#or maybe i have to pay back the fucking years i spent being an ungrateful child now i do everything you expect me to and it's exhausting

[anaalnathrakhs]

btw my mom said it. she said it to me looking me in the eyes. i told her about how difficult it was for me to get through those family reunions, and she admitted it was very important to her, important enough that she was just going to do it anyway.

#i know there are compromises out there #and i'm not going to live w them my whole life so i'll be out fairly soon all things considered #and i'm trying to be understanding when people's priorities aren't the same as mine #but i uh. would be lying if i said it doesn't hurt a little wittle bit. #i'm gonna keep handling it because i've been an asshole to my parents for long enough #i largely owe them that. cooperating and spending time with them and engaging in what matters to them. #but then she's says things like ''but whenever you move out you'll still be part of the family and invited if you want uwu'' #it's just ?????? okay thanks ???? perhaps you could also try seeing things from my point of view perhaps???? #it's all circling back to that. they have a very weird way to ''help'' me #throwback to them trying to cure my depression with amusement parks #when i would have liked a little less of that and a little more help and understanding #it feels like they're trying to put bandaids on a cancer #''you don't ask for help'' okay no help is coming. i am not being helped. #the system can't help me cause there's no damn beds no damn professionals no damn time to help everyone #the people around me can't help me because it's not their job or within their wheelhouse to help me #and they've got their own shit to deal with #on that note #i was discussing stuff with my mom #and i mentionned it was indeed pretty difficult to manage your time when you had to deal with school and friends and your parents #and she was like ''deal with your parents???? what do you have to deal with????'' #oh i don't KNOW maybe that i'm officially an associate of my dad and i have to help out w events and some accounting #or maybe i have to pay back the fucking years i spent being an ungrateful child now i do everything you expect me to and it's exhausting #maybe that you constantly remind me i am living in YOUR house by touching my shit instead of letting me deal with shit at my own pace #maybe the fact that despite everything i care about you and i want us to have a good relationship and that takes WORK and i'm exhausted #maybe the fact that you keep giving me advice that is unproductive misguided misunderstanding etc etc #and cold comfort after you did something you knew to be difficult for me #how you keep encouraging shit that i don't want and am unhappy with because it's the ''normal'' way #how you raised me from childhood to be an empty shell in a family of empty shells #broadcasting my misery #vent

[gukyi]

if i told you | jjk

summary: in order to pay for university, jeon jungkook decides to market his most valuable asset to the wealthy socialites of campus: himself. donning a suit and tie, tousled hair, and glasses (to look smarter), he becomes every rich daughter’s dream: the perfect boyfriend to bring to balls, dinners, and business gatherings. all while you watch from the sidelines, only able to dream of having that much money to buy yourself what you really want: him.

{friends to lovers!au, college!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, angst, we’ve got it all folks word count: 22k warnings: slightly underage alcohol consumption, mention of words that could be spoken on an crime documentary series but nothing graphic, ravioli-stealing, idiots to lovers, as per usual a/n: finally! here is the long awaited jungkook fic that i have literally been slaving over since the beginning of january. was this fic supposed to be 10k? yes. did i somehow end up writing 22k anyway? of course! in any case, please enjoy my absolute baby who i love and cherish!

check out the post-script drabble here!

Jeon Jungkook loses his job at the university call center on the seventeenth day of the fall semester of his sophomore year. 

You know this because on the seventeenth day of the fall semester of your sophomore year, he comes banging on the door of your apartment shared with three other girls at 2:07PM, seven minutes after he normally starts his job at the university call center. 

He’s lucky that you’re the only one who doesn’t have class in the 2PM hour. 

“Y/N!” He shouts through the thin wooden door, his voice probably echoing down the thin hallway of your apartment complex. 

You open it before the second knock—you only rush to the door to get him to shut the fuck up, and not because you’re excited to see him, you swear—to see him standing on the other side, XXL university hoodie draped over his figure, down to his mid-thigh, baggy hood pulled over his head like a sad college-aged Star Wars character. He looks exactly like a jaded sophomore year college student would. He is beautiful. 

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the call center right now?” You ask in lieu of a normal “hello” or even a “what the fuck are you doing here, it’s 2PM”. Jungkook does not wait for you to invite him inside your apartment, immediately kicks off his shoes by the entrance and tugs on your apartment slippers that are a size-and-a-half too small for his feet, and marches over to your shared fridge to fish through the tupperware containers with your name written on Post-it notes for a mid-afternoon snack. 

Jungkook waits until he’s got an entire piece of frozen supersized ravioli shoved into his mouth before he responds. “I was fired,” he says over a mouthful of pasta and cheese.

“What?” You ask, eyes widening as Jungkook shuffles through your kitchen drawers for a fork, which means that the first piece of ravioli that he ate he did so with his bare ass hands. Like a heathen. Like a ravioli-craving twenty-year-old heathen. 

“I was fired,” Jungkook repeats. He stares at the microwave resting on your kitchen counter for a good ten seconds before he continues to eat the cold, unheated pasta. Every time he’s in your apartment (which is frequently), he tells you how it’s a fire, water, and explosive hazard to have your microwave on the counter like that. As if there is any other place in your apartment for it to go. Maybe out on the tiny balcony you have that overlooks the busiest street on campus. 

“Care to offer an explanation as to why?” You ask, coming up next to him. Jungkook is nearly finished with your tupperware of ravioli, and normally you’d shout at him for it, but seeing as he was just fired from his only source of income as a money-starved college student, you’ll cut him some slack. Just a little. 

“You remember that old, angry alumnus that told me that asking for donations in order to benefit low-income-slash-first generation students was selfish and rude of me, and that I wouldn’t be in college if it weren’t for what his generation accomplished?” Jungkook asks. 

You remember that vividly. Jungkook spent an approximate two hours and thirty-seven minutes on FaceTime with you ranting about this one “old man bitch” who he had to speak to during his day at work, all while you did your economics problem set to the sweet, mellifluous sound of Jungkook’s shrill shrieks. 

“The one you lost your temper at and shouted at for being ungrateful and elitist?” You ask pointedly. You have a feeling you already know where this conversation is going. 

“Yeah,” Jungkook says with a roll of his eyes. He finishes the ravioli (goddamnit, now you’re going to have to find something else to eat for dinner at 11PM tonight) and turns around to place it in the sink. For once, it is not piled high with dishes from up to a week ago, so Jungkook even squirts a bit of Dawn onto a sponge and washes the plastic container for you. “Well, as it turns out, telling an old racist elitist that he’s old, racist, and elitist does not go down well with my boss.”

“Why does that not surprise me,” you muse. Jungkook sighs, walking over to where you’re taking it easy on the couch. “Oh no,” you say, eyes widening as he grins, plotting something. “Do not, Jungkook. Jungkook, do not!”

He jumps, catapulting himself onto the couch and landing on top of you with a thud. You let out a groan as the weight of his body hits you, foreheads nearly knocking into each other. Jungkook is a good foot-and-a-half too long for this dinky leather couch that’s always sort of smelled, feet and ankles hanging off the opposing arm rest just so he can nuzzle his face into the crook of your shoulder like he always does. You hate when he does this. Hate when he jumps onto the couch while you’re casually reclining just so he can collapse on top of you. Hate the feeling of his body resting against yours, soft breathes against the skin of your neck. Hate how it always makes you want more, how it will never be enough. 

“Have you been working out?” You mumble against the fabric of his t-shirt. “You’re more muscle-y than usual.”

“I added weights to my routine,” Jungkook tells you mindlessly. If your roommates walked into your apartment right now and saw the both of you on the couch, you’d never hear the end of it. “Taehyung said it would make me more swole.”

“As if you need to be any more buff,” you say with a roll of your eyes. Jungkook’s the most athletic person you’ve ever met in your entire life. He could probably pick up your dinky couch with you sitting on it without batting an eyelash. Even Superman would tremble at the sight of him. “You’re perfect the way you are.”

“Thanks, Y/N,” Jungkook mutters into your skin. “God, what the fuck am I gonna do now? I need money to pay for everything in my life and my one source of income is now totally invalid because an old guy got what he deserved.”

“Are there any work-study positions still available?” You ask, hand reaching up to stroke at his hair, smoothing it down. Jungkook’s preferred cuddling position is big spoon, but he still demands that he be coddled as though he were the little spoon. 

“No,” Jungkook says with a huff, “they’ve all been snagged by try-hard freshmen who need money like me.”

“I distinctly recall you being a try-hard freshman who also needed money,” you tell him. “That’s why you applied to work at the call center, isn’t it?”

Jungkook sits up, the weight of his figure crushing your legs as he rests on top of them. If you stayed like this forever, you’d probably lose feeling in your lower body, but you’d also get to stay with Jungkook forever, which is a trade-off you would genuinely consider. “Yeah, but the call center hires everybody. You just need to be like… decent at communication. And I’m pretty decent at communication.”

“You never text me back,” you tell him pointedly. 

“That’s because I prefer showing up unannounced at your apartment or other places you frequent,” Jungkook reminds you excitedly. He’ll never let you forget about the time you were wrapping up a small seminar with your history professor and Jungkook burst through the doors with a whole thing of carrots and hummus because you had texted him that you were hungry. You could not look your history professor in the eye for the rest of the semester. “I’d say that’s pretty decent communication.”

“Well, you’re going to have to figure out another way to market your decent communication skills to get another job,” you tell him. “Have you considered the boba place on Oak? You could get me employee discounts.”

Jungkook leans over just to pinch at your cheek, fingers gripping onto your face and pulling like a grandmother. “You just want me for my money.”

“You’re my best friend, Jeon Jungkook,” you tell him. “Of course I do.”

This is what Jeon Jungkook’s obligatory university Facebook group introduction post read:

Hi, I’m Jungkook and I’m thinking of majoring in visual studies or computer science (really different lol I know)! I played soccer in high school but don’t think I’ll be continuing in college because I was pretty bad at it. I’m looking for a roommate and I’d really like to live in New East House, but anything works for me as long as it has a bed. Hit me up if you think we’d made a good match, but I like talking with everyone lol. 

I’m really into music and can play the guitar, drums, and piano. I like listening to all types of music (yes, even country which slaps kinda hard sometimes) but my favorites are The 1975, Frank Ocean, Troye Sivan, and Khalid. Will bop to Justin Bieber on occasion as well. 

I play Ultimate and am really interested in joining the club team here so hit me up and we can practice sometime because my skills are a little rusty. I also do a little skateboarding but I am definitely not a skater. 

Hit me up if you think we can be friends lol I’m excited to meet you all!

It was accompanied by several pictures, a couple of which are selfies at that anime girl angle, one of him with his friends at prom all doing that Frat Boy pose, and a couple of him with his family. To an outsider doing a very quick glance, it pretty much reads the same as a rather extensive dating profile. 

The truth of it all is, as you were scrolling through the hundreds of obligatory university Facebook group introduction posts in search of a freshman year roommate, you stumbled upon Jungkook’s intro post and you thought this: No. Way.

The moment you laid eyes on his first above-the-head angle selfie, you knew that it would be unlikely that you and Jeon Jungkook’s paths would ever cross. He played guitar and did Ultimate Frisbee, and you wanted to audition for your university’s symphony orchestra. He was beautiful but in that sort of college frat boy who can crush you at beer pong kind of way. Craziest of all, he was a computer science major, and you were walking in as an undecided humanities concentration. 

Impossible. There was no way the two of you would ever meet, and you accepted that right off that bat. At a school your size, you would go through these four years not knowing a majority of your class. Jeon Jungkook was just one of the casualties. 

On the very first day of orientation, Jeon Jungkook comes up to you on the sidewalk, wearing a white t-shirt, a backwards baseball cap, and shorts, and asks you if you’re here for orientation as well? He’s lost. 

Jeon Jungkook is the type of guy you imagine getting eaten up by any girl who meets him almost immediately. He’s charming and endearing the same way a baby deer is, but has no problem wearing clothes that remind you of how fit he is. He is, for lack of a better term, extremely good looking. 

“Yeah,” you had said on the sidewalk, squinting to look up at him since the sun was in your eyes. “I’m heading to the auditorium right now. Wanna walk with me?”

“Okay, sure,” Jungkook had replied, smiling with all of his teeth. Even in the sweaty summer heat, he looked even nicer in person. “Thanks, by the way. I’m Jungkook. What’s your name?”

You knew that already. How could you have forgotten? 

You had grinned up at him. The universe has always worked in mysterious ways. “I’m Y/N. Nice to meet you.”

When Jungkook doesn’t know what to do, he stress eats. Most often, you are the single witness to this action, which has literally no effect on his body mass whatsoever since he immediately burns off every calorie (and then some) at his next gym session. 

That is precisely why you are sitting in the second-best dining hall on campus eating a pretty measly salad and french fries, while Jungkook returns from the serve-yourself cafeteria with his sixth plate of food. Next to you is your mutual friend Chaewon, a filthy rich international student from Korea who is probably the nicest person you’ve ever met. 

“I think I’ve called every cafe, bubble tea shop, clothing store, and paid internship within a five-mile radius of this place and nothing,” Jungkook says with a sigh, keeping Chaewon updated with his job-search antics. It’s been several days since he was fired, and while being keenly cognizant of your bank account isn’t necessarily a bad thing, when it means that Jungkook refuses to leave campus because he is in hyper-saving mode, it sort of rustles your jimmies. 

“Have you tried babysitting?” Chaewon supplies helpfully. 

You laugh aloud at the mere thought of Jungkook stuck in some middle-aged parent’s house with their toddler for hours on a night where he could be living it up on campus. Jeon Jungkook? A babysitter?

“Wow, what the heck is wrong with me being a babysitter?” Jungkook questions, offended. 

“First of all, you don’t even let me beat you in Mario Kart on your Switch and I am your best friend. If you ended up gaming with a four-year-old boy, your over-competitiveness would take over you and you’d crush the poor kid and his spirit,” you remind him pointedly. Not to mention the fact that the man cannot cook to save his life, and you can’t even entrust him with microwave dinners because of his irrational fear of modern oven technology. 

Jungkook pouts. He knows you’re right. 

“It’s not like you were going to look into babysitting, anyway,” you say with a shove, nudging his shoulder with your own. 

Jungkook sighs, and despite all of the shit you give him on a daily basis (part of the responsibility of being his best friend), you do genuinely feel bad for him. Even if his job at the call center wasn’t the most intellectually stimulating nor morally rewarding, he didn’t absolutely hate it and he made a pretty decent earning off of it. He unzips his backpack and fumbles for his laptop, opening it up to reveal a Google Chrome window with approximately thirty-seven tabs open of places to work on and around campus. Meanwhile, Chaewon’s phone buzzes on the table, and she heaves out a great, exasperated exhale before picking up and immediately launching off into incredibly speedy Korean. 

“If only the bubble tea place was hiring,” you lament, kissing goodbye all of the free bubble tea you had been dreaming about if Jungkook got hired. 

“I’m glad I don’t work at the bubble tea place,” Jungkook tells you with his eyebrows raised, “otherwise I’d have to see you every day!” 

“You already see me every day!” You should back, but it’s not like Jungkook doesn’t know that already. He’s the one always barging into your apartment or sitting down next to you in the library when you’re trying to study. 

“But maybe you should try drinking less bubble tea, otherwise you’re gonna blow up like a tapioca pearl like that one girl from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” Jungkook warns, pinching your cheek as if to make your face round like a tapioca bubble. 

“I can think of nothing I’d want more than to be a tapioca pearl for the rest of my life,” you state simply. It would be much less stressful than to be a college student. 

“If you were a tapioca pearl, I’d eat you!” Jungkook says, and you, out of the security of both your head and your heart, choose not to think too much into it. 

As Jungkook teases you about your slight obsession with bubble tea, Chaewon finally puts the phone down after what very well was several minutes of angry Korean. She lets out this deep, long sigh, like all of the pent-up rage within her is exiting through her exhale. 

“You good, Chae?” You ask her, a little concerned. Even after knowing her since the beginning of your freshman year, you’ve never once seen her get mad, though she looks pretty close to it now. 

“Yeah,” she says, exasperated. “My mom is having this stupid company ball here and she really, really wants me to attend.” It is obvious that Chaewon does not, in fact, want to attend. You’ve seen Chaewon nearly every day for over a year, and you’ve never even seen her wear a pantsuit. You couldn’t imagine her joy at having to dress up in a ballgown. 

“But fancy free food,” you point out. Even if she does have to be trapped in a penthouse ballroom with her parents’ stuffy business friends, the catering company will probably be god-tier. 

Chaewon pretty much bangs her head on the dining hall table. 

“Wow, I didn’t know someone could hate catered food so much,” you say, a little alarmed. 

“It’s not that,” Chaewon says, rubbing her forehead. The pasta on the plate in front of her has remained untouched for nearly ten minutes now. You wonder if she’s even hungry anymore. “My mom wants me to bring a plus-one.”

Your eyes widen. An excuse to dress nice and eat good food? Hell yeah. 

“And it can’t be you, Y/N, it has to be a date,” Chaewon says. It’s pretty obvious she’s not interested in dating whatsoever, no matter the gender of the object of her affection. You pout. Damn. “My mom said, ‘he can be whoever you want!’ but that means that he has to be an attractive Korean guy who’s got a future job in finance.”

“I’ll go with you,” Jungkook says over a mouthful of broccoli. 

“You will?” Chaewon asks. Jungkook just single-handedly saved Chaewon from a night of unbearable business talk with a boy she doesn’t know and cannot relate to. 

You scoff. “You’re just a regular Korean dude, Jungkook,” you tell him. 

Jungkook pouts, bottom lip turned out. “You don’t think I’m attractive?”

You refuse to answer that question. You’re afraid of what you might say if you open your mouth. 

“Seriously, you’d do that for me?” Chaewon turns to Jungkook with platonic stars in her eyes. 

Jungkook shrugs. “Sure. I’ve got a suit. I’ll ask my friend Jimin for a crash course in finance before the thing. When is it?”

And just like that, you and Jungkook’s weekly Friday Mario Kart night gets a rain check. 

 Jeon Jungkook is the sole best decision of your life. 

And it’s funny and twisted and wonderful, because he is the one thing you had failed to account for in your life. He stands there on the sidewalk in the blazing sun, black baseball cap nestled safely onto his dark brown hair, and in the split second it takes for him to open his mouth and say hello, everything changes. 

But no longer is the image you conjure in your mind when you think of him a picture of him on that very first day of orientation, lost and excited all at once. It is of him barging into your apartment and eating all of your leftover ravioli. It’s him laying on your dinky couch like it belongs to him, surfing through all of the Netflix shows available and eventually just settling on old Gilmore Girls episodes like he always does. It’s him standing in your closet to judge your latest clothing purchases and take back any items that you’ve stolen from him over the years. 

It’s imagining him not as a guest but as a permanent fixture in your home, in the place that makes you feel safest. Because that’s who Jungkook is, now. He is that place. He stands in your apartment rattling off a list of why microwaves are a severely underestimated killer, and it takes every inch of your being not to ask him to stay. To spend night after night cuddling on the couch, or make a home-cooked meal together on a Sunday evening, or get lost underneath the sheets on your bed.

Jungkook stands in your apartment like he belongs there. And only in your wildest dreams could you ever imagine that coming true.

Such is the case of that Friday night, when he’s supposed to accompany Chaewon to her terrible, awful, brain-melting parents’ business gala. You haven’t seen him all day, too busy with your club meetings to make time for him after your classes are finished for the week. College is never-ending in that horrible, unstoppable way. 

It’s nearing two in the morning when you hear the knock on your door. Two of your roommates are at a rush event for their sorority, and the other sleeps through your smoke alarm on a regular basis, so you are tasked with the job of opening the door. 

On the other side is Jungkook, as he frequently is. 

Your heart practically freezes in place, like his eyes have shot right through it. Instead of his usual baggy outfit and a bucket hat, he’s standing outside of your apartment in a crisp navy suit (complete with a pocket square), rings lining his fingers and hair tousled in that effortlessly-styled kind of way. He looks like a goddamn celebrity, like a young, successful CEO. Like the love of your whole fucking life. 

Coughing to distract from the fact that you’re practically drooling, you say, “Wow, you clean up nicely.”

Jungkook looks down at himself, almost as if he had forgotten he’s wearing a full suit entirely. “The pocket square is Jimin’s,” he explains, “but yeah. I didn’t want to let Chaewon down by not dressing up to code.”

He’s got remnants of makeup left on his face, having faded and smudged throughout the night. There’s a bit of black underneath his eyes from the liner, a smoldering effect that makes the dark brown of his irises even deeper. “You look tired,” you comment. “Why are you here, why don’t you go home, Jungkook? Get some sleep.”

Jungkook shrugs, looking over your shoulder to see if his arrival has woken up any of your roommates. “Your place was closer,” he says like it’s nothing. 

Like it doesn’t make your breath catch in your throat, stop in its tracks. He spends an evening dressed up in a stuffy suit and tie surrounded by old businessmen and their preppy daughters with whom he has nothing in common, and when it’s nearly two in the morning and he can finally relax, he drives to your place instead of his own. Like it means nothing. As if it means anything at all. 

Jungkook runs a hand through his perfectly styled hair, and even knotted and messy it still looks flawless. “If I’m bothering you, just let me know. I know it’s late.”

It’s so hard to say no to him. 

“Just come inside already before you wake up the neighbors,” you tell him, sighing to pretend like it’s a minor inconvenience. And even running on barely any sleep with makeup smudged underneath his eyes, Jungkook grins as you let him inside your apartment, caving in, just like you always do. 

The first thing he does when he’s inside is take off his fancy loafers and peel off his suit jacket, resting it against the back of the couch. You fumble around in the kitchen for the kettle, instinctively starting to make two cups of tea. Routine. 

Looking up, you watch as Jungkook loosens his tie and takes it off, unbuttoning the first two buttons of his white dress shirt. By the counter, you turn your back to him so he doesn’t see you mentally combust. It’s impossible that he doesn’t already know what he does to you. 

The kettle finishes boiling the moment Jungkook settles onto your couch. He keeps the television off so he doesn’t wake your roommates, and scrolls on his phone with his knees tucked underneath his chin. Thirty seconds later, you’re joining him, handing him the cup of tea before sitting down next to him, severely underdressed in comparison. 

“Did you at least have fun tonight?” You ask. 

“The food totally slapped,” Jungkook tells you. “Chaewon’s parents really pulled out all the stops.”

“So I’ve heard,” you muse. 

“We spent most of the time lounging by the catering table and distracting each other by making up stories about all of the rich people there.” Jungkook laughs. 

“Please tell me you didn’t embarrass yourself, though,” you say. Perhaps Jungkook could withstand a few blows to his ego, but Chaewon’s future pretty much depends on her impressing her parents and their comrades. 

“No!” Jungkook tells you defensively. “Jimin told me everything I needed to know, but all of Chaewon’s friends and their filthy rich CEO parents thought I was so handsome that I didn’t even need to speak.”

You roll your eyes. Of course Jungkook wouldn’t give up the chance to remind you of his hellishly good looks. 

“You just stood there, looking pretty?” You ask. Not as if he doesn’t do that already. 

“You think I’m pretty?” Jungkook teases, a greasy smile sent your way, like he doesn’t know the answer anyway. 

You huff. “Dressed up like this? Anyone would.”

“Chaewon said I was like her fake trophy husband,” Jungkook jokes. “She did all of the schmoozing. It’s not like I could have contributed anything anyway. Unless everyone wants to hear about C++.”

“Ooh, I love it when you talk all tech to me,” you tease, nudging him with your arm. “So sexy, keep talking.”

He laughs. “If we keep talking about Python I might get a little too excited.” He wiggles his eyebrows just for good measure and you giggle, holding onto this moment for dear life as you let it etch itself into your brain permanently. Times like these, you know you can’t forget, saving them for a rainy day thirty years down the line when you’re in love with someone that’s not Jungkook. When you look out the window and think about what might have been, if only things back in college had been a little bit different. 

Jungkook’s phone buzzes on the table. He’s got two notifications, one from Instagram of Chaewon tagging him in a post, and another from Venmo. 

“Fuckin’ damnit,” Jungkook swears, letting his phone drop on the couch cushion. 

“What?” You ask, turning to look at him. 

“Chaewon just Venmo’ed me a hundred dollars,” Jungkook says with a sigh. And it’s not one of those times when you see your bank account balance go up and get happy because yay, money!, it’s when your friend pays you anything over what they actually owe you out of the goodness of your heart, and you refuse to accept it. 

“She did?” You ask, eyes widening. A hundred dollars? That’s more than Jungkook would make in three shifts at the call center. 

“‘Thanks for bailing me out tonight. You definitely deserve more than 100 but then you’d be mad at me. But please don’t be mad at me!’” Jungkook reads off his phone. “I just stood there looking like eye candy. I didn’t do a thing to help her, what the heck?”

You pull out your own phone to check Chaewon’s latest post. 

It’s a picture of them together in the skyscraper penthouse the gala was held in, Jungkook looking dapper in his suit with a glass of champagne in his hand, and Chaewon in a dress worth more than a semester’s tuition throwing up a peace sign like the trendy Asian she is. They look like a K-drama couple. Like two celebrities basking in their fame and wealth. 

Shoutout to my one and only Jeon Jungkook for being my fake date tonight! Thanks to your good looks and charming personality for impressing all of my parents’ rich friends and their daughters. Love you 3000 💕

“Wow, whoever took this picture of the both of you knows their shit,” you say, impressed. You had always thought it impossible for Jungkook to look better in pictures than in real life, but this photo is coming rather close. If you were any more shameless, you’d ask Chaewon if she has any more photos of him. Just him, preferably. 

It’s not as if she doesn’t know about your gargantuan crush on him anyway. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever looked that good in a photo in my life,” Jungkook says with a laugh. Impossible. He yawns, placing his empty mug on the little end table next to the couch. 

“You should set it as your profile picture,” you suggest, leaning your head on him and pretending like this is normal. He yawns again, stretching out as he rests his body against yours. “Hey, we should go to sleep. Unless you want to go home?”

Jungkook groans, snuggling in closer. “No, your bed is big enough for the two of us.”

And who are you to resist?

You wake up to the sound of a phone buzzing furiously on your bedside table. You crack open one eye just a sliver to see who the culprit is and immediately eradicate it, when the sun filtering through your Venetian blinds hits your cornea. You groan, shutting your eyes once more as you smack your hand around to get it to shut off. 

The movement, however, causes the bedsheets to shift beside you, and when you turn, you find Jungkook nestled up tightly beneath your duvet, an arm stretched over your side as he hums in his sleep. 

You’re best friends. 

This is normal. 

(The feeling of your heart beating out of its chest has become rather normal, as well.)

He’s wearing a raggedy old t-shirt of yours that has always been too big on you but fits him just perfectly and a pair of joggers that he keeps at your place “just in case”. Just in case he stays the night. Just in case you ever need them. Selfishly, you will yourself to fall back asleep, shutting your eyes tightly and pretending that maybe, if you never wake up, this moment will freeze in time, locking the two of you together for eternity. 

He mumbles to himself in his sleep, a murmur of nothing as he shifts over slightly, hand dragging up your side. 

God. 

Next to you, the phone begins to buzz erratically again, and wide-awake, you look over to realize that it’s Jungkook’s, and that it’s Chaewon on the other end. 

This is at least the second time she’s called, which means that, despite how tempting it is, you probably shouldn’t silence his phone and go back to lying in bed with Jungkook and pretending the rest of the world doesn’t exist. 

Sighing, you pick up. 

“Jungkook!” Chaewon shouts on the other side. For a brief moment you wonder why on earth she’s so energetic so early, but it’s less that and more the fact that you are overwhelmingly lethargic rather late in the day. “All of my friends said you looked really good in those photos I posted of us. Do you think you’re free next Wednesday night? Seunghee wants you to accompany her to a double date her parents are forcing her to go on!”

“Chaewon—”

“Oh, Y/N! How’s it going?”

“I just woke up,” you mumble quietly as Jungkook stirs beside you. 

“Of course you did,” Chaewon says, and you can see her rolling her eyes on the other side of the line. “Wait, why do you have Jungkook’s phone if you just woke up? Oh my God, don’t tell me—”

“Shh!” You hiss into the phone. Jungkook is slowly beginning to wake up, and you can only pray that he isn’t listening in to the conversation between you and Chaewon. “No, we did not. He got back after your thing and we promptly passed out in my bed, fully clothed,” you whisper loudly. 

“Jungkook went to your place last night? He was so tired, I thought he was going straight back to his. We even got dropped off outside my apartment.”

What? Chaewon and Jungkook live within a three-minute walk of each other. Your apartment is ten minutes away from both of them. 

“You did?” You ask, eyebrows furrowing. 

“Who’s that?” 

You turn around to see Jungkook lying on his back, head resting on a nearly-deflated pillow of yours as he looks up at you, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His hair is mussed, some parts styled and stiff with hair gel, and some parts tangled and unkempt. He looks like he’s been lying in that position for a while, hand resting behind his head as he gazes up at you. 

“It’s Chaewon,” you tell him softly as she laughs on the other end. “She just called your phone. Are you free next Wednesday?”

“Hmm?” Jungkook, still half-asleep. “When?”

“Next Wednesday,” you repeat, a hand on the phone like it’s going to do anything to stop Chaewon from listening to you two. “Chaewon says she has a friend who wants you to accompany her to a double date she’s been set up to go on by her parents.”

“Mmmrph,” Jungkook mumbles. It’s clear he hasn’t even thought about his plans for the rest of the day, let alone next Wednesday. 

“He’s not available right now,” you say into the phone. Chaewon snorts. 

“Fine,” Chaewon says with a sigh. “Can you pass the message on when you guys are done pretending that you aren’t fucking behind my back?”

You suck in a breath. “Chaewon!” You hiss. “We are not—” you quickly turn back to Jungkook, who, by the looks of his hooded eyes and bewildered expression, isn’t listening in, “—fucking!” You whisper. “You know we’re not!”

Chaewon laughs. “Yeah, yeah. Call me later, Y/N, we should grab ice cream or something.” She hangs up. 

“Who was that?” Jungkook asks sleepily, eyes still half-lidded as he sits up in your bed, soft skin, brown hair, pouted lips amongst a sea of white, bundled up in your thick duvet as if sitting on a cloud. 

“Chaewon,” you tell him. 

“Oh, why was she calling?”

“She wanted to ask if you were free next Wednesday.”

“To do what?”

Maybe you were worried about Jungkook listening in to Chaewon grill you about your relationship (or serious lack thereof) for nothing. 

“She has a friend who wants you to go on a parent-mandated double date, trophy boyfriend style,” you explain. Jungkook groans. 

“Pretending to know business is mentally, physically, and morally draining. It feels like I’m selling my soul to capitalism,” he says with a sigh, collapsing back against the mattress. “I just wanna stay here forever. It’s so cozy.”

“Come on, Kook,” you say, tugging the duvet off of him to reveal the rest of his body. He curls into himself at the exposure, refusing to budge. “You’ve encroached on my apartment long enough.”

“Y/N,” Jungkook whines, drawing out your name for good measure. “Noooooooo.” He reaches out to cling onto your wrist, which means that if you want him out of your bed, you’ll have to drag him out.

“Jungkook, you’re swole, you know I can’t tug you out of my bed,” you say with a pout. He knows every trick in the book to use against you, and worst of all, he knows you’re weak to all of them. 

“Good,” Jungkook says with a loopy smile, pulling you back onto the bed like it’s nothing. You yelp as you come crashing on top of him, your body bumping into his as he wraps his arms around you and flops back onto your bed. You laugh and shout at the feeling as Jungkook cuddles up in the warmth of the sheets, pulling you in tightly to his body. “It’s so warm here, let’s stay like this forever.”

“What about food?”

“You keep a stash of Clif bars under your bed, we’ll eat those,” Jungkook suggests. 

You attempt to wriggle out of his grip, hoping to escape before he holds you long enough to get addicted, hooked on the feeling of his arms around you, his body against yours. But Jungkook is nothing if not persistent and clingy, and he wraps his arms tightly around your torso like a koala, warm and soft. “Come on, Jungkook. It’s nearly noon. Let’s be productive today.”

“Gross.”

“Let’s not sit in bed all day.”

“Grosser. Let’s just stay in your bed all day and pretend that we don’t have any real responsibilities.”

“Given that we’re in college, that may be slightly difficult.”

“Fuck that, your GPA doesn’t matter anyway. Unless you have plans on going to grad school?” He asks with an eyebrow raise, turning to look at you. 

“No way, I’m not paying for another four years of this shit,” you immediately declare. Let the capitalist system of higher education extort another two to four years worth of tuition out of you for the same degree? Absolutely not. 

“Then why move?” Jungkook says with a grin. 

“Because,” you say, stumbling for a real answer. 

“Not good enough.” He grins cheekily. “I vote to stay in bed.”

“I vote to do my readings, your CS homework, and get back to Chaewon about Wednesday.”

“God,” Jungkook says with a sigh. “What’s Wednesday?”

“Oh my God, you need to call Chaewon. Right now. Before you ask me what you have on Wednesday one more time after losing all of your brain cells lounging around in my personal bed and refusing to leave,” you say, eyes wide as you worm your way out of his grip, dusting yourself off and heading to your closet. 

“Noooooooo,” Jungkook says, reaching out a desperate hand. “Y/N, come back.”

“Call Chaewon. Call her!” You order, fishing around in your closet for some fresh clothes. You’ve been wearing the same one since Thursday night. You are disgusting. 

Jungkook groans but obeys, picking up his phone and pressing her contact. “Hey Chae, it’s Jungkook. Listen, I’m literally going to Venmo you back what you paid me because you? Literally didn’t need to pay me at all? And I’m actually mad at you for it? Wait, what do you mean am I up to getting paid on Wednesday—”

The phone call presents the perfect opportunity for you to dash out of your bedroom and into the bathroom, where you splash yourself with cold tap water like a model in a face wash commercial (who already has perfect skin, so why does she need this new face wash, seriously?) to clear your head. It’s been a weird twelve hours. Even weirder knowing that across the hall, Jungkook is sitting in your room, on your bed, in your clothes, under your bed sheets. Knowing that maybe, in another universe, on another timeline, you would be in the exact same positions, only everything would be different. 

You wash your face, hoping to wake yourself up. Convince your mind that the past twelve hours have been nothing but a dream, and that when you walk back into your room, Jungkook will have vanished. Or he would have never been there in the first place. 

You leave the bathroom and return to your bedroom to see Jungkook tugging on his suit jacket, wearing the same clothes he had on when he knocked on your door at 2AM last night. He’s still on the phone, wrapping up the conversation with Chaewon. 

“Yeah, yeah, tell her that I’m down. She can just text me, give her my number. I’m happy to do this for you and your friends, Chae. Plus, she’s gonna pay me and I feel less bad about it because it’s a service and she’s not a close friend like you are. Yeah, it’s all good,” he looks up to see you standing at the door, leaning against the frame. “Yeah, Y/N just got back so I’m gonna go. Maybe we can grab dinner or something tonight? Cool. Bye.”

“Dinner without me?” You ask with a pout. 

“Never,” Jungkook says wickedly. “You’re always invited.”

“Have you figured out what’s going on on Wednesday?” You tease him as you walk him to the door. 

“Chaewon has a friend, Soojin, who wants me to accompany her on a parent-mandated double date with a business partner’s daughter,” Jungkook explains. “Apparently all of Chaewon’s friends realized I make a pretty good fake trophy boyfriend.”

You rub his shoulder. He’d make a great real boyfriend too. Not that you think about that all of the time, or anything. “Gonna put that on your resume, big guy?”

“Of course.” Jungkook smiles. “Dinner tonight? We can go to the ramen place you really like.”

“Sure thing, is Chaewon coming?”

“If she wants to. Otherwise, it’ll just be us.”

“Sounds good,” you tell him. “See you then.”

“Hopefully before,” Jungkook says. “Thanks for letting me crash here last night, by the way.”

“Anytime,” you say. Maybe one day, it’ll be true. 

Next Wednesday, there’s a knock on your door at midnight. 

Who else could it be?

It was supposed to be a one-time thing. And then it was supposed to be just a two-time thing. And before you knew it, Jungkook’s number and his services were circling through the ring of wealthy international students, jumping from phone to phone as people crammed to get him to accompany them on their next double date, next business gala, next ballroom dance. 

You had always had a feeling that his charming, charismatic personality would eventually draw everybody towards him, so electric and magnetic that you couldn’t help but want to know him, make friends with him, be close to him. From the moment you saw his Facebook introduction post, you knew it was only a matter of time before everyone on campus knew his name.

[October 17th, 4:12PM] You: do u want to get dinner tonight

Jungkook: would love to but have to go to kim family business dinner with dahyun sorry :(

You: ok next time then!

[October 23rd, 1:03PM]

You: yo what r u doing You: i have so many readings to do rip You: do u wanna come to greene w me and study

Jungkook: heejin is taking me shopping for a fancy suit for her family’s event tomorrow i can’t :/ Jungkook: but i am going to get macaroons for u at the mall so we can see each other later!

You: yummm sure thing!

[October 30th, 9:58AM]

You: hey ik you’re asleep rn but we are still on for tomorrow right? 🎃 You: can’t let our one (1) year long halloween tradition of buying last-minute candy and watching the nightmare before christmas together die

[October 30th, 11:13PM]

Jungkook: omg i just saw this now im so sorry Jungkook: uh yeonjoo wants me to go to her sister’s halloween party tm so idk if i can make it this year

[October 31st, 2:02AM]

You: ok You: thanks for telling me

It’s no fun watching The Nightmare Before Christmas by yourself, you realize this Halloween. All of your roommates are out frequenting one of the hundreds of parties being thrown on campus tonight, and although you’d normally be up for getting drunk and dropping it low, you just aren’t in the Halloween spirit this year. Wonder why. 

Armed with the knowledge that your roommates probably won’t be back until three or four in the morning, you shut your laptop and decide to go to bed early. Early being midnight, but it’s early for you and that’s all that really matters. 

You don’t know why you’re being such a stick in the mud this Halloween. It’s always been one of your favorite holidays, never one to pass up free candy nor the option to dress up, but this one has been particularly lame. You don’t have a costume, your local drugstore is out of mini Skittles packets, and you don’t have someone to spend it with. 

Realistically, you have no reason to be sad that Jungkook isn’t available tonight. It’s not as if spending Halloween together is some ancient tradition from birth that binds the two of you together. You did it for the first time as freshmen, and you were foolishly hoping to do the same thing as sophomores. It’s not a tradition if it only happened once. 

You look in the bathroom mirror, stained with nail polish and dry shampoo and old skincare, and you sigh. Jungkook has every right to prioritize his current and only source of income over a night spent lounging on the couch doing nothing. It’s not as if you haven’t seen your best friend in over a month and this was the only night you both had free. Jungkook drops by after every single event he goes on. Every single one. He stands outside your door dressed in a fancy suit, or a silk button down, leather shoes and expensive jewelry bought for him by the girls he goes out with.

No matter the time, he knocks on your door and says hello, steals a cup of tea and a bit of your heart along with it, before bouncing out of your living room and off to his own apartment. He doesn’t stay the night anymore, doesn’t worm his way underneath your duvet and refuse to move until morning comes. It’s hard to tell if you’re grateful about it or not. 

Sluggishly, you peel off your clothes and wash your face, changing into some old sweatpants from the tenth grade and a t-shirt with an embarrassingly large hole in the armpit. This Halloween, you are dressing up as a lonely college student who is going to bed early on Halloween night because she has nothing better to do!

There’s a knock on your door. 

Your first instinct is to freeze up. When there’s another knock, your second instinct is to grab the closest object to you (which happens to be your water bottle) for self-defense. 

And then, you hear,

“You’re not watching The Nightmare before Christmas without me, are you?”

To spare yourself the shame, you won’t say that you practically leapt out of bed the moment you heard his voice. You calmly removed the covers, and casually walked to the front door. That is what you did. 

When you open it, Jungkook is standing behind it, grinning, wearing the greasiest police officer outfit you’ve ever seen in your entire life. This flew at a marketing company’s heir’s Halloween party? He’s even got what looks to be a fully-loaded water gun in his holster. 

“Don’t tell me this is what you wore to some fancy-shmancy Halloween party,” you say disapprovingly, eyebrows raised as you look him up and down and pretend that you aren’t just ogling his figure. 

“It was fine, Yeonjoo’s sister just graduated college. If anything, she was more okay with it than Yeonjoo was,” Jungkook says with a shrug. You don’t even need to let him in at this point, just watch as he tugs off his shoes and steps inside your apartment like it belongs to him. 

“What was Yeonjoo dressed as?”

“Princess Leia. We made for a very mismatched pair,” Jungkook says, chuckling to himself. “Ooh, did you guys get new tea?”

“You can have some if you want,” you tell him, shutting the door as he eagerly pulls out a box of teabags, turning on the electric kettle on the counter. “I think it’s Wild Berry Hibiscus.”

“Sounds good already,” Jungkook says, and he lets out a sigh that sounds so exhausted, so tired and aching, as he leans back against the countertop, head resting on the cupboards above it. 

“You could have gone home, you know,” you tell him. Even from the couch you can see the droop in his shoulders, the bags under his eyes. He’s been going out several times every week for the past month, and he still has a truckload of CS assignments on top. He spends precious hours schmoozing with wealthy businessmen and women, shaking people’s hands and posing for pictures in the fanciest clothes he owns and then some. The selfish part of you wants him to stay. The part that loves him knows it would be better if he went home. “You still can.”

“No,” Jungkook insists, shaking his head. “We have a tradition to uphold, don’t we?”

Even though The Nightmare Before Christmas is seventy-six minutes long, the night ends long before that. You haven’t even reached “This Is Halloween” before you feel a head hit your shoulder, and crane your neck to find Jungkook having fallen fast asleep beside you, half-full cup of Wild Berry Hibiscus next to the laptop in front of you. He’s still wearing his stupid police officer costume, the navy blue uniform tight against his body. His lips are parted ever so softly, eyelashes fluttering as little non-sounds exit his mouth, hints, whispers of snores. 

He hasn’t slept over since the first time. You’re not sure if you want the trend to continue, or if you just want to be a little bit selfish tonight, greedy, taking and taking and taking. He’s so beautiful like this, so innocent and gentle and soft. It would be such a shame if you had to wake him. 

And so, gingerly, you rest your head against his own, breathe in the quiet little sounds that leave his parted lips, memorize the feeling. It’s not the first time Jungkook’s accidentally fallen asleep on you, but there is something about this moment, sitting on your couch a few minutes past midnight, as the rest of the world celebrates around you, that is so intimate. Like here, in your apartment, you and Jungkook have your own little bubble, tucked away in a corner of the universe far from the noise of the rest of the world. And it’s here that you wish you could stay forever, for once never wanting the feeling to end. Wanting time to freeze in its very steps, the clocks stop and the orbit halts, and it is just you and Jungkook, forever. Like characters in a movie, on pause for eternity.

The moment ends when Jungkook shifts beside you before eventually coming to, slowly opening his eyes as he turns to look at you. You smile at him, dazed and tired, as he sits up properly, staring down at your half-opened laptop and the half-full cup of tea next to it. 

“Thought you’d end up sleeping here again tonight,” you joke, even though it isn’t really a joke. Maybe, somewhere deep down inside you, in the crevices between your bones and the dark corner of your heart, you had hoped that he would stay. 

“Oh, did I fall asleep?” Jungkook asks, blinking away the sleep in his eyes. It’s nearly two-thirty in the morning. 

“Just for a bit. I didn’t want to wake you, but I wasn’t sure if you wanted to head back to your apartment or anything,” you tell him. 

Jungkook nearly jumps up off the couch at that, like he’s got springs in his shoes. Suddenly he’s wide awake, brown eyes blown open as he scrambles to gather his belongings, taking the cup of tea and quickly dumping it out in your sink. 

“Hey, don’t you want that?” You ask. 

“No, no, it’s okay. I’ll come by some other time and have some, it was really good, I just fell asleep while drinking it,” Jungkook sputters, words moving a mile a minute as he tugs on his heavy black officer boots, scuffed at the tips from wear and tear. It’s as if he’s desperate to leave. Like your apartment has somehow offended him. Or worse, you. 

“If you want to stay, Jungkook, you can,” you tell him, standing up to run to the door before he pulls the damn thing off his hinges with how fast he’s moving. “I don’t mind. My bed is big enough for the both of us.”

“No, I should—I should get going. My… plants need watering. Right now. I totally forgot.”

It’s not a completely bullshit excuse. Jungkook has a fair few pothos amongst his other worldly apartment belongings, hanging from his ceiling or potted in old mugs and janky shoes. But it’s still a pretty bullshit excuse. It’s dark. Jungkook waters his plants every Sunday, and it’s Friday. It’s obvious he wants to get the hell out of your apartment for whatever reason. 

All you can do is hope and pray that it isn’t you who’s driving him away. 

“Oh—okay,” you tell him, opening the door as he furiously laces up his other boot. 

“Thanks for doing this. Next Halloween will be more fun, I swear. I won’t fall asleep on you. Or anything.”

“Okay, see you soon, then?” You ask, searching for a clue, a hint, anything that will tell you that it’s not you, that he hasn’t found you out yet. That you can still be friends, be best friends, because even if you want to kiss him, hold his hand, roll around in bed with him, loving him from afar is good enough. 

“Yes, yes, definitely. Dinner? Uh… sometime this week? I’ll text you. I have to go. Plants. See you!”

He dashes down the hallway. 

And you end your Halloween the same way you started it. Alone. 

Jungkook ran out of your apartment the other day like it was infested with cockroaches. Or the Black Plague. Or your microwave had just beeped. It was as if simply being inside it was going to scar him for life. 

Maybe your apartment is cursed. Jungkook does believe in ghosts. That’s another reason as to why he fears the microwave. Tiny ghosts could be living inside the microwave chamber and you’d never know. But Jungkook knows better. He knows that they’re there. 

“He just… ran out?” Chaewon asks, clearly bewildered. The two of you have been working on the first floor of the library all day, obviously doing everything in your power to not actually complete any of your assignments. 

“Yeah, something about his plants.” You sigh. 

Chaewon narrows her eyes, the same way she does when she’s plotting something. “Interesting.”

“What?” You ask, nudging her to see if you can worm a less mysterious response out of her. 

“Nothing,” Chaewon says with a nonchalant shrug. She clearly has something to say. 

“What?” You repeat forcefully. Chaewon doesn’t get to go all cryptic on you just because Jungkook ran out of your apartment like it had set fire. 

“I know I’ve only known you guys for, like, a year and a bit now, but you two have the strangest relationship I’ve ever seen,” Chaewon comments like it’s nobody’s business when it is, in fact, specifically two people’s business. 

You scowl. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Just…” She pauses, thinking. In the silence, she begins to pack up her belongings, shoving her laptop into her bag and gathering up the small pile of candy wrappers slowly amassing in front of her. “I’ve never seen two best friends have a relationship quite like yours.”

“Thanks?”

“What are you doing for dinner? I’m eating with Yoonji, but you’re welcome to join if you want,” Chaewon offers. Even though you have no idea who Yoonji is, Chaewon would never exclude you from eating with them.

“I’m getting Korean food with Jungkook, but thanks for the offer,” you say, only to be greeted with Chaewon rolling her eyes. He said he’d meet us outside?”

Sure enough, when you head out of the glass doors at the front of the library, Jungkook is waiting dutifully on a bench close by, headphones in as he nods his head and taps his feet to the beat of the music, lost in his own world. He doesn’t even realize that you’ve left the library until you’re two feet in front of him, when he recognizes your beat-up white sneakers and looks up at you in glee, eyes crinkled into crescents. 

“Ready to go?” You ask happily. Your stomach has been rumbling ever since Jungkook suggested you go out to eat this morning. 

“Hell yeah I am,” Jungkook says, putting his earbuds away as he stands up. “You coming, Chae?”

She shakes her head. “No, I’m eating with a friend.” There’s nudge against your shoulder, and when you turn to face her, she winks. “But you two enjoy yourselves! Don’t have too much fun without me!”

Before you can publicly berate her for being so goddamn obvious, she’s rotating 180 degrees on her heel and speed-walking in the opposite direction, zooming off so you don’t get the chance. 

“I feel like we haven’t seen each other in ages,” you comment mindlessly. Twenty-four hours away from Jungkook feels like a lifetime and a half. Forty-eight is a light year. 

“I’ve been busy,” Jungkook says vaguely, shrugging his shoulders. 

“Doing what, going out to fancy restaurants and galas?” You half-tease. It’s sad but true—Jungkook spends his nights living a life you could only dream of. And all of these rituals you share, from studying in the library until three in the morning to crashing at his place and taking naps on separate couches, get put on the backburner. 

“Hey, it’s hard work pretending to be rich,” Jungkook pouts. “Besides, the craziest thing about going to those things is that rich Korean people don’t serve Korean food at their fancy gatherings. They serve shit like caviar.”

“Is that why you’re so desperate to get Korean?” You ask pointedly. 

“Yes,” Jungkook emphasizes. “Man, I just want some tteokbokki.”

“Then we’ll go and eat all of the tteokbokki you can dream of,” you promise. You round the street corner and on the edge of the main road and an alleyway sits a tiny Korean restaurant the size of a bedroom, no more than six cramped tables inside. It’s run by a family who passes it down through each generation, dependent on the starving college students nearby to keep it alive. 

It’s Jungkook’s favorite place. The owner gives him a discount every time he sees him. 

(It’s impossible not to fall in love with Jungkook. Impossible to not be drawn to his presence, his personality. Like moths to a flame, you can’t help but come closer.)

“Ah, Jungkook!” The old man behind the counter greets as the bell above the entrance rings. “Sit! Sit!” He points to your favorite table, a round one in the far left corner that’s right next to the biggest window. “Usual?”

“Tteokbokki, too, please!” Jungkook shouts. The man gives you both a thumbs up and heads back into the kitchen. 

“It’s been a while since we came here,” Jungkook notices. You both usually eat lunch on campus and Jungkook has been largely unavailable for dinner. 

“Almost sounds like you missed it,” you poke fun. 

“God, I missed it so much,” Jungkook exclaims, tilting his head back in exasperation. “I didn’t realize that it would be so much work to get dressed up in a suit and look hot.”

“Don’t make it sound like such a drag.” You frown. Jungkook needs to put in literally zero effort to look hot. Sitting across from him in this tiny Korean restaurant as he wears nothing but a massive hoodie and black joggers, he looks hot. When he wakes up in your bed in a raggedy t-shirt, he looks hot. When you catch him at three in the morning in the library after eighteen straight hours of studying, he looks hot. 

Jungkook sits there and radiates light. Radiates warmth and joy and beauty. Laughter and hope. He’s the college version of a Disney prince. Perfectly imperfect and completely out of your reach. 

“I wish I could take you with me, you might enjoy it,” Jungkook sighs. “Plus, I have literally never seen you wear something fancier than business casual. Imagine you in a ballgown!”

“In your dreams, Jeon,” you rebuke. “Free catered food sounds nice but having to mingle with the 1% does not.”

“Touché,” Jungkook concedes. “I don’t know how Chaewon does it.”

“She’s a goddess.”

“Indeed.”

Jungkook pours you a cup of water from the pitcher that the old man dropped off, and then pours one for himself. “Chaewon said that I did well, though.”

Not surprising. Jungkook excels at everything he does. 

“Of course you did, you sexy beast,” you chide. 

“She said I’d make a good boyfriend.”

You choke on your water as the man’s son brings out your food, and you desperately attempt to avoid eye contact as you sputter and cough into a napkin, gaze pointed away from both a surprised waiter and a concerned Jungkook, who awkwardly thanks the man and leans over to pat your back. 

“You good?” He asks, brows furrowed. 

Coughing, you say, “I’m okay, I’m okay. It just—it went down the wrong pipe, that’s all.” Jungkook doesn’t buy it, and the little coughs escaping your throat don’t do much to corroborate your claim. “Seriously, Jungkook. I’m okay. It’s just water.”

“You looked like you were on the verge of death,” Jungkook frowns. 

“That’s just my face,” you fire back. “Just keep talking about what you were saying earlier. What was it?”

“Being a good boyfriend,” Jungkook says, and with no water near your lips to distract you this time, your mind bears the full force of his words, weighing down on your shoulders like a calculus textbook. 

It’s not as if you aren’t already aware that Jungkook would be the best boyfriend in the entire world, bar none. Not as if you don’t sit in bed and dream of a parallel universe, a life other than the one you’re living in right now, where Jungkook is lovely and wonderful and yours. He knocks on your door at a random hour in the afternoon with Chinese takeout from the local restaurant. He remembers your homework assignments when you forget them. He sits in bed with you and judges the Instagrams of the guys on the latest Bachelorette season. It’s as if he was already yours.

“Believe me,” you scoff. “The people know how great of a boyfriend you are.” 

“It’s fake, though,” Jungkook reminds you. “It’s only for a night. An evening, really.”

“Better than nothing,” you sigh. “If only I had enough money to rent myself a fake boyfriend for a night.”

“If only your parents were the CEOs of a multibillion dollar cooperation,” Jungkook adds on. 

“Truth,” you say, and you and Jungkook toast to that. Toast to knowing that some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Toast to knowing that some of those people can get for themselves something you can only imagine in your wildest dreams—a night with Jungkook. More than just a night. A night spent dressed up in your fanciest clothes, arms wrapped tightly around each other. A night spent as a couple, rather than you and Jungkook. 

Toast to knowing that even if you’ll never get to have him like that, you get to have him like this, and you’d rather it be like this than nothing at all. 

“You don’t need to rent a fake boyfriend for a night, Y/N,” Jungkook tells you once you’ve downed the water in your glasses (stay hydrated!). “You shouldn’t feel pressured to spend time with people you don’t want to spend time with.”

You don’t understand, you sigh. I’d give anything to spend time with you. 

Jungkook pays. He says that he’s made more money accompanying wealthy socialites—even ones that don’t go to your school, because word gets around—than he would in a month’s worth of shifts at the call center. He says he’s never looking back. He’s probably not going to give up the gig for a while, either. 

“Just because you have cash now doesn’t mean you get a free pass to pay for everything we do together,” you warn. You’ve always split the price of meals, split the price birthday cakes for your friends. In the beginning of freshman year, Jungkook ate a quarter of a bag of goldfish you had and paid you fifty-three cents to account for his consumption, which you immediately sent back to him. You still fight over it, finding surreptitious ways to incorporate it into the Venmo payments you make to each other. 

“I’m rich, I can do whatever I want with my money,” Jungkook proclaims. “And if that means treating my best friend to a meal, then that means I’m gonna treat her to a meal.”

“That’s very rude of you,” you tell him pointedly. “Zero out of ten, worst best friend in the entire world. Will not accept my Venmo payments.”

Walking down the sidewalk, side by side, Jungkook wraps an arm around you and pulls you in for a side hug as you come to a stop at a traffic light. “You always do so much for me and Chaewon. You deserve to be treated once in a while, Y/N.”

“Why, ‘cause I go out to CVS at ten at night to get you Nyquil after you catch the common cold from some sweaty guy at the gym?” 

“That,” Jungkook nods, conceding, “and also because you’re one of the best friends anyone could ever ask for. The people who know you are lucky to get to say your name.”

If only Jungkook knew that he was the exact same. It’s an honor to know him. It’s a blessing to love him. 

“What fancy clothes do you own?” Chaewon’s lying on your bed, scrolling mindlessly on her phone. 

��I don’t know,” you respond, brows furrowing. You get up from your desk chair to start fishing through your closet,  “I have, like, some business casual stuff.”

“How about a dress?”

You whip around suspiciously, eyeing Chaewon as she lounges around in your room and acts like she isn’t plotting something nefarious. “Don’t you think you could tell me what you’re trying to convince me to do before you ask me if I have the appropriate clothing?” 

Even lying on her back, Chaewon still manages to roll her eyes, sitting up to meet your gaze. “There’s a gala tonight to celebrate some big business deal being closed and I want you to come with me,” she says like it’s a chore, exasperated. 

“Me?” You frown. “Why not Jungkook?”

“He said he had some thing to do for some other girl,” Chaewon says. The topic clearly is not at the forefront of her mind. It’s a little too obvious that it’s at the forefront of yours. “Besides, I was given no date restrictions and you deserve to have a little fun tonight. It’s a Friday!”

“I just want to stay in bed and play Legend of Zelda,” you tell her. 

“You’re already out of bed,” Chaewon points out unhelpfully. 

“Well, then I want to get into bed and play Legend of Zelda,” you rephrase. 

Chaewon pouts. “Noooo, please? It’ll be fun, I swear,” Chaewon pleads.  “It’s a huge party and hundreds of people are going to be there. Everybody gets to bring a plus one. You won’t be the only person who doesn’t know anything about business and has to cling onto their date in order to survive.”

“Gee, thanks. That makes me want to go so much,” you deadpan. 

“Seriously, Y/N. When was the last time you went out on a Friday?”

A while ago. You and Jungkook started having Mario Kart nights on Friday in the middle of your freshman year after you both came to the conclusion that every frat party smells, sounds, and tastes like the same fifty shades of college regret. You haven’t gone out since. 

“Not that long ago,” you lie. It’s been months.

“Yeah, right,” Chaewon scoffs. “Don’t think I don’t see your Bitmoji on the SnapMap sitting in your damn apartment on a Friday at 11PM,” she scolds.

“I’m gonna turn off my location,” you declare. You’ve had enough of Snapchat exposing you and your location. People can live in mystery about your whereabouts from now on. They don’t need to know. Chaewon certainly does not. 

“No excuses, you’re coming with me to the gala! You must have something to wear in that closet of yours, don’t you?” She slides off of your bed with a thud and joins you as you stand in front of your clothes. None of them scream fancy. None of them even whisper it. You stand back as she shuffles through your clothes, hangers squeaking as she shoves them along the rail. Chaewon tears through your clothing faster than you skim through your economics readings. “Aha! What do we have here?”

She whips out a dress from the very back of your closet, right behind the blazer you never wear because you’d rather be caught dead than in business attire. It’s old—you don’t think you’ve worn it since the beginning of your freshman year when you thought you actually had to dress up for parties. Needless to say, you dry-cleaned it the following Monday and never wore it again. You don’t even recall bringing it to college this year. 

“This is perfect!” Chaewon cries. “Really says ‘I can fucking dress myself’, don’t you think?”

“Are you implying that I can’t dress myself?” 

“You should definitely wear this,” Chaewon decides, dodging the question. “Gucci and Louis Vuitton are overrated, anyway.”

“I don’t really have a choice, do I.” Chaewon thrusts the dress towards you.

Chaewon shakes her head. “Of course you don’t.” 

Three hours later finds you one makeup and hair session later, standing in the lobby of a magnificent skyscraper wearing a dress that maybe could have done without the cup of frozen yogurt that you ate before you arrived. Now you remember why you haven’t really worn it since the beginning of last year. Has it shrunk?

“I feel like a loser, Chaewon,” you hiss as she bats her eyelashes and gets directed to the private elevator that will lead you both to the top floor. “A money-less, jobless loser.”

“At least you’re honest, Y/N,” Chaewon whispers back as you step into the elevator. Despite being nearly an hour and a half late (“Fashionably so!” Chaewon exclaims.) you are crowded into the back corner, several other couples stepping inside to join you, all of them wearing clothes that cost more than your tuition for all four years of college, combined. “That’s better than most of the people here.”

Nothing separates the rich from the poor like morality. 

When the elevator doors open, you and Chaewon are the last group to step out, milling about in the corner until the path is free. And when you turn your gaze away from her, you realize just why Jungkook’s so keen on going to events like these, why he never turns down an offer when it lights up his phone screen. 

In movies, rich people flaunt their wealth so extravagantly that it almost looks fake. From gigantic ice sculptures to ten-feet-tall chocolate fountains, entire orchestras and dresses worth thousands of dollars, it makes you wonder if rich people really do see those items as necessities when throwing a party. They rent out entire European castles and the press publicizes every one of their actions. To you, it looks contrived, unrealistic. Even if rich people have enough money to sustain the bottom 99% for hundreds of years, how could they spend their money on nonsense like this?

As it turns out, the ice sculptures and chocolate fountains are only half of the story.

At this gala, the hosts have spared no expense. The entire penthouse is made purely of glass, from the ceiling, to the floor, to the walls in between, giving you an absolutely breathtaking view of the city lights dozens of feet below you, of the stars millions of light years away. It’s as if you’re standing in a bubble, frozen in time, the world sparkling and twinkling and shimmering around you. You didn’t even know a place like this existed on Earth. The price to book it must be astronomical. The view, even more so. 

“Holy fuck,” you murmur, mouth dropping open at the sight. It’s a movie come to life. It’s a picture straight out of a fairytale. 

“Pretty sweet, right?” Chaewon says, clearly proud of herself for convincing you to join her. “The Parks and the Ohs really felt like celebrating.”

“No shit,” you say, dumbfounded. Chaewon wraps her arm around yours and leads you out of the elevator, her poise and grace akin to that of a princess. She’s been to this place before. She could do this in her sleep. 

“Pictures first, then we eat, and then we mingle,” Chaewon instructs, and you nod diligently. She’s the only way you’re going to make it out of this night unscathed. Without her, you don’t know what you’d do. 

On the average day of an average life of an average person, pictures means getting a stranger to take a single pic on your shitty iPhone at your worst angle, which you will begrudgingly post to your Instagram later after extensive editing. 

But this is not your average day, and these are not average lives of not average people. Pictures means professional photographers with entire setups, standing with their cameras held up to their eyes, poised and ready for the next shot. It means couples, one by one, stepping in front of a gorgeous backdrop and posing, over and over, as five photographers at once cram to get their best angle, the cleanest photo. 

You don’t know how to pose for photos. You barely remember what the proper formatting is for your essays, depending on the citation structure. And yet, Chaewon is ushering you over in front of the photographers, immediately striking one of her classic, perfect poses as you flail about, trying to figure out what to do with your hands. 

“Just relax,” Chaewon advises. Even standing beside you, she can see you panicking in her periphery. “And smile. You’re beautiful, so show them that.”

Eventually, as the photographers switch positions to get different angles, you stop worrying about your hands, stop worrying about your bag, your feet, your head tilt, and just grin. You may not have millions of dollars to your name, but it’s a Friday night and you’re living the life of a billionaire with no responsibilities. You deserve to live a little. 

When the next group comes up, Chaewon nudges you out of the way and whispers to one of the photographers, who nods dutifully in response. Wrapping her arm around yours once more, she guides you to the massive catering setup, tables and tables lined with delicacies from every country you could imagine. And of course, a gargantuan chocolate fountain in the middle of it all. 

Your stomach rumbles. Clearly, the frozen yogurt was not enough to hold you off. Or maybe it’s just because you’ve been eating college dining hall food for weeks now, and are probably going to throw up if you have to have dry beef one more time. 

“If you want to, you should try the caviar. It’s delicious. Avoid the eggplant, it tastes like foot, but the brussel sprouts are delicious. Kimchi’s good, too. Classic,” Chaewon instructs as you walk around the tables, placing servings the size of quarters onto your plate just so you can have a taste of everything. Chaewon sticks to some ribs, pan-seared salmon, and a vegetable so expensive you’ve never even heard of it before. 

“Im Chaewon, is that you?”

“Mrs. Kim!”

A strange older woman comes up to the two of you as you’re dishing up, and Chaewon’s face immediately lights up. The woman goes in for a hug, a barely-touching pat of the shoulders and hands. Over her shoulder, you watch as Chaewon rolls her eyes and pulls a face. 

“How are you, dear? You look so grown up,” Mrs. Kim says. You watch as the light slowly fades from Chaewon’s eyes with each second that passes. 

“I’m very well, Mrs. Kim. Did you get your hair done? It makes you look so youthful.” Chaewon’s a master. She glares at you when Mrs. Kim isn’t looking, raising her eyebrows as if to say learn, young padawan. This is how it’s done. They go on for a couple minutes, showering fake compliments on each other as you slowly begin to eat. You scrunch your nose up. Chaewon’s right. The eggplant does taste like foot. 

“And who is this?” Mrs. Kim asks, turning her focus onto you. You look up like a deer in headlights, a brussel sprout puffing your cheek. You were not meant to mingle and eat at the same time. 

“This is one of my closest friends, Y/N,” Chaewon introduces for you. You nod your hello, chewing the brussel sprout in the most nondescript manner possible in an effort to save whatever is left of your dignity. “She’s pre-law.”

You are not pre-law.

“Oh, how wonderful! You must have a lot you want to accomplish in life,” Mrs. Kim says. God, you couldn’t care less about how Mrs. Kim feels about you.

“Yes, definitely,” you say awkwardly. 

“We really must be going, Mrs. Kim. My parents will want me to make sure I do my rounds,” Chaewon says, a hand on your arm as she makes to get you both the fuck out of there. 

“Of course, of course,” Mrs. Kim concedes, sending you and Chaewon one final goodbye before moving on to find her next victim. 

When she leaves, Chaewon seems to let out the biggest exhale of her life. “Holy fucking shit, I thought she’d never leave,” she exclaims, grabbing a flute of champagne and downing it in a single go. “She’s an associate of my father’s, so she’s always trying to kiss my damn ass. Like, sorry that you need to brown-nose your boss and his daughter just so you bribe your idiot son’s way into college.”

“You like mingling, I take?” You joke. 

“Just murder me.”

“Have any tips?”

“Flex as hard as possible without actually flexing. Try to speak to people your age because they are usually more bearable than people older than you. The best conversationalists are anybody under the age of ten,” Chaewon tells you. She picks up another glass of Prosecco. “Want some champagne?” 

“You have it,” you tell her. “I think you need it more than I do.”

Chaewon shrugs. Not as if they’re running out any time soon. She gulps it down and places it on the tray of one of the caterers as they whiz by her. 

The rest of the night passes by in the same way the beginning of it did. Chaewon drags you around the penthouse, talking with her father’s business partners and associates and their sons and daughters and husbands and wives for no more than two minutes each before moving on. She’s got her technique down pat. Greet, compliment, shade, flex, compliment, say goodbye. It’s foolproof, because you immediately notice that everyone else in the room has adopted the same approach. 

Business gatherings like these are just one big game of who can be the most-liked and the least-liked at the same time. And the answer: everybody, all at once. 

Halfway through the evening, Chaewon collapses against the back wall, totally unafraid of the possibility of the glass giving out behind her. She doesn’t care. If it breaks, it breaks. 

“Tired?”

“I just need a break,” Chaewon declares. “Because everyone in here is so fucking fake, and you’re the only one I can talk to without wanting to rip out my eardrums.”

“I’m honored,” you say sarcastically. 

“When I say you’re the only honest one here, I mean it,” Chaewon says. You lean back against the wall next to her, looking out into a sea of people in fancy clothes with fancy food and fancy friends. “Look at all these people, Y/N. All these fucking people, and you’re the only one who’s true.”

And then, you spot him. 

He’s far away, standing in a group of people you don’t recognize, a hand on the small of another girl’s back. He’s wearing a navy blue suit, tight-fitting and tailored, a silver watch sparkling on his wrist as he adjusts his sleeves. One of the other young men in the group says something funny, and he tilts his head back to laugh, chuckling as the girl beside him curls into his arms. 

You suppose it would have been ignorant of you to assume Jungkook was elsewhere on a night like this, at a gathering where everybody who knows anybody is here. 

Jungkook must not know you’re here. He mustn't, otherwise he would have come over to find you. You must have entered at different times, spent the night wandering around different parts of the penthouse. Clinging onto Chaewon’s arms, you must have avoided his gaze, and he, yours. 

Chaewon hasn’t spotted him either. Maybe it’s better this way. Maybe it’s better, if you’re the only one stuck with the knowledge that he’s here tonight. Chaewon would pity you. Other people would ask you how you knew such a worldly, experienced man like him. And you would spend the night wallowing in sadness, wondering why it’s never you that gets to spend the night next to him. 

From this distance, you can see Jungkook perfectly. The light from the moon shines down on him like a goddamn spotlight, catching the sparkling on his wrist, leaving a silver gleam in his slicked back hair. You watch as he laughs, smiles, talks, grins and beams and socializes. Of course he’s here. Of course. He’s so good at this, so good at being real and genuine and happy. 

Chaewon says the only person in the room who is true is you, but how can that be? How can that be when Jungkook, the most honest, wonderful, real person you know, is standing in front of you? You aren’t honest. You aren’t true and real and whole. You stand on the sidelines, a wallflower in a room of daisies and roses, and pine from afar. Watch as he pretends to date a girl that’s not you, wraps his arm around her waist and kisses her cheek, and you act like everything is alright. 

It sucks, being trapped like this for fear of him seeing you. You know that would be worse—if he saw you standing alone and decided to take matters into his own hands. Seeing him up close in a penthouse like this, a movie set, shimmering and sparkling, it would be worse. Jungkook pulls the girl beside him in close to his side, smiling as he listens to someone else speak. She’s the perfect height in those heels, just tall enough to rest her head in the crook between his neck and his shoulder. You imagine them walking into the room together, hand in hand. Imagine them posing for the pictures like a real couple, a pair of celebrities. 

You suppose you have no reason to be jealous of her, of him, of what they have. Jealousy is when resenting someone for having something that you once had. You never had a life like that with Jungkook. You’ll never have a life like that with him. Never get dressed up to go out, never get to be his date to an event. Never get pictures taken of you as a couple, never feed each other candies and strawberries dipped in chocolate. You can’t be jealous of her. You were never in the running to begin with. 

“Ready to get back out there?” Chaewon asks, placing a firm hand on your shoulder. 

A waiter comes by with a tray of champagne flutes, offering it to the both of you. 

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Chaewon tells you as she takes a glass for herself. 

You sigh, casting another glance over at Jungkook. He and his date are moving around now, joining another social circle on the opposite side of the penthouse. He looks so at ease, so comfortable. He belongs there, in the middle of it all, talking and laughing and grinning. And you? You belong back at home, underneath your duvet covers playing a game of Mario Kart. Not here. 

You shake your head. You could use a drink or two in this state. “I’d love one, actually. Thank you.”

That night, you stay at Chaewon’s place. 

“You’ve been acting weird.”

“Hello to you, as well,” you say with a scowl as Chaewon sits down across from you at the local ramen place. 

“Listen,” Chaewon begins, “I’ve been thinking. You need to confess to Jungkook.”

You nearly spit out the complimentary water you were served. “Excuse me?”

“You need to. You’ve been acting weird and that’s the only thing that’s going to fix it,” Chaewon declares. 

“What do you mean I’ve been ‘acting weird’? Care to explain?” You ask, offended. You haven’t been acting weird. Well, that weird. Maybe a little weird.

“Jungkook told me you haven’t seen each other for the last eight days,” Chaewon points out. Eight days? It’s more like seven and a half. Not that you’ve been counting, or anything. 

“So? We’re busy people,” you defend. It’s a good enough excuse. You’re sophomores in college. You have classes. Clubs. You have to meal prep. 

“So? You guys are best friends. You make time to see each other at three in the fucking morning if you haven’t seen each other yet that day. And you haven’t seen each other for eight whole days? What’s wrong with you?” Chaewon demands. 

“Nothing! What the heck, I invite you out to a best friend ramen date and you just blaspheme all over me like this?” You accuse. This is not how you imagined today to be going. This isn’t how you imagined this week to be going. “Besides, it’s only been seven and a half days. He’s over-exaggerating.”

“Seven and a—holy fuck, you are literally the worst. Can you just stop resisting? If you tell him, everything will be fine and go back to the way things were,” Chaewon says, blinking, flabbergasted. 

“No, they will not,” you hiss. “Everything will change if I tell him. We’re best friends, Chae. Imagine if I told you that I loved you. What would you do?”

“I’d love you back, that’s what!” Chaewon tells you. “You deserve to be loved back, Y/N. Nothing would change between us. I already love you. You’re one of my most favorite people ever. I would never regret something if it was with you.”

“It’s different with him, though,” you try to explain. You don’t know why—you just know that it is. The way you’re friends with Chaewon and the way you’re friends with Jungkook are entirely separate. You love Chaewon. You’re not in love with Chaewon. 

“Is it? How?” Chaewon says. 

“I don’t know, I just—it’s different with him.” There’s no way to describe it. Jungkook appeared in your life and it was as if everything just clicked into place. There isn’t a single thing in your life that makes more sense to you than Jungkook. “It’s always been different with him. With you, I—I knew that we would become really close friends once we started talking a lot more in the beginning of freshman year. But with him—I don’t know. From the moment I met him, I knew that I would fall in love with him. When he said hello to me, I was fucked. There’s never been any hope for me, Chae. I just have to live like this forever.”

Chaewon rolls her eyes. “No, you don’t. You don’t even see what the fuck is right in front of you.”

“You?”

“God, I’m friends with idiots. Literal idiots. How you guys have made it through nearly a year and a half of college is beyond me,” Chaewon says to nobody in particular. “Seriously, tell me, Y/N. What do you think will happen if you tell him? Just out of curiosity.”

“I don’t know—” you pause. A lot of things. He tells you he just wants to stay friends. He rejects you because he’s not interested that way and you can’t really be friends anymore because it’s weird now. He’s already interested in somebody else. He’s already dating somebody else and you never even knew. He’s not looking for a relationship right now. Things get awkward because you confessed to your best friend that you’re in love with him and he doesn’t feel the same. You end up never speaking to each other. You never see each other. You go through the rest of university seeing each other on the Green by chance and not knowing what to do. You graduate and move on with your lives. And suddenly, he’s just a past friend you used to have. No longer a part of your life. No longer given the chance to. “He rejects me. We never speak again and have to avoid each other at all costs. He lets me down easy and I feel like a total loser for having confessed in the first place. There’s a lot.”

“Jesus, Y/N. Aren’t you forgetting a possibility?” Chaewon says, eyebrows raised high. 

“I’m omitting a lot of them,” you tell her. Including the one where, in the next three years, you end up in a hellish dystopian wasteland and you have to band together to survive but it’s awkward and terrible because you love him still and he doesn’t feel the same, never has and never will, and now you have to fight off zombies and a corrupt autocratic government all while dealing with your own goddamn feelings. That may be the most unbearable one of them all. 

“How about the one where he actually feels the same?”

“Too unrealistic,” you tell Chaewon. It’s the truth. Why else would Jungkook be traipsing around with beautiful, rich, worldly girls on his nights off? He does it for the money, sure, but he likes it. He loves the experience, loves living that sort of life. You’d never be able to provide that for him. “You know that’s never going to happen, Chae. We’re just friends.”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, he thinks that we’re just friends. And I’m not gonna fuck everything up by telling him that I’ve been madly in love with him for the past year and a half.” You can think of nothing worse. 

“Have you ever considered the fact that maybe he thinks that the two of you are just friends because you refuse to actually show him how you feel?” Chaewon asks pointedly, eyebrows raised in disapproval. She looks about ready to walk out of the restaurant. “You never do things to give him a reason to think otherwise.”

“Why would I?” 

When your ramen arrives, Chaewon takes a deep breath, downs the rest of her glass of water, and moves on. It’s clear that if she thinks about this any more, her head will explode. 

Nothing’s ever going to change between you and Jungkook. You knew, when you first met him, that it was always going to hurt like this. That loving him was something you had to sacrifice to stay close to him. He lights up every fucking room he walks into, and it’s all you can do not to sit there and bask in his warmth. You would rather catch a single one of his rays than be in the darkness. And if being friends with him means that friends is all you’ll ever be, then so be it. You’re lucky to have him like this. Why take the plunge? 

“Just—” Chaewon says as you begin to pull apart the noodles in your own bowl. “I know that you aren’t as happy as you could be right now. And you deserve to be happy, Y/N. You deprive yourself of all of these wonderful things, and I just want you to know that you deserve every single one of them. But telling him? That’s something that even I know would make you the happiest. You shouldn’t live like this, Y/N. You have no idea what you’re missing out on if you do.”

The streak of not seeing Jungkook ends the next day, when you come back from an evening grocery store run to find him standing outside your door, hand about to knock on the wood. He’s all dressed up again, button-down and slacks, hair styled and parted, and you watch as he takes a deep breath, almost as if he’s waiting for the best time to knock. 

“Jungkook?”

He practically jumps out of his skin at the sound of your voice, nearly tripping over his own feet as he lays his eyes on you. 

“Oh, Y/N!” He exclaims. “I was just about to see if you were home.”

“You could have just texted, you know,” you say jokingly, joining him at the front door as you fumble for your keys. 

“I wanted to surprise you,” Jungkook admits sheepishly. 

“Well, make it up to me by helping me unpack these,” you demand, kicking the door open as you reach down to grab your reusable canvas bags filled with groceries. Immediately, Jungkook is leaning down to grab all of them for you, hauling them inside like they weigh nothing. You stare as he heads over to your kitchen without breaking a sweat, biceps clenching as he lifts the groceries up onto the counter. 

“What’d you get?” Jungkook asks, slowly beginning to take out the groceries. He’s in your apartment so often that he’s memorized where all of your food goes, from the correct shelf in the fridge for produce to the proper cabinet for cereal. 

“Just like… groceries. I saw a box of peppermint chocolate bars that I thought you might like, they’re in there somewhere,” you say mindlessly, pointing to a random canvas bag. Immediately, Jungkook abandons his putting-away-groceries duty to fish through each of the bags, hunting for the box of goodies. “And I got some cheap Trader Joe’s wine. You know. Just for emergencies.”

“Trader Joe’s wine and peppermint chocolate bars,” Jungkook comments, nodding in approval. He finally finds the box and tears it open sideways. “Sounds like a perfect dessert if I’ve ever heard one.”

“What, did you eat already?” You ask, busting out the wine and a couple of mugs, because you don’t own any wine glasses. Nothing says cultured like drinking seven-dollar wine out of mugs with kitschy sayings like “don’t talk to me until this is empty” or “coffee is my first love” written on them. 

Jungkook shrugs. He grabs the box and heads over to your couch, already kicking back and relaxing. “Yeah, I went to some restaurant for another double date,” Jungkook says. “It was one of those places where everything is so expensive but the portions are the size of my fist. Of your fist.”

“You sound hungry,” you note, filling up the mugs and joining him. “And mad.”

“I’m getting reimbursed for the money I spent tonight, so I suppose I could be angrier. But I’m starving. Let’s finish this entire box of chocolates and do nothing else.”

“Your words, not mine,” you say, although his proposal sounds more than appealing to you. 

You turn the television on for some background noise, switching to a channel showing old reruns of unsolved serial killer cases, because nothing sets the mood better than the words “then, slowly, he took the knife with which he killed her and began to slice away at her body”. Jungkook doesn’t seem to pay the television any attention, though, instead focused entirely on the chocolate in front of him, calling his name. 

He takes an enormous bite out of one before moaning far too sexually for your liking, tossing his head back in bliss. “Oh my God.”

“Good?”

Jungkook moans again in response.

“Please don’t orgasm on this couch. Who knows what other bodily fluids were on here before we bought it,” you ask calmly. 

“I’d say that’s nasty, but you guys did cover this with one of those couch covers, so it’s not like my body is coming into contact with other people’s body stains,” Jungkook reasons. The couch cover is the single best purchase you’ve made this entire year. Possibly your entire life. “But they’re delicious. You made a good purchase.”

“I thought you would like them,” you say. “You’re the only person I know who actually likes the combination of mint and chocolate.”

“People who say that it tastes like toothpaste are brushing their teeth with the wrong kind of toothpaste,” he tells you pointedly. “I don’t understand. This is God’s combination. It’s perfect.”

“As long as you love it, that’s all that matters,” you tell him with a pat on his back, breaking off a square of the chocolate bar for yourself. It is pretty good, even if mint chocolate ice cream does sometimes taste like toothpaste. But you’d never tell Jungkook that, of course. 

Jungkook takes a swig of the wine, picking up the mug and gulping down about half of it, the wine bitter on his tongue. “Goes great with this wine, too,” he jokes. You take a sip yourself. It’s… not very good. Actually, rather sticky. No wonder it was only seven dollars. 

“You don’t have to lie to me, I know it tastes like ass,” you tell him honestly. To be fair, you and Jungkook have both had worse. Compared to the shit served at frat parties, this may as well be beautifully-aged Malbec. 

“It only tastes a little bit like ass,” Jungkook compromises. “But it doesn’t not taste like ass.”

“Let’s finish it now so we don’t have to have any more of it later,” you decide. “You’ve probably had some of the best alcohol in your life this semester.”

Jungkook thinks back, tilting his head to the side as he begins to recall all of the instances in the past few months when he’s had anything to drink. “Soju’s still my favorite. But yeah, I’d say I’ve had wine that probably costs more than my textbooks for this semester if I hadn’t pirated them all.”

“The beauty of being a CS student,” you muse. 

“You know it,” he says, holding his half-empty mug out as a toast to himself. “But seriously, even if this Trader Joe’s wine literally tasted like garbage, it would still be better than all of that other shit.”

You turn to him, skeptical. Even the single night you spent with Chaewon, in a penthouse amongst the stars, drinking champagne and eating strawberries dipped in chocolate, was more than you could ever dream of. You woke up the next day on an air mattress in her bedroom and wanted nothing more than to go back to basking in the luxury, desperate for another taste. It was addicting. How could Jungkook ever prefer what he has right now to what he had last night? 

“Really? Don’t say that just to make me feel better,” you tell him. You can take it. Jungkook has every reason to prefer the fancy meals, the penthouses, the suits and ties to your janky little apartment and old clothes from high school. The two aren’t at all on the same level. They’re not even in the same goddamn game. If you could drop everything to have what Chaewon has, what the other girls and boys who pay for Jungkook’s company have, you would. 

“I’m not,” Jungkook tells you seriously. “I mean it. I would rather sit in your room, hunched over your tiny Switch because you lost the HDMI cord to plug it into the television, playing Mario Kart than out there, pretending to be someone I’m not.”

“But it was fun in the beginning, wasn’t it? Getting to be rich without the moral ambiguity that comes along with being part of the upper class?” You ask. It must have been. Jungkook looked so happy when he first started doing these gigs, coming back to your apartment in a state of bliss, a little tipsy from the expensive champagne and steak. He’d knock on your door and tell you all about the night, from how older businessmen handed him their cards and offered him jobs, to the hundreds of ice cream flavors you could only ever dream of eating. Everything seemed so wonderful to him.

Jungkook shrugs, pouring himself more wine. “Yeah, I guess, but it gets so old after a while. Like, no wonder Chaewon was so desperate for me to go with her that first time. It sucks the damn life out of you. You walk around and mingle and pretend that you’re the greatest person on Earth, talking about yourself and kissing up to the other people for an entire night. Honestly, sometimes it’s worse than my CS homework. And I hate that shit.”

“Chaewon mentioned that the eggplant usually tastes like foot,” you add. Jungkook nods in agreement. 

“Yeah, it does. She warned me about it the first night and I, like a fool, tried it because I usually like eggplant. And it still tasted like foot. Never again,” Jungkook says, shivering at the mere thought of it. It’s funny, actually, because you did the exact same thing. “But the food is like, the one thing I pretty much don’t have the right to complain about. It’s delicious and usually free.”

“But I hope that you’re having fun,” you tell him honestly, because you do. When you’re sitting in your room, eating two different pints of Ben & Jerry’s, you hope that Jungkook, wherever he is, whatever he’s doing, is enjoying himself more than you are. Because he deserves it. You never want there to be a time when he’s sad, when he’s unhappy or bored. Jungkook deserves to live the happiest version of life he possibly can. “I want you to enjoy yourself.”

“I do,” Jungkook says. There’s a second half to that sentence. “I do—it’s just that… It's so fake, you know? I feel like such a goddamn actor when I’m there. I get to live this extravagant lifestyle for a few hours but in return I don’t even know who I’m looking at when I look in the mirror.”

Oh?

“Like, I pretend to be this business student, when I’m not. I pretend to have millions of dollars to my name, when I don’t. I hold hands and pose for pictures with people Chaewon is vaguely familiar with and nothing, literally nothing, feels real. I don’t know.” Jungkook takes another swig from the mug. “Even the relationships I have when I’m there are fake.”

“Do you hate it that much, then?” You ask him. If it’s so awful and terrible, then why does he keep doing it? Keep dressing up and going out, holding hands with and wrapping his arm around them?

“No,” Jungkook says, sighing as he leans back into the couch. “I don’t hate it. I just—I wish I had something real afterwards to come back home to.”

Real? Like what? Like you? You aren’t real. You sit next to your best friend and pretend that everything is fine. That nothing hurts. You’ve had the biggest crush on him ever since you laid eyes on him, and you’re doing everything in your power to make sure that he’s the only one that doesn’t know. 

“That’s why I’m always coming back to your apartment afterwards,” Jungkook says. He chuckles, but it isn’t his usual laugh. It sounds forced, contrived and fake. Jaded. He opens his mouth to say something, but closes it almost immediately. Then, he breathes, long and slow. Thinks. The silence is almost unbearable. Waiting to hear what he has to say, even more so. “You’re the most genuine person I know. What we share—it’s real.”

Tonight is the least lonely you’ve felt in a long time. 

Even though Jungkook has something tonight, you aren’t aching to be by his side, desperate to spend more time with him. He told you that he was really looking forward to this one, that it wasn’t going to be some stuffy gala or blind double date. He said something about going to karaoke with the girl and her friends, singing Britney Spears songs and taking shots of soju for hours on end, screaming his voice hoarse. And even if you aren’t there with him, you’re happy because you know that he’s happy, that he’s genuinely enjoying himself. 

So, you aren’t that lonely. 

Content with the state of your life as it is, you take the night off, ready to prepare yourself for a weekend that will almost certainly consist entirely of just work. Chaewon’s voice echoes in your mind (“I know that you aren’t as happy as you could be right now,” she had told you), but it’s different now. Because you are happy. You are happy, because Jungkook’s happy. The two of you see each other just as frequently as you used to. He texts you about his terrible CS homework and the Shiba Inu he just saw being walked across campus. It’s all gone back to the way it used to be. That’s what you had wanted. 

You were prepared for this. You knew that it would eventually boil down to this, down to whether or not you could take Jungkook not knowing how you feel any longer. But right now, you don’t care. Jungkook not knowing has always been a part of your friendship. The love you hold for him, in the spaces between your bones and deep in the cracks of your heart, that has always been there. You see it, hear it, feel it, whenever you’re with him. Even when you’re not with him, it will remind you, appear in the silence, the emptiness. It will always make itself known, because it’s become a part of you. From the moment you met him, it had settled into your heart.

Staring out of the window by your living room, overlooking the ugliest parking garage on campus, you sigh. You can’t see the stars from here, not even in the dead of night, but that’s alright. There is something so peaceful about the navy blue sky. About how mysterious and unknown it is. It calms you. You put on a movie that you’ve genuinely been wanting to watch for a while, sit down in your bed, amongst your duvet and sheets, pillows and plushies, and enjoy yourself, for once. It’s a good night. 

And then, much like most aspects of your terribly convoluted, over-complicated and confusing life, it all comes crashing down. 

There’s a faint thud from outside, a soft little non-noise that you assume is coming from the street. Not wanting to interrupt your movie—she’s just about to confess, holy shit—you ignore it. It’ll go away eventually. 

Then another thud. You pause, leaning towards your window to see if you can figure out the source. Silence. You’re just about to press play, when you hear it again. And again. It gets louder and louder, making up in volume what it lacks in rhythm and order, until you realize it’s someone knocking on your door. And not just knocking casually. It’s as if someone is shoving their whole body into it, shoulders and chest and feet hitting the wood as they bang on it. 

“Y/N?”

Oh, God.

Pushing off your duvet, you tug on your slippers and wipe away the crust around your eyes as you rush towards the door. You know who’s on the other side. You’re not sure if answering it is the better or worse option. 

You’ve always had an uncanny ability to pick the latter. 

When you open the door, Jungkook, in a fancy sweater pulled over a white button down and black jeans that could almost pass for dressy slacks, is standing on the other side. 

Correction: he’s sort of standing on the other side. He nearly topples over when you pull open the door, having clearly been leaning on it, and you barely have time to reach your arms out to catch him. 

“Oh! Y/N!” Jungkook exclaims, as if he’s surprised to see you inside your own apartment. “I was hoping to see you.”

“I figured,” you tell him, laughing. You guide him inside, and even in his state he remembers to tug off his clean white sneakers, kicking them towards the shoe rack. “It’s so late, Jungkook, you should go home.” 

“No,” Jungkook whines. “I wanted to see you. I missed you.”

“We saw each other this morning, Jungkook. And this afternoon, right before you went out,” you remind him. The words go in one ear and out the other, and he pulls you in close to him, wrapping his arms around you as he presses his body against yours in a sweaty hug. His grip is tight around you as he rests his head on your shoulder, breathing you in as if you’d been gone for years. Slowly, after a few seconds, you pull away from him, a hand on his shoulder to get him to look at you through his too-long bangs, hanging over his eyes. “Hey, what’s wrong? I’m right here, don’t worry. I never left.”

“I had a lot to drink tonight,” Jungkook tells you, blinking rapidly. “Like, a lot. They just kept ordering soju and I just kept drinking it. It was really good. Have you had strawberry soju? It’s delicious.”

“I might have had it once or twice,” you fib, not able to recall having it one way or another. “Come on, sit down,” you point him towards the couch, but he refuses, clinging onto you even as you make your way towards the kitchen. “Jungkook, please, I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

“But I missed you,” Jungkook repeats. “I missed you a lot. I thought about you the entire time I was there.”

You can’t say you didn’t do the same. 

“Next time we’ll do something together then, hey? Something really fun, like going to an arcade or bowling,” you promise him with a pat on his shoulder. “But you need to drink some water, JK. Can you please sit down?”

“No, I want to be with you,” Jungkook says like it’s nothing. Like the feeling of him wrapped around you like this, holding onto you and telling you that he misses you, that he thinks about you, doesn’t mean anything. You don’t think your heart has beaten since you opened the door to see him standing on the other side. 

(You don’t think it’s beaten since you met him. Since he came up to you on the pavement, asking you for directions. Since you told him your name, and he told you his.)

“Ah, fine, just be careful, I don’t want you to hurt yourself,” you concede, because it’s so easy to let him have his way, so easy to say yes to him. You manage to grab an empty water bottle and fill it up with what’s left in your Brita, too lazy to refill it after it’s left bone dry. Slowly, you make your way to your bedroom, out of view of the central living space, where your roommates could burst through the door at any moment and see you taking care of your drunk best friend on the sofa. 

Slowly, you settle on your bed, sitting off of the edge of it as you cajole him into drinking some water, whispering soft nothings to make sure he finishes the whole thing. 

“Does your head hurt or anything?” You ask him, already looking around for the stash of Advil you usually keep on your nightstand.

“No, no, I’m fine, Y/N, seriously,” he promises, even if you can see the glazed-over look in his eyes, the way his sweaty bangs stick to his forehead. “You’re too nice, you know? Always treating me when I show up at your place. Even when you don’t invite me.”

“You know I never mind seeing you,” you tell him. “You can come over whenever you want. I’m always here.”

“No, you’re not,” Jungkook says with a pout, and it makes you furrow your brows. When have you not been? Jungkook’s been going out to events ever since the beginning of the semester, and without fail, you’ve always been waiting for him at home, knowing he’ll turn up one way or another. Except, there was— “That one time a couple of weeks ago, I went to this crazy big gala with Eunha, there were so many people there, and I came back home afterwards and knocked on your door, and your roommates said they hadn’t seen you all day. Where were you that day?”

He had come? You didn’t know if he would. 

(Or maybe, you did. You knew he would show up at your door once he got back from that night, and selfishly, not wanting to see him after the fact, the leftover version of him, the part he leaves behind when he goes out. You knew he would be there and you couldn’t bear the thought of being the second girl he spends the night with. The other option. Maybe, you’ve known all along that you’ll never quite stack up to the girls he goes out with, and that sometimes, when you see him all dressed up while you’re in your hoodie and sweats, it reminds you is nothing more than a casual friendship.)

“I must have been out late with Chaewon that day, I’m sorry,” you apologize, letting him rest his head on your shoulder. “I didn’t know you would come.”

“I always come after my events. You know that.”

“I didn’t know if you’d remember to,” you correct. 

“I’d never forget about you,” Jungkook says, the alcohol erasing his filter. Making him honest. “I really missed you, that day. I had been waiting the entire night to see you.”

“I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again,” you promise, and this one is for real. 

“You know, today?” Jungkook says, pulling his head back so he can get a good look at you, your eyes meeting his own. “Today, I was so sad on my way here. It was so terrible, because I was drunk and sad and I missed you.”

“You were sad? What happened?” You ask, leaning in. Jungkook? Sad? Who would do such a thing to him? Who would erase the smile on his face, his crescent eyes, and replace them with tears? 

“This girl and I, she was a lot of fun. We sang a couple duets together and we were pretty good,” he hiccups, “kept winning. It was fun. She and I talked for a long time. I definitely liked her the most out of all of the girls I’ve gone out with. Besides Chaewon, of course.”

“What happened? Did she do something you didn’t want? You know you can tell me, Jungkook,” you ask, a hand on his arm. 

“No.” Jungkook shakes his head. “I don’t know. She was fun and I was drunk. We were on our way back in the Lyft when she leaned over and kissed me. And I kissed her back, and it was kind of nice. I haven’t really kissed someone like that in a while,” Jungkook tells you. And even though you’re hearing these words from him, hearing how he had all of this fun with a girl who isn’t you, how he kissed her in the backseat of a car, you rally, blinking away the tears you can feel forming in your eyes. It’s none of your business, you tell yourself. You and Jungkook aren’t together. You don’t get to feel bad about him kissing someone else. 

“Did you like it?” You ask, each word a pin in your chest. 

“It was pretty nice,” Jungkook admits. “We, uh, we made out a bit in the back of the car until we got to her place. And then we got out of the car and she asked me if I wanted to go back with her, to her room. And—and I almost said yes.” Jungkook looks about ready to combust. At his side, his fists are clenched so hard you’re worried he’ll pop a vein. 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” you tell him, looking him in the eyes so he knows that you don’t mind, that he can tell you these things without worry. Jungkook may be the love of your life, but he’s your best friend, first. He’s always been, before anything else, your best friend. 

“But there is!” Jungkook cries, standing up in anguish. “There is, Y/N, you don’t understand! I almost had sex with her!”

“You’re allowed to, Jungkook!” You assure him, standing up to reach out to him. 

“No, Y/N, you don’t get it,” he tells you coldly, pulling his hand away. “Why aren’t you mad? Aren’t you angry that I nearly had sex with her?”

“No, what the fuck, Jungkook, why would I be mad?” You shout back at him. “You can do whatever you want with your body, it’s not my job to police it! I’m your friend, not your mom!”

“But don’t you want to be more, Y/N?” He rounds on you. “Don’t you want to be the one kissing me, fucking me? Why aren’t you jealous?”

“Were you trying to make me jealous, Jungkook? Is that what you were trying to do? You wanted to get a reaction out of me because my best friend nearly fucked someone else and then didn’t? What the fuck, Jungkook? What do you want from me?”

“I just want you to tell me you fucking love me back!”

“Jungkook, what—”

Jungkook, eyes dark and furious, pushes you against your closet door as your lips part, feeling the breath get knocked out of your lungs. He’s so close. He’s right there, you can see him, watch as he looms over you, hands clenched in your hoodie as he presses you against the wall. And then, wordlessly, he’s leaning down, crashing your mouths together. 

Suddenly, your heart starts. You gasp into the kiss, the feeling of his mouth on top of yours. It’s fervent, hot and angry and passionate, his body against your own as your hands reach out to press against his head. You seize up at the feeling, almost as if in shock, before melting into his touch, leaning into him, desperate. You can feel his breath mixing in with your own, feel the way his chapped lips meet your overly-moisturized ones, feel how his hands drift from where they’re bunched up in the front of your hoodie to your waist, your hips, your thighs. Jungkook kisses ruthlessly, kisses like he’s trying to prove a point. Holds onto you like he’s afraid to let go. 

When you part, gasping for air, Jungkook runs a hand through his hair, blinking. 

“Jungkook, you’re drunk—” you tell him firmly, refusing to let get your hopes up if what you have in front of you is really just an intoxicated best friend. Your heart is beating miles a minute, about ready to thump right out of you, chest heaving and mouth agape. 

“That doesn’t matter,” Jungkook argues back. “Even when I’m sober I love you. Don’t tell me I’m confused because I’m drunk.”

“You show up at my place at one in the morning, tell me about how you made out with some other girl and almost slept with her just to get me angry, kiss me, and tell me not to tell you you’re confused?” You demand. “Jungkook, I’ve never been more confused in my life than right now, can you please just—”

“I love you, Y/N,” Jungkook says, and even though he’s angry, red in the face and sweaty, when he says it, it’s soft. It’s a whisper, a murmur. He says it not to convince you, but so you know. “I’ve been in love with you for so goddamn long, ever since I fucking met you. And I thought you might like me back but you never did anything about it, and so neither did I.”

“You need to go home, Jungkook,” you tell him, hiccuping. When you blink, you feel the warm tears streaming down your face. You hadn’t even noticed them. “You can’t just come into my apartment and tell me shit like that. How do you think it makes me feel?”

“Do you feel the same, Y/N?” Jungkook asks, looking you in the eyes. He’s angry, that’s for sure, but even underneath, you can see the desperation, see how he’s just waiting for an answer. 

“Go home, Jungkook. Please. Let’s talk about this when you aren’t drunk, okay? I’m confused and I need to clear my head,” you plead, pushing him towards the door. “Please, okay? Be safe, too. I’ll call Chaewon to give you a ride,” you tell him, grabbing your phone. 

Jungkook puts a hand on your wrist. “I’ll be okay, Y/N. I just… Please, tell me. Did that kiss mean anything to you?”

“Yes, it did, but Jungkook, I can’t—”

“It meant something to me, too,” he tells you firmly, lets the words sink into the air around you.  He heads for the door, pulling on his shoes. He looks so sad. “Good night, Y/N.”

You place a hand on the doorknob. “Good night, Jungkook.”

It’s barely nine in the morning the next day when a knock wakes you up. It’s soft at first, one every couple of seconds, before it gets progressively louder. Slowly, you get out of bed, trying to tame your hair as you rub the sleep from your eyes. 

“Y/N’s in her room. Is that for her? That’s so cute. Yeah, she’s probably awake. You can just knock.” It’s your roommate. 

You scramble to make your bed, pouring some water from the water bottle by your nightstand into your hand and splashing your face, wiping it away with an old t-shirt as you run towards the door, pulling it open just in time. 

On the other side is a much more tired, much less drunk Jungkook, one hand raised and about to knock, the other holding a bouquet of daisies. 

“Hey,” he says shyly, mouth breaking into a smile the moment he sees you. 

“Hey,” you say back. “Are you feeling better?”

“Yeah, head hurts like hell, though,” Jungkook says. “Can I come in?”

“Oh, yeah, s-sure, of course,” you say, stepping aside to let him into your bedroom. 

“These are for you.” Jungkook holds out the bouquet towards you, wrapped up neatly in cellophane and tied at the stems with a bow. “So you don’t have to keep Febreze-ing your room all of the time.”

“They’re beautiful, Jungkook,” you tell him, grinning as you take them from his hands. Today feels different from yesterday. It feels lighter, fresher. New. “I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

“I—” He pauses, taking a second to think, “I meant what I said, yesterday. Maybe not all of it, but. Most of it, yeah. I meant it.”

“Why did you try to make me jealous, Jungkook?” You ask him. “Why did you think that would work?”

“I don’t know,” Jungkook admits. “I shouldn’t have, and I fucked up. I just got so… so tired of waiting to see if you’d ever come around. I just wanted you to tell me. And then I guess I got so fed up that I told you instead.”

You place the bouquet on your dresser before walking towards him, reaching a hand out. “Yeah, that was a pretty big asshole move of you,” you chide, grinning to yourself. 

“I know, I’m sorry.” He sighs. 

“But I’m happy you’re here,” you tell him. “And happy that you meant what you said. Maybe it could have been said in a less angry way, but hearing it made me happy.”

“I’m happy that you’re happy.” Jungkook grins. “You’re my favorite person, Y/N.”

“When you asked me, yesterday, if that kiss meant anything to me? And I said it did?” You begin, Jungkook nodding in front of you. He’s positively beaming. “It still does. I want to do that every day, Jungkook. Every hour. Every single second for the rest of my goddamn life.”

“You do?” Jungkook asks. 

“I love you, Jeon Jungkook. From day one, it’s always been you.” You smile, and it feels like a weight has been lifted off of your shoulders. Feels like you’re fucking flying. Like you’re weightless. 

“I love you, too, Y/N. I never want to be away from your side,” he declares, and like a cheesy, rom-com movie, like the shitty novels you used to read in eighth grade, he pulls you in close and presses a kiss against your lips. Wraps his arms around your waist as he holds you tight, kisses you in the middle of your bedroom, in your hoodie and sweatpants, a bouquet of daisies on your dresser. He kisses you because he can, because for every second of every day for the rest of your goddamn life, he can kiss you, over and over and over. 

“We owe Chaewon an apology,” you tell him when you’re parted, sitting on your bed, wrapped up in each other’s arms. 

“Hell yeah we do,” Jungkook agrees. “She’s been on my ass for ages about telling you.”

“Mine too.”

“She’s such a great best friend,” Jungkook comments. “Knew all this time that her two friends were madly in love with each other and didn’t say a damn word to either of us. That’s loyalty.”

“We should do something for her, to make up for it all,” you suggest. 

“You know,” Jungkook says, grinning, “I know this guy who made bank this semester by going on fake dates with a bunch of really rich girls. Maybe he could help.”

“I know him, too,” you joke. “He’s the love of my fucking life.”

Jeon Jungkook quits his job on the ninety-eighth day of the fall semester of his sophomore year.

You know this because on the ninety-eighth day of the fall semester of your sophomore year, he comes banging on the door of your apartment shared with three other girls at 7:18PM, eighteen minutes after he normally heads out on one of his many dates. 

“Y/N!” He shouts, banging wildly on your door. You rush over to open it, letting the pasta water on the stove boil over and sizzle on the heat. He’s barely gotten in a second knock when you turn the doorknob to reveal your smiling boyfriend in his oversized hoodie.

“Don’t tell me you’re blowing someone off for me,” you say, inviting him inside. He places a kiss on your cheek on the way in, taking off his shoes and coat as you rush over to take care of the pasta.

“Me? Blowing someone off? Never,” Jungkook says, mock offended. “I actually quit the dating thing, this afternoon. A girl asked if I was free and I said that I wasn’t, because I have to go home to my girlfriend making me a meal. Don’t you love the sound of that?” He asks, pleased with himself.

“You quit? I thought you liked doing that stuff,” you say, using the spaghetti fork to move around the linguine. “Hope you’re cool with boring old pasta for your meal tonight. You could have had caviar if you hadn’t quit.”

“I don’t care, it smells so good,” Jungkook tells you, wrapping his arms around your waist as he stands behind you, watching you cook from over your shoulder. “Look at you, being all domestic and shit. It’s very cute.”

“Stop rubbing in the fact that you’re the better cook, I get it. Pasta is all I got right now.” You pout, turning down the heat as you move to pour yourselves two cups of tea. Jungkook follows you the entire way to the kettle, grip on your waist never faltering. “You can keep going on those dates, you know. I don’t mind. I get to see you in a suit when you get back, and then I get to take it off of you. It’s a win-win.”

Jungkook pinches your waist in response. “If you have a thing for suits, you can just tell me, you know. I won’t be mad.”

You turn around to whack him with the spaghetti fork. “I do not!”

“Alright, Y/N, guess I won’t wear a suit next time you call me at two in the morning—”

“I never said you couldn’t,” you interrupt, making Jungkook laugh. 

“You’re so cute, Y/N,” Jungkook coos as you begin to dish up the pasta, making sure to add peas because Jungkook loves peas with his spaghetti. “But I quit because I have enough money to sustain me for the rest of the semester. I’ll work over break and get a new job next semester when the new work-study positions open. Don’t worry about me,” he assures you. 

“But didn’t you like going out and everything? Getting dressed up and drinking fancy champagne?” You ask, setting the plates down at your dinky kitchen table, a single scented candle lit in the center. 

Jungkook thinks about it for a split second, and then he shakes his head. “Nah. I like hanging out with my girlfriend more.”

“Well, when you put it like that…” you reason with a grin. 

Jungkook laughs, leaning over the table to plop a kiss on your lips. “I love you, Y/N.”

“Yeah, you pea-eating loser,” you chide, “I love you too.”

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#jungkook fluff #jungkook angst #bts fluff #bts angst #bts scenario #jungkook scenario #bts imagine #jungkook imagine #bts au #jungkook au #w: if i told you #god this fic.... i cant believe i wrote this.... how did i do it

[sinner-as-saint]

Power Over Me - 3.

Bucky Barnes x Reader AU

Previous Parts.

Run-through: CEO James Buchanan Barnes is a dominant. And he’s spent the last 5 years searching for his perfect submissive. Then one night, he finds you. He thinks everything will fall perfectly into place now; but he thought wrong. Turns out your unfortunate past which still haunts you to this day, and some of his enemies are, well, connected. Things go wrong. And your bond with your dom is tested in many ways…

Themes throughout the series: dom/sub dynamic, smut, dirty talk, angst, fluff, soft dom!bucky

Bucky held your hand in his and asked you to follow him upstairs. To his study room.

He very rarely used it, but while you and him made your way up – he had found a use for it instantly.

You looked around, and needless to say, this room was just as orderly and aesthetically pleasing as the rest of his house. The color theme of this room was mainly black and brown, with wooden accents all over. Shelves filled with books, comfortable couches, his large desk, reading lamps, and file cabinets. There were a few plants in the corners of the room, and they looked in perfect shape. The room was light and airy, the large windows showed part of the lush front yard.

You concluded that you liked the room a lot. The room gave a very formal, serious vibe, and you didn’t mind it. It was very fitting for a man like Mr. Barnes.

Bucky spoke up.

“Y/N?” he called out to get your attention, even though you were standing just a feet or two away from him. Him calling you by your name instead of the sweet nicknames caught your attention immediately. You turned to face him.

He approached you and took both your hands in his, his thumb caressed your knuckles as he spoke. “I want this room to be an area that you and I use for serious discussions. You’re free to talk here, and you are not required to call me ‘Sir’, you may call me by my name. James or Bucky, whichever you prefer.” He spoke, and you nodded.

He smiled and looked down at your hands in his. “In this room, we’re not just dom and sub. We’ll need to be open, and honest to each other. Okay?” he needed to make sure you understood.

“Yes.” you answered, smiling faintly.

“Good.” He said and stared into your eyes. You could still see remnants of his dominant side, even if he was trying to tone it down. Control was his forte, so you weren’t entirely surprised. “Let’s take a seat, and we’ll talk.” He walked over to his large desk. And he waited.

He didn’t order you to sit. He didn’t point to any chair in particular, he just waited. You walked over and sat across him. He sat down as well. He noticed your head wasn’t hung low, you faced him properly. He liked it.

“Remember, Y/N, open and honest.” He reminded you, softly. He took a deep breath, “Now tell me what you learned during your training with Thor.” He leaned back in his leather seat. And you mindlessly mimicked his actions, and straightened your back.

You responded after a short pause. “I was taught that masters know best. And that as a sub, I should always, always take whatever they give, without ever interjecting. And I was taught that I should be grateful for whatever attention I get. For that, I had to abide by his set of rules, do my chores and everything else.” You ended your sentence abruptly.

Bucky frowned. “What’s everything else?” he asked. He knew he wasn’t going to like the answer to this but he had to hear it once and for all.

You had nothing to hide, not from him. “Please him, sexually. Else I was said to be ungrateful and undeserving of his attention. Sometimes we would go days and weeks without playtime, because he said he was dissatisfied with my... performance.” You replied.

Bucky noticed the change in your tone. You weren’t scared or nervous, you sounded like you were getting something off your chest. You sounded like the more you talked, the more you felt free.

You did indeed.

Bucky shifted in his seat. He knew this was hard for you to talk about, but it was hard for him too. He wanted nothing more than to just punch that excuse of a man in the face. “Did you wear his collar?”

“Yes.” you responded and he felt a weight on his chest. He hated that answer the most.

“For how long?” he braced himself.

“Two years.” You replied.

Bucky nodded. “What else can you tell me about your time with him, and his training?” he asked. This conversation was uncomfortable, but it needed to be had.

You sighed, looking down at your lap with a strange look on your face. You pitied yourself. “He was intense. He didn’t believe in safe words, or limits, or dos and don’ts.” That pretty much summed up the kind of dom Thor was.

“What if you didn’t like, or didn’t want something?” he asked right away. His anger was building again.

You had the same sad smile on your face as you thought about everything. “I wasn’t allowed to not like something. He trained me into thinking I had no say in anything.” You looked up and faced him. Bucky had never felt a bigger need to protect you like he did now. “And, I couldn’t leave him because…” you trailed off.

He pieced it together. “Because you needed a dom.” He completed your sentence.

You nodded. “Amongst other reasons, yes. That too.” You spoke, he frowned.

Other reasons? “What other reasons?” he questioned, bracing himself again. Fearing that he might hear something he hasn’t been expecting.

You looked down again. “He wasn’t just my master. He owned me, quite literally.” You said. Bucky waited for you to continue – a strange emotion picking at him on the inside. You continued, “He didn’t choose me at the line-up, we didn’t mutually agree on it beforehand, he just gave the club money in exchange for me.” You paused. “He bought me.”

Fuck. Bucky swallowed audibly. You looked up at him, but didn’t think much of it. He didn’t say anything, he was too busy feeling terrible at the sad look on your face.

You spoke again, “Then he got bored.” That sad smile was back again. Bucky felt like someone was very slowly piercing a dagger into his heart, making sure he feels the pain for as long as possible. You continued, “He brought me back to the club, and took his collar away.”

Bucky cringed at your words, almost like he had been slapped across the face. Oh baby… he still remained quiet.

“He forced the club to give him a huge chunk of his money back. They did. But then I had to work for the club, to somewhat make up for it and pay back the money they had to return him. I cleaned before opening and after closing time. They did pay me, but they would take most of my salary away each time.” You didn’t look up at him when you finished talking.

Oh, so that’s what you meant when you said you worked for the club? Bucky thought to himself, processing all the new information you had given him. The strange emotion from earlier still gnawed at him. I’m sorry my angel…

He cleared his throat, attempting to ignore the lump which was forming. “Thank you for telling me. I highly appreciate you being honest with me. I know this was a hard conversation to have, but I’m glad you trusted and confided in me.” He spoke softly.

You looked up at him and smiled faintly. “Thank you for not treating me like a burden, or a commodity like Thor did.” You meant what you said.

Bucky smiled, even though guilt, shame and worry washed over him like a harsh wave. He also noticed that you finally called Thor by his name. Guess this conversation had served its purpose after all. “You’re a priority of mine, Y/N. I will never take you for granted.”

You looked up at Bucky like he hung the moon, and for a few seconds he didn’t know how to act. He forgot where he was, he felt something; a pull. Oh…

He was getting overwhelmed by his emotions, so he changed the topic quickly. He got up from his chair and walked over to you and sat down on the seat next to you. You and him had another lengthy conversation about the real meaning of the relationship between a dom and a sub. Some of his words really moved you.

“I’m here to lift the burden of control off your shoulders whenever you need me to. I will treasure and respect your submission. Your comfort and consent is a priority. You are a priority. I will mold you into the best version of a sub that you can be.”

He continued talking, and you looked into his eyes and wondered where he had been all your life. “Your obedience, your submission, the ability to control you, your responsibility and well-being. Having all that is a big deal. I can’t have you be scared or nervous or hesitant around me. Trust and communication vital for our relationship, okay?”

He spoke looking deep into your eyes. He reached out and held your hand in his again. “Don’t you ever, ever forget that I need you as well. I need you as much as you need me. I need you to tell me things, good or bad. Everything, I need to know.”

You nodded at his words. He continued, “You need to trust me without any hesitation. And remember, even when you submit yourself completely to me, you still have the reins in your hand. You have the power, you just hand it over to me in the playroom. And you allow me to control you and be your dominant and give you what you need. But it still is your power.” He explained. His words echoed in your head. “Do you understand, Y/N?”

You nodded. He tilted his head, giving you a ‘really?’ look. You smiled, “I understand, Bucky.”

He tried not to let it show, but his heart fluttered at the sound of his name leaving your lips. He smiled at you. And the conversation went on for a longer while. You had questions, he had answers.

Then the two of you discussed your limits. What you were willing to try, and what not. Dos and don’ts. Hard nos, and maybes.

“No whips and canes?” he wanted to confirm, looking up from his list. You shook your head. Nope. Bucky scanned the list again. “Riding crop?” he asked. And you had an adorable pout on your face as you thought.

“That’s fine.” You said. He smiled and pushed the list towards you.

“Anything else?” he asked, and watched you intently as you scanned the list and did a little confirming nod at each thing you saw in the dos and don’ts.

“Nope, this is perfectly fine.” You pushed the list towards him again. “Won’t you show me your playroom?” you had a spark in your eyes as you spoke.

Bucky chuckled. “Later, I promise.” Honestly, he couldn’t wait either. But he had some work related things he needed to take care of first, then he would dedicate his entire evening to you and catering to your needs.

Bucky stood up, after putting the sheet of paper in a file. He held his hand out, he had missed holding you in the past hour or so, he couldn’t be as affectionate as he would like given the topic of your conversations were rather serious. “Come on, let’s go back downstairs.”

You took his hand and let him lead you out of the room. Once into the hallway, you spoke up again. “Thank you, sir.” You went back to his preferred title.

“What for, baby?” and he went back to his usual nicknames. He tightened his grip around your hand and you mindlessly scooted further into his side as you two walked back downstairs.

“For being so kind, and caring. For not threatening to leave me or return me to the club if I misbehave.” You voiced out your honest thoughts. Part of Bucky frowned at your words, but part of him liked the honesty.

He stopped at the end of the stairs. “Hey,” he cupped your face. “Forget Thor. Forget the club. I know it’ll take time. But you have to do your best and let what happened in past remain in the past. Okay doll?”

You nodded. “Yes, sir.”

 Once in the living room again, you blushed when you saw the couch on which you were bent over earlier. The tingly feeling came back when Bucky pulled you on his lap again, purposely sitting on the same very couch where he had spanked you earlier.

He pulled you closer as you straddled his lap. “Now tell me, what do you normally enjoy doing?” he asked, then leaned in to kiss the side of your mouth. “Apart from being a perfect little angel, of course.” he added, chuckling and kissing down your neck.

You giggled. “I’m pretty boring. I like animals, I read, I do love plants and gardening.” You replied and he pulled away to look at you with a smile.

“Good thing I have a library and a sunroom. See? You’re absolutely perfect.” He complimented you again and resumed kissed and nibbling on your neck. “Anything else?”

You nodded. “I love baking! But I couldn’t do so with my previous master because he-,”

Bucky cut you off with a rather irritated look. You immediately avoided eye contact and looked down to your lap, and his.

“Look at me.” He sounded stern again. You reluctantly looked up into his eyes. You could still see the caring Mr. Barnes, but he also seemed strict. “He is not your master anymore. You will call him by his name. I have been nothing but good and lenient to you.” he slid his hand into your hair and gently massaged your scalp. “But if you bring up that vile and cruel, disgusting, excuse of a man again, there will be consequences.” He made sure to speak slowly and allowed his words to register properly in your head.

You gave him an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, sir.”

He immediately dropped the mean demeanor and pulled you closer. “It’s okay baby, now you know.” He spoke and looked down at your lips for a brief moment. For a moment you thought he would lean in and kiss you. You almost whined when he didn’t. “And feel free to bake whenever, just be careful and don’t hurt yourself.”

You two talked for a little while, then he got a call. Something at his office needed his immediate attention so he had to leave.

“The housekeepers will be here by noon. The chefs comes at around 2. Make yourself at home, baby. I’ll see tonight for dinner.” he left to go get ready and he came downstairs in around 20 minutes.

“Be good for me. You can check out the sunroom and the library in the meantime, okay?” he kissed your forehead before leaving. You smiled as you watched him leave. Damn he looked good in suits.

-

You had checked out the library, and marveled at Bucky’s collection. You checked out the sunroom, and fell in love with it.

Then you got bored.

You were fully aware that he had told you he had people for everything, but you still told the chef to leave early because you wanted to make dinner tonight. You were willing to take the risk. Bucky had been nothing but kind and gentle and caring and giving to you. You wanted to somewhat, return the favor.

Besides, he had an irresistible kitchen. Well-furnished, all white and spacious. You looked out the window often as you cooked, and you made a mental note to check out the backyard sometime soon. It looked so lush, and well-maintained. You wondered how the trimmed grass would feel beneath your bare feet.

You were making a fairly easy dinner. Stuffed chicken breasts, tomato soup and garlic bread. The aroma let you know that it would be great. And once you finished cooking, you went upstairs and showered, put on a nice little sundress and waited for Bucky’s return impatiently.

He had asked you not to, but you still made him dinner. Would he punish you? Or was that alright? You hadn’t seen his playroom yet, but still, the thought of being brought to his playroom and have him punish you was rather exciting.

 You were in the living room, curled up on the couch with a book when you heard the front door opening and closing. You waited, your anticipation growing. Then you saw Bucky walk in; his tie was off, few buttons of his shirt was undone and he ran a hand through his short hair as he walked in.

You didn’t realize how much you had missed him these past hours, until the urgent need to run into his arms and hug him took over you. But you stopped yourself. Instead you put the book down and stood up from the couch, smiling at him.

Bucky chuckled. He could see your hands shaking from holding back from him. He knew how much you liked and needed his soft and gentle touches. He extended both his arms out in front of him, “Come here, baby.” And that was all he needed to say.

You rushed into his embrace and wrapped your arms around him tightly. You pushed your face into his neck and breathed in his cologne. You let out a little moan as your relished his touch. He ran a soothing hand down your back. You stayed like that, in each other’s arms, for quite a while.

“Looks like someone missed me?” Bucky teased. You whined. He chuckled and pulled away to look at you. He held your chin and stared down into your eyes. “Hi, baby.” he whispered.

“Hi.” You whispered back. You still seemed a little sheepish, not knowing how he’d react to you making dinner even though he told you not to. He caught it.

“What is it, angel?” he asked, leaning down to gentle kiss your cheek. He let his lips linger on your skin.

You mindlessly played with a button on his shirt while you spoke, “I know you said not to cook but I sent the chef home early and made you dinner myself. I… I wanted to do something for you, to say thank you for being so nice to me, sir.” You reluctantly looked up at him.

He seemed to be deep in thought. But he didn’t seem angry.

He cracked a little smile. “Well, since my angel made me dinner, I better check it out.” He spoke, kissing your forehead.

You were all smiley after hearing that he wasn’t mad about the whole dinner thing. You held his hand and you two walked into the kitchen together. Bucky got himself a glass of wine and waited at the island while you made him a plate.

He watched you intently. Studying your graceful movements, thinking…

 Dinner was amazing. Usually Bucky ate alone, so it was nice to have company for a change. Besides, he concluded that you were a great cook. After you two ate, you placed the dishes in the dishwasher and turned to face Bucky, thinking he’d have the same smile he had throughout dinner. But you were wrong.

He looked at you, sipping on his wine with an unfamiliar look in his eyes. Oh…

He set his glass down and got down from the stool, “Come here, baby.” he said softly, but you could tell that it was the dom in him talking. You walked over to him, by the kitchen island. You didn’t know what to expect.

He leaned in closer to you, and kissed your cheek. Then moved his mouth down and along your jaw. “Dinner was nice, angel.” He whispered against your skin. You knew a ‘but’ was coming. “But you still disobeyed me when I clearly said there was no need for you to cook.” You shivered at his words. Not in a bad way, in a damn good way. “Do you think my words aren’t meant to be taken seriously?”

“I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean t-,” you started out. He cut you off.

“No. I don’t want to hear anything, baby.” He chuckled, his voice sending tingles down your spine – tingles which ended right in between your legs. His next few words made you weak in the knees.

“I think it’s time to introduce you to my playroom, don’t you think so sweetheart?”

-

Bucky’s playroom was exhilarating. You were nervous upon entering the room, but it was a good kind of nervous which heightened all your senses. You took it all in. You did get flashbacks of the past, but then you pushed it aside. This was Bucky. Sweet, kind, caring Bucky. He would never exploit you. He would respect your limits. You were safe. You were safe with him.

The room was darker than the rest of his house. It had darker shades at the windows, it had a darker color theme; black and dark grey with accents of deep red. The walls were dark grey, the modern four-poster bed and the satin sheets on it were all black. And the couch not far from the bed was a deep red. So was the bench next to it – a whipping bench.

You started noticing the equipment around the room. You noticed the large cross on one side of the room, with cuffs on each end of it. The sight of it made you bite your lip instinctively.

You noticed the chains suspending from the ceiling, with cuffs at the ends as well. A fairly large, padded table on the other side of the room. You noticed the hangers with more equipment suspending from it; floggers – suede, leather and fur, cuffs, ropes, paddles – leather and wooden, canes, riding crops, whips, ball gags, blindfolds, plugs and vibrators. You saw something shining even in the dim lights, and you realized those were Wartenberg wheels.

A pleasant tingle danced down your spine.

“Y/N, look at me.” Bucky spoke up, and ceased your imagination which was running wild. You turned to face him. “There are rules that apply in my playroom.” He spoke, softly still and lazily running his hand through your hair. “Each time I’ll tell you to come to my playroom, I want you bare by the bed with your hair down. You understand?” he looked down into your eyes.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good girl.” He almost smiled. “Now, there will be only obedience on your part in this room. No arguing, no talking back. Disobedience will be followed by fitting consequences. You may use your safe words whenever you feel the need to.” He spoke and lazily trailed a finger down to your mouth and traced your lips. “In this room, all of you belongs to me. You will obey, and submit and most importantly, you will trust me with all you have while I correct your behavior. You understand?”

You were completely enchanted by his voice. You felt lighter. Even in the dimly lit room, his blue eyes put you in a trance. “I understand, sir.”

He smiled this time. “Good girl.” He cooed, and trailed his finger down your neck, amused by how your body reacted to his. “Now, although you meant well, you did disobey me today.” Bucky walked around you and stopped behind you. “I said there was no need for you to do chores, because I don’t want you to exert yourself. I need you to be lively in my playroom, not tired.” He pushed your hair aside and kissed your exposed shoulder. You shivered. “Just because I’m nice and lenient, doesn’t mean you get to disobey me whenever you feel like it.”

You shivered again when he bit your ear lobe, tugged on it and kissed it. “Do you understand why you need to be taught a lesson?” he asked, murmuring in your ear. His voice, his touch, his body heat… it was all too much already. How would you endure his punishment?

“I understand, sir.” You replied, closing your eyes.

“Why so?” he wanted you to say it.

“Because I didn’t listen.” You were surprised at how you weren’t afraid of him. You knew you had messed up a little. Just a little. But you weren’t trembling in fear. If anything, you awaited the punishment. His punishment.

“Good. Now I want you to get undressed and bend over the bench, and wait for me. Can you do that for me?” he whispered in your ear. You felt a tingly and hot and bothered just with his voice alone.

“Yes, sir.” You responded, almost breathless already. He gave you a little tap on the butt, and you moved forward instantly. You walked over to the dark red leather bench and stared at it while you undressed until you were completely naked. You slipped the dress off and positioned your legs properly and bent over it. You waited, just like you did this morning.

But this was different. This wasn’t in the living room, this was in his playroom. You waited, and since you couldn’t see him, you relied on your hearing to try and figure out his movements. You heard the shuffling of clothes and the unbuckling of a belt.

Then you heard him walk over to you. “I’ll be easy on you today, given you didn’t mess up too bad. But you still need to learn, don’t you?” he asked.

You agreed. “Yes, sir.” Oh fuck me already… the thought of being filled with his cock was driving you crazy with need. Your heart raced as you heard him take something off the hangers. Whips and canes were hard no’s of yours, and he pledged to respect your limits. So you calmed down a little. You were still tingling however, as you waited.

Then you felt something, soft against your butt. Something so soft it tickled. You realized it must be the fur flogger. You wiggled your butt as he pressed it further against you. You waited for the impact of the flogger, but it didn’t come. Instead, you felt a pair of lips leaving soft kisses up and down your inner thighs. Mindlessly, you spread your legs further apart and pushed your ass out. Bucky chuckled against your thighs.

“So eager,” he commented, his warm breath fanning your wet folds. He stood up and lifted the flogger up in the air, and then brought it down fairly hard on your skin. You let out a little yelp, not out of pain, but just because you weren’t expecting it.

“Are you okay, baby?” he asked, he needed to make sure before continuing.

“Yes, sir.” Your answer sounded firm.

He struck your butt with the flogger again. And again. Then waited, and let a few seconds pass. You waited as well. Then instead of the flogger, he spanked your with his hand, like earlier today only harder this time. You groaned under your breath as the tingles faded into pleasure.

Bucky alternated between the fur flogger and his hand, at some point you stopped trying to guess which one was coming next. You let him do as he pleased. Your soft groans and whimpers turned into loud whines and moans within the next few minutes. And you were dripping; your arousal and need trickling out of you and down your thighs. Bucky enjoyed the show.

“What color, baby?” he asked.

Green. Green. Green, please touch me. “Green, sir.”

Out of nowhere, he slowly slipped a finger inside of you and stroked your walls gently. You moaned wantonly, and he fingered you so slowly that it was both pleasurable and agonizing. “Look at you,” he cooed, “So pretty.” He chuckled when you tried to grind your ass against his hand. “You’re dripping all over my hand.” He commented.

You whined as he slipped his finger out of you and spanked you a few more times. “One of the first things I told you today was to listen to me when I talk. Obey, when I say something.” He brought down the flogger against your butt again. Followed by a spank which made you whimper. “But you did the exact opposite.” Spanked you right in between your legs, earning a loud moan out of you. “What do you have to say for yourself?” he waited, making sure nothing was touching you where you needed him to, so desperately.

“I’m sorry, sir.” You whined. “I’m sorry, and I won’t do it again.” You could feel him standing right behind you, looking at you; so exposed. But you didn’t feel the need to hide. You had nothing to be ashamed of.

He hummed, placing his hand on your butt and massaging it a little. “Say it again.” he pulled his hand away and brought down the flogger again. Smack. You whimpered.

“I’m sorry I didn’t listen, sir.” You said, gasping as he slipped a finger in and out of you rapidly just once.

“Say it again. And mean it, baby.” He could feel his own throbbing erection pressing against the front of his pants. He spanked you again, followed by the flogger.

You wiggled your butt and groaned. “I’m sorry for not listening to you earlier today, sir. I truly am. I won’t do it again, I promise.” You were wanton with need. Begging, both verbally and physically.

He hummed again. “Stand up and go lay down on the bed.” He stepped away from you, watching you as you followed his orders obediently. He noticed there was a glow on your face.

There indeed was, because you finally, after so long, felt carefree. Like you didn’t have to bother about what happens next because you left it all on Bucky. And he managed the responsibility of having control over you perfectly. You just followed his lead, and his hums and sighs and comments brought you immense pleasure and you were content. Satiated, somewhat.

You laid on the cool black satin sheets. And it did wonders for the stinging sensation on your butt. You made sure you were right in the middle before lying perfectly still. Bucky was still out of your line of sight. But you could hear him taking off more things from the hanger. Then you heard him approach you, then felt the bed dip on one side.

“What color, baby?” he asked again.

“Green.” You didn’t hesitate in answering. He hummed in appreciation before taking one of your wrists and tying it to the upper right bedpost. He used black ropes, and the knot was fairly tight. Tight enough to hold you in place but not tight enough to hurt you. He then moved to the other side and did the same thing. Once he was done, he came to a stop right in the middle, where you could see him if you lifted your head just a little from the cool pillow.

He didn’t tie your legs to the lower bedposts. Not this time… he thought. But this still left you completely at his mercy. Your heart raced. Your lower region throbbed in need. You needed him, so badly. And the look of hunger in his eyes, and the very obvious bulge in his pants didn’t help either.

Fuck he looked good. Shirtless, but still in the dark pants he wore to work. You noticed the veins down his arms.

“I would say you took your punishment very well.” He spoke, climbing into bed. “So you get to cum tonight. But you disobeyed me today, so you don’t get to touch me.” He hovered above you, staring deep into your eyes. “Which is why I tied your hands. You understand, baby?” he asked. He sounded very strict at the beginning, but by the time he called you ‘baby’, he got back to his usual, sweet and caring tone.

You nodded frantically. “I understand, sir.” Your body was on fire. You were throbbing, dripping. He was so close, so close… his broad shoulders, his tan skin, his muscular arms, your hands itched just holding back from him. But you couldn’t just reach out and touch him, no, he had made sure of that. You whined under your breath. All he was doing was look into your eyes, but you were writhing already.

He leaned down to kiss you right in between your breasts. Not quite where you needed him, but it still felt damn good. His mouth trailed up and down your body. He purposely avoided where you needed him the most.

He kissed down each one of your thighs, carefully avoiding touching you were you were dripping, and waiting, throbbing with need. He chuckled when you squirmed as he kissed over your hip bones. His warm breath fanned your wet folds and you nearly moaned out loud. He kept his hands at your waist as he tortured you lovingly. Taking his sweet time.

He peppered your skin with kisses, trailing his lips from one hip bone to the other, slowly. You were moaning, squirming and burning with desire by the time he climbed up your body again. He looked you deep in the eyes as he undid his pants and lowered it just enough to free his cock. You shuddered at the sight of it.

“What color, baby?” he asked again, smirking.

Fuck…

“Green, sir.” You sounded like you were pleasing, begging him to just take you already.

And he did. He didn’t waste any time in lifting your legs up and wrapping them around his waist. “You did so good today, baby.” he mumbled, aligning his cock to your entrance. You whined as you felt his cock press against your folds, your eyes rolling to the back of your head.

He gave you a gentle smack on your thigh. “Look at me.” He whispered, pressing his tip to your opening. “I want you to look at me while I take you, baby.” He whispered a little breathlessly, looking straight into your eyes.

You listened, and stared deep into his eyes like he wanted you to. Slow and steadily, he pushed himself into you. You whined, and clenched around him immediately as you felt all of him. He leaned down to kiss the side of your face and whispered in your ear about how good you were. You heard his ragged breaths as he removed himself out and pushed himself back into you again.

You moaned as he stretched you out perfectly, your body welcomed him in like he wanted it to. All you could focus on was how he felt snug, deep inside you. His warmth, his loving words and how your bodies connected – it was all overwhelming. Your lips parted, you gasped as he began moving against you, staring deep into your eyes.

“That’s it my angel, take all of me,” he murmured, wrapping his arms around your waist and thrusting deeper into you. You whimpered as he sped up a little. He growled and gasped and moaned. You relished the feeling of being in his arms, not worrying about a thing; not the past, not the future, not what would happen next. You were here, with him in his playroom and that was all you needed.

Your back arched off the cool satin sheets as he sped up even more. His hand occasionally brushed against your slightly sore ass and you whined each time he did. Bucky fucked you quicker, harder; making you squirm and tremble under him. And oh how he liked it.

The sight of you tied in his playroom, knowing that you trusted him completely and that you knew you were safe with him here. Allowing him to take control, and correct your behavior as he deemed fit.

He sped up again, rocking his hips against yours at a pleasurable rhythm as his hand reached up to wrap around your neck gently. He stared into your eyes, speeding up into you again. You thought he would control your breathing as well, but he didn’t. He just kept his hand there, and you found yourself liking it. A lot.

It was like a reminder; you’re mine.

Your legs tightened around him as you felt a familiar warmth wash over, as the pressure in between your legs got more and more intense. “Ah, you are so good, babygirl.” He mumbled, pushing his face into your neck. Nibbling and biting your skin as he pounded into you harder than earlier. “You’re all mine.” he growled in your ear.

Your moans and mewls got louder. His growls got more frequent. And you could feel yourself slipping away into euphoria. “Can I… can I please cum, sir?” you asked for permission even though he told you that you could earlier. He groaned, and pulled away to look into your eyes again. He could feel you clenching around him and he knew he wouldn’t last long either.

“Yes,” his voice was right between a growl and an involuntary moan. “Cum for me, my little pearl. Cum with me…” he sped up again, fucking you relentlessly. His stare was intense as he watched you come undone under him with a loud moan. Your walls clenched violently around him, milking him perfectly.

He came right after you, growling and gasping loudly as his warm load filled you up. He took a second to calm himself down and then he let go of your legs immediately. He rushed to untie you and cradled you in his arms, kissing the top of your head and your forehead.

“You did so good, my angel. I am so proud of you. You’re such a good girl.” he mumbled over and over again as you let him hold you, your body trembling still. His words made you so happy. Yes, I am! I’m your good girl!

You had a smile on your face upon hearing his words – which was a rare thing for you, after playtime, you rarely smiled in the past. But you were now. This kind of happiness was new to you, but you welcomed it with open arms.

-

Bucky ran you a bath, in the large bathroom he had upstairs, right after stepping out of his playroom. He helped you into the large bathtub, filled with warm water and sat you down in between his legs. From the moment you settled in between his legs, his hands and lips didn’t leave your body. He caressed down your sides, ran his hands along your thighs and kissed down your neck, making you giggle each time he kissed your ticklish spot.

He grabbed one of the detachable shower heads and rinsed your hair first. Then squirted some shampoo in his hands and gave you the best shampoo you ever had. He took his time, massaged your scalp and leaned down to kiss your cheek occasionally. He rinsed your hair then let you lean back against him as he washed the rest of you with the loofah sponge. He paid a lot of attention to your breasts, and your inner thighs. And you were very giggly through it all.

Then you got quiet. “Baby?” he called out, fearing you might have fallen asleep with your head against his chest.

“Hmm?” your reply came. He could tell you were slowly slipping out of the headspace you were in inside the playroom, and he wanted to ensure that you were okay.

“Talk to me.” He sounded slightly pouty. You giggled. “I need to make sure you’re okay, angel come on. How are you feeling?” he asked, kissing the top of your head.

You sighed, relishing the warm water and the feeling of his strong arms around you. “I’m fine, sir. I’ve never felt better.” Your answer was honest.

He smiled and brought his hands up to your shoulder and gave it a much needed massage. He could see how you were calming down at his touch. “I want you to know that I was easy on you today, baby. Should you ever disobey me again, there will be harsher consequences. You understand, my little pearl?” he thought you should know.

“Yes, sir.”

“Good girl.” He immediately attacked your face with loud, open mouth kisses which made you laugh out loud. He loved the sound of you so happy and safe and carefree in his arms. I will protect you with my life, babygirl…

Although he was content with you in his arms, your head tilted back, leaning against his chest. There was something he still needed to answer to. “I need to ask you something, baby.” he spoke against your sweet smelling, damp hair.

You turned to your side and looked up at him. “Anything, sir.”

How adorable. He took a deep breath and made sure to look you in the eyes as he spoke. “You can refuse me if you want to. But I was wondering, would you want to wear my collar?” he asked.

Your heart fluttered. His collar. Mr. Barnes’ collar. You searched his eyes. There was not an ounce of doubt, or hesitation in his eyes. Just care, and affection.

“Yes sir.” You answered, truthfully. And his heart raced. Oh baby…

He smiled and pulled you back into his chest. “You make me so happy angel, you know that?”

You nodded. “You make me happy too, sir.” You snuggled further into his embrace. And so you stayed until the water got cold.

Bucky helped you out of the bath tub, dried you with a towel and wrapped a fluffy robe around you, tying it securely around your waist. He did the same for himself, and then held you hand and led you to his bedroom. This was the first time you entered his room. And it was just as classy and elegant and organized as he himself was.

“Come here, baby.” he called out and you walked over to him by his huge closet. You noticed something shiny in his hand as you approached. “Kneel.” His voice reminded you of that night at the club, when you first pleasured him. You hung your head low, but then he said, “Look at me.” You did.

He looked down at you with nothing but adoration in his eyes. “This collar represents my control over you. Whenever you have it on, it is your duty to abide by my rules. When you have it on, you are required to trust me with your complete submission. Disobedience will be followed by consequences.” He paused, giving you time to process everything. You recognized some of his words from his study earlier.

He continued. “I will respect you, care for you, and treasure your submission. I will correct your behavior when needed. Your physical, mental and emotional health is my priority. You are my priority. Don’t ever forget that, baby. Okay?” he had that soft look on his face again.

You nodded quickly. “Yes sir.” He was so respectful, and gentle. Your heart fluttered in anticipation.

“Good girl.” He spoke, reaching out to caress your cheek. He then bent down a little to clasp the collar around your neck. It was cold. But you didn’t know what it looked like yet because you were focused on his face. Oh his handsome face…

“Stand up baby.” he said, and you did as he asked. He walked you over to the large mirror in his room and stood beside you in front of it. You saw the collar around your neck in the reflection and you couldn’t help but reach up and touch it.

It was beautiful. Light, bedazzled and pretty. From far, it looked like just a very expensive diamond choker. You stepped closer to the mirror to admire it and see the details. Engraved very faintly on the thin metal strip in the middle section were the initials, J.B.B, so small and faint that one would have to stand very close to you to see it.

“You like it, angel?” Bucky asked.

You looked at him through the reflection. You nodded. “I love it, sir. Thank you.”

He smiled. “You earned it, baby. I should be thanking you for being so good to me.” He stepped closer to you and kissed your head again. You smiled and looked down, all the emotions in his eyes were too much to handle.

“Now, you may not wear it out in public. Or on days when you don’t feel like you want playtime. It’s up to you. But each time I ask you to go to the playroom, I want it on. Okay?” he explained and you nodded.

“Yes, sir.”

Then he did something unexpected. He turned you around gently, looked down at how beautifully his collar adorned your neck. He gently held your chin in his hand, and leaned in for a kiss. A proper kiss, on the mouth. Oh…

His lips were soft, and his taste made your heart flutter. He wrapped his arms around you, pulling you closer and wishing neither of you had the robes on. He kissed you deeply, slowly pushing his tongue past your lips and stroking the top of your mouth. You moaned quietly into his mouth. He smiled through the kiss. “You’re all mine.” he whispered against your lips as he pulled away gently. Finally.

“I’m all yours, sir.” You confirmed.

He smiled brightly. “Now come on, bedtime.”

 He held your hand again, and walked you over to your room. He went to find you PJs while you removed the robe. He dressed you; first underwear, then the cotton shorts, then finally a loose t-shirt. He kissed your lips again, once he was done getting you ready for bed.

“Are you gonna watch me sleep?” you asked, teasing him a little since he was still sat in your bed despite having tucked you in for the night.

He chuckled. “No, I’ll go once I make sure you’re asleep.” He cooed, stroking your hair. “Close your eyes baby, you’ve had a long day. You need to rest.”

Hmm, a long but pleasurable day. You thought to yourself. And that was the last thought you had before drifting off to a much needed sleep.

Bucky played with your hair until he heard your deep, steady breaths signaling that you were fast asleep. He leaned down to give you one last forehead kiss. “Good night, my little pearl.” He took another look at his collar around your neck and walked out of your room.

On his way to his bedroom, he thought of the whole day. The revelations, and how you trusted him with your secrets. He thought of Thor, and how upset you were while talking about how the latter bought you and used you.

Then Bucky thought what he himself did recently. I’m sorry baby. I did it for you, all for you. I hope that one day when you find out, you understand why I did it, angel.

#bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes imagine #marvel #bucky barnes #marvel au #bucky barnes fluff

[robininthelabyrinth]

My third and final prompt I promise: Wen Zhuliu. WEN ZHULIU. What if instead of being Wen Chao's babysitter/bodyguard he was a different young master's? Picturing him heaving a long suffering sigh at Huisang or Zixuan's antics is hilarious to me. I just want to see all the different interactions with the Core Melting Hand!

I apologize in advance for writing a fic that technically fulfils your prompt but also is...not quite about what you asked for

That Bitter Draught (ao3) 

It wasn’t that Su She was entirely unaware of what he was like.

He was a man almost entirely consumed by bitterness and envy, his eyes so firmly fixed on what his neighbors had that he couldn’t appreciate the blessings in his own life. He was selfish and ungrateful, and hated the ones he admired the most, hated all of the ones who were better off than him, even the ones who pretended to be fair and equitable about it.

Especially those.

He’d been born to an ordinary family, not cultivators at all – a feeder family doing agriculture for the sake of the great Lan sect, who never much thought nor cared about where their vegetables came from. He waded knee-deep through the muck and the mire for the first six years of his life before some passing Lan cultivator had discovered he had a bit of potential, and next thing he knew his parents had handed him off to be someone’s servant, taking him away from everyone he’d ever known – from his parents and his animals and his siblings and his brother – and he was supposed to be grateful for it.

There wasn’t anything wrong with being a servant, Su She supposed. It was a livelihood like anyone else’s, and maybe he wouldn’t be so bitter about it if he’d stayed that way, the way he was supposed to, as a servant with just enough skill at cultivating to not disturb the tranquil and thoughtful atmosphere of the Cloud Recesses as he rushed around doing all the things that were necessary.

(The Cloud Recesses – so pretty and clean and pure, except there was muck here, too, and no amount of pretending by the sect disciples that their shit didn’t stink the way everyone else’s did would change that.)

Maybe Su She would have been fine with being a servant, though he suspected he wouldn’t – in the darkness of the middle of the night he sometimes thought that his ability to be content had been taken away when he had, that the black gaping hole in his heart that had once held his family would always be a yawning pit that always wanted more than he had, forever incapable of getting the one thing that would fill it up again – but he didn’t stay that way.

No, see, Su She was good at cultivating. He was really good - not quite a genius, but his hard work paid off and he got better and better at what he was doing even though they barely gave him any time to do it in.

After all, someone had to make sure that everything was ready for the sect disciples when they woke up at the start of the mao hour, and that meant he had to be hard at work by yin, and of course the fact that they went to sleep at the end of the xu hour only meant that his work stretched well into hai, but despite all the disadvantages they loaded him down with he cultivated like a madman at every free hour, squeezing it in between work and even more degrading work. He got better and better and better, and eventually, finally, someone noticed him again.

This time they made him a disciple.

They expected him to be grateful for that, too. As if he hadn’t bought the chance with his own sweat and tears and blood, and all to be one of the blessed ones, one of the lucky ones, one of the ones who could – if they were meritorious enough – get a pass to leave the sect to go where they liked.

(Moling was too far to reach by foot, not even for the New Year, and he didn’t make enough money to buy a horse. But once he had a sword, gifted to him from the sect, once he could fly – once he was old enough – once he was trusted enough –)

Being a disciple meant that he woke up at mao hour and went to sleep at xu, that his chamber-pot disappeared in the morning as if by magic, that his food was brought to his table instead of being stuffed into his mouth in the crowded staff room right off the kitchen in the brief reprieves he had between duties…all things he had to adjust to, things that were strange and felt almost unnatural.

Now that he was a disciple, he had all the same rights as all the others, the ones who had been born to it instead of raised up from a lower level for it.

It was supposed to mean that they were all equal, all Lan disciples the same, except that all the arrogant young masters looked down their noses at the former servant who’d stepped above his station. They ridiculed him for it: for being ambitious, for being envious, for thinking too highly of himself, for not knowing the things they’d had a chance to learn and he hadn’t, for smelling like the shit no matter how clean he kept his clothing or how much he washed.

Equal – hah!

The worst, though…the worst was the Twin Jades.

Lan Xichen was powerful, yet kind and generous to the point of selflessness, a proper gentleman; Lan Wangji, equally gifted, always did the right thing, no matter the circumstances, his expression solemn and serious, his reputation famous for his righteousness.

Su She hated them. He wanted to be them, wanted to be Lan Wangji so bad it made his blood boil, but he also hated them – hated him.

The Twin Jades. They didn’t deserve to be called that, not with the three year age difference between them and at least four points of difference on their face, if you were looking; not when Su She’s brother had been born so soon before him that he’d been born clutching his ankle as they left the womb together. Not when the only difference, the only difference, between them was that fucking Lan cultivator’s comment that he only had enough room in his cart to take one of them with him.

A servant, even with cultivation potential, was worth less than a bag of bok choy meant to serve as a side dish on a trueborn Lan disciple’s plate, and so his brother was stuck in the muck back at home while Su She fought his way through the muck that was the Lan sect’s glorious principles and discipline.

He didn’t even know for sure if his brother was still alive.

Oh, Su She had the sect’s permission to write them letters, but what would it help? No one in his village could read, he certainly hadn’t been able to before he’d been forcefully taught so that Lan sect elders could pass him notes instead of condescending enough to speak to him, and the cost of paying a scholar to read it to them would be a waste of the money he faithfully sent them out of his wages every month.

So yes, Su She was bitter. Su She hated. Su She envied, and envied Lan Wangji most of all. After all, he was handsome, but not as handsome; he was talented, but not as talented; he was smart, but not as smart; he was powerful, but not as powerful; he was a twin, but no one cared about him and his brother the way they cared about Lan Wangji and Lan Xichen – Lan Wangji, who got to have his older brother with him any time he liked, but spent the entire time standing there stone-faced and driving him away.

And, of course, Lan Wangji also had – him.

Yu Zhuliu was the sort of guest disciple that was really a servant and not a proper Lan disciple, although his cultivation was high enough to rank alongside some of the shining stars of the Lan sect – even more so than most, given his cultivation of the unique ability that had made him renowned throughout the cultivation world as the Core Melting Hand. It was only that he had been too old, at the time the Lan sect had rescued him from some misfortune that Su She had never heard specified, to learn their ways properly, and for some reason the elders resisted allowing him into the sect properly.  

Perhaps it was because he was what was termed an ‘inconvenient child’ of Meishan Yu, the bastard child of a daughter of the clan; a liability that could neither be killed nor kept.

Perhaps it was because his ability was truly too terrifying, attacking as it did the golden core that all cultivators strove so hard and so long to form.

Or perhaps it was simply that he made a very convenient servant.

Yu Zhuliu was, to put a point on it, Lan Wangji’s servant, acting as both bodyguard and attendant.

He was a deputy to help Lan Wangji with whatever he needed, big or small. The Lan sect prided itself on discipline and humility, but only to a certain extent – only to the extent it looked good or was pure – and of course they were desperate to keep their precious young jade safe from the growing predations of Qishan Wen; it was not so strange that they assigned him a bodyguard, and of course if he was already doing that he might as well do the rest.

After all, who could expect a proper young gentleman to care for himself?

Su She hadn’t taken much notice of Yu Zhuliu at first, other than a brief stabbing feeling of pity when he heard of the man’s circumstances. But then one day he’d noticed him rolling his eyes as Lan Wangji stiffly recited the rules in advance of yet another punishment he was inflicting over something minor – no one loved the rules as much as Lan Wangji did. There was a reason nobody talked to him, perfect disciple that he was, and of course unlike the lowly Su She who, despite himself, longed for the company and recognition of his peers, Lan Wangji rose above it all, was above it all. And while no one could claim that his distribution of punishments wasn’t as fair and equitable as might be asked, it was evident to Su She that he only did it that way because it was the subject of yet another rule.

But no one ever seem to notice or care, no one ever thought it as stupid as Su She did, right up until that moment when he’d seen Yu Zhuliu making a long-suffering face like that where Lan Wangji couldn’t see, and Su She couldn’t help but smile a little, heart suddenly warm with a feeling of fellowship.

Yu Zhuliu had seen him smiling, caught his eyes, and rolled his eyes again, this time more pointedly – a gesture aimed just at him, a shared joke – and that was it; Su She was lost.

Su She was in Lan Wangji’s age group, even if they weren’t close (no one was close to Lan Wangji), so it wasn’t hard to find time to go over and talk to Yu Zhuliu.

The conversations were mostly one-sided to start with, which Su She had expected. Yu Zhuliu was a reserved man, and of course there was always that master-servant divide lying between them like a gulf. Still, Su She had been a servant once, which Yu Zhuliu knew – everyone knew – and in time Su She got him to ease up a little, talk back, commiserate.

Su She told him about his family, the little he remembered of them after all these years; in return, Yu Zhuliu unbent enough to tell him a little about his own background: the mother that hated him as the living sign of her disgrace, the constant accusations that he didn’t deserve to bear the Yu surname.

“Have you ever considered changing it?” Su She asked, helping him fold Lan Wangji’s laundry. It wasn’t something he’d ever have permitted himself to do under other circumstances, knowing how important it was to distance himself from all things relating to servants, but he was willing to make some compromises if it meant getting to spend a little more time with Yu Zhuliu. “Obviously if you want to keep it, it’s yours; they can’t deprive you of your birthright like that. But it doesn’t seem like you particularly want it.”

Yu Zhuliu was quiet for a long moment. “Once,” he said, his eyes distant. “I considered it once, before I joined the Lan sect. I wasn’t yet sure who had been the one to – well. Suffice it to say that I was seriously considering an offer I had received to join a different sect, and they offered to allow me to adopt the main clan’s surname as my own if I performed well.”

Su She shuddered in automatic revulsion at the thought.

Yu Zhuliu saw it, of course, and chuckled. “It would have been a great honor,” he reminded him. “Especially for someone like me – to be able to shed my old name would have been enough, but to replace it with a name that was even more powerful..?”

“Gratifying,” Su She agreed, a little begrudgingly. The idea of giving away his identity like that, giving in to the arrogant young masters’ lies that they were better than him just because they had a fancier surname, revolted him, but he could, he supposed, see a little of the spiteful appeal of it.  “Like – stamping on their faces with it, showing them what they’ve lost.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you take that offer, then?” They both knew the Lan sect would never in a million years extend a similar offer, even though there were plenty of branch families surnamed Lan and another one more or less wouldn’t much matter. It wasn’t proper, though, and no one cared more about propriety than the Lan sect. “With the clan surname, they would have had to make you a proper disciple.”

Su She would never agree to such an offer himself. He might want, in the darkest parts of his heart, to be Lan Wangjii, to be something better than he was, might occasionally daydream of what his life might have been life if they’d been born swapped in place, but he didn’t – he wouldn’t sell his surname for it.

(He wouldn’t sell his brother for it, even if all he had of his brother was a surname and some swiftly fading memories.)

But Yu Zhuliu hated his surname and all it represented. He wasn’t like Su She, always thinking of the past and the might-have-beens and growing fat on all his resentment and grievances; if Yu Zhuliu could shed his skin like a cicada, emerge somewhere else a brand-new person, he would do it in a heartbeat.

“It was the Lan sect that saved me,” he said simply. “And so I owed it to them to come here, no matter what the Wen sect offered me.”

The Wen sect. Wow. That was sure some offer to turn down; they commanded the loyalty of over a third of the smaller sects, maybe even close to half, and Yu Zhuliu could have gotten their surname.

Of course, the Wen sect offered that out much more readily than other sects did, but still.

On the other hand, if Yu Zhuliu had accepted, if he’d become Wen Zhuliu, then Su She would never have had the chance to meet him, or would have only met him under bad circumstances.

Maybe he wouldn’t have liked Wen Zhuliu that much at all.

“Your loyalty is admirable,” he finally said, after wracking his brain for something appropriately neutral to say.

That got him another chuckle. “Did you know that lies make you look like you’ve tasted something sour?”

“I,” Su She said with dignity, “am a great liar. You just haven’t noticed it yet.”

Yu Zhuliu was silent for a moment, maybe reviewing things he knew about Su She. “I suppose you probably are,” he said thoughtfully. “Which means it’s the Lan sect that you don’t like.”

Su She shrugged. “I don’t think I’d like any sect,” he confessed, even though he knew he shouldn’t.

Yu Zhuliu’s overwhelming trait was his loyalty, after all – he’d sell Su She out in a heartbeat if he thought the Lan sect deemed it necessary. Su She was mostly just counting on being so pointless and insignificant that Yu Zhuliu wouldn’t think it was worth telling anyone about him.

It probably wasn’t, either. Why would the Lan sect care about someone like Su She one way or another? He wasn’t anything to them, not really; even as a disciple, his only purpose was to act as an adornment, to bring honor and glory that would reflect upwards onto the great clan surnamed Lan.

“Why?” Yu Zhuliu asked. He sounded honestly curious – honestly interested, interested in Su She for something other than being an extra body in a formation or another cannon fodder to throw to the dogs when a night-hunt went badly.

Su She wanted to tell him everything.

But Yu Zhuliu was loyal, always loyal, and Su She may not be as smart as Lan Wangji but he wasn’t stupid.

“They’re all the same in the end, full of arrogant young masters,” he said breezily. “I mean, did you see the group of disasters at Teacher Lan’s lectures?”

Perhaps that was a harsh assessment, but he’d humiliated himself in front of them all on that night-hunt that went wrong against the Waterborne Abyss, with his still-shaky control over his sword, trying as always to live up to Lan Wangji’s example the way they kept always telling him he should and then being looked down upon as an idiot for even trying – why would he do something so stupid obviously he can never match Lan Wangji always aiming above his station and thinks too highly of himself still a servant after all obviously he’ll never be good enough – and the mere thought of them tasted like bile and hatred in his mouth.

“The head disciple from the Jiang sect seemed fairly smart,” Yu Zhuliu said, and Su She scoffed.

“He’s very smart, very smart indeed,” he said scathingly. “So smart that he’s forgotten who he is and where he came from. Eventually someone’s going to remember that he’s a servant’s son, not a proper young master at all, and he’ll pay for it in blood and tears – if he’s lucky.”

“Do you think so?”

“The Jiang heir has an inferiority complex as deep as the ocean –” Su She knew what one looked like; after all, he saw one every day in the mirror. “– and eventually the time will come when he has to be sect leader in his father’s place. On that day, all those pretty words about how wonderful Wei Wuxian is, how smart, how talented, what a credit to his sect, they’ll all fall onto Jiang Wanyin’s ears like a lash on his back. And when the time comes that he has to sacrifice something, well, we’ll see how much being smart helps Wei Wuxian then.”

“An interesting perspective,” Yu Zhuliu remarked.

“An accurate one,” Su She retorted. “He was raised as a proper young master, not a servant, and so he won’t even know to see the danger when it comes. None of them would.”

“No, I suppose not. It’s always the things you don’t know you don’t know that can harm you the most.” Yu Zhuliu straightened up – the laundry was done; they’d finished it ages ago. “We will have to continue this discussion another time, Su-gongzi –”

“Su She, please. Su Minshan, if you must.”

“Su Minshan, then. I look forward to speaking with you again.”

When Yu Zhuliu let, Su She hugged himself in glee, allowing himself a moment of triumph at a successful conversation with the person he liked, then went to wash himself clean again. He wasn’t dirty, and it was the middle of the day, but he wanted to make sure no one could smell the bleaching herbs they put in the laundry on him. He didn’t want to risk any more mockery, and anyway, it had gotten to be a habit.

As he went to the baths, he saw Lan Wangji standing on a nearby pathway, looking up at the sky as if deep in thought. He must be on his rounds again, even though it wasn’t his day for it, or even the right time; he’d taken to haunting the routine work of it as if it were the only thing keeping him grounded.

Whatever. It wasn’t Su She’s business.

Except maybe it was, because Lan Wangji kept – looking at him, over the next few days. Which was weird, because Lan Wangji never looked at anybody, his nose firmly stuck up in the sky where mortals dared not tread, and it was starting to make Su She nervous.

Surely Lan Wangji couldn’t tell – about him. He’d never been able to before, why would he start now?

And yet…what if he could?

What if Lan Wangji had figured him out? Figured out Su She’s rebellious heart, how he wasn’t grateful at all not matter nice a face he put on, how he hated the stupid Lan sect rules and the stupid Lan sect disciples and the stupid Lan sect arrogance, how he secretly schemed to learn everything he could and transcribe everything he couldn’t memorize so that he could take it back home to Moling one day and show his brother everything he’d learned, how he despised them all for their arrogance –

“Will you be attending the archery competition?” Lan Wangji asked stiffly. He did everything stiffy, like he was actually a statute carved out of jade and only just pretending to be human. “At the Nightless City?”

“Naturally,” Su She said, not bothering to look up from the verses he was copying. Not the most polite, not as kiss-ass as he ought to be when faced with the glory that was the second jade of the Lan sect, but he’d found that as long as he kept his tone as formal and humble as possible, he could get away with a little. “It may be nothing like yours, Lan-er-gongzi, but I do have some skill at it, you know.”

Not that most people thought so. They would be travelling to Qishan in three groups, for easier and more secure travel – one for the adults, one led by the Twin Jades to represent the shining hope of their sect, and the last of everyone else making up the numbers. He was in the last group, of course, even though his talent for musical cultivation was one of the strongest in the junior generation and his swordplay good enough to only lose to Lan Wangji three times out of every five – better results than a good half of the group of well-born Lan clansman being sent out as the representatives of their sect.

Was he bitter about it? Yes.

Lan Wangji hesitated for a long moment, and even shifted from one leg to the other – a sign of nervousness in most people, maybe. In Lan Wangji? Who even knew.

After a while, he said, “My group has an extra place,” sounding almost like it was an offer, and the entire thing was so bizarre that Su She immediately became suspicious.  

“What do you want?” he asked.

Lan Wangji blinked at him.

“He who is unaccountably solicitous is hiding bad intentions, Lan-er-gongzi,” Su She clarified, glaring up at him and unable to keep his mouth from twisting as though he’d bitten something sour. He knew he often looked like that, and it made the female cultivators downrate his handsomeness, but he’d been the subject of too many jokes to stop himself from being so bitterly defensive. “You don’t know me, you don’t like me, and you don’t go out of your way to offer a better place to anyone, even if there’s no official rule against it. So what is it you want?”

Lan Wangji shook his head.

“If you don’t want anything, why offer?” Su She sneered. It would be just like Lan Wangji to have decided to recognize a promising disciple that deserve a chance to shine – he was perfect like that, after all, always thinking of others, always a true gentleman. Well, Su She had endured a lifetime of being seen as promising by gentlemen, being recognized as a talent without once being thought of as a person, having to humiliate himself in front of them like a dancing monkey and worst of all of having to be grateful to them for allowing him to do it, and he was sick and tired of swallowing down that bitter draught.

He didn’t need the better spot, not this time – he would be going one way or the other – and he wasn’t willing to give Lan Wangji of all people the satisfaction of doing him a favor he didn’t even want.

Lan Wangji shifted from one side to the other again, waiting a long time before he spoke again. Maybe it was nervousness.

“Yu Zhuliu is in my party,” he finally said.

At first Su She didn’t understand the point Lan Wangji was making, terse and oblique as the other man habitually was, and then he understood it far too well.

He saw red.

“What business is that of yours?” he shouted, dropping his brush and jumping to his feet, forgetting all of his good intentions to try to keep his head down and his tone at least plausibly polite. “So what if I spend some time with him when he’s free? Not every waking hour of his is yours!”

Lan Wangji’s eyes darted from side to side. “No,” he said. “I didn’t mean –”

“You didn’t mean what?!”

“You like him.” A meaningful pause. “Very much.”

“Yes, I do,” Su She said, his cheeks flushed red. “So what? So I cut my sleeve sometimes, big deal. It’s not against any of your stupid rules – every attempt to introduce such a restriction formally has been rejected, I checked. This isn’t something you can punish me for!”

He could, of course. No one would question Lan Wangji issuing yet another punishment – he could say it was due to Su She’s noise, no shouting in the Cloud Recesses – and of course not every type of punishment was the sort that got meted out in the Punishment Hall. There were other types, more insidious – isolation, ostracization, missing out on opportunities for advancement, resources…even merely sentencing him to write lines could be used to deny him his coveted spot at the Nightless City.

Lan Wangji wouldn’t do that, though.

Somehow that just made Su She angrier. Who told Lan Wangji to be so fucking perfect?

“You can add it to your list of achievements,” he adds bitterly. “Everyone knows you’re better than me - better at manners, better at cultivation, better at everything, and now better in this way, too, because I’m a cutsleeve and you’re not –”

Lan Wangji flinched.

Lan Wangji flinched.

Su She’s jaw dropped in shock. “You are?”

Lan Wangji’s features weren’t exactly easy to ready for anyone except Lan Xichen, but at the moment it was plain enough that even Su She could figure out that he was miserable.

“For who?!” A terrible thought slipped into his mind. “It had better not be Yu Zhuliu!”

“No!” Lan Wangji said hastily. “No – no. Not at all.”

“Good,” Su She said fiercely. “Because he’s mine. Or, well, not mine, we haven’t agreed on anything, I haven’t even said anything, but I’m trying and – well, it doesn’t matter. You know what I mean.”

He wasn’t actually sure Lan Wangji did. He wasn’t sure he knew what he meant.

But Lan Wangji nodded, as if his confused rambling had been as clear as a Lan sect rule.

“I thought you might like to spend more time with him,” he said, and – oh. His offer. The Nightless City.

“…I would,” Su She said begrudgingly. “Thanks.”

For Yu Zhuliu, he’d even put up Lan Wangji’s charity.

“Who is it for you, anyway?” he asked, unable to resist and wanting to take advantage of this strange intimacy, this momentary breach of etiquette undoubtedly never to be repeated, but Lan Wangji shook his head, refusing to share. “Fine. Have it your way.”

It wasn’t that he cared, anyway.

Not about Lan Wangji’s mysterious lover, and not about Lan Wangji himself – this wasn’t a charming little flaw that made the whole seem more relatable, wasn’t something that generated fellow feeling, the way Yu Zhuliu’s gentle mockery had. So what if both of them were secretly cutsleeves in a sect that most assuredly did not approve of such things? That didn’t mean anything. It didn’t give them anything in common. They still weren’t the same, not at all, not with Lan Wangji was nobly bearing the burden of it while Su She had given in to temptation almost at once…

No, this was just more of the same.

More of Lan Wangji being, despite all of Su She’s efforts to the contrary, Su She’s idol, his ideal. The person who he hated most because he envied him the most, the person who made him hate himself as being nothing but the lesser copy, the person he despised for making him sometimes feel as if maybe Lan Wangji’s better birth really did entitle him to be better.

So no. He didn’t care.

(It wasn’t that Lan Wangji had seen him, recognized him as something the same. As a person, worthy of recognition, even if not of respect. It wasn’t.)

Maybe he cared a little bit.

He must have cared, or else he would have just run away when the Wen sect descended on the Lan sect with flame and sword instead of being a stupid idiot and going to look for him.

(He told himself it was because Yu Zhuliu would undoubtedly be wherever Lan Wangji was, and it was a pretty decent lie, except that he went to the Library Pavilion and Yu Zhuliu wasn’t there. So he told himself that Yu Zhuliu would have wanted him to protect Lan Wangji, and that lie worked better.)

Of course, once he got there, the stupid noble gentlemanly fucker wouldn’t even listen to him and run.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the important one?” Su She bellowed. This was clearly not the time for manners, and anyway Lan Wangji had already seen beneath his mask once; another time wouldn’t hurt. “Yu Zhuliu’s out there fighting to keep you alive and you’re wasting all his efforts, you’re just standing here, waiting for them to come get you –”

“It is necessary,” Lan Wangji said, solemn as ever. “Someone must keep their attention here, instead of following my brother.”

“Oh fuck you,” Su She said, and took out his sword. Lan Wangji just had to play the fucking brother card, didn’t he?

Yu Zhuliu would want me to do this, he told himself as he tried to fight. He was pretty decent, but he was just a disciple, not a soldier, and as a Lan sect disciple he’d never killed anything before. After a while, he ended up shouting for Lan Wangji to throw him his guqin – the one Su She favored was rented from the sect, lacking as he did the money to purchase her in full, and so he didn’t have it with him – and he attacked with that instead for a while, being better at music than he was at the sword.

The lash of his music was less powerful than Lan Wangji’s single-note waves of power, but Su She was also sneakier about it, and a few unexpected distractions during a battle were much more helpful to Lan Wangji’s defense than any amount of getting himself killed waving a sword around would have.

In the end, unsurprisingly, they were defeated. Su She ended up surrendering in fairly dramatic manner, knowing that the Wen sect might preserve Lan Wangji’s life as a useful hostage but that they couldn’t give a damn about his own and, as always, humiliation was the path to survival; he bet Lan Wangji was already judging him for it, for his weakness, for how pathetic he was when he was sniveling at Wen Xu’s feet as they beat him black and blue to make a point to Lan Wangji, but he didn’t care because he bowed his head and lived while the disciple next to him that didn’t died.

Lan Wangji didn’t bow his head either, but they just broke his leg before throwing them both in a carriage headed to the Nightless City.

The worst of it was, he didn’t even have Yu Zhuliu around to comfort him.

“I ordered him to go with my brother,” Lan Wangji said in belated explanation. “To protect him.”

“You could have said,” Su She said, curled up in the corner of the carriage and feeling sick to his stomach. He should have just run away. He could be in Moling right now if he’d just run away, and who would have known? Of course, then he would have to have left behind all the things he’d prepared, and Yu Zhuliu, too… “Maybe I’d rather have been on that team. Why’d he run, anyway? I bet he had a great reason.”

“He took the key books of our sect –”

Su She rolled his eyes. Of course there was a good nice selfless noble reason for Lan Xichen having fled, leaving his younger brother behind as a sacrifice to cover his tracks – proper young masters never did anything without one of those. It was like they thought that admitting that they were afraid for their lives would be worse than actually dying.

“He took what he could,” Lan Wangji said, his eyes cast down. He wasn’t really talking to Su She. “But so much was still lost.”

Su She thought about all the copies of the books he’d been making, all the knowledge he’d been slowly siphoning away over the course of years, and how they were hidden far away from the main buildings of the Lan sect. He’d probably have more than they did, when this was all said and done, assuming he survived. Wouldn’t that just drive them all up the wall? All those stiff smug elders who thought they were better than him would have to come and beg him to give them the books –

Lan Wangji would, too. Those books were probably his only friends, just as they were Su She’s.

“…maybe not all lost,” he said begrudgingly, and curled up tighter, cursing himself as an idiot.

He might be feeling all warm and fuzzy towards Lan Wangji over something as stupid as a single moment of shared misery, but just because he had feelings about it didn’t mean Lan Wangji did. More than likely, when it came down to it, Lan Wangji would put aside all his noble manners and sell Su She out in a heartbeat, and probably not even count it as a betrayal. After all, in the end, Su She was still just a servant that had temporarily made good, still just cannon fodder, meant to be used and sacrificed for the sake of his better-born master.

At least Lan Wangji had probably given up on expecting him to be grateful about it, given the despicable personality he’d already seen Su She display.

It irritated him how much that mattered.

“There’s always copies, after all,” he added. “And before you say anything, I know it’s not the same as having the original, but it’s worth something, isn’t it?”

He was worth something, even if he was only Lan Wangji’s copy.

“That’s true,” Lan Wangji said. He was quiet for a long while after that, long enough that Su She started seriously considering going to sleep because unconsciousness was preferable to worrying about what was going to happen to them once they got to the Nightless City, and then he said, “You are unhappy.”

Su She turned to goggle at him. “Of course I’m unhappy! The Cloud Recesses was lit on fire, we’re prisoners, we’re probably going to die painfully –”

“Not now. Before.” A pause. “With the sect.”

Su She shut his mouth and glared suspiciously.

“I won’t say anything,” Lan Wangji promised. “I only want to know.”

Su She shook his head stubbornly. “You won’t understand,” he said, a little helplessly, when Lan Wangji continued to look at him, wanting an explanation. “It’s not – something you would understand. You’ve always had everything, all your life.”

Lan Wangji frowned a little, clearly thinking it over, clearly taking it seriously, and for a moment there Su She kind of hated Yu Zhuliu for making him actually like Lan Wangji a little bit. “Not – everything,” he finally said. “My family…”

He trailed off, probably thinking about where they were now. A father locked away in seclusion was different from one on the verge of death; a missing brother, an injured uncle…

Su She huffed and turned his head away, refusing to feel sympathetic. “At least you had them,” he said bitterly. “I haven’t seen my family since they sold me to your sect, and at this point I’m too scared to go visit them.”

“…the Lan sect does not keep slaves.”

“No, of course not,” Su She said. “You just offer people more money than they’ve ever seen in their lives if they’ll hand over their six-year-old son to be properly trained as a servant, because it’s better to get them while they’re young – teach them to be quiet and inobtrusive and grateful for how much better it is to spend their life cleaning up the shit that sticks to your boots. And the worst part is, you are grateful for it, no matter how bad it is, no matter how much you miss your home or your family or your brother, because the buyer could have picked him instead of you and then you’d be the one stuck on some farm somewhere doing nothing with your life, just waiting to see if he’ll come back one day.”

The difference with Su She was that he’d figured out pretty quick that going back wasn’t enough.

When he’d realized how important it was to cultivate a golden core at a young age, he’d saved up every bit of money he could on top of what he sent his family every month, volunteered for every job that paid and even bit his tongue and took out extravagant loans from the sect that he would be paying off for years to come, and he’d hired a rogue cultivator to go teach his brother the basics of cultivation.

He hoped that was enough to make up for all the years he’d been gone, even though he doubted it; he wouldn’t think it was enough, himself, and surely his brother was like him. He was still too young to go outside the sect by himself – he would have to apply for a token, and agree to take someone with him, and he didn’t want to take anyone with him except maybe Yu Zhuliu, who wasn’t an option.

He didn’t want anyone to know if his return home went as badly as he feared it would. If his brother turned out to be as bitter as he was, and turned that bitterness against him –

“You have a brother?” Lan Wangji asked, because of course he’d noticed the important part.

“A twin,” Su She whispered, and turned his face away.

They did not speak again until the Nightless City, and even then it was limited to necessary things, neither of them wanting to risk the fury of their Wen sect guards. After a while, it was announced that the Wen sect would be holding a camp for all young masters, meant to indoctrinate them into righteous conduct, and that they would be attending whether they wanted to or not. They had probably assumed that Su She was well-born because of the fine clothing and fancy hairpiece he wore, and never knew that they were loaned to him by a sect that liked to surround itself with pretty things even if it had to pay for the clothing itself, and Su She had never been happier to be counted among his supposed peers.

Still, when the indoctrination camp began, and Wen Chao – accompanied by three bodyguards at all times, because he was even more of an arrogant snot than even Su She had previously imagined an arrogant young master could be – began lording it over them all, Su She drifted over to Lan Wangji’s side again.

Mostly because no one else would, other than maybe that troublemaker from Yunmeng, Wei Wuxian.

“I know some curses,” he told Lan Wangji, pretending to be casual about it as if he hadn’t accused Lan Wangji’s sect of various awful things. “Really nasty ones. Want me to try one on Wen Chao? I can be subtle.”

“He’d figure out it was you when he checked us all for the inevitable backlash marks,” Wei Wuxian put in. “Then he’d just kill you to get rid of it. Stupid idea.”

“Depends on how quick-acting the curse was,” Su She said peevishly. He hadn’t even been talking to Wei Wuxian, and he hadn’t forgotten who it was that had charged in like a hero from a play to rescue him when he’d overreached himself fighting the Waterborne Abyss even if he doubted Wei Wuxian remembered him in return. “Also, why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be off somewhere drawing fire onto the Jiang sect?”

“What? No,” Wei Wuxian said. “I’m not –”

“I mean, I certainly can’t think of any other reasons for your actions, Wei-gongzi,” Su She said, his voice set at its most simpering. It wasn’t like there were any Lan sect elders here to punish him for being disrespectful, after all, and he figured that helping defend the Library Pavilion with Lan Wangji probably earned him a little space to be himself for once. “Aggravating Wen-gonzi, making light of everything, galivanting around flirting with girls – one might almost feel as if you’re on vacation. Surely your Jiang sect will not have to pay for any of that, politically speaking; it’s not as if the Wen sect thinks of them as one of their greatest rivals and is looking for any chance to cut them down…but no, surely it’s my misunderstanding. I’m sure Wei-gongzi has a thoughtful plan, being such a good servant to his sect.”

Wei Wuxian frowned at him. “But that’s not what I’m doing,” he said, but his voice came out a little weaker this time. “That’s not it at all, I was just…hm. Hey, Jiang Cheng! Jiang Cheng, I have a question for you…”

Su She watched him leave with satisfaction, then turned back to Lan Wangji, who was looking at him again.

“Why do you dislike him?” he asked before Su She could change the subject.

“I don’t dislike him,” Su She said. “I envy him, sometimes. The rest of the time, I pity him.”

“You think Jiang Wanyin will cast him aside, one day,” Lan Wangji said, and Su She thought back to that conversation he’d had with Yu Zhuliu. Lan Wangji had clearly heard more of it than he’d let on.

“Well, yes,” he conceded, because he did. He’d seen how close they were, which was only going to make it worse for them both when it inevitably happened.  

“Would you tell me why? In your own words?”

Su She frowned at Lan Wangji, who raised his hands as if in surrender. “Please.”

Well, if he was going to ask nicely…

Su She decided to pretend that he was talking to Yu Zhuliu.

“Fine. You want my opinion? Whoever raised Wei Wuxian ruined him,” he said bluntly. “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but he doesn’t act like a servant – he doesn’t even act like a second son. He acts like a master. He acts like he’s the next heir to the Jiang sect, not Jiang Wanyin; you’ve seen how he’s always bossing him around and refusing to listen to him even when he tells him to behave.”

“He’s his shixiong,” Lan Wangji objected, but mildly.

“For now. Do you really think Wei Wuxian’s going to suddenly learn how to be obedient the second Jiang Wanyin gets instated as sect leader? Or do you think he’ll continue to run rampant, doing just as he likes the way he always has, with Jiang Wanyin bending to his every whim the way he always has? What do you think the cultivation world will think of that?”

Lan Wangji was frowning deeper now, thoughtful.

“The cultivation world isn’t kind to servants who forget their place. If he keeps acting the way he has been, the time will come when he does something so outrages that Jiang Wanyin will have no choice but to throw him away,” Su She concluded. “A servant’s son, however precious, is nothing when weighed against the duty owed to the sect inherited by your ancestors. I mean, even your brother put that first and foremost, and he’s your blood.”

“…I agreed with Brother’s decision.”

“Sure. But did he ask you first?”

Lan Wangji remained quiet.

“If it makes you feel better, there’s always a chance that it won’t become an issue,” Su She continued, mostly to avoid having to listen to Lan Wangji’s injured sort of silence. “Maybe they’ll luck out and instead something will happen to remind Wei Wuxian that he’s a servant and that his job is to throw himself into the abyss to save Jiang Wanyin, probably without even getting thanked for it.”

Lan Wangji looked at him sidelong. After a long few moments of contemplation – Su She really couldn’t stand the way Lan Wangji looked at him, as if he was trying to figure out an interesting puzzle, but he also couldn’t get enough of it, it was horrible – he said, “It will not be that way, with Yu Zhuliu.”

Caught, Su She glared at him.

“How would you solve it?” Lan Wangji asked.

“What?”

“You were a servant, once,” Lan Wangji pointed out. “You are no Yu Zhuliu, no Wei Wuxian, to sacrifice yourself for the Lan sect, and it pains you to pretend to humble yourself before us. What is your solution? You are too clever not to have one.”

Su She wrapped his arms around himself, wishing he didn’t enjoy being called clever as much as he did. It didn’t sound condescending when Lan Wangji said it, the way it did when the Lan sect’s teachers did – like praising a well-performing pet that they’d raised themselves, patting themselves on the back for doing such a good job in training him. He sounded almost as if he resented Su She for being smart enough to see the messy contradiction that was Wei Wuxian’s life, and for being the only person he could ask to shed some light on the subject.

Su She didn’t mind resentment, not even aimed at him. On the contrary, it made it feel real.

Why wouldn’t Lan Wangji resent having to respect someone like him?

“I’m leaving, eventually,” he confessed. “I’m going to start my own sect, or try, anyway, if I can get the money for it from somewhere. Back at home in Moling. Maybe, if I’m very lucky, I’ll be able to convince Yu Zhuliu to come with me, notwithstanding the stupid debt of loyalty he feels he owes your sect.”

Lan Wangji looked contemplative again, surprised but not displeased, as if Su She had suggested something he’d never even considered possible. “What cultivation style will you use?”

“Yours, of course,” Su She said, rolling his eyes at him. “What am I supposed to do, come up with a new one of my own? In what free time, exactly?”

“People will say you’re copying the Lan sect.”

“People have said I’m a copy all my life,” Su She pointed out. “Let the cultivation world sneer and the Lan sect break its rule against gossiping to look down their noses at me – I’ll still be sitting by myself as a sect leader in my own right while they’re just disciples. I’ll make my own rules, admit anyone into the sect that I want, and that’ll be worth all of their disdain.”

He hoped it would be, anyway. He suspected he’d end up being bitter about it, but then again he was always bitter, and anyway, what could he do about it?

If life had taught him one thing, it was that there was no way to make people stop talking, stop mocking, because no matter if he took three baths a day and scrubbed until the blood ran red he would still underneath it all be a servant, a farmer’s son. But he was more than that, he knew he was more than that, and the only alternative – to stay in the Lan sect as a second-class barely-better-than-a-servant for the rest of his life – just wasn’t tolerable.

He’d do what he could and figure out the rest when he came to it.

“You think Wei Wuxian will do the same?”

“Probably?” Su She said and shrugged. “I mean, he has the reputation for being an unorthodox genius, so maybe he’ll come up with his own cultivation style to go with it – you can do things like that when you’re rich and have the time – but as for whether he will form a new sect…how would I know? Maybe he’ll go be a rogue cultivator instead, the way his father did when he got tired of being stuck in the Jiang sect’s shadow. Depends on how many people go with him.”

Lan Wangji hummed thoughtfully. “A rogue cultivator has only to concern himself with his own wellbeing,” he said slowly, as if feeling something out. “A sect – with others.”

“I mean, you could try to take a family around as a rogue cultivator, but I think Wei Wuxian is a walking illustration of why you don’t do that.”

A small flinch. Why were all these well-born sons of the nobility so delicate? It was only loss.

“But you are certain he will go.”

“Well, yes. Either he figures out that he needs to shut up and listen to someone else for once or he leaves, and I don’t think he knows how to listen.” Su She shrugged again. “Why do you care, anyway? He’s Jiang sect. It’s not any of our business.”

Lan Wangji was silent, but somehow it came across as a meaningful silence. An almost pointed silence.  

An embarrassed silence.

“…him, really?” Su She said, twisting around to gawk a little at where Wei Wuxian was having a furious whispered conversation with Jiang Cheng that involved a lot of gestures and even more suspicious looks from the nearby Wen sect guards. “I mean, sure, he’s attractive, no one’s going to deny that – he’s not rated fourth for nothing – but…really? Him? He’s not exactly the quiet-and-thoughtful Lan sect type I thought you’d go for, you know?”

Lan Wangji, with all the great grace and dignity and pomp of a proper young master of high birth and proper breeding, buried his face into his hands.

Su She covered his mouth with his sleeve to keep from laughing at him. It wasn’t exactly nice to laugh at someone who was clearly all too aware of their evidently terrible taste in men.

From the way Lan Wangji glared through his fingers, he wasn’t doing a very good job of muffling his snickers.

It was a good laugh, which was nice because it was the last thing Su She had to laugh about for long while.

The “indoctrination camp” was frankly awful. It wasn’t that he thought being forced to do servant’s work like tilling fields or doing laundry was the worst thing in the world (although he did resent that they didn’t bother paying them for it), and memorizing useless maxims was more or less what the Lan sect excelled at the most, but the constant air of vicious supervision, the threat of punishment, of having the swords they had all worked so hard to obtain taken away from them…

And that was all before they were forced to act as bait in Wen Chao’s night hunt.

“I’m serious,” Su She muttered to Lan Wangji. “I know so many good curses.”

Lan Wangji condescended to elbow him in the side to get him to shut up.

“I miss Yu Zhuliu,” Su She complained instead. “He’s much better company than you are.”

“No one is better company than Lan Zhan,” Wei Wuxian piped up. He was hanging out by them – not quite with them, but nearby – again.

“I thought the Core-Melting Hand was terrifying,” Jiang Cheng opined. He was following Wei Wuxian, as always, and sticking as close as his shadow, as if he was afraid of losing him. Maybe he was. “All silent and stoic and looming.”

“He doesn’t loom. He’s just tall.”

“All tall people loom. Look at Chifeng-zun, he looms even when he’s sitting down.”

Chifeng-zun, who was the leader of the Nie sect, was, in fact, unreasonably tall and, yes, loomed quite a bit.

“Well, Yu Zhuliu doesn’t,” Sue She said. And then, because he didn’t actually like either of the Jiang sect’s young masters no matter what Lan Wangji might think of them, he added, “Not that you of all people have the place to say anything, Jiang-gongzi. Family shame should not be spread in public.”

He thought that would make an impact, remind them of their manners, but instead all three of them – Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and even Lan Wangji – looked at him in confusion.

“What?” he said, staring at them back. “I know Jiang-gongzi’s maternal family is Meishan Yu…isn’t it?”

“It is,” Wei Wuxian said, sounding baffled. “But what does…wait. Yu Zhuliu – his Yu is Meishan Yu?”

“Yes?” Su She said, looking between them. Yu Zhuliu had said it was no secret, but the junior generation was treating this as if the information had hit them like a sudden landslide: Jiang Cheng had gone white, Wei Wuxian’s jaw was hanging open, and even Lan Wangji’s eyes were as wide and round as the moon. “You didn’t know?”

“I assumed it was another Yu,” Jiang Cheng croaked.

“Meishan Yu probably doesn’t want to admit that one of their own went to work as a servant for another sect after they kicked him out,” Su She concluded. It seemed relatively reasonable to him, but somehow that made all of them look even more upset. “What’s the matter?”

They all just shook their heads and made their way away, looking stunned to a man, and Su She was left to roll his eyes and wonder what in the world made young masters act like that. Something in the water, maybe?

He would curse himself later for making the joke, because there was something in the water of the cave they went to, and that something was, apparently, a corrupted Xuanwu.

(Lan Wangji was still glaring at him for trying to pull the girl out when Wen Chao’s whore demanded it, but it wasn’t his life on the line if the Wen sect went through with their threat to start slaughtering disciples left and right if they couldn’t get to her. Anyway, it wasn’t like he wouldn’t be able to cut her in a way that let out a bit of blood but left her the mobility she might need to escape – she was a cultivator, too! What did it matter that she was a woman?)

Wei Wuxian was holding the Xuanwu’s attention with a fire talisman, and Jiang Cheng was leading the disciples to the pool with the water, which Lan Wangji had identified as containing an exit…as usual, all the young masters were showing their stuff. In a burst of resentful fury, the sort he hadn’t had in weeks, Su She leaned down and grabbed a bow and some arrows. If he shot the Xuanwu’s eye, he might be able to –

A hand fell on his shoulder, and Su She turned to look.

Lan Wangji shook his head. He didn’t seem angry about the girl anymore.

“Keep them,” he said, nodding at the arrows. “There will be Wen sect soldiers waiting for us outside.”

“You don’t think I can make the shot,” Su She accused, feeling obscurely betrayed. “You scored so high in the archery competition – I bet you think you could do better, is that it? You want –”

“If you miss, you may anger it further,” Lan Wangji said. “And I have promised Yu Zhuliu that I would see you safe.”

Su She’s anger was extinguished as quickly as a candle blowing out. “You – did? He asked about me?”

“Before he left with my brother.”

“You should’ve said something,” Su She grumbled, but he let himself be lured into allowing Lan Wangji to use him as a crutch as they waded into the water. At the last moment, Wei Wuxian threw the fire talisman into the air and ran after them, causing the Xuanwu to go crazy and chase, and then there was a bit of frantic swimming – it felt more like drowning, even with Wei Wuxian leading the way for them both – before they got to the other side.

“I’m going to be sick,” Su She groaned, spitting up water, and then he still had to sit up and shoot an arrow back at one of the Wen sect guards that, as Lan Wangji had predicted, were out there.

Of course, a few seconds later the Xuanwu came bursting out of the side of cave, so they all had a whole different set of problems to deal with.

At least the Wen sect mostly ran away.

(Not all of them. A few of them stuck around to shoot some arrows at them – every bad thing Su She had ever thought about any young master, he thought twice for the Wen sect.)

“Next time we deal with this inside the cave,” Su She shouted, running for cover. He was able to get the arrow into the Xuanwu’s eye the way he had planned to in the cave when he finally had a little time to stand and aim – admittedly, he might’ve missed in the cave, he never shot half as well when he was angry – and in the end Lan Wangji shouted something about Chord Assassination and Wei Wuxian had a brilliant-stupid idea about using it like a spider web to make a net and Jiang Cheng swam like a fish to lure it through the right spot and all together with a bunch of the others they ended up chopping the Xuawnu’s head off.

Well, chopping was the wrong word. More like a shichen or more or wretched sawing using Chord Assassination as a garotte, relying mostly on Lan Wangji’s arm strength – Su She and the few other Lan disciples that knew the trick were holding the strings down with burning bleeding fingers, an essential part of the process but ultimately only a prop to help Lan Wangji do what he needed – and by the time it was done their robes were more red and crusted brown than white no matter how many bleaching herbs and special arrays had been used.

“All right, the threat is gone,” Su She said, feeling bitter again as he scanned the treeline. He didn’t even know what the bitterness was about this time. “Can we go already?”

“You can come to Yunmeng,” Jiang Cheng said. “It’s closest.”

No one disagreed.

More or less the second after they arrived, just as soon as they’d had baths and a change of clothing, Lan Wangji wanted to go back to the Cloud Recesses or to travel around looking for Lan Xichen. He looked strange in borrowed Yunmeng purple, even if they’d politely given him the lightest and bluest shade they had – really it was at best a pale lavender at best – but that sure didn’t seem to bother Wei Wuxian from the way he kept gawking at Lan Wangji when he thought Lan Wangji wasn’t looking.

“If you don’t trust your brother, trust Yu Zhuliu,” Su She told Lan Wangji irritably after yet another request that was swiftly denied. He’d made a half-hearted effort to remember his manners after the stress of the moment had passed, but Lan Wangji seemed unhappy any time he did so now he was back at being a bit more of his awful actual self. Of course, Lan Wangji liked Wei Wuxian so maybe he just had a kink for rude people? “Do you really think he’d take him anywhere you could find him?”

“Then I should be at the Cloud Recesses,” Lan Wangji said firmly. “To help rebuild –”

“To help make them a target again, you mean?” Su She said scathingly. “Did you forget, somehow, that you’re still a valuable hostage? That they’ll be expecting you to go back? Or is it just that all that nobility is starting to make your brain rot, you stupid fucker?”

Lan Wangji glared at him, tight-lipped, and stalked away, which meant that Su She’s point had probably been taken and they could have at least a little rest before having to start running again.

Before the war started. War, which terrorized the common people…

He needed to go to Moling to check on his family. Even if his brother rejected him, as he feared, he had to go – better rejected than bereaved, surely..?

Consumed with dark thoughts, Su She didn’t notice that he wasn’t alone until he walked straight into Wei Wuxian’s chest.

(Why were they all so tall?)

Wei Wuxian was glaring at him. “Listen,” he said, sounding angry. “Listen, whatever your name is, you can’t talk to Lan Zhan like that –”

Su She punched him in the face.

Wei Wuxian stared up at him in shock from where he’d fallen on his ass on the ground, but Su She didn’t care; he turned on his heel and stormed off, his face hot with rage and shame and bitterness.

“On second thought, we can leave right now,” he spat at a shocked-looking Lan Wangji. “I’m not staying here one more fucking second.”

Whatever your name is.

Like they hadn’t just gone through life and death together, hadn’t fought side by side, like he hadn’t risked his life on Wei Wuxian’s stupid plan, none of that mattered; he wasn’t important enough for Wei Wuxian to remember his name. People like him really were nothing but side characters to people like Wei Wuxian, weren’t they? Their lives, their hopes, their dreams, their bitterness – all irrelevant. An aside at best, mere marginalia, a splash of color to liven up the background.

Su She would bet money that Wei Wuxian knew the names of all the rich young masters that had attended classes with them, whether he liked them or he didn’t. He even knew the name of that little Wen clan member that he’d so bravely stood up for during the archery competition. But not Su She’s name, no, even though he’d been so graciously suffering all of the stupid back-and-forth pining Wei Wuxian had been doing with Lan Wangji, even though he’d let himself foolishly believe that because he and Lan Wangji had something in common that they might be something like friends or at least companions, that he might be treated as an equal –

No, these stupid rich young masters were all the same. He’d been right the first time.

Actually, now that he thought about it, why was he even here? Did he really think Lan Wangji would take his side over Wei Wuxian, who wasn’t only his peer in every sense of the word but also his beloved?

What a waste of time.

Su She left again. He wasn’t stupid enough to try to walk away just as he was, no matter how furious; how far would he get with no money, no food, and even his sword back in Wen custody? Instead he made his way down to the kitchens to ask for travel rations that could last for a while, and planned to visit the armory to borrow a sword after that. He’d need to pack lightly, but comprehensively: who knew how far the Wen sect’s influence spread? He might not be able to risk going into the cities and towns on the way to get supplies, not even wearing borrowed Yunmeng robes – even if he hid the incredibly obvious white forehead ribbon with a hat, he still walked like someone from the Lan sect, something he’d only really noticed once he was surrounded by people who slouched and bent and took large ground-eating steps instead of the sedate pace that he couldn’t quite break the habit of using.

“Su She,” Lan Wangji said from the door to the room they’d been given. Su She didn’t look at him or stop stuffing the travel rations and the spare robes he’d obtained into a qiangkun pouch.

“If you’re coming here to scold me about hitting Wei-gongzi, spare me,” Su She said stiffly. “We’re not in the Cloud Recesses; you don’t have any role over discipline here –”

“The silencing spell would have been more effective.”

Su She blinked, surprised by the apparent non-sequitur, and turned to look at him. “What?”

“To silence him,” Lan Wangji clarified, meaning Wei Wuxian.

As if that was the problem with what Su She had done.

“Yeah,” Jiang Cheng piped up – Su She hadn’t seen him standing by Lan Wangji’s side. “Hitting doesn’t work, he just pops right back up again. Please ignore him in the future; he’s an idiot.”

Well, Su She couldn’t disagree with that.

“You have a guest,” Jiang Cheng added. He looked almost – nervous? “Could – would you introduce us? Properly, this time.”

Su She couldn’t think of anyone he knew that Lan Wangji didn’t also know. Why would they ask him? The only person –

He stiffened abruptly, hope welling in his stomach. “Yu Zhuliu? He’s here?”

“Brother sent him to check on me,” Lan Wangji said. “And to tell me to stay where I am. You were right.”

It was – immensely gratifying to hear that.

“He and Mother are having tea,” Jiang Cheng added, looking impressed. “She insisted. It’s so weird.”

Yu Zhuliu looked the same as he always did, when Su She finally got to see him: tall and broad-shouldered, steady as a mountain, untroubled by wind or rain. There were a few points of similarity between his face and Madame Yu’s, if you looked for them, and he seemed pleased by her surprisingly gracious reception – when they spoke about it later, it turned out that he greatly admired her, the famous (or infamous) Violet Spider who had made a name for herself as a fierce warrior and top-grade cultivator, and who had never looked down at him for his birth when they’d both been younger.

Wei Wuxian didn’t apologize at any point, though he also didn’t call Su She out as the cause for his black eye. Instead, he opted to act as though their earlier confrontation had never happened, bounding into the room Su She shared with Lan Wangji – no one else rose at the same hour they did – and insisting on taking them around to see the sights of the Lotus Pier, to spend a day on a boat, another picking lotus seeds, and yet another shooting down kites.

Su She refused to go shoot down kites, not wanting to risk humiliation at something he was actually pretty decent at by competing at archery against Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Wangji, and spent the day with Yu Zhuliu instead.

“I missed you,” he blurted out instead of saying something reasonable. “I mean – not that I wanted you to be there and suffering, it was pretty awful, and who knows what the Wen sect might have tried to get you to do, it’s just – you know – ”

Yu Zhuliu was a reserved man who did not speak much. He put his hand on Su She’s and said only, “I know.”

Su She swallowed, and stared down at the hand that rested on him. It was a good hand, to his mind: broad in the palm, with short fingers that were the exact opposite of the long graceful ones favored by the Lan sect, but it did its vicious work well enough that the whole cultivation world knew about it – the whole cultivation world feared it.

Su She had never once worried about it. That probably made him a fool.

“Yu Zhuliu,” he said, very cautiously, even though he knew he shouldn’t speak; it was him being a fool again, except only this time he was a fool a hundred times over. “I know – I know that the Lan sect is very important to you. They rescued you at a bad moment in your life, and you owe them your loyalty; I understand that. But…do you think...maybe – one day in the future…”

Yu Zhuliu was looking at him steadily. He didn’t pull back his hand.

Su She gathered up his courage. “I’m going to go home to Moling, someday. Maybe even someday soon. And when I do, I’m not – I’m not going to go back to the Lan sect afterwards. I’m going to start my own sect, if I can manage it. When I do, would you – consider coming with me?”

He waited for Yu Zhuliu’s response with bated breath.

Yu Zhuliu looked serious and thoughtful, and he opened his mouth to respond –

There was a giant clatter from outside their door. “Wen sect!” someone shouted. “They’re here!”

Su She and Yu Zhuliu looked at each other, alarmed, and rushed out.

Unfortunately, that just meant they got a front row seat to the travesty that happened next.

Su She felt sick to his stomach: he’d predicted long ago that Wei Wuxian would one day rediscover that the Jiang sect saw him as only a servant, as something that could be sacrificed for the good of the sect, but each sizzle and snap of Zidian on Wei Wuxian’s back made him feel worse and worse. Su She’d been beaten plenty of times before, even whipped on occasion, but then again he’d never really taken the Lan sect to heart as his family – it wasn’t Wei Wuxian’s fault that he’d been so badly raised, tricked into thinking that they loved him like one of their own, into acting like a proud and arrogant young master who had a family that would hold up the world for him no matter what he did.

“She’s pulling the blows,” Yu Zhuliu murmured in his ear, too low for anyone else to hear, and that helped, a little. But not that much, since it was clear that Jiang Cheng, horrified, couldn’t tell, when it wasn’t clear if Wei Wuxian could, and then in the end it turned out to be all for nothing because Wang Lingjiao still demanded his hand.

Worse: he wasn’t sure if it was that, or the casual mention of a supervisory office, that was the step too far for Madame Yu.

Su She did not especially appreciate Madame Yu’s comments about Wang Lingjiao’s status as a servant, unsurprising and almost expected though they might be – although in a moment of horror-stricken hysteria he noticed that her words made Wei Wuxian, Jiang Cheng, and Lan Wangji simultaneously flinch and glance over at him in concern, apparently all to a one forgetting the circumstances they were all in out of fear of his sharp tongue – but seeing her beat up the disgusting Wang Lingjiao was oddly gratifying.

Right up until the Wen sect guards she had brought with her started attacking from the inside, while from outside the sound of bombardment began – Wen sect’s armies had been lying in wait.

“Kill them!” Wang Lingjiao screeched the second she was free to do so, lunging forward with claws extended at Madame Yu’s face. “Kill them all –”

She never got that far.

Yu Zhuliu’s palm caught her dead in the belly, the force of it throwing her backwards into the arms of one of her guards, who quickly scurried away with her.

“A waste,” Madame Yu said, straightening her clothing. “Of your abilities, primarily. Did she even have enough of a golden core to justify melting?”

Yu Zhuliu didn’t bother responding, drawing his sword, and the next thing Su She knew they were all being given swords from dead Wen sect guards and heading out into the battlefield.

“Oh, I really hate this,” Su She said, looking down at the one he was given. As a Wen sect blade, it wouldn’t have any pity on him, and he didn’t think he was good enough to avoid getting skewered the first second he got angry and stopped paying attention to all of his weak spots. “Doesn’t anyone have a spare guqin I can use instead? I know some really good attack songs.”

“I think I have one in my room, actually,” Wei Wuxian said, and led him away from the others, limping only a little. Madame Yu really must have been pulling her strikes – not that Su She hadn’t believe Yu Zhuliu, of course, but still.

“You play?” Su She asked as they hurried through the hallways. “I thought you used a dizi.”

“I – considered picking it up. Briefly.”

“Just kiss him already,” Su She advised, deciding to try to be nice for once. “It’ll be faster, and your reception will be warm.”

“Kiss…who?”

“Aren’t you supposed to be some sort of genius?” Su She growled, and took the never-used guqin. It had been impossible to use anything more than the most straightforward sound attacks when they’d been fighting at the Cloud Recesses, given how many Lan sect disciples and even servants cultivated with music, but here at the Jiang sect where just about everyone was a swordsman first, musician later, and only Lan Wangji to compete with, Su She had a bit more freedom to go find a nice safe spot near the walls to play.

He wasn’t a guqin player on Lan Wangji’s standard – it still burned to admit it even if he maybe didn’t hate him as much as he used to – but he’d spent an awful lot of time in the library looking for things he could use when he was building his own sect and, well, he’d always liked the weird stuff.

“Wait, are you playing ‘Banish Evil’?” Jiang Cheng asked at one point, hopping over a wall to get near enough to ask.

“What? No. Are you deaf? They barely sound alike,” Su She said. “Now get out of range already before it you’re affected.”

Not long after, the effect started to show, with Wen sect cultivators falling left and right out of the sky above his head once their qi started locking up in response to his music.

Had he looked up a method to lock someone’s qi through music just because it reminded him of Yu Zhuliu? No, but it sure did help motivate him in learning the abstruse and needlessly complicated finger-work for something that, yes, okay, maybe sounded a little bit like ‘Banish Evil’, but not enough for people not to immediately call him out on what would otherwise sound like an incredibly bad rendition of that song.

“Once formed, your sect will be immensely unpopular,” Lan Wangji informed him as he flew by on his sword, his own musical cultivation acting as a shield to allow him to fight unaffected by Su She’s music.

Su She grinned down at the guqin and thought to himself that he’d be keeping this one. They could consider it payment for having made him have to put up with Wei Wuxian.

At some point in the battle, Sect Leader Jiang returned and ended up fighting back to back with his wife, which – once the battle was over – turned into a shouting match.

Yu Zhuliu, when he arrived, took one look and his eyebrows went up. “Perhaps we should assist with clean-up on the pier,” he said, delicately enough that Su She immediately figured out what he was implying.

“Yeah,” he said, covering up his smirk with his sleeve. “Let’s go quickly.”

“Don’t you two worry about our feelings getting hurt by it,” Wei Wuxian said, sounding amused, as Jiang Cheng nodded along. “We’re more than used to them fighting.”

“Is that what you call it in the Jiang sect?” Su She sniggered, unable to resist, and both of them paled.

“How would you even know about that?” Jiang Cheng eventually recovered enough to volley back. “Being from the Lan sect and all – I’m amazed it isn’t against one of your rules.”

“Su She is starting his own sect,” Lan Wangji, appearing from who-knows-where, interjected. “With fewer rules.”

“Wait, really?” Jiang Cheng asked, looking – he looked impressed, actually. “A sect of your own? That’s amazing!”

Su She flushed, his face hot and red at once. No one had ever said anything positive about his idea before. “Not anytime soon,” he demurred. “I mean, even a small cultivation sect has to have money enough to buy a house – pay for swords, musical instruments, things like that – and I’m broke.”

“Oh, money,” Wei Wuxian said, in a tone of someone who’d never had to do without, and Su She was already starting to secretly plan his murder – yes, he was aware that Wei Wuxian had reputedly spent some time on the streets as an orphaned child and no, he did not care – when he added, carelessly, “You helped save our home, the least we can do is give you something to help start yours.”

Su She stopped dead. “Are you serious?”

“Certainly,” Jiang Cheng said, and fuck, they were being serious. That was the Jiang sect heir saying he would give him money, not a servant, someone whose words could plausibly be held to be binding on the rest of his sect. “Do you have a plan for what cultivation style you’ll teach new disciples?”

“Uh,” Su She said. His mind was blank. “I was just planning on using the Lan sect techniques.”

Wei Wuxian looped an arm over his shoulder. “With some innovations, thought, right? That qi-locking music was pretty nice, and I’ve never seen it used before.”

Su She puffed up a little. It was pretty nice, good of Wei Wuxian to recognize that – and he hadn’t even seen the teleportation talisman Su She had been painstakingly teaching himself how to use!

“Nor I,” Lan Wangji said, and looked pointedly at Su She. “I suspect it comes from the forbidden section of our library.”

“No, it isn’t,” Su She said immediately, holding up his hands. He knew what the punishment was for going in there without permission. “Not the forbidden, but the forgotten – I was one of the people assigned to sort through old inheritances. Books from abroad, obscure books no one ever bothered categorizing, that sort of thing. The big jumble in the basement of the secondary library…you know, the fire hazard. The one that blew up in the Wen sect’s faces when they tried to light it.”

“You remember enough of them to make it work?” Jiang Cheng asked, now looking even more impressed.

“Well, no,” Su She admitted. “But I made copies of everything that looked interesting and hid them in an abandoned root cellar halfway down the road to Caiyi Town, so they should still be intact.”

Lan Wangji lit up, which for him was a slight bit of color to his cheeks, a slight arch to his eyebrows, a faint curve to his eyes – in other words, he was positively glowing. “Would you permit copies to be made of your copies? We would gladly pay for the privilege.”

“And if you put that together with our money, and you should definitely have enough to fund a sect,” Wei Wuxian said enthusiastically. “And we can come visit!”

“Sooner rather than later, actually,” Jiang Cheng said, rubbing the back of his head. “Before the yelling started, Mother and Father agreed that we younger generation should lie low somewhere for a few weeks somewhere obscure to avoid any immediate reprisals from the Wen sect – and once they’ve lost the trail, we go out to recruit new sects to join the war.”

“That would be in line with what Brother requested that I do,” Lan Wangji observed, voice carefully neutral as always. “I would not object to spending some time in Moling, courting a newly formed sect.”

Su She didn’t know what to say, his mouth moving open and closed. It was almost everything he’d ever wanted, and he only need to reach out and grasp it – his own sect, his brother, the respect of the arrogant young masters…

Nothing could be better.

A hand fell on his shoulder, the warmth of it lighting him up inside.

“Our sect would be happy to host you,” Yu Zhuliu said.

Su She was wrong.

Now

it was perfect.

#mdzs #su she #wen zhuliu #lan wangji #wei wuxian #jiang cheng #my fic #my fics #VERY LONG #rainbowrites

[taizi]

the ship sways but the heart is steady

chapter one: the ship sways

the untamed pairing: jiang cheng & wei ying, lan zhan/wei ying word count: 2549 summary: Wei Ying’s friends are at rock-bottom, and Wei Ying puts his life on hold to help them put theirs back together. To absolutely no one’s surprise except Wei Ying’s, his family goes with him. read on ao3

x

During family dinner, Wei Ying’s phone rings, cutting mother off mid-sentence.

Jiang Cheng cringes inwardly and his brother’s face goes two shades paler. They have guests over, so mother doesn’t do more than glare hatefully in Wei Ying’s direction.

She won’t make a scene in front of Yanli’s husband, or even Wei Ying’s fiancé—Jin Zixuan is everything Yu Ziyuan wants in a match for her daughter, and Lan Zhan’s family is one of the richest on the East Coast.

Lan Zhan is also willing to give as good as he gets. His eyes are already narrowing in mother’s direction, the tentative ceasefire of family dinner wobbling precariously beneath their feet as he perceives the great and unforgivable offense of insult to Wei Ying. A-Li resolutely tries to pick the conversation back up from where it lulled, with all the steely resolve of someone throwing herself into the path of a rampaging bull. Jin Zixuan has graduated from grimacing into his wineglass to gazing hopefully at the clock every three minutes.

Always willing to fall on the grenade, Wei Ying ducks his head meekly.

“Sorry, I thought I silenced it,” he says, the shape of a laugh in his voice even if he can’t manage to drag it all the way out. He’s rummaging his cellphone out of his pocket, presumably to turn it off as a gesture of good faith. “I’ll just…”

But his eyes catch on the screen, and something happens to his expression that Jiang Cheng has never seen before.

Wei Ying stands up, so abruptly his chair sails back with an awful screech, and excuses himself. Lan Zhan follows him out of the dining room without a single word or a backwards glance. That’s all it takes for mother to pick up a scathing tirade against Jiang Cheng’s good-for-nothing, ungrateful, waste-of-space brother.

He joins Jin Zixuan in watching the clock. Worry swims in the back of his mind like a school of startled fish.

#

Wei Ying’s apartment is really actually Lan Zhan’s apartment, but the two of them have been inseparable since they were fourteen, and it naturally followed that where one of them would live, so would the other. The place is ridiculous, modern and minimalist, and it would look like something out of a magazine if not for Wei Ying’s inevitable clutter. But even the stacks of books and magazines, and haphazard easels, and little jars of paints and loose brushes everywhere manage to make the place seem charming and lived-in instead of the horrible disaster tornado it rightly should be.

Jiang Cheng asked him once what the monthly rent was but Wei Ying looked so haunted by the question that Jiang Cheng decided he didn’t actually want to know.

They’re all crammed into the conversation pit, recovering from family dinner in the usual fashion. Jin Zixuan is much more likable when his tie is loose and he’s nursing a lukewarm beer.

A-Li is clinging to Jiang Cheng’s hand so hard he’s beginning to lose circulation but he’d sooner agree to amputate than he would shake her off.

“You’re on speaker, A-Qing,” Wei Ying says with mock-severity. “Keep it PG for the children in the room, please.”

“So Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan are there?” Wen Qing asks rhetorically.

Jin Zixuan sighs but doesn’t rise to it. Jiang Cheng snaps, “Listen, assholes,” partly out of half-hearted irritation, and partly to hear Wen Qing sigh the way she does when she doesn’t want to reward someone with a real laugh.

“Yanli and Lan Zhan are here, too,” Wei Ying says cheerfully. His tone doesn’t match how worried his eyes are. “This is a family-only meeting. So tell us what those texts were about.”

Jiang Cheng realizes right away why Wei Ying bailed on dinner.

There was an apartment fire. The Wens lost everything. Wen Ning is in the hospital with smoke inhalation and second-degree burns because he ran in to make sure their neighbors got out safely. All of their savings are wrapped up in putting Wen Qing through medical school. She’s adrift now in a way that Jiang Cheng has never been.

“There’s... we have an old house, somewhere out in the country. It was sold to my grandparents cheap, but they never got around to renovating it. It’s not even livable, just bare bones.”

A-Li starts crying the second Wen Qing does.

“It’s too much,” Wen Qing forces out. “I can’t do this on my own.”

Wei Ying, to his credit, actually does hesitate. A whole five seconds. And then he says, “I thought you were supposed to be my smart friend. Who said you were doing this on your own?”

He says it as easily as if it was an absolute given that he would turn his whole life around and upside down for her. All she had to do was call.

#

There is a minor disagreement between Jiang Cheng’s siblings.

“A-Li,” Wei Ying says, holding both of her hands in both of his own and looking deeply, imploringly, into her eyes. “You’re way too pregnant to fly.”

Her face crinkles alarmingly, eyes already red and puffy from recent tears. Jiang Cheng, Jin Zixuan and Lan Zhan tense in exactly the same way, at the same time.

“I won’t have you going all the way to California by yourself,” Yanli says in her most eldest-sibling tone of voice. “I won’t have it, A-Ying.”

“I am a grown-up,” Wei Ying points out gently, with all the wisdom of his twenty-four years. “I pay bills and have a job I hate and everything. And I won’t be by myself, I’ll have A-Qing and A-Ning.”

“And me, obviously,” Jiang Cheng grumbles. Wei Ying whips around to stare at him.

“Oh,” Yanli says, a blanket of relief rolling across her face. “Oh, of course.”

“You can’t,” Wei Ying hisses at him, looking more panicked now than he has all night. “Your mother—”

“Okay, first of all, don’t tell me what I can and can’t do,” Jiang Cheng bites back, prickly with worry for the Wens and worry for his idiot brother. “Secondly, you, going by yourself, is not an option. It’s off the table. It was never on the table. Stupid,” he adds, on principle.

Lan Zhan doesn’t contribute much to the conversation at this point but Jiang Cheng learned a long time ago that that doesn’t mean shit. Lan Zhan has more opinions than any three people combined, whether or not he chooses to voice them. There is no fucking way he doesn’t have thoughts about his fiance picking up and moving nearly three thousand miles away.

Maybe there’s some strange alternate timeline out there where he would be content to stay behind and let Wei Ying go off without him, but Jiang Cheng would bet his entire trust fund that that’s simply not happening here.

If ever there was a world where Wei Ying would be backed into a corner and forced to help the Wens alone, this world isn’t it.

#

There’s a minor disagreement between his siblings, and there’s a whole fucking nuclear fallout at home.

“I forbid it,” mother snaps. She’s livid, but she’s livid so much of the time that it started losing its edge a few years ago. “Absolutely not. I refuse to allow this family to lose face because you want to gallivant across the country for some charity case.”

Jiang Cheng sees it when Wei Ying’s posture changes. The dreamy raincloud gray of Wei Ying’s eyes hardens into heavy steel, and his spine stiffens, and his shoulders go back; the absolute opposite of his downcast self at dinner earlier. He’s willing to fight any impossible battle as long as it’s for someone else.

Jiang Cheng grew up looking up to him. He spent all of his formative years as Wei Ying’s little brother. That’s why he’s willing, too.

“The Wens aren’t a charity case,” he says. Not very loud, but he says it. It’s a lot more than he could have done when he was a kid.

“You don’t even know them! They’re just some random people on the Internet. They’re probably scamming you, and you’re both idiot enough to fall for it!”

That’s so untrue and unfair that Jiang Cheng doesn’t know how to argue for a moment. They’ve never met the Wens in person, but Wei Ying has been friends with them since he was ten. They mail each other presents for Christmas and birthdays. Jiang Cheng distinctly remembers calling Wen Qing for help with biochem homework, multiple times. Wen Ning always Skyped with Yanli when he was stuck on a recipe, the two of them cooking together from three time zones apart. They’re all tangled up in each other’s lives, comfortably, irrevocably.

Of course we know them, Jiang Cheng thinks, bewildered.

Out loud, he says, “They’re not scamming us. And we already told them we’re coming.”

Mother screeches and storms around the house and throws things, but she hasn’t actually hit either of them since they grew taller than her. She hasn’t been a source of real fear since Jiang Cheng started looking down at her instead of looking up. It’s mostly just miserable to be around her now.

He remembers that fear, though. It sticks to his body like a half-healed scar. It reminds him to flinch.

#

It’s early enough in the morning that it might as well still be nighttime when Jiang Cheng and his suitcases finally show up at Wei Ying’s building. He leaves his luggage in the lobby under the watchful gaze of the concierge and takes the private elevator up, keying in the code to his brother’s apartment.

The doors roll open to the living room. Lan Zhan is holding a tiny animal carrier in his hands, gazing at Wei Ying in an extremely gross and smitten way while Wei Ying discusses the upcoming trip with their pets. Pidan and Bao are not being particularly attentive, snuffling at his chin and chewing on a piece of his hair respectively.

“Diedie has decided to be stubborn and not listen to good sense,” Wei Ying is telling the rabbits seriously, “so you’re coming with me and ruining your life instead of being safe and comfortable here at home.”

“Baba is being dramatic,” Lan Zhan informs them in turn. “And also foolish, if he doesn’t realize that our home is wherever he goes.”

“This is the weirdest domestic scene I’ve ever walked into,” Jiang Cheng says loudly, since apparently the telltale ding of the elevator wasn’t enough to announce his presence. He has to interrupt before they do something horrible, like make out in front of him. It’s a constant fucking risk with these two. “Are we leaving or what?”

So the rabbits go into their crate with a frankly absurd amount of fanfare and Jiang Cheng helps wrestle the luggage downstairs. By then, the shuttle that Lan Zhan ordered is waiting for them at the curb.

He knows it isn’t going to be a vacation. Wei Ying’s friends are at rock-bottom, and Wei Ying has essentially put his life on hold to help them put theirs back together. It’s going to be hard work. It’s probably going to be painful, and a little bit scary.

Jiang Cheng is only involved because he chose to be, but it never occurs to him to choose anything else.

If this is where his brother is going, it’s probably the right place to go. And if it’s not, if the whole thing turns out to be a horrible mistake and he regrets all of it, then at least he’ll be in good company.

#

Wen Ning is out of the hospital by the time their plane lands, and he’s waiting with Wen Qing at the airport. Wei Ying, who by all accounts should feel as foggy and queasy as Jiang Cheng definitely does, drops his bags and sprints across the terminal towards them.

Jiang Cheng and Lan Zhan follow at a more reasonable human pace, possibly in part to give the friends a few moments together. The busy airport traffic moves around them like a river flowing around a rock.

Wen Ning is sobbing, almost a full head taller than Wei Ying but buried against him like the little brother he is. Wen Qing is leaning quietly against the two of them with her eyes closed, as if filling her reserves and shoring up her strength.  

She’s the type of person who would be able to cow his mother with a single glance, Jiang Cheng thinks admiringly, and more efficiently than Lan Zhan ever could. She must have a spine built out of steel to be able to stand there without crumbling under the weight of what she’s lost.

And Wei Ying stands there holding them up, tireless and steady. He’s talking too quietly for Jiang Cheng to hear, saying something that makes Wen Ning nod against his shoulder. He’ll hold them up until the ground falls out from under his feet if he has to. Thankfully it’s more like three minutes.

Introductions aren’t necessary. They all just trade exhausted looks and move as a cohesive unit towards the doors.

Wen Ning starts to help with the bags, bandaged hands and all. Wen Qing and Jiang Cheng both snap at him before he can so much as touch a suitcase, and then he just waffles in place anxiously, like he doesn’t know how to person if he isn’t actively being helpful.

“Hold the kids,” Wei Ying says in the spirit of compromise, taking the pet crate from Lan Zhan and holding it out to Wen Ning instead.

Somehow, they shuffle everything out of the airport and into a rental car. Lan Zhan’s phone starts to blow up as soon as he turns airplane mode off, so he turns airplane mode back on and returns the phone to his pocket.

“My uncle has checked the credit card statement,” Lan Zhan says calmly. “My brother is handling it.”

“Poor Lan Huan,” Wei Ying murmurs.

“We have to call A-Li,” Jiang Cheng remembers with a jolt. He digs his own phone out. “She wanted us to call as soon as we landed.”

Everyone clusters in close for the FaceTime call with Yanli, who is tearful and hormonal and indignant about being left behind. Jiang Cheng begs her not to get into a fight with their mother over this. Yanli raises her chin and says, “We’ll see.”

It’s a very long drive to the estate. Wei Ying’s head sinks against Lan Zhan’s shoulder in an inevitable, unstoppable act of gravity. He falls asleep within minutes.

“You have to help me thank him,” Wen Qing says quietly, tapping anxious fingers against the steering wheel. “Help me figure out how to thank him.”

Jiang Cheng snorts, not unkindly. “What makes you think I know how?”

An entire childhood spent raising each other, protecting each other, annoying the shit out of each other, and there are still some things Jiang Cheng has no idea how to say to his brother in a way that he’ll understand. Like I’m sorry, and thank you.

Lan Zhan turns his head to the side, so that his cheek is pillowed against Wei Ying’s hair. Outside, the sprawling California countryside sprints past the windows, wild and golden under a relentless summer sun.

#mo dao zu shi #the untamed #mdzs #wangxian #yunmeng shuangjie #jiang cheng #wei ying #lan zhan #wen ning #wen qing #jiang yanli #my writing #mdzs fic #it was only a matter of time fellas #the ship sways

[speechlessxx]

Call It What You Want (Ransom Drysdale x Reader)

Summary: There’s an unspoken bond between the Reader and Ransom.

Warnings: poorly written SMUT (18+ MINORS DNI), unprotected sex, oral sex (fem receiving), soft Ransom (because i love him idc), bad relationship with parents. This fic was honestly so self-indulgent because I love this song. 

Word Count: 3.7k

Loosely inspired by Call It What You Want by (the Queen) Taylor Swift.

Sometimes life felt as if you were playing a Jenga game alone on a table with uneven legs.

For brief moments, everything was normal. Your movements were delicate as you built the tower. Higher and higher it would go, but then you’d stop to admire your work. You would rest your elbows against the surface and accidentally cause the table to shift. The tower would collapse, and you would have to rebuild it again.

However, you never had a stable foundation to begin with. The table was always wobbly. So, time and time again that tower fell. And you’ll have to start over alone.

That was your life.

Your parents were wealthy workaholics. You don’t remember being held or cuddled by your mother or father. You had a revolving door of nannies. None stayed too long so you could form any connection. Your mother would catch them in bed with her husband and terminate their employment. Even through your father’s infidelity, your mother refused to leave him. You remembered her drunkenly admit to you, her 7-year-old, that she stayed because she was afraid of what others would think.

When they weren’t working, they were fighting. You spent nights crying alone in your bedroom as you overheard endless arguments throughout the night. Your parents’ voices would echo through the large house and you’d hear every single insult, threat, and slur.

Your family was sitting upon a tense string that refused to break.  

You had no stability – no constancy. You had no siblings either. Your school friends – whether they were from grade school or high school, it didn’t matter. They were all the same – were too self-involved to pay you any mind. You had no shoulder to cry on. No one to kiss the bruises and the scars away. No one to lean on when your life itself felt like it collapsed.

You only had your parents who both resented you because you were the result of a love that they no longer had.

Perhaps, that’s why you and Ransom Drysdale got along so well. Trust-fund brats who were neglected by their wealthy parents. Maybe it was a good thing that you at least had each other.

The closeness between you was surreal. You read one another like an open book whereas others had difficulty even pronouncing your titles. You were each other’s confidant, best friend, and rock. You found in comfort in each other’s mess.

It would be easy to mistake you two as a couple.

Both of you were once touch starved children, so you couldn’t keep your hands off each other. It was in the grazes of your fingertips and the tight embraces where you would snuggle your face in the crook of his neck, and he’d bury his into your hair. Ransom often kissed your wrists and fingers as he toyed with your hand in his. Every time you sat down next to each other, your knees were touching, or you’d be playing an unconscious game of footsies. It didn’t matter what your bodies were doing or where you were – you were always touching.

Strangers, and even those who knew you, often did think that you two were together. And when confronted, both of you would always scoff and say no. You were just friends. Nothing more, nothing less.

But behind closed doors, there was something. Something more that ignited your skin and set your body on fire. Something more that left Ransom – the talkative asshole – speechless and panting as he tried to catch his breath.

You both agreed only to have sex when it was absolutely necessary.

“It helps us blow off some steam,” Ransom had explained to you while you just nodded in agreement. You couldn’t find your words. Your wits had been fucked to silence and your brain felt like jelly.

You have your shared struggles and frustrations. Sometimes a simple lay was all you needed to let out your bottled-up emotions. It made sense when you established the agreement in your late college years.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” you agreed breathlessly.

You didn’t do it often. It would ruin the friendship. You even established a “no kissing on the lips” rule. You said it made everything all too real.

But as the years went by, something else began to blossom. Something else established itself. But neither of you would ever dare speak of it.

It would ruin the friendship after all.

-=+=-

You hated coming back to your childhood home. Haunting memories were the only keepsakes you had there. You had moved out right after college and would only return for holidays – upon your mother’s demand. You always felt as if it were empty. The house was massive and for many years was only home to three people, excluding the help.

You sat at the table alone as you anxiously fumbled with the initial necklace Ransom had given you for your birthday. The dainty gold ‘R’ charm was between your thumb and index finger as your leg bounced while you stared at the untouched feast.

Your father had excused himself, saying he had an emergency video conference for work. You and your mother rolled your eyes as he rushed off. You both knew it wasn’t for work. Enraged, your mother stalked off, glass full of chardonnay in one hand, the bottle in the other.

You didn’t know what you expected. It was like this every holiday – your parents made no exception. You stared at the turkey before you. Your parents didn’t even last to meal itself.

Frustrated, you decided to wrap everything up and packed them into take-home bags. You knew your parents probably wouldn’t eat the leftovers, so you thought about donating the feast to the foodbank. You could drop it off on your way home.

Your phone buzzed in your pocket. You dug it out and smiled upon seeing Ransom’s name.

Surviving? Because I’m not.

You chuckled. Suck it up, Drysdale. It’s Thanksgiving.

If I have to spend one more minute with these assholes, I’m going to throw myself down the stairs.

No exaggeration.

Before you could respond, you heard your mother call for you. Her glass was empty, and she was staggering into the kitchen, clearly drunk. You wondered if she drank the whole bottle.

“What the hell are you doing? Where’s the food?” She slurred.

You gestured to the packed meals. “I was wrapping them up because no one was eating.” You decided not to tell her about donating them. Lord forbid that you tried to be a decent human and help those less fortunate than you.

Your phone buzzed again. You gave it a quick glance.

Heading home now. They’re gonna give me an aneurysm.

How’s dinner?

“Why would you do that?” Her brows furrowed, but with her Botox, it made no wrinkles appear on her aging face. She put her hands on her his, the glass nearly slipping from her loose fingers. She was an angry drunk. She always was.

You wanted to say that she and your father ruined Thanksgiving. If they’d only just sit down and eat and pretend they were normal for thirty god damn minutes. But every year, that was never the case. You were always disappointed. “I can unpack it if you want.”

“Your father is an asshole.”

“You could’ve left him years ago,” you muttered.

She didn’t hear you. “How’s the job?”

“Good.” You said as you began to unpack some stuffing. Get some food in her since she was already full of alcohol.

“I don’t know why you decided business was for you,” she let out a long sigh. “Just like your father.”

“I don’t like setting up events. PR’s not my thing,” you tried to joke, topping it off with a forced laugh.

She set down her empty glass and flicked her hair off her shoulder. “Could always work for me, sweetheart. I need a new assistant.”

“I’m fine. Thanks, ma.”

“No, for real, sweetie,” she insisted. “I’d love for you to work for me. That’s every girl’s dream. Work for their mother.” You frowned. I don’t think that’s it, you thought.

“I’d rather not be tied to this family any more than I am,” you muttered. This time she heard you.

An exaggerated offended noise came from her lips as she stared at you with her jaw dropped. “Don’t be an ungrateful little bitch.” She spat. “That’s why you never do anything right and that’s why you’re unmarried, unloved, and unhappy.”

“I’m unhappy?” You laughed mockingly. “I’m not the one trapped in a marriage to man that constantly cheats on me. In fact, I’m ecstatic that I’m nothing like you or dad. I’m buzzing with jubilation.” You couldn’t stop yourself. You knew you were worsening the situation.

“You’re a vile bitch that’s gonna end up alone.” They were drunken words. You knew that. But it didn’t stop it from hurting.

You didn’t bother to respond. You chewed on the flesh inside your cheek before turning away and rushing out to your car. You cursed yourself for leaving the food. It would be trash tomorrow. Wasted. Stray tears rolled down your face and you wiped them away aggressively as you drove.

Being alone was something you should’ve been accustomed to already. In fact, you were. You were an only child, had friends that never bothered to ask if you were okay, nannies that cared more about your dad than taking care of you, parents who didn’t even remember your birthday unless they were reminded by their assistants. You knew how to be alone. You were so good at it.

And that frightened you.

You didn’t want to be alone. You craved affection, companionship, love. You wanted that for yourself. But despite all the luxuries you were granted throughout your life, that was one luxury that you desperately wanted but seemingly would never receive.

You felt your anger bubbling inside of you. A pressure started building in your head – steam that needed to be released.

Luckily, you knew where to go.

-=+=-

The holidays were a particularly hard time for both of you and Ransom. Your families demanded your attendances at events, so you both were always forced to come see the very people you loathe the most. Throughout the years of your friendship, it became a tradition to check up on each other as you spent time with your … “loved” ones.

It was a sanity check – something to keep you both grounded. He had a big family, so he could talk shit about them for hours. You loved to read the messages he’d send you.

But this time, he had sent you several messages that you hadn’t responded to. He began to worry until he heard a car door slam in his driveway. You let yourself in. You had a spare key.

“Ransom!” You called out.

“Bedroom!” He responded. He paused the movie he was watching just as you walked through his already open door.

There was something wrong. It was written all over your face. He didn’t need to ask you if you were alright. He knew you weren’t. So, instead he patted the empty side of his bed, inviting you to come lay down with him. But you had a different type of lay in mind.

“How hard is your dick right now?” You asked, bluntly, as you shrugged off your jacket and tossed it to the floor.

A smirk crept its way to Ransom’s face. “Come here and find out.”

You kicked off your shoes and shimmied out of your skinny jeans, leaving your legs exposed in only your plain, black panties. You climbed onto his bed and straddled his lap. You began to grind yourself to his growing erection. The friction stimulating both of you.

Ransom groaned as he watched you. His hands searched his sheets until he found the remote. With clumsy fingers, he managed to turn the TV off and toss the remote to the edge of the bed. He heard it fall, but he was too preoccupied with the gorgeous woman grinding her pussy on his slacks to even care.

“Let’s take this off, hm?” Ransom asked, fiddling with the hem of your blouse.

“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” you teased, stopping your movements.

“You’re childish,” Ransom chuckled, his tongue grazed the back of his teeth. He gave your ass a sharp slap. “I didn’t tell you to stop.”

“You aren’t the boss of me, Drysdale.”

He quirked up an amused eyebrow as if to say we’ll see before he pulled your top off your body. You were now sitting on top of him almost nude in your matching bra and underwear. You returned the favor, pulling off the hole-ridden baby blue sweater and exposing his body to you.

Your hands explored his chiseled chest and stomach. Hard as marble, but not nearly as hard as his cock beneath you, begging to be released from its confinements. You shifted down a bit so that you could undo his belt, but his hands stopped you. He grabbed your wrists and you frowned at him.

“What?” You snapped with furrowed brows.

“We’re on the same page?” Ransom asked you. He was concerned. Sure, this almost friends-with-benefits arrangement was years old at this point, but he still wanted to make sure you wanted this. He always asked before anything got too far.

“Please, Ranson…” your voice nearly cracked. He stared into your eyes and despite the lust being evident in your blown-out pupils – he was sure his mirrored the look – he saw the light red lines, an indicator that you were crying. “I need it.”

“Okay,” he nodded and let go of your wrists. Without hesitation, you began to expertly undo the belt and unbutton his pants. With his help, you were able to successfully pull down his slacks and left him in his boxer briefs. The tent inviting. Before you could reach into his underwear and pull out his friend, he flipped you over. You squealed in surprise as your back was pressed into his bed. “You need it, baby?” You nodded. “Okay… I’ll think about being nice.”

“Ransom,” you whined.

His fingers lightly traced the sides of your body. You shivered at his touch. You took it upon yourself to arch your back so that you could unclasp your bra. You threw it away, exposing your chest to your best friend who groaned.

“God, I love these.” He muttered.

His hands cupped your breasts, toying with them. His fingertips tweaking at the nipples as he ground his desire to yours. Ransom leaned down and latched his mouth onto one of your nipples. His tongue swirling around the skin as he sucked it until it pebbled. He then switched to the other. He’d also take a break from your nipples just to leave stray hickeys all over your chest, collarbones, and neck. He loved marking you up. Whilst his mouth continued its assault on your chest, one of his hands slipped into your panties and began to explore your wet folds.

And slowly, Ransom started to make his way down your body, leaving wet kisses on your skin. He kissed right on top of your underwear before slowing pulling the black fabric down your legs. You lifted your hips to assist. Once they were off, you instinctively bent your knees as Ransom pulled them apart and leaned down to give your pussy a broad tongued lick.

You used to be insecure of the stretchmarks on your thighs. When you and Ransom first started having sex, you were afraid he would find them unappealing – that it would turn him off. But your best friend assured you that every part of your body – including the flaws – were beautiful. “Nothing about you could ever turn me off, (Y/N),” a younger Ransom scoffed. The present Ransom, the one who was about to eat you out like a Thanksgiving meal, couldn’t agree more. (He’d often joke and say you ruined other women for him).

You were a moaning mess as Ransom’s fingers pulled your lips open to expose your clit to his tongue. He looked up at you from his position and the sight of you with your eyes closed in a blissful trance alone could’ve made him cum on the spot. His tongue swirled around your button in tiny, circular motions before slipping his tongue into your slickening channel.

“Oh my god,” you moaned. “Ransom, Ransom!” It was music to his ears.

He ate you out slowly, relishing in your taste. Ransom took pride in your reactions. You had one hand clasping the ‘R’ charm around your neck and the other lost in his hair. He smirked into you as he watched you wither in pleasure as he used his fingers to tease your opening. When you began to buck into his face, he used his other hand to hold down your waist, keeping your hips still for his assault.

You clenched around his fingers. “Ransom… I’m close… oh, my god,” you warned. Ransom grunted, taking great pleasure from eating you out. “Don’t stop, don’t stop,” you begged. He pressed two fingers deep inside of you, curling them and stroking your walls. He buried his face deeper into your dripping cunt and stared up as you came. He wished he could have your reactions of video. The sounds you made were porn worthy and he would’ve loved to have his own private collection.

He stroked you as you rode out your high. You were breathless as your eyes slowly fluttered open, staring up onto the ceiling. “You with me?” Ransom smirked as he stripped his underwear and stroked his hard cock. You nodded. You reached out for him and he gladly leaned down to let you wrap your arms around his broad shoulders.

“I want you to fuck me until I’m stupid,” you whispered. “Only thing I wanna remember is your name.”

Ransom almost frowned. Your parents must’ve really done a number on you this time. In the years that this arrangement had been established, Ransom would – 9 times out of 10 – be the one to initiate the stress relieving sex. But he was more than happy to oblige.

“Your wish is my command, baby,” he muttered, nipping at the skin of your neck before pushing into you.

In one hard thrust, he pushed his entire length into you. You winced when you felt him brush against your cervix. His thrusts were sharp and hard. You’ve had enough sex with each other to know the various spots that made one another tick. Ransom was eager to give you another orgasm – he got off on it.

The shifts of his hips were deliberate, bringing your legs up to drape over his shoulders. He hit spots deep inside of you that you never knew existed before you had sex with him. Your hands were searching for something to hold, something to occupy themselves with. Ransom leaned over, folding you in half, as he took your hands in his, interlacing your fingers while he pounded into you.

You gushed around his thick cock, another orgasm being pulled from you unexpectedly. You moaned his name over and over. “Yeah, baby? Only I make you feel like this, huh?” he grunted. “You take my dick so well. Only you do that, baby.”

You moaned in response, no tangible sentences could even form. His name was the only thing you could say. Your brain effectively melting as you requested.

“I’m gonna make you cum over and over for me.”

He made good on that promise. You lost count of how many times Ransom had made you cum. You had no idea where he got the stamina. But he fucked you through orgasm after orgasm. You fell apart so many times only for him to put you back together.

The obscene sounds that came from your heated core were accompanied by a symphony of moans and the slapping of skin.

“Ugh,” you moaned after what felt like your 6th orgasm of the night. “I love you, Ransom,” you moaned out, and it was the truth. In your fucked-out state, you confessed the three words that you both were too afraid to tell each other. But Ransom smiled, his thrusts becoming less rhythmic. He was about to cum.

He leaned down and captured your lips, groaning into you as he found his release inside of you. The warm feeling spreading throughout your body as you kissed back. Your lips melting into each other, eager and hungry. It was years in the making.

Ransom pulled away first and pulled out of you. You winced and whimpered upon feeling the emptiness. Your mixed fluids slowly trickled out of you and onto the bed, but neither of you minded. You were both too tired.

Ransom slumped beside and you naturally snuggled into his side. By this time Ransom would’ve offered to help clean you, knowing your legs would be like jelly, he’d walk you to the bathroom. But he wanted to enjoy your shared afterglow as he pulled you over his body so that you were resting on his chest. Both of you were panting, lungs trying to pace themselves.

You slowly began to feel the fear settle in.

Ransom was your best friend. The one constant thing in your life. The only stability you had. Your place of comfort. And you’ve ruined it. You said it. The three words. The feeling that’s been building up for years. You scolded yourself for saying it so recklessly.

You’ve done it. You’ve toppled your tower again. Your fingers played with the ‘R’ charm on your necklace again. A nervous habit it seemed.

“I love you, (Y/N),” he whispered in the darkness. He kissed the top of your head as he wrapped his arms tighter around you.

And then a feeling of ease settled upon you. A smile on your face as you realized the tower didn’t fall… not yet. But even if it did, Ransom would be there to help you rebuild. You weren’t alone.

#ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale imagine #chris evans x reader #chris evans #chris evans imagine #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers imagine #steve rogers #smut #ransom drysdale smut #chris evans smut

[heartbeatan]

Devil's Garden (Chapter 1)

Return to Table of Contents.

Return to Desperado Series.

Return to Taehyung Fanfictions.

Return to Masterlist.

Chapter 1

Taehyung flicked the flint wheel of his silver lighter, bringing the flame inches from his lips as he lit another cigarette. Closing the zippo with a “clink” he looked at the clock once again. He was already five minutes late, but he didn’t care.

Taking a long drag, he unfolded his notepad, reading the details he had written down when you called him yesterday. Normally, he would have researched you before the first meeting. But yesterday, he was too busy drowning himself in a flood of liquor and tits at the strip club down the street from his basement apartment. He hadn’t even bothered to shower this morning – he was sure there was probably still a ring of lipstick tacky around his cock.

“I need you to investigate my husband,” you had told him over the phone. These were his least favourite cases. Domestic disputes. Most of the time they ended up coming from some lonely housewife who spent her days primping herself for the ungrateful, cheating bastard she married because he had money. That’s what he suspected anyways. That’s why he didn’t bother to put on his best face for you. Why he didn’t care that his suit was the one he wore yesterday, or that he didn’t do his research before he got there.

When he was done, he considered lighting another. He even considered driving away – it’s not like he wanted the job anyway. The problem was, he needed it. He needed to pay the bills. With that in mind, he sighed a “let’s get this over with” and pulled himself from the car, dropping the butt onto the ground before he made his way up the stoney path towards the visitor’s entrance.

“Welcome to Devil’s Garden,” a bright, young woman greeted him as he passed across the threshold and into the cool, air-conditioned building. It was a relief to feel the dehumidified air in the middle of the long, hot summer. The air-conditioning in his car had died years ago, and his apartment never had it, so moments like these always felt like a luxury occasion. His eyes scanned the multitude of wine bottles perched upon the wood palette wall behind the hostess. Perhaps, after business was taken care of, he’d stay for a while - bask in the air-conditioning and try a bottle… or three.

“Are you here for the tour? A tasting?” the hostess asked him after a long pause.

“Uhh… no… I’m here to meet someone,” he replied, unable to recall your name from memory.

“Oh?” her eyes widened as she waited for him to continue.

“Umm…” Taehyung flipped through his notepad and began searching for the page with your details. He could feel the eyes of the hostess on him and the unease she emitted as she tried to piece together what he was even doing here. Relieved, he found the page, confirming it was the right one by the address to ‘The Devils Garden Winery’ which he had messily scribbled across it in red ink. “…I’m here to see a Miss Y/N…”

“Mr. Kim?” he was cut off by the sound of someone calling his name. He looked confused back up to the hostess but noticed her gaze had been diverted to something behind him – to the place where the voice came from. He followed where her eyes led, twisting away from the counter to gaze down the corridor until his eyes landed onto the figure walking towards him. A woman was approaching them.

No.

A beautiful woman was approaching him. He had seen his fair share of attractive women in his life, but it had been long since he had seen a woman stunning enough to stun him.

It wasn’t anything in particular about her that had his breath catching in his throat. Perhaps it was a little bit of everything. Perhaps it was the simple, light, white, strappy cotton dress that hung softly over her hips and teased a glimpse of her breasts; or maybe it was the red rubber working boots she paired with it. Perhaps it was the way her skin glistened, slightly dampened in sweat - or the way her hair, once probably perfectly in place but now wind swept – all indicators that she had been working hard outdoors that morning. Or perhaps it was the way she sashayed down the hall; the brightness in her eyes; her aura and confidence that radiated through the room. Whatever it was about her, it spoke to Taehyung – or at least, it spoke to the now attentive friend he had in his pants.

“Are you Mr. Kim?” the woman spoke again, smiling at him as she stuck out her hand. He looked down at her gesture has he reached out to take her hand but couldn’t stop his eyes from flitting the rest of the way down her body. Just a quick unnoticeable glance, but he felt himself internally stumble in embarrassment. For some reason – for some reason this time - he didn’t want this woman to know. Didn’t want her to know what a jackass he was, or what a pervert he could be.

“I am,” he replied as he shook her hand. Her smile widened once he confirmed it.

“I’m Y/N,” you replied, pleased you hadn’t been mistaken. “We spoke on the phone yesterday.”

“Right,” he came back to Earth as he remembered the reason why he was actually there… because you were his client… because you thought your husband was up to something… because you had a husband. “Please, call me Taehyung. I hate Mr. Kim.”

You opened your mouth to apologize, but just as you did your empty stomach let out an embarrassingly loud protest. You quickly clutched your midriff in your hands – as if it would suppress the sound – but Taehyung heard it loud and clear. The corner of his mouth twitched as he amusedly watched your eyes widen in a little bit of surprise and a little bit of embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry,” you near laughed. “I’ve been so busy today I don’t think I remembered to eat.”

“It’s fine,” he said, but then mentally kicked himself for not saying something suave.

“Have you eaten? Do you mind if we do this over lunch?”

“Sure. Of course.”

“Great,” you smiled brightly, and Taehyung felt his heart pound at the sight. “Follow me.”

You turned away and strutted passed the hostess’s counter into the room behind her. Taehyung once again couldn’t stop himself as his gaze darted down the length of your figure as you walked away from him. He took notice of how the fabric swayed over the curve of your ass. How the muscles of your thighs flexed with each step you took. He thought then of how those thighs would flex beneath his palms when he fucked you.

He kinked his neck as he tried to shake the image from his mind while he stepped forward to follow you. Before out of sight, however, he caught the gaze of the hostess still watching him, and for a paranoid second, he wondered if she could hear his depraved thoughts.

As he followed you into what was now obviously the dining area of the establishment, he fidgeted with the hem of his shirt - tucking and straightening the tails into his pants. Even though minutes ago he couldn’t have cared less about how he looked or smelled, he was now painfully self-conscious about both.

Despite the dining room being entirely empty, you led him across the room to a table resting in the far corner away from the bathrooms, exits or any foot traffic. It was obvious to Taehyung that you wanted your conversation to be kept private – but not private enough that it would warrant any suspicion from the staff at the winery. As you sat down across from him, he took immediate note of how your demeanor shifted. You were nervous. Uncomfortable. But still trying hard to save face – to pretend as if everything was okay, even in front of him – the man you hired to suss out your dirty secrets.

“Let’s just jump into it,” he said, taking pity on you when he couldn’t stomach your anxious fidgeting anymore.

“Sure,” you nodded as you swallowed back your trepidation.

“You said you needed me to investigate your husband,” he began as he pulled out his notepad again, flipping to a clean page.

“Yes.”

“What is it you suspect him of?”

You audibly sighed. “I’m not sure, exactly.”

Taehyung’s forehead creased in confusion, but your statement had his private investigators interest peaked. He looked back up to your face, studying it as if it would be able to give him an answer. But all you were doing at the moment was gnawing unconsciously on your lower lip. Once again, he became lost in his shameless thoughts.

Those lips.

They looked so soft. So sweet. He’d bet they’d look even sweeter wrapped around his cock. The way you bit them now was probably the same way you’d bite on them just before you’d come.

Fuck, man, he mentally scolded himself.

“Thing is…” you began, and Taehyung was relieved he had something else to focus on. “… he’s definitely up to something. I just don’t know what.”

“What makes you think he’s up to something?”

“He’s been coming home late from work. But then, sometimes when I call his work, he isn’t there. He started taking phone calls out of the room so I can’t hear – saying it’s just work.”

“Does he work here?”

“No. This is my place. He works for a construction company. Ummm… Stintsons it’s called.”

His ears perked at the name. Stintsons. He underlined it twice in his notepad, being sure to comeback to it later.

“He installs glass,” you continued. “Which is why I find it so strange that he needs to take secret phone calls. It’s not as if he is a manager or anything. He just… installs glass.”

“Has he always been like that? Taking secret calls?”

“No,” you replied slowly.

“You don’t sound so positive,” he prodded, picking up on your unsureness.

“Well… we haven’t been married that long. So, maybe he has always been like this.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Two years this fall.”

“And did you date long before then?”

A wave of… something… washed across your face. Taehyung wasn’t really sure what it was, but there was something.

“Not very long. Just a few months.”

He nodded. He figured you must’ve felt shame or embarrassment over your short marriage and even shorter courtship which you were now scrutinizing. If only he had the balls to tell you about himself, you’d know shame and embarrassment was not something you needed to feel in front of him. Instead of doing that, he moved along.

“Before I forget to ask. What’s his name?”

“Ezra,” you said. “Ezra Moon.” Taehyung flipped back a page on his notepad, writing your husbands name below where he had written yours. That’s when he noticed…

“You didn’t take your husband’s last name?”

“No.”

“This is your maiden name then?”

“No, actually. It’s my first husband’s last name.”

Taehyung looked back up from the paper. To some – to you – it appeared to be an act of bemusement. Sure, it was strange to keep your first husband’s name when you were on your second marriage – but bemused was not what Taehyung felt. Instead, he felt a pang of unwarranted, unearned jealousy. At least two lucky bastards on this god-damned planet got the chance to fuck you. Every night, every morning, every surprise afternoon they could afford – and now he knew that.

“How did your first marriage end?” he continued.

“Is that relevant?”

He shrugged. “It could be.” It was true. That information could be relevant, but more so, he had a sadistic need to know. What happened that your first husband couldn’t hold on to a woman like you? He needed to know, even if the information could never serve him.

“He died,” you replied. “A mugging gone wrong. He was shot. About, 3… 4 years ago.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Changing my name was so complicated the first time, I just haven’t gotten around to doing it this time.”

Taehyung nodded and continued writing down the details and you began to fidget nervously again. He didn’t like that he made you nervous. He didn’t like to see you uncomfortable – but this was his job. This is what you hired him for. Luck would have it, however, the chef arrived to bring you both a plate of quesadillas and salad – and he welcomed the opportunity to take a break and reset the conversation.

After a brief stint of awkwardly discussing the food, which led to a less awkward conversation about the best dive restaurants in the city, you were feeling relaxed again and Taehyung was ready to pry once more. Perhaps this time he’d be more friendly, more slick as he dug into your life and marriage.

“So,” he began, his tenor casual and warm. “This is your place you said?”

“Mm hm,” you nodded through a mouthful of food. “All mine.”

“Good for you. I hear it can be a tough market.”

“It has it’s ups and downs, but, we’re still here.”

“So, Ezra’s name isn’t on the property at all?”

“You think this might be a money thing?” you asked, picking up on the fact that the interrogation had resumed.

“I don’t know… could be. Maybe he’s a serial gambler.”

“Or maybe he’s just cheating on me,” you sighed.

“Impossible,” Taehyung said it before he could remember not too.

“Sorry?”

“I said it’s possible,” he attempted to cover his slip, and by the look on your face, it worked. By any sound, rational mind, it was totally possible that your husband was having an affair. But from where Taehyung sat, it was impossible. The man would have to be a complete imbecile to risk not being able to wake up every morning next to the goddess that sat across from him at this very moment. “Has he ever come home needing to take a shower right away, or hiding his clothes?”

You thought for a moment before you replied with a “no.”

“Does he have access to any of the wealth here?”

“Well… not really. Firstly, there’s not much wealth here to begin with. But even if there was, Ezra and I signed a prenuptial, so the place is mine no matter what.”

“Have you notice anything strange with the books? Small sums of cash not adding up?”

“Hmm, no, but… I can take a closer look. Just to be sure.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to look at them together.”

For a moment, your eyes flitted up to meet Taehyung’s. It was only a moment, but it was long enough for him to see. You were… apprehensive… about him being around you. About being alone in a tiny room with him. And that moment caused his chest to tighten. Did he scare you? Were you already so repulsed by him that being around him was unthinkable? God dammit, why didn’t he at least wear a clean suit this morning? But that moment passed, and with a reassuring smile, that he knew was fake, you agreed.

“Great. When do you have time?”

“Tomorrow?” you suggested.

“I’ll be here.”

 

Despite his earlier consideration of hanging around the vineyard and getting drunk on ‘The Devil’s Garden’ wines, Taehyung left immediately after the meeting. With the gift box you hand given him filled with your most popular red, he returned to his apartment in the city, being sure to pick up his near abandoned clothes from the dry cleaners on the way. He spent the rest of the afternoon seated at his coffee table in front of his computer, searching every database, web article and social media site he could find on Ezra Moon, The Devil’s Garden, and you.

When the sky darkened, and his back and legs were sore from his non-ergonomic set up, he rose from his place on the floor, strutting into the kitchen to pop a bowl of instant noodles into the microwave. As he waited for the timer to count down, he rested against the counter, surveying his dish filled sink and the cluttered space that was barely large enough to even be considered a counter. That’s when he saw the wine you had given him.

 

“It’s Better than Sex,” you had said.

“Excuse me?” he near choked when he heard the word “sex” slip from your tongue.

You chuckled playfully with just a hint of wickedness at his reaction. “That’s what this wine is called. Better than Sex.”

 

The microwave beeped, knocking him back from the memory.

Bringing with him a glass and the wine, he returned to the living space, flopping into his only chair and clicking on the TV.

When his food was finished, as was his first glass, he picked the bottle up in his hand, twisting it around to admire the label.

“Better than Sex,” he read out loud. “I don’t know about that.” He brought the bottle to his lips anyway, just to be sure. It was good… but not that good.

He looked at the clock.

It was still early enough. He still had time to hit the club or a bar. He could polish off this bottle easily. Get just tipsy enough before he headed out down the street. Maybe he’d see that girl again – the one who sucked him off in the bathroom last night. She was good if he remembered right. Good enough anyway to test the theory that wine could be better than sex.

Maybe if he went out tonight, he could pace himself… not drink too much or stay out too late. He considered it. Rationalized how he could still find himself a good whiskey and a good fuck before needing to wake up the next morning and be a good detective. But in the end, he knew himself better than that. In the end, tonight, he didn’t want to.

So, instead, he looked back down to the wine bottle still in his hand. With a final swig, he corked it and set it back on the table. He then shuffled himself comfortably back in his chair and pulled at the drawstrings of his sweatpants, loosening the waist enough so that he could slide his hand beneath the fabric.

He was already partially erect at the mere thought of what he was about to do, and at the thought of who he was going to do it to. Taking his cock in his fist, he began stroking himself languidly, hardening himself just a little more.

He bet that’s how you would do it - if it was your fist and not his jerking him off right now. You’d start slow. You’d tease him first. Watch him as you hardened him. And he’d watch you back – watch you bite that lip of yours again – and he’d get excited all over again, knowing that soon that mouth would replace your delicate hands around him.

“Mmmm,” Taehyung groaned as he envisioned it all happening.

The fantasy quickly escalated. No sooner than you were jerking him off to then sucking him dry, he had you bent over the hostess’s counter at The Devil’s Garden. Your pretty white skirt pulled up over your waist, and your tits spilling out of your unkempt bra as you clung for life over the granite countertop while he fucked you from behind.

Taehyung, still in his chair, flung his free arm over his eyes, his busy arm beginning to ache as his hips thrusted into his now rapidly pumping hand. He sucked the air in through his teeth, exhaling each time with a groan and a whine. His body began to spasm as he felt his high nearing.

“Taehyung,” you would cry out his name. It would be a cry that said you couldn’t handle the pleasure he was giving you, while at the same time, a cry to beg him not to stop. The room would be filled with the clapping sounds of his balls hitting your reddened ass, and the wetness of his cock roughly slipping itself in and out of your soaked pussy.

“Oh! Oh!” you’d begin to pant as you found yourself on the brink of coming – and when you did finally come, he would feel the delectable sensation of your walls spastically closing in around him. Then he’d come. He’d look down to the place where your bodies met. He could see the ribbons of his semen, hot and tacky over the shaft of his cock, as he plunged in and out of you… still fucking into you for good measure as he drained everything he had into you.

“Oh, fuck!” he called out into the apartment as he felt the heat and wetness drip over his hand, as his body quaked and shivered as the fantasy ended and he saw the stars.

#bts smut #taehyung smut #v smut #taehyung x reader #v x y/n

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #335

“on my forehead, a birthmark  /  remove it with the kiss of a knife  /  even if it causes me to die”

Do you recover well from surgery? Judging by the two surgeries I've had, oh yeah. I was hyper as hell when I came home from getting tubes put in my ears as a little kid, even though the doctor said I'd be very sleepy. Then, after my cyst removal, I was put on very strong painkillers but was still warned it was going to be a painful recovery, when it totally wasn't. I literally only took painkillers the first day. What addictions have you had? Caffeine, technology. Would you change your name if you became famous? Nah. If Cupid were real, would you hire him to make someone love you? No. I don't want somebody forced to love me. Ever been to an auction? No. Which word(s) do you generally use to describe someone attractive? (e.g. “fit”, “sexy”) It kinda varies with gender. Women I tend to call "beautiful" or "gorgeous," sometimes "hot" or "cute," while men I usually refer to as "handsome" or "hot"/"sexy." The last person you kissed - are they older or younger than you? She's a bit younger. When was the last time someone wanted you to do something, and you refused? Hm. I dunno. I have a hard time saying "no," so. When was the last time you had Pop Tarts? What flavour were they? Many months ago; I kinda stopped eating them because they're truly not filling and just a load of sugar that veils itself as an actual breakfast choice. But anyway, I liked the chocolate sundae ones. Have you ever felt a temperature below 0? No. Did you ever play Spyro? I LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!! SPYRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Those games were my CHILDHOOD, and it's half the reason I'm dying for a PS4 to play the remastered trilogy. Speaking of which, it'd be awesome if they remade the The Legend of Spyro trilogy as well. I might just like those games more than the originals, but that's a bold statement I'm unsure about. Have you ever dated someone who was of a foreign origin? I dated a Hispanic guy for less than a day. Have you ever read any of your idols’ books/autobiographies? Ozzy Osbourne's, yes. I'm just fucking waiting for Mark to write one, but he's always said he has so little interest in writing about his life. DO IT, YOU FUCK. Do you own any succulents? No. I think they're pretty, though. Do you have a drone? No. What’s your favorite Netflix series? *shrug* What is something a lot of people like but you don’t? Summertime. The heat, the humidity (at least here), the sunburn from just standing outside for ten minutes... I hate all of it. The ONLY two things I enjoy about summer is swimming and then flowers, though spring is the more floral season here anyway. Do you have revenge fantasies that you never actually play out? They've... happened. Did your first real significant other change you at all? Pretty sure forever. Are you waiting to have sex until you’re married? Once upon a time, that was the plan. Now, nah. I'd just want to be in a healthy, stable, and long-term relationship. What do you think about divorce? It's sad, but necessary for some people in order to be happy, which everyone has the right to be. I used to be very firmly against divorce except in extreme cases like abuse, etc., and I'm still definitely no fan of it and think couples should do their best to work things out, but it's incredibly unfair to believe that someone should be stuck for the rest of their life with a person they just don't love anymore. Getting married can be a mistake; don't damn people forever to be chained to their bad decisions. Do you remember the first time your heart broke? What was the reason? It was probably when Dad just abandoned us. What's the worst prank someone has ever done to you? I don't think anyone's ever pulled a sick joke on me. Have you ever seen someone sleepwalk? Yes; my little sister deadass tried to walk outside late at night. Thank God I was on the computer in the living room and stopped her. What song are you listening to right now? I just turned "Mutter" by Rammstein on. When is the last time you cursed? I'm not re-reading, but I have probably cursed fifty times in this survey already. It's so deeply ingrained into my vocabulary. Are there any words on your shirt? No; it's just a plain gray tank top. Why do you forward forwards? I never do because they annoy the fuck out of me. How many people are you interested in at the moment? Just one in a healthy and logical way. I can't be truly interested in Jason because like come on I haven't spoken to him in four whole years. My PTSD just ensures I never forget the memory of who he was, who probably no longer even exists. I mean, look how much I'VE changed in four years. Do you know any mechanical stuff about cars? Nnnnope. Who was the last person (apart from family) that you spent time with? What did you get up to? Apart from family, I have no idea. If you have pets, when was the last time one of them got on your nerves? Venus never does, but Roman can get on my nerves sometimes when I don't let him lay on me when I'm on the laptop in bed. He's a large cat (not overweight, just a big male cat) and blocks the screen big time unless he lies down properly, which he doesn't always do. He still tends to win when he tries to come over, but sometimes I'll block him with my arm, and this spoiled brat will actually slap it a few times before walking away lmao. Would you rather live in a house with a swimming pool or an indoor cinema? Absolutely a pool. I want one badly. Do you own a credit card? If so, do you currently owe any money on it? Could you afford to pay it off tomorrow if necessary? No. How many hours of sleep do you typically get each night? Is that enough to function or would you rather have more? Especially lately, I don't get nearly enough. Like at the time I'm answering this question, it's 4 AM, and I've been up for almost a couple hours. I struggle with falling asleep, I will ALWAYS wake up at least once in the night, and I jerk awake from nightmares regularly still. It's a big reason why I pretty much require naps. Does your house have a loft/basement? Are they functional or do you just use them for storage? We only have an attic. Do you suffer from road rage? What kind of thing tends to set you off or wind you up while driving? No. I'm way too timid of a driver to get that outwardly pissy about stupid people. I'd just judge them in silence, haha. What kind of animal did you last see in the wild? Is that a common sight where you live? Because of just how common they are, I'm going to assume this excludes birds, in which case it was probably a squirrel? Yeah, the normal brown ones are common. Do you post a lot on social media? If so, what kind of thing do you tend to post on there? Since I was fucking stupid enough to post a suicide note on Facebook (I don't want to hear a goddamn thing about "attention seeking," I genuinely wanted to say goodbye), I almost never, ever, share things about my personal life. Even before, it was rare for me to actually share what's going on with me. All I really do now is share relatable, wholesome, or funny shit I find, as well as political things I'm in firm agreement with. What are some habits you have in common with your parents? I pace like my dad, and it drives people crazy because it apparently makes them anxious? I can't think of an obvious one I have with Mom, but I'm sure one exists. Where's your favourite place to swim - the ocean, a pool, river, lake etc? I feel safest and most clean in a pool, but c'mon, swimming in the ocean is so much fun. When you're saving your place in a book, do you use a bookmark or fold your pages down? Or something else? It depends on the book, it seems. Especially if someone else owns it, like in school or something. Is any part of your body hurting at the moment? Is there a specific incident that caused the pain? My legs always hurt. I've shared enough as to why; it wasn't an actual, singular "incident." What was the last thing to make you laugh out loud? OH MY FUCKING GOD. So in group therapy the other day, one of the girls had her bearded dragon out, and he was being aggressive. I think he tried to bite her aND SHE SAID WITHOUT REALIZING HER MIC WAS ON, "fucking dickhead," and everyone d i e d. She's a really cool chick, I'll miss her when I'm finished with PHP. Who was the last person you heard sing? Myself, surprisingly enough. I barely ever sing. Do you bite your lips a lot? Yes, especially when they're dry. .-. What part of your body would you never get pierced? Anyone who gets a piercing "down there" has a greater pain tolerance than this bitch right here. Have you ever dated someone with tattoos? Juan had quite a few. I don't remember if Tyler did... but I think maybe a The Legend of Zelda-related one? Have you ever failed gym in school? No. Are you scared of dogs? No; I love dogs. What is the saddest movie you’ve ever seen? Man, idk, I'm a little bitch when it comes to emotional movies. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is high up there, as is of course Johnny Got His Gun. Old Yeller, too. Which one of your friends is most likely to be famous one day? Why? Sara's gonna write a fuckin book series ok you can't convince me otherwise. What is the worst present you have ever gotten? Damn dude, what an ungrateful question. I'm just appreciative someone even thought TO give me something. Do you shave your arms? My armpits, yes, but not my arms themselves. How many people have you dated? I only count three as even remotely serious: Jason, Sara, and Girt. Have you ever performed in a play? I remember back in Sunday school as a tiny kid I played Mother Mary in one we did in class. Do you chew gum? I have been more lately since my doc upped the dosage of one of my mood stabilizers (which I think is actually helping); I mention that because apparently a side effect is dry mouth, and it's the fucking Sahara in there. He advises those who deal with it to always carry around hard candy or something like that for the sake of forcing salivation, so gum works for me. How old were you when you first started dating? I was in the 7th grade when I had my first "boyfriend," but it was total puppydog love. I started dating my first "real" bf when I was just shy of 16. Are/were your parents strict? Dad, no. Mom, only to a degree that I feel was pretty reasonable. She only ever wanted to prepare us to be functional, independent adults. Didn't work so well on me though, ha... Do you wear glasses? Yes. God, I need new ones. I'm blind as hell. What do you miss most about your childhood? Being so outgoing and happy to just be weird lil me. Do you write “To-Do” lists? Not really, no, but I do have notes on my phone about a couple things, like a bulleted list of planned monetary investments by importance, as well as a list of drawing ideas. Do you have a favorite quote? What is it? I don't, really. There's loads I like, but no one favorite. Could you survive as a vegetarian? I pretty desperately want to, but I don't know if it's realistic. I am so, SO picky, and without meat, it's very questionable as to where I'd get an adequate source of protein. I still want to try again though once I'm at my goal weight. Has anyone ever asked you for your autograph? Lol no. Has someone of the opposite sex ever told you that you were sexy? Yeah, but that was a looong time ago when I was actually some semblance of pretty. Do you prefer to take your showers at night or in the morning? I used to be someone who firmly stood by nighttime showers, but now I'm all about them in the morning. It's a nice way to wake up and start the day with productivity. Could you handle living with a male roommate? I mean, I lived with my then-boyfriend once, but I'm going to assume you'd consider him more than a "roommate." We lived with our two other friends, though, also a couple, and I was totally fine with living with them. Has anyone taken their shirt off in front of you? Yes. Do you like Freddy Krueger? His concept is very scary, but all the movies I've seen bits of have always been super cheesy. Which do you prefer, Naruto or One Piece? I haven't seen either and really aren't interested. What do you think of Rob Zombie? I've never really watched his movies, but I'm a fan of his music. What’s you fetish? I don't have one. Have you ever been in the “friend zone?" Well, what I'd call a "fake" one with Jason after the breakup until I was blocked on Facebook. I know now he absolutely did not want to be friends; he was trying to appease me. Is the area you live in more liberal or conservative? Definitely conservative. Do you know anyone who had to have tubes put in their ears as a baby? Yeah, me. Were either of your parents baptized? I'm certain Mom was, but idk about Dad. I think so. The last concert that you were at, was there a mosh pit? No. What was the last computer game that you played? World of Warcraft. Does your bathroom have a theme to it? No. Are any rooms in your house themed? No. What was the last thing that you recorded? I think Mom and I singing "happy birthday" to my late dog Teddy; we knew it would be his last. Do you like the show Futurama? Not really. Have you ever been in a choir class? I was in the elementary school chorus, as well as the choir at my childhood church. Are you ashamed of any of your family members? No, only myself. Were you a chubby child? No. Did you ever have senior photos done? No, even though I wanted them. Who is the person you dislike the most? God, this is so petty... but it's the girl Jason dated after me. I know it's childish as hell to feel like she "took" him from me, and I just feel this horrible hatred towards her that is entirely uncalled for. I just can't get myself to move past it. Do you take part in paying the bills for your household? No, as I'm unemployed and also don't have disability, so I literally can't. How do you usually celebrate New Years? I really don't do much. Sometimes Mom will grab a pack of daiquiris, but that's pretty much the extent of it. Does the place you work have music playing? What sort? N/A What was the last job interview you went to? At a local grocery store to work in the deli. Got the job, lasted there for not even two hours. :^) Do you know anyone with autism, mood disorders or learning disabilities? Autism and mood disorders, yes. I myself may have high-functioning Asperger's (yes, I know that term doesn't technically exist anymore, it's just the umbrella term of "autism," but w/e). Have you ever had an immediate relative pass away of cancer? My grandmother died of pancreatic cancer, and it's pretty much guaranteed that, unless there's some sudden accident, my mom will die of cancer, too. Hers got too bad to entirely eliminate every trace of cancer cells, so it will inevitably re-emerge at some point, just obviously some place else given that she had a total hysterectomy. Would you rather work in an office, warehouse or on a retail shop floor? Office. Are you a fan of sweet, sour, salty, or savory snacks? I enjoy all of those, but sour I think tops the list.

#survey #surveys #questions #lyrics: ''mutter'' by rammstein

[thewebcomicsreview]

Normally I open up the Homestuck 2 liveblog with a tongue-in-cheek comment about how reading HS2 is pain, but I just watched the debate and HS2 looks incredible by comparison, so let’s see if this good mood carries over. Looks like we’re on Candyland, too, Candy updates tend to be better (or at least bad in a funny way) than the oft-boring Meat updates, and personally, I think “The Omega Kids fuck around” is the best part of HS2 by yards.

Man, that lamp is almost perfectly positioned to draw a line through the image separating the two scenes (the dialogue for which is on two separate columns), but it’s just the tiniest bit off-center. I wonder if that was intentional and mobile-responsiveness is just a cruel mistress. It’s a cute touch, if so. I suppose the door (and the photos, which are the same height as the door) also serves the same purpose of having the two scenes be sectioned off. I don’t really know a lot about “scene composition” so maybe I should stay in my wheelhouse, but I think it’s divided very nicely

HARRY: and some of us aren't gods and shit. JOHN: i'm detecting a hint of judgement in your voice, there, harry anderson JOHN: don't you enjoy being a part of all this? finally getting to be in the thick of it all?

John, always dense, has not picked up on Harry Anderson’s demotion to Harry. He’s also inserting a lot of his own desires onto Harry, here, too. Vrissy is the one who wanted to be in the thick of it all (thematic idea to stick a pin into to see if it plays out: John should be mentoring Vrissy and Vriska should be mentoring Harry. Some evidence that HS2 is building this idea, but not a lot yet)

HARRY: now YOU look like you're hiding some extra commentary. JOHN: oh, i don't need to burden you with all the bureaucratic stuff, it's boring.

You gotta subscribe to John’s $20/mo Patreon tier for that, Harry.

JOHN: because here i am, sitting in the dugout, same as you. HARRY: in the dugout? JOHN: oh, or, uh... JOHN: what's a metaphor you might like better... HARRY: no, JOHN: i'm like the uhh...understudy. HARRY: dad. no, jesus, you don't have to do this. JOHN: or i got cast in as babysitter number 2 when i had auditioned for, i dunno, HARRY: yeah, please, i got the baseball metaphor. HARRY: i'm not a complete fucking nerd.

John doesn’t really “get” theater kids, I get. It makes me think a little of how John’s dad thought John was massively into clowns. Also, this is a cute.

JOHN: it's been really nice to get to spend so much time with you. HARRY: um. yeah, it's not so bad. HARRY: anyway, before you ruffle my hair or anything, it looks like things are getting a bit heated between the vriskas over there. HARRY: maybe we should offer them a snack to bring the mood back down? JOHN: me, mess up your hair when you’ve worked so hard on that look? i do know you at least that well, harry anderson HARRY: thank god.

This is also cute. Harry maybe the only person in the entire cast of Homestuck or Homestuck 2 to have a semi-normal relationship with his parents.

Speaking of semi-symmetry, the line where Harry says how happy he is to stay home almost lines up perfectly with Vriska being furious that she has to stay home. I wonder again if that’s a coincidence of if someone had a really clever idea that didn’t make it fully intact through editing (or was considered not worth the effort). 

VRISKA: How are you so calm right now? Your lusii were training you, right? And you’re a troll, you’re definitely five times stronger than a human! And if you’re my clone, you are way more 8adass than little miss Fussy Fangs.

Vriska is making several false assumptions here, but the most interesting one is that Vrissy is Vriska’s clone. She’s not. She’s descended from Vriska, and takes after Vriska very strongly, but it’s not a one-to-one thing.

VRISSY: 8ut I guess this Situation is Kind of Serious? VRISSY: There’s a whole Plan and Stuff Like that. VRISKA: Clearly not a good plan, 8ecause then I would 8e part of it!

Vriska.jpg

VRISKA: That’s just even more indication that they don’t know what they’re doing! Lalonde and Maryam have had however many sweeps to get older and stupider, 8ut from where I’m standing, it was literally only a few days ago that I was their commander! I am primed for the 8attlefield!

Okay, this line is across from John saying he’s in the dugout. There is absolutely an intentional, if not one-to-one strict, mirroring of these two conversations that’s actually really neat. I should go back to the other times HS2 has had conversations formatted like this to see if this mirroring has been happening all along. It’s a really good use of the format! I like this a lot! 

JOHN: so anyway, as you can see, this would have worked just fine! HARRY: no i think karkat’s right. this looks like shit, dad. JOHN: you know, me letting your earlier use of the word "fuck" slide wasn't a blanket approval for all cursing in front of me. HARRY: sorry. HARRY: try not to make such a shit plan, and i won't call it that. JOHN: haha wow.

The other thing I like is the John/Harry dynamic. 

HARRY: it's not like i think i'm any better! HARRY: i mean, i still can't believe i told vrissy and them to bring a dead celebrity to school. HARRY: what was i THINKING. JOHN: you were thinking it sounded hilarious! JOHN: but yeah, in hindsight, maybe not the best call. JOHN: maybe it’s genetic? HARRY: yeah. HARRY: i kinda can’t believe we’re all still alive, actually. HARRY: and how did YOU make it this far, being so bad at this? JOHN: i had my friends with me, i guess.

John your friends repeatedly tried to kill you and succeeded at least twice. 

He’d spent so long seeing mostly the best parts of Roxy in Harry Anderson. He forgot, he guesses, to look for himself in there, too. And if what they have in common right now is a lack of strategic foresight, hey, he’ll take it.

I’m slowly developing a theory that John is subconsciously the narrator of Candy, given how everything suddenly started going John’s way after Calliope left (and how the narrator seemed to really hate Gamzee last chapter). Remember, John has spoken in narration before in HS1, but never seemed to realize he was doing it. I probably need to essay this theory out at some point, but not now.

Oh, hey! Jane does have goons! And they’ve slightly change the way they draw Rose’s hair, so her head isn’t a perfect circle with lines on it. This looks much better. 

JANE: I haven't given a political speech in years, Ms. Lalonde. I don't know what you're referring to. I'm just a simple business woman. JADE: right with her own talk show JADE: and multi billion dollar merchant company and lobbying groups! JANE: That's what a business woman is, Jade, dear.

I know that this is supposed to be Capitalism Bad, but “You claim to be a businesswoman when you own a merchant company!”. Jade. Come on. This reads less as Jane going “Of course I’m evil, I’m a CEO” and more that Jade literally doesn’t know what a business woman is. 

JANE: You are on my territory, in the presence of my secret police, laying your hand on my investment.

Jane you don’t own “territory” do you not know what a businesswoman is either?

JANE: Your ship is in contested airspace. You will land, whereby it will be confiscated by the Royal Human Guard. After that you will be taken into custody. 

CONTESTED BY WHOM, JANE? WHO THE FUCK IS THE WAR BETWEEN?!

JADE: shut the fuck up for a minute and look up!

There’s a BIG-ASS spaceship like ten feet in front of you! Did you not notice until Jade pointed it out?

Also why does the Rebellion ship have the Crockercorp prongs on it?

JANE: Or have you forgotten who has been paying for her schooling and taking charge of her introduction into society? JADE: i never asked you to do that! JADE: you offered! JADE: so stop calling me ungrateful for not sucking your dick over things i never asked for!

Sorry again, Jade, are you implying that you wouldn’t have given your daughter an education had Jane not offered? “Rose and Jade entrusted their daughter to Jane, who they were at war with” is an enigma of a plot point.

The world is watching her be dressed down by a couple blood traitor rebels, one of which has very prominent dog ears. Jane wonders if either of them are even recognizable to the assembled as two of the old gods. One of her PR managers had recommended that she keep her look as static as possible, so that people can always recognize her as Jane Crocker, Captain of Industry, Creator of Earth C, Maintainer of Peace and Plenty.

Jade has always had dog ears what the fuck? I guess this is supposed to be Jane’s warped thinking.

So, anyway, Kanaya fake-holds Tavvy hostage, Jane buys the threat as real and they build up like Jane is going to sacrifice her own son for PR points but she ultimately stands down and lets everyone go. It’s left intentionally vague whether or not she was always going to do this, or if she didn’t want to do it in front of Jake, or if the presence of Jake stirred something in her that made her change her mind. I like the ambiguity. 

This was a very “Homestuck 2″ update. The plot of kind of nonsense, but it’s carried by the character interactions and a bit of cleverness.

#Homestuck 2 #Homestuck 2 liveblog #Homestuck

[summerohnine]

you bring me home

warnings: none

word count: 2.7k

summary: harry’s homesick while on tour and louis comforts him.

[read on ao3]

The tips of Harry’s fingers stung from where he’d bitten off the white parts of his nails, but he couldn’t bring himself to care as he continued to gnaw at the aching skin. His mind raced with too many thoughts to really pay any attention to the pain. It was only when a particularly rough bite tore the skin a bit too much and caused blood to seep out onto his tongue that he was brought back to reality and finally brought his hands down to his lap. 

He looked around, then, at the walls tightly surrounding him in his too-small bunk. He thought of where he was. America. Somewhere in Colorado by now, I’d bet. Not that it really mattered where in America. What mattered is where he wasn’t, which was home. And not just his flat in London, which was beautiful and much more than Harry had ever thought he’d own. No, he wanted to be home, in Holmes Chapel with his mum and sister, getting woken up by Gemma smacking a pillow across his face because “Mum says it’s your turn to take the trash out.”

Harry loved his boys, and they were as much a family to him as his actual relatives were, but he missed home. The ache was always there, however it was usually distant and easy enough for Harry to distract himself from by playing a round of FIFA with Niall or cuddling up next to Louis (sometimes he even got away with doing both simultaneously, despite the dramatic eyerolls from Liam and teasing from Niall and Zayn). 

Sometimes, though, the longing overtook him. It was always at night, when everyone else was asleep and Harry was left alone with his thoughts, too polite to wake any of the boys up, including his own boyfriend. Though he knew Louis would be more than willing to comfort him, Harry could never bring himself to wake Louis at times like this. He felt selfish, and almost humiliated at the thought. What 19-year-old needed to be held in the middle of the night because he missed his mum? It was childish. 

Not that he thought Louis would judge him for it. Harry was well aware that Louis got his own bouts of homesickness, as Harry had been the one to stay up with him and run his fingers through his hair, rocking him back and forth as he struggled to find the words to express how he felt. But it made sense for Louis to miss home. He had little sisters that he had been taking care of for years, and he wasn’t used to not knowing what was going on with them. He was missing so many of their firsts, things that Louis had been waiting to experience for so long. But Harry was just a pathetic little kid whining for his mum. It wasn’t the same. 

Frustrated, Harry finally forced himself out of his bunk and walked into the small kitchen on the bus. He searched for his phone in the dark, which had been plugged in on the cluttered countertop. He looked at the time, half-past three in the morning. His mum should be awake by now at home. Would it make it worse to give her a call? Or would hearing her voice be the one thing Harry needed to put himself at ease?

Without any other options, Harry rang her. 

No answer. 

When the call went to voicemail, the lump that Harry hadn’t yet noticed in his throat grew. He coughed lightly, willing it to go away, before the beep sounded indicating he could leave his message.

“Hi, Mum,” he said weakly into the phone, his voice thick from fatigue and disappointment. “I-it’s Harry. Well, you knew that. Um, anyways.” He let out a short laugh that caught in his throat and threatened to turn into a sob. It was much louder than he intended, but he hoped no one had heard. “I just, I wanted to tell you that I miss you and Gem, a lot, and, uh, I-I’m sorry I haven’t gotten the chance to call in the last few days.” He spoke slowly, careful to make sure he was forming coherent sentences because he was beyond tired and it was difficult for his brain to fully process what he was saying. Tears threatened to spill out from his eyes, and he was sure the slight quiver in his voice would give it away when his mum listened back to the voicemail. “I’m going to try and get some sleep, but give me a call when you can later on today. If you get the chance to talk to Gemma before me, ask her to call me, okay?” He sniffed, and he knew that there was no point in hiding the obvious pain in his voice anymore. “Love you, Mum. See you soon.” His voice shook at that last sentence, and it took everything in him to hold in his sob until he had hung up.

As soon as he set his phone down, he collapsed to the ground. He clutched at his stomach and tried his hardest to bury his face into his knees as an attempt to muffle the sounds of his cries. It must not have worked as well as he thought (or maybe Louis just had a sixth sense to know when Harry needed him), because almost as soon as Harry’s butt hit the ground, Louis came shuffling down the hall to see what was the matter. 

Harry heard the unmistakable sound of Louis’ footsteps getting closer, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up. He didn’t want to see the look of pity that was sure to be on Louis’ face, he already felt embarrassed enough. Harry wanted to hang on to what little bit of dignity he had left. 

“Oh, Haz,” Louis murmured, sinking down next to Harry on the floor and surrounding him with his arms. Harry buried his face into Louis’ neck instinctively and let himself sob into his shoulder, dignity be damned. 

Harry didn’t even want to think about what a mess he probably looked, tears and snot running down his face and soaking into the soft cotton of Louis’ shirt. Harry knew Louis couldn’t give two fucks about him ruining his cheap shirt, but he couldn’t help but feel a bit bad.

Louis scratched at Harry’s back as he continued to shake with sobs. The noise was starting to die down a bit, but only because Harry couldn’t breathe enough to get anything out other than a few wheezes. His head began to go dizzy from the lack of oxygen, which Louis must have been able to sense.

“Love, you have to take a few deep breaths,” Louis whispered into Harry’s ear, grabbing his face with both of his hands and rubbing at his still shut eyes with his thumbs. “For me, please?” 

At that, Harry managed to open his eyes for the first time since he’d hung up the phone. His vision was blurred, but even through the tears he could tell that Louis was extremely worried. After a minute or so of Louis softly repeating, “In-two-three, out-two-three,” Harry was able to get his breathing somewhat back to normal.

“I’m sorry,” was the first thing Harry said when he was able to form words again. His voice shook as tears that he had been too lazy to wipe away collected at the corners of his mouth. Louis kissed them away. 

Against Harry’s mouth, Louis whispered, “Sorry for what?” 

Despite every part of him telling him not to, Harry pulled away from Louis’ mouth and looked him in the eyes for the first time. Louis’ hands remained on either side of Harry’s face, gently wiping each tear as they continued to fall from his eyes. He sniffed. “For waking you up.”

“You didn’t,” Louis responded instantly.

“Don’t lie.”

Louis sighed, staring into Harry’s eyes and searching for something, though Harry wasn’t sure what. “I’d been awake for a while,” he admitted. “I could tell from your breathing that you weren’t asleep.”

“That’s kind of creepy.” Harry laughed, which surprised him a bit. Louis smiled and leaned in to peck him on the cheek.  

“What can I say? I’m sort of obsessed with you.” Harry allowed his lips to turn up into a slight smile, but didn’t say anything because he could tell Louis wanted to say more. Louis took a breath, the gentle smile on his face fading into something of concern. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Harry thought about it. He did want to talk about it. But what would he even say? Anything he thought of saying just sounded pathetic. He didn’t want to sound ungrateful for the life he’s living. It’s all he’s ever dreamed of--getting to perform with his three best friends and the love of his life, to fans who loved them for who they were and not for their looks or the fake personas forced upon them by the media. It was a lot to process sometimes, but it was all amazing. 

But he missed the simpler parts of his life, from before any of this ever took off. He missed lazy mornings spent watching cartoons with his sister that they were both much too old to admit they enjoyed. He missed making trips to the grocery store and running into people he knew who actually wanted to talk to him, not just scream and take a few pictures. And, most of all, he missed being able to curl up in his mum’s lap and let her play with his hair like when he was younger. He missed the quick kiss on the cheek she would give him before leaving for school, and the notes she’d pack in his lunch that he pretended to be embarrassed by but secretly kept tucked away in a little shoebox under his bed. 

But how was Harry supposed to articulate all of that at nearly four in the morning, with his foggy brain and head that was inches away from falling limply to rest on Louis’ shoulder so he could rest? 

“Don’t know how,” Harry finally responded, looking down at his hands that had somehow found their way to clutch the material of Louis’ shirt. 

As if Louis could read Harry’s mind, he untangled himself from Harry’s limbs and stood up from the floor, holding his hand out for Harry to take, then said, “Wanna get some sleep and talk about it in the morning?” Harry just nodded before taking Louis’ outstretched hand and using it to pull himself up.

Louis began to lead Harry back to their respective bunks, but Harry hesitated before they could make it much farther than a few steps. Louis turned to face Harry and stepped closer to him, not letting go of his hand in the process. 

“What is it, love?”

Harry chewed at his bottom lip, oddly nervous to ask for something that they had done countless times before. He looked down at their clasped hands and rubbed his thumb along the smooth stretch of skin across Louis’ knuckles. Finally, looking up at Louis through his lashes, he managed to speak. 

“Will you sleep with me?” It came out as barely more than a whisper, Harry’s lips hardly moving as he spoke. He wasn’t sure why he had been so scared to ask--they’d done much more together, after all--but something about Harry’s fragile mental state made it difficult to force the words from his lips. 

It’d been longer than they both liked since they’d last gotten to properly sleep together. They tried to limit it to only when they were in hotels, because as much as Harry loved Louis, he also loved having enough room to spread out in bed and that just wasn’t possible with both of them in one of those tour bus bunks. But Harry couldn’t care less about that tonight. He just needed to be held. 

Louis reached up on his toes to place a kiss on Harry’s forehead, a task that would have been much easier less than a year ago, but somehow Harry had managed to grow taller than him without Louis even noticing. “Of course.” 

Instead of attempting to squeeze both of them into one of their tiny bunks, Louis just grabbed a few blankets from his bed and pulled Harry to the couch at the back of the bus. It was still rather small and they would definitely both have sore backs the next morning from sleeping on the stiff cushions, but they didn’t mind. 

Louis gently wrapped one of the blankets around Harry’s shoulders and pulled him down onto the couch. He fit his arms around Harry’s torso and settled so his lips were right behind the younger boy’s ear. Harry easily settled into the weight of Louis surrounding him, loving the way Louis’ breath tickled his neck. A leg came and swung itself over Harry’s hip, and Louis shifted to breathe in the smell of his hair as he pulled Harry impossibly closer.

“I don’t know what I did to deserve you.” Harry didn’t really mean to say it out loud, but it slipped out of his mouth before he even realized it had happened, the words barely more than a whisper but enough that Louis heard. 

“Harry…” Louis breathed, lifting himself up on one arm so he could look down at the younger boy. Harry turned his head to meet Louis’ gaze. Louis brought a hand up to tuck a stray curl behind Harry’s ear, then leaned in close so their noses almost touched. “You didn’t have to do anything. Just existing was enough.” 

Not knowing what to say, Harry just reached up and closed the distance between him and Louis, their lips fitting together perfectly. It was a slow, patient kiss. Their lips moved in sync, just as they always did, and it was comforting. Louis’ hand moved to caress Harry’s cheek before he pulled away. Harry watched as Louis’ eyes roamed around his face, as if he were attempting to memorize every feature. The corners of Louis’ mouth pulled up into a soft smile when their eyes finally met, and Harry felt his heart flutter. Three years, and he still had that effect on him. Harry wondered if it would ever go away. 

He hoped not. 

“Are you feeling any better?” Louis asked, breaking the silence. 

Harry hesitated for a moment, then nodded slightly. “A bit, yeah.” 

Louis bent down to leave a peck on the tip of Harry’s nose. “Good, that’s good. Y’know, Haz, you can talk to me about this kind of stuff, okay? I know what it’s like to miss home, and you know that. And I hate the thought of you hurting on your own.”

“I know, Louis, I do. I just, I don’t know, I feel annoying bothering you with stuff like that. Makes me feel like a burden.” The last part came out mumbled, but Louis understood. 

“You’ll never be a burden, Harry.” 

“I know, I just--shit.” Harry dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, tears blurring his vision once again. He couldn’t help but laugh pathetically at himself. Harry kept his hands over his eyes as he spoke. “Can we just talk about it in the morning? It’s too much for me right now.” 

Harry could tell Louis didn’t want to wait, and it was understandable. If Harry were in Louis’ position, he’d feel the same. But Louis knew not to push it. “Sure, love.” 

Harry waited for Louis to move back to laying down behind him, but instead he felt Louis tugging gently at Harry’s wrists. Reluctantly, Harry moved his hands away from his eyes.

Once Louis had Harry’s eyes locked on him, he said, “I love you. And I’m here. Always will be. You know that, right?”

Harry nodded. “Of course I do.”

“Good.” 

“I love you, too. So much, Louis.”

“I know.”

Finally, Louis settled back down into their previous position, his left hand finding Harry’s and tangling their fingers together. 

Harry brought both of their hands up to his lips and placed a kiss on Louis’ knuckles. After just a few minutes, Louis’ breathing evened out and his limbs hung heavily over Harry’s figure. Harry felt himself relax more than he’d been able to at all in the past few weeks against Louis’ sleeping body.

Maybe this was home.

reblogs/comments are appreciated!!

#this is my first larry fic oh my #i have no idea how this will go #anyways hope you liked it!! #larry stylinson #larry stylinson fanfiction #larry fanfiction #larry fic rec #hljournal #1dsource #hlcreators #skdfjsldf idk what tags people look at im so new rip #my fics #yourlarrysource

[sominbs]

hello! this is chey (she/her, 21, gmt-5) bringing you boseong’s very own castle-builder & corndog vendor — chae somin! you can view her pinterest board here, her stats here, her background here and her plots page here. under the cut, i’ll include everything you could ever want to know about her (probably?).

personality.

enfp-a   /   the assertive campaigner.   independent, playful, optimistic, brave, upfront, charismatic, adventurous, communicative, perceptive, affectionate, smothering, unrealistic. as an assertive campaigner, somin is lively and outgoing. it doesn’t matter what’s going on in her head or what kind of mood she’s in; chances are, she’ll still go out of her way to socialize. she enjoys making people laugh and usually accomplishes this by politely teasing/poking fun at those she knows well, but she can read a room and knows when it is or isn’t appropriate. she’s a great communicator which stems from her strong perceptive skills — it isn’t hard for her to get a good idea of what the general mood is and what’s expected of her at the moment. however, she does tend to be overly-enthusiastic which leads to unrealistic expectations both of herself and of others. these expectations accompanied by her somewhat smothering nature can definitely make some uncomfortable. 

aquarius   /   the water-bearer.   passionate, charming, impatient, temperamental, stubborn, rebellious, progressive, humanitarian, abrupt, intelligent. somin is often described as being unpredictable; she rarely makes her whole personality known, so she has a reputation for being surprising or even shocking. most of the time, she comes across as being genuine, warm and helpful, but there are some colder sides to her. she tends to lose her temper extremely quickly — especially when she feels like someone is trying to control her, as there’s nothing she hates more than her freedom being imposed on. will break rules without thinking twice just to prove a point and smile while she does it. overall, she doesn’t mean to be problematic, but it seems to be a part of herself that she can’t escape.

history / trivia.

the result of an accidental pregnancy. neither of her parents were ready for a baby, but her maternal grandmother promised to raise her if her mother would go through with the pregnancy. obviously, she did. her parents are not together and neither of them live in boseong. she’s met her mom a few times, but doesn’t know anything about her dad. either way, she doesn’t feel any sort of attachment to either of them. as far as she’s concerned, her grandma is all she needs.

granted....... she was kinda bratty/ungrateful towards her grandma for a LONG time. she used to think like is easy if you just try & didn’t really understand why her grandma ran a fuckin corndog stand of all things and why they were poor when they could just ~not be~. threw tons of fits in which she swore she’d never sell corndogs.

lit rally..... eunmi was the one (1) person who inspired her to be a little less MEAN. saw eunmi being nice to everyone all the time and eventually started being nicer to her grandma (and other kids lol) as a result.

speaking of eunmi!!! somin fuckin loved her so much. viewed her as one of the very few good things in her life, so she was pretty clingy towards her which evolved into being possessive. hated the idea of her being close to anyone else,,,,, f’s in the chat.

she was pretty athletic in school, so she was kinda popular bc of that? was involved in soccer & cheer, spent too much time on extracurriculars so her grades were trash but she still thought she’d get into snu because ~it can’t be that hard~. told everyone she was gonna go to snu & when she DIDN’T get in, she had too much pride to admit it so she just told everyone she was accepted.

left boseong for seoul after graduation with NO idea what the FUCK she was gonna do!!!!!! wandered around hopelessly for like a year and a half, doing part-time work and trying to get high-paying jobs with trashy resumes. even tried to become a model but no one wanted her whole 5 ft 3 inches country girl vibes </3

met a lot of people who taught her a lot about herself while she was in seoul, but she was STRUGGGLINGGG to make ends meet so she came back to boseong. told everyone she dropped out of snu bc it hurt her pride less than admitting she was never enrolled to begin with.

here’s the real kicker........ now she runs the fuckin corndog stand in the traditional market. it’s karma kicking her ass for all the complaining she did 10 years ago.... </3 p much every day of the week, you can find her down there slacking off or talking a mile a minute to whoever will listen.

always seems to have some great plan cookin up in that mind of hers, but at this point, everyone in boseong probably knows that she’ll never do any of it. she’s destined to be a corndog vendor for life...... please don’t clown her.

reputation for being unsuccessful in love, but it’s literally just because her ~unrealistic expectations~ make her give up on every relationship that isn’t kdrama material in like..... a week.

still lives with her grandma bc she doesn’t make enough money to afford her own place but she’s only 22 so.......  just wait. she’ll live in a mansion someday.....  hopefully

doesn’t necessarily think she’s better than anyone, but it’s easy to assume she does because she thinks she’s destined for greater things. she complains about boseong quite often and says stuff like “i don’t belong here” or “i know my life will amount to something bigger and better than this” but fr.... she doesn’t look down on anyone. she has no right to. she just genuinely, naively thinks that fate is on her side and something HUGE is written in her story. thinks that she deserves a happy ending and doesn’t have to work for it. that kind of thing. main character syndrome u know.

some quick plot ideas:

[0/1]  —  you know somin’s work ethic is nothing to brag about, so you “volunteer” at the corndog stand. in other words, you loiter around and reminder her to do her job and/or cover her shifts for her while she just sits around. she can’t pay you in cash, but she’ll pay you in gratitude and half-assed compliments <3

[0/1]  —  you only know of somin because you used to see her with eunmi all the time. to this day, you believe that she had something to do with her death.

[0/1]  —  you frequent the corndog stand because you have a lot to talk about and maybe there’s something therapeutic about ranting to somin while she cooks corndogs and tries her very best to give you advice.

[0/1]  —  somin pursued you VERY hard, so you decided to give her a chance. however, she dumped you after less than a week. maybe you’re bitter... or confused. (male lock)

[0/1]  —  somin was really mean to you in elementary, middle or high school because you made frequent attempts to get closer to eunmi.

[0/1]  —  you used to play sports with somin OR you used to watch her games/competitions and cheer her on.

[0/1]  —  you don’t like somin because of the way she expects good things to just fall into her lap.

[0/1]  —  you’re either VERY introverted or VERY pessimistic and somin thinks it’s her duty to brighten you up a little bit. 

[0/1]  —  you fell asleep at the one (1) single table outside the corndog stand and when somin woke you up, it wasn’t to tell you to leave but to ask if you want to sleep behind the stand, at least. maybe she thinks you have nowhere to go

#bsintro #these plot ideas are WEAKKKK but i promise i'll get an actual page soon and better ones written #btw the crossed out links at the top will be updated eventually #idk when but.... #eventually #god this is so messy im sorry omg #i prewrote this half-asleep so i had to touch some things up #i'm literally never prepared #will probably redo this to make it more cohesive and to the point eventually

[ladyreapermc]

Fic: This isn’t a rom-com 17/17

Author’s notes: So we finally arrived at the last chapter of this fic. I’m really proud of myself for writing something this long and actually getting to the end. I am already planning a sequel and I’d love to hear feedback on this chapter and what you think I could include in the sequel. I also would like to thank everone who stuck around and commented on this. You have no idea how happy you made me. Enjoy this last (for now) chapter!

Summary: Keanu and Lilah meet at the set of John Wick. Rom-com shenanigans ensues

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6  Part 7 Part 8 Part 9 Part 10 Part 11 Part 12 Part 13 Part 14 Part 15 Part 16

Wordcount: 3923

Warnings: bad language; smorking, fighting and some angst

Lilah woke up the next morning with the sound of her father’s car pulling up in the driveway. It made her stomach twist into knots, dread filling her chest because she knew there was no way to avoid it now, they would have to have that conversation. She untangled herself from Keanu and it was clear evidence of how exhausted he was because he barely stirred.

She exchanged her PJs for a pair of shorts and the first t-shirt she could find and went down the stairs. Lilah paused just outside the kitchen, listening to her parents talking in hushed voices.

“He’s out of sedation and breathing on his own,” Frank said with a sigh, weariness and fatigue coloring his voice. “I really thought… for a moment there…”

“Don’t,” Alba said her voice breaking a little. “He’s gonna be just fine. He’s strong.”

“I know, I just…” another sigh from her father. “He had a couple of cardiac arrests during surgery. Turns out amphetamines in his blood were reacting badly with one of the medications.”

“Amphetamines?” Alba’s tone was confused. “Like speed?”

“I don’t know what it is exactly, but yes. He’s doing drugs.”

“It’s not speed,” Lilah said walking into the kitchen and making her parents look over in surprise. “It’s probably Adderall.”

“Adderall?” her mom frowned. “Why would he take that?”

“To help him study for some tests. He promised to stop…” Lilah hated to break Jamie’s confidence like this, but they needed the full picture.

“And you believed him?” Frank snorted, his expression almost scornful. “All junkies say that!”

“Jamie’s not a junkie!” Lilah exclaimed. “He just…” she trailed off, at lost of what to say. “Had a lot on his plate and thought he needed a bust.”

“Oh please!” Frank snorted again. “I worked two jobs all through med school and never used drugs to pass my tests! He’s stupid, that’s what he is! And ungrateful! He was given a golden opportunity and just threw that away! Once the board of directors finds out he was on drugs while working for the hospital, that’s it! His career is over!” He slammed his fist on the table, making Alba and Lilah jump. “Stupid, reckless, idiot…”

“Stop!” Lilah shouted, making Frank’s angry gaze shift to her. “Just stop! Jamie’s in the hospital and all you care about is if he’s gonna have a job when all he gets out? How heartless are you?”

“Lilah…” Alba called in gentle warning, but Lilah was too far gone to pay attention. Between the terror of almost losing her brother and all of the soul searching she had been doing the past couple of weeks, hearing her father talking about Jamie like that made something inside of her snap.

“Do you even care about us? Aside from making sure we’re the poster children you can brag about at the country club?” she all but yelled in her father’s face, watching his blue eyes going wide. “Do you wanna know why Jamie was taking Adderall? Because he was working 80 hours a week in a hospital where everyone knew he was your son. He knew every action he took, every misstep he made would come back to you. He was working in a place that anything less than perfect would be unacceptable. I’m surprised he didn’t snap!”

“All there you go again!” Frank scoffed, rolling his eyes. “I’m the big bad villain because I want my children to succeed. How awful of me.”

“Not a villain. Just an asshole!”

“Dalilah!” Alba’s voice was like a crack of a whip, making her stand to attention with a start. “You will not speak like that under my roof! Especially not to your father.”

Lilah pressed her lips together and crossed her arms over her chest. She hated how her mom always took her father’s side of things.

“No Alba. Let her speak,” Frank said with a sneer. “Maybe that way she can work out through these daddy issues of hers! Because that’s the only reason I can think of for her to crazy enough to date a man old enough to be her father!”

His words made Lilah stumble back and straight into Keanu’s strong chest. He steadied her with gentle hands on her shoulders and she looked up at him, catching the somber expression in his face. She wondered how much he heard.

“And you,” Frank continued, getting to his feet and walking towards Keanu. Lilah made sure to keep herself between both men just in case. “I’ve been trying to figure out if this is some kind of mid-life crisis or if you’re just a creep who prey on naïve young girls.”

“I’m not a fucking girl!” Lilah shouted, making her father gaze snap back at her. “I’m twenty-nine, dad! A damn adult! Completely capable of making my own decisions about who I date or what I want to do with my life!” she declared stepping up at him and Frank actually backed away. “And you don’t get to criticize anyone about dating younger women. Wasn’t mom 21 when you met her? While you were 36? Don’t you think you’re being a little hypocritical?”  She saw her father’s eyes narrowing and the way he swallowed hard as he glanced at his wife. He didn’t have an argument against that. “You don’t get to judge my choice in boyfriends and you certainly do not get to bully me into being ashamed of this.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” he snorted, arms crossed over his chest.

“It’s what you always do!” she pointed out. “Darling, don’t you think that skirt is a little too small? You don’t want boys to think you’re easy, do you?” she pitched her tone lower, mimicking her father’s voice. “Baby, I’m sure creative writing classes are interesting, but what are you gonna use that for? Be smart about what you spend your money on. Film school? Are you out of your mind? Grow up! You need a real career!”

She could see her father’s eyes widening as she threw his own words back at him. Lilah always wondered if he even noticed how much they hurt. From the corner her eye, she saw Alba staring at them, her expression just as horrified.

“Truth is I do have tons of daddy issues. Jamie too,” Lilah said, her voice returning to normal. “Because you spent all of our lives making us feel worthless unless we were doing exactly what you wanted. You made us feel like unless we were your perfect children, you would never love us. I became a nearly pathological people-pleaser and perfectionist, while Jamie kept pushing himself so hard he felt his only choice was to take drugs so he wouldn’t disappoint you. So, congratulations! You did a great job fucking up your kids.” Lilah turned her back on her father, heading towards the door. “Oh, not that you care because it’s not a career you’d approve, but I got in film school. Starting next year, I’ll be getting a master's degree in screenwriting.”

She walked out the door, without a second look to her parents, but she felt Keanu following her like a silent shadow all the way back to her bedroom. She felt weirdly numb after that shouting match. All the words that had been stuck on her chest for so long finally out there. She dropped on the edge of her bed, staring unseeingly at her own hands.

“Are you ok?” Keanu asked, tone soft and gentle. He was kneeling in front of her, trying to catch her gaze. “Talk to me, please.”

“I don’t know,” she finally replied with a shaky breath. “I think I went too far. I overreacted and…”

“Don’t do that,” Keanu asked, caressing her cheek with his thumb. “You have all the right to be upset. Always. It doesn’t matter the reason; doesn’t matter if they don’t understand it or if they wouldn’t react the same way. It doesn’t make your feelings any less valid, okay?”

And those words hit Lilah in a corner of her heart that had been shoving all the hurt and pain of having her feelings invalidated and reprehended by people who were supposed to love her unconditionally, including herself. Lilah swallowed around the lump on her throat and hugged him tightly, hiding her face in his chest. Keanu maneuvered her until she was sitting on his lap and pulled her closer, kissing the top of her head and mumbling soothing words as he held her through it all.

She didn’t know how long she stayed like that, but after a while, Lilah’s tears finally stopped flowing and she just stayed cuddled in Keanu’s lap, letting him embrace her, keep her safe, away from the harsh reality of her brother being in the hospital or the epic fight she just had with her father. In his arms, none of that existed.

“Can I ask something?” Keanu started, voice low and gentle and Lilah nodded against his chest. “You’re really gonna go? To NYFA, I mean?”

“Yeah,” she replied, looking up at him. “I got the money and you were right; it is my dream. I’m tired of pushing it aside.”

“I’m very happy for you,” he smiled wide, kissing her forehead and Lilah grinned, some of the tightness in her chest loosening a bit. “But just so you know, if you decided to take that job at Oxford, I’d be happy for you too. I just want you to do what is best for you.”

“I know,” she replied, meeting his lips for a kiss as relief washed over her. It was good to know that Keanu would be supportive of her choice either way. “Thank you.”

There was a short knock on her door and Lilah got up to open it. She found her mother outside, her eyes red and puffy, she had been crying just like Lilah herself had.

“I’m going to see you brother. Are you coming?”

“Yeah. Just give me a moment to change?”

Her mother nodded and stepped away, letting Lilah close the door. She turned to Keanu and he just gave her a soft, understanding smile, still on his spot on the floor.

“Go. You need some time alone with your mom.”

“Thank you,” Lilah sighed, bending down for one last kiss before quickly changing clothes and meeting her mother by the car.

Most of the drive to the hospital was made in awkward silence, her mother staring straight ahead, shoulders and arms tense almost like a statue as she drove.

“Mãe (mom)…” Lilah started once they pulled the car to a stop at the visitor’s parking lot of the hospital. She just couldn’t take the silence anymore. “Desculpa (I’m sorry).”

“Não, amor. Eu que deveria pedir desculpas. Eu nunca soube (No, darling. I should be the one to apologize. I never knew) …” Alba choked up in her words, tears springing in her eyes. “Eu nunca soube que você se sentia assim. Nós te amamos, não importa o que você faça ou quem você namore. Eu sei que seu pai às vezes age como se isso não fosse verdade, mas é. Eu prometo (I never knew you felt like this. We love you, no matter what you do or who you date. I know sometimes your father acts like that isn’t true, but it is. I promise).”

“Eu sei (I know),” Lilah sighed, rubbing her face. “Mas saber e sentir são coisas bens diferentes (but knowing and feeling are very different thins).” Alba sighed too and pulled her into a hug.

“Vai ficar tudo bem. Jamie vai ficar bem e nós vamos encontrar um jeito de consertar tudo isso. Todos nós. (It’s gonna be ok. Jamie is going to be fine and we’re gonna find a way to fix everything. All of us).”

As Lilah stepped out of the car, she really wished she could find a way to believe her mom, but after everything that had happened in the last couple of days, being ok seemed like a very distant reality. She kept quiet and followed Alba through the hospital and to the ICU room where Jamie was being kept for observation.

The sight of her brother all hooked into tubes and wires looking small and frail was so jarring it made her freeze at the door. Lilah had always seen Jamie as a force of nature, unstoppable to the point of being annoying at times. But right here, in that hospital bed, under the harsh lights of the room, he looked anything but that.

“You’re just gonna stand there?” he asked, voice low and raspy, surprising Lilah. She knew he was out of the respirator, but she hadn’t been aware he was already talking.

“No, of course not!” she walked in, standing by the side of his bed, unsure of what to do, where to touch. “How are you?”

“I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck,” he joked weakly, cracking a smile. Lilah snorted. Only Jamie would make such a terrible joke at such a time. “So, I hear you’ve got yourself a sugar daddy? Some famous old fart?”

“Seriously?” Lilah rolled her eyes, glancing at her mom, who just rolled her eyes too. “He’s neither an old fart or my sugar daddy. He’s just older and my boyfriend.”

“I wanna meet him. See if he’s good enough for you,” Jamie said, his eyes fluttering closed. Lilah could only imagine how much effort it took for him to stay awake to chat with them.

“You will. When you get out of here,” she said with a smile. “For now, just get better, ok?” Lilah pressed a kiss on his forehead and stepped outside to give Jamie and Alba a moment alone.

While she waited, Lilah emailed both NYFA, confirming she would be signing up in January, and Arthur Pierce, politely declining his offer. The action released what was left of the knot of doubt that had taken residence in her chest. Lilah was still terrified of course. It was a lot of changes in a short time. She had no idea where her life was going. But for the first time, she felt that, wherever it was heading, it was on her terms and no one else’s. Or so she hoped.

After visiting Jamie, they headed back home and Lilah made a beeline to her bedroom, expecting to find Keanu there, but to her surprise, the room was empty and his suitcase packed, ready to go. The sight of it made her smile fall. She knew he couldn’t stay, but she didn’t expect him to go so soon.

As she was coming down the stairs to search for Keanu, Lilah saw her father heading towards the kitchen. She went after him, knowing they needed to talk. She wasn’t gonna apologize for what she said, but she knew she had cut him deep and someone needed to take the first step.  

She followed him to the backyard, her heart hitting her throat when she saw Keanu was sitting outside, smoking. Her father loomed over him for a moment, but Keanu seemed unfazed as he looked up at the older man.

“Give me one of those,” Frank said, at last, taking a seat on the lawn chair next to Keanu’s. “It’s been ages since I’ve smoked.”

“Not a good habit to have when you’re a doctor,” Keanu commented, and Lilah thought she heard just a hint of tension as he handed one and the lighter.

“I googled you,” Frank said after he lit his cigarette and returned the lighter to Keanu. “Wanted to know what kind of man my daughter was dating.”

“What did you find?”

“You certainly have been dealt a shitty hand in life,” Frank said, and Keanu snorted.

“I guess that’s one way of putting it,” he said, glancing sideways at the older man.

“This isn’t just some random fling for you, is it?” Frank asked, meeting his gaze.

“I don’t just jump in flights to Miami for random flings, Dr. Bennett. I love your daughter very much,” Keanu replied, his tone almost matter-of-factly and Lilah’s heart lunged in her chest.

“So, you knew about this film school thing?”

“That she got in? yes. That was decided to go I learned at the same time you did.”

“Tell me honestly, can she make it?” Frank asked his tone almost pleading. “I know she thinks everything I do is to control her, but all I ever wanted was to keep her safe. She’s my baby girl. I’m afraid of what the world can do to her. How it can hurt her, break her spirit.”

“Dr. Bennett, I can’t tell you if she’ll make it or not. There’s no way to know,” Keanu started, shifting on his chair so he was facing the other man. “I will tell you this: your daughter is amazing. She’s smart and stubborn and she’s stronger than you think. Tougher than you think. Even if she doesn’t make it, she’ll be fine. It’s not like she doesn’t have a backup plan. Knowing her, she probably already has a backup for the backup.”

“Yeah, that sounds like my Lilah,” Frank said with a chuckle.

“Trust your daughter, Dr. Bennett. You and your wife raised an incredible woman,” Keanu said with a smile and Frank snorted, eyes downcast.

“Didn’t you hear? I screw her up.”

“Only if you hold onto that image of who you wanted your daughter to be, instead of seeing who your daughter is and can be. That woman? She’s breathtaking.”

As Keanu said that, he glanced over at Lilah, catching her soft smile and smiling too. Frank followed his gaze, noticing his daughter was there watching them, before looking back at Keanu with a chuckle.

“How long have you known she was standing there?”

“A while.” Keanu stood up and offered him a hand. “It was very nice to meet you, Dr. Bennett.”

“You too, Keanu.” Frank stood up too and shook his hand.

With one final nod, Keanu walked up to Lilah. He paused in front of her, hand on her cheek, just watching her. There was such a sadness in his gaze that she felt her chest tightening.

“I’ll give you two some privacy,” he said, pressing a kiss on her lips and walking away before Lilah could say anything else. She thought about following him, but there was another man in her life she needed to focus her attention on right now.

Lilah took the seat Keanu had vacated, hugging herself and keeping her eyes away from Frank. Part due to hurt. Part due to fear. She wasn’t sure what to expect just yet.

“He’s sneaky, that one,” Frank commented, stubbing the remains of his cigarette and Lilah nodded. “But wise and very much in love with you.”

“I’m very much in love with him too,” Lilah said, glancing at her father to gather his reaction but he just sighed.

“I’m so sorry, baby,” Frank said, his voice breaking, eyes welling up. “I never wanted to hurt you I was just trying…”

“I know, dad,” Lilah sighed too, struggling to talk around the lump in her throat. “But Keanu’s right. You need to trust me, let me make my own choices. If I screw up, then I’ll face the consequences. That’s how life works.”

“I know,” he replied with a shaky breath. “If I could turn back the time…”

“We can’t,” Lilah interrupted, taking his hand and squeezing it slightly. “We can try to do better from now on.” Frank nodded, drying his eyes on his sleeves.  

“He’s right, you know?” he said with a soft smile. “You already are an incredible woman and I’m very proud of you.”

“Thanks, Dad,” she replied, letting him pull her into a hug.

Lilah knew this wound between them was far from healed, but they made steps in the right direction today and that was definitely something. She stayed wrapped in her dad’s embrace for a while longer before they both headed back inside. Frank stayed in the kitchen to help Alba, while Lilah headed to her room, finding Keanu sitting on her bed, all ready to go.

“How are things with your dad?” he asked before Lilah could even begin to speak.

“It’s… not good, but better, I guess,” she admitted, take a seat next to him and letting Keanu entwine their fingers together. “We’ll need to work on it. I need to work on it. Just another thing for the list.”

Lilah let out a long sigh. She didn’t even recognize her life at this point. Not after most of what she thought she was and wanted changed and Lilah didn’t even know if for better or worse just yet. Only time would tell. There was one thing Lilah knew, though.

“You can’t stay, can you?” she wasn’t just speaking about Miami.

“No,” Keanu sighed, voice so low Lilah barely heard it. “You’ll never be sure if you made these choices because of yourself or me if I stay.”

She let out a shaky, strangled breath, tears prickling her eyes again. She hated the fact that he was right. Would Lilah even have considered film school if she hadn’t met him? Would it even have been such a hard choice between NYFA and Oxford if Keanu wasn’t in her life? After everything, Lilah wanted to do this for herself and be sure she was doing it for herself.

“You know, if this was a rom-com, right now would be the part we make big declarations of love and kiss and everything would be magically alright,” Lilah pointed out, her tone a little bittersweet.

“This isn’t a rom-com,” Keanu replied, bringing her knuckles to his lips. “There’s no magic fix, Lil. Despite what The Beatles said, sometimes, love is not all you need.”

“I know,” her voice was cracking, tears making it hard for her to get the words out. “I don’t wanna do this.”

“Me either,” his own voice was rough and choked. When Lilah dared to look his way, Keanu had his head bent low, hair shielding his face. “But you’re figuring yourself, figuring your life and I’m afraid that if I stay, I’ll get in your way because I’ll want to help. Right now, if I could, I’d try to protect you from all harm. It took everything of me not to intervene when you were arguing with your parents. I still didn’t manage to stay out of it completely. I just wasn’t built that way. You need to know that it was all you. Your decisions, your mistakes, your wins… I can’t be part of it. Not yet anyway.”

“K…” her voice died as Lilah didn’t know what to say to that and Keanu let out a small snort, glancing her way, his eyes reddish.

“I like how you call me, K. Everyone else goes for Ke.”

“I’m not everyone else,” Lilah replied, and he smiled, that same sad smile from before.

“No. You’re not,” Keanu pulled her into his lap, hugging her tight, face buried on her neck. Lilah wrapped her arms around him just as tightly, nose in his hair, breathing in deep.

“What time is your flight?” she mumbled against his hair.

“In four hours,” he replied, and Lilah felt his warm breath tickling her skin.

“Can you stay until then?” She asked and Keanu tilted his head up, meeting her eyes.

“I’d like that,” he said, letting Lilah seal his lips with a kiss.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxthe end (for now at least)xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Tag list (give a shout to be added or removed)

@toomanystoriessolittletime @meetmeinthematinee @theolsdalova @krazycags01 @beyond-antares @cumberbatchbaps @sgt-morgan @futuristic-imbecile @howtoruin-someones-perfect-day @a-really-bi-girl @fanficsrusz @nonsensicalobsessions @poisonedjoinery @soarocks @kindainlovewithkeanu @ficsnroses @weird-civilian​

#keanu reeves #keanu reeves fanfic #keanu reeves imagine #keanu reeves x ofc #keanu reeves x original character #fanfic #series #this isn't a rom-com #original character

[althebountyhunter]

Hey everyone! I decided that it’s finally time for me to write out the post-Grogu idea floating in my head. I want to explore what Din Djarin could be like after separating from his closest companion and this is what I’ve started!

Hope you enjoy,

     Alli

New Beginnings: Chapter 1, New Beginnings

Tags: Mature Audiences, Mild Injury Warning (minor blood mention), Swearing

Word Count: 2035

Mando stomps through the tall grass, heavy boots demolishing the blades dancing in the wind. His left hand has a death grip around the center bar of the cuffs holding the quarry’s hands hostage behind his back, giving Mando enough leverage to push the trudging Rodian back to the ship. The gentle breeze that flutters the edges of his cloak causes his usually menacing shadow to dance in the sunlight. There’s something about watching him shove a reluctant quarry along your path that amazes you. You know he does it for a living, but it doesn’t make his demeanor any less impressive. 

You however, do not demolish grass as you trail behind the Mandalorian. In fact, you barely cause it to bend. The tall grass pops up behind you as if to taunt you, to remind you that you are not in fact a terrifying bounty hunter. Which, technically is true. You’re not a bounty hunter, at least not officially with the guild. According to their records you’re just a nuisance with a blaster and a knack for evading major bodily harm. 

You pause as Mando lowers the ramp to the ship, giving the Rodian a shove into the hull just because he could. You watch them from the outside, taking one last chance to soak in the sun rays and fill your lungs with fresh air before you set off for the next planet on the list. The air is sweet and warm blowing around you and through the gaps of your fingers. It lifts strands of your hair and drops them haphazardly around your face. The grasses you fought so hard to walk through now bristle against your shins and tickle at your knee caps.

You close your eyes, trying to take this moment for everything it is. You don’t get a lot of time on nature-filled planets, or on the ground, or outside the ship come to think of it. Mando may have hired you as backup but he rarely ever needed any backup. The only reason you stepped off the ship today being a small ambush you begged to take on. At first you were told absolutely no fucking way, but after incessant pleading you were reluctantly allowed to “help.”

“Let’s go.” His modulated voice snaps you from your trance. Mando stands at the edge of the hull, a finger hovering over the ramp’s retract button. You can tell by his voice he isn’t pleased with you standing around in a field of grass, seemingly doing nothing. 

“Sorry,” is all you can manage to say, hurrying up the ramp and taking a seat on one of the many cargo crates littered around the ship. The door thuds closed behind you followed only by the low ring of metal creaking under the Mandalorian’s boots. 

He had already put the prisoner in carbonite while waiting for you to get your head out of the clouds. It wasn’t your fault the guy was basically a lethal tin can who couldn’t appreciate the simple moments. You sink down onto one of the many cargo crates littered around the hull and wait for what will surely be another boring jump to lightspeed. For a ship preparing to leave a planet’s orbit, it’s awfully quiet. You had spent plenty of time alone on this ship, and while that may have become the status quo, it didn’t make it any less lonely. 

You prop an arm up on one knee and rest your chin in your palm debating whether or not it was worth getting thrown off the New Crest for trying to start a conversation. It wouldn’t be that bad, this planet was nice from the little you had seen and not terribly violent despite your little brawl. There was probably a village you could walk to with food and a job, so really, getting your ass left here wouldn’t be the worst thing to happen to you.

“So where to next,” you quip. It’s so evident in your tone that you don’t actually care. 

Mando doesn’t respond right away. Typical. He does however walk towards you, helmet tilted down to your right leg. “You’re bleeding.” The helmet makes it sound like more of a notification than a concern.

“What?” Instead of checking your leg your eyes stay locked with his visor, forehead scrunched and brows furrowed. 

“You’re bleeding,” he repeats, this time more stern. Mando points to your leg, and, shit. Sure enough you’ve got a somewhat nasty cut running about four inches from just below your knee cap to your outer leg. You hadn’t felt the cut, it wasn’t all the deep. Honestly more damage had likely come to the fabric of your pant leg than anything, you try to convince yourself.

“Oh um, it’s fine, don’t worry about it.” You try to wave him off, play down the stinging setting in the longer you ignore it. As you try to stand, to step around him, he taps you on the sternum causing you to stumble back onto your make-shift chair. 

“It’ll get infected. Let me treat it.” He doesn’t give you much of a choice, taking your injured leg in his hand and shoving your pant leg up just high enough to expose the full damage. You can’t hold back a wince. Okay, maybe it did hurt a little more than you were hoping. Maybe standing in knee-high grass for so long wasn’t the smartest idea you’ve had today. Mando applies bacta to your cut then wraps a few layers of gauze to stop the immediate trickle of blood. 

“Some bounty hunter,” he mumbles as he finishes patching up your leg. 

“Not a bounty hunter,” you stiffly remind him. This had become a regular point of contention between you. See, when Mando hired you, the interview consisted of just two questions; can you shoot and can you fly. Apparently answering yes meant “yes, I’m a bounty hunter” and not actually “yes, I can shoot and fly.” It must not have bothered him that much given your continued stay on his ship. 

Mando didn’t say anything, just pulled the bottom of your scrunched pant leg down to your ankle before walking back to the cockpit. He took his place in the pilots seat before tapping in the coordinates for the next trip and initiating the lightspeed protocols.

“Um, thanks.” You aren’t sure how to respond, still baffled at how quickly Mando was able to switch from gentle and caring to cold and distant. 

Sometimes it seemed like he was holding back, like he was torn between wanting to embrace having someone around or push them away. The way Mando had noticed your injury before you had made it seem like he was used to looking out for someone other than himself. And, the delicate way he handled your leg was such a sharp contrast to his usual roughness that you would almost dare to call it second nature. You were considering letting the idea go, not making much of it and moving on. But something pulled at you, this sort of nagging curiosity to understand him beyond just a mysterious man hidden in beskar. You just wanted to know why, really. Of course there were other questions you wanted to ask but in this moment you needed to know why. You stood from your crate, taking a hesitant step forward on your injured leg. It doesn’t feel great, considerably more sore than before, but certainly not the worst shape you’ve been in.

“You shouldn’t walk on it yet.” Mando’s modulated voice throws you off guard. He hadn’t been looking anywhere near you and he still knows your every move. You shouldn’t be as surprised as you currently are, he is possibly the most well known bounty hunter throughout the galaxy for a reason. 

“Oh, yes, right. Well-” 

“You can ask your question,” he cuts you off. It isn’t stern, just to the point. A lot like him, actually.

“Why’d you clean and bandage my leg?” You blurt out, perhaps a bit too eagerly. The inflection in your question has Mando swiveling his seat to face you. You stare blankly at the visor of his helmet, just hoping he doesn’t make your curiosity for ungratefulness. 

“You were hurt,” he says calmly.

“Well yeah, but. I could've taken care of it, not like I was going to bleed out.” You cross your arms over your chest, hip popped as you shift your body weight onto your better leg, displeased  with his initial response. You’re waiting for the truth, and you know that he  knows you expect it.

The silence hangs in the air until Mando breaks it. He sighs, “I’ve gotten used to having a partner that needed a lot of help.” He shifts his posture to be less rigid, arms now loosely resting on the seat’s armrests and back ever so slightly hunched forward toward you.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t mean you.” Mando pauses, searching for a way to explain. “About two years ago I was hired for a difficult bounty. Pay was good so I took it. Turned out it was just a kid, they wanted me to bring in this kid, and…” His trails off, gaze now shifting from you to the floor. 

“And... you didn’t bring it in, did you?” 

He doesn’t look at you. “No, I couldn’t. I decided to save him, took him on the run to find more of his kind.” 

“Did you?” You ask softly. Baffled to have even gotten this much out of him. You lower yourself back on to your crate, trying to make it obvious that you want to know more if he’ll share it. 

“Eventually, yes. Some young kid, a um, fuck. What did he call himself? A Jedi, I think. Gave him the kid. That was almost a year ago now.” He sits quietly. Though you didn’t know it, that had been the first time he would ever tell someone about his recent history. You don’t know what to say. Is there anything you can say to someone opening up when they hardly say a word to you otherwise?

“I’m sorry,” you say meekly. “It sounds like you were really close.” 

Mando doesn’t answer. He simply fixes his posture and returns his chair to it’s primary position facing the dash of flickering lights. From your angle you could see the faint reflection of the red and green flashes off his body armor. It was clear you had gotten as much of the story as you were ever going to. Honestly, you still couldn’t believe he told you anything. You suppose you may never know his reasoning, and at this point you knew it was best to refrain from prodding further. 

The slight bulge of the bandage under your pant leg catches your eye, pulling you from the abstract train of thought to a new, clearer one.

Oh. It wasn't his partner. It was his kid, the bounty was like his kid. Mando didn’t just lose a partner, he gave up his family.

The realization hit you like a ton of bricks. Your chest tightened, suddenly understanding why he was so closed off but more importantly why he had asked you to join. He was lonely, and you happened to be in the right place at the right time to be someone he could simply exist around.

See, you had crossed paths in some tiny desert town, he asked a few questions about his current job and you told him what you knew in exchange for a handful of credits. At the time it was a moment in passing, until three days later you saw him walking back through town, this time quarry in tow. He had stopped long enough to thank you for your information and ask if you needed a job. A terrible, low paying job, he warned, but still a way off a desolate planet. 

So of course you said yes. At the time you assumed the offer came out of gratitude, but you were starting to understand that you played a bigger role than just the occasional back-up. 

You weren’t a replacement, no. You were a new beginning.

#the mandolarian #mando #din djarin #mandalorian fanfic #self interest #mandalorian series #fanfic #new beginnings #call me alli

[rainywagoncreatornerd]

Narcissist's Poem

I have numerous duties to complete today; the first is a glare sent directly your way.

In my first waking moments I'm haunted by thoughts, which disturb all my demons as they scratch and they claw.

I can't help but think of the light you possess; it rattles my core, and it's hard to confess.

When I enter the room, the lights are all dimming as your poor little brain is frantically swimming.

Your eyes fall so low like a yo-yo just spun; I've come for your joy; I'm the thief of all fun.

I make snarky comments and roll back my eyes as your hot tears creep up before your sniffles and cries.

I laugh to myself, saying "what's wrong with you? Have you nothing to say, you incompetent fool?"

I see your chord's stricken with great grief and sorrow; but hey, what the hell, there's much more tomorrow.

I smirk at the words you try to desperately speak as your voice trembles harshly, so pitiful, so weak.

Your discomfort is orgasmic, your tear-shed, so pure. It's oh-so-alike of a well-spent street whore.

Pushing and pushing your buttons I will, as I spit nasty words like a bitter, blunt pill.

Try as you must, I see your hurt and your pain; I was once that same person, but never again.

Sputter and cough up that fucked up mistreating; by the way, will you ever stop eating?

No, you sure don't; you just pack on the pounds as you stuff your fat face with things all around....

From bonbons to snickers, and cookies and pie, you fat, filthy fuck, you're surely to die.

Your cheeks are puffed out and red and so hot, and oh, by the way, I just know you forgot....

Your hair is so greasy, your personality- a shame. Your poor self-esteem is surely to blame.

Your smart little comments, your annoying, sad voice, just shut the fuck up, you leave me no choice.....

"You are a blasphemous clump of chaotic wonder; all that you do is fall for each blunder.

You complain that you want all things to get better, while you stay so ungrateful; must I write in bright letters?

Laughable are your feelings of doubt, with each little word that escapes your big mouth.

Your kindness is pathetic like a sad little child; of all things you know that my moods are all wild.

Give me your time-hey- I didn't mean that. Why are you crying? Did I say something bad?

I'm sorry for all of those things that I said; I had a bad day, it was all in your head.

I need a hug, maybe one, maybe two? Why won't you touch me? Was I being too rude?

I gave you some money, a card, and a kiss? Why can't it always be forever like this?

Stop pulling away like a dog on a lead- listen here, bitch, you're a hog that just feeds.

No, I never meant that, I simply slipped up. How about a coffee? A brand new red truck?

Let me hug you and squeeze you and hold you so tight, till your broken pieces fit together just right.

Why are you weeping and trembling with fear? Do you see what I do? I'm the only one here!

I feed you and clothe you and house you all day; you don't pay me a dime, why do you treat me this way?

You scream and you yell, which is shaking the room; you leave me defenseless, you raging buffoon.

The way you lash out is so adorably cute; I know you feel the same way; this point is so moot.

I try and I try to straighten you out; when I want to go north, you simply go south.

You avoid my presence like a sheep to a wolf; you're a sorry somebody, gutless and cruel.

You bring the greatest of joys to my sick, twisted mind, as you scramble for cover when I'm within your finds.

In the shadows I lurk like a a tiger for prey, my claws are set to demolish your day.

I smile at the thought of hurting you so; after all, that's what happened to me, years ago.

So, suffer the wrath of a rightful revenge, and squirm like a worm in the dirt and the dinge.

I drool like a dog who wants a nice bone when it's just you and me, just us, all alone.

I can hurt you and cut you with each little word; you're looking so faint? Why is that? How absurd.

Are you doing alright-no- no you're not. Can I do anything to help you? Any thoughts?

Accusations, I hear coming from the hole in your face; shut the fuck up, you repulsive disgrace.

Stop fidgeting and moaning and whimpering in pain, you disgust me so much; all I say is in vain.

Just get out of my face, I should hear not a peep; not a sniveling mess with tissues aheap.

Why must you stand here? You heard what I said. Your voice is so grating.... you'd look much better dead.

You're calling me names, you hateful, sick twist; I ought to down you with one strike of my fist.

Suck it up, kiddo; I've got plenty more. I'll insult you and hurt you like never before.

I should just let it go as I always do, but unlike yourself, I can never get through.

You NUMBSKULLED moron, you menacing prick; don't you know that you hurt me? You're just a damn dick.

I've tried to reach out and you'd always refuse, you never see the good things I do.

I let you get fat, you miserable slob; what the fuck are you doing? I make not a lot at my job?

I slave away at my desk, all for you; your most-said reply is "thanks, that'll do."

I have to go now, more work I shall do. Just remember that I'll always love you.

[zerologged-blog]

ᵃˡˡᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒᵒ

°✧｡ [  MARGARET  QUALLEY  ,  CIS  FEMALE  ,  SHE  /  HER  ]  it's  been  TWO  years  since  ZERO  joined  velia  from  GLASGOW  ,  SCOTLAND  .  apparently  their  name  is  AUBREY  WILSON  and  they're  an  ARCHER  .  they  have  been  fighting  as  a  UNITY  MEMBER  for  a  while  now  .  didn't  people  say  they  WERE  NOT  a  beta  tester  ?  i  heard  they  turned  TWENTY  FOUR  this  year  .  LET’S  HOPE  THEY  MAKE  IT  OUT  ALIVE  .  [  HADLEY  ,  21  ,  GMT+10  ,  AND  SHE  /  HER  ] 

hello  kings  !  i’m  hadley  ,  i’m australian  ,  and  i’m  already  obsessed  with  y’all  .  

FACT  FILE  :

USERNAME  :  zero REAL  NAME  :  aubrey  wilson AGE  :  twenty  four PLACE  OF  BIRTH  :  glasgow  ,  scotland PLAYER  TYPE  :  archer GUILD  :  unity EXCELLED  SKILLS  :  communication  ,  night  vision  ,  searching CURSOR  :  orange SEXUALITY  :  pansexual  |  panromantic HAIR  COLOUR  :  dark  brown EYE  COLOUR  :  blue STAR  SIGN  :  aquarius

B  E  F  O  R  E  :

velia  -  above  all  -  has  acted  as  an  extremely  humbling  experience  for  the  brunette  .  zero  has  come  to  realise  that  she  was  an  ungrateful  brat  in  her  outside  life  ,  always  creating  problems  for  the  sake  of  it  .  she  revelled  in  the  chaotic  side  of  things  ,  even  managing  to  score  a  DUI  under  her  belt  .    

because  of  this  behaviour  ,  her  relationship  with  her  parents  ,  particularly  her  mother  who  bore  most  of  the  worry  ,  was  incredibly  strained  .  every  characteristic  she  posessed  reflected  onto  her  from  her  father  ,  so  as  easily  as  he  would  chastise  her  ,  she’d  throw  it  back  in  his  face  .  HYPOCRITE  .  

the  only  reason  she  had  been  interested  in  the  game  was  because  she  had  nothing  better  to  do  .  she’d  been  ordered  a  couple  weeks  house  arrest  (  or  the  choice  of  community service  -  vomit  .  )  ,  local  police  sick  of  her  ways  .  with  time  to  spare  ,  and  only  her  family  to  torment  ,  her  mother  had  relented  in  paying  extra  for  access  to  the  game  -  anything  to  occupy  her  daughter  .  

it  was  pretty  mundane  compared  to  what  she  usually  spent  her  time  on  ,  but  as  she  played  on  ,  and  on  ,  she  found  herself  sucked  in  to  the  spectacle  .  unfortunately  ,  that  feeling  was  truer  than  she  could  have  imagined  .  

N  O  W  :  

two  years  on  ,  her  family  would  hardly  recognise  aubrey  zero  .  stripped  of  her  expensively  ripped  clothing  ,  and  replaced  with  actual  tattered  clothing  ,  albeit  cloaked  in  a  yellow  unity  robe  ,  zero  has  stripped  herself  of  all  her  ego  .  

though  she  sounds  plain  ,  the  culture  shock  of  being  trapped  has  pushed  zero  to  grow  into  a  person  she  believes  deserves  a  second  chance  in  the  real  world  .  to  her  ,  zelia  is  a  moral  TEST  ,  one  of  the  reasons  she’d  chosen  unity  to  align  with  .  though  ,  the  others  preoccupy  a  lot  of  time  spent  thinking  of  the  here  and  now  ,  she  can’t  help  but  ache  for  the  stuffy  air  of  glasgow  .  it’s  all  so  FRESH  out  here  .  

zero  is  easy  to  get  along  with  ,  but  she  lacks  the  warmth  of  her  human  form  .  she  may  come  across  blunt  ,  cold  even  ,  but  she  thinks  of  it  as  realistic  .  she’s  still  caring  ,  and  extremely  protective  over  those  she  thinks  needs  it  ,  especially  her  fellow  unity  after  the  MURDER  .  

because  that’s  what  it  is  ,  isn’t  it  ?  everyone  is  so  hung  up  on  the  lingo  ,  logged  off  -  grey  ,  but  the  reality  is  that  they’re  dead  ,  and  everyone  knows  who  did  it  .  everyone’s  so  convinced  it’s  accidental  ,  but  zero  isn’t  convinced  ,  and  she  won’t  pretend  she  isn’t  carrying  her  bow  and  sling  stashed  full  of  arrows  everywhere  she  trapses  .  there  ARE  no  accidents  in  zelia  .  

WANTED  CONNECTIONS  :

UNITY  MEMBERS  :  obviously  !  i  would  love  for  her  to  find  that  connection  she  lacked  in  the  outside  world  .  it  would  really  rip  her  apart  ,  because  as  much  as  she  would  love  being  so  close  to  others  ,  she  would  also  be  extremely  closed  off  at  times  when  she  remembered  that  everyone’s  days  aren’t  promised  .  (  ESPECIALLY  AFTER  THE  PLOT  DROP  ABOUT  THE  UNITY  MEMBER  DYING  .  )

SOMEONE  THAT  REMINDS  HER  OF  HER  OLD  SELF  :  i  feel  like  with  this  progression  of  character  ,  she’d  be  interested  in  befriending  someone  /  a  few  characters  that  are  sporadic  in  nature  ,  and  attempt  to  sway  them  the  other  way  .  maybe  try  and  convince  them  to  join  unity  . 

ROMANTIC  CONNECTION  :  probably  would  lean  towards  fwb  if  any  romantic  relationships  were  going  to  occur  -  she’s  pretty  set  on  being  seen  as  an  unemotional  character  in  velia  -  it  would  be  a  hard  task  to  delve  down  to  her  soft  centre  .  

ENEMY  CONNECTION  :  at  the  moment  ,  anyone  cooercing  with  the  revenants  is  on  her  SHIT  LIST  ,  along  with  half  the  others  probably  .  she’s  a  little  bitch  .  

FRIEND  CONNECTION  :  someone  just  to  tell  her  to  shut  her  fucking  mouth  24  /  7  ,  please  and  god  bless  .  

PLEASE  SLIDE  IN  MY  DM’S  IF  UR  INTERESTED  OR  EVEN  IF  UR  NOT  I  DON’T  DISCRIMINATE

#veliaintro #♔‘ﾟ ‣ 「 ZERO HAS LOGGED ON 」 : ᶤᶰᵗʳᵒ

[tulisanjemari]

the reasons I quit

Well, the title sounds like utube clickbait lol. I just wanna write down everything right here because it feels like I can't hold it anymore in my mind also... in my heart. And yeah my writting contains broken english, idc, i'll correct it someday.

I know there is a hard time through our lifes without single warning, it also happened to me. Back to a year ago--I was graduated from high school and decided to go to college, my dream was to be an engineer or probably an Architect. I thought it was cool but nah it was not what I think at the time. Because the big salary thats what I thought, I know it depends on our position in the company. All I want is to earn money as soon as possible, so I can help my dumbass relatives wherever are they.

My dad has stable finance compared to other relatives if i could say, dad has a little company that he built by mommy and himself. If you study about business you will know that company debt has a cycle itself, even though we have paid the debt, next we will buy other needs for a company where we cannot pay in full. It happens every month. Literally dad is a medical supplier, as a supplier the hospital doesn't order the equipment everyday.

There is a time I failed in every exams I took. Obviously I felt sad at the time, but who should I blame the failure to? Ofcourse it's me. Just why.. I always fail. Then, in August I forced myself to regist on private college which isn't too high in cost, but the major itself... what will I be if I was still there. I know I'm so understimate something around me, but I just can not deal with something that I never see. It's a department that the employment opportunities has little %.

In the end I applied my form to them without knowing what's my motive is. That so sad, what I meant was... I must study on something that I don't like (read: I hate myself for being so stupid). It contains maths, elementer, kalkulus, matrix math. And finally the end of semester came, I got a 4.00 GPA at the first semester. IM CHOCKED. Well it was the beginning of my misery. I got a perfect score but I still don't know what to do in the future, what will I be, because I want to work as soon as possible like I said at the first place. This major will be perfect for someone who wants to be a lecturer or maybe a scientist, that's what i don't want. Because for me--be a scientist takes our time more longer rather than an employee, yes, I just wanna be an employee, got some bucks for assets and then make my own company, thats all what I want, wealth really changes me T_T

That's so sad when you hear your aunt doesnt have enough money for pay her children education, thats so sad when your uncle is a homeless and jobless even now I don't know where is he, thats so sad when my parents arguing on debts, thats so sad when your big family has standard finance or probably under averange than myself. And also when my brother applied his form to get a job but he failed again and again because he lost to someone who did nepotism on company, he is an engineering diploma that we know it's so hard to get job rather than administrator or accountant (perhaps). Thats so sad when you see your relative lives in a small hovel. Thats really break my heart as fuck. Dad always helps them but they do not value dad's presence:(

So... I burried all of my dreams, and looking for something that can leads me to work asap. I left my current college and said to my daddy I can't handle the subjects anymore but honestly I can survive if I want. I also felt guilt after spent so many cost on my college life back then. But I need to move on, and start to study from zero, I started to study about Soshum last January. I hope I can be accepted in one of soshum major. I really hope on it...

One thing, I feel guilty because being born as a loser, mom, dad, im sorry I'm kinda burden for you. Spent your money for my education but I ended up here like a snail and still struggle. If I can wish something I don't want to be born so I don't trouble you two anymore, Im so sad when I can eavesdropping on your conversation about finance. I'm such an ungrateful child, I'm really sorry God, mom, dad. I'm just so mess inside:(

That's why I left from my current major, it doesn't because I can't handle it, but I want to get a job easily in the future so I can help our relatives, pay some debts, buy some stuff without looking at the price tag. You'll think--there is a company who doesn't look at our degree, yeah, exactly, I know that. In the end this is the path that I take.

May, 2019