summary: in which you got yourself tangled up with geum seongje. at first, it was trouble. then, it became routine. until, somehow, you became the only thing he would bleed for—willingly, violently, without regret.
pairing: geum seongje x fem!reader
genre: romance, hurt/comfort, angst
word count: 6.2k
playlist: he was chaos, he was revelry
last.
you were crouched by the side of a quiet alley behind a convenience store, setting down a paper plate with tuna and a cup of water. a tiny stray kitten had been hanging around there lately, mistrustful, but hungry. you've seen it a few times and started bringing food when you pass by.
the kitten was peeking out from under a box, inching closer. you kept still, one hand out, speaking low and soft.
then, there was a crash. a loud bang echoed from farther down the alley, and the sound of something—someone—getting slammed into a wall.
the kitten bolted instantly, disappearing into a gap between buildings.
you groaned under your breath, standing up with an irritated huff. not only did it startle the kitten, but it also startled you. you almost stumbled from the shock of the loud noise, your heart pounding rapidly.
"what the hell..." you stepped a little farther out to see the source, and then you saw him. a tall guy, maroon uniform jacket slipping off one shoulder, face stretched, hair a mess. bloodied knuckles and eyes wild.
he wasn't from your school. and by the looks of it, his opponent was already down. two more stood at a distance, too afraid to move.
the man lifted his head once, cracking his neck. then his eyes landed on you. you didn't flinch. just stared with narrowed eyes.
"go start your fight somewhere else," you said evenly. "you're not from around here."
he raised his brows and stared like he hadn't heard you right. then he smiled, crooked and wild. the kind that says, 'you've just made things interesting.'
you turned your back on him and walked off, not giving him another glance.
he stared after you. not many people talked to him like that. even fewer walked away before he decided the conversation was over.
you didn't run, but didn't linger either. just walked like you had somewhere to be, like he wasn't worth wasting another second on.
his eyes remained on you, tongue pressed against the inside of his cheek. a faint cut on his knuckle stung, but barely noticed.
'go start your fight somewhere else.'
'you're not from around here.'
not a scream. not a plea. not even a threat. just pure irritation. like he was some dumb dog that pissed on your shoes.
his grin curled slowly, something unhinged hiding just beneath it. he pulled a cigarette from his pocket, stuck it between his teeth, and lit it. the flame briefly flickered across his face before he took a drag and blew the smoke out lazily.
he'd seen people cry, scream, and beg. he'd seen how most people either froze or ran when they saw him, faces tight with fear, eyes darting around. but you?
you looked at him like he was an eyesore.
his laugh came quiet. brief. half-laugh, half-breath.
feeding a stray cat, he thought, like it was some ridiculous joke the universe threw at him. you looked too soft for your own good, too normal, too boring.
so why did you stick?
he leaned his shoulder against the wall, just for a second. watched the street where you disappeared. his blood was still warm from the fight, but that moment? that edge in your voice?
it was the first time he felt interrupted.
not threatened, not challenged. just... like someone reached into his noise and pulled something to the surface.
he didn't know your name. but that was fine. he had time.
it wasn't the next day, or the day after. but seongje still found himself wandering near that same alley. always around the same time. leaning against walls with a cigarette between his lips, smoke curling above his head like a restless thought that wouldn't burn out.
he wasn't waiting, he told himself. he just happened to be here, just passing time.
he was mid-drag when he caught a flash of familiar movement. dark hair, a recognizable bag slung over one shoulder. you were crouched near the alley's corner again, opening a can of tuna. next to your feet was the same stray kitten from before, now a little less wary, its ears twitching.
you didn't notice him at first. he said nothing.
he watched you feed the kitten. your expression wasn't anything special, just calm, focused, lips pressed together in a straight line. but he stared like it was the most peculiar thing in the world, like you were something unreal.
then you sighed and sat back on your heels, that's when your eyes flicked up, and landed right on him. you tensed slightly, like you were trying to figure out if it was him or just some other delinquent in a maroon uniform.
it was definitely him.
"you again? you muttered, standing slowly, brushing off your knees. "don't tell me you're here to start trouble again."
seongje let the cigarette dangle loosely between his fingers, gaze half-lidded. "don't flatter yourself. this is my spot now."
you snorted. "your spot? pretty sure this alley existed before you."
a grin pulled at his lips, slow and amused. that sharp glint in your eyes was still there. that same irritation, not fear, not interest. just a girl who didn't give a damn who he was.
"you always talk this much when feeding cats?" he asked.
"no. just when someone interrupts." he laughed, quiet but real.
you moved to step past him, clearly done with the conversation. but before you could, he flicked his cigarette to the ground and said slowly, "you don't scare easy, do you?"
you paused. "i don't like getting caught up in situations like this."
you walked off before he could say anything else. same calm steps. same complete disinterest in him. he stared at the kitten as it ate.
for the first time in a long while, he didn't feel bored.
you were coming out of the convenience store with a yogurt drink in hand when you felt someone matching your pace beside you.
you didn't even need to look. you felt it, like the air shifted, a shadow slipping in just a bit too close.
"miss cat-feeder," came the drawl, smug and lazy.
you rolled your eyes and kept walking. "seriously?"
"you remembered me," he said, hands in his pockets, leaning slightly sideways to peer at your face.
"no. i remembered your stupid voice."
"ouch," he grinned. "you wound me."
"what do you want?"
"just walking. not allowed to exist now?"
"not next to me, preferably." he chuckled at that, keeping stride with you anyway.
he walked like he owned the sidewalk, like even the cracks made space for him. he kept glancing at you, amused by how hard you were trying not to look.
"don't you have school?" you muttered.
"skipped."
"of course you did."
there was a beat of silence before he casually reached out and tugged at the hem of your sleeve. "what flavor?"
you jerked your arm away. "touch me again and i'll pour this on your head."
his grin widened, eyes gleaming with delight. there it is. "you're fun."
"i'm really not."
"exactly."
you stopped in your tracks. he looked at you, curious. "look," you said, eyes flat. "i don't like hanging out with loud people. so if you're looking for someone to flirt with, pick someone else."
seongje stared at you for a second, unreadable. then he smirked.
"i'm not flirting."
"good."
"i just like watching you get pissed." and with that, he turned on his heel and walked away, hands back in his pockets like he didn't just drop a live wire into your day.
you watched him go, jaw tight.
god, he is annoying.
and worse, he knew it.
your shoes pounded against the pavement, too loud, too fast. the voices behind you were still getting closer. slurred words, the kind that came with guys who had too much time and nothing to lose. you'd told them off when they first approached, sharp and dismissive like always. but these ones didn't like hearing 'no'.
you darted around a corner, trying to cut into a side street you didn't usually take, and slammed straight into a body.
you stumbled back from the force, hands catching yourself on the person's chest, eyes wide and breath caught in your throat.
"whoa there," a familiar voice started, light and teasing.
your eyes shot up.
geum seongje.
of all people.
he was in his usual disheveled uniform, cigarette tucked between his fingers, a faint smirk already creeping up like instinct. "you really can't stay away from me, huh?"
but you weren't listening. you glanced over your shoulder, eyes scanning the street you just came from, anxiety tightening your features.
seongje's smirk faded, just a bit. his eyes narrowed.
"what happened?"
"none of your business. i need to go."
you stepped to the side, trying to move past him but his arm shot out fast, catching you by the wrist. not hard. not enough to hurt. but firm.
his voice lost all its humor.
"who."
you jerked against his grip, frustrated. "just let me go. jesus christ."
he didn't. instead, his eyes flicked toward the corner you came from. and for a brief second, something flickered through him, that thing he tried to keep under the surface unless it was time to let it loose.
then he heard footsteps and voices getting closer. the guys rounded the corner, laughing, loud, eyes scanning.
and then they saw you.
and then him.
one of them started to speak, some dumb threat halfway out of his mouth when seongje stepped forward and flicked his cigarette.
"alright," he said, eyes gleaming now. "which one of you thought chasing her was a good idea?" his tone didn't rise. he didn't shout. but it was enough.
the shift in the air was immediate, like a wire pulled taut. the guys slowed, uneasy.
"you with her?" one of them muttered, trying to size him up. seongje's lip curled in amusement.
"nah," he said, rolling his shoulder. "but she ran into me. so now you've got a problem."
one of them laughed nervously, already starting to backpedal. but it was too late.
you didn't say a word. his posture changed, loose and wild, but sharp, like the crackle before a fire starts.
"stay behind me," he muttered without looking at you. you almost snapped at him.
i didn't ask for help.
but something in the way he said it—flat, final—made you stay put.
he didn't do it for gratitude. he did it because someone pissed him off. and right now, that someone was anyone who looked at you wrong.
they didn't get the chance to react further. not really, because seongje's already on them.
the first one barely managed to raise his arm before seongje slammed his fist into his jaw, the sound cracking through the alley like a gunshot. he didn't stop, he grabbed the guy by the collar, slamming his head against the wall once, twice, three times until he crumpled like dead weight.
the second guy tried to pull something, maybe a pocketknife, but he was too slow. seongje grabbed his wrist and bended it the wrong way with a sickening snap. the guy howled, dropping the knife, and seongje grinned wider.
the last one tried to run. he got maybe five steps before seongje tackled him from behind, dragging him down like a wolf ripping through prey. there was nothing clean about the way he beat him. just pure rage unleashed in fists, knees, elbows, and feet.
the alley was quiet again. the three guys were groaning, two on the ground and one stumbling away. none of them dared to look back.
seongje stood in the center of it, breathing a little heavier, the scrape on his knuckles raw and fresh. blood trickled slowly down his arm, but he didn't seem to care. not even a glance at it.
you stared. not because you were scared of the violence. you'd known what he was capable of. you'd just never seen it up close. not like this.
there was a kind of stillness around him now, but it wasn't peace. it was the kind of stillness right after lightning hits the ground. charged, dangerous, humming under the surface.
he turned toward you, running a hand through his hair. eyes sharper now, less unhinged than before, but still wild.
"you good?" you hesitated.
"you didn't have to do that." he shrugged.
"i didn't do it for you." you frowned, annoyed.
"then why-"
"they looked at you like they could touch you," he said, voice low and quiet. "i didn't like that."
it came out too calm. like he was just stating a fact. like it was that simple.
you stared at him. "that's not normal."
he tilted his head. "i'm not normal."
you stood there in the silence again, tension thick between you both. then he looked down at his hand, flexed his fingers once.
"you gonna keep staring, or you gonna say thank you?"
you exhaled sharply. "i didn't ask you to help."
his lip twitched. "you didn't have to."
you started walking past him, brushing your shoulder lightly against his arm. "don't follow me."
he didn't. but he watched you go. watched like a wolf who'd just caught the scent of something that didn't run fast enough.
and this time, it wasn't about teasing you for attention anymore. it was something else. something worse.
something's changed. it had been days. you hadn't seen him near the alley, near the store, nowhere. and honestly, you were glad. the fight had left a sour taste in your mouth. not fear exactly, but it reminded you of the line he walked. the kind of line that most people never went near.
so when you saw him again leaning against the vending machine right outside the store, your steps faltered.
he noticed, eyes tracking you immediately. not grinning, not talking. just watching.
you stiffened, but kept walking. no use turning back now. you passed him without a word.
"you're avoiding me," he said. you didn't stop. "smart," he added after a beat.
that did it. you turned slightly, arms crossed, tone flat. "what do you want now?"
he looked you over, slower this time. less playful. like he was measuring something invisible.
"you said don't follow you," he said. "so i didn't."
"and yet, here you are."
"i was here first."
you hated that he had a point.
he pulled out a soda from the vending machine and cracked it open, taking a lazy sip. "i scared you."
"no you didn't."
his head tilted. "but you looked at me different after that day." you didn't reply. "you don't like people like me," he went on. "you don't like what i do. the way i fight. the way i look at you."
your throat tightened. "you make it sound like i'm supposed to like it."
he smiled, small, almost secret. "you're not."
you sighed and turned away again, but this time, his voice became lower. less teasing.
"you're not scared of me," he said. "but you're careful now." you paused. "i get it," he added. "but you should know something."
"what?" you asked warily.
"i'd kill for you without thinking."
the words didn't sound romantic. they didn't even sound intense. they were just real.
heavy. simple. dangerous.
you looked at him. at the bruised knuckles, the lazy posture, the eyes that never stopped watching you. and for the first time, you didn't see an annoying prick. you saw the storm behind his grin.
you didn't say a word as you walked away. but you walked slower this time.
the sky was gray, and the wind carried that dry chill that always came with autumn.
you didn't mean to come this way. really, you didn't. but this street was quieter than the main road, and your head was already aching from a whole day of voices, noise, and pressure from everyone around you.
your friends had found out. not just about anyone, but him. a certain delinquent hanging around you. not just anyone either, but someone from the union.
they kept telling you the same thing. stop meeting him, cut him off, stay away before things got worse. that's all you've been hearing for days. from different mouths, but the same message, over and over. as if you hadn't thought about that already. like you hadn't been trying.
you were tired. bone-deep, soul tired.
and there he was.
same place. same vending machine. like he'd been waiting, but not really. like he knew you'd come eventually.
seongje glanced up, surprised, but only a little. his cigarette burned lazily between his fingers, his jacket loose, like he didn't care how cold it was getting.
you stopped a few steps away and didn't say anything.
he raised a brow. "lost?"
"no," you said, too flat, too fast.
he stared. then blew out smoke in a low exhale. "you look like shit."
you snorted faintly. "thanks."
he nodded toward the chair beside him. "sit if you want."
"i didn't come to hang out with you."
"didn't say you did."
still, you sat. not close, just near enough to feel the warmth of someone else existing beside you. near enough to not feel completely alone. you stayed like that for a while. nothing said.
then, without looking at him, you muttered, "why are you like this?"
his brow quirked. "like what?"
"crazy. violent. all of it."
a beat. then a shrug. "it's fun."
you sighed, frustrated but not surprised.
and then, so softly that he almost didn't hear it, you said, "you make everything worse. but today... i don't know. you don't feel loud." that caught him off guard.
he turned to look at you, cigarette paused halfway to his lips.
you didn't meet his eyes. you just sat there, face turned to the street. like this, quiet and tired and not trying to prove anything, you looked different.
more fragile. not weak, never that. but human.
seongje flicked his ash away. "stay, then," he said. "if it helps."
you didn't answer. but you didn't leave either. and for once, he didn't push you to speak. he just let you be. which, for someone like him, was a kind of affection.
the unspoken kind.
the kind that doesn't ask for anything back.
another day, and there he was again. it wasn't often that you saw him alone like this. really alone. no noise. no laughter. no fights.
just seongje, slouched low on the steps behind an old building, elbows on his knees, head tilted back like he was trying to drown in the grey sky. he didn't notice you at first, too wrapped in whatever chaos lived behind his eyes.
you should've kept walking. you meant to keep walking. but something stopped you. maybe it was the stillness. maybe it was the fact that for the first time since you met him, he didn't look like someone trying to stir shit up. he looked tired.
you approached slowly, footsteps soft. he heard you eventually, turning just slightly to glance your way. his usual grin didn't show up.
"you stalking me now?" he said, voice low, like he couldn't be bothered to make it sound playful.
"i was just walking by."
"uh-huh."
you didn't sit beside him. you stood a little off to the side, arms folded, eyes scanning his face. there was a bruise on his cheekbone, not fresh but healing, and a split on his lower lip.
"what happened this time?"
"some idiot." he muttered. "deserved worse than what he got."
you rolled your eyes. "that doesn't narrow it down."
he smirked faintly. but it didn't last. he looked back up at the sky. "ever feel like you're stuck in a room that's too small, and the only way to breathe is to break something?"
you blinked. that wasn't the answer you expected. you said nothing.
he let out a low breath. "yeah. never mind."
you hesitated, then stepped closer. not sitting, just standing near him.
"i don't get you." you said finally.
"good."
"but i care."
that made him look at you again. not with that lazy, cocky grin. not with the sharp glint he gave the people he was about to wreck.
just... eyes. dark, unreadable, confused.
"you care?" he repeated, almost mocking, but there was no real heat in it.
you nodded. "i don't want to, but i do."
the silence that followed was heavier than anything he could've said.
you rubbed at your sleeve, eyes darting away. "it's stupid."
he stared a second longer, then tilted his head. "i'm not gonna be good for you," he said flatly. no apology in it. just fact.
"i know."
"i'll hurt people."
"i know."
"i might hurt you."
your gaze snapped back to his. "then i'll leave."
a pause.
and for the first time, his expression shifted, something sharp flickering behind his eyes, like the idea of you leaving physically bothered him.
but you held his stare. "i don't deserve to be hurt by you."
he didn't answer. when you turned to go, he didn't stop you. he didn't grab your wrist. he didn't make a scene. he just watched you leave like someone who'd been left too many times before to call out now.
and that was how you knew it wasn't just some sort of game to him anymore.
it was supposed to be just another normal day. you were going to meet up with a friend from a different school. but somehow, word got around that you'd said something snappy to the wrong group of boys the other day, boys who thought they could intimidate you into taking it back. you didn't.
but now they were standing in front of you in the alley near the rear exit of the building. three of them, too close, too smug, and too stupid to understand that they were walking into something far worse than your sharp tongue.
because seongje had seen.
he wasn't supposed to be there. you didn't even know why he was around this part of the city. but the second his eyes locked on the scene, on you cornered, arms crossed tightly, jaw clenched, something dark lit behind his expression.
he didn't run. he didn't shout. he just walked, calm as anything, like he had all the time in the world. the sound of his steps echoing on the pavement made all three boys turn.
"oi," he said, voice low and slow.
the boys stiffened. one of them scoffed. "the hell are you?"
seongje grinned cockily. "me? i'm geum seongje. you dumb fucks."
his name dropped like a dead weight. the air shifted. one of them paled a little, while another took an unconscious step back.
"oh—shit—" one of them muttered under his breath, recognizing it too late.
then his eyes flickered to you. "you okay?"
you swallowed. "i've got it."
"wrong answer."
he passed the boys like they weren't even there, stepping between them and you, like drawing a line they couldn't cross anymore.
"you wanna explain why the hell you're trying to corner mine?"
the word slipped out like instinct. your breath caught.
the boys hesitated. one of them backed up. the dumbest one laughed nervously.
"you serious, man? you dating this chick or something?"
seongje didn't answer right away. instead, he pulled out his glasses, the metal catching the light for a second. then, without a word, he took your hand gently, almost unnervingly so, and placed them in your palm.
"i don't repeat myself."
and that was the only warning they got. it wasn't a fight. it was a statement.
a clear, brutal, one-sided reminder that you were off-limits. that if they so much as looked at you again, they'd wake up in pieces.
he didn't let it last long. he didn't need to.
when it was over, and the three of them were groaning on the pavement, he turned to you, no grin now, just quiet breathing. without a word, he took the glasses from your hand and slid them back on.
"you didn't need to do that," you said quietly.
"they shouldn't have looked at you like they could."
"that's not how this works."
he glanced at you, sharp. "it is now."
you looked away, jaw tight. "you act like i'm yours."
another beat of silence. the only sound was the wind through rusted fences. and then,
"you are," he said simply.
you stared at him, your heart thudded too loud.
"you can't just—claim people."
"i can."
"why?" he held your gaze, something unreadable flickering in his.
"you're the only thing i don't want broken."
he said it like it bothered him. like the truth of it irritated the hell out of him.
you didn't know what to say. so you didn't. you just walked beside him as he left the alley, silent. but this time, you stayed close.
and this time, he didn't grin. he just walked with you like he always meant to.
the day had been long. longer than you thought it would be. school, people, life. everything felt suffocating. your body ached, your mind was frayed, and every little thing seemed to pile on top of you until you could barely keep your head above water.
but then, through the haze of exhaustion, you saw him.
seongje, leaning against your school gate. unbothered and detached. his posture was casual, his eyes scanning the crowd of students coming out of school. but the moment your gaze locked onto him, your heart gave a small jolt of relief.
there. him. the one person who, for reasons you still couldn't fully understand, made you feel safe. your body seemed to move on its own, your feet carrying you toward him without a second thought.
and then before you could even process what you were doing, you were already running toward him, arms outstretched, chest tight from the strain of everything you'd been holding inside all day.
the moment you reached him, you didn't stop. you wrapped your arms around him, burying your face against his chest.
you hummed. the noise was quiet, like a soft sigh of contentment, and for the first time all day, your muscles finally relaxed.
his scent, the familiar warmth of him, it was like home. a feeling you hadn't known you were missing until it was there, pressing against you in a way you couldn't explain.
for a split second, everything felt peaceful. you could rest now. let everything melt away. with him, it felt like nothing else mattered.
seongje froze. his first instinct was to step back, to pull away, because this wasn't how things were supposed to be. but when you stayed against him, not saying anything, just holding him like he was the only thing keeping you grounded, something inside him twisted.
what the hell?
he couldn't breathe for a second. your arms around him, your face buried against him like you needed him. like he was something more than just some crazy bastard. he didn't know what to do with it.
you were so soft against him. so warm. his heartbeat, which had been steady, quickened as your arms tightened just slightly. and his body, despite the automatic urge to pull away, instinctively responded, his hands hovering at his sides, unsure of where to put them, but not wanting to make you pull away.
his reaction was slow. he was staring down at you, his usual detached expression gone, replaced with a mix of confusion and something closer to... discomfort. he didn't know how to handle it.
finally, after what felt like an eternity, he placed his hand awkwardly on your back, barely enough to return the gesture, but it was something. just a gentle pressure, like he was trying to let you know he wasn't going to push you away. but he wouldn't pull you in either. not fully.
his voice came out rough, not because he was angry, but because he didn't have the words to make sense of what was happening. "you... okay?" he asked, his voice low. it was like he was trying to understand you better. trying, in his strange way, to care.
and when you hummed again, your body still pressed against him like you needed nothing more, he couldn't deny the warmth that spread through him. subtle, but undeniable.
he didn't say anything else, but he did one thing he never thought he would. he let you stay there, his hand still on your back, just enough to show that maybe, just maybe, he didn't mind you being this close.
thoughts had been swirling around your head. people already knew who you were, and the kind of connection you had with geum seongje. you'd been hearing disapproving remarks from people you knew, left and right.
but that wasn't what was bothering you. it was when one of your friends asked, "when did you even start dating geum seongje?"
you didn't know how to answer that. you weren't dating. were you even together? you'd been so focused on how you felt about him, so content with the time you were spending together, that you'd forgotten to ask the most important question.
where do you stand in his life?
so you finally asked, quietly. on a cold night, after one of his disappearances. you looked at him and said, "what are we, seongje?"
he didn't look at you right away. he just lit a cigarette, sat back like you didn't just ask something that's clawing at your ribs.
then, after a long pause, he said, "you don't need a label for something i'd kill over."
still too vague. so you pressed. "so that's it? you can show up and disappear and wreck people and i'm just... what? someone you know?"
now he's irritated. not because you're wrong, but because his feelings itch under his skin worse than blood.
he dragged you close by the wrist, eyes burning, voice low and rough. "you're mine. you're not like the others. you don't walk away from me. and i'll kill anyone who touches you."
it became even clearer in actions. he doesn't flirt with others. he doesn't sleep around. he shows up when you're hurt, when you need help, or even just when the silence gets too heavy. his violence becomes more controlled around you. his chaos pauses for you.
and if you ever try to walk away, not out of fear, but heartbreak, he doesn't beg. but he follows.
he shows up in the dark and says, "you don't get to leave. you're the only thing i don't want to break."
so no, you don't get a title. but you get certainty. the kind that claws into you and never lets go.
you were at seongje's place, curled up in the corner of his bed, wearing one of his hoodies, watching something on your phone. occasionally, you laughed, your brow twitching, your mouth tugging in little ways. you probably didn't know he was watching.
he was sitting on the floor, leaning back against the wall. a cigarette rested between his fingers, forgotten halfway through.
it should've been just another moment. just another afternoon with you near. that's all it was. but it wasn't.
something cracked. it was quiet. internal. sudden.
he looked at you, really looked, and it hit him like a pipe to the chest. he'd always known you were different.
you didn't scream like the world did, you didn't beg to get closer to him, or flinch when he tore the world apart with his bare hands. you didn't reach to fix what couldn't be fixed.
you just were. and he couldn't fucking breathe.
he'd thought what he felt for you was already obsession. he thought the way he needed you around—the way his days didn't start right unless he saw your face—was already too much.
but this? right now? it was worse.
because you weren't even doing anything. you were just there, in his space like you belonged. and he couldn't stand it.
he didn't blink, didn't move. his heart was beating too fast, too heavy. like it was trying to get out of his chest, like it was trying to claw its way toward you.
you looked up at him, catching the stare.
"what?" you asked, your voice soft, lazy with comfort.
that was the final hit. his cigarette dropped to the floor. he stood and crossed the room in two strides.
you blinked and sat up, shifting to the edge of the bed. confused, then mildly concerned, because he wasn't saying anything. just looking at you like he was on the edge of something ugly.
"what is it?" you asked again.
he dropped to his knees in front of you, hands braced on the mattress like it was the only thing keeping him grounded.
"you," he muttered, low, dangerous, barely holding back the quake in his chest. "you don't even fucking know, do you."
you blinked in confusion, "know what?"
"that i'm already gone."
he leaned in close, breath warm against your skin. his hands were clenched on the sheets beside your thighs.
"i didn't think it could get worse," he said, tone ragged. "but it did. just now. just looking at you."
"seongje-"
he didn't let you finish. his voice came out lower. hoarser.
"i'd burn down everything. rip open anyone. just to keep this. you. whatever the fuck this is—"
he pressed his forehead against your knee. his voice dropped, barely a whisper now, like it hurt him to say.
"—it's mine."
your fingers moved before your words did. you reached out, slow and certain, and slipped your hand into his hair, like you knew something inside him was coming apart at the seams, and you needed to keep it from unraveling further.
you didn't flinch. didn't pull away from the sharpness in his voice or the weight behind his words.
instead, you curled your fingers gently against his scalp and said, soft but steady, "you don't have to break things just to prove you want to keep me. i'm not going anywhere."
that did something to him. his breath hitched, quiet, jaw clenched. you didn't treat his madness like something to be pitied or feared. you didn't try to fix it. you didn't flinch from the wreckage. you just understood it was there and touched it anyway.
his arms wrapped around your waist almost without thinking, head still pressed to your knee like it was the only place he could breathe.
then you said it, quietly. not to tease, not to demand. just honest. like it had always been true.
"you are my home."
and that was the thing that shattered him. because he didn't have a home. not really, never did. he was a creature built from chaos and flame and blood. the idea that someone could look at him and find rest?
it wrecked him in a way no fist ever could. his grip tightened. not out of fear of you leaving. but because you just gave him something he didn't know he'd been starving for all his life. and now that he had it, he'd kill the whole world before he let it go.
he didn't know what to say yet. so when you gently pulled him toward the bed, he didn't resist. he didn't say something cocky or crass like he usually would. he just let you.
you lay down first, guiding him beside you. he collapsed next to you like a man thrown off balance. arms still around your waist, his head buried against the curve of your neck. as if he could crawl inside your skin just to get closer.
your fingers ran through his hair, slow, rhythmic, soothing. the storm inside him didn't vanish, but it quieted. simmered.
your voice cut through the quiet, soft and careful. "do you love me?"
he froze. he didn't pull away, but he did stop breathing for a second. his gaze locked on yours, heavy and unreadable. then he took a slow breath, jaw tightening.
love? what the hell was that supposed to feel like? that was too unfamiliar. too soft.
he didn't know. he'd never had it. not from anyone. not for anyone. all he'd ever known was survival, pleasure, and pain. wanting things so badly he broke them just to feel something. hurting because it was the only way to know he was alive.
but this? this thing in his chest, this raw, aching, burning thing that only grew worse the longer you touched him, it was something else.
so he didn't lie. he didn't pretend. he spoke against your skin, voice hoarse and quiet.
"i don't know what love is. but i know i can't fucking stand the thought of you not being here."
another breath. he pulled you closer.
"you're the only thing that makes me feel calm and insane at the same time. you—" he exhaled, shaky now, like it hurt to say, "—you make me feel too much. and i can't stop it."
his fingers dug into the back of your shirt. possessive. desperate.
"i don't know if it's love, but i know this—you're mine. you've been mine since the moment i saw you. doesn't matter if you run, or scream, or try to tear me out of your chest. you're still mine."
"you're the air that i breathe," he said, voice dropping to a whisper, like a confession no one else was meant to hear. "and i'd tear the world apart to keep you. no hesitation. no mercy."
"when i look at you, it hurts." he said. "but i want that hurt. over and over again. you're the only thing i'd bleed for without thinking twice."
he let the silence stretch, like he wanted the weight of his words to press against you. crush you, mark you, bind you to him in the only way he knew how.
it was not a confession, but a surrender.
your chest tightened. your eyes stung. and you hated that they did, because you weren't sad. you weren't broken.
you were just... full. full of him. of this.
a shaky breath escaped you as you cupped his face, your thumb brushing just beneath his eye, like you needed to touch something solid to believe any of this was real.
you smiled. small, trembling, but true.
"whatever it is you feel for me, let it consume you." your voice was steady, despite the trembling in your chest. "break for me. burn only for me. want no one else—because i don't want anyone but you."
he stared at you like you'd just taken the air out of his lungs.
"i don't care if it's wrong, or selfish, or if the world thinks i've lost my mind." your hand slid back into his hair gently. "you're mine, geum seongje. just as much as i'm yours."
his hands were already on your waist, but they tightened at those words, like something inside him finally snapped.
and he kissed you. it wasn't soft. it wasn't careful. it was desperate, like he needed to feel everything at once, like if he didn't press every inch of you into him, he might fall apart.
you kissed him back just as hard, just as aching, fingers curling in his hair like you could anchor the both of you with the weight of your want.
and in that moment, nothing else mattered.
not the danger in his eyes. not the chaos in his soul. not the way the world would look at you.
because you knew him. and you would choose him—still. every time.
for you, he would bleed himself dry a thousand times—willingly, completely, because he didn't know how not to.
You play a popular game you found on social media that you play with your partner, and you think it's the perfect way to get Seong-je's half-assed attention. One applies the chapstick, and the other must guess the flavor through a kiss.
Warnings: Language, nsfw content, fingering
Word Count: 1.3k
Notes: I'm currently working on requests! I've been gone for so long, but I promise I'll lock in now.
masterlist whc masterlist rules
Seong-je snuck through your window a little over two hours ago. He's leaned up against your headboard, one leg thrown over yours, while the other is propped up. He's currently playing on your console, curses quietly flowing past his lips as he mashes the buttons on your controller.
"Shit...little fucker is probably playing on his brother's account. We all know you aren't level 420, ugly little shit." he curses, eating the chocolate-covered acai and blueberries he got for you.
The reason why Seong-je was even over was because you had sent him a photo of a cute dress you had found at the thrift store. As pretty as it was, it was incredibly short. You thought that maybe if you provoked him, he'd come over and finally give you the attention you've been craving.
Instead, he's in your bed, eating the snacks he bought for you and playing on your console like a bum.
"Seong-je." you nudge him.
"Hm." he hums, not looking away from your TV.
You stare at him a little longer, waiting to see if he'd ask for the follow-up, but he was clearly occupied. You roll your eyes and lie on your side, turning away from him. You scroll on your phone, liking videos your friends had posted, when you remember why you invited him over.
You came across a cute trend where couples guess Chapstick flavors by kissing each other, taste-testing each flavor. You quickly sit back up, stretching your body over his lap as you reach into your bedside table. You pull out the chapstick packaging of several flavors you found at some cheap dollar store.
Right as Seong-je finishes his game, you face him, sitting with your legs crossed. You push the chapstick into his hands.
Seong-je looks down at his lap, thinking you got him a gift, only to see the cheap knock-off brands of chapstick. Hershey, Skittles, Strawberry, Cola, etc.
"What are you, a kid? What is this?" he tears the packaging open, picking up the Redbull flavor. "This is the equivalent of when you go shopping at Bath and Body Works and only get those nasty food-scented perfumes."
You frown. "You told me you liked my strawberry poundcake."
"I lied."
You gather the tiny cylinders in your hands, putting them in your lap.
"I wanna play the Chapstick game. I saw it on TikTok." you urge.
Seong-je thinks for a second before he nods once. "The game where you guess all the flavors and shit? I've seen that before."
"Yes!" you exclaim excitedly. "Okay, so you know the rules. Come on, put that down. Let's play."
He sighs, placing your controller down and sitting up. "Alright, Princess. Let's play."
"I'm going first. Close your eyes!"
The edge of Seong-je's mouth quirks up into a smirk as he reluctantly shut his eyes. You pick a random flavor in the pile of many flavors, lathering your lips with it.
"Okay, open!"
He opens his eyes. Now, to guess. He leans in, tilting your chin upwards towards him. His lips meet yours, prompting your eyes to close in bliss. He deepens the kiss, his tongue swiping against your bottom lip before he abruptly pulls back.
"That shit tastes like lizard ankles."
You laugh, concealing the true flavor in your clenched hand.
"No, that's not a guess."
He leans back, wiping his mouth. "That's got to be like, slime or something."
"It's Sprite."
"That was sprite...?" he asked in disbelief, looking at the flavor you presented to him.
"Okay, it's your turn. Pick one." You close your eyes, waiting patiently.
You can hear Seong-je rustling through the flavors before finally picking one. He doesn't tell you he's done, nor does he tell you to open your eyes. He just slams his lips against yours, pushing you down towards the bed. You let out an involuntary moan, hand sliding up his chest as you try to taste the flavor on his lips.
Seong-je's teeth bite down on your tongue, causing you to gasp out in pain. He smiles down at you, relishing in the pain he inflicted on you. You look up at him through your lashes, licking your lips, trying to taste the flavor.
"Is it...Cola?"
Seong-je gave you a tight-lipped smile, shaking his head. He placed his hand on your chest, squeezing your breast shamelessly.
"Nope. That's wrong, Princess." his hand trails down. "For every answer you get wrong, my hand will go lower."
Your breath hitches in your throat as you feel his large, calloused hand slide down your stomach.
"Liquorice?" you guess, rubbing your thighs together.
"Nope." he huffs, hand now rubbing your lower belly. "One more guess."
"Pepsi?"
Seong-je sighs, giving you a moment to process the silence before slipping his hand past the waistband of your underwear.
"Three guesses, and you got them all wrong, Baby." he smiles, palm sliding down your freshly shaven skin. "You've lost."
You let out a whimper, wrapping your hand around the wrist of the hand buried in your underwear. His lips find your neck, his free hand angling your head backwards.
"This isn't...fair," you protest. "This isn't how you play the game."
Seong-je's kisses turned into nips as his fingers found their way towards your entrance. His free hand hooks underneath your knee, spreading your legs so he'd have more access.
His fingers, playing in your heat, finally dip into your aching entrance, relieving you of the emptiness that had been bothering you all day. You gasp, burying your mouth in the palm of your hand. He must've forgotten your parents are still home.
You grind your hips against his hand as his fingers curl against your g-spot, rolling your eyes to the back of your head.
"Right there," Seong-je speaks to himself, making a mental note of where you like it best.
The rolls of chapstick were long forgotten, some across your floor after they had rolled off the bed. You were hot, and the room felt like it was closing in on you with each passing minute. You clench around his fingers, embarrassed that it didn't take you long to get close.
"Already?" he laughs, his other hand gripping your knee, making sure you kept your legs spread, while the other pumped two fingers inside of you. "That's even quicker than last time."
Your face flushed with a mix of embarrassment and pleasure. Your whimpers progressed into moans as each pump brought you closer to the edge, and it didn't help that he added another finger.
The hallway light flickered on, followed by the sounds of footsteps. Your parents.
"Honey?" your mother's voice calls out, startling you. "Are you still awake?"
Your body goes stiff at the sound of her voice. You try to get Seong-je to stop, but a wicked grin formed on his face. He curled his three fingers around your weak spot, making your back arch.
"Careful now," Seong-je warns with that shit-eating grin. "Don't wanna be too loud, now do we?"
You stare at your boyfriend in betrayal, coughing in your hand to mask a moan.
"I was studying, Mom. I'm going to bed now." You lie easily.
The light eventually shuts off, making your body relax. You're filled with ecstasy and relief as you clench around him, feeling the knot tie in your lower belly. His fingers come to a slow stop, coated in your liquids.
You breathe heavily, chest heaving as the ceiling of your bedroom spins in your vision. While you slowly come back down to Earth, Seong-je rubs your thigh with his thumb, bringing his coated hand towards his mouth.
He sucks his fingers off, not once breaking his glare on you.
♡. 𝐒𝐲𝐧𝐨𝐩𝐬𝐲𝐬 : Oh Ser Jackson, his Majesty, son and prince of the enemy kingdom, marrying you? This had to be a horrifying nightmare orchestrated by the gods.
♡. enemies to lovers, royal AU, percy's pov over letters, arranged marriage, percy is downbad, wedding night, porn w plot, f! oral, spitting, p n clit sIapping, fíngering, pussiedrunk, virginity loss (both), mating presses, manhandIing, size difference, creampie.
For as long as history could remember, the Kingdom of Solis had never bowed to famine, plague or the old gods when they demanded blood from daughters and called it the supposed duty of women.
And certainly not to the seas.
Your kingdom stood where the sun touched first. At the highest crest of the southern cliffs, where the mountains broke into gold-veined stone and warm rivers ran like melted amber through the valleys below, Solis rose in white marble and sunlight. Its palace—Helion Keep—sat upon the highest point of the capital, carved into the mountain itself, where your family had decided it belonged accordingly.
From your chambers, the entire kingdom unfolded beneath you.
Terraced gardens spilled down the cliffs in levels of jasmine and ivory roses. Long bridges of pale stone connected towers crowned with the gold of the sun. Markets below shimmered with silks dyed saffron, crimson, and royal blue. Even the guards looked as though they had been painted there— with bronze armors polished beneath the afternoon and spears gleaming like second sons of the sun.
Nothing in Solis fitted the word subtle. Your mother used to say that subtlety was for kingdoms with something to hide.
Solis had power and power deserved spectacle.
Which was why your bedroom ceiling had been painted like the heavens themselves.
You stared at it now from your chaise lounge, one silk-slippered foot dangling over the edge, a book forgotten in your lap as your ladies fluttered uselessly around the room.
“My lady—” “No.”
“Just hear—” “No.”
Lyra, your longest-suffering handmaid, pinched the bridge of her nose.
“You have not even heard what I was going to say.”
“I know enough from your face to know I dislike it.”
“But my lady—.”
“Maybe I'll ask Father to cut off your head if you keep talking,” was your last reply before opening again the neglected book.
Beyond the open balcony doors, warm wind stirred the gauze curtains, carrying the scent of orange blossom from the lower gardens. Somewhere in the palace courtyard, musicians were rehearsing for the evening banquet.
As soon as your ears heard your mind translated it to nobles and diplomacy matters which = your father was about to ruin your day.
You sat upright. “Who has arrived?”
Lyra hesitated and immediately, your stomach dropped.
“My lady—”
In a second you were crawling between the no-longer-so-tidy sheets of your enormous bed, trying to escape any responsibility that might be placed on your shoulders that very night.
“Tell Father I have died.”
The door to your chambers opened.
Your father, King Helios III of Solis, entered with those golden robes that didn't help to walk, ceremonial rings and the expression of a ruler carrying the weight of six hundred years of war and at least three immediate headaches. (Mind you, you were one of them.)
“Father.” You said, voice muffled by the sheets.
He sat next to you, uncovering and holding your cheeks. “My sun flower.”
“Before we begin, I would like it noted that I may be against this conversation.”
“That saves us both time.”
Wasn't that wonderful? Your kind father wasn't going to torture you for long, only as long as necessary.
You narrowed your eyes. “Who is here?”
He did not answer, a bad sign already. Instead, he studied you with the same expression he wore over battlefield maps.
“The delegation from Atlantis arrived this morning.”
Your father continued, because tyranny now extended into parenting. “Their High Council has requested formal peace negotiations.”
“No.”
Well, that was your favorite word today, wasn't it?
“And proposed a political union between our kingdoms.”
His voice remained maddeningly calm but across the room, even Lyra looked like she wanted to flee.
Marriage to Atlantis.
To the kingdom that had spent centuries raiding your ports, destroying your fleets, and sending awful diplomats.
Your father stood by the open balcony doors, where the last of the evening light poured gold across the marble floor and turned the edges of his robes to fire, and for a long moment he said nothing at all, as though he were deciding which version of the truth a daughter deserved—the one told to princesses, fit for history books, or the one reserved for kings, heavy with graves and numbers and the kind of silence left behind after battlefields emptied.
You didn't need to hear the histories again.
For as long as memory had been kept in ink, the Kingdom of Solis and the Kingdom of Atlantis had belonged to one another only in violence.
No historian could agree upon where it had begun.
Some claimed it was the pride—that ancient kings, both too proud to bend and too convinced the gods themselves favored their bloodlines, had turned a bunch of differences into a holy inheritance of hatred. Others insisted it had been love, which was to your eyes eugh; a Solis princess promised to an Atlantean prince centuries ago, drowned before the wedding could take place, her death blamed upon betrayal, her body never returned. There were old songs still sung by servants in the lower kitchens that spoke of storms swallowing ships in mourning and the sea refusing to calm for an entire year.
Your tutors preferred politics.
Trade routes, they said, while pacing before maps stretched across classroom walls, fingers pressing into painted oceans and mountain borders. Salt and grain. Ports and taxes. Control of the eastern coast. Access to the southern straits. Men liked to call war honorable when it was always about ownership.
As a child, you had preferred the pride story. It felt more according to your personality .
Less pathetic than admitting entire kingdoms had slaughtered one another for generations over shipping rights or over the incident of a princess.
Regardless of how it had begun, by the time you were born, hatred was tradition and lived in the palace walls as naturally as sunlight did.
You learned it in stories told by your nursemaid while she brushed your hair before bed, tales of sea-born princes with smiles like sharpened knives and queens who lured sailors into drowning with songs sweet enough to make men forget they had lungs. Or in the way servants spat over their shoulders whenever Atlantean ambassadors were mentioned, as though the very name invited misfortune.
You learned it in your first history lessons, seated far too straight at ten years old while your instructor, old and severe and permanently offended by joy, pointed to battlefields on maps and recited casualty numbers as though they were scripture.
You too knew your great-uncle had died on the western fleet before you really understood what fleets were. You knew your grandmother still refused pearls because they reminded her of Atlantean royal gifts sent during failed negotiations thirty years before. You knew there were entire wings of the palace where portraits had been removed because the people in them had been lost to the war and your mother could not bear to look at the empty spaces their absence left behind.
Even celebration was about that hate.
Victory festivals filled the capital with gold banners and music and dancers in the streets, but always there was the undercurrent—that joy only existed because somewhere else, someone had been defeated.
Atlantis—always Atlantis—remained something distant and monstrous, less a kingdom and more a threat given architecture.
You imagined it often as a child.
Not as it truly was, but as children imagine enemies when they have only stories to build from. A place of endless storms and black oceans, where the sky was always bruised and the people had blue blood.
Their cities were rumored to be carved from the ocean floor itself, their palaces built into cliffs black with salt and age, their people born from sea water and tempers to match.
As a child, you had believed every ridiculous whisper.
That they slept in flooded chambers beneath the moon. That their royal family could call hurricanes with prayer alone. Even that if an Atlantean kissed your hand, your lungs would fill with seawater and scales would sprout all over your body!
You were embarrassingly old before you stopped half-believing Atlanteans did all this stuff.
Outside, a thunder rolled softly somewhere beyond the southern mountains.
Your father had been talking and you heard nothing, his hands clasped behind his back.
“The war has lasted longer than your grandmother’s reign. Our soldiers are exhausted. Trade routes are broken. We can't rebuild villages faster than they can be burned. Every season costs us more lives.”
You crossed your arms resigning yourself to listening to your father's words.
“And who, exactly, is the unfortunate sea creature demanding my hand?”
“Prince Perseus Jackson.”
Prince Perseus Jackson—the heir of Atlantis, called the Tide Prince by enemies and far less flattering names by your generals. Commander of fleets. Breaker of the Eastern Siege.
Oh merciful gods, this could still be a bad joke!
You had believed, with certainty at thirteen, that Prince Perseus had the head of a fish, and not in the metaphorical way.
You remembered announcing this with confidence at breakfast, explaining to your mother that it was the only reasonable explanation for why no formal portrait of him had ever reached Solis, and if the Sea Kingdom was so determined to hide their prince, clearly it was because he had scales and unblinking eyes and perhaps gills where a proper neck ought to be.
Your brother laughed so hard he nearly choked on fruit.
Your mother, with the kind of patience only queens and saints possessed, had simply informed you that royal diplomacy would be significantly more difficult if you insisted on addressing the foreign prince as trout.
Finally the King moved toward the door.
“The formal announcement will not be made until tomorrow evening. You have tonight.”
“For what?”
“To decide whether you will make this difficult with dignity,” He opened the door to get going. “…or dramatically, which I assume is your preference.”
Lyra approached carefully, like one might approach a wild animal considering arson.
“My lady?”
You turned slowly. “If I throw myself from the balcony, do you think they will still make me attend dinner?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
This was tragic.
You walked to the balcony, gripping the stone rail.
Far beyond the golden city, beyond the cliffs and the rivers and the sunlit valleys of Solis, the sea stretched blue and endless toward a kingdom you had never seen.
Somewhere beyond that horizon was the man who apparently intended to marry you.
That same afternoon you were given a letter with the Jackson house seal. It was a deep blue color with subtle marine details embedded in silver ink.
You opened the seal with a small knife, considering at some point using it to tear the paper and send it back to him like that.
The parchment was expensive, thick and smooth beneath your hands, edged in so much silver ink it felt unnecessarily elegant. Even his stationery was smug.
You unfolded the letter slowly, suspicious already.
You expected some beautifully phrased threat disguised as diplomacy, or even the arrogance a lot of men used.
What you did not expect was this:
Dear future wife,
I was informed—repeatedly, and with great suffering on all sides—that it would be politically beneficial for me to write to you before our families force us into the same room. Apparently silence is considered poor courtship over Solis.
I argued that forced marriage should excuse a lack of romance, but your future in-laws are, unfortunately, optimists.
So.
Hello.
By now, I assume your father has explained the arrangement, and I imagine your reaction was somewhere between dignified outrage and the active consideration of murder. If so, I find that deeply reassuring. I would be concerned if you accepted this.
I am told you dislike my kingdom.
In fairness, the feeling is mutual, so at least we begin with honesty.
I know what Solis says of Atlantis. I imagine I have horns by now. Possibly scales. Someone, somewhere, has likely informed you I keep drowned sailors in the palace walls and sharpen swords on their bones.
For the record, only one of those things is true.
I will not insult you by pretending this marriage is romantic.
It is political, inconvenient, and being treated by every advisor around me as though it is the personal triumph of diplomacy itself, which should tell you how unbearable my week has been.
But it may also keep our kingdoms from spending another hundred years trying to bury each other, and I am selfish enough to think that sounds preferable.
You should also know that I did attempt to refuse.
This was received badly.
Mostly because I offered no convincing reason beyond “I would rather not.”
Apparently that is not how treaties work, my future queen princess.
So here we are.
I know enough about you to suspect you are proud, difficult, and entirely too intelligent to tolerate fools for long, which means we may survive this if I am careful and if you are feeling unusually merciful.
I will offer one promise, since everyone else seems determined to offer you expectations.
I do not intend to make a prisoner of you.
If this marriage happens—and it will, because neither of us is being consulted nearly enough—I will not ask for sweetness where there is none, nor obedience where it is not deserved.
That feels, at the very least, like fairer warfare.
Until we meet,
Prince Perseus Jackson.
P.S.
If anyone has told you I have the head of a fish, I regret to inform you the rumor is false. I am unfortunately very handsome.
—
Well, that last part was reassuring if we ignored how narcissistic those last words were. So your future husband was going to be the enemy army general? This could cause a scandal throughout the kingdom.
The next morning arrived with all the grace of an execution as the formal announcement was to be made by sunset which meant, according to the women of the palace, that your suffering needed to begin at dawn.
You were woken not by sunlight, nor birdsong, nor any peaceful luxury afforded to a princesses in a sentimental poem, but by the violent betrayal of curtains being thrown open and six women entering your chambers.
You opened one eye.
“Noooo, five more hours.”
“It is too late for no,” Lyra informed you, crossing the room with the merciless efficiency of a woman who had planned your downfall in advance. “The ambassadors have arrived, your father has requested your presence by evening, the entire court talking about the most scandalous political arrangement of the decade, and Lady Cassandra has already selected your gowns.”
You pulled the pink silk sheets over your head. “Tell them I drowned in cushions.”
“Given the circumstances, that may be interpreted as an insult.”
Fantastic.
You emerged from the blankets with all the dignity of a martyr and stared at the room now transformed into your own personal execution.
Your dressing table had disappeared beneath brushes, combs, perfumes, pins, ribbons, jewels, and enough cosmetics to prepare five royal engagements. Two younger maids were carrying in fresh basins of steaming water scented with lavender and orange blossom. Another stood near the wardrobe, holding garments draped over both arms like ceremonial offerings to an unwilling goddess (you).
At the center of it all stood Lady Cassandra, the royal dressmaker, who regarded human emotion as a minor inconvenience beneath the importance of her tailoring.
An hour later, you were regretting every decision that had led you to birth.
Your hair had been washed in rosewater and combed until your scalp hurt. Your skin had been rubbed with oils that smelled faintly of jasmine. Someone had forced tea into your hands while another woman debated with Lady Cassandra about the dress options.
You sat before the great mirror of the room while half the palace adjusted your existence around you.
“I don't like this,” you muttered as one maid fastened a bracelet around your wrist while another argued over pearls.
You met your own reflection.
Princesses, you had decided long ago, were merely decorations for the palace too.
Everything about the royal presentation was important. From the colors you wore, the stones at your throat, the embroidery at your hem— they were literally selling you out in the eyes of the enemy kingdom.
Unfortunately, Lady Cassandra agreed on that.
She approached carrying the gown and for one terrible moment, you forgot how to speak.
It was blue.
Not the pale blue of spring skies or harmless ribbons, but the deep, impossible blue of the sea just before a storm—the kind sailors prayed to and feared in equal measure. Rich silk spilled like water between her hands, layered with silver-thread embroidery that caught the light like moonlight on waves.
At the bodice, delicate patterns of curling foam and cresting tides had been stitched so finely they seemed alive, winding around your waist and ribs. Tiny freshwater pearls had been sewn into the design too—not enough to seem excessive, but enough that when you moved, they shimmered like drops of sea spray.
The sleeves were long and sheer, trailing at the wrists in translucent silk, while the skirts fell in heavy folds that whispered over the marble floor. At the neckline, subtle silver beading formed the shape of stars and compass points.
The maids moved quickly after that, slipping the gown over your shoulders, fastening hidden closures, smoothing every line until the dress sat against you like a second skin.
It was beautiful and that made you hate it immediately because it suited you.
The blue made your skin glow warm beneath the sunlight and turned the gold in your jewelry brighter and the silver embroidery made you look like a princess being offered to make peace.
Lyra stepped beside you, adjusting the final necklace at your throat—a collar of moonstone and white gold, elegant and cool against your skin.
“Well,” she said softly, studying your reflection with the satisfaction of an artist admiring finished work, “if Prince Percy does not fall in love with you tonight, I shall consider it a insult to the crown.”
You gave her a flat look.
“If Prince Perseus falls in love with me tonight, I will push him into the nearest fountain.”
“That's a romantic beginning.”
“A necessary drowning.”
She laughed, and for a moment, so did you until the unmistakable sound of hurried footsteps in the corridor met your doors, by the sort of hushed excitement that only meant one thing.
Someone important had arrived.
You were seated before your mirror while two women debated whether your sleeves required more silver threading when the youngest maid in the room, Elia, abandoned all dignity entirely and rushed toward the balcony windows.
“He’s here.”
“Who,” you asked dryly, though everyone knew exactly who we were talking about.
Elia turned, eyes wide with scandal and delight.
“The Atlantean prince. Their carriage just passed the east gates.”
Half the maids abandoned all pretenses of professionalism and hurried toward the balcony like birds fleeing toward gossip, gathering at the stone rail with urgency. Even Lyra, who prided herself on dignity, and Lady Cassandra, who claimed not to care and still somehow arrived there first.
You remained seated for precisely three seconds before your own curiosity betrayed you.
“This is ridiculous,” you muttered, standing while your hands worked on your hair.
“Completely,” Lyra agreed, already pulling you with her. “Move.”
The balcony overlooked the eastern approach to Helion Keep, where the long marble road curved upward from the city gates through the royal gardens and into the palace courtyards below. From here, on clearer days, you could see nearly half the capital— with gold rooftops, white towers and fountains catching the sunlight.
Now, all you could see was a gathering.
Guards lined the lower courtyard in ceremonial armor; servants moved like frantic ants between columns; even stable hands lingered near the entrance steps, pretending not to stare.
And there, at the center of it all the carriage.
It was impossible to mistake.
Dark as stormwater, polished to a shine that reflected the palace walls around it, the royal carriage of Atlantis stood waiting beneath the archway like a threat wrapped in elegance. Silver detailing curved along its sides in patterns like waves and sea serpents, and the crest upon its door gleamed unmistakably.
Sea-blue banners shifted from its frame in the warm wind with the house mark and the horses were enormous, black and restless, their bridles silver-chained and immaculate.
“I expected something with more fish.”
“Perhaps the fish are inside.”
Elia gasped. “Do you think he really has scales?”
Below, palace officials were gathering near the carriage entrance. Your father stood at the front of them, beside him stood your brother, looking far too entertained by the entire affair.
What a traitor of a brother you had.
One of the younger maids whispered reverently, “Do you think he is handsome?”
Another replied, “I think if he survives meeting her highness, that will be impressive enough.”
One way or another, you didn't get much closer to the balcony like the rest of the maids; only one thought entered your head.
You imagined him inside.
Prince Percy Jackson, heir to Atlantis, commander of fleets, a professional nuisance before even introduction. Perhaps he sat there, enjoying the spectacle, fully aware that half your father’s court was holding its breath for the privilege of watching him step onto stone.
It felt like something an arrogant man would do. That decided immediately if true, you disliked him even more.
You got out of the thought when some of the girls screamed as one of the carriage doors unlatched, the silver handle turning.
And at that exact, divinely cursed moment, the wind changed. Strong mountain wind swept suddenly across the upper terraces, rushing through the balcony in a warm gust that sent every curtain in your chambers billowing like sails. The heavy balcony shutters—usually held open against the stone—slammed inward with violent force.
One struck the marble wall with a crack like thunder and the other shut directly across your line of sight.
Gasps filled the room.
“By the gods—” “Open it!” “I can't see anything—”
By the time the maids reached it, fumbling with the polished bronze latches and silk sleeves and collective despair, the moment below had already passed.
The royal family of Atlantis—whoever they were, however they looked, however much of your immediate future stood among them—were already hidden beneath the palace arches, swallowed whole by marble before your court could properly devour them with its eyes.
The maids stared in open heartbreak, the open doors of the carriage and people below starting to move again. However, you felt strangely calm; you really didn't know if you wanted to see your potential future husband.
The rest of the day went with going from one place to another just to actually prepare you until you were summoned to the Hall of Crowns. The sun had begun its slow descent behind the western cliffs, pouring molten gold through the palace windows and setting the entire world ablaze.
Helion Keep had always been built for this type of spectacle, but nowhere was that more obvious than the great hall.
It stretched the length of the central palace—vast marble columns veined with gold, ceilings painted with the victories of dead rulers, chandeliers of crystal and sunstone hanging high above like captured stars. The floors reflected everything: candlelight, silk hems, polished armor, ambition.
But today the halls of Helion Keep had been transformed for the evening.
Gold lanterns hung from the archways, casting warm light over the polished floors. Musicians played softly from the upper gallery, low harp notes mixing in the environment, it was elegant enough to soothe any temper and expensive enough to remind everyone who was paying all of it.
The long banquet tables stretched through the center of the hall beneath the banners of Solis and Atlantis hanging side by side in what looked, frankly, like a threat.
The sun crest and the sea crest. Gold and blue. Fire n' tide.
At the highest table, beneath the vaulted ceiling painted with gods, sat your father.
On the other end the Queen of Atlantis was exactly what you expected and somehow worse for it—beautiful in the cold way winter storms were beautiful, dressed in silver-threaded navy silk with pearls at her throat like captured moonlight. She looked like a woman who had never raised her voice because she had never needed to.
Beside her sat the King, taller than you expected, broad-shouldered and sharp-faced, wearing his own crown.
And then there was him.
At first, you almost missed him—not because he was a forgettable face, but because he was doing everything in his power to appear as though he would rather be anywhere else in the world.
He was not watching the room, the musicians or ladies laughing between them in a corner.
No, he was looking at his plate with total interest. As though the roasted figs before him had insulted his bloodline and he was deciding whether they deserved to survive being eaten.
For one brief moment, standing at the entrance of the Great Hall with the court pretending not to watch your reaction, you simply stared.
He was, annoyingly, very handsome. Well that was unfortunate.
His dark hair fell slightly untidy despite every visible attempt of the palace staff to make it look presentable with the prettiest sea-green eyes you've probably ever seen.
His face was sharp, with a marked jaw and perfect symmetry, the kind sculptors would spend lifetimes trying and failing to reproduce without accidentally starting religions. Maybe he was some sort of godl— anyways.
There was sun still left on his skin despite the sea kingdom’s colder reputation, bronze against navy silk and silver fastenings.
Beside you, Lyra made a sound suspiciously close to suppressed laughter.
You did not look at her. “Say nothing.”
“I said nothing.” “You were thinking loudly.”
“I am merely relieved for you, my lady. Marriage to a trout would have been very complicated.”
Suddenly there was no more room for private irritation, because your father had moved from his chair and stepped forward from the throne dais and the performance had begun.
“Her Royal Highness,” the herald announced, his voice carrying through the marble, “Princess of Solis, heir of the Sun Court.”
Every eye in the room found you as descended the staircase beside the hall entrance with all the serenity of someone not imagining murder.
The blue gown swept behind you like tidewater, the silver embroidery making soft sounds. The moonstone at your throat felt colder now. Every noble in the room watched as though trying to calculate exactly how much peace cost and whether you looked expensive enough to satisfy the other kingdom.
At the end of the hall, your father extended a hand as you took your place beside him.
Across from you stood the royal family of Atlantis and Percy.
Dear Gods up close was worse. Much worse!
Why couldn't you tear your eyes away from that man? Perhaps it was the surprise of not seeing any scales on his neck or hands. You weren't sure if it was 100% real, but hus skin had freckles on cheeks and hands. What you were certain of was that the skin peeking out from his neck showed a single dark freckle.
The banquet endured for what felt like several consecutive lifetimes. You smiled when required, spoke when demanded, and spent the rest of the evening discovering that there were very few things more exhausting than being discussed as though you were both present and decorative.
Every noble in Solis seemed to have developed an urgent and deeply insincere interest in your happiness.
Every lord from Atlantis looked at you with the politeness of men trying to determine whether you would eventually become their future queen or their prince’s most elegant mistake.
Neither possibility appeared to reassure them.
And at some point, beside you, Percy performed no better.
He was civil, which somehow felt more irritating than open hostility as he answered questions with practiced ease, nodded at all the correct moments, and wore the expression of a man enduring a hostage situation with remarkable restraint.
You caught him staring at the doors more than six times.
But you sympathized because the moment dessert arrived, you briefly considered setting something on fire simply to create an exit.
Unfortunately, your mother had raised you better than that. Your father, regrettably, had not.
It happened just after the final toast. The musicians softened into quieter melodies, wine had made several ambassadors far too confident, and the court had settled into that dangerous part of evening where everyone believed themselves subtle.
Your father leaned toward you with the expression parents wore when they were about to ruin their children’s lives.
“Walk with the prince.”
You turned slowly. “What? No.”
Across the table, Percy’s father was having what appeared to be the exact same conversation.
Percy looked up at you and also said no.
Two kings, separated by kingdoms and centuries of conflict, exchanged the silent understanding of fathers united by mutual disregard for their children’s preferences.
Your father smiled. “It was not a request.”
Naturally.
And so, several minutes later, you found yourself walking with your hand over the arm of Prince Percy Jackson through the western corridors of Helion Keep in a silence so pointed it deserved its own poem.
Two guards followed at a respectful distance, to pretend privacy existed.
Moonlight spilled through tall windows, silver against the marble floors. The evening had cooled; the palace breathed softer at night, its grandeur less performative in the quiet hours.
Your shoes clicked against the stone and his did too.
It felt like an argument waiting to happen.
At last, Percy stopped near one of the smaller receiving rooms overlooking the lower terraces and pushed the door open with the resigned courtesy of a man offering someone the chance to murder him indoors rather than publicly.
You entered first.
The room was big— with velvet chairs no one actually sat in, books no one read, a fireplace large enough to roast tension over properly. The balcony doors stood open to the warm night air, white curtains shifting softly in the breeze.
Behind you, the door closed.
And finally you guys were actually alone. There was no court, no musicians and no parents controlling all your interactions.
For a long moment, neither of you spoke until you turned to look at him.
“I am not marrying you.”
The words left your mouth without mincing words, like finally drawing a blade after hours of polite smiles.
Percy, leaning one shoulder against the door as though preparing for impact, nodded once.
“Yes,” he said. “I had assumed that might be your opening line.”
He had an annoyingly pleasant voice too.
He crossed the room slowly, stopping near the fireplace, hands folded behind his back like a prince would do.
“For what it’s worth,” he said, “I am also not particularly eager to marry you.”
“Good.” “Excellent.”
You stared at each other, it was going to be a problem if you two talked at the same time like that.
This, at least, felt honest.
You moved toward the balcony instead, needing distance, air and needing the moon to witness your suffering.
“I refuse to believe,” you said, looking out over the gardens below, “that two entire kingdoms have looked at centuries of bloodshed and decided the solution was forcing me to attend dinner with you forever.”
Behind you, Percy gave a quiet sound that might have been an agreement.
“I offered several alternatives,” he said. “Most involved gifting a bunch of ships.”
“How dare yo—” “And yet here I am.”
You turned back.
He had removed the formal mask, or perhaps simply grown tired of wearing it. Without the performance of the court, he looked younger and somehow more dangerous for it—less princely in a portrait and more like an actual man.
You folded your arms. “You wrote a very irritating letter.”
He sighed. “I was forced to write that letter under direct maternal supervision.”
“I could tell.”
“That should concern you. Imagine what I would have sent unsupervised.”
“I assume a blank page and an apology as PS.”
“You are optimistic, princess.”
Despite yourself, your mouth moved in a small smile that formed small dimples.
“You are still arrogant.”
“And you,” he said, with maddening calm, “are exactly as difficult as advertised.”
You narrowed your eyes.
There it was again—that infuriating ease, that careless confidence like he had never once in his life doubted his ability to survive the consequences of his own mouth.
You stepped closer.
“Let us be clear, Prince. I do not care how beloved you are in your charming sea kingdom. I do not care how many poets have embarrassed themselves over your face. I do not care how many battles you have won. I have no intention of becoming another admiring audience member in the Percy Jackson tragedy of excessive self-regard.”
He blinked as you talked and slowly, one corner of his mouth lifted.
“Oh,” he said softly, “you do have a vicious mouth.”
You frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
He stepped closer too, close enough that you could possibly count his freckles and your breaths could mingle if you both exhaled with your mouth.
“For a princess,” he said, voice low with an unmistakable amusement, “you are remarkably unladylike. I had expected elegance and grace.. Perhaps even a soft smile and some very refined passive aggression.”
You stared at him. He continued, clearly enjoying his own survival far too much.
“Instead, I find myself alone at night with a woman who looks like she might stab me with decorative cutlery.”
Your expression did not change. “Do you want me to prove it?”
“See,” he said, almost warmly now, “that. Exactly that. Very concerning. Not at all lady-like.”
“Percy.”
Your first time calling his name and it sounded like a warning in your mouth!
He seemed to like that far too much because he just leaned into your space. “Yes?”
“If you call me unladylike again, I will throw you from my balcony and tell both our kingdoms diplomacy simply failed.”
Private notes of Prince Percy Jackson.
Not intended for royal archives, review, or my mother’s deeply invasive curiosity.
If found, kindly throw it into the sea.
—
I was told, very firmly and by several people, that keeping a written record of this process might be “good for perspective.”
My mother said reflection builds character.
Annabeth, who I am increasingly convinced enjoys watching me suffer, said if I was going to be insufferable about this entire arrangement, I should at least be insufferable on paper where historians could mock me properly.
So here we are.
For the record, I hate it. I hate arranged marriages. And I hate political banquets.
And, perhaps most urgently, I hate the Kingdom of Solis.
That last one should probably be written down with some honesty, since this journal is meant to be useful and not simply an expensive place for me to complain.
In Atlantis, children are taught early that the sun burns just as easily as it warms.
I was raised to distrust them long before I was old to understand why and I'm pretty sure her highness the princess learned just the same way as I did.
In any case, I had heard rumors about the nobles who lived in the city where the royal family resided and how they looked non-human.
Dear journal, the truth is that I was expecting my future queen with fiery hair.
I have met her.
Unfortunately after weeks of council meetings, endless negotiations, and being informed by every living adult that marrying the Princess of Solis would be “historically significant” and “a stabilizing force for the future of both kingdoms,” I can now confirm that history is a malicious thing and should not be trusted.
I had, over the years, heard enough stories about the Sun Princess to build at least six entirely different women in my head.
Depending on who was speaking, she was either impossibly beautiful or terrifying enough to be a monster.
As a child, I was told she probably had claws! Which was fair, considering Solis spent most of my adolescence convinced I had the head of a fish.
Do I look like a trout? Do not answer that.
Still, when I looked up tonight and finally saw the woman I am apparently expected to spend the rest of my life married to, my first thought was not diplomatic at all.
It was, very specifically:
Oh, that is deeply unfortunate. She is beautiful.
Which is a disgrace, I would have preferred her hideous.
She looked like Solis itself had decided to become a person purely to be insufferable about it—elegant in that polished, sunlit way their entire kingdom seems to be, like she has been designed with the sole purpose of making the rest of us feel underdressed.
Beauty, in theory, should not matter. Entire kingdoms are not held together by bone structure and eye contact. Political alliances are not to become more complicated because the person across from you happens to look like the kind of mistake poets ruin themselves over.
And yet she walked into that hall wearing blue, looking like the best mistake to commit ever and for one brief moment I forgot what my mother had just asked me to pay attention to.
I suspect I am going to enjoy arguing with her and I also suspect it may eventually kill me.
The worst part—and I resent writing this—is that I understand why this marriage might work personally.
She would never disappear into someone else’s court, never let herself become ornamental or let anyone mistake the marriage for surrender of her house.
I would hate a wife I could intimidate.
She, I think, would hate a husband who tried.
So at least there is that.
Still, I remain opposed on principle. She is proud, difficult, and probably dangerous, very likely already planning how to murder me to escape this...
And I—sadly—am looking forward to seeing her again.
This is humiliating.
If anyone reads this, I will deny the part where I admitted she was is??? was pretty.
I would rather return to the fish head rumors.
—
The days that followed should, by all political expectation, have been the beginning of something graceful.
The royal betrothals were not promises of love between two people—they were negotiations, alliances and kingdoms trying to teach two unwilling heirs how to stand beside one another without looking as though they planned to commit murder before dessert
And so your parents, in all their wisdom and complete disregard for your peace, would insist upon time spent together.
Walks through the palace gardens beneath careful supervision for some bonding time, lessons on courtly customs and each other's culture or meetings with advisors who would explain, with grave importance, how one properly ruled beside someone they had known for six days and considered a trial sent by the gods.
You'd be made to sit beside him during council, to dine with him, smile beside him while old noblewomen whispered about some invented future heirs as though your body had become the public property.
And worst of all, to walk with him.
It would begin in the lower gardens of Helion Keep, where the white roses climbed the marble walls and the fountains had an incredible amount of decoration dedicated to the sun.
The Queen of Atlantis, Sally, suggested it first, with that serene expression she always wore and your father would agree immediately, because fathers were traitors by nature.
And before either you or Percy could invent a convincing plague, you would find yourselves dismissed beneath the late afternoon sun, sent walking together like characters in one of those terrible romantic poems old ladies adored.
He would offer you his arm because etiquette would demand it and you would take it because both your families watched from afar.
And for several long moments, you walked through the gardens of your childhood in a silence so stiff it might have qualified as architecture.
The sun hung low over Helion Keep, warm and golden against the white stone, turning every fountain to liquid fire. Jasmine climbed the walls in pale blooms, and somewhere beyond the terraces musicians practiced for some other noble event that with no doubt eventually will become your problem.
Beside you, Percy would walk like a man and not like a boy that gave you a headache every 30 minutes. His hand, where your fingers rested lightly at his arm, remained warm.
At last, he would speak.
“I have been informed,” he said, his voice carrying that calm, low amusement you were already beginning to distrust, “that I am expected to learn your favorite flowers.”
“How thrilling for you.”
“I thought so. Apparently this is considered courtship.”
The gardens opened wider here, into a terrace of columns and trailing vines. Below, the cliffs dropped toward the sea, and the wind carried salt even this high, threading through the warmth.
You slowed, so did he.
Percy stood a little apart from you now, though not by much, for the space between you had the uneasy quality of something negotiated rather than chosen, and even that small distance felt fragile beneath the weight of everything neither of you had yet said aloud.
When he spoke again, it was not with haste or provocation, but with a kind of careful deliberation that made it clear he was choosing each thought as though it might be later examined in a court of law.
“In Atlantis,” he began, gaze briefly shifting toward the horizon before returning to you as if measuring your reaction more than the view, “courtship is spoken of in far less poetic terms than I imagine your tutors have taught you here. It is not a matter of flowers, nor music, nor the pleasant illusion that two people might be gently guided toward affection by sufficient candlelight and well-timed conversation. It is instead spoken of as a kind of assessment, wherein one is placed in proximity to another and observed for signs of either compatibility or ruin, and from what I have gathered since arriving in your kingdom, Solis does not seem so different in its practices, only in the way it addresses it.”
You listened without interrupting, though your posture had already begun to harden in response, not because of insult alone, but because there was something irritatingly precise in the way he spoke—as though he had taken the time to learn your world and was now describing it without permission.
He continued, voice conversational in its restraint.
“I was told before arriving that your customs would require me to learn your preferences, and I admit I expected something far simpler, ornamental even, but what I find instead is that nothing here is truly ornamental at all, not your words, not your court, and certainly not you.”
That last part landed differently, though he did not emphasize it, and perhaps that was what made it worse.
You turned slightly toward him, the light catching the embroidery at your sleeve.
“In Solis,” you replied after a pause, your voice quieter now, though no less firm, “we are taught that endurance is not a performance, but a form of loyalty. That one does not measure affection by ease, but by whether something remains standing when ease is gone. It is not meant to be comfortable.”
“For what it is worth,” he said at last, more subdued than before, “I did not expect you to be what you are.”
You glanced at him again, wary now, though not openly so.
“And what, precisely, did you expect me to be?”
Percy seemed to consider this with far more seriousness than the question deserved, “At first,” he said, “I expected red hair.”
You blinked once. “What?”
He nodded once, entirely unashamed.
“Yes, a hair that looked as though it might set curtains ablaze if left unattended. I was told your temper entered rooms before you did, and I thought it only courteous that your appearance should offer a similar warning.”
You stared at him for a long moment.
The late afternoon sun spilled gold over the terrace stones, warming the marble beneath your slippers, and behind you the palace stood bright and watchful, undoubtedly full of nobles who would have paid obscene amounts of money to witness this exact conversation.
“And who,” you asked at last, with dangerous calm, “told you such stupidity?”
“A diplomat from the western coast. Though in fairness, he also insisted I had gills and slept upright in seawater, so perhaps his judgment was not flawless.”
“That man was my uncle.”
Percy let out a slow breath.
“That explains a great deal.”
You should not have found that amusing.
Instead, you folded your arms and resumed walking, forcing him to follow as the path curved past white roses and sun-warmed stone benches built for noblewomen to sit prettily and discuss each other’s ruin.
“And besides the red hair?” you said. “What else did your vast intelligence lead you to expect?”
Percy fell easily back into step beside you, hands clasped behind his back with the infuriating ease of a man too comfortable while offending people.
“I expected someone softer, perhaps more inclined toward performance. Instead, I find someone who speaks like a knight denied wine.”
You gave him a look.
“How devastating for you.”
“Profoundly. I was hoping for an actual bride. Instead I seem to have been promised a very well-dressed goblin.”
You stopped walking again this time so abruptly he nearly took another step before catching himself.
The fountain beside the terrace murmured softly as you turned fully toward him.
“And what, precisely, makes you believe I would ever concern myself with being your bride?”
Percy tilted his head slightly.
“Your father. My mother. Approximately six kingdoms and one old priest.”
There it was again—that calm, infuriating smile, as though he found your temper not alarming but entertaining.
It made you want to commit crimes.
“And you,” you said sweetly, which was always a bad sign, “are far too pleased with yourself for a man who arrived in my kingdom looking like a little kid.”
He placed one hand over his heart in mock injury.
“You’re cruel, my lady.”
“I believe the word is accurate.”
“No,” he said, stepping closer with that easy confidence that made you want to throw things, “accurate would be observing that for all your pride, you are still only a very elegant little tyrant with the disposition of a churl.”
Silence fell as the fountain continued its cheerful betrayal.
You blinked once. “A churl... How dare you.”
He seemed, for the first time, to realize perhaps he had wandered too far but it was too late now. He continued anyway, because his self-preservation was not a skill taught.
“Yes, certainly, sharp-tongued, suspicious, and trying to look like royalty.”
You stepped forward.
“And you,” you said, with a voice low and terribly calm, “are a loggerhead in expensive boots.”
Percy opened his mouth, likely to make it worse, and you did not allow it.
With one sharp movement, both hands planted firmly against his chest, you shoved him backward. There was a brief, glorious second in which surprise overtook princely dignity entirely.
Then Prince Perseus, heir to Atlantis, commander of fleets, terror of the eastern sea fell directly into the fountain.
Water erupted upward in a magnificent, deeply satisfying splash that also dampened a little of your poor clothes.
For one perfect moment, there was only silence.
Then Percy surfaced, soaked, hair falling into his face, staring at you with the expression of a man reconsidering every decision that had led him here.
Water ran from his sleeves, hiis boots and his now wounded pride.
You stood at the edge of the fountain like divine judgment.
“Well,” you said, smoothing your skirts with composure, “at least now you may feel more at home. Do try not to call for dolphins. The palace staff is already overworked.”
For once—miraculously—he had nothing to say.
You inclined your head with all the grace expected of a future queen.
“Sleep well, Your Highness. Do give my regards to the fish.”
And with that, before he could recover either dignity or a reply, you turned and walked back toward the palace.
Your spine remained perfectly straight but your heart was beating far too fast.
Behind you, somewhere between outrage and shame, Percy shouted your name across the gardens.
Servants moved through the corridors with the discretion of people who absolutely knew everything that happened. Noblewomen spoke in soft voices behind jeweled fans. Somewhere, without question, your aunt had received three separate and wildly inaccurate versions of whatever unfortunate spectacle had occurred in the western gardens.
You had pushed the Prince of Atlantis into a fountain.
In your defense, he had deserved it entirely.
You sat before your mirror while Lyra adjusted the final fastening at the back of your gown, her silence was talking for her.
Finally she said, very carefully, “I hear His Highness required assistance returning from the lower terraces.”
You met her gaze in the mirror. “I am sure the fish were delighted to have him back.”
She pressed her lips together. “My lady.”
“He called me a churl.”
Lyra nodded solemnly, as though discussing matters of state. “A grave offense.”
That, apparently, was the end of the sympathy, because moments later she stepped back, satisfied with your appearance, and said with the merciless calm of a woman, “Try not to drown him again before dessert. It would create paperwork.”
“No promises.”
Tonight’s gown was softer than the first, though no less beautiful—ivory silk threaded with pale gold and your hair pinned back with pearl combs, your jewelry lighter.
The problem with dignity, you had discovered, was that it was very difficult to maintain when one was still remembering the exact look on a prince’s face as he disappeared into a fountain.
You should not have been pleased, but you were.
By the time you entered the Great Hall, dinner had already begun.
The chandeliers burned warm above the long tables, scattering gold across polished silver and crystal goblets. Music drifted from the gallery overhead, soft for you to be ignored and the banners of Solis and Atlantis still hung together in stately disapproval, as though even fabric objected to the arrangement.
At the high table, your father was already seated, speaking quietly with the King and Queen of the other kingdom. And Percy was not there.
That was interesting, and a minor annoyance since your site was still next to his, if he wasn't there it would be very noticeable and you would be bombarded with questions.
But lucky you were, Percy entered as you took your seat.
Changed, thankfully, into dry clothes, though whoever had assisted him clearly deserved a raise for attempting to restore dignity to a man recently defeated by the decorative architecture that was the fountain.
His dark hair was still slightly damp, curling at the edges and he wore deep navy tonight, embroidered in silver at the collar and cuffs, the color making the bronze of his skin warm beneath candlelight.
His mother looked up at him once, only once.
Her eyes moved from his still-damp hair to the faint scrape at one cuff, then toward you.
At last she said, in the calmest voice imaginable, “Did you enjoy the gardens?”
You looked very carefully at your plate and your father suddenly found his wine fascinating.
Percy, without breaking, replied, “Immensely.”
That was all, the queen gave a small smile, nothing more.
He sat beside you, the chair making the smallest sound against marble. You did not look at him and he did not look at you.
The dinner resumed for approximately twelve seconds.
Then your aunt— a menace and a professional destroyer of peace—leaned forward from halfway down the table and said, far too brightly, “It is so lovely to see young people spending time together before the formal engagement. There is such a difference between duty and genuine affection, is there not?”
You closed your eyes briefly as Percy took a very slow sip of his drink.
Queen Sally, bless her terrifying soul, replied, “Indeed. I find mutual understanding far more reliable than charm.”
Your aunt sighed dreamily. “And did the two of you enjoy your walk?”
Percy set down his glass, without turning his head to look at you, he said, “I found it refreshing.”
You kept your own smile perfectly in place.
“How wonderful. I thought you looked more relaxed afterward.”
“I nearly drowned.”
You ended up talking. “And yet, bravely, you survived.”
“Your disappointment wounds me.”
“Be patient. I am sure another opportunity will present itself.”
Across the table, your aunt clasped her hands.
“They are already teasing one another. How sweet!”
Private Journal of Prince Percy Jackson.
To be kept far from my mother, the royal council, and any servant. Should this be discovered, I will deny its existence, and possibly fake my own death.
—
There are many ways in which a prince imagines humiliation may arrive.
One thinks of battles lost, of treaties broken in full view of rival courts, of saying the wrong thing before kings who remember such errors for decades and repeat them at every feast thereafter. One does not, generally, imagine that dignity will be destroyed by being pushed bodily into a decorative fountain by the woman one is expected to marry.
And yet, here we are.
I feel it important to record the event with complete honesty, if only because history has a terrible habit of making fools appear noble, and if I am to suffer, I would prefer future generations understand precisely how undignified the suffering was.
The fountain was cold... Needlessly cold.
It was also shallow and deep, which I suspect was an architectural decision made by someone who hated princes and wished to leave opportunities available for women with good aim.
There were swans nearby.
I do not know why this detail feels important, only that it does. There is something especially offensive about public humiliation occurring beneath the judgment of birds.
I had called her a churl.
In fairness, she had earned it.
In further fairness, I had perhaps underestimated how quickly a Princess of Solis might choose violence when presented with minor provocation. She did not argue nor threaten. She simply looked at me with the expression of someone reaching a deeply personal conclusion and then removed me from dry land.
Well, I was looking into those beautiful eyes and forgot I just insulted her.
There was one brief moment—one single, sacred second—where I understood exactly what was happening and had time only to regret my mouth and the long history of choices that had shaped it.
Then water and her.
She looked magnificent.
This is, perhaps, the root of the problem.
She stood there in all that royal composure, with sunlight on her dress, pearls catching the light, looking less like a princess and more like some old god of vengeance who had grown tired of patience and decided it was my time.
She told me not to call for dolphins.
And the worst part—the truly humiliating, soul-damaging part—is that I nearly laughed.
Not immediately, of course. At first there was outrage and a wounded pride. There was the cold and dripping indignity of climbing out of a fountain while two palace guards looked at the horizon in an effort to preserve everyone’s future.
But on the walk back, with my boots ruined and my dignity somewhere beneath a stone, I found myself trying not to smile like a complete idiot.
There is something alarmingly attractive about honesty when it arrives wearing pearls.
I dislike writing that and I dislike thinking about it even more.
The truth is that she is, for my disgrace, a little too much my type, which feels like a betrayal arranged by the gods for their own amusement.
I had hoped—sincerely and desperately—that she would be easier to resent.I wanted that the marriage could become little more than duty and I could respect from a distance and never think about after dinner.
Instead, I have been presented with a woman who looks at me like she is deciding whether I would improve the landscape as a corpse.
And apparently, for reasons I would rather not examine too closely, that is doing something to me.
She is proud and clever. She has pretty eyes, a beautiful smile and a lovely laugh.
This is not ideal in a future wife.
It is, however, very much ideal in the sort of woman one writes terrible poetry about.
I am trying not to be that man but it is not going well.
Every person in this palace speaks of the wedding as though it has already happened.
They discuss fabrics, who’s coming, the ceremonies, the joining of courts, the endless practical machinery of binding these kingdoms together, and all of it with that tone nobles use when speaking about your future as though you are not sitting directly in front of them holding a knife.
And then comes the matter of having heirs. I won’t enter in detail for my own good tonight.
Thanks to my own terrible mind, I cannot hear it without thinking of her and is unacceptable.
I would like to return to simpler concerns, such as war because now I find myself in the middle of council meetings wondering absurd things, like whether she would teach our children to be crazy like her or whether they would simply inherit it naturally. Whether they would have her eyes when she is angry, or my talent for making situations worse.
This is madness.
I have known this woman for what feels like six minutes and one attempted murder.
I need to stop writing now, it's late and im writing strange things.
This journal is becoming evidence.
—
Time, unfortunately, did what time always did—make things more complicated.
It would have been far easier if Percy Jackson had remained insufferable in simple and obvious ways.
If he had been nothing more than a boy wrapped in expensive silk, with every conversation ended in some sort of offense and every shared glance in the mutual certainty that history had been correct and your kingdoms were better kept apart.
But Percy, infuriatingly, insisted on becoming a person that actually thought of you.
Weeks passed after the fountain incident, and with them came back the machinery of royal expectation. Walks through the gardens became routine rather than punishment, the shared dinners were unavoidable, but got ordinary. You sat beside one another during council meetings where old men argued over the borders as though none of them had created the problem.
You learned of his silence a lot, he grew quieter when he was truly angry.
He also had the infuriating habit of leaning back in his chair during council as though he were bored, only to speak once and somehow say the most sensible thing in the room.
He was kinder to servants than most princes bothered to be and he laughed rarely, but when he did it was sudden and unguarded, you kinda liked hearing it.
And worse was that he listened and not because the courtship required it.
When you spoke of Solis, of the southern provinces,even of the people your father’s council liked to reduce to numbers, Percy listened like he was trying to really understand you rather than simply waiting for his turn to be right.
You hated how much that mattered deep inside.
Well, he still annoyed you constantly.
He still smiled at the wrong moments and said things purely to test your patience or walked through your palace one poor decision away from being banned permanently.
The western library was one of the oldest rooms in the palace, built in stone that held the warmth of the day long after sunset. Tall windows opened toward the cliffs, beyond them the sea stretched and it smelled of old paper, candle wax, and the kind of silence only old places knew how to keep.
Percy was standing by one of the long tables near the windows, sleeves rolled to his forearms, reading through one of your father’s maritime records with an offended expression because of poor naval strategy.
You sat opposite him, pretending to read when you were actually watching him be irritated by other people’s incompetence.
It had become embarrassingly easy.
Weeks ago, you would have called him stupid for correcting your generals…
Now, you were beginning to suspect he was often right, but it was intolerable.
The room was quiet enough that the turning of a page sounded significant and outside, the sound of the sea seemed to be loud even when it was miles away.
Inside, Percy frowned at a map.
“This,” he said at last, tapping the parchment with the disapproval of a priest condemning sin, “is either the worst trade route I have ever seen or a very elaborate attempt of suicide.”
You looked up from your book. “It was designed by Lord Cassian.”
Percy glanced at you. “Wow, that explains everything.”
“Be careful,” you said. “If my father hears you insulting his council again, he may decide peace was a mistake.”
“Your father has watched me survive three formal dinners with your aunt. I believe he considers me battle-tested.”
“That is fair.”
He smiled then, faintly, and the way your heart jumped unsettled you in ways you were not prepared to name.
When did it become so easy? The arguments are softer and the silences easier in a way.
You had learned how he thought about some cultural things from your land or how when he was truly tired, he rubbed at the scar near his jaw without noticing or how his sarcasm came off when he was uncomfortable.
You had not meant to notice these things, really! You had certainly not meant to care.
And yet you do care and you do notice.
The candles burned lower, the sky outside was darkening as you two relied on the presence of the other.
Then came footsteps— fast and uneven. They weren’t the soft, practiced silent ones from the servants moving through the halls as though they were part of the walls themselves, nor the steady, unhurried tread of guards who carried all that armor. These steps were hurried, careless with panic, striking against the marble with force enough to pull both of you from the fragile stillness of the library.
A messenger appeared in the doorway, breathless and pale, his face drained so completely of color that for a moment you thought he saw a ghost. It was remarkable, the way fear could enter a room before a single word came.
Both of you stood at once.
That was another thing about being raised in courts—you learned young that there were expressions more powerful than announcements, that sometimes a single look could deliver catastrophe long before anyone dared say it aloud.
Something had happened and it was bad.
The messenger bowed quickly, the movement clumsy with urgency.
“My lady… Your Highness.” His voice was strained, and already your stomach had begun to turn.
“There has been word from the eastern coast.”
The silence got worse over the library, heavy and awaiting, even the crackling candles seemed to quiet. Percy straightened beside the table, every trace of ease disappearing from his posture, and you felt your own hands tremble a bit where they rested against the polished wood.
The eastern coast, close to the disputed waters.
The messenger swallowed hard, and in that small movement you could see how much he wished not to be the one delivering this.
“One of the Solis patrol ships near the border was attacked at dawn. It was intercepted near the reefs beyond Thalor Point.”
Your pulse slowed but not with calm, but with the kind of dread so deep it made everything inside you go frighteningly still.
“By whom?” you asked, though the answer was already gathering like a storm behind your ribs.
The messenger hesitated.
“Survivors report Atlantian sails.”
The sentence landed like steel driven through bone.
For a moment, no one moved. The room itself seemed suspended around those four words—the library, the candles flickering low, the endless sea beyond the windows, all of it held in place by that single sentence.
Atlantian sails.
Four words, and suddenly you were not standing in the palace library but sitting as a child in the history rooms, listening to your tutors show wars across faded maps with ink-stained fingers, marking coastlines where your people had drowned, where fathers and brothers and sons had vanished into the sea and never returned.
Atlantian sails.
Stories of burned ships with skeletons on black water and southern tides running red from the blood of your people.
Atlantis.
Beside you, Percy had gone very still.
He was no longer the man with you in the gardens, sunlight in his hair and teasing he pretended not to mean. Now he was simply that prince from Atlantis.
And suddenly, you hated how much that mattered to you.
The messenger continued, his voice low, careful, as though speaking too loudly might shatter what little peace remained.
“Three confirmed dead. Several wounded. The ship barely made it to port. The council has already been summoned.”
Every fragile month of peace—every dinner, every forced alliance, every diplomatic smile—is already beginning to splinter beneath the weight of that old suspicion.
You turned to Percy just to look at him.
At the navy silk draped over his shoulders and that impossible green of his eyes and suddenly it felt absurd—how easily you had let yourself forget what his name meant.
His gaze met yours, and there it was the same terrible understanding.
You still were enemies, maybe with better manners and almost let you forget you were enemies at all.
Your voice was colder than you intended, but perhaps honesty did that to you.
“Were they under your banners?”
Percy’s jaw tightened, and for the first time since you had met him, he looked like someone standing on the edge of a war he could not stop. “I do not know.”
You swallowed against the bitterness rising in your throat. “But they were yours.”
Something changed in his face then—not anger but for sure hurt.
You could feel the slow rebuilding of walls you had foolishly believed were coming down, stone by stone.
“They may have acted without orders,” he said, his voice controlled. “There are captains in disputed waters who still don't know about the new peace we are trying to create.”
You let out a short, humorless breath. “How convenient.”
His eyes narrowed. “Careful.”
You stepped forward, your fury demanded movement and standing there with his gaze trying to read you was too much.
“No,” you said, your voice cutting through the room with more force than you intended. “My people are dead.”
His answer came low and stripped of every softness you had come to know in him.
“And mine have died in those same waters for generations. By the Gods, do not speak to me like I don’t know.”
You folded your arms, it was the only way to stop your hands from shaking. You held his gaze and forced the question out.
“Then tell me honestly, Prince—if your council decides this was justified, if Atlantis claims those waters again, if this peace fractures the way everyone always said it would… where exactly do you stand?”
He did not answer immediately and to be honest, since you had met him, this was the first time you were afraid of what he would say.
When he finally spoke, his voice was quiet enough that it felt like a blade pressed carefully between your ribs. “Where I have always stood. With my people.”
Of course he did. What else had you expected?
All your conversations in the gardens could outweigh centuries of blood? That one prince could become something other than the sea he came from?
You nodded once. “As do I.”
You turned toward the door, if you looked at him one moment longer, you might say something unforgivable or ,even worse, you would cry.
To say that you walked to your quarters is something, because if anyone was to ask a servant about your wing, they would say that they heard muffled screams.
Your pillow is wonderful for screaming and letting out all your feelings.
The council chamber had been built for war a long, looong time ago so it's normal it sat beneath the oldest wing of the palace, part of the room was carved into the stone of the mountain, the walls were thick to keep secrets and you never saw windows open there, it was probably one of the darkest places in the whole kingdom.
By the time you arrived, nearly everyone was already there.
Your father stood at the head of the great oak table, one hand braced against its edge. Beside him, your generals were gathered. Lords from the eastern provinces spoke in low, urgent voices.
Across from them stood the royal family of Atlantis.
King Poseidon looked exactly as powerful men did when forced to defend things they had not broken but would be expected to answer for all the same. The queen sat beside him, composed and still.
And Percy stood near his father, shoulders straight and the expression guarded.
You took your place beside your father.
The captain of the attacked patrol ship stood near the center of the room, arm bound in fresh linen and he looked exhausted.
Your father nodded once. “Speak.”
The captain swallowed.
“At dawn we were running patrol near the eastern reefs, close to Thalor Point. Visibility was poor, there was a lot of fog over the water, heavy enough to swallow the distance to the port. We spotted sails before we heard them.”
His voice roughened.
“Atlantian sails, they closed fast and were armed. There wasn't a signal offered bir request for passage.”
Your hands curled against the table.
One of your generals slammed a hand against the wood.
“Pirates do not fly royal banners.”
“No,” another lord said darkly, “but princes do.”
Across the table, King Poseidon’s expression hardened.
One of the eastern lords stepped forward, the grief making him brave and foolish in equal measure.
“For generations Atlantis has called those waters disputed only when it wished to steal them. How many treaties must we sign before your captains learn they do not own every place they can reach?”
Poseidon’s reply came like stone.
“And how many times must Solis build fortresses along shared waters before you stop calling expansion defense?”
The argument erupted with that, the voices rose, accusations started to fly over your head, some maps were unrolled and the borders stabbed at.
You had grown up watching councils like this from doorways, hidden behind the pillars while adults argued over the shape of your future.
Through all of it, Percy remained silent with his hands clasped behind his back, gaze fixed on the maps and his jaw tight betraying what the rest of him refused to show.
When he finally spoke, it cut cleanly through the noise.
“If my father had ordered an attack,” he said, voice steady, “you would not be debating whether it happened.”
Every eye turned to look at the boy as he continued.
“This was not sanctioned by Atlantis. If we intended war, you would not be receiving apologies. You would be receiving fleets.”
One general sneered. “Don't be conceited, kid.”
“I’m honest,” Percy said. “That’s something both our kingdoms claim to value when convenient.”
Your father watched him carefully. “And what do you propose, Prince?”
Percy stepped toward the table.
“Find the captain responsible before this becomes an excuse for every man in the room to indulge a war already wanted.”
One of your lords laughed sharply. “And we are simply to trust Atlantis to investigate itself?”
“No,” Percy replied. “You are to trust that I would not stand here defending cowards. If an Atlantian captain attacked under our banners without command, then he has endangered not only your men but my kingdom. I will not protect him.”
Your father studied him for a long moment and then looked at you not as king but as your father.
He wanted your judgment because everyone in this room had seen the walks, the dinners and the fragile attempt at peace between heirs. Your opinion mattered.
You looked at Percy and you realized with sudden, miserable clarity that both things were true.
He was the enemy and he was not.
Your voice, when it came, was measured. “If this was unsanctioned, then the guilty should answer for it.”
The dark-haired young man gave a small smile while you were speaking.
“If Solis answers blood with blind blood, then we are not defending peace. We are merely admitting we never wanted it.”
One of the generals muttered, darkly with the suspicion of a man who had buried many friends. “And if Atlantis lies?”
Your father said nothing, King Poseidon’s expression didn't give away his thoughts and several lords shifted, preparing for another round of arguments.
But to your surprise Percy stepped forward.
The prince of Atlantis stood beneath the torchlight, shoulders straight, gaze steady, looking not at the general asking but at you.
When he spoke, his voice carried cleanly through the chamber. “If Atlantis lies, then let the blame fall first upon me.”
Percy did not look away.
“I stand with my people,” he said, now it was only the truth stripped bare to hurt. “I always will. I am the son of Atlantis before I am anything else. Its blood is mine, its burdens are mine, and if war comes, I will stand before it, not behind.”
Your breath had been expelled from your lungs, this mattered because that was his answer.
Yet he continued.
“But do not mistake loyalty for blindness.”
His eyes remained on yours.
“If one of ours has done this—if an Atlantian captain sailed beneath our banners and spilled Solis blood for vengeance, or for the comfort of hatred—then I will not defend him. I will drag his name into the light myself.”
Percy’s voice lowered but no less steady for it. “I did not come here to inherit another century of graves.”
You opened your mouth to give an answer but he didn't let you talk.
“And I did not come here to ask for peace only to betray the woman I intend to have beside me.”
The words struck harder than the shouting of men in the room and across the table, your aunt nearly stopped breathing from joy.
Percy, apparently, had chosen violence against your heart.
Indeed your heart was betraying you in ways you intended to punish later.
“When I say I stand with my people, Princess, understand that I do not separate you from that future.”
Your throat felt dangerously tight.
“This marriage was meant to quiet kingdoms. Fine. Let it begin there. Let duty open the door if it must. But I will not stand in this chamber and speak of alliances as though you are merely another clause written into a treaty.”
It's not like the room has disappeared, your father was still there, everyone was still there and somehow at the same time none of it existed.
It was only him and his softening voice.
“If you become my wife, you will not be an obligation I endure for peace. You will be my queen. Mine to honor before courts and councils, mine to protect when kingdoms are against us, mine to stand beside—not behind, you'll never be behind.”
You felt like you were going to faint when your brain reacted: he was in front of you and, and painfully slowly, knelt on one knee to take your hands, which were trembling like leaves.
“And if I must choose between disappointing old men who worship war and disappointing the woman I would ask to rule beside me, then let the gods hear me plainly now—”
His gaze held yours like a vow was being made.
“—I would sooner let kingdoms burn than fail her.”
Terrible, magnificent silence.
And you— you stood there with your trembling hands and jumping heart, trying very hard to remember how breathing worked.
Because Percy Jackson, prince of Atlantis, had just declared such love words in the middle of a war council.
Like an idiot! A beautiful, infuriating idiot.
Your father cleared his throat once, but his mouth showed a small smile and King Poseidon looked at the ceiling, perhaps asking the gods for quieter sons.
“Your Highness,” you said, “that was either the most persuasive political argument I have ever heard…or the most elaborate public courtship attempt in history.”
At last—finally—Percy smiled.
“Can it not be both?”
By the time the council chamber had finally emptied, the palace had fallen into a peculiar silence only the deepest hours of night could create, when even the walls seemed exhausted by the weight of the day and every corridor felt longer than it had in daylight.
You were walking quickly to your chambers with your cheeks getting deep in color.
It wasn’t like you were fleeing, you refused even in your own mind to call it that!
If you slowed and allowed yourself even a single moment of stillness—you would have to think, and thinking, after what had happened in that council chamber, would have your head spining.
Your pulse had not yet remembered to behave like normal.
Your father had said nothing as you left, which was infinitely worse than if he had chosen to give you both a talk.
Your aunt, on the other hand, had looked radiant with a kind of joy usually reserved for coronations and public scandals, and you had no doubt whatsoever that by morning she would have transformed Percy’s words into some elaborate thing involving grandchildren.
You intended never to forgive either of them.
Percy had stood in the middle of a war council, before your father and his own, before generals and men and all the hatred your kingdoms had spent centuries perfecting, and had looked at you as though vows were so simple.
As though loving you was not about the war.
You hated him for that but hated yourself more for the terrible, humiliating truth that part of you had wanted him to say it again.
Behind you, footsteps were approaching.
You already knew the sound of his damned boots, the irritating calm of a man who had just dismantled your entire peace of mind and still believed he had the right to continue speaking.
“Princess.”
You kept walking. “No.”
There was a brief silence behind you, followed by the unmistakable sound of him quickening his pace, and then his voice again, closer now.
“Unfortunately, that is not specific enough to be useful.”
You reached the turn of the corridor with every intention of continuing, of disappearing into your chambers and locking the door firmly and condemning every poor decision your life had made as suddenly his hand closed around your wrist.
The movement stopped you so abruptly your breath caught and your pulse betraying you in one violent, humiliating motion.
“Let go.”
Percy stood close enough now that the corridor seemed smaller for it and his voice, “No.”
The sheer audacity of him!
You stared at him with all the fury you could still afford.
“In case the council chamber was not sufficient humiliation for one evening, have you now decided that physically restraining foreign princesses is the next great strategy in mind?”
“I decided,” he said, “that if I let you walk away now, you would spend the entire night being furious and I would spend the entire night with no rest, so I find both possibilities intolerable.”
Your fingers curled tightly at your side. “You should have considered that before declaring yourself like some mad knight in front of everyone.”
“And yet,” he said, stepping half a pace closer, “strangely enough, I do not regret it.”
“That makes one of us.”
His gaze searched yours, he had the prettiest gems as ocular globes… and those puppy eyes…
“No,” he said softly. “It doesn’t.”
You tried to pull your hand free as he did not tighten his grip, but neither did he release you.
“Look at me.” “I am looking at you.”
“No,” he said, “you are trying very hard not to.”
“How dare you.”
Percy’s thumb shifted slightly against your wrist, a small movement, barely anything, and somehow it felt more intimate than if he had kissed you then and there. Why did your brain think of kissing him so bad?
“I am beginning to think,” he was giving a small laugh away, “that is how most of our important conversations begin.”
“In the council chamber, in front of both our kingdoms, you spoke as though—”
His expression changed then, the prince receding and the man remaining.
“As though what?”
You lifted your chin. “As though I mattered to you beyond treaties and borders and that noble performance you were attempting to offer your audience.”
For a moment, he just looked at you as he released your wrist.
“Did you truly think I would say those things for politics?”
Your throat felt tight with the answer and your voice lowered despite yourself as if you were scared someone heard.
“Did you mean it?”
Percy held your gaze with no wit left between you to hide behind.
“Yes.”
Your heart betrayed you immediately.
You hated it and hated him for making the truth sound reachable.
So like a fool, you made it worse. “Which part?”
His brow moved faintly.
“The peace? The alliance? The declaration dramatic enough to shorten my father’s life by several years?”
You stepped closer despite yourself, because if you were to be ruined, you would at least be honest in it.
“No,” you said, quieter now. “Not that. Me… Did- Did you mean me?”
“You are the only part of this I’m certain about, my lady.”
He lifted his hand again, slower this time, but it didn’t go to your hand or wrist, oh no, his fingers touched your jaw.
“I would stand with my people,” he said. “I would fight for them, bleed for them, carry every duty they place upon my name. But none of that changes what I know when I look at you.”
His thumb brushed lightly against your skin, and gods, if you really kissed him would it be so bad?
“I did not expect you and I certainly did not want this. It would have been simpler if I disliked you. Simpler if you were merely beautiful, or merely cruel, or merely someone I could survive beside without ever truly seeing.”
His fingers caressed your cheek. “But you are none of those things.”
Your voice was barely yours. “And what am I, then?”
His gaze dropped to your mouth like he no longer intended to fight.
“You are the woman I would choose even if peace didn’t demand it. You are the person I find myself thinking of when I should be thinking of fleets and the thousand practical things princes are meant to care about.”
Your mouth gave a smile as your hands went to his chest, “You are insufferable.”
“And yet,” he said, his forehead nearly brushing yours now, “you are still holding.”
That was enough. You kissed him first.
It was a kiss with weeks of restraint collapsing under its own weight, anger and relief and want and the unbearable certainty that somewhere between hating him and understanding him, you had become hopelessly and disastrously attached.
His hand moved to your waist, yours caught at his collar.
Someone—perhaps both of you—made several decisions neither kingdom would approve of and history would likely judge harshly.
It was absolutely inappropriate for a palace corridor three floors from your father’s chambers but it was perfect.
And when you finally pulled apart, his forehead rested lightly against yours, and for a moment neither of you spoke, because some things, once they happened, made language feel smaller than it had before.
If it weren't for the fact that your entire body and mind were so focused on the prince in front of you, you would have sworn it was a lie when Percy exhaled softly “I love you”.
Private Journal of Prince Percy Jackson.
To be kept far AWAYYY from my mother, the queen.
—
This was meant, when first I began it, to be a record of my path to discipline and thought, of the observations expected of a prince who intends one day to rule without error, and yet tonight I find that it has become something far less dignified, for I am writing not of things involving this nor even of the fragile peace that holds our kingdoms apart, but of her.
We kissed.
I attempt to write it with composure, to frame it as an event of little consequence, an impulsive misstep best forgotten by morning, but the truth refuses this, and so I am left with the plain, humiliating admission that we kissed in a corridor and now has become a place I will not be able to pass again without remembering it in full.
She smiled, and I find that I cannot write that simply and move on, for it was not the smile she offers in court nor the sharper one she uses as a weapon.
It felt— No, I will not write that.
I told her that I would choose her, that even if peace had not demanded this union, even if our kingdoms had never thought to bind us together in the hope of ending centuries of bloodshed, I would still choose her, and I said it without calculation, without weighing consequence, as though the truth of it required no consideration at all.
This is not how I have been taught to speak and is not how I have been taught to think.
And yet it is how I spoke, and worse, it is how I meant it.
At one point, in what I must classify as a complete collapse of discipline, I found myself writing—
my wife, my wife, my wife
I find the word returning with an ease that suggests this is not a passing thought but a developing problem.
my future wife
No, that is worse, for it implies expectation rather than an actual thing happening, and I refuse to grant my own thoughts that level of confidence.
the woman I am to marry
This is correct but insufficient because she’s going to be my queen.
I may have developed the need to have her by my side forever.
—
How did you end up in this situation? I mean, yes, it was your wedding night and the marriage was supposed to be consummated, you got prepared for that, but you were hoping to have a few drinks, talk to your dear parents and family, and... Seriously, all because of a tradition?
One moment there was the ceremony still clinging to the air like heavy perfume— with the oaths spoken and the weight of a thousand watching eyes pressing down—and the next, everything broke into motion, into sound, into laughter and applause.
Men and women of the court, soldiers and even the attendants who only moments before had been standing like statues, now moving with a jubilanty as though this had always been the point of the entire affair.
Someone spoke your name in celebration and suddenly the ground left you.
The sudden loss of ground startled something unguarded in you, your hand instinctively catching at the nearest solid thing—which, to your immediate and profound irritation, was Percy.
He, too, had been taken by surprise, though he hid it better, his posture adjusting as several men hoisted him upward with far less ceremony than you had been granted, the contrast not lost on anyone present.
Some women tried to take the various fabrics and pearls you were wearing, but they were only able to take out shoes and accessories in your hair.
A roar of approval rose through the hall.
“Comfortable?” he asked, his voice carrying to reach you over the noise.
You held his gaze, refusing to let the situation unbalance you further than it already had.
“If I fall,” you said, your tone even despite the circumstances, “I shall ensure you are blamed for it.”
There were petals on the way—scattered, thrown, caught in your hair and on your dress, their scent sweet.
The doors ahead grew fewer, more private.
And then, at last, you reached it; your shared chambers.
The doors were thrown open with force, the room beyond lit in warm gold, prepared in a way that left very little to the imagination of anyone who had arranged it.
You were carried inside first and set down with far more care than you expected, your feet meeting the soft bed.
A moment later, Percy was lowered beside you.
The noise lingered at the threshold as the last of the laughter and well-wishes spilling inward before the doors began to close, as though savoring the final moments of public presence before sealing you both as newly weds.
Your eyes really didn't know if they could meet those of your now husband; the room felt warmer than the fireplace should been able to bring.
Percy pushed himself up, his breaths heavy from the rough handling, and for you saw his body. The suit, a tailored thing of midnight wool with silver accents, had already been loosened during the toasts, all the buttons undone at the chest, exposing the tanned planes of his torso.
He moved first, sliding off the bed to kneel at its edge and moving you with him.
Your now husband caresses the fabrics; the wedding dress is heavy on velvets, rich wools, golden embroidery, and pearls. The truth is, it's not very easy to remove.
The bed was high, so you basically could see him, and damn, why was he on his knees fiddling with your silky clothes?
His fingers tugged at the layers of the dress, bunching the velvet skirts up your thighs. The fabric was so pretty on you but he wasn't sad about taking it off if he could connect with your body and you.
His fingers, callused from sword hilts and rigging sails, tugged at the laces of your gown, but the thing was a fortress of fabric, heavy with wools and pearls that resisted his impatience.
“Fuck this,” he muttered, voice low and rough, like gravel under boots.
He wasn't gentle about it, yanking at the bodice until the golden threads strained and exposed the swell of your breasts to the cool air. You gasped, but he didn't stop, his hands roaming lower, bunching the skirts up to your hips.
God, he didn't have enough patience right now to take all your clothes off properly so the poor wedding dress stayed half-on.
His mouth was on you before you could catch the breath, hot and insistent, trailing kisses along the sensitive skin of your inner thighs. You felt the scrape of his stubble, the warmth of his breath ghosting over your dressed core, making your pussy clench in anticipation.
Percy Jackson, the man you hated so much, was now parting your legs with those strong hands, his eyes dark with want.
He hooked one arm under your knee, spreading you wider, and then his fingers were there—the rough fingerpads brushing against your underwear and finally swollen folds.
You were a soppy mess, slick from the tension of the day and the way he'd been staring at you during the vows, like he was undressing you with his gaze alone.
“You're soaked,” he growled, a hint of approval lacing his tone as he slid one finger along your slit, teasing the entrance before pushing in slowly.
The stretch was immediate, his touch firm but not rushed, circling your clit with the thumb while that finger curled inside you.
Oh gods, his mouth was so close now, lips brushing your thigh as he licked a stripe up the soft skin, tasting the salt of your anticipation. Your hips bucked involuntarily, chasing the heat, and he chuckled against you, the vibration sending sparks up your spine.
Then finally, you felt the first lick of his tongue—flat and broad, dragging over your pussy with such slowness. His tastebuds rasped against your sensitive flesh, the slightest inch of his tongue squeezing in alongside his finger, probing deeper.
It was messy, the sounds of his breath filling the room as he lapped at you, sucking gently on your clit before delving back down.
To say that you were euphoric at this moment would be an understatement because you had possibly just opened the gates of heaven.
But still… still you felt nervous, with a million thoughts going on when his mouth connected your most intimate zone and so the words blurted out theirself.
“Wait.. I'm not,” a small moan comes out. “I’ve never done this before..”
His mouth, pink and wet with your juices, lets out a small sigh, “I’ve never participated in these activities either.”
His cheek rests against your thigh, looking up before muttering against your folds. “I learn as I wend.”
And unfortunately, the only thing you can do in response is with your hips, moving them slightly against him as a new wave of slick follows.
Percy won’t make you wait.
In no time his tongue has lapped all those juices and entered your cunt alongside his finger, trying to get more and more of the sweet flavor you are giving him, maybe he’s just getting addicted.
Again and again, you find yourself dragging out desperate pushes of your hips against his mouth— riding your sensitive cunt down his straight nose and making it push on the button of your swollen clit.
You mewled, the pressure building fast, maybe too fast and he responded with a tiny slap to the cute nub! Even a glob of his spit mixed with your slick, and he rubbed it nice and good with your cunt, fingers circling and thumb pressing sloooow until you feel your walls fluttering around another invading finger— stretching you wider, his pads pressing against your squishy g-spot making stars burst behind your eyelids.
“Be honest with me,” Percy murmured against your skin, his voice muffled and lips slick with you. “Like your pussy is…Tell me when you're close.”
Gods, why couldn't you just say it? The words stuck in your throat as he worked you relentlessly, dragging out your orgasm so lengthily, his tongue tickling your constantly throbbing clit while his fingers pumped in a rhythm that had you arching off the bed.
“How are you so good at this?” you gasped finally, voice breaking as the edge rushed up. “Is this your first time? Are you kidding me?”
He pulled back and gave a grin, chin glistening and eyes wicked. “First time, princess. But I've dreamed about eating your cunt plenty.” No joke in his tone, just raw truth that made your core tighten.
“You do kiss- ah.. you do kiss your mother with that mouth…”
“As of now I'm kissing something sweeter.”
He dove back in, sucking harder, and you shattered, waves crashing through you as your pussy clenched around his fingers with slick gushing out. Percy didn't let up, milking every pulse until you were trembling, oversensitive and boneless.
You laughed breathlessly, pulling him up for a kiss that tasted of you.
But the heat didn't fade; it built.
Percy stood, shedding the rest of his loosened suit with quick, impatient jerks. Finally, you saw it—his cock pulsing, fat with red veins snaking along the length. A sensitive slit at the tip, already beading, and heavy balls hanging low.
He wasn’t just needy, he was ravenous, the angriest reddened tip flushed like it had a grudge.
He manhandled you onto the bed properly, moving you onto your back with hands that gripped your hips hard.
It was both of your first times, and lord, he was just using his tip to fuck you—rubbing the head along your slit, teasing the entrance without pushing in.
He was big, there was no way that would enter your poor pussy.
The stretch was immediate when he tried to push into your orifice, a burn that made you whine, but it mixed with the ache he'd already stirred.
You didn't know who was more pussy-drunk or cock-drunk—you, with the way your walls fluttered greedily, or him, groaning like a man possessed as he nudged in. Just a few more inches out of the numerous ones eased inside your cunt with the most lecherous sounds as if your clingy walls were trying to suck him up and weren't able.
You were addicted to the way his girth was molding your channel to him, stretching wide, the burn blending into pleasure that had you clawing at his shoulders.
You guys started fighting a bit then—playful, your hands pushing at his chest as he tried to sink deeper, him pinning your wrists with one hand while the other guided his cock.
“Stop squirming,” he laughed breathlessly, but you twisted, half-protesting the overwhelming fullness, half-pulling him closer.
“It's not- Oh fuckkk- It's not going to fit-!”
Percy looked down, seeing that there was still some way to go, his cock was screaming in agony, needing to feel you squeeze him to oblivion, and that's how his hands released your wrists.
But it wasn't until you felt his hands on your legs that you understood what he was doing, lifting them up to his shoulders and beeeending you until your legs were giving him the perfect space.
“It has to fit, fit, fit, fit...” His hips moved like a piston, trying to fill you up until the sound of a resounding wap! echoed.
He finally made it fit, bottoming out with a shared groan that left you both dumb at the feeling, brains short-circuiting from the tight, hot clasp and his balls slapping your skin.
Percy started pumping then with no intention of giving a small break, the thick, vein-puffed length of his cock from tip to base to thwack! and plap! your cervix wetly.
The man was breathing heavily as his hips continued to make the luxurious bed creak over and over again, letting out small grunts that matched your joyful moans.
Your vision blurred when a hand wandered down to give tiny slap slap slaps to your reddened clit, body arching as pleasure bordered on too much, slick coating his shaft and dripping down your thighs.
Percy watched you, transfixed, his own control fraying in a matter of seconds—when he saw the tears streak your cheeks, the way your mouth fell open in silent pleasured cries, he couldn't hold it.
“Shit—you're—” He really couldn't hold it, hips stuttering as he filled you, hot spurts of cum flooding deep. Your cunt leaked out in both slick n’ his seed, the mess dripping onto the sheets.
The poor guy was trying to pull that high out of you, trying to wrench it as he gave you a puppy look, he just needed you to cum again. And you did, crashing over the edge with a big cry you muffled by biting his shoulder, teeth sinking into the muscle as your walls spasmed around him, milking him dry.
Percy was fucking you sloppily, the rhythm erratic as his cock dragged through the mess he'd made. His fingers reached down, joining to plug you up.
Aah, lucky you both were married because for sure he bred you, and in this moment, you were drooling into the cushions, dumb on it, your body limp and buzzing.
He laughed, dizzy and breathless over your look, collapsing half on top of you, his weight a grounding heat.
“Look at you,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to your temple, affectionate even in the haze as you rolled onto your stomach, expecting him to rest next to you, catch his breath but oh no no no—he was playing with his cum between your legs, fingers scooping the leaking seed and rubbing it back in, making you whimper.
Your man pushed up your hips, ass in the air, and you felt the blunt press of his cock against your stuffed cunt again. “Can't just stop at one,” he said, voice teasing as he eased in, the stretch easier now with the slick mess.
You moaned into the cushions, face buried, as he started thrusting shallowly.
He even joked, breathing hot against your ear, “Ship's arriving at the port—hope it's ready for round two.”
You managed a weak “Don't mess around,” but it dissolved into a gasp as he fucked deeper, his cock pushing out globs of his own cum, mixing it with your fresh slick.
Your pussy was red from the smack of his hips against your ass, swollen and tender, and his pubic zone was also messy with your fluids, dark curls matted, and you heard the wap! plap! plap! sounds echoing—wet, obscene, driving you both wild.
Percy was so loving even when teasing you, one hand stroking your back while the other gripped your hip, pulling you back onto him.
“You feel incredible,” he groaned, pace quickening, the lewd squelches growing louder as he chased his release. Your body responded despite the ache, walls clenching around him, drawing him in deeper as he came inside once more, hard and sudden, flooding you until it was just an overspilling mess, thick ropes leaking down your thighs in rivulets.
The citadel's bells tolled midnight outside, but in the chambers, the real merging had just begun. Percy pulled out slowly and you both collapsed in a tangle of limbs and rumpled sheets.
His arm draped over you, fingers tracing lazy patterns on your skin. “Think we can skip the morning feast?” he asked, voice muffled against your shoulder.
You chuckled, turning to face him and a hand coming up without thinking, brushing a loose strand of his hair back from his forehead.
“The court would consider that a declaration of war.”
Percy shifted slightly closer, as though the space between you had become completely unnecessary. There was none of the earlier tension left in him now, none of the heat or provocation—just a look of love in his eyes.
“Then we are already off to an excellent start as a married couple,” he said.
For a moment, neither of you spoke.
The bells outside faded into silence, the palace beyond your chambers distant and irrelevant, as though the world had politely stepped away to allow this peace to exist without interruption.
You studied him in that quiet—the way the torchlight softened the features of him, the way he looked at you now without challenge or the distance between kingdoms that had defined everything between you.
Your fingers drifted from his hair to his cheek, resting there lightly.
“They will expect us,” you said after a moment.
“They can expect whatever they like,” Percy replied, his gaze soft on yours. “We’ve already done everything they required of us.”
Your hand slipped from his face, but he caught it before it could fall away entirely, threading his fingers through yours.
You exhaled softly, letting your forehead rest briefly against his.
“Just this once,” you said quietly, “we stay.”
“A generous decree,” Percy murmured, his voice low with sleep and softer, it did not sound like the prince who argued in the council chambers or provoked you in gardens. “I should thank my wife for such mercy.”
“Do not grow accustomed to it,” you replied with a small laugh. “I grant it only because you have ensured that walking tomorrow would be… unnecessarily difficult.”
“I see,” he said slowly, as though considering this with more seriousness than it deserved, though the corner of his mouth betrayed him. “Then I must accept this kindness with proper gratitude, my queen.”
You narrowed your eyes at him.
“Careful,” you warned, though it lacked the bite it once would have carried. “You will make a habit of saying things you cannot take back.”
“I do not intend to take them back.” His thumb moved faintly against your hand, absent and thoughtful. “We could go for a walk in the morning to see your favorite flowers.”
“Sleep,” you said. “If you insist on embarrassing us both in the morning, you will at least require the rest.”
A faint breath of laughter escaped him at that as his arm tightened around you.
“As you command,” he murmured. “My love.”
♡ 𝐑𝐞𝐪𝐮𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞
♡ 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐥 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭 ⸝⸝ 𝐏𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐉𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐦𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭
💭: Guys this is not proofreaded LIKE 70% sooo hopefully you won't find many weird typos or stuff TT Still I'm reallly happy because I don't tend to write such long oneshots, yippieeee!!
Summary: You keep trying to beat him. He keeps trying to love you. Somewhere in the middle, you let him.
Requested: yes, anonymous
"You're dead, Jackson!"
Percy laughed as he dodged your swing, backing up with his hands raised. "Babe, come on—"
"Don't 'babe' me!" You advanced on him, sword still raised even though you both knew you weren't actually going to hurt him. Much. "You let me win!"
"I did not let you win!"
"Percy." You lowered your blade, crossing your arms. "I know when someone's holding back. My dad's the god of war, remember? I can read combat like you read the ocean."
Your boyfriend had the decency to look guilty, running a hand through his blonde hair. A few campers training nearby were trying very hard to pretend they weren't watching the show. You and Percy arguing was always entertainment.
"Okay, maybe I was a little distracted," he admitted.
"By what?"
"You." He stepped closer, that troublemaker smile spreading across his face. "You had this really cute concentrated look, and the sun was hitting your hair, and I just—"
"Oh my gods, stop." You felt heat rising to your cheeks, betraying you completely. This was the worst part about dating Percy Jackson—he could make you go from war-ready to flustered in seconds. "You're not allowed to use the boyfriend card to get out of a proper fight."
"Pretty sure I am. It's in the boyfriend handbook."
"There's no handbook."
"Sure there is. Rule one: always tell your girlfriend she looks amazing, even when she's threatening you with a sword."
You tried to maintain your glare, you really did. But his grin was infectious, and despite your Ares-given temper, you felt your lips twitching. "You're impossible."
"And yet you're dating me." Percy closed the distance between you, gently lowering your sword arm. "Rematch? For real this time. Full effort."
"Promise?"
"On the Styx."
You narrowed your eyes. "That's serious."
"I'm seriously not trying to get murdered by my girlfriend for throwing a fight." He pressed a quick kiss to your forehead. "Even if she is really cute when she's threatening me."
"Jackson—"
"Sparring! Right! Going!" He jogged backward toward his starting position, Riptide already uncapped.
As you raised your sword again, you caught sight of Clarisse making exaggerated gagging noises from across the arena. You shot her your middle finger without breaking eye contact with Percy.
"Your sister's watching," Percy noted.
"She's always watching. She thinks we're 'disgustingly soft.'"
"Are we?"
"Probably," you admitted. Then you lunged forward with a real strike—no holding back this time. Percy's eyes widened as he barely parried. "But I'm still going to kick your ass."
"There's my girl," he laughed, meeting your next strike with genuine effort.
The fight was fast and fierce, exactly how you liked it. This was better—Percy matching your intensity, reading your moves, pushing back with his own offense. This was the kind of battle that made your blood sing, made you feel alive.
When you finally managed to disarm him, sending Riptide flying, you had him backed against the arena wall with your blade at his throat. Both of you were breathing hard, sweat-soaked and grinning.
"Yield?" you asked.
"Never," Percy said, but his eyes were sparkling. "You're amazing, you know that?"
"Flattery after you've lost?"
"Just facts." His hand came up to gently wrap around your wrist—not forcing your blade away, just touching you. "I'm crazy about you."
Your heart did that stupid flutter thing again. "Even though I just destroyed you?"
"Especially because you just destroyed me."
You lowered your sword, shaking your head with a smile you couldn't suppress. "You're lucky you're cute, Jackson."
"Yeah, I really am."
"Shut up." You leaned in and kissed him, tasting salt and sweat and victory. His arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you closer despite the armor and weapons between you.
Someone—definitely Clarisse—yelled, "GET A CABIN!"
You pulled back just enough to shout, "MIND YOUR BUSINESS!" before kissing Percy again.
"Your siblings hate me," he murmured against your lips.
"They hate everyone. You're actually growing on them."
"Really?"
"Well, you make me happy. And you can hold your own in a fight. That's all that matters to children of Ares." You stepped back, extending your hand. "Come on, seaweed brain. I'll let you buy me fries at the pavilion."
"You mean I'll let you steal my fries."
"Same thing."
Percy laced his fingers through yours as you walked out of the arena together, his thumb tracing gentle circles on your skin. The gesture was soft, sweet—everything your siblings would mock you for.
You didn't care. Let them talk. You were a daughter of war who'd somehow found peace in the arms of a son of the sea.
🏁 pit stop ! 𖦹 when it comes to you, yoichi isagi has tunnel vision. you’re the very object of all his desires. it doesn’t help that he can’t see when other people are into him — so you take matters into your own hands and make sure that they see he’s only into you. (12.1K)
🏁 safety car ! ⋆ not safe for work ⋆ smut ⋆ eighteen plus only. pro soccer player au, canon compliant, characters in 20s, established relationships, healthy jealousy, mentions of injury, mentions of named female antagonist, dry humping, handjobs, obsessive marking, hickies, cum tasting, overstimulation, oral sex (m!recieving), yoichi isagi 25 - pro giver gets to recieve, lover boy isagi. pro soccer player isagi, fem reader.
🏁 team radio ! ⋆ you guys!! happy birthday to my beautiful boy yoichi!! my sweet love, i miss you him so much all of the time. i've been sitting on this bad boy for months and im so excited to share with you! hope you enjoy!! click for more.
sometimes, you like to joke that your boyfriend, isagi yoichi, has tunnel vision.
on the pitch or during a game, he only sees one thing. a means to an end, a means to win.
although, when it comes to his personal life, the only thing isagi cares to look at — is you. love wasn’t something he ever wished for or intended on finding and for a long time, soccer was his everything. he breathed, ate and dreamt of the sport from the moment he could walk to the moment he entered blue lock and beyond, there was nothing else to focus on except for becoming the best in japan. the best in the world.
in his future he envisioned, it was just him at the top. no one else by his side, no one else as ambitious as him. of course, until he met you — a chance encounter one fateful night, passionate eyes locked and the rest was history. he knew it then and he knows it now…
isagi yoichi only ever has eyes for you, you’re the only one he’ll ever want.
even if other people want him instead.
like most couples in the public eye you’ve had your fair share of jealous fangirls and vicious fanboys, but you’ve long since passed the stage of teary eyes and the threat of breakups looming over your heads. the blue lock PR team is insanely good at moderation, surprisingly, and you like to think the bond you share with their diamond player is strong enough to withstand whatever test is thrown your way. only sometimes do you feel that nagging vulnerability at the back of your mind, when someone gets a little too close to your all-star player and looks up at him with dreamy eyes as if to hope and pray he’ll look at them differently. look at them the way he looks at you.
your boyfriend has never been one to stray, he’s as loyal as a dog and perhaps has an meaner streak than you when it comes to being possessive – he has an appetite for destruction when others attempt to get close to you, maybe even so much as glance at you and will turn into that vicious egoist not just you, but the entire world, loves. yet sometimes, your territorialism over isagi outshines his over you, sometimes you go to the extreme to prove that you’re the only one meant to be with him.
this is one of those times.
whilst champagne flows and music thumps through your body due to the heavy bass, your mind wonders away from the party thrown in honour of the blue lock eleven’s latest victory against an overseas team in the football league. winning four to one with most scores and assists resulting from your boyfriend’s chemical reactions on the pitch — you should have been sneaking off somewhere to give him an even better prize than a silly gold cup. instead, you dance around the outskirts of the gathering, darting between the familiar faces of his teammates and their loved ones with swaying designer skirts whilst attempting to spy on isagi as he chatters away innocently with her.
her being a recent hire on the blue lock sports team is entirely too infatuated with your yoichi for your liking — as the new assistant physiotherapist for the eleven rowdy players, it was natural that this brand new and shiny ‘hana’ girl would be spending more time alongside the boys. alongside your boy. you don’t blame her, to be fair, it’s easy to be starstruck by yoichi. he’s the best player in japan, he’s gorgeous too — golden skin that glistens during matches and beautiful blue eyes holding the depths of the ocean’s secrets. his charm transcends anything anyone’s ever seen in a player of his ferocity, isagi can be kind and humble, attentive and makes you feel like you’re the only person in the world when he’s with you.
you truly cannot blame her for the obvious little crush she has on him, one that must have bubbled and brewed during therapy sessions in between games and practices.
that doesn’t mean she doesn’t bother you.
your boyfriend, ever the angel, is too sweet to take note of her subtle advances and gazes filled with yearning. he doesn’t know that she’s attempting to flirt when her hand slides a little lower than considered professional during pre-game warm-ups and massages. he can’t tell that she’s pining after him like a high-schooler with a love note tucked behind her back when she makes sure that he has his water bottle and extra electrolytes first whenever isagi has training. nor does he notice that she clings to his sweaty towels for a little too long after he’s handed them off to her.
isagi is so nice, so oblivious — just like when you met. just like when you made moves on him back then. he doesn’t know what a simple tilt of his head during conversation does to a girl — the type where he’s trying to listen in and seem attentive. he’s unfamiliar with his own game and charm, oblivious to his gravitational pull and ability to make people fall for him the way you did, hard and fast without even realising you were about to hit the ground. all because yoichi was there the catch you, free-falling with you through the love in the air.
it’s possible that hana doesn’t know about you and isagi — he’s a show off, always touching you subtly, searching for your eyes across the way, throwing you secretive smiles during interviews… but you’ve been together so long that you’ve begun to hide the precious parts of your relationships away from the public. aside from passing social media posts and the odd rumour about your togetherness… only the people most important to you know that you’re still a couple now. so maybe she doesn’t know. maybe she has no clue.
maybe that’s why she cuddles up to him before the snack table, pulls that typical move by pretending to have one too many sips of high-end alcohol so she has an excuse to sway on her feet and steady herself against your partner’s sturdy frame.
you let her bask in the interaction for now, because while you know in your head and by your own logic that isagi would never betray you for someone else — your heart rears it’s ugly head, the blood in your veins turning a nasty shade of green as it courses through your body. it makes you question whether you should be mad at her or mad at him, who will be on the receiving end of the plot being spun in your mind like a spider forming its web.
a cruel, twisted smirk tugs on the corners of your perfectly glossed lips before you knock back the last of the golden liquid swirling around in your champagne flute. from across the room, hazy ocean eyes slink away from the girl who is no more than a coworker to their owner in order to meet yours. midnight blue flickers to life with love, drinks in the dress that matches them and wraps around your perfect body. isagi’s lips quirk up into a subtle smirk, one that hides his layers of want for you. one that tells you that you’re still the only one on his mind no matter who he’s with.
and you know then, that yoichi isagi will be your victim tonight.
set to receive a curious mix of both punishment and reward that he’s sure to enjoy after such a hard day’s work, of being the best in every sense of the word.
isagi always looks most handsome when he’s concentrating.
during a game, something switches within him. he becomes a beast of untapped talent and potential that shines across the field like a polished diamond. his eyes are often wild, set ablaze with a cool fire that burns his enemies alive. when the pro player is focused, no matter what it’s on, his expression will often send a pang of heat straight through you — the way his tongue often pokes into his cheek, causing it to bulge, and brows furrow at the centre of his forehead, azure eyes darkening as they analyse whatever task he’s paying attention to.
after the party tonight, the two of you headed straight back to your private suite rented out courtesy of ego and anri for the team. isagi would have joined you in the shower, he loves to see you undress and feel your skin against his, but his mind was racing from the match that had been won with his goals. ever the analyst, he has to watch the game through to pick apart the plays from both he and his team. so while washing up, you leave him to concentrate on his replays — trying to scrub away the irrational jealousy wrapping around your brain stem and crawling down your spine.
however, the scorching hot water does nothing to wash the feeling away. when you return to the room and isagi lounging away in the love seat by the balcony, he hardly looks your way — wrapped up in his phone, perfectly toned thighs twitching every time he sees a perfect play, his tie loose around his thick neck and tux half shrugged off. the digitalised final minutes of his match capture every ounce of his attention and you can’t help but wonder if his mind is elsewhere. aside from the sports. you’re so used to being the centre of his world, the only one he looks at that you worry he could be thinking of her tonight instead of you. reminiscing the way her fingers glided over his biceps to steady herself after her faked drunk stumbling.
it makes you sick to your stomach, how jealous you are when there’s no need to be. you trust yoichi and you know that if the roles were reversed, he would trust you too. padding deeper into the room, you become hyper aware of the carpet beneath your toes that curl into it and the way yoichi’s shirt sticks to your damp body — the fabric growing heavy as a result of the water from your shower that seeps into it. fidgeting before him, you note that your senses are heightened by unpleasant emotions of anxiousness and irritation, and clear your throat to speak.
this doesn’t grab your boyfriend’s attention either. so you cough louder before you voice your thoughts and feelings. “she likes you, yanno,” you hum, feigning nonchalance as you perch yourself on the arm of isagi’s chair. you throw your legs over the edge of the rest, feet falling into his lap. the star player says nothing but raises a brow in acknowledgment. he’s listening in now, whether he believes you or not. “hana, she’s got a major thing for you.” you go on, frowning with your lips drawn into a pout.
regrettably, this piques isagi’s interest — one hand reaching for his sports drink with a straw as the other holds his phone steady. “no she doesn’t. she’s just being friendly?” confusion curls around his heart as he chews on the paper straw, inevitably turning it to mush between perfect rows of pearly white teeth. a poor attempt at avoiding his plush lips sucking on the straw is made, heating you up under the collar. for a moment, you forget that you’re mad and irritated, too enamoured by how attractive your boyfriend is even while doing the mundane.
you must be pulling a face, a discontented one, because isagi sets his drink down and smooths his palm over your bare calf to keep you in place — making sure you don’t topple backwards over the edge of the seat. he’s paying attention now – trying to decipher whether or not you’re being bratty or you’re genuinely upset. “she brings you extra protein shakes when you’re not supposed to have them, and schedules you extra physical therapy sessions even though you don’t need them...” you scoff as though your observations are the most obvious thing in the world, playing into yoichi’s concern for you. “haven’t you noticed that? it’s weird…”
when he shakes his head ‘no’, you petulantly snatch his drink away from the table beside you both and take a sip, the dark haired player’s cerulean eyes trailing to your lips around your straw and the way your adam’s apple faintly bobs in your throat. it clicks for him then, the way you’re subtly teasing him under the guise of being upset – you always know how to keep him on his toes, his precious little menace.
you’re not really mad. just a little bit jealous… and all you really want is to be spoiled with his attention.
yoichi clicks the power button on his phone, tossing the sleek black device onto the table. he looks at you then, gaze mirthy and amused as the rough palm of his hand slowly makes its way up to your thigh – squeezing the doughy, exposed flesh in his own form of reassurance. “and that’s not being friendly? she does the same for bachira.”
there’s an annoyingly condescending lilt to the tone of isagi’s voice now that his attention is fully on you. you’ve started a dangerous game in an attempt to prove yourself as number one in yoichi isagi’s heart. the ghost of his touch slipping under the shirt that you wear, moving from your thigh to pinch the fat at your hips – it makes saliva pool on your tongue, makes your vision swim, nearly distracting you from your mission to re-stake your claim on the star player.
he cocks his head up at you, squinting to see if your resolve will crumble just like he does with an opponent on the field.
“that’s only because he pesters her for special treatment too and he’s your best friend,” you squirm as though you’re a creature being inspected under a microscope, turning your nose up at your boyfriend. “do you think i was being friendly with you when i was sneaking into your locker rooms during practices to spend extra time with you?” lifting a hand, you ruffle his hair.
isagi shakes the dark locks of his bangs from his eyes, a deep chuckle rumbling in the depths of his chest and right through you. for a moment, he pretends to think – reminiscing about all of the secret make-out sessions that took place during the early days of your relationship.
“you weren’t?”
“i wasn’t, i was flirting with you.” you roll your eyes in response, ignoring the flutter in your heart at the sound.
faux surprise spreads across the slopes of his features like a filter at your reply and he tuts mockingly, as if to scold your scandalous behaviour back then. as if he didn’t thrive in it, adoring how you so boldly went after him. “and look where that got us…” yoichi’s voice drops into a lower octave and maintains a breathiness that drives you insane, brushing over that patch in your brain that controls your lust and acts as the epicentre for your desire. you know that voice, you’ve become so familiar with it over the years – falling under its control under the moonlight and just before the sunrise, tangled up in sheets or pressed against walls. it’s the very voice isagi uses whenever he wants or craves you, matching the energy whenever you want him to.
in one sudden movement, yoichi’s using his grip on your hips to tug you into his widespread lap from the arm of the chair. his chin juts upwards in your direction, practically begging for a kiss once you’re settled – plump pink lips spread into a hungry, lopsided smirk. daring and dangerous, coaxing you to take exactly what you want from the man before you.
you do just that, patience wearing thin as your fingers wrap around his loose black tie – giving you the leverage to tug him into a slow, wet kiss. it’s not like the two of you haven’t ever kissed like this before, but even after all this time – your tummy still fills with a myriad of butterflies whenever your lips meet. they fit together perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle. blue lock’s shining star locks lips with you so tenderly that you hardly notice his tongue prying your mouth open, licking over the barrier of your teeth to taste you before he’s squeezing your waist in his lap – anything to get you to gasp and let him in.
the way he touches you, kisses you, sucks on your tongue as soon as he’s able to is intoxicating – casting a dark veil over your brain to trap the static and prevent you from thinking about anything else aside from him. not that you care, not that you mind…because you know isagi is equally as infatuated with you as you are with him. the two of you have always been like this, perfectly balanced in your obsession with one another. saliva is swapped between you, fed to you by isagi as he licks into the hot cavern of your drooly mouth – pouring his increasingly desperate moans into you. you wonder if he tastes the bitter jealousy pooling on the palette of your tongue, if that’s what draws him into you, makes him suck the spit from the writhing pink muscle and press himself impossibly closer – nose nudging yours throughout the eager rhythm of your airless exchange of bruising pecks.
if you try to breathe in between kisses, the only thing you’ll be able to intake is him. his scent, musky and woody, the whisky seeping through his pores. the level of desire you have for him is too much for your body to handle, threatening to burst at the seams as lust brews under the heated surface of your skin – intertwined with red blood cells shooting through your veins, travelling south. you flinch as your sex pulses to life in isagi’s lap, pathetically wet from how good he sounds mewling between slow, carefully placed smooches. you’d feel ashamed, but there’s no time to be when your boyfriend is so intune with your body, quickly catching onto the blazing neediness that sets your insides alight from the way you instinctively buck down on him. he smirks against the swell of your lips, using his hold on your waist to show you that he feels the same – pinning you onto his growing erection, hard and weighty between your damp thighs.
before the two of you can get too carried away, entirely too turned on from making out like two teenagers – you pull back with spit-glazed lips and hazy eyes. “...and look where it’ll get her if she keeps this up...”
isagi pouts at the separation, unconsciously chasing your mouth – almost letting out a whimper when you purposely hold yourself out of his reach. “f-fuck i… i don’t want to end up anywhere with her. i only have eyes for you. i only like you.” he says firmly, like it’s a promise – grinding up against you in an attempt to get you to give into him.
“just like?” you tease him happily.
“love. i love you.” he huffs with faux annoyance.
jealous nights will usually end like this. with you surrendering yourself just to end up with isagi ramming you through the mattress, proving the extent of his desire and dedication to you…but this time, you want to be the one to remind him where he and who he belongs to.
at his admission, however, you feel a wave of cuteness aggression inside that twists deliciously with the pleasure beginning to form knots deep within and reach out for him; pressing a chaste kiss to his cheek. “you’re perfect, yoichi isagi. you’re precious.”
“i could say the same about you, baby.” isagi groans possessively once he realises your light affections are all he’s getting for now. in a last ditch effort, his slender fingers curl around the nape of your neck – not to choke you, but to remind you of his presence and the sheer control he has over your body – loyal to him and him alone. all he wants is a kiss, to bask in the sweet flavours and reminiscent alcohol dancing on your tongue but you have other plans.
dipping your head, you latch onto his unsuspecting earlobe – pulling it between your teeth whilst your lashes flutter against the side of his face. you move on, sucking just underneath the same spot and relishing in the way his pulse races beneath your cherry-bitten lips. the unmarred, golden expanse of this throat becomes your next victim, soon to become the perfect canvas for a barrage of purpley-blue hues in the form of love bites. all isagi can do in response is whine and moan salaciously as you mark him up, make him yours. all while rutting his hardness into you, inevitably smearing early evidence of his arousal against the inside of his now-wrinkled suit pants.
“p-precious, what are you doing?” sex crazed hormones begin to drift into the air, rattling about and colliding with kinetic energy as isagi begins to question you breathlessly. In all actuality, he doesn’t care, surrendering his body to your command and control.
“nothin.” you purr coyly, letting go of his neck with a wet pop.
“doesn’t feel like nothin to me…oh, okay. c-christ, okay.” he tilts his head back, allowing you more room to work our magic on the column of his throat – biting down hard on the sensitive spots you’ve familiarised yourself with over the years. like his favourite, just above his adam’s apple, the one that makes him buck up impulsively and hiss when is pulsating cock brushes against the sticky outline of your clothed folds. he sighs out in content, voice deep and ladened with enough lust to send an electric current of ecstasy right through you. “b-baby,” yoichi pants restlessly, arching away from the back of the chair, willing to receive anything you have to give to him. “y-you know, ego won’t like it if you leave anything that shows…”
and still, neither of you can find it within you to care. not when you’re like this, hung up on each other, barely holding back. “don’t care. b’sides, you like it…” your tongue rolls over the fresh bruises you’ve left on him, soothing their sting as you speak. “hey, ‘ichi?”
he’s too dazed and turned on to form proper words, blue lock’s precious number one falling to pieces drunkardly looking down at you pressed up against his chest. “hmm?” comes his lazy hum.
“lift up your shirt.”
“wh—“
“i know that you see yourself as mine, but let me show everyone else that you’re mine,” isagi fucking adores you. you were always meant to be his and he was always meant to be yours. even on the field, playing his first love, he’s sure hasn’t been anyone quite able to match his ego and freak in the same way that you do. so he can’t say no to you, not when you’re pleading, aching to show him off and make it known that he is the centre of your world. slowly, he relents, undoing the last few buttons of his pressed-cotton dress shirt so that he can take the flailing ends of the material between his teeth. the both of you share a haughty groan as isagi reveals his blistering hot skin to the cool, airconditioned room. washboard abs contract under your greedy hands as you smooth over his lean frame – defined by the hard work he does on the pitch every day.
you inch your way down his body, leaving a trail of wet kisses and sloppily placed hickies in your wake until you’re able to sink onto your knees between his spread thick thighs. the entire time, you keep your eyes locked on his – never shying away or backing down, staring straight into mirthy ocean blue because you know just how much isagi loves it when you keep your eyes on him, when you look at him with those sweet puppy dog eyes. like he’s the only thing that exists in your world.
in all your years together, you’ve come to know that yoichi isagi is much more of a giver than he is a receiver. you learned that very quickly and in the most appetisingly sinful ways possible. he’s always quick to go down on you, to taste you, gets a kick out of being the only one to put his mouth on you and know the best way to make you cum on his tongue. you wonder if he’d like the reverse treatment tonight. since, when you do actually get to give him head, he’s extra sensitive.
your cunt flutters at the idea of what’s to come, but you push down your own selfish wants and needs to focus on the man panting in anticipation above you. “yoichi,” you sigh, licking your lips once your knees are firmly planted on the floor — their wet surface coasting over his toned stomach as it contracts felicitously. “wanna suck you off. i’m going to suck you off.”
isagi sucks in a breath, slumping back in the seat and running a hand through his disheveled hair. “yeah? you are?” he leers down at you languidly, his eyes darkening virulently — their cobalt shine dimming as though a storm cloud has raged forward to block out all forms of sunlight emitting from your happy-go-lucky boyfriend. his switch has been flipped and you’re the only one to blame. “right now?”
you pout and nod preciously, resting the chub of your cheek on his twitch thigh before you drag the pinkish tip of your tongue over his perfectly pressed black slacks. “i mean it, yoichi,” he thinks you’re so cute like this, assertive. possessive. a carnal hankering for Japan’s best striker tearing through your body with unspeakable force. “right now.”
“alright, alright,” isagi raises his hands in joking defence, bright laughter brewing from deep within, before he cups your face to capture your gaze — watching you with pride as your mouth accepts the thumb that glides over your bottom lip. “you know, you don’t have to. i don’t want you to think that i need sex to be reminded of how much i love you—” he’s reassuring with his words, because the pro player would never want to make you feel used over some slight jealousy but his concern quickly joins your melting pot of lust fuelled emotions when you suck down on his thumb. hard.
a teaser of what’s to come.
nestling yourself back on your haunches, you beam up at the soccer player with sweet eyes that occasionally shoot down to his now, very prominent, pulsating erection as he manspreads a little more in place. the sight makes your mouth water and a hungry whine lodge itself in the base of your throat too. “i want to,” you say. “i want you.”
“you want me, huh?” he presses down on your tongue with an air of both fascination and condescension about him, enjoying your struggle as you lightly gargle around the rough pad of his digit and earning a saccharine simper from you. “well… that’s nice to know, precious,” isagi coos to you slyly, the slightest crack in his voice hinting at his slowly crumbling composure. the way he yearns for you, even while playing cool, will never cease to make you melt — at the end of the day he craves your attention in the same way you long for his. it’s a delightful dynamic that never leaves either of you undesired because you know each other down to the dark depths of your souls, only fuelling the passion that buzzes between you and keeps your borderline obsessive relationship alive. “tell me more, let me hear it… let me see it, baby…”
pulling from the addictive, wet cavern of your mouth, isagi drags his saliva slicked thumb over your cupid’s bow — smudging it over the corners of your lips with a satisfied hum. it almost sounds like he’s begging, pleading with you to fan at the flames of debauchery circulating through his bloodstream — setting his body alight with bright white lust. like throwing wood or gasoline on an open fire, he wants you to feed his ego, stroke it until he’s certain that he’s the only one on your mind. the only one you’d die for and heaven knows you’d sing isagi’s praises until your final breath.
with your entire body bristling with joy and underlying pleasure at his intimate gestures, you keen into his firm thighs and chase the touch of his fingertips like a good girl. “i always do. i want you in every way. want you to know that you’re mine…” you bleat earnestly, as though you’re stating an obvious fact. “and i want other people to know that too…”
instinctively, your lips part to reveal the thick web of drool that ties the roof of your mouth the your tongue. to see you like this, on your knees with a raging appetite does something insane to isagi’s ego, something of a power trip. it reminds him of how good he must be to get you so riled and fucked up over a girl he hardly cares about. practically salivating with the dire need to selfishly keep him all to yourself. in your heart of hearts you’ll be the only one for him until the day he fades from this earth, but still, you feel an urge to prove that to him.
maybe it’s a little fucked up and twisted that he enjoys it, maybe it’s a little sinister that he’s basking in the way your eyes form heart shapes while you admire him from below — like he’s some kind of god who’s cock you want to serve and worship.
the foundations of your relationship with isagi might be loving and healthy — the happiest you’ve ever been with a partner in your life…but it's woven together by strong threads of slightly unhealthy, unhinged monomania that neither of you care to get rid of any time soon. especially now that your lover is hanging over you, starry eyed and rosy cheeked about to fuck your mouth in some lavish hotel room in a foreign country. you love this. you thrive on it.
“come back to me, precious. don’t wander too far,” isagi’s freehand once abandoned on the fabric arms of the chair takes yours, intertwining your fingers and guiding them over the bulge outlined in the dark material of his dress pants, sucking in a sharp breath when you begin to paw at him by your own will. “fuck… that’s what you do to me, baby. that’s all you. no one else,” his admission sends a shockwave of pleasure straight to your clit and coaxes you into the dark, inebriating enigma that is isagi yoichi, clouding your mind and expelling any thoughts you may have from your mind. he clicks his fingers before your dilated eyes, voice low and sexy when he speaks. “you’re so pretty when you’re not paying attention, baby. thought you wanted all of mine…c’mere, suck my cock like you said you would. i wanna watch, wanna show you how i only have eyes for you.”
you feel dizzy, like you’ve fallen under a spell that you never want to wake from. “all me?” your voice is quiet, raspy from the lust that you feel as your dainty hand roughly rubs at his dick print, back and forth, back and forth. god, you might really kill him. isagi. he might die here with you smiling up at him every time he twitches to life underneath your fingertips and he’d die happy.
and when you lean forward to press a gentle kiss to his clothed cock, he thinks he might have seen god. “all you, precious. just you…” blue lock’s diamond in the rough races to finish his sentence, unable to fight his instinct to kiss you. appease you. pacify all of your doubts and worries and jealousy. he relents, giving into you — licking past the seams of your swollen lips, just enough to leave you wanting more, blur the thoughts in your brain and put your mind at ease. isagi dangles himself and his body in front of you like a worshiper offering up a sacrificial lamb to the gods, to keep you wanting him and boosting his ego.
that way, you dance around each other, light on your toes, breathing new life and excitement into your relationship no matter who or what comes your way. it works; not that you’d expect anyone outside of the two of you to understand your functional dysfunctionality.
palming him harder and faster, you smooth a finger over the outline of your boyfriend’s leaky tip and watch hungrily as precum seeps through material – effectively darkening it, and earning yourself petulant moans and whines from isagi. pretty sounds that just barely escape through perfect gritted teeth. its impossible not to adore the way that the star player, so strong and confident, trembles above you – going as far to pet your pretty head to ground himself ( never to push your head down, he knows you don’t like that). he grows impatient, struggling to breathe, struggling with the idea of not fucking up into your mouth just yet. you’re torturing yoichi and he loves it, following you into the dark depths of hell.
“i love you like this yoichi; only i get you like this,” you moan, evilly, lowly and tauntingly between his legs, knowingly pushing the pro player beyond his limits. “not her, only i can be the one to taste you. that’s why i’m yours and you’re mine.” between each word, you mouth hotly at his sticky, clothed cockhead – the condensed, temperate air seeping through the barriers of fabric that keep you from him.
you want him to admit it. to say that it’s true. you belong to each other.
subsequently, isagi’s head drops forward, a mop of blackened hair falling over his covetously clouded eyes – pupils blown as the sunkissed surface of his bare chest glistens with a light sheet of sweat. “f-fuck,” the soccer star curses quietly, the volume of his voice just high enough for you to hear. “only you. you’re the only one. p-please precious. c-can i have your mouth on my cock now?”
that’s all you need to hear before you’re leaping forward like a lioness who’s finally chosen her prey. “take it off for me?” whilst you busy yourself with peeling back the final two layers of your boyfriend’s clothes, without much care for their fine craftsmanship – isagi, ever the sweetheart, does some of the work for you and fiddles with the belt cinched around his unfairly slender waist. he makes quick work of it too, hanging onto your every sugary word as the metal buckle clinks in your ears and his hips are set free from their clothed confines.
you leave intentionally placed love bites and hickies against his pelvis as his pants and boxers come down, knowing that they’ll sting with the reminder of you during his next match. then your tongue tangles in the dark curls of his happy trail, honeyed laughter echoing in your throat when isagi’s drippy girth finally comes into view. the entirety of him slaps against his shimmering, rock hard abs once enough of him is revealed to the world, spasming rhythmically as a result of the fresh, air-conditioned atmosphere.
not that you’ve had much to compare it to, but you’re sure that yoichi isagi has the prettiest cock you’ve ever seen. he’s thicker than he is long, yet the perfect size to keep you satisfied almost daily and plugged full of cum where it counts. contrastingly, his balls are round, plump, full of an ungodly amount of seed reserved only for you and the parts of your body he thinks it’ll look best on. viscous, opaque precum beads at the slit on his tip, ready to be sampled.
and you do just that, leaning forward without using your hands and kitten licking the saltine stream of his essence from his mushroomed cockhead that burns a painful shade of crimson red – completely flushed from your earlier ministrations. it shines sinfully as though its been glossed like your lips. not to mention, the veins that spiral decoratively all the way down isagi’s meaty shaft rival the colour of his azure eyes and pulsate with the lustful blood rush from his brain. you take care with your touch, keeping it tender as you wrap your dainty digits around him, flesh to flesh for the first time that night – circling the pad of your thumb over his sensitive tip, smearing precum through it’s sticky slit sweetly.
“y’so pretty, yoichi…” you say through a pleased shudder, misty bambi eyes flickering from his length in your hands to his handsome face – twisted in ecstatic-like agony.
god, he smells like heaven, is all you can think as you slap your boyfriend’s thick dick against the palette of your tongue rolling over your bottom lip. a heavy musk mixed with blades of freshly cut grass fills your nose, drifts over your brain like a concentrated fog wafting through a swamp – acting like the fumes of a sleep gas that dampen your ability to control your own consciousness. you become hyperaware of everything, the carpet brushing harshly against your bare knees, the weight of him against your tongue and the same tip of your tongue that writhes against the backs of your teeth, yoichi’s shaking thighs and how he throbs in your grip.
starting nice and slow, you jerk the parts of isagi not resting on your tongue – a series of wrecked and strained sighs catching on the ridges of his throat when you adjust your hold on his dick, your slick palm pressing into prominent forked veins that wrap around his shaft. “yeah, says you,” his breathing falters barely, managing to counter your compliment, “i’m all yours. do what you want with me…” the air in his lungs grows scarce and thin like he’s been tossed into the depths of space and lost himself to the darkness of his own debauched mind, when you shake your head from side to side – slurping down whatever paints the pink of your strawberry tongue with opaque white.
its nearly too much for isagi, the threat of bursting prematurely into your mouth, looming over him. so he does what any man should do before getting head from their precious girl. before you can move to take him into your mouth fully, just as you have done many times before, warm breath coasting along his chubby cock – the soccer star swoops down once more, capturing your awaiting mouth in a sloppy, uncoordinated kiss.
yoichi sucks his own flavour from every inch of your tongue, making you mewl muffledly in surprise. you know his body all to well, you’re familiar with what makes him tick and what has him creaming in a matter of a few measly minutes – but tonight, he wants to hold off, savour the special treatment you give him, giving you the time and attention you need to ( unnecessarily ) prove your position to him. where isagi is number one in japan’s soccer league – you are number one in his heart and mind. a fact that he is proud to know.
you giggle against puffy lips that smack lewdly against yours, choosing to palm him instead of giving him head for time time being. his dick jumps to life at the gentle movement, spewing milky white against your knuckles while you form a closed fist around him. “gonna make you cum, ‘ichi. that’s what i’m gonna do with you,” you state like its obvious, or at least try to, between selfish kisses and the lubricous sounds your hand makes as it glides up and down your boyfriend’s cock – wet from where you’ve been toying with and licking at him. your movements are also aided by the globes of precum that drip down to his balls from time to time.
“god… that’s all i wanna do. fill that pretty mouth with my cum, watch you swallow it…” isagi rasps with finality before breaking the kiss and pulling back to sit at attention. he stares down at you through unfairly long and dark lashes, obsidian black engulfing the assure in eyes as you drag your smooch swollen over the cream he leaks one last time. “can i do that? please, precious?”
the begging combined with the baritone register to isagi’s voice makes your skin crawl in the best of ways — clearing your mind so that all you think about is him. his power over you despite his dick being at the mercy of your wet lips and gentle touch is something to be studied. instead of verbally responding, you let the physicality of your actions speak for themselves — leaning forward, you take your boyfriend down your throat with practised ease, sinking down on him until his bulbous cockhead just barely grazes the back of your throat and your nose is tickled by his faint happy trail.
a symphony of soggy whimpers and lewd gargling noises tangle with the thick smog of lust in the air, isagi’s head collapsing back against the head of the chair — midnight blue locks tousled against the furniture, sitting perfectly out of place.
your tongue molds against the curve in yoichi’s cock, flexing the pink muscle as it swirls from his chubby base up to his seedy tip. “fuuuck me, baby. always forget how fuckin’ good your mouth feels,” the sensation leaves isagi unable to open his eyes, rendered useless as you lick and suck at him to your heart’s content — he just barely manages to lift a shaky hand, lovingly rubbing over one of your cheeks as it bulges with his girth before moving to pet your head. your gaze flickers up and the all-star soccer player lets out a heaving laugh. “d-don’t worry… ‘m not gonna push you down. i’d never… never do that to you,” it’s too soon, to be this fucked up and high on ecstasy... but you’ve always had that affect on him. that ability to make isagi see stars before the night has even begun. your shiny gaze and chubby cheeks so full of him only amplify his feelings, abs clenching to stave off a premature high. “need to feel you, g-ground myself a little…shit, you’re so perfect.”
at the praise, a gentle hum from you reverberates around isagi’s cock, causing a lightening strike of dopamine to spark in the little space between his brain and his skull — dazing him. “you’re so good t’me, precious. how could i ever look at someone the way i look at you?” he drawls, wiping a trace of drool from the corner of your mouth. “my good girl, on her knees, taking me so well.” notes of paise are lavishly layered over the whiny lilt to your boyfriend’s voice, only pushing you to work harder — basking in the rewarding feeling of knowing that you’re the only one to have him like this.
hollowing your cheeks in the way you know he likes, you swallow him down and your throat contracts to tackle his thickness, until his sticky mushroomed tip is just barely brushing over your uvula. you were each other’s firsts, isagi’s never had his cock sucked by anyone else nor anyone as talented as you. he’s so glad to have you, someone who cares to pay attention to what he likes and gets him off the quickest. he could never replace you, not when you’re down on your knees keeping him safe in the warmth of your wet and hungry mouth.
for a moment or two, you lazily bob your head — eyes fluttering sleepily at the heaviness of yoichi against your saliva soaked tongue. it gives you time to taste him, the saltine precum he oozes, sliding down your throat like a viscous lava flow. his flavour is just as enticing as his scent, you’ll never give that up, never let anyone else take this right away from you.
tilting your head to the side, you let isagi shallowly thrust into the soft epithelium of your cheek — a string of colourful curses spilling from his frenzied mouth into the buzzing, sex tainted air. you give and he gives back, every time you gargle on his aching, pulsating cock he treats you with his own airy, pathetic moan. a never ending sinful cycle between the two of you.
“s-shit. such a dirty little trick, precious,” a dirty laughter rings out into the night, fucked up and full of fondness. isagi throws a burly arm over his flushed face, hiding his blush and the shine on his face. “don’t you need to come up for air?” he’s done for, ruined — evident in the way fat beads of sweat begin to bedazzle yoichi’s hairline, soaking through his dark coloured hair. the collar of his white dress shirt darkens as the liquid seeps through, showcasing how much of a mess you’ve made him despite how amused he attempts to appear.
running your tongue over the veins on the underside of his cock, you smile with your dazzlingly pretty eyes and swallow him down to the base once more. “no? didn’t think so… you’re so cock hungry and desperate to prove a point you wouldn’t waste a second without mine in your mouth,” resolve weakened by your tantalising tongue and gaze, blue lock’s all star player lets his filthy mouth run. every dirty, nasty, sick and twisted thought that comes to mind slips through your ears like treacle in the form of poorly structured sentences. acting just like he would be during a match. the sight and sound of yoichi isagi makes your cunt throb, that familiar feeling beginning to stem in the pit of your stomach. “look so happy with me in your mouth, should… let you suck me off more often,”
you’d agree if you didn’t have your mouth full, spit and precum running down your chin — glazing your lips like an expensive gloss that can’t go to waste. what you wouldn’t give to be able to worship isagi like this more often… because giving him pleasure, is receiving it too. you’d be lying if you said you weren’t extremely turned on right now, juices basting the seat of your underwear; clit throbbing so ruthlessly that you have no choice but to grind your hips down against the floor to alleviate its ache. one word and isagi would do anything to take care of you, drag you onto his lap and pound up into you. perhaps flip you over in the chair and fuck you until you received noise complaints from the entire floor, not just his team. you’d love that, you both would… but tonight was all about him.
all about telling him, showing him how he’s the only one that runs through your twisted mind. like a one track horse. and how you should be the only thing that runs through his mind.
even if your lungs burn with the dire need for oxygen, even if your head spins from the lack of air and even if your jaw locks from how long you’ve been deepthroating the soccer star — you won't stop. you can’t stop. not until he’s begging you for mercy and pleading with you to blow his load against your talented tongue or pretty face. everything makes it all worth it, to bring an egoist down a notch, humbling him and reminding him who it is that gives him that boost. isagi is worth it, those striking cobalt eyes fluttering and the pinkish blush blooming across his cheeks and over the bridge of his nose. all of it.
especially when his expression worsens, morphs into agonised bliss. when you draw back, plush lips wrapped around his tip, tauntingly squeeze his cock between slippery fingers and dance down to give the same treatment to his weighty balls — plump and full of cum yet to be unleashed on you. dancing that fine line between pain and pleasure.
eventually, though, the ache in your chest becomes too much to bare and you pull from isagi’s dripping dick with a lewd pop — panting for air. “you taste so good, yoichi,” you rasp, throat a little sore from blowing him off for so long. “are you gettin’ close?” the innocent cadence to your voice sorely contradicts the iniquitous way that your palm replaces your mouth — stroking yoichi at a strikingly rapid pace. the centre of your hand becomes doused with each movement, covered in a layer of opaque precum that practically pours down your wrist and over your knuckles.
“so close, baby. you’re gettin’ me so close,” one thing that’s certain, is that isagi will miss this once it’s all over. once the dam breaks and the passionate jealousy cools, he’ll miss the view and your soft hands barely fitting around him. your cute little mouth sucking on him for all he’s worth. “my girl— knows just what to do to get me off. ‘m so lucky, so fucking lucky…” he slurs avidly, chest heaving, throat running dry. yoichi throws his head back, desperately trying to delay his inevitable high so that he can selfishly stay in the moment with you.
but the pleasure mounts like the well cemented bricks of a sturdy house deep within his gut — his insides twist deliciously, epinephrine and pure excitement shooting through his veins addictively. he knows this feeling all too well, that prickling sensation that creeps up on him during a match as well as the puzzle pieces that come into view. it’s the taste of victory, the taste of triumph and euphoria. the soccer star only ever gets this way when he’s on the pitch or when he’s at the mercy of his perfect girlfriend.
you.
all he needs is a little push to get over the edge, you know that. you can tell by the way he twitches in your soft grip while you continue to jerk him off lovingly. the soccer star instinctively starts to buck into the small fist you make around him — syncing his movements with the flick of your wrist. almost like the perfect play. “so… let go for me, baby. please, let me have you,” you giggle temptingly, regaining your breath. you hardly waste any time, increasing your speed until isagi is reduced to nothing but a puddle between your fingers. it doesn’t make you any better, you’re pawing at his spit slicked cock like it’s your full-time job.
midnight blue locks fly out of place whilst isagi shakes his head no, adam’s apple bobbing furiously in an attempt to force down beefy cries and greedy gripes. “n-no, not yet. can’t cum yet,” he swears he’s not ready, that he needs to last longer but instantly contradicts himself. taut hips lose control; fucking your hand as though it were your cunt. “don’t stop, precious. don’t you dare fucking stop—!” the tail end of his words die in the night air, twisting into a high pitched wail as you spit down onto the head of his girth. “o-oh god!”
the frothy mix clings to the obvious veins decorating isagi’s chubby dick, oozing down to his balls and base. sliding slowly and then, isagi’s quite literally putty in your hands. milky and heavy when you dip your head, swiping your tongue through his tip, on the verge of making out with it. lapping at whatever he gives you happily.
encompassing isagi’s shaft in the wetness of your mouth, you work even harder to earn his high. nursing his tip, sensually massaging what doesn’t fit, moaning around him so that the vibrations shoot through him – rattle around the inside of his skull so the only thing he hears and feels is you. by god, does it work, yoichi isagi’s mind is as clear as day – devoid of any and all rational thought except for the puzzle pieces, fragments that piece you together entirely.
like he would during a soccer match, the fight of his life, he looks for what’s missing – what makes the perfect play and allows him to survive on the field a little longer. chasing that elusive goal and flash bang of adrenaline accompanying the heartbeat in his chest. except this isn’t a match or a friendly football game, this is the dance of strong willed desire that keeps him on his toes. this is the only relationship he’ll ever want and have. you are the key to isagi’s survival, the missing part of his formula to life.
without you, there is no yoichi isagi. you make up more than half of him.
and so, as you consume his thoughts, fuck him good and make him see constellations made up by lust-blown stars — the dark haired soccer player realises he won’t ever let you doubt how precious you are to him and he won’t ever let you think that a random girl could ever take your place… because there’s no one else for him in this world aside from you. to him, you’re nothing short of perfection — having your puffy lips wrapped around his sloppy, spit slicked shaft is just an added bonus.
“gonna make me… lose it, precious,” he gasps between high-pitched moans, sweat dripping down his throat — a single bead running over his adam’s apple like a raindrop on a pane of glass. a theil courses through his system, jolting isagi in place as pick up speed around him — jerking your head up and down, faster and faster. you add your delicate touch back into play, the combination of your flexible and drooling tongue with the way intermittently squeeze his length teases all of your boyfriend’s senses. he can taste how close his orgasm is, feel that pressure build and tingle in all four of his limbs, see the way your cheeks and chin glisten with spit and precum. he’s right on the edge, and if he closes his eyes even for a second — he might miss how quick it all comes crashing down. “ohmygod… i’m close. r-right there… sweet jesus. baby…!”
you know the signs all too well, the tautness to his abs and stomach, fidgeting thighs and the practically sobbed out, laboured breaths that make isagi sound like he’s drowning — locking eyes with you, angsty swirls of ocean blue boring into your soul, he knows that you know he’s about to burst. because your innocent eyes flicker with mirth and well you pull off his bright red cock to speak, never letting up on the relentless flick of his wrist — your pouty lips quirk upwards into a cruel, calculated smirk. “cum in my mouth,” you demand, no room for questioning. “give it to me ‘ichi. make a mess. give me your cum.” he’s rendered incoherent from the pressure, any retort he had planned dissolved into a haze of need while yoichi frantical nods his head in agreement though he knows he wants to cum elsewhere.
in a battle of heart vs mind (or dick versus mind), what be wants you up there with him, kiss him, coaxing him through it — instead he revels in the feeling of his sensitive tip slapping his dick on the flat surface of your tongue. you’re almost ashamed of how wet the connection sounds as the pink muscle writes in place, aching to swallow down all of his cum, pleasuring isagi with all that you can. his face scrunches again, a haughty moan ripping through the tense atmosphere when you experiment with your grip, alternating between gentler touches and a firm hold on the meat of him. his eyes screw shut while he fights little whimpers and moans. isagi always sounds so sexy when he's about to cum — you can hardly get enough.
a surge of power courses through you as you tear the great egoist to pieces between your teeth and hands working him to the high heavens. your strokes become more insistent, matching the fastness to his uneven breathing. yoichi’s cock throbs rhythmically, forked veins pulsing as happy hormones dart from his brain, down his spine and to his balls aching for release. he’s almost there, walking the tightrope, dancing on a fine line — isagi’s body tightness, muscles stiffening and that’s when his eyes suddenly snap open wildly.
that’s the final straw for yoichi. the nasty squelch that echoes from your slobbery mouth when his hips instinctively jump up to feed you his cock — “no… no i—” the soccer star stammers, pupils blown until they eclipse the midnight sky trapped in his eyes. his voice is strained, husky, as the world around him threatens to fall away. “fuuuck, that’s it…‘m cummin’… shit. didn’t wanna—” he punctuates his words with sharp, accidental thrusts and the first spurts of viscous and hot seed hit the back of your throat — nearly taking you by surprise.
you can’t even bring yourself to stop, worshiping isagi’s dick like it’s god’s gift to mankind — peering up at him with blissful hearts dazzling in your eyes because you need him to need you, to love you enough that he’ll keep filling your mouth with his cum. he’s salty, creamy, everything you could ever want and it feels so good to make him tremble and shake above you. you press a hand against his tummy, feeling it tighten under your palm. your mouth is too wet, too hot, too perfect and far too much for him to handle and he crumbles like a tonne of bricks back down to earth.
just like that, the striker’s orgasm continues to rip through him, painting your mouth a shade of white as his release copiously spurts from his ravaged cockhead. “you gotta… you gotta stop, precious,” isagi heaves your name gently, because he’s still going and he’s far from done. at first, you feel scorned, cheeks and chest burning with embarrassment — did you go too far? is this too much? does he not… want you anymore? but your boyfriend is quick to reassure you, trembling hands lifting from the arms of the chair to cup your shiny, arousal soaked face tenderly. his own painted with a pained and pleading expression. “please come up here baby, need you. still cumming, got me so fucked up.”
letting go of his milky tip, you both greet each other with coy smiles. yoichi holds your face and you keep hold of his hard cock as you carefully crawl into his lap. he instantly guides you into a sloppy open mouthed kiss, simpering against your cum-soaked tongue in release as he sucks his own release off of it. the taste of himself is enough to keep isagi turned on, ploughing roughly into the ‘o’ shape your soft fist forms around him — using your hand like his own personal fleshlight.
memorised by him, your lips chase after his, your eyes while you pump him through the rest of his plentiful orgasm — little mewls of his name escaping into each warm breath you take between languid lip locks. they’re lazy and dazed, entirely uncoordinated yet so completely addictive. all you want to do is taste him and all he wants to do is swallow you whole until you’re apart of him — swapping spit, swapping the thickness of his cum that still remains on your tongue.
“oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck… can’t get enough of you. treat me so fuckin’ good…” yoichi trips and stumbles over his words, losing control of his taught hips that wildly grind and thrust into your sloppy palm. thick white oozes over the edge of your knuckles, an endless trail of it seemingly starting at the slit on his bright red tip. everything is a mess — his body is drenched in sweat, his pants and your bare thighs soaked and stained with cum whilst his eyes borderline shine with tears. and despite it all, he’s the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen.
yoichi isagi is beautiful and he’s all yours.
squeezing the base of your boyfriend’s shaft as if to milk the very last drop of his orgasm out of him, you nudge your nose along the side of his own and press encouraging kisses over his cupid’s bow and swollen lips. you’ve broken him in, made sure he’ll never so much as look at or have the desire to fuck someone else ever. “mmph… yoichi. keep on cummin’ for me, whatever you have to give. i want it,” the size of him doubles as a second load builds up in his balls, dwarfing your hand that works him up in slow, silky strokes.
“i love you. fuck, i love you — god!” isagi becomes ravenous for his release and with one final guttural groan he paints your hand and your supple thighs with another round of heavy, white hot cum. his entire body shudders with the force of it, white nose crackling in his ears like static from an old fashioned TV. he feels like he might die, like he can’t breathe because of how much he’s cum by now… but you’re right there with him, foreheads pressed against each other and your lips a breath’s width away from swallowing down exhausted-sounding curse words.
his head falls to the crook of your neck, ragged breath fanning over your damp skin as yoichi mumbles the syllables of your name like a well rehearsed mantra — spilling seed over your intertwined bodies, tucked into his cramped chair.
the temperature of the room begins to cool, silence now replacing the buzzing particles of lust that once filled the air. the egoist is still holding you tight, hiccuping incoherent thoughts and broken phrases against your flesh whilst he calms down. eventually, you break the quiet by smooching him softly on the side of his head, the two of you sharing a hushed giggle. “you okay?” you ask attentively, stroking back the mussed sweaty locks of his dark hair.
“mhm…more than; think i got a little carried away,” comes yoichi’s lazy reply before he cautiously leans back, flinching only when you release his sensitive sodden cock from your hold. glistening azure eyes sweep over your face and crinkle at the corner with a bashful smile. your egoist has faded away and your sweetheart boyfriend reappears for the final act. “sorry for pulling you off earlier i just, really really, wanted to kiss you.”
shaking your head reassuringly, you lift your soiled hand to suck his cream from your fingers — laughing when isagi leans up to lick the reminders of his release from the corner of your mouth dirtily. “i liked it, i think it’s hot how you always wanna taste yourself.”
“what can i say? it tastes even better when it’s coming from you…” he groans lowly at the sight of you cleaning your hand up, fighting the urge to pull you in for another round. “how’s your jaw, and your knees?”
“all good,” your cleaner hand scales the length of isagi’s tired body, tracing over patterns of berry purples and midnight blues that have taken the shape of love bites across every inch of his golden skin. evidence of your promise to each other. “hope these aren’t too sore tomorrow…” you add quietly, grinning at your work.
pride washes over him as you draw invisible lines between each bruise, connecting them like constellations. “i like my pleasure with a bit of pain. so, i think they’re perfect,” yoichi states before he takes your wrist in his large hand, bringing it to his lips to press a kiss to your pulse point. another silent promise, once that commits his heart to yours for as kind as you’ll have him. “you know how i feel about belonging to you. i am yours as much as you are mine — even if we get a little crazy about it,” there’s hidden meaning in his words, a reference to hana and the jealously that sparked tonight’s raunchy rendezvous. “i love when you show me off, i love when you get like this. i love you all the time. i love you and no one else.”
even though he’d just spent the better half of an hour moaning, crying and groaning your name — isagi takes the time to address the worries that had led to the events of the evening. he loves you, and will only ever love you. no doe eyed, brand new and sparkly co-worker can change that. you’ve been by his side since the very beginning, he’d be a fool to give up someone as perfect for him as you.
in other words, hana has nothing on you.
“i love you too,” the butterflies return to your tummy as a bashful heat tingles just beneath the surface of your skin — you distract yourself by closing your eyes and snuggling against yoichi, hiding your face in his bitten and bruised chest. “think she’ll get the memo, though?” you ask, biting back another round of sleepy laughter.
“oh, i think she absolutely will.” isagi chuckles as his own eyes drift shut, resting his chin atop your head affectionately.
damn right she will.
BONUS:
you can’t get down to the pitch fast enough, and of course, hana beats you to it.
in the second half of what’s supposed to be a friendly warm-up match before the next game, isagi is practically bulldozed over by a member of the opposing team. tensions are high, a perfectly calculated goal swiped from right between his feet fades into nothingness and your precious boyfriend is writhing in pain between freshly trimmed blades of grass and asphalt. as if acting on pure instinct, your legs move before your mind does and you’re darting from your seat in the stalls with other blue lock girlfriends and family members to be by the egoist’s side without even realising.
the tip of your toe just barely makes it onto the grass by the time hana is cosying up to yoichi, his head in her lap, beautiful face contorted with discomfort while she innocently inspects his body for any signs of injury. of course she gets to him first. this is practically the better half of her job but even after your night with isagi, that doesn’t mean you’ve learned to trust her too.
and so, you end up trotting behind the pair and the medical team as they manoeuvre your boyfriend off the pitch. you visibly cringe when hana insists that she ‘handle him from here’ as they go. some of the boys laugh at that, you think.
“that was quite the fall you took there, yoichi, do you… mind if i take a look?” she asks him in a sickly sweet tone, the kind that gives you a toothache or makes your stomach twist like you’ve had too much sugar. she’s dying to give him a pat down, you think, entirely too close to him now that they’re settled in the medical bay. “it’ll only take a second.”
yoichi shrugs, twitching to get back out there and into the game. back out there to show off for you, make you proud. “sure.”
a little frown tugs on hana’s lips whilst she stands before him, he’s colder than usual but continues her work — tipping and tapping at the parts of the star player she thinks are injured. “any pain in your ankle?”
“nope.”
“knee?”
“nah.”
“shoulder?”
“feels good…” the blue eyed striker interjects, patience wearing slightly thin. “are we almost done here?”
isagi rolls his shoulder experimentally to double check his own pain levels but just as he lifts his arm, hana presses down on his ribcage — nodding to herself once the pro player hisses uncomfortably. “ribs,” her hand slips dangerously low. “hips too. take off your shirt, we might need to put some muscle gel on there if we want to get you back out there!”
it could all be in his head, the slight bite of excitement nestled deep within her high pitched, candied voice. she’s just doing her job. she’s just being nice… but after all that you and isagi discussed ( or at least attempted to, with his dick in your mouth for most of the evening ), he can’t help but let his suspicions grow. even still; yoichi does as he’s told, slowly rolling up two layers of polyester and spandex ( from his football jersey and compression shirt ) to reveal his perfectly carved, marbled body to underlyingly hungry eyes.
a gasp rips through the quietness of the medical bay, not the reaction both isagi nor hana were looking for. where blue lock’s number one was expecting actual medical advice, she was expecting injured but otherwise golden delicious skin, her greedy gaze meet’s yoichi’s bruised and bitten flesh, a trail of slightly swollen love bites extend from his neck and collar bones, over his chest and between plush pecs, all the way down to his pelvis and probably beyond…
hana’s cheeks immediately flush, her gaze averting isagi’s bright ocean eyes and hands immediately pulling away from his body. “o-oh my god… i-isagi where did you get all of those bruises?” she feigns surprise. they both know she’s not stupid. anyone with an active sex life and enough common sense can tell that yoichi isagi is covered in hickies.
what she means to ask is… who did this to you?
a personal question with an answer she doesn’t really want to know — one that’ll shatter her heart and whatever fantasy she had of herself and pro player in her head. a stupid crush squashed before her very own eyes.
an awkward silence fills the room, only broken by the light humming of the artificial white lights hanging up above. yoichi grins sheepishly, at least that’s what it seems like to hana, rubbing the back of his neck as if to soothe an embarrassed heat that blossoms there. “oh well… my girlfriend gave them to me...” he laughs lightly, crinkles forming happily at the corners of mirthy blue eyes. what she doesn’t know is how intentional isagi can be. how he likes to see an opponent squirm like an insect under a microscope during a challenge. you see, he’s realised it now, put the pieces together. if it hadn’t been for you staking your claim on him, hana probably would have made a move. too bad he’s only got tunnel vision for you. “we must have gotten carried away, she loves to see me play, yanno?” he adds with another bout of sweet laughter. “she was in the stands earlier, wearing my number. she’s the cutest thing.”
recognition sparks across hana’s face. the last piece of the puzzle falling into place a little too late. she knows who you are, of course. you’ve always been around. always clinging onto isagi. she just never… her entire body writhes in place, tense and humiliated — doing her best to chuckle along with the soccer star seated before her.
yoichi knows that he’s being a little mean, doing all this. putting on a show. subtly declaring his love for you. but he’s setting a boundary that should have been put in place a long time ago and by the way you look at him as you slip silently into the room — eyes so full of love and appreciation, he can tell he’s doing a good job. he’s reaffirmed his love for you in the most meaningful way and that’s all that matters to him.
he doesn’t care for hana, not in the way he does for you and he probably never will. that should have been made clear from the very start.
“i’m sure… i’m sure the two of you make a great couple a-and i bet you look great together!” hana stutters, finally looking isagi in the eye as she sweeps her jealously under the rug. “she’s lucky to have found you…” she mutters the last part under her breath, hoping he doesn’t notice.
but isagi isn’t looking at her and he does notice, instead choosing to stay focused on the point over her shoulder where you stand — ocean eyes and stormy gaze lasered in on you and only you. he notes the relief that washes over your worried body language once you know that he’s truly okay. not to mention the subtle quirk in your lips as you give him an angelic smile. he can’t help but mirror it, truly enamoured by you, amused at himself and how he gets tunnel vision just by looking at you.
“i know we do and i’m the lucky one, she loves unconditionally,” isagi states like his word is fact, because to him, it is. you’re the only thing that matters in this world, his biggest blessing to date. “i will only ever have eyes for her.”
end ! likes are appreciated, but just liking doesn’t do much on tumblr! to support and motivate myself and other writers, reply, reblog and comment if you'd like to see more!! — asks are open to thirsts and thoughts! join my taglist ! love you!
𝐀𝐃𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋: 0.3k words; fluff; teasing gn!reader; established relationship
—note! I wrote this while commuting LOL enjoy my slop...
masterlist.
"you're so pretty," you whisper, enjoying the blush of rouge that decorates zanka's cheeks.
he scoffs, looking away. "stop teasin' me," he grumbles, acting all disgruntled even when he doesn't fight back when your hand slides up to cup his cheek.
moments where it's just the two of you were rare—from being bombarded by missions, to zanka's constant need to stay productive—it's difficult to be alone with him without interruptions.
you take your time staring at him, unwinding from the long day in his room. you're comfortable in your place, laying on top of him as he lies on the bed, arms propped up on either side of his head to touch his face.
zanka had been grumbling, acting annoyed at your constant doting, even when he didn't push you off or reject your affection. his brows furrow as you tilt his head, keeping him from turning away from you.
"you're gorgeous," you press a quick kiss between his eyebrows, watching his eyes widen at the contact. "I'm so lucky to have you."
one of your hands go from his cheek to the side of his neck, feeling his pulse spike when you inch closer. "yer flattery ain't gettin' ya anywhere," he murmurs, words contrasting the way his eyes fall half-lidded as you press your forehead against his. he's affected by the praise. way more than he'd like.
you smile, centimeters away from him. "no, I think it's getting me everywhere," you reply, relishing in the way he stops himself from squirming when your lips connect.
zanka fights back from chasing after you when you break off—never leaning further than a breath away—hands clenching into fists where it rested on your hip. "... so annoyin'."
you laugh against his lips. he's so fun to mess with.
I can't stop thinking about how Sakura's reaction to Momijikawa asking him to fight wasn't immediate violence as it'd have been at the beginning. He wasn't thrilled by having to fight Momijikawa until he remembered what Umemiya told him and how fighting can be a form of communication and connection.
Sakura is not in constant survival mode anymore. He now reflects about violence and has no wish for it more than to communicate, protect and create a connection with someone else when words don't feel like enough.
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