Mav and Ice exchange and realizes then that they think he doesn’t know, that he hasn’t put it all together. “Uh, I know you guys are a couple by the way.”

He doesn’t get the response he expects, although he doesn’t know what he was expecting exactly. Maverick is laughing, but Ice has gone pale, looks nervous and he reminds himself that he’s considering entering an institute that will deny him something as simple as acknowledging his chosen partner.

“Told you he’d figure it out,” Mav says, and he’s standing, going over to the liquor cabinet and pouring two whiskies, placing one in front of Ice who takes a sip with a slightly trembling hand. Mav pull a face, and he can’t really parse what it means. They’re not happy, he gets that much.

“Bradley, DADT means you can’t talk about… well. Us,” Ice starts.

“Yeah. I figured that out. I know you guys aren’t out. You didn’t even tell me.”

They both wince at that and he wonders what it is he said.

“Well, you can mention us, but you can’t mention our positions.”

“Maybe avoid the fact that we’re in the Navy all together,” Mav suggests.

“It also means you need to be… careful. For yourself,” Ice adds, turning the glass under his fingers.

“Yeah. I get it.”

“Bradley… we’re saying this because we care. Because we’re worried. You’ve grown up in an age where it’s… more acceptable to be… gay. The Navy hasn’t exactly moved at the same rate.”

“We both married women because we needed people to stop speculating. It’s far more acceptable to be a widow or a divorcee…”

“Oh.” Of course. He knew Mav had married his mom to make the whole adoption thing easier, but Ice marrying Uncle Sarah. He’d maybe thought bisexual, not that they were trying to throw people off their scent.

“Yeah… I think you’re starting to get the idea kid.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“You’ll always be my kid. Our kid.”

Shit.

They’re both looking at him, eyes sad, and he nods tightly, once.

Stares at the floor so he doesn’t see them watching.

He gets it.

But.

He still wants it.

Wants it bad enough that he’ll ignore what his mom wanted.

Wants it bad enough that he’ll hide away a part of himself.

His stomach roils at the idea of being found out then, but he has to at least try. He wants to fly more than he wants to have a boyfriend. More than he wants sex. Sex hasn’t been that great anyway. His times flying have definitely been better and more memorable than the times he’s had sex.

“I want to fly.”

“Yeah. Okay. How about you take the weekend, read through everything. We can discuss timelines and Plebe Summer…”

“And how to avoid answering questions about your family.”

“I’ll just… not talk about you at all. If anyone asks I’ll say my dad was a naval aviator and he died in a training exercise and –”

“That’ll probably make them stop asking you questions. Won’t exactly make you friends.”

“I don’t want friends. I want to fly.”

“You can have both.”

“Not if you’re lying to them.”

“It wouldn’t be lying.”

“Half-truths and omission is still lying.”

Bradley looks between them, and he knows they’re about to enter a pointless argument with no winner that they seem to do every time Mav returns from deployment. It’s a pattern he’s noticed, all their attention turned and focused on each other and oh… Right. He guesses he’s still got a bit to learn.

“I’m going to take this to my room and read it. Let me know when dinner’s ready okay?”

“We’ll order takeout, something to celebrate. What do you want?”

“Pizza!” Bradley calls out, can already hear the scraping of chairs and he’s going to put his music on and blast it.

… … …

“You okay? Ice?” Pete asks, crouching beside him and Ice looks up from his glass of whiskey.

“How did he figure it out? We’ve been so careful…”

“He lives with us. Not all of us together, but he knew I wasn’t interested in Carole like that… He knows I’m not straight. When he came out to me I told him it wasn’t easy being in the Navy and not being straight. I really don’t think it’s obvious, not to our workmates or the casual observer. We have separate homes, separate lives… Our friends and family know because we told them.”

“We didn’t tell Bradley, he figured it out on his own.”

“He’s a smart kid. We did a good job,” Pete says, running his fingers over the back of Ice’s hand briefly, a caress that could be brushed off as accidental apart from the number of times Pete has managed it over the last decade. The closest he can give to a comforting hug in public.

“Yeah, we did…”

“He probably thinks we’re having reunion sex.”

“Well, it has been five months. I wouldn’t say no.”

Pete coughs, caught by surprise.

“I – really? But Bradley’s home…”

“Your son, who apparently knows we’re together, is now in his room in my house blasting music so loud I can feel it in my bones…”

“Come on then! Time’s a wasting!” Pete says, tugging at his hand now, not wanting to give Ice time to second guess his decision and change his mind.

“You taking me to me bedroom Mav? Where’s your sense of adventure?”

“I left it in my thirties, it was replaced by my desire to never have my son never walk-in on me having sex…”

Ice laughs then, reaches for him, pulls him close and he’s being kissed. Kissed properly like it’s a whole conversation, telling him how much he’s been missed, how much he’s loved, how much he’s wanted. Ice holds him close, one arm around his waist and his other hand on the back of his head, fingernails scraping through his hair and he presses against it, mainly against the hard body in front of him and one of the few perks of deployment is getting to come back to this every time.

“Come on, take me to bed.”

… … …

Bradley has seen videos of his parents, knows he’d probably have siblings if his dad had lived. He probably would have also known more than he wanted to about their sex life, given that they’d seen sickeningly in love with each other and not afraid to let the surrounding people know it. He remembers them being constantly affectionate with each other, always cuddling each other, often with him sandwiched in between.

Mav and Ice don’t have that type of relationship at all, he’s never seen them kiss, or hold hands. Hugs have been few and far between, always coupled with manly backslaps or punches to the arm and he can only hazard a guess that it’s different behind closed doors. Except nothing between them changes over the weekend. They’re still friendly with each other, there are still looks which could maybe have a heavier meaning, but on Saturday night Mav says he’s heading home, to his place and Bradley has to stop himself from asking why.

They have an illusion they need to maintain and he needs to play his part in maintaining it. He offers to go and stay with Mav, after all he’s only just back from five months away. Instead he’s told to stay where he is, that Ice wants to talk to him about the USNA once Tamsin and Petra are in bed. And he might not have siblings, but he does have Tamsin and Petra, who get called his little ducklings with how they follow his every move when they come to stay, or when he stays with Sarah and her wife when Ice isn’t at home and Bradley still needs to attend school. Bradley’s the one that reads them their bedtime stories, so he hugs Mav goodbye and tells him he’ll see him tomorrow.

“You want a beer?” Ice offers and Bradley does a double take.

“Uh. Is this a trick question?”

Ice shrugs and Bradley accepts the bottle hesitantly, because Mav offering him whiskey as a joke last night is one thing, Ice offering him a beer with his serious face on is a whole different ball game and he knows they’re going to talk.

“You had a chance to read through the material yet?”

“Yeah. You know I’m going to accept right?”

“I know. Stopping you from doing this would be like trying to stop Mav from flying. An impossible undertaking. So. I know we have time, but Plebe Summer… you want to be as physically ready for that as possible. It’ll make everything else easier. Mav and I will start you on a training regime so it’s not too much of a shock. Also start memorizing the orders now.”

Bradley groans, but he guesses he’s going to have to prove to some that he deserves to be at USNA and not sailing in on the fact that Ice is pretty much his step-dad or de facto guardian or whatever the fuck people have been referring to their relationship as. Actually, he should probably know what other people think, or know.

“What do other people think about me? About me living with you when Mav is deployed that is?”

“That I’m doing Mav a favor. Some people might think it’s out of guilt, because of your dad. But it’s not. Your dad was my friend too. More than Maverick was back then, that’s for sure. Also I love you, your my kid in everything but name.”

“It’s kind of going to suck pretending I don’t know you. Or that we aren’t close.”

“Don’t pretend. You can mention me. But maybe don’t advertise the fact, because there will be people that will want to use your connections. There always are.”

“Uh… I wasn’t going to try and make myself come off as a massive dick like I only earnt my place because I’m legacy.”

“Bradley, you’re… triple legacy? If that’s even a thing. If anyone was going to accuse the Navy of nepotism then you’d be the poster child. Except you’re aptitude tests are great, you’d be a shoe in even if you weren’t a legacy kid. If you don’t want to draw attention to your relationship with me then we can manage that. I find deflection works best. When you’re asked about your family, what will you say?”

“My dad was a naval aviator who died in a Top Gun training incident in eighty-six and my mom died of cancer in ninety-four. I was raised by my step-father after that. Any other awkward questions you want answers to?”

Ice chuckles then, takes a drink of his beer and shakes his head.

“God you sounded like Mav just then… You know what Mav told me to tell people when they suggested I try and reconcile with Sarah? That she was a lesbian and it was pretty hard to reconcile that.”

“Oh ouch…”

“Yeah, be good at what you do. Be friendly but simply discourage people from asking questions and you’ll be fine. When you make friends, and you will make friends Bradley, you’re far too social to not make friends, then you can maybe share with them who helped raise you after your mom died…”

“You helped before she died too. You’ve always been there for me.”

“I’ve always tried to be there.”

“Thanks Ice.”

“My pleasure. Now are you actually going to drink any of that or are you just warming it up?”

“You can have it, I don’t like beer.”

“How do you know? You haven’t even tasted it,” Ice states, his expression flat and Bradley rolls his eyes, knows when Ice is trying to wind him up.

“You know I go to parties. I’ve had beer before.”

“Learning all sorts this weekend aren’t we.”

“Like you’d believe me if I said I’ve never had beer before anyway…”

“Somedays I forget you’re not the same age as Tamsin and Petra.”

“Ice…” Bradley says, rolling his eyes, handing him the bottle of beer.

“If you ever have kids of your own you’ll understand.”

“How did that, uh, work, anyway? Are you…” he trails off, not really sure how to ask his other father figure how he might identify.

“I’m gay Bradley. Sarah knew before we even got married. Your mom set us up actually. This was back when it was instant dishonorable discharge if someone found out. Someone made a stupid passing comment about Mav and me, and we weren’t even serious about each other back then. Your mom had just been diagnosed and we knew it was a solution that would benefit everyone. Anyway, would you believe Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is actually an improvement? It’s still not easy but…”

“I get it. You don’t want to put me off going, but you want me to be prepared for how hard it will be.”

“Yeah. Yeah, you get it. I don’t want you to come back to us and say we didn’t warn you. Mav isn’t academy, somehow thinks I have some secret insights I can share with you despite the fact it’s been over twenty-five years since I was there. Things will have changed.”

They sit in silence for a few moments and Bradley knows they’ll support whatever decision he makes. That lying, even by omission, is going to become normal for him, habit. He has to accept that if he’s going to join. He’s going to have to hide himself, and his family.

“Is it worth it?”

“Is what worth it?”

“Hiding.”

The sigh Ice lets out is long and Bradley can tell he’s not avoiding the question, but more trying to formulate an answer, because he never rushes things, always treats Bradley’s questions with respect and gives him fleshed out answers, truthful ones, even when they might hurt. He’s talked more about his dad’s death with Ice than he has with Mav, knows that Mav still feels some level of guilt, and probably always will if what Ice says, so he doesn’t bring it up with him.

“Yes and no. It used to be easy. No. That’s not right. It used to be easier. When we were younger, and had your mom and Sarah at our backs, it was easier. Now… well. We’re very used to hiding. But I’d love to take Mav to things as my partner. Officially. Not just pretend to bump into each other and pretend we haven’t seen each other in a while. It can be lonely.”

“That sounds sucky.”

Ice shrugs, seems reconciled to it and Bradley wonders if he’ll get like that and it makes him a little sad.

“It is what it is. I can’t change anything. I’ve been very careful. But I made friends, close friends, ones that know about Mav and me, and some still serve now. If I lived my time again I’d make nearly all of the same choices. Maverick being one of them. He’s worth it.”

“Even when he annoys you?” Bradley asks, because that seems to be a cornerstone of their relationship, and the smile Ice gives him is small and soft.

“Especially when he annoys me. Reminds me not to take myself too seriously.”

“Okay. Okay. Thanks for the talk…”

“Anytime. You know that.”

Yeah.

He does.

CHAPTER TWO

#Saga of Solitude #IceMav #Hangster #Top Gun Maverick fanfiction

51 notes · View notes

beanieman · 5 months

Note

au where theres no death game (or maybe simulation au) - what do you think everybody's jobs/occupations would be ~10 years in the future? im fond of lawyer sara, personally

Sara Chidouin - I love the idea of lawyer Sara, so lets go with that!

Joe Tazuna - Dog Walker

Gin Ibushi - Child Psychologist

Keiji Shinogi - Private Detective who takes on the cases the police don't look into properly. He finds the truth even if he can't always do much about it.

Alice Yabusame - He stays in Reko's band until it becomes popular, but eventually he decides to do his own thing as he can't play and he really isn't having fun. (As he says in the mini episode.) Eventually he decides to be a hair dresser, and he enjoys that a lot.

Reko Yabusame - Singer

Nao Egokoro - Art Teacher

Kazumi Mishima - He keeps being a teacher

Q-taro Burgerberg - Kids Baseball Coach (He'd have his injuries in this AU so he likely wouldn't be a professional player.)

Kai Satou - Chef

Kanna Kizuchi - Nurse (She's a healer in island mode.)

Shin Tsukimi - Something in IT

Dolls

Ranmaru Kageyama - I feel like he'd be the type to never keep a job for a long time simply because he gets bored and then wants to do something new. So one week he's a convivence store clerk, the next he's sorting books at the local library.

Naomichi Kurumada - Professional Boxer

Anzu Kinashi - Clown

Mai Tsurugi - Bakery Manager

Shunsuke Hayasaka - Track Coach (It says in the art book that he likes jogging, and we know he gets along well with kids because of Gin.)

Hinako Mishuku - Scare Actor

75 notes · View notes

evermourning · 6 months

Text

𝐜𝐫𝐮𝐞𝐥 𝐬𝐮𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐫 - kim seungmin

pairing: kim seungmin x reader, lovertober entry v

genre: non!idol au, will they/won't they, enemies to lovers, camp counselors!seungmin and reader

wc: 5.6k

warnings: ends kinda suggestive, making out, language, mentions wooyoung from ateez, yunjin from le sserafim, mina from twice, reader has an ego in the beginning, seungmin and reader were academic rivals in high school

a/n: pretend its still summer

from the moment you met him in the 10th grade, you absolutely and instantly disliked kim seungmin. with every bone, fiber, and cell in your body.

you had grown up with these people around you, watched as their faces slowly matured into the versions of themselves you saw them as now. however, you couldn't help but pity them.

compared to you, they were essentially idiots.

you were the top of your class, year after year after year. this was probably the big thing that set you apart from them. you spent your days studying, as opposed to partying. you jugged student council, clubs, and your grades so that you could graduate and lead a better life.

this journey was set back the day you met seungmin, though.

you could remember what he looked like as if it was only yesterday that you two locked eyes for the first time. fluffy brown hair and glasses, and braces adorning his pearly white teeth. he looked like an angel. a sweet, quiet kid that all the teachers adored.

but he was something much, much, much more sinister.

"yn, this is seungmin. he's new, so would you mind showing him around?" your teacher asked, and you graciously accepted. he was quiet as you aided him in his tour, making small comments here and there and asking questions if necessary. he became more acquainted with the people around you in the blink of an eye.

but you could feel something off about him. you just couldn't tell what.

he'd been sat down next to you in your math class, and instantly shot up in rank after tests to the spot right behind you. he was naturally gifted, getting almost perfect grades without lifting a finger.

it wasn't just math. it was every single subject. one after the other, they fell to his whim like measly pieces of chess.

he played it off with a simple "oh, i guess i studied this topic a bit extra" but in no time, he was hot on your trail for the top spot.

and you liked the thrill. you knew at the end of the day, you'd place first and everything would be normal, and this kid would learn that you were not to be messed with. you had to admit, as much as you shit talked him to your friends and made tons of claims that you probably couldn't back up, his banter was enjoyable.

until it wasn't.

your 11th grade year, seungmin became mean.

something happened over the summer. he'd grown taller, although he bore the same features, there was something so peculiar about him. he was lean and toned under his uniform, and became the star pitcher of the school's baseball team. immediately he was thrust into the spotlight you'd worked so hard to achieve. you were so annoyed. how was it easy for people to just like him? you made good grades, you tried to be courteous and respectful, and he was over there being crowned king of the school for fucking breathing.

he'd make offhanded comments about you, too, to your face and behind your back. the kinds where you'd just have to awkwardly laugh it off to soothe the aching pain inside your chest and the tears threatening to fall in big, ugly glops.

but you shook it off. you knew that it would only lead to worse events if you let him get in your head all the time. you tried to still be kind to him, but eventually, you gave up. if he was nothing short of an absolute dick to you, then there was no need to waste your energy interacting with him.

your interactions with him after that were minimal. passing glances in hallways, partner project where you simply split it up and didn't communicate at all, short questions in class. you weren't really out for him or anything.

until the end of 11th grade.

it was the time where final rankings for grades were announced. you were sitting at your desk, hardly bothered to check them. you knew you'd be first. you had been so confident, you just went back to work. however, something was off. usually, there would be cheers and groans, but all that you could hear were hushed whispers echoing through the classroom. when you looked up, lazily twirling a pencil between your fingers, you noticed something odd.

they were staring at you.

something wasn't right. these were people you'd known since grade school. they were used to you taking the top spot, right? right? you had to go find out what was wrong.

as you got up to look at the list, the crowd parted. the students looked on nervously as you marched up to the bulletin board where the fated list awaited, a thumbtack keeping it in place. you used your finger to slide up and down the list until you found your name.

next to it was your rank.

you had fucking placed second. for the first time since...ever. you scanned the list desperately again, looking for some sign that it was rigged or faux. but it was the genuine article. you slid your finger up to see the name of the person who had stolen the position right out from under your nose, and you had to bite back a scream of pure rage when you saw it.

Kim Seungmin

that son of a bitch. he finally beat you.

and as you turned, there he stood leaning against the doorframe of the classroom, that smug smile prominent on his face. did he have a death wish or something? you did not like this at all.

later that day, as you were leaving, somebody stopped you, their hand grabbing you by the sleeve of your uniform. it was seungmin. you shook him off, shaking your head as you walked towards the gate.

"what's wrong? cat got your tongue?" he asked you tauntingly. you rolled your eyes with a huff, opening your mouth to shoot back with some sly remark, but he kept talking. "did you know i beat you by a tenth of a point? it's so fucking unreal. one tenth."

this comment sent you over the edge.

"you think you're so fucking funny, don't you? relishing in my pain, acting like i'll joke around with you as if we're friends. well guess what: you don't mean shit to me, kim seungmin." seungmin's eyes widened slightly, but his eyes settled into a hateful glare.

"so be it. just to let you know, yn, you fucking suck. give yourself a high five, you fake bitch."

and just like that, your eternal rivalry with kim seungmin began.

thankfully, your rivalry was cut short when you went to different colleges. however, you knew all about what he was doing. somewhere along the line, his friends became your friends. he was in law school now, studying to become a persecutor. you hated to admit it, but you were honestly impressed. however, you couldn't complain, as you'd received a full scholarship to an accomplished university. you lived in the city during your term, enjoying its lively bustle and bright lights. you'd always enjoyed the summer better, though.

in the summers, you'd drive two hours up to the mountains to work as a camp counselor for a childrens' summer camp, named camp aspen. it was a lovely little place, tucked away near a small town, surrounded by acres and acres of wilderness. it was so serene, the crisp air feeling amazing in your lungs.

this was where you were now. your third summer as a counselor was about to begin. you parked your car on a beaten road near the cabins, walking into a lodge to say hello to the director. the rest of the counselors were sitting in the office, and when they saw you, they excitedly enveloped you in a warm group hug.

there were six counselors at camp aspen, each accommodating one of the three cabins, one for each age range. two counselors would stay in each cabin. the place was going to be renovated soon, but thankfully, the cabins had two large, separate rooms.

it would be the same as always, with your counselor friends. wooyoung and mina stayed with the oldest kids, you and soobin stayed with the preteens, and jisung and yunjin kept an eye on the littlest ones. this is how it always was.

until you only counted four of your friends.

"where's soobin?" you asked, looking around. wooyoung took your hands in his and sighed.

"don't freak out, but..." he sighed, seeming to brace himself for your possible outrage. "soobin is studying abroad this summer, so we had to find a replacement who will be staying with you."

you wanted to scream and also kinda smack wooyoung too. but, you didn't want to lose your job, so you decided to flash a smile through gritted teeth.

"it's okay, woo. why didn't you tell me?"

"well, we just learned today, too. it happened so suddenly, i guess soobin forgot to mention it to the director until the last minute. while you were driving up, it was so scary. mina and i were fucking scrambling to find a replacement. thankfully, she showcased her amazing problem-solving skills to find us a replacement. her friend's friend's...friend, i think. it's weird." mina blushed at his words of praise. "but anyways, he'll be here later, so go get your stuff all unpacked."

you sighed, jisung and yunjin giving you reassuring smiles before going back to their intense game of gamepigeon 8-ball. as you departed, you stole one last glance at your friends. this was going to be the best summer ever.

when you got to the cabin, you immediately began laying the sheets and blankets on your temporary bed, preparing your place of rest for the weeks to come. you'd strung little fairy lights along the bedposts and finished off with comfortable pillows. you loved making this bed your own year after year.

you sat down upon it, laying back and sighing as your head it your pillow. you had time for a quick nap, right? you set an alarm and drifted off. you wondered who your partner would be. would he be kind? would he be rude? he'd be kind probably, if he was somehow connected to mina, a total sweetheart. the older kids loved her. she'd sit with the girls in a semi-circle around her as they listened to her tell stories, interest gleaming in their eyes.

you just hoped he wasn't a total dick.

after your alarm went off, waking you up, you blinked and saw jisung dead asleep at the bottom of your bed, curled up.

"what the hell are you doing?" you asked, laughing. he laughed sheepishly.

"sorry, your bed is comfortable...and i was supposed to be telling you the new guy just got here but i said i'd rest my eyes for a second and now here we are."

you chuckled, getting out of your bed and slipping into the bathroom so you could check how you looked. once you deemed yourself presentable, you walked with jisung out to the parking lot, catching up about how life was. he was always very fun to talk to. jisung had the natural aura of a storyteller, of someone fun. he radiated warmth and kindness, probably why he was such a role model to the little kids.

when you made it to the makeshift parking lot (in reality it was only a wide rectangle of gravel you parked your cars near) there was a new car there, much nicer than the rest. it was sleek and black, although you had no idea why someone would be driving such an expensive-looking car in the mountains. from your current location, you could see awfully well that wooyoung was chatting amicably with the mystery guy as he pulled his suitcase from the trunk. and then, wooyoung turned and called out to you two so you could come down and meet him.

with jisung by your side, you nervously walked over to the car. a head popped out from where the trunk was.

"by the way, wooyoung, where am i stay-" the boy stopped abruptly when he saw you. "-ing."

your blood ran cold.

it was kim seungmin.

of course it fucking was, because without even trying he'd made it his life's mission to completely ruin yours. all your high school memories came flooding back, but something else was there, curdling horrifically in the pits of your stomach.

his hair was a lighter shade of brown now, with streaks of blonde in his bangs. his braces were gone, and his face no longer was cute and round. he was jawdroppingly beautiful. but this was the person you'd wished to avoid ever since that day in the eleventh grade.

wooyoung, that poor boy, grinned. "you'll be staying and working with one of my favorite counselors. seungmin, meet yn. yn, meet seungmin."

"i know who they are." seungmin said quietly. "and they know me. we went to the same high school." wooyoung lit up at this information.

"perfect! that makes things easier. yn, please show seungmin to your cabin."

as you walked alongside him, carrying a few of his things, the tension was so thick you couldn’t cut it with a knife. the heavy silence hung in the air, until seungmin awkwardly spoke up.

“i’m glad i know someone here. it’d be so awkward if i was rooming with a stranger.” he said, a little laugh escaping his lips.

“did you know i was going to be here?” you asked rather accusingly, and he shook his head, readjusting his hold on the suitcase.

“nope. mina, she’s the one who hired me, has a friend, sana, who’s really close with one of my best friends. do you remember him from high school? chan?”

yes, you did. chan was probably one of the most popular guys at your school. he’d been the captain of the varsity football team, the homecoming king three years in a row, and was notorious for being the reason many girls dumped their boyfriends. he wasn’t known as “mr. steal-your-girl” for just any reason.

him and seungmin became good friends seungmin's sophomore year, while chan was a senior and they remained close since then.

"i remember him." you responded, not wanting to hold a conversation with him.

"yeah, well sana reached out to chan, who reached out to me. and i needed some extra money, so here we are."

he was really starting to bug you. how could he just talk to you like he wasn't so terrible to you in high school?

"is this how it's going to be all summer, then?" you said to yourself, but he heard it.

"pardon?"

"you, acting like nothing happened between us when we were younger? like your words didn't burn my skin and mine didn't cut deep into yours? i'm not an actor, seungmin. i can't pretend that the things you said to me didn't happen. i can't just will them out of my head."

he scoffed, his true personality shining through. you knew it was down there. he could only hide it for so long. that son of a bitch.

"you're so overdramatic, yn. name one fucking thing i said about you that was so terrible it ruined your vision of me for the rest of your life." he meant it sarcastically, but he didn't realize you had an answer.

"in our junior year, you were talking to chan, and you called me a stuck-up, airheaded bitch who would cared too much about school. you said...you said i was going to push everyone away and then nobody would care enough to weep when i died. not even my own parents." recognition was prominent in his brown eyes as he remembered his own words.

"...i didn't think you knew about that."

you were on the verge of slapping him.

"how could i not? you texted it to chan. do you know how easy it is for a text message to be screenshotted and sent? chan sent it to minnie, who sent it to me. do you know what it's like to learn someone says shit like that about you? i sobbed for three hours straight." you dropped his stuff down right in front of him. "from now on, only talk to me if you need something." you stormed off, fighting the tears that threatened to fall.

so much for camp being your safe space.

the first week of camp was a little rocky. seungmin stayed true to your ask and only spoke to you if he needed help with something, but other than that, it was like you didn't exist. the kids obviously noticed it too. regardless of the fact that the week went well, at the end of the day, wooyoung still sat you and seungmin down and decided to have a chat with you.

"what is going on with you two? i thought you said you knew each other. i thought you'd have it in the bag, but you're singlehandedly ruining the experience for our campers, and that is not the type of energy we need counselors to have."

"if i may, woo," you said, and he raised an eyebrow. "we never specified if our relationship was good or bad, you just went with us knowing each other."

"and you didn't tell me this to correct me?" wooyoung sighed. "i'm disappointed, yn. you've been here three years. you should've contacted me instantly." you nodded at his words, a little embarrassed that your somewhat childish rivalry led you to not be rash when decision-making.

"i am not the oldest at this camp, but i have the most experience. this is my fifth year as a counselor, and i am sitting here now with authority you two don't have. i'm going to have to ask you to work this out. we are so short on staff that we can't afford for either of you to leave camp. understand?" seungmin gave his confirmation and you shot wooyoung a look (which he returned quickly) before agreeing.

this was how you were sitting cross-legged on your bed across from seungmin. he stared at you, challenging you to speak first. when you didn't, shooting him a nasty glare, he took the initiative.

"we're gonna listen to wooyoung's request and work things out. and if we can't...we'll find a plan b. deal?" you crossed your arms and slightly nodded. "let's see...let's do it like this: you're going to tell me why you don't like me. be raw and honest, and then i'll tell you why i don't like you. if there's any misunderstandings, that's what we'll know."

you sighed, knowing this was rational, and began.

"i'll be honest, yeah. when we were in 10th grade, you felt off to me, but i didn't really focus on that because i liked the adrenaline rush i got from comparing grades with you and our banter. but then in 11th grade...you were so terrible to me. all the things you were saying...and then you beat me. i know it was only by one rank but i lost it. i felt like my grades were the only part of my identity and without them...i was nothing. so that's why i haven't forgiven you, because you said all this shit and i'm still hung up over that." you admitted, staring at your feet.

“even if you didn’t have your grades, it wouldn’t have mattered. you were popular. everyone was always falling over themself to be friends with you.” seungmin pointed out, and you shook your head.

“i was not even close to popular, seungmin. people just used me for homework answers and i was too nice to say no.”

“no, no. that’s not possible. everybody was always talking about you, how kind and funny you were…and that’s why i didn’t like you.” his voice broke. “you had everything i wanted. i came to that school with absolutely nothing. you were at the hub of everything, there were always people around you, and i hated it. i hated how you didn’t have to wear a mask to get what you wanted. i hated how you were like some revered god of intelligence. i hated it so much. and then…the final straw was when i was having a fight with my mother in october of our junior year, because she didn’t like that i had changed so much because i’d grown popular and was spending my time with ‘bad influences’. and do you know what she said to me?”

“no, i don’t.” you were frankly a little embarrassed that this was a whole misunderstanding, but you listened anyways.

“she said she wished i was more like you. i didn’t even know how she knew you. and i wished nothing but the worst upon you after that. and now i learn i did all that on a whim?”

”no, you didn’t. you did it because you were upset, and you didn’t know any other way than to lash out. i’m sorry for how i treated you, and if you’re sorry, then let’s go tell wooyoung we worked it out.” you caught his hands in yours, and he flinched. you kept his palms between your hands as if you were keeping a canary in a cage, and when you let go, he felt free.

“i’m sorry for saying all that shit about you. if i had known you weren’t like that, i wouldn’t have done it. you don’t have to forgive me for that one.” he replied quietly.

“yeah, that one’s going to take a little time.” you laughed awkwardly.

for the first time, seungmin realized what people saw in you. how your eyes crinkled when you laughed, your smile absolutely gorgeous. even if it wasn’t even a normal laugh (you were quite literally awkward as shit), he began to feel something churning in the pit of his stomach. what was it?

thankfully he had time to figure it out before you left him behind.

after working things out with seungmin, you couldn't help but admit that your camp experience got better. he was honestly a perfect choice as counselor. the kids loved him, and he was really sweet and considerate towards them in return. it was noticeable that in the years since you last saw him, seungmin had unmistakably matured into a fine young man. you were glad his dick phase was over.

but something was different about him, now. since he didn't treat you even remotely terrible anymore, you began to enjoy his presence. kim seungmin was hilarious, his smile a ray of sunshine that forced the clouds away. you couldn't help but feel giddy when you saw it, but you reminded yourself constantly that this was your sworn high school enemy.

but would it really be so bad?

one sunny wednesday, you and seungmin took the kids out to play some sports. they voted on a simple game of baseball, which you knew seungmin would gladly agree too. but when they started chanting your name, pleading with you to join the game although you had zero baseball experience, you knew you were doomed.

"alright, yn, you be pitcher." you stared at the little boy who deemed your position incredulously.

"honey, i can't throw at all." you replied, and the kids started laughing. seungmin walked over to you on the makeshift diamond, gifting his teammate a plastic bat.

"i'll help yn learn to throw, okay?" he said, and the kids whined.

"that's cheating!" seungmin chuckled at their complaining.

"okay, so first you're going to take the ball and hold it like this." seungmin explained, his fingers gently sweeping over yours to move them to the right place. his touch was soft and sweet, like a juicy watermelon slice on a warm summer's day. once he got your fingers to a good position, he continued his lesson. "good, now place your feet shoulder-width apart. and uhh..hold on."

you felt your face burning as seungmin's hands slid up and down your body, moving certain parts of you into place. you were like putty in his hands, your heart fluttering when his long fingers grazed your waist. you tilted your head slight to see his face right in between your head and your arm, staring right back at you.

this wasn't the first time you had insane tension with kim seungmin. but it was the first time the energy was like...this. your lips were so close to his. you could feel his breath on your exposed skin and it felt good. if it was in a different setting, maybe...

you stepped back, flashing a dazzling smile to try and ease the uncomfortable silence. thankfully, your campers brought the focus back to them before things got too weird.

the entire game, your mind was somewhere else.

he wanted to kiss you. you'd seen his eyes, staring at your lips like they'd vanish if he blinked. you'd seen the way seungmin looked almost out of breath, his lips parted and his cheeks flushed ruby red.

you couldn't be imagining it. there was no way.

after everything was cleaned up, you snuck away to wooyoung's cabin, where he sat lazily on his bed as a sixteen year-old girl told him about her situationship. he looked relieved as you pulled him aside.

"i'm glad you worked everything out with seungmin." he said, patting your back reassuringly. "i knew you had it in you. i really am the best, aren't i?"

you shook your head.

"not right now, woo. something happened earlier today that was really weird, and jisung didn't want to hear about it so now it's your turn." wooyoung's eyes lit up at the mention of your drama, and he shooed his camper away, eagerly patting the spot next to him.

"tell me all about it."

and so you did. you explained everything: from your original drama with seungmin in high school, to how you solved it, to what went down while he was teaching you to pitch. wooyoung's jaw was dropped.

"you two went through all that tension just for him to not even finish teaching you to pitch? that's so fucking embarrassing. you needed that lesson." wooyoung tsked, theatrically hanging his head low.

"hey! i'm not that bad at sports." you retaliated.

''yes, yes you are. do you remember last year when your 'star pitch' broke yunjin's car window? i don't think she forgot about that." you rolled your eyes with a huff, and he laughed loudly. "but that's not important, because this could be the romance you always read about in your poorly written books. maybe you're having your own enemies-to-lovers trope right now! you'll be with him tonight, correct?" you nodded.

"alright, then shoot your shot? trust me, nothing bad's going to happen if you don't overthink it." he squeezed your hand excitedly. "i believe in you. use condoms!"

later that night, the director was holding a movie night for the kids in the lodge, allowing counselors to get a much-needed break. when the sun dipped below the mountain range in hues of deep blues, you sat at the dock with seungmin, splitting a liter bottle of some soda you couldn't read the title of. the moon was at its fullest, glowing ethereally as it cast a bright light upon the water. you swung your feet slightly, the cool water lapping against your feet a lovely contrast to the summer air. fireflies light up like lanterns all around.

"it's so hot," you complained, swatting at an unwelcome bug as it tried to land on your skin. "ugh, i feel like i'm burning alive."

seungmin took a swig of the soda, simulanteously running a hand through his sweaty brown hair.

"let's go for a swim, then." he suggested. you looked at him like he was crazy.

"in...the lake?" he nodded vigorously.

"where else would we swim? this camp doesn't have a pool. c'mon, it'll be fun. there's nothing that can hurt you in there. no amoebas, no snakes, no nothing. i'll keep you safe." he curled his pinkie around yours in a joking promise.

you sighed as you lowered yourself into the water. it was cool on your skin, resulting in you slightly shivering from the contact. however, once you grew accustomed to the temperature, it was rather nice. there was one problem, though.

the water was pitch-black, and you were still in your clothes. so when you felt something slimy touch your ankle, you let out a screech and jumped higher than a kangaroo.

"easy there." seungmin's voice said into your ear, and you startled at the sound. "relax, it's just me. the only think that touched your foot was seaweed. you'll be okay. it really only grows in one area of the lake, so let's stay away from there. sounds good?"

his words of soft and gentle reassurance, paired with a gentle touch on your waist made you want to erupt into flames even in the water. as he guided you to the center of the lake, you had to start treading water. however, seungmin was completely fine.

it was quiet for a bit, peaceful and serene before you broke the silence with a groundbreaking question."

"hey seungmin...were you planning on kissing me earlier?" the boy in question was silent for a bit, thinking about his answer, before finally speaking again.

"yeah, i was. how could i not? we were so close, and you know i could never resist you, yn. aphrodite herself turns green with envy at the mere sight of you." you felt your heart rate speed up at his words. so you decided to take the initiative.

"i'll be honest, since we became close, i've noticed this tension between us that wasn't there before. you're so handsome, and you know it, and i know it and i want to make out with you so bad, but i've been having all these reservations because i can't get over what you said about me all those years ago."

seungmin spoke up instantly, rebutting your claim. "i can proudly say now that the lies i spewed about you were instantaneously false, the moment they left my lips. see, i said back then that no one would weep if you perished. but now, i would. i would sob until the soil beneath me has turned to mud and it stains my clothes and my hands. i would leave you flowers and gifts every single day. now that i know you, and i know how you truly are, i'd kill myself if i lost you."

the sound of your tears hitting the water's surface, aligning with the incessant chirping of the cicadas, turned the sounds around you into an exquisite and melodious symphony. you threw your arms around seungmin, holding him tight.

"i'll say it now, seungmin. i love you. i'm in love with you. it happened so quickly, i'm scared it's faux. but i want it to be real. i want and crave you with every bone, fiber, and cell in my aching body."

seungmin's strong arms wrapped around you, and he grinned mischieviously.

"well, i'm not to great with my words, but i want you really bad, too. i'd personally like to, uh, ravage you? and you said something about making out that i am quite personally very down for."

you laughed, a smile gracing your features. seungmin wanted to see that face every day for the rest of his life, he decided.

"god, you're such a dork." you giggled, and pulled him in for a kiss. it was warm, fiery as passionate as your lips crashed against each others' like waves crashing against a rocky barrier. the change in gravity from the water made it easy to hop up and wrap your legs around his waist. seungmin's hands drifted down to your ass to keep you in place, and you steadied yourself as your hands held his cheeks. god, you could feel his jawline from there. eventually, your tongues began to battle for dominance.

after ten minutes or so, you parted lips, a string of saliva still connecting you two. the moonlight reflected off of it as it snapped. seungmin watched in awe.

"that was so fucking hot...but um, what are we now?" you asked. seungmin laughed out loud, patting your soaked head.

"let's determine that later. right now...i lowkey want to fuck your brains out. think we can do that?" he teased.

"in a lake??" you shot back.

"there's a first time for everything." seungmin teased. once he was sure you gave your consent, his fingers went to the bottom of your sopping wet shirt, carefully lifting it over your head. "until then, i'll enjoy the view."

"and that's our cue to leave." wooyoung commented from his vantage point. yunjin stood beside him. he turned, grinning as he outstretched his hand. "pay up, buttercup. i bet that they'd get together before the end of the summer, and look at them! that twenty dollars is mine."

yunjin grumbled, pulling a crumpled twenty-dollar bill out of her back pocket and handing it to him.

"seriously though, those one-liners were horrific. the confession was cute though." yunjin laughed.

"oh, hell yeah. just for that, they're on bathroom cleaning duty. and i'm hoping and praying they remember what echoes are so we don't have to awkwardly explain what was going on to the little campers." wooyoung sighed. yunjin looked up at him.

"you are straight-up evil, jung wooyoung. have you seen those bathrooms?"

"exactly why they're on bathroom duty. i may be evil, but i am one hell of a matchmaker, aren't i?" he shot back, playfully nudging her shoulder.

"whatever you say."

taglist: @darkypooo , @hyunbae-35 , @kpopmenace143 , @stateofdelicategrace , @elizaschuyler18 , @lillithathecat , @imastraykidsfan , @nightimescapes , @mal-lunar-28

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