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#i’m back from my first week at uni
arhvste · 2 years
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once k change this theme k will be super cute and cool active tumblr user arhvste ahain yahooooo
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nicoscheer · 9 months
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Ending it with Miles 😭🫶🏽🥹 we’re gonna cry so bad.
But also I love this so much cause like obviously the band and the management heard all the hateful ‘fans’ back when they had to cancel Marlay Park because Alex dared to get laryngitis and this; giving them not only one but 3/4 shows with Miles and an access code is so hilarious to me cause like yeah you very fuckin nasty and disgusting but here ya go ya lil shits now what do you say (pretty please) like this makes all those haters look sooo incredibly dumb and childish (like no patience at all obviously they need time to schedule and arrange all the venues and what not, like have some faith in them just lean back and trust) anyways long story short love this move
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I’m having a mental breakdown
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Miles via email
#22/08/2023#holy shit I just woke up#Arctic monkeys#also love that picture of Alex#only Alex could feel so bad about having to cancel one show that he gives us 4 shows 🫶🏽🥹 and Miles#uff the car is not gonna be the first tour without Miles as support/opening act#ending a (near exact) year long tour in Miles’ arms for four days befor riding off into the sunset with him 💅#I would seriously go complete ignoring my bank account but Uni starts literally that week and I can’t miss that first week for my life fuck#Instagram#I can’t wait for their smiles and hugs#all his friends posting bout miles joining AM 🫠😭🥹#I’m counting on Rosie to be mothering and giving us videos backstage of them two#I died dead#how Alex probably returned from his holiday in Italy and then met up with Miles when he had finished his promo tour and they were#just sitting on the settee drinking and chatting and then Alex asks him if Miles would like to join them for Ireland and on both their faces#a gigantic smiles just blooms and they grin at each other like the stupid lovesick idtios that they are before going in for one of their#trademark hugs and just cuddling and whispering to each other what they’ll do in Ireland together and and 😭😭#also like this screams we needed to find a opening act in short notice so we obviously Turned to Miles and that’s so sweet it’s like yeah we#know he’ll always have our back just like we have his#Miles kinda feels like the peace offering here 🤣#also like yes they’ll have endless time after the fourth gig but also before that because the monkeys are done on the 7th in America so they#have an entire week before that first Ireland gig just to practice (new/old songs) and spend time together#okay but hear me out what if: Miles Kane and the death ramps comeback ?!! huh what then
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notjanine · 1 year
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i am so beyond tired beyond burnout, i went out for coffee this morning and when i placed my order, the barista so gently asked “would you like an extra shot of espresso in that? it’s on the house” and i almost cried. people good sometimes
#that extra shot did me good too#this whole internship has been a race between me finishing and my chronic illness getting more and more severe and#it’s down to the wire and they’re neck and neck#i started my last week of my last rotation by fainting for the first time in over five years since before i resumed school before my surgery#it’s real bad over here 🥹#BUT me n books had a good conversation about how to better support each other and they’ve been here for me which has been nice#but i don’t LIKE asking for help and relying on other people like this so i’m gonna have to make Getting Better my summer project this year#which will be hard bc the summer depression hits harder at this lower latitude but#i’m gonna do my best. and i won’t have school! for the first time in so long i won’t have school 😶#i’m so excited to get back into RECREATIONAL learning. just for me. because i like it and i’m curious and that’s good for me#me n Books are planning to move in together around the end of the summer and i was like#Every few months i’ll have to tell you what i’m thinking about studying next so you can pick what you’d most want to hear me infodump about😂#it’ll be fun! i already have a rabies lesson plan ready to go (downloaded the most recent textbook on it for free from the uni library 😎)#but i also have good resources to learn about the chemistry and oropharyngeal physiology of taste/flavor AND#i found a great book on ancient meso/american cuisine#plus i’ve flagged so many MOOCs for later. about all kinds of stuff#ANYWAY. it’s been a rough couple weeks/months/years but the end is like. right here. i just have to finish
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asmallcafethatslove · 2 years
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Treating myself to some pizzzaaaaaaa
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celestie0 · 3 months
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gojo satoru x reader | college au [18+]
kickoff ch.8 a little cottage on the countryside
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ᰔ pairing. college au - soccer player! gojo x film major! reader (f)
ᰔ summary. gojo satoru is the most popular guy on your college campus. he's tall, funny, hot, not to mention he's the most talented soccer forward the school has seen in years. but he's also a frat dude, which puts him in a world very different from your own, as he spends most of his nights partying & drinking while you spend most of yours working on your annoying film major assignments. but when he reaches out to you for a favor, you realize that helping him out might have something in it for you too.
ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fluff, angst, smut, college au, fraternities, sororities, partying, drinking/alcohol, mentions of weed, romance, jealousy, pining, slow burn, opposites to lovers, friends to lovers, she falls first he falls harder, gojo being an idiot
ᰔ chapter. 8/x (probably 12)
ᰔ words. 13.5k (...i'm gonna go take a nap lol)
a/n. hello hellooo my dear kickoff readers, hope you're having a nice day so far! this is the longest chapter yet, so i hope you enjoy <3 it's also got one of my favorite tropes everrr hehehehe you could probs guess what it is halfway through. see you at the bottom and happy reading! sorry if there are typos i didn't proofread this one as much as the others haha
nav. ch1 :: ch2 :: ch3 :: ch4 :: ch5 :: ch6 :: ch7 :: ch8 :: ch9 :: ch10 (pending)
☾·̩͙꙳ moodboard no.1
♬.*゚playlist
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You don’t cry much these days, but when you do, it’s usually out of nowhere. 
Like now, as you stand in the school’s photo lab, developing the shots that you took for UTokyo’s game against Osaka last week, and you have to swipe at the tears on your cheek threatening to fall all over the captured images of grass, benches, nets, banners, stands, and him. 
One of the photographs catches your eye, and you pick it up from the table. It’s a candid moment you took of Gojo on the field right before you confessed to him. You had spotted him first while the team was doing their warm-up, and you thought he looked nice from the way he had that concentrated look on his face that you’ve learned to love. But right before you clicked the shutter, he had turned away, chasing after the ball, and so all you could capture was his back facing you as he looked off ahead into the distance. You wondered if that was how it’s always been this whole time–with you looking at him while he’s looking off at something else. It was a depressing thought, but your mind had a tendency for sadness since that day.
The sound of the photo lab door opening jolts you back to reality, and you quickly straighten your posture and wipe your cheek with your sleeve, trying to sniffle as discreetly as possible, then set the picture down. Your fellow film major greets you quietly, asking if you’re still using the developer liquid, to which you say no, then hand it over to them. You stuff your photographs into a folder and head out the door.
You make it across campus to the Film & Media Studies building, then up to the third floor where your professor's office is. His door was ajar, but you still knocked before entering.
He looks up from the photographs he was grading. “Oh, y/n, hello. How are you?”
“I’m well, thank you, yourself?” you ask, taking a seat on the chair that was fixed to face his desk. You pull your tote bag into your lap.
“Great, thanks. How can I help you?”
You slide the folder to him over the scraped, worn burgundy wood of his desk. “I still had to turn in my photos for the assignment due last week. I appreciate the extension.”
“Ah, right,” he says, taking the folder from you. “I’ll get around to grading them. I’m curious, what did you end up choosing for your subject matter?” He tucks the folder underneath the pile that was to his side.
“I took photos of the soccer team’s game against Osaka Uni on Thursday last week,” you tell him.
He frowns at you. “Film cameras don’t have that level of zoom, though. I do hope you followed the rubric guidelines for central object to frame ratio, otherwise I’ll have to take off points.” 
“Oh– I did. I took the photos from the sidelines,” you tell him, panicking already. 
His eyes widened. “From the sidelines? On the field?”
You nod at him, fidgeting with your bag in your lap.
“Wow, I can’t say I’ve ever had a student take photos like that before. That’s pretty challenging to pull off, though,” he says, sitting up straighter, “...you mind if I take a look at them right now?”
You shake your head. “Oh, no. Not at all.”
He pulls your folder out from the bottom of the pile, then gently slips the photos out of them, rearranging them all across his desk. He leans down closer to study some of them, tilting his head curiously at others, furrowing his brow in concentration to a select few. “These are incredible.”
You take in a deep breath. “Thank you, professor.”
He nods at you with acknowledgement, and you watch him as he studies the images quietly for another minute, then looks up at you. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” he asks when he notices you’re still seated.
“Ah…yes, there was something I wanted to ask you.”
“What is it?” He taps his pen on the desk.
“I was wondering if you could write me a letter of recommendation for the film graduate program.”
He nods, like he was expecting the question. “Yeah, of course. Just send me your resume and portfolio.” He taps eagerly on one of your images. “Please send me digitals for these, too.”
You let out a relieved exhale. “Yes, I will. Thank you so much, professor, I really appreciate it.”
You left the building feeling extremely relieved about your professor agreeing to write your recommendation, but also feeling sad because you couldn’t tell Gojo about it, since this was the full-circle moment for the little arrangement the two of you had. There’s a thought that considers texting him, and you take out your phone then go to his name, but your thumbs just can’t bring yourself to send him a message.
The days of the week go by in a blur, and between every single little moment in life, your mind always wanders to him. It’s hard to get over someone when you’re surrounded by them. Like late at night while you’re editing the digitals of the game last week to send to your professor, and you find yourself staring at the pictures you’ve taken of him. It’s hard to get over him when the school worships the soccer team and you’re forced to see promotional banners and posters all over campus with his stupidly beautiful face in them. You didn’t have the heart to block him on Instagram, because you remember that time he teased you about how you didn’t follow him back, and you wonder if it would make him sad if you blocked him, so you just resorted to deleting the app instead. And although you were the one that asked for space from him, you were growing increasingly annoyed at how good he seemed to be at keeping it. 
The library wasn’t even much of a safe space either, since you overheard a group of girls the other day at a table arguing about which of the players on the team is the hottest, and so you find yourself doing your homework on a lovely Wednesday morning at your apartment instead. 
You lean back in your chair and look up at the ceiling, and then jump when you hear your phone ring, quickly turning it over to read the caller ID. Nobara. You accept the call, placing her on speaker, then set your phone back down on your desk. 
“Hey, Nobie, what’s up?”
“Hey, nothing much. Just wanted to ask if you wanted to hang out,” she says.
“Oh, I would love to, but I’m working on homework right now. It’s due in a couple of hours,” you sigh.
“Boo, you whore. For what class?”
“My stats 130 elective,” you say. “I’m a film major, why do I need to know statistics?” You tap your pen to your chin. “Actually, it might be valid.”
“Is that the class with the creepy professor?” she asks. “The one that got caught with a PornHub tab open while he was presenting his lecture slides.”
“Yeah.”
“I took his class last semester! I still have all my homework for it,” she exclaims on the other end, “do you want me to send it over?”
“Yes, omg, I could kiss you right now,” you groan, resting your head on your arm sprawled across your desk in exhaustion.
“So definite no to hang out?” 
“Sorry, I’ll reach out later though,” you sigh, “also, my car is still in repair…apparently something came up with the engine. So we can’t go far unless we invite Mina.”
“That’s fine, I’m sure she’ll be thrilled to come if we invite her just to chauffeur,” she says sarcastically. “By the way, how’d the pictures come along? For the newsletter?”
You lift your head up off of the desk in a panic. Shit. You were so focused on turning in your digitals of the game to your professor that you totally forgot you were supposed to send them to Utahime as well. “Oh my god, I forgot. When do they finalize the release again?”
“Isn’t it today at noon? I sent over film club’s photos this morning,” she says. 
You glance at the time. 11:56am. 
“Nobara, I’ve gotta go. I need to call Utahime, sorry,” you say. She acknowledges you, telling you to hurry, and then you hang up.
You call Utahime and scribble down on a sticky note to paste on your wall as a reminder to buy her a loving gift basket one of these days because of course she extends the release deadline just for you. You finish touching up the digitals and then send them to her via email, and after you finish your statistics homework, she calls you again to meet up somewhere nearby.
“Thanks so much for coming here,” Utahime says as she sits across from you at one of the local cafes you frequent. “Also, this chai latte is so good, I’m honestly surprised.”
You nod at her. “This place has great drinks.” You slide a folder across the table to her and she sets her drink down to accept it.
“Sorry if it was a hassle, but I just had to ask for physicals of these photos,” she sighs as she pulls them out. “They’re amazing, seriously, I gasped when I saw them. I’m used to sifting through a lot of professional sports photos for the newsletter, for all of the teams on campus, but I’ve never seen photos as charming as these. It could be the film photography aspect, since most of the ones I see are digital, but I’m seriously shocked you could capture shots like this at a rowdy men’s soccer match.”
You’re shaking your head at her. “Please don’t compliment me so much, I’ll cry. And it’s no issue, I had a spare set of physicals from when I developed them. You can keep them.” 
She smiles at you. “Okay, well then, I think it goes without saying that I’ll definitely be including them for the sports recap this week. I’ll send you the money soon, too.”
You clap your hands together and interlock your fingers. “I’m. So. Grateful. For. You.” 
She laughs across from you and takes another sip of her latte before sitting back slightly, glancing at the photos spread across the table. “Hm…how busy are you for the rest of the semester?”
You tilt your head at her and bring your coffee to your lips, taking a sip before setting it back down. “Not terribly busy, I quit my job last month so I’m just taking my assignments as they come and go.”
Utahime nods at you, a thoughtful expression on her face, and she smooths down the fabric of her shirt. “Okay, well, I got an email from the school this morning that one of the newsletter photographers for the men’s soccer team is moving to a different city, so they’re looking to fill in the position as soon as possible and they asked if I knew anyone,” she mentions, resting her elbow on the table and then placing her hand on her cheek. “They usually only hire professionals, but if I put a word in for you, they’d probably offer it to you.”
Your eyes widen at her from across the table, heart beating a bit faster in your chest. 
“They pay really well for a part-time job. It’s essentially full-time pay for part-time hours,” she continues, “but it’s probably because you’ll have to travel with the team to their away games, including unofficial matches and conferences. If you’re not that busy for the next two months, then I think it’d be a good opportunity for you to build experience.” 
You purse your lips together, considering her words. Although it’s a bit different from your long-term career plans, it was still a great way to get experience before graduate school. And besides, you needed the money, considering you quit your job last month and your savings were starting to run thin–never mind the fact that your car repair bill went from a few thousand yen to somewhere in the tens-of-thousands. And you would prefer to still be able to afford rent. Oh, and eat. Possibly still pay for Netflix.
But then there was the fact that having that kind of job meant that you would be spending a lot of time with the soccer team, and therefore increases the chances of running into Gojo. And you’re supposed to be staying away from him to get over your feelings. 
“It sounds like an amazing opportunity, really,” you start, “...but I can’t.”
Utahime frowns at you and sits up straight. “Really? I thought you’d be excited. Why not?”
You sigh. “It’s complicated.”
“y/n…” Utahime starts, “I don’t really know what’s going on in your head right now, but isn’t this your dream? For your work to reach people? I know it’s only a stepping stone, believe me I know very well the path to becoming any sort of artist is an uphill battle of hell, but I’ve known you for a while now. And I know how much your dreams mean to you, and how hard you’re willing to work for them.”
Your heart swells in our chest at Utahime’s words. She was right, and you were starting to get really sick of letting your fears hold you back from what you really wanted in life. “...you’re right, I’m sorry. I’d love to be considered for the position, if you could recommend me.”
She smiles and nods at you. “Will do.”
The email for the job offer comes surprisingly fast, and you quickly read through it before accepting. It wasn’t a horrible time commitment, given you’d only have to take pictures during active play during matches, give or take a couple hours before, and the photographers rotate between who takes up each of the conferences so the work was split up. You were able to meet a few of the newsletter photographers & journalists during the game last week, so you already knew some of them. The offer letter came attached with a full calendar of the soccer team’s practice schedule, official match schedule, unofficial match schedule, conference schedule, and other publicity schedule, and you’re shocked at how busy all the players must be. The fact that they still have time to be students–and for most of them, active participants in fraternities–was honestly beyond you. 
It seemed like they only had four more official matches left, two being away matches, along with a couple of unofficial matches that they may or may not participate in depending on how the season goes for them. 
Their next game was on Friday against Kyoto university, and you were scheduled to shoot for their sports conference the day following as well. So you find yourself on a train embarked for the countryside, and you peer out of the window with a nervous feeling in your stomach. The sparkling skyscrapers and bustling crowds of Tokyo gradually started to give way into sights of expansive lush greenery, picturesque and charming towns, and winding rivers surrounded by trees. The closer you got to Kyoto, the sky became more gray until a steady drizzle began to fall against the train window. When you reached the final station, the rain had dissipated, and the taxi ride to the hotel was only about fifteen minutes. The journey felt exhausting, and you were so incredibly ready to pass out in a comfy bed. 
You stood underneath a small sidewalk roof near the vending machines lining the outside of the hotel, trying to keep your bag and suitcase with all your equipment in it dry from the remnant soft mist of rain still lingering in the air.  
“Hey, Utahime, sorry to bother you so late,” you say, holding your phone between your shoulder and ear, “but is it the Hilton on 3rd street? Or on Main? Because if it’s the one on Main, then I may have messed up-”
You stop speaking when you hear a masculine voice down the road towards the left, echoing off of the lined up small shops along the sidewalk, and your heart could have recognized the sound anywhere. You’re swift to turn and face that direction, almost dropping your phone in the process, and you see him– the object of all your suffering lately. 
Gojo stood there, wide-eyed and stopped completely in his tracks as the recognition of you under the dim street lighting flashes across his face. He’s in pajamas– a red long-sleeve cotton shirt that looks so stupidly soft and comfortable it almost makes you emotional, with some matching checkered red pants. It was the most casual clothing you’ve ever seen him in. His hair appears damp, slightly tousled, from what you could assume was an effort to dry it off fast. And he had crocs on. In sports mode. You make a mental note to ask him about his charms and if he’s willing to trade any of them with you. But maybe some other day. When it doesn’t hurt to think about him.
“y/n?” he calls your name out, astonished. He’s looking at you like he’s just seen a ghost but in the best way possible. 
You blink at him, heart skipping a beat just from the mere sight of him, and when you hear Utahime’s voice on the line you’re shaken out of your trance. “Oh, sorry, I’m still here. I…I think I just had my question answered. Thank you, have a good night.” You pull your phone down, gaze lingering on your screen for way too long because you can’t brave yourself to look over at the man to your left, and you end the call.
There’s the sound of remnant puddles of water splashing as he takes a few steps closer to you, and you can see his reflection in the water of the one in front of you. The expression on his face matches the one that was there when you last saw him outside of the UTokyo stadium at the west side exit. It’s an expression you could still see every time you close your eyes.
Finally turning to face him, you purse your lips together. “Hi.”
“Hey, what are you doing here?” he asks, voice laced with confusion and you see him take in your appearance with eager flicks of his gaze all around, like he couldn’t believe you were standing in front of him right now.
“Satoru!” another familiar voice calls out. “Did you get the orange-flavored ones too? Choso’s a fucking idiot and got the grape ones instead. I hate those. They taste like medicine. And ass. Not that I would know what–” You see Geto emerge from the darkness to Gojo’s side, and now he’s looking at you with a surprised look too. “Oh, it’s y/n. What are you doing here?”
“Hey, you two,” you chirp, trying to act as if an entire world of awkwardness wasn’t being exchanged between you and Gojo right now, for the sake of hoping that Geto wasn’t a very good judge of energy. “I’m here to take pictures of the soccer team.”
Your eyes flicker to Gojo, who is still looking at you like he’s never seen a person before. 
“Oh, is it for another one of your assignments?” Geto asks. 
“No, it’s not. It’s for the newsletter,” you explain to him, “I guess it’s my job now.”
There are a few more distant footsteps that follow behind the two of them, with the crinkling noises of plastic bags hitting against thighs echoing through the streets, and eventually they catch up. You see Nanami and the UTokyo team’s goalie, you believe his name is Choso, arrive at this little gathering that was taking place outside of the hotel.
“That’s awesome!” Geto exclaims. “I’m sure the newsletter will lead to a lot of exposure.”
“Who reads the newsletter?” Choso asks. 
Geto nudges him with his elbow. “Dude.”
“What?”
He then fills Choso in on the conversation, “Oh, my bad.”
“Don’t worry, y/n, I read the newsletter,” Geto says, “I read it like the morning paper.”
“It only comes out once a week, but nice try,” you respond, giving him a weary look.
Nanami crosses his arms. “I actually do happen to read it,” he says, “although I refrain from the soccer section. Feels rather egotistic to read it. I find the campus politics section to be enjoyable, though.”
The rest of you exchange annoyed glances at that.
“Satoru reads the soccer section,” Geto says, slinging an arm around him, “‘cause he’s full of himself.”
For a moment, Gojo remains silent, while his teammates, who had been observing him with amused expressions, gradually shift to awkward blinking, like they were expecting him to complain, or say something sarcastic, or joke around by now.
“I do read it,” he says, eyes locked on yours. “I saw the release from yesterday. Your pictures were stunning.”
You’re flustered from the way he’s looking at you. “Thanks.” 
Choso opens the plastic bag he was holding, peering down into it. “Shit. Ice cream’s melting, guys.”
“Yeah, we should probably head back to the rooms,” Geto looks at you, “do you want any snacks?”
“Oh, no. I’m good. I was just about to go check-in,” you say to them.
The boys politely say bye to you, and Gojo mentions something about staying back for a bit and hands Nanami the plastic bag he was carrying before they head back into the hotel. And then the two of you are alone under this roof, drops of water falling from it in between the two of you. He takes a step towards you, and you instantly stiffen. He seems to notice because he sighs and then walks past you to the vending machine that was next to you, pulling out some spare change from his pocket and inputting it into the machine.
“Do you want anything to drink?” The machine feeds him something, and he crouches down to pick it up before standing up again.
“No, I’m good, thanks,” you say, hand clutching the handle of your suitcase. 
He cracks the can of his soda open. “So, you’re going to be traveling with us for the newsletter now?” he asks, so concisely, like he felt that every word comes with a tax.
“Yeah.”
“We don’t have to act like we’re strangers.”
You turn to face him. “What should we act like then?”
There’s a hesitant look in his expression as he looks down at his feet and then back up at you. “Can’t we at least be friends?”
The question softens you at your core, the tone of his voice sounding genuine. Being friends with him sounds so nice, and you kind of wish that’s what you two always were. Just friends. Maybe it would have avoided all of this heartache. But deep inside you knew that just being friends with him wasn’t an option anymore, at least not for now. “No, sorry. That’s just a recipe for disaster. I have to go check-in now.”
You grab your tote bag from the bench, grip tight onto your suitcase handle and make your way splashing across the shallow puddles then through the hotel’s automatic doors into the warmth of the lobby. 
The lighting inside was warm and there were moderately high ceilings adorned with vintage-looking chandeliers. Around the perimeter, there were amenities including a cozy lounge with a fireplace, a small bar serving cocktails, as well as a business lounge with booths and multiple TVs mounted to the walls playing the local news. It made you feel like you were on vacation, and getting to a hotel at this hour while on vacation always meant that you were about ready to pass out on some freshly washed and tucked white linen sheets after taking a nice warm shower with a lavender-scented mini soap bar.
Making your way through the maze of plush seating areas, you get to the concierge desk to check-in. There was a professionally-dressed woman with a slicked-back bun standing there behind the counter, her eyes scanning the computer screen in front of her, and a big, burly man that stood behind her wearing all black that appeared to be security.
“Hello, I’m here to check-in,” you say, placing your forearm on the cold black counter.
The lady doesn’t look up from the computer screen. You clear your throat.
“Oh, hello. Name on the reservation?” she asks you.
You take a look down at your phone screen. The reservation was still under the name of the person that had recently quit the job. “Yui Ishikawa.”
The lady behind the counter hums to herself, obnoxiously tapping at the keyboard with only one of her index fingers. She was chewing gum. “Hm. Don’t see that name here.”
“What?” You squint at your phone and refresh the page, then turn it to face her. “But it’s on your official booking site. There was email confirmation too.”
She glances at your phone screen then taps at the keyboard again, still obnoxiously loud, but she uses her other index finger this time. “Yeah, still nothing.”
“This has to be some kind of mistake,” you say to her.
She looks up at you with an annoyed expression. “Do you want to take a look at the screen? See for yourself.” She turns the monitor to face you. 
You don’t even work here, but you could see clear as day on their interface software that there was a reservation for this Yui Ishikawa woman at this time tonight. You point at it. “It’s right there. The reservation is literally right there.”
She turns the screen back to herself and squints at it. “Oh. Well, unfortunately, we already gave that room to someone else. Since it wasn’t there on our system a half hour ago.”
“What? How is that fair?” You were starting to get seriously annoyed. That refreshing shower you were dreaming of was starting to sound more of a need than a want with every passing minute. “Can you give me another room?”
“No, sorry, we’re all booked for tonight,” she tells you, without offering any additional help.
You look at her baffled. The big burly man behind her has now taken an interest in the conversation as well. “Okay…can you tell me if there are any hotels nearby that I could stay at?”
“Look. This is the countryside, ma’am, there are only a handful of hotels in this area that aren’t tourist accommodations. It’s also the night before a men’s college soccer match, and there seems to be some business seminar taking place nearby too. You can call and check, but the closest hotel this large is about an hour away,” she tells you. 
“What? An hour away? I can’t afford a cab ride like that,” you tell her.
“Unfortunately, that isn’t really my problem,” she says.
You blink at her. “Are you being serious? This is ridiculous.”
“Ma’am, we’re going to have to ask you to leave if you can’t comply with our booking rules,” she declares.
“Leave?! You’re the ones that messed up the booking!” You’re yelling now, a few heads turning from the bar at the back. Exhaustion was pulsing through your veins and your filter was slipping. “Do you have any idea how to do your damn job?���
The woman guffaws at you. “Alright, that’s it.” She snaps her fingers, and you watch as the big, burly man walks around the counter of the concierge desk to make his way to you.
You take a step back, watching in horror as he towers over you and grabs onto your arm. “Let’s leave without any issues, miss,” he says in a deep voice.
“What?! But– hey, that’s my suitcase! Don’t– wait–”
“Woah, woah, woah,” you hear a familiar voice call out from the left. “What’s going on here?”
The three of you turn your heads in the direction of the voice, and you see Gojo, still clad in those ridiculously soft-looking pajamas, doing a light jog up to the counter.
The woman at the reception desk straightens herself up immediately, and she pets down on her dress and fixes her hair at the mere sight of him. You resist the urge to roll your eyes. “Nothing to see here, sir! Just a crazy woman that can’t comprehend hotel establishment rules.”
“That crazy woman just so happens to be my wife,” he says, pulling the big burly man’s hand off of your arm.
All three of you look at him dumbfounded. 
“Y-Your wife?” the woman asks, sounding equally surprised and disappointed. “But she’s complaining about the fact that she doesn’t have a room.”
“I know, she does that all the time,” he sighs, “she’s got–...early-onset…dementia. Sweetheart, what did I tell you about packing up all your things and leaving the room when I’m not watching you?”
You give him a what the fuck look. He scowls at you to just play along.
“So…she’s with you?” the woman asks.
Gojo nods. “She always forgets that we’ve already booked a room together. Just a silly little sickly lady. Isn’t that right, honey?” He’s holding your shoulders and making you face the concierge woman.
“Y-Yes…” you say awkwardly, trying to put on a smile.
“So, if you could forgive her behavior,” he says with a super pleading voice, pulling you into him so your back is flush against his front side. “I’ll keep her in check from now on.”
The woman lets out a scoff in disbelief. “Alright…just don’t let her out again.” You send her a nasty look. The big burly man lets out a hmph and steps away from you. 
“Sure thing. Let’s go, honey,” Gojo says, grabbing the handle of your suitcase in one hand and your upper arm in his other, dragging you with him across the lobby to the elevators. It isn’t until he’s pressed the up button and you finally gain your footing again after stumbling a few steps that you yank away from his grip.
“What are you doing?” you hiss at him, feeling embarrassed.
He looks down at you with a raise of his eyebrow. “Saving you from getting kicked out of the only decent hotel within a thirty-mile radius?”
“I didn’t need your help, I had the situation under control,” you mumble, smoothing out the layers of your clothing.
“Yes. That’s exactly what that looked like,” he muses as the elevator door opens and he steps inside, taking your suitcase with him as hostage. You panic at the sight and step inside with him, the door closing behind you. 
“Where are we going?” you ask.
“To my room,” he says, pressing a button on the control pad, “you couldn’t get one, right?”
Your eyes widen. “No…I couldn’t.” 
Gojo’s room is on the fourth floor, eleven units down to the right, and you follow him with dragging feet all the way down. Once he makes it in front of the door and takes the keycard out of his pocket, he pauses and looks over at you. “Waiting for you to thank me.”
You narrow your eyes at him. “For what?”
He’s waving the card in the air tauntingly. “You look exhausted as hell right now. I’m the one with the access to a nice hotel vanity and a soft, warm bed,” he practically purrs the words.
You’re instantly folding. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, honey,” he chimes, pressing the card to the reader.
“Stop calling me that,” you grumble as he opens the door for you.
You step into the room, rolling your suitcase inside with you, and take a look around. There was a single bed with the headboard up against the left-side wall, a nightstand on both sides and a desk where you noticed Gojo had his laptop open and a few books out. The bathroom was to the right, and there was a long table that had a coffee machine as well as the TV on top of it.
You place your suitcase against the wall then turn around, standing only a few feet from the entrance of the room, to find Gojo still standing outside in the hallway.
“Do you have to go somewhere?” you ask him. “Why are you just standing there?”
“Oh, I don’t need any of my other stuff,” he says to you, tapping at his pocket where you can see the imprint of his wallet, “room’s all yours.”
Your eyes widen at him. “Wait…are you going to sleep somewhere else?”
He tilts his head at you, as if that was obvious. “Yeah, I was going to go crash on the couch in Suguru’s room or something.”
“But–” you start, stopping yourself. 
He’s waiting for you to speak, but you can’t.
“Well…good night, then,” he says and he turns to the side, about to walk down the hall, when you reach out and grab the sleeve of his shirt, stopping him in his tracks.
This was a bad idea. You’re supposed to be putting distance between the two of you right now, so that you can get over him. This was a man that very clearly said he didn’t have feelings for you. But honestly, you missed him. You missed him so damn much this past week, and you can only be strong for so long. 
“You have an important match tomorrow,” you say quietly, “you should be getting a good night’s rest. We’ll share the bed.”
He turns to face you, looking down at where you were pinching the fabric of his shirt, which was just as soft as you had imagined, and he glances up to meet your gaze once again. “I’m…really confused right now.”
“What if you guys lose and are booted from the competition, and I have to spend the rest of my life regretting the fact that the reason the school lost a 12-year championship streak is all because I made you sleep on a couch?” you ask him.
He takes a step towards you. “You really want me to stay?” His voice was low.
“Yes,” you say. “We’re mature adults. Despite everything, we can just…share a bed for one night, right?”
He’s silent for a moment. “I think you trust me a little too much.”
Your face felt hot. “Are you telling me that I shouldn’t?”
“I’m telling you that you should really think this through,” he says.
“Just stay. Please.” The tone to your voice came off much more desperate than you would’ve liked.
He looks at you like the last thing in the world he could say right now was no. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Positive?”
“Satoru.”
“Okay,” he says, walking past you into the room, like he wasn’t really in the mood to argue about it anymore.
You sigh, sulking your shoulders a little bit, and watch as he takes a seat at the desk and continues to click through things on his laptop, occasionally sipping on the cup of coffee he had made for himself, as if your presence here was no unnatural thing. 
This all felt so domestic for you. This feels like the most intimate the two of you have been with one another, despite the fact he’s literally made you cum with his tongue before. 
“Who drinks coffee at this hour?” you ask, crouching down to unzip your suitcase, opening it up to find your cosmetics bag and a fresh pair of clothes to change into.
“Caffeine doesn’t really affect me anymore.” His eyes were still stuck on his laptop screen.
“You sound dead inside,” you comment, standing back up straight. You step over your suitcase that was on the floor and head into the bathroom, about to close the door but you open it enough to peer over at him from inside. “I’m going to take a shower,” you announce.
You see him poke his tongue to his cheek, leg bouncing up and down underneath the desk, and he squints at his laptop screen like there’s something so damn important that he must concentrate on or else the entire universe would collapse inside of a black hole. “Cool. Have fun.”
“I will.” 
“I’m glad.”
“No peeping.”
“There’s a lock on the bathroom door. Feel free to use it.”
“That’s rich, coming from you.” And then you’re shutting the door. 
It felt nice to freshen up, especially after that long journey, and then you’re doing your skincare in the mirror while you’re wrapped in a towel, trying to forget the fact that the man you quite seriously have immense feelings for is somewhere outside that door just a few feet away in this small hotel room. You spray a spritz of your perfume onto your skin, something there’s literally no point in doing before bedtime, but you still do it…for no particular reason at all, obviously. 
When you step back out into the room, Gojo’s eyes are instantly on you from where he stood near the closet. He takes in your appearance and lets out a laugh, looking at you with amusement.
“What?” you ask.
“You look so cute,” he says, “with your little sloth pajamas.”
You’re fully blushing as you make your way over to the armchair in the room to set your cosmetics bag down on it to sort through the mess you’ve just made of it. “Don’t call me cute,” you scold, searching for your lip balm. 
You could feel his frown from behind you. “You don’t like it?” 
“No. I love it.”
“I’m not following.”
You turn around to face him. “Satoru. You promised me you wouldn’t lead me on anymore. That includes teasing me or complimenting me.”
He looks at you incredulously. “What? I can’t even call you cute? This fucking sucks.”
“Your problem,” you say.
“So you’re cool with sharing a bed, but you’re not cool with me complimenting you,” he lays it out.
“We’re sharing this bed out of the kindness of my own heart,” you say to him, “because I care oh-so-very-much about your soccer career, and understand how important good sleep is for an athlete’s performance. I’m just that considerate of a person.” You point a strict finger at him. “But for your information, if you touch me while we’re in bed, I’ll kill you.”
“Hm. Not sure if I feel threatened or turned on right now,” he says.
You roll your eyes and finally zip up your cosmetics bag, set it on the table then make your way to the left side of the bed. When you glance at the nightstand, you notice Gojo has his wallet, his phone and his charger all situated there.
“Why’s your stuff here?” you ask him.
“Huh? Oh, I was going to sleep on that side,” he says to you.
“I usually sleep on the left side,” you tell him.
“But I usually sleep on the left side.”
You blink at him.
“I–…I’ll sleep on the right side,” he suggests, shoulders tense and on edge.
“Okay,” you shrug, and move his stuff.
Gojo spends some time freshening up in the bathroom too, and when he comes out he looks like he’s actually tired, and you feel like it’s the first time you’ve seen him look as worn out as he probably should be for someone as busy as him. You’re already settled under the sheets, the duvet pulled all the way up to your chin as you lay on your back. He comes up to the right side of the bed, checking his phone for a few minutes while standing and rubbing at the back of his neck, then plugs his phone into the charger. He grabs the sheets, about to pull them back, when he pauses and looks at you.
“Are you su-”
“If you ask me if I’m sure about this one more time, I will no longer feel sorry for you, and will make you go sleep on the love-stained couch,” you threaten him.
He grimaces at your choice of words and pulls the sheets back, slipping himself into bed. “Why do you have to put it like that? You’re gross. Also, I’m pretty sure this bed has seen less-than-holy things too.”
The only lighting in the room came from the warm, dim bulb of the night lamp at Gojo’s nightstand. An incredibly awkward silence settles between the two of you. Or maybe it’s just awkward for you, because he seems fine. He’s on his back too, looking up at the ceiling, practically motionless but there’s the faintest sound of his breathing every once in a while and it’s a sound you’ve never heard in such detail before.
He turns his head to you, but you don’t meet his gaze just yet. You shuffle a little bit, hip bumping against his side, elbow hitting his arm. He’s masculine next to you, shoulders hard, muscles heavy, but when you finally turn your head to glance at him and see the expression on his face, you realize that everything about him was rigid—except for the way he was looking at you.
“When did you sneak it in?” he asks.
“Sneak what in?” 
“The can of strawberry vanilla soda. Into my bag.”
You swear your heart stills a little in your chest. 
“Before,” is all you say to him.
He sighs. “y/n…”
“It’s okay, you don’t have to feel bad for me. I wanted you to have it, regardless of how I thought my confession would go,” you assure.
It’s hard to read his expression from the side while he’s looking up at the ceiling, but it’s softer than it was a second ago. The need to change the subject consumes you.
“Why do you have calluses on your fingertips?” you ask him. “You’re a soccer player, you don’t use your hands for anything.”
“I play the guitar,” he replies simply.
You perch yourself up on an elbow, looking down at him with interest. His eyes flicker to your face. “Really?”
“No. I was just kidding. Hate the way you got excited though. I might have to pick up a guitar now.”
“Can you just answer me?” you sigh, flopping down onto your back again.
He laughs a little, a sound you feel like you could get drunk on at this point. He lifts his head up off the pillow enough to tuck his right hand underneath it, then rests it back down. You wish there was a mirror on the ceiling so you could see the flex of his arm. “Coach has us do the rock climbing wall at the gym at least once a week for practice. He thinks it’s a good workout. Causes a hell of a lot of skin tear though.”
“That’s it? That’s the reason?”
“Mhm.”
You shake your head, “You should learn how to play the guitar, because that’s a lame reason to have calluses.”
He lifts his head up off the pillow again and brings the hand that was tucked under his nape to in front of his face and he just looks at it. You look at it too. “Why are you so obsessed with the state of my hands? 
“A girl can’t be curious?” you ask.
“They’re not that bad.” You wonder if you’ve made him self-conscious. 
You watch the way he flexes his fingers open and then closed. He turns it around, and you can see the veins trailing down from the valleys of his knuckles, disappearing into the fabric of his long sleeve. You remember that party, the two of you in that bathroom, when his hands were all over you, and it’s suddenly a little hard to breathe. He turns his hand again so the palm faces him, but now it’s also slightly turned towards you too.
“They’re bad here,” you say, pointing to his ring finger where you see slight peeling at the tip. The padded skin of your finger touches his skin. “A little bad here, too.” You point to his index finger, careless enough to allow all of your fingers to brush against his this time.
He watches you. “Your hands are really small,” he comments, like it was a marvel to him.
You look over at him briefly, and there’s not a single sign of tension in his face as he observes the image of your hand next to his hand in the air above him. He looked like he was at peace.
“Yours are just big,” you tell him. 
He knows he’s not supposed to, and you really shouldn’t have let him, but he interlocks his fingers with yours regardless, holding onto your hand. You feel the roughness of those calluses all across your soft skin. His thumb runs over the curve of your knuckle, almost in a soothing way, like he was trying to apologize to you for something. And this was the only way he knew how. 
Something sobers him up, because he suddenly pulls his fingers from yours and drops his hand to the duvet. Your hand lingers in the air for a few seconds before you do the same. And now you’re both awkwardly staring up at the ceiling again.
“Sorry,” he says, barely above a whisper.
“It’s okay,” you whisper too.
The silence settles for longer.
He sighs. “It’s not you, it’s me,” he says out of nowhere.
“Huh?” you turned your body a little to face him, and he was looking up at the ceiling as if there was something across the texture that he was trying to decipher.
“I don’t want you thinking that the reason I can’t-,” he pauses, to think carefully about his words, “...that the reason I can’t return your feelings is because of you, or anything you’ve done. It’s been a while since I’ve liked anyone to be honest, and I’m just really not looking to date right now.”
You’re hurt by his words. Because even if he didn’t want to date anyone, you thought that he would’ve at least tried to for you. You thought that he had at least some feelings that the two of you could’ve worked off of. “Why don’t you want to date anyone?”
“Reasons.”
“Obviously. What reasons?” you prod. When he doesn’t respond, you sigh. “If it’s something traumatic, I get it. My hamster died in the fourth grade,” you say, “I’ve never known peace since.”
He turns onto his side to face you with a soft and amused smile on his face. “Sorry to hear that. What was your hamster’s name?”
You try not to feel hot from the burn of his gaze and you turn onto your back to look up at the ceiling again. “Mr. Guilmon,” you say.
“Like…guilmon from digimon?
“Mhm.”
“You like digimon?”
“Oh yeah, I used to watch it all the time when I was a kid. My mom wanted to name my hamster ‘Scout’ but I refused,” you tell him, blinking a few times as the memories from your childhood come back to you. A small smile makes its way onto your face.
“I love digimon,” he says, fast, like he couldn’t contain it. 
“Really?” you give him a sidewards glance, a little surprised.
He hesitates slightly before sighing, turning over in the opposite direction to reach for his wallet on his nightstand. You feel the fabric of the duvet stretch across you from the movement, and you remember just how intimate this all felt. He’s laying on his back again, holding his wallet up in the air with both hands as he flips it open, then slides his credit card up out of the slot, and shows it to you. Digimon themed. You have to purse your lips together to hold back your laughter.
He turns his head to look at you when you can’t help but let a little noise escape your mouth, and you can see through the laughter-induced sheen of tears in your eyes that he’s frowning.
“Hey–”
“I’m sorry–” you're fully laughing at this point, hand over your mouth to try to contain yourself, “it’s just– oh my god— you’re the last person I would’ve expected to have been such a nerd.” 
“I’m not a nerd–” he tries to argue but you snatch the card out of his hand to study it closer, and also to memorize the numbers on the back.
“Popular soccer boy Gojo Satoru,” you’re giggling, “has a custom Digimon credit card.”
When he tries to reach for it, you stretch your arm off to the left. His weight leans on you, chest pressing against the curve of your shoulder, arm extending across you as he tries to grab his card back. “Quit it,” he mutters. 
“No,” you say, holding it further to your left, weakly trying to push him away from you.
“Quit it,” he repeats, face scowling now with what looks like embarrassment, and he holds his upper body up by the elbow, leaning over you even more to reclaim it, “or else.”
“Or else, what?” you say through wheezes, and it seems like something in him snaps because suddenly he grabs your wrist, hard, pinning it down onto the mattress, holding it there next to your head, and his entire upper body is towering over you. Shocked, you’re breathing fast, your eyes darting across his face, and he’s looking at you with a furrowed brow and a tense jaw.
“Or else I won’t keep my promise,” he says through a harsh breath, his voice low and rough.
You’re stunned underneath him. “What promise?” you ask, breathlessly. 
He leans down closer, to the point where the fringe of his hair brushes against your forehead. “My promise to hold myself back from you.”
You swallow hard, chest heaving. You feel the heat of his hand on your wrist burning through to your veins. You try to squirm slightly in his grip, but he just presses your wrist down further into the mattress.
He glances at your lips, eyes dilated and stern, and leans down even closer to you. “Do you have any idea how bad I’ve been wanting to punish you for leaving me in that bathroom by myself?” he says in a voice so husky you feel the arousal build at your center the second your head registers it.
You can’t find your words. He keeps his eyes locked on yours, as if to make sure yours stay on his too, and you’re docile under him until he’s distracted you enough to pinch his credit card between two of his fingers and discretely pull it out from your grip. He then lets go of your wrist and disappears out of your line of sight when he flops back down onto the mattress next to you, tucking his card back into his wallet.
“But I won’t. Because I’m a nice person, and will respect your space. Or whatever.” 
You don’t know what to say, your hand finding a place over your heart as you try to take deep breaths to calm yourself down.
“We should probably go to sleep,” he sighs after a minute, tossing his wallet back onto the nightstand and reaching over to turn off the light.
It’s dark now in the room, the only light coming from through the layered fabrics of the curtains. It's a cold light, possibly from the moon and maybe some dim neighboring white street lights, but it’s enough to where you could still see the slight texture of the ceiling, and maybe his face.
You both spend a few minutes trying to get comfortable. You try not to bump your butt against him, or brush your chest against his arm, but it happens a couple times anyway, and you mentally curse yourself for it. The rise of the duvet fabric from his chest becomes shallow with his breathing, and you think he’s fallen asleep, but then the two of you turn over at the exact same time, facing each other, eyes flying open and gazes meeting. It startles the both of you, but neither of you look away or say a word. The two of you just sit in the moment for what feels like hours, and very could’ve easily been. 
You’re the first to break the silence. “You know, there was a time where I thought that you weren’t even real.” You’re speaking hushed, like you’re afraid someone will hear, even though there’s only two souls in this room right now.
“What?” he asks, a slight raise to his eyebrow. “...why.”
“I don’t know. You’re like this urban legend around campus. You probably don’t know it, since you’re in it, but the world you’re in is very different from the world the rest of us students are in.”
He’s silent for a moment, his face being briefly illuminated by the reflection of a car’s headlights on the windows of the surrounding building. “I think I know what you mean.”
You blink at him. “I thought you would have a few more follow-up questions to that, but I guess you’re surprisingly self-aware.”
He hums to himself. “I think I can just put it into perspective.”
“Perspective?” you ask. You’re hanging onto every single one of his words tonight. You don’t want a single one of them slipping through you, not understood.
“Yeah,” he says, “there are moments where I feel like I’m not in that world anymore. And it feels nice. To get out of it.”
You want to ask him when those moments are, but he’s quick to speak again.
“I guess that means I’m aware of the moments where I am in it, so I know that it exists, if that makes sense? I don’t know.” He looks down at your pajamas, at the dancing sloth at the front, and the crease to his brow relaxes slightly. 
“Mhm, makes sense.”
His eyes are back on you, studying. There’s a strange look on his face that you can’t really comprehend. “I want to know about your world,” he says.
You breathe in deep, and exhale shallow. “My world is simple. I want to be a filmmaker and then live in a little cottage.”
He smiles at you. “A little cottage?”
“Yeah,” you say, “maybe in the countryside. The Italian countryside. With my own garden in the backyard so I can use fresh zucchini in my salads.”
“Any animals? Pets?” he asks, like he’s envisioning it all in his head too. 
“Maybe some chickens,” you say, “I promised Mr. Guilmon I’d name another one of my pets after him someday. I have to keep my promise.”
He nods. “You do.”
There’s another silence, but it doesn’t feel awkward this time.
“Did you turn your photos in to your professor?” he asks.
“Yeah, I did,” you tell him. “Earlier this week.”
“Nice. What about your reference for grad school?”
“I asked him for it.”
“Oh?” His eyebrows raise. “How’d it go?”
“Mm…I was really nervous, but it went well. He said he’d do it.”
There’s such a tenderness to his expression that you feel so compelled to kiss him right now. “That’s awesome. I’m proud of you. That’s one step closer to your dream.”
You purse your lips together from his words, sitting with the warm feeling in your chest. You want to thank him again, but instead all you say is “we’re even now.”
He lets out a small chuckle. It comes from his throat. “You’ve said that so many times.”
“I know.” Because you can’t believe it’s all over. This little arrangement between the two of you. You don’t want it to be over. “I can’t remember when the first time I said it was.”
“That night,” he answers you fast and with certainty, like it was at the forefront of his mind, “when you drove over rocks. And we sat together on the curb. And I realized how badly you take care of your car. You don’t need thousands of chain restaurant napkins in your glovebox, by the way. No matter how much you might think you do.”
“Wow. I was almost romanced by you for a second, but you ruined it,” you mumble.
You’re instantly taken back to that night. You remember the gentle quality in his eyes as he stared up at the stars, and you can still see the reflection of that sky in his eyes right now with the way he’s looking at you. 
“I really liked you that night,” you whisper, “I wish you were like that all the time.”
“Am I not like that all the time?” he asks, voice soft to match yours.
“No,” you say, “sometimes you’re mean.”
His eyes on you are gentle, somewhat careful. “I’m sorry for being mean.” 
You wonder if you can change his mind. If you can will him to like you back, if you can will him into wanting a relationship with you. You want to be his exception, not his rule.
“It’s okay. I’m mean sometimes, too,” you say, “mean to myself for sharing a bed with a guy that doesn’t like me.” He’s looking at your lips as you speak. “I’m bad like that.”
“You’re not bad,” is all he says.
“I am,” you say, and you inch closer to him, until there’s hardly any space between the two of you. You look up at him, faces inches away. You feel so safe with him, and yet you also feel scared, because you like him so much that you would let him ruin you if he wanted to. You press a flat palm to his shirt, searching for his heart, and you find that it’s beating fast in his chest. “I’m a bad woman, Satoru.”
“y/n,” he says, like a warning.
“I mean it,” you whisper.
“You said you’d kill me if I touch you,” he reminds you, sounding a little breathless.
“I can’t kill you, you’re way stronger than me,” you whisper, “so touch me.” Your hand is gripping onto the fabric of his shirt now, tight, with desire. He’s looking at you with a whole lot of desire too, but there was something else there as well. “Please.”
He wraps his hand around your wrist–the heat of his touch that you so badly wanted, craved, finally on you–but it’s to pull you away from him. Your grasp on his shirt releases and he brings your hand to the front of your chest, laying it down gently before letting it go. Your wrist lays limp there, missing his touch. Limp in front of your beating heart.
“Let’s just go to sleep, okay?” he says softly. 
Your eyes widen when you look at him, and you couldn’t even hide the hurt that settled across your face if you tried. Gaze dropping to his chest, you see the way it was rising with every breath he took, and for the second time in this life, you’ve felt so utterly rejected by him. You give him a compliant nod, and scootch back away from him before turning away. He stays as he is, watching your back, and you can feel his gaze on the nape of your neck. 
Counting the minutes to fall asleep felt exhausting, but the last thing you remember before you closed your eyes was the feeling of a tear trickling down onto your pillow, wet and cold against your cheek.
You wake up the next morning to an empty bed, and an even emptier feeling heart. There’s also this weird feeling of disappointment within you, and you don’t really know why.
Grabbing your phone on the nightstand, you quickly search for the email with the men’s soccer team practice schedule, and you see that they had a sharp 8am practice this morning before the game in the afternoon. The time reads 6:37am, and you’re wondering where Gojo went so early in the morning before heading off to the practice field.
You went back to sleep for a couple hours, and then woke up again. By the time you took a shower, got dressed, and went downstairs to the hotel lobby to eat breakfast, it was already 10:00am and it was time to make it to the field so you could set up and calibrate your camera prior to taking photos for the match. Following Utahime’s gameday instructions, you took a cab to the location with all of your gear.
The Kyoto soccer stadium was less of a stadium and more of an extremely large and open expanse of grass that had enormous silver metal stands stretching across the perimeter. It was something you would expect of an area in the countryside, but security was still somehow tight across the fenced off area. 
It was still a couple hours before the game, so the field was bustling with pre-game set-ups and the stands were empty. There were a few sports canopies being put up, as well as a small truck with workers that were working to stock up the hydration stations. A few men in suits were seated at tables with notepads and clipboards, looking busy in conversation and on what sounded like business calls. As you walk down the sidelines, you notice a few other people checking the distances between the goals and the chalk markings across the field. The stands were extremely close to all of the action, and when you look to the right, you see a couple of familiar faces there.
“Ah, y/n! We’re over here.”
You approach the group of three people, all seated on the lowest metal bench of one of the spectator sections. There were a bunch of tripods, cameras, cases, and laptops sprawled across in front of them. You recognize Hana and Minato, but you don’t recognize the other man sitting with them. You had met Hana and Minato at the game against Osaka last week, they were both professional photographers for the newsletter.
Hana hops off the bench and comes up to you. “It’s seriously so cool you’re here with us and that Utahime got you this gig,” she says to you with a smile. “Make sure your schedule is free on nights after matches, all us photographers usually get dinner together afterwards. You’re the baby out of us, so we’ll pay for you.”
You return her smile with one of your own. “That’s sweet, and sure I’ll try to.” 
You glance at the man whose name you didn’t know, your gaze meeting his, and soon enough he’s jumping up onto his feet too and making his way over to you.
“Ah, this is Kaito. Kai for short,” Hana says, gesturing to the man, and then to you.
Kai extends his hand out for you to shake. He’s tall and a bit lean. His style is really boyish—totally nailing the street photographer outfit with the white shirt underneath a flannel one, and some Carhartt pants paired with some Vans. You reach out to shake his hand, and he holds onto it for a second longer than you would’ve expected.
“Hi,” you greet him and tell him your name.
“That’s a nice name,” he says with a smile.
Hana claps her hands together. “Okay! We all know each other now, that’s great. We should get started prepping before the players get here, I believe they’re scheduled to be here in an hour.” She walks over to the benches and picks up her digital camera. Minato grabs his as well as his tripod, then walks over to Hana’s side. “The way we usually do it is to split the field into corners, and each of us works that perimeter. The videographers are here too, so just make sure you don’t accidentally knock over or stand in front of one of their cameras.”
All three of you nod at her and you unzip your case to take your film camera out. Kai is next to you, looking at the device in your hands curiously.
“Kai, you can work with y/n for today since it’s her first day. Split up those two corners over there,” Hana says, pointing to the other end of the field. You and Kai look in that direction. “Minato and I will take the other short end.”
With a few more discussions and detailed instructions, the four of you disperse to your assigned locations. You’re a step ahead of Kai, although he should really be the one leading your stride since you’re the new one here, but he soon enough catches up to you.
“Is that a Canon AE-1?” he asks you, pointing to your camera.
You look at him a little surprised. “Yeah, it is. As vintage as they get.”
“Sweet, I used to shoot on film too. Second-hand?” 
“No, third. Still cost me an arm and a leg, though,” you sigh.
He laughs. “They’re not that expensive.”
“I’m a broke college student. I sometimes have to choose between paying rent and eating food,” you say to him.
He kicks at a random can on the grass, sending it flying forward, instead of picking it up. “Yeah, definitely don’t miss those days.”
“When did you graduate?” you ask.
“From UTokyo two years ago,” he says. 
You bend over to pick up the can he kicked and jog a little to the trashcan nearby, tossing it in, then jog back to him. “That’s nice. You’ve been doing this for two years?”
“Yup,” he says to you as the two of you reach the corner of the field outlined by freshly drawn chalk. He kneels down on the grass, sets his camera case down, and opens it up. Your jaw drops.
“Is that a—Leica camera?” you ask him, shocked.
He smirks up at you. “Sure is.”
“Oh, so you’re just rich, then,” you sit down on the grass to look at it with interest, marveling at its condition.
“Nope. I’ll bet I got it for cheaper than your Canon there,” he points to the camera hung at your neck.
You meet his gaze. “No way.”
“Way,” he says, pulling out the attachable lens before wiping at it with a microfiber cloth, “I know a guy. He sells used cameras. The only issue is you’ve gotta refurbish them yourself.” 
You sigh. “Wonderful. Because I would know how to do that.”
He lets out a half-laugh, and you glance up briefly to look at his expression. He was amused. “It’s pretty easy, just gotta do it once. And then you’ll have a used Leica that works brand-new, all for just under a hundred-thousand yen.”
You’re looking at him with surprise again. “That cheap?”
“Yup.”
“Wow…” Your finger plays with the lens cap on your camera.
“If you want, I can send you his info. But if you want to meet up with him, it’ll probably have to be facilitated through me,” Kai says, “He takes clients by recommendation. No use in selling a used camera to an idiot that doesn’t know how to refurbish it. He’s looking for niche photographers that have the interest.”
You press your lips together, considering it. “Sure.”
He hands his phone to you. “Alright, gimme your number.”
You hesitate for a second before typing your number into his contacts then hand it back and watch as he saves it in his phone. “Canon girl. Won’t forget ya.”
The two of you make work for a second, eyeing the field and mapping out angles of where to get the best shots during play. Kai gives you some pointers and you’re marveling at how good they are.
“Not really used to shooting on film anymore,” he mumbles, peering through the hole on your camera when you handed it over to him, “but usually a one over five-hundred shutter speed works well for sports. I’d switch between that and over two-fifty though, to avoid a blurry finish.”
“Thanks,” you say to him, wanting to write all this down to not forget it. “Wish I knew this last week.”
“Why shoot on film?” he asks out of nowhere, handing your camera back to you. “Why not digital?”
“Oh, it’s a personal interest,” you say to him, adjusting your shutter speed as he suggested, “I think there’s a charm to it. I want to be a movie maker, and shoot on film medium.”
He frowns at you. “How are you going to do that?”
You tilt your head at him, shuffling on the grass. “I’m going to apply to the film graduate program at UTokyo to start.”
He laughs at that from where he’s seated across from you. “Really? That’s a waste of your time.”
Your heart sinks a little in your chest from his tone. “Why would it be a waste of my time?”
He turns to face you more directly. “y/n, trust me, I know this career path. Been there, done that. Millions of film majors like yourself always have these big-ass dreams like ‘I want to become a director, I want to do screenplay’ etc., but only one or two of them actually succeed.” 
Your shoulders sulk. It’s not the first time you’ve heard those words from someone—your own parents practically recited them word-for-word before you headed off to college—but you had been doing really well all of senior year to ignore that nagging little voice in your head. It was honestly quite triggering to hear it all again right now. “Well, I think I can do it.”
He lets out a short scoff. “You sound real convincing there.” When he catches sight of your upset expression, he straightens his back a little. “My bad. Just trying to look out for you. I’m your senior in this industry. I know my way around these things. Trust me.”
You nod slowly. “I know. Thanks.” Part of you wonders if he’s just projecting.
“Well anyway,” he shrugs, “I think you should just focus on photography for now. It’s the safest career option for you to do.”
“I guess you’re right,” you say, wanting to diffuse the conversation.
The two of you disperse to your assigned corners once the stands start to fill with spectators. Shortly after, the players make their introductions onto the field, and you can see Gojo across the field. He’s too far to read his expression, but for some reason when you look at him, that disappointed feeling from this morning comes back to you. You try to push it down and just focus on your task at hand.
UTokyo does well during the match, and Gojo seems to be playing much better than the Osaka game last week, scoring two goals within the first half. There were a couple of times where there were throw-ins near your corner, and you made eye contact with him as he’s breathing heavily, wiping the sweat off his face with his jersey, and every time you look at him, that melancholic feeling washes over you again. UTokyo wins 3-2, the crowd evidently disappointed as they were rooting for their home team, and by the time the disgruntled fans started to clear the stands, the sun was setting over the horizon and the sky was a golden color.
The referees on the field begin to oversee the post-match proceedings with the players. Kai comes around to meet you at your corner, and Hana and Minato arrive there too.
“Hey team! How’d it go?” Hana asks, a little out of breath from her journey over here.
“Went fine,” Kai responds.
“It was a little tricky,” you comment, “but I think my photos came out well.”
Hana nods. “Alright, sounds good. Are we still on for dinner tonight?”
Kai and Minato nod, and then all three sets of eyes are on you. You hesitate for a moment, and look off past them to where you see the group of soccer players in conversations with the coaches and referees. You see Gojo standing there, his hands on his hips as he peered across the field, tilting his neck to the side repeatedly, and you realize he had been doing that all match long. That unsettling feeling within you starts to brew once again. “Uh, I’m really sorry, but I’m not feeling very well. I think I might just head back to the hotel.”
Hana and Minato nod at you with a concerned expression, while Kai just looks disappointed.
“Okay, well, I hope you feel better,” she says.
You end up taking an Uber back to the hotel in haste, not wanting to run into Gojo or any of the other soccer players after their match, and make it to the room, using the key card that Gojo gave you to get inside. You take a shower to freshen up, and by the time it’s 7pm, you’re starving. You put on a simple outfit and make it downstairs into the lobby of the hotel, about to go peruse the nearby dining options, but right when you step out of the elevator, you run into Gojo.
There’s a look of pleasant surprise on his face and you take in his appearance. He was still wearing his soccer jersey, covered in grass and dirt stains, and his face was slightly flushed from exertion. You figured he just came back from the field.
“Hey,” he says, “sorry, I was just about to head over there.” He jerks his head off towards the lobby, and you glance in that direction. There was a group of maybe thirty people gathered around the lounging areas and high-tables over at the business suite, and you recognize them as UTokyo’s soccer players, along with Coach Yaga and other team staff. The players were still all clad in their uniforms, carrying all their stuff, and there were plays of today’s game rerunning across the TV screens. You realize they’re probably prepping for interview questions for tomorrow’s conference.
“Oh, please, go ahead,” you say to him.
He tilts his head at you. “Are you doing alright?” 
You were aware that things might feel awkward after last night, and that your cheeks would probably feel hot like they do now the next time you had to talk to him. Your mind takes you back to the memories, when you think about how badly you wanted him to stay with you in the room because of that hollow feeling in your chest from missing him, despite how you knew it was bad for you. Because this man standing in front of you doesn’t like you in the way that you like him. 
And then it clicks. The reason for that feeling of disappointment you’ve had since the moment you woke up today.
When you glance up at Gojo this time, you see him differently than you had from a second ago. You finally notice the slight dark circles under his eyes, and figure out that the reason he’s been tilting his neck to the side all day was because he was trying to stretch out a kink. You vaguely recall that moment you woke up in the middle of the night, and your sleepy brain registered that there was no longer the dip of him in the mattress next to you.
“When did you leave the room?” you ask him. You know your voice is quiet when he has to lean down a bit to hear you.
He takes his time answering, indulging in a few breaths. “What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean,” you say, starting to sound hostile, “you left during the night, didn’t you?”
He doesn’t deny it.
“You left once I fell asleep,” you say, eyes widening with realization.
He sighs. “Yes.”
“Where did you go to sleep?” you ask, trying to keep your tone level.
“Suguru’s room had an extra couch. I pushed them together.”
You felt sick and sad, feeling something worse than rejection right now. There was a part of you that still thought that all of this from him was just a joke. A prank. That he was finally going to say just kidding, I like you too. The reason you’ve been so disappointed since the minute you woke up today was because there was a part of you that thought you were going to wake up this morning with his arms wrapped around you, back pressed tight to his chest while he whispers sweet nothings in your ear of how much he likes you, of how much he wants you, of how much he wants to be with you.
“Why? Even after I said I didn’t want you to have bad sleep?” Your voice was laced with hurt. You didn’t even know how to explain to him why it upset you, because deep down you’re scared it isn’t even valid.
“It’s fine,” he says, “I played fine today. And we won.”
“You could’ve stayed. Do you really hate me that much?” Your words are shooting to kill now. “So I’m good enough to finger in a bathroom at a frat party, but not good enough to sleep next to?”
He furrows his brow. “I don’t understand why we’re arguing about this,” he says, tone starting to match yours, “you’re the one that wanted space. I was just trying to respect that.”
“If you really wanted to respect my space, you wouldn’t have agreed to share the bed with me in the first place.”
“y/n,” he says, “that’s not fair.”
“You should’ve known better.” You’re breathing fast, tone searingly accusive. “You know that I’m trying to get over you, and that I’m vulnerable, and that I’m probably confused about a lot of things right now.”
“I ask if we could at least be friends, you say no because it’d be some recipe for disaster, then you practically beg me to stay with you and tell me to touch you while we’re laying down together. You don’t think that’s confusing for me too?” he counters.
Your cheeks flush with embarrassment at the memory of your desperate actions last night, and he instantly looks apologetic. You feel like you’re being unfair, but you feel like he’s being unfair too.
“I’m the one with feelings,” is all you say in your defense.
He swipes at his chin roughly with the back of his hand, smudging the dirt up to his cheek, and then closes his eyes for a second, like the weight of today has finally hit him all at once. He looks exhausted. “Right,” he says, softly, “I’m sorry.”
“Yo, Satoru!” one of his teammates yells from the center of the lobby. “Coach needs you, man.”
He rubs a hand down his tired face then throws a haphazard glance over his shoulder. “Yeah, I’ll be there in a sec,” he calls out and then looks back at you. You can’t make eye contact with him, and just stare at the print on his jersey instead. “I’ll sleep in Suguru’s again tonight. The room is yours.”
There’s a lump in your throat and you feel like you’re about to cry. “Okay.”
He reaches into his shorts pocket and gives you a room card. “Here’s the spare. I don’t need to come grab my stuff for the night, so don’t worry.”
“Okay.”
He sounds like he wants to say more, and you see him take a small step towards you, hand reaching out for you, but this time Coach Yaga’s stern voice is calling out to him too. He sighs. “Good night.”
“Mhm. Thanks.”
He hesitates before he turns on his heel and you watch his back, with that signature #10 stretched across the fabric of his uniforn, as he jogs through the hotel lobby to his teammates.
The walk back to the hotel room is depressing, and you find yourself dragging your feet all the way there. Once you make your way inside, you look around at the room and see some of Gojo’s belongings scattered around, but it didn’t seem like there were any of his essentials. You look down at the spare key card in your hand–a promise from him that he won’t try to upset you anymore tonight–and that lump in your throat from earlier comes back. 
You hated fighting with him. You hated being away from him. Those feelings that you thought would go away just as fast as they came still sat so stubbornly within your heart, and it was becoming impossible to bear. 
You wonder if meeting him was all just some horrible, twisted mistake. 
Before you have time to dwell on that sad sentiment, your phone screen lights up with a message.
|| 7:52pm unknown number: kinda sucks you’re not here with us. was looking forward to showing you more of my camera
|| 7:53pm unknown number: this is kai by the way
The features of your face feel heavy as you look down at your phone screen. You don’t even notice your eyes are teary until you realize the blur of your vision makes it hard to see the letters as you type out a response.
You just wanted a distraction from all this pain.
|| 7:54pm you: can you send me the address? i wanna be there
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a/n. grrrr i love a one-bed trope so much grrrrrrrrr it's gonna do it for me every damn time lol. thanks a bunch for reading!! there's still so much that i've got planned for the series haha i think the second half is gonna be a lot crazier than the first. super excited to write it though. by the way! i'm starting a choso x reader zombie au series, if you'd like to read more about it and/or be added to the taglist, you can reply to this post here also if you want to be added to taglist in general, i'd recommend making sure your tags are on!! since i've noticed a lot of people have them off
➸ take me to chapter nine!
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taglist: @who-can-touch-my-boob @therealestpussyeater @lost-resonance @hojoslutoru @foulprincesscycle @luniunia @alekssashka7 @bsdicinindirdim @tsukikourito @getitsatoru @slut-4-gojo @cactisjuice @kissofife @tiredflame132 @cliosunshine @ethereally-lyann @btszn @prince-wyiilder @semra4 @gojosimp26 @drthymby @ninitoru @bbyxxm @fvsm4x @sadmonke @zoinks1010 @bakuhoethotski @horisdope @sykostyles @aquaberrydolphin @colouringfrogssittinginleaves @ri-sa20 @purplehallow11 @mwtsxri @ritsatoru @bxddiebloss @chwesuh-imnida @mo0nforme @viware @still-fking-single @megumisthirdog @gintokhi @karvokr @cierocanteat @imjustaweirdnerd (hope i didn't miss anyone thank u all sm!!)
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povlnfour · 6 months
Text
*ੈ✩‧₊˚ STUDY BREAK (OP81)
pairing: oscar piastri x f!student!reader
summary: oscar piastri is a formula 1 driver. y/n is an international relations student. her friends find her relationship pretty hard to believe. especially when she can’t tell them any details for you know… nda reasons.
warnings: main characters friends can be jackasses. mentions of international relations for any of my fellow bach survivors who shiver at the mention of the course
* faceclaim: scarlett leithold (but please imagine her as you see fit!)
yourusername just posted a photo *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by oscarpiastri, yourbsf and 276 others
yourusername summer break you were fab
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yourbsf wow you took international relations literally huh
yourusername call it research
friend1 IS THAT A PRIVATE JET? IS UR DAD RICH RICH?
friend2 girlie where are you getting all this money from i know uni debt is killing you like the rest of us
yourusername rich boyf perks😙
friend2 this ‘boyf’ who we conveniently haven’t met?🤔
oscarpiastri just posted a photo *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by yourusername, landonorris and 193,209 others
oscarpiastri good company, good racing🤙🏻
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user luv u oscar
user YOU’LL COME BACK EVEN STRONGER KING
user you seemed so happy today :’)
user ppl are saying he had a girl w him👀
yourusername cutie
friend2 your boyfriend seeing you comment on random celebs posts…🤭
texts with oscar *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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yourusername just posted a photo *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by oscarpiastri, yourbsf and 300 others
yourusername term 1 you’ve been cute
👤 tagged yourbsf, friend1, friend2, friend3
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friend3 can’t believe ur not in lectures next week bc ur off to go watch cars go vroom vroom 🙄
yourusername gotta support my boy what do you want from me
friend3 sure jan
yourbsf first pic is HOT send it to me rn
friend1 tagged but not pictured… just like ur boyfriend
yourusername just posted stories *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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oscarpiastri just posted a photo *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by yourusername, landonorris and 194,256 others
oscarpiastri race✔️ time to explore⏳
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landonorris oscar has rizz?
user your captions say so little yet so much
user HE HAS A GIRLFRIEND????
friend1 @/yourusername ur heart must be breaking
yourusername ????
friend1 he’s got a girllllll
user lando speaks for us all HUH
your group chat *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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yourusername just posted a photo *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by yourbsf and 361 others
yourusername bit of fun before back to reality :)
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yourbsf look cute who’s your photographer
yourusername os🥰
friend3 girl is the shirt meant to prove something
friend1 i am saying nothing other than ur cute (and delusional)
texts with your best friend *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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yourusername just posted a photo *ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by yourbsf, landonorris and 278 others
yourusername does it count as a date if it’s his full time job?
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friend1 girl… this may be going too far
yourusername literally what do you want from me ????
yourbsf i’m happy to be your third wheel as long as i get maid of honour duties
friend2 don’t encourAGE HER
yourbsf just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by yourusername and 410 others
yourbsf ode to my best friend and her boyfriend (ft. me) who are sickeningly adorable but cause me more stress than is worth it
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yourusername WHEN DID YOU TAKE THESE
yourbsf WHEN YOU WERE BEING ALL GROSS
yourusername also the pic of us is so cute🥹
yourbsf you weren’t kidding when you said the boy is a good photographer
your group chat ੈ✩‧₊˚
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texts with oscar ੈ✩‧₊˚
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yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by oscarpiastri, yourbsf and 301 others
yourusername more from summer because i miss italy and i miss being trackside
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friend3 this was a weak attempt to convince us
friend1 bby… just confess it’s okay
oscarpiastri pretty girl
liked by yourusername
friend2 oh
friend1 huh. interesting
your group chat ੈ✩‧₊˚
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oscarpiastri just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by yourusername and 201,456 others
oscarpiastri graduation party or a chance to show off to her friends that i actually exist? who knows. proud of you baby🧡
👤 tagged yourusername, yourbsf, friend1, friend2, friend3
view all comments
user mr piastri i must confess my love for ur girlfriend
friend3 i humbly accept that i was wrong
yourbsf wish i could have taken a photo of their faces when you walked in lmao
user i love her already LOOK AT THAT SMILE
yourusername i lurv uuuuu
landonorris gross go back to being a secret
yourusername gonna make out w him in front of you
landonorris I SWEAR TO GOD Y/N. OSCAR CONTROL YOUR GIRLFRIEND.
oscarpiastri i’ll keep her feisty thanks
yourusername just posted a photo ੈ✩‧₊˚
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liked by oscarpiastri, landonorris and 3,409 others
yourusername a hot boyfriend who exists✔️ a degree✔️ a killer ass✔️
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oscarpiastri fun fact the last part is only one of my favourite things abt you
yourusername aw you’re so romantic os
oscarpiastri nothing but the best for you
friend1 i can’t believe he exists
friend2 i can’t believe oscar piastri spoke to us
yourusername said with all the love in the world, SUCK MY DICK
user i’ve only just been introduced to this friend group and i already love them
———
a/n: first oscar post EEEE
this was meant to be a lando one shot first but author is: in hospital, so i hope this is okay for now😭
taglist (found HERE): @iluvvmeeee @champagnelovers101 @alessioayla @idkiwantchocolatee @skatingiswalkingincursive @six-call @he6rtshaker @hobiismyhopeu @tallrock35 @sunflower-golden-vol6 @woozarts @minkyungseokie @vellicora @tsukishitm-a @lucyysthings
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xqueen-of-disasterx · 6 months
Text
You’ll be a star
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Paring: camgirl!fem!reader x dads!bestfriend!Nat
Summary: Natasha couldn’t help yourself when she saw her favorite girl.
Warnings: SMUT, recording, dom!Nat, sub!reader, nipple play, clit play, fingering, pet names, mommy kink, mask, kink, G!P Nat, praise kink, breeding kink, unprotected sex,
!Disclaimer English is not my first language so please excuse any grammar or spelling errors. This story is completely fictional!
Masterlist
"And you are really comfortable with this" you asked your voice was small almost like a whisper. "I want to do this bunny, I mean it." She answered her voice full of confidence. She had agreed to help you with your life stream under the condition of not showing her identity which you of course respected. She was after all I known business women. You stranded her lap pulling the black baclava covering everything except a pair of piercing green eyes up to plant a reassuring kiss to the older woman’s lips. 
"I’m sure you’ll do great just be yourself and pretend no ones watching" You whispered against her lips pulling the mask down again. You turned to your camera and laptop seeing your reflection on the screen in front of you. Natasha wore a pair of faded jeans and a black wife beater making showing off her muscular build; looking at you you almost felt uncomfortable at your lack of clothing only wearing a matching set of white lingerie with small strawberries on them. "Are you ready?"
"I’m ready" she stated and you could see the excitement in her eyes after all Natasha wasn’t thought she was dreaming when out of all people you stood in the kitchen of your 2 days ago father. She had never meet you before after all you spend most of your time away at uni only coming home for the holidays or breaks. She happened to visit too in your two week visit in the summer break. She knew your face, of course she did, it was the face she jerked off to every night. You stood lend against the counter looking ever so innocent as your sweet lips curl into a smile as you spoke with your father; if he would only knew what his daughter was doing on the internet. And now she sat on your bed ready to experience everything with you. 
"The safe word is read" She reminded you "I won’t listen to stop sweetheart" You nodded turning to the laptop to press the record button starting the life stream. You sat back next to Nat as you saw the first few messages flooding in. 
Winter_Solidier: A guest? 
User85477439: Why the long wait?
User36298696: We missed you
You read out loud. "Umm… yes I’ve thought we spice it up with our guest here" Natasha nodded smirking under her mask you still weren’t quite comfortable doing this in front of a camera which made you so appealing to her, as if there was still a sense of innocence in you. 
— 
"Show them your pretty little tits bunny" Natasha smirked rolling er thumbs over your erected nipples. She held you to her chest, your back laying against her chest as she showed off your chest to the camera as you made pathetic noises in response. "Good girl" You moaned she had been teasing you seemingly endlessly never moving away from your breasts. Natasha glanced onto the screen reading through the messages
Denver-C donated $50: stop teasing her fuck her already 
User839236973: bring the guest more often 
"Mommy please" You whined out grinding against the air in desperate to find some kind of friction. "What’s the matter bunny you need to use your big girl words" You huffed throwing your head back as she twisted your already over stimulated nipples. "I- I need you" you whined your hips still buckling as Nat chuckled. "But I’m having so much fun you’re so sensitive" she taunted you "Wanna try making you cum just by your nipples" You shook your head winning in disagreement not expecting Nat to be so cruel. 
"Your viewers are betraying you" she laughed "They all want to see if you can cum from your tits" You were soaked as your juices were sticking to your thighs already. Natasha changed your position laying you down on the soft cushion as she latched on your breasts biting and tugging on them. You started to clench around nothing and your moans grew louder "Mhm mommy- ’m close" She chuckled before biting down again "Does my baby want to cum? Should I let you come" she whispered agist your skin "I think you wear good girl cum for me sweet girl" You didn’t need more to release your climaxing a scream soaking your panties in your cum. 
"Look at that baby, you made a mess all over the sheets" She chuckled hooking her fingers into your panties and pulling them your soft legs. "Such a messy girl" she coo’d against your soft skin. She manhandled you to sit in he lap again showing off your cunt to the camera keeping your legs spread with her her strong hands. "Don’ be shy baby girl show them what you’ve got"
"Natasha please" you pleaded, wanting nothing more then to be filled up by the older woman "What sweetheart, you need to use your words" You whined out, why had she to be so cruel. "I need you, fingers, cock I don’ care I need it now." She laughed at your desperate state "Should I let her have it?" She asked your viewers who are flooding the chat with donations or messages. 
"You got lucky sweetheart your chat is feeling generous" One of Natasha’s fingers trailed down to your gapping hole plugging it. She groans feeling how tight you actually were. You felt even better than she had imagined it. She started to move inside of you the heel of her hand rubbing over you clit. She stroked over your G- spot deciding to add a second finger to prepare you for her cock. 
She moved in and out pushing her fingers repeatedly into your tight heat. You threw your head back on her shoulder whimpering in her ear. "Are you close bunny" She coo’d and you nodded "Cum bunny cum for me" You climaxed over her hands your juices tripping down her hands. She brought up her fingers to your lips. "Open up bunny" Natasha pushed two finger down your throat making your eyes water. 
After she let you lick our own slick off her fingers her removed her hands from her mouth letting you catch your breath. She removed her jeans leaving them to pile at her ankles to tuck her boxers to her mid thigh revealing her lengthy hard on standing proud against her stomach. You were in an awe as you watched her jerk a few timer over her length before looking at you. 
"You can take that right?" You nodded still feeling a bit unsure she was bigger than anything you had taken yet. You strangled her lap Natasha gripping your hip to help you sink down on her cock. You felt a delicious stretch as Natasha bottomed you out. She let you adjust to her grit before you started to roll your hips. "Jus’ like that bunny" She moaned feeling your thighs heat against her shaft. "Good girl" 
She moved her hand from your hip to her to your breast rolling her thumbs over our overstimulated nipples. You had your hands on her shoulders moving your hips up and down moaning in pure lust. You knew she was just as close as you were. She started to thrust up desperate for an release inside of you. The thought of calming you with her seed inside of your womb made her go crazy. 
"Fuck" She panted "I’m gonna fucking cum inside of you, gonna fucking claim they tight littl’ pussy" With a last moan you came with her, your orgasms being triggered by the feeling of her painting your insides white. She had an iron grip on your hips to keep your hips moving to help you through your orgasm. You whimpered in overstimulation as she pulled you from her cocks showing of the mess between your legs. She sound of the donations was annoying her so she decided to hit the stop button taking care of you instead of further entertaining the creeps on the internet. 
"You’re gonna be a str Tasha they are loving you" you said in an awe as you scrolled through the comments of your lifestream. You laid in her arms as she kissed your temple. "I have to say it has a little kick" She smirked "But maybe I’ll Just keep you for myself Now" 
:)
I do not own these characters all rights go to Marvel
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cutielando · 1 month
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mr. and mrs. ~ oscar piastri
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Summary: Wedding of the year is finally here between the two favorite youngsters on the grid. Everyone is invited!
Words: 1.3k+
Other works: my masterlist
♡♡♡♡♡
Oscar and Y/N.
Y/N and Oscar.
Everyone knew them, everyone loved them.
Ever since the young Australian lad had entered the Formula 1 world, Y/N had entered it with him. Always by his side, always attending his races while also attending university.
They had been together for many years, practically having invented the term “highschool sweethearts”. Despite Oscar’s busy schedule and Y/N being at university, they always made it work, never letting the distance affect their relationship.
Moving together to the UK had represented the first sign that they were both in it for the long ride. Packing up their entire lives and moving across the globe to follow their dreams proved that their relationship and the love they had was real.
Real and pure.
When Oscar got the opportunity to drive in Formula 1 and Y/N started her studies, the time they spent together shortened by a significant amount, but they managed to make it work.
They talked on the phone every day, texting when neither of them could speak on the phone, they took every opportunity to visit each other when they had free time, with Y/N visiting Oscar at his races or Oscar coming home when he would have 2 weeks off between races.
They made it work.
But Oscar wasn’t satisfied. He needed something more. He needed something that would put his mind at ease when he would be away.
He needed to officially make you his.
Towards the end of the season, you had a few weeks off uni and decided to join your boyfriend in Qatar for the Grand Prix.
You hadn’t really chosen the best race to attend, the heat and the humidity making it really strenuous on your already tired body. But seeing the smile that Oscar had while doing the grid walk with you by his side made it worth it.
Being there for Oscar’s sprint win had been the highlight of your entire year. Seeing him cross the checkered flag first, seeing his name on that first position on every monitor around the paddock, the feeling was unlike anything you had ever felt before.
Up until the moment Oscar got out of the car.
He made his way over to where you were waiting for him after he celebrated a little with the team, taking off his helmet and balaclava and giving them to one of his assistants.
“How about that?” he asked, chuckling as he pulled you into his arms, careful not to squeeze you too tightly because he was sweaty.
“I’m so fucking proud of you, Os. I can’t believe I was here for your first win” you said, your voice muffled because you had your face buried in the crook of his neck.
“It’s technically not considered a win bec-”
“Shut up and enjoy the moment” you interrupted, making him chuckle and continue hugging you.
As he let go of you, you didn’t notice him reaching for something behind his back, not even his assistant subtly handing him something as he appeared again from the garage. All you could focus on was him, and nothing else around you.
It only really hit you when Oscar lowered himself down on one knee in front of you, a red velvet box in his hand.
“Oh my God” you said, your eyes widening and your hands flying up to your mouth.
All around you, the McLaren team gathered in a circle, phones ready and cameras rolling to catch the sweet moment on camera.
“Y/N, I don’t even know whether words will suffice to say what I want to say right now. You’ve been by my side since we were kids, you moved to the UK with me and left your entire family in Australia just for me, and I can’t even begin to explain how much that meant to me. I can’t imagine my life without you in it, I frankly don’t think I could survive on my own if you weren’t here. I want to grow old with you, I want to have kids with you and build the life we’ve always talked about having. Y/N, will you marry me?” the words got stuck in your throat, so you settled for nodding feverishly.
The entire team around you cheered, but you could only see Oscar. As he got up and slid the ring on your left hand, you threw yourself into his arms and softly cried, the moment far too emotional to be able to hold back.
Your engagement had become national news in a matter of a couple of hours. Every media channel from the world had written about Oscar’s proposal in Qatar, speculating about when the wedding would be and whatnot.
It didn’t even feel like it had really happened when you stared at the ring on your finger, the feeling foreign but so welcome and like it was meant to be.
You and Oscar had multiple talks about when you would get married, where you would have the wedding and many other problems that came with being away from home and everyone’s families.
Which is why you decided to have the wedding back home in Australia.
After the season was finished and the winter break came, you and Oscar had started planning the wedding, which you settled to have after the last race before the summer break. He had already sent invitations out to the rest of the drivers, all of them very eager to attend the young lad’s wedding.
Lando was especially thrilled, but couldn’t help making jokes about how he had never thought Oscar would be the one getting married so young.
“What did you do to him, Y/N? You charmed him pretty damn well” he’d always joke whenever you guys would hang out in the garage before a race.
Yours and Oscar’s mothers took care of most of the things regarding the venue, the flower arrangements and catering, wanting to take the load off of you while you were halfway across the world.
The only thing that you had to worry about was picking your wedding dress and flying over to Australia to get married.
And when the day had finally come, excitement flowed through your veins.
Nicole and Oscar’s sisters had helped do your hair and make-up, your mother only watching as she sobbed quietly in the background.
“Mom, you’re gonna make me cry too if you don’t stop” you told her as you watched her through your mirror, making the other girls laugh.
“I just can’t believe my baby is getting married” she laughed, wiping her tears and walking up to stand behind you.
You smiled and took her hand, mostly to calm your nerves as well.
You were really getting married. And to the love of your life, which was a plus.
After you were prepped and ready to go, your father came to fetch you to walk you down the aisle. Your heart felt like it was going to beat out of your chest as you held his arm tightly and clutched the flower bouquet tightly in your other hand.
But your nerves disappeared like they had never even been there when the doors opened and you locked eyes with Oscar waiting for you at the end of the aisle, Logan beaming behind him as his best man.
The ceremony went by in a blur, the only focus on your part being on Oscar. You only vaguely remembered saying your vows and saying “I do”, your memory only having imprinted the first kiss you two shared as husband and wife.
You were positive that nothing could ever top this moment, getting married with all of your friends and families present, stepping into your new life with Oscar by your side.
Nothing could ever be better.
Nothing could top you becoming Mrs. Piastri.
Being Mr. and Mrs. Piastri.
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comments and re-blogs help us grow!
much appreciated!!
REQUEST HERE
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nereidprinc3ss · 6 months
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omg i'm obsessed with the idea of spencer and a university student and i looooved the one you wrote with reader struggling with finals (i relate so much </3) i'm not sure if you write requests or not (if not, then i'm sorry and please ignore this hahaha) but i would love to see more of their dynamic? maybe spencer for once arrives earlier from a case and goes to pick up reader from university as a surprise? i don't really know but i would love to see more 💗 thank you and i hope you have a good day!
AHHHH omg you have NO IDEA how excited I was to open my inbox and see a request!! i am absolutely obsessed w spencer x uni student too
i kind of took this and ran w it so its a little angsty and random LOLOL but here is (drumroll)
spencer picking up reader after you fail an exam (sorry lol) and you are NOT in a good mood but he loves you so its fine
Tears, partly from the bitter wind and partly from shame, blur your phone screen as you exit the lecture hall. Another missed call from Spencer. It’s the third one today—you've been ignoring them in an attempt to remain focused on the final that you just bombed. Part of you now wants to keep ignoring them out of sheer embarrassment. How can you admit to your super-genius boyfriend that you are a bona fide academic failure? Still, you don’t want him wondering about you while he should be working. Your numb fingers fumble with the phone as you try to call him back without running into anybody on your walk back to student housing. 
It doesn’t reach the second ring before he’s picking up. 
“Hey,” he sighs. “I was starting to worry.” 
“I’m sorry, I’ve been busy,” you exhale, cutting through some trees as you approach your building. “What’s up? How’s the case?” 
“Well... that’s actually what I’ve been calling about. We wrapped up this morning.” 
“What? But last night you said it would be at least three more days.” 
“Rare instance of me being wrong, I guess.” 
“So when are you flying back?” you ask, not wanting to get your hopes up. You know sometimes his team stays behind to help with processing a case. He doesn’t reply for a moment. “Spencer?” 
“I’m... thirteen minutes away from your school. Twelve.” 
Your brain short-circuits as you process his words, the cold metal of the door handle biting into your fingers as you stop dead in your tracks. 
“You--are you driving here right now?” 
“Yes,” he begins, sounding embarrassed, “I kept calling because I wanted to ask first, but I know you had your last final this morning and you were going to come over when I got back anyway so I thought you might want to come stay with me for a few extra days. You can say no, obviously—” 
Some of the icy despair melts in your chest. 
“Of course, I want to.” 
“Good,” he exhales a laugh. “It would have been awkward if you said no. Can you have a bag packed by the time I get there?” 
You’re speedwalking through the lobby now, hitting the up button for the elevator more times than is necessarily effective. 
“Drive faster.” 
“Yes, ma’am.” 
By the time you blindly shove enough clothing in a bag, text your roommate to let her know you’ll be gone for the rest of the week, and make it back outside, Spencer’s familiar vintage car is already pulling up to the curb. He doesn’t even bother cutting the engine—just puts it in park and gets out, rounding the vehicle as you close the distance between one another. His smile is brilliant, and though you don’t feel particularly deserving of it, it’s for you. 
“Hi,” you breathe shakily as he loops his arms around your waist. 
“Hi, pretty,” he says, already leaning down to kiss you. It’s soft and sweet over too quickly, but then he’s gently pulling you into him. You drop your bag and bury your face in his jacket, trying to right yourself before you go into an emotional tailspin. 
As usual, he smells like lavender, clove, resinous amber. It makes your head spin. Right away you feel yourself relaxing; feel your guard slipping, like it always does when he’s around. 
“I missed you.” The words are quiet to begin with, muffled further by the fabric of his coat, but you know he’ll hear you. 
“I missed you too,” he murmurs, stroking your hair. “Everything okay?” 
Why are you always surprised when a man who works for the Behavioral Analysis Unit of the FBI accurately analyzes your behavior? 
“Just tired. Can we go home?” You pull back enough to look up at him, meeting his fond—and just a little concerned—gaze, averting your eyes before he has time to discern your... omission of truth. 
“Yeah, angel. Of course we can.” 
He opens the passenger side door for you, making sure you’re settled before tossing your bag in the back seat and circling around the back of the car. 
“Is that coffee?” You say as soon as he slides into the driver’s seat. His eyes dart down to the tumbler in the center cupholder as he buckles. 
“It’s from the jet. You won’t like it.” 
Despite his warning you reach over to grab it, taking a small sip as he puts the car into gear and pulls out of the parking lot. You make a sour face. Spencer glances over. 
“I told you it was bad.” 
You yawn, putting it back in the cupholder. “It was worth a shot.” 
Jazz music plays quietly from the speakers and the heat is blasting, but you’re too busy mentally rehashing question 37 to find it relaxing. 
“You didn’t get enough sleep last night,” he states. Not a question. Outside, the brick buildings of your campus roll by. You wonder if all the students rushing about on the sidewalks and side streets failed any of their finals.  
“Couldn’t,” you mumble flatly, picking at your nails.  
There’s a moment’s pause, and you’re imagining all the things you could have done differently. You’ve never failed a final before. If you’d just studied a little bit harder—if you’d stayed in instead of going out last weekend, if you weren’t so— 
“I’m going to ask you something, and I don’t think you’re going to like it,” Spencer says. 
“Mhm,” you hum, too afraid to speak because your eyes are already stinging again. Honestly, you’re surprised you made it this far without him getting the truth out of you. He offers his hand across the console as you slink down in your seat, and you take it, allowing him to run his thumb over yours in soothing lines. 
“How do you think your final went?” 
You bite the inside of your cheek, the bare branches of the trees outside blurring as you stare unseeingly. 
“Not good. Like, I definitely failed, not good. I'm an idiot.” 
“You absolutely are not an idiot.” 
“You didn’t see me taking the test, Spencer. I literally just sat there staring at it for ten minutes before I even answered one question. It was pathetic.” 
“Did you sleep at all last night?” 
The question takes you by surprise. Your frown deepens. 
“What? I don’t—that’s not—" 
“Just answer the question. Did you sleep at all last night?” 
“Yes!” 
“Don't lie to me.” 
“Fuck you! I slept for like two hours and had coffee this morning!”  
He squeezes your hand. 
“That’s why you failed.” 
The first tear traces its path down your cheek, composure overwhelmed by the confrontation. 
“I hate when you use your stupid interrogation tactics on me,” you say, voice wobbling. And then the crying begins in earnest. 
“I know, baby.” 
His hand moves to rub your back when you let go to cover your face. Torrential evidence of your frustration and utter exhaustion well over, slipping through your fingers despite your best efforts to stop them from coming at all. Having an emotional breakdown in the passenger seat of his car is far from how you’d wanted to greet Spencer’s surprise arrival, but you’re too worn out to mask your emotions—especially when he is so adept at drawing them to the surface. 
A moment passes like that before you take a shuddering breath, raising your head slightly and wiping your cheeks with your sleeves in vain. 
“I should have been able to do it. I just—it was like I was reading the questions and I knew that I should know the answers, but I couldn’t remember anything.” 
“You’re exhausted. Sleep deprivation has an immediate, devastating effect on cognitive functioning levels. My recall and processing speed start to fail when I’m tired, too. It has nothing to do with how smart you are.” 
It makes sense—but it doesn’t make you feel much better. You wanted to ace this exam. Of course, Spencer wouldn’t understand because school was as easy as breathing for him. He barely had to try to get three doctorates. It’s possible, you suppose, that dating a genius has put an academic chip on your shoulder—maybe you’ve set impossibly high standards for yourself.  
After a few minutes the crying finally ebbs, if only because you’re running into supply and demand problems with your tear ducts. You rub your weepy eyes on your shoulder, leaning against the cold window and watching DC go by. 
“You know, the final isn’t as important as you think it is. You’ll still pass the class.” 
“It’s symbolic,” you mumble, breath fogging up the glass. Spencer hums, still rubbing your back. 
“I know. I know it matters to you, but I don’t want you to think one bad grade is a reflection of who you are. Do you understand why it doesn’t make sense to measure something as abstract as intelligence by a metric as one dimensional as a standardized test?” 
“Yes.” 
“Good.” 
You shift in your seat, wiping your face with your sleeve and prompting Spencer to take your other hand once more. 
“Can your FBI friend hack the university database and give me an A?” you ask after a moment, sniffling. 
“Absolutely not.” 
“Pretty please?” 
“Nope.” 
“It’s like you don’t even love me,” you mutter, angling yourself away from him.  
He pulls your hand toward him and presses a kiss to the back of it. 
“I love you so much that I don’t want you to get expelled for academic dishonesty.” 
“It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ll probably just drop out.” 
You both know you’re just being overdramatic, but Spencer has a tendency to be sweet even when you don’t deserve it. 
“I’ll love you no matter what you do.” 
You blush, unable to come up with a sufficient reply. His eyes slide to you briefly and he smirks, clearly enjoying his ability to fluster you, and by extension, get you to shut up. 
“Eyes on the road, genius,” you grumble. But for the first time today you’re fighting a smile instead of tears. 
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gay-dorito-dust · 8 days
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hi hiii its my first time ever asking anyone idk how this works ( ;`Д´)
i rlly love your writing, i often find myself staying up late reading through your blogs!! funny bcs u were the one who got me into jason todd (ФωФ)
anyways!!! i was hoping you could pls pls pls pls plssssss write smth about Jason Todd who has a lover thats a sleep-deprived uni student having a hell week and jason is like "bitch put google docs down and get some sleep, ur ass has been awake for 48 hours" all worried and wanting them to rest and reader is like "correction, 50 hours."
i hope it makes sense (´ 3`)
tyyyyy!!! woopee woopee
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Sorry this took so long to get to anon, I hope you liked it either way. And don’t stay up too late reading fics but I truly appreciate you reading my stuff, I’m glad you like them 🦦🐿️
A week.
An entire week Jason had noticed you have been forcing yourself to stay up at the dead of night, glued to your laptop all the while chugging energy drinks and cups of coffee as though they were going out of style, and for what? An assignment that determined your future at uni should you not get straight marks.
Jason thought it ridiculous that you made yourself sleep deprived over this but he knew that if he didn’t do anything about it, then you’ll continue this habit until you were well out of university, struggling to come to terms that you had well and truly burnt yourself out before you could properly start living.
So when Jason couldn’t fell you next to him in bed one night, like you promised him you would, and groaned as he got himself out of bed before making his way towards the kitchen where he’d knew you’d be.
‘What time do you call this?’ Jason asked when he saw you in your usual spot at the kitchen counter, hunched over your laptop with a thin blanket frapped over your shoulders and a can of energy drink on one side of the laptop and a cup of coffee on the other side. He hated what this stupid university has made you do just in order to get good grades, it was harmful, damaging and it would inevitably lead to health complications later on in life; If he could Jason would more then gladly march down there and threaten the professors to stop shoving a boatload of work onto their students, but firstly he has to get you away from that damn laptop and learn how to take a fucking break.
‘Mid-afternoon?’ You asked, not looking up from the bright screen of your laptop, where the words scrawled across it in an incoherent mess for your overworked brain to comprehend.
‘It’s actually 3:30 in the morning.’ Jason replied unamused as he crossed his arms over his chest and you winced when you saw that he was indeed right about it being three thirty in the morning. ‘Don’t you think it’s time that you shut the laptop off and get some sleep?’
‘But I-‘
‘Actually sleep.’ Jason cuts you off as you slumped back into your chair, unable to come up with a decent enough response to defend yourself with because deep down you knew Jason was right, you’ve hadn’t had a decent sleep in a long while and it was definitely taking it’s toll with how lightheaded you’ve become as of late.
You sighed and ran your hands down your face. ‘Jason I can’t, I’ve got-‘
‘An assignment to complete for tomorrow I know.’ Jason cuts you off again as he crossed the room to put his hand over the top of your coffee cup upon noticing that you were intending to take another drink from it. ‘But I look at you and can tell you can barely keep your eyes open for more than five minutes.’ He adds and upon your silence, he puts the cup aside as far as he could before doing the same with the half empty energy drink, and then finally shutting the laptop close despite your weak protests for him not to.
‘No, Jason my assignment, I need to finish it.’ You told him with slow, sluggish movements as you tried to pry his hand off of your laptop, all the while biting back a yawn. ‘Just give me five more minutes please and I’ll come to bed, promise.’
Jason had enough of this habit of sleepless nights, it ends now, the professors will have to understand and extend the due date for your sake as he remembered how often you had harped on about how important this assignment was for your overall grade; However Jason didn’t take neglecting your bodily needs lightly and would prioritise that over anything else,you could hate him all you wanted but he was only looking out for you and your wellbeing.
‘Sorry chipmunk but I can’t watch you do this to yourself for any longer than I already have.’ Was all Jason said as he then lifted you out of your chair suddenly causing you to yelp in surprise and cling onto him for dear life, now being more awake then you ever have been five minutes ago, as he then proceeded to carry you back towards the bedroom before unceremoniously dropping you onto the bed.
‘Jason, I seriously needed to get that assignment-‘
‘We are going to sleep, end of discussion.’ Jason said with finality as he crawled under the covers and quickly held you against his chest as tightly as he could, rubbing his hands up and down your back soothingly. ‘I know how important this assignment was for you sweetheart but I’d much rather have you well rested, clear minded and healthy than to ever to have you pass out in my arms from exhaustion. I want my baby happy and healthy and you are neither of those things right now.’ Jason whispers into your ear, kissing the side of your head a couple of times before resting his forehead against yours so that he was looking into your weary half lidded eyes.
‘Look at you, you can barely keep your eyes open.’ He spoke with worry laced in his words.
‘You’re really warm and comfy jay birdie.’ You murmured, feeling the need for sleep grow ever stronger the longer you stayed in his arms as it fogged your mind.
‘I know, so please we can talk to the professor in the morning and sort something out, but until then no more late nights understand?’ Jason said firmly as he held you a little tighter, he just wanted you to get a decent nights sleep and be looked after properly but all these late nights weren’t cutting it and were making your situation worse, how were you meant to get anything done when you were half out of it due to overworking and lack of a sleep schedule? Were the professors at your university thinking they were teaching robots instead of humans with breaking limits?
‘Okay I understand, I love you.’ You replied sleepily as you burrowed your head into his neck, falling asleep in record time as Jason stayed awake a little longer as to make sure you were properly asleep before following suit, watching over you in the dream realm as he did the waking one.
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badgerbl00d · 8 months
Text
first dates with the one piece boys
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☆ characters: shanks, crocodile
☆ up next: taking an aphrodisiac w/ one piece boys ft. ace, kidd, and law
☆ summary: first dates with shanks and crocodile, crocodile is kind of as asshole but he's whipped so like it's cute..., suggestive content
☆ a/n: i'm back! i'll try to post something else this week but uni is kicking my ass :p requests are open!
☆ 18+, mdni
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shanks:
“Ready, sweetheart?”
You blushed, nodding as you tried to ignore the cheers and whoops that erupted from the rest of the crew on board.
Shanks shot a look over his shoulder and you were rewarded with immediate silence. 
He placed a hand on the small of your back and gently guided you alongside him onto the island. 
“Use protection!” someone called out. Definitely Yasopp. 
“Ignore ‘em,” Shanks said. 
“So you don’t wanna use protection?”
Shanks shot you a look, surprised at your quip, “No! Yes! I mean- well, no… We don’t have to y’know- Whatever you want to do ....”
“Very smooth, Captain.” 
He laughed, bringing you toward him, and placed a rough kiss on the top of your head. 
“Ya make me nervous, what can I say?”
Your chest contracted at this confession. You felt an embarrassing amount of pride watching him rendered so uncharacteristically bashful from your words. 
You slipped your hand into his, giving him a soft squeeze, “Just cause this is a date doesn’t mean anything changes between us.”
“Well, we might kiss. And according to you we might fu-”
“Shanks.”
He laughed, louder this time, “Sorry, sorry. I think you’ll like where I’m taking you.” 
There was a cool breeze making its way over both of you, giving you temporary reprieve from the summertime warmth the city was buzzing with. Overgrown trees and flower bushes poured into the lamp-lit streets. 
You talked with each other, never a dull moment between the two of you, as you walked toward wherever Shanks was planning on taking you. 
By the time you stopped walking, you’d made it to a much more empty part of town.
Shanks pointed to a sign on the corner, ‘Happy Hour 8 p.m. - 10 p.m.’
“A bar,” you mused, playfully rolling your eyes at him, “How surprising.”
He smiled and tugged at the strap of your dress, “Tsk, tsk. So impatient.”
He led you into the dinghy building, the wooden door damaged from what you imagined was years of drunk patrons spilling their drinks over themselves and their surroundings.  The inside was dusty and it looked as though no one had used it for years. 
“Your usual, honey?” Shanks asked, approaching the bar. 
“Please.” 
He smiled at you, “Yes, captain.”
God, he was handsome.
You watched Shanks ordering your drinks from where you stood, looking at his face through the mirror behind the bartender. You pressed your thighs together as a familiar pulsing sensation began coursing through your lower half. You accepted long before this date that it was beyond your control- he was just so handsome. He ran a hand through his hair, winking at you in the mirror. You blew him a kiss and though you couldn’t be sure in the dim light a pale blush seemed to spread over his features. 
“One martini please, with three olives. And a Gin and Glamour.” 
You shot him a look, Gin? You?
“Follow me this way,” the bartender said. 
A smirk settled onto your captain’s face and he beckoned you toward him. 
The bartender opened a tall door that seemed to lead to darkness. 
“Enjoy,” he said. Curiosity had completely taken over and you led the way through the dark hallway, the faint sound of a bass being plucked echoing through, until you reached the end which was covered with a thick velvet curtain. 
You pushed through, Shanks’ hand once again finding itself on your back, though much lower this time. 
Soft, warm light lit up the room. Your eyes immediately jumped to the jazz band in the center illuminated by a red light. “… and in July, a lemonade, to cool you…,” the singer was halfway through "I Wish You Love". There were booths stationed around, with dark mahogany tables and wine-red velvet couches. Several other couples were spread through the bar, the soft buzz of background conversation filling the room. 
“Shanks,” you gasped. 
“You didn’t really think I’d take you to a shitty bar for our first date did ‘ja?” 
“I’m going to choose not to answer,” you smiled, taking his hand in yours. For a split second your attention was taken away from the room you were in and you could only focus on the feeling of your hand in his- his strength apparent even without him trying. 
“Must suck having to be the guy up front, huh?” 
You giggled and pulled him toward an empty booth with a good view of the band, “I’ll say. Though I would like that martini.”
“How ‘bout you go sit and I’ll grab it for you, sweetheart,” he said, gently patting your ass as you turned. 
With your drinks in hand, Shanks sat next to you, pulling you in closer to him. “Looks like we’re the only new couple in here,” he whispered in your ear, gesturing over toward a couple in the middle of a heated makeout session. You smiled at him, your eyes glimmering with mischief, “Hm, wanna try blending in?”
Shanks smiled, catching on to your request. You sipped your martini and bit an olive off of the toothpick that rested in the glass. 
“We’ve kissed before, y’know.”
“We have!? I think I’d remember if we had,” he returned. 
“No, no, we did,” you said, and he gave you a look that begged you to elaborate, “It was a few months back- when we did that stupid drinking contest. We were both pretty drunk, but I’d drank a lot less than you. Anyways, um, everyone had gone to bed or, I dunno, gone to find something else to do and we were left alone on deck. Unsupervised.” 
You wiggled your eyebrows at him earning a laugh. 
“I don’t remember it well, but I remember we laughed after. A lot.”
Shanks was smiling, resting his head on his hand as he gazed up on you. You averted your gaze. 
He moved quickly and by the time you realized what was happening you were already sinking into the kiss, bringing a hand up to grab the collar of his shirt, anything to stabilize yourself. 
Your heart was crawling up your throat, Shanks’ eyes were closed tight and he was clearly trying to savor every moment of the indulgent feeling of your lips against his. It warmed your heart that a man so feared on the open sea was reduced to a gentle, eager mess the moment he kissed you. 
You leaned further into him and his arms wrapped around your waist, his hands palming at your hips. His facial hair tickled and poked your face earning a head-spinning giggle from you. Shanks pulled away, his breaths short and 
“I want to tell you how long I’ve been wanting to do that but apparently this isn’t my first time kissing you,” he said, pressing a kiss to your forehead. 
The jazz band had started a new tune, longer notes and the steady strum of the bass playing a rendition of Waltz for Debby,  further amplifying the intimacy between the two of you. 
“Hopefully you remember this one,” you said smirking at him, “Or do you need a more memorable one?”
“Are you asking to kiss me again? Or do you just want confirmation that you’re a good kisser?”
“I am a good kisser. Better than you, anyway.”
“HA! You don’t even come close!”
“So arrogant, Captain. But I’d love to prove you wrong,” you took another sip of your drink. 
Pinching his cheeks between your fingers you pulled him toward you, this time savoring how he tasted. The bitterness of the whiskey on his lips coated your mouth as you slipped your tongue past his. Shanks’ breathing deepened and his fingertips sunk further into your hips- you could feel where you’d find bruises tomorrow morning. You brought a hand up to softly hold his throat and he moaned-
Oh god, he moaned! 
You pulled away pupils blown and lips puffy. 
Shanks’ cheeks were deep red, a sight that had your ego swelling. 
“You know,” he started, breathless, “I think you may be right.”
You smiled and finished the rest of your drink, “Need more evidence?”
He smiled and pressed a kiss to your forehead, running a hand through your hair.
“As a matter of fact, Y/n, I do.”
It was late when you finally found your way back to the ship. Shanks’ face was covered in red blotches of your smeared lipstick and your lips were equally messy. Your dress strap was falling off of your shoulder and Shanks’ shirt was plenty unbuttoned. 
“Well,” he said, placing a kiss on the back of your hand, “Now you get to choose.”
You raised an eyebrow.
“My bed or yours?”
You laughed and wrapped your hands around his neck to bring him down for another kiss. 
“Yours.”
(whipped!)Crocodile:
“You owe me money, Croc.”
“Let me take you to dinner.” 
He reached for your hand, which you let him take. 
He pressed his lips to it and started to trail kisses up your arm until you stopped him by pushing him off you and taking a seat on his lap. 
“If I go to dinner with you will you give me my money?”
“You’ll get it either way, sweetheart. A job well done is a job well done. I just want to take you out.”
Liar, you thought. 
But still, you took a second to think about it, letting him wrap his arms around your waist and rest his head on your shoulder, kissing your collarbone. 
You were intoxicating to him, completely overwhelming all of his senses. He knew how unprofessional it was to involve himself with the assassins for hire he dealt with but this was now his eighth time working with you and though you always did a fantastic and clean job, the quality of your work wasn’t really the reason he was hiring you anymore. 
“Where would you take me?”
“Desert Point. Or anywhere you wanted, really. I’ll cook for you if you’d like.”
You shifted in his lap, letting your thighs straddle his hips, and looked up at him. 
He pulled out a cigar from his breast-pocket, which you quickly snatched from his hand, “I hate the smell.”
He put a hand up in surrender and placed the cigar back in his pocket. 
Your eyes were focused on him, looking at his lips and trailing a finger up his neck. Your lips pouted as you considered his offer and the smell of your perfume filling every nook and cranny of his office and still, it wasn’t enough for him. He wanted all of you. 
The two of you had, of course, had a handsy encounter or two and you were more than familiar with how he tasted after a long night of office work and whiskey. But, greedy and selfish as ever, the warlord wanted more. He wanted you. In the mornings in his bed, and at night by his side. 
“Alright. You can cook for me, I suppose.” 
He smiled, not even trying to fight the rare display of happiness. 
“Any requests?”
You got up from his lap, batting away his hands which tried to grab you and hold you. 
“Don’t burn anything. I’ll bring a bottle of that whiskey you like,” you said heading open the door to his office, “Tomorrow night at 7.” 
Crocodile leaned back in his chair, savoring the lingering smell of you that had been making it difficult to concentrate for the past week, and waited until the click on your heels was far enough away to call Miss All Sunday and ask that she, “Please cancel all my appointments tomorrow.”
You knew Crocodile’s apartment well, having paid a few unknown visits and a few known ones. The last time you visited was after Crocodile had begged you to stop by for a glass of wine. You ended up drinking closer to five and neither of you could remember anything the morning after. You did, however, take note of the safe in his office where, if Baroque Works intel was anything to go off of, he kept the cash he used to pay black market hires such as yourself. Tonight would be a perfect opportunity to get your money, which you suspected he had no real intention of giving you. 
Dinner had gone well and you found yourself in his office, lounging on his couch. 
A jazz record played softly in the background and you’d both taken off a few layers of clothing. The only lighting was provided by a few candles he’d lit and you sat facing each other, each several glasses of wine in. 
“Stay here for a while,” he said, softly rubbing up and down your leg which you had draped over his lap, “With me.”
“I have work, Croc.”
“I’ll hire you, full-time.”
“No offense to your…. staff, but their work is a bit beneath me.” He laughed, “Then I’ll fund your stay here. You won’t pay for anything.”
This interested you. Staying a week in the nicest apartment on the continent with Crocodile wasn’t such a terrible deal. You swished your wine around in your cup.
“Will you cook?”
“For you? Of course.”
You stared at him and pretended to pass the thought over as he kissed your neck and palmed at your ass.
“Give me a chance to convince you to stay.”
“How do you plan on doing that?”
A smirk settled on his face and he pulled you in for a kiss. 
You indulged him and deepened the kiss, letting your tongue slip past his lips. 
You giggled and sunk into his hold on you, his big hands holding you steady.
“I’ll stay, I’ll stay,” you buried your face into his chest, trying to fight the warmth in your cheeks.
The warlord squeezed you even tighter, earning a bout of laughter from you that placed a smile on his face. 
“This is bad for your image you know. You’re getting soft,” you mused, pressing a kiss to his lips. 
“I promise you I am anything but soft right now.”
“Ha. Ha.”
He wrapped a hand up into your hair, gently pulling back at the base of your neck so he had full access to your neck, and sunk his teeth in biting gently so as not to draw blood but not gently enough to avoid leaving a mark. 
Your back arched into him and you mewled at the feeling, your nails digging into his shoulder. 
He brought your head back up and kissed you.
You brought your hands up to his collar and began undoing his tie, leaving it hanging on his shoulders. 
Slowly and without interrupting the kiss, you began undoing the buttons on his shirt. Crocodile leaned back into the couch to make your job easier and began undoing his belt, which you took from him. 
Crocodile went to bring his hands back up to your neck but- they didn’t move.
He looked down and his belt was fastened around his wrists. He tried to tear it but you’d done a damn good job and he was rendered rather helpless.
You got up and, after placing a soft kiss on his forehead, made your way to the safe behind the painting on the wall. 
“You said you’d stay!”
Not that it was much of a problem for him but Crocodile preferred when things went over smoothly. 
“Did I? Hmmm,” you said, ear to the safe as you turned the dial listening for the telltale click that let you know you unlocked it, “I lied.”
Click! 
“And if I make you stay? This makeshift restraint isn’t sea prism stone.”
You laughed and turned to look at him. 
“Go ahead.”
He scoffed. You both knew well you were the last person on earth he’d ever harm. 
“I’m gonna take my money and then some as a tip, alright? I will miss you though,” you said, making sure his arms were still tied in his lap. 
He couldn’t help but smile as you turned back around to the very empty safe. 
Your stomach dropped. 
“Where is the money-” 
“Like I’d keep it here, sweetheart. Especially not with you coming over.”
“You’re a thief. And a dirty one at that.”
“I’d take more offense if it wasn’t coming from you.”
You huffed and turned to his desk where you were quickly opening and closing drawers looking for where he’d moved the money. 
“Come and finish your wine, Y/n.”
“It isn’t here, is it? You’re a liar and a thief,”
He stayed silent and gestured toward your spot on the couch, a satisfied smirk settled on his infuriatingly handsome face. 
“Crocodile…” you warned, “I think you know better than to not pay me.”
He smiled, as though daring you to continue. Or what? the expression on his face begged. 
“Stay the week with me,” he said as you approached, “Please.”
You took your seat next to him and looking down at his hands noted the very significant absence of a belt tied around them. Your heartbeat picked up as he used a hand to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear.  
“You’re good, sweetness, but I’m better.”
You sighed and let him kiss you, reluctantly leaning into his touch. 
“You’ll stay the week.”
You nodded and were upset at yourself for feeling excited at the thought. You felt like a schoolgirl holding her crush’s hand. 
“Shall we go to bed then?”
He smiled and picked you up princess-style, one arm around your waist and one under your knees.
You wrapped your arms around his neck and pressed a kiss on his cheek, “If you keep this game going you’ll end up having to marry me, you know.”
He smiled, his most sincere smile of the night. 
“Ah, wouldn’t that be terrible?” 
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luxeslore · 4 months
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MY GIRL | FELIX CATTON
(🗒️ ᝰ.ᐟ♥︎) 𝒩𝒪𝒯𝐸𝒮 — this came to me in a vision; brainrot about how felix’s savior complex and daddy kink more or less go hand in hand. and just how much he loves you.
WORD COUNT… 1k WARNINGS… 18+ CONTENT, MDNI. f!reader, mentions of nausea + throw up, crying, pet names, daddy kink.
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Ever since you met Felix, he’s wanted to take care of you. 
At first it was insulting. He was born into wealth and class, and you weren’t necessarily dealt that hand despite ending up at the same university. You’re not jaded— you come from two different worlds that don’t mesh. Two different backgrounds and your’s happens to be far more tragic. Poetic even, given how far you’ve come. Naturally you assumed he was only trying to get some good guy points by helping you out. Giving you a peek into what it’s like to be in a social circle filled with young adults that vacation in Portofino and have money wired to them every week. 
It took months of warming up to him. Looking back on it, it seems you went from scowling up at him in the middle of conversations to finding his hand in crowded areas before you could blink, with so many fleeting moments of thinking you may throw up on your maryjanes in between. Because surely Felix Catton couldn’t have swept you off your feet so easily. But he did. Lifted you up and kissed your round cheeks in the process, too. 
“I want to take you away while we’re on break,” he says it like it’s so simple, over lunch in your tiny apartment.
“Take me away?” Even you would admit you’re being a bit daft, but it’s fine. 
“Yeah, like… Italy or Greece, wherever you fancy really.”
Oh. There’s that throw up feeling again, mostly due to how casual he is about it. You couldn’t impose like that. Drinking champagne and eating caviar on your uni boyfriend’s private jet— who do you think you are? Not your father’s daughter, that’s for damn sure. However you’re boarding that same jet a week later. Your heart is pounding, hands clammy as you hand off your luggage. At least Felix seems to be having a good day. He helps himself to the complimentary snacks; you can’t even stomach an apple from the fruit bowl. 
And as if on cue, he senses your now visible uneasiness. It’s only the two of you in the cabin of the jet. Beige walls and deep brown, leather seats… throw pillows to give a homey feel, or to give your shaky hands something to grip onto.
Felix reaches out, and his long fingers find your own in seconds, holding them so gently that you remember why you fell for him all over again— “You alright?” 
No. You nod in the opposite direction, regardless. Now finding it in yourself to fake a smile, snuggle close to him and give a big smooch that quells his worries but makes your own grow. It’s childish, you know that. Just say what’s fucking wrong with you. Say that you don’t feel like you belong in this scenery. Go on. Nothing of the sort falls off of your tongue out of your fear of being the bratty, ungrateful girlfriend. And it’s not until long after you two make it to the villa that you’re finally sniffling and sobbing into Felix's shirt. The thin cotton is see through thanks to your tears and drool. 
“I’m so sorry,” you blubber through swollen lips, “This is s’fucking stupid.” 
You two should be going out right about now, but you can’t find it in you to even put on some lip balm through the tears. Let alone slip on a party dress. Felix only holds you tighter. One of his big hands rubs the middle of your back soothingly while he shushes you— “Oh, sweet girl. Don’t be silly, yeah?”
The sniffle he gets in response is expected. 
“Jus’ wish you told me how you’re feeling sooner, little one.” 
You and him both. 
Felix takes your wet face in his hands, cradling your cheeks with the same amount of love he always does. Nothing has changed. Nothing ever will. Especially when you look up at him with those glossy eyes and thick lashes— how precious. Your smaller hands wrap around his wrists whilst he forces you not to shy away from him. 
“Y’know you’re my girl, right?” He starts, leaning in and whispering to you oh-so softly, “Don’t care ‘bout things like that. Just want your pretty self right next to me.” 
You nod, and this time you mean it. Felix kisses your forehead. Then the tip of your nose. Then your lips. Slow and delicate as if you’ll break if he goes too hard on you. At this point, you think you might too. He pulls away, cracks a smile that makes your heart do a little flip and brushes his thumbs under your eyes, collecting the last of your fat tears. He recognizes that dreamy look on your face. Like you’ve been fully pacified, like you feel as safe as you possibly can be. 
“There’s daddy’s girl.” 
He knows just when to get you. Knows to attack when you’re all dizzy and sensitive from crying. Knows that you can’t resist him slowly but surely laying you down, shushing your little sniffles with kisses. More passionate ones, too. The kind that have you gripping at his shirt.
God, that button down is going through it tonight.
You really are a daddy’s girl, now. You’re being taken on expensive getaways, coddled whenever ‘n wherever you need it and now layed to rest on silky sheets. You’re fully his in every sense, and as much as it scares you, the pride in your chest overflows— “I love you, daddy.” 
Both of you stop breathing for a moment, staring at each other with wide eyes before you’re wrapped up in a sloppy kiss. You whine into his mouth, and Felix decides it’s the perfect time to bunch your sundress up, squeezing your waist while he’s at it. He hovers over you, covering your neck and chest with smooches and brushes of his teeth until he drags his lips over your tummy and reaches the waistband of your panties.
You’re already out of breath. Huffing and puffing while he nips at the little bow on your panties, cocoa irises meeting your gaze to let you know you’re in for it… Not the worst way to spend your first night vacay, you suppose.
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pnsteblnme · 2 days
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final(s) week ✿ a.r.
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pairing: alessia russo x fem!reader
summary: even though you're insufferable, your girlfriend helps you get through finals week (this one is for everyone who’s getting their asses kicked by their exams cause like same <3 but i’m crossing my fingers for you!!)
warnings: school, swearing, stress?, a bit angsty maybe, very self-indulgent :)
word count: 2.5k
a/n: first of all, i'm very sorry for disappearing from writing for like almost a year 🥹 i had my finals and barely had time to eat, let alone write but i only have one more to go so i hope i’ll get to write more in the future! i also have a few requests in my inbox that i’ll try to work on (sorry that you guys have to wait this long) and lastly, i don’t know anything about studying architecture so idk if the things happening here are even remotely close to the truth 😜
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“Fuck!”
A few sets of eyes turned at your exclamation as you bent down to pick up the things you’d knocked over during your side squats. 
Across the room, Alessia watched with a sympathetic look as you shook your head and grumbled in annoyance. She knew that you’d been stressed out because of your upcoming finals and was almost used to seeing you in a bad mood. 
Of course, she understood that majoring in Architecture while pursuing a career as a professional athlete was challenging. What she hadn’t expected was for you to almost crumble in on yourself. 
The closer the deadlines came, the less you smiled. When the team had bonding night, you stayed home and worked on your project. When Alessia came home from said nights (she only went because you insisted she go), you were still working and would continue to until you were on the brink of falling asleep. 
The agitated frown on your face became a constant. With the end of training, you’d hurry home and dash into your study, only coming out to have a rushed dinner with your girlfriend. 
The bags under your eyes turned shades the night sky was jealous of. Every time Alessia tried to coax you into doing something to take your mind off of things, you insisted that you couldn’t waste time that was better spent on your project. 
So, most nights the blonde lay in your shared bed, worried frown etched onto her face as she prayed that you wouldn’t overwork yourself. Reaching out her fingers, she felt like there was more than distance between you.
Sure, she could feel you twisting and turning on the other side of the bed but you weren’t there, at least not really. Your mind has been all over the place, constantly jumping from task to task, and you two hadn’t had a real conversation in weeks. 
A nudge on Alessia’s arm broke her out of her thoughts as Leah raised an eyebrow, “What’s got her knickers in a twist?” 
Letting out a concerned sigh, the striker opened her mouth to answer, eyes still focused on you across the room, when an Irish accent filled the air. 
“Yeah, Less, ye not treating the missus right?” Katie teased as she ruffled Alessia’s hair, who rolled her eyes and shrugged the smaller woman off. 
Finally tearing her gaze away from you, the blonde turned towards the two, “I’m really worried about her,” she breathed out, fiddling with her fingers. 
Leah smacked the back of Katie’s head when she noticed that this was troubling Alessia. “What’s going on?” the blonde questioned in a softer voice.
Sighing Alessia’s eyes travelled back towards you, “It’s finals week in her uni and she’s been working like a dog, day and night, spending every last minute either here or trying to finish her projects. She refuses to believe it but it’s been taking a huge toll on her and I just don’t know how to help.”
Leah and Katie shared a look as they watched the striker’s shoulders drop. They had noticed you gradually pulling away from the team, never joining them on nights out with the excuse of having to do things for school. Initially, everyone believed that you just didn’t fancy the idea of socialising, knowing that you were a rather introverted person. 
“I don’t think there’s much you can do except be there for her and make sure that she takes care of herself. Or take care of her yourself when she doesn’t,” the blonde advised as she placed a gentle hand on Alessia’s shoulder. 
Katie nodded, “Yeah, maybe you can distract her a bit.” She nudged your girlfriend’s side with a wink, adding in a whisper, “If ya know what I mean.”
Alessia rolled her eyes, threw her head back with a groan and stormed off, not before calling out a ‘You’re unbelievable!’ at the two women who were left cackling. 
At the end of the day, everyone found themselves in the changing room, packing their things and getting ready to go home, before meeting at Beth and Viv’s for game night. So, even though all of the girls were exhausted, elated chatter bounced off the walls as the anticipation of an evening full of competitiveness grew. 
You had just finished showering and started throwing your things into your bag when a body collided with your back, arms being wrapped around your neck and legs trapping your waist. Your breath got caught in your throat before you realised that only one person would do this.
“Kyra!” you exclaimed in an agitated tone as your eyebrows furrowed and you tried to pry her off of you. 
The mischievous laughter in your ear only irritated you further, proving to be an obstacle in your plans to get home as soon as possible to be able to work on your projects. “You wanna be partners later? We’ll destroy everyone,” the Australian grinned as she rocked back and forth. 
“I’m not coming,” you huffed out as you still struggled to get her off your back, “Now get off, Kyra!” You loved that girl from the bottom of your heart but your bad mood was starting to worsen with every second that passed and you had to do everything in your power not to snap at her. 
“What?” she asked, slowly sliding down to stand on the ground and turning to face you, “But we’re the Beyond Lunacy Buddies!” the brunette said, holding your shoulders and shaking your body. “And you already missed the last one,” pouted Kyra.
Your knuckles turned white with the way you were clenching your hands, “Not everyone can sit on their ass and play games the whole day,” you scoffed, ripping yourself out of her grip and zipping your bag. You knew it was wrong of you to lash out at her like that but at that moment everything you could think about was how this interaction was wasting time you didn’t have. 
The strict schedule you’d designed barely left you room to breathe and you were determined to follow it down to a T so that you’d get good grades. You didn’t even know why you were so desperate to excel in every task you got, still having your career as a footballer if you didn’t graduate with flying colours. Maybe it was for the slim chance that your parents finally said they were proud of you. Maybe it was to prove your classmates wrong, although they always had something to say, no matter what you did. Maybe it was to prove to yourself that you weren’t a failure. The reason didn’t matter in the end because you were intent on finishing the things you started. 
“Geez, don't be such a gloomy Gus,” Kyra’s voice snapped you out of your thoughts as you quickly grabbed your things and hurried to your car before you had time to regret your words. 
Worried eyes followed your disappearing form as everyone wondered what happened to your usually kind and bubbly self. 
Slamming the door shut and dropping your bags next to the shoe rack, you grabbed your headphones from the kitchen counter and made your way into your study, closing the door behind you. You turned on noise cancellation and clicked play on your favourite playlist as you began ruffling through all the sheets spread across the desk. 
The ideas for the model house and the concept of the mall had been ready a long time ago but the realisation of those ideas wasn’t as easy. Already having done the foundation of the house and more than half of the drawings for the mall, a good portion of the task was done but that didn’t make it any less draining. 
You didn’t know how many hours had passed as your headphones died and you were finishing one of the last blueprints while you held a wall of the model, waiting for the glue to dry. When your pencil accidentally rolled under the table, you carefully let go of the wall before you leaned down to pick it up. 
After grabbing it, you lean back up. A loud bang fills the air as you bump your head against the table. You rub the back of your head with a wince when the sound of a slight crack follows. 
“No, no, no,” you whisper, quickly sitting up and seeing exactly what you were afraid of. The wall you’d been holding came crashing down. Leaning back a bit to check if anything else was damaged, you noticed that in your hurry to sit up, you’d creased a few blueprints on your desk. 
The pencil you just picked up was flung across the room as your vision blurred. You could hear your heartbeat thumping in your ears, your hands started shaking, and your breathing picked up. 
Shaky hands smacked your forehead while tears were making their way down your cheeks. “You’re so fucking stupid,” you grumbled with a trembling voice, each word accompanied by another smack to your head. 
“I can’t do this anymore,” you muttered, hands now tangled in your hair in frustration as you felt a sob bubbling up your chest, opening your mouth to gasp for air as it felt like your throat was closing up.  
Gentle hands grabbed your wrists and intertwined with your fingers. “Hey, it’s okay,” whispered Alessia with a soothing voice as she squeezed your hands. 
So absorbed in your frustrations, you hadn’t even noticed that your girlfriend was already home. As soon as you saw her standing next to you though, you felt like you could breathe again. Her mere presence calmed you down drastically. 
You slowly raised your head to look at the blonde and when she saw your tear-stained cheeks, she immediately pulled you up from your chair and into a tight hug. Even more tears trickled down your face as you were engulfed in Alessia’s perfume and the overwhelming warmth that came with her hugs. 
Sobs racked through your whole body and you clenched your fists into the back of the blonde’s t-shirt, hiding your head in her chest. One of the striker’s hands rubbed slow circles onto your back as the other held your head against her and gently scratched your scalp. 
When your sobs calmed down a bit and with your head still buried in the crook of your girlfriend’s neck (because you knew that you wouldn’t be able to string together a coherent sentence if you looked at her), you mumbled with a weak voice, “I- It’s just all too much. I actually thought I could do this, you know. ‘Cause how hard can it be to go to training for a few hours and then build some stupid house and make a few drawings?”
Once the dam broke, the words tumbled from your mouth like an avalanche, “Turns out, if you’re as incompetent as I am, it’s too fucking hard. And I know there are thousands of people out there who have it so much worse than I do so I shouldn’t be whining like this but I just feel like I’m drowning and I don’t know what to do,” you confessed before taking a deep breath. 
You slowly loosened your grip on Alessia’s shirt and started pulling away as you whispered with your head hung, “Sorry, I’m just dumping all of this on you, it’s not that big of a deal.” You took another step back, wiping away your tears and clearing your throat, “So, how was game night?”
Before you could put more distance between you, soft hands grabbed your cheeks and pulled you close again, “Stop invalidating your feelings!” You drowned in ocean-blue eyes as Alessia reassured, “It is a big deal and I want you to dump everything on me so we can work through it together.”
Her thumbs grazed your cheekbones, your heartbeat slowly returning to its normal pace, while the blonde continued, “I know finals week is very stressful but you’re more than capable of doing this. I believe in you and so should you! If you talk to me and let me help you, we can make sure that you’re not neglecting your health and that you’re not biting everyone’s heads off at training while you’re building a Dreamhouse even Barbie dreams about.”
Letting out a quiet laugh, you hesitantly nodded your head, wrapping your arms around her waist as the striker added once more, “And just because other people have it worse, doesn’t mean you’re not having a hard time.”
You let out a sigh as you nuzzled against Alessia again, “I’m sorry. For everything. I know I haven’t been the nicest person or the best girlfriend. It’s just felt like my final week rather than finals week,” you chuckle with an apologetic smile. 
“Don’t worry, you’ll have everything ready in time. You have three more days to finish this, and on two of those we don’t have training, which means that you’re not working any more today!” the blonde grinned, excited now that the time you two spent at home could actually be spent together. 
Seeing Alessia’s smile instantly brought a warm, fuzzy feeling to your stomach as you felt overcome with gratitude. Not only for the fact that she stayed with you and supported you but also for the fact that she tried to understand you. 
“God, what would I do without you?” you question, squishing the blonde’s cheeks in your hands as you pressed a feather-light kiss to her nose, forgetting about your deadlines for the first time in what felt like months. “But seriously, thank you for putting up with me even if I’ve been a ‘gloomy Gus’ as Kyra would say.”
“Of course, love,” Alessia answered with a gentle peck, “You don’t need to thank me. But you should apologise to Kyra. While I quite enjoyed a night without her pestering, she seemed very sad.”
You grimaced as you let your head fall against the taller woman’s shoulder and sighed, “I’ll go call her.” Staying in Alessia’s embrace for a moment longer, you reluctantly pulled away from her warmth and started walking to the bedroom. 
“Y/N.”
Before you could make it out of the study, your girlfriend’s voice stopped you. 
Turning around, you were met with Alessia smiling lovingly at you, eyes sparkling in the moonlight.
“I’m proud of you.”
Hearing those words brought new tears to your eyes as you rushed back into the room and tackled the striker in a bear hug. The quiet groan she let out when your body crashed into hers was lost on your ears when you continuously whispered ‘I love you’ while suffocating her with kisses. 
Not even when you graduated top of your class had your parents told you they were proud of you. Not even when you and your team won the Olympics that same year. But you didn’t care anymore because you had a clumsy blonde who’d tell you every day. 
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midnightorchids · 17 days
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Hey babe- I wanted to know how you felt about booknerd!reader x Jason. Because it's been rotting my brain forever now and I need to know what someone as genius as yourself thinks about it. So like- We know Jason is a book girl. He's got huge floor to ceiling shelves in his apartment filled with non-fiction, historical fiction, classics, and maybe a few Si-Fi titles. I feel like he would love Toni Morison, Maya Angelou, Henrik Isben, Margret Atwood, and maybe even Harukai Murakami. He has this beautiful collection of leather bond additions of the Iliad Bruce gave him when he was 16. And when he finally invites you over, he cannot contain his excited smile as you start gushing over his home library. He makes you guys coffee and you spend hours talking about your fav genres, authors, online author drama - and after he's walking back to his apartment after dropping you off, he's smiling down at his phone at the message you sent. 'I had so much fun today! Ur library is so so so cool, was wondering if you would be ok going with me to Chapters next week? Wanted to pick up the new Skyward book' He's kicking his feet and hiding his face in his pillow. So deeply overjoyed that his crush shares in his immense love of literature. After you guys officially get together, he buys you so many fucking books. He fallows your goodreads wishlist religiously and surprises you almost every month with a new addition to your growing collection. He usually collects used paper backs, but for you, he splurges on the hardcover special additions. Of course it's because he loves you but it's also so that, maybe, you'll be more incentivised to move into a different apartment. One with floor-to-ceiling book shelves and a shared bed... just saying.. He branches out into more genres and authors he wouldn't usually read from just so he could talk about your favourite books with you. You do the same - your book collections getting mixed together in the process. Library dates, bookstore dates, used-bookstore dates. Your first couple of dates and realisations of love happened in and around books. You would always leave little messages inside the first page of the books you give him. So that if your every away or he's on a mission and he takes a book with him, he'll have one of your small messages of love as a reminder of something to return home to.
Hi hon!! I’m so sorry for the late response, I’ve been dying with uni and just life in general recently, but I’m back and ready to write again!!
I fully agree with almost everything that you said, like you’ve written it out so well and it’s just so cute! I was literally giggling and kicking my feet at the last one omg.
I shall try to add more stuff!!
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Jason’s go to present for his loved ones is annotated copies of his favourite books. He only does this when he feels comfortable with a person because sharing his thoughts feels raw and vulnerable sometimes.
Having a significant other who loves to read and appreciates these types of gifts would make him feel happy and very emotional. It’s not often he gets to share this side of himself with people.
When he gifts his copies to his friends or his partner, he feels like he’s leaving a piece of him with the person, so he only does this when he trusts you.
He leaves detailed little messages on the margins of his books. He draws little smiley faces on the cute parts and angry faces on the parts that made him upset.
In the books for his significant other, Jason leaves little notes around the quotes that remind him of you. He highlights them in a different colour and makes sure his notes look extra tidy.
He sucks at wrapping things, so sometimes you’ll get a very poorly wrapped, tape covered novel. You’ll look at the wrapping and laugh, you’d pinch his cheeks teasingly and tell him he did a good job. He’d turn his face away in embarrassment, which leads to you placing a gentle kiss on his cheek.
Then, there would be times where he doesn’t have the energy to deal with the horrible wrapping paper. So, you’ll be gifted a plain paper back with a sticky note on the front cover that reads ‘for you,’ in squiggly lines.
It’s honestly sweet and he gets very shy about it.
Also, Jason’s taste in books is very diverse, he reads anything from the classics to romance to gothic horror. He reads anything and everything and because of that, I think that it would be very easy for you to share your thoughts and recommendations with him.
Even if Jason hasn’t read the book, he listens intently with a huge smile on his face. He loves listening to you talk. If he doesn’t know the author or the book, he will try to familiarize himself with what you’re reading and branch into different genres.
There would be lots of reading and bookstore dates. You’d browse through the different aisles with his hand in yours, only letting go when a particular book catches your attention. He watches you in awe as you gush about the different series.
(Side note, my friends and I always go to bookstores and just point out the worst books we’ve read and I think Jason would do that too.)
As you search through the shelves to find your next read, he’ll come to you all excited, rambling about the book in his hand. From the looks of it, it seems like he loves the book. His hands are moving around, he’s smiling and giggling, but if you pay attention, he’s actually just cussing out the author.
This becomes a tradition in your relationship. You both bring up books that you hate instead of the ones that you really enjoy. You’d spend the next hour of your bookstore visit just giggling at the random passages that the author thought were good enough to share with the world.
I think this would also lead to a book club of reading awful books sometimes just for shits and giggles. There would be weeks where you would read amazing, well written stories together, but then there would be times when you guys would pick up something bad just to make fun of it.
Overall, Jason would love having a book nerd significant other because he finally has someone who he can geek out with.
184 notes · View notes
asahicore · 10 months
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love calculator - pjh (m)
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this work contains smut - minors please do not interact
pairing. best friend!jihoon x fem!reader
synopsis. You were sure that Jihoon only took care of you so well because your brother had tasked him with looking after you when you started university, so you tried not to read too much into his actions until you couldn't deny your increasing sensitivity around your best friend anymore. What you didn't know was Jihoon was going crazy, finding ways to make his feelings for you more obvious than they already were.
genre. f2l, brother's friend, slight childhood friends action, college au, slow burn?, fluff, smut (mutual first time, they do it raw, dirty talking, very soft dom!jihoon)
warnings. jihoon is a menace, jihoon has a hot bod, junkyu is mean to everyone, mc is a bit slow, side romance but i dont actually ship idols i have a life, omegle, ok theres no actual stuff to be warned about its all good in there
word count. 28.2k dont ask me why or how idk either
a/n. there she is... i spent SO much time on her pls love it lots or i'll cry.. it was sm fun writing for jihoon omg i hope u love hoonyn as much as i do !!! @zreamy my dear sweet little zo ty for betareading this and freaking out over jihoon u rock
1K follower trope event - requested by @mosviqu, tysm for requesting and i really hope u enjoy it !!!! - listen to the playlist!
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Oddly enough, it was Jihoon’s biceps that first made you think something was wrong with you.
It was the fourth week of the spring semester, that odd in-between when you knew midterms were creeping up but were still far away enough to be ignored. This meant that you could party guilt-free.
The plan for tonight was to pregame at one of those huge uni dorms where ten students shared a kitchen then head to an overpriced club downtown that always had the best music on Friday nights. You didn’t have any classes on Fridays, so you’d headed to Jihoon’s place around four p.m. to get ready together. Usually, that was something you’d do with Minjeong, your roommate, but that weekend, she was away for an excursion with her Geography course. 
He was in the shower when you rang the doorbell, so his flatmate let you in, and you made yourself comfortable on his bed while waiting for him. You were so engrossed in the romance Webtoon you’d started that morning that at first, when he came in, you didn’t even look up from your phone. 
“Hey, Y/N,” he said casually, unfazed by your sudden appearance in his room. The soft smell of his body wash filled the room, and you noted with smugness that it was the one you had jokingly given him for Christmas after you’d gotten fed up with his strong, ever-present Axe scent. 
“Hey, Hoonie. You smell nice. For once.”
He chuckled. “It’s all thanks to you.”
“What would you do without me?” you said with a sigh, then looked up. You shouldn’t have. “Oh.”
The sight you were met with was unlike anything you’d ever seen in real life - Jihoon in all his post-shower half-naked glory, a simple white towel hanging low on his hips. Small beads of water fell from his hair and dripped down his chiseled chest and onto the plush carpet lining his bedroom.
You were pretty sure you’d seen at least five scenes like this in your romance comics.
“Oh?” he parroted.
You squinted your eyes at your friend before turning your attention back to your phone. “You’re naked.”
From the corner of your eye, you saw his grin widen. “I’m wearing a towel.”
“A towel isn’t clothes.” He turned around to rummage through his closet, and you took that opportunity to observe him more closely. This was the first time you saw your friend without a shirt, and you were trying your very hardest to not freak out, but it was a bit hard not to. Who would have known that under his baggy shirts and sweaters, Jihoon was hiding firm abs, broad shoulders, defined back muscles and protruding biceps?
His arms were what really got you, because you felt like you should have noticed them before. You’d already caught yourself staring a little bit too hard at the veins on his hands and forearms during a lecture before, so you could’ve conjectured that the upper part of his arms was well-defined as well. As mesmerizing as the shifting of his shoulder muscles was, what you really couldn’t look away from was the bump that formed his bicep. 
“Jihoon, have you always had… arms?”
You had barely even realized you’d said this out loud until Jihoon turned around, a confused look on his face. His lips drew into a smirk when he saw how fixed your gaze on his biceps was.
“No, they just grew recently. Thank you for noticing.”
“No, I mean… arms. Muscles.”
“Oh, these?” he said, flexing his arms and pecking his biceps in such a cheesy way that it snapped you out of your reverie and made you burst into laughter. “I started working on them last year so, yeah, they’ve been around a while.”
“Huh,” you said, then picked your phone up again and resumed your reading. “Well, you should work harder, ‘cause it’s the first time I noticed them.”
Jihoon scoffed. “Don’t act like you weren’t just drooling over my dream bod just seconds ago.”
You looked up, outraged. “I wasn’t drooling, I was observing. And don’t call it a dream bod, that’s gross.”
“My bod is a dream bod.”
“Stop it.”
“Can you look away from my dream bod for a sec? I need to put some pants on.”
“I’m already actively not looking. This dude is way hotter than you, by the way,” you said, waving your phone.
“Let me see him,” Jihoon said, heading towards you after successfully putting a shirt and sweatpants on. Gray sweatpants, you realized with a frown. He took your phone and looked back and forth between the character on the screen and you, an expression of disbelief on his face. “Y/N, this is a two-dimensional fictional character that exists in a fairyland. It hurts my feelings when you call him hotter than me.”
A lip grew on your lips. “Yes, but he has pointy ears and doesn’t refer to his body as a dream bod, so he’s a ten in my books.”
As you spoke, Jihoon lay down on his bed, stretching his arms behind his head and resting it on his palms, looking up at you with a grin. You didn’t know what to make of the sudden flip of your stomach.
“Will I be a ten in your books if I stop calling it a dream bod?”
You laughed. “Dream bod doesn’t even sound real anymore.”
“I don’t think it ever was, to be honest,” Jihoon replied, laughing along. “Or maybe they invented it for me.”
--
After that riveting discussion, you watched the show you’d been watching together (which, you had been surprised to find, Jihoon had the discipline to not watch ahead for), then finished getting ready. That night out hadn’t been particularly extraordinary. Pre-gaming had been fun and chaotic, but the line at the club had been so long that you’d all sobered up by the time you were inside and none of you felt compelled to pay for six dollar shots. At least the good music and nice DJ that took all of your requests made up for it.
The interesting bit happened on the bus ride back home.
By some miracle, Jihoon had run into some of his friendly course seniors that apparently liked him so much, they decided to pay for all of his drinks. Only an hour after getting into the club, he was nothing short of wasted. In your five months of being at university with him, you’d not once seen him in such a state - disheveled hair (from dancing too hard or from getting his hair ruffled like a cute dog by all of his seniors, you weren’t sure), deep red blush staining his cheeks, forehead, ears and neck, unfocused eyes and constant lopsided grin. When he almost tripped over his own feet during Gimme More by Britney Spears, you knew it was time to go home.
Jihoon was usually the one that had to deal with a drunk you, so you didn’t mind taking care of him this time. It was actually kind of fun, seeing this new side of the person who had become your closest friend in the past months. 
Luckily for you, a night bus ran directly from the downtown area you were in to the street you and Jihoon lived on, and you managed to lug him to the bus stop. Getting him onto the bus and into a seat was an arduous task, but you made it, and were enjoying a calm, uneventful ride home until you felt Jihoon’s head drop onto your shoulder. You thought he’d just fallen asleep, but then the unmistakable sound of his voice made itself known to your ears.
“Y/N, Y/N…” Jihoon murmured with a muffled voice, burying his face in the crook of your neck. You tried to ignore the prickly feeling down your spine when his lips moved against your skin.
“Yes, Hoonie?” you asked, a tilt of amusement to your voice. You really had never seen your friend so intoxicated.
He sighed, lifting his head from your shoulder and resting it against the window with a bang. He didn’t even wince at the impact of his head against the glass - the alcohol had apparently rid him of the sensation of pain.
“Don’t call me that,” he mumbled, voice so quiet you had to ask him to repeat himself. “I said don’t call me that!” 
You were taken aback by his sudden burst of irritation, but he sounded more like an upset child than anything.
“Call you what? Hoonie?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I’ve always called you that.” You tilted your head at him, but he kept his eyes fixed on the road outside.
“Exactly. You’re the only one who calls me that. Everyone else says Jihoon,” he said, annoyance clear in his voice. It sounded like this had been bothering him for a while, but it was complete news to you. “Can’t you even be bothered to say my full name, or something?”
You chuckled and brushed some hair out of his face. Like an angry cartoon character, he puffed air out of his nose and crossed his arms over his chest. His frown deepened and a blush spread over his face that was already red from the alcohol. “Should I call you Jihoon from now on?” you asked softly.
His reaction was immediate. He whipped around, almost knocking your head with his, a look of total alarm on his face. His eyes were almost teary. “No!” he exclaimed loudly, garnering glares from some of the other passengers in the bus who probably wanted some quiet this late at night. “No,” he repeated, this time more quietly, and turned back to the window.
In slight disbelief, you chuckled again. “What am I supposed to call you, then?”
“Just-” he started, but cut himself off with a sigh. “Just call me whatever.”
A small smile tugged at your lips. “I’ll stick to Hoonie, then.” 
He groaned as he lifted his head from the window and let it fall back against your shoulder. The angle must’ve made it highly uncomfortable for his neck, but he didn’t seem to mind. He only stayed still for a few seconds before shifting slightly and burying his face in the dip between your shoulder and your neck once more, then let out a low hum of satisfaction. 
“You smell nice,” he mumbled. Your breath caught in your throat. He was too close, his lips were too soft and his breath was too warm against your skin. Your whole body felt hot, like the bus driver had suddenly cranked the heat up and turned the bus into a sauna. “Like almonds,” he added, pressing his nose deeper into the base of your neck and inhaling there.
You tried to laugh, hoping it would dissipate the tension in your body, but it only came out as a choked sound. “It’s my body lotion,” you explained, voice weaker than you’d intended.
“Hm.”
You didn’t know what it was about Jihoon’s proximity that made your head spin so - no one had ever made you feel this way, and the fact that your body was reacting so intensely to someone you had considered your best friend for the past months made it all the more confusing.
“Are you asleep?” you asked him in a small voice after he’d been silent for some minutes.
“Just sleepy,” he murmured, shifting in his seat again. You tried not to shiver at the tickling sensation of his hair against your neck.
A pause. “Jihoon?”
“Don’t call me that.” You smiled, but there was a slight whine to his voice that, for some reason, made your heart ache. 
You corrected yourself. “Hoon?”
“Mmh?”
“Why did it bother you that I call you Hoonie, all of a sudden?”
He took so long to answer that you almost thought he hadn’t heard you. “Because… every time you call me that, it makes me love you more,” he answered, voice getting gradually lower until it became a whisper.
Everything seemed to disappear around you. The other passengers, the seat underneath you, the blinking lights and the night sky outside the window. It was just you and Jihoon, his body warm next to yours and the only thing keeping you tethered to Earth.
“Makes you… love… me?” you echoed tentatively. 
But no answer came. When you bent your head down to look at Jihoon, it seemed like he had fallen completely asleep, mouth slightly agape and the blush of alcohol still red on his face. You didn’t know what to make of his words, but there was no point asking him about them now. So you let him sleep on your shoulder, only waking him once you were nearing his stop. 
--
Jihoon woke up the next morning with a pounding head and a bruised ego.
He had always prided himself in his ability to drink copious amounts of alcohol and yet only end up tipsy. Sure, it wasn’t exactly good for his body, but it meant that he never had to turn down a drink or watch on the sidelines as his friends did shots, and he could still get home just fine and not wake up with a head-splitting hangover the next day. Unlike you, who started giggling for no reason after one pint of beer and who tore it up on the dancefloor or talked to strangers like you’d been besties for years after two shots of tequila.
It only made his state of the previous night that much more embarrassing. He wished he had your amazing memory-erasing superpowers - but sadly, he didn’t, and what happened in the bus was glued to his brain. 
Before he could even lift his head or get a cup of water, his phone rang, the sound invading his ears and splitting his head in two. He slid a thumb across his phone to accept the video call and was greeted by a close-up of Junkyu’s smiling face.
“Rise and shine! I heard someone got their party on last night.”
Jihoon groaned loudly, chucking his phone somewhere on his bed so he didn’t have to see his friend’s face anymore. His was definitely not the face he wanted to see first thing in the morning. Unfortunately for Jihoon, Junkyu had been blessed with an extraordinarily loud voice that still rang clear even when the speakers of Jihoon’s phone were stifled by his blankets.
“Y/N sent me a video of you. You looked ridiculous, man.”
“I hate you. I hate your face, I hate the way you talk, I hate how mean you are to me-”
“I can’t hear you. What was that?”
With another groan and a lot of difficulty, Jihoon raised his upper body and retrieved his phone. “You suck.”
Junkyu’s smile widened. “Well, that’s all from me. Have a glass of water!” he said cheerily before hanging up. Jihoon had never wanted to kill someone so badly.
His murderous feelings softened when he turned his head to find a plastic bottle of water and a headache pill along with a handwritten note on his bedside table. Have this and text me when you wake up! with five hearts at the bottom. It wasn’t signed, but he knew it was from you.
When the two of you met up for brunch sometime later, he kept searching your face and reading into your actions for any sign that what he’d said last night had made you uncomfortable. He’d expected you to be awkward around him, but your attitude almost made him think he’d imagined the whole thing. You joked around with him as usual, as if he hadn’t practically confessed to you last night, and he was desperate to know what might be going through your mind.
Had you forgotten? Had you chalked it up to him being drunk and talking nonsense? Had he had just thought it very hard, and not actually said it out loud? Or, worst of all, had you heard it all and understood him and decided to just ignore it for the sake of your friendship?
Jihoon was going crazy. He could barely taste his chicken and waffles.
The truth was, you just had no idea what to make of his words, and you were scared bringing it up might make things awkward. Jihoon could have forgotten all about it, or he could have meant something entirely different from where your wild, romance-comic-filled imagination went. Save for his tired eyes and groggy voice, he was no different at breakfast than he usually was, so you dropped it.
--
“Okay, Y/N, I think it’s time for you to go home now.” 
Different Friday night, different party. A week had passed and neither of you had mentioned what Jihoon had said on the bus - it wasn’t quite out of your minds just yet, but you’d both separately decided to pretend nothing had happened.
This time, Jihoon had found you in the hallway playing beer pong and downing the cup of beer your opponent had thrown the ball into. Everybody cheered you on as you gulped the cheap liquid down before lifting the empty cup over your head, eyes screwed shut at the unpleasant bitterness in your mouth. Jihoon wasn’t sure why you were playing - you hated beer, and you had one of the worst throws he’d ever seen. But even he, who was supposed to look after you, couldn’t suppress a smile at your attempt and inevitable total fail at scoring a point for your team. Even with all the concentration in the world, the sheer amount of alcohol in your system would’ve made it impossible for you to make it.
Back against the wall and arms crossed over his chest, he watched amusedly as you squinted your eyes at the cups across the table from you, even sticking out your tongue as if that would make your aim any better. After a few tense seconds, you threw the ping-pong ball and hit Lee Jeno right in the chest. You’d giggled at your own failure, letting people pat you on the back for trying and reassure you that it’s okay (even though you really didn’t care) before stumbling right into Jihoon. 
As soon as you’d recognized your friend’s face, you’d thrown your arms around his neck and pulled him down into a hug as you yelled his name happily; his hands had come up to your hips and gently pushed your body away from his. Then, he’d said the words you always hated to hear at a party.
“But we just got here!” you cried, the same answer you always gave him when he wanted to leave. You started walking away from him and back into the kitchen for more alcohol. He sighed but was quick to follow you.
“We got here three hours ago. Plus we did pres at Yoshi’s place. You’ve had way more than enough to drink,” he said, snatching a cup you’d just filled with punch from your hands.
“I was gonna drink that!” you complained, leaning against the counter for support. 
Jihoon took in your swaying body and your dazed eyes and knew he had to get you home. Any more alcohol and you’d pass out in this stranger’s apartment. Usually, he’d let you drink to your heart’s content and just make sure you got home safe afterwards, but midterms were coming up, and you’d planned on studying the next day - he was just trying to minimize the severity of your hangover. 
You mustered your most pitiful expression - to drunk you, there was no way Jihoon could resist your pouty lips and sad eyes. “Do we really have to go?” you asked, and Jihoon had to read your lips because of the loud music. 
He smirked, seeing right through your little act. He bent his upper body so that his lips were right next to your ear. “You’ll thank me tomorrow,” he replied, making you drop your fake sad expression.
“I should go say bye to Minjeong and the others first.”
“I’ve already told them we were leaving.”
You rolled his eyes at him and his stupid smile and lifted yourself from the counter, immediately losing your balance. Maybe you had drunk too much. At least Jihoon was there to catch you and prevent you from falling. He tried to put his arm around your shoulder to support you but you stepped away from him and fixed him a pointed look.
“I can still walk, you know.”
Jihoon smiled but said nothing, gesturing at you to go on and walk. You turned around and started making your way out of the place, ignoring Jihoon’s snickers as you bumped into various party-goers and pieces of furniture.  
When you reached the front door, you decided that actually, no, you couldn’t walk. Sliding against the wall, you let yourself drop into a crouching position. Your head suddenly felt like it was twice its normal weight and you regretted those last few shots of whatever it was you had drunk.
Jihoon sighed as he lowered himself and grabbed you under your armpits to lift you up. He had never been more thankful for an elevator and a bus stop only a minute’s walk away from where you were. Standing under bright lights in a desert and quiet street, it appeared like an oasis to Jihoon. Whoever’s party this had been, they lived in a really calm part of town. At this time on a Friday night, Jihoon’s street would be teeming with drunk students deciding which bar or club they should head to next.
You had never been more thankful for a bus stop with seats. You plopped yourself down on one of them, resting your head on the glass behind you and tightening your jacket around your shoulders. You closed your eyes, deciding this was the perfect time for a nap. 
“Are you cold?” Jihoon asked, his voice keeping you from nodding off. You let out a non-committal hum in response which he wasn’t sure how to interpret. He chuckled and you heard a rustling sound before feeling an added weight on top of your body. “I’ll take that as a yes,” he murmured, then sat by your side.
Next thing you knew, Jihoon was making you stand again, and your feet moved of their own accord as he led you inside the bus. As soon as you were seated, you drifted back off to sleep. You jolted awake when your head drooped over, making you feel like you were falling. You sat up straight and looked around the empty bus, frantically asking Jihoon where you were.
“I’m taking you home,” he answered, laughter clear in his voice.
“Oh, okay,” you mumbled, and closed your eyes once more, falling back asleep in a matter of seconds. 
Jihoon watched with a tender smile as your mouth opened slightly and let soft snores escape it. Scooting closer to you, he placed his palm on your cheek and pulled your head towards his shoulder so it could rest there.
“Why do you drink so much if you can’t handle it?” he asked quietly, even though he knew you were already in dreamland.
--
When you opened your eyes the next morning, you felt like a kid who had fallen asleep in the car on the way home from a distant relative's wedding and mysteriously woken up in their bed. You stretched out your limbs, enjoying the softness and warmth of your sheets covering your body until a headache and pasty mouth hit you like a ton of bricks. It felt like the alcohol had made your brain shrivel inside of your skull - your whole body was screaming for water. 
Some kind of miracle had made a large glass of water appear on your bedside table, and you gulped it down in mere seconds. The hour on your phone read 10:24 a.m. - so much for getting up early and going to study at the library. 
You’d have rather stayed curled up under your blankets and slept the rest of your hangover off, but some rustling noises from the kitchen (and an intense need to pee) forced you out of the comfort of your bed. You stumbled into the kitchen to find Jihoon placing a pancake atop an already dangerously high stack. 
“Hey, Sleeping Beauty,” he greeted you, glancing at you with a smirk on his face as you made your way towards him. You stood behind him and rested your forehead at the base of his neck, as if catching a few last seconds of sleep. 
The feeling of your hair against his skin sent shivers down his spine and he hoped his shaky intake of breath had gone unnoticed by you. His pancake was ready and he had to put it on the plate behind him, but as if a cat had fallen asleep in his lap, he couldn’t get himself to move. This was a moment he wanted to cherish - although you never particularly kept your distance from him, he was still always greedy for more of your touch.
“Hey, Hoonie,” you replied in a groggy voice. “Thank you for breakfast,” you said, moving to rest your lower back against the counter next to the stove. He missed you immediately. “And sorry for being a nuisance last night.”
Jihoon smiled at you as he turned to place the pancake on the stack. Then he leaned in slightly and you made sure not to breathe through your mouth so he wouldn’t smell your morning breath. 
“You always apologize, and yet who’s dragging you home every single weekend?” he asked with an amused grin that let you know he wasn’t actually bothered by it.
He turned back to his pan and ladled more batter into it, forming a perfectly circular pancake. “Sorry,” you repeated guiltily.
He shook his head. “I’d rather be there and make sure you get home safe. And it’s not like I don’t have fun at those parties.” 
A small smile on your lips, you nodded and let his words assuage your guilt. “I’ll make coffee as a token of my gratitude.”
“How kind of you,” Jihoon teased, beaming. 
No matter how many times Jihoon reassured you, you still felt bad that he thought it his obligation to do those things for you.
Although you’d only grown closer at the beginning of your first year of university, now six months ago, you and Jihoon had known each other since you were thirteen, and he fourteen. You still remembered his braces, wide boba eyes and round cheeks from your teenage years - when you saw him again five years later, you couldn’t deny your surprise at his much… manlier appearance. Sharper jaw, broader shoulders, taller figure, deeper voice - it was hard to recognize the Jihoon you’d known and the Jihoon in front of you as the same person.
His parents’ job made their family move around a lot - your town had been their fifth home since Jihoon’s birth already. The year and a half they stayed went by far too quickly, and before you knew it, you already had to say goodbye. Jihoon and Junkyu had grown really close in that year, and since you were always in your older brother’s business at that time, you’d developed a liking for your brother’s best friend, too. You liked the way he’d ruffle your hair whenever he came over to your house, the way he remembered strawberry milk was your favorite, and the way he’d wave at you in the school hallways, effectively making you cooler than all of your friends for knowing someone who was in the year above. At the time, you hadn’t known if what you felt for him could be described as a crush - all you knew was that for the rest of high school, you missed him. 
When you found out that he had not only come back to South Korea to study, but that he was attending the university of your dreams, you couldn't have been more excited. But you chalked it up to the relief of knowing someone in an otherwise unfamiliar place.
Jihoon had been even more welcoming than you’d expected. He had come to get you at the airport with a big, colorful Welcome Y/N banner, helped you move into your dorm and treated you to a meal the night you arrived in town. Over the following weeks, he’d introduced you to his friends, showed you around campus, and kept inviting you out “so you would know where the good spots were.”
Thanks to him, settling in had been a much less stressful and emotionally exhausting process than you’d expected. But no matter how grateful you were, you couldn’t help but wonder why he was going to these lengths to welcome you. 
Somewhere in the town center, there was a square that was extremely popular among skaters for a reason beyond your understanding. But at almost any time of the day and night, you could find people practicing their skating there. You’d just left a bar nearby with Minjeong, Jihoon and his friends, and to an intoxicated you, skating, something you had never attempted before, seemed like the thing to try out right then and there. You ran up to the first skater you found and asked him if he could show you how to ride.
Minjeong had run after you, finding a skater of her own while Jihoon’s friends either watched or talked about something else amongst themselves. Of course, the inevitable happened, and as soon as the skater let you try skating on your own, you’d fallen on your hands and knees. In a flash, Jihoon had been by your side, frantically asking if you were okay and making you show him your palms. They were only grazed, and one of your knees was bleeding very faintly, but Jihoon acted like you’d just broken something. He got you to get on his back so he could carry you to the nearest pharmacy, leaving his friends and Minjeong to wonder what the hell was going on. You tried telling him you were okay and could walk on your own just fine, but he wouldn’t listen. 
He’d sat you on the curb in front of the all-night pharmacy and asked you to wait as he got disinfectant and bandages. You watched his face closely as he rubbed medical alcohol on your wounds. A crease had plagued his eyebrows ever since you fell, and he would not stop mumbling something about you needing to be more careful and you’re lucky you didn’t get hurt badly.
You hadn’t realized you were crying until one of your tears fell on Jihoon’s hand, hot against his skin, and he looked up at you with worry, any of his previous frustration with you wiped from his expression.
“Y/N? Why are you crying?” he’d asked, voice soft, as if trying not to scare you.
You sniffled. “Why are you so nice to me?”
His eyes softened and a small smile grew on his lips. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
You couldn’t bring yourself to mirror his smile, and the more you cried, the sadder you felt. Inexplicably, your tears just fell and fell and fell. Under the bright white lights of the pharmacy, in the cold of a particularly chilly September night, Jihoon wrapped an arm around you and let you cry on his shoulder. He didn’t ask any further questions, just waited for you to calm down as he rubbed a hand up and down your back and whispered in your ear that it was okay.
When you thought back on it now, you knew that it had just been the alcohol making you unreasonably emotional - you weren’t actually sad about Jihoon looking after you, if anything, it made you happy. But once you’d started crying, you couldn’t stop.
“I’m just looking out for you,” he’d said once your sniffling had somewhat lessened. You’d leaned back to look at him. 
“But why?” you’d whined.
Your frown had deepened as his smile had widened. “Because we’re friends.”
“Is that it?” 
“Well, Junkyu also asked me to look after you,” he admitted sheepishly. 
You gasped in affront. “He what?!”
“Y/N-”
“So he’s been forcing you to do all of this?” you asked, voice breaking at the end. Your anger had lasted two seconds - you’d gone back to being sad at the thought of Jihoon only being nice to you because your stupid big brother had asked him to.
“No, no, it’s not like that, listen to me-”
“I can’t believe the two of you! I’m not a child-”
“Nobody said you were-”
“So you don’t actually even care-”
“I do!” Jihoon had exclaimed, louder than you’d expected, and it shut you up. “I do,” he repeated, voice softer. His hands were still on your upper arms, and he leaned in closer. “You’re his little sister. Of course he was worried about you leaving home. He just asked me to make sure you don’t get into too much trouble,” he explained, lightly tapping the tip of your nose with his finger. 
He sighed, smiling as he watched you try to keep an upset expression on your face. He took the bandages out of the pack he’d just bought and stuck them with caution on your wounds. “But I wouldn’t be doing all of this if I didn’t care, Y/N.” When your eyes met again, you hadn’t known what to make of the look in his. “I missed you, you know.”
Just like that, the ducts behind your eyes filled up again, and large, hot tears streamed down your face as you rested your forehead against Jihoon’s shoulders again. He chuckled at your dramatics but placed a reassuring hand against your hair. “I missed you, too,” you replied between broken sobs.
He’d texted his friends to take Minjeong with them and go on without the two of you, then carried you back to his apartment, which was thankfully only a five-minute walk away. 
Ever since that night, you and Jihoon had been inseparable. He continued checking on you consistently, bringing you food and coffee without you even asking and, of course, getting you home safe from nights out. 
You were thankful to have a friend like him.
“Pancakes?!” your flatmate exclaimed as soon as she walked through the door, snapping you out of your thoughts.
“Hey, Minjeong,” you and Jihoon greeted in unison. 
She was wearing her clothes from last night and her hair was a mess, but she had a bright expression on her face (despite the faint mascara stains underneath her eyes). You narrowed your eyes at her but she made a beeline for the food, completely ignoring you.
“Hot,” she mumbled as she held a pancake between her fingers, but threw a piece in her mouth anyway. “You’re so lucky to have a boyfriend like him, Y/N,” she said around her food.
“Isn’t she?” Jihoon replied before you could say anything.
You rolled your eyes at the pair in front of you and poured a cup of coffee for Minjeong. She referred to Jihoon as your boyfriend so often that you didn’t bother to correct her anymore. “Not my boyfriend. And even so, he’s more like a bodyguard than anything.”
“Being a bodyguard is just one of the many duties of being a boyfriend,” Minjeong declared, easily ignoring you. “Don’t you agree, Jihoon?”
He nodded, a serious look on his face. “Absolutely. I take what I do very seriously.” When his eyes found yours, he shot you a wink. Your frown deepened. 
“Anyway, care to share why you’re coming home so late?”
A blush creeped on Minjeong’s cheeks. “Well, Yoshi’s place is quite a ways from here…” she murmured, looking down at her half-eaten pancake. 
“Called it!” you yelled, just as Jihoon let out a loud “no” of shock and defeat.
“Next takeaway is on you,” you told Jihoon with a proud smile. In a mature response, he stuck his tongue out at you.
Minjeong frowned at both of you. “You guys bet on this?” she asked, vexed. Jihoon exchanged a look, glanced back at her, and shrugged. “Not cool. I didn’t even know something would happen with him. How did you guess?”
You smiled. “You always go for the cute ones.”
She hummed in agreement, her expression almost a pained one. “He’s just the cutest little thing ever, I couldn’t help myself.” She took a sip of her coffee, cringing at the bitter taste before getting up to fetch sugar and milk.
You sighed at your friend. “You’re gonna break that poor boy’s heart.” You knew Minjeong wasn’t to blame for the boys that got attached to her when she made it clear she wasn’t looking for a relationship - but if it happened to Yoshi, you’d feel guilty. You’d met him in a tutorial for one of your Digital Media courses and he seemed like he wouldn’t hurt a fly. He’d invited you to do pres at his place, and you’d dragged Minjeong and Jihoon along, so they’d met through you. In a way, if Yoshi fell for Minjeong and got hurt, it’d be your fault.
“I told him I didn’t want anything serious,” she said, pouring as much milk as there was coffee in her mug.
“He doesn’t seem like the type to do casual stuff,” Jihoon chimed in as he placed the last pancake on top of the stack. But it was one pancake too many, and the whole stack fell over. Jihoon wasn’t rattled - he placed a few on his plate then rebuilt the stack.
Minjeong ate her last bite of pancake and got up from the stool. “Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“We? This is your problem, babe,” you said.
Minjeong smiled at you, eyes crinkling as she pressed a wet kiss to your cheek. You were sure there was some pancake left on her lips. “You’re such a good friend, Y/N,” she said, making you laugh. Of course you’d help Minjeong if she needed - but you were starting to feel bad for all the hearts she kept breaking. “I’m going back to bed,” she announced. Then, she put her hand next to her mouth as if telling you a secret, but spoke loud enough for Jihoon to hear anyway: “I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night, is all I’ll say.”
Jihoon choked on his food and you let out a groan of disgust, but you both burst into laughter anyway. “I want details later!” you called out.
“You won’t be disappointed,” she said between giggles as she closed her bedroom door behind her. 
Just then, your phone buzzed with an incoming video call, Junkyu’s face taking up your screen. “Hey, ugly face,” you greeted, propping your phone up against the milk bottle.
“Hey, stink.”
“Hey, Kyu!” Jihoon called out and took a seat close next to you - you knew he was just trying to squeeze into frame, but the sudden proximity still made your breath catch in your throat for a second.
Your brother’s eyes narrowed. “What are the two of you doing together on a Sunday morning?”
You looked at Jihoon, then back at your screen. “Is there something wrong with Sunday mornings?”
“Not inherently, no…” your brother conceded. “But still.”
You rolled your eyes at him and his meaningless suspiciousness. “We just went to a party together last night and he crashed here afterwards.”
“She was so wasted I had to bring her home. And I made pancakes this morning.”
“Y/N, if you don’t marry this guy, I will,” Junkyu said with all the seriousness in the world, and Jihoon made a kissy face at him.
“What’s up with everyone today?” you sighed. “I’m going to shower. You two have fun.” You knew your brother probably didn’t have much to tell you anyway - he liked calling you for no other reason than to bother you. 
“Oh, we will,” Jihoon said with a suggestive tone, and you made a vomiting noise before disappearing into the bathroom. 
“When I told you to look after her, I just meant to make sure she doesn’t drink too much or get involved with weirdos. I didn’t mean to make her pancakes on Sunday mornings,” Junkyu teased, a knowing smile on his face. 
Jihoon looked down at his place, a small smile growing on his lips as well. “I know, but I like doing those things for her.”
Junkyu let out an odd noise, half out of disgust and half out of annoyance. “I can’t believe you. Just ask her out, already.”
“So you don’t like me at her place on a Sunday morning, but you want me to ask her out?”
Junkyu rolled his eyes (Jihoon thought this was a family trait, at this point). “I’m trying to help you out here, buddy. I know she’s my little sister, but you’re also my best friend,” he started, ignoring Jihoon’s aww, “and I don’t know how much longer I can stand you being in love with her but not making a move.” He paused to sigh. “I know you’re a good guy, so you have my approval, or whatever.”
Jihoon smiled somewhat sadly, picking at his food with his fork. “I appreciate it, Kyu, but I really don’t think she feels the same way.”
“How do you know that? Have you asked her?” Junkyu asked, not even trying to hide his impatience.
“No, but-”
“Do I need to do it for you? Do you want to hide behind my back while I tell my little sister, hey, my friend here has something he wants to tell you? Hey, my friend thinks you’re pretty, do you want to talk to him? Are you a big baby who can’t do anything, Park Jihoon?”
“No, I just-”
“You know, if this were a k-drama and you were the main lead, everybody would get Second Lead Syndrome. Me included. You suck.”
“Supportive as ever, Kyu,” Jihoon said, sighing.
“If you don’t ask her, you’re a bitch. I’m hanging up now,” Junkyu said before Jihoon could get another word in. He just shook his head, chuckling as he dug into his pancakes again.
The two of them had had this conversation about a thousand times, and they always came to the same conclusion: Junkyu thought Jihoon should confess his feelings to you, and Jihoon dismissed the idea, knowing he’d never have the guts to do it. To him, making jokes about being your boyfriend and relentlessly flirting with you was sign enough of his affection for you - you just needed to figure out that he wasn’t actually kidding at all. He was already doing half of the work for you, really. 
An hour later, the two of you were sitting on the fifth floor of the library, where nobody ever dared to venture because of its dark corners and maze-like rows of bookshelves. It creeped Jihoon out, but it was your favorite place to study, so on days he couldn’t convince you to go to a nicer spot, he sucked it up and followed you to the table you liked by a window that overlooked the park next to the campus. The window let some light in, but to get there, you had to go through dim hallways that looked like they hadn’t seen a human soul in years. Jihoon didn’t know how you’d found out about it in the first place. It felt like something a fourth-year would keep as a secret, not something a first-year would have discovered in her first months of attending uni.
As he observed your sleeping figure, Jihoon couldn’t help but feel slightly annoyed. You’d gotten about twenty minutes of work done before resting your head atop your crossed arms, claiming you would just take a “power nap.” He couldn’t believe you’d emotionally manipulated him (pouted up at him and gave him puppy eyes - with that look on your face, Jihoon would agree to murdering someone for you) into going to this creepy part of the library only to sleep almost immediately after getting there. 
He bent down onto his arms, mirroring your position, and let himself have this moment. Even though he saw you all the time, it wasn’t often that he could shamelessly stare at you and get away with it.
He watched as your shoulders rose and fell to the consistent rhythm of your breathing, as the sunlight pouring in from the window made your eyelashes cast shadows against your cheeks. You looked so peaceful that any trace of his irritation towards you vanished. It wasn’t like he could ever really be mad at you.
Jihoon loved how little you had changed in the years you’d been apart. Of course, you’d grown into your features and didn’t quite look like the thirteen-year-old version of you he’d known, but still, you had the same face and same habits he’d fallen in love with in the first place. 
He still remembered the way his heart had swelled when he’d found your face amongst the crowd at the airport, how his whole body had buzzed with excitement at the idea of finally seeing you again after all these years. When you’d received your admission email from your university, the first thing Junkyu had told Jihoon was that he’d better look after you. It wasn’t like he didn’t think you couldn’t handle yourself, but it reassured him, knowing someone he trusted so much would be there to help you adjust to university life, since he couldn’t do it himself. 
Jihoon had taken this seriously. Junkyu hadn’t given him any sort of instructions - the picking you up at the airport, introducing you to his friends, making sure you were well-fed and well-caffeinated, that was all him. At first, he tried convincing himself that he was doing this in an old friend, big brother fashion - he knew how close you and Junkyu were, so he fancied himself a sort of Junkyu 2.0 for you to rely on. 
It had been when he saw your red, puffy eyes, trembling lips and tear-stained cheeks that he realized his old feelings had resurfaced. After all, don’t they say you never really forget your first love?
Truth be told, that whole night had been a dead giveaway. From the moment you met up at the bar to his little nurse moment in front of the pharmacy, his heart had not stopped racing. He kept checking on you, making sure you were having fun and handling your alcohol, and stuck by your side the whole time, like a bee to a flower. 
He remembered standing arms crossed over his chest and observing you with narrowed eyes as you tried out skating. He was telling himself he was just watching in case you got hurt, but he couldn’t ignore the way his stomach twisted with a hot, unpleasant emotion as the skater guided you, hands on your waist. He didn’t like that you held that stranger by his shoulders, relying on him and not Jihoon for support, or that you laughed together like you’d been friends for years. Jihoon was your long-time friend, not this random long-haired, baggy-shirted, vans-wearing loser skater that probably had a name like Mark or something.
When you’d fallen from that skateboard, his heart had dropped in his stomach. He’d been sick with worry that you’d gotten badly hurt, and even upon seeing your barely-grazed palms and knees, he hadn’t been reassured. 
Seeing you cry had made him panic like crazy. He tried his best to comfort you, but had no idea whether he was doing a good job. For days after that night, he’d replayed the conversation the two of you had under the lights of the pharmacy. 
“Why are you so nice to me?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? I’m just looking out for you.”
“But why?”
“Because we’re friends.”
“Is that it?” 
Jihoon hadn’t known whether you meant, is that the only reason, or, are we only friends? But he’d thought the second question was wishful thinking on his part. So he told you about the promise he’d made to Junkyu, and that had somehow made you even more upset. Even though he hadn’t said it outright, he’d thought he had made it clear that he wasn’t only doing this because Junkyu had told him to - he also wanted to be there for you. He did care, more than he wanted to admit. 
Over time, his feelings for you had grown far bigger than simple teenage nostalgia - he loved your present self impossibly more than fourteen-year-old Jihoon had loved thirteen-year-old you. He thought he made it obvious - he always made sure to compliment you, remembered your coffee order and favorite dishes from your favorite restaurants, rushed to your side whenever you needed him, and did everything he could think of to support you. Sure, he relentlessly teased you as well, but that was just Jihoon.
If you noticed him, you didn’t show it. He wasn’t sure whether you genuinely didn’t know he wanted you as more than a friend or were playing dumb, but he knew you saw him as something like a second older brother. But Jihoon had come to terms with that - he’d rather be in your life as a friend than not at all.
This was why he was grateful for moments like these, when he could just look at you without you knowing. 
After five minutes, Jihoon quietly got up and bravely made his way through the dark hallways and back outside to get you a drink - in case you woke up grumpy from your nap, he knew a matcha latte would appease you. He almost got lost on his way back, but when he found your table again, you were still sleeping. He couldn’t help himself - before rousing you, he snapped a quick picture of your sleeping face, making sure to get the drool pooling at the corner of your lips in frame. The photo went into his Y/N folder, full of pictures and videos he’d both secretly and not-so-secretly taken of you, which, no, wasn’t creepy at all, thank you very much.
When he pressed one drink to your cheek and the other to your forehead, you woke up with a gasp, then immediately winced at the pain in the side of your neck from the uncomfortable sleeping position.
“I wasn’t sure whether you’d want a hot one or an iced one, so I just got both.”
“Ooh, iced, please,” you said. “Thanks, Hoonie.” But before you could grab the drink, he snatched it away.
“No drinking until you get at least one thing done,” he said, a satisfied smirk on his lips.
You frowned. “But the ice will melt and it’ll taste all watery.”
Jihoon didn’t want to give in so easily. 
“Hm?” you hummed, tilting your head at him.
Jihoon gave in, handing you your drink with a tut. Seeing your excited grin and hearing your sigh of contentment after taking a sip made it worth it. 
About two (surprisingly productive) hours later, your stomach started demanding nourishment, and who were you to deny it? Your hangover was strong that day, and even the pancakes and coffee hadn’t completely rid your mouth of its sour taste. You needed something salty and greasy, so you pitched going to the fried chicken place a few blocks down to Jihoon, who agreed immediately.
On the way there, you tried to recollect some moments from the party yesterday, but quickly realized that not much was coming to mind. Pre-drinks at Yoshi’s were clear in your head, and so was walking to the other party - but the better part of your memories after that were fuzzy or non-existent. 
“Hoonie?” you suddenly asked.
“Hm?”
“Did I do anything embarrassing last night?”
Jihoon chuckled. “Not more than usual.”
You groaned and pushed his shoulder, making him laugh even more. “I mean, you just kinda danced like crazy and talked to absolutely anyone. At some point you were gone for like twenty-five minutes, and I found you in the bathroom taking selfies with girls I’d never seen before in my life.”
You pulled out your phone and checked your gallery - indeed, there were about fifty pictures of you and some random girls. “Who are they?” you asked, more to yourself than to Jihoon, in disbelief at how comfortable last-night-you looked with these strangers. “They seem nice enough, I guess.” You laughed with Jihoon before sighing. “Well, that’s not too bad. I’ve done worse things.”
Jihoon made a face as if to say, Yeah, I know, and you rolled your eyes at him. You returned your gaze to the path in front of you, but if you’d kept on looking at Jihoon, you’d have noticed the smirk growing on his lips as a joke formed in his head. After some time, with a shit-eating grin on his face, he broke the silence. “Oh, well, there was also that moment when you confessed your undying love for me, tears streaming down your face, begging on your knees, all the works. That was pretty embarrassing. But I get it.”
It was so ridiculous that you couldn’t help yourself from laughing as you slapped his shoulder. “You wish,” you said between giggles.
I do wish, he immediately thought, but kept it to himself. He laughed instead and could only hope his real thoughts weren’t so obvious. 
--
Two things happened in the fried chicken shop restaurant.
Well, three, if you counted their promotion on their chicken rice cake coleslaw menu, which was your favorite and which Jihoon always chided you for ordering (“Anyone who likes coleslaw is not human”), but in the grand scheme of things, that wasn’t so important.
First, your mom called. Now, this wasn’t anything huge in itself, but it was Jihoon’s behavior that got to you.
You had gotten maybe five words before he snatched the phone from you and lifted it to his ear. “Hi, Mrs Kim!”
You heard a faint but enthusiastic “Hi, Jihoon!” on the other side of the line. They made small talk for a bit, and you couldn’t believe your mom could have forgotten about her only daughter so quickly. You’d dived back into your fried chicken, pretending you didn’t care about whatever it was they were talking so energetically about, until you heard your name on the other end.
Your and Jihoon’s eyes met. A mischievous smile spread across his lips and your gaze hardened. “Yes, well, you know her, she’s a bit of a nuisance, but I’m keeping her out of trouble and all that. I saved her from joining a cult the other day,” he said, and you rolled your eyes at him.
“Oh dear!” you heard your mother exclaim.
“You didn’t save me from anything, I knew what that woman was up to.”
You’d been waiting for Jihoon outside of the movie theater when an older woman approached you. She seemed friendly enough, and you thought she was just a lonely grandma in need of a nice discussion - which it was at first, until it veered towards religion. Next thing you knew, she was telling you stories about the upcoming end of the world and how we had to beg for salvation. You didn’t believe any of it, but you found it captivating, so you stood there listening to her and egging her on until Jihoon showed up and forced you out of there. You thought it’d have been funny if he’d listened along, but knowing Jihoon, a small part of him might have actually believed her and started freaking out.
“I didn’t know you and my mom were so chummy,” you said when the phone call was over. She hadn’t even asked to talk to you again.
“Your mom’s awesome. I can’t believe such a lovely woman gave birth to two gremlins like you and Junkyu. Are you sure you’re not adopted?”
It had seemed like nothing at the time, but when you played the scene over again in your mind that night as you lay in bed, the fact that Jihoon got along with your family filled your heart with an unexpected warmth. It was almost like he was part of the family himself - not in a third child way, but more in a if you brought him home to your family, he’d fit right in, a thought that had made you panic as soon as it’d appeared in your mind. Because why were you thinking of bringing Jihoon home? Why did it make you so happy, knowing he’d be welcomed with open arms?
You shook your head against your pillow, hoping it’d make those thoughts vanish. You reassured yourself by telling yourself that you’d be just as happy bringing a friend like Minjeong home, and that you were sure she’d get along just fine with your brothers and parents. 
The other sign had been much more straightforward. You weren’t afraid to eat messily in front of Jihoon, so some honey barbecue sauce had spread over the corner of your lips as you wolfed down one of the wings. As soon as Jihoon started to lean in across the table, you knew you were in trouble.
Not only did he wipe the sauce off your lips with his thumb, but he licked it off of his finger, never breaking eye contact throughout the whole ordeal. Your whole body tensed and you swear you stopped breathing for a second. 
It only really lasted maybe five seconds, but felt like hours to you. You glared at him for a bit before diving back into your chicken, hoping you didn’t look as flustered as you felt. But Jihoon and his stupid, proud smirk probably knew what he’d done to you. As if that wasn’t enough already, he even had the audacity to whisper cute under his breath. Your eyes snapped back up to his face, but he just smiled and nodded towards your food, telling you to keep eating. 
Over the next week, the word cute refused to leave your mind. You kept replaying that scene over and over - the feeling of Jihoon’s thumb on your lips, the sight of his own lips around his thumb, his gaze through it all. It wasn’t the first time such thoughts of Jihoon plagued you - once, he’d guided you through a crowded club with a hand on your lower back and the way the warmth of his hand against you had made you feel prompted you to ignore him for the rest of the night. Another time, he’d kissed you on the forehead after dropping you off at your apartment and you hadn’t been able to look him in the eyes for the following week. 
You took the small but meaningful events of that day as your second sign of your new odd feelings directed towards your best friend, feelings that you didn’t know how to name just yet.
--
Crazy rich Yoon Jaehyuk was having a pool party at his house, and basically everyone was invited. If you knew about the party, you could go - all Jaehyuk had to do was to tell maybe ten people and let them spread the word. As his partner for an English Linguistics class you had together that semester, you were one of those privileged people who’d known firsthand about the event and had made sure to tell everyone you knew to come. You shouldn’t have been so surprised to find what must’ve already been a hundred people on the front lawn, inside the house and around the pool when you showed up with Jihoon and the rest of your friends there.
Coincidentally, this was when the third sign occurred. Third time’s a charm, as they say, and the events of that night and those following cemented your growing hunch that something really was up.
Pre-drinks at yours and Minjeong’s place had already taken quite a toll on you. Jaehyuk lived at the edge of town, quite a ways from your flat, but the vodka cranberry you’d snuck in on the bus prevented you from sobering up during the long ride. When your group arrived at the party, both you and Minjeong were ready to dance. But before you could rush to wherever the dancefloor was, Jihoon caught you by the wrist, effectively stopping you in your tracks. Your eyes went from his fingers around your wrist to his smiling face, a surprised look on your own. 
“We’re gonna head directly to the pool. Don’t drink too much, okay?”
Your lips blossomed with a smile. Typical Jihoon. “Okay.”
The alcohol probably had something to do with it, but a surge of affection for your friend hit you and you stood on your tiptoes to press a kiss to his cheek before taking Minjeong’s hand in yours and making a beeline in the direction of the music.
I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas was calling your name and you didn’t think to turn around to look at Jihoon, so you missed the way he watched your figure retreating into the mass of drunk students as he tried to commit the warmth of your lips against his cheek to memory.
You and Minjeong made your way to the center of the crowd, shrieking with drunken excitement when you found a group of girls from one of your shared classes there and exchanging very brief pleasantries before falling into the rhythm of one of your all-time favorite party songs. In your humble opinion, no one understood partying like The Black Eyed Peas did.
You only leave the dancefloor on one occasion, which is to take a round of vodka shots with your new best friends for the night - Jihoon had said not to drink too much, not not at all. One of the girls (Yunjin, you thought, but she showed up to class so seldom you weren’t sure) had a trick of pouring a lick of strawberry syrup before the alcohol, so that you wouldn’t be hit with the nail polish remover aftertaste of vodka. You were delighted to find it worked (almost) like magic.
It’s about an hour later when you and Minjeong reach the pool, not quite sober but more so than when you’d arrived at the party. For a pool party, there were definitely less people there than inside the house, maybe due to the fact that it was the end of February and most people didn’t want to risk getting hypothermia from the temperature difference between the heated pool and the cold outside. 
The relatively small number of people makes it easy to spot Jihoon, in nothing but his swimming trunks and a towel around his shoulders, sitting on a longchair a dozen or so meters away from you. Something about half-naked Jihoon, you’re not sure what, makes you want to walk over to him and do… you’re not sure what, but Minjeong frantically slapping your arm and whispering your name stops you from doing whatever it was you wanted to do. 
“Y/N! Y/N! Yoshi is right there,” she whisper-yelled. Indeed, Yoshi was in the pool, not far from where you stood, playing with his friends you recognized from pre-drinks at his place the other day. Minjeong’s face was redder than you’d ever seen it, and you recalled a conversation you’d had earlier that day.
“Will Yoshi be there?” Minjeong had asked, trying to sound innocent.
You’d looked at your flatmate with an incredulous look on your face. “Yes, he’ll be there, you slut. I thought you never went for a second time?”
She’d shrugged, an unusually shy smile playing on her lips as she looked down at her feet. “I don’t know, we’ll see.”
This was very unlike Minjeong - in your six months of knowing each other, it was the first time you ever saw her even consider getting with someone a second time. You didn’t know what sort of spell this Yoshi guy had cast on your friend, but it must’ve been very effective. 
“Go talk to him,” you simply said.
“What?! No way, I can’t- Oh my God, he’s looking at us,” she said, words rushing out of her mouth, “he’s looking right at us, isn’t he?”
You just laughed at your friend and waved at Yoshi who was already waddling towards your edge of the pool. “Hey, Yoshi!” you called excitedly. At the sound of your voice, Jihoon’s head snapped towards you. He wasted no time in yelling your name, motioning for you to come over, so you gestured back that you’d be there in a minute. 
“Hey, Y/N!” Yoshi called back with the same tone. “Hey, Minjeong,” he added, tone somewhat quiet, but the blush that grew on his cheeks told you you weren’t the one he was most happy to see. 
“Hey, Yoshi,” she said so quietly, you weren’t sure the boy could even hear her.
“Nice to see you guys here,” he said, talking to you but glancing nervously at Minjeong. 
“You too!” you replied, and before he could add anything, you placed a hand on your friend’s shoulder. “Well, I’m sure the two of you have a lot to talk about. See you later!”
You grinned innocently at Minjeong as she called your name, eyes wide in panic. She was a big girl, and Yoshi was clearly into her - she could handle herself. Jihoon eyed you amusedly as you made your way towards him.
“Are you setting them up?” he asked when you were within earshot of him.
“I’d be a bad friend if I didn’t at least try. I’ve never seen Minjeong blush over a guy, so this must be serious.”
A few of Jihoon’s friends were hanging out next to him, people that you knew from the many parties you attended together but that you rarely saw outside of drinking contexts. You waved at them before sitting on the deckchair next to Jihoon’s. He pivoted in his seat to face you, seemingly not minding that he’d just turned his back to his friends, then scooched his chair closer to yours so that your knees touched. You rested your palms next to your thighs and kept your gaze down. Something about Jihoon kept you from meeting his eyes, tonight. Maybe it was the half-nakedness.
Jihoon eyed you for a little bit, wondering what was making you so unusually quiet, before looking behind his shoulder to check whether Minjeong had been able to make progress on her own.
“Looks like it’s going well,” he assessed.
You followed his gaze to find Minjeong sitting at the edge of the pool and kicking her legs in the water while Yoshi stood next to her, water up to his belly button. You smiled as they giggled and splashed each other - it was going well, indeed. 
“Have you been in the pool yet?” you asked, shifting your gaze to the party-goers playing in the water. The echoes of people talking and water splashing were quite loud, but Jihoon was so close that you didn’t need to raise your voice too much. 
“No, I just took my shirt off for the hell of it.” 
You had meant to bring your eyes up to his face, you really had - but somewhere on the way, they stopped on his abs, and got stuck there. It was probably a full five seconds before you could look away from the well-defined muscles on his stomach and finally meet his eyes. He didn’t need to say anything - the smirk playing on his lips and the slight surprise in the raise of his brows were enough to tell you he had not missed your stare. 
You looked back to the pool, eyebrows slightly creased in shame at having been so obvious. Thankfully, you had brought a drink with you and took a swig of it there. “I wouldn’t put it past you.”
You were trying to ignore the way Jihoon’s eyes burned into the side of your face, the way they followed your every move, but with each passing second, you felt more conscious of them. Not unlike one would try to escape a wasp, you thought that going into the pool might tear Jihoon’s eyes away from you at least for a little bit. It’s not that his gaze made you uncomfortable, like that of a random old man in the street would, but it definitely made you feel… things. Things that you didn’t necessarily want to dive into. 
The problem was that, to go into the pool, you’d need to get into your swimsuit. You’d thought ahead and had come already clad into your bikini underneath your clothes, a black, strapless tube dress that was easy to take off so you could jump into the pool at any time. But getting rid of that dress right in front of Jihoon and his watchful eyes was more nerve-wracking than you’d imagined. 
You downed the rest of your cup for some liquid courage and shot up from your seat, releasing a deep breath as you did so. You thought it was better to just get it over with than make it last any longer than it needed to. Jihoon’s eyes glinted with amusement as they followed your every move.
“Let’s go back in.” 
Your plan had been to lift your dress off of your body and head straight to the pool, but Jihoon’s gaze made you freeze in place after stripping. You couldn’t quite describe it as lustful, or as hungry, because there was a hint of surprise there that softened it. It was like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and loving it at the same time, if the slowly growing smirk on his lips was anything to go by. Your whole body felt like it was on fire, a fire that made your knees turn to jelly and that rendered you close to breathless.
You let his curious eyes travel your body for a few seconds before clearing your throat. “Do you want a picture or something?” you asked ironically, hoping your voice didn’t sound as shaky as you felt.
His smirk only widened. “No need. The real thing is so much better.”
You tried not to cower under his shameless gaze, instead stood up straighter and stared right back at him. “My eyes are up here, you know.”
“I know,” he replied, but his eyes stayed trained on your body. You watched as they slowly made their way up your legs, took in your stomach and waist, then paused on your chest, which was quickly falling and rising with your shallow breathing. It was only when you scoffed and crossed your arms that he looked at your face.
Still that lopsided smirk on his lips, he stood up and languidly made his way towards you. He came so close that you had to slightly crane your neck to meet his gaze.
Your heart raced as he let a few seconds of silence stretch between the two of you, keeping his eyes locked in yours. “Nice eyes,” he murmured after a pause, the sudden depth of his voice sending a shiver down your spine.
After six months of seeing him almost every day, one would think Jihoon’s flirty personality would not have such an effect on you anymore. And most of the time, it didn’t - even back in the day, he was already fond of teasing you, so usually, him telling you how pretty you looked, patting your head or him tucking stray strands of hairs behind your ear went somewhat unnoticed by you. Or at least, it was easier not to freak out over “small” things like these.
But this was one of the times when you thought he was really pushing it, and you lost the ability to even eye-roll, which was your usual defense against his flirting attacks. You hated to admit, but you just couldn’t pretend it didn’t have an effect on you. You hated it because you knew he was just flirting as a joke, not because he was actually interested or anything of the sort, and you felt stupid that it still did something to you - although you sometimes doubted whether he really was doing it just for fun. You wanted to think he was acting the way he was on purpose, to get a reaction out of you. It’d make you feel less of a fool.
Before you’d even had time to understand the meaning behind his words, he’d already walked away from you and to the pool. When your senses had come back and you spun around, he was already inside the water. He looked like a cute wet puppy with his hair sticking out all around his head, especially when he shook it and let droplets of water fall off his hair and splash around him, and you couldn’t believe this was the same man that had essentially called your tits nice just moments prior.
The raging butterflies in your stomach were your third sign.
You must’ve stared long, because after a while, your eyes met again, and a smile reappeared on his face. An actual smile, this time, not a smirk or anything of the sort. As if nothing had just happened - as if it was absolutely natural for your best friend to practically devour you with his eyes like that. 
He waved you over and you noticed Minjeong and Yoshi were with him, seemingly waiting for you as well. When you reached the edge of the pool, someone entered the room with a platter of shots of God knows what, and you immediately reached out for one and downed it. Sambuca, you realized with relief as the sweet liquid burned its way down your throat. That way, if your body kept buzzing the way it had been around Jihoon, you could blame it on the alcohol and nothing else.
Minjeong and Yoshi were already back in their new little world, but Jihoon watched with an amused grin as you measured the temperature of the water with a foot, then, deeming it warm enough, made your way towards your friends. There, the water reached up to your shoulders, and the fact that it got up to just a little bit under Jihoon’s chest only marked your height difference further, which shouldn’t have made you as flustered as it did.
“Didn’t I tell you not to drink too much before going into the water?” Jihoon asked, laughter clear in his voice.
“How about you let me drink as much as I want, and make sure I don’t drown?” you bit back, even though you knew it wasn’t much of a comeback. You had spoken in an irritated tone that, going by the way his smile softened, Jihoon found cute.
“Okay, I will,” he said, and the sweetness in his tone only served to further unnerve you.
If he noticed your annoyance, he didn’t say anything. 
You let yourself be convinced to play a game of chicken fight against Minjeong and Yoshi, which (along with that shot of Sambuca) made your competitive streak kick in and allowed you to, at least momentarily, forget about your irritation towards your friend. The reason behind that irritation was something you didn’t even want to think about.
Somehow, you endured the prickling on your skin as Jihoon kept your thighs tightly pressed around his shoulders with two big hands. Even when he squeezed the flesh there or craned his neck to look up at you with those big, round eyes of his, you managed to not let the way your stomach flipped get to your head. 
You weren’t sure how you won all three rounds of chicken fight, if it was thanks to Jihoon’s devotion to the gym, or yours to the free weekly Sunday morning pilates class your uni gym offers. It might’ve been down to the level of complicity you and Jihoon had built over the months that Yoshi and Minjeong hadn’t reached yet (if that can even be a factor in chicken fight success) - all you know, is that you do, and that even underwater, Jihoon’s hands burn as they snake their way around your waist, and press your body flush to his in a celebratory hug.
Some time later, you sit at the edge of the pool by yourself, having been deserted by the two lovebirds who not-so-sneakily snuck away under the pretext of getting some drinks, as well as by Jihoon who was called by some friends to join him back in the pool. You were at the level of tipsiness that made you want to self-introspectively sit on your own and people-watch for a little bit.
Until someone broke your peace.
“Hey, Y/N,” you heard a vaguely familiar voice say. Before you could respond, Kim Sunwoo was sitting next to you, a bit too close in your opinion for your level of acquaintance, clad in black swimming trunks that let the band of his Calvin Klein underwear peek through. 
He wasn’t half bad-looking, you decided in that instant.
“Oh, hi, Sunwoo,” you replied, smiling as you unquestioningly accepted the drink he offered you and thanked him for it. You peered at the orange liquid and decided it was the right color for alcohol before taking a sip. It being orange vodka didn’t come as much of a surprise. “I didn’t know you knew my name,” you admitted.
You recognized Sunwoo’s face from the Introduction to Literary Theory lecture you’d had last semester, and had learned his name when the lecture had to be online due to the professor falling ill, and he was one of the few brave students who had turned his camera on. With a face like his, you understood where the confidence came from.
Then, one night out on the town with Minjeong and other friends, you’d run into him at the counter of a bar, and had exchanged a few (flirty, if you recalled correctly) words, but not your names, hence the slight confusion.
He chuckled and you watched as two deep dimples appeared on his cheeks. “I did my research before coming here. Sadly, no one knew what kind of drink you liked, so I went for something basic and prayed.”
“This is perfect,” you said, laughing.
“To be perfectly honest,” he starts after a slight pause, “I’ve seen you around campus, and we even saw each other at a bar once, didn’t we?” he asks, and grins when you nod. “I felt stupid for never asking for your name, or your number. So when I saw you sitting here, I thought it must be fate that brought me to this party.”
You had barely registered his words, let alone formed any sort of response in your mind when Jihoon suddenly appeared in front of the two of you, placing a hand right next to your thigh on the pool edge. You hadn’t noticed him swimming your way.
“Hey, Sunwoo. I see you’ve met my girlfriend,” Jihoon blatantly lies as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The shock is apparent on Sunwoo’s face, and if it wasn’t for the sweet, convincing smile Jihoon was looking at you with, you might’ve let your surprise show more.
Sunwoo didn’t know Jihoon like you did, so you didn’t know whether he noticed the tightness in his grin, the challenge in his slightly raised eyebrows, or the general way he was holding himself that screamed Leave. But he must’ve noticed something, because it only took him a few seconds to start nodding slowly and rise from his seat.
For some reason, you stayed quiet, letting the word girlfriend and the way it had rolled off Jihoon’s tongue so easily repeat over and over again in your head. Maybe it was the alcohol, but he had said it so convincingly that you almost questioned whether you actually were Jihoon’s girlfriend. Before you could think any more about it, however, Sunwoo broke the increasingly tense silence.
“My bad, man, I didn’t know she was taken. I’ll leave you two to it, then,” he said with a smile, and that was that. 
You watched his retreating figure for a bit, eyebrows creased in confusion, before snapping your head towards Jihoon. Head tilted, he was fixing you with a questioning look, as if to ask, What are you up to?, when he was the one that had just acted strangely.
“What was that all about?” you asked.
Jihoon shrugged. “I chased him away for you. I’ve only heard bad stuff about that guy, like he sleeps with a new girl every weekend and doesn’t treat them right.”
You thought for a second, bottom lip slightly jutting out in concentration. “Well, couldn’t you have told me about his reputation then let me make the decision for myself?”
“I-” Jihoon started but stopped himself. He seemed to mull over your words for a bit, then sighed. “You’re right, I guess I could have, but you’ve been drinking, who knows if you would’ve made the right decision?”
This made you furrow your brows. “So what if I did? Getting drunk and going home with a rando is not unheard of, I would’ve been fine. Just maybe ashamed tomorrow morning.”
A flash of annoyance swept across Jihoon’s features, and your curiosity couldn’t help but be piqued. The two of you had had your fair share of aimless arguments over the months, but he’d never actually gotten cross with you. For some reason, you were suddenly itching to know what angry Jihoon was like.
“I wouldn’t be fine with it, though. I’d hate knowing that I let you go home with a prick like that.”
This wasn’t the first time Jihoon had fended off guys for you during a night out, but to his credit, they weren’t ever guys you wanted to talk to. And, well, admittedly, after learning what he was like, maybe you didn’t want to talk to Sunwoo either, but Jihoon’s protectiveness tonight was bothering you more than it ever had. 
You let a silence stretch between the two of you before speaking again. “You- you can’t just do that, you know,” you declared, not meeting his eyes.
“Do what?”
“Act like you just did. Pretending to be my boyfriend just to get a guy away from me.” Jihoon was just staring at you silently, so you felt compelled to add,  “You’re not actually my boyfriend, you know.”
Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, because his jaw locked and a coldness you had never seen before appeared in his eyes.
“Aren’t I basically?”
That caught you off guard. Where was this coming from? Jihoon had never entertained the idea of being your boyfriend, ever, so why was he suddenly acting like he was? Like he had always been?
And yet, you found yourself toying with the idea of dating Jihoon once more. The one question that pervaded your thoughts was, would things be so different? You’d never had a boyfriend, so you weren’t sure what they did, but you thought it wouldn’t be too far off from how Jihoon treated you now. Keep you safe, bring you food, buy you random keychains or pencils that reminded him of you, text you throughout the day, compliment you. The only difference would be…
Your eyes drifted down to his lips, and you swore you heard a shaky intake of breath coming from the man right in front of you.
The thought had barely crossed your mind that panic rose in your chest. You could not be thinking about kissing Jihoon. You couldn’t think about him being your boyfriend, either. You weren’t sure why, but your sudden heart palpitations at the mere idea told you that you just couldn’t.
“No, you’re not.” You had wanted to speak firmly, but you feared your voice had come out shakier than intended.
To your surprise, Jihoon scoffed. “So if I went off and started dating someone else, it wouldn’t bother you?” he asked in a disbelieving, almost mocking tone.
“No, it wouldn’t,” you answered, and as soon as the words were out, you knew they were a lie. You scrambled to your feet, suddenly wanting to be away from this conversation and the way it made you feel. “I’ll, um, I’ll head back inside.”
You ignored his call of your name and picked up your dress, hastily sliding it back on as you made your way back towards the living room where most of the action was. You quickly found that it was too loud, too hot, too packed in there. You headed back outside through another door that led to a part of the backyard far from the pool, where people sat in small groups around a big fire, either nursing a drink or passing round a joint, the smell of weed heavy in the air. At least it was quiet here.
You walked around some before spotting Jaehyuk, the man of the house himself, sitting on his lonesome on a swing bench in a dark corner of the garden, looking down despondently into a red solo cup. A couple hours into the party, this was the first time you saw him, you realized. It made you wonder how long he’d been sitting out here on his own.
“Hey, Jaehyuk,” you greeted, catching him by surprise. You took a seat next to him, sliding your hands underneath your thighs to keep them warm.
“Oh, hey, Y/N. Nice that you came.” He mustered a smile for you before taking a swig from his cup and cringing at the taste of what must’ve been alcohol.
“What are you doing out here by yourself?” you asked softly. You were used to cheery, smiley Jaehyuk, and even though you weren’t very close, you couldn’t help but be saddened by seeing your friend in such a state.
Jaehyuk sighed deeply. “The girl I planned this party for isn’t here.”
“The girl you… planned… this party for?” you echoed, and he nodded. “You mean this,” you said, gesturing to the house and backyard full to the brim with people, “is all for one girl?”
He sighed and nodded again, taking another sip from his cup. He tutted at the drink, or maybe at himself for drinking it when he knew how awful it tasted. “I wanted an excuse to see her outside of class.” He chuckled. “I realize now that I might have gone slightly overboard.”
“Just a bit,” you laughed along, watching as a group of stoners cheered at their friend who had found marshmallows and sticks God-knows-where. “It’s not even midnight yet, she might still be coming.”
Jaehyuk shrugged. “I’ve stopped hoping. I think I just need to get into the party and forget about it for tonight.”
You smiled. “Sounds like a plan.”
“What about you, what made you escape out here? The music not to your liking?”
“Are you kidding? This is the Danish alternative pop playlist of my dreams,” you said, earning a chuckle from him. “No, I just…” You realized you didn’t even know how to talk about this. What was making you so upset?
“I got into a bit of a… squabble with my friend, if you will. He-”
“Oh, so it’s a he?” Jaehyuk cut in, a knowing smile on his face.
“No- I mean, yes, he is, but it’s not like that, it’s- it’s…”
“It’s?” he egged on.
“Ugh, fine, it might be like that,” you finally admitted, as much to Jaehyuk as to yourself. Your irritation made him laugh.
“It’s okay, it happens.”
“I didn’t think it would happen to me, though.”
“Why not?”
You sighed. “Just ‘cause… him and I, we’ve known each other for such a long time, it feels weird that things would start changing now.”
“How long have you known each other?”
“We met when we were thirteen and fourteen. Then he moved away and we only met again in September last semester.”
“Did you keep in touch?”
“Not so much. I just heard from him through my brother, they’re much closer.”
“So… what I’m hearing is, you’ve known each other a long time, but you’ve only really become friends since September, right?”
“Right,” you echoed dubitatively, wondering where Jaehyuk was going.
“Y/N, that’s just a bit over six months.”
“...So?”
“So, that’s not nearly as long as you make it out to be. It’s not like you’ve been best friends for years and things are suddenly changing. Six months… aren’t that short, I’ll give you that, but I think it’s a reasonable time for people to get closer as friends and then start developing feelings.”
“Feelings?” you immediately echoed, panic evident in your voice.
Jaehyuk let out something like a chuckle, looking at you like he was figuring out whether you were joking or not. “Is that not what this whole thing is about?”
You dropped your gaze down to your thighs, frowning. “Feelings just sound so serious…”
“They can be, but they don’t have to.” After a few seconds of silence, he noticed your upset expression and nudged your shoulder good-naturedly. “What’s worrying you so much?”
“It’s just confusing. I… It’s not like I’ve been totally indifferent towards him up ‘til now, but there’s something about him lately, especially tonight. It makes me actually wonder about… you know. Whether I want him as a friend or not.” You sighed. “And even if I am feeling… feelings, I don’t know how he sees me. I could still be a sort of little sister in his eyes, for all I know.”
“What makes you think that?”
A small smile grew on your lips as you blew air from your nose. “Junkyu - my older brother - tasked him with looking after me when he learned I was going to attend this university with him. So, while I go crazy trying to figure out why he acts the way he acts and why I feel the way I feel, he might just be keeping a promise to my brother.”
“But have you ever seen him as an older brother?”
“No,” you replied immediately. Your surety almost took you aback. “Jihoon is… Jihoon. He’s definitely not Junkyu.”
Jaehyuk smiled. “Then I don’t think he would see you as a little sister, either. The way you act with a sibling and with a friend, potentially someone you like, is very different. I don’t think there’d be room for question if he treated you as a younger sister, you’d just know. Most guys I know are very obvious when they like someone, me included, so if you’re thinking about this so much just because of the way he acts with you… well, you’re probably onto something.”
“You think?” 
“I do.” 
You and Jaehyuk stayed outside chatting for a few more minutes until you decided to go back inside for some warmth and a refill of your empty cups. In the kitchen, you ran into some of your classmates, so you joined in their animated discussion on which version of The Sims is better (Asahi offended everyone by saying the mobile app was the best) instead of going looking for Minjeong and Jihoon like you had intended to.
A few minutes later, as your phone buzzed with six consecutive texts from your roommate, you found out where both of them were. 
minjeong girl do u know how many bedrooms there are in this goddamn house??!!!! yoshi and i are spending the night here xxx ask jaehyuk if he has a room for u or get home w jihoon whos that girl he’s talkin to in the kitchen btw??? love yaa xxxxxoooo text me if u need anything!! i’ll be busy but i’ll keep my phone on ;)
Usually, you’d have rolled your eyes at the exorbitant amount of x’s and the cheesy winky face, but something else had got your attention. Suddenly stepping away mentally from the conversation (which had turned into an interrogation on Asahi’s suspected addiction to mobile games), you looked around the crowded kitchen until your eyes settled on your culprit.
From where you were, you only had a view of his side profile, just as Minjeong had said, Jihoon was talking to a girl, red solo cup in his hand and stupidly attractive smile on his lips. She was leaning against the wall while he stood in front of her, both looking as relaxed as if they had known each other for years. What was up with all that eye contact? What was making them smile so hard?
You hadn’t realized how hard you were staring until Jaehyuk’s voice broke through your thoughts, asking if you were okay. 
“You look like you want to kill someone,” Sumin joked, not knowing she was closer to the truth than she thought.
You tried to laugh it off, saying you were just deeply disturbed by Asahi’s predicament, but you couldn’t keep yourself from glancing back at Jihoon and the girl every thirty seconds. Another girl arrived, and Jihoon shifted to make room for her so that he was now directly facing you. Over the chatter of the kitchen and music booming from the speakers in the living room, you couldn’t hear anything they were saying, but it seemed like Girl #1 was introducing Jihoon to Girl #2, placing a palm on his bicep as she did so. You counted - that hand stayed there for four whole seconds, and when she finally took it off of him, your eyes drifted back to Jihoon’s face.
Jihoon, who was staring right at you. Jihoon, who raised his eyebrows at you as if to say, What about it? while yours were creased in - confusion, anger, you weren’t sure what, but an ugly feeling you weren’t accustomed to. Jihoon, who, you decided, had to know what he was doing, had to know how this was making you feel.
The only thing on your mind was getting out of here and taking Jihoon with you. Without thinking much, you fished your phone out of your sweater pocket, texted Jihoon Let’s go and said bye to your friends, lying that your friend had suddenly asked you to leave.
After a few minutes of waiting by yourself outside in the cold, crouching to maximize body warmth, you started to wonder if Jihoon had decided to not follow you. But when you felt a weight drop on your shoulders, you snapped your head up to find him smiling down at you. 
“Where did you get this?” you asked, meaning the blanket he had given you.
“I stole it from the living room.”
“Jihoon,” you scolded.
“You know the guy right? Just give it back to him this week,” he said, lowering himself down to your level. Similarly to your eye contact in the kitchen, you were still frowning while he kept on smiling. “Not like you to want to leave before one a.m.. Is something the matter?” he asked, and you debated whether he was faking his innocence or not.
For about ten seconds, you tried to stay quiet, not wanting to betray your feelings to him. You glared ahead of you, watching your breath form wisps in the late February night air. 
But then he called your name so softly, it undid all of your resolve. The sound of it made you sigh.
“Who was that you were talking to?” you finally asked, voice barely above a whisper.
“Hm? That was just Shuhua, she’s a Tawainese exchange student from one of my classes. Then she introduced me to her friend Yuqi.”
You nodded slowly, still not meeting Jihoon’s gaze. “I didn’t know there was a Taiwainese exchange student in one of your classes.”
“Y/N?” The unexpected seriousness with which he had called your name forced you to look at him.
“Hm.”
“I have something to tell you.” He must’ve noticed your sudden inability to speak, so he continued, lowering his head to be at eye-level with you. “There’s a Taiwainese exchange student in one of my classes.”
A smile broke through his serious facade and you had to look away to hide your own growing grin. “You’re stupid,” you said, but it only made Jihoon laugh.
“So is that what this is all about? A little bout of jealousy from my Y/N?”
You didn’t know what to focus on - the fact that he had finally put a name to what you were feeling or the face that he had called you his. It made you frown. “I wasn’t jealous,” you said, aware of how unbelievable you sounded.
“No? Then what made you want to leave so suddenly?”
“I- You-” you started, glaring at Jihoon when he snickered. “How come I can’t talk to guys but it’s okay for you to talk to girls?” 
“So you are jealous.”
“No, I just think you’re being unfair. I’m calling you out on your hypocrisy, Hoon. Double standards and all that.” 
Jihoon grinned. Had he known that he’d get such a reaction from you after talking to a friend that happened to be a girl, he’d have done it much earlier. And yet you had never had a problem with any of the girls in his usual friend group - if anything, the bunch of you often ganged up against him - so he wondered what was wrong with Shuhua in particular. Was it because you didn’t know her, and misunderstanding could arise?
His smile and eyes softened. No matter how adorable you looked to him right now, he wasn’t one to play games with feelings, his or yours. It was hard enough to make you realize how much he liked you (although he hoped that scene at the pool had made things more apparent), so he wasn’t going to make it even more confusing by letting you think he might like someone else.
Earlier, when he’d asked you if him dating someone else would bother you, and you’d answered no, he hadn’t formed any plan whatsoever to go off and talk to another girl right in front of you. Things just happened in his favor. He’d been talking with a whole group of people in the kitchen, but save for Jennifer, they’d all left for a game of spin the bottle (at their grown college age). Shuhua had a boyfriend back home and he had you, so they both had no interest for it. So it was just the two of them bonding over their love for Taylor Swift’s music when you appeared in the kitchen with Jaehyuk. 
Did he also feel a pang of jealousy seeing you with another guy, even though it was just Jaehyuk and he already knew of your friendship? Perhaps, but this wasn’t anything new with Jihoon. He didn’t think he’d be able to get rid of it until he had the surety that you were his, which had felt like a faraway goal until recently. Maybe it was due to his growing boldness or maybe you had managed to piece everything together yourself, but he was sure he’d felt a shift in your attitude towards him lately. There were times you would get shyer than usual, refusing to look him in the eyes; other times, like tonight, you’d defy him, as if trying to prove to both him and yourself you didn’t feel any sort of way towards him. But he hadn’t missed the way your eyes had drifted down to his lips and stayed there for a few seconds, hadn’t missed your panic when things seemed to get too real.
Just like you, although he didn’t know about that, he also found that there was something different about tonight, some tension between the two of you that was bound to explode. The fact that you were both in swimsuits had probably not helped. As soon as he’d seen you in your black tube dress, his imagination had started running wild. The way you casually had a gray zip sweatshirt of his in your room and donned it before leaving your place had made it harder to not just keep you in your apartment while the others went off to the party, and seeing you in your bikini was like the final boss he hadn’t been able to defeat. Keeping his eyes off of you was simply impossible. He wasn’t sure how he had resisted kissing you right then and there, showing everyone who the prettiest girl in the room - hell, at this party - belonged to.
(Jihoon had a bit of a possessive streak.)
Even now that you had somewhat made up, he still felt the changed air around you, like there was no going back from here. No pretending there were no unsaid feelings anymore - at least, that’s how he felt. If you needed the extra push to realize either his feelings, your own, or both, he didn’t mind initiating it. If anything, he had been waiting for it.
So he made sure to clear things up. “I didn’t want you to talk to Sunwoo because I knew he had bad intentions. Or at least selfish ones. Shuhua has a boyfriend, nothing was gonna happen there.”
“Oh, but if she didn’t, something would’ve?”
“No, Y/N. No,” Jihoon said firmly. 
“Why not? She’s pretty.” You knew you were being unreasonable at this point, arguing for the sake of arguing, but you couldn’t help yourself.
Jihoon sighed before placing a hand at the top of your head, brushing your hair gently. “I know someone who’s prettier.”
You turned your head slowly to look at him and were met with a sight you forever wanted to keep in your heart. Jihoon was looking down at you, eyes soft and filled with an emotion you wanted to describe as adoration, corners of his lips upturned into a sweet smile. You wanted to reach out and touch his cheek, feel the warmth of his skin under your palm and make sure he was real, but you were too stuck in his gaze to move.
“I actually know the prettiest girl in the world. I’m very lucky.”
You continued staring at each other for a few seconds or maybe a few hours, until he booped your nose and stood up. “Our Uber’s here, pretty girl.” 
You took his extended hand in yours and let him help you up, still in a daze as he opened the car door for you and rushed to the other side. You didn’t expect the relief you felt when he took your hand in his again as the Uber started driving. As the driver and him made minimal small talk, you watched out the window, but you couldn’t hear or see anything - you could only focus on Jihoon’s fingers intertwined with yours. Had hand-holding always felt so natural?
Even once you reached your apartment and you had to let go of it to get out of the car, the only thing you wanted was to have it again. 
You didn’t notice right away, as you punched in the code for the entrance to your apartment building, that Jihoon had stayed behind on the pavement. A light rain had started and his hair, all curled up from the pool, shone with small beads of water that the streetlights reflected on. 
“Aren’t you coming up?” you asked, turning around to face him and leaning against the door so it wouldn’t close.
“Not tonight,” he simply said, and you hesitated to ask him why. Whatever it was, he must have his reason, and you would see him again soon anyway, so you dropped it.
“Okay.” You nodded and hoped you didn’t sound as disappointed as you felt. 
You thought that would be it, but then he took a step closer to you, then another, until he was standing right in front of you. The doorstep made you taller so that your eyes were on a parallel with his lips, on which they naturally fell. No matter how confusing tonight might have been, if what you thought was about to happen actually did happen, you knew there was not a cell in your body that would resist it.
Jihoon leaned in closer and closer, until he was right there, and your lips would touch any second - but he leaned to the right, pressing a kiss to the corner of your lips instead. You stood with bated breath as he leaned back, wearing a proud smirk. “Good to know you wouldn’t push me away if I tried to kiss you,” he said, but on this rare occasion, you were speechless. 
His smirk softened to a smile as he ruffled your hair. “Good night, Y/N.”
It wasn’t until he had reached the corner, turning around and waving at you to go into your building before disappearing that you snapped out of it and made your way to your apartment. As soon as you’d shut your front door behind you, you realized just how disappointed you felt that Jihoon hadn’t come up like he usually did, how much you missed the reassurance of having him there, even if the two of you were a room apart. 
You also realized you didn’t want any walls to separate you anymore.
And there you had it - the signs were too obvious to ignore anymore. The heart flutterings, the thoughts of him invading your mind day and night, the jealousy. The constant longing to be with him.
You were in love with Park Jihoon.
--
You fell into a deep sleep for about four hours, before waking up with a start.
You were in love with Park Jihoon.
What had seemed like a comforting thought at the time now freaked you out to no end. Park Jihoon was your best friend, your brother’s best friend, someone you’d met so long ago he’d known you during your embarrassing bangs phase of 2015 (BangGate, as your friends from home inappropriately liked to call it).
You were great as friends, sure, but how would you fare if things went further than that? There was no way for you to know other than by trying it firsthand. Did you want to take that leap, and risk falling face first - or chance falling right into his arms?
For some reassurance, you got your laptop out and went to Google. At first, you intended to search some YouTube videos or blog posts about successful best-friends-turned-lovers stories, but something deep inside your brain compelled you to type Omegle in the search bar. Even if it was five a.m. for you, it’d be a reasonable time of the day for people with good relationship advice somewhere, right?
In your interests, you typed love, relationship and advice, hoping this would lead you to your savior. After skipping a few naked men who apparently were into love too, two young girls appeared on your screen who, going off of their accent, were British. They looked about eleven and were doing their nails, not paying attention to their screen. NewJeans was playing in the background.
They were perfect.
“Hey, girls!” you said, cringing at the sound of your own voice.
They raised their heads in unison, looking at you for a second before coming closer to the screen, all wide smiles. One of them had braces with pink elastics. “Hey, girl!”
You decided you had no time to lose, so you directly told them you needed advice with a boy you liked. They nodded vigorously. So you told them everything - from how you and Jihoon had met, to reconnecting in September, to the events of the past few months (including a detailed rundown of what happened at the pool, which they loved). They even insisted on seeing a picture and squealed when you showed them. Your Jihoon really was handsome.
“So? What do you think I should do?” you asked when you were done recounting everything.
“I have this thing I do whenever I fancy someone,” the girl on the right started, while the other one munched on some sour candy. You nodded for her to continue. “It really helps me know if I should keep fancying them or if they’re not worth it. It’s called a compibi- compa- combali- Rosie, what was it again?”
“A compatibility test,” Rosie said, tongue blue from her candy.
“Right, that. It works like magic. Just the other week I thought for sure Leo was the cutest boy in school but then I did the test thing and got forty percent with him and a few days later he was dating Sarah anyway.”
“Sarah is terrible,” Rosie chipped in.
“Oh no!” you exclaimed.
“Yeah, really bad,” the other girl said, nodding. “But then, I did it with Martin and got eighty-six percent and we’ve been dating for ten days now, we have,” she finished proudly.
“That’s amazing.” You didn’t know if it was the lack of sleep or the conviction with which the girl spoke, but you were hooked. “How do I do it?” you asked, although you’d probably done it when you were their age too.
“Oh, it’s easy. You just type the comp- Rosie?”
“Compatibility.”
“That, test on Google and click any one of them and type in your name then his. Any of them will do, I’m sure,” she shrugged, reaching for a candy. 
“Okay, let me do it right now. Gimme a sec.” After a few clicks, you’d reached an early 2010s-style website called lovecalculator.com, all pink and cupids shooting their arrows into the sky. You typed in your name, then Jihoon’s, then pressed a shaky finger to the Enter bar.
“Oh my gosh!” you squealed. “We got ninety-nine percent!”
“Oh my gosh!” the girls yelped back, clapping and hugging each other in celebration.
“Girl, you need to go tell him right now,” non-Rosie said firmly.
“Right now,” Rosie echoed.
You pouted. “I can’t, it’s five a.m. right now.”
“You better go later then! You two are meant to be! You’ll last at least like, a month or two.” 
“At least.”
After thanking and saying good-bye to your new best friends, you spent a good three minutes staring at the big 99% in bright pink on your screen. This randomly generated number made you so happy that you took a screenshot and printed it out on Minjeong’s printer in the living room, then put it on your fridge for you to admire. You used a magnet Jihoon had gifted you for Christmas - it was a four-cut photobooth picture of you two you’d taken at the Christmas market. You thought you’d only taken the paper version, but he’d made you go get food for the both of you while he bought the magnet version as well.
Your mind at ease, you started heading back to your room, but you ran into someone right as you walked out of the kitchen.
You looked him up and down. Yoshinori was standing in your living room half-naked, looking like a deer caught in headlights. 
“H-hey, Y/N,” he said, breaking the silence first. “I’m sorry, I thought you were sleeping…”
“I woke up early,” you replied, unable to keep yourself from smiling at his awkwardness. “What are you doing?”
“Just, um, just getting some water.”
“And you have to come to my apartment to do that?”
“No, I, um- Someone called the cops, so Jaehyuk kicked all of us out.”
“I thought you were in a room somewhere?”
“Yeah, but we went outside to see what was happening, and he saw us, so we had to leave.”
“Right… Well, glad you made it back home safe.” The strangeness of the situation suddenly hit you, and you realized you should probably let the half-naked man get his glass of water and leave. “I’ll go back to my room, then.”
“Oh, right, see you, Y/N. And sorry.”
“No worries!” you said, waving his apology off and scurried off to your bedroom. You plopped into your bed with a satisfied sigh, hugging a plushie Jihoon had won for you at an arcade close to your chest. He really was everywhere.
When you woke up next, sunlight was pouring from the window into your room. You checked your phone - nine a.m.. Not early enough to go to late sleeper Jihoon’s place, but definitely early enough to call your probably still sleeping brother. You had to tell someone about your newfound revelation, and Minjeong next door was either asleep or busy.
Your phone rang with an outgoing call for so long that you thought Junkyu might simply not pick up. “I’m in love with Jihoon,” you blurted out as soon as your brother’s face appeared on screen. 
He paused for a second, taking your words in, then yawned and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “Good morning to you too, Y/N.”
“I’m in love with Jihoon,” you repeated, more insistently.
“I heard you the first time.”
“Well, what do you think?!” you asked, impatience rising. You couldn’t believe your brother could be sarcastic in an emergency like this.
Junkyu frowned. “Uh, congratulations?”
You tutted. “Kyu, I’m serious about this!”
“I know, I can tell,” he said, chuckling. “Are you going to tell him?”
“I think I have to. I think… I think he feels the same way about me, actually.”
Junkyu rolled his eyes. “No shit, Sherlock.”
You paused. “Huh?”
“Everyone and their mom knows he’s in love with you, we were just all waiting for you to see it.”
“Huh?!” Junkyu shrugged. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
Your brother sighed. “Some things in life, you have to figure out on your own, sis. Like taxes.” You just frowned at him. “Well, how did you figure it out?”
“Now that you say it, I guess I should’ve noticed it earlier. But really what happened is I saw him talking to a girl.”
“Put the man in jail!”
“Shut up. And then we talked for a bit, and he didn’t outright say it, but he heavily implied that he… liked me.”
Junkyu scoffed. “That’s an understatement.”
You ignored your brother. “But I don’t know if I should wait for a bit or go tell him now-”
“Y/N. Please, put that man out of his misery and go tell him now.”
“Don’t you think he’d get upset if I confessed first? You know Jihoon, he gets proud about random things like that.”
“Believe me, he won’t care. He’ll just be happy you like him back after all this time.”
You thought for a second, a small smile blooming on your lips. “Does he really like me that much?”
Junkyu sighed. “He’s been harping on about you since we were fourteen. He probably keeps a diary or a boyblog where he just writes about you. Just go get him, girl.”
Your smile grew wider and your heart started beating faster, excitement growing in your stomach at the thought of seeing Jihoon again. “Okay, I will.” You and your brother stared at each other for a second, eyes wide in anticipation, until something struck you.
“Wait… You don’t mind, do you? Your sister and best friend dating?”
“I l-word both of you, so no, I don’t mind. I trust you both enough to not hurt each other. But I’m still your brother, so if that prick does anything to hurt you, I’ll kick his ass, okay?”
“Kyu, he bench-presses your weight as a joke.”
He squinted his eyes at you. “I’ll metaphorically kick his ass, then.”
“And what if I hurt him?”
Junkyu thought for a second. “I’ll… give you the silent treatment for a few days.”
“How scary,” you laughed.
“Anyways, congratulations in advance and all that, but for my mental health please pretend you’re not a couple in front of me and remember that premarital sex is a sin.”
“Will do! Bye, Kyu!”
--
Right after hanging up with your brother, you texted Jihoon, asking if you could come over. You quickly got ready, doing affirmations in the mirror to calm yourself down, and as soon as your phone pinged with Jihoon’s answer (miss me already?), you were out the door. It was usually a thirteen-minute walk between your and Jihoon’s place, but with the power of love, it only took you eight.
You felt like your body had gone on autopilot - instead of practicing over and over what you would say to him in your head, imagining all the terrible ways it could go or pacing back and forth in front of his apartment building, you just walked, the loud thumping of your heart in your ears drowning everything else out. You’d just get there and get it over with. 
Even when you had to wait for seven seconds (you counted) for Jihoon to open the door after you’d rung the doorbell, you didn’t start panicking. 
“Hey, Y/N, I just ordered some-”
“I love you.”
“Breakfast… You what?”
“I love you, Hoonie,” you beamed. The relief of letting those words free made tears pool in the corner of your eyes.
Jihoon just stared at you, mouth agape and expression like he couldn’t believe what was hearing. Reaching for your hand, he brought you closer to him and shut the door behind you, eyes never once leaving yours. Then, he pulled you into a hug, one so tight you’d be worried about your blood circulation being cut off if it wasn’t Jihoon’s arms you were in. 
“Can you say it again, please?” he asked, nose buried in your hair and voice weak like you’d never heard it before.
You tightened your hold around his waist. “I love you,” you whispered.
“Again?”
“I love you,” you repeated, giggling.
He laughed too, more out of relief than anything. “I love you, too.”
He leaned back and raised his hands to gently cup your face in his palms. The both of you were smiling like idiots from ear to ear, gazing into each other’s eyes. Tears streamed down your cheek and he wiped them away with a thumb before pressing a soft kiss to your forehead.
“Took you long enough,” he said, making you laugh again.
“I know, I’m sorry.”
Jihoon shook his head. “Don’t be. You have no idea how happy I am right now.”
“I’m happy for you guys and all, but could you like, not do this here?” a voice interrupted you. You looked behind Jihoon’s shoulder to find Hyunsuk, one of his roommates, on the living room sofa, watching Brooklyn 99. You hadn’t even noticed him. In his defense, you were declaring your love for each other right next to him in the entrance hallway. 
“Oh, right, sorry, Suk. Let’s go into my room,” he said, tugging at your hand. 
The both of you burst into giggles as soon as the door shut behind you. Jihoon wasted no time in pulling you into another hug, and it felt like your whole body sighed as you let his warmth engulf you. You cursed yourself for not letting yourself have this earlier. You gently rocked from side to side together, as if slow dancing to a melody only the two of you could hear.
“I guess a little jealousy goes a long way, huh?” Jihoon said after a minute of silence.
“I wasn’t jealous,” you huffed, leaning back so he could see your frown.
“What made you realize your undying love for me, then?”
“I just… I thought we’d be good together. I realized how compatible we are, if you will.”
“Our compatibility? Did you only notice it last night?”
You grinned. “Guess I did,” you answered, just to tease him. Jihoon did not need to know about your love calculator epiphany.
He looked at you like you had hung the stars in the sky. You felt shy under his gaze, but you couldn’t get yourself to look away. “So does that mean we’re… boyfriend and girlfriend now?” he asked, making you burst into laughter. “Don’t make fun of me! It’s important to make things clear,” he complained between giggles.
“Yes, let’s be boyfriend and girlfriend.”
“Awesome,” he replied, then pursed his lips as if debating to say what he wanted to say next. “So, now that we’re boyfriend and girlfriend…”
“Yes, Hoon?”
“Does that mean I can kiss you?” he asked, a small smile playing on his lips that you mirrored.
“Please,” you whispered.
So he did.
When his lips touched yours, it was like a flower that had been waiting for the right moment finally bloomed inside your chest. It felt soft, and comforting, and just right. Like your lips had always meant to meet. 
At least, it started out that way. The fabric of Jihoon’s t-shirt bunched up in your hands while his cupped your face tenderly, your lips moving in a slow cadence against each other’s as if you had all the time in the world - and you did. You were both so filled to the brim with excitement that when you pulled away for a breather, you laughed together, foreheads resting against each other.
But then, you raised your hands and threaded your fingers through his hair, tugging on it gently as you deepened the kiss. You probably hadn’t done it on purpose, simply wanting to feel more of Jihoon out of some basic instinct - but it undid something in him. 
He slid his hands down the sides of your neck and your shoulders until they reached your arms, pulling on them to have your body closer to his. His hands then continued their journey down to your waist, where they sneaked themselves under your t-shirt. They ran up and up until almost your entire back was exposed to the fresh air in his room, the contrast between that and the fire-hot warmth of Jihoon’s hands against your bare skin making you shiver.
He walked you backwards until the back of your legs hit his mattress, unto which he helped you down gently, somehow not breaking the kiss as he did. One of his hands came to brush hair away from your face, while the other remained on your waist, after some time venturing onto your stomach, a sensitive spot for you that made you sigh into his mouth. He took that opportunity to slide his tongue against yours, yet another new sensation that made your head spin.
This was exceeding any expectations you had ever had for a first kiss. In fact, you had always thought first kisses were messy, awkward things, but this was nothing of the sort - your whole body was on edge, responding to every little movement on Jihoon’s part. Your fingers buzzed with a fizzy electricity that put your brain in a daze. You could do this forever, you thought. 
But forever was cut short by the sudden buzz of Jihoon’s phone. Jihoon started, practically leaping off of you and dramatically holding onto his chest when he realized it was just his phone that had interrupted you. The delivery person was calling him to announce their arrival. 
Jihoon pressed a kiss to your forehead, took a few steps, then came back to press another kiss, this time to your lips. Your stomach growled loudly while you waited for him, and you realized you still hadn’t eaten today. Add making out to that, you were ready to devour whatever it was Jihoon had ordered. 
The smell coming from the paper bag Jihoon held as he entered the room again made you close your eyes in bliss and take a deep whiff. “Johnny’s,” you whispered. “You know me so well.”
Johnny’s was your absolute favorite breakfast place in all of town. It had been opened a few years ago by a graduate of your university who had mastered the art of hangover food. From soups, to hash brown patties, to iced coffee, he knew exactly what it was that students needed after a night out. You could tell he had a lot of experience with that himself. He was kind of like a God amongst the student body of your university.
“Of course I do. I know your order from all of your favorite restaurants, and somehow you only realized yesterday that I was pathetically in love with you.”
You smiled sheepishly, taking a bite of your sausage and egg wrap. “How long are you going to hold this over my head?”
Jihoon grinned brightly. “Until I forget about it.”
“So never?”
“Precisely.”
He put on the next episode of your show, and for the next couple hours, the two of you stayed holed up in his room, cuddling once you were done with your food. Even though you had spent endless time watching shows or movies side by side, neither of you had ever dared initiate physical touch, no matter how much you’d wanted to. He’d been scared you’d pull away from him, and you’d been scared it’d be awkward. You hadn’t realized how much you’d longed for his proximity and warmth until you had it.
Save for his laptop screen, it’d been quiet for a while, and you thought you might fall asleep when Jihoon spoke. “I’m so glad I don’t need to pretend anymore,” he said as one episode finished and the next one started.
“Pretend what?”
“That I’m not desperately in love with you and that every single little thing you do doesn’t drive me insane.”
You giggled. “Does it?”
“Yes,” he whispered, his voice a heavy sigh, almost a groan. There was a slight edge to it, a deeper meaning behind that short yes that had your stomach suddenly feeling very tight.
“Oh,” was all you could answer. You suddenly wondered what you might have done without thinking that had had an effect on Jihoon, just as he’d done to you many times before. You also wondered what sort of effect you may have had on him, what sort of thoughts he may have had about you that he had to keep to himself all this time.
Tentatively, you cocked your head up, only to find he was already looking down at you. The glint in his eyes made your body burn. Just as he started to lean in to reunite your lips, your phone buzzed with many texts in a row. Jihoon closed his eyes in frustration and sighed. “I want to throw both of our phones away,” he said, making you laugh.
minjeong hey pooks idk if ur out somewhere or still sleeping but im going to yoshis placeee he needs some stuff there so we’re going together and i’ll prob spend the night over… we’re like inseparable rn or wtv. anyways dont set the place on fire while i’m gone x
you ok thx for letting me know xx im w my boyfriend rn
Minjeong’s response didn’t even take three seconds to come through.
minjeong HUHHHH??? GIRL ???
you hehe
minjeong park jihoon is one lucky man
you how do u know its him?
minjeong literally who else would it be wait does that mean we’ll go on double dates…
you yeah ur right and pls no
minjeong DOUBLE DATES !! girls night tomorrow night i want all the deeeets have fun having the place all to urselves and rmb to use protection xx
you why is that where ur mind goes first ?? down for girls night tho can we watch teen beach movie
minjeong duhhh
“Teen Beach Movie?” Jihoon said, startling you. You hadn’t realized he’d been reading over your shoulders.
“It’s a good movie,” you mumbled, frowning.
“Right.” He said nothing for a few seconds, but he just couldn’t contain himself. The question was burning his tongue. “Aren’t you on the pill?”
Your head snapped towards him at the sudden question. “Uh, yeah, I am. Why?”
His eyes scanned your face as a smirk grew on his lips. “Then we don’t need to use protection, do we?”
You gulped. Your whole face felt hot - after having just shared your first kiss, you hadn’t expected him to mention sex so easily. Not that you weren’t interested in that, far from it, you were just… nervous.
You turned away from him, unable to sustain his gaze any longer. “I guess not,” you murmured. You had started taking the pill at the beginning of university, mainly to regulate your period and lessen your hormonal acne. The contraceptive part was just a bonus, one you had never imagined would come into handy like this. 
Jihoon’s eyes suddenly widened. “Oh, I need to tell Yoshi about this! He’s gonna freak. I hope he won’t be mad he learned it from Minjeong and not me first.”
“Yoshi?” you asked as you watched him reach for his phone on his nightstand.
“Yeah, we’ve been updating each other on our love lives. He’s really into Minjeong, by the way.”
“That’s… strangely wholesome, actually.” 
While he typed away, you tilted your head and took the time to appreciate your boyfriend’s features. The round eyes, heart-shaped lips, sharp nose and even sharper jawline. He was so pretty, and now, he was all yours.
Without thinking, you traced a finger along his jaw, liking the feel of it against your skin. When his eyes found yours, you dropped your hand and straightened your head, expression like you’d just been caught red-handed.
“Should we go back to your place? We can pick up food on the way.”
You smiled. “We just ate.”
“And I’m hungry again,” he said, mirroring your smile and pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. Or at least, he had intended it as a chaste kiss, but he found that he couldn’t quite get himself to pull away. “Let’s go,” he said, lips moving against yours as he spoke, but made no move to actually go.
“Let’s go,” you repeated, staying perfectly still. You’re not sure who was the one to cross the millimeters between your lips, but before you knew it, you and Jihoon’s lips were stuck to each other once more. This kiss had none of the gradual intensity of the previous one - right off the bat, the feeling of Jihoon’s lips against yours flooded all of your senses.
Your hands found purchase in his hair while his found their way to your waist once more. With surprising ease, he pulled you to him so that you were straddling his lap. For a second there, you were conscious about how heavy you might be on top of him, but it was all forgotten when he pressed his lips to yours again in a passionate kiss. In this new position, you could press your body close to his, so close you could almost feel his heart beat against yours. He also had easier access to your back than before, and he quickly took advantage of that. 
Just like before, he sneaked his hands underneath your t-shirt, making you arch your back against him. He slid a finger underneath your bra strap and pulled away for a second to ask if this was okay. You looked at him - his eyes were darker than you’d ever seen before and his face had lust written all over it. You were sure you looked similar.
“Yeah, it’s okay,” you whispered before diving back into the kiss. One second apart felt like hours to you.
Your breath got shakier as he unclasped your bra. He didn’t do anything right away, settling on brushing his palm up and down your back while your heart raced with anticipation. You were so on edge that you couldn’t even kiss him anymore - you buried your face in his neck, gripping his hair so tightly you were probably hurting him. You didn’t care if he could feel how desperate you were. Then, finally, painfully slowly, one of his hands made its way to your front, and he gently grabbed your breast underneath your bra that was hanging from your shoulders. That was already a foreign sensation in itself, but when he took your nipple between two fingers and pulled on it ever-so-gently, the pleasure that overtook your body was so intense that it made you let out a loud gasp and you pulled away from Jihoon, startled as if you had been shocked by lightning. 
“Are you okay?” he asked, breathing heavily, a mix of worry and desire in his eyes. 
You nodded, holding onto his shoulders as you tried to make your breathing return to normal. “I’m fine, just… it’s all very new, is all. I’ve never done any of this before.”
Never had a boyfriend, never held hands romantically, never kissed - that was you. Not that you minded, though, since you’d never been interested in anyone and you were happy to do this with Jihoon, whom you trusted more than anyone else.
He smiled softly. “That’s okay. Does it at least feel good?” he asked, low voice making the hairs on your arms stand.
You whined, hiding your face in the dip of his shoulder again. “It does…” you admitted, voice muffled against his skin.
“You know, it’s my first time too,” he said after a while. 
You lifted your head to look at him. “Really?”
“Mh-hm. You’re my first girlfriend.” His eyes were full of affection as he gazed at you, tucking a strand of hair behind your ear. You giggled. “What’s funny?” he asked softly, pressing a kiss to your jaw.
“We’re each other’s firsts,” you explained. “I think that’s nice.”
Jihoon made his way to your lips, giving them a small peck. “That is nice. And I promise I’ll make you feel so good,” another peck, “you’ll want me to be your last as well.”
You looked at him for a bit, taking in his features that looked even more beautiful to you now that you’d realized your feelings for him, and thought of a life with him. It might have been slightly premature, but you already knew you liked the idea of that.
“Okay,” you said, as if what he had said had been an offer. It made him smile.
“Okay.” He kissed you, softly like you could break underneath his touch. “You’re so cute, you know that?” he asked against your lips, but didn’t leave you time to answer before kissing you again. “Okay, I think we should take a break,” he said after a few minutes. “We can go to your place. And then we’ll have more… privacy.”
You agreed that spending some time not pressed up against Jihoon might help you think straight again. The walk to your apartment was nice and quiet, your interlocked hands swinging back and forth between your two bodies. When you walked past the grocery store, you stopped in your tracks, looking at Jihoon with a smile which he mirrored immediately, even without knowing the reason behind it.
“Should we bake a cake to celebrate our first day together?”
“That’s very cheesy.” His grin widened as he took a step closer to you. “I love it.” He pressed a kiss to your forehead and led you into the store.
The rest of that afternoon was spent baking and decorating the cake. It was a simple vanilla batter, but it took way longer than it should have, because Jihoon first insisted on having a flour fight (which took ages to clean), then on having two cakes and having a competition for whose would be prettier (yours, of course), but you loved every last second of it. It was like a scene out of a movie, and you could not have been more content. To really bring home the cheesiness of it all, you even recorded yourselves blowing out the number one candles of your respective cakes.
The evening came around, and, full of cake and Chinese takeout, you were holed up in bed together, watching the first movie that had popped up on your Netflix recommended. It was too easy, falling asleep in his arms. The combination of his comforting scent and the soft back rubs he was giving you lulled you to sleep like nothing else. 
When you woke up next, it was because of a sudden lack of warmth next to you. You lifted your head to find Jihoon opening your bedroom door and heading into the living room. He had just been going to get water, but you didn’t know that.
“Hoon?” you called out, raising yourself to a sitting position on your bed. He immediately turned around, walking back towards you and crouching next to your bed.
“Hm?”
“Aren’t you staying?” you asked, reaching for the hem of his t-shirt sleeve. He looked at your hand before his gaze slowly made its way back up towards your face, a smirk growing on his pretty lips. 
“Do you want me to?” he asked back, gazing deep into your eyes. His voice had dropped to a low volume that made it hard to breathe. Initially, you’d just wanted him back by your side, but now all sorts of thoughts were running through your mind.
“Of course. I mean, we’re dating, right?” 
In an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, you tried to chuckle, but all laughter died in your throat when your eyes locked with Jihoon’s. You weren’t scared of his intensity - you were scared of the pace at which your desire for him was growing. One inch closer, and you knew you’d be wrapped around his finger.
He leaned closer.
“What are you trying to say?” he asked, tilting his head innocently to the side. Mindlessly, you rubbed your thighs together, searching for some relief for your core that had started to throb of its own accord, but Jihoon was following your every movement and had noticed it. “Are you saying you want to consummate our relationship?” he asked again, a hint of amusement in his voice as he placed his hands on your knee that wasn’t covered by the blanket.
You scoffed and looked away, hoping you didn’t look as flustered as you felt. “Not if you say it like that,” you mumbled.
Jihoon’s eyebrows perked up. “How should I say it, then?” he whispered. His hand slowly brushed along your sides until it reached your waist. Even over your layer of clothing, his touch burned. “You want me to make love to you?”
You kept your gaze fixed on something behind his shoulder, focusing on your breathing that was getting shakier and shakier. He drew the blanket away, leaving your thighs exposed to the chilly air for a second before he splayed his large palms on them, bringing you some warmth but intensifying the throbbing in your core. His hands inched closer and closer to where you most needed them, rubbing over your inner thighs but swerving right before he actually reached your core, setting them on your hip bones instead.
“Or do you want me to fuck you, Y/N?”
He took your chin between two fingers, forcing you to meet his gaze. Your eyes locked for a second before they dropped to his lips, watching the smirk that grew on them. “Guess it’s the latter.” 
As soon as your lips touched, you were overwhelmed by the immensity of your desire for him. Your whole body burned in want, in need. You had no idea what to do except hold on tightly to him and hope for the best, hope that he’d know how to guide you through this even if it was new for him as well. 
If you thought the kisses you’d shared earlier in the day had been intense, this one was on a whole other level. Your hands grabbed everywhere they could find and his gripped your waist firmly as your tongues danced with each other, resulting in a messy kiss that had your head spinning from lack of air in seconds. And yet, you couldn’t get enough. You kept pulling Jihoon impossibly closer by the hem of his t-shirt until he got frustrated from the layer of clothing between you two and simply took it off, discarding somewhere in your room. He gave you no time to admire his defined chest or abs, because he trapped your lips right away. 
He pushed you slowly onto the bed until he was hovering over you, alternating between kissing your lips and your neck, that you were sure would have a couple of purple marks for you to find the next day. Your skin burned wherever he touched it, and it was like a trail of fire had appeared as his hand made its way to your breasts once more, grabbing harshly at the soft flesh there. 
The whole time, he had been in some sort of a trance, drunk on your body, on your scent, on the way you were touching him - on the feeling that you finally wanted him as much as he’d wanted you all this time. But when he helped you out of the articles of clothing covering your upper body, and he had you half-naked underneath him, he had to take a double take and remember to take his time instead of just devouring you whole. For both his sake and yours.  
So he stopped for a bit, letting himself admire you. He noticed you shifting uncomfortably, so he leaned down again, pressing soft kisses along your cheeks and your jaw. “You really are the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen,” he whispered before kissing you. He then continued his journey down your neck and collarbones until he reached your breast. “Really so beautiful.”
When he took one of your nipples in his mouth, your back arched against him and you let out a loud moan. He couldn’t keep himself from chuckling slightly - he found it adorable how sensitive you were everywhere he touched you. Your moans were like music to his ears.
Nothing had ever felt like this before. As he circled his tongue around your nipple - God knows where he had learned how to do this - it took everything you had to not just scream in pleasure. Even if Minjeong was out, you still had neighbors. Now that you couldn’t grab his t-shirt, you’d switched to his hair, and you were tugging at it so hard you wouldn’t have been surprised if you ripped a clump of it from his head.
Your panties were sticking to your core, all slick with your arousal, and you didn’t know how long you could go on anymore without attention down there.
As if he’d heard your thoughts, Jihoon started making his way down your body once more, trailing kisses all across your ribcage and stomach.
“I’m torn between taking this real slow and making it last as long as possible.” His lips found a sensitive spot on your lower stomach, right next to your hip bone, and he gently bit the skin there, licking it afterwards to offer you some relief. “Or just devouring you now that I finally have you.”
“Jihoon,” you sighed, desperation evident in your voice. “Please, just do something.”
“Like what?” he asked, clearly enjoying your lust-filled state of mind.
“Anything.”
He chuckled, and by the sound of it, you knew he didn’t have anything good in mind. He lowered himself some more until his mouth was positioned right in front of your pussy, and, with no warning, licked a long strip from your hole to your clit over your panties, humming at the taste of your arousal.
“Something like this?” he asked afterwards, but was only met with a whine. He kissed the soft flesh of your inner thighs while you squirmed in his hold.
“Don’t tease me, please…” you begged, and your voice was so weak and genuine that he could only give in. 
“Whatever you want, baby,” he obliged, the nickname rolling off of his tongue casually. He had no idea what it did to you. 
He helped you out of your underwear, finally getting you fully naked just for him. Jihoon was a man of his words, so not a second was lost before he dived right back into you, licking up the arousal spilling out of you before flicking his tongue at your clit. He held your hips tightly in both of his hands so you couldn’t squirm away from him and ate you out like a man starved. You were so sweet and warm against his tongue, and your taste was worlds more intoxicating than any alcohol he’d ever had. He’d do this forever if you let him.
He noticed quickly that attention to your clit was what got you moaning the loudest, so he alternated between circling his tongue around it and gently sucking at it, sometimes releasing it with a pop just for the hell of it. He slipped a finger easily inside of you, your wetness accommodating him immediately. He couldn’t wait to be inside you - his hard cock was throbbing in the confines of his underwear, but his only concern right now was to make you come undone for him. 
When he found that deep spot inside of you, the one that had you gasping in pleasure and moaning his name, he slid a second finger in, and just like that, you were done for. You came apart on his fingers and tongue, a complete moaning mess underneath him, and he lapped up the arousal leaking out of you like it was water. 
You’d already thought you were at the peak of pleasure when your orgasm came ripping through you like an avalanche, blindsiding you and making you see bright white stars behind your tightly closed eyelids. Your throat felt dry from all the moaning and heaving you’d been doing. You had to take Jihoon’s face between your hands and gently pull him up yourself, otherwise it seemed like he was happy to keep going, but it was starting to overwhelm you.
Jihoon held you in his arms as you came down from your high. You let out the laughter bubbling in your throat as your breathing returned to normal - not because something was funny, but because you had just felt so ridiculously amazing that you couldn’t help but laugh. 
“How was it?” Jihoon asked, a lot shyer than you’d expected.
You lifted your head to look at him, a bright smile on your face even though you felt close to exhausted. “I have a hard time believing that was your first time giving head, Hoon.”
He chuckled. “Very first time, I promise you. I must just have some God-given skills.”
“I’m not even gonna fight you on that, because that was amazing,” you conceded, nuzzling yourself closer to him.
“I’m glad I could do that for you,” he said softly, burying his nose at the top of your head and inhaling there. The scent of your hair was oddly comforting for him.
Before you let yourself drift off to sleep, you started raking your fingernails across his chest and abs, smiling proudly to yourself when you heard him breathe shakily or felt his muscles clench under your touch. He wasn’t saying anything, but you could tell he was holding himself back. “I think,” you started, pressing a kiss to the corner of his jaw, “That you deserve something in return.”
“You don’t-”
You knew Jihoon. He didn’t like it when you insisted on paying for coffee because he’d done it the last time, or when you baked him something because he’d stayed up all night with you studying for a test. He liked taking care of you, but you always had to almost force him to let you take care of him. You wanted your relationship to be fifty-fifty - you wanted to give him as much as he gave you. Even if he would let you, it wasn’t fair to just take and take.
So you insisted. Whatever he was about to say, it died on his tongue as soon as you placed your palm on his erection. It felt hot and hard under your hand, and saying you weren’t slightly intimidated would be a lie, but you wanted to do this. If you were able to give Jihoon half the pleasure he’d given you moments prior, you’d be satisfied. 
You rubbed your hand slowly up and down over his clothes. “Really, baby,” he managed to say between shaky breaths, “I didn’t do that to get something in return- Fuck,” he whispered as you hooked your fingers underneath the waistband of his sweatpants, pulling it down his legs so he was only left in his underwear. Under the black fabric, his bulge looked huge, and you gulped at the idea of having it inside you.
“This feels good, right, Hoon?” you asked, steadily getting bolder and pressing slightly harder against his bulge as you continued rubbing it.
“It- it does, but-”
You shut him up by pressing your lips to his. He reciprocated it immediately, almost unconsciously, before moaning into the kiss. “So let me do this for you,” you whispered before ridding him of his underwear.
“Okay,” he said, sighing as you rubbed your hands from his knees along his thighs.
The groan he let out as you took him in your hand sent shivers straight down your spine. You could finally put to use all the knowledge Minjeong had passed on to you over the past few months. You let go of Jihoon’s cock to spit in your hand, the moisture helping you glide your loosely closed fist along his shaft with more ease. Your movements themselves were probably very clumsy, but Jihoon didn’t seem to mind - he moaned shamelessly, head fallen back against the pillows and exposed Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
Seeing him like this and knowing it was all because of you drove you crazy, and soon, you became greedy for any sign of pleasure from him. You wanted to hear all of his moans, sighs, groans, watch his abs clench tightly and feel him grab your hair, which he did as soon as you flicked your tongue across his tip, already leaking with pre-cum. The endless string of curses and moans that flew from his mouth as you circled your tongue and shallowly bobbed your mouth around him filled you with satisfaction.
“Fuck, just like that, Y/N. You’re doing so fucking well, baby. Making me feel so good.” Those words had been the cherry on top.
Jihoon was of a more-than-decent size, and fitting all of him inside of your mouth was probably a task that would take a few tries to achieve - you still did your best to take as much of him as you could. You massaged his balls with one of your hands, using the other to hold the base of his shaft while you bobbed your head up and down. You did this with increasing speed then let him take control over your pace as his fingers threaded themselves in your hair, guiding your head around him. You didn’t even know if he was doing it on purpose or out of reflex, but you definitely did not mind handing him the reins.
“You’re gonna make me- Fuck, Y/N, I’m gonna cum, sweetheart.” You hummed around his shaft, and that seemed to do him in - with a loud groan, he released his load, hot and sticky inside your mouth. Taken aback by the bitter taste, you lifted your head and only swallowed what you had caught. You took him in your hand again, jerking him off to help him ride out the rest of his high.
You watched him, transfixed by his heaving chest, eyes screwed shut, the beads of sweat pearling across his torso, and the red blush that had spread from his face down to his neck. You’d done this. You’d gotten Jihoon in such a state. You let him rest for a bit as you wiped your hands and his body with a tissue and had a sip of water.
You then pressed a kiss to his cheek, taking the time to admire his smiling face. When he opened his eyes and found yours, you suddenly felt so shy that you returned to your usual cuddling position, head resting against his shoulder. He wrapped an arm around your shoulders and pulled you close to him. You were both smelly and sticky, but you couldn’t care less.
“You did so good, baby. You did such a good job,” he whispered, the praise going right to your heart.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. That was amazing.” He sighed contentedly, then lowered his head to look at you. “You feeling sleepy?”
You shook your head no, a shy smile on your lips.
Jihoon smirked slightly. “You wanna keep going?”
You nodded.
He shifted himself so that his back rested against the headboard. “Come here,” he whispers, pulling you to his lap. You both winced in sensitivity at the feeling of your core right against his softening dick, but you didn’t want to pull apart either. If anything, the small stimulation created a pit in your lower stomach for the second time of the night.
You wrapped your arms lazily around his neck while he rested one of his hands on your hips and used the other one to rub your back. “How are you feeling?” he asked, eyes soft and full of affection.
You pressed a long, gentle kiss to his lips. “Good. Really good,” you said, making him chuckle.
“Good. Me too.”
You made out lazily, lips moving languidly against each other, neither of you in a rush to get anywhere. But after some time, you started to feel Jihoon hardening under you, and when you rocked your hips against him, coating his growing erection with arousal, he groaned. His hands traveled down to your ass, grabbing hard at the skin there as he helped you rock back and forth against him. You started out slowly at first, moaning every time your clit brushed against his tip, but it wasn’t long before you sped things up and lost yourself in pleasure once again. Your arms tightened their hold around his neck and, burying your face in his neck, you pressed your chest flush to his and muffled your moans against his skin, in both pleasure and frustration at having him right against you but not inside.
You suddenly lifted your head, and the look on your face made Jihoon instantly stop. “Is everything okay, baby?”
You nodded, but your worry was still evident in the crease of your brows. “Yeah, I just…” You pouted. “I’m scared it’ll hurt, Hoon.”
Jihoon caressed the side of your cheek with his palm, brushing some hair away from your face. “We don’t have to do this today-”
“No!” you exclaimed, taking the both of you aback. “I want to.”
“Okay.”
“I’m just a little bit nervous.”
“Okay. That’s okay, baby.” One of his hands rubbed reassuring circles into your lower back. “We can go as slow as you want, okay? And we can stop whenever you want. Just let me know. Does that sound good?”
You nodded, taking a deep breath. “Yeah, it does.”
Jihoon smiled and pressed his lips to yours. “Are you ready?”
“Yeah,” you whispered.
He helped you lay on your back against the mattress and hovered over you, propping himself up on one forearm. As he kissed you, he caressed one of your thighs, hand inching closer and closer to your core and making your blood rush with anticipation. Then he finally pressed two fingers to your folds, gathering up some of your arousal 
before sliding his digits inside of you. As you gasped out in pleasure, his lips trailed away from your lips and found a new home in your neck.
He scissored his fingers inside of you, stretching you out and getting you ready for him as he murmured words of “you’re doing so well” and “I’ll make you feel good,” as if he wasn’t already. When you seemed relaxed enough, he slid his fingers out of you, smiling at you mischievously while he sucked your arousal off of them. Then, taking his dick by the base, he rubbed his tip along your folds, making your body twitch and loud moans escape your mouth. He pressed a final kiss to your cheek and buried his face in your neck, trying to ground himself too as he slowly started pushing himself inside of you.
His dick was so much bigger than his fingers, and you gripped his hair tightly as you got used to the new sensation. Tears prickled in your eyes, the unexpected stretch making you frown in discomfort. It was a completely different pain to what you were used to, but the overwhelming pleasure mixed with it made it almost welcome. 
Jihoon was using all of his self-control to not pound you into tomorrow - your tight pussy was sucking him right in, and it was like his whole body sighed of relief when he bottomed out. He couldn’t believe he was inside you, feeling your walls clench around him and hearing your soft grunts as you got used to him. It was a scene right out of his wet dreams. 
“You okay?” he asked, voice muffled against your skin. His voice sounded strained and heavy. 
“I’m okay, Hoonie. I just need a minute.”
For that minute, as you breathed shallowly and relaxed around him, Jihoon pressed wet kisses wherever his lips could reach and twirled one of your nipples between two fingers to take your mind off of your pain. 
“Take your time. I know I’m big, baby,” he said. You could hear the smirk in his voice.
“No, you’re just right, Hoon. It feels nice now.” 
Objectively, Jihoon knew that this was a good thing, and that you had meant in a good way - better for him to fit right inside rather than cause you pain, but a part of his ego had still been hurt by your refutal of his claim. But then you told him he could move, and he forgot all about it.
It took him another superhuman kind of effort to go slow, slowly rolling his hips against yours with a self-control he didn’t know he had. He scanned your face for any signs of discomfort, kissing your small frown in the hope it might go away. He watched as your jaw relaxed and the soft hums escaping your throat turned into moans, as the crease in your eyebrows softened and turned into one of pleasure rather than pain. He allowed his movements to speed up, noting with satisfaction the increasing volume of the noises you were making and the way your fingernails dug into the skin of his shoulders.
He lifted himself on his palms and hooked one of your legs around his hips, the new, deeper angle having you seeing stars. He asked if you were okay again, and when you not only nodded yes, but asked him to go faster, Jihoon had to admit he got a little bit carried away, both in his actions and his words. 
Jihoon had a big mouth - you knew it, everyone knew it. What you didn’t know was that he would keep that big mouth even balls-deep inside you.
Maintaining a fast pace, he lowered himself so that his lips tickled your ear as he spoke. “You’re doing so well, baby. Taking my cock like the good girl you are. Isn’t that right? You’re my good girl,” he grunted, punctuating his words with harsh rolls of his hips into yours. You couldn’t even get yourself to answer, that’s how far gone you were, his words going into your one ear and coming out the other. All you could think about was how good it all felt, from his tip repeatedly hitting that delicious spot inside of you to the feeling of his warm, sticky skin against yours. The room smelled of sweat and arousal and was filled with all sorts of noises - your heavy breathing, your moans, your grunts, the wet sound of Jihoon’s dick inside of you.
“Can’t even say anything, can you? Am I making you feel that good, baby?”
You moaned, thinking that should be enough of a yes for him, but you should’ve known better. 
“I think you should answer me when I ask you a question, Y/N,” he commanded, slowing his pace down to get you to listen to him.
“Y-yes, it feels so good, Hoon,” you replied, out-of-breath.
“Attagirl,” he whispered, smiling as he bit the lobe of your ear. 
You hadn’t even realized you were crying until Jihoon halted in his motions, feeling one of your hot, wet tears on his palm. He was quick to wipe it away, searching for any pain in your features, but you only whined, asking him why he’d stopped. 
“Why are you crying, baby? Did I hurt you? Are you okay?” he asked frantically. The worry in his voice only amplified your already overflowing love for him.
“No, you didn’t do anything wrong, I just… God, this is so embarrassing,” you all but sobbed against his skin, realizing that the pleasure had been so overwhelming, tears had started flowing from your eyes. 
“No, it’s not.”
You screwed your eyes shut for a second before meeting his gaze again. “I just- it feels so good, Hoon.”
A pause passed as he took a deep breath. “Is that it?”
“It is, I promise. Please, just… let’s keep going, Hoonie. I was so close,” you whined, and Jihoon couldn’t help but chuckle at your desperation. How was it that he still found you so adorable even in such a situation?
“Okay, baby. I’m relieved.” He wiped more of your tears that had fallen, but as soon as he moved inside of you again, taking a minute to return to his previous harsh pace, your tears resumed streaking down your cheeks. Jihoon kissed them, savoring their salty taste on his tongue.
It didn’t take long for the knot in your stomach to become tight again, and with every deep thrust, you felt yourself getting closer and closer to the edge. 
“You look so pretty like this, sweetheart. All fucked out for me.”
“Mm. I’m so close, Hoon, gonna- fuck, gonna-”
“You’re gonna cum for me, baby? Gonna cum and make a mess all over my cock?”
“Yes, Hoon, fuck-”
You gasped out loud as his hand found your clit again, using his thumb to rub quick circles into the sensitive bundle of nerves. “Cum for me, sweetheart, show me how good it feels.”
That did it for you. Your second orgasm of the night washed over you, making you release your loudest moan yet. You held on to Jihoon like you might fall apart if you didn’t. 
The quick clenching and unclenching of your walls around Jihoon’s dick as he fucked you throughout your high drove him crazy and, soon enough, he came undone himself, hot, white ropes of his cum filling you up. The squelch as he fucked his cum into you, the both of you moaning in overstimulation, was nothing short of pornographic. 
Jihoon all but collapsed on top of you, humming as you traced your fingernails up and down his back. You took a few minutes to collect yourselves, and you thought he might have fallen asleep, soft dick still inside you, when he lifted himself up with a sigh and slid out of you. You winced at the loss of his warmth. He pressed a kiss to your forehead and said he’d be back in a sec. 
When he entered your room again, he was carrying a towel, a tall glass of water, and leftovers from your takeout earlier. He cleaned you off and asked you how you felt, then you chatted as you ate your food. You could pass out at any moment, but it was nice, talking a little bit after the moment you shared instead of falling asleep straight away. 
He almost choked on his water when you asked him where he’d learned to talk so dirty - now that he was out of the moment, his cheeks reddened at the thought of everything he’d told you. “It just comes naturally,” he’d said shyly.
“Do you want anything?” he asked when you were done eating. 
You kissed him, smiling against his lips. “I’m all good, Hoon. You?”
He mirrored your smile. “All good, too.”
“I just wanna cuddle and sleep now. I’m spent.”
“Sounds perfect to me,” he whispered. He laid down on his back and you followed, letting him wrap an arm around your shoulder while you rested your head on his chest. He drew you close to him and pulled the blankets over your intertwined bodies. “Is it creepy if I just stare at you for a little bit?”
“Kinda, yeah.”
“But you’re so pretty,” Jihoon pouted.
“I’ll just sleep and pretend I don’t know anything about it.”
“Okay, just don’t panic if you feel a strange but very attractive presence looming over you.”
You snorted. “Noted. Night, Hoon.” You pressed a kiss to his neck and he hummed.
“Night, pretty. Sleep tight.”
--
When you woke up a few hours later, your room was bathing in the bright yellow glow of the early morning. You and Jihoon had shifted positions in the night and you’d ended up curled up on your side, back to him while he slept on his back, arms sprayed out next to him. It was the feeling of him shifting closer to you and wrapping an arm around your waist that had awoken you, a sudden warmth engulfing your body that made you feel like you might still be dreaming.
But no, it was all very real. From the man behind you, to the events of the previous night, to the dull but not unpleasant ache you felt between your legs. You sighed contentedly, taking his hand in yours and wrapping it tighter around yourself. 
Curious to see if he was awake, you turned around after a few minutes and faced him. He seemed pretty passed out until you pressed a soft kiss to his nose, then another to his cheek. His eyebrows creased for a second and his foot moved against yours. He didn’t open his eyes, but he pursed his lips for a kiss. He wasn’t content with just a peck, however, and you found yourself making out with him first thing in the morning, lips full of sleep and cotton-soft like your pillows. 
“You have no idea how much I’ve dreamed of this,” he says after a while, keeping his eyes closed, morning voice sending chills down your spine. “Waking up next to you.”
“You have?”
“I have. I don’t know if I should freak out over this and have a party or just be chill about it,” he said, smiling.
“We can have a party.”
“Really?” Jihoon asked, opening his eyes wide, excited like a kid who was just told they were going to Disneyland.
“Sure,” you giggled. “We can invite all of our friends and celebrate our one-week anniversary or something. Minjeong will probably want to plan it.”
He sighed happily. “I’m holding you to that. We’re celebrating.”
After lazing around in bed for a couple hours, going back and forth between chatting while cuddling and making out, your growling stomachs forced you out of your room and into the kitchen.
You and Jihoon noticed it at the same time. It was hard to miss, after all - a bright pink sheet of A4 paper with hearts and little Cupids everywhere right in the middle of the surface of your fridge, but more importantly, your name and Jihoon’s in big bubble letters with 99% in the middle. You wanted to rip it from the surface of your fridge, but the damage had been done - index pointed at the paper, Jihoon turned to you with an incredulous look on his face. You scratched the back of your neck and looked around the kitchen for a way to escape.
“Y/N, what’s this?” Jihoon asked, amusement laced in his voice.
You tried to find some sort of excuse, but to no avail. “This is just, um- you know, just a, uh, just-” The sound of Jihoon’s cackles interrupted you. You looked at him, unimpressed. “Don’t laugh at me. I was stressing out, okay? I needed something to reassure me.”
Jihoon was grinning wide as he pulled you into a hug, one arm around your waist and one hand on the back of your head. “You’re so adorable,” he mused, pressing a kiss to your hair. You wrapped your arms around his middle and nuzzled your nose against his neck, the comforting scent of his skin making you forget about your embarrassment. 
He leaned away slightly and took the paper off of the fridge, smiling down at it. “As cute as this is, you don’t need it. I’ll show you everyday that I’m the perfect man for you, okay?”
You mirrored his smile. “Okay.” Even when your lips found each other, you couldn’t stop smiling, giggles escaping from your lips into his. You only laughed harder when he started pressing small kisses all over your face, making sure to not miss a single spot. He pressed a final one to your forehead before resting his against it, both of you closing your eyes and relishing in each other’s presence. 
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
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mrsackermannx · 8 months
Text
Honey, I’m home…
GOJO SATORU X FEM READER MDNI
tags: ceo/dad/husband gojo, smut, light degradation (use of slut twice), not pet play but he calls her a kitty, exhibitionism (gojo is on a zoom call), teasing, one shot.
wc: 3.7k
a/n: after the manga and the anime last week, this was needed for me to revive (an oldie from the drafts) 😭 not to mention spanish uni is kicking my ass so satoru is keeping me sane rn hahaha 🫣
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Eating breakfast alone was seldom done in the Gojo household, because Satoru liked the kind of breakfasts that looked like they do in the movies. 
An assortment of brightly coloured fruits and pancake stacks, his wife by his side, a smug grin on his face as he sipped his coffee and asked everyone what they’d be doing with their day. The odd dad joke or two, or more. 
You snorted quietly at the thought, pausing at the fridge door. The kids were at Megumi and Yuuji’s, so they couldn’t tease you for being sentimental, or groan at the photos their embarrassing father insisted be plastered to the fridge.
Heart shapes, letters, bunnies, an assortment of magnets stuck decades worth of fond memories to the appliance. Your daughter’s first birthday, with Satoru at her side helping her blow out the candles, your second son’s first time at a water park on Satoru’s shoulders, last Christmas vacation in the Philippines.  
Your eyes crinkled as you took notice of your favourite one, stroking the scrawl of Satoru’s handwriting on the Polaroid’s border. “Mr and Mrs Gojo.” 
The polaroid was the lovesick image of you and Satoru in Italy for your honeymoon.
You can remember the warmth of the evening, and how pink the sunburn was on the tip of his nose. Oh how the sun had bronzed the nape of his neck, making his white hair all the more a stark contrast. His cologne was sweet and intoxicating as his large hands dwarfed your cheeks, as he leaned in to kiss your cheek. You could feel his smile as he did so, laughing at the cheers that engulfed you both. The faces visible behind you both were flushed and merry as your hands clasped. 
One of your favourite photos.
Your husband’s position as CEO of his clan’s company afforded all the luxuries a woman and a family could desire. But sometimes everybody needed Satoru. There were nights you fell asleep wrapped in his arms, only to be left with cold sheets and him muttering into his phone down the hall at the crack of dawn, Ijichi beeping just outside already. 
Satoru always told you to be selfish, to put yourself first, to be bold with your desires. But you found it hard to voice when you were feeling —greedy about him. When you were feeling so possessive you wanted to drive over to headquarters when he was doing overtime, and fuck him right in his office so everybody would know that work wasn’t his only priority. 
He’d been gone a mere twelve days, and he went on these trips three times a year, max—granted. And Satoru normally had his best men on them but sometimes he had to go too.
You almost scalded your lap with tea when you heard steps clicking through the foyer. You held your breath waiting for a sunny and inevitable rendition of a ‘Honey, I’m home!’ 
Instead you heard the surely jet-lagged mumble of your husband instead. “I forgot about it because I was overseas Nanami! You know you ought to let loose if you really think I should’ve come straight to headquarters as soon as I landed!”
He was positively barking on the line when his suitcases reached a sudden halt and he saw a peek of you in the kitchen. You grinned, jumping to your feet to greet him though he only gestured to his phone with a tired smile. 
You blew him a kiss and his shoulders slackened, finally dropping his bags. “Yes, bu-I’m already home! I’m not heading through traffic just to-“
You reclined back on your stool, grinning at him when he pointed an imaginary gun to his head at Nanami’s audible ranting on the other line.
“Fine, I’ll be on the call in five!” He ripped off his jacket and headed down the foyer, “Morning babe!” he boomed, “Didn’t wake you, did I?” 
His voice echoed down the hall. When you reached him you stood at the foot of the stairs, your hands on your hips. You arched one brow before you spoke through gritted teeth, “No, you didn’t.” 
The deep split of your robe was exposing the planes of your smooth skin, teasing slithers of your breasts and your belly button. He wanted nothing more than to get on his knees and worship you as if it were a holy day. He wanted your thighs swung over his shoulders, and his mouth right between them. 
He mentally cursed at the thought, releasing a deep sigh into his palm. “You okay, sweetheart?”
He didn’t even have the time. 
“Fine, and you?”
He could hear in your voice you were on the edge of asking something, asking for more. After so many years of marriage he could smell when a bad mood was brewing from you, better yet taste it. 
He tried to fool you as if it were easy, that signature grin, a smooth click of those fingers. “Nothing! Just gotta sit in on this meeting, goddess.” He winked, “Let’s catch up in a bit.”
The entire interaction had left you dumbfounded, standing in the foyer and suddenly feeling lonelier than you did eating breakfast alone. Somehow.
“Gojo fucking Satoru,” you hissed to yourself. “Do not goddess me.” 
Had someone replaced your husband with a clone? Satoru could have flown halfway across the world and back, after not seeing you for more than a day was enough to make him needier than ever. He always came back, desperate and ready to devour you.
You were unsettled, but quickly renewed with courage when you approached his study half an hour later and heard him speaking. His voice was back to its usual, chirpy and light.
You wavered for several seconds, loosening your robe before you slipped inside.
He was gesturing wildly with his hands, relaying the success of his trip no doubt. But when he saw you his eyes narrowed and then darkened. 
You resisted a smirk when you heard Choso’s voice seconds later. “Why’d you turn your camera off?” 
Then Toji’s, husky and bored. “We don’t have to see his smug face, do we?” he spat. “Anyway, I’m fucking falling asleep here. It’s early. You gonna continue or what?”
Satoru hummed, his voice now entirely reserved for you as his eyes were all over those bare thighs of yours. You were sprawled out on his chaise lounge and scrolling through your phone.
He cleared his throat, “Bad signal, sorry about that.” 
His eyes didn’t leave you, not even once. You could feel his gaze all over your skin, as scorching as the sun as you stretched and yawned where you lay. Languid and feigning innocence as you arched your back slightly and felt your robe slip enough to expose your bare breasts.
You heard a sharp intake of breath and continued stretching this way and that. But after minutes of this torment and his various sighs to grab your attention you relented and turned a fraction.
Lust was pooling in those crystalline eyes, turning them dark. If they were usually like waves sparkling in the morning sun, they were now akin to a bottomless ocean with a crescent moon’s light. 
A breath passed and you rose to your feet, mischief tipping the corners of your lips up into something erotic and enchanting to your husband. He tilted his head, asking a silent question as he hummed in agreement to whatever the hell Nanami had just said.
You shifted onto your knees and crawled between his legs and he smirked as if the sight amused him. You rested your cheek on his thigh, like a needy cat waiting to be played with. How dare you act as if you were waiting in apprehension when those eyes of yours said anything but.
His eyes finally flickered with warning, but not the red-light kind of warning, the kind that oozed with a dominance so overpowering that you bowed your head and took to quietly unzipping his pants. 
His teeth clenched in anticipation before he jabbed at his keyboard to mute himself, and gave you his attention. “Bored, huh? I can give you something worthwhile to do, honey. Just wanted something to suck on? Yeah?” he cooed, his voice dripping so sweetly in condescension that it made your teeth hurt.
He chuckled when you nodded eagerly, running this thumb over your lower lip as he unbuckled his belt one-handed. “I know, baby. I know. Ready for me?”
You grinned, opening your mouth for him to push his thumb into it first. “Be good to me, yeah? I don’t wanna have to cut my meeting short because you think it’s funny to tease.”
He spoke to you as if he was saying something as mundane as remember to take an umbrella today. Rather than a man who was now loudly slapping the tip of his cock on the tongue of his needy wife during a conference call. 
His low groans reverberated through your core, every inch of your skin waiting to be touched by your lover. The sweet and salty taste of him kissed your tastebuds and came with a rueful delayed reaction. At first it helped soothe the aching arousal between your legs but then it made you even needier. 
“How’s that for my spoiled little sweetheart? Heh heh, like a needy little cat, aren’t ya? Licking up every last drop.”
“Not as needy as you,” you purred, pulling away just in time for his arousal to drip onto your lower lip. “Meow.”
His brows knitted together at the sight, his arousal was glistening and smeared all over your lips.
“No, no. Don’t,” he hissed, before his voice sweetened. “Swallow it for me, baby. I’ve gotta get back to work.”
He winked and put a finger to his lips before asking Geto to repeat whatever convoluted question that had been background noise just moments ago. 
You smiled in glee around his dick when his voice wobbled the further you took him down your throat, doing your best to remain quiet just under his desk. But as usual, it was Satoru who threatened to blow your cover—as usual. 
You swelled with pride when he threw his head back, Adam's apple bobbing frantically and his chest heaving back and forth. 
It was Nanami who noticed first, interrupting Geto’s presentation when he hears a shaky breath stuttering through the laptop at the end of the conference table. “Gojo? Are we boring you?”
“Ah, no!” He scrambled forward so quickly he swiped a pot of stationery clean off his desk. Not without bumbles of laughter from the meeting room of men.
 “Just…working out!” he managed through gritted teeth, one hand still cradling the back of your head and guiding your sweet and unforgiving mouth back and forth. 
Toji sighed, the oldest of the men and the least naive. “You choose to do that shit now?”
Choso yawned, glancing toward an agitated Nanami. “What shit are we discussing?”
Nanami sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “You’d know if you weren’t asleep, and Gojo save the workout for after the meeting, please. Let’s proceed.”
“Not my fault, I had to stay up and help Yuuji cram for an exam,” Choso mumbled. 
“Aww! Choso-nii!” Suguru laughed, “Satoru, are you hearing this?”
You were both momentarily so grateful for his team’s ability to bicker about anything down to the probability of rain that day, that you were bringing Satoru to heights of pleasure he’d not even dared anticipate. One he was laughably jet lagged and two he was in an incredibly important meeting but he couldn’t care less.
“Oh fuck, baby. Oh—juust like that!” he spluttered, unable to think about anything else other than the way you were flicking your tongue along his shaft. You sucked and rubbed your wet lips along that sensitive spot of his that made him whimper upon contact.
You fucking devil.
Suguru burst into laughter first, without Satoru’s arm the sounds of him slapping the table in his hysterics filled the room, then followed Sukuna’s laughter. “Is that pretty little wife of yours home by any chance?” he cackled, then Satoru was sure he heard Toji’s laughter but he was already too far gone. 
He hissed as he pulled you off his cock, coughing to smother the audible popping sound. His teeth sinking into his lower lip at the lewd sight of saliva drooling down onto your chest. “I hate you,” he hissed in a whisper. Before muting the call to allow you both to compose yourself, whilst Nanami scolded the team.
Then he was ready.
He cleared his throat before he spoke, “Sorry about that! My wife was giving me a quick massage before she headed out for work. You know how much sleeping on aeroplanes messes with my neck, right Nanami? Please, proceed.”
The sooner this ended the better. 
Sukuna snorted first, “Are you sure you weren’t fucking her?” 
“Would you refrain from referring to my wife like that, Sukuna? You are already on two strikes, aren’t you?” Satoru’s voice was so short and stern that even Nanami held his breath. 
“As I said, let’s continue.”
A chorus of “yes sir” had Satoru smirking down at you on the floor. His eyes locked on you as he made quick work of the mouse and pushed his keyboard aside, tapping the edge of your desk. 
You sprang to your feet to sit, the air thick with tension as he untied your robe to reveal the bare skin beneath it. “Oh baby, just look at you,” he purred, bringing his chair closer just to marvel at the sight before him.
His large hands gripped your breasts, sucking and licking until you relaxed and sank your hands into his hair, guiding him to where you needed him most. He was eager to please, his eyes not breaking from yours for even a second as he leaned forward and kissed your pussy, grinning when he found you slick and dripping for him.
He suckled on your clit until you mewled, his lips fitted to the bud as his tongue swirled and licked until you were gasping out his name. “Gojo? So, how did you find their sales department?” Nanami exhaled, “Gojo?”
He broke from you with an apologetic grin, assuming that sharp CEO voice as he flicked his mic back on. “Yeah, as I told Yaga when I was there the energy was not quite what I expected. It was interesting to see how their team implemented the techniques in which…”
But his words were lost on you, your teeth sunk into your lip as he flicked the tips of his fingers against your swollen clit. The movements were so deft and precise that they were turning your brain into mush, but they were also so tortuously light that you couldn’t handle it anymore. Heat rushed to your cheeks. Your eyes clamped shut.
Satoru removed his hand, tapping your thigh to grab your attention. He pointed to his cock with a smirk. “Ride me,” he mouthed. “Now.”
“Choso, how was your trip to Kyoto? Did you manage any meetings with the execs?” he continued, squeezing the backs of your thighs whilst you grabbed the base of him and hovered above his cock. 
“Well, I took my brother so I didn’t have a lot of time to….”
You shook your head, gulping when he flicked his finger across that mouse pad once more. 
“Ah? You gonna leave me hanging? That’s cruel, darling. More my style than yours. But as long as you keep quiet, we shouldn’t have a problem.” His voice was silky, and just ever so slightly mean, but it aroused you and he knew it. “Can’t have them hearing you like this, baby. Like you’re some kind of slut.” 
“Satoru, I won’t be able to be quiet, I can wait till after I-“
He tutted, sweeping his hands under your thighs as his gaze hardened. “You clearly can’t, so come on darling, sit on it for me, yeah? You know I hate these fucking meetings so help me get through it and fuck me.” He pressed a sweet kiss to your lips, until you were letting him take full control of your mouth.
“I’m just so tired baby, need you to take care of me,” he moaned into your lips. “I know you can, baby. I know your pussy needs me inside, huh?” he cooed, rutting his cock against your slicked cunt.
“Yes,” you whimpered, pulling away to find his his cheeks dusted with pink and his eyes barely open,
“Yeah?” 
You nodded, slotting one arm around his neck whilst you guided him to your cunt and began to sink down on him. “Oh fuuck,” he cursed, his voice leaving him in short hot bursts of air against your neck. 
“That’s it baby, go on. You’re gonna have to move for me baby. Go slow for me. Fuck me, touch me.”
His eyes fluttered shut as he guided your hands under his shirt, feeling your touch like this was enough to make him come sometimes. “Baby, fuck me. Come on.”
“Can’t. I’ll be noisy,” you whined, only a few inches full but yet struggling to focus on whatever Choso was rambling about and then promptly being interrupted by Geto and then Sukuna. 
“You’ve gotta make this up to me baby, didn’t touch myself the entire time I was away. You’re gonna make me lose it. This is your fault.”
“M’ sorry! I thought you wanted it. You were hard already!” 
“I always want you, baby. I always want it. Let me show you.” 
He lifted his hips and filled you in one fluid moment, both of your voices embracing in one sweet and lengthy moan. Before he was moaning with every thrust, “Cause you were prancing around my office looking too pretty like that baby, I’m about to show you just how much.” 
Your pussy clutched him so tight at the praise he groaned and found his lips landing on your own with a magnetic, desperate pull from within his heart. How lucky he was to come back home to you.
“Good girl, you knew exactly what I wanted, knew I wanted to come home and fuck you just like this.”
He watched your pussy drool down his cock as you moved up and down on it, tentative and hungry for him. Your pupils were blown wide, like you were drunk on him, like you had been waiting for the moment you could be like this with him.
It made his cock twitch, the sensation making you quiver and smother your noises into your palm. You stopped, his full length sheathed inside of you, the relief and pleasure that contorted your features was truly beautiful, the sight he’d been waiting for. You tried desperately to catch your breath, “Need a second.”
He brought you closer, wrapping an arm around your back as he whispered. “Huh? You needy little thing, I thought you couldn’t—fuckin’—wait.” Each word was separated by a breath as your cunt fluttered from his low, and reprimanding tone. “No way. No.”
He felt so good. He was filling you so well.
He flicked himself of mute to hum along to Toji’s thoughts of Choso’s pitch. But his breaths were growing more and more laboured. You turned to see Nanami’s face growing pink. “You falling asleep there or pumping one out before you crash man?” Sukuna asked.
“Sorry! I just—” His chest heaved, and he closed his eyes to take a breath just as your pussy was teasing his tip, so close but not close enough. You grinned as you took revenge and slammed down on him all at once, “Oh fuck!” he groaned.
“Sleeping on that plane really got my neck, just had to crack it.”
Toji leaned to look into the camera a huge smirk on his face, “Is your fucking wife with you?”
“What, of course not,” he answered, his pants surely audible the other end. “In the gym actually.”
“Are you serious?”
“Carry on with the meeting I don’t have all day.” That was his no bullshit tone. The sound of it making you throb so wildly he was all smug, a little ‘hmph’ leaving his lips as he muted the call once more.
Nanami stiffened, “Yes sir, Ijichi proceed.”
“You’re gonna pay for that, darling,” he breathed, locking your hips in place so he could pound up into you with ruthless precision. You were a whimpering mess, arms around his neck squeezing impossibly tight as you had no other choice but to take all he was offering.
“Toru, Toru! Toru!” Your voice climbed higher with every thrust, the lewd sounds of your moans only amplified by the high walls of his slick, black study. 
“Please, m’ sorry. Gonna come, gonna make a mess,” you cried.
“Oh yeah? I know you will.” His thumb started on your clit, rubbing tight little circles that had your lower half jolting and squirming, as his cock hit that spot like a hammer to a nail. All too perfect, all too precise, like everything your husband did.
Closer and closer, until you were pulling on his hair, body coated so much in sweat your hands resigned to clawing down his nape instead. 
“Please!”
“No baby, make a fucking mess. How could I ever say no to my wife? They all know it, you know it.”
“Important meeting…Nanami’ll get mad at me! He’ll know!”
“Fuck Nanami, fuck work, fuck everyone. Focus on me. Go on, oh? Too much?” He laughed, kissing down your throat. “You can cry baby, fuck yourself on my cock like there’s no fucking tomorrow,” he growled.
“Use me, use me, use me.”
You finally bursted but Satoru was still moving his hips like the sadist he truly was. “Feels too good doesn’t it baby, doesn’t it?” 
He laughed at the fluids covering your thighs and soiling his pants. “Fuuck, baby you’re so hot.”
Kissing your temple fondly, you both startled as you came back to reality. “Gojo!”
His fingers made quick work of his mouse. “Sorry! Sorry! I had to take an important call.”
“But um, listen I’m gonna have to go.” 
Luckily for him you’d slowed down so he could finally get his breaths even, chuckling and trying to sound as blasé as he could muster. “I’ve really gotta go! Nanami, update me, yeah!”
He ended the call before they could even complain.
You stood, legs shaking as you leant over to grab your robe. But Satoru was already gripping your ass from behind, “Where do you think you’re going? Shall I put another baby in ya this morning? You’re in heat after all. Clearly three aren’t enough, huh?”
He mounted you over his desk, his chest flat against your back as he filled you up all at once. “Why you so wet for, huh?” he groaned, already hitting that spot inside you that had you whining. “Because you’re a needy little slut who sucked me off—whilst I was busy working—or from squirting all over me and the desk? Come on baby! Tell me?”
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