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kooktrash · 10 months

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romantic dreams | jeon jungkook

summary: he’s always dreamt of finding his soulmate in some romantic way, bells ringing, birds chirping, maybe even a shine of light over their head. he never imagined to find them living next door to him with absolutely no clue to the extent of the growing infatuation he has toward you until it’s a little too late. hypnotized by your entire existence he finds his dreams and delusions of love to be a little too intense for anyone to bear.

➣ genre/au: yandere jungkook x reader [she/her, female anatomy], neighbors au, smut, angst

➣ 23.9k words

warnings: yandere. smut. jk is obsessed and a stalker. toxic. manipulation. gaslighting. he’s a gym rat who listens to deftones, nirvana, korn, pierce the veil, etc. he watches y/n through cameras. delusional jk. he’s intimidating and a huge asshole to everyone but y/n—like genuinely not a good person lol but he has nipple piercings and a six pack. goth jk. calvin klein jk. sort of mind break. dom/sub/switch themes but not intense. rough, passionate sëx. multiple rounds. oral [both recieving]. multiple orgasms. jk is kinda really unhinged at the end. he seems more stable than he is. everyone is so oblivious. unprotected smüt but also only for one round [they go for two]. idk lol he’s just a weird guy who likes black and Nirvana or some shit. y/n is cheated on in previous relationship he’s not dangerous I think

[ teaser ] [ video banner ]

[ drabble ] [smut]

[ drabble ]

[ smut drabble ]

[ birthday drabble ] [ smut ]

song inspo: tempest — deftones, and i love her — kurt cobain, blvd. nights — team sleep, new magic wand — tyler, the creator [highly recommend listening so you can get what kind of character Jungkook is]

jungkook’s moodboard | y/n’s moodboard

The music was loud yet you couldn’t make out a single word of it. The beat was strong but with the amount of people packed into the nightclub it seemed to blur out all other noise aside from their talk. You could barely see under the hues of green and blue lights shining down on the crowd and the room had a distinct smell of alcohol, sweat, and smoke.

On your back was a firm hand that pushed you through the dancing crowds to get you to the bar and you let them take the lead without question. To your side was a friend of yours who flashed a smile, “Don’t worry, you’re going to get so drunk tonight that you forget about him.”

What she’s really saying is if you don’t want to feel then you better start sipping.

It was just 24 hours ago that you sat down in your living room listening to the guy you had been dating for months tell you that he cheated. He cried his eyes out telling you that it didn’t mean anything and that he would never do it again but it was too late. You didn’t shed a single tear until he was out of your house and that’s when you let the angry tears fall, mad that you were too blind to realize what a piece of shit he was.

Now you were in a little green dress feeling like a heartbroken bitch as you ordered two more drinks and tried to pretend like you’re having a good time when you’re not.

Taehyung watched you chug back another drink with a sigh, “But don’t drink too much, you’ll regret it.”

“I don’t care,” you slurred, tone already a bit off and woozy. Jiyoung combed your hair out of your face, “At least you’re still pretty, drunk or not.”

Not pretty enough if you got cheated on. You smiled as she cupped your face squeezing your cheeks, bloodshot eyes that she couldn’t even see under the changing lights.

“I’m gonna go find Hobi,” Taehyung said as he looked around the packed nightclub, “It’s going to take me forever.”

You nodded your head, “Go ahead, I’m gonna get another drink.”

“You sure you’re okay?” Jiyoung asked and you told her yes. She left with a small smile going with Taehyung to find your friend. Your smile slowly fell as you stood at the bar by yourself looking around at dancing pairs and kissing couples.

You took a deep breath trying to calm your racing heart, hands feeling the heat that radiates off your face and blinking hoping to fight off the burn you felt from not crying.

Once you had your drink you disappeared into the large crowd hoping to find the others.

He was fed up being here. He understands why his friends like to come out and drink but frankly he doesn’t care for their excuses to be able to pick up girls. Every single woman who approached him here are just so boring.

Sure, they’re nice to look at but that’s about it. Listening to their squeaky drunk voices and watching the way they try to dance on him is so tiring. He just wants them all to stop but they won’t and he knows it. He’s attractive, he’s somewhat tall, he’s covered in tattoos and he looks so unapproachable that it — for some reason — always attracts women to him. If he was interested in them then maybe he would feel different but most times he’s just bothered by them.

There might be a rare chance that he takes one home but that happens once every blue moon and even then he doesn’t care for their name or to stay with them the full night. He could live his life without wasting a single second flirting with some girl he met at the club.

His intention right now was to quietly sneak away from his friends while they hit on girls he was very unimpressed with and leave. It reeked of alcohol and he preferred not to get drunk and lose his senses tonight.

He was cutting through the crowd doing his best to avoid being pushed or touched but it didn’t seem to matter.

Goosebumps rose on his skin as he hissed at the sudden cold liquid that spilled onto his shoes and jeans. His face hardened as he smelled the stench of liquor and he immediately looked up annoyed to find the person who spilled their drink on him.

“Shit, I am so sorry,” you said in a somewhat shy voice. You looked from your empty cup to his wet pants and boots, “I—I didn’t mean to bump into you, there’s so many people here—fuck.”

His initial instinct was to chew you out, not caring for what or who you were, but then his eyes met yours and his anger immediately melted away. He couldn’t put his finger on why he was suddenly okay with a stranger spilling their Bloody Mary on his thousand dollar Gucci boots. He was too lost in your bloodshot eyes to say anything—until you dropped down to the floor with a hand on his boot acting like you could just wipe it away.

“Wait!” He nearly shouted as he held you by your arm and pulled you back up, “Don’t. It’s fine, the floor’s dirty.”

“No, please, I am so fucking sorry, oh my god,” you said, drunk out of your mind to fully pay attention to what happened. You looked up to him and you seemed to take a step back in surprise. He was an extremely good looking guy and you’ve just embarrassed yourself in front of him… yet he smiled sweetly instead of yell at you. Will you even remember this moment?

“I’ll just clean them, it’s alright, don’t even worry about it, okay?”

Not fully thinking clearly, you gasped as a sudden idea came to mind, “I’ll go get towels! I’ll um—j-just, y’know wait right here.”

He could hear it in your voice that you maybe drank too much. He looked around to see if a friend of yours might’ve been around watching but he found no one looking in this direction. You were practically running off and it would be a perfect chance to escape another drunk who threw themselves at him but he found himself going after you instead.

The hall toward the restrooms was poorly lit and people lined the walls waiting to go in but that didn’t stop him from cutting through so he could be close enough for you to find him. You were an interesting character.

He could feel some eyes on him but he ignored them easily, choosing instead to smile softly when you stumbled out of the restroom with a handful of paper towels. He reached a hand out to get them but once again you tried getting down to clean his shoes up yourself that it made him laugh lightly. He helped you back up with a hand on your back to keep you from swaying or getting down again—whichever comes first, “I got it.”

You stood back watching him clean his shoes and soak up some of the alcohol from his jeans. You debated if you should leave but when he looked up from his leant over position to see if you were still there, you stayed. “I’m really sorry.”

“Don’t be,” he smiled a genuine smile as he threw the paper towels away in the nearest bin, “Let’s get you another drink.”

“No, I’m done drinking for tonight,” you told him but you left out the part about you already feeling too numb for it, “I’ve already made a fool of myself.” You covered your face behind your hands and he couldn’t help but feel a rush of butterflies in his stomach.

“Don’t say that, it was cute,” he said confidently with a shrug of his shoulders, “Charming even… do you dance?”

“Huh?” You looked at him confused, “Uh, yeah.”

He smiled widely as he began to walk away from you, walking backwards to the dancing crowd, “Then make up spilling your drink on me with a dance?”

You bit your lip and narrowed your eyes as you studied him. You looked around as if in search for your friends but they were busy and you were heartbroken and drunk, and agreeing with a nod of your head. You took his outstretched hand and went with him.

“Where’d Y/n go?”

“Um,” Jiyoung looked around, “Good question, I thought she was getting another drink.”

“Well she’s not at the bar,” Hoseok said with a sigh, “Let’s look for her so we can get out of here finally.”

Your arms were around the stranger’s neck and his were wrapped around your waist keeping you pressed against him as you danced sensually together. You played with the ends of his hair as he looked down at you with an intense gaze, “What’s your name?”

“Y/n,” you said with a light gasp as his head dipped down to hear you better, making you whisper it into his ear. His eyes closed as he felt your face brush against his and he was turning his head slightly to bring his lips closer, “I’m Jungkook.”

You blame the alcohol and the fact that the guy smelled really good for your next actions. It didn’t help that you were still very upset about being cheated on and you weren’t thinking clearly, only looking to feel something else than what you felt right now. So, in your drunken state, you turned your head letting your lips brush against his testing the water out and as he held you tightly, he pressed a kiss to them.

Jungkook released a low moan into your mouth when you kissed him back in need and he found it hard to keep his hands from roaming down your body in your pretty forest green dress. Your tongue swiped along his lip ring making his hands grip the sheer fabric to make sure you didn’t back away before he was done. You were curious about the cold metal and kissed him with a bit of intensity that you seemed to forget where you were or who you were with.

In need of air, you pulled back with your hands slowly slipping away from his neck trying to process the fact that you kissed a stranger without a care in the world.

“Y/n! We’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

You jumped back startled as you turned around in search for the feminine voice. You looked at Jiyoung who sighed, “We’re leaving, are you ready?”

It was hard to get a good view on Jungkook with how poor the lighting was and how dark his clothes were. He was biting his lip ring as he watched you get dragged away and before he could pull you back to him in hopes of getting your number, you were leaving like he wasn’t even there.

Like you forgot about him already.

There was a quickening pace to his heart. Sweat dripped down his forehead that he wiped away with his forearm as he looked at his friend through the mirrored wall. Just behind them he had a clear view of some woman looking at them. His friend noticed her too, “She’s had her eye on you for a while now.”

Jungkook didn’t say anything as he switched with Namjoon and laid down. Namjoon made sure to spot him as he began to bench press, muscles bulging with each set he did.

“I’m serious, man, and she’s hot,” Namjoon looked behind him to catch the girl running on the treadmill as her gaze shifted shyly at being caught. He was getting a little pissed that his friend does not care that he’s being eye fucked at the gym.

This was just like Jungkook too, he never showed any sight of interest in anything. He always had a bored expression on his face like he was waiting for something worth his while to happen. Namjoon’s learned to get over it because if Jungkook didn’t like hanging out with him then they wouldn’t be friends. Jungkook isn’t the type to waste his breath reassuring things like that and he definitely does not waste his time thinking of someone.

If Namjoon got half as many women checking him out as Jungkook does, he would find a girlfriend in no time—but no, he has to stand to his side and watch his friend pay absolutely no attention to any woman who expressed even the slightest hint of interest in him. Maybe he has to applaud Jungkook for this, he seems to have standards and sticks to them because in their years long friendship he’s only met one of his girlfriend’s before. He was extremely private about his sex life too so they never shared any locker room talk and Namjoon has just learned that’s how he is.

“Should we do one more?” Jungkook asked as he placed the dumbbell back into its holders and sat up panting. He looked behind him just slightly and caught sight of the bleached blond on the treadmill. She hasn’t taken her eyes off him since she got here and it’s really starting to piss him off.

“Sure,” Namjoon said, switching Jungkook, “I don’t get how you seem to just ignore every woman who looks at you.”

Jungkook looked down at him as Namjoon caught a good grip on the dumbbell, “I wouldn’t disrespect the person I’m seeing by entertaining someone else.”

Namjoon nearly dropped the dumbbell on himself as he jumped up to a sitting position and looked at his friend dumbfounded, “You’re seeing someone?”

That made the corners of Jungkook’s lips turn upward and he tried to bite back a smile, his dimples still showed. Namjoon was no longer sitting and it seemed like the end of their workout so he began to clean the equipment. Jungkook cleared his throat, “Sort of.”

Wordlessly, they began to leave toward the locker room and Jungkook walked right past the blond without sparing her a single glance. He smiled, “Y/n.”

“Huh?” Namjoon asked, “Is that who you’re sort of seeing?”

“Mhm,” Jungkook nodded with a smile that had Namjoon surprised. He very rarely sees this much emotion from Jungkook and compared to his usual cool exterior, this was a bit unsettling. The two went straight for their lockers as they took their gym bags out and got ready to leave. Namjoon cleared his throat, “Do you have a picture? I need a visual of who this person is.”

It was just so sudden after he had these thoughts of how Jungkook showed absolutely no interest in anyone and kept his sex life extremely private. Namjoon always thought it was just because he was a womanizer and didn’t feel like bragging about all the women he’s seeing. It is just surprising that all of a sudden Jungkook would show so much emotion bringing someone up.

Jungkook didn’t give him an answer aside from fishing his phone out of his pocket and immediately showing him his lock screen. Namjoon looked at the picture clearly.

“Wow,” Namjoon said with, “Now I see why you don’t bat an eye at anyone else.”

It was a good candid photo of you, like you didn’t even know it was being taken. You were sitting outside having dinner and it was a perfect snapshot of your smile. You were looking at something off camera but Namjoon did have to admit that you were very attractive.

He missed the way Jungkook’s eyes darkened the longer Namjoon looked at your picture and decided to lock his phone and put it away, “Ready?”

“Yeah,” Namjoon said as he grabbed his car keys while Jungkook grabbed his and his helmet, “So why haven’t I met this Y/n, yet?”

Look, he knows that the two of you aren’t dating yet, he’s not that crazy, but it’ll happen soon and he has a very strong reason to back it. Jungkook wasn’t smiling anymore but Namjoon couldn’t see it as he walked behind him, “You know I like things kept private.”

“I mean yeah but… I don’t know, you’ve never brought her up before. When did you start seeing her?” Namjoon asked just trying to have a casual conversation with Jungkook before they split up.

“I said sort of.”

“What?”

“Earlier you asked me if I was seeing Y/n and I said sort of,” Jungkook said with a tightened smile, “No need to bring anyone around yet.”

Namjoon didn’t have a chance to say much after that, Jungkook got on his motorcycle and left with a little wave. This felt like news of the century, Jungkook very rarely smiles the way he smiled when he first brought you up.

Look, he knows that the two of you aren’t dating yet, he’s not that crazy, but it’ll happen soon and he has a very strong reason to back it.

Who were you exactly?

You took a deep breath as you unlocked your front door and walked into a pitch black apartment. The light flickered on behind you and a small cat curled around your legs the second you were inside.

“Armani!” Your friend said with a soft gasp as he bent down to pick up the feline. Your cat let Taehyung pick him up and walk him around your living room as you put your things away.

“Looks like your neighbor’s home,” Taehyung pointed out as he stood near the window of your apartment swatting away hanging plants. Armani hopped out of his arms and onto his scratching post where he usually lounged in for naps or ripping at your Tillandsia. “You think he watches you sleep?”

“Shut up,” you told him with a roll of your eyes, “Do you want a drink?”

“Water” Taehyung asked with a cheeky grin before looking back to the window, “And you know I’m joking… I’m just saying though, he always has his curtains drawn and sometimes I catch him looking over here.”

“All that’s telling me is that I need to stop inviting you over,” you said as you grabbed a bottle of Soju and a bowl of chips. You couldn’t help but look out your window.

Your neighbor was an attractive man. He had a sleeve of tattoos and a broad chest, a six pack and… nipple piercings. It’s not that you’re a creep or anything but he likes to lounge around his living room and bedroom without a shirt on and his curtains open. Sometimes he would step out of the shower with only a towel around his small waist as he looked for clothes in his bedroom and you would have to immediately close your curtains so you weren’t a peeping Tom.

He moved in a few weeks ago and since then you’ve found yourself battling over the fact that you’ll never attract a man as gorgeous as him no matter what Taehyung says. Since the beginning Taehyung has believed that your neighbor seems to have a liking toward you. If you were honest, when you first saw him there was something familiar there but as hard as you tried, you couldn’t put your finger on it.

Your best friend is over at your place more often than not and he’s noticed some things. For instance, the day he moved in Taehyung was over and like the nosy neighbor you were, the two of you stared out the window and watched him unload boxes. Taehyung swears he saw a look in your neighbor’s eyes when he looked at you that immediately disappeared when he saw he was there too.

Then, there was that time when you were having dinner with your friends. Taehyung pointed out seeing your neighbor and how close he was sitting outside and you just brushed it off. He lives in your neighborhood now, that meant that he most likely frequented the same restaurants as you. He notes every time your neighbor seems to glance out the window toward your place but you don’t think anything of it. These apartments have poor lighting and the only way you get natural light is by having the windows open. In truth, Taehyung has watched way too many true crime documentaries and has gotten a bit paranoid.

“Whatever,” Taehyung sighed, “I’m just saying, it wouldn’t hurt you to give him a little show and see if you’ll get laid.”

That only seemed to annoy you a little more. You’ve been single for weeks now and yes, you’re over being upset but that doesn’t mean you want to jump right out and find someone new to bone. Jiyoung has already done a good job reminding you about the guy she found you making out with weeks ago.

It’s sad to say you can’t remember him because you were drunk and maybe he forgot all about you too. Shame, he was a good kisser.

It only took you a couple days to see the man up close. You had just gotten home from work when you spotted an Amazon box outside the door of your building. Your original plan was to just walk past it but then you thought about the act of karma. You read the address hoping to at least put it inside the building but it wasn’t the right one. You lived in an apartment complex with six separate buildings and this was supposed to go next door.

You thought about leaving it outside like the delivery driver did but then you thought about it being your package and if someone were to take it. In the end you decided to head next door and deliver to the person’s doorstep.

The one thing you hadn’t expected was for the said person to open the door just as you’re setting the box down, and you much less expected it to be your window neighbor.

Your eyes couldn’t help but trail along his figure from the black jeans he wore to the black boots, belt, and a dark gray Nirvana shirt. You didn’t fail to notice the way his t-shirt was a little too short and exposed a bit of his Calvin Klein’s and a line of his tiny waist for your viewing. Thick leather bracelets on his wrists as he crossed his arms over his chest. Even his hair was voluminous and a bit curly and you were very attracted to the sight of this stranger.

Rock music played behind him as he leaned against his doorframe.

He looked down at you with an arched brow that had you snapping out of your stare. You stood back up with the box and held it toward him, “This was delivered to the building next door and I didn’t want someone to take it.”

“Oh,” he said as he looked down at the box, the corner of his lips turned up shifting his gaze back to you. You could see a black lip ring and a few silver ones aligning his ear. Up close you’re able to see all the details you’ve missed from your window and he really did look familiar. He finally took the box out of your hands, fingers over yours and he broke out into a smile, “You live next door.”

It wasn’t a question, more so a statement but you nodded away. You looked around, “I do.”

“I’ve seen you before,” he said, “You’re on the third floor?”

What Jungkook really wanted to say was that he remembered your lips against his kissing him like you needed him. He didn’t say that though, he can tell you might not remember him and he doesn’t blame you. You seemed to be a little flustered that night and he’s sure he’ll help you remember him when the time’s right. You’re meant for each other after all.

He realized that the second he moved in—it was all by pure chance and yet it felt like the universe was telling him you were his person. Why else would things work out this way? Once he found you looking down at him from your window, he knew it was meant to be. You made his heart race at a time where he had just felt annoyed and then you kissed him so warmly, there’s no way you two weren’t supposed to find each other.

“Yeah, I’ve been living there for over a year,” you said, already taking a step back like you were ready to go.

He smiled, “I just moved in a couple weeks ago.”

You nodded, “Oh, that’s nice. I'm Y/n L/n.”

Jungkook felt his chest tighten. He knew the two of you haven’t interacted since then but he had really hoped you would have recognized him up close. He understands that it was a while ago and you were both drunk but he remembers everything about you. He still tried to smile even if he felt annoyed that you couldn’t remember a single thing about him, “Jungkook.”

You watched the way his gaze never left yours as you tried walking away, before you could go he said, “Well thanks for bringing this up to me Y/n, maybe I’ll see you around?”

In your eyes, you both knew of each other but it was simply for being neighbors and nothing more. There’s been too many times where your eyes have met from 40 feet off the ground through your windows. There’s no way you wouldn’t at least remember each other’s silhouette.

Yet you couldn’t remember the first time you two met for the life of you. As far as you knew, this is the first time you’ve ever seen him this close and you can’t understand why you’re getting flustered.

“Have a good night, Jungkook,” You finally nodded your head in response to his words and with a small smile you made your leave. Jungkook watched you until you disappeared into the elevator. His heart was racing, he clutched the box tightly as a smile came to his face.

A light chuckle left his lips as he went into the apartment, setting the box down on his dining table. He just can’t believe his plan worked. He timed your arrivals for days and when he knew you would be getting home soon he left his most recent package in front of your building. To be Frank, he thought it was stupid to assume you would think anything about it but he had hoped maybe you would confuse it with one you ordered. He had prayed that you would see it was his and maybe get a little curious of the name but you did even better than he imagined. You delivered it to him. After an hour of pacing back and forth in his living room he finally heard his ring camera notify him that someone was at his door and that’s when his heart started to race.

He opens the door to see you up close for the first time ever. He wasn’t watching you from his window or following you to the convenience store. He was actually seeing you face to face and you looked prettier than you did the night he met you. That’s the time he fell in love, it was truly love at first sight and he knows that you must’ve felt it too. You were so cute and caring and clumsy, and you kissed him like you never wanted to pull away.

If only you knew the horrible pain he felt after you left him that night. All he could say is his friends definitely didn’t like the side of him that was shown following that day. He tried finding you on social media but with only your first name that had been so hard. When he saw you from your window he knew right away it was you and he swears he’s never felt so relieved to know he was seeing you again. Once again, the universe was sending signs of his soulmate.

It didn’t take him long to try and find a way to know more about you after moving in. He spent days studying the apartment floor plans and by the fourth day he was following someone into your building and looking at the map picture on his phone, smiling because they were identical. He learned that because your apartments faced each other that it could help him find exactly what number you had and when he found it, he went straight to the mailing room. He found your apartment number and right there taped on the metal was your full name.

He can’t believe that his patience seemed to have worked. You came right to him and he got to hear your pretty voice up close again. He smiled lovingly at the memory of your first kiss and how many more are to come, nose scrunching up like a bunny’s as he finally began to tear into his package.

In the pocket of his black jeans his phone began to ring and he took it out to answer without sparing a single glance at the caller as he pressed it between his ear and shoulder, “Hello?”

“Kook, hey man, what are you doing right now?” Namjoon asked through the cell phone as his Uber came to a stop at a red light.

“Just at home,” Jungkook mumbled, not fully listening to his friend as he looked at the small security camera in his hand. His eyes moved to skim the instructions while Namjoon spoke up again.

“I’m meeting up with Yoongi for some drinks and I wanted to know if you wanted to join us,” Namjoon said before with a smile.

“Uh, yeah, I’m busy right now,” Jungkook said with dazed eyes that made it obvious that he was drifting off into his own world as he made his way through his closet to find some sort of adhesive tape. He even sounded like he was in a different reality.

Namjoon’s smile grew wider, “With your girl?”

Jungkook opened his bedroom window and reached for his potted plant to move it out of his way. It took him a while to utter out a response, “Sort of?” He stuck the black camera against the side of his black window box and put the potted plants back inside it so he could see what it looked like.

“I mean you can bring her along,” Namjoon said as his Uber stopped in front of the bar and he began to get out.

“Maybe,” Jungkook muttered under his breath as he concentrated on opening the app connected to the camera and typing in whatever he needed to to be able to access the footage.

“Alright call me later if you’re up for it.”

Jungkook barely hummed a goodbye as Namjoon hung up and finally got off speaker. He wasn’t paying attention anyways.

He has two options now that his friend has called him with plans tonight.

One: He can go out and get drunk with his friends, probably go to some night club and suffer through some ugly drunk woman throwing herself at him while he pretends to be interested in anything she says.

Or.

Two: He can stay home tonight, dim the lights, play Tempest by Deftones and watch video footage of your bedroom that he now had thanks to the package you delivered to him.

He just has to go with option two.

You were ashamed to admit that you think you might have a little crush on your neighbor. He just felt so familiar. Nothing about him looked inviting, he seemed aloof and a bit mysterious but he pulled it off so well—and with that charming smile of his… you’ve never seen a girl over at his place but you’re sure there’s dozens waiting for a chance with him.

Taehyung is the one to blame for this technically. Since the beginning he’s gotten it through your head that your neighbor must at least be curious about you to always look at you through the windows. You know that it could seem a bit creepy to know that but were you any better when you glance over and see him shirtless through his window? It’s starting to really get to your head and the fact that he was very attractive made it hard for you to not get a little giddy just thinking about him being interested in you in the slightest. You’re sure that’s not the case but it wouldn’t hurt to dream.

Also, you think the world is playing a sick joke on you or why else would he be standing in an aisle over in the same convenience store as you? The Baader-Meinhof phenomenon is to blame, now that you’ve seen him up close it’s like you’re seeing him everywhere in the neighborhood.

Jungkook was the first to make a move, he closed the space between you as he headed down your aisle while you pretended to be stuck choosing between different snack foods. He couldn’t help but smile at the way your eyebrows scrunched together in concentration, “Y/n?”

“Jungkook,” you greeted him as your eyes met.

“I thought it was you,” Jungkook said with a gentle smile as he switched the hand that was holding his shopping basket while looking down at yours, “Doing some grocery shopping?”

“Kind of,” you mumbled, “I’m just buying a few things until I have time to shop this week, what about you?”

“Same,” Jungkook said as he looked at you, “Have any plans? It’s the weekend.”

“I don’t know, I’ll probably just be home until plans come calling,” you said with a soft laugh that made his heart beat a little faster. He’s never heard your laugh before and he needs to hear it again.

“Well, can I come calling tonight?” Jungkook asked confidently, “Let’s get a drink later.”

“Tonight?” You asked, making your way to the checkout line with him hot on your trail.

Listen, you are attracted to this stranger but you’re not so sure there’s more to it than just that. Sure, you think he’s attractive and were just feeling giddy over him thinking the same about you but…. you don’t know. You just got out of a relationship a few weeks ago and you thought some time to yourself would be nice, yet you keep seeing this guy everywhere like some sort of destiny prank and it’s getting to your head. This is your problem, you tell yourself you want to enjoy being single but then you make up all these crazy excuses so that you could find yourself the next guy.

“Alright,” you finally said, walking toward the check out line. He smiled widely now, “Perfect, I’ll drive.”

“What time?” You asked, tucking your hair behind your ear as the cashier began to scan your items.

“I’m not sure yet, how about I text you?” Jungkook asked getting his phone out. You didn’t think much of it as you gave him your number and he immediately called you to confirm but he smiled, “Now you have mine too. Want me to drive you home?”

“I have one more stop after here but thank you, I’ll see you tonight?” you told him shyly. You left after paying and with a goodbye.

Jungkook’s smile instantly dropped when he could no longer see you through the windows of the store. He barely made out the voice of the cashier telling him his total and he threw a crumpled up bill on the counter, ignoring her outstretched hand, and took his bags, turning to leave without his change or receipt.

He bumped into someone hard as he left the store but he never once stopped and headed straight down the street in the direction you left.

In the end Jungkook walked back to his work like he hadn’t been gone for nearly an hour. When he checked the camera earlier he saw you getting dressed to leave—and like the gentleman he was, he didn’t stare too long. Of course he couldn’t help but watch just a little bit and see the way you seemed to caress your legs as you slid on a long fitted black skirt covering your bare hips and lacy underwear. It made his heart race when you took your shirt off and he knew that it was time he stopped watching at least for a little. You grabbed your bag off the hook, filled your cat’s bowl and headed out.

He’s been studying up on your usual departures. You don’t really go anywhere new, it’s usually a cycle of work, home, the store, and to meet your friends. Considering the time he had chosen and the area in which the two of you lived, all he had to do was wait around and see if he could find you walking somewhere on the sidewalk. When he finally did spot you walking toward the convenience store around the corner he practically ran right over.

Clearly he’s made all the right decisions to get to ask you on a date tonight. He won’t watch you this evening, he’ll give you some privacy to dress pretty for him like he’s sure you’ll do and it’ll just be a nice surprise.

xxx-xxx-xxxx: how does 8pm sound? —jungkook

you: sounds good :)

jungkook: alright, I’ll wait outside for you

When you got home, you immediately got ready with a shower. You know it wasn’t a date or anything but he was attractive and you would be going out so there’s no way you could go dressed the way you were.

You finally had your curtains closed after beating yourself up for forgetting to do that before you left to the store and immediately thought about Taehyung getting you in trouble for it.

And apparently just the thought of your friend was enough to summon him to call you.

“Hello?” You answered the FaceTime call, noting that there was a third person present.

“Hello baby!” Hoseok shouted over enthusiastically as he gushed at you through the screen, “I’ve missed you.”

“Hi Hobi, are you back?” You asked as you set the phone up against the mirror while you touched up on your appearance.

“He just got back and we want to get drunk, so are you coming over or what?” Taehyung asked as his eyes squinted, best friend senses tingling, “Where are you going?”

“Um… you know, I have plans,” you said awkwardly making him look you up and down and what you wore.

“With who?”

“Uh…” you scratched the back of your neck, “A guy?”

“You’re cheating on me, you bitch?” Hoseok jokes, making you crack a smile. Hoseok was older but he was the funny one and for years now there’s been a running joke between you two. He huffed, “You’re not supposed to date. We’re supposed to get married when we turn 30.”

“First of all, you’re damn near 30 already,” you rolled your eyes, “And our agreement was if we weren’t engaged by then we would get married.”

“Stop changing the subject. Who’s the guy?” Taehyung asked with a small smirk that told you he already had an idea. You just had to tell him about your run in with the neighbor the other day. You didn’t say anything because he already knew.

“Alright, alright, I get it. Go enjoy your black eyeliner boyfriend and we’ll get drunk on our own.”

“Who are we talking about?”

Jungkook was not ashamed to admit he had been waiting for you since he got home. He did hurry and get dressed but he had been ready early on. When you texted him telling him you were coming down he nearly jumped out of his car to greet you and he felt an insane amount of butterflies in his stomach. You were dressed simply but at the same time it was clear to him that you put in the effort all for him. Your skirt hugged your curves perfectly and your shirt gave him a good idea of what was underneath—even if he’s practically seen you nude through the windows. You reminded him of spring and it wasn’t just because of the earthy tones you wore.

“You look lovely,” Jungkook said as he placed a hand on your lower back assisting you into the passenger’s side of his black Porsche. You blushed at his words and took in the scent of his car. It smelled of his cologne but it wasn’t overbearing like most colognes, it was familiar. It’s soft yet masculine and exactly what you pictured he would use.

When he started the car up, a familiar song began to play, Something In the Way by Nirvana played lowly so it wasn’t overwhelming for your ears. You smiled, “You must like this kind of music a lot. I always see you in band tees”

He smiled but his eyes drifted down to his hands that clutched the steering wheel tightly so they wouldn’t shake with anxiety, “I do, it’s perfect for the gym.”

Jungkook was very pleased to know you took note of his interests, it meant that you were just as infatuated with him as he was with you. He can list off a lot of things he’s learned about you throughout the week. Just from your socials he can tell where you’ve vacationed, cafes you frequent at, your favorite books or movies, etc.

From watching you through your windows he knows that you read a book on the window seat in your bedroom. You like to keep your green plants in the living room and your cat tends to pull off some leaves before running off when he sees you. He knows you can barely cook—he’s seen you running to turn off the fire alarm after you tried cooking. He knows that when you’re alone in your bedroom at night you like to listen to music loud and dance in front of the mirror when you think no one’s watching. He’s even seen you fight your cat over him eating another one of your plants. He knows all of this thanks to his cameras. He can keep his curtains closed to not raise suspicion but that doesn’t mean he can’t see you.

He thinks it’s kind of cute how oblivious you are, it works in his favor even now.

You knew he worked out just by looking at him but for the sake of conversation you asked, “How often do you work out?”

“Twice.”

“A week?”

“A day,” Jungkook looked at you for a split second, “Once in the morning and then usually after work too.”

“Fuck, that’s a lot,” you laughed softly, “I can see why you’re so toned.”

Jungkook bit his lip playing with his lip ring, “Nice to know you’ve noticed, but how? You’ve never seen me without a shirt, have you?”

He knows you have, he’s very purposely walked around shirtless for your viewing specifically. You released a nervous chuckle, “I mean… just from what I can see.”

“Mm,” he hummed as he tried and failed to bite back a smile. He just couldn’t help it. You’re in his car on the way to a date with him. He’s been dreaming about this night after all, imagining what it would be like to wake up next to you with you in his arms. He’s dreamt about the way you laugh at his jokes, how your shampoo smells, what you look like fresh out the shower. It feels like all he does is think about you and he knows it’s because he’s found the one he’s supposed to spend the rest of his life with. Ever since that first night at the club he hasn’t been able to stop thinking about you. Was that normal?

He knows he shouldn’t put cameras up to spy on you or follow you around but he just wants to know where you’re going. He doesn’t want something to happen to you and he has no way of knowing. If he could just know your every step he’s sure that’ll make him feel more at ease.

When he finally parked and the two of you got out of the car you could see where he brought you. You had expected it to be some loud night club or something but it was actually a seemingly quiet lounge bar. There weren’t that many people here and the ones that were seemed to come from money and the dim lights with quiet soft rock music playing in the background told you this wasn’t his first time here. It was an intimate environment filled with quiet conversations and sneaky touches. You found a high round table and with Jungkook’s help, you got on the high stool and watched him pull his chair closer to yours—so close his thigh bumped into yours on occasion.

“What would you like to drink?” Jungkook asked with a hand on your thigh as if to get your attention. He seemed to fit into the environment better than you did. He switched out his normal band tee for a plain black fitted tee that quite literally hugged the ridges of his muscles, even with the dark color you could make out the shape of his bar nipple piercings. The shirt was tucked into a pair of blacks jeans with a leather belt that matched his signature leather bracelets that were on his wrists. The only things different were the silver chained bracelets and chunky rings that fit well with his tatted fingers and matched the silver chains around his neck and piercings in his ears. He had an intricate silver cross with small red jewels on a necklace and his hair had a slick look that made the waves and curls look wet.

He was quite literally breathtaking and unlike the guys you usually went for.

“Surprise me,” you said and he nodded leaving you alone with a pat on your thigh. In order to not look awkward by yourself, you checked your phone, half tempted to pull out your essential oils and roll on some lavender.

Some rock song played quietly in the background as people talked around you enjoying the dark and warm atmospheric of the lounge bar.

hobi: how’s the mystery gang

you: the who?

jiyoung: don’t ever call us that shit again

taehyung: look who finally came out of the trenches

you: jiyounggggggg I missed u

jiyoung: y/nnnn I love u

jiyoung: are u coming to Tae’s?

hobi: y/n’s got a date with some stalker

you: WHO TOLD U THAT

taehyung: me and i was kidding

jiyoung: no u weren’t

hobi: no u weren’t

you: whatever. I gotta go

jiyoung: I hope u get laid

you: why is everyone saying that

taehyung: bc u need it <3

you: scatter. all of u

Jungkook came back with a cocktail for you and when he sat down his chair inched just a little closer to yours as he said, “So…Y/n…”

“So… Jungkook…” you said back to him and he swore he could hear his name fall from your lips for the rest of his life. He smiled, “Tell me about yourself, what do you do for a living?”

You own a shop that just opened up a year ago, what you mostly sell are house plants and sometimes you take Armani with to bring customers in with his Prince-like features—that’s what a review on your business page said anyway.

“I own a plant shop, you?” You asked shifting in your seat a bit when his thigh pressed against yours. With the way you were sitting facing each other, your legs were practically trapped between his. He licked his lips, “I’ll give you a hint.”

You nodded waiting and finally he pointed to the smiley face on his fingers. Your brows scrunched together in concentration and he thought it was the cutest thing in the world making him scrunch his nose like a bunny with a smile and it completely betrayed his dark exterior. You bit your lip, “Tattoos?”

“Mhm,” he hummed as the hand with the tattoos found its way down to your thigh again, it looked huge on you and he held you like you would get up and run away from him, “So tell me.”

You lifted a brow waiting and he smiled, “What kind of flowers do you get a girl that knows so much about them?”

You released a sigh in thought. He clearly meant you and if he didn’t this would be embarrassing but you said, “Personally I think Baby’s Breath. It could mean a lot of different things from undying love to pureness and freedom. It’s simple yet pretty.”

He nodded seriously like he was really thinking about what you said, “Not a rose?” He had to figure out exactly what you like and dislike.

“Too cliché,” you joked with a little laugh and he smiled, “I mean, Baby’s Breath are common too but I still think they’re better.”

“I thought you would think they’re romantic,” Jungkook said, thumb now softly caressing the side of your thigh. You shook your head no, “Maybe but I like the unexpected a little more.”

“Unexpected how?” He asked looking down at his hand and your leg curiously. He needs to know absolutely everything he can about you. Every second he spends with you the more he realizes he’s found the one. There’s no other way to describe what he’s felt for you since he first ever laid eyes on you.

You sighed, your index finger began to absentmindedly trace the rings on his fingers while he touched your thigh with the same hand, “I don’t know, I’m just tired of the same shit in relationships, y’know what I mean? I want something new, exciting… maybe a little intense? I don’t know, ignore me I might just sound crazy.”

You were speaking out of your ass and you knew it. Sure, you are sick and tired of the same assholes thinking they can just do whatever they want with you but you’re not in search of nothing new right now. You don’t want a relationship at this moment, you just want to have fun, maybe hook up with someone and move on.

“You don’t,” Jungkook breathed out as he leaned just a little closer, taking a small whiff of your shampoo. You were actually a little surprised by his growing proximity but you’re beginning to realize just how attracted you might be to him after just one meeting. In a low whisper he sighed, “I want the same thing.”

Your eyes widened slightly as he dropped his head down so his forehead was against your collarbone and though usually you would be immediately turned off by a man this forward, his touch felt good.

“Looks like you’ve dressed up for me Jungkook, I’m used to seeing you in some black tee,” you said in hopes of easing some of this growing sexual tension but it was no use. Jungkook’s other hand had made its way into your hair making you look at him. He smiled, “Didn’t know you were paying that much attention to me. How do you know how I dress on the regular?”

Yikes.

“Uh, you know… our windows actually—“ he cut you off with a soft laugh.

“Y/n, I’ve got a confession.”

You looked at him with furrowed brows, confusion and curiosity evident on your face. His eyes never left yours as he bit his lip nervously, “We’ve met before.”

Jungkook studied your expression to see if maybe you were remembering a little but you just stared at him blankly, “Before I moved in next door, we met at a club.”

A club? You asked yourself trying to find something in him that you might’ve missed and when it hit you your face flushed with embarrassment. You looked at him longer, pieces of your memory slowly coming back together and he sat there patiently.

You had been drunk, probably the drunkest you had been in a while.

You were mad and sad, maybe a little numb too.

You could barely see inside that place and couldn’t remember most of your conversations. You only knew that you had kissed someone because Jiyoung told you but to know it was Jungkook? Now that’s a huge coincidence.

“Wow,” you said at a loss for words. The memory was coming back to you but you felt insanely guilty for not realizing it earlier. No wonder he stared at you all the time, “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?”

Jungkook released a light laugh, “Because I was hoping you would remember on your own, we did kiss after all.”

You covered your face with your hand in embarrassment, “Fuck, I’m so sorry, I didn’t even… wow, I knew you looked familiar.”

He smiled warmly, “It’s alright.”

“What a coincidence, honestly.”

“I know,” Jungkook said, “Funny isn’t it? It’s like the universe keeps throwing us together.”

You laughed at that, “I don’t really believe in destiny but it is pretty interesting that all of a sudden we keep running into each other.”

His smile dropped and the hand he had in your hair became limp, “Y/n, how could you not believe in destiny? How do you think you’ll find your soulmate?”

“Soulmate?” You scoffed, unaware of the way his hands slowly withdrew from you, “Jungkook, don’t tell me you honestly believe in that soulmate bullshit? Do you think there’s just one person in this whole wide world destined for you only?”

“I do.”

“But how do you know who that person is?” You asked, switching places with him and combing your fingers through his hair which did seem to ease him a bit. His eyes were stone cold as he looked into yours, “You just know.”

“Well I don’t believe that,” you cleared your throat and looked away. The night has gone great but you don’t care much for this conversation. It didn’t take you long to notice the way he grew quiet and stared off like he was in his own world. You must’ve said something that upset him and in fear that you were already fucking up a seemingly good night out with your anti romantic antics, you curled a hand around his jaw and made him look up at you.

Jungkook was very visibly upset and you never knew a man could look so hurt over what you just said. He looked like a child who has just had his dreams crushed despite all the tattoos and piercings he wore. You smiled softly, “What do I have to say to get you to kiss me?”

You were being forward and a clear flirt and if Jungkook wasn’t so upset with you he would have probably melted in his seat but all he could think about is how often you’ve asked that to someone. He couldn’t get past what you said because it was a lie.

Soulmates did exist and he has to prove it to you that you’re his. Why else would his skin grow numb with your touch?

He gave up on telling himself he wasn’t happy right now and leaned closer again. Under the dim lights and music playing in the background it was hard not to feel this way in this atmosphere so he let his lips brush against yours while still debating. He had to be gentle.

Finally, without much debate, he pressed his lips against yours with a low whimper as you kissed him back. Jungkook’s nails dug into your thigh but not enough to hurt and with your hand on his jaw the two of you looked a bit too sexually charged for the lounge bar. It didn’t stop you from letting your tongue meet his as he took ownership of your mouth and nearly yanked your chair closer. Your hands landed on his chest for support but he only kissed you harder this time.

A sudden noise at your table made you jump back, biting his lip softly and it only made him groan in pleasure, chasing after your lips as you attempted to draw back. Your eyes opened watching the hostess carried your empty glasses away and you know she did that to make sure the two of you kept it PG and with a sense of embarrassment, you pulled away. Jungkook didn’t catch on or care as he began to kiss along your jaw if he couldn’t kiss your lips. Your mouth fell open when he nipped on your earlobe and you shyly glanced around the lounge praying nobody was watching.

“Jungkook,” you patted his shoulder to get him to move back but he only kissed further down, nearly at your exposed cleavage. Feeling flustered, you yanked at his hair in hopes that would get him to listen and it did but there was no denying that lust filled gaze in his eyes as he tugged his lip piercing between his teeth.

He’s nearly forgotten how fucking rude you were to him and his beliefs.

“Hm,” he hummed, searching your face for any sign that you wanted him to kiss you again.

“I think we should watch what we do in public,” you whispered shyly.

He licked his lips, “Should we get out of here then?”

You took yourself by surprise when you nodded your head despite knowing exactly what he meant by that. You wouldn’t usually do anything—not even a kiss—on the first meeting but right now you can’t deny that he seems to be hungry for you and though you don’t know why, you want him anyway.

It was all it took for him to grab you by the hand and help you off the high chair.

In the car you couldn’t keep your hands off each other, just trying to get Jungkook to drive off already was difficult with the way the two of you made out in his tinted car. He was half tempted to direct you over his lap and just do it in the car but that was just him being impatient. He needed to feel and see all of you, so with a low displeased grunt he pulled back ignoring the line of drool that connected your lips together as you drew back. Jungkook’s mouth was swollen and covered in lip gloss that he licked off as he started his car.

Just before taking off he made sure to lean across the middle console for one last kiss.

Now that you’ve kissed him you’re ashamed to admit how clear you remember the night of the club now. He really was the same guy and it’s shitty to say you only remember now that he’s told you.

Jungkook drove the familiar route to your shared apartment complex but instead of going to building five, he went to building six where his apartment was. He led you up an identical pair of stairs to an identical elevator and up an identical floor. He hurried to unlock his door looking behind him as if to make sure you were still around and as the door opened a large, skinny black dog came running over. Jungkook shushed him gently, flashing you a shy smile that you’ve never seen before, “I have to take him out real quick, down the hall to the right is my room.”

You nodded in understanding as you watched him leave with the dog and you followed directions. You were just a little tipsy but not like the first night you kissed. You could still see things clearly and you were very aware that you were about to have sex with a guy on the first date. A guy you lived across from at that—one you drunkenly kissed without knowing it. This was a new you and something you’ve never done but it didn’t stop you from looking around his bedroom finding it fitting.

He had a large king sized bed pushed against the black wall of band posters and Vinyls. His bedsheets were black silk and his headboard was a deep red velvet. Aside from the posters he had black and white sketches of various dark things from moths to skulls and even a few dead roses. He had a couple weights laying around and it was overall a clean and tidy room just a little darker than you expected. Even the large mirror he had over his headboard had a black wooden frame with engravings of vines and flowers on it. It was huge too and you could see the entire room from that angle. The room was dimly lit too with the light switch only turning on two lamps in the corners of the room and it gave it a warm and dark feel. To be honest… his bedroom was as hot as he was, just imagining the things he could do to you in these silk sheets was enough for you to clench your thighs shut.

In the background some music started playing from a different room letting you know Jungkook was back.

Mascara by Deftones played in the back as Jungkook returned to you, standing behind you in the mirror and you watched as his tattooed arm came around your waist to the front of your stomach while he pressed you into his chest. He rested his chin on your shoulder, “You’re so fucking pretty.”

You smiled shyly as he began to leave soft kisses along your neck, his ringed fingers coming up to push your hair out of his way and you felt your breath hitch when his teeth nipped at your earlobe. Turning your head to face him, you pressed your lips against his and he met you with an open mouth kiss letting the hand on your stomach slip under your fitted forest green long sleeve top, it must be your favorite color, he realized. You had chosen to go brakes underneath and he noticed right away but like a gentleman he forced himself not to stare. Now he’s free to feel up your soft stomach and bunch up the shirt to feel your breasts in his hands.

He was quite literally feeling you up for your own viewing with the way the two of you stood in front of the window. Your breath hitched when his cold fingertips brushed along your exposed nipples, teasing you as you made out out and you felt your body slowly turning to mush in his hands. You wore this black silky skirt with velvet black flowers on and it was short but flowy so it gave his other hand easy access to the expanse of your thighs and you felt like you were being manhandled in the most gentle way.

His tattooed hand disappeared under your skirt and you felt his teasing touch along your thighs but avoiding the space between your legs as his other hand punched your nipple making you whine into his mouth. This was all a bit bizarre but you could hear your friends now cheering you on for getting laid by the hot guy next door.

You blame the fact that you haven’t had sex in a while by how aroused you were and how easy it was for him to push you forward until you were crawling onto his silk sheets ready to turn on your back but you couldn’t. Jungkook pushed you face down onto his bed and he crawled over you kissing your neck as he grabbed at the hem of your skirt and pulled it down. He had already pulled your shirt up to reveal your breasts and now he was yanking your underwear down too until he threw it along with the skirt on the floor. You gasped as he maneuvered your body to his liking, tits pressed against the sheets while lifting your hips so your bare butt was in the air.

Jungkook was trying to take his time but you just looked so ready for his touch too and all the little whimpers in surprise by the way he held you was too much for him to remain calm. He had so much he wanted to do to you.

His fingers trembled as he ran them along your naked backside and spine, kissing whatever he touched until finally he was kissing your lower back, hands finally finding your hips and dropping down to the space between your legs. You had to clench the silk in your hands to keep yourself from squirming in anticipation, unable to help yourself from gasping, “Jungkook.”

The sound of his name falling from your lips had him greedily diving forward letting his tongue out and licking the first swipe along your folds catching you by surprise. With a low growl in frustration, he pinched your hips and dragged them back until he was able to fully press his face into your wet heat that had his eyes rolling back knowing he’s the one who’s made you like this in such a short time.

The last Deftones song ended and a new one began but it went completely unnoticed by the two of you as he began to let his eagerness show with the way he ate you out from behind.

He wanted to be buried in your perfect cunt until he could barely breathe. If he ran out of breath, if he fucking suffocated, he would die a happy man knowing he’s found the one meant for him and that he’s able to pleasure you to the point where your thighs already began to shake. You dug your face into the bed to hide your moans and he only took that as a challenge to make you be louder to the point where you can’t hide it.

“Oh fuck,” you moaned softly unable to hold yourself back.You were so fucking wet. Your slick was all over his chin and his nose as he found your clit with ease. You were moaning loudly now, grinding into his face with enough force to make him dizzy. His nails were digging into your soft thighs, not once bothering to pull away for air. . Anyone nearby could listen to the feral sound he was able to rouse from his mouth despite being buried in that sweet, sweet cunt, he did not care. He was going to make you beg for him harder.

"Fuck," your head turned to the side, cheek pressed into the sheets as if you could get a look at him from the back, "Please," he heard you whisper, desperation spilling from your tone. Breathless moans and a few choice curse words followed before he felt you become restless, close to orgasm and trying to push him away before the pleasure became overwhelming. Even if this was his first time with you, he knew how bad you wanted it so he didn’t move back, choosing instead to lap at your slick folds feeling your walls try and tighten around his tongue, "Yes, fuck, right there, baby. Don't stop."

The term of endearment was enough to make him moan into your pussy but he won’t stop. Not until his cock was buried tightly between your walls feeling you come undone around him like he'd been craving for since he met you. Alternating between sucking on your clit and quickly lapping his tongue against it, Jungkook could feel your body begin to tremble and it only made his hold on your hips tighten to keep you in place. Your hips began to turn into his face failing miserably and getting him off and instead of saying to stop, you said, “S-so close.”.

His tongue lapped at your folds creating a squelching sound, your hips rutting against his face. He sucked on your clit, tongue hitting the tip with each swivel as the hand on your hip was suddenly pinching. A low growl vibrated between your walls as he ate you from behind and your eyes burned with the need to keep them open, your hand hit the bed feeling yourself become restless and before you could say anything your walls were breaking. Jungkook never once slowed down, licking and sucking away your release as your legs shook and gave out yet he held your hips up to his face until he was satisfied.

Jungkook tried easing you down from your first orgasm of the night and when he finally sat back all he could see as he looked down was your pretty body facing down on his bed where you belonged. He licked his lips, hand barely grazing over his hardened member which still stayed confined in his black jeans and with a soft caress over your butt he whispered, “Give me a second, baby.”

You barely nodded, unable to move as he left the bed in search of his master bathroom. He began to rummage through his drawers praying to the universe that he had just one condom. It had been so long since he last had sex and though he would love to feel all of you during your first time, he also knew he had to be safe. He was too worked up right now to remind himself to pull out so he had to find some sort of protection. He created so much noise in his hurry and when he found one he felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders.

When he came back out to his bedroom you had rid yourself of your shirt from being overheated but you still laid face down trying to keep cool. He smiled warmly as he pulled at the neckline of his long sleeve till it was off his head and checked it to the ground leaving his chains on. Next to come off was his black belt that hit the floor with a heavy thud along with his black jeans and white Calvin Kleins. He tore into the package of the condom rolling it on swiftly as he slowly stroked himself to the sight of you, unable to stop his tattooed hand from running along his own abs to his nipples where the piercings had turned them sensitive. He pressed a knee to the bed, cock in hand as he lined himself behind you, not pushing in but angling your hips how he wanted them and let his dick thrust between your fold teasingly. You released a surprised whimper that had him smiling and he found himself lying over you just enough but not hard enough to crush you.

With his free hand he brushes your hair off your back and shoulder, moving it to one side so he can see your pretty face, “You ready, baby?” It was his turn to call you that and it sounded so perfect falling from his gorgeous lips. You nodded your head shyly, hips already withering with the way his cock teased your entrance but never went in.

He smiled lovingly, “Words, love.”

“Yes,” you moaned as his tip began to press into your opening, “Fuck, need you inside.”

Jungkook bit his piercing as he nodded, pulling back just enough to guide his cock into your wet pussy. You both released a silent moan as he began to stretch you open with his thick dick. His tattooed arm came to your lower back for support as he stopped himself from thrusting all the way in but he couldn’t take it. He needed you to feel all of him, so he pressed a little more, other hand holding up your hips to fuck you from behind. When you finally began to fuck yourself on his cock, he knew you were ready and with the same hand he had on your back, he wrapped it around your waist until he was pulling up your seemingly limp body to his chest.

"Want me to do all the work while you just lay there, huh baby?" His hand slid between your breasts to grab at your throat forcing your jaw to stay open making you moan.

You shook your head no as you arched your back off of him so you could fuck yourself on his cock but with the arm loosely around your throat it was hard to move more. His brows scrunched together in pleasure when your wetness created such a soft glide into your warm pussy that he couldn’t help but sneak his other hand down your front too and touch your clit. Your head lolled to the side as he began to leave harsh love bites on your neck and through dazed eyes you found your gaze shifting back to the black mirror that hung over his headboard and when he found where your attention had gone to, he looked at himself too.

It was erotic the way the two of you fucked in his black and red room with sultry rock music playing in the background and your slutty body being pinched at by his rough hands while he impaled you with his cock. You haven’t even had a chance to fully devour the sight of his body, he was so focused on eating you out and getting right to fucking you.

But you loved it. You loved having his hand around your throat. You loved the rough pace he was setting. You loved the animalistic way he'd dropped down to his knees and ate you out like your pussy was his last meal. You loved the way this stranger who wasn’t much of a stranger fucked you roughly yet so gentle and loving, making you feel so good. You were close again and he was too. His free hand flew down to your pubic bone pushing you back onto his cock until he was buried to the hilt and kept himself there breathing heavily. His eyes squeezed shut feeling you shake with a loud moan that he had to cover your mouth with his other hand to block. He turned your face over by your jaw smashing his lips onto yours feeling your body tremble with release that he had to giggle.

You came so easily each time and he was nowhere near done with you even as your body became mush in his hands. Jungkook found himself struggling to breathe as your walls tightened around him feeling your release dribble down his cock to his balls and with a quiet grunt, he came in the condom hugging you to his chest as you both fell onto the bed with him on top of you.

When he was able to catch his breath better he took the condom off and collapsed down at your side, staring up at the ceiling and you finally had a chance to see him in all his naked glory. The piercings he wore on his nipples were silver barbells and you couldn’t help but stare at the way his chest rose and fell with every shaky breath he released. Your eyes trailed down his body toward his dick which rested against his stomach still hard. Jungkook could feel you watching him, he took your hand in his, bringing it toward his lips and pressing a kiss to your knuckles.

Unable to help yourself you pulled yourself up, a leg thrown over his thigh and you kissed him. Jungkook’s breath hitched as he moved his mouth against yours, feeling your tongue swipe over his lip ring tugging on it softly.

You placed a palm on his chest, fingertip just millimeters away from his right nipple and you touched the bar. He brought a hand around your neck keeping you in place to make out while feeling your finger do right circles around his bud, moving the bar gently. Jungkook couldn’t do anything about the way his dick hardened once more, thrilled to know you wanted to keep going.

He’s had sex many times yet nothing has ever felt as good as what you two just did and if you want to do it again then that means you feel the same. You need him just as bad.

A low groan left his lips as you attempted to pull away and he only let you when you very lightly tugged on the metal bar, you kissed down his neck and collarbone. Jungkook licked his swollen red lips as he stared blankly at the ceiling trying not to get too eager but he really did not want to cum so quickly again. Your lips wrapped around his left nipple immediately drawing out a moan from him when your tongues licked over the cold metal. He took a hold of your free hand and couldn’t help but bring it down to his hard cock.

"Fuck," he groaned when your hand tightened around his fist forcing the grip on his cock to squeeze in an upward stroke, he was fucking himself with your hand as you sucked and tugged on his nipples. He licked his dry lips, "I want to fuck you so bad."

He received no response but that didn’t stop him from letting out any noise he wanted to, almost louder than the rock music outside. He licked his lips, biting back a groan as you left a sloppy open mouth kisses against his skin, tongue soothing any sting your teeth left when they nipped him. Your tongue circled around his nipple again while taking over stroking his cock as his fist flew to his mouth to hide loud moans.

Earlier Jungkook asked if you wanted him to do all that work and honestly, that’s how you preferred it. You didn’t like having to do much work during sex but Jungkook made you just want to keep going. It’s like he was pulling you in by just being himself.

His legs shook when your hand released his dick to go massage his balls, feeling your grip pull on his flesh making him wince in pleasure. Deciding he couldn’t take not doing anything, his fingers found their way into your hair by the back of your neck, and though he tried not to do it too harshly, pulled you off of him.

“Get on top,” he said with a deep raspy voice that went straight down between your legs but you shook your hand.

You wanted to feel the weight of him in your mouth but you also wanted to feel him inside of you again. You looked at him, “I’m on the pill.”

“Good,” Jungkook said as he helped you move to straddle his hips, “Because I’m out of condoms.”

He needs to remind himself that if he’s going to be with you he needs to buy more. That one had just been sitting in his drawer and he’s really sure how long but it wasn’t expired yet. He also knew he hasn’t had any sex in a few months now and he had no reason for any but now he has you. Now he has to think about you and he swears he will but you don’t seem to mind the way he lines you up with his pointed cock and slowly brings your hips down.

“Oh my god,” you sighed as you sank down with ease and let yourself get readjusted and comfortable with the stimulation again. Usually it’s hard for a guy to make you cum but Jungkook did so easily and he’s already on his way to bring a third out of you. A third. You’ve only brought him to one yet he doesn’t seem to mind, more eager to fuck you with his cock to care.

“Fucking hell," he said moaning as he fucked into you, with a concentrated face watching the way your hips gyrated. Your nails clawed at his chest and accidentally tugged at his piercing a little too harshly and you immediately went to apologize at the sudden grunt that fell from his lips but went quiet when Jungkook sat up and turned you onto your back underneath him. The second he was on top and more in control the pace picked up. You could feel him begin to leave love bites on your chest but the tipping point was when he sucked on your nipple as your body bounced off the bed with each thrust. After all the abuse you did on his piercings he was tired and horny and ready to blow his load and he needed you there too.

This time you’re very aware of how crazy you’re about to sound. You don’t know Jungkook. You’ve kissed him as a stranger and now you’re sleeping with him as one but… but he wants more. He wants romance and you can just tell by the way he talks to you. For some reason that’s making it a lot easier for you to give him affection back and more willing to let him be with you. You weren’t thinking clearly though when you said, “Cum inside.”

Jungkook’s gaze darkened as he groped your breasts looking you in the eye and never once stopping his thrusts, “Really?”

“Yes.”

Jungkook crashed his mouth against yours holding you tighter and that’s when it hit you. You scratched along his back whining as you came around him. Jungkook practically hugged your body to his as his legs nearly gave out with his release.

You were sweaty and hot gasping for breath as he pulled out with much disappointment. He looked down at your naked body feeling all sorts of things he couldn’t understand but knew they were good. Just look at how fucked out you are. He wanted to go again but he knows for a fact how bad of an idea that was.

Right now it was in the heat of the moment to not use protection and a bad idea to do it again so he but his tongue and ran a gentle hand along your calf, “You okay?”

“Bathroom?” You asked ready to clean yourself and he pointed it out watching you leave. He fell back on his bed with a huge grin feeling at an all time high, unable to stay still as he shot up and found a towel to clean himself with in bed. When you came back out you didn’t even hesitate to crawl into his oleen arms tiredly.

“Sorry for earlier,” you said softly as you pointed at his red nipple. You had tugged a little too hard on accident and thought it brought him pain it also gave him extreme pleasure. He just smiled hugging you to his side, “I kinda liked it.”

You laughed with him, “Did they hurt?”

“Mm,” Jungkook looked up in thought. He couldn’t help but think about how much you two looked like a couple enjoying their company after making love, “Want me to tell you the truth or what will make me sound cooler?”

“Both,” you said, making him chuckle.

“Alright… I didn’t feel shit,” he shrugged nonchalantly, “But the second one also hurt so fucking bad it almost brought this grown man to tears.”

You laughed at his honesty making yourself more comfortable against him, “Why’d you get all these tattoos and piercings then?”

“So a pretty girl like you could ask me why,” he said teasingly and smiled when you rolled your eyes, “And because I thought they would make me look badass.”

“They do,” you laughed, daring to close your eyes and the way he let your hair was enough to have you falling asleep. You slept for a short moment, very short that had been cut short by a loud dog barking by the door. Jungkook groaned as he shouted out for Bam as you sat up looking dazed and confused.

Jungkook hurried to turn off the music and apologize to Bam for being so loud before practically running to you. He fell back into his bed quickly hoping to go back to sleep with you but it was too late. You didn’t mean to fall asleep and now look at the time. In hopes of distracting you, he leant forward and kissed you.

“I have to go,” you sighed against his lips as he kissed you again. It didn’t even seem like he heard you so you pushed at his face gently to get him to back up as you repeated, “I have to go.”

His eyebrows scrunched together as he used the small grip in your hair to hold you away from him, “Why?”

“Armani’s been alone for hours,” you said with a sigh and nothing in your voice sounded like you weren’t serious. He let you sit up but he quickly followed, “Who?”

“My cat,” you clarified as you looked around for your clothes. A scoff left his lips as he scratched his head, ruffling up his sex hair even more, “You’re leaving me for a cat?”

His eyes shifted to the alarm clock on his nightstand, “It’s past midnight.”

That made you laugh, “Jungkook, I’m just next door, besides if I don’t get home now Amarni will destroy my pillows again, trust me. He’s crazy.”

You ran your hand along his chest, half tempted to brush a finger over his piercing to see if he would suck in a breath like he did before.

Jungkook huffed in annoyance as he got up and slipped on the closest pair of pants he could find and threw on an old t-shirt. You looked at him, but he just scruffed up his hair again, still slightly dazed from the good fuck you two just had. He yawned, “I’ll walk you back then.”

You didn’t argue as he followed you out of his apartment and you really did feel a bit flustered doing this but you had to. You really weren’t lying about Armani, he’s a cat who likes routine and you told him you would be coming home tonight. If he notices that you might not be back he’ll act like a total brat and scratch up your pillows like last time. Plus, if you left then you wouldn’t have to worry about being kicked out and forced to take the walk of shame in the morning.

You stood in front of your apartment door with Jungkook right there in front of you. You leaned against your door for a second as you looked back at him, “I’m sorry.”

“Hm,” he trailed off, taking a step closer to you until one arm was around your waist and a hand was on your neck, “When can I see you again?” It was very obvious that leaving you was the last thing he wanted to do. You bit your bottom lip with raised brows, a bit in shock that he wanted to see you again. Despite how great tonight was, Jungkooked pegged you as a womanizer. Why would he want to see you again?

“I don’t know, I’m sort of busy these next couple of days.” Once again, it was not a lie. You had plans with your friends tomorrow and you’ll be busy with work.

Jungkook’s eyes narrowed and before he could stop himself, he asked, “Are you lying to me?”

You’re leaving his bed for a fucking cat and now you’re telling him you’ll be too busy to see him? What bullshit lie was that? Did you not want to see him again after tonight? Do you think he’s going to let you give up that easily?

The question was unexpected but he spoke to you in his usual gentle and deep tone that you were a little confused to answer.

“No, I’ve got plans tomorrow and I’ll be working all day this week,” you said with narrowed eyes, “Why would I lie to you?”

Jungkook smiled softly now as if he hadn’t looked so serious seconds ago, “You’re right, I’m sorry I guess it didn’t make sense to me at first. I’m feeling tired.”

He acted strangely and you’re beginning to pick up on that a little bit but that only caught your interest more, like you wanted to know what his deal was. Why is a seemingly charming and good looking man single? You’re sure he gets hit on all the time and he might enjoy it even if he’s planning to sleep with you. What was his deal?

You placed a hand on the back of his neck and without much effort, reached up to capture his lips with yours. He didn’t put up a fight at all, choosing instead to focus on your tender affection, reminiscent of the night you’ve just spent together. He could stay like this for the rest of the night if you let him.

You told yourself over and over again that you weren’t going to get caught up on a guy again and yet here you are making out with this guy who you kissed right after a break up weeks ago all over again. Was this even what you wanted?

You gave him a wary smile, “I’ll call you?”

Music played loudly in the dimly lit studio and all you heard was the sound of tattoo guns buzzing away.

Rosemary by Deftones filled the black room as Jungkook bit his lip ring in concentration, not bothering to turn at the sound of the front door opening and closing. Namjoon and Yoongi walked into the tattoo parlor that was covered from floor to ceiling in artwork and pictures Jungkook did.

Jungkook was dressed in all black with his tatted hands hidden away by black latex gloves. He had his hair tied back and out of his face so he can work better and his black chunky boots tapped against the floor to the best of the music every now and then when he hummed to himself.

“You almost done?” Namjoon asked as he looked at what he was working on right now. His client sat in the chair with her neck tilted to the side as he did a shaded tattoo behind her ear. The girl was hot, dyed black hair, tattoos, piercings and quite literally the female version of Jungkook yet he didn’t so much as smile whenever she tried to clearly hit on him.

“Almost,” Jungkook said as he used a hand wipe to clean off excess ink. He tilted his head in thought as he looked it over, “Actually, yeah I am. Take a look in the mirror.”

He wheeled his chair back as he pulled off his gloves and looked at his friends, “What are you guys doing here?”

He took his vape out of his pocket and hit it right there in front of them as he waited for the chick to come back and tell him what she thinks about it. Yoongi sat in the unused tattoo chair, “Let’s get some drinks.”

“Alright,” Jungkook said simply. The two looked at each other in confusion as Jungkook told the girl how much it was and tucked the cash into his pocket. They thought it would have taken more to convince him like it usually did. As he finished up with the client he had a little smile on his face and was humming along to whatever song was playing off his phone.

“That was easy,” Namjoon pointed out.

“I’m done for the day anyway,” Jungkook shrugged.

He closed the shop and went to the back where his things were. Yoongi and Namjoon waited out front by the counter, taking in the sight of Jungkook’s tattoo parlor. It wasn’t big by any means but he got a lot of business. The room looked exactly like something Jungkook would decorate and he gets a lot of clients every day. It probably helps that clients tell their friends about him and they come too, looking to get a tattoo from him. It’s not a surprise that most of his clients are women.

Yoongi looked slightly bored waiting for Jungkook to finish and he found himself skimming all the papers on Jungkook’s counter. His brows furrowed as he picked up a small slip of paper and let his eyes widen as he read it. It was receipts from a few floral shops,

An order of 20 bouquets of Baby Breath’s flowers.

He tapped Namjoon on the shoulder until he had his attention and showed him the paper.

When Jungkook came out, he found himself asking, “What’s up with all these flowers?”

The smile on Jungkook’s face seemed to tighten as he took the paper out of their hands, “Don’t worry about it.”

“Is it for the chick you’re seeing? That’s a bit extreme don’t you think?” Namjoon asked with a chuckle as the three left the studio letting Jungkook lock it up. He didn’t say anything for a second.

It wasn’t extreme.

It was romantic?

You worked as a florist. You liked flowers, you liked Baby Breath flowers and he looked up what they meant.

Undying love.

That’s what he felt for you and he wanted to give you a gift you’ll enjoy. Did he maybe go too far? Yeah, but you won’t be upset. You can’t be.

“Wait, how did I not know you’re seeing someone?” Yoongi asked.

“I didn’t know for a while either,” Namjoon told him, “Jungkook show him a picture.”

“Alright,” Jungkook said as he exited out of the app he was currently on to go through his camera roll. He got in the backseat of Yoongi’s car, scrolling through his pictures until he found one. A smile came to his face as he took a second to admire you.

He took this picture last night. You couldn’t see much because the lights were off but after the two of you made love you had fallen asleep. It was right before you jolted awake remembering your stupid cat but he got a picture of you sleeping soundly against him. Your hair framed your face perfectly and you looked so peaceful and at home in his arms that he needed a picture to remember the first night together. It was also the first photo he took of you up close.

“Shit, hang this up in a museum,” Yoongi joked because it really was a nice picture, “How long have you been together?”

“A while.”

When they got to the bar it was already packed with sweaty bodies that made Jungkook cringe whenever someone bumped into him. They got their drinks and went to a table, “So how did the two of you meet?”

“Y/n lives next door,” Jungkook said as he tilted his phone a bit so they couldn’t see the way he switched to another app. He typed in his password and went straight to the video footage. He just had to know if you were home yet.

“Damn, you just moved there too, how’d you pull someone that fast?” Yoongi laughed because they didn’t know that Jungkook just started talking to you a couple days ago. To them, Jungkook and you have been dating for a few weeks now.

“We met a little before that,” His brows knitted together as he looked at the footage. Your curtains were drawn so he couldn’t see in and he can’t tell if you’re home or not. He immediately went to text you.

jungkook: are you home yet? :)

You’ll be honest, you saw Jungkook’s text but you couldn’t bring it in yourself to answer. You have been texting with Jungkook nonstop since that Friday night where he fucked you so good that you woke up with bruises on your hips and left scratch marks along his back that he generously decided to show you a picture of over text.

You’re not sure what to think about him either. Friday night was fun, you got drinks and got to know him better, he treated you right and aside from that strange conversation about destiny the night went perfect. He took you back to his place where you quite literally had the best sex you’ve had in a while and he didn’t ghost you right after. Hell, he made you not want to leave but you did anyway.

Today you’ve been texting on and off and it was all your fault. He responds so quickly but you get busy or forget to respond until he sends another like right now. The last text he sent was asking what time you got off but you had been dealing with delivery orders so you never responded. You had completely forgotten about it until you were in the elevator to your building heading home. Your friend Jiyoung was right behind you, ready to nap on your couch but you weren’t paying attention to her anymore.

You were so focused on your phone that you nearly missed the sight before you as you walked down the hall to your apartment. Your expression changed to that of confusion as you stopped a few feet away from your door. You couldn’t even get to it with the line of bouquets scattered across the entrance. Some lined the walls, some bunched up in front of your door, some had cards in them.

“What the fuck?” Jiyoung asked as she counted them, “Who did this?”

Without much debate, you bent down and took a card in your hands, flipping it open to read:

“For my undying love.”

You couldn’t do anything but blink in surprise. What did this mean?

“Let’s get them inside,” you said with a sigh as you unlocked your front door and urged your friend to help you put them in. It took a few back and forth trips for the both of you but once you scattered them all in your apartment it was very overwhelming.

“This is crazy,” Jiyoung said even as she laughed, “You’ve got an admirer? Is that guy from the other night?”

“Um,” you bit your lip, confused and a little thrown off by this, “Give me a second.”

Jiyoung waved you off as she threw herself on your couch and moved a vase off the coffee table so she had an unobstructed view of your tv. You went straight to your bedroom already pulling up Jungkook’s contact information and dialing.

“Are you home?”

“I am,” you said as you took in your bedroom and it’s lack of flowers, “It was you, right?”

“What?” Jungkook asked over the loud music. He could barely hear you and without another word he was getting up to find somewhere quieter. He ended up in the hall that led toward the restrooms where the music was a bit drowned out.

“The flowers, was it you?”

His smile seemed to drop, “Why? Were you hoping for someone else?”

“No,” you told him, “I just…”

“You don’t like them? I thought they were your favorite,” he said with a boyish smile, proud of himself. He watched some drunk girls stumble past him with disgust.

“They are my favorite,” you said, “Uh, thank you but how'd you find a place that had this many Baby’s Breath?”

“Oh! I had to call up a few different places,” Jungkook said, “And obviously I couldn’t call you because that would ruin the surprise—Hey! Now that you’re home, should I come over?”

“Oh um, I have some friends over, remember?” You asked him shyly. You could hear him take a deep breath but you’re not sure if that meant anything or not.

Who did you have over? Was it that same guy he’s seen before? What was going on between you two anyway?

Some girl bumped into him and he turned to her with a glare, almost forgetting that he had you on the phone. She smiled at him like that would make things better but he was starting to get annoyed. It wasn’t her fault but that didn’t change the fact that her touching him just bothered him. He turned away to talk to you again. He forced his voice to sound light, “I remember, you’re busy.”

“Sorry,” you apologized gnawing on your bottom lip, “How about tomorrow?”

He smiled, “Tomorrow? I’m down.”

“Okay let’s meet then but I have to go now.”

Jungkook said his goodbye and stood in the dark hall in thought. He had to find a way to get a camera in your house. He can’t see much just from the window and he needs to know who you invite over when he’s not around.

“Excuse me.”

He turned back to the drunk that hadn’t left yet despite his efforts to ignore her presence. She smiled at him sweetly like that would make him swoon but he was mad and it wouldn’t work. You were too busy for him but not your friends?

“What?” He asked, already trying to walk back to his friends.

“You look familiar, have we met before?” She asked, following after him and he turned looking at her from head to toe and it made her blush.

“Definitely not.” He was leaving again until a small hand wrapped around his bicep and with an annoyed look he looked back at her. His patience was running thin.

“Well, uh, here then,” she pushed a paper into his hands finally releasing her hold on his bicep. He looked down at the line of paper that she clearly got from the restroom with a number scribbled on it in a rush.

His eyes shifted back to hers and instead of running off shyly she held his gaze with a confident smile. The paper sat in his open palm and without tearing his gaze away from her he made a fist crumpling the paper in his hold and just like that, he threw it on the floor, “What makes you think I would be interested in you?”

He even had the nerve to laugh when she looked taken back. He left without another word and went back to his friends.

“Who was that on the phone?” Yoongi asked when he sat back down. He smiled that bunny smile, “Y/n.”

“What’d she think about the flowers?” Namjoon asked curiously.

“She loved them,” Jungkook cleared his throat, “I think.”

And you’ll love the tattoo just behind his ear too.

“I can’t help but think you look a little tense, Kook.”

Jungkook ignored his friend as he delivered another hit to the punching bag with a low grunt. Make Me Bad by Korn played loudly in the empty training room. He ignored Seokjin as he continued to hit the punching bag. Jin released a sigh as he sat back and watched his friend release whatever stress he felt.

“She’s avoiding me,” Jungkook said to himself as he hit the bag hard. Jin wasn’t fully listening anymore but Jungkook didn’t seem to care as he went on, “She’s lying to me.”

“She’s fucking lying to me,” he hit the 200lb punching bag hard enough to make it move back from the bar and farther away from him.

“Who the fuck are you talking about?” Jin asked, watching Jungkook throw off his waistband and gloves. His nose was running from how hard he was working out and his heart pumped with adrenaline. He sniffled as he pushed back his sweaty curls, “Y/n. She hasn’t texted me back in over an hour.”

“She’s probably busy,” Jin said, watching Jungkook lift his shirt up to wipe at his forehead.

“She’s not,” Jungkook said with a tensed jaw, “I know exactly what she’s doing.”

Just before he came to train with Jin he looked at his camera. You had the windows open today and you had people over. He doesn’t care if you invite people over but two guys?

Two guys?

Wasn’t he enough?

One of those guys was over all the fucking time and that pissed him off. How could he be sure you’re not messing around with one of them behind his back?

Jin wasn’t as close to Jungkook as the other two. They were friends and hung out often but he’s not as caught up with Jungkook and his antics as the others. To him, Jungkook was just hoping to be with his girlfriend, so he sighed and said, “So go over and see what she’s up to.”

Jungkook didn’t quite hear his friend with his loud thoughts drumming in his ears so he turned to him with dark eyes, “You think she’s cheating on me?”

“Only one way to find out,” Jin said with a smirk, unaware of how far Jungkook will go to know. He watched his friend’s mind run rampant but he just sat back comfortably. Jungkook was just a concerned boyfriend after all. He didn’t think deeply about his comment, he assumed maybe Jungkook would just tell him to fuck off but he really did look pissed.

When they finished their training, Jungkook rushed over to his place to wash off his work out. He practically ran next door jumping steps to go to you and when he knocked on your door, he couldn’t help but look upset when another man opened it.

It took a second for Taehyung to recognize him, he’s never seen him up close before but when he caught sight of the tattoo sleeve he knew exactly who this guy was. He looked back into your apartment ready to call you over only to find you standing behind him already, “Jungkook?”

Taehyung moved out of the way and let Jungkook through who immediately went right to you, “I wanted to see you, is this a bad time?”

You looked back to your friends who didn’t even pretend to act like they weren’t eavesdropping. You smiled, “No, come in, we’re just talking.”

Jungkook didn’t hesitate to follow you inside and you led him straight to the kitchen, “Want a drink?”

“Mhm,” Jungkook responded, watching you sweetly as you opened and closed cabinets. You served him a drink and asked, “What’s that red mark by your eye?”

It took him a moment to process what you were asking and he brought a hand up, “Oh, I was boxing and I think my friend hit me a little too hard.”

You made a pouting face teasingly, “Poor baby.”

He smiled knowing you were just teasing him but also showing interest, “Kiss it better?” With a roll of your eyes you leaned up and pressed a chaste kiss near his eye. You led him back to the living room where your friends were.

“So you’re the one who Y/n’s cheating on me with,” Hoseok joked right away and it made you roll your eyes as the others laughed. Jungkook didn’t react but his gaze did seem to harden as he stared at the stranger. You scooted a little closer to Jungkook letting him wrap his arm around you as you leaned back on the couch, “Pack it up Hobi, the joke’s old.”

“It’s not a joke to me!” Hoseok said with a wink as he turned to Jungkook, “Alright whatever, as long as you’re better than the last guy.”

“Oh my god!” Jiyoung squeaked, “Hobi, you can’t just say things like that. Are you drunk?”

He smiled, “I’m just saying.”

Jungkook tilted his head in your direction but you just sighed, “Please ignore them.”

“Oh.”

“So, what are you two anyway? You went crazy with the flowers,” Taehyung asked curiously, joking a little at the end.

Jungkook kept his gaze down, trying his hardest to ignore your friends while also listen in to your answer. You raised your cup to your lips looking at Jungkook who met your gaze hesitantly.

Say he’s your boyfriend, Jungkook thought.

Say you’re his.

Say he’s the on—

“We’re just… yknow, having fun?”

He stopped.

His muscles tensed, tongue poking against his cheek as he looked away from you to hide his expression. His lips curled with the need to scoff but he kept it in. He wanted to ask you why you would say that but not in front of the others. It should be a private conversation between the two of you about your relationship because you clearly weren’t just having fun.

He kept his gaze focused on the picture you had hanging above the fireplace mantle. Your apartment was identical to him and he looked at every corner as if in search of something. With a clear of his throat, he turned to you, “Bathroom?”

“I’ll show you,” you said, patting his thigh as you rose to your feet. You took his hand in yours immediately shooting electricity down his arm as he held it tightly. You pointed to the bathroom but before you got there you asked, “You okay? You’re being kind of quiet.”

“I’m fine, I’m having fun,” Jungkook said with a strained voice, he never tore his gaze away from yours as you stood in front of him near the bathroom. You haven’t known him for long but you do know that when Jungkook looks at you, he never looks this strained. There was clearly something on his mind.

With a defeated sigh, you gave up on asking him anything and went back to the living room. Jungkook waited against the door for a minute to see if you would come back. When you didn’t he took a turn down the rest of the hall fumbling with something he shoved in the big pocket of his black cargo pants.

He looked down at the tiniest camera he’s ever seen and like he was walking into his own place, he went straight to your bedroom. He moved swiftly, finding exactly where he wanted to hide it and in no time he was back to the bathroom pretending to be busy.

You released a sigh, “Let’s call it a night.”

You enjoyed having your friends over and you had spent pretty much all evening with them but you’re getting tired already. It was late, you had a surprisingly busy day today and all your social battery is just completely out. Plus, if they’re just going to talk or tease Jungkook then you'd rather just call it a night. You feel it in your gut that you said something that annoyed him at least a little and it’s probably when they asked what the two of you were.

You don’t know what your relationship with him is, if you’re being honest. Since the beginning you told yourself you didn’t want to date but it feels like that’s what Jungkook wants. You shouldn’t lead him on so you should be open about what you’re looking for but you also don’t want to make him stop talking to you. You have no idea how he really thinks about you so it’s all just so confusing.

“Awe,” Jiyoung whined as she watched you begin to clean up some of the things. The guys seemed too drunk to even care that you were kicking them out as they got up without complaint. When Jungkook finished up he came out to an empty apartment.

He didn’t like what he felt at the moment. You telling your friends that it’s all just fun really bothered him and it made him realize that he hasn’t asked the right questions. Jungkook played with his lip ring as he watched you clean up and he found himself asking, “So uh, how long ago was your last relationship? Your friend brought it up kind of and I guess I just never asked that sort of thing.”

“Um…” your movements seemed to slow as you thought about how to answer, “Two months ago?”

It was quiet for a moment and as hard as you tried, you couldn’t read his expression. Jungkook’s gaze hardened as he tried to think of what happened two months ago, “When we met? Do you still talk to him?”

You rolled your eyes remembering your ex boyfriend. At the time you definitely were a lot more hurt about it now but that doesn’t mean you want to talk about the guy. He cheated on you and now you’re scared it’ll happen again if you start dating.

“No, he cheated on me,” you told Jungkook as you sat down on your couch. Jungkook bit his lip ring hard in thought.

If you and the guy broke up around the time where he met you then that would mean when he met you at the club and saw your bloodshot eyes… it must’ve been when you broke up. You kissed him in the middle of a heartbreak too drunk to even remember. Now you’re telling your friends it’s all just some fun you’re having fun with him and he still doesn’t get what that means.

You watched him stare off into space, eyes wide in thought and you patted the spot on the couch next to yours for him to sit down. You know you’re confusing and you really don’t think you want to be in a relationship but Jungkook… it’s hard to explain. He’s a little intense and sometimes too pushy but for some reason you really did like him.

As he sat down you couldn’t help but play with the Sterling silver Vivienne Westwood chain necklace he wore. He watched your finger hook itself onto the chain and his breath hitched at the warm touch of your finger against his skin. You looked at him with wide and sparkly eyes that had his tongue playing with his lip ring as he bunched up the hem of his black Nirvana tee in his fingers to stop his hands from shaking by having you so close. Without much warning, you tugged on the chain with your index finger and like a devoted pet, he was following your call until his lips met yours. Some of his longer curls tickled your cheeks and he kissed you with such eagerness nearly toppling over you when you pulled on the chain.

His teeth pulled on your bottom lip softly as he opened his eyes, looking down at you, “I would never hurt you like the others have.”

You’ve grown used to the way Jungkook acts around you. He likes to be the one to do things for you despite you being able to do it on your own. He hates when you don’t text back in an hour or two. He always seems to know when you’re not home, he offers to pick you up from work, he tries to come anytime you go out with your friends. He’s just sort of always around. You’re not sure if he’s like that with others but that’s how he is with you.

You should definitely be a little burdened by it, it’s suffocating honestly but you genuinely don’t think Jungkook has bad intentions with it. He doesn’t talk much about himself or his friends or family but he always seems to be interested in hearing everything about you. You’re not sure if he has many other people to talk to and you enjoy his time too much to push him away.

One thing you hate to admit and really the only downside to him is his obsession with getting you flowers. The first time the two of you went out he asked you what flowers you liked and you told him absentmindedly. You never expected him to have so many bouquets of them delivered—nor did you expect to receive one every time you saw him.

You loved flowers and were thankful for the thought behind it but you’re beginning to hate Baby’s Breath. You’re starting to see them everywhere from work to home to any time you see Jungkook. They’re everywhere and it’s beginning to feel like you’re drowning in the little white flowers.

If only you had the heart to tell him that he didn’t need to get you flowers every time he saw you.

“Y/n,” Jungkook had a huge smile on his face, “This is Namjoon, That’s Yoongi.”

He pointed to two of his friends who hung around his living room. His arm was around your waist loosely as he directed you to a seat, only to pull you onto his lap when he sat down. You smile shyly as you attempt to greet them only to have Jungkook pull your attention back on him when he places a gentle kiss on your shoulder blade, arms tight around you.

Namjoon was surprised to see this side of Jungkook and he’s only just met you. It makes him wonder if he’s always been this way with you. He very rarely sees the guy smile much less show this much affection to one person and it’s all just very new to him. He’s seen Jungkook upset and mad plenty of times but to see him look soft and gentle was something entirely different.

“Nice of Jungkook to finally let us meet you,” Yoongi said with a light chuckle as he offered you a drink. You took the cup from him with a smile as he continued, “You’re all he talks about, it’s weird.”

“Hyung,” Jungkook warned as you felt his arms tighten around you just slightly. Yoongi just smiled, “I’m just saying, it’s been nonstop weeks of listening about you talk about your girlfriend so it’s nice to finally get to meet her, right Joon?”

Your brows seemed to scrunch together in confusion as you looked to Jungkook. The two of you weren’t technically dating, sure, you hang out all the time and have sex but you’ve never actually considered yourselves in a relationship. You thought you’ve made it clear that this was fun and maybe you’re to blame for possibly leading him on but he’s never referred to you as his girlfriend or partner.

If he has been saying that to his friends then you would like to have a talk with him about where the two of you stand before it happens again. You leaned back against Jungkook’s chest trying to look at him but before you could say something he planted a quick kiss on your lips making you forget your own words.

Jungkook knew that your pretty mind was thinking about what his friends were saying and he just wanted to tell you not to worry about any of it. Of course he tells his friends you’re his girlfriend but it’s not like he’s begging you to be. He knows that you had a rough break up with the last guy and as much as he wants to find out who he was and hurt him for hurting you… he also had to thank him. If it wasn’t for the break up then you wouldn’t have been out that night of your kiss and he wouldn’t have met you. He knows that to you, a relationship isn’t ideal at the moment but he’s still basically forcing you into one even if you want to say you’re not dating him.

He spends all his free time with you.

He calls you and texts you all day.

He watches over you while you sleep through his new cameras.

He makes sure nobody breaks in.

He’s always around in case something happens and he knows you’re thankful for him even if you don’t really know all the things he does for you.

You began to completely tune out the rest of their talk growing bored and you resorted to playing with his hair. It was getting longer and the curls were beginning to loosen so it was easy to run your fingers through them and hold it back like you were going to tie his hair. Maybe you were acting like a kid letting him talk to his friends while also basically begging for his attention but you were just bored. His friends seemed like nice people but you weren’t really interested in their conversation. You felt bad for sort of distracting Jungkook but you didn’t stop playing with his hair, even when he smiled like a bunny at the way you pulled on a strand only to release it and watch it recoil.

You brushed his hair back tucking some of it behind his ear and just like that, your hand seemed to freeze.

Right there staring back at you was a small tattoo that you failed to notice before. Your nail just barely brushed over it but it was real and it’s not old. It was healed for the most part but you can still see specs of dry skin around it meaning it had to be somewhat recent.

A tattoo of Baby’s Breath flowers scattered across the back of his ear and they were small delicate drawings tucked away. How did you not notice this before?

Was it always there?

When did he do it?

It wasn’t because you said they were your favorite, right?

You understand the bouquets — despite the copious amount of them he sends you — you understand the curiosity behind plants but to get it tattooed on his own skin?

You moved your hand away and turned to face forward again as you tried to process what you just saw.

You must be imagining it. There’s no reason why Jungkook would get a tattoo of a flower you told him was your favorite. It just didn’t make sense why he would do that.

Him getting that tattoo for you [maybe?] didn’t make sense.

“What’s up?” He asked you as you stared off into space. His friends had been in their own conversation and Deftones played quietly in the background but like usual, his attention was only ever on you. Even when you’re not around he finds his mind consumed by the thought of you and there’s no escape—not that he would need to.

“Nothing,” you muttered under your breath as you played with the ring on his fingers absentmindedly. You only did this when you were lost in thought and he was curious to know what it is. If he could know every single thing you think about then he would feel much more at ease.

You were being so cute right now even if you weren’t talking. You were sweet and pliant, sitting on his lap letting him hold you and kiss you like his pretty little girlfriend that you were. He sincerely regrets inviting his friends over because all he would like to do is kick them out so he could be alone with you again.

“Actually,” you whispered making his head perk up to listen, “Can we talk?”

“Of course,” Jungkook didn’t hesitate to stand up with you against him as he looked to his friends, “We’ll be right back.”

You followed Jungkook down the hall into his familiar bedroom with the black silk bed sheets and band posters on the walls. This time around there was a new picture frame on his desk and it was one of you and him. You seemed to be asleep in the picture with your head resting on Jungkook’s naked chest near his piercings. He had a tattooed hand in your hair and you can just tell his touch was gentle. You can’t remember when he would have taken that but he had the picture framed.

In the corner of his nightstand was a vase filled with Baby’s Breath and for the first time since you met him did you actually feel the suffocating nature of his affection. Just earlier you were saying how much you enjoyed him and yet right now it’s starting to hit you that this might not all be normal.

“What’s wrong, baby?” He asked gently as he watched you look around his bedroom, a smile on his face.

You didn’t know where to begin so you started with the first thing that confused you today.

“Your friends called me your girlfriend,” you said, “And I… well alright whatever, it’s fine but we’ve never talked about a relationship, you know?”

“I know…” Jungkook said, smile gone as he waited for you to keep going. He doesn’t understand why you feel the need to clear it up, it’s not like he’s doing anything wrong. It’s the truth even if you hate to admit it.

“You know?” You asked, “So why did your friends call me your girlfriend? And why did they say they’ve been waiting to meet me for a while no—“

Jungkook released a soft chuckle as he came up to you, brushing your hair back, “I don’t know, maybe they just assumed because I talk about you a lot. I didn’t know I couldn’t even talk about you to my friends.”

“That’s not the problem Jungkook,” you took a deep breath in thought, trying to gather the right words, “What about the flowers?”

“What about them?”

“I appreciate the gesture, I really do but you don’t… you know you don’t have to give me some all the time,” you said with your arms crossed over your chest self consciously, “And the tattoo.”

“Tattoo?”

Jungkook was playing dumb and he was doing a hell of a good job at it. He’s not sure what your deal is or why you suddenly look uncomfortable next to him but you need to stop. Everything’s fine, you’re making yourself worked up and he doesn’t get why.

“Behind your ear,” you clarified, “Of the flower? When did you get that?”

He shrugged, “A week ago, maybe? Do you like it?”

“What is it?” You needed to hear him say it. He stared at you blankly as he took another step toward you.

“Baby’s Breath, I didn’t know they were my favorite too until you came along,” he said and before he could take another he asked, “Are you alright? You seem a little shaken up.”

“I just need a minute,” you said, missing the way his dark eyes hardened as he watched you step back from him. With a clenched jaw he nodded, “Alright, take all the time you need. I’ll just be out there.”

You didn’t say anything as you went ahead and took a seat on the edge of his bed hearing the sound of the door click shut behind him. Maybe you’re just overthinking it. He can have a flower tattoo… no big deal.

Even if it’s the same flower he’s delivered practically a hundred bouquets of to you.

Even if he asked what your favorite flower was.

It’s a basic flower you’re overthinking it.

Jungkook looked at his two friends who busied themselves with bottles of Soju and his large television. They didn’t even bother to turn his music off either and now Ever by Team Sleep was playing at an annoyingly high volume with the tv on too.

Yoongi was laughing over something Namjoon said, he looked up just in time to find Jungkook standing only a few feet away from them, keeping still. He still smiled with the urge to laugh as he asked, “Everything good? You want another drink?”

“Actually, I think it’s time you leave,” Jungkook said coldly yet his two friends barely flinched, waving him off with a hand. It’s not like they weren’t used to his quick mood changes, they’ve known him too long to not read the signs. He’s a little intense and serious but he’s also a loving kid at heart. He doesn’t know how to express anything properly, he just knows how to do it in the extreme. He’s annoyed by something right now but give him a drink and he’ll get over it.

Namjoon extended out a glass of Soju to him, “One more.”

You took a deep breath, closing your eyes for a second as you tried to clear your head. You were overthinking shit, you don’t even want this. You like him but a relationship?

Alone in his bedroom you could really picture this as yours. It’s crazy how identical they are and it was a good distraction to keep you from going back out there and telling him you would just like to go home for the night. Standing up you walked over to the window finding it strange to view your own apartment out the window.

You took a step away turning instead to look at his desk which was unorganized and filled with tattoo sketches from when he does work at home. Now you were being nosy, you were trying to stall your departure but the picture frame of you on his desk was just staring at you. You picked it up to get a better look but the lights reflection was too bright. With squinted eyes you turned it down and popped the back off hoping to see the picture without the glass in the way.

Instantly, three matching 4x6 pictures fell out of the open frame with their backs facing up. You assumed Jungkook just continued to put new pictures over the old ones instead of switching them out.

Worried he would catch you snooping, you bent down to pick the pictures up, turning them your way.

Jungkook took a deep breath as he stared at the two of them unamused, “I said, I think it’s time you leave.”

He knows you’re upset and something tells him he’s to blame so he needs to figure out what. He can’t focus on you while his friends are here trying to expose and ruin everything he has built up with you.

Why did they have to call you his girlfriend and why are you being such a bitch about it?

He fucking hated flowers yet he wanted to get something you love permanent on his skin and you want be mad?

He can’t catch a break. First you can’t even remember him, then you make him worried sick whenever you’re at home alone or with one of your friends. He’s tried so hard to not be the possessive boyfriend but goddamn is he sick of watching your bedroom camera footage and seeing you laughing and hanging with Taehyung every other night.

Now you can’t even be appreciative of the very kind and thoughtful gesture of putting a permanent mark of what your relationship was on his neck? All of his tattoos have a meaning and yours means the most yet you want to question why he would even get it? You’re very lucky he’s able to play things off to save himself from embarrassment. You didn’t recognize his gesture and instead questioned him, turning it from romantic to strange.

He’s just annoyed at this point but he knows that once he gets you to relax everything will be fine. You’re like a little kitten, if he pushes too hard you draw back so he has to ease you into this like he’s done since the beginning.

“Oh,” Namjoon was stunned as his eyes trailed back to Jungkook’s room where you had closed yourself on for some reason. He wondered for a moment if the two of you were in a fight because Jungkook looked so happy earlier and now he just looks on edge. Yoongi and Namjoon shared a similar look as they slowly came to accept it despite how strange he was acting, “Okay.”

“Are you guys alright?” Yoongi couldn’t help but ask as he got up to leave. Jungkook forced a smile, “Yeah, Y/n’s not feeling good though.”

Namjoon seemed to relax, “Really?”

“She did seem kind of quiet…” Yoongi said as his friend nodded in agreement.

You felt stuck, you couldn’t tear your gaze away and you couldn’t even try to move your body.

The first picture was alright, it was the same picture of you in his arms, it was normal.

The second one was… alarming? It was a zoomed in picture of your bedroom window with you sitting at your vanity doing your makeup to go out. You were looking at yourself and you were holding a lipgloss or something, you couldn’t tell with the window frames in the way.

The third was where your blood seemed to run cold. Right there in black and white was a clear and up close picture of you sleeping in your own bed. It wasn’t taken by someone next to you but more so it was an angle that looked like it was hidden.

Jungkook ran his fingers through his hair as his friends finally left and he prepared to see what was on your mind. He let himself back into his bedroom quietly, clicking the door shut and smiling warmly, “Kay, it’s just us, you can come out now.”

He turned to you calmly, eyes locking on the three photos in your hands and the empty picture frame laying on his desk.

Oh.

You found his favorite pictures.

“What are these?” You asked, trying to keep your voice steady and calm, “Are you stalking me?”

“Not exactly,” Jungkook sighed in defeat, “It’s just…”

He took a step toward you and you immediately put your hands up in defense. He practically giggled as he moved your hands away, “Stop messing around, I’ll explain.”

“Don’t touch me,” you said, taking a step away, “Do you have a camera in my room?”

Jungkook wasn’t smiling anymore, “Why can’t I touch you? I’ll explain, just relax.”

“I’m not going to relax, Jungkook, I want you to tell me what the fuck is going on,” you told him moving closer to the front door with him circling you like a predator watching its pray waiting to attack.

“Yes, I put a camera in your room but I was just worried,” he said with a laugh like he was shy to admit it, “I just kept thinking of something happening to you in your dreams and—look, stay calm, I’m just being honest, isn’t that what you wanted?”

You were itching to leave because suddenly there’s something deep in your gut telling you that this guy really is weird. Was he really trying to justify a literal crime? How crazy was he?

He’s so calm too and he’s smiling and laughing like it’s all just no big deal even though you’ve just learned he’s got cameras watching you in your own home.

You didn’t want to know anything more at the moment. To be honest you were just freaked the fuck out and ready to just leave and get away from him. You needed to find that camera too or else you think you’ll faint from wondering if this was actually happening or not. His friends weren’t even here anymore to hear you two talk.

Jungkook watched as you reached for the door and before either of you knew it, he was on his feet moving to stop you. His arms wrapped around your body, trapping your arms at your sides and carrying you away from the door. You immediately went to scream but his hand came up around your mouth as he walked over to his bed, “Shhh, I’m not gonna do anything, babe, you know me. I just don’t want you leaving while we’re trying to have a conversation.”

“What was I saying?” Jungkook asked himself as he let his hand fall from your mouth, “Oh! You know, I never meant to do that but I was just never able to stop thinking about you. I wanted to be close with you even when I couldn’t be and I had to think of a way to do that.”

“From the very first moment I saw you and we kissed, I just… well it’s just hard to believe we’re not meant to be together,” Jungkook said, staring off at the pictures in your hand, “I mean moving in next door was really just by chance but isn’t it so crazy that fate wanted us to find each other. You still don’t believe it?”

“You’re crazy,” you muttered fighting back a tear as you pushed back at him. His hold on you loosened at your words and you took the chance to get up but he was right there in front of you with widened eyes.

“I’m not crazy,” he said with a shaky voice like he was truly becoming more unhinged by the second, “I’m in love.”

Each step you took back he took one forward and you wanted to run out the door but you couldn’t. It’s like you were completely stuck trying to figure out what to do. It’s crazy how your best friends always joked about him being a stalker but for him to actually set up cameras specifically to watch you? That was more than what you ever imagined and you were so scared. What other pictures or videos did he have of you? What did he do with them?

Jungkook knew you were incapable of running. You love him too and he knows it, maybe you didn’t in the beginning but now you’re clearly attached to him just the same and you’re so surprised you’re not running. You want to run but you can’t deny that you have really grown to love him and if he has to show you how far he’ll go to make you love him back he will. He dropped down to his knees in front of you taking your hands in his and gripping them tightly against his chest when you tried to yank them back.

“Jungkoo—“

“I’ll change,” Jungkook said and you watched the way his eyes seemed to redden and shake from how hard he was trying but to cry or go crazy, “I’ll change Y/n, I promise. I’ll be better. I’ll—“

“No, it’s too late, I can’t. You’ve been stalking me! Do you get that? I’m not just going to change my mind Jungkook,” you tried to say but he wouldn’t let go. He only moved closer, arms wrapping around your waist as he clung to you from the floor down on his knees for you.

“I love you, Y/n, please just give me a chance,” Jungkook said as you tried shaking him off.

“I don’t love you Jungkook, I never wi—“

“I don’t care!” He shouted making you jump at the sudden rise of his deep voice, hands tightening on your hips, eyes wide and red, close to tears and unblinking, “You don’t have to love me back as long as you let me love you.”

“That’s so fucked,” you nearly cried but he wouldn’t let up.

“Y/n.”

You looked down at him and in truth he looked like he was close to snapping and you were scared. He had such a strong idea about romance and love and soulmates that he doesn’t even care if you don’t feel the same. That’s sad and pathetic. This wasn’t the Jungkook you had started to fall for.

You never expected him to be like this, he wasn’t dangerous or putting you in harms way he’s just… he’s just really fucking delusional and that’s what’s scary. You don’t know what he’ll do. He’s never made you feel unsafe like he is right now.

“Don’t you realize that there’s nothing in this world I wouldn’t do for you to let me love you,” Jungkook said seriously, “I’ll show you it all.”

He’s been very tame till now. He’s tried so hard to be gentle and loving in front of you but you’re making it so hard right now to keep the act up. He never wanted to scare you but if you really do try and walk out that door and think he’s going to let you… you’re dead fucking wrong.

“Jungkook…” he clung to you, face pressed against your lower stomach not letting you move, “This isn’t normal.”

“Y/n if you try to leave me,” his voice was cracking, close to breaking and his entire body trembled, “I won’t be able to live without you, please…”

He was insane. You know he’s crazy, you know he’s just trying to scare you into not running out that door and you hated to admit that it was working. He just seemed so unhinged right now and the way his body was trembling and voice breaking as he hugged you so tightly, you really are scared he might do something to himself. It’s not something you want to risk by leaving, who knows what he’ll do to himself.

Unsure of what to do, you dropped a shaky hand into his hair, brushing it back as he cried, “I’ll change, I swear. You can’t leave me, I can’t live knowing you aren’t with me.”

You’ve heard so many stories about people trying to leave their partners and it only ended up with them in the news with old pictures of them smiling as people talked about how much they missed them and you really couldn’t do that. If he can’t have you… how do you know that means he’ll let someone else have you? He’s never made you fear for your life… he seemed so normal, not like this deranged man who’s been caught having secret cameras watching you.

With a shaky breath, you slowly letting your hands hug around his neck, “Shh, it’s alright…”

Your voice trembled in fear as you slowly dropped to your knees feeling him sob against you, “We—We’ll… let’s figure this out, okay? Just calm down, take a deep breath.”

“Y/n, I love you,” he hiccups as you could his face trying to wipe away tears as you dropped to your knees. Now that you’ve got a clearer head you can hear the stupid band he’s obsessed with still playing from the living room. His silver chain that you always played with still shimmered in the light and you hooked your fingers around it to remind him that you’re cooperating.

You’ve just now noticed that his Deftones’ Around the Fur tee was drenched in his tears along with the front of your jeans and you very carefully wrapped your arms around him, “I’m not leaving.”

He didn’t care if it was out of love or fear, he held you tightly nevertheless, not letting you go as he tried to kiss you only for you to flinch back. Scared he wouldn’t like that, you forced yourself to lean into him for a kiss, tasting his dry, salty tears on your lips.

He smiled his same stupid bunny smile—like everything was right in the world and pressed his forehead against yours, “I’ve been dreaming of you and me like this for so long time, baby, don’t you ever try to leave me again, okay?”

“Okay, why don’t we lie down? It’ll make you feel better,” you whispered gently and his dark eyes seemed to water and lower lip quiver as he nodded his head. Letting you lead him to his own bed and when you lied down, he went between your legs, keeping you pressed against the bed trapped.

That’s what being with him would feel like, like you’re trapped and all he’ll think about would be how he finally found the one that he’s been searching for. No bells chimed or birds sang, only Romantic Dreams by Deftones was heard playing in the background.

::.

listen y’all this is long 😭 I know it is and as of right now I have no desire to write a part two so it’s open ended. also idk how I feel about this yet but Jungkook is so hot. anyway the taglist is too long so I have to do it in parts.

so sorry to whoever took the time to read this I’m so sorry

personal taglist: @notmyfaultbutours @rerefundslocals @fandems @sugaluvmyg @guvgguk @kimyishin @libra04 @kooromiwrld @classycreationcupcake-blog g @alwaysdreamingnotsleeping @cherrymonlightt @nikkiordonez12 @asking4-sanity @thvlover @saweetspoiled @uwu2rawr @shaybts-blog @babycandy111 @tearyjjeon @joons-uparupa @jeonninja @yellowcupid08 @02010802 @knudsenheggedel @skzthinker @unnatae @aurorthi @beautywine @95ene @taekookstata @lilliankoo @shescharlie @annenakamura @lesoleile @burnahtsw @babybella337 @kooloveys @ku-ku @chaelvrx @minnie-mouser22 @Imeneghd @whoa-jo @evajeonsworld @marvelbun @sunnikthv v @kochycooky @heyhowyoudoin3 @acielelyseen @giselleswifeee @jeonjk25 @ilikeitlikethatt @bangmechanpls @lvr2seok @badbyeyoongi @jaerisdiction @watermelonjuice15 @artmsmaid @xyahrinx @angeleen777 @jooniesxbby @brillantdarling

fic taglist: @beshy02 @jooniesxbby @ebony3-blog @loonehbleus @klutzymermaid @tarotcoconut @whipwhoops @wdym-ree @somehowukook @fxirytaetae @nochuel @thaiika @ilove-tae @taeyongzodiactinkiri @gamer-carat @jungkookieeee97 @l0cal101 @justinseagul1 @haileycannotcometothephonern @minayas1998 @autumnbear @urf1lterr @yoongiwantsme @wnderkoo @theblueslytherin @kimseokjinsmirror1233 @8makes1scream @yjwonnn @blueberry711 @kimchimtae @babyitscoldoutside @simple-day-dreamer @yoongisgirl @ackercute @glitterkoo @darkuni63

[taglist is too long and I can only do 50 so I have to add the rest of y’all in a reblog]

#jeon jungkook #jungkook yandere #Jungkook smut #jungkook #jungkook imagine #jungkook angst #jungkook drabble #jungkook au #Jungkook oneshot #Jungkook fic #jungkook x y/n #yandere jungkook #bts #SoundCloud #romantic dreams

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oh-katsuki · 9 months

Text

the notebook theory (tsukishima kei x reader)

masterlist | ao3

Pairing: Tsukishima Kei x Reader

Summary: Kei has a cynical and jaded outlook on love. When his friend Tadashi figures out that Kei has feelings for you, Kei isn’t sure how to react. After all, love is not something he does but rather, something that happens to him.

"There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory.

He thinks that might be what’s happening to him. A molecular change, imperceivable to someone not looking at him under a microscope. It’s like his DNA is being rewritten and stitched together with bright pink yarn. He feels himself steadily come apart and come together. It’s uncomfortable, like trying to dream when he has a fever. Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason."

Content Warnings: fem!reader (gender neutral pronouns), no real manga spoilers, slow burn, one-sided pining, angst, mentions of divorce and broken homes, toxic relationship (kei's parents), smut, fingering, oral (f!receiving and m!receiving), pinching, mentions of mark making, overstimulation (m!receiving), multiple orgasms, hair-pulling

Word Count: 24.8k

A/N: i know i spent forever working on this but it's finally done and while i have a lot of thoughts about it, idk rly what to say. anyway, here's my first attempt at a tsukishima long fic. also i already know that im not beating the tsukkiyama allegations, okay? i tried and failed to beat them okay i just think there is no way to put them in a situation without it being a little homoerotic bc.. they r them okay? anyway, i hope u enjoy and would love to hear ur thoughts <3

The morning comes without warning. Kei thinks he’s read that somewhere, though he’s just sure just where he saw it. He also thinks that whoever said that is right. Morning is always a harsh assault and never as gentle as people describe it to be.

Kei’s room, the one he rents at university, faces toward the east. In the mornings, when the sun peeks over the horizon, it shines directly into his room and onto his bed before creeping across the light wood floors. His blinds, as useful as they are, always let some through the cracks and the light cuts the ground like butter to a knife. Kei doesn’t think it feels half as romantic as it sounds.

The light works better than his alarm. No matter how set he is on sleeping in, he never fails to wake up as soon as those slats of light make their way across his bedspread. It wakes him like fever and he’s never quite as comfortable as he felt falling asleep. This morning is no different.

He rises like he always has, running a hand over his blonde hair and dragging it down his face after sitting up. Then, he stands once in an attempt to gather his bearings before sitting right back down on the edge of the bed. He fights the lingering remnants of sleep, feeling the ray of sunlight beat down on his back. Then, he reaches towards his glasses on the nightstand and slides them up the bridge of his long nose before standing up again once and for all.

Yamaguchi lives in the other room. His best friend since high school, perhaps his only real friend. They’d miraculously attended the same college and decided to room together, though his other friends from his youth aren’t too far. The arrangement managed to make it all the way until their fourth and final year. Living with each other has become par for the course.

Tadashi wakes up later than Kei does on most days, except for Tuesdays and Thursdays. On those days, he has an 8 am and is usually in the kitchen before Kei has even stood up for the first time. Today is a Wednesday, so Yamaguchi is asleep in his room. The morning light doesn’t wake him the same way it does Kei. His room faces west, so it isn’t until the mid-afternoon, when Tadashi is chased from his room by the afternoon rays and heat, that he notices the sun on its blinding conquest across the sky.

Kei’s room is clean and neat. There’s no clutter, no collection of items that don’t have a proper place. Everything is itemized and stored exactly where he intends for them to be. His floor is void of stray clothes, of socks he’d discarded the night before, his nightstand is bare and his desk is surprisingly empty save for one notebook sitting in its center. It’s a room that he could leave at any time, despite living here for nearly two years. If Kei chose to do so, he could pack his things and be gone in a day.

Yamaguchi’s room is different. It’s lived in and well worn. There’s clutter on the floor, socks and pants he’d taken and tossed away to be dealt with later. Certain things don’t have a place and end up living on semi-crowded surfaces filled with things he likes to put down as quickly as he’d picked them up. Kei envies that way of living. A non-temporary way. He envies the rug in Yamaguchi’s room and the way he fills the space with himself. Kei thinks that even after they’re long gone, future tenants would still be able to feel Tadashi’s presence.

To say that Kei is cynical would be accurate. He tends to lean more towards paranoia in his own strange way. He keeps things in order to quell the anxiety in it. Things stay where they are meant to be. As a result, he’s earned himself somewhat of an uptight attitude that makes Kei feel more awkward than relaxed even when he’s in his own spaces. Not that he minds it.

Tadashi’s dish from last night is sitting next to the sink. Kei moves around it as he fixes a tea, making an effort not to drag his feet across the floor because he hates the scuffing sound. Every now and then, the glass of his mug will clink against the cheap kitchen tile and Kei will cringe in some paranoid worry that it will wake his friend.

As he gathers his things to leave the quiet apartment, Kei wonders where his cynicism comes from. He’s sure he could pinpoint it if he tried. His parents divorce, his previous experiences with dating that have left him jaded, the holes that wore even in his most sturdy of sweaters. Inconsequential nothings that piled up until Kei had developed an undeniably cautious outlook on the world. To him, all of these things are the same. Like the morning, they’re intrusive and unsightly, but none is less important than the other.

Kei does have things he likes. Art, for one. He likes paintings, sculptures, little pieces of history, and all of the things people make with their hands that he could never do. Kei is hopeless at crafts. His fingers are lithe and long, but they’re clumsy and hard to control. Despite his need for order, Kei has trouble controlling his urges. The subtle twitches of his fingers always mess up whatever it is he’s trying to craft.

He likes writing best of all, specifically curatorial writing. It’s easy for him to pick which pieces belong together and how to organize them in a space, it suits his talent for compartmentalizing. Kei gets to tell a story that way, be it historical or artistic, sometimes both. The essays that his classmates find tedious, he finds relaxing despite the stress. For him, writing about art and history is a pleasure much like sipping tea that is the perfect temperature, unintrusive and natural.

By the time he arrives at the library, it’s nearly 9 am. He works better here, in the quiet section at a table hidden by three tall shelves of books. It’s almost never occupied and there are hardly ever people seated in the immediate area. Kei doesn’t go out of his way to avoid others, but he finds that if he doesn’t approach people, they often won’t approach him. He prefers things this way, it makes the good and bad people easier to weed out.

From this spot in the library, Kei can see where you usually set up shop for the day. You arrive after him by about 45 minutes and he convinces himself that it is always coincidental.

Strictly speaking, you’re Tadashi’s friend, not his. You’ve known each other for a little under a year and have been by the apartment a few times, but yours and his conversations are limited entirely to pleasantries. How are you? What are you working on? We’re graduating soon, huh? Casual conversation that Kei can weasel his way out of at any time. Like his room, it’s impermanent.

Kei has had the idea that nothing stays stuck in his head since middle school. The house he lived in when his parents were together, weekdays with his mother and weekends with his father, graduating seniors, the apartment he lives in now. To Kei, all of it is so temporary that he finds it difficult to get attached to it, not that he’s devoid of emotion. He quite loves the little things he has, but his grip on them is loose and half-hearted. Whatever leaves, Kei thinks is meant to leave, so he makes no effort to hold on.

It’s probably unfair to think of you that way, but Kei can’t really help it. He can’t change what he is. Besides, it’s not as if he doesn’t have a reason to think so. He’s often approached by people for his looks, people who want to get close because they think he’s tall and handsome, people who collect others like trophies. He’s not heartless, so he’s been hurt more than a few times. Kei thinks he owes it to himself to be cautious, not that you’ve done anything to earn that type of subtle hostility.

“Thought you might be here,” someone’s hand lands on his shoulder.

“Shit,” he groans, “is it that late already?”

Kei glances down at the watch on his wrist, reading the time as just past 10:45 am. He’s been here for an hour and 45 minutes and hasn’t gotten anything done. Tadashi pulls the chair next to him out and sits down, resting his chin on his hand.

“Spacing out?”

“A little,” Kei responds, tapping his pen against the table and turning back toward his book.

“Got something due?”

“Yeah, on Friday,” he exhales. “Haven’t started it yet though. You?”

“Nah,” Tadashi smiles. “I’m just chasing you around.”

“You’re like a girl with a crush.”

Tadashi shrugs and lets out a good natured laugh. It’s a little too loud for this part of the library, but Kei lets it slide, smiling with his friend.

Tadashi is the opposite of him, he thinks. He smiles often and says exactly what’s on his mind when it crosses it, even if it's a little mean. Tadashi used to be a follower, but in his final year of high school and university years, grew into someone befitting of his somewhat sunny and sarcastic personality. Thoughts and words come easily to him and he has no trouble vocalizing his joy or his disappointment.

Yamaguchi has freckles covering the entirety of his body. Kei knows this because he’s seen far more of Tadashi than he thinks he should have. His skin is tawny and warm like him. Kei finds himself looking at the ones on his hands as Yamaguchi begins to write in his notebook. Kei can’t read his handwriting because it’s terrible and he doesn’t much feel like working on his own project, so he watches his friend’s hand mark the page. Then, his gaze slinks across the library to you.

You’ve got your head down and look like you’re falling asleep despite it only being 11 in the morning. Your hand moves lazily across your computer keypad. By the time Kei realizes that you’ve spotted him staring, it’s too late to look away. His gaze was too intentional, so he smiles at you instead, nodding his head a little.

You smile and wave, standing from where you sit and collecting your things. They fill up your arms because you don’t bother to put them in your bag, making your way clumsily across the room and setting your stuff down across from him.

“Hi, Tsukishima,” you smile. “Hi, Tadashi.”

You use his friend’s given name and Kei feels a pang of jealousy hit his chest.

“How long have you been here? I didn’t see you,” you ask, settling into the seat across from Kei.

“I just got here,” Tadashi smiles, looking up from his notes. “He’s been here for a while though.”

Tadashi motions towards him.

“Aw, why didn’t you say hi?”

“You seemed busy,” Kei lies.

You pout, filling your mouth with air. “Next time just come say hi, ‘kay?”

“Sure,” Kei nods.

Tadashi tosses him a sideways glance and Kei shrugs it off. He’s not interested in being teased this morning, though when is he ever.

Kei doesn’t like the way you make him feel. When you’re around, he becomes prickly. It sets Kei on edge in a way that he hates. His world, previously so rigid and organized, quickly begins to feel cluttered and structureless.

You make his heart pound. You make it hammer against his chest so hard that he can feel it in his ears and behind his eyes. It goes all the way down to his already-hard-to-control fingertips and the tops of his thighs. A previously pastel colored world goes vibrantly candy-colored like it’s been plunged in saturating liquid. He nevers knows how to hold himself, never knows how to act natural. What does it mean to act natural, anyway? How should he rest his hands on the desk? Would it be weird to lace them together? Does he look as stiff as he feels? It’s entirely possible that he is suffering a massive heart attack.

You whisper across the table to Tadashi, leaning forward and laughing at something he’s written in his notebook. You can read his handwriting, something Kei is equally jealous about as he is angry. Kei just watches your conversation, unable to really listen into it on account of the stroke that he thinks he’s having.

The three of you stay like this for a while, earning the occasional irritated whisper or dirty look from some of the more studious people in the library. Kei pretends to ignore them, remaining quiet throughout the duration of your study session with Tadashi. His quiet corner is invaded and painted bright pink with your presence and he doesn’t know whether to feel giddy or irrationally angry. Maybe it’s both.

“Crap, is that the time?” Tadashi exclaims, hunching over himself when someone nearby shushes him. “I’ve got class across campus in 10 minutes.”

He hurriedly collects his things. Tadashi does it so fast, in fact, that Kei hardly has time to beg him not to leave him alone with you. So he just watches as Tadashi throws his things clumsily into his bag and tosses it over his shoulder.

“Bye, ___,” he says in a rushed whisper. “I’ll see you at home, Kei!”

“Sure,” is all that Kei can muster. His voice cracks when he says it and he immediately avoids looking at you and stares at nothing in particular in his textbook.

It’s quiet for a while. Kei pretends to busy himself by glancing between his textbook and his computer and you sit with your head bowed as you take notes on a lecture you’re listening to through the single earbud in your right ear. Then, you tap the end of your pen lightly on Kei’s notebook to get his attention.

It’s only been about 10 minutes since Tadashi left, but the library now feels like an entirely different place. His heart pounds as he struggles to keep a straight face.

When he looks up, you’re looking at him with a tilted head. Your expression is soft and unintrusive, friendly but a bit guarded. You smile softly at him.

“You don’t like me very much, do you?” You ask gently. It doesn’t sound accusatory, but rather a casual statement tinged with friendliness.

“Huh?” Blood rushes into his ears.

“I just kinda get the impression that you’re uncomfortable around me,” you say. “Am I wrong?”

“Uh, no- it’s not that I don’t like you.”

He’s quick to correct you and he feels heat rush to his cheeks.

“Then what?” you question lightly. There’s no ulterior motive behind your smile, Kei can tell, but your openness makes him uneasy.

“I dunno,” he calms himself a little. “I don’t really know how to act around you, I guess.”

You laugh, leaning back into your chair. “Is that all?”

“Well, yeah…” he feels awkward and his palms are sweaty. He drops them below the table to wipe them. “You’re Tadashi’s friend and I’m pretty different from him so I just…” He trails off, shrugging his shoulders.

“I was worried you hated me,” you smile, chuckling to yourself.

“That’s definitely not it,” he loosens a little, smiling lightly despite the thudding of his heart. It slows down steadily.

“I’m your friend too, ya know?”

“That so?”

“Well, yeah,” you shrug and lean all the way back, crossing your arms. “I just kinda figured that we would be.”

“Friends?” His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. His word placement is awkward.

“Duh,” you laugh a little. “You know, you don’t have to speak formally with me.”

“That’s just the way I am,” he huffs at being read.

“Well, you can drop them with me. I don’t mind.”

“Tall order,” he snorts.

You tilt your head to the side. “Did you just make a joke?”

“Uh, yeah…”

“Funny,” you smile. “What are you studying?”

“It’s not really studying…” he says, glancing down at the near empty document. “I’m supposed to be writing an essay I have due on Friday. Not going well.”

He looks up at you through his lashes. You’re leaning forward across the table now, your chin angled upward as you try and peek at what’s on his screen. He turns it so that you can see better.

“Baroque art?” You read aloud. “Oh yeah, Tadashi mentioned that you’re an art history major. Do you draw too?”

“No,” he scoffs. “I’m hopeless at it, but I like art. It’s nice to look at.”

“Huh, you look like you’d be good at drawing,” you say.

“What’s that mean?”

“I dunno, like a manga author or something,” you shrug. “You’ve got nice hands too. Like an artist.”

“Manga?” He laughs a little, trying to play off the color he feels rushing to his face from the compliment.

“Yeah, you look like the manga type.”

“Is it the glasses?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Maybe,” you laugh.

Kei looks down at his hands. They’re big, like the rest of him, and his knuckles are thin. He’s hyper-aware of them now that you’ve complimented them. He studies them briefly, following the barely visible veins up the back of them, following the line of his fingers to his nails. They’re trimmed and somewhat well kept, save for the spots that he tends to bite at when he lays in bed at night. His hands look nothing like Tadashi’s. Tadashi’s fingers are thick and his nails are short on account of him biting them. Kei wonders if you prefer them to his.

—

There’s a notebook that Kei likes on his desk. It’s only a bit bigger than his fist—a little thing, really—and it’s completely blank. Kei’s never written anything down in it, nothing has ever really been worth sullying the thing. It’s got brown fabric binding and a semi-thick cover. It’s malleable, but not so flimsy that he’d need a desk to write in it.

Kei’s not too sure why he bought it in the first place. Maybe he liked the size of it, small enough to fit in his pocket, but not so small as to be ridiculous. It’s practical, much like he is. He’s considered turning it into a daily planner and putting to-do lists in it, but Kei isn’t much of a list guy, it’s Tadashi that likes making lists. Nothing has ever really felt like it suits the book. He’s considered journaling in it, but his life is one big routine and he doesn’t think there’s anything worth writing about.

No matter what he does, nothing is good enough to put a permanent mark into the thing. Even if he used a pencil, Kei feels like the evidence of the mark would still be there even after erasing it, a molecular change that can’t be seen with the naked eye. Kei calls it the notebook theory.

Kei is nearly certain that you’re the reason, not that he’s about to admit to anyone else that he likes you. Tadashi managed to weasel it out of him, though he didn’t really have to ask. In fact, it was less of an admittance to Kei than it was confirmation of his own feelings. If Tadashi can tell that he likes you, then he must.

People seem to know things about Kei before he even knows them himself. At least, that’s how it seems. He’s always confronted with his own feelings by other people, not that they’re really ever wrong, but it seems everyone catches onto what he’s feeling rather quickly. He’s not too sure why that is, maybe he’s just obvious and hasn’t realized it.

Come to think of it, when Tadashi had confronted Kei about his feelings for you, he’d been deeply annoying about it. Kei couldn’t even try to deny it because Tadashi had come out with his guns blazing, cornering him in the living room and throwing facts about you at him until his face was beet red with embarrassment. Then, with a serious frown on his face, he’d simply stated you like them and that was the end of it. Kei couldn’t even deny it. Even he knew that it read plainly in his expression.

To be frank, it sucks being told in plain speech how he feels about someone. Whenever that happens, it makes Kei feel like he’ll never be able to keep another secret in his life. Sometimes, he wishes that he was able to make the decision to tell someone else on his own, but even Kei knows that that is a little beyond him. Kei can think the feelings just fine, but when it comes to speaking them aloud, he seems to have a padlock around his throat.

Tadashi knows this about him and if it weren’t for him, Kei would have agonized far longer and far worse over certain situations of emotional turmoil. Most of the time, Tadashi gets it without needing to ask or say anything. It’s nice to have someone understand him in that way, even if it does mean he can’t keep a secret to save his life.

Feelings lately make Kei a little angry. He’s always known that he’s had somewhat of a sour personality. Kei doesn’t need to be told that he’s smug to know that he is. He’s snarky and usually touchy, picky about the people that he hangs out with. It’s not really a secret that Kei is a hard person to get along with, but lately, he feels like it’s been worse.

Maybe it’s because this is new territory to him. As conceited as it sounds, Kei has never liked someone first. It’s not because he doesn’t think anyone is worthy, but rather, because there are very few people he doesn’t find grating. Despite how he seems, Kei is incredibly sensitive about things, so naturally, it’s easier to get on his nerves.

He’s dated before, though not for long, and all of his relationships have started the same way. Kei is approached by them, usually on the premise of looks, and he accepts. He’s not sure why he does. Sometimes it’s because he thinks they’re pretty, other times it’s because the romantic in him hopes that it will actually work out. It never has.

Most of the time, Kei turns out to be different than they expected. He’s too touchy, too sarcastic, too awkward in his way of trying to love. To Kei, it has always felt like it’s ended just as he was beginning to develop real feelings.

If he’s being honest, it’s given him a twisted inferiority complex. He’s worried that somehow, on a fundamental level, he’s not enough. Sometimes, it even goes so far as for Kei to think that he’s just generally disappointing. He tries not to be. Kei wants to be relied on. He wants to be someone his friends can go to when they need something sturdy.

Despite his personality, Kei considers himself sturdy. Well, maybe stubborn is a better word. Kei considers himself stubborn enough to be made sturdy. He’s just a little awkward. That’s all. People seem to mistake that for being unreliable. It’s a peeve of Kei’s.

Tadashi isn’t like that. Tadashi is bright and warm, reliable in every sense of the word. Kei actually looks up to him a lot, not that he’d ever say anything like that to his face. Sure, Tadashi’s not perfect, but at least people rely on him. At least Kei relies on him.

Tadashi is more easy going than Kei is. He has an easier time going with the flow, which makes him more personable. Kei thinks that Tadashi is the closest thing that he’s had to a better half. In truth, without Tadashi around, Kei isn’t exactly sure what would have become of him.

It’s pointless thinking about these sorts of things though. Kei realized a long time ago that thinking about being better won’t automatically make him better. This is just the way he is and Kei’s learned to accept that, whatever it means. Still, none of this changes the fact that he likes you.

Kei could mull over thought after thought and he doesn’t think it would have any effect on the fact that he’s definitely developed a crush. He’s positive it will go away. In fact, he’s not even sure if it’s real. Maybe Kei is just jealous of you the same way he’s jealous of Tadashi. You’re bright and warm like he is. You and Tadashi are cut from the same cloth, so maybe that’s why the two of you get along so well.

In all honesty, Kei wishes he could be a little more like Tadashi for that reason. Maybe if he were more like Tadashi, he’d have the courage to fully accept these new and uncertain feelings for what they are. But he doesn’t have that kind of courage, not right now at least. He doesn’t have the courage to solidify and lean into his feelings. Kei doesn’t want to risk what little comfort and security he has. If the relationship between you both is a blank page, Kei doesn’t have anything important to write. What if it ruins the paper? What if when he erases it, it changes the thing on a molecular level for the worse? The notebook theory.

—

Despite everything, Kei is rather self-aware. At least in his own head he is. Kei knows that when he pretends he doesn’t like you, he really ends up liking you more. He knows that he’s touchy, that he’s awkward, that he comes across more crass than he intends to. Kei is clumsy, not stupid. That doesn’t mean that he has to acknowledge it.

You’ve been coming around more often since the conversation Kei had with you in the library. Maybe you’re more comfortable now knowing that he doesn’t hate you, so you’re happier to join Tadashi in their shared apartment.

Kei feels bad about making you think that he hates you. Actually, he feels really bad about it. Like, astronomically bad about it. Embarrassingly enough, it actually keeps him up at night. So he goes out of his way to be a little nicer to you. The only other person he’s ever done that for is Tadashi.

He greets you properly when you pass, despite the flare up of a medical condition he’s yet to fully diagnose brought on by your presence. He asks you questions about your studies, partially because he is genuinely curious and partially because he doesn’t want you to hate him. He thinks he’d die if you hated him. Kei’s being brave in his own way. It’s little, but he’s doing it.

As a result, the two of you have grown a little closer. Kei has your phone number now, though he rarely has any reason to text you. Typing out a message to you makes him nervous. It makes him red in the face when you’re not even there. Somehow, having your phone number feels vulnerable to him, like he has access to you whenever he wants and you him. It means that if you wanted, you could make him nervous without even being nearby. That’s a lot for Kei to think about.

Kei sees you in the library sometimes too, but he never takes the initiative to speak to you. You always come up to him first, clumsily gathering your things the way you did the day you and him sorted out your friendship and plopping them down in front of him.

Sometimes, you both go several hours without saying anything to each other. Other times, you’ll chat away about something while leaning forward on the desk and Kei has to pretend that he’s not wildly nervous at your proximity. You’re so friendly. So genuinely warm that Kei can physically feel it when you talk. Despite his nerves, Kei would describe you as comfortable. You’re a comfortable person to him, as alarming as that is.

His crush is out of hand. It scares him, not that he’s actively thought about that. What started as him noticing you has quickly ballooned into him being painfully aware of you at all times. He kind of feels bad about it. You don’t seem to think that he’s anything more than a friend and it makes Kei feel bad that he thinks of you as anything but that. He doesn’t want you to be just a crush to him. Kei wants you to be like Tadashi, someone he can rely on and be comfortable with. He almost feels like he’s reversed what’s been done to him his whole life, like somehow he’s only become your friend because he wants something more.

Truth is though, he doesn’t want anything more. Kei wants to stay exactly where he is. He doesn’t want his crush to develop any further. He doesn’t want to confess, he wants to forget. Even now, sitting on a couch in the library, he wants to imagine he doesn’t feel anything at all for you.

“Hey, are you okay?” You tilt your head at him.

“Huh? Me?” He questions. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You seem a little distracted,” you smile. “You’ve been staring at your computer for like… 10 minutes with this blank look on your face.”

“You’ve been staring at me for 10 minutes?” He raises an eyebrow, trying to play off the embarrassment of being caught like that.

“Not staring at you,” you huff, “but I definitely noticed.”

“Ha, creep,” he tilts his head up a little, blowing air out of his nose.

“You’re twisted, you know?”

“Whatever,” he shrugs his shoulders and looks back at his computer screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees you shake your head and smile before looking down at your work.

Tadashi has said the same exact thing to him before. In highschool, after Kei had made a joke about his teammate Hinata’s height, Tadashi had given him a look and snorted that he’s so twisted. He’s been hearing that sort of thing his entire life.

“Hey, are you cool if I skip out of here early?” You ask a few moments later.

“Oh, yeah sure. I don’t mind,” he nods, hiding his disappointment. “I didn’t realize that we had like… set times to be here.”

You laugh lightly. “Well, we don’t, but we tend to come and go at the same time, no? I kinda look forward to it.”

Kei envies your honesty. You’re so honest all of the time. You say what you feel when it pops into your head. He wishes he could be like that, maybe then he would be able to say that he does too. Instead, he just nods and swallows his heart back down. You smile at him again and then gather your things.

“You’ll be home on Friday night, right?”

“Uhm, yeah? Why?”

“Tadashi invited me and a few friends over, did he tell you?”

“I think he mentioned it.” Kei has actually been thinking about it for the last couple days.

“Good, I’ll see you, right?”

“Yeah, you will.”

“Great, talk to you later then!” You smile and with that, you walk away.

You sounded so certain in that statement. Talk to you later. You said it like it was inevitable. Thinking about that, Kei can’t help but watch you go. He even likes looking at the back of you, though he wishes he could see your face too. It feels worse to be walked away from than walked towards.

Kei can’t tell anymore if what he feels is romance or jealousy. It’s probably both. It’s probably some mix of the two that he can’t quite sort out. He wishes it weren’t that way. Kei gets the feeling that he might be ruined.

So he just watched you leave the library. Someone is waiting for you at the top of the stairwell. Kei can tell they’re a guy and despite the reluctance of his feelings, his stomach drops anyway when you nudge his shoulder with yours and loop your arm around his. That’s something you haven’t done to Kei before. Touch him. You touch this other person so easily. It makes Kei jealous.

It makes sense that you might be seeing someone, that there might be someone else. After all, you’re you. Desirable. You look up at the stranger, leaning on him, smiling and flashing your teeth. Yeah, it makes sense.

Turns out, it’s easier to pretend that he doesn’t feel anything when he thinks you’re interested in someone else. He likes to think it will save him the time of wondering.

—

Kei has cleaned his room approximately four times today. Sure, it’s overboard, but every time he goes into it, he notices something else that needs to be spruced up. Like a pot with a leak, there is always something that he seemed to miss the last time he went through and cleaned up.

It’s not like you’ll be in his room tonight anyway, but you will be in his apartment and that’s close enough to his room that he, for whatever reason, needs to make it so spotless that it looks like a set. Kei knows though, that even when you’re here, he’ll be wondering if there’s something else that he missed beyond the closed door and he’ll think about it incessantly.

He’s been avoiding the thought of him liking you. Instead, Kei cleans and cleans and then cleans some more for good measure. It’s not like he has any sort of claim on you and he knows that it’s stupid to feel jealous over one interaction he witnessed by chance, but his mind is running away with him. Was that person your boyfriend? Has he been begrudgingly pining over a taken person all these months? Do you think that he’s creepy because of it?

He doesn’t get to be upset over the idea that you’re seeing someone else. Why wouldn’t you be? Kei’s done absolutely nothing to indicate his interest in you (or lack thereof), besides maybe telling you that he doesn’t hate you. He has no right to feel the way he does, but he spirals anyway. His insecurities, the ones that gnaw at him in the hours before he falls asleep, play in a constant loop in his head. His unreliability, his unpleasant personality, his cynicism, the baggage he carries with him like a badge. All of it piles up one by one.

Kei feels like a kid again, losing himself over such a simple interaction, over something so miniscule that it might not even be considered anything at all. There are a plethora of reasons for his feeling like this and Kei thinks he could draw one of his issues out of a hat and it would still somehow address the situation at hand, but all he really feels is hurt and he doesn’t want to explain it away. Kei finds that liking someone hurts. It hurts more than it feels good and the uncertainty chews at his patience and leaves it razor thin. It’s not your fault, nor is it the person Kei’s convinced himself you’re seeing, but he needs someone to blame and it can’t be himself.

The idea of you relying on someone else makes him nauseous. He’d never considered the thought before, that you find him as unreliable as others do. Kei wants to be relied on, most of all by you, and that fact makes him upset. He’s afraid of what you think of him and without the confidence to accept his feelings, it threatens to crush him.

Kei’s got this itch over it, so he tries to distract himself. Cleaning his space to prepare for you helps him delude himself that he doesn’t quite like you at all. It’s not your fault. He’s just confused, like his parents were when they married each other. It hurts. Like they were when they had him to try and fix their marriage, which had started to fall apart even when Akiteru was an only child. He’s confused. He’s jealous over your ability to live the way Kei has always wanted to. That’s all this is. Nothing more and nothing less. He feels like he’s being split in two, stretched thin between two modes of thinking.

Kei glances over his shoulder and into his room one last time. He’s forgotten to wipe the mirror. He goes back in and the cycle starts itself over.

—

He’s not proud of his behavior. Kei thinks only a seriously huge asshole would be proud of the kind of behavior he displayed tonight. He regrets it immensely, though some part of him is begrudgingly holding onto the idea that maybe he was right to be so short tempered. Of course, that’s a lunatic’s idea.

Tadashi is standing by the apartment door, mumbling something to you behind it. Over Tadashi’s shoulder, he sees you shake your head and in response, Tadashi gives a small bow before shutting the door to the shared apartment. Then, Tadashi turns and walks towards him.

Kei doesn’t want to look at him, but Tadashi, for some reason, commands his gaze.

“Is there a reason you were such a huge cunt tonight?” Tadashi sort of spits the words. They land at Kei’s feet and roll around before settling.

“What are you talking about? I was normal,” he answers, though the statement sounds like a lie the moment it leaves his lips.

“Bullshit,” Tadashi says. “You were being an asshole the second they walked through the door and you’ve been one to me all day.”

Kei scoffs, his cheeks burning, “I’ve just been tired, dude. Besides, what does it matter? You’re closer to all of them than I am.”

“What? You’re tired so you just get to be a huge asshole?”

“No,” Kei responds.

“So then what was that?”

Kei doesn’t really know. He doesn’t know what prompted him to act so cold or make such snide comments. It’s true, he’d been in a bad mood all day and he knows that Tadashi has borne the brunt of his misplaced emotions, but even Kei is confused as to why he’d acted the way he did. Still though, there is a part of him that knows that it was connected to his spiraling and what he saw in the library. He’d sound insane if he said it out loud, like somehow his growth was stunted in the third grade, but Kei is sure it had something to do with liking you and the hurt that comes with it.

It’s not as if he’d been outwardly mean, but he had been cold. There are parts of himself that Kei doesn’t want you to see, sections of his personality that he ropes off from you because despite not liking you, he wants you to see the best in him. Tonight, he managed to somehow show off the worst.

It started with the noise when everyone had arrived. You, Hinata, Kageyama, Tanaka, Kiyoko, and Yachi had all piled into the apartment in one large group. Kei’d been sitting on the couch and the sound of the door startled him right off the bat. He assumed that by the time they all had rounded the corner into the living room, his face was already sour, because everyone had greeted him cautiously.

It’s no surprise that everyone was so loud. Kei has known this particular group for many years and they, having all gone to school or work nearby, pile into his apartment often for events like these. You were really the only new factor in all of it and while Kei is known as a touchy person, he certainly was more touchy than usual tonight.

You’d been trying to talk to him all evening and Kei, in a desperate attempt to avoid whatever lingering feelings he had for you, had been shutting you down at every turn. Thinking back on it, he’s endlessly embarrassed. You didn’t deserve that. You’d been nothing but kind to him and there Kei was holding a grudge over you for something he had no right to be angry about whatsoever. He had been holding a grudge over something that he’d learned later that evening that wasn’t even true.

Kei thinks that what Tadashi is referring to, was deliberately picking a fight with Tanaka. Kei and Tanaka have never been particularly close. Even in high school, his boisterous and somewhat obnoxious personality has always rubbed Kei the wrong way. Despite that, Tanaka has somehow managed to maintain a connection to him through university and the two of them have established a tentative but honest friendship.

You had been sitting on the arm of the couch beside Tanaka, leaning over him to look at something he was showing you on his phone. Then, you laughed a little too hard and Kei felt that familiar sense of injustice rise to his throat, thick and heavy. It’s an ugly feeling, the kind that makes Kei feel sick when he’s in bed late at night. Bile rose in his throat in the form of harsh words. Jealousy in the form of the verbal venom Kei excels at.

For Kei, Tanaka was an easy target, someone he could poke at and get a satisfying rise out of. In the moment, the rise he’d gotten from Tanaka by making snide comments about the volume of his voice and his particular obsession with pretty girls had been exactly that, satisfying.

He’d picked a small fight. Nothing physical, but just enough to get him irritated. Kei’s not proud of it, but he’d be lying if he said he hadn’t done it deliberately. After all, Tanaka has never been the type to be the bigger person and turn his nose up.

Sometimes, when Kei is experiencing emotions he’d rather not deal with, he decides to obsess over one single thing. Usually, it’s cleaning or schoolwork. Tonight, it happened to be the volume of Tanaka’s voice, which he knows was a shitty thing to do. Despite wanting to be reliable, Kei can’t help but feel that he was endlessly immature, lashing out at someone completely unrelated to the situation just because he could.

Tadashi pulls him from his thoughts.

“I thought you liked them, dude,” his voice is even, letting up on the anger.

“Who?” Kei plays dumb.

Tadashi responds with your name and Kei stiffens slightly. “I thought you guys had gotten closer. What happened?”

“Nothing happened,” Kei says. It’s the truth. Absolutely nothing happened. Kei had spiraled all on his own.

“Why did you ignore them then?”

“I didn’t ignore them,” Kei says. Again, it’s not a lie. He may have shut conversations down and been a little cold, but Kei couldn’t ignore you if he tried, it’s sort of the whole problem he’s dealing with now.

“Maybe, but you were cold. Like… needlessly.”

“I was fucking normal, Tadashi. You should know me well enough by now to know that,” Kei spits.

“That’s the problem though, isn’t it? I know you and I know that shit wasn’t normal. You’re twisted, but you’re not an outright asshole, Kei. What’s going on?”

“I was normal, Tadashi. Just because I didn’t bounce around or get rowdy, doesn’t mean that something is wrong,” Kei answers.

“Yeah, but you were like… majorly fucking weird, Kei. You were being an asshole. Don’t you like them? Don’t you want to be nice to them?”

“I don’t.”

“You don’t want to be nice to them?” Tadashi scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“No, not that. I don’t like them like that anymore,” Kei lies.

“Oh please, that’s such horseshit,” Tadashi laughs bitterly.

“Get off my ass, Tadashi. I don’t fucking feel that way about them anymore,” Kei insists.

“Did something happen?”

“No, literally nothing happened! Why does something have to happen? I just don’t like them,” Kei feels himself getting indignant. Tadashi doesn’t deserve this either, but he seems to be indiscriminate with his poor behavior tonight.

Tadashi looks at Kei for a moment, studying him and calculating all of the things only Tadashi could know about him. Kei tries to hide it.

“Jesus, Kei, you’ve got to stop doing this shit,” Tadashi touches his hand to his forehead.

“Doing what?”

“Getting all in your head about every single connection you’ve ever had with a person,” Tadashi raises his voice.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’ve seen you do this a million times! You start to really feel something for a person and then you fucking back away like a dog with its tail between its legs!”

“I don’t do that!”

“Yes, you do! You sabotage yourself until the other person is forced to do something about it!” Tadashi exhales.

“I’ve never done that deliberately! What does someone else’s actions have to do with me?”

“It doesn’t have to do with you,” Tadashi says, “It has to do with your parents.”

The wind is knocked out of Kei, air sucked from his lungs. He furrows his eyebrows at Tadashi, his mouth slightly open.

“I’m right, aren’t I?” Tadashi pushes, angry and trying to make him listen. “Not every relationship is like your parents’, Kei.”

Tadashi knows he’s stepped over the line the moment he says it. If it hadn’t registered before, it registers clearly on his face now, regret settling over Tadashi’s usually bright features. Kei gapes at him for a moment, running through his thoughts and trying to pick out one that best verbalizes what it is he feels. Kei comes up empty.

“Shit-” Tadashi starts towards him. “Kei, I’m sorry I didn’t mean that. I’m just pissed off I didn’t mean to-”

Kei pushes past him. “Tadashi, I know you mean well, but don’t try to tell me about my fucking parents.”

Tadashi doesn’t try to stop him when Kei flings the front door open and walks outside.

—

Kei remembers it like it was yesterday. He remembers all of it.

He can clearly recall the way shattered glass looked on the marble tiles of his childhood home. White porcelain, broken up into multitudes by his mother and father. They never laid hands on each other, but everything else in the house was fair game. Kei’s lost count of the amount of broken glass dishes and picture frames he’d swept from the floor.

Kei’s parents had always been on and off in their affection for each other. One minute, they were deeply in love and the next, they were at each other’s throats. Neither of them were bad people, but they made each other bad people. The two of them brought out the worst in each other, maybe on account of knowing the other so well.

Akiteru was an accident. His brother knows this because when his parents argued, they never let him forget it. In their spats, leverage was whatever they could get their hands on, and that just happened to be Akiteru and the unfortunate circumstances of an accidental pregnancy.

His parents got married at 19, thinking that they’d be able to handle a child, that their marriage was anything but rushed. They convinced themselves that it was love, when the reality was that Akiteru came because they were too young and stupid to prevent it. At least, that’s what Kei and Akiteru had settled on in the evenings after the yelling had died down and they were left to make sense of it in their shared bedroom.

They had Kei to fix the marriage. Kei knows this because, like Akiteru, his father’s marital “solution” in the form of a second child was constant leverage to his mother. Kei grew up asking Akiteru why his mother and father even had children in the first place.

Their relationship was rocky and unstable, predictable and toxic. They, like Kei, would do things to get rises out of each other. They’d make digs, do things to get under the other’s skin. They did it for attention, for affection, or out of loathing for the person they’d decided to make their life partner. When things settled, they got bored. His parents often mistakened calmness for complacency in their relationship. His parents loved each other, but they hated each other just as much, and it was he and Akiteru who paid the price.

They got divorced when he was fourteen and any chance of Kei having a normal family went to the courthouse with the divorce papers. Akiteru was 20 at the time and managed to avoid the brunt of the custody battle. Kei still gets unexplainably angry with Akiteru for leaving him alone, though he knows that it’s not his fault. The only way Kei could make sense of it was through blame and it was easier to blame Akiteru for lying about volleyball or leaving him alone than it was to blame himself. Both Kei’s father and mother tried for full custody, not because they loved him that much, but because they knew that it would destroy the other. In the end, Kei spent his weekdays with his mother because she lived closer to his school, and weekends with his father just because.

It happens all the time. People grow together, then grow apart, and grow to loathe each other. Kei watched it happen to his parents, he watched it happen to his friends, he watched it happen to himself with his own reflection. That’s just the way it goes.

The air outside of his apartment is cool and breezy. He can feel the wind through his sweater, cutting through the gaps in the stitching and into his skin. Kei feels like he can think a little better out here, sitting on the short concrete wall with his back to the apartment building. He stares at his feet, outstretched in front of him. He's still wearing his house slippers.

Kei did this once when he was younger. The fight that night had been particularly bad and his parents had resulted to throwing things across their bedroom. Kei could hear picture frames shatter through two walls and he wondered which memories they’d decided to trash. A particularly loud shout had sent Kei out of the front door and onto the curb in front of the house.

He remembers crying, staring at his house slippers on the pavement, afraid because he could hear the shouting even from the lawn. Akiteru had come out to get him, sitting down beside him on the curb and putting his arm around him.

“Are mom and dad gonna get divorced?” Kei had asked through sniffles.

“Divorced? No, no,” Akiteru answered. “It’s just a rough patch. It happens to all couples. Mommy and Daddy will be fine.”

“It’s normal?” Kei sniffled.

Akiteru paused for a moment. Looking back, Kei realizes that Akiteru was debating on whether or not to lie to protect him. Kei wishes he hadn’t.

“Yeah, it’s normal.”

Normal. Kei realizes that he doesn’t exactly know what a normal relationship looks like. He is his parents' son. What they had in them, he has in him. Kei knows that those habits, the digs, the sour statements, the passive aggressiveness, are all things he’s picked up from watching them. Some role models they were.

He needs to apologize to Tadashi. He may have overstepped, but Kei knows that he’d been an asshole tonight. He’ll need to apologize to Tanaka as well. And to you, which is perhaps the scariest part of this. He wants to apologize for his behavior, but apologizing means that he has to admit that he’d acted the way his parents did, out of jealousy and a pull for attention. Yup, he’s his parents’ son alright.

Kei tilts his head up toward the sky. Only half of it is visible, the other half blocked by the three story apartment complex directly behind him. It’s a clear night, but he can’t see any stars and the moon is nowhere to be found. Kei wonders when the morning will come. It’s a few hours off, but he thinks about how the sky will look when the sun begins to rise.

“Kei,” a familiar voice calls from in front of him.

You’re a few feet away, your hands clasped in front of you.

“Thought you went home,” he says.

“Yeah well, I had intended to,” you start, “but you seemed off and I felt weird going back without checking on you. Can I sit?”

Kei shrugs his shoulders, mortified and angry at being caught like this. He appreciates the thought, but you’re the last person he wants to see right now. It just means he needs to face his shortcomings sooner.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Kei answers automatically.

“Just decided on some fresh air?” You smile a little and Kei blows air out of his nose.

“Yup, that’s exactly it.”

You sit next to him with your legs outstretched the same way his are, your hands are laced together in front of you, hanging down between your thighs. Kei doesn’t make an effort to say anything and neither do you. Instead, he just trains his head back up towards the sky and attempts to collect his thoughts, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Strangely, tonight he doesn’t feel nervous. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t have the energy to. Maybe he’s too preoccupied with being sorry to pay any mind to the heart palpitations he gets when you’re around. Maybe it’s because even though he showed you the worst of him tonight, you still came back. It’s a small hope, but it’s there.

“Hey,” your voice comes quietly, “I don’t know what’s going on, but if you need- I mean- if you want to talk about it, I’m a pretty good ear.”

Kei nods a little.

“I’m sorry,” he says, “about tonight.”

“I didn’t come here for an apology, you know?” You exhale a little.

“Yeah, but you deserve one,” he says. “I was pretty shitty to you.”

“Yeah, you were,” you agree, catching Kei off guard, “but it happens to all of us. Sometimes we feel things and just can’t keep them inside, you know?”

“Yeah,” he agrees, swallowing down his shame.

There’s another long silence. You don’t move to touch him or talk to him, instead, you provide steady company. Kei, as strange as it is, is comforted by your presence.

“I fought with Tadashi,” Kei says after a few minutes.

“Today?”

“Yeah, tonight. After everyone left,” he says. “I deserved it though. I’ve been pretty shitty to him all day.”

You hum, leaning back on your hands.

“I did the same shit in high school too, you know?” Kei starts. “We’ve uhm- we’ve known each other for a while, the group that was over tonight. Around the end of middle school some shit happened and I uh- I took out a lot of what I was feeling on Tadashi and the others, but mostly Tadashi because he was the only one who knew.”

Kei isn’t sure why he’s telling you this. Maybe Tadashi was right. Maybe this is another attempt at self sabotage.

“You bullied him?” You ask, a little surprised.

Kei shakes his head. “No, but I wasn’t very nice either. Anyone could tell you that. I thought I was past it, though,” he admits, a little defeated.

“Did you ever apologize?”

Kei looks up at you in surprise. Your eyes are full of something, curiosity, maybe pity.

“For what you did in school?”

He nods. “Countless times, and not just to Tadashi either, to everyone.”

“You know, stuff like this happens,” you say. “When I was little, I used to hate sharing. Toys, food, friends. I’d hate it when my friends were friends with other people. It made me insecure and I’d get mad at them for it. I grew out of it, but sometimes I still get that way and I have to apologize later.”

Kei laughs. It’s strikingly similar to what’s happening now, not that you’d have any way of knowing.

“I can’t imagine you doing that,” he says.

“I’m serious,” you say. “I still get weird over it sometimes.”

Kei shakes his head a little, smiling.

“All that I’m saying is that sometimes we slip up, that’s all. It’s normal,” you continue. “Not that I’m condoning it. Just saying that it doesn’t make you a horrible person. It makes you human.”

“Thanks,” he says softly.

“No problem,” you respond.

“So why’d you fight with him tonight?”

“He was angry with me because I was an asshole,” Kei shrugs.

“And you’re mad that he called you out?” You give a quiet and somewhat incredulous laugh.

Kei shakes his head. “No, I’m angry about what he said after.”

“What’d he say?”

Kei debates on telling you. He doesn’t want to make himself out to be a victim. After all, Tadashi meant no harm, even if his comment did exactly that.

“The argument kind of switched subjects,” Kei tiptoes around the fact that the subject was you. “He brought up a bad habit of mine and I got defensive.”

“Okay,” you say, waiting for him to say more.

“Remember when I said that something happened at the end of middle school and only Tadashi knew about it?” When you nod, Kei continues. “My parents got divorced. They were a bad match and it was messy. He brought it up.”

You nod again, your eyes wide.

“He didn’t mean any harm, I know that,” Kei inhales. “But uh- that stuff kind of sticks with you. Well, it’s stuck with me and I didn’t like having it used to explain my behaviors, even if he was right. I’m not deflecting or anything though. I know I was the problem tonight.”

“Sure,” you say. “I’m sorry about your parents.”

Kei shrugs. “It’s in the past. They’re both remarried now with new kids.”

The last sentence leaves Kei with a sour taste in his mouth. His parents are good people, but after his childhood, he doesn’t think they have any business having more children. Maybe they’re capable of being good for them, but Kei doesn’t like to imagine that. It makes him feel like their marriage wasn’t the problem, but he and Akiteru were.

“You say that like they got a new pet,” you smile a little. “Are you still in touch with them?”

“Yeah,” he says. “I visit whenever I go back home, though they’re really not too far from here.”

“That’s good of you.”

“Well, they are my parents,” Kei says plainly.

You’re the only other person he’s divulged this to by choice and your reactions, understanding and level-headed, make him feel better. It’s like getting a weight off of his chest. This is the worst of him. This little bit of information, his history of being unable to fully confront his feelings, of taking anger out on others when he was young, is where his problems originate.

“Yeah, but you’re allowed to feel what you feel about it,” you say. “My mom died when I was eleven. Texting and driving. I’m still angry at her for it.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

You shrug and offer him a wry smile. “It’s in the past, but I’m still angry even though I shouldn’t be.”

“At her?”

“Yeah,” you nod. “She made a stupid mistake that we’re constantly warned about and left my dad and me behind. I was so angry with her, still am. I love her though, perceived faults and all.”

Kei thinks about whether or not he loves his parents. He thinks he does, even if he resents them. Kei can’t imagine what he’d do without them. Even though his childhood had few emotional comforts, he still can’t think about a world where he doesn’t visit home to have his mother’s cooking. That’s a world that you live in.

“That’s hard.” It’s all Kei can think to offer.

“It was,” you say. “Got easier though as soon as I started accepting things. Now I just miss her more than I hate her.”

Another bout of silence follows this. It must be close to two in the morning and he’s been outside so long that he can no longer feel the tip of his nose.

“Anyway, about tonight,” you say, “it’s not a crime to feel what you feel, but if you need help, that’s what we’re here for. It’s easier to accept feelings and get hurt than to ignore them, don’t you think?”

“Yeah,” Kei says, looking to face you. “Thank you.”

You’re so pretty. It’s striking. The curvature and angles of your face, the gentle look in your eyes, softened by the conversation. Kei finds himself thinking that despite not wanting to face you a few hours earlier, he’s grateful that you showed up. You’re good in ways that Kei can hardly fathom.

“You should go inside. Tadashi is probably wondering where you are,” you say, standing up. “Plus,” you pinch the tip of his nose between your middle and pointer knuckles, “your nose looks like a cherry tomato.”

“Rude,” he says, startled by the sudden touch.

“Payback,” you shrug your shoulders and Kei rolls his eyes.

“Do you need me to walk you home?” Kei offers, a bit nervous about you walking home on your own.

“I’d love to take you up on that, but you seem tired and I don’t live very far,” you respond. “I’ll call you when I get home though, okay? Since you’re so worried.”

Kei laughs a little and then nods, standing up. “Yeah, I am.”

His honesty surprises even him, but you just tilt your head and give him a small smile.

“I’ll see you on Monday,” you say. “Thanks for the apology”

“Anytime.”

“I hope not,” you laugh and Kei follows suit.

You begin to turn on your heel, giving a small wave.

Kei doesn’t know what overcomes him, but he calls out your name and reaches for your wrist. Before he has a moment to think about what he’s doing, he pulls you to his chest in a hug. You stiffen and then relax in his grip, wrapping your arms around him. Your body is warmer than his, sending heat through the gaps in his sweater.

“You can call even if it’s not to tell me you got home safe,” he says. “If you want to.”

You squeeze him around the middle. “Okay, I will.”

When Kei lets go, he finds that his face is burning. The cold has been replaced by a flush of blood, making his vision a little syrupy.

“Thanks for coming back,” he says. “Get home safe.”

“Of course,” you sound a little dazed, wearing an expression that Kei thinks might match his. “And I will.”

Then, you smile at him, flashing your teeth and giving him a wave. You hold up your phone and point to it.

“Expect a call!”

Kei nods and raises his arm to wave goodbye.

He stands and watches your figure as you walk down the sidewalk and turn the corner. When you’re out of sight, he lingers by the door to his building, just in case you decide to come back. You don’t come back, but Kei lingers anyway, considering the conversation.

He goes inside, intent on apologizing to Tadashi. When he opens the door to his apartment, the lights are still on in the living room and Tadashi gets up from the couch and walks quickly down the hall to him.

“Kei, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“Don’t worry,” Kei says. “I know. I’m sorry about tonight too. And for treating you like that today. And for high school.”

“High school?” Tadashi says, confused. “Why are you bringing up high school?”

“Just wanted to apologize again.”

Kei can feel his eyes drooping, exhaustion creeping into his body and replacing the elated feeling he had moments before.

“I didn’t mean to bring your parents into it. How you like someone is none of my business,” Tadashi says. “I was out of line.”

“So was I,” Kei admits through a tired sigh. “I shouldn’t have acted that way. I’ll apologize to the others in the morning.”

Tadashi narrows his eyes a little and nods. Kei, besieged by that sleepy late night feeling, moves towards his bedroom.

“Hey, Kei,” his voice comes out a little louder this time. “You’re being surprisingly easy-going. Are we good?”

Kei scoffs a little, rubbing his eyes. “I just had some time to think, that’s all. And yeah, we’re good.”

“Okay, are you good?”

“Yeah, I am,” Kei says.

Before he closes the door to his room, he furrows his eyebrows and makes a firm decision.

“By the way,” Tadashi turns to him, cocking his head to the side in response. “I lied. I do like them.”

“Could have guessed as much,” he responds, laughing a little. “See you in the morning.”

“Yup, see you in the morning.”

Kei shuts the door to his room. It clicks into place quietly. His room is spotless. It looks like a room that could be easily emptied at any time. He sighs, stepping into it and laying down on his bed. His phone is on the comforter next to him, lying face up.

When it lights up, it illuminates the ceiling above him and he answers the phone without needing to check who's calling.

“Hello?”

“Hey, I got home safe,” he hears your keys clink against something and then the sound of a door shutting. Then, he hears the sound of you laying down on your bed. He imagines you’re lying the same way he is.

“Good, I’m glad,” he says. “No trouble?”

“No trouble at all,” you say. He can hear your smile.

“Thanks again for coming back tonight,” he says, turning over onto his side and letting the phone rest on the bed in front of his face.

“Of course,” you say.

He doesn’t know what else to say. His nerves have caught up to him and your voice through the speaker sounds so close, like you’re whispering directly into his ear.

“Okay, well I’m going to go to bed,” Kei starts.

“Kei?” you say.

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna take you up on your offer. About calling you. Just wanted you to know.”

“Okay,” he swallows.

“I feel a lot closer to you.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“Goodnight, Kei,” you practically whisper.

“Goodnight,” he responds, lowering his voice the same way you did. You hang up the phone and the call ends.

He blinks at his phone for a moment before standing up and getting ready for bed. Kei goes through the motions while thinking about how the evening got here. He’d been certain before it began that he no longer liked you, that he was confused. Now, he’s certain of the opposite.

He decides that he’ll like you for real this time. Even if he’s afraid of hurting himself, of hurting you.

Kei lays down in his bed and faces the ceiling. He thinks about his parents, about your mother, about you. The cadence of your voice, the slight tremor in it. He thinks about your expressions, understanding and unintrusive. He thinks about your history, the anger you’d admitted to him and the grace you’d given him in his own circumstances.

He dreams of braids, like DNA. Coils of pink yarn woven together in an intricate pattern. A molecular change not visible to the naked eye. Morning comes like liquid gold, spilling across his bedspread in slats through the window.

—

Kei’s apologies go smoothly. Tadashi’s friends—his friends—are good people. They know him better than most and field his awkward, stumbling apology with steady hands.

He’d explained his sour mood in as little detail as possible, deliberately omitting his feelings for you while doing so, and he made a special effort to apologize to Tanaka. He’s easygoing and quick to forget, but Kei knows that even after accepting the apology, Tanaka will lord it over his head for a week or two. Tanaka thinks those kinds of things are funny and Kei won’t try to tell him otherwise.

You do take Kei up on his offer. You call him twice a week now. Sometimes it’s to tell him something relevant to him, other times, you just whisper into the phone that you just felt like talking. Either way, it’s not good for his heart. Kei thinks that at this rate, it might just give out.

There are a lot of things that Kei could say about liking you. It makes his days a little brighter. When he remembers that he has someone he cares about like that, he feels a surge of excitement for no particular reason. He finds that he looks forward to seeing you and goes out of his way to do so, more than he did before he was willing to admit it.

He’s noticed the way you eat, like every bite of food is even better than the last. He’s noticed that you wipe the condensation off of your cups before each sip. He’s noticed that when you’re studying, you’ll pull at the collar of your shirt absentmindedly and then become frustrated when it is stretched out of place. Kei likes all of these things about you.

Kei has also found that liking someone hurts. It hurts worse than he thought it would. Insecurity weaves its way into even the most minor of interactions. He’s self conscious almost all of the time, adjusting his hair, clothing, glasses right down to minor details. As of late, Kei appears more put together than he ever has, but the reality is that he’s probably the least put together he’s ever been.

When you’re around, Kei is awkward and clumsy. He drops things, trips over nothing, loses control over his lanky limbs and overshoots things. He feels like a teenager again, not that he’s that far off from one.

Still, one thing overshadows all of this. Kei is so comfortable around you, so peaceful despite the nerves and insecurity, that he’s able to forget about the worst of it. Forgetting about the worst of things is not something Kei is particularly good at. He’s cynical by nature. You help to ease the burden of it.

The coffee shop he’s visiting with you today is quiet. The room is decorated with dark oak wood and the tables are accented by the rings of the trees the wood was cut from. The early spring light filters in at angles through the windows letting out onto the street. It falls across your notebooks and the knuckles of your hand, wrapped evenly around a black pen.

You’d brought him here to study instead of going to the library and Kei can’t help but think that it feels like a date. His tea sits half-finished in a mug beside his laptop, beginning to cool to room temperature. Your coffee sits by your unoccupied hand and every now and then, you’ll reach to take a sip of the warm beverage without even glancing up.

Kei has spent so much time watching you today, that he’s hardly gotten any work done. His computer is open on a document with a paragraph of writing about nudity in the classical period, which he hasn’t touched in about 10 minutes. He’s been clicking blankly around the page, adding spaces and then deleting them and then glancing up over the edge of the screen to look at the way you purse your lips when you’re focused.

“You’d get a lot more done if you stopped staring,” you say, not looking up from your notebook.

Kei chokes on his exhale. “What?”

You laugh a little, looking up at him through your lashes. God, you’re pretty.

“The document?” You chuckle. “You’re not fooling anyone by clicking around randomly like that.”

“Oh,” Kei furrows his eyebrows and shakes his head a little. “Yeah, just can’t seem to focus.”

“What’s the paper on?” You set down your pen and cross your arms on the table.

“It’s not really a paper,” he says. “It’s a visual analysis on the Aphrodite of Knidos.”

“Is that the one without the arms?”

“No, but they come from the same family of statues,” Kei smiles a little.

You hum a bit. “Do you like it?”

“Like, do I think the statue’s pretty?” Kei closes the screen of his laptop to see you better. “Yeah, I do. Learning about the history of it is a bit depressing though.”

“Why?”

“Well, Aphrodite was one of the most powerful Greek gods, right?” He says, and you nod your head and roll your eyes because you know that already. “But this statue group intrudes on a private moment of hers. She’s trying to cover up her body, probably just before or after a bath. It’s meant to be humiliating.”

You tilt your head. “Sounds more interesting than molecular structures at least.”

Kei laughs a little. “Yeah, I think it’s just a bit more interesting.”

“Why did you choose to study art history?” You question, leaning forward on your elbows.

Kei feels awkward at receiving the question. He doesn’t like talking about himself much, let alone his passions. They tend to get away from him.

“Probably because I’m no good at art,” he smiles a little.

“Such a shame, what with your artist’s hands and all,” you reach across the table and tap his knuckle.

Kei feels the color rise to his cheeks.

“You’re no good at art, so you study art history instead?” You press for more.

“Yeah,” he says. “I like things that people make with their hands. There’s a lot of human expression in ancient art, good and bad. Gives a bit more context into who we were before.”

You lean back in the chair, grinning at him. Kei bites the inside of his cheek and tries not to notice the slope of your neck.

“Why are you studying molecular bio?” He changes the subject.

You shrug your shoulders. “I want a good cushy job that makes me a lot of money.”

Kei watches the corners of your lips curl up.

“Plus,” you continue, “I wanted to show off a little bit.”

“So you put yourself through four years of torture?” He raises an eyebrow.

“Yup, I’m a huge masochist,” you grin.

“You STEM kids are unbearable, you know?” Kei snorts.

“But you like me anyway, yeah?”

Kei nods, heat creeping up his neck, and watches you return to your work.

It’s true, he does like you anyway. Kei likes you so much, in fact, that it frightens him. Well, the idea of liking someone has always frightened Kei, whether he’s noticed it or not. Commitment, or lack thereof, make Kei nervous in the same way heights do. He feels like he could lose his footing at any moment.

That’s probably why he doesn’t want to do anything in particular about his feelings. Kei is content with just feeling them. He’s content to just be able to like you in his own way, even if nothing ever comes of it. He probably shouldn’t do anything about them, considering the back and forth battle he’s waged in his mind over the last few months. He’s too indecisive to do anything but like you, and even that feels herculean to accept.

Not that liking you is a hard thing to do. You’re easy to like. It’s easy for him to picture touching you. It’s easy for Kei to imagine late night conversations and little intimacies shared over damp pillows. You’re easy to talk to, floating through conversations and navigating conflict with a sure step, something Kei can’t do. It’s not hard to find things to admire.

Kei imagines what it would be like to be with you. He imagines the feel of your hands in his, how you might look spread beneath him, the inside of your thighs pressing against his hips. He imagines how his glasses might fog up with your breath and slip down the bridge of his nose. What do you taste like? What do you feel like?

A little alarm bell sounds in his head. This is a dangerous line of thought, a greedy one. Kei doesn’t think he can handle greed, not when it comes to you. He got a taste of it that day when he saw you leave with someone else and again the following Friday. Kei doesn’t mix well with it, with wanting. Still, he wants.

—

It’s a breezy day. It cuts the growing humidity as the beginning of May creeps on. This is no doubt one of the best times of year, though Kei prefers the fall or winter. Still, even with the slightly sticky air, his walk to class is pleasant. He’d even venture to say that it’s good.

Light filters through the trees, blooming with their spring flowers, and in the distance he can see a familiar row of cherry blossoms just beginning to bloom. As he approaches them, he finds himself admiring their delicate petals, wondering just how brief their bloom will be before they come cascading down. One tree among the pink rows has yet to open its flowers. The buds sit on their branches, shades of green and gray. A late bloomer. This tree will no doubt flower once the other petals have fallen, and when it does, it’ll become the most eye-catching thing on the street.

Kei admires it for a moment, standing below the thing and looking up through its twisting branches. It’s so small, much smaller than the rest of its counterparts, and its branches don’t look too full of yet-to-bloom buds either.

There was a tree like this outside of Kei’s childhood home, the one his family lived in together when it was whole. It would always bloom a week after the others and every year he would worry that it never would. Of course, he kept this fear to himself, but he often watched it from his bedroom window when Akiteru was out. He’d press his face against the glass and pray for the flowers to come so that it didn’t get left behind. Sure enough though, it would bloom without fail and leave scattered pink petals across his yard and doorstep. Kei wonders if this tree in front of him will do the same.

“Thinking about changing your major to plant sciences, Kei?”

He jumps, started by your voice and your proximity.

“Jesus,” Kei turns, “you need a bell or something.”

“You’re the one standing in public staring at a tree with no flowers on it,” you laugh a little.

Kei shrugs his shoulders, not really willing to give an explanation for the train of thought he was just on.

“Where’re you headed?” he questions.

“Dropping off an assignment,” you smile lightly, “wanna come with me?”

“I can’t. I’ve got a class in 15.”

“Fifteen minutes is fifteen minutes,” you shrug. “We’ll make it.”

“We?” Kei raises an eyebrow.

“Yeah, you come with me to drop off my paper and then I drop you off at class. It’s a win-win.”

“Sounds like I’m just doing a lot of extra walking,” Kei snorts.

“Yeah, but you get to do it with me so it’ll be more fun.”

Kei folds and goes with you to drop off your assignment. It’s an essay assigned by an old-fashioned professor who doesn’t like electronic submissions. You comment off-handedly on what a waste of paper it is and Kei nods, just happy to hear about it.

It’s strange. Kei is normally very tied to his routine. It keeps him sane, helps him to organize his thoughts and feelings into neat compartments. For Kei, an orderly life is an orderly mind. Somehow though, you ask him to deviate from that and he’s more than willing, eager even, to oblige you. Better yet, he does it without feeling off-kilter. Well, without feeling as off-kilter about his daily life. When it comes to you, Kei is about as stable as a pogo stick.

The walk to your professor's office is only a few minutes from his classroom, just a few buildings over, but by the time you both arrive there, Kei’s palms are sweating. He resorts to shoving them in his pockets and wiping them on the inside of his pants, mortified at the idea of accidentally touching you like this.

“Hey, about tonight,” you start after dropping the paper off with a quick bow.

You’re supposed to come over. It’s the first time you and Kei have agreed to hang out at one of your places alone and Kei has been compartmentalizing his nerves so harshly that he’d almost forgotten about it entirely. Maybe that explains his easy-going mood.

“Yeah?”

“So, Tadashi may have mentioned it in front of the others,” you give him a sheepish grin, “and they may have asked to come and I definitely told them ‘the more the merrier’.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kei’s a little disappointed. “So they’re coming too?”

“Yeah, is that okay?” You furrow your eyebrows.

Kei can’t very well come out and say that it isn’t, because his reason for thinking that is entirely about monopolizing your time. Kei says he doesn’t want to do anything about these feelings, but that doesn’t mean that he can’t indulge just a little into the foreign feeling of accepting that he’s ‘in like’.

“Yeah sure, why wouldn’t it be?”

You raise an eyebrow at him and Kei misses the message entirely.

“I dunno, you’re not really a fan of bigger groups right?”

“Not really,” Kei shrugs, “but I’ve known them for a while so it doesn’t count.”

You nod your head and then smile. “Great! Now, where is your class?”

“Social Sciences,” Kei glances down at the brown watch on his wrist. “In about… four minutes.”

“Wanna run? Can’t be late, can you?”

Kei does not want to run. He runs anyway. You’re faster than he is and your step is louder. The soles of your shoes thump on the floor with every step you take and your whole body lurches forward with each bound. When you reach the end of the hallway his class is in, Kei is completely winded. Considering that he plays volleyball as a hobby, he should really be in better shape. He attributes his lack of breath to your presence. Maybe he’d been holding it while watching you run.

You glance into his full classroom, giving him a relieved look upon seeing that the professor has not begun her lecture yet. Then, you bounce twice on the tips of your toes and start jogging in the other direction.

“Have a good class!” You call.

“What’s the rush?” he questions.

“I’ve got class now too, dummy. Just wanted to hang out with you for a few more minutes.” Then, you turn and run off, your bag bouncing against the side of your leg as you round a corner and fly down a set of stairs.

That’s the thing about you that Kei can’t get enough of. When Kei takes a step back, when he resigns himself to being okay with just a chance meeting and a brief hello, you take a step forward. Whatever Kei lacks, you make up for tenfold. Your outstretched hand makes him greedier. It makes Kei want more than he’s ever wanted before. He goes to class starved for something that isn’t food, a feeling Kei hasn’t experienced often, let alone leaned into. He lets himself feel the hunger.

—

Day melts away to a cool evening, still slightly wet, but like the dampness before rain. The air loses its warm touch, creeping into something chillier. Kei opens his bedroom window to let the air in. He likes the smell of cool nights. He wants his room to smell like it when he sleeps tonight.

“Sorry that I spilled the beans about tonight,” Tadashi leans in the doorway of his room.

“It’s not like that,” Kei rolls his eyes, already irritated with the implication that whatever you and Kei had organized was anything more than two friends hanging out.

“Sure it isn’t,” he laughs.

“I’m serious dude,” Kei fights the urge to throw something soft at him.

“You wanted to hang out with them alone, right?” Tadashi tilts his head. His dark hair falls to the side and around his neck.

“I just said it wasn’t like that!”

Tadashi gives an even laugh. “You’re the one making it dirty, Tsukki, not me.”

Heat floods Kei’s face, painting it red.

“Caught ya,” Tadashi smiles.

“When the hell are you moving out?” Kei grumbles and Tadashi gives another good natured laugh.

“Not until you do. You’re stuck with me.”

“Not if I kill you,” Kei doesn’t smile when he says this.

Tadashi barks a laugh. “So what changed?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean with you. You seem a little more upbeat lately,” Tadashi says. “Nothing like the sad sack from a few months ago.”

“I was kidding before but now I’m serious. I really will kill you.”

Tadashi shakes his head a little but doesn’t say anything, intruding on Kei’s space until he gives an answer.

“I just got tired of it, that’s all,” Kei says evenly, though it’s a little hard to admit.

“Tired of what?”

“Pretending,” he says plainly, glancing up at Tadashi in the doorway.

“Because of them?”

“No,” he starts. “Maybe. I don’t know. Can you leave now?”

Tadashi shakes his head. “Too curious to leave.”

“I don’t have an answer for you,” Kei grumbles. “I got tired of pretending I didn’t want them.”

“Not like you were very good at pretending,” Tadashi laughs and Kei tosses him a sharp look.

He raises his hands defensively, tucking his chin downwards and laughing lightly. “Okay, fine. I’m gone now.”

“They’ll be here in an hour or so, by the way,” Kei adds and Tadashi gives a little hum to confirm that he’s heard him as he leaves the room.

Kei glances around his room. The floor is bare, save for a small mat by the side of his bed to keep the shock of warm feet on a cold floor in the morning away. That notebook, dear to him as it is, still sits on the desk. It’s empty, but Kei likes the look of it.

The hour before you and his friends are meant to arrive goes by so slowly that Kei worries that he’s gotten the day wrong. He incessantly checks his watch. It’s a brown leather watch with a square face. Thin and somewhat old fashioned, Kei prefers it to pulling his phone out to check the time. His Dad has one like it, almost matching. It had been given to him as a gift at his high school graduation and Kei had accepted it begrudgingly. He’d not been on good terms with his parents then and having them both in the same space for his graduation day was more trouble than it was worth. Still, he wears the watch almost daily. Despite having the impression that his parents never really cared about him, it was a fine gift for him and the brown strap suits his light skin tone in the same way it suits his father’s.

He walks to the mirror in his room, hanging on the wall beside his nightstand, and peers into it. Kei’s curly hair is somewhat unruly. It’s hard to manage, especially in the warmer months when his waves turn into frizzy curls that he can’t seem to keep down. It’s gotten longer, coming down to just above the bottom of his ears at the back and curls upwards in licks of thick blond.

Kei fiddles with it for a moment, tucking it behind his ears and then deciding to pull it forward. He could put gel in it to help calm it down, but he hates the greasy look of it and he’s never been one to primp and preen. He adjusts his glasses on his nose, square frames in a tortoiseshell pattern. They look expensive, though they’re only a cheap pair that he’d found at the drug store and had the lenses replaced.

He looks normal. Kei looks like himself, if not a bit flushed in the face from his nerves. His reflection is one he is oddly unfamiliar with, despite it being his throughout his entire life. At some point during high school, he’d stopped recognizing the man in the mirror as Kei and started viewing him as a separate entity. Kei Two, a version of him that can make a home out of a space and find things to write in his notebook. Kei Two’s family is still whole and unbroken, and he likes to imagine that he’s a little more friendly than the real-world version. He looks away from the mirror, content today with being the original.

Kei is in the living room and around the corner when the front door latch clicks open and is followed by a symphony of raucous voices. He takes a sharp inhale, unsure of why this feels so different from the hundreds of other times you’ve all piled into his living room.

“Where’s Kei?” He hears you call, dragging out the syllable of his name in a soft hum.

That’s why. It’s because this time, you’ve come here to see him specifically. You’re not here to see Tadashi or by chance, you’re here because you’d made plans to see Kei. That’s what makes it different.

You round the corner and Kei is hit full force in the chest with his emotions and his nerves. It happens all at once, keeping the air from his lungs. You’re smiling, beaming even, and Kei thinks that maybe it’s because you can hear the hammer of his heart against his chest.

“Hi,” you breathe, plopping down next to him on the couch.

“Hey,” he chokes out.

Kei chides himself for his nerves. He’d been doing better about getting weird around you, but today he feels closer to blowing up than he ever has.

Hinata, Kageyama, Yachi, and Noya make their way into the kitchen, each one clapping Tadashi on the back as they do. They beeline for their fridge, opening the door and flooding the floor with artificial white light as they pull out enough beers and sodas to supply a small army. Kei wonders why he and Tadashi ever bought so many of them. Kei hardly drinks, but he supposes that Tadashi just likes to host.

“Tanaka and Kiyoko?” Tadashi questions as he makes his way into the living room with the group. His beer cracks open with a satisfying pop.

“Date night,” Noya says, sinking into one of the arm chairs situated around the coffee table. “So annoying.”

He groans about Kiyoko, someone he’s all but worshiped since high school.

“You’re just mad it isn’t you,” Kageyama quips, giving a somewhat mean grin.

“Not true,” Noya argues. “I am the happiest person in the world for them! But now they go on dates and I can’t come. It’s like I lost a bro.”

“You’re so overreacting,” Yachi adds, her lips forming around high pitched syllables. “They’re here most of the time.”

“Yeah, most but not all,” Noya pouts.

“Give the same energy to Daichi, Suga, and Asahi next time, kay?” Tadashi laughs.

Their friend group is a large one, consisting of most (if not all) of their highschool volleyball team. While Hinata, Kageyama, and Yachi are the same age as Kei and Tadashi, Tanaka and Noya are a year older, and Kiyoko is two. Daichi, Asahi, and Suga all went to universities outside of Sendai, meaning they hardly ever see them. All in all, the rest of the group is pretty bummed about it. Kei just finds that he misses having Daichi around to reel everyone in. Now that he’s gone, that job has somehow gone to Tadashi, who is more of an enabler than anything else.

“They’re different and you know it,” Noya frowns, opening his open beer with a hiss through his teeth.

You lean to the side, bumping your shoulder against Kei’s.

“Who’re Daichi, Suga, and Asahi?” You ask softly.

“You’ve never met?” Kei furrows his eyebrows and you shrug.

“Maybe, but if I have it was only once or twice.”

“They’re friends from our volleyball team in highschool, but they’re two years older.”

“Okay, so one year older than me?”

Kei blinks a few times. “You’re a year older than me?”

“Yeah?” You laugh a little like it’s obvious.

“But aren’t you a fourth year?” He furrows his eyebrows.

“I took a year off before starting college,” you shrug your shoulders. “Thought that I had to get my sillies out.”

“Your sillies?” Kei laughs a little.

“Yeah,” you smile, “and I had to save up some money. It makes the world go ‘round, you know?”

“What are you guys whispering about?” Tadashi gives Kei a wry grin over the top of his beer can.

It’s only then that Kei realizes the way you both are leaning into each other. He’s tilting his head down to hear you better and you’re leaning forward. It gives off the impression of two people conspiring, of closeness that Kei hadn’t even realized had crept up on him.

“I was asking who Daichi, Suga, and Asahi are,” you shrug off the moment, leaning back in the chair.

This prompts a chorus of disbelief, everyone jumping in to describe them to you. Kei takes it as a moment to breathe, inhaling and exhaling. He can feel your thigh against his, just barely there and bleeding warmth through the fabric of his jeans.

They delve into stories about nationals, little details that Kei had forgotten a long time ago. Every now and then, someone will bring up Kei’s more-than-sour personality and he will feel the need to hide the embarrassment on his cheeks. Even though you know about it, it’s still mortifying for Kei to hear. He wants you to see the best in him, but any hopes he had of you forgetting are quickly washed away as someone brings up Kei’s relentless prodding of Kageyama’s easily pushed buttons.

You laugh along with them like you were there, amused to hear stories about your college friends in their high school years. Kei finds himself thinking that you fit very well into this scene.

Still though, despite the fun he’s having, Kei’s battery begins to run out quickly and after a long game of cards, he gets up to take a quick break in the kitchen. It’s not that he wants the night to end, but rather that he just needs a minute to himself and uses the idea of more snacks as an excuse for it.

He reaches into a cabinet, pulling out a half-finished bag of chips and setting them on the counter. They’re clipped with a bright red chip-clip from the grocery store and Kei thinks that because of that, they shouldn’t have gone stale yet. If it were the peak of summer, Kei might think twice, but this time of year, they should be fine.

Then, he bends down to get a large white mixing bowl from a lower cabinet. Their plates and bowls are kept in various different cabinets, though the only reason they stay somewhat organized is because of Kei.

“Done already?” You lean your hip against the counter.

“With what?” Kei struggles to keep his eyes from following the line of your body.

“Hanging out,” you smile lightly.

“Not really,” he says. “Just needed a minute and decided to get more snacks.”

“Wanna go sit outside for a bit then?”

Kei glances into the living room where the group chatters away. He’d hate to be stopped on the way.

“Relax,” you laugh. “They’re so caught up they won’t even notice that we’re gone.”

Kei furrows his eyebrows and then shrugs, swallowing his heart down with the spit that has pooled in his mouth. He follows you out of the front door, shutting it with a quiet click and heading down the steps of the complex and to the concrete wall lining the shrubbery outside. It’s the same place you’d come back to talk to him at all those weeks ago, though he is in considerably better spirits than he was then.

It’s a cool night, the gentle heat of the day completely burned off to make way for a crisp breeze. He inhales, wishing that he had brought a drink to fiddle with and sip on to distract him from his nerves.

You sit beside him, leaning back on your palms with your legs outstretched in front of you. Your hand is only a few inches from his and Kei sucks in a breath when he accidentally touches it while he gets comfortable. You only offer him a little smile in response.

“Sorry again about bringing the troops here,” you speak first.

“That’s really okay,” he says. “Contrary to popular belief, I actually really like them.”

You snort. “I hope so.”

Kei inhales louder than he intends to and when you look at him like he’s going to say something, he just holds his breath and shakes his head. The air only leaves him when you finally look away.

“Kind of a bummer though,” you start, “I was kinda excited about just hanging out with you.”

Kei’s breath catches in his throat. He swallows to move the metaphorical blockage.

“We hang out all the time though,” he says like it’s enough. Of course it’s not enough.

“Guess so,” you smile a little, though Kei can hear the distinct turn of disappointment in your voice.

“You know,” he starts, already embarrassed at what he’s going to admit. “I wanted to be your friend for a while.”

“Oh yeah?” you smile, opening up again and turning towards him. “Why?”

Kei shrugs, resisting the urge to shut down completely. It’s embarrassing admitting to someone that you wanted to know them before you actually knew them.

“You kind of reminded me of Tadashi,” he says. “And you both got along so well.”

“Tadashi? I’m nothing like Tadashi,” you laugh, shaking your head.

“What? No, you two are so similar,” Kei insists, lacing his fingers together.

“What about us is so similar?”

“Well, you’re both sociable and warm and…” Kei trails off. He can’t really think of anything else. You look at him with an expectant look in your eyes.

“See?”

Kei realizes that the two of you are not similar at all. Your warmth is where the similarity stops. He’d been likening you to Tadashi this entire time, not because the two of you are similar, but because you make him feel similar to the way Tadashi does. Safe and comfortable, though with the added addition of deeply awkward. He realizes that without the safety net of you being like Tadashi, he’s never had any ability to deny his feelings and with that they rage full force around the corner and slam into his chest like a heavy blow.

“We’re nothing like each other,” you laugh and lean back against your palms. “Though, it would be cool to be like Tadashi.”

Kei experiences the sudden realization that he doesn’t want you to be like Tadashi. Kei wants you to be like him. He wants you to be greedy and want him the same way he wants you. He wants you to be able to keep up with his turns and his moods, something he didn’t realize he wanted in the first place. If you’re like Kei, then Kei doesn’t have to be afraid of showing you the worst. You’ll have already seen it. If you’re like Kei and he loves you, then what is stopping you from loving him?

“Even if you’re not like Tadashi, that’s fine.” His cheeks burn.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah, I like you all the same,” he admits quietly.

“The same? As Tadashi?” You purse your lips a little. “I thought I was a little different. Was I wrong?”

Kei wants to kiss you. Kei wants to kiss you so badly that his mouth has gone dry and his lips feel like they’ve separated from his body. Anything he’d thought about not wanting anything with you flies out of the window with your proximity. You’re so close to him. Close enough that if he leaned a little to the right, his shoulder would be against yours. You’re so close and you’re looking at him like you’re waiting for something, implying that somehow you’re different from Tadashi. Implying that you want him to like you differently than the way he likes his platonic friend.

“No, you’re different,” he says, taking the bait you’ve laid in front of him. His heart pounds and he can’t look at you. He thinks he’ll kiss you if he does.

“Am I?”

Kei can hear the smile in your voice. It makes what you’re saying sound honeyed and curved.

“Yeah, you are.”

“How so?”

Kei finally raises his head to look at you. You’re grinning, leaning towards him like you’re watching a show. He feels the way his nerves rise into his throat, pressing against the very back of his tongue. He doesn’t know how to answer or what to say. Well, he does know what to say, he just doesn’t think he can. Kei is good at thinking about emotions, but when it comes time to speak them outloud, it seems that he’s still got a padlock around his throat. So he does what any logical person would do.

Kei leans forward, pushing against his screaming nerves and trying to ignore the tremble in his hands, and kisses you. It’s awkward and his teeth click against yours before his lips fully settle against your mouth. He feels the breath you draw in, like surprise and relief mixed together, and he finds that he does the same.

He can see the way your eyes flutter closed through his barely open ones and he realizes that your lips are so warm. He screws his eyes shut when you dip your head forward to move your lips against his. Yours are so warm and soft, like satin. A kiss has never felt like this to Kei before and he finds that he wants to catalog every single one of your reactions. Maybe that’s what he could write in the notebook. Maybe he could write down every single thing that you do that leaves him winded and wanting more.

Neither of you reach for the other, but he can feel the knuckle of your pinky against his as you slowly kiss each other, tilting your heads side to side. There’s hunger within him, the need to take more than what he’s receiving and a greed he isn’t quite familiar with, but there’s also romance. It’s like a spell that’s yet to be broken, fed by the click of your mouths as they move together. Kei sighs, flooded with the relief of this kind of physical affection, of being honest with himself at how much he likes it. Kei loves the feel of your mouth. He loves the way your lips and tongue feel and he loves that they’re all that he can feel right now.

The kiss lasts longer than Kei thought it would and by the time he pulls away, you’re both steadily panting and attempting to keep your breathing even. He wants to do it again. He wants it so badly that it makes his chest swell. He wants to do that with you forever, but he swallows down the desire. It’s a temporary fix, but it’s enough for him to choke out what it is he wants to say next.

“I think I’m in really hot water,” he squeaks.

“What do you mean?” You breathe out, the playfulness from a few moments earlier long behind you.

“I think I want you way more than I thought I did,” he admits quietly, the first out loud admittance of his feelings to you.

You smile a little before speaking. “I think it’s only hot water if the other person doesn’t feel the same way.”

Your face is still so close to his. “Yeah?”

It comes out a bit desperate, like he needs reassurance. Kei does. He’s so afraid that he thinks he could die. Afraid of the spell breaking, afraid of losing whatever moment this is and being forced to return to his one-sided pining, afraid that you don’t feel the same way.

Your face moves closer to him, breath trembling lightly. “Yeah.”

You kiss him again, pressing your lips against his lightly before parting them. He’s so overwhelmed and so immediately lost in it. Kei feels the way your tongue teases the inside of his mouth and it makes him feel like a teenager again, swelling with desires and emotions that he can’t name. You move your hand over his, placing it lightly on top of his, and he reacts by lacing your fingers together and pushing forward more.

Kei wants to touch you so badly, to reach up and hold your face, to touch your waist and your legs and your chest. He wants to do it all, to feel you right here under the cover of night, but he doesn’t. Instead, he kisses you and stews in the desire, letting it swell in his chest as he listens to the clicking of your mouths. You kiss him so slowly, moving your mouth at a languid pace. It drives him crazy. He doesn’t think he’ll ever get enough of this.

“We should go back inside, I think,” you break away, your bottom lip shiny with a sheen of spit. “The others might think something’s up and Tanaka isn’t exactly good with discretion.”

Kei automatically reaches up to swipe it with his thumb. He doesn’t know where this affection comes from, where the possessive action found its origins, but he finds that he likes the way it feels to be able to do it in the first place.

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” Kei responds, though he would have been happy to continue sitting out here with you, kissing you silly.

You stand first, dusting off the back of your legs and waiting for Kei to follow suit. When he does, you reach quickly for his hand, giving it a quick squeeze before walking in front of him.

Kei is not sure how he should act when he goes inside. He’s tense all over, desperate to pick up where the two of you left off, and unsure if his face betrays that thought.

“Where’d you guys go?” Tadashi asks as Kei closes the door behind him.

In the time you’d both been gone, the living room has been transformed into something nearly unrecognizable. Empty beer cans are strewn about the tables and the blankets and pillows from the couches are now haphazardly laying around beside the couch or over people’s bodies. Then again, maybe the room always looked like this and he was just too busy thinking about how close you were to him.

Kei doesn’t know what to say. Why had they gone outside in the first place? He’s not even sure that he remembers.

“I wanted a cigarette and I made Kei come with me,” you answer evenly. “Why? You jealous?”

“Of inhaling second-hand smoke? No, thanks.” Tadashi laughs, but he tosses Kei a sideways glance. Tadashi knows him well enough to know that Kei wouldn’t voluntarily stand outside with a smoker unless he was particularly fond of them.

“Aw, man, I thought you quit?” Hinata pipes up, tilting his head.

“I did, hot stuff,” you respond, sitting down on the couch. “Don’t worry. I won’t smoke anymore.”

Hinata huffs and Kei takes the opportunity to sit down next to you.

His thigh is pressed against yours, warmth seeping through his pants and into his skin. Kei feels like he could explode. You’re so close to him again, closer than before, and he can’t stop replaying the kiss in his head. He’s desperate for it, fidgety with his desire. He keeps thinking about the hot press of your mouth and the languid motion of your tongue. All he can imagine is the few points of contact between you both, mouth and hands, and how badly he wanted it to be more. He needs it.

You touch him a few times throughout the night and the tension is so palpable that Kei is convinced he can see it. It’s like there is a rope pulled taut between the two of you. If he doesn’t stick his ground, he’ll go flying towards you, grabbing and touching and taking in the way he’s desperate to now.

After an hour, his friends begin to grow restless. Their faces are flushed with alcohol and the things they’d been amusing themselves with are no longer enough stimulation.

“Hey, we’re going out to the bars. Who’s coming?” Hinata speaks up.

A chorus of agreement rings out, but the last thing Kei wants to do is go out.

“I think I’ll probably stay back and start cleaning,” he says somewhat disdainfully. “It’s a mess in here,” Kei tosses you a small glance. It’s unintentional but he’s glad for it because Kei is hoping that you’ll stay back with him, that you both can pick up where you left off.

“I’ll stay and help too. I’ve got an early morning tomorrow anyway,” you smile and Hinata pouts.

“You guys are so boring,” he protests. “Leave the mess for tomorrow and come out with us.”

“I’ll pass, pipsqueak,” Kei scoffs.

“Fine, but don’t complain to me when you’re full of regret tomorrow,” he points a finger at Kei and then moves it over to you. “And you’re too nice for your own good.”

“Do you hear that?” You say, beginning to usher the group to the door. “I think it’s the sound of the bar and all that alcohol calling to you guys.”

“You guys are so full of shit-” Kageyama starts, speaking up for the first time in a while, but Kei just waves him out.

“Yeah yeah, let the grown ups clean while you guys have fun. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

The rope is so taut between you both that it’s unbearable and by the time the door closes, you are spinning around on your heel toward Kei.

“We’re not cleaning, right?”

Kei shakes his head and starts towards you. The tension breaks when his hands find your hips and he hungrily leans down to press his mouth against yours.

This kiss is different from the first, desperate and full of desire. It’s fast and your mouths move together quickly as he starts to walk you back towards his bedroom, his hands eagerly roaming up and down your hips. Vaguely, he acknowledges that his glasses have been moved out of place, but he pays it no mind as you turn the knob to his bedroom door with your back to it.

There’s an urgency to his movements. Kei feels it in his chest, this desperate desire to be closer, to consume everything that you’ve laid out in the palm of his hand. You stumble backwards into his room and Kei catches your shifted weight with a hand around your waist. His other hand comes up to cup your cheek, feeling the warm skin on your jaw and neck. His fingers tremble where they touch you, half out of desperate need and half out of the nerves that threaten to spill from his mouth. His lips though, are occupied with yours, clicking together, all tongue and teeth.

Kei kisses sloppily down your jaw, his lips smearing across your cheek and dipping down below your ear. He sucks a trail there, unsure if he’s leaving marks, all the way down to your collarbone. Every part of you tastes better than he’d expected it to and with every push he delivers, you pull.

You make small sounds, little pants and groans that make Kei’s hair stand on end with wanting. Your voice, so familiar and fond to him, spills out in small, breath-like bursts that make Kei want to coax more out of you. Kei’s never been one to want this way, but right now, it’s all that he feels. So much tension and impulse that he feels like he can hardly control himself.

You reach blindly behind you for the bed and Kei guides you down, placing his hand on one side of you as you sit. Then, without disconnecting your lips, he guides you up toward the wall.

He feels the cool tips of your fingers at the hem of his shirt, pulling downward and then upward to get him to take it off. Kei obliges you, leaning back on his knees and pulling it off over the top of his head. You eye him for a moment, the two of you slowing down enough as the urgency settles into something heavy and lingering.

Kei leans forward again, one of his hands reaching for your hip. He slips his fingers underneath the hem of your shirt, sliding his long fingers up your stomach as he kisses you again. You’re so soft and he can feel the way your chest heaves against his palm. His touch is feather light and he slides it up evenly until it reaches just below your breast. When you nod, Kei moves it up over your bra and he feels you shudder. Kei does the same, overwhelmed by your pliability.

He can feel the goosebumps that have raised on your skin, little pinpricks of skin that indicate that some part of you feels good. When Kei squeezes your breast, you gasp into his moan and he groans his response, letting you bite at his bottom lip.

He feels you suck at his lips and swipe your tongue along the ridge of his mouth. When he opens it to let you in, he’s overtaken by the warmth of the soft muscle. He groans, tilting his head down to kiss you deeper, letting the taste of you spread over his mouth. It’s hot and your breath fans across his face.

Kei hands drift from your breasts along the sides of your body. He feels the heave of your breath there against your warm skin, his palms resting on your waist. You raise your knees, the sides of them pressing against Kei’s hips. He shifts downwards slowly, dragging his mouth along your skin, past the cloth of your shirt.

His hands make their way from your waist to your hips as he dips lower. Kei takes off his glasses, already fogged up and in the way. When he meets your eyes, you nod your permission and Kei slips between your legs, his flat palms moving to spread your thighs.

You’re so warm and soft, so pliable in a way that Kei can’t articulate. It makes his mouth water with his desperation and he’s grown hard against the bedspread beneath him.

“Touch me,” you breathe out.

Kei nods into your stomach, looping his fingers around our waistband, and pulls down your pants. Your panties come with it and it’s with a slight wave of regret that he realizes he won’t get to see the way you stick to them.

When he sees you, his heart leaps into his throat. His eagerness and his nerves catch up to him and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. You shudder when the air hits your exposed cunt, an unintentional side effect of Kei’s nerves that has him grinding down against the bedspread.

He slides his palm to rest over your center. It’s warm and sticky, wet beyond what Kei had imagined and he gingerly presses a finger between your folds. You gasp, mouth falling open above him. Then, he slides his finger into you to the first knuckle, curling up. Kei goes deeper on the second pump, curling his whole finger inside of you and feeling the way you tighten around him.

You arch your back up off the bed and Kei groans and rolls his eyes, resting his head on the inside of your exposed thigh. He curls his fingers in you, watching the way they coat with your pleasure. His eyebrows are knit together, like he’s asking whether you like how he touches you or not, and you seem to pick up on his insecurity, nodding your head before letting it tip back against Kei’s pillows.

Kei thinks your expression is incredible. Your eyebrows pull up in the center, pretty face twisted and mouth slightly open in an expression of undeniable pleasure. Kei’s stomach winds at the look of it and he ruts his hips against the mattress to quell the growing ache of need. His fingers, which curl at a slow and even pace inside of you, are warm with your enjoyment. It leaks between his knuckles, sliding down the back of his hand like a slow moving syrup. He wonders whether you have more to give and how you taste, his gaze slinking from your face to the place just above where his fingers disappear.

He lowers his mouth to you without thinking, curious and needing the taste of it. Sure enough, you have more to give. Your voice comes quickly, a small gasp that is stifled by the back of your hand when he sucks sharply on your clit. Your hips push forward against his hands and then you arch up off the mattress with a small cry. Kei wonders if you’ve cum. He wonders if he’s sent you over the edge, but if he has, you’re taking all of it so well that he doesn’t dare stop.

The taste of you spreads on his tongue, tangy and warm. You invade his senses violently, like you are gripping his throat. Kei holds his mouth to you, pressing the length of his cock into the mattress and moving his hips like he plans to fuck it.

He moves his free hand down your thigh and onto the inside of your leg. Your skin is so soft. It’s so vulnerable, something easily pierced and bled. Kei’s pointer finger rubs gentle circles there, feeling the slight pull of the soft skin with his fingers, so thin that it almost feels like tissue paper. He’s sure that with a little pressure, you would bruise.

The thought surprises him. He works his tongue across your clit and his fingers against that gummy spot inside of you, but his mind drifts to the softness of your inner thigh, the way it would be so easy to leave a spot that might hurt later when you press on it, remind you of exactly where he was. Then, Kei pinches you on the inside of your thigh and when you cry out, tightening around his fingers with a tapered moan, he pinches you again, harder this time.

You whimper slightly, like you like it. No, you sound like you love it and Kei finds himself holding back a choked moan as he tries not to cum prematurely. He pinches along the inside of your legs and around the back. Not too much. Only when he feels like it. Only when he wants to hear what kind of sounds you’ll make.

“K-Kei wait, wait,” you pant, grabbing him by his tufts of blonde hair. It hurts. He doesn’t think you mean to hurt him, but it doesn’t matter. He likes it and he twitches in his pants.

“Huh?” He hums, detaching from your clit and slowing the movement of his fingers to a halt. Your legs shake around his handiwork. “You okay?”

“I’ll cum if you keep going like that,” you breathe, screwing your eyes shut like you’re still on the edge. “Drag it out for me, yeah?”

Kei furrows his eyebrows and sucks in a sharp breath.

“Cum if you want to.” He tilts his head down to reattach his lips.

“Not yet,” you tug at his hair. “I like chasing it.”

Kei stares at you, unblinking and awestruck. Your chest heaves and despite the pleasure on your face, you look uncomfortable as your orgasm slips away from you. Kei likes that look on your face and he finds himself growing greedy.

“Come here,” you coax him onto the mattress.

Kei watches as you slip your hands into the waistband of his jeans and pull them down, leaving him on his back with his tented boxers exposed. You crawl down his body and settle between his legs with your arms between his thighs. He shudders when you run your hands up them and he briefly sees his boxers jump.

You smile, pressing your mouth to him through his boxers. Kei can’t stifle the groan that escapes him and heat floods his face when you raise your eyebrows in response.

“You don’t have to,” he says through gritted teeth as you slip the waistband of his boxers down.

“But I want to,” you mumble, taking him in your hand and placing a kiss on the side of his dick.

Kei’s head falls back against the pillow and he swears under his breath when he feels the warmth of your mouth close around the tip of him. He jerks his head up to see, awestruck by the way your lips look around the head of his cock.

For some reason, Kei is already so sensitive. He feels everything, and when you swipe the tip of your tongue along his slit as you bob your head, he makes a noise he didn’t think he could make. His fingers knot themselves in the bed sheets, white knuckled and trembling while you bob your head over him.

Your mouth is so warm and wet. It’s a little messy, dripping down the length of him and onto his balls. Kei feels the warmth, the heat of you. He can still taste you on his tongue. Kei can still feel the stickiness left behind from your arousal on his mouth. The combination of you between his legs and the taste of you on his tongue is overwhelming.

Kei can feel his orgasm growing in his lower stomach, turning over until he’s bringing his long fingers to your head in an effort to steady himself. There’s nothing he can do but give in, watching you through damp eyes as you watch his expression.

It’s embarrassing how quickly he cums. It doesn’t take long and he teeters on the edge for a few moments before fully cresting over. Kei can’t help the way he lifts his hips from the mattress, his voice caught in his throat as it hooks on a high pitched groan. His voice cracks and he feels the way his cum collects on your tongue and across the tip of his dick in your mouth.

“Fuck,” he mutters, red faced and panting, “I didn’t mean to- I didn’t mean to finish so quickly, you’re just-”

“It’s fine,” you come up, your eyes glassed over and lust-filled. “I like making you feel good.”

“Yeah but-”

“No buts,” you crawl over him and straddle his waist. Kei winces when your weight briefly nudges his cock. “There’s still fun to be had. Can I kiss you?”

He nods and you lean down to do as you’d asked. Your tongue moves slowly against his, less desperate this time, like you’re trying to work him down and back up again. You place your hands on his chest, settling your weight down so that your bare cunt is pressed against his sensitive cock. Kei thinks he might die.

He brings his hands to your waist, the fatigue creeping from his bones as he digs the pads of his fingers into your fleshy sides. You draw in a breath when he does and it makes Kein feel like he’s tipping sideways with arousal. Everything that you do, right down to the involuntary twitch of your hips or eyebrows, is sexy.

Kei turns you over, growing hard between your legs again, and gently pins you to the mattress. He kisses you for a moment longer, his lips working clumsily across yours before he pulls away to catch his breath and find his bearings.

You chase him with your mouth, tilting your head up to kiss him. Kei feels his chest swell with arousal and his cock strains almost painfully against his pants as he peers at you. You’re so pretty. Everything about you is so pretty. On his chest, he can feel your fingers, splayed over his pecks, across his collarbone, and grazing the side of his neck. He leans closer, loving the pressure of your body and the desperation that pours from your skin.

Kei kisses you again. He kisses you the way he wanted to outside, dipping his tongue into your mouth with a desperation that he can taste. You take control back, reaching between the two of you, and Kei shifts himself upward instinctually to give you access to him. He feels your fingers fumble for him and there’s a pause in which Kei doesn’t know what to do. He wonders if this might be the part of him that you like. The awkward part, the one that doesn’t know what to do. Kei’s thoughts are interrupted by the feeling of your hand wrapping around him and tugging upward.

His head drops and a low groan escapes his lips before he can even think to stop it. Kei’d almost forgotten his sensitivity, how desperately he wants to be touched, how overwhelming it feels. He shivers, looking down at where your hand wraps around him and pumps. When he looks back up, he finds that you’re looking at his face, your eyes glassed over and observant as you commit all of his expressions to memory.

“What?” he says, letting out a shuddering breath and the slight overstimulation.

“Your face is red,” you reach up with your free hand to run your thumb along his cheek.

Kei huffs, dropping his head and you fiddle with something between the two of you.

“No,” you pick his chin up. “I like it. It’s cute.”

You tighten your grip around him and Kei feels his expression twist, a new rush of heat and desire flooding his belly as he realizes you’re sliding a condom onto him. Then, you guide the tip of him between your legs and he feels the wet press of your entrance against him.

“Christ,” he groans.

You smile slightly, shifting your hips a little and then placing your hands on his shoulders. Kei pushes forward slowly, his thighs twitching. It takes everything he has to keep from cumming again and every muscle in his body screams with a desire to let go.

Kei is so overwhelmed, partially because you feel so good, but also because there is some part of him that knows this feels different. Kei feels different about you, about being intimate with you, than he has with anyone else. There’s something alive in him, something with its own mind. Something greedy and vulnerable that stirs when your face is this close to him, when he’s buried all the way in you to the base of his cock. Emotional and sensitive, Kei feels it kick.

His first instinct is to run. Agreeing to let himself like you, to let himself do something about it, was not agreeing to letting something live inside of him. Kei’s first thought when he registers the difference is to cut it off and suffocate it so that it stops thumping against his chest. He’d grown so used to the hollow feeling that the feeling of living emotion makes him nervous, it puts him on edge. But when he pulls out a few inches and fucks back into you, the anxiety dispels into insurmountable pleasure. A pleasure Kei can’t describe, something fulfilling and whole.

He picks up his pace, letting himself do what he wants while you grip his shoulders with blunted nails. He likes the expression you wear. Truthfully, he likes all of your expressions, but this one is new. Pressure and pleasure, a newness to the feel of him inside of you that you can’t quite keep from your eyes or lips. He kisses you as if he could taste it, slipping his tongue between your lips.

“I really like you,” you mumble against his mouth, breath hot as it fans across his cheeks.

Kei’s heart hammers and his hips stutter a little.

“Me too,” he chokes, trying to think about volleyball to stave off a second orgasm. All that comes to mind though, is you.

“Are you close again?” you breathe, voice laden with pleasure.

“I have been since we started,” Kei admits.

“Cum then,” you say softly, reaching behind his head to pull his mouth back to yours. Kei likes the control you exhibit. He groans his approval.

“You first,” he mutters.

There’s this possessive part of Kei that wants to watch you fall apart on him. He wants to see it, to watch you feel good too and commit it to memory so that he can always keep it. He thinks it’s a pride thing, something attached to his desire to succeed, to his reliability. Maybe though, it’s just because he thinks it’ll look hot.

He reaches down and lifts one of your legs up by the back of your knee, pressing it down to give himself better access. You whine and Kei feels the way you clench down around him, your fingers knitting into the hair at the back of his neck. It hurts in a good way.

Kei slips his hand between you, rubbing circles on your clit to get you there faster. Frankly, he doesn’t know how much longer he can last like this, staring down at your face while it twists with pleasure. You’re so attractive to him. Everything about you is sexy. It makes Kei a little crazy.

He listens as your breathing quickens, as your voice wavers further. He feels the way your cunt begins to flutter faster, pulsing around him until you attempt to cry out and warn him. Then, you clamp down around him, arching your hips up off the mattress and pulling at his hair. Kei moves his head with you, relishing in the way you tug and scratch.

He builds up to his orgasm so fast that it hurts. There’s pressure and then the mounting feeling of nearing the top, and then the peak and crash. He cums so hard that it hurts, pushing his cock as far as it will go into you and feeling the warm spill of his cum in the condom. He moans a long, drawn out sound that you mimic, his fingers knitting into the pillow behind you and his head dropping so that his lips sit near your neck.

He lets out a shaky breath, letting himself sit inside of you for a moment. You turn his head towards yours and kiss him. It’s gentle. A smooth and languid kiss that neither of you moves to deepen. Your lips move against each other and Kei closes his eyes to savor the taste.

You tap his shoulder and Kei rolls over onto the bed beside you, snapping the condom off with a small wince and tying it up in a quick motion. He places it in the trash bin beside the bed. When he turns over, you’re already moving to slip under his arm, resting your head on his chest.

There’s a passing moment of silence, not unlike the ones you both have fallen into before and you sigh lightly against his exposed chest. Kei follows suit, watching the way you move with his breath.

His skin is sticky against yours and Kei can vaguely register the smell of sweat in the room. He doesn’t know how long it’s been since everyone left, nor does he know when they’ll be back, but he estimates that it won’t be more than an hour. Kei briefly wishes that he could pause time so that he can stay here with you, just like this.

“I’m not good at this kind of stuff,” Kei admits quietly.

“What stuff?” You ask, tracing your finger along the ridges of his lean abdomen.

“Liking people,” he says. “Dating.”

You give a small laugh. “No offense, Kei, but I could tell that from the moment I met you.”

“Shit, seriously?”

“Duh,” you breathe out. “It’s a little charming to me, though. I like that part of you.”

So it’s true. You like the parts of Kei that he’s always worried were the worst of him.

“Huh,” he says. “Could you tell?”

“That you like me?” You ask, shifting your head to look at him. “Yeah, it was obvious after we established that you didn’t hate me. I always noticed you staring in the library.”

“Really? I thought I was being a little slick with that,” Kei feels heat and color flood his face.

You let out a good-natured laugh. “People can always tell when someone’s staring, Kei. It’s like a sixth sense.”

“Good to know. Hindsight is 20/20 and all.”

Another bout of silence follows.

“You can keep staring though,” you say, “if you want to. And calling.”

“Okay,” Kei responds, “I didn’t really plan on stopping.”

“Ha, freaky,” you laugh a little and Kei reaches up to flick the side of your head. “Wanna start going out?”

Kei thinks about this for a moment. He thinks about being able to hold your hand, brush hair out of your face, watch movies on the couch and fix your breakfast the next morning. Then he thinks about not being able to do those things.

“I think I’d be a little upset if we didn’t,” he admits.

“Good,” you say. “Me too.”

He’s fighting off sleep. His eyelids are heavy and he tries to blink away the shroud of rest that’s falling over him. Kei knows you’re fighting it too. Your breathing goes in and out of that familiar breathing that comes with sleep. Kei likes the way it sounds coming from you, restful and quiet.

“We should… really get up to clean just a little,” he mumbles.

“Five more minutes,” you say softly, your voice heavy and laden with drowsiness.

“Okay,” he says.

It’s just five more minutes. Kei fights sleep to hear you breathe like this a little longer.

—

There’s a period after which Kei doesn’t know what to do with himself. Like the awkward start to a new hobby or passion, Kei finds himself enthralled with his budding relationship while simultaneously stumbling continuously along the way. You’re gracious with him though, letting him make mistakes and fumble until he finds his footing.

It’s all very awkward for him, very new. He finds that it’s easier to just do the nice things he wants to do for you than to agonize over it and slowly, he begins to grow comfortable in the relationship that took you both so long to begin.

At first, only Tadashi knew about you both. Kei thought that there was no point in hiding it from him, since you were over at the apartment all the time. Of course, Tadashi somehow already knew. That’s how it usually goes anyway, and Kei is relieved to find that his internal change did not trigger some global shift that would turn his life upside down. Everything is normal, save for the fact that Kei now tries to love without hindrance.

Kei discovers that he’s possessive. That’s a new trait of his that he didn’t know belonged to him. Before you, before Kei had found something he so desperately wanted to keep, he’d been rather detached. Possessiveness was rare because Kei hardly ever got attached enough to want. Now though, he wants so badly that it hurts. You lean into it. Kei suspects that you like it when he wards off people who hit on you, when he pouts a little because he wants to be close to you, when he gets a little jealous. Kei doesn’t really mind it either. After all, despite his possessiveness, he never feels insecure. The both of you make sure of that.

This sunny period with you, the one Kei worried would only last a week, drifts easily from one month into two and before he knows it, it’s been five. Kei had worried about that fundamental change. The one imperceivable to the human eye. He’d worried that slowly, it would begin to spoil what is so good between the two of you.

“Kei,” you snap him out of it, placing a hand on his shoulder, “you okay?”

He sets down his cup of tea, barely touched. “Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

“Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet?” You give him a wry smile. “This was your idea, after all.”

“Yeah, well it was a pretty shit idea actually,” he breathes, “My parents aren’t exactly easy.”

“You want to cancel?” You ask, your eyebrows pulling up in a clumsy attempt to hide your disappointment. Kei can see right through it.

“No,” he shakes his head. “I want you to meet them. I just don’t want you to meet them.”

The truth of it is that Kei would like to cancel. In an ideal world, one where the sun rises on the opposite side of his bedroom window, he’d forget the whole thing and take you out to get dinner and see a movie. Things would be simpler that way, less uncomfortable for the both of you. But as uncomfortable as it is, Kei wants you to be a part of their lives too. You’re too important to not introduce to his parents and Kei can’t see it any other way, though he’d like to.

You snort. “What does that even mean?”

Kei gives you a pointed and somewhat irritated look.

“Okay, sorry,” you raise your hands defensively and walk over to place them on his shoulders. “I know you’re worried, but I think it’s going to be okay. I’m excited.”

Kei huffs out a laugh, unable to vocalize his nerves in their totality. “Excited to meet my dysfunctional, divorced parents that kind of hate each other?”

“Yup. I’m excited to meet the people who raised you.”

Kei smiles a little. “You should meet Akiteru, then,” It’s an exaggeration, but for some reason the prospect of seeing both of his parents together has him feeling a little more bitter than usual, even if it was his idea.

You give him a little grin through narrowed eyes. There’s an understanding that passes from you to him, like you’re acknowledging that you haven’t forgotten what he’d told you nearly six months ago. Kei feels the tension in his shoulders relax a little.

His parents are already at the restaurant when he arrives. It’s a swanky Italian place. The kind you go to on birthdays or for anniversaries, where the pasta dishes are things like lobster mushroom ravioli or truffle oil fettucini in tiny portions. Kei made sure to book somewhere that his parents would have trouble making a scene in, not that they ever had much of a mind for decorum when they were married. He’s surprised to find them chatting cordially when you both arrive.

“Kei,” his mother stands from the table and crosses to give him a hug. He pats her back gently.

“Hi Mom,” Kei responds and she gives him a small smile.

Kei’s dad adjusts the lapel of his suit, the same one he’s had for years, and reaches to give him a hug around one shoulder.

“Guys,” he inhales, “This is my partner, _____.”

You grin at Kei and then introduce yourself formally to his parents. Kei watches in awe as you blend right in, like you’ve known them for many years. He sits down while trying to keep the nerves from his face.

“We’re so happy to meet you,” his mother starts, “Kei’s never introduced us to any of his partners before.”

“I’m the first?” You smile a little, raising an eyebrow at Kei as if to tease him.

“There really haven’t been that many to begin with,” Kei grumbles as if that somehow makes it better.

You laugh again and the ball of conversation begins rolling. His mother tells you how pretty you are and his father nods a quieter approval. They talk about his university’s graduation ceremony, which they attended separately, as if they were together the entire time and then ask about your major, if you graduated with him, where you plan on going. You tell them what you want to do and that you want to go wherever Kei goes. He marvels at how smoothly the evening moves onward.

There are moments where the tension in his family becomes obvious. Little swells or comments that bring up a sour or shameful memory that cannot be ignored. Moments when the air thickens and it feels like the hammer is about to come down. It never does though. The tension, rather than snapping, simply fades away.

He’d expected everything to blow up for some reason. Kei had expected that, like his childhood, the restaurant dishes would end up smashed on the floor. The glassware always ended up broken in the house, why shouldn’t they be broken here to shatter the illusion of things being good? He braces himself for a ball that never drops.

It takes him until the ride home, after a successful dinner, to realize that the dishes haven’t been smashed in years. Not since he was fourteen and his parents fought for custody. Not since his mother got remarried to her now husband almost 6 years ago and his father met his new wife. Kei wonders why he still feels like he lives in that house. The one his parents were at their worst in. Why can’t he feel like he lives in the apartment he rents with Tadashi?

“I think that went well,” you say softly on the drive back.

Kei nods his agreement. “I think so too.”

You don’t bring up the fact that they didn’t fight, or that they spoke about their new kids with each other as if they were old friends. You don’t accuse Kei of being wrong, of being paranoid even though he most definitely was.

“I’m glad that I got to meet them,” you say. “You look so much like your mom.”

“Really?” Kei asks.

“Yeah, you’ve got her eyes and her nose,” you smile a little. “It makes you two look similar.”

“Huh,” he says. “I never really gave that much thought.”

Kei turns the idea that he has his mother’s face over in his head. He’d spent so much time dreading that he was like them on the inside, that he never paused to consider the outside. So much of his life has been spent worrying that he’s just like them. That he breaks the plates and lashes out and acts cruelly even when he’s trying to love. But he has his mother’s eyes and for some reason that unsettles him. It’s like evidence.

“You don’t really act like them though,” you say as if on cue. “You’re a little gentler.”

“Me? Gentle?” Kei scoffs.

“Yeah!” you say. “I mean, sure you’re prickly, but there’s a goodness to you that’s really obvious if you look.”

Goodness. What a strange word to use to describe someone. Kei thinks that if there’s any goodness in him, if there’s anything that hasn’t been tainted by his parents’ sour personalities, it’s from Akiteru. Kei likes to believe that whatever good he got was from him. No matter how strained his relationship with him might be now, Kei is certain of that.

“That’s a relief,” he admits in a flat tone.

After a long pause, he speaks again. “Thanks.”

“For what?” You laugh.

“Bearing with me… and with them,” he says. “Couldn’t have been easy.”

“It was easy,” you say. “Because I wanted to meet them. And I care about you.”

Kei feels color rise to his cheeks. He turns to look in the sideview mirrors as he pulls the car into a parking spot in his apartment complex’s garage.

“You say that stuff so easily,” he huffs.

“What? That I care about you?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I do,” you laugh a little.

Kei’s face grows hotter and he distracts himself by putting the car into park and taking the key out of the ignition.

“Me too,” he says quietly, waiting for you to catch up so that he can take your hand in his. “Sorry that I don’t say it a lot.”

“Not to be rude,” you say, “but even if you never said it at all, it would be obvious. You’re kind of a sucker.”

Kei supposes that that’s true and he gives a small laugh before nudging your shoulder with his. The parking garage is humid and stuffy, but he holds your hand in it anyway.

—

You’re half asleep in bed beside him and your breathing comes in even sweeps the way it does just before you fall asleep. Kei listens to it for a moment, admiring the sound of it and the way your chest feels expanding against his.

He thinks about dinner, about how good it feels to have introduced you. How real it makes this relationship feel despite the uneasiness surrounding his familial situation. Kei thinks about his parents. He thinks about their inability to be good for each other. He thinks about the worst of them, something he’s familiar with, before thinking about the best of them. Kei imagines the way their faces looked at dinner, talking about the children they’re raising properly. They’re good people, they just made each other bad. Molecular shifts that changed them for the worst. The notebook theory in its most frightening form. But they were good too.

Kei thinks about loving you. His reluctance to do so originally isn’t quite beyond him yet. He’s unsure, in fact, if he’ll ever really get past the fear of the fall, the fear of becoming what his parents made each other. But he also thinks about his promise to love you for real. Love is not something that Kei does. He knows now that it's something that happens to him, like it happened to his parents. They loved each other once, even if it made them so blind that they couldn’t see just how bad it made them.

Kei still resents the fact that he was born to fix a marriage that never would have worked in the first place. He resents being a fix rather than a gift, but at the very least, his existence is proof that his parents cared enough about their family to try. Even if it was misguided, at least they tried even a little.

In the quiet after of an emotionally charged evening, loving you seems like an easier task for him now. It’s not hard to love you. What’s hard, Kei thinks, is not hurting you. He carries a lot of baggage that, for a long while, felt like too much. Kei thinks he can manage if it’s for you. He’ll bear the brunt of it. He’ll put in the work.

Yes, Kei is his parents’ son, but he’s also Tadashi’s friend, Akiteru’s brother, the person who loves you. He doesn’t live in the house with a bin full of shards and no glassware anymore.

“Are you awake?” He whispers across the pillow.

“Mhm,” you hum, pushing your cheek into his arm.

“Let’s move in together,” he says.

You tense against him and slowly attempt to blink away sleep. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure,” he responds. “I want to live with you.”

“Okay then,” you smile a little. “Let’s do it.”

—

In the fall, when his lease with Tadashi ends and his friend gives him a tearful, yet somewhat silly goodbye, Kei moves into your new shared apartment. Two small rooms in a modest part of town, a shared kitchen and living room, one bathroom, a mismatch of furniture from both of your old places, and an empty fridge. The first night is spent eating take out on the floor with you in front of a TV with no proper stand. Kei has never been happier.

And in the morning, when the sun comes through the slats of his window, broken up into gentle dots by the orange-leaved trees outside, Kei rises slowly. He rises gently. Kei doesn’t want to wake you, not before he’s made breakfast. He pads out to the kitchen, where boxes are strewn about, half unpacked, and grabs the little brown notebook from the box it’s been temporarily living in. In it, he writes a grocery list full of the things you like. It’s a good enough reason, a good enough change.

The notebook theory.

#tsukishima x reader #tsukishima kei x reader #tsukishima x reader smut #tsukishima kei x reader smut #hq x reader #tsukishima smut #tsukishima kei smut #tsukishima kei fic #[ 📕 – writing ]#she is finally finished i hope u enjoy and that u find it romantic and fulfilling #tw: overstimulation #i may add more warnings and such if i remember to #and pls lmk if i forgot any

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