#knowing I can write weird things without remembering it

[liquidstar]

a friend who'd wait :)

#im posting this very late because i was sort of weary of how it came out and ended up messing w it until it was like 4am oops. #and i have plans tmrw so... oh well! i did my best and ill put it out while i can! #and i tried to make the scene match barnard's colors lol #finn's ocs #finn's art #i know i said id do more sillay stuff with the simpler screentone only style but i had a couple more of these in me #and this is the first piece im making thats like an actual part of the story too rather than just setting stuff for fun #i wanna write something to go with it too but for now ill just sort of briefly explain the context in the tags here: #barnard has a pretty bad case of OCD and his compulsions have made it difficult to make friends in the past #he was never outright bullied or anything but people just didnt really have the patience to deal with it #he has compulsions that include stuff like walking through doors until it feels right and needing things to be perfectly aligned #which in group settings has lead to people having to wait for him to finish his rituals and join them #they might find it tolerable at first but eventually they grow impatient and hes just... not invited to stuff anymore #but juno is a newer member of the guild who ends up frequenting the same library. hes also kinda a little weird #and they dont become fast friends or anything but just sort of naturally spend time in the same place #though they never plan meetups they eventually fall into a routine. around the same time theyd just both be at the library #and read next to each other. and maybe talk a bit. and eventually they end up walking back to the guildhall together #since theyre going to the same place after all. and juno always waits for barnard outside the door #eventually barnard asks if this bothers him. juno kinda just tells him 'of course it does' without any malice or anything. just a statement #barnard is surprised and apologizes and juno says not to. but the next day juno doesnt show up at the usual time. #barnard assumes hes committed somekinda more by bringing it up. he ends up staying there late reading to get his mind off it & not ruminate #but when he leaves juno is in fact still waiting for him down the hall (see pic) having collected a bunch of books literally abt ocd #he fell asleep bc barnard stayed later than expected. and hes an eepy guy generally. and also one very bad at expressing himself #but now barnard gets that juno's 'of course it [bothers me]' had the implication of 'but its worth it' which no friend has previously done. #and from the interaction juno was also able to understand that this isn't something barnard just does for the hell of it so. he studies. #and checks a bunch of stuff out because he thinks it could help his friend too (theres ocd workbooks and such- i remember working w them) #and thats the point where they became more ''friends'' than ''pleasant library acquaintances'' #from there on they also do get into juno's problems. whole other bag of worms. but this specific scene is more about bernard from his pov #sorry about when i said briefly explain. i lied </3 #but compared to the whole sequence im picturing its brief so shhh

[bittersweetresilience]

i'm not really one to post snippets but... you know, since i'm unlikely to publish any of this anyway... i was going back through my fics and i am thoroughly charmed by how much i forgot i wrote. in about two minutes i'm going to forget i'm a fine writer and i enjoy my work again but for now i'm riding the high... such is life

#i'm particularly pleased with the second one because i remember writing the entire fic in a twenty minute sprint and assuming it sucked and #never looking at it again. but it's fine surprisingly. third one is the same i got a lot done that day #having a lot of writing experience is really just accumulating a bunch of similes and metaphors you can whip out easily and knowing how to #balance action narration internal external observation feeling without thinking. maybe writing poetry helps. i really like rhythm and flow #and making sentences end in a way where if you read them aloud it's almost like they're rhyming #i'm not trying to praise myself i'm just thinking #but you know what? i should praise myself. good job sunny #you did it. you're happy with your work again. you stopped having the crazy unhealthy social media feelings #you are comfortable with yourself even with everything that's happened and everything you're still afraid of a little bit #and you never stopped writing about murder and insane unshowable things 🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 #everything is going to be okay i love ME and AUTUMN and MOONIE #wow i'm really just rambling to myself in the tags of a post where i feel good about myself 🤣 how cringe. how silly #but i will be cringe forever and weird and shedding the skin of my shame 😌 #i'm also listening to kurzgesagt soundtracks right now and thinking about the vastness of the universe #and how small i am and how none of this really matters and yet it's so beautiful and that just has me feeling some kind of way #🌃 #miraculous ladybug #ml fanfic

[lowkeyremi]

Bakugo with the kids >:3 (bakugo x fem!reader)

This post was possible bc of @shima707 they commented on my bkg dad post for more so i decided to write more :D

"Daddy, Shoko's cryin' again." Mayako says shaking her father. Katsuki usually sleeps in on Sundays with you by his side but for some reason he's waking up upon the fact that the newest addition to the family is crying.

"Where's mommy at? Tell her to get Shoko." He mumbles under the covers. Mayako gets off the bed to open the blackout curtains which causes Katsuki to groan loudly.

"I looked for mommy but she's not here!!" Katsuki perks up at those words, where could you be early on a Sunday morning?

"She's not here? That's weird, she woulda told me if she was goin' somewhere." Mayako glares at her father, it's actually pretty ironic. Katsuki feels like he's staring at himself.

Your blond husband rises from bed to brush his teeth, this was not how he imagined his day would start.

"Can you get one of Shoko's clean bottles off the rack, Maya?" he asks between brushes.

"Mommy already made a bottle for her its in the fridge left with a note to warm it up." Katsuki finds it strange that you left without saying anything. The hero jogs his memory trying to remember if you said anything about going out on Sunday.

Once he's freshened up, he makes his way to the nursery with Mayako by his side like a little assistant or something.

"Your brothers 'wake yet?" He asks opening the nursery door, he is met by loud cries from his little one.

"I think Kaien is awake, not sure about Kitaro." Katsuki nods, he picks up his daughter with his washed hands. He wanted all of his kids to have K names like him but you argued it'd be too confusing. You agreed on both your sons having K names but you named Shoko and Mayako.

"Alright Shoko, that's enough crying." She's only about four months old which means aside from eating, pooping and peeing, crying is all she can really do. He cradles her and puts the bottle in her mouth. The cries stop immediately and she sucks on the bottle harshly.

"Daddy, please don't get mommy pregnant anymore. I'm tired of hearing crying everyday." She admits in a tired tone as if she's the one who cares for all the children. She does contribute to her siblings care though.

"Hah? I hafta hear crying every day, more than you did and how do you even know I'm the reason mommy has babies?" He's shocked to say the least, Mayako is only nine.

"Well for one mommy was always like 'I swear on my life all that man wants to do is get me pregnant' or 'I'm not having anymore of his kids after this one' so I asked Aunty Mina what she was talking about and she gave me as she called it 'a watered down version of how babies are made'." Mayako explained to her father. He should've known it was Mina.

He switched Shoko's postion so he could burp her, then he realized he needed her towel or he'd have spit up on his shirt.

"'N what exactly did Mina say?" He completely ignores that fact that you've complained about pregnancy, he's heard it all before. Whatever Mina told his daughter was something ridiculous he already knew it.

"She said that you slid your hotdog into mommy's bun and the mayo created a baby hotdog." Katsuki cringes hard. Out of all the things Mina could have told his daughter it had to be that.

"I hate that idiot so much." He mumbles. Shoko gives a good burp and a few coos. Katsuki adores the fact that Shoko has your eyes and your nose.

"Go tell Kaien to brush, Kitaro too if he's 'wake." Mayako gives a silent nod and stomps out of the nursery. Katsuki predicts that Kaien will come crying in a little bit, he and his sister clash often due to Mayako's firey temper and his softness.

He's determined to change Shoko's diaper and clothes before Kaien comes in crying.

Katsuki gets lucky and is able to start breakfast when Kaien comes crying in the kitchen. "Daddy, Mayako's being mean. I hate her!" He yells folding his arms.

"Woah kid, we don't say hate. Especially not about family." Katsuki says, he's in his 'Kiss the chef' apron in courtesy of you.

"You say hate all the time!" Kaien argues, and well, he's right. Katsuki doesn't want his child outsmarting him, though.

"That's cuz I'ma grown up." It's the best thing he can come up with at the moment. A father of four with his wife away can only do so much. He's got Shoko strapped to his chest while he's cooking.

Katsuki gets no respond from his son, so it's time to do some digging.

"What did your sister do, Kaien?" He was not at all prepared for Kaien's answer, he expected that she was bossing him around or something.

"S-she said that I can't use the spicy toothpaste because I'm a baby!" Spicy toothpaste? Oh, he must mean the mint toothpaste.

"What did you tell her?" He quickly scarmbles the eggs with the cooking chopsticks.

"I told her six isn't a baby and she said it is." Katsuki almost laughed, not at Kaien. It's just that cute little pout he has on his face.

"Maya-"

"Yeah?" She responds before her father can finish calling her name. He had a sneaking suspicion that she was lurking around the corner waiting to interject and say that her brother was wrong.

"Why can't Kaien use the spicy toothpaste?" The eggs are done so he plates them and checks on the rice. Shoko was drooling all over his collarbone even with her baby towel.

"Cuz he's only six, he should use the kid toothpaste." She says in her 'as-a-matter-of-fact' voice.

"Are you Kaien's ma?" Katsuki asks, he doesn't miss a beat while chopping the spring onions.

"No but-"

"Aht, no buts. You're not his ma so you can't go around telling him what to do. Unless of course, you're babysitting 'em." He sets the chopped onions aside and puts the rice and eggs into bowls. He makes sure all the servings are equal or he'll get complaints from his mini critiques.

"Mkay." She's sour right now.

"Where's Kitaro?" Katsuki garnishes the the food and sets it on the table.

"We both tried to wake him up but he kept saying he was tired." Mayako comments and sits in her normal spot.

"Ain't nothing for him to be tired for, he's eight." Mayako shrugs at her father's words and says thanks for the food. She and Kaien dig in.

Katsuki heads up the stairs, Shoko still strapped to him. His eyes scan the hallway and it's covered in toys. The blond makes a mental note for his kids to clean up later.

He walks over toys to reach Kitaro's room, the door's closed which isn't normal. You enforced the 'no closed doors' rule, unless someone's in the bathroom or changing.

He opens it half expecting Kitaro to be doing something bad. Instead the eight year old is snoring like he hasn't slept in years.

"Get up kid, time to eat. Go brush." He shakes Kitaro.

He just groans, pulls his covers over his head, and yawns.

"I'm tired." Katsuki raises a brow.

"Tired from what?" Once again, Kitaro's only eight, he can't be doing anything that energy consuming.

"Video games." He mumbles from under the covers.

"Tch, 's why you don't needta be playin' them. I don't know why that old hag got you a gaming system." Kitaro is sluggish getting out of the bed. Katsuki's watching him like a hawk. He watched him all the way until he was at the table.

He sees you sitting with Kaien in your lap eating some of his food because he's not likely to finish it.

"There's my baby girl!" You coo to Shoko. Katsuki undoes the baby carrier and takes her out of it. Those ruby red eyes scan your body for any indication of your activities this morning.

"Where have you been all mornin'?" Shoko babbles while Katsuki starts eating breakfast.

"I went to the gym, I'm trying to lose baby weight." You explain with a small smile.

"Tch, why's it matter? I'm your man 'n I like you the way you are." He never understood why you were so insecure.

"I'm not doing it for anyone besides myself." Kaien whines when you pick at his eggs.

"You aren't gonna eat them, little boy." You boop his nose and he tries to bite your finger.

"Too slow, Kai." He pouts, and it looks just like when Katsuki pouts.

"Why didn't ya tell me you were leavin'?" He huffs.

"Cuz you'd tell me I look good and convince me to stay." You're met by his silence which tells you you're right.

"Date night?" Katsuki asks with a sly smirk.

"No more babies!" Mayako protests.

"I agree- wait how do you-?!"

"Mina." Your husband and eldest daughter say at the same time.

"Oh I love her." It doesn't take a genius to know Mina probably told her some crazy watered down version of sex.

"Ki, hon, you look tired." He yawns at your words.

"He stayed up all night on that gaming system the old hag gave him." Your eyes widen.

"Katsuki! Your mom is not the 'h word' and I've been meaning to put parental controls on that thing." He rolls his eyes at your pg language when you normally have the mouth of a sailor when the kids aren't around.

"Whatever." The hero scoffs.

"Love you too, Kats!" You wink at him obnoxiously and he groans.

Thanks shima707 for giving me the motivation to write more, and I'm glad you enjoyed the first part! Love you guys and see ya next time <3

#bnha #mha #bakugo katsuki #bakugo #bakugo x reader #bakugou x reader #katsuki bakugo x reader #dad!bakugou #bakugo as a dad #katsuki bakugo #bakugo katsuki x reader #katsuki bakugou #katsuki bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki #bakugou katsuki x reader #bakugou #bakugo fluff #bakugou fluff

[inkskinned]

crows use tools and like to slide down snowy hills. today we saw a goose with a hurt foot who was kept safe by his flock - before taking off, they waited for him to catch up. there are colors only butterflies see. reindeer are matriarchical. cows have best friends and 4 stomachs and like jazz music. i watched a video recently of an octopus making himself a door out of a coconut shell.

i am a little soft, okay. but sometimes i can't talk either. the world is like fractal light to me, and passes through my skin in tendrils. i feel certain small things like a catapult; i skirt around the big things and somehow arrive in crisis without ever realizing i'm in pain.

in 5th grade we read The Curious Incident of the Dog In The Night-time, which is about a young autistic boy. it is how they introduced us to empathy about neurotypes, which was well-timed: around 10 years old was when i started having my life fully ruined by symptoms. people started noticing.

i wonder if birds can tell if another bird is odd. like the phrase odd duck. i have to believe that all odd ducks are still very much loved by the other normal ducks. i have to believe that, or i will cry.

i remember my 5th grade teacher holding the curious incident up, dazzled by the language written by someone who is neurotypical. my teacher said: "sometimes i want to cut open their mind to know exactly how autistics are thinking. it's just so different! they must see the world so strangely!" later, at 22, in my education classes, we were taught to say a person with autism or a person on the spectrum or neurodivergent. i actually personally kind of like person-first language - it implies the other person is trying to protect me from myself. i know they had to teach themselves that pattern of speech, is all, and it shows they're at least trying. and i was a person first, even if i wasn't good at it.

plants learn information. they must encode data somehow, but where would they store it? when you cut open a sapling, you cannot find the how they think - if they "think" at all. they learn, but do not think. i want to paint that process - i think it would be mostly purple and blue.

the book was not about me, it was about a young boy. his life was patterned into a different set of categories. he did not cry about the tag on his shirt. i remember reading it and saying to myself: i am wrong, and broken, but it isn't in this way. something else is wrong with me instead. later, in that same person-first education class, my teacher would bring up the curious incident and mention that it is now widely panned as being inaccurate and stereotypical. she frowned and said we might not know how a person with autism thinks, but it is unlikely to be expressed in that way. this book was written with the best intentions by a special-ed teacher, but there's some debate as to if somebody who was on the spectrum would be even able to write something like this.

we might not understand it, but crows and ravens have developed their own language. this is also true of whales, dolphins, and many other species. i do not know how a crow thinks, but we do know they can problem solve. (is "thinking" equal to "problem solving"? or is "thinking" data processing? data management?) i do not know how my dog thinks, either, but we "talk" all the same - i know what he is asking for, even if he only asks once.

i am not a dolphin or reindeer or a dog in the nighttime, but i am an odd duck. in the ugly duckling, she grows up and comes home and is beautiful and finds her soulmate. all that ugliness she experienced lives in downy feathers inside of her, staining everything a muted grey. she is beautiful eventually, though, so she is loved. they do not want to cut her open to see how she thinks.

a while ago i got into an argument with a classmate about that weird sia music video about autism. my classmate said she thought it was good to raise awareness. i told her they should have just hired someone else to do it. she said it's not fair to an autistic person to expect them to be able to handle that kind of a thing.

today i saw a goose, and he was limping. i want to be loved like a flock loves a wounded creature: the phrase taken under a wing. which is to say i have always known i am not normal. desperate, mewling - i want to be loved beyond words.

loved beyond thinking.

#spilled ink #writeblr #personal #please don't ask me to talk on my experience on the spectrum lol. i hate how ppl talk to me about it #i really try not to write so specifically about it #bc inevitably someone talks to me like im a child #i think this is the first time i've ever openly identified with it but i've been hinting for years #i might delete this. feels big. #the thing is that being on the spectrum actually IS a spectrum #and if u say ur autistic #inevitably someone makes an assumption about ur needs/symptoms #please do not treat me differently than u usually would. like.... we can tell when you do #and like i mention. i do appreciate the effort. i do truly appreciate the effort. #but it still feels like... #when i was blind. sometimes people kind of did the same-ish thing. #they'd find out i was blind and start talking really loudly? #and while i KNOW they're just trying to help. it would be like. i'd be trying to find #the right way into a building (sometimes only 1 door is unlocked and i couldn't see the signs posted about where to go) #and ppl would be like ''OH UR BLIND? YES SO THIS IS A DOOR. IT OPENS INTO THE BUILDING. IT IS LOCKED NOW." #''A DOOR CAN BE FOUND IN MANY LOCATIONS.'' #and it feels like. when i admit to being autistic #someone comes screeching into my life being like THIS IS A DOOR.

[teaboot]

While I'm happy that the word "gaslighting" is more known than it used to be, and that people at large are learning to recognize what it looks like, I feel like we need to be careful not to turn it into something soft and casual we throw around off the cuff without meaning.

Being gaslit is psychological abuse that fucks you up very badly, very slowly, at such a gradual pace that you don't usually know it's happening until it's already re-wired your brain.

If you're unfamiliar with the term, "to gaslight" is to intentionally persuade someone that they cannot trust their own perceptions of reality. It's a destabilizing form of manipulation that leaves you constantly anxious, off-balanced, confused, and dependant on others.

This is done by lying about events that have happened or about things that are happening, invalidating feelings and observations, and either denying, refusing to acknowledge, or deflecting away from hard facts.

As someone who has experienced gaslighting as a form of abuse, this is what I remember from when I didn't know anything was off:

"Oh, I must have forgotten what really happened."

"I'm just not seeing it from their point of view."

"Everyone has their ups and downs. This is normal."

"I guess I wasn't thinking about what I was doing."

"I must have been wrong."

This is what I remember from when I first started realizing something was weird:

"How come every time I'm convinced they did something wrong, they just talk to me a few minutes, and I end up asking for their forgiveness? What has me so convinced I was right in the first moment?"

"I should start writing things down when they happen, so I can go back and check later when I'm confused."

"If every relationship like ours (familial, romantic, platonic) works this way, how come I never hear about it, or read about it, or see it anywhere else?"

Getting out and adjusting to the real world is hard, too, and comes with rapid swings of unfounded guilt, shame, fear, anxiety, and self-deprication that are completely unfounded in reality.

You've been conditioned to believe that you are entirely helpless and unable to think for yourself, possibly "crazy" or otherwise fundamentally impaired, and that there is a singular source of guidance that knows exactly what is right, and all of a sudden that pillar of support has vanished.

The immediate "after" that I recall looks like:

Constant uncertainty. Because nobody is there to tell you what's real and what isn't, you approach every situation thinking at it from all angles. Every question has fifty possible answers and most of them are wrong and you don't know which. If you choose wrong, the world will end.

A sense of helplessness. You feel that nothing you do is correct, and it's easier to make no choices at all- or you make wild, reckless, impulsive choices, because you feel you have nothing to lose.

Memory loss. I don't understand this one, but it's not like memoriescare being erased, but more like... you're so used to treating your memories as dreams or imaginations that you reflexively dismiss anything you recall as fake, and you can't believe anything you recall because you don't think it was real. Your abusers voice is in your head, wiping things away and telling you that you did the wrong thing. And you believe them, because they're the only constant you can rely on.

Missing the abuser, or the abusive dynamic. Because you know now that it wasn't healthy, but at least you knew where you stood. As long as you said the right things and acted the right way, agreed and obeyed and did as they expected, you felt like thevworld made sense. Now you have to figure out which parts of you really are broken, and which parts are working fine in a really weird way, and it's like tuning a piano when you've never played one before.

The long term "after"- for which I can only speak for myself- looks like:

Having to double-check, triple-check, and continue checking hard evidence of an event before responding in an active way.

Consulting with trusted friends to verify that your observations are legitimate and that your perceptions are valid. Following up with them to see if someone is really angry at you, or if you're just projecting anger onto them because it's what makes sense to your old pattern.

Obsessive collection of "evidence"- saving pictures, writing detailed journals, making recordings and video, never deleting emails or old texts, because you still don't quite trust yourself all the way and you're afraid that someone will cause you to doubt yourself again.

Continued self-doubt and being "gullible": I have straight up seen people flip me off to my face in front of witnesses and then immediately tell me, "No, I was just waving", and my first instinct is to believe them. For a few seconds, I *really do* believe them. Your brain is so trained to latch onto what people tell you to believe that its really, really hard to hold onto information that you already have.

Learning to take ownership over your own actions. (I didn't mess up because I'm "crazy", I messed up because I'm a person and people do that.)

Instinctively seeking approval. (Takes a lot of work to remind myself that I don't exit to make people happy, and that some people suck ass, and I can tell them to piss off.)

I don't intend to invalidate anyone currently struggling with this- if you feel that something is wrong, it probably is. That's the thought that got me out. Trust that feeling that something isn't right.

I just want people who don't know what to look for to know what gaslighting *actually* looks and feels like, so they don't just roll their eyes and think, "Oh, that word doesnt apply to me- I'm not some snowflake".

('Cause we all saw what happened with "triggered", right?)

#Gaslighting #Abuse #Information #Psychological abuse

[lecsainz]

Can u do any kind of luke imagine with maybe a daughter of hades:p

˒ ⌕ DID YOU EAT, TODAY?

parings: luke castellan x hades!reader

an: this was my first piece that my sister liked? I'm sooo happy because she's picky, and I usually have to beg her to read anything I write. yes, I know it's pathetic, but I usually don't think my writing is good, and I don't think you guys will like it. I have a bit of a validation-seeking complex (mirroball girl here 😭

summary: where, after 18 years of surviving alone, you finally arrive at camp half-blood, discovering you're a child of hades. adimist it all, a hermes' boy might find himself perhaps falling for you.

( my last work || my last work for riodanverse || go to main masterlist )

The camp was bustling with activity, but for you, the chaos of your newfound identity as a demigod and a daughter of Hades was still settling in. The moment you were claimed upon entering the camp, it felt like your entire world had shifted. As the campers dispersed for their activities, you sought solace by the lake, needing a moment to process the overwhelming revelations.

Luke, having noticed your absence from the group, made his way to the lake with a small cupcake in hand. Blueberry, your favorite. He approached cautiously, recognizing the turmoil on your face. The daughter of Hades, a complex puzzle of emotions and powers.

"Hey there," Luke greeted, sitting down beside you. "Did you eat today?"

You looked up, your eyes still reflecting the confusion and vulnerability that came with the newfound knowledge of your divine parentage. The mere question, though simple, struck a chord within you, resonating with a sense of care that you hadn't expected.

"I... I didn't really feel like it." you admitted, your voice betraying the uncertainty.

Without another word, Luke handed you the cupcake, and the corners of his lips lifted into a reassuring smile. "Well, you should. It's blueberry – your favorite, right?"

Surprised, you glanced at the cupcake, realizing that somehow, amidst all the chaos, Luke had remembered your preference. A small, genuine smile formed on your face as you took the cupcake. "Thank you."

Taking the cupcake, you managed a small smile. The gesture was simple, yet it carried an unspoken understanding. You hesitated for a moment before taking a bite, savoring the sweetness that contrasted with the bitter reality you were grappling with.

Luke watched you quietly, and when you finally met his gaze, he reached over to wipe away a stray tear that had escaped your eye. It was a gentle touch, one that conveyed more comfort than words ever could.

"You know, being a demigod is tough, especially in the beginning," he began, his tone gentle. "But you're not alone in this. We're a family here, weird as it may be."

You chuckled, feeling a hint of warmth amidst the emotional storm. "Yeah, a family of demigods with divine parent issues."

Luke chuckled with you. "Exactly. And you've got powers from the Underworld, which is pretty cool if you ask me."

Your laughter echoed by the lake, and Luke couldn't help but feel a warmth spreading within him. He looked at you, your smile contagious, and a goofy grin formed on his face. In less than 48 hours, everything you did seemed to become his favorite thing.

"See? I knew blueberry cupcakes were the way to go," Luke teased, nudging you playfully.

As you enjoyed the cupcake, the night air became a canvas for the unspoken. Luke's gaze lingered on you, studying your features. The flicker of vulnerability in your eyes and the subtle playfulness of your smile sparked something in him. His mind wrestled with conflicting thoughts. The prophecy and his allegiance to Kronos felt like a weight on his shoulders, yet the simple act of being there for you seemed to defy the inevitable.

Luke couldn't help but think he was treading on dangerous ground. The more he got to know you, the more he realized that maybe, just maybe, there were things worth fighting for beyond the plans of gods and Titans.

Caught in his own internal struggle, he locked eyes with you. His expression shifted between uncertainty and an undeniable connection that was forming against all odds.

And then, as if a realization hit him, you blushed, looking away. The daughter of Hades, powerful and enchanting, now bashful under his gaze. A small smile played on Luke's lips, acknowledging the unexpected turn of emotions.

"Stop," you said, your voice a blend of amusement and a blush that colored your cheeks.

"I can't help it," Luke responded, a mischievous glint in his eyes. He made no effort to hide his amusement, which only intensified your embarrassment.

A playful slap on his arm was your immediate response. "Seriously, cut it out."

Luke chuckled, the sound resonating in the tranquil night. "Alright, alright. I'll behave... for now."

"Hey, Castellan! We're heading out. You coming?" The moment was interrupted by a group of Hermes cabin members calling for Luke. As he got up to join them, he glanced back at you. "You coming?"

He extended his hand towards you, a gesture so simple yet filled with unspoken invitation. With a slight hesitance, you placed your hand in his, and together you walked away, fingers intertwined.

The children of Hermes exchanged smirks, whispering amongst themselves as they watched Luke and you leave the lakeside. One of them winked at Luke, teasingly remarking, "Looks like someone's got a soft spot."

Luke shot back with a grin, "I don't know what you're talking about."

He glanced at you, a sly smile playing on your lips radiating a warmth that ignited a turmoil within him. In that moment, a realization struck Luke like a lightning bolt – perhaps you were the unforeseen obstacle in Kronos' grand plan. As he stared at you, the idea that his growing feelings for you could complicate the titan's scheme loomed over him, and for the first time, Luke Castellan felt the weight of a dilemma he hadn't anticipated.

#percy jackson x oc #percy jackson fic #percy jackson imagine #pjo series #luke castellan x y/n #luke castellan x you #luke castellan fluff #luke castellan x reader #luke castellan imagine #luke castellan oneshot #luke castellan fanfic #luke castellan #luke castellan x oc #luke castellan headcanons #luke castellan pjo #pjo x you #pjo x reader #pjo fanfic #percy jackon and the olympians #hades reader

[lovelybrooke]

Yandere Gojo and Getou x reader headcanons

I haven't completely finished the manga, very far behind in fact (Chapter 93), so please no spoilers. But I wanted to write something about these two because they are so yandere coded its insane (also because I wanted to see something involving them that wasn't smut). I'm letting you guys decide if this is platonic/romantic.

Masterlist

Gojo and Getou believe they are better than everyone else, they're stronger than everyone, smarter than everyone. It was a well-known fact that both of them thought this way. So, it's why so many of their peers thought it was weird their best friend wasn't a sorcerer.

You were a pretty normal person. You went to a normal school, had a normal part time job, even had a pretty normal family. In truth, neither of the two could remember how they met you. It's almost like they blocked out their life before all of you were together. Maybe it was when you were their server at a cafe they loved to frequent after missions. Or when you bumped into them while trying to get to school on time. Or when they were hanging around your neighborhood for what they said was "work." Either way, what's obvious is the two can't get enough of you.

When you officially become their friends, they both make the decision not to tell you about their lives as sorcerers. They know you'll probably resent them for it in the future, but it's the best way to ensure your safety. They couldn't risk you getting mingled in with any potential curses that would want to get at them. Even if anything tried to kill you, they'd obliterate them without a second though.

You sometimes question how they both know so much about you, and they honestly think it's the cutest thing ever. Neither of them tries to hide their less savory tendencies, why would they? You're their best friend, of course they'd want to share clothes with you, and go to school events that they weren't invited to with you, and bad talk your other friends right in front of your face. It's what comes with being friends with them, you should expect it by now.

While both of them are similar in many ways, there are aspects that each of them has that are purely their own. Gojo is mysterious in a lot of ways, acting dumb about a lot of things only for his demeanor to instantly change if you or Geto are threatened. You don't know if you should be afraid of him or not, but something about Gojo says it doesn't really matter.

Getou, on the other hand, is sometimes less scary than Gojo. He teases you less, doesn't agree with Gojo's ridiculous ideas as often, and, at least for a while, is more emotionally available than Gojo. It's not that Gojo doesn't care about you, but he isn't as good at dealing with emotions when compared to Geto. However, it sometimes feels as though Geto sees right though you, right into your soul. Even when you try your best to hide something from him, he knows what you are really feeling, sometimes a little too well.

Gojo and Getou don't always see eye to eye about you. Sometimes, especially after though missions, arguments spark up about you. The more obsessed he grows, the more Gojo wants to tell you about curses and Jujutsu sorcerers as a whole. Getou doesn't think this is safe however, believing that it instantly put you at risk. Gojo says they can protect you, while Getou reminds him you're weak, and they you'll always be at risk if you know the truth. Their arguments never lead everywhere, it only leads them back to you.

After the situation with Riko, you notice a large shift in your relationship with the two. You no longer see them as much, but when you do, they're rarely together. In a way, it's like their personalities swapped. Gojo became more reserved as Getou became more hateful. He suddenly started talking about people like they were a disease, not even trying to hide it from you. It put a huge strain on your relationship, even when he'd hug to tight and swear to you that you were different from them, you were better.

Getou disappears soon after that. Gojo becomes closer with you, often to the point of feeling suffocating. You've always had a feeling that Gojo knew what happened to his dear friend, and chose to keep it from you, for whatever reason. But regardless, you both feel the strain caused by Getou's absence, and it damages the last bit of a friendship you had with Gojo. After graduating, you left, needing to leave, needing a break. Gojo tried to convince you to stay, but you had your mind set.

Today, you were much older, both of you were much older. You don't remember much from your time with Gojo, but oh boy, did he remember you. He often when though his favorite moments with you in his head, whenever he needed a moment of peace. He regrets letting you leave. So, when he hears you're moving back home, he couldn't be happier. He won't let you leave him this time, he stronger now, he can protect you better.

When you do move back home years later, you meet up with Gojo. It's fun, he's happy and boisterous, and you don't think you've laughed as much as you did when you first back up with him. Though, you couldn't help but feel like someone, or something, was watching you. It was familiar, but terrifying at the same time.

---

A/n: Sorry that the ending sucked I didn't know how to end this. I would love asks for jjk but just keep in mind that I'm not that far in (chapter 93)

#yandere x reader #soft yandere #platonic yandere #yandere gojo satoru #yandere gojo #yandere geto suguru #yandere geto #platonic yandere jujutsu kaisen #platonic yandere jjk #yandere jujutsu kaisen #yandere jjk

[deadsetobsessions]

REVERSE TROPE WRITING PROMPT BY @out-of-jams

ACCIDENTALLY KIDNAPPING A MAFIA BOSS

In Tucker's defense, he thought he was doing someone a favor. A life saving favor, in fact.

"What the fuck-!” The red helmeted guy yelped as a deceptively strong Tucker yanked him onto the bike and sped away. Before Tucker could explain, the GIW agents behind them got in a lucky shot and hit the helmeted liminal with a strong blast to the head.

Clearly, his gear wasn’t equipped with anti-ecto protections, because the guy slumped over on Tucker’s arms. This was bad, because Tucker now had to maneuver about 230 pounds of Gotham muscle while speeding away from government agents. He flicked on the jammer so they couldn’t track his and red helmets’s ecto signature.

“STOP!”

“Ah, shit.” Tucker cursed as he somehow managed to gather up red-helmet’s body and stabilize the bike. “C’mon, Tuck, you can do this.”

Blasts of anti-ecto tech slammed into buildings around him. Luckily, Gotham was used to this kind of shit so people just moved out of the way before going back to their day. Tucker wove around traffic, trying to lure the agents into slamming face first into some signposts.

“Stop damaging the local infrastructure!” Tucker yelled back at them, speeding up.

“WELL REIMBURSE THE PEOPLE AND THE CITY LATER! TELL US WHERE PHANTOM IS!!”

“Over my dead body, you jerks!” Tucker took a sharp right, catching red helmet before the man could slip off. He sped up and took the ramp downwards, heart beating loudly in his ears as he strained his senses to figure out- ah, they took the ramp upwards. Good. Now, all he has to do is bring red helmet back to home base.

“Oh my god. I kidnapped him,” Tucker groaned, slapping at his face before quickly placing his hands back on the handle bar once the bike teetered over with red helmet’s weight. “I’m a criminal. Oh my god.”

Then, as he found his way back, “…Well, it’s not like I wasn’t a criminal before, with the whole resisting arrest thing.”

——

Tucker dumped the red helmet liminal onto the couch of their shared apartment and went to take a shower. When he got out ten minutes later, he found Danny and Sam staring at the helmet guy. Tucker pushed up his glasses (after letting them defog from the shower) and greeted them.

“Hey, guys! I found him while I was running away from Agent L and J.”

“You okay?” Danny asked, eyes immediately flicking over Tucker for injuries.

“Yeah, I’m good. They’re horrible shots.”

“I thought Danny was the one who brought home strays but you…?” Sam commented, arms crossed and a purple painted nail tapping at her arm. “Wait. Isn’t this… that crime lord? What was his name?”

“Red Hood?” Danny offered, turning back to look at the guy on their couch.

Tucker paled. “Oh, no.”

Guns? Check.

Red Helmet? Check.

Bat-Symbol? Check.

Shit.

They collectively stared at the guy in silence.

“…Tucker,” Sam slowly said. “Did you accidentally kidnap a crime lord?”

“Hey, I didn’t want him to get killed! He’s liminal! Even more than us, except for Danny.” Tucker grumbled. “Man, this is why I leave the hero-ing to Danny. I do one good thing and suddenly I have a crime lord on my couch.”

“My couch,” Sam corrected, as she was the one that furnished their apartment.

“What do we do now?”

“Eat dinner,” Tucker said. “I’m famished.”

Sam nodded. “Wait for him to wake up and hope he doesn’t shoot us the moment he wakes up. Then, we explain.”

Danny grabbed all the visible guns he could see. Tucker went to start dinner. Sam supervised, because her boys were idiots and now she had a crime lord in her apartment.

——

Jason groaned, head swimming in a sea of dull throbbing pain as his eyes fluttered open.

Then he remembered he was abducted, and bolted up right. He paused as a series of quick observations made its way to his consciousness.

One. He’s not tied up. Weird, because everyone knows that he’s a weapon even without his weapons.

Two. His weapons were right there, just in reach.

Three. He was surrounded by teenagers and/or young adults who were all scrolling along on their phones.

“Oh, hey, he’s awake! Hi!” The Wayne bait said, electric blue eyes fixing itself on Jason. “Were you aware you died?”

Jason went rigid, hundreds of way to-

“Danny!” A scolding tone cut of Jason’s immediate panic. Two couch pillows slammed into Danny’s face, courtesy of goth girl and nerdy but strong.

“Dude, why do you start with that? Why are you like this?” His… possible kidnapper? asked, exasperatedly flinging his hands into the air as he rolled his eyes.

Goth girl scowled. “Boys. Crime lord, couch, remember?”

“Hey, in my defense, I died too!”

And that- as Jason remained dumbfounded in this circle of tomfoolery- was what snapped Jason out of his daze.

“You what?” He rasped out.

And when he saw them open their mouths at the same time, Jason just knew his headache was going worse.

——

Tucker, effortlessly plucking the actual red hood from the streets: and I whoop-

Jason, whose type is strong, nerdy, and tall: *heart eyes* *but not really because he’s unconscious*

——

Sam: “this is my boyfriend Danny and our other boyfriend Tucker.”

Jason enters chat:

Sam: “this is my boyfriend Danny and our other boyfriend Tucker and his boyfriend, the Red Hood.”

——

#writing prompt #DCxDP #Sam Mason #dpxdc #Danny Phantom #Tucker Foley #they share an apartment #so basically they’ve got the swankiest living space ever #bc Gotham rent is cheap #are they platonically or romantically living together? #no one knows #I sure as hell don’t either

[nyahchan]

Ok, here we go. Cryptid x Reader, where the Reader is on a hike with friends and said friends prank the reader in a really mean way causing them to run off and start crying. The Cryptid stumbles upon reader crying and for some reason misinterprets this as reader seeking a mate and starts doing a mating dance thing that the reader starts out being confused by and a little scared but then they start giggling and think it's really pretty, but then that is misinterpreted as accepting the Cryptid and the Cryptid is soooo happy that this little human wants their eggs! And obviously the crying is just from nerves, so they'll just hum and sing until the get all sleepy and fuck their eggs into them. And they'll be so happy when the wake up safe in the Cryptid's nest and so full and pregnant!

Sorry if that was long and weird lol my brain just kept going.

A Cryptid's mate

Yandere cryptid x gn reader

TW:non-con, implied killing, toxic friends, attempted murder, monster fucking, somnophilia, extremely rough non-con, blood, breeding

Author's note:- you didn't specify the gender so I tried to write it in a way that any gender can read it with whatever pronouns as I made sure not to add any

For you guys see this

Humans are stupid and weird, they tell others to be careful of the red signs yet they themselves seem to ignore them.

You are unfortunately one of those foolish humans, you saw the signs yet you chose to ignore them, you knew better than anyone else that these people who stand in front of you laughing right now, calling themselves your "friends" are just wolves in sheeps's clothings. Your eyes start to blur as you remember being so excited when your "friends" asked you to go on a hiking trip with them, there was a slight voice in the back of your head, asking numerous questions about why they would suddenly ask you to hang out with them in an activity considering they never included you in anything, but you were naive and hopeful and you decided to agree.

During the hike, your "friends" kept on whispering to each other and giggling, you couldn't understand why until they reach the middle of the forest where suddenly one of your "friends" shoved you and another took your hiking bag and began rummaging through it, throwing everything on the forest floor.You couldn't understand why, you tried to tell them to stop, but they kept on snickering "There's a dangerous bug that fell in your bag from one of the trees!" said one of them as they threw all your belongings on the floor and then "accidentally" stepped on them. You tried to brush it off as a kind gesture that went wrong, you tried to smile through it but deep down you knew, they did it on purpose.

Now most of the items you had brought for the hike was ruined, your bag had mud on it as well as the items that didn't get ruined. You all continued walking through the forest, going deeper and deeper inside when you guys are met with a river with high current going downstream, there's a path over it to walk through. Your "friends" tell you to walk on the path first ,feeling pressured,you do exactly that but as soon as you do, one of them pushed you into the river,you see in the corner of your eyes that they are grinning as you fall into the river. Your immediate survival insticts start working and you grab onto a large stone in the river and push yourself out, your bag flowing down the river. You're gagging and choking on air as you frantically ask them why they did it and the only thing you get in response is "it's a prank relaxxx" but you can't anymore, tears run down your face, you eyes get blurry and without thinking straight , you run off to whatever direction your feet take you to, you don't look back, you don't look front either, you're vision too blurry from the tears as you cry and run, your wet clothes making lots of splashing noise as it hugs your body, your undergarments fully visible through your clothes now.

Before you know it, you're in the middle of yet another forest except here, there are no trail tracks for hikers, but you don't care, you're too busy crying at the thought that your own "friends" tried to kill you, you cry by yourself, or at least that's what you think as right behind you stands a strange creature, not human, but not full monster, a cryptid or whatever humans nowadays decide to call his specifies, but it looks human and for some reason, it's extremely handsome. The cryptid man watches you cry from behind, you're so drowned in sorrow that you don't even realize there's a monster man behind you. He watches you cry and ponders on what might be the reason for such an adorable little human to be crying all by themselves in his territory, the territory where cryptids live, the territory he rules, the territory far away from human knowledge?And then it suddenly clicks in his mind, you're crying because you can't find a mate. Good news for you, he's also looking for one!

The cryptid immediately jumps in front of you, making his presence known to you. You're immediately startled and frightened at the creature in front of you, you rub your eyes to wipe the tears away and take in the appearance of said creature, it's around 8 feet tall, is muscular, looks so weird yet also like a human, his face is chizzled and he looks so handso- you shake your head and then look at the creature with a look of terror, but that immediately turns to confusion as the cryptid starts doing this weird funky dance, to you, it's a goofy silly dance, to him, it's a mating ritual and the second you crack a smile and start giggling at his mating ritual, he thinks you have accepted his proposal, he's so happy that this cute little human wants to be his mate, he can barely wait in anticipation as he sees your wet clothes sticking to your absolutely delicious body! The cryptid immediately picks you up like paper and carries you even deeper into the forest, you start panicking and try to struggle in the creature's grip but it's futile. Upon seeing your struggle, the cryptid interprets it as you're probably just nerves, but that's okay! He can just hum and sing to you so you feel relaxed cause he needs to make sure his mate is relaxed as he's gonna get his little human pregnant with his seed! And so starts humming a song, occasionally singing it while he keeps taking you deeper and deeper into the forest, before long, you stop struggling and fall limp in his arms as you fall asleep. The cryptid is happy that you're finally relaxed as he places you in his lavish and comfortable nest.

Your clothes are no longer on your body, thrown somewhere in a forgotten corner. Your unconscious body spread apart as you're being split on his large girthy cock, all that can be heard is the wet clenching noises of his inhuman cock hitting deep inside you, slapping against your skin. He plays with your nipples, licking, turning and twisting them, earning a moan from your coma like sleep state. Moans escape your mouth so often even though you're asleep, he's glad that he decided to put you to bed before fucking and breeding your tiny little human body as you definitely would've gotten hurt otherwise as blood drips down from the skin that tore which was expected considering his cock is way too big, so girthy and meaty and the tip is like a mushroom. At one point, you wake up but the immense pain you feel immediately causes you to pass out. The cryptid kisses your lips as it feels itself nearing his release after 3 hours of constant abuse on your tiny body and within a few minutes, he ejaculates inside you, his eggs spilling so deep inside you, your stomach starts bloating a bit and then bloats a lot. You look absolutely divine , filled with his eggs! Although not all of them wi fertiloze, at least one or two will, and he's so excited to see his little human mate all round and pregnant with his spawns!

When you awaken again, you're lying on a fluffy nest, your eyes hazy, you feel dizzy, you feel heavier, you feel extremely sore and in pain to the point tears start trickling down your face, suddenly a pair of rough hands touch you from behind, one caressing your stomach while the other is caressing your face, wiping the tears off of it, you can't do anything but cry "I'm sorry, you must be in a lot of pain, there was lot of blood, don't worry I stitched you up" you wonder how this creature even knows human language, or where he got the tools for stitches or how he knew how to do it, your mind runs a 100 miles a second,youre too scared and exhausted to move so you just whimper when from the corner of your eyes, you spot familiar clothes, you recognize them immediately as the clothes of your "friends", your eyes widen as you see blood on those clothes and your eyes try to wander further to see the full scene but the cryptid immediately covers your eyes with one hand while the other is still caressing your bloates stomach, he coos in your ear "shh darling, you're still recovering, just relax and go back to sleep, you're gonna be a mother soon, you don't need to stress about anything, I got you new clothes as gift for taking my eggs so well, I just haven't washed them yet" is all you hear before passing out again. You're now stuck with this strange creature.

#smut #yandere x reader #yandere x male reader #yandere x female reader #yandere x reader smut #yandere teratophilia #teratophillia #exophelia #yandere exophilia #gender neutral reader #yandere x gn reader #yandere #breeding k1nk #non con #r@pe kink

[marvelouslizzie]

"Not a study date"

Summary: You have the biggest crush on Bucky Barnes but despite all your efforts, he doesn’t seem to notice you. Can one study date change it all?

Pairing: College Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Warnings: 18+ MINORS DNI, idiots in love, study date, misunderstandings, jealousy, language, oral sex (male and female receiving), protected sex, praise, pet names, no mention of y/n

Word Count: 6.4K

A/N: I really wanted to write a College!Bucky Barnes story and this is it. It’s full of foolishness, miscommunication, and jealousy with a happy ending. This means it’s basically smut with a little bit of plot. I hope you enjoy it and if you do please give some kind of feedback. Every like, comment, and reblog is highly appreciated. Don’t hesitate to message me. Unless it’s hate. That’s never welcome.

All work is mine, please do not repost or translate without my permission.

Read more tag starts after the first paragraph of the story.

Nothing seems to change whenever you visit your best friend's ex-boyfriend Sam Wilson. That sounds weird every time you remember Michelle dated him but things are just fine between them since it was Michelle who just decided to change schools and they ended things on friendly terms. He’s a good friend and really fun to play games with since he’s a sore loser but most importantly he’s your only connection to Bucky Barnes. 

God, that sounds so wrong. Like you are only friends with him just to be closer to Bucky, that’s definitely not the case but you can’t deny Bucky is one of the reasons you are visiting him so often. You like that Bucky secretly watches you two while you are playing games and celebrates your every victory. You know he just loves to annoy Sam but it makes you so happy every time he joins your efforts to brag about winning but that’s mostly it. 

You tried really hard to find some common interests with Bucky so you two can chat. He likes games, he loves reading books and you have a couple of classes together. You have a lot of things in common but nothing sticks for long when you are trying to have a conversation with him. You are not sure if it’s because he’s totally uninterested in you or you are just horrible at flirting. This doesn’t stop you from trying though. 

That’s why you are at Sam and Bucky’s place. Once again you found a reason to stop by and maybe because he has had enough of you, Bucky makes a comment that you did not expect.

“I’m starting to think you have a crush on Sam.”

“What?” The shock you feel is so hard to explain. You how no idea how surprised you sound.

“Well, you are here nearly every day.” Bucky tries to explain his thought process, already sounding awkward because of your reaction.

“Eww, no.” 

“What do you mean eww no?” Sam sounds offended.

“You are my best friend’s ex-boyfriend.”

“And?”

“What do you mean and?” God, does Sam thinks that way, too? You thought you two had an understanding. “You dated my best friend. You are like a brother to me. Of course, I’m gonna say eww.”

“Oh, some kind of girl's code, huh?” Bucky somehow sounds relieved but you don’t notice it’s because of your response.

“Great answer, bub. I was testing you.” Sam’s offended tone instantly disappears.

“Were you?” Bucky questions him before you can. “You sounded really offended to me.”

“Part of my talent.”

The conversation quickly changes into something else but Bucky’s observation sticks with you. Bucky thinking you might have feelings for Sam leaves a sour taste in your mouth. You are here to see him, day after day, and all this time he thought you just came to see Sam. Either he’s blind or you are just not good at showing your intentions. And then there’s a third option that you don’t even wanna think about: He noticed exactly who you are here for and decided to ignore it so he doesn’t have to reject you. Either way, it hurts. 

You consider canceling your study session with Bucky. It’s just gonna be awkward to sit next to him and try to focus on the notes. Plus, you are sure studying alone will be more efficient. No distractions at all.

“About our studying session…” You start to speak before leaving with the intention to cancel your plans.

“Oh yeah, you are still coming, right?” Bucky’s whole face lights up. It’s hard not to see it. He seems excited. “I convinced Faye to share her notes with me. You know how great her notes are. It’s already guaranteed that we will get an amazing score.”

Oh, that’s why he’s excited. Because he used his charm and managed to convince Faye to share her notes. She doesn’t do that often, if ever. She knows how precious her notes are and he’s right. That is literally your golden ticket to get a great score. 

“I was gonna ask if you still want to study together.”

“Yeah, of course. Why wouldn’t I?” He sounds confused.

“I don’t know.” You sound unsure. “Maybe you are tired of me since I’m always around.”

“Oh, come on! I was just joking.” He quickly responds. “You always come here to spend time with Sam. We never hang out just the two of us.”

He’s right. He always stays away from you. Only making comments from far away. Maybe you should’ve taken that as a sign.

“This is not hanging out, either. It’s just studying together.” 

He shrugs and you miss the disappointed expression that passes his face.

“Just come, okay? I promise it will be worth it.”

“Ugh, I’m glad I won’t be here. You two are insufferable. It’s just a study date. No big deal.” Sam can’t help but comment on your conversation.

“It’s not a date.” You and Bucky say at the same time. You look at him, feeling disappointed but try to hide it as much as you can.

“Whatever you say,” Sam raises both of his hands in defense but doesn’t seem like he believed you.

*

This was definitely a bad idea. It’s been a while since you two started studying and you did not understand a word. Not because Faye’s notes are bad. Nope, they are perfect but you can’t seem to focus on the words. The only thing you can focus on is Bucky’s smell. You try really hard not to check him out and it’s relatively easier since he’s sitting close to you but his smell… God, that’s so distracting. You have no idea what exactly it is. It seems like a mix of his own smell, the perfume he uses, and a bit of a sweat. You should be disgusted by the thought of sweat but all you want to do is get closer to him.

You take a deep breath, trying to calm yourself down. This is just a silly crush, nothing more. You can just focus on the notes and learn something useful before the exam. You can do that, right? While you try to read the same sentence for the 19th time, Bucky takes his phone and starts to type something. The idea of him texting someone else while studying with you is so irritating but there’s nothing you can do about it. This is just a stupid study session for him. You push your chair to the back, thinking about getting a glass of water.

“I’m gonna get-” When you notice the awkward expression on Bucky’s face you stop talking. Before he can cover it, you notice the reason he’s looking so uncomfortable. His erection is impossible to hide in those gray shorts he’s wearing. 

“It’s not what you think.” He immediately responds while trying to hide his erection but there’s no way he can tuck it in while you are staring at him.

“Are you really sexting with someone while we are studying?” That’s the first thing that comes to your mind and you can’t keep that thought to yourself. 

“What? No!”

“I mean… it’s alright. You can see or talk to whoever you want but…” It’s so hard to collect your thoughts and turn them into meaningful sentences while your mind is running miles in seconds. It feels so humiliating and not because of the erection. The thought of him sexting someone right next to you… while you tried to get his attention all this time… It just stings.

“What the fuck?” He sounds completely shocked. “I’m not sexting anyone. Why would you even think that?”

“Why else would you get an erection in the middle of studying?” You really can’t think of any other possibilities. Plus he’s still holding his phone. “It’s fine.”

He says your name in a way he never did before. “I’m not seeing anyone. I’m not sexting with anyone. I texted Sam and then I was googling a word I saw in Faye’s notes because I have no idea what it means and I thought it would help me calm down.”

“Oh.” That’s completely unexpected. Then why did he get an erection out of the blue?

“I’m so sorry. I really didn’t want you to find out like this. God! It’s so embarrassing.” His words don’t make sense to you. What is he trying to say?

“Find out about what?” You try to understand him. “That you get erections?”

“What? No.” Then what did he mean? “I didn’t want you to find out… about my feelings… like this.” He sounds so nervous, even more nervous than you are feeling.

“For me?” The question comes instantly because there is no way that’s what he meant.

“Of course for you. Who else?” 

“Wait, wait, wait.” You finally put two and two together. “You just got an erection, because of me?”

“Ihm…” You can’t help but notice how awkward he sounds. “Yeah… I’m really sorry. I’m so ashamed.” He covers his face with both of his hands for a second. Then he continues. “I really didn’t want to make you feel uncomfortable. I swear I’m not a creep. You just smell… so good.”

“You just got an erection because you have feelings for me?” You are sounding like a stuck record at this point but you can’t believe he really said that.

“Yeah. I was planning to ask you out, tonight. That’s why I was texting Sam but… instead… I made a fool of myself.” The panic in tone is so evident. Your eyes go back to his still-obvious erection. “I’m normally not like this. I don’t know what happened. Please forgive me.”

“Do you want me to help you with that?” You ask without taking your eyes off the outline of his erection.

“What?”

“Since you got hard because of me, I’m offering help.” You slowly close the distance between you two.

“That’s not… necessary.” He gulps. “It will go away in a few minutes.”

You have no idea where this wave of confidence comes from. Maybe because he just told you he wanted to ask you out or maybe because the smell of you gave him a hard-on. You just find yourself gently palming his erection over his shorts and he instantly takes a sharp breath.

“What if… I don’t want it to go away?”

“You’re not… you’re not offended?”

“You are not a random creep out in the street, Bucky. I know you. I like you. Why would I be offended?”

“Wait, you like me?” He sounds like he can’t believe what he’s hearing.

“Yeah.” You keep gently rubbing him. He doesn’t take a step back or try to stop you. His eyelashes flutter like he’s enjoying the sensation. “Why do you think I was visiting Sam so often?”

“Not because you have a crush on him?” He asks with a smile.

“Nope, because I have a crush on you.”

“You… have… a crush on me?” It feels like in the span of a couple of minutes, you two changed roles and it’s his turn to feel surprised by your words.

“Yeah. For a while.”

“I guess Sam was right.” 

“Was he?” You ask while you move your head closer. “About what?”

“He said you like me and I’m too blind to notice it.”

“Hmm… Even he noticed it, huh? I guess he is right.” Bucky looks at your lips while you are talking. You can see the idea of kissing you forming in his head.

“Can I…” He sounds like he isn’t sure, yet he tries one more time. “Can I kiss you?”

“My hand is on your hard cock, right now. What do you think?” Your response gives him a huge grin.

“I still wanna hear you say it.”

“Yes, you can kiss me, Bucky.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. His lips instantly crush on yours, like a thirsty man who finally found a glass of cold water. His lips move fast against yours until you rub on his cock again. It makes him gasp in the middle of the kiss, and the rhythm is lost. You feel how painfully hard he is under your touch. You don’t know if it is your effect or it’s because it has been a while for him. You would like to know, but you don’t want to ask. Instead, your hands move to the waistband of his shorts. You look directly into his eyes, silently asking for permission. He just gulps and then blinks. 

You always thought he was just distant when it comes to you, but you finally realize it was actually Bucky’s shyness. He gets flushed under your touch, struggling to find the right words. He communicates through his body language, but you want to change that a little. You want him to be vocal if you are gonna have sex. That’s when the idea of sucking him off comes to you. Unexpectedly, you kneel and gently push his shorts and boxers down while he watches you with big eyes. There’s no fear or worry behind those eyes. You see how excited but reserved he is. You want to show him there’s nothing to worry about. While directly looking at him, you start to stroke him. His cock is so close to your face, but you don’t make a move, you only move your hand up and down on his shaft slowly. His breathing shutters under your touch, but he says nothing. He just watches you.

“Is this okay?” You ask, already knowing it is. You just want him to talk. You wanna hear his voice.

“Ye-yeah.” He sounds so breathy. You start to twist your wrist a little, just to change the sensation.

“What about this?” He takes a deep breath.

“So good.” 

Maybe he isn’t a talker during sex. That’s fine, but you don’t want to give up that quickly. So this time, you sit on your knees and take him inside your mouth without any warning.

“Jesus fucking Christ!” His reaction makes you want to smile so widely, but your mouth is full of him. “Are you trying to kill me?”

“Why? Don’t you like it?” You ask while pumping him with your hand.

“Just warn me, so I don’t embarrass myself.”

“Embarrass yourself how?” Your question catches him off guard. “I wanna hear those reactions. Don't hold back!” 

He just nods like a good boy, and that makes you smile. You don’t say anything, though. You just take him back into your mouth. This time, he lets out a moan. Your tongue moves around the head of his cock, swirling over and over again until he whines. He literally whines under your tongue and that makes you feel like you won a prize. It doesn’t take him long to grab your hair. He doesn’t try to control your movement or push you. It just feels like he’s trying to find something to hold on to.

You pace up a little, moving your head up and down on his cock while gently massaging his balls. That does it. First, you hear a loud moan that sounds like choking, then before he could even utter a word, the first shot of his come hits the back of your throat. You keep going until he empties himself. While you move away from him, you see his eyes are still closed. He takes a deep breath and opens them just in time to catch you swallowing.

“Oh my fucking god…” He sounds like he can’t believe what he is witnessing. You wonder if no one has ever done this in front of him before.

“How are you feeling now?” Your voice is much calmer than you expect. 

“So good. You have no idea.”

“I might have a little bit of an idea.” You smile while standing up. The hard floor tired your knees so you rub both of them.

“That was just amazing.” For some reason, he sounds younger and inexperienced at this moment. Like this was his first blowjob ever but you know that’s not the case. You heard a couple of stories from Sam, and you know this isn’t Bucky’s first rodeo. Yet, he sounds so affected by you. That directly goes to your ego.

You sit back down on your chair, not knowing what to do next, but it doesn’t take you long to realize Bucky does. He’s already getting on his knees while you give him a confused look.

“You know, that’s not necessary, right?”

“I know.”

“You don’t need to return the favor or anything. I did it because I wanted to.” You have no idea why you are discouraging him to do whatever he is planning on doing. You want to see what he wants, yet you don’t want him to feel obliged or anything.

“And now I am doing this because I want to.” 

He puts his hands on both of your legs, gently pushing them apart. You didn’t realize how turned on you are until this moment. Your focus was completely on him, wanting to make him feel good and you forgot about yourself. You didn’t even realize how wet you are. Carefully, he moves into the space between your legs and pushes your skirt up. His fingers graze over your covered pussy, and you are sure he can actually feel your wetness through the fabric.

“Can I take it off?” God, why does he sound so shy while asking that? And why does it turn you on even more?

“Are you gonna ask my permission for every single move?”

“Do you not want me to?”

“I like it, but you don’t have to ask everything. Not after coming inside my mouth.” You smile after finishing your sentence and you watch how flushed he gets, but you see that he understands what you mean. His hands reach for your underwear and take it off pretty quickly like he can’t wait any longer. He doesn’t touch your skirt, simply gets under it. That’s why you can’t see the first time he licks you. Immediately you move your skirt up to your waist and here he is, buried between your legs. He hungrily eats you out, his long licks sending shivers down your spine. 

“Oh my god!” 

Your reaction makes him look up for the first time. That flushed expression turned into pure hunger. His blue eyes watch every mimic you make while he starts to suck your clit. He definitely started strong, but you can’t complain, especially when you are this soaked. You didn’t even realize you pushed your legs together and trapped him between them until he gently pushed them apart.

“Oh, sorry.” You quickly say, but he doesn’t seem to care. He licks, he sucks, and does everything in his power to crumble under his touch. It’s so intense that you can’t think of anything other than the way he makes you feel. You don’t even notice how quickly your first orgasm hits you. It’s hard and fast. You can’t keep your voice down. No, you moan his name so loudly. If he didn’t come a couple of minutes ago, the way you said his name over and over again would get him hard again. Even with that in mind, he could feel the blood rushing to his dick, yet he keeps licking you until you push his head away.

“That’s… that’s enough.” It’s hard to breathe normally. You really didn’t expect to come this hard. The orgasm is still running through your whole body. 

“Sensitive?” His voice is low yet sweet.

“Yeah, a little.” You take a deep breath. “Just give me a second.”

He does that, but instead of moving away, he puts his head on your leg. After taking a couple of deep breaths, you look at him. He is so pretty like this, looking up to you with big blue eyes and a wet mouth. 

“Feeling better?”

“Yeah.” You smile. “I didn’t expect to come this hard.”

“Well…” You watch a big grin spreading on his lips. “Welcome to my world. I didn’t expect to come without a warning either.”

“That good?”

“Oh, yeah. That good.” He quickly agrees. “Sorry about that though.”

“Sorry about what?” You really have no idea what he means.

“Sorry about coming without warning.”

“Oh. That’s fine.” You stop for a second. “Sorry about giving you a hard-on.”

“The most embarrassing and the most amazing thing that ever happened to me.”

“Hmm… How so?” You fish for more.

“I don’t… You know… Go around getting hard-ons randomly.”

“Really? I thought that happened a lot to men.” 

“Not like this. Waking up with morning wood? Yeah. That happens, but getting an erection in the middle of studying? That’s a first.”

“Happy to have a first in your life.”

“I never came like this without a warning either.”

“Two firsts.” You don’t realize how smug you sound, but he does.

“What about you?”

“I don’t think I have ever come this hard without… you know… something inside me.”

“Is that so?” The way he smiles just makes you feel butterflies in your stomach. “You like to have something inside?”

“If they know… how to use it.”

“Let’s give it a try, shall we?” 

He moves his head away from your right leg, repositioning himself, and before you could say anything, his mouth is on you again. His tongue is gentle, testing the waters to see if you are still sensitive, but honestly, you are not. You just want him to move a little faster. You don’t say it though. You want to see what he is planning. He keeps on licking you for a while, making sure you are ready for his fingers and when he decides that you are, he slowly pushes his index finger inside. You moan in response.

“Does it feel good?” He takes his mouth off your clit for a second to ask.

“Yeah. It feels so good!” You can feel what he is trying to do. He’s building up your pleasure so slowly, you know it’s going to be explosive at the end. He keeps pumping his finger in and out of you while watching your expressions. 

“Do you want the second one or…” You don’t let him finish his question. 

“I want the second one.”

Your response makes him smile again. You are not sure what makes him happier: your eagerness or your openness. It does seem like he isn’t used to getting direct feedback, but he thrives on it. Quickly, he adds the second finger inside and you can’t help but notice how his thick fingers are filling you. It’s such a delicious feeling. You are so lost in it, you don’t realize how he leans back into your pussy. He nibbles your clit carefully while moving his finger at a steady pace. You can’t help but think he knows what he’s doing and he’s good at reading your reactions. He notices you react more when he licks instead of sucks, so he quickly switches back to it.

“Oh, fuck!” You love how his tongue feels against your skin. Your hands find his hair, pulling it gently just to ground yourself. You feel him moan against your clit when you tug on his hair. The idea of him enjoying it somehow turns you on even more. You decide to test it and pull his hair a little bit more when you feel like doing it. His loud moan vibrates on your swollen clit. It’s like he can’t get enough of it.

“Someone likes a bit of pain.” 

He pulls away from your pussy for a second. When he looks at you, you can see how turned on he is. The hunger is evident in his eyes. 

“Someone likes being full.”

“I’m not full, yet.” You aren’t trying to tease him, that’s the truth yet you can see that sounds like a promise to him. The promise of taking a lot more than just two fingers. He doesn’t say anything. He just goes back to licking and pumping his fingers. The only difference is he’s moving a lot faster than before and you aren’t sure how long you can take this before your orgasm comes back to crush you. It’s overwhelming yet not enough. You don’t realize how your body arches before you start to lose yourself in that pleasure.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” Words come out involuntarily. “Don’t stop, Bucky. Please. So good. So fucking good.”

He keeps going, keeping that same pace. He wants to encourage you and talk to you, but his mouth is busy giving you pleasure. Hearing you moaning and begging is enough for now.

“Oh, god.” Your whole body starts to shake. It’s like your whole body is electrified. “Yes, yes, yes, Bucky. God, I love your mouth so much.”

He smiles against your clit but doesn’t break the contact. He didn’t think you would be this vocal, but he’s enjoying every second of it.

“Ahh, fuck, ahhh yes.” You moan out while shaking. You have no idea how long this orgasm lasts, but you feel so good. As your shaking starts to slow down, Bucky starts to move slower to match that.

“Mmm.” You knew sex with Bucky would be good but this is definitely how you imagined it. Finally, he moves his mouth away from you when he realizes your orgasm is done. You feel so boneless, so relieved.

“Are you okay?” His question brings you back to reality and you notice your eyes are closed. You open them back up and meet his gaze.

“Oh, yeah, I’m great.” He smiles so proudly.

“Glad to hear that.”

“You have no idea how tired yet relaxed I am feeling right now.”

“Not too tired I hope.” That surprises you.

“Why is that?”

“I thought you wanted to be full.” Then you see his erection. It’s actually impossible not to see how painfully hard he is even though he already came once.

“You want to…” You don’t know how to finish that sentence. You thought you would be done after this. You never had someone who wanted you like this before. The feeling settles into your chest. He wants you. He still wants you that bad after coming so hard. It makes you feel seen and desired.

“Unless you don’t want to…”

“Oh, I do.” Your response is instant. You really do. Even after two orgasms, you feel like you want more. You imagined riding his dick or him bending you over and fucking you hard so many times. You want to know how it really feels. 

“Good.” He stands up, and when his erection is on your eye level, you can’t help but stare. Not every dick is aesthetically pleasing. Some don’t even look like they would feel good, but Bucky… Bucky’s dick waters your mouth like you didn’t already give him a blowjob. You need it inside of you. While you are lost in thoughts, Bucky picks you up from your chair. You let out a small yelp while he offers you a warm smile.

“Just carrying you to the bedroom, doll.”

“Doll?” You never heard him use that nickname before.

“Yeah, you are a pretty little doll. So beautiful and so smart. Very eager and loud.”

You don’t know how to react. A lot of praises combined with stuff that makes you wanna question him more.

“Am I that loud?” You can’t help but ask.

“Oh, yeah, I’m sure my neighbors hate us right now.”

“Oh god.” You feel your cheeks getting red, but he doesn’t seem concerned.

“Don’t let that stop you. I wanna hear how good I make you feel, doll.” He gently puts you on top of the bed. 

“Doll.” You repeat, without an implied question mark. 

“If you don’t like it…”

“I do. I really do.” You want to be his pretty little doll and your reaction makes him smile again. “It’s just new. I never heard you say it.”

“Because it is only for you.” Those words cause different a kind of warmth to spread through your chest.

You watch him open the drawer and pull out a condom. He rips the package off impatiently and puts it on with haste. Seeing how impatient he is makes you giggle and that makes him look back at you.

“What’s so funny?”

“Someone is eager to be inside me.”

“Aren’t you eager to feel my cock inside you?” His words take you by surprise. What happened to that shy boy who couldn’t find the word to tell you what he wants? Your shocked look makes him worry a little. He’s afraid that he crossed some kind of line.

“Fuck, that was hot.” Your words sweep away his fear.

“You like that?” He asks while closing the distance between you. “You like when I say dirty stuff like that?”

“Yeah. I love it.”

“You wanna hear how good you are for me?” You didn’t expect that question at all. He moves closer to you, forcing you to lie down. He positions himself between your legs. “Because you are so good for me.” His words make your pussy clench around nothing. You really need him inside you, and he doesn’t waste any time. He knows you are as impatient as he is. He slowly pushes his cock inside, taking his time and being gentle. He moves back and then forth until he’s balls deep inside you and you can’t hold back that loud moan. It just feels so good to be full.

“Shit.” You throw your head back. Your legs automatically wrap around his torso. He leans down and gives you a long kiss, taking his sweet time so you can get used to the feeling of him. Then he starts to move slowly while his mouth moves to your neck, gently sucking on your skin. It feels great, but somehow it’s not enough. So you start to move your hips with him, matching his rhythm but creating more friction.

“You want more already?” He doesn’t sound judgmental, more like he’s amused.

“Yeah. I need it harder.”

“Harder.” He repeats. “My doll needs it harder.”

Before you can say anything, he moves away from you. A loud whine leaves your lips. You don’t like that feeling of emptiness. You want to protest, but he grabs you by the ankles and pulls you to the edge of the bed. He pushes your legs up and repositions himself between your legs. Then without saying a word, he gets inside you again.

“Holy fuck.” Your reaction comes out instantly. It feels so different, even more full. Then he starts to move, a little harder than before. Even though he isn’t using much force, because of the angle, it feels much better.

“Is it hard enough for you?” He sounds cheeky. 

“Yes, for now.”

“For now.” He repeats your words. “For now is good because we are just starting.”

You would love to say something back, but it feels too good. The only thing you can do is moan. With every moan you let out, he moves a little bit faster, he grows a little bit more impatient. He pays attention to what makes you moan more, which movement makes you lose yourself, and tries to repeat them. The room is filled with the sounds of his skin slapping against yours and how wet you are. Combined with your moans, he starts to lose control and move faster than before. That triggers more moans out of you. It turns into a vicious cycle until you are panting and begging.

“Please, please, please…” You can already taste your orgasm. It’s that close.

“Please what? Tell me what you need.”

“More… I need more.”

“Be more specific, doll. More of what?” That nickname sends a jolt of electricity through your body. “Do you want me to rub your clit?”

“No, no.” That’s not what you need. “I need you to move faster.”

“If I move faster… I won’t be able to hold back.”

“Don’t hold back.” You say while taking deep breaths. “Let’s come together.”

“Are you sure? It won’t last that long.”

“Try to hold back until I say let go.” You really want to come at the same time.

“I’m not sure if that will work.”

“You can stop anytime if you feel like you are about to come before me. That’s okay.”

“But what about…” You don’t let him finish.

“We can build my orgasm back up. It’s there, I can feel it. Just move as fast as you can and try to hold back. You can let go when I start coming, okay?”

He nods, but you see he’s not fully convinced. He just doesn’t want to disappoint you.

“It’s okay if you come before me. Not the end of the world.”

“I don’t… I don’t wanna let you down.” The vulnerability is so evident in his voice.

“You can never let me down. I don’t care if you come early. I will take it as a compliment.”

Your words make him smile a little. His hesitation is still there, but the urge to please you outweighs his worries. He leans down and kisses you in response. Long and full of love. You realize how much your words mean to him just with that kiss. When he pulls back, he starts to move again. He returns to his previous pace and starts to go faster bit by bit. You can feel that familiar feeling of approaching orgasm again. It’s slowly building up, but when you look at Bucky’s face, you notice he’s closer than you are. You need to get there a little faster. That’s why your fingers quickly find your clit and start to rub. When he notices what you are doing, he groans. His hips start to move so fast, you can’t help but scream. Your fingers combined with his fast pace finally push you over that edge.

“I’m coming. I’m coming. I’m coming.” You repeat without thinking and he knows what that means. He can finally let go. His hands grab your waist, getting that support he needs to fuck you into the mattress. The way he moves makes you see the stars. 

“Fuck, doll, I’m coming too!” Your mouth opens for a silent scream while he starts to come. The way he moans and groans fills you with pleasure, knowing you are the reason behind all of that. “Oh, god.” He keeps moving even though he’s done. He wants you to enjoy your orgasm till the last drop and you do. You let yourself thrive on every last bit of that amazing feeling. 

He finally stops moving when he realizes you are done. He gently pulls himself out of you, making you whine a little, and lays right next to you. You turn to your side, facing him while still trying to calm your breathing down.

“You just ruined me,” he suddenly says.

“I ruined you? I think it’s the other way around, mister.” He’s the one who gave you three mind-blowing orgasms and he has the audacity to say this. 

“I don’t think you understand.” He sounds calm yet sure. “Sex never felt this amazing before.”

His words make you giggle a little but you are aware he’s right. It never felt this good before him and there’s no way you can go back.

“You are a thief.”

“Me? A thief?” Your words catch him off guard.

“Yep, you are stealing my thoughts and presenting them as yours.” 

“So it was that good for you too?”

“My mind is blown. You have no idea.” That gives him the biggest grin. 

“Does that mean you will let me take you on a date?”

“What date?” You play dumb. You know exactly what he means but you want him to actually ask. 

“You know what date.”

“Nope, I don’t. I haven’t been asked on a date for ages.”

He grabs your hand and looks directly into your eyes. “Will you go on a date with me, doll?”

“Of course, I will, with pleasure.” And that makes him laugh.

“Yep, a lot of pleasure.”

“Shit!” You suddenly jump.

“What?” He sounds so worried.

“Our exam!” You completely forgot about it. “We were supposed to study!”

“We still have time.” He tries to calm you down. “Just lie down a little until you catch your breath. We have Faye’s notes, remember? It’s gonna be a piece of cake.”

“Oh, yeah.” You remember Faye’s notes. It suddenly changes your mood.

“Are you okay?” He immediately notices. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. We are lucky we have her notes.” You try not to sound bitter but it doesn’t work. He sees right through it.

“Remind me to thank her tomorrow.” You feel the jealousy build up inside you because you know it doesn’t matter how much you beg, Faye never shares her notes, and Bucky managing to convince her could mean only one thing.

“Yeah, I should thank her too.”

“You definitely should.” He watches how your expression changes after his words and his smile grows.

“What are you smiling for?”

“Nothing. I just love seeing you get jealous for nothing.”

“I’m not jealous!”

“Sure, that’s why you look like you wanna stab her a couple of times.”

“No, I don’t.” You deny it at first, but you can see he doesn’t believe you. “I just… know that she doesn’t share her notes with anyone. She must have a crush on you. Which is understandable.”

“Is it?” He’s still smiling like a fool.

“Are you seriously enjoying this?” You are getting so angry that you try to move away from the bed but Bucky grabs your arm and pulls you closer to him. “Let me go!”

“There’s nothing to get jealous about, doll.” He sees you don’t believe him. “I only have eyes for you and that’s what I said to Faye to convince her to give me her notes.”

“What?”

“I told her I want to ask you out, but I wanna impress you with this study date first. She thought it was a great idea and shared her notes with me.”

“I thought this wasn’t a study date.” You remember him denying it was.

“Well, after everything that happened…” He gives you a look that screams sex. “I think we can finally call it a study date.” Those words give you the biggest grin.

“Can we have more study dates like this?”

“Anytime you want, doll. I’m at your service.”

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[l0vedoe]

Yandere!Lucifer X GN!Reader

Hi! My name is Kay, and it's my first time posting something on Tumblr (I don't know how to use this)

I've been really obsessed with Lucifer and I saw a Yandere!Lucifer fanfic that I loved a lot, but sadly there's no part 2 :( So, I decided I would write MY OWN Yandere!Lucifer fanfic! (Also without a part 2..) Here is the one I got inspired by! So, have fun! <3

Sorry if it's a little weird at first, english is not my first language and I'm still learning it!

Part 2 here!

Words: 3787

Synopsis: Your friends found a ritual that can bring Lucifer to your world and, unfortunately, you accepted to participate.

You were sitting on a pile of cushions with your arms crossed, not believing what you and your friends were doing.

A few days ago, one of your friends, Lesley, had found a ritual that could summon Lucifer, the King of Hell, into the human world. You knew that your group of friends were obsessed with those sobrenatural things, ghosts and anything with horror involved. You liked it too, but among them, you were the only one who didn't enjoy getting directly involved with these things. You liked the trivia, the facts, the stories you heard on the internet, but participate in rituals? Ha! No, certainly no. You were sensible enough to know that you shouldn't be messing with these things, whether you believed in them or not. You weren't scared, you just didn't want to disturb whatever exists out there.

Even though you didn't like the idea, you accepted, not knowing why though. Maybe it was because your friends kept insisting...

And there you were, in a dark room in an abandoned house that Lesley had found so that you all could perform the ritual.

You watched your friends as they prepared everything. One of them was making a large pentagram on the floor, while another was placing six candles around it. As soon as they had finished, the three of them stood inside the pentagram, looking at you as if that was all that was missing - and it was.

"Come on, you agreed to do it, remember?" Lesley says, holding out his hand to you.

"Unfortunately."

You said, standing next to your friends.

Lesley took a needle from his pocket and pierced everyone's finger, letting them each drip their own blood onto the pentagram below. Gab, your friend on your left, held out a lighter so that you could light the candles one by one. As soon as you had finished, you all left the pentagram and the atmosphere became more tense.

This couldn't turn out good.

"Lucifer, lord of the red skies, hear my sublime call, show us your true power and appear in this circle!"

When Lesley finished speaking, silence prevailed in the room... for a long time. Since you came here you believed it wouldn't work, but your friends really believed it would, so they were all very disappointed when they saw that nothing happened.

As soon as you thought to say something, the pentagram glowed in a gold so bright that it didn't seem real. It glowed so brightly that if you looked at it for too long, you would surely lose your sight, so you all looked away until the light ceased, and it did. With your vision still blurred, you turned to face the pentagram again and sighed in shock.

There, in the middle of the pentagram, was a short, blond man with pale skin. His eyes were yellow, his teeth were sharp and there was a red circle on each cheek. His clothing appeared to be of high quality and class, a red shirt covered by a white jacket with veiled details, matching his pants in the same color. His hat was also white, with a red band, a golden crown, an apple and a golden snake. A lot of information in a single hat, to be honest.

The man looked confused and annoyed as, with one hand, he was dusting his clothes.

Not only you, but all your friends looked at the man with admiration and amazement. “It worked..." they all thought.

No one said anything, they were too surprised to be able to formulate a single sentence.

"I knew Lucifer was a fallen angel, but I thought the fall would have affected his appearance?"

You say, analyzing the whole figure of the creature in front of you. He was pretty, you had to say.

Lucifer sighed, looking extremely bored with the situation.

"I thought no one knew the summoning ritual anymore, but it seems I was wrong." he says, looking at everyone in the room. "So...?"

He waits, with a judgmental look on his face.

Lesley wakes up from her thoughts and starts talking frantically.

"Oh, Great Lord Lucifer, King of Hell!" Lesley bows, followed by all her friends too, except you. Lucifer smiles. He liked those nicknames. "We're really, really sorry to bother you. We were just curious about whether this ritual would work or not, we didn't want anything to do with you."

Lucifer rolls his eyes. Of course, he had to have been summoned by a bunch of curious mortals...

"You see, I was taking care of very important things when you summoned me, and I am unable to return to my duties unless one of you makes a deal with me." Lucifer gestured his hand gracefully in the air as he spoke. You had to admit: the real devil was not at all what you expected. You expected a tall, red-skinned, goat-legged creature with long horns and a tail, but this...? It was laughable.

But of course you didn't laugh.

Lucifer turned his gaze on you, giving you goosebumps. His gaze on you was something you had never felt before, and it scared you. He was a shorty man and yet he was making you afraid of what might happen to you if you stepped in the wrong place.

You swallowed.

"I'm waiting!" Lucifer raised his voice, making everyone shiver. "Which one of you is willing to make a deal with me, hm...?"

Lucifer had an amused smile on his face as he analyzed each individual in the room. One shaking his legs, another trying to look away, another thinking about what to do to get rid of the blond man and, finally, you, who even though you were afraid, didn't seem to be letting your guard down. You looked at Lucifer with courage, and Lucifer liked that. He really did. When was the last time he saw someone like you? A long time ago, that's for sure. Most of the humans who ended up meeting Lucifer, willingly or by accident, used to be so scared and afraid that they would sometimes beg Lucifer to let them live with their souls in peace.

Souls... Lucifer never cared, really. Most of his deals didn't involve receiving the souls of humans in return, he had no interest in that, he just asked for anything that came to mind. Most of the time, something very silly. He didn't even like making deals with humans, it’s just time he wastes to satisfy the will of mortals.

Seeing that no one would take the initiative, he decided to do it for them.

"Since you guys won't make up your minds, leave it to me. Eeny-meeny-miney..." Lucifer began to choose, and when you saw that he was going to end up with one of your friends, you interrupted him. "Hm?"

"I'll make a deal with you if that's what it takes for you to leave us alone."

Lucifer smiles. He was loving your attitude.

"Are you crazy? You shouldn't do that! He is going to take your soul!" Lesley tried to warn you, worried about you.

"At least it'll help you not to mess with things like that again."

You say harshly, stepping closer to Lucifer.

So that's what you were afraid of? It was nothing new for Lucifer.

"All right, then. What's your name, dear?" Lucifer says, approaching you.

Everyone was looking at you worried and afraid. You liked your friends, but they were the kind who fucked up and left it to you so you could resolve things. Always.

"What do you want? My soul? Possession of my body?" You ignore the question the blond man made, leaving him a little frustrated, but without showing it.

He laughs.

"No, no, no! I don't care about these things, really!" He puts his hand on his chin and closes his eyes, seeming to think deeply, until he snaps his fingers, thinking of something. "Oh, I know! You're going to dance for me dressed as a duckling!"

You look at him with a mixture of confusion and disgust. Was this really the King of Hell that everyone was so afraid of?! You hold in your laughter.

"All right." You reach out to shake his hand, but he interrupts.

"Don't you know how deals work, darling?" he asks in a mocking tone, amused. "You need to tell me what you want in return."

"Oh, is that so?" you ask and he shakes his head positively. Actually, there was nothing you really wanted, you just wanted him to go away and for you to be able to come home soon. You should never have agreed to take part in that. "Oh, I don't know, man... give me a chocolate cake and we'll be fine."

Lucifer laughs softly. You seemed as bored as he was, and your boredom amused him too much.

He grabs your hand, and you automatically felt your casual clothes change into a yellow jumpsuit with a hood that had a duckling face on it.

You sighed. What a humiliation.

You danced a children's dance that you learned as a child, and you could see how Lucifer was enjoying it, his eyes shining, his cheeks reddening and a smile on his face. He clapped his hands frantically.

When you finished your dance, he sighed, snapped his fingers and your clothes returned to normal. A second later, you were holding a plate with a chocolate cake on it. It looked delicious.

"It was a great deal. I hope I never see you again!" Lucifer said, finally disappearing into a golden dust.

Your friends were wide-eyed and dumbfounded. They gave you a quick lecture on how you could have used that deal to get anything and you decided on a chocolate cake. You could ask for thousands of dollars, you could ask to have whatever you wanted, have as much power as you wanted, and you still decided on a chocolate cake?!

You didn't care, saying goodbye and making your way home while holding your chocolate cake. You were sure to devour it as soon as you sat down on your couch.

~

After that incident, your days went by as normal. You wake up, go to work, come home, go to sleep. Wake up, work, come home, sleep.

It was a routine you got used to, and it was good to be used to things, you weren't the type who liked new things.

However, after a week or so of performing that ritual and summoning Lucifer, you began to feel strange. You felt watched almost all the time, it was uncomfortable even to take a shower and this was something that was really bothering you. You've never been sensitive to these things, what was going on?!

In addition to the feeling of being watched, you also began to see figures out of the corner of your eye and hear voices calling you. You could have sworn you were going crazy, it wasn't normal.

You sent a message to Lesley, telling him what you were feeling. Lesley didn't care much.

Lesley Bff: idk, it must be in your head

Lesley Bff: I felt that way too during my first ritual

Lesley Bff: but you know what?

Lesley Bff: Lucifer could be watching you 👻

You laughed.

You: if he's not back in his hole, I'll send him back there myself

Lesley could be right. You've never taken part in a ritual before, so maybe it affected you more than you expected.

You sigh, smiling at the thought of being anything else. "How silly..."

You head for the kitchen to get some water. Opening the fridge, you take out your jug of water and fill a glass with the liquid, putting the jug away again.

As you bring the glass to your lips, you notice a blond man on the other side of the dining table.

You continue to drink your water.

Wait...

You spit out the water, looking back to the front and no longer seeing the man there.

"I need therapy…" you say, putting a hand to your forehead.

"Everyone needs it, dear." When you hear the familiar voice, you're startled and turn around so fast that you drop your glass on the floor, shattering it. "Wow... Do you get that excited just by seeing me?" The blond smiles debauchedly.

"What the fuck..." that's all you managed to say. "I didn't summon you, damn it! Get the fuck out of here!"

You demand, making the demon in front of you laugh.

"It's that way of yours that made me fall in love with you!" he says, still laughing.

What?

You look Lucifer up and down with disgust. How strange was it to have a religious figure, who you believed existed only in your imagination until a week ago, tell you that he's in love with you? Answer: very. ABSURDLY.

"Dude, I don't want any trouble, just do me a favor and leave."

You say, calmly, but Lucifer didn't seem to hear. His smile remained on his face, it seemed to grow with every detail he appreciated about you. It was as if he was hypnotized. You could notice his pupils dilating and his cheeks starting to turn pink.

He moves closer, making you take a step back to keep your distance.

"I'm afraid I can't…" he said, still smiling, but now without showing his teeth and without looking you in the eye. He was analyzing your body, your baggy white T-shirt, your plaid pajama pants and your matching slippers.

Your posture was as if you were ready to run at any moment. Lucifer noticed, after all, he didn't want you to run from him. Why would you run from him?

He took a step forwards, coming closer again, and that was the exact moment you knew you had to run. You weren't an idiot, you ran, you ran as if your life depended on it and, at that moment, it really did.

As you climb the stairs to the second floor of your house, you enter your bedroom and lock the door. You didn't think it would help much since your enemy was a demon who could easily teleport to where you were, but you still did what was possible at the time.

Trying to think of many ways to make the demon go away and get you out of this, you are interrupted by a voice on the other side of the door.

"Darling, please..." the voice was sly. "I don't want to hurt you, I just want to talk to you..."

You didn't trust him. You couldn't trust him. He was the fucking devil!

You didn't answer, and a silence remained. You tried to look through the keyhole, to make sure he was no longer there and you could finally get out. As soon as you put your hand on the handle to open the door, you felt a hand on your shoulder. You automatically turned round and punched Lucifer in the face.

"Get away from me!" You screamed, and before you could run away again, golden chains wrapped around you, preventing you from moving. "What the...!"

"Look..." Lucifer begins, caressing the cheek you punched. "I just want to talk, that's all."

You didn't want to listen, you were just trying to free yourself from the chains that bound you.

Lucifer continued.

"Your attitude that day captivated me, and I found it so attractive how you didn't show any fear. Not to mention, of course, that your dancing was incredible." he smiled. "I couldn't help myself and started watching you ever since. I couldn't stop thinking about you for a second. I've spent the last few days just watching you from hell. I've watched you sleep, you eat, you work, you shower..."

This last part seemed to have had a different effect on Lucifer.

Until now, you really believed that you could escape him, but as soon as you realized that it was impossible to free yourself from the chains, your body withered. You knew there was nothing you could do.

Even so, indignation and confusion overwhelmed you. What was this guy saying? In love with you? Really?

You looked at Lucifer angrily, while he looked at you as if you were all he wanted.

"I've been so lonely these last few years, and as soon as I started watching you I wanted to be with you even more and more..." he said, hugging himself and looking at random corners as if he was fantasizing about a thousand different things. "So I give you the honor of moving in with me! In hell!"

You widened your eyes. That couldn't be real. It couldn't.

Lucifer, the fallen angel, wanted you to live with him in hell?

You laughed. Of course it was a joke. If you accepted, he would steal your soul and you wouldn't be free for anything else. Yes, that had to be it. It was a way of persuading you, tricking you, so that he could get what he wanted.

You took a deep breath, recovering from your laughter, and kept your eyes on Lucifer's hopeful gaze.

"No!" you said, loud and clear.

You didn't want another deal, you didn't want to go to hell, you didn't want Lucifer! You just wanted to get back to enjoying your holiday peacefully watching whatever was on TV, you didn't want anything new.

Hearing you refuse, Lucifer's expression changed from a smile to disappointment. He couldn't believe it. Why were you turning him down? He was the King of Hell, he could make you powerful like him, give you anything you wanted! What was stopping you from accepting?

"Why?! I can give you anything you want! Power, money, comfort and lots of chocolate cake! Please accept it..." he looked sad, but deep down he hoped you would say yes. "I love you..."

His last words made you even angrier. The devil himself was confessing to you, you no longer feared him.

"But I don't love you! I want to get away from you, your hell and everything that surrounds you! I don't want power, I don't want money, I want you to go away!"

You scream, spitting out the words with hatred, not even caring what the blond guy might feel. You couldn't stand it any longer, the chains were tightening your body with each passing minute, you just wanted to go back to your normal life, without demons, without rituals, without anything weird.

You noticed Lucifer with his head down, quiet, and wondered if now he would accept it and leave you alone. Unfortunately, he wouldn't.

As soon as he raised his face, you noticed his eyes filled with a bright red colour, his horns began to appear from his head and his tail appeared behind him. Clearly, he was very angry, and now you felt genuine fear of what might happen to you now.

He began to smile, a fearsome smile that showed his sharp teeth.

His voice was slightly distorted. The chains squeezed you tighter and tighter.

"I am Lucifer, King of Hell, and it is not you who will change that." he approached, still smiling. "I can do whatever I want, and I want you, and I'm going to have you, whether you like it or not."

With those words, the chains disappear and you fall to the ground in pain. They were already suffocating you.

As soon as you calmed down, you looked up to find Lucifer staring down at you without smiling now. He snapped his fingers, forming a portal beneath the two of you.

Before you could fall, Lucifer caught you. You had your eyes closed, afraid to open them and see what you feared. You only felt Lucifer holding you until he finally stopped on the ground and released you. You open your eyes and realize you're in a spacious room, with a large bed with crisp sheets. The walls were dark, as was the floor. There were several pictures of Lucifer with a beautiful woman and a little girl and lots of rubber duckies scattered around the room.

You looked out of a window to see the red sky on the other side.

You were in hell, alone with the angel who had fallen from heaven, with no idea how to get home.

You despair, your breathing quickens and becomes heavy, cold sweat begins to run down your face. You turn around and find Lucifer taking off his jacket and hat and settling down in the bedroom.

You keep your distance as he starts to approach with that same smile as before, until you slam your back against a wall, making it easier for him, who could now approach you.

He came close, standing inches away. His hand caressed your left cheek, while the other took your right hand, bringing it to his lips so that he could kiss it.

"Let me go…" you plead, your eyes filling with tears.

Lucifer looks at you, smiling even more.

"No." he says, in the same tone you used when you told him that. "I tried to make it as friendly as possible, but you wouldn't co-operate. How could I keep the person I love close if I didn't force you to stay here with me?"

"This is not love...!" you say, without looking at him.

"It's your idea of love that's wrong, darling..." Lucifer's face moves closer to yours, his hand still caressing your cheek. "That love you humans appreciate doesn't exist, it never did. Love where the two live happily ever after only exists when one of the people involved makes it happen. And that's exactly what I am doing right now..."

He kisses the corner of your mouth, and you shiver at the touch of his lips.

Why you? What was so different about you that Lucifer needed it to be you? Since Lesley came with that, you knew it wasn't a good idea to do that ritual, you'd never done such things just because you knew it was never a good idea. You didn't want to mess with whatever was out there because you knew you could end up in trouble, and yet you agreed to take part in that damn ritual...

Look at the state you're in now: being forced to be Lucifer's prisoner.

"Don't worry, it won't be so bad." Lucifer says, now hugging you and putting his face into your chest.

You wanted to cry, scream, punch Lucifer until you couldn't, but you were afraid of what might happen if you did. You remained silent, cried silently, without moving a muscle.

Once again, your friends fucked up with things and you had to deal with it.

Just a quick reminder: This is just a fanfic, I don't like the idea of a yandere in real life. In real life, this is crazy and toxic, I don't support that.

So, if you guys liked it, let me know! You can also ask for me to write something about Lucifer again (I'm not doing other characters yet).

Thanks for reading! <3

#lucifer morningstar #Lucifer morningstar x reader #hazbin hotel #yandere lucifer morningstar #hazbin hotel imagine #gn reader #hazbin hotel x reader

[alllgator-blood]

I s2g if you add the layers of these comic pages together, it's over 350 layers. THIS is why I don't do full color for my comics lmaooo- ANYWAY EVERYONE HERE HAS AN AU APPARENTLY, SO THIS IS A BRIEF GLIMPSE INTO MINE. I don't know what to call it yet but I'm thinking of calling it "famous prophets" because 1. I like that car seat headrest song, 2. it's about shamura who is prophetic, 3. it's about trying to outrun fate with the Power of Love (and failing. Like the song!!!). It takes place when all the bishops were teens/kids during the age of hundreds of gods at war, and were trying to survive as a family.

I'm really excited to work on stuff for it but it's all gonna be drawn out of order. Maybe I'll write a full explanation of what it's gonna be about when I have a better idea...I want to channel my eldest sibling angst in a productive way, and maybe establish a QPP between shamura and a completely random npc everyone forgets about <3 also kallamar is trans too cause I said so. I'll do a comic about it eventually. Instead of an absence of gender he has TOO much gender. It simply cannot be contained.

I like that nonbinary genders are normalized in cult of the lamb to the point where nobody singles anyone out for being a they/them, it's not like "THIS IS MY SIBLING SHAMURA. THEY ARE NONBINARY AND USE THEY/THEM. ALRIGHT BACK TO KILLING YOU", it's just like "don't you fucking dare make my poor sibling wake up from their nap to kick your ass. Cause they deserve better than this."

But at the same time I like having the freedom to be more specific, and say "shamura is voidpunk and their gender is best described as the feeling that overtakes you during the first snow of the year, when everything outside is deathly quiet". This comic is actually derived from the time I was walking through a forest that's been torn down for a few years, and came out to my little sister as trans. I must've been like 13 or 14 and she didn't really get it as a 10 year old, but it was better than my mom FREAKING OUT about me coming out. So it was a nice little bonding moment between just the two of us. I don't have a good memory so I don't recall how it went unfortunately...

Now, the climate is a little different. My sis tried out transmasculinity for maybe 5-6 years before feeling happier as a woman, my mom is trying to be Based and flaunt her Woke trans children, and my dad remembered "oh yeah trans natives have existed before colonization. Maybe me being transphobic is a product of my culture being erased" and has gotten better about calling me the right thing. I have a mustache (thanks pcos!!) and wear skirts and am not a repressed "tomboy" teenager anymore. But I can't help but wonder what would've happened if I could've been like shamura and just...been nonbinary without people being fucking weird about it. Or been born as a badass war god who will tear you to shreds before you can perceive my birth sex. I know they're fictional but they are my ultimate gender envy GRRRRR BARK BARK BARK

Here is the secret image for this post- I listen to mostly EDM when I draw cause it keeps the energy up, but as I was finishing up shamura's poetry part, I was like THESE ARE JUST KMFDM LYRICS so I made this

#cotl #cult of the lamb #famous prophets au #alternate universe #shamura #heket #kallamar #narinder #the one who waits #leshy #comic #violence tw #blood tw

[andvys]

Dancing with our hands tied | S.H.

Chapter three ⭐︎ So if you need to be mean, be mean to me

Warnings: angst angst angst! mean!Steve, bitchy!reader, slight allusions to unrequited love, mentions of Vecna and the upside down, argument, Steve being a dick to reader. and before anyone comes at me with the 'but your Steve is so ooc! he isn't mean anymore' this is a fic, this is enemies to lovers, you see the mean!Steve warnings, you know what you're getting yourself into.

Pairing: Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Summary: Steve had buried his past self, King Steve was dead, but all it took was a little push for him to make a small appearance again, to rain nothing but chaos upon his already weak 'friendship' with you. You pushed him, and you did it a little too hard.

Word count: 5k+

Author's note: Big big biggest shoutout to my bestie @hellfire--cult for helping me and writing those evil evil lines, you're the best

Series Masterlist ⭐︎ Previous Chapter ⭐︎ Next chapter

♡

He regrets waking up that day.

He regrets saying yes to Robin and the kids to hang out.

He regrets picking up Max’s phone call. 

If he wouldn’t have done any of these things, he wouldn’t be where he is right now. 

Parked in front of your house so he can drive you both to Robin’s. 

It’s been a week since the day at his place, a week since you had stormed out of his house, a week since he had last seen you. It almost feels weird. He can’t even remember the last time he had gone without seeing you this long. If you’re not hanging out with the group, he sees you going into the coffee shop across from Family Video every afternoon. Sometimes you even run into each other at Bradley’s Big Buy, but since last Saturday, he hasn’t seen you anywhere – it’s almost as though you had disappeared. Maybe he would have worried if it wasn’t for Max and El gushing over your shopping trip to Indianapolis the other day, he panicked when they told him that, thinking that you were driving again when you still weren’t allowed to, but El had calmed him down, telling him that you used the train. 

With a sigh, he gets out of the car. He runs his fingers through his hair out of nervousness. He rings the doorbell and takes a step back, staring at the wooden door. 

How will you even react to seeing him here? 

You’re surely expecting Eddie, not him. 

The door opens after a moment, revealing you on the other side, looking as beautiful as always – unfortunately. You’re wearing a white top, the soft pink stripes matching the color of your glossy lips, your skin looking soft and glowy as the sun shines into your house, the fading bruises are almost all gone, finally. The scent of your perfume, something sweet and flowery invades his space, and he can’t help but inhale it, feeling warmth blooming in his chest. 

He takes you in, the way you look beneath the sun rays, the way your dainty necklace lies so prettily on your chest, the way your lashes touch your skin as you blink at him. 

The smile on your face instantly fades away when you lock eyes with him, the usual grumpy frown takes over instead, that pulls him back into reality. 

“The fuck are you doing here?” 

Yeah, you’re only pretty and cute when you keep your mouth shut. 

He clenches his jaw, trying not to show how annoyed he is already. 

“Picking you up.” 

You furrow your brows at him, “what? Where’s Eddie?” 

“He forgot about his Doctor’s appointment, he had to rush out. Max called me and told me to pick you up.” 

“Oh,” you nod and you stare at him for a long moment before a smile appears on your face, “she told you, huh?” 

Caught off guard by the smile on your face, he stays quiet, only nodding at your words. 

You chuckle to yourself, turning away from him to pick up your jacket and your keys. Surprising him by not fighting him, you step out of the house and close the door. You look him up and down, eying the keys in his hand. 

“Can I drive your car?” You ask, tilting your head, “I promise I’ll take better care of it than you ever could.”

He snorts at your words, looking at you with an expression that almost makes you laugh. 

“With that head injury? Yeah, not a fucking chance, Blondie.” 

Rolling your eyes, you brush past him, already making your way over to his car. 

“It’s been like what… a month? I’m all healed, I’m feeling peachy.” 

“A month and you still get dizzy and don’t even lie about it.”

Once again, you keep quiet instead of throwing a smartass remark back, it makes him furrow his brows at you. Instead of opening the door, he leans his elbow on the roof of his car, looking over at you curiously. 

You open the door and put one foot in before you halt when you notice him staring. 

“What?” 

“Did you fall on your head or something?” 

You shake your head at him, scrunching your face up. 

“You’re not fighting me, are you feeling okay?” He smirks. 

Scoffing at his words, you flip him off before you get into the car without a single word. 

He taps his fingers against the car, looking up at the blue sky with a smirk that turns into a content smile, he thought the bickering would start the moment you opened that door. Maybe today won’t be so bad. 

Though when he gets into his car and he glances at you, you’re already staring back at him with that certain look in your eyes, the one that tells him everything he needs to know. Your eyes are glimmering with that smugness, the one that’s always there when you’re about to tease him with something that you know will annoy him. 

“Is Nancy gonna be there?” 

“Huh?”

You blink at him innocently as you fasten your seatbelt. 

“Nancy, is she gonna be there? You know, since you only get the chance to be around her during these group hangouts,” you smirk. 

He squints his eyes at you, biting back the bitter words that he was about to throw at you. He turns away and starts the car. 

He backs out of your driveway and without a single word, he starts driving. 

“Must suck being in love with someone who doesn’t feel the same, huh?” 

He stares at the road ahead, blankly. He could swear there was a hint of hurt in your voice. He doesn’t look at you, despite feeling your eyes on him, he doesn’t look and only grips the steering wheel tighter.

“But what would I know,” you snort and he hears you leaning back in the seat, the leather squeaking a little as you try to get more comfortable. 

Yeah, what would you know? He thinks. 

You’re cold and you’re mean – he is certain that there’s not a single trace of love in your heart. How you care that deeply for Max will always remain a mystery to him. 

“Are you a grandpa or something or where is the music!?” 

“You make enough music for us.”

He turns to you for a brief second, to see you scrunching up your face at him, shaking your head in confusion. 

“What’s that supposed to mean, Lego head?” 

“Your yapping and whining is enough for me.”

“Oh, so you’re saying my yapping and whining is music to your ears?” You smirk. “Just say that you love hearing my voice.”

“Shut up,” he murmurs, glaring at you. He clenches his jaw and flicks the button to turn on the music. 

Material Girl by Madonna starts playing and he instantly feels his heart dropping, his cheeks start glowing red – at least, that’s what it feels like. He grows flustered underneath your stare the moment you start laughing. 

“Oh wow, I knew you were a girly girl, Harrington.”

He changes the song, calming down when some Duran Duran song starts playing instead, but you are still laughing, and he can only groan in annoyance, pointing his finger at you, “shut up, Blondie.”

Your face only grows more amused, and this is where the teasing begins and the drive to Robin’s house becomes a torture for him and he practically starts counting down the second till he can finally get out of the car that he usually loves being in. 

He bites his tongue, not saying a single word while you yap away the way you always do. 

What a fool he was for thinking that this day could have been good, you manage to ruin every day of his. 

He can only stay quiet for so long. 

“Do you ever shut up or do I have to make you!?” 

That seems to shut you up. At least, for a moment. When he glances at you with angry eyes, he notices the smug look on your face that still didn’t stray away from you, not even after his words. 

“And how would you do that?” You ask, mockingly. 

He stares at your lips for a moment, clenching his jaw and gripping the gear stick tightly. He looks away as he turns left, pulling up in Robin’s driveway, he parks the car. 

“I have an idea or two,” he mumbles and gets out before you can question him. He almost thinks that his words have stunned you, when you take a moment longer to get out of the car, but when you do and your eyes meet his, you smirk again. 

He starts walking backwards, taking in the sight of you as you walk towards him. Your jeans hug your hips and your legs so perfectly that he begins to hate them. He almost feels ashamed for wanting to see them from the back. His eyes move up to your top, without intending to stare at your cleavage but he does.. and fuck, he hates how attracted his body is to you. 

“So cocky and for what?” You chuckle as you brush past him, not noticing his staring. 

Steve’s cheeks are red, his eyes instantly fall down to your butt when he turns around to follow you onto the porch. You move your hips and he has to clench his jaw.

It’s really a shame that he can’t stand you. 

You ring the doorbell and patiently wait for Robin to open, you don’t spare him a glance, you don’t even turn around to tease him any further, he doesn’t mind it though, it gives him the chance to keep looking at you. Your skin looks soft and he sometimes catches himself wondering what it would feel like to touch you, it’s glowing and he can’t help but ask himself whether it’s because of the body cream that you put on or if it’s just this pretty on it’s own – not that he ever imagines you putting lotion on your body after a shower, definitely not. 

“Oh great, you didn’t kill each other!” Robin’s voice pulls him out of his thoughts and he quickly looks away from you, clearing his throat. 

Robin grabs your hand and pulls you into her house, only throwing a glance over her shoulder at him, “come on in Dingus, you know the way.” 

“Yeah,” he mumbles as he walks in, watching the way his best friend pays more attention to you than to him. Not only did you nestle your way into his friend group, you had also seemingly nestled your way into Robin’s heart. He watches the friendship between you slowly blossoming and he can’t help but feel jealous of that. 

He stays back in the hallway for a moment, preparing for a long evening with you. 

He hears Robin talking your ear off already, Max and Lucas are in the kitchen too. But no one else is around. Nancy and Jonathan are on a date, he knows that, Jonathan gushed about it to Argyle before he left the other day and Steve couldn’t help but eavesdrop when he heard them talking about Nancy. The other teens are off doing god knows what. So much for the weekly group hangouts. 

He hears your laughter and he can’t help but roll his eyes. It’s not the kind of laugh that he ever gets, no, whenever you laugh with or at him, it’s like you’re mocking him or making fun of him – not that he cares, he does the same to you. It’s your thing. 

But for some reason it bothers him to hear and see you laughing like this with the others. 

You get along with Robin, you get along with Eddie, you get along with the teens – hell, you even get along with Nancy even though you glared daggers at each other that day at skull rock.

With him, you’re either grumpy and rude or you’re just a snappy smug brat – which seems to be the case today. 

Steve walks into the kitchen, putting on a smile to greet Max and Lucas with. 

“Hey,” Max mumbles grumpily, only shooting him a brief and very forced smile before she goes back to her deep conversation with you. 

Another grump, he thinks to himself. It’s not a surprise that the snappy teen likes you so much, you’re both the same person. 

Lucas greets him with a handshake and a friendly smile, something that two of the three girls in this room should learn. 

“Are you coming to my game next friday?” 

“Yeah, of course,” Steve nods. 

“You can bring her,” Lucas wiggles his brows at him, gesturing to you with a wink, “as a date,” he whispers.

Steve scrunches his face up, as though he is disgusted by the thought of it – like he wasn’t just checking you out on the porch. 

“You’re joking, right?” He mumbles as he looks over Lucas’s shoulder, glancing at you. 

“No,” Lucas crosses his arms over his chest, shaking his head, “you are awfully mean to her, which means that you must like her.” 

Steve’s eyes widen and he looks over at you again, in sheer panic, hoping that you didn’t just hear the ridiculous words that have left Lucas’s mouth. You’re too distracted by whatever story Max is telling you though, looking back and forth between her and Robin. 

He looks back at Lucas to see him staring smugly. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Isn’t that what you said to Dustin when he asked you for girls advice?” He snorts, shaking his head once again, “‘the key with girls is acting like you don’t care’” Lucas mocks quietly, chuckling after that. 

Steve sighs, putting his hand on his hip, “he told you that?” 

Lucas leans closer, “he sure did,” he smirks as he turns his head to glance at you before her turns back around, “I remembered it the other day, and it had me thinking–”

“Alright,” Steve interrupts him, he places his hands on his shoulders, “stop that, Sinclair.”

Lucas laughs, eying the flustered look on Steve’s face, who shoots him another glare before he steps away. He clears his throat, looking at the kitchen island where Robin had already prepared all the snacks. 

He grabs two bowls, glancing back at Lucas, “help me carry the snacks over to the living room, man. These ladies are too busy gossiping,” he says, expecting you to turn around and throw a comment back at him, but you don’t. 

Robin squints her eyes, nodding at him, “don’t give us the sass, Dingus.”

Lucas chuckles at her, he walks over to the kitchen island, reaching for the bowl of sour gummies and the M&M’s, “when is Steve ever not sassy?” 

At that, you finally turn to face them, a smirk tugging at your lips, you don’t have to say anything to show him that you agree with Lucas. 

He only rolls his eyes at you, no further words needed as he leaves the kitchen, stepping into the living room with Lucas trailing behind.  

“Wow, you didn’t even say anything to her.”

Steve has to roll his eyes again, the teasing in his voice isn’t very subtle. He opens his mouth to speak when the doorbell rings and Lucas rushes out of the room before he can even move or say anything. 

“Well, look at what the cat dragged in,” Lucas says after opening the front door. 

“Found him on the side of the road.” Steve hears Eddie’s voice. 

“Oh you two are such jokesters. You think I’d miss out on game night?” Dustin’s voice sounds through the hallway. “What are we even playing?” 

Robin replies enthusiastically as she walks into the living room with Dustin by her side and Eddie tagging along, greeting Steve with a grin. 

“Oh boy, the board’s definitely getting flipped today,” Dustin laughs.

Steve raises his brows, “you mean you will flip the board?” 

Dustin tilts his head as he looks at his older friend, his smile turning into a playful frown, “hello to you too, Steve.” 

“Henderson.” 

Dustin claims the loveseat before anyone else can, slumping down with a grin on his face, he reaches for one of the sour gummies in the bowl. 

“What’s wrong? Did your phone date not go so well with your girlfriend?” Steve teases. 

“At least I have a girlfriend,” Dustin winks at him. 

As you walk into the room, Lucas faces Steve again, with a teasing grin, “what do you mean, he’s got one too, she’s right there.” 

Dustin gives him a funny look before he turns around with furrowed eyebrows, confusion flashing in his eyes before they widen and he turns back to look at a very unimpressed Steve. 

“What!? You two are dating?” He shrieks loud enough for you to freeze in your spot. 

Steve closes his eyes, shaking his head at him. 

“Huh?” 

Eddie rolls his eyes at Dustin, “Henderson, I think that Sinclair might have a little too much imagination over there.” 

Lucas only shrugs, still grinning. 

“You’re playing matchmaker with the wrong people,” Robin laughs, looking between you and Steve. 

“Absolutely,” Eddie chuckles, sitting down on the couch next to her. 

“Can we just play the game now?” You ask as both you and Max sit down on the ground in front of the board game that Robin had already put out. 

“Ooh, we’re playing Ludo?” Dustin asks. 

Everyone nods, everyone except for Robin. 

“What?” She chuckles, cupping her cheek as she looks around, “that’s Wahoo.”

“Huh?” You tilt your head at her, “Wahoo?” 

“That’s what the game is called,” Robin says, pointing to the board. 

Steve watches the way you shake your head in confusion, slightly pouting as you stare at her. Fuck… you almost look cute. 

As Eddie reaches for the dice, he throws it up in the air, catching it between two fingers, “this game is called Sorry! my friends,” he smirks, cockily. “We only need four players so who goes first?” 

Lucas, who starts scarving down the snacks, waves a hand at Eddie, “I’ll sit this round out,” he says with a mouthful of chips. 

“Don’t talk with food in your mouth!” Max rolls her eyes at him. 

“Red, Dustin, Robin and Steve go first,” Eddie says. “The master has spoken, now let the games begin,” he says in his deep voice. 

Steve rolls his eyes at him, “this isn’t D&D dude, we don’t need a master.”

“Still.”

“Okay!” Robin claps her hands together, “let’s play!”

And as the game started, everyone laughed, everyone was having fun, everyone was joking around, it was all lighthearted. Dustin was throwing tantrums in his team with Robin, while Eddie snickered. Robin was a loser, and she accepted that she sucked at this game, competing against a bunch of stubborn teens. She was the first to sit out and stop playing. Max and Lucas preferred to stay out after the first few rounds, amused by watching the gameplay. 

And then, Steve and you were outright competing as if it were a championship. Neither of you even noticed that it was only you two left, everyone else stopped playing a while ago, watching this intense competition instead. 

While you took it all with ease, teasing him with a few jabs here and there whenever he was losing against you, Steve took it all a little more seriously. Because the moment he lost against you more than once, the anger in him started rising – not because of the game, but because of the looks you were giving him, those smug and cocky looks, the comments that weren’t even that bad – but everything, everything about you was pissing him off this day. 

Your attitude this morning, your comments, your jabs, your arrogance, you’ve been getting on his nerves from the moment you got into his car. 

And right now, he can feel his chest heaving, burning in anger and frustration. 

His jaw is clenched, his eyes are hurting from the intense glares that you start giving each other. 

Neither of you feel the eyes of the others on you two, the nervous glances, the warning ones because everyone knows what will follow after this. 

You both want to win against the other so desperately and currently, it’s a tie between the two of you. He won three rounds, you won three rounds – this apparently will be the last one, this one will decide who will win this very meaningless, stupid game. 

But Robin can’t take it any longer, she can’t keep watching the two of you getting angrier each passing second, knowing that this round will only lead to another, and both you and Steve could sit here all night, because you are both stubborn brats when it comes to each other – as it seems. 

“Okay!” Robin throws her hands up, snatching the dice from Steve’s hand that he was just about to throw, “can you two stop? It’s a tie, move on!” 

You and Steve look away from one another, raising your heads to look at Robin who glares at the two of you. 

“We’ll finish and then we’re done!” 

Steve groans at your words. 

“No!” Robin shakes her head, “because one will win and the other won’t, and then it’s a fucking mess, so stop playing! You fought interdimensional monsters together, for fucks sake!”

“Right, that doesn’t mean anything.” Steve rolls his eyes before he looks back at you, only to see your face fall. 

He almost feels guilty. You risked your life out there, not only for Max and Lucas but also for him. 

“That doesn’t mean anything!? Well aren’t you fucking grateful, Harrington.”

“Everyone fought, not just you, don’t think you’re all high and mighty,” he mumbles through the anger that he is still feeling.

A part of him is begging to just move on and keep his mouth shut, but he is frustrated, not just because of the game, but because of you, every small comment from you reminds him of how much he can’t stand you. 

“Hey, hey, hey, break it up,” Eddie says as he gets up from the couch, raising his hands up as he takes in the hurt but angry look in your eyes. 

You shake your head, “no, no, let him keep going! I want to hear what this bastard with his hero complex has to say to me.” 

Eddie can see the way Steve is fuming, the way the anger in his eyes gets stronger and stronger. He stands up, moving closer to you as you get up as well. 

“You fought with us once. Once! And you think that makes you equal to us!? You have no idea what we all went through, you have no idea the people we lost along the way, you know nothing!” He snaps at you, ignoring the way you draw back as your eyes fill with something he can’t read. 

Max straightens up in her seat, already reaching for her crutches as her eyes widen, seeing the way your lips twitch as blink up at Steve. 

“Steve, stop!” 

If he wasn’t so angry, he would have heard the fear in Max’s voice, something that normally would’ve made him draw back in an instant. 

You glance at her, shaking your head, yet again. “No, Max, it’s okay.” You turn back to face him, looking into his eyes coldly – that’s the only look he knows, that’s the one he cannot stand. “What does Steve Harrington know about loss!?” 

Steve feels his gut twisting, he clenches his jaw but doesn’t answer your question, he keeps staring at you. 

“What? Mom and Dad left you the whole house to yourself, and you consider that loss!?” You frown, lifting your arm, you gesture to the people in the room. “I see Robin alive, I see Eddie alive, I see all of the kids alive, so who exactly did you fucking lose, Harrington?” 

Behind the anger and the emptiness in your eyes, is sadness and pain, something he can’t see through the haze that he is in, right now. All he sees is something, someone he hates, someone who acts like she knows everything, someone who does nothing but bring chaos and anger into his heart and into a friends group that is so sacred to him. 

He never felt this angry before, not even when he found Nancy with Jonathan, not even when she cheated on him and left, not during a single fight with his dad, nothing had ever made him feel such rage. 

“You are so fucking horrible!” He snaps at you, not caring about anything, right this second. Everyone in the room disappears, Dustin, Max and Lucas are no longer there, and neither are Robin and Eddie, it’s just you and him now. “I hate the fucking day we ran into you at Skull Rock! You are the most despicable and cold hearted bitch I’ve ever met! I would be surprised if you ever loved somebody!” 

He can’t see the shock or the pain that nestles into your features. 

He doesn’t even hear the gasps from the others in the room. 

“Steve!” Max yells, reminding him of the fact that she is there, that everyone else is here too. 

The girl almost falls over when she jumps up. Lucas stands up as well, steadying her before she can fall. They both look at you, both of them see the hurt in your eyes, the way you helplessly stare back at the guy that you risked your life for. 

Robin and Eddie stare at him in disbelief, not knowing the Steve that they are looking at, right now. 

All that Steve can see is red though. 

“No, Mayfield, let me fucking finish because she needs to understand how terrible she is.” He practically spits in your face, not tearing his eyes away from yours, at all. “I-I mean, don’t you ever ask yourself why you don’t have anyone? Why no one bothers to stick around because I’d be really surprised if someone did – even more, I would be surprised if anyone ever loved you at all. You’re not someone easy to fucking love, Blondie. Trust me on that.” 

And the moment those words fall from his lips, the room falls silent, dead silent. His heart stops racing and his skin runs cold. Suddenly, he is brought back into the room, the haze fleeting away more and more and he can now see clear again. 

And as he looks at you, really looks at you, his heart drops to his stomach and every trace of anger is gone, replaced by a guilt he had never felt before. 

Your eyes are filled with tears as you stare at him with nothing but pain, not a single trace of coldness in them, not a single trace of anger or indifference or even hate for the man in front of you. All he can see is pain, pain, pain.. Your tears are welling up more and more, threatening to spill down your cheeks. Your throat bobbed up and down, like you are trying to gulp down the ball of nerves and sobs threaten to fall from your lips. 

For a split second, he can see through you and he sees something there never was before – something that tells him that you would let him do this, until he’d get enough of hurting you, that you would let him break you, little by little. But, he had enough. 

You look down as your bottom lip starts to tremble. 

As he sees that, Steve feels like the most horrible person on the planet. Worse than his dad, worse than the monsters he had fought, worse than Vecna. 

What had prompted him to throw such awful and vile words at you? 

The guilt that takes over almost feels unbearable and the moment he wants to take back those words, to apologize, you are already gone. 

Lucas calls out to you, but the slamming of the front door is all he gets back. 

Before Steve can even look around the room, his back is slammed against the nearest wall and he is met by the sight of an angry Eddie, his eyes darker than ever, nose flaring as he grips the collars of his polo, pressing him harshly against the wall. 

“I would fucking punch you in the face right now, Harrington. Don’t forget who was the first person to jump into the water to save your ass!” He yells at him, giving him one final push that knocks the breath out of him before Eddie lets go and leaves to go after you. 

Steve looks down, closing his eyes as he takes a deep breath. 

“Steve… what the fuck?” Dustin mumbles, softly, staring at his older friend in disappointment. 

Robin looks around the room, before her eyes lock on Steve, she looks at him in confusion, not understanding where all of this came from. 

“Dingus.. what the hell was that? Why did you–”

“Everyone leave the room.” 

It’s Max’s voice that sounds through the room, awfully calm. So calm that it takes everyone aback. 

Lucas stares at his girlfriend, completely confused. 

All it takes is a single look from her though and he and Dustin scatter out of the room. Dustin pulls Robin along who protests at first but follows when she looks back at Max, who only shakes her head. 

It’s silent for a long minute, and Steve doesn’t know what to feel. 

“That was fucked up, Steve.” Max says. 

Steve pinches the bridge of his nose, fighting the tears that threaten to build up. 

Not only did he hurt you, something he never thought was even possible. He also showed his friends a side of him he wanted to keep buried. A side that surely makes them feel less safe around him now. 

“I-I know, I don’t.. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.” 

Max purses her lips, looking down at the ground to avoid eye contact. 

“She may not have been with us from the start, hell, I wasn’t either. It doesn’t mean that she didn’t experience it just the same. She may not have fought monsters, Steve. But the monsters have gotten to her without her knowing about them.” 

You fought monsters, you fought the bats off of him. 

He snaps his head up, staring at her with a frown on his face.  

“Max I–”

The redhead shakes her head, anger and disappointment still on her face. 

“I’m not the one you have to apologize to. I will not tell you her story, I’m not allowed to do that. But you are wrong, you are terribly wrong about everything you just said about her.” 

She reaches for her crutches, giving him one final look before she leaves the room. 

He stares at the ground with a gnawing feeling in his chest, hating himself more and more as the seconds go by. 

The look you gave him will haunt him for the rest of his life. 

How could he ruin everything in the span of a few minutes? 

How could he not see the hurt in your eyes after only the first words that he threw at you? 

How could he not see the vulnerable side of you? 

How was he so blinded by the act you had put on? 

He judged a book by its cover, just like King Steve had done in the past. There is no excuse. No fucking excuse for what he had done to you. 

♡

taglist: @prettyboyeddiemunson @taintedcigs @mysticmunson @wroteclassicaly @livosssblog

#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington angst #steve harrington fanfic #Steve Harrington #stranger things angst

[adoregojo]

mikage's 5 steps guide! - nagi.s

i missed writing for nagi... my loverboy.. also this writing style is so fun??? wth??? i need to write like this again. i can barely keep one eye open so if there's any typo, ignore pls pls.

warnings: some cussing ig?

nagi was never that charming.

'charming' couldn't even stand being a word in his dictionary to be honest, nagi truly had zero sense of romance within him. he was an actual brick-walled person when it came to these things, or anything of strong-emotions in particular, there was no thoughts behind those void eyes of his but a circle of: sleep, eat, go to work, eat again, play games, sleep, and repeat.

even back to his high school years, not once he recalls talking to a girl, let alone getting a girlfriend, that was something beyond out of his character. maybe there was a girl that confessed to him, he remembered on valentines day he got a letter saying that he should go to the school's roof. and he ended up leaving the poor girl hanging on the air till the sky was clean orange because he genuinely 'forgot', nagi then earned the title 'heartbreaker' for a year straight, he let it be since it was much of a hassle to keep on correcting them. not like his reputation was any better before.

so you could say that nagi wasn't that much of a company to have around, on the other hand was his friend, reo who was basically the opposite of nagi, if anything he was prince charming himself. those social skills were enough to befriend anyone on sight, he got the looks, money and attention was surrounding him 24/7.

and even if reo gather the earth power to try and motivate nagi would go down hill, every time he tried setting him on a date it's either gonna end up horrible or nagi using the excuse to go to the bathroom and vanish to the nowhere. what an asshole.

at some point, reo accept the fact that maybe he's friend will in fact die alone.

and things switched around when you came to the picture.

first it wasn't that hard to notice you, your desk was glued to him after all. it was weird when you would greet him every morning and wish him a good night when you left, no one ever did that to him before, he tends to ignore and ends up being ignored. it was nice, a little reminder that somone was seeing him, acknowledging him.

slowly, the walls between you two was falling apart with each introduction. when you would pat him from his little naps for lunch time, or when it was leaving time, then he would stare at your back until your figure disappeared with a last wave, staring at the door for a little too long, perhaps wishing for you to walk back in.. who said that?

it was getting worse, or better, not the best at analysing his feelings. but nagi found himself looking out for a glimpse of you around the office, he has no shame to admit that the world suddenly felt gloomy without your presence beside him.

maybe he raised his head a little too fast when you walked in, maybe not. but he mostly did.

then you would ramble about how your shitty neighbour refused to clean after his pets filth and you two had a screaming match for a while before realising you were late. the was the worst way to start a monday morning, so you closed your eyes shut, rubbed your forehead for a peace of mind. then you opened your eyes, a piece of your favourite snaked would magically appear on your table.

for some reason your eyes traveled to the white painted head, he was looking at the other side, avoiding your questionable gaze hoovering over him.

Mondays aren't so bad after all, you thought.

perhaps he did place it there, who knows. —but nagi just really didn't like seeing you glum.

possibly, did he grew fond of you? he doesn't know. all he knew that lunch box you handed him the next day is a blessed gift within his palms. too good for him, you were too good for him.

you were the prove that the sky itself favoured him above anyone.

and when nagi wanted to ask you out, he only had one person to guide him to your heart.

so the very mysterious person behind the scene (reo) had a astounding idea that if someone like nagi; mister, game-addiction-freak. that on every step he'll get points! 100-90 if he did well, 80-70 not bad, 60-40 could've been worse.. 40-20 definitely could've been better... 20-0 yikes....

so with that, nagi was sent on a personal mission to win you over and soothe you with his nonexistent charm.

STEP ONE: be straightforward! it's not good to keep on dancing on someone's mindset with hints, it may cause a lot of confusion feelings and misunderstandings! only ask under a certain circumstances, a suitable place where were you two sit alone so they could have they're attention on you only. SIDE NOTE: try to make a good welcoming conversation to ease up the tension first then ask!

so nagi did just that, maybe a little too well.

he couldn't even eat his own lunch and just kept on rubbing his sweaty hands against each other's, staring back forth —he just noticed how many unfamiliar faces were there? did he really only seeyou?一 he was extra quiet which made you ask him multiple times if he was okay, he would just hum in response. what a smooth talker.

"nagi, you haven't even touched your food. are you actually okay?" you questioned, concerned. after taking a brief sip of your juice, but nagi just shook his head in conform, you raised a brow, a little in disbelief that he would think an obvious lie would go through you just like that. there was something off. the tension upon you two was twisting.

the words were on the tip of his tongue, yet they felt un-removed. all this stressing over four words were a pain, and a heavy burden he needed to reales before he lose his breathing track.

and the moment you took a bite and chewing on it, he just had to drop the bomb carelessly.

"go out with me."

so nagi didn't try and sooth the air, nor start a decent conversation. and when he gathered the earth courage to speak up, it wasn't even a question, that was a whole ass demand.

although, it worked. but it definitely could've gone better than you choking on your own food that you swore you witnessed death himself laughing his ass off at you.

what a great timing.

after you saw the heavens gates open for you and life flashing through your eyes, weirdly enough, you accepted.

huh, maybe he didn't mess up everything like he thought (he in fact did).

20 points!

STEP TWO: dress nice and compliment their outfit! dressing well means that you take the date seriously, complimenting them to foster a better sense of comfort and confidence, and they'll compliment you back! extra points if you made them all blushy and giddy!

nagi really wasn't the best at this.

instead of dressing 'nicely', all he wore was a big white hoodie and pants. didn't put much effort to his hair and just went off. it wasn't his problem that picking an estimated outfit was such a hassle. it's good at least it is something that covers him, right?

it all went downhill when you showed up, listen. he always thought you looked fit and nice in your suit work, and now he definitely wasn't ready to see you in regular, uniform out of work place. you just looked... so good, even great, stunning and beautiful, you name it.

nagi barely breath out a greeting, his eyes too busy scanning you from head to toe over and over, he couldn't take his gaze out of your sight even when you were on your way to the table. and he almost stumbled over twice for that, the first was nearly his face planting on the floor, and the second time he almost knocked out a whole plate of drinks. you just somehow managed to muddle over half of senses with your looks alone, maybe he should've considered writing his last letter.

"nagi.. you're staring too much."

the of yours dragged him out of his thoughts line. he saw as you held a sheepish— extra points?—expression, it was either from his heart-eyes eating you alive, or the date itself was bringing you to the nervous state, or both?

nagi cleared his throat, slightly cringing at himself for staring a little too hard. he was absolutely not doing reo's steps justice.

"sorry. you just, look really pretty." if not the prettiest of all, but again, nagi has eyes for you only to pay a mind to others around him.

your breath halts at that, you don't know what to say for a second, nagi himself was complementing you? and the fact that he said as it was a matter of a fact was such an out character thing. but at the same time a an amiable change. and it was for you only.

"thank you, I appreciate that." you say as you kept on twirling your fingers over your hair, you felt like a lovesick teenager. "I think you look very nice as well." you add, almost like a whisper, he still managed to catch it.

nagi let out a scoff, not even a smile forming on his features for that. "it's just hoodie, really."

"i still like it, it's very like you. I'm happy seeing that you can be yourself around me."

he flinch a bit at that, he really wasn't ready for this- it takes a strong-soulful soldier to handle this. and he really, really wanted to be gods strongest warrior just for you. so he gets a grip on himself and mumble a thanks.

you smile sweetly at that, and nagi may really be not the strongest soldier under your spell.

50 points!

STEP THREE: make a conversation! show interest in their personal life and listen to every ramble they have, try to also throw side comments there and here to support them and blow away any negative feelings of the talk being one-sided. also try and talk about your own life to make it easier for them to talk all night. SIDE NOTE: try and joke around to bloom a friendly tune. extra points if you made them laugh!

third time's a charm, right?

however, since nagi was uncommonly unfond of others babbling. in fact he found it annoying and it was hard keeping his eyes evenly open. but then when it comes to you, he found your feathery tune to be airy, he grew ease to it pitch.

so he handed over all his senses of hearing to you on one knee, and let you speak freely. switching between different topics form nowhere, and like the world- his world- itself was turning for you only, his eyes and soul was for you to talk and he'll rot into a shallow void to your lovely enunciate to play on a broken radio repeating.

maybe he should tell you to stop, because your non-touched food was getting cold, and maybe he should tell that to himself that too because he didn't even realize his plate was even there.

it felt like he had drifted from the original plan, instead the tables were turned and he was the one being swoon by you..

not that he minded honestly. but ending the night with you being the one who filled the space was enough to create a makeshift reo berating him, nevertheless, nagi really, really wanted you to like him back. to consider the idea of another date with him.

plus, he also liked your laugh, he really did. didn't the guide say something about making you laugh? even tried telling a joke that you actually chuckled at, something that was unneeded to say that his book was empty, he had to search on google "funny jokes" for gods sakes, how hopeless can he possibly get?

"why couldn't the sunflower ride it bike?" nagi utter flatly, "why" you slope your head to the side. "because it lost it petals." the joke was old, dusty, forsaken. and the urge to recoil the second it left his mouth was understandable. but somehow you still pushed out a laugh at it, you don't know if it was an amusingly one, or because that nonchalant face was clearly begging you to laugh. with that monochromatic tone and all made it even funnier.

that bloomed the smallest amount of exhilaration within his rib cage. it was lovely, and what was made the giddiness to flourish inside his belly was the fact that he was the reason for it. it felt priceless. a sight to a crave in his midst. completely bizarrely about all of this, nagi let's you take over him. to consume him, his heart, his breath and soul were yours to claim.

at least he did something good that night?

70 points!

STEP FOUR: walk them back home! it's quite a simple act but very affected and gentlemanly, make sure to make them feel save and guarded! hidden notes: try to hold their hand!

after paying the price, you and nagi take your leave. with also nagi's off attitude with him opening the doors for you and let you walk first. although, who were to complain about such a treatment? you'll take it

but weirdly enough, nagi was a bit on the edge. like he had a n amount of ants in his pants, couldn't look at your direction, barely spoke out a response, or anything in general. and 一was he holding his breath???一

wait, was nagi actually.... nervous?

you glanced at him, shoulders stiffened, hands moving too much and fast, mouth was dry and agape, half dizzy 一when he isn't?一

now that you did not expect.

it was even ten times worse than him in the cafeteria earlier, it felt like nagi was about to confess to you his cruelest crime. the tenseness was mixed with the deep-seated tenderness, nevertheless, it was a bittersweet taste. and it kept on going until you two stood together by your home.

"i had fun tonight, nagi." you spoke first.

he finally flinched out of his own world, he sees you rubbing your arm, the gesture was sketchy, almost as if you were waiting for him to say something, anything.

but nagi's mind was blank, blow out an air in his ear and it will run out of the other, empty head. yet his mind was roaming, that need to say something clung up to him again. too many thoughts he cannot process.

but all nagi did know was he wanted you to stay a little longer.

"that's.. good?" he should have stayed quiet, what kind of answer is that.

you nodded awkwardly in agreement, breathing out an 'yeah..' he felt a bit guilty at making you feel uncomfortable, the fact of him being unfaithful may have crossed your mind, and nagi didn't like it. but you always managed to make feel weird, he always felt too warm when you would get close to him, words were lost when he would look at your eyes, and now this..

but despite everything, he felt like himself when he was with you the most..

every game had it secret move, and his was that he need to let himself be.

"can we do this again? i also had a good night." a part of nagi wanted to add that it was one of the best nights he ever had, yet it was too cheesy, cringe.

"yes!" you replied, too fast. you sounded so desperate! you palmed your mouth, embarrassment remains on your face as you cleared your throat. "i mean.. yes, we can do this again."

nagi had to physically bent down his head, he was gonna set you on fire alive with his eyes, if he may say, you looked cute when flustered. and his heart wouldn't stop beating so infuriated, almost bursting out raw of chest.

nagi for some reason, stretched out his arms. it was bold and he knew it, he just did it and hoped for you to handle it. "um.. can i?" he sees you halting at your place. eyes ogling around but his own.

you walk up all jittery to him until there's barely any inches left between the two of you, you kept your eyes glued to your feet as if it was the most interesting thing in this moment, but it's also like you were asking him if it was okay, unsureness. so he pushes your head gently forward to rest on his stiffen chest. an arm runs around your back to force you as close as possible to him.

you shrivel when nagi's nose would be buried deep unto your hair locks. your scent would draw him at slacken, his whole body bending against yours that you felt like he wanted to crawl under your skin desperately, searching for the seeds of endless love you endowed to him.

you didn't know if you were somehow intoxicated, but you swore that you felt a pair of soft lips pressing against your skull, god, you felt like melting and soon to become a paste sliding down between his fingers. you gently pushed yourself back, and perhaps you imagined nagi's whining for you to not let go. it's like you were gonna fly away once he unwrapped you free. the second you meet his face, a pout expression on his lips, and you couldn't help yourself from cupping his cheeks, squeezing them slightly. a smile made it way to your face as his eyebrows grew frowned.

nagi's hands were on yours, pulling them down from his face, but not too far. unabashedly keeping his eyes locked with yours, he was holding you tight and close, basically hostage. the bug-stomach is back at again but more fiercely than ever.

80 points!

FINAL STEP: kiss.

the dull hue travels down on your lips. boldly, he doesn't look away for what felt like eternity, if anything it seems like they grew heavy the second you parted them slightly to say something that sticked on your tongue.

"can i kiss you?"

was he trying to kill you?

you don't respond, instead you made a move to give him a quick peck on his cheek. backing off faster than ever. nagi stood still, rooting in his place, completely bamboozled. his mind stopped working and his eyes were drifting off in different directions.一is it normal that he felt like melting to the ground?一

"im so sorry, nagi- i just got really nervous and-"

"seishiro."

"eh?"

"seishiro, call me seishiro." he finally found a piece of mind to say. he didn't know if it came out as a command, but he sincerely wanted you to call him by his name. he'd die a happy man then.

"well.. goodnight, seishiro. can't wait for our next date," you said, weaving before your door. nagi barely being able to wave back, his mind was still half empty. you just made him see the light of the stars and left with with the sweetest, loveliest smile for him to think about for the next couple of weeks.

maybe he stood there for a little longer than he should have, his face was on fire, his heart on race track. antithesis of the nonchalant face he had, he made a move to rub the spot you pressed your soft lips against. and the first thing that came to his mind that it was definitely worth it.

and by now, he absolutely forgot about the points and the game itself. oh well, at least half of it worked. he just did it in his own version, which apparently was charming to you. nagi thinks if being charm to you, than he can come over anything.

limitless points! you have made your own path to the heart!

#blue lock x reader #bllk x reader #blue lock #nagi x reader #nagi seishiro x reader #nagi seishiro x you #nagi x you

[angelltheninth]

Humbly requesting HSR men sending love letters to their girlfriend/wife while on a mission? Do they make them detailed or short? Also do they include and pictures or drawings? I'm sorry if this is weird, I was watching the Legend of Korra and I'm at the part where she's getting letters from everyone and it got me thinking about this.

I love TLOK! That part hits hard, so fucking hard. Good luck with the rest of s4!

Pairing: Blade, Caelus, Dan Heng, Gepard, Jing Yuan, Luka, Welt x Fem!Reader

Tags: fluff, established relationship, love letters, married, long distance relationship

A/N: I remember when I was in middle school and we had to send a letter to someone for an assignment. I sent it to my bestie!

Blade writes you letters only because he promised you he would. There aren't many, you get a new letter maybe once a month but they are always quite detailed, telling you where he's been, where he's going and that you don't need to worry about him. There can be a lot of pages for you to read but that's to make up for the fact that he doesn't write to you that often, he prefers to say things in person.

Caelus never thought about writing you letters until you expressed how romantic it would be to get one. Then one day while on alone you got one, from him, who was on a mission at the time. The letter spoke of the things he saw, what he ate, what the weather was like, wishing you a good night and sweet dreams. A crudely drawn picture of his was the signature. You've been getting letters ever since.

Dan Heng writes letters that are straight to the point and a bit on the shorter side. Usually one or two pages is enough for him to summarize what happened, but his letters arrive a few times a week, constantly keeping you updated on his whereabouts and health. Now when you feel his rough fingers you wonder how much is from his weapon and how much is from his writing to you.

Gepard not only sends you letters but also full on poems and love songs. He is that much of a romantic. Don't tell anyone though, everyone is under the impression that he's only informing his wife of when he'll be getting home. You keep his letters right beside your bed, sometime reading them to him and watching his face get redder and redder with every sentence.

Jing Yuan tells you the details of his day pretty thoroughly but not so much about the mission. He makes a sort of cliff note version of that part. This is because he would rather tell you those parts in person, they'll be much more interesting and dramatic that way. But as for what he does daily, the people he meets, the animals he sees, the food he eats, he writes about all of that for you.

Luka doesn't write that much in his letters. He's simply not sure what he could write that would be interesting other then who he beat up and how he got a thank you for it. He does include a few drawings of him fighting against his opponent though, it's the only good way he can think of to let you know how awesome of a fight it was without taking a whole books worth of pages to do so.

Welt is all to happy to write home to you while he's on a mission. Of course you get just as many drawings of the places he's been too. There's so many drawings that you can make a scrapbook with them, or decorate your entire wall with them. He puts as much detail into his letters as he does in the drawings he makes so you can be sure you won't miss out on a single thing, it's like you're there with him.

#honkai star rail x reader #hsr x reader #blade x reader #caelus x reader #dan heng x reader #gepard x reader #jing yuan x reader #luka x reader #welt x reader #honkai star rail imagines #honkai star rail headcanon #hsr imagine #hsr headcanon #honkai star rail smut #honkai star rail x female reader #honkai star rail x you #hsr x female reader #hsr x you #blade fluff #caelus fludd #dan heng fluff #gepard fluff #jing yuan fluff #luka fluff #welt fluff

[moonlinos]

Invisible string (pt. I)

♡ Pairing: Lee Minho × fem!reader / Hwang Hyunjin × fem!reader

♡ Synopsis: With your terrible history of boyfriends during high school, you swore off love and vowed to get through university without a relationship. Things are great: you’re in your junior year, in an uncomplicated arrangement with a friend with benefits, and living in a nice sharehouse with two amazing roommates. But things begin to change once you meet Lee Minho, a student in your new class who vows to change your perspective on love.

♡ Genre: A ‘lite version’ of a soulmate AU, fluff, eventual smut, light angst, pining, jealousy, strangers to friends to lovers, friends with benefits

♡ CW: Swearing, sexual themes and discussions, mentions of anxiety/panic attacks, alcohol consumption, mentions of smoking

♡ Word count: 16.4k

♡ A/N: This is a three-part story because I can’t shut up. The second part will be posted sometime next week, and I’ll link it here. I’ve been writing all my life and have written for maaaany fandoms, but being on Tumblr as an active reader of SKZ fics made me want to write for them. So, yeah, guess this is what I’m doing now.

part II →

You are woken up by Hyunjin shifting beside you on the bed. He groans, arm reaching to mess with your already closed curtains. You chuckle.

“You know, the curtains won’t close any more than that.”

“I keep telling you your bed is in a terrible position,” He grumbles as you turn to face him with a smile. “Who thought placing a bed right under a window would be a good idea? Mornings are fucking hell here.”

You shrug. “Well, it’s not my house so I didn’t exactly have a say in that matter.”

“I told you a million times I could help you move it.”

“And I told you a million times Mrs. Choi doesn’t like for us to mess with her furniture,” You explain, turning under the sheets so you could face him before bringing your fingers up to pinch his cheek. Hyunjin scrunches his nose. “Speaking of which, you need to leave. You know her rule: no—”

“No boyfriends spending more than two days at the house,” He interrupted you with an eye roll. “I’m not your boyfriend, though, so that rule shouldn’t apply.” He shrugs.

Hyunjin has been one of your best friends since you first met over two years ago. It was Hyunjin’s first college party and one of the many times your housemates had dragged you along on a night out. His friends had dared him to try and chat you up, arguing it would be hilarious to see him get turned down by an older girl. What they hadn’t expected, however, was for Hyunjin’s clumsy attempt at flirting to be so endearing to you; his pink cheeks and bowl-cut hair made him look like a helpless kid despite his height towering over you. Before you knew it, you had spent the entirety of the party talking to him about everything and anything, only stopping once your housemate Eunha emerged from inside the house to drag you home with her as she desperately tried to dodge a rather insistent guy’s advances. After that day, you and Hyunjin became almost inseparable.

You can’t quite pinpoint when you began hooking up. It was meaningless in the best sense of the word. It was simply something that had happened. All you can remember is that Jisung had recently bleached Hyunjin’s hair after yet another dare from his friend. It had started with cuddles, which turned to kisses, which turned to touches, until you eventually slept together for the first time sometime last year after an excruciatingly stressful exam period. It had never once gotten weird between the two of you; the line was always clear: you were just friends who hooked up due to convenience. Everybody had needs and stress and shit complicating their lives, and fucking your best friend was far more practical and safe than going out to look for a random hook-up whenever you needed it.

You find yourself smiling at Hyunjin once again. His now long black hair fell in his eyes as he stretched his arms over his head.

“Yes, you’re not my boyfriend, but how am I supposed to explain what we are to a little old lady?”

“Doesn’t she always say she’s super modern?” Hyunjin raises his eyebrows at you with a chuckle. “Maybe she’d like a situationship of her own and you’re depriving her of that by keeping this knowledge to yourself.”

You roll your eyes at his words, attempting to push him off your bed. “Why did you sleep here, anyway?”

Hyunjin sits up on the bed, a pout on his full lips. “I had a shitty date. I was sad and lonely. Glad to know you were paying attention to my story.”

“Hyune,” You sigh, ‘When you tell me said story while fucking me, can I really be blamed for not remembering anything?”

Hyunjin flicks your forehead lightly. “Yes, you can. At this point, it’s like our thing to vent about bad dates during sex,” He argues before getting up from your bed, finding his shirt, which had somehow been thrown over your study desk.

“You mean it’s your thing,” Correcting him, you get up as well, turning to fix up your sheets. “I don’t even go on dates and you know that. The only thing I vent to you about is how awful academic life is.”

Once you turned to face him again, Hyunjin was busy messily tying his hair. His brows promptly furrowed as he took in your words. “Remind me why you literally never leave the house again?”

“Just don’t want to get distracted. Getting my degree is more important than getting a boyfriend.” You lie with a shrug.

Your history with relationships was something you kept secret from everyone you met after high school. You feel embarrassed, as if it was all somehow your fault. After five failed relationships where you had been the one to be broken up with or cheated on, you began to accept that maybe the problem really was you. Maybe something about you makes men want to yell at and cheat on you. Perhaps you are just bound to be a distraction until they find someone better.

Which is why you don’t date.

Would anyone go through the hassle of reading a long, tedious book if they already knew about the bad ending?

Hyunjin rolls his eyes at your answer, crossing his arms over his chest. “Your degree isn’t going to keep you company when you’re eighty and alone.”

“Well, my degree isn’t going to wake up one day and suddenly decide to leave me either,” you refute, earning an annoyed groan from your friend as you walk past him to leave your room.

“You literally never have fun, though. All you do is go to class, work, and study. You should at least pick up a new hobby,” Hyunjin insists as he follows you, walking into the kitchen-living room area. “Go out more, stop avoiding college parties like the plague before it’s too late to experience the joys of watching your friend throw up on some random person’s couch.”

You make a face at the offers, grabbing your mug from the cupboard. “Why would I want to see that? Besides, I have hobbies.”

“I meant a social hobby. Sitting in your room watching fucking iceberg videos isn’t sociable,” He explains, and you let out an aggrieved gasp. Your iceberg videos were educational and entertaining, thank you very much. Behind you, your housemate’s bedroom door opens, and you turn to watch as she stumbles out of her room, looking half-awake. “Soojung, don’t you think she should get a new hobby?” Hyunjin addresses the blonde girl, who stares daggers at him.

“If I say yes, will you two stop speaking so loud?”

Hyunjin slams one hand on the kitchen counter, his other pointing a finger at you. “See, she said yes. You’re outnumbered, now you have to stop spending all your free time holed up inside your room.”

Soojung groans, stepping into the kitchen and shoving Hyunjin to the side. “He’s annoying, but he is kind of right,” she mumbles.

Truthfully, you did feel bad about having essentially wasted three years at university by actively avoiding parties and invitations any chance you got. The only parties you did attend, however, only served as an irritating reminder as to why you shouldn’t put yourself in those situations. Parties and bars only meant desperate college boys. Desperate for sex, for attention, for a potential relationship. For someone’s heart to break. You had met Hyunjin at a party, for fuck’s sake. Who knows just how south things between you two could’ve gone if he had become interested in you romantically?

But, as much as you hate to admit it, Hyunjin is right. Your life is essentially an endless loop of studying and working. You only socialize when your roommates are home, when your few friends come over, and when you and Hyunjin hook up. But you aren’t ready to step out of your comfortable bubble of avoidance, so you settle for the best thing you can think of.

As Hyunjin rummages through your fridge like he lived there and Soojung stirs her coffee blankly, you loudly set your mug down on the counter. “An elective course,” you announce.

The both of them turn to face you with the same puzzled expression.

“The fuck?” Hyunjin questions, and you roll your eyes.

“I’ll take an elective,” you explain matter-of-factly, “The university offers a lot of great courses in things I’m actually interested in. It’ll be a way for me to get out of the house without having to watch a friend of mine puke on a couch or whatever atrocity it is that you said.”

Hyunjin slams the fridge door closed, earning a scolding scream from Soojung, and walks over to where you’re standing. He pulls you into a tight embrace, and you can hear the smile in his voice as he says, “You’re such a fucking nerd, what the fuck, but I’m so glad your hermit life is coming to an end.”

The elective course you choose is Japanese. It’s a language you’ve always been interested in learning, and while you know the class is merely introductory, you figure it will be fun to learn some phrases and expressions. You might even find yourself wanting to learn more in the future, and you’ll undoubtedly be glad you took this class during university.

Even if that means having to endure Hyunjin calling you a weeb.

You are able to begin attending classes a week after signing up; the lessons lining up with your work schedule to a T. The professor explained that, since you had joined the course late, you would likely need some guidance with phrases and words the class had already been taught. You didn’t mind, actually feeling excited in the morning despite your boring routine classes since you knew you would be doing something new you enjoyed in the afternoon instead of simply killing time around your house until it was time for you to work.

You walk into your first class ten minutes late, mentally cursing Eunha for being so good at telling stories about her weirdly entertaining life that it made it physically difficult for you to drag yourself away from her. You mouth a brief apology to your professor before scanning the room and scurrying over to the only available seat. 

You sit down in haste so as to not disrupt the class any further, swinging your bag over your chair and accidentally knocking over your seatmate’s water bottle all over his side of the desk. Luckily, the bottle lands on the soft surface of his notebook, barely making any noise. Unluckily, said bottle had been filled with coffee, staining his notes a faded brown color. You silently gasp, instinctively reaching out your hands to fruitlessly try and dry the pages that are now sticking to each other.

“I am so sorry, what the fuck,” you mutter under your breath as you continue to inspect his notebook frantically. “I’ll buy you a new notebook and another cup of coffee as soon as class ends, I promise,” You whisper to him, your eyes boring holes into the stained pages as you watch the bitter liquid slowly dissolve some of the black ink. At this point, you’re rambling out of nervousness, but you can’t seem to stop, adding, “Hell, I’m so angry at myself for what I did I’d bind you a new notebook and brew you some fresh coffee myself.”

You mentally berate yourself for your word vomit. It was just your luck that you would make someone hate your guts on the first day you attended a class.

After what feels like minutes of silence from him, you are prepared for the imminent burst of rage bound to come your way, the guy’s wrath more than likely stirring inside him as he sits beside you and watches as you foolishly shake the piece of paper, hoping it will miraculously return to its untainted state.

However, what you aren’t prepared for is the small burst of laughter that leaves your seatmate’s lips; it’s quiet, but you’re close enough to him to be able to hear it.

You furrow your brows, finally mustering the courage to look up at him for the first time.

“Did you…” You trail off. You feel a strange sensation inside your chest as your eyes meet his. It was something you had never felt before, a small burst of a fluttering that briskly washed over you before disappearing just as quickly. Like a pinwheel was placed inside of you and a strong wind had suddenly started blowing. You shake your head, returning to the matter at hand. You are probably just experiencing some anxiety due to what has happened, you argue mentally. “Did you just laugh at me?”

As you finally take him in properly, the guy before you looks as dazed as you felt just now, courtesy of your minor panic attack; his lips agape and his round eyes blinking while his dark pupils are fixed on you. You two remain that way for a few seconds in an impromptu staring contest that causes the peculiar feeling to bloom inside your chest once again.

When he finally speaks, his voice is soft. “You… offered to bind a notebook for a stranger,” His lips twitch into a grin. “It was a little funny.”

You open your mouth but promptly close it, unable to come up with an answer that wouldn’t make you appear like more of an idiot than you already do. You sigh. “Sorry,” you mumble, your voice low as well. “I say stupid shit when I’m nervous.”

He waves his hand dismissively. “It’s okay. I’m—”

“You two, on the back,” your professor calls out in a louder voice, however still keeping her calm demeanor. You and your seatmate turn to look at her. “I’m going to teach a few new phrases useful for traveling now. How about you two talk after class? This is actually quite perfect. Minho is one of my best students, so he could help you catch up to where we are.” She offers the two of you a small smile, and you feel your cheeks burn.

This class wasn’t mandatory, and you didn’t need it to get your degree. It is still a class, nonetheless. Ever since high school, you’ve always hated people who disrespect their professors by brazenly talking or sleeping during class.

“I’m sorry, professor,” You muttered. Beside you, your seatmate — Minho, as he was just called — scoots closer to you and whispers something you don’t understand under his breath. You look at him, confused. He chuckles, and you feel his breath on your cheek. It makes the odd fluttering return.

“Gomenasai,” He repeats more clearly, his voice louder, “It’s ‘I’m sorry’ in Japanese.” He offers you a smile, and you soak in just how good-looking he is. Ever since you first raised your head to look at him — when the pinwheel inside your chest rapidly spun and unexplainedly made you feel nervous — you knew he was a handsome guy, but his soft smile and calm eyes made him look even more annoyingly pretty.

Before you’re able to do it yourself, your professor speaks again and pulls you out of your trance.

“In this case, Sumimasen would be a bit more appropriate,” she corrects Minho, who clicks his tongue and mutters something under his breath. The woman chuckles at his reaction. “It’s okay. This is also something you can explain to Y/N after class.”

As the class went on, you couldn’t help but notice how Minho didn’t take any notes. Your mind latched onto how you ruined his notebook and how it was your fault that he couldn’t properly study during today’s class, so you couldn’t find the courage to offer him some paper so he could take notes.

After almost an hour of unrelenting guilt swallowing you up slowly, you place your hand on Minho’s shoulder as soon as the professor announces class is over after assigning the students a small written assignment.

“We could talk outside? If you want,” you offer him, feeling the now-familiar nervousness come back, making your mouth speak faster than your brain can even think to rationalize, “There’s a bench I really like outside this building. It’s a good spot. There’s a nice shade, and it’s secluded enough that people don’t bother me when I’m studying. Or googling how to bind a notebook.”

Minho lets out a brief chuckle. “Okay. I would love to talk on your favorite bench.”

You blink at him. “I don’t have a favorite bench.”

“Hm, it sure sounded like it. You listed some good attributes of that bench,” He argues, a grin etched onto his lips.

“I told you I say stupid shit when I’m nervous.”

He raises an eyebrow at your words. “You’re nervous?”

“Of course I am. I never bound a notebook before.”

Minho lets out a hearty laugh this time, his head thrown back and his eyes turning into crescent moons before he shakes his head. He picks his notebook off the table, showing you the crinkly light brown-tinted pages. “It’s dry now. I actually kind of like it, gave the pages a sort of vintage vibe. You don’t have to bind me a new notebook,” He reassures you, placing the small book into his bag. “As much as I would love to see how that would turn out.”

And just like that, your nervousness fades away. You smile at Minho, asking that he follow you over to your favorite bench.

The two of you talked for almost two hours. During that time, Minho helped you catch up with the vocabulary and phrases you had missed in class. When you asked him how he was able to know so much off the top of his head, his lips curled into a crooked grin as he sheepishly told you that he had been taking Japanese lessons since he was in high school. He explained that because he procrastinated signing up for an elective course, the advanced class was full by the time he got to it, so he decided to go for the introductory one instead. You chuckled and questioned why he would choose to spend his time on a course when he already knew everything being taught. He shrugged and explained that it was nice to have at least one class in which he didn’t have to try and that the fact that it made him feel smart also helped.

Not even your shift at work was able to make your conversation stop flowing, as Minho offered to walk with you to the coffee shop upon realizing it was near his apartment.

That was one of the many coincidences and things in common you found to have with each other that day.

It started with ordinary things like the fact that Minho had three cats back home just like you and how he had been collecting plushies since he was a child, while you had started your own collection as soon as you had access to money of your own. Or how your favorite authors were Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë — Minho swore you would die if you saw the special edition books he had back at home.

Then, it became a bit more amusing as you found out that Minho had worked at a convenience store chain when he first finished high school, and it was the same one you worked at for your first job after starting university. And you both had worked there for exactly a year and two months before quitting. You then told him about how you ended up attending this university after your top three choices turned you down, and his choices were the same as yours. And just like you, he also got rejected by his top three options, which led him to attend the same university as you.

You two couldn’t hide your bewilderment, eyes widening and lips bursting into laughter as these linked facts kept spilling out during your conversation. It was strange, you thought, but in a comforting way. It was almost as if you two had been living weirdly similar lives, all while having no clue about the other’s existence.

The two of you approach the small coffee shop while talking about your degrees. You try your best not to bore Minho with your ‘existential crisis-inducing psychology talks,’ as Hyunjin always put it, and you mostly listen to him as he talks about programming. He tells you that his dream is to develop cozy games that people can jump into without much thought, simply to relax. He says he knows how stressful life is and that people sometimes need something they can mindlessly do to get their minds off of shit. You resonate with it more than you care to admit, as cozy idle games are one of your favorite things to do while locked inside your room.

“So I do these freelancing gigs to make money but I’m actually set to start my first quote-unquote real job in two weeks,” he beams as you two stop in front of the coffee shop. Minho’s eyes lit up the moment he started speaking about his degree, and although you didn’t understand most of the terms he used, it is always endearing to watch someone talk about something they’re so passionate about. “There’s this guy who’s graduating soon who recruited me and a friend for a project he’s working on, so it’s not technically a job and we’ll work in his living room. I’ll still get some money and the chance to actually develop something, though, so it’s better than nothing.”

You smile at him. “If you like programming as much as your words led me to believe, I’m sure it won’t even feel like a job.”

Minho’s ears turned a faint shade of pink, and he scratched his head. “Sorry, I talked your ear off about shit you don’t even understand.”

“I think everybody likes to hear people talk about things they like,” you assure him, “It was a good talk. I still can’t believe we have so many things in common. It was kind of funny how they kept coming up.”

Minho chuckles, bouncing on the heels of his feet. “Guess the universe is giving us signs that we should be friends.”

“It seems like it.”

That day, you work with a persistent smile engraved on your lips. You can’t remember the last time you felt so good about meeting someone new. Despite your awkward first encounter, you found that talking to Minho was as easy as talking to an old childhood friend. It felt refreshing. The last friend you made was Hyunjin — whom you were so grateful to now for pushing you out of your comfort zone — and after that, you had unknowingly closed yourself off.

Minho had managed to open up your mind to the idea of letting someone in almost comically fast. And you loved that.

It’s been a month since you’ve been attending Japanese classes, and your studying sessions with Minho — which always turned into long conversations on what now had really become your favorite bench — were a weekly appointment, much like having him walk with you to work twice a week.

Today, however, Minho stopped you with a hand on your shoulder as you made your way toward your usual spot. When he asked you if you would like to study at his favorite bakery today instead, his eyes rapidly blinking as he looked at you through his bangs which had grown to slightly cover his eyes since you met him, you just couldn’t say no. He stammered as he promised that the place was even closer than the one where you worked, so you wouldn’t be late for your shift.

You smiled at his apparent nervousness, finding it endearing. You knew all too well how stressed you felt when offering something new or initiating plans with a new friend, and Minho seemed to be the same.

“Good thing you made this offer today, on my day off,” you bumped shoulders with him. “It’s almost like you knew.”

You begin walking, and Minho gently pushes you to the side so that he’s the one walking on the edge of the side of the sidewalk. You shoot him a questioning look, and he blinks at you again.

“Sorry, force of habit,” he chuckles, “My mom taught me a guy shouldn’t let a girl walk on the street side. I know it’s old-fashioned and probably made me seem like an ancient guy who wouldn’t let his wife work or something. Sorry.”

You shake your head. “No, it’s kind of sweet. I never had anyone do that with me.”

You feel the pinwheel twirl inside your chest again.

The two of you approach a familiar building together. You furrow your eyebrows as you take in the floral curtains on the windows and the pretty font adorning the store sign of your favorite bakery. You think about how it would be nice if you two came here on another day. Maybe you could use that opportunity to finally introduce Minho to your other friends.

You only realize Minho has stopped walking when he calls out your name. When you turn around, he’s standing in front of the bakery with a smile.

“This is the place.” He points toward the white door with a nod as you return to where he’s standing.

No fucking way.

“This is your favorite bakery?” You ask, although it is a stupid question. Minho nods. You play with the strap of your bag. “Okay, this is starting to sound ridiculous, but I swear I’m not lying. This is my favorite bakery, too.”

Minho’s eyes widen at your words, and his lips curl into a smile again. “Shut the fuck up.”

“I will not,” You chuckle.

Minho opens the door and the two of you walk inside, the familiar smell of freshly brewed coffee and baked goods bringing back great memories you made in this place. You often come here with your two roommates; it’s close enough to both your house and university that you can skip out on taking the bus, the atmosphere is always relaxing and comforting, not to mention the delicious cakes they sell. You smile to yourself as you remember Eunha scuffing down far too many slices of their chocolate cake after a nasty breakup a couple of months ago, tears streaming down her face so violently that the poor little old man who owns the shop appeared to check up on her.

“Their lemon cake is my favorite.”

“The lemon cake is what made me—”

You and Minho speak concurrently, with you unable to even finish your sentence before you both freeze for a couple of seconds in front of the only small table available at the crowded shop.

He’s the first one to move, pulling out his chair a bit awkwardly. “We should…” He trails off before clearing his throat as you sit down before him. “Should really make a written list of things we weirdly have in common.”

“At this point, I think it’d be easier if we made one of what we don’t have in common.”

You two settle for the obvious choice of two pieces of lemon cake with a cup of coffee for him and a glass of cola for you. Minho almost looked offended when you informed him that you hate coffee, wondering out loud why you even worked at a coffee shop before ensuring he could change your mind with just the five amazing facts about coffee he thought about off the top of his head. You shrugged him off with a grin. You couldn’t deny the irony of being a barista and having to make endless cups of a drink you despised daily, but you were sure Minho could never change your mind about coffee.

You two talked about your improvement in Japanese in the last month until the waiter returned with your order. Minho insists you’re a natural and could be on his level in a couple of years if you tried, but you roll your eyes at his compliments. You’ve never been naturally good at anything. That wasn’t about to change now.

“You know,” Minho begins once the waiter steps away from your table, looking around the coffee shop. People slowly started to leave as it got later in the day; the place was now much quieter, and the atmosphere even more cozy. “I used to think I would meet somebody in a place like this.”

“Like, in a romantic sense?”

Minho hums, still looking out to his side. You notice his side profile is really pretty, and you have to hide your smile by sipping your drink.

When he returns his gaze to you, he’s the one smiling. “Yes, in a romantic sense. Like being destined to meet someone.”

“Look at you, a hopeless romantic,” You roll your eyes with a chuckle. You never thought of Minho as someone like that. He seemed rather methodical, always following a routine and too engrossed in his codes to be preoccupied with something like love.

Minho furrowed his brows. “Why the eye roll?”

“I just don’t believe in that stuff,” you shrug with a small smile, “Stuff like destiny, soulmates, love…” You trail off, taking your spoon and poking the slice of cake in front of you. “Love has the awful tendency of being bad.”

Of course, you once believed all those things. Doesn’t everybody? But love has shown you time and time again that those are things reserved only for some people. And, clearly, you are not one of them. So why believe in it?

“It’s the most amazing thing in life,” Minho’s voice almost startled you as you were so deeply entranced in your thoughts.

You don’t lift your head to answer him, instead drawing mindless shapes on the icing on top of your cake.

“What is?”

“Love,” He replies in a soft voice. When you finally look at him, you’re surprised to find Minho’s deep eyes already looking at you, a small smile adorning his lips. “Love is the most amazing thing in life.”

You freeze.

You tear your eyes away from him, gaze focusing on the plate in front of you again.

You were careful with your rules. No parties, no bars, no talking to your male co-workers unless absolutely necessary, and no male friends unless they were in a relationship or proved beyond a reasonable doubt to only be interested in you platonically — which was what Minho was. So, why did him bringing up love make you feel so nervous?

Under the table, you unwittingly bounce your leg. This was stupid. Minho has been your friend for a month now; you see each other twice a week, and you talk for hours, always so comfortable around each other in a way that is still so new to you. He has never flirted with you or treated you in any way that led you to believe that he wanted anything more than to be your friend. You will not let your foolish trauma ruin what was proving to be an amazing friendship. He was simply sharing his thoughts on a topic. That’s all love was: a conversation topic.

You force out a chuckle as you snap yourself out of your senseless panic and look up at Minho once more. “We can just agree to disagree?”

He’s quiet for a few seconds, something you can’t quite pinpoint swimming in his deep eyes as he looks at you. Instead of breaking the silence, he scoops up a piece of cake with his spoon and raises it like a glass. You shake your head with a giggle as you realize what he’s doing, toasting your spoons together at the center of the table before you both eat your spoonfuls of cake.

“You know,” He speaks as soon as he’s done eating, his eyes having never left yours. “Love can never be bad. I don’t think so, at least. It never makes anything worse. It can only ever make things better.”

You hum and shift in your seat, lowering your gaze toward the table. The truth is, you hate talking about love. That — coupled with your shame regarding your past relationships — is the reason why you never indulge in this type of conversation, even with your own mother. But years of swallowing down your thoughts and opinions whenever the subject was brought up only caused a buildup of emotions in your throat. So much so that you only realized you were talking once you were midway through a sentence.

“Love can make so many things worse,” you affirmed, your eyes following the polka-dot pattern on the tablecloth, “Losing someone is bad enough, but put love into that equation, and it just worsens tenfold.”

Minho nods. “By that logic, you can say that having someone by your side is always good, but if it’s someone you love, it makes it better tenfold, right?”

You let out a chuckle as you realize you two could go back and forth about that subject for ages.

But it felt good to finally speak out your feelings on the matter, so you continue, “Love can’t be that great if people can so easily fall out of it and for so many different but equally stupid reasons. You’re suddenly not attractive to them anymore, or you have different opinions, or they love picking fights but hate it when it’s the other way around…” You trail off, swallowing down a lump in your throat as you speak out of experience. But Minho didn’t need to know that. You lift your eyes. “Not to mention falling in love with a new person all while supposedly already being in love with someone.”

“That’s not genuine love,” Minho shakes his head with furrowed eyebrows, as if it was his first time hearing of such things happening. “Real love is unconditional and understanding. Real love makes the person you love beautiful simply because they’re them. Real love doesn’t allow you to hurt the person you love because it feels like you’re hurting yourself as well.” His expression softens, and his eyes lock onto yours. “And real love makes it so that you can only see the one you love. You can’t possibly fall in love with someone else if you’re truly already in love.”

You gnaw on your bottom lip, nodding slowly. You hate the fact that part of you is desperate to believe that what Minho said was true. And you hate it even more that an even bigger part has already dismissed every single word that left his lips.

Desperate to shift the subject from Reasons Why My Exes Left Me — which only leaves you feeling sad and pathetic — back to Love Is Amazing, you decide to try and lighten the mood.

“Okay, but then explain to me how love is so great when you can just have sex with anyone, and it feels the same either way?” You question him with a teasing grin on your face. Minho shakes his head with a smile and eats another bite of his cake. You continue, “Be it a stranger at a party you met ten minutes ago or the love of your life, sex will always be sex. Therefore, you’re wrong, mister Love-Makes-Everything-Better.”

Minho chuckles around his mug, eyes closing as he almost spits out his coffee. His eyes are like crescent moons when he looks at you again, clearly amused by your words. “Well, yeah, of course, sex will always feel good no matter who you’re doing it with. It’s sex, and sex feels good,” He shrugs dismissively. “But sex with love is different. You aren’t just fucking, just fulfilling your own desires selfishly. Love makes sex better because you feel good simply by making the person who’s so important to you feel good. It makes you want to melt into the other person and become one with them because close isn’t close enough when you’re in love.

“Touching them feels like a gift, like heaven. Tasting them feels like heaven. Hearing their voice in their most blissful state feels like heaven. The trust and connection you feel in that moment is heaven, and that’s only possible through love. You can have sex with anyone, but you can only make love to someone you love, and those are two different things. That’s how love makes sex better. Therefore, I’m not wrong.”

As you take in Minho’s words, spoken so casually, like it was common knowledge, they leave you speechless. You watch him as he smiles triumphantly when he realizes you aren’t going to refute him — because you can’t refute him.

You berate yourself mentally as you notice the familiar feeling of arousal wash over you as you repeat his words inside your head. Not because it was Minho who said those things, but simply because that kind of sex sounded so good. Good in a way you had never once experienced before. Like heaven, as he had put it.

Your experience with sex has always been simply about fulfilling desires. You thought that was all there was to it.

Until now.

And even so, with your ex-boyfriends, it was always unbalanced. Ninety percent about their pleasure and only ten percent about yours. The first time you had a guy go down on you was the first time you had sex with Hyunjin, and by that point, you had already had five boyfriends. It felt weird when it happened, and you remember Hyunjin whining about how you didn’t have to ask him every five minutes if he was really okay with doing that. It had always been different with him, the good kind of different. He had never been selfish during sex; if anything, Hyunjin was too much of a giver, sometimes forgetting about his own pleasure in order to focus on yours. You thought that was the best sex you could ever have.

Until now.

Because, even with Hyunjin, there was never a genuine connection. It never felt like a gift to touch him and have him touch you. It was never anything more than sex, more than something you both did because it felt good and it was easy. He slept in your bed, and he cuddled you until morning came, but it had never once felt anything close to what Minho described.

You can’t help but wonder if Minho has ever experienced that. You desperately want to ask him, but you two aren’t close enough for that yet.

You also can’t help but wonder why you spend the rest of the evening raging a war against yourself as your mind is consumed with thoughts of what it would be like to experience that kind of sex with him.

It’s late in the night on the following Saturday, and your phone incessantly vibrating under your pillow rudely demands your attention just as you’re about to fall asleep. You squint your eyes as you type in your password. You sigh as you see Hyunjin’s name on your screen because of course it’s him.

Hyune: I’m outside open the door Hyune: please open the door? quick? Hyune: mrs. choi is gonna kill me if I use the intercom pls I don’t wanna die Hyune: I’m in my pajamas do you know how humiliating this is

Hyune: and I’m highkey pissed off Hyune: I WILL sleep on the bench outside your house if you don’t let me in and then I’ll die and who’s gonna live with the guilt? Hyune: you Hyune: OPENM TEH DOOR

You roll your eyes at his dramatic texts, stepping out of the comfort of your bed and padding across the floor as quietly as possible so as not to wake up your roommates. You open your front door and speed past the hallway and Mrs. Choi’s home, reaching the outside door in record time. It’s something you’ve done more times than you care to admit in order to let Hyunjin into your house. Your tenant was a sweet woman, insistent that she was modern and understanding of ‘young people’, but she despised people coming into your home any later than midnight.

You step outside, finding Hyunjin pacing back and forth like a creep in front of your house. True to his words, he stood in his checkered pajama pants and a black t-shirt. His hair was in a ponytail, the strands messily sticking out everywhere like he had tossed and turned in bed before coming here.

“You look like shit,” you speak up, causing him to jump and let out a gasp. You chuckle as he scowls at you, climbing the few steps to reach the door.

“I had a fight with Mingyu,” he grumbles as you two walk toward your front door. “He told me I spilled paint on his favorite shirt, which is fucking impossible since I don’t even paint anywhere near his shit.” 

“I mean, you are a messy painter.”

Hyunjin shoots you a look as you close your front door behind you. You take off your shoes and walk toward your bedroom in silence. This was routine. Hyunjin knew the rules: no knocking on the outside door, no buzzing the intercom, no shouting from outside, keep your voice down in the hallway, no talking until you reach your bedroom. It was all automatic at this point.

His voice is louder when he speaks again inside your locked bedroom. “First of all, I am not a messy painter. The paint is messy, not me. Second of all, if Mingyu wasn’t a fucking idiot, maybe he wouldn’t leave his favorite shirt on the floor of the living room right by my art corner,” Hyunjin huffs and crosses his arms over his chest, “If that’s how he treats his favorite shirt, I feel bad for his girlfriend.”

You let out a chuckle, which is cut short by him pulling you into his arms. “Hyunjin, that analogy makes no sense.”

“Yes, it does. You treat your favorite shirt like shit, you treat your girlfriend like shit,” he states matter-of-factly before pulling you into a kiss.

This was routine. It was all automatic at this point.

Hyunjin kisses you like he’s angry. Because he is, and that’s one of the reasons why you two do this. You let out your frustrations during sex. You complain, and you let off steam until you both feel okay again. It’s been this way for a year and some months now, and you never once thought anything of it. It was beneficial for you both, so why change or question it?

But that was before your talk with Minho. Before you were awoken to the truth that you’d been having meaningless sex your whole life.

When you’re pulled away from your thoughts, you’re already laid in your bed with Hyunjin hovering over you. His lips and hands wander through your body as he mumbles things you can’t quite understand; you can only make out your name and Mingyu’s mixed with curses. You try to bring yourself back to the moment, bringing your legs to wrap around Hyunjin’s waist and bring him closer to you.

He stops kissing your neck and yanks his shirt over his head, his hair untying in the process and falling on his face like a curtain. You giggle and try to fix it with your fingers. Hyunjin pouts.

“Don’t you think I’m right?”

You frown and hope he can’t see your confused expression in the dim lighting. You truly weren’t paying any attention to what he had been saying, too engrossed in your thoughts and too busy feeling sorry for yourself. Hyunjin’s tendency to tell you about his frustrations during sex always left you a bit puzzled, but it was also oddly sweet. It was like he trusted you so deeply as a friend that he believed he could share anything with you, no matter the time.

So you nod, lightly pulling at his hair. “Of course you’re right.”

He hums and buries his head on your chest, grinding his hips into your clothed core. “Of course I’m right,” he mumbles under his breath.

Everything is a blur after that, your mind insistent on repeating Minho’s words like an annoying echo. When Hyunjin’s tongue fucked you hastily, and he murmured something about you tasting so good, all you could hear was Minho’s voice telling you how tasting the person you love feels like heaven. When Hyunjin pushed his cock into you, his hands gripping your thighs and head buried in your neck, all you could think about was how this sex paled in comparison to what you could’ve been having — what you could have already had — if only you weren’t so damn unlovable. 

You knew that Minho didn’t intend to make you feel bad with his words. They weren’t targeted at you. But that didn’t stop your mind from sabotaging and putting yourself down. It was one of your biggest talents, after all.

Your body was present and responsive the entire time; you moaned because it felt good, and you kissed Hyunjin because you wanted to. But you were mentally somewhere else.

And the worst thing is, you’re a hundred percent sure Hyunjin doesn’t even notice it.

Because this wasn’t love. This was only sex.

And this was all you had ever known.

Time flies by faster than your brain can comprehend; before you know it, another month goes by. You only managed to go to your favorite bakery with Minho one more time before your work hours were changed, your shift now starting a mere thirty minutes after your Japanese class ends. He still walked you to work twice a week, but you would be lying if you said it didn’t upset you to have to let go of your weekly talks.

Minho also became busier due to his own job. With so little time to see each other face to face outside of class, most of your talks took place over text. He talked about his job with so much adoration it made you a little jealous; his partners were now simply friends he worked with, and his joy over finally being able to create a cozy game made it so that he pushed himself over his limit, often sleeping on his friend’s couch after working until four a.m. and getting through the next day on excessive amounts of coffee.

That was how you two came up with the idea of Minho dropping by the café where you work to pick up coffee for him and his friends. He would drop by at least twice every day, his friend’s house — which also served as their office — only one bus stop away.

The first time Minho came by, he had his wallet and phone in one hand, a sharpie and a block of sticky notes in the other. You eyed him curiously as he scribbled on the piece of paper while your co-worker prepared his coffee. When he was done, he stuck the note to the monitor in front of you on the counter. You furrowed your brows as your eyes shifted from the Japanese words on the bright yellow note back to Minho’s smug face. You were certainly grateful he at least had the courtesy of including the romanization of whatever he had written down. Not that it helped you in any way.

“Since our studying sessions after class were rudely taken from us, this is your extra homework. It’s all words we already learned. You just gotta think a little bit, and you’ll figure it out. You’re smart, I know you can do it,” He assured you.

Expect you weren’t that smart and ended up giving up by the time you got home that night. The piece of paper was no longer sticky on the border due to you carrying it around all day, boring holes into it as if that would magically give you the answer. You snapped a picture of it as you got ready for bed and sent it to Minho, begging him to put you out of your misery and simply give you the answer. ‘I want to drink coffee,’ he replied. You slapped your hand over your forehead with so much force you were sure the entire house had heard you. He was right; you did learn that in class. Curse the Japanese language for being so difficult.

After that, it became a routine. You waited expectantly for Minho’s visits daily, but you are extra excited today. It’s a Friday, and your birthday is tomorrow. After much pestering from Eunha, you agreed to have a small gathering at your house. It only made sense to invite Minho; he’s become one of your closest friends in the two months you’ve known him, after all.

As he walks into the coffee shop, sticky notes and sharpie in hand, you chuckle to yourself. You two chat about the development of his game, with Minho kindly using layman’s terms when explaining it to you. He also tells you about how one of his friends got so frustrated with a code that he threw his phone at a wall before immediately regretting it and crying on the floor next to Minho’s desk. Before you can get worried, he assures you that it’s just an ordinary day at the office, and the three of them end up laughing everything off at the end of the day.

After taking his order, you watch as he begins writing down your homework for the day on the small piece of paper in his hand. As you look around the coffee shop, most tables are empty, and the sun is starting to set outside the glass doors.

“You wanna come over this Saturday?” You ask Minho, who looks up at you before adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. That was one thing you learned about Minho since he began coming over: he wears glasses. Not every day, but enough times for you to notice how good he looks with them. But friends find each other attractive all the time, you justify it. “You never came over to my house, and my roommates really want to meet you. Plus, it’s my birthday tomorrow.”

Minho’s eyes widen. “Your birthday? And you save that information to the end?”

“It’s not a big deal. I usually never even celebrate.” You shrug lightly. You’ve never been big on birthdays, as you just don’t see the reason why it’s supposed to feel different from any other day of the year. “But my roommate pestered me to do something this year, so I agreed to have a party.”

Minho shifts on his feet. “I… really hate parties…” He trails off.

“It’s not a party party. I promise!” You hold up your pinky finger. “It’s more of a get-together, just my roommates and my only two other friends. And, you…” You trail off, “If you come.”

Minho blinks his eyes a couple of times before tearing the piece of paper he was writing on from the pad and crumpling it in his hand. He quickly jots down something new and sticks it to your forehead.

“Minho!” You scold him, to which he laughs, his nose scrunching and eyes crinkling. You advert your gaze from him as your persistent thoughts regarding how unfairly pretty Minho is begin to flood your brain once again. You take the note and analyze it:

はい (Hai)

You smile as you understand the word, looking up at him.

“I’d love to come to your birthday party,” He beams. “Thank you for inviting me.”

To say Minho is nervous would be an understatement.

He gets out of his car twice, ready to march back inside his friend’s apartment like a coward and pretend that nothing happened both times. Only when he thinks back to how you smiled at him when he agreed to your invitation does he find the courage to start the car and drive to your house. He’d noticed for a while now how much he likes you. But it was when he agreed with the idea of going to the café you worked at to pick up coffee that it truly dawned on him that he really liked you. Minho hated taking the bus, he hated doing anything other than zoning out on the couch during his breaks, he hated bustling shops, and he hated how his co-workers both managed to have such intricate coffee orders.

Yet he agreed to that idea, even suggesting he drop by two times a day.

He noticed he’d felt a familiar small whirlpool inside his chest whenever he was with you, when he heard you talk about something you liked or saw you smile. He’s also noticed that this tiny whirlpool has been growing bigger and bigger the more he’s been around you.

But that doesn’t scare him. Minho loves love. He loves to be in love, to love someone, and to make that person feel loved. It’s his favorite thing about life. If he was honest, he missed it so much he didn’t know how he was able to live without it.

Just down the block from your house, he parks his car and gathers his phone and his present for you — clearly clumsily wrapped, even with his co-workers’ help. He feels another wave of nervousness wash over him as he approaches the house; he’s an hour late and needs to mentally prepare to socialize with people he’s never met before. Minho chuckles as he realizes a silly party makes him more nervous than the prospect of possibly falling in love.

You open the door almost as soon as he rings the intercom, and he walks down the hallway into your house door; the crooked box he’s been holding makes his hands sweat. The first thing he notices as you open the door is your styled hair with a big white bow on the back, looking much prettier than the ugly bow he and his friends managed to stick on top of his present. He smiles at the sight and scratches his ear in a futile attempt to stop them from turning red.

God, he really liked you, didn’t he?

“Thank you for coming,” you tell him with a smile. Minho notices the quiet music playing inside the house, the simple decorations, and the cake on top of the kitchen counter. He mentally sighs in relief. This truly wasn’t anything like a big party. “You’re wearing your glasses again,” you point out as Minho walks inside and removes his shoes. He subconsciously reaches his left hand to touch his wire-rimmed glasses that sit on his nose bridge. He grimaces and curses at his friend for making him stay later than he was supposed to today.

“I had no time to go home and change,” He apologizes, fingers now toying with the stupid bow on top of the box. “I usually wear contacts, but they make my eyes dry if I stare at the computer for too long, so I just… wear my glasses at work…” Minho trails off, suddenly feeling stupid, his eyes looking anywhere but toward you.

You chuckle, lightly touching his glasses for a second before moving away again. “You always come to the coffee shop wearing them, and I think you look really good,” you assured him. His eyes quickly met yours, only for you to advert your gaze this time. “You should wear them more often.”

Minho only hums, lightly nodding his head. He feels stupid all over again as the image of himself throwing his contact lenses down the drain crosses his mind.

Clearing his throat, he finally hands you your gift. You giggle at the mismatched wrapping paper and poor excuse of a bow, which makes Minho let out a chuckle and murmur an apology. You open the box, and your eyes light up when you spot the stuffed bunny you have been raving about since you two met. It was the only animal missing from your collection, but you couldn’t find the right time to save up money to buy it. Minho didn’t need to ask if you liked it as he watched your smile grow bigger as you looked at the brown bunny.

“Come, I gotta put him in my bed now,” you beamed and took Minho’s hand in yours, leading him to the living room. There, five people sat on the couch and on the floor. Minho furrows his brows as he takes in a head of light brown hair covered by a familiar beanie. “These are my friends. Eunha’s the girl with short hair on the floor, and Soojung’s the one with blonde hair next to her. They’re also my roommates,” You point at them as you speak. “That’s Jisung sitting next to Soojung; he’s also her boyfriend. And then Hyunjin, with the long hair, sitting next to Chan on the couch. Everyone, this is Minho from my Japanese class.”

With that, you pad off to your room with your bunny in tow. As Chan finally turns to look at Minho, his shocked expression mirrors his. They stare at each other for a while before Chan finally breaks the silence.

“What the fuck, that’s my co-worker.”

Minho narrows his eyes. “So this is why you had to leave an hour earlier today?”

As you come out of your room, you chuckle. “Chan is your co-worker?” You ask Minho, “I can’t believe this. He’s been our friend for longer than I’ve known you. He came like a package deal when Jisung began dating Soojung.”

“Damn, dude, you hate me so much you never talked about me to your friend?” Chan gasped, a hand over his heart. “I’m hurt.”

Minho rolls his eyes but is unable to stop a small grin from forming on his lips as the entire living room erupts in laughter. “Of course I talked about you. I talked about you and Seungmin all the time. It’s just I…” Minho shifts on his feet, shrugging. “I never said your names.”

More laughter seeps out of the group of people, including Chan, and Minho finds himself laughing along this time, shaking his head at his own stupidity. 

He sits beside Chan on the couch while Hyunjin heads to the kitchen with you. He quickly asks him how he came to be friends with you in the first place. Chan explains that he’s been in a class with Jisung for almost two years, and the boy had always pestered him about ‘old people’ needing to hang out with people their age. That’s how he ended up meeting Soojung as soon as she became Jisung’s girlfriend. You and Eunha were an inevitable addition, seeing as you were not only roommates but also great friends.

You offer Minho a beer, which he declines. As much as he wanted to, no beer was worth having to take the bus back home. He silently sips his cola as he watches your group of friends chat. You end up sitting beside him on the couch, your friend Hyunjin to your right.

Minho finds that he missed getting together with people like this and didn’t even realize it. His only friends were left behind back at home, and although they were less than an hour away by bus, their busy lives prevented them from meeting in person. Minho’s favorite memories from his teenage years were having his friends over and just doing nothing for hours, talking about stupid shit until their stomachs hurt from laughing. Eating takeout on the couch with Chan and Seungmin after work came close, but they were always too tired and too stressed to entertain the idea of making jokes. Those were times when Minho realized he had really become an adult.

Jisung’s loud voice suddenly booms through the living room and startles an already drunk-looking Eunha, who murmurs something about the younger boy giving her a heart attack one day. 

“I’m bored,” he grumbles, draping his body over Soojung. “Let’s play spin the bottle.”

Soojung rolls her eyes at him, flicking his forehead. “Are you a teenager?”

Jisung pouts, sitting up straight once more. “We’re in university. University students play this fucking game all the time,” he states matter-of-factly. “Don’t make me regret falling for an older woman.”

“Jisung, I’m only three years older than you, I’m not—”

“Don’t make me call you noona.”

Soojung inhales deeply before turning to face the people sitting on the couch, placing one of the empty beer bottles scattered around her feet on top of the coffee table. “Let’s play spin the bottle. But let’s do dares instead of kissing, that’s too boring.”

Jisung beams, cuddling close to her like a needy child. Minho chuckles at the sight.

Eunha scoots closer to the couple so the group is seated in a circle around the coffee table, half of them on the couch and half on the floor. Minho never had the chance to play spin the bottle, which seemed to be such a staple game of one’s teenage years. By the time his friends were off sneaking into clubs and drinking behind their parents’ backs, he was already in a committed relationship and well aware of the fact that he didn’t enjoy parties.

It seems silly, but he’s glad he won’t live past his youth without experiencing such a trivial thing.

Soojung spins the bottle, and the neck stops facing Chan while the bottom faces Jisung.

“Take your shirt off,” Jisung waves a finger at Chan, who looks somewhat disoriented. Minho chuckles under his breath just as you do the same. You two face each other and let out a hearty laugh, your arm coming to rest on his bicep before retrieving back to your lap faster than Minho hoped it would.

Soojung squishes Jisung’s cheeks and places a small kiss on his lips. “You’re such a fucking chaotic bisexual,” she giggles, “Y’know, Chan, Jisung has had the biggest crush on you since you two first met.”

Chan shakes his head with a stifled laugh and proceeds to remove his shirt, neatly placing it on his lap.

Jisung is next to spin the bottle, this time landing on Soojung, who you dare to show her most embarrassing text. After showing the group a string of texts showing raunchy screenshots of a manhwa she’d been reading at that time, all sent to one of her class group chats which included some professors, she lets out a heavy sigh and orders Eunha to spin the bottle before any questions can be asked.

This time, the neck faces you while the bottom faces Eunha herself. With a smile, the short-haired girl dares you to kiss Minho.

He feels his smile drop at the very second the words leave her lips. This was not what he had in mind for tonight.

“What?” You sputter, “Why?”

Eunha shrugs, adjusting herself so she’s seated upright and staring right at you. “Well, he’s the only one here who would be actually fun to see you kiss. Jisung and Soojung are okay with each other hooking up with other people, so that’s no fun,” she explains, using her fingers to list her reasons, “I’m not into girls, so that’s no fun for me. Hyunjin is too obvious. We all already know Chan, so it would also be boring. Minho is like fresh meat. That is fun.”

Minho’s brain begins finding a suitable excuse for why you two can’t kiss, because he’s certain you have no interest in doing it. Not only are you friends, but your reaction didn’t exactly exude excitement at the prospect of kissing him. Just as he’s ready to lie through his teeth, you turn to him and place your hand on his shoulder, a touch so soft he’s barely able to feel it through the fabric of his shirt.

“Is this okay with you?” You ask him, the tone of your voice so sweet Minho feels like it melts his every thought until his brain is nothing but a sugary pool filled with only you. So he nods because god, yes, this is okay with him.

You gingerly place your right hand on his cheek, bringing your faces closer until your lips press together. The whirlpool inside his chest spins fast, like a vortex dragging every sense of his body toward you and only you.

You remain still for a few seconds, Minho’s eyes opening slightly to search for any sign of regret on your face. Before he can even properly look at you, your lips begin to move against his — gently and carefully, like you’re not sure if this is what he wants. Minho deepens the kiss and hesitates three times before committing to placing his left hand on your waist. The giggles around the two of you nothing but a muffled murmur to him. He presses another kiss to your lips, his body shifting until he is all but caging you against the back of the couch. But just as he swipes his tongue across your bottom lip, you push him back with a smile, Minho chasing after your lips.

He blinks a couple of times, eyes zoning into your smudged red lipstick. He subconsciously bites his own bottom lip, wondering if any of the color transferred to him. The surrounding murmurs bring Minho back to the moment this time, awkwardly clearing his throat before lifting himself off of you and sitting upright on the couch. He tunes out every comment regarding the kiss to the best of his abilities, focusing his energy on slowing down his heart rate. When he catches you giggling while looking at him, your arm touching his bicep yet again, he nods, grabbing his cola bottle from the floor and taking a sip.

Minho can’t remember the last time kissing someone got him so worked up. He entered a long-term relationship at such a young age that he’s only now realizing how unaccustomed he is to kissing someone new, to the rush that comes with having your lips pressing against the ones of someone you like. It was exhilarating and a bit terrifying all at the same time. He was awkward, unsure where to put his hands, uncertain if you were enjoying yourself. He was also greedy, wanting the moment to last for much longer than it had.

This had cemented the fact that he does, in fact, really like you.

After kissing you, the whirlpool living in his heart had now fully transformed into a tiny hurricane — with great chances of growing even bigger.

Minho only notices the game has continued upon hearing your voice complaining beside him. He watches as Soojung shrugs.

“It’s the only thing I could think of, sorry.”

“But why?” Hyunjin asks, placing his cup on the coffee table. “It’s a stupid dare.”

The blonde girl scoffs. “No, it’s not. I’ve had to basically live with you two for the past year, and it’s common knowledge how easily you get a boner for her.”

“Not true,” Hyunjin retorts, although it sounds more like a question than an affirmation.

Eunha blurts out, “You once got a boner watching her stir a cake mix.”

Hyunjin opens and closes his mouth before groaning, pulling you into his lap by the waist. You apologize to him quietly, to which Hyunjin shakes his head with a small smile.

Minho feels as if he’s intruding on something private.

You sit on Hyunjin’s knees, almost falling off his lap as you clearly try to keep some distance between the two of you. Hyunjin clicks his tongue and pulls you closer to him until your back is pressed up against his chest. He whispers something in your ear, to which you lightly slap his arm as his lips upturn into a grin.

Minho is definitely intruding on something private.

At some point, you turn so you’re sitting across Hyunjin’s lap, your body now facing Minho. He can’t help but watch with dark eyes as the younger boy’s hands wander through your body; playing with the buttons on your blouse, squeezing your thighs, and caressing your skin a little too close to the hem of your skirt. He furrows his brows as he tries to understand your relationship with Hyunjin, seeing as you’re obviously not put off by his hands on your body.

Minho is so transfixed by the sight and his racing thoughts that he only realizes the game has ended when someone taps his shoulder from behind the couch.  When he looks back, Chan is holding a cigarette and motioning towards the stairs that lead to the house’s terrace.

In the chilly open space above the house, they sit on a bench behind a tall vertical planter. Minho wonders who tends to the garden as he observes the various flowers, as well as some vegetables and herbs scattered around him. The terrace is small; the garden taking up all the space, an old wooden railing that overlooks the quiet street the only other thing in his sight.

He and Chan chat about school and work, as they often do nowadays. After Chan recently broke up with his girlfriend, Minho found that his friend had become much more closed off, so the list of subjects they would talk about became minimal. Chan bites his thumb before taking a long drag of his cigarette. He chuckles when he mentions being scared of graduating next year. Minho bumps his shoulder with him, arguing that being in his situation is worse. He admits that he regrets starting university late and that being in his first year when he should already be in his third is discouraging. Chan dismisses his worries, reminding him of how Minho is often the one to fix broken codes and come up with ideas for their game whenever Seungmin gets stuck.

“A degree is just a piece of paper,” Chan says, throwing his cigarette butt at a nearby trashcan. “You’re already a fantastic programmer, Minho.”

“You’re just saying that because I saved your ass today.”

Chan shrugs. “You’ve saved my ass basically every day since we started working together.” After a beat of silence, he asks, “Why did you start uni so late, anyway? You never told me.”

Minho hums, digging his brain for a way to sum up the entire story. “It’s complicated—”

He’s interrupted by footsteps on the stairs leading to the terrace. A loud giggle echoes through the open space before you and Hyunjin step into their field of vision. The long-haired boy holds you from behind, and you two stagger toward the railing.

“Wish everyone would go home already so I could just fuck you,” Hyunjin whines as he turns your body around so you’re facing him. Minho almost chokes on nothing at those words, and Chan stifles a laugh with his hand. He curses the small space as they’re able to so clearly hear everything you’re saying.

You playfully kick Hyunjin’s shin. “Don’t say it like that, Hyune, what the fuck.”

“It’s true, though,” Hyunjin continues, pressing you against the railing. He towers over you, so the only thing Minho can see from where he’s seated is your white skirt floating in the wind behind the tall boy. “I had a stressful, terrible, awful, dreadful week. All I kept thinking about was coming over and relaxing with you.”

“See, when you put it like that, it doesn’t sound so awful.”

Hyunjin clicks his tongue. “There’s nothing awful about fucking. I know how much you like it, don’t act so coy.”

Minho watches as your hands clench around Hyunjin’s gray shirt, pulling him closer and kissing him softly, much like you had done to him a few moments before.

Minho presses his lips into a thin line. He connects every dot available to him inside his head and suddenly feels pathetic.

Hyunjin being too obvious of a choice for you to kiss, his hands all over your body, his words about fucking you, the way you kissed him like it was a habit.

If you had a boyfriend, why did you agree to kiss him?

The words swarm Minho’s brain. He vaguely recalls you and Hyunjin eventually walking out of the terrace. Chan starts a one-sided conversation about one of his classes, with Minho humming after every couple of sentences to appear like he’d been listening when his head is too busy wondering how to feel about everything.

Minho recalls Eunha walking up the stairs and shouting for the two of them to come downstairs to sing you happy birthday. He recalls Hyunjin’s hands wandering through your body throughout the song, his lips pressing small kisses on your face and lips as you smiled. He recalls feeling confused, stressed, jealous, and pathetic.

Minho is only truly back to the present moment once Chan’s voice bids him a loud goodbye, and the door slamming behind him makes his senses finally return to him. As he looks around, he notices that the only people left in the living room are Jisung, Hyunjin, and you. Beside him on the couch, Hyunjin stretches with a loud groan.

“I’m gonna take a shower. D’you have any of my clothes in your room?”

You sigh from where you’re sitting on the floor, resting against the television stand. “Of course, I do. You’re always living shit behind, you’re like our third roommate at this point.”

Hyunjin chuckles, walking over to give you a small peck on the lips before disappearing into your room. Minho gnaws on his bottom lip with a bitter smile as he realizes Hyunjin will sleep over at your house. The ugly feelings return as he remembers his thoughts about you these past few weeks when he unknowingly cultivated too big of a crush on you. Even on his way here tonight, when he had chuckled to himself at his lack of nervousness in the face of potential love.

Love.

Minho can’t help but wonder why your view of love is so negative when you’re in a relationship. And, at the same time, he doesn’t dare to think about it for too long, fully aware that his foolish affection-filled brain will come up with a myriad of reasons — all where your boyfriend is the sole culprit for your distaste — and Minho knows better than to let those thoughts linger for too long inside his mind. He knows himself all too well, knows only awful shit would come out of assuming things about your relationship; the urge to beat Hyunjin senseless for being a shitty boyfriend and making you think that way about love being the worst of them.

“I’m too drunk to go back to my dorm,” Jisung suddenly speaks, his eyes glazed over as he stares ahead. “Gonna crash here tonight, too.”

Minho takes that as his cue to leave.

You walk him outside, a small smile on your face the entire time. He feels guilty not being able to reciprocate the gesture. As you tell him goodbye, thanking him for coming, you pull him into a hug. You hadn’t hugged much since you met, and Minho foolishly wants to draw you closer to him, to feel your body pressed against his just as it was pressed against Hyunjin most of the night. But he can’t do that.

“Are you okay to walk back by yourself?” You ask him as you pull away.

Minho nods, forcing out a small smile. “My car is parked just down the block.”

“That’s why you didn’t drink!” You exclaim with a giggle, “I forget that most people our age already drive. My anxiety didn’t allow me the chance to even try and get a license, so I just accepted my fate of taking the bus.”

“I could drive you…” Minho trails off. There he goes again, being pathetic. “If I have the time… You can give me a call and I’d be happy to drive you anywhere.”

You smile at him, wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him into another embrace. Minho smiles genuinely as he buries his head in your hair.

The drive back home has Minho feeling stupid all over again as he thinks about how you’re probably in bed with Hyunjin by now. The whirlpool is back inside his chest, but it isn’t good or welcome this time. It’s agonizing and painful.

Love had never been painful. Love had never been bad.

But he had never experienced love toward someone who already loved somebody else. Although you brazenly state that you don’t believe in it, you must feel some type of love toward Hyunjin if you’re willing to be his girlfriend.

As he silently drives home, Minho finds himself agreeing with you.

Maybe love can be bad, after all.

Minho feels stupid.

This has become a constant in his life.

He had always thought of himself as a logical person. Programming had taught him that everything is predictable and fixable if you work on it hard enough. A broken code? It may take him six hours of staring at the computer to figure out it was nothing but a missing semicolon, but he will get there in the end. It was annoying and frustrating, but it was always something easily fixed.

He thought love was like that. It had always been like that with him.

Until he fell for you.

Minho was coming to terms with the fact that maybe love and programming were nothing alike. Love isn’t predictable. Loving someone who is already in love with someone else isn’t easily fixed. He can’t backspace and delete your boyfriend from the equation.

It’s been a little over six months since you two first met. Minho has consistently gone to the café you work at every day, and you two still had endless talks over text messages. You talk about everything and anything, from silly things like sharing pictures of both your growing plushie collections or your love of that particular coffee shop’s lemon cake to more serious topics like how Minho learned how to cook when he was twelve so his mom wouldn’t have to do it by herself, and now his roommates take advantage of that, or how sad you are that next year you will have to leave the house you’ve grown to love so much.

But, whether it is in person or through text, you still avoid the topic of love. You don’t ever bring up Hyunjin unless he’s part of a story you were already telling, and Minho feels his heart heavy as he slowly allows himself to imagine what it could be that led you to hate love so much.

He desperately wants to ask you, know your reasons, and make sure you’re happy with your boyfriend. But he doesn’t want to overstep any boundaries and doesn’t know how to go about it without scaring you. So he never does anything, like a coward.

Minho finds himself coming over to your sharehouse on most weekends since summer break ended. Your countless get-togethers at that house have become a hard-to-break habit. Hyunjin, Jisung, and your roommates are always assured to be there, with Chan joining whenever he isn’t overwhelmed with work or school, which was rare.

Minho had always been a hopeless romantic, always doing things for love that people repeatedly warned would result in regret. This time, it was forgoing visiting his parents and friends back home just to spend most of his summer with you. Despite not being able to pursue you in the way he truly wanted to, Minho still wanted to be your friend. You were still a fantastic person he loved to have around; that didn’t change simply because you had a boyfriend. Although he could feel a bit of his heart cracking every time he had to see you, all while knowing he couldn’t do anything about his feelings for you.

He couldn’t change your perspective of love if he weren’t allowed to love you.

In all the time he spent at your house during summer break, he ended up becoming good friends with Jisung, as you tended to stick next to Hyunjin most of the time. Minho didn’t mind it; he is your boyfriend, after all. At least, that’s what he repeats to himself every night he comes over like a mantra as he almost masochistically forces himself to watch how Hyunjin kisses your lips and caresses your skin or how you play with his hair and snuggle with him on the couch. He also endures the countless nights he’s left your house knowing all too well that Hyunjin would be spending the night with you in a way that Minho can only ever dream about.

Tonight, in particular, Hyunjin seemed to be all over you like bees on honey, buzzing around you everywhere you went, his hands never leaving your body as he pulled you closer to him every time you even slightly pulled away. Because god forbid your bodies not be touching in some way for even a split second. Before he knows it, Minho is downing his third bottle of beer of the night.

From where he’s sitting on the couch, Minho rolls his eyes as discreetly as he can while he watches Hyunjin pull you to sit on his lap on the floor as you all get ready to play a game of cards. He gnaws on his lower lip because he knows he’s being petty and borderline childish. You’re Hyunjin’s girlfriend. Of course he’s all over you, of course he wants to be close to you, of course he wants you on his lap. Minho concludes with a bitter chuckle that he is, indeed, pathetic when it comes to you.

He gulps down more of the awful-tasting cheap beer.

The night comes to a close after far too many rounds of Cards Against Humanity, with Jisung winning more than half of them. His ethics and morals fly out the window the moment the cards are handed to him, as he manages to create the most absurdly offensive phrases known to men every single time. Minho found himself groaning and yelling at the younger boy as the alcohol took over his system. He doesn’t know how much of it was simply his annoyance at Hyunjin clinging to you like a koala throughout the entire game disguised as competitiveness.

He doesn’t think he’d like to know either.

Like every night he comes over, Minho is the last person to go home. He has to call an Uber, far too buzzed to want to sit at a bus stop all alone at this time of night. He hadn’t even noticed how he kept downing his drinks until he felt the familiar buzz of inebriation wash over his body a while before the game ended. Although slamming his fist into the coffee table with a whine about how he had only been given lame cards should’ve been a sign.

As he waits outside your house by the fence, he suddenly hears the door shut behind him and your voice calling out to him. He smiles at the faint slur of your speech and the way you drag out the last syllable of his name like you always did when you were a bit drunk.

“I told you to wait for me!” You reprimand, opening the gate to stand next to him. “Look how lonely you look here all by yourself.”

Minho just shrugs with a smile, shaking his head. He did wait. He waited almost half an hour after announcing he should leave as you disappeared into your room with Hyunjin. He was still waiting, in fact, only mindlessly scrolling on his phone for the past ten minutes instead of finding a ride as he hoped you would come outside when you saw he wasn’t in the living room anymore.

You poke his shoulder, bringing his attention away from his phone to your smiling face.

“Tonight was fun, wasn’t it? Especially that last round when Hyunjin won after being tied with Jisung for the whole game,” you grinned, “Seeing Jisung make a whole damn case about how much better his card was really made my night. Think that’s the first time I’ve seen him act like a law student since I met him.”

Minho chuckles, bringing his attention back to his phone. Seeing your smile and how your eyes light up while you talk about something you like brought back the whirlpool inside his chest, which wasn’t a pleasant feeling any longer. It made him glum to think how a once beautiful feeling had turned into nothing but discomfort simply because he was lovelorn.

He hums. “You must be proud to have your boyfriend put an end to Jisung’s annoying winning streak.”

“What do you mean?”

Minho looks up from his phone, eyes wandering through your puzzled face. He furrows his brows for a second. Maybe you’re both drunker than he’d thought.

“I mean, it must’ve been nice to see Hyunjin win after Jisung basically made us all want to quit the game,” he explains, watching as your expression turns from confusion into shock before you let out a loud laugh.

Minho’s eyes widen, worried your laughter might wake up your neighbors. He gently shushes you, his arm grabbing your shoulder, but your smiling face only makes his lips stretch out into a grin. He suppresses a giggle as you catch your breath, shaking your head.

Minho smiles at you so fondly he’s certain he looks like an idiot. “What’s so funny?”

“Hyunjin isn’t my boyfriend,” you explain like it’s obvious. “We’re just friends. I thought you knew that.”

Minho only then realizes he had never once heard you refer to Hyunjin as a boyfriend, nor had any of the people around you. But his assumptions weren’t so ill-judged, either. You two acted like a couple. It wasn’t so absurd to assume that you were one.

He finds himself staring at your amused face for a few seconds before forcing himself to turn his attention back to his phone.

You acted like a couple, but you were just friends. Minho groaned mentally.

“So, you’re like friends with benefits?”

“Yeah… I don’t particularly believe in love anymore, Minho. I thought you knew that from our talk a while ago,” You chuckle, shifting on your feet. “Hyunjin is one of my best friends. We just hook up ‘cause it’s convenient.”

Minho hums, his fingers ghosting over his phone screen. “Sounds like you’re running away from love.”

He blinks a couple of times as he takes in his own words. He would have never said such a thing if it hadn’t been for the liquid courage flowing through his veins.

You shrug, moving to sit on the white bench just outside the house. “Well, yeah, that is what I’m doing. Love hasn’t been kind to me at all. I have no interest in going after it, only to be hurt again. It’s a movie I’ve watched before and I hated the ending every time.”

Minho bites the inside of his cheek, finally clicking the button to find a ride, his thumb pressing on his phone screen more forcefully than he intended. He felt angry. You didn’t deserve to settle for a friend with benefits due to convenience. Had you wanted to be in that situation, it was your every right to do so, but you were in it out of fear of being hurt.

He felt sad. He wished you didn’t equate your past experiences with love to everything it could be. Bad experiences in love were possible for everyone — even for him, who used to believe unwaveringly that love could never be hurtful — but that didn’t mean it was all there was to it. Minho desperately wanted to show you that. The good side of love, the side that made him put it above everything else in his life on so many occasions, the side that made him crave it even now when it hurt more than it felt good.

And, strangely, Minho felt relieved. It was a small percentage of the chart of current emotions he was experiencing, but prevalent nonetheless. He would be lying to himself if he didn’t admit that he felt happy Hyunjin wasn’t your boyfriend and, most importantly, that you weren’t stuck in an unhappy or toxic relationship, as he had so often feared.

His ride arrives, and he’s overcome with a wave of courage. Minho would much rather live with regret than with a constant ‘what if’.

Shoving his phone inside his pocket, he offers his hand to you, who looks up at him curiously from where you’re sitting on the bench before taking his hand. Minho pulls you to your feet and hugs you. With his hand on your waist, he pulls your body closer to him, finally holding you tightly the way he’s always wanted to do. He presses a kiss to your head, bringing his lips to your ear and whispering, “I’m gonna change your mind.”

He feels your body shake with a chuckle, but he only tightens his hold on you.

“What?”

“About love, I’m gonna change your mind,” He answers matter-of-factly, “You deserve to feel love without being afraid.”

Minho pulls back from the embrace just enough to see your face, and he’s surprised to find you smiling up at him. He smiles back.

“I will change your mind.”

Minho had just dropped you off at your house, ready to drive around aimlessly until he absolutely had to go back to his dorm, when Seungmin texted him.

Kim Seungmin: hey my sister’s engagement dinner is tonight Kim Seungmin: and i might have fucked up something in the code i was working on so now there’s a chance that you fish 100 rare fish at once 🤪 Kim Seungmin: pls pls do me a solid and fix it before chan sees it and kills me? Kim Seungmin: love you hyung 💚

Minho initially groaned at the messages, thinking of the many ways in which he could murder Seungmin and get away with it. But, ultimately, he didn’t want to go back to his dorm anyway, so he gladly turned his car around. If he was lucky, this would take hours and he would have a valid excuse to crash in Chan’s cramped living room.

He punches the code to the front door and his friend greets him with a puzzled expression.

“I forgot to do the, uh, troubleshooting for this week,” Minho blurts out. It’s the first lie he can come up with, and he hopes it’s convincing enough. Chan nods slowly. Seungmin might have saved him from having to endure his roommates on a Saturday night, but he still owes him.

“It’s all good,” Chan says with a sigh, “I’m most likely gonna pull an all-nighter designing these new characters. Anyway, how did you waste your time today?”

Minho has been taking you on what he likes to call Subtle Dates for a month now.

Chan affectionately calls them Waste of Time Dates.

Minho rolls his eyes, sitting down on his own desk. “We went to Han River and walked around till sundown, then watched the Banpo Bridge water show.”

Days like today were rare, so Minho was happy. Most weekends, it seemed as if the whole world was conspiring against anything he planned with you.

“Oh, how romantic of you,” Chan gasps, feigning amazement. “Did you at least kiss her this time?”

“You know I can’t just kiss her like that. I know she’d freak out if I tried to do anything romantic with her,” Minho taps his fingers on his desk, knowing he sounds ridiculous. But he has a plan. He just hopes this plan actually works out soon. “I don’t mind being patient.”

He hears Chan scoff. “So, you took her on another one-sided date and then drove her home so Hyunjin can fuck her?”

Minho’s fingers stop tapping on his desk, his hand coming down to slam on it before he can stop himself. He lets out a heavy sigh, and Chan mumbles an apology. But, the truth is, he knows his friend is right. Just last weekend, Minho dropped you off straight into Hyunjin’s arms, the younger boy waiting for you to come back in front of your house.

And Hyunjin wasn’t the only inconvenience that rendered it almost impossible for the two of you to spend time together. Minho had to cut most of your dates short due to Chan calling him about something urgent that only he could fix at work, or you canceled altogether because your roommate was upset and you didn’t have the heart to leave her alone like that. There were also times when Minho was too tired to even go out at all, like on the day of his birthday, which resulted in you coming over to Chan’s apartment and eating cheap takeout food with him and his two friends.

Minho found himself dealing with countless bumps in the road when it came to finding a way into your heart.

“I didn’t mean to say it like that,” Chan says hesitantly, “You clearly like her a lot.”

Minho repeatedly opens and closes the code he’s supposed to fix. He sighs. “I like her more than a lot, and I don’t even know when that happened.”

“I don’t want to see you get hurt,” His friend explains, his face disappearing behind his own computer screen. “I just can’t see what will change if you go on dates with her when she doesn’t even know they’re dates and if she’s just gonna go home and have sex with someone else. I don’t get it. What difference does it make?”

He can hear Chan scoffing, although he tries to disguise it by clearing his throat. Minho shakes his head.

“It makes all the difference because that’s not love. I wanna show her what love is, and that it isn’t always bad. I promised her that I would.”

Chan sighs, sliding his chair toward the mini-fridge by the couch. “Agree to disagree?” He asks, grabbing a bottle of water and tossing it in Minho’s direction. He grabs it mid-air, just before it hits him in the face, and clicks his tongue.

“Agree to disagree.”

Minho plugs his headphones into the computer, drowning out the noise of Chan’s pen sliding across his iPad with his brown noise playlist. But he can’t drown out the obstinate thought ringing inside his head, screaming at him that Chan is right.

Taking you out on dates — which you don’t even know are dates — doesn’t really make a difference if you’re just going to go back to your convenience with Hyunjin at the end of the day. If you think you’re just friends going out together, and you go back home at night to the comfort of sex without the love you’ve been running away from for so long, what Minho is doing truly is useless. 

It’s just like when he argues with Seungmin through their codes, screaming at the younger boy in all caps about something that’s broken, even though he knows he’s going to be the one who will end up having to fix it.

Minho’s fingers come to a halt on the keyboard.

Closing his work, he opens up Google and finds the first flight he can to Japan. Almost as if he’s on autopilot, and his brain is completely shut off. He books the flight and the cheapest hotel he can find, using almost all the money he’s saved up to move out of his hell of a dorm. It might be the most idiotic thing he has ever done in his life, but he’s so in love it hurts him. And he loves love, and love with you — the thought of that alone has his heart beating at his throat. He doesn’t want to keep on with these futile attempts at trying to make you see that love is good and that, maybe, love can be good with him.

The truth is, he feels scared. Maybe even more scared than you do. He is terrified of knowing the answer, of finding out that maybe he could change your mind about love but that it would simply lead you to someone else’s arms and he would have to endure the pain of unrequited love until it inevitably faded away with time.

Minho would gladly live with that pain if it meant you were happy.

But he needed to know.

He adjusted his glasses — a childhood nervous habit that returned after he started wearing them more often since you complimented him months ago — and retrieved his phone from his backpack.

He typed and deleted more times than he’d like to admit.

Me: Hey, it’s late sorry  Me: Just wanted to know if you’d be up for a trip to Japan? Me: In two weeks Me: For study purposes Me: We’d finally have the chance to use what we learned in class lol Me: Chan was supposed to go with me but he has a family thing so he can’t anymore Me: Everything’s already paid for and he said he doesn’t mind if you go in his place Me: Lmk what you think

Minho’s fingers typed as his brain came up with excuses and lies, sending more messages than he needed to. He couldn’t tell you he booked a whole damn trip with you just to see if maybe, possibly, you have feelings for him too.

He all but throws his phone across his table after turning on Do Not Disturb. He’ll need to muster up the courage before reading your answer, and having his phone buzz for anything that wasn’t your reply would just be torturous. He felt stupid, would feel even more so if you turned down his invitation. He almost doesn’t want you to answer, wants to pretend he never even sent anything.

Because it was stupid.

But love is stupid, and he is in love.

Worst-case scenario, he’s stuck with Chan in Japan for a weekend while he laughs at him.

Best-case scenario, he spends a weekend with you in Japan. No letting you go back to another man at the end of the day, no more hiding that he is taking you out on dates, no more distractions, no more inconveniences of your daily lives.

Minho opens the code he was working on again, quickly typing out:

// NOTE: Minho will fix this.

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