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AFF
Mostly XiuHan fanfic, occasional ShowXing, other pairings on the side because I am multi-shipping trash.
DM me if you want to read my novels, as long as you promise not to reveal my secret identity to my family.
What do you do when your fiancé is pissing you off and you’re feeling just a little too jealous? You break things and have angry sex, of course.
AO3 / AFF
so we’ve already recommended this fic before, but the author just updated with a second part to it and i had to repost it! this is one of my favorite fics, and the update addressing the dynamic in the original has made it even better for me.
The kid is sitting in the far corner of the cafe, eyes fixed on his phone across his drink. His lips are on the straw, but he’s not drinking, just frowning at his phone. He looks confused, a little bit frustrated, and goddamn adorable.
Well. Shit. It’s only Monday morning and already Tao’s found his crush of the week.
My lovely friend Sacha has very difficult assignments to write. She's going to get a chapter of this fic as a reward every time she needs an incentive to finish one.
XiuTao, first meeting, 1.5k (WIP)
The kid is sitting in the far corner of the cafe, eyes fixed on his phone across his drink. His lips are on the straw, but he’s not drinking, just frowning at his phone. He looks confused, a little bit frustrated, and goddamn adorable.
Well. Shit. It’s only Monday morning and already Tao’s found his crush of the week.
He eyes the kid all the way up the queue, until the cashier has to call a third hello in his direction to get his attention. Tao orders his peppermint mocha and retreats to the pickup counter to wait, still eyeing the kid. From this angle he has a better view of his profile, and he observes the slope of the kid’s nose, the pout of his lips, the curve of his jaw. There are no angles to his features - everything about him is gently rounded.
Watching him tap away at his phone, Tao amends his assessment: the kid isn’t just adorable, he’s positively beautiful.
His drink materialises on the counter next to him, and Tao murmurs a thank you to the barista. He glances back at the kid, then checks his watch and sighs. He needs to get to class.
He sends a silent whisper of thanks to the kid for gracing his morning. He’ll be thinking about that face all week - or at least until he spots someone else cute on campus.
-
By the end of his last class Tao is absolutely wiped out. His brain is six different kinds of scrambled, and he still has an essay and three hours of exam study to do.
He needs more coffee.
He’s halfway up the queue when he glances across the room and does a double-take. Not even three hours of Database Management could erase that face from his memory.
The kid is still sitting at the same table, still with his phone in his hand, still frowning at whatever’s on it. The only difference is that now he has two empty coffee cups beside the one he’s currently got a straw in.
What has the kid been doing on his phone that’s kept him glued to his seat all day? If it weren’t for the empty cups on the table Tao would almost believe he hadn’t even moved for the last eight hours. He looks more frustrated than he did this morning, and somehow even cuter for it.
Tao reaches the front of the queue, and the cashier asks him what he’d like.
“Whatever he’s having.”
The cashier follows his gaze, surprised when he indicates the kid.
“He’s had three of them today,” Tao reasons. “It must be good.”
The cashier shrugs and keys in his order. Tao pays - whatever the kid’s drink is, it’s a damn sight cheaper than a peppermint mocha - and steps over to the pickup counter to wait. The whole time, the kid keeps tapping away at his phone, the crease between his brows deepening as Tao watches.
“Here you are,” the barista says.
“Thanks.” Tao doesn’t even look at her, just takes the drink and turns to the kid. He’s glaring at his phone now, his lips pressed into a thin line, the straw chewed flat between his teeth. He looks pissed as hell, but there’s still something magnetic about him - as Tao realises when he finds himself somehow across the room, pulling out the empty chair and sitting down opposite the kid.
“Hey.”
The kid glances up from his phone. There’s an air of incredulity to his frustration now as he runs an eye over Tao’s face and goes back to his phone. “Hey.”
It’s not much of a conversation starter, but Tao’s worked tougher audiences than this.
“Are you in first year?”
A smirk flickers into the corner of the kid’s mouth. “Uh, yeah.”
At least he’s gotten a smile out of him now. Foot in the door, Tao thinks.
“You’ve been sitting here all day?”
“Yyyyep.”
He’s still focused on his phone, which Tao thinks is a little rude now that they’ve established that the kid is a first year and Tao is clearly not. He would have expected the kid to show a little more courtesy to his elders. Perhaps he’s just shy.
“You’ve been on your phone the whole time?”
“Mhm.”
“Drama in the group chat?”
The kid raises his eyebrows. “No.”
“What are you doing then?”
“Working.”
“Oh.”
There’s a moment of silence then, while the kid taps furiously at his phone and Tao searches for something else to say. After a minute the kid takes a sip from his chewed-up straw.
“What are you drinking?” Tao asks.
“Iced americano,” the kid mutters.
“Oh, me too!” Tao holds up his own cup, then brings the straw to his lips and takes a sip.
Oh, what the-
“Eugh!” Tao shudders and recoils, just barely resisting the urge to spit out his mouthful of poison. “What is this?”
The kid bursts into laughter. He drops his phone on the table and leans forward, his shoulders shaking as he presses a hand over his eyes.
“What the fuck?” Tao glares at the cup. “How can you drink this awful stuff?”
“Very easily!” the kid hiccups, picking up his own half-empty cup. “Serves you right for letting a stranger choose your drink for you.” He’s still laughing as he toasts Tao with his cup and takes a long drag from the straw.
Tao glowers at the coffee. “This is disgusting.”
The kid shrugs. “I like it.” He sets his cup down and wipes the tears from his eyes with a giggle. “What’s your name?”
“Tao - Zitao.”
“Nice to meet you, Tao-Zitao. I’m Kim Minseok.”
“It’s a pleasure. I wish I could say the same for the coffee.”
Minseok grins and takes another gulp from his cup. Tao can’t believe he’s managed to drink even one of those, let alone three.
“What do you study, Tao?”
“Software Engineering. Third year.” Tao slides his Programming textbook partway out of his bag, and Minseok nods.
“Fun stuff.”
“Yeah, it’s alright. What about you?”
“Music,” Minseok says.
“Oh, cool. Is that what you’ve been working on today?”
“Yep.”
“Is it hard?”
Minseok shakes his head. “Not particularly.”
“Then what were you so annoyed about earlier?”
“Some idiot in the queue who wouldn’t stop staring at me.”
Tao opens his mouth to ask who that was, then snaps it closed again, his face flaming at the sight of Minseok’s grin.
“My bad,” he mutters.
Minseok just laughs at him.
“Anyway,” he says, “I gotta get going to my tutorial in about ten minutes, but I just want to finish this first.” He picks up his phone and unlocks it again, and Tao gets a glimpse of the screen. It’s a page of music, only half the staves filled, and as Tao watches Minseok taps a note from the bottom of the screen and sets it on the page - the tune is his own creation, Tao realises, then with a further shock notices that there are no headphones plugged in; Minseok is composing entirely in his head.
“Woah,” he breathes. “What kind of shit do they get you doing in first year music?”
Minseok smirks at his phone. “You’d be surprised.”
“Minseok!”
The shout comes from the front of the cafe, and Minseok’s head jerks towards the sound. Tao follows his gaze and sees a man he recognises from last year’s prizegiving as one of the music department’s esteemed graduate scholars, briefcase under his arm, nodding towards the door.
“Junmyeon!” Minseok shoves his phone into his pocket and jumps up. “I’m just coming! You get a headstart, I’ll catch you up.”
“Junmyeon?” Tao stares at him incredulously as he slings his bag over his shoulder. “What are you doing calling your senior by his first name?”
Minseok snorts. “Junmyeon ain’t my senior.”
Tao scrambles to follow him as he saunters over to the recycling to dump his empty cups. “What do you mean? I thought you were a first year?”
“Uh, yeah.” Minseok turns and smirks at him. “First year of my PhD.”
Tao’s jaw drops. “What? How old are you?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Tao would have bet his left shoe that Minseok was at least ten years younger than that.
“Anyway,” Minseok says, “I’d love to stay and chat, but I have a tutorial to teach. Third years. They’re a good bunch of kids.” He grins up at Tao, glittering with wicked amusement. “I’ll see you around, Tao-Zitao. Enjoy your coffee!”
He skips away, leaving Tao standing there staring after him. In the doorway, Minseok pauses and turns, catches Tao’s eye, and blows him a kiss. Then he’s gone with a laugh, absorbed into the bustle of students outside. Tao blinks at the doorway for a moment, then takes a sip of his coffee.
“Oh, gross.” He pulls a face at the cup and drops it into the bin. “I don’t understand how anyone can drink you.”
As he heads for the library, he wonders what Minseok thinks of peppermint mochas.
1.9k XiuHarem/EXO-M pwp. Basically just a bunch of unprotected sex.
Crossposted from AFF.
Minseok walks into the living room and clears his throat to get everyone’s attention.
“Waddup?” Kris mutters, flipping him the galaxy.
Minseok opens his mouth and, with absolutely no preamble, announces, “I need my ass fucked right now immediately by everyone in this room.”
There’s a muffled squeak from the corner, and when everyone looks around Yixing is cupping a hand under the torrent of blood pouring from his nose.
“Don’t mind me,” he mumbles. “Can I not go last?”
“I want to go last,” Tao declares with a smirk. “I like it sloppy.”
“Gross,” Jongdae mutters.
“I call first,” Kris says, but Luhan has already hoisted Minseok over his shoulder and is sprinting down the hallway.
“Too fucking late, Wu!”
Minseok squeals delightedly as Luhan throws him down on the bed and rips his pants off.
“Yesss, Lu-ge!”
“You know you love it when I’m the first,” Luhan croons into Minseok’s ear, then noses down over his shirt to nuzzle into the front of Minseok’s boxer briefs. Minseok isn’t even hard yet; he clearly didn’t come out and demand five cocks up his ass out of a burning horniness that he couldn’t satisfy on his own, he was apparently just bored.
Luhan peels Minseok’s underwear off and pushes his legs up towards his chest.
“Lube?”
Minseok, somewhat unsurprisingly, produces it from the breast pocket of his shirt. Perhaps he was expecting them all to jump him right then and there in the living room. Luhan uncaps the tiny bottle and upends it over his fingers, then begins tracing one around the edge of Minseok’s ass. Two seconds later, Minseok reaches down and grabs his wrist to try and shove him in.
“If you take your sweet time then I’m not gonna last through five rounds,” he grumbles. “Hurry the fuck up.”
“Okey dokey.” Luhan pushes his finger in and receives a purr of approval.
“Hot,” Jongdae comments from the perch he’s taken up on the chair in the far corner of the room.
When Minseok begins grinding back against his hand, Luhan slides a second finger in and begins scissoring them apart. The rest of the group has drifted into the room by now and is watching from various spots around them - Tao, Luhan notices, is already shirtless, perhaps just to add to the general aesthetic of the room.
“Okay!” Minseok yells, when Luhan has squeezed a third finger into his ass. “Come on, it’s pounding time!”
Luhan obediently removes his fingers, then grabs Minseok by the hips, rolls him over onto his stomach and climbs on top of him.
“Mmm, yes,” Minseok mutters into the sheets as Luhan’s weight settles over his back. “Crush me, Daddy.”
Luhan snorts and reaches down to line himself up.
“Good to go?”
“Have been for the past five minutes, just fuck m- ahhh!”
Luhan slides in with one strong push, and Minseok dissolves into a puddle of moans against the bedspread.
“Mm, good, so good-”
“Fuck yeah-”
“Oh yes,” Kris mutters, unzipping his pants and beginning to fap, “this is my style.”
It barely takes five minutes before Luhan is growling and moaning into the back of Minseok’s neck, his hips beginning to jerk at the depth of each thrust.
“Come in me,” Minseok begs. “Fill me up, I wanna be a come burrito.”
Luhan drags Minseok’s ass back to meet him and grinds in deep. Minseok clenches hard around him, and Luhan’s next groan catches in his throat as he comes.
“Mmf- fuck. Mm, that’s good.”
“Alright, get off,” Kris says, grabbing Luhan’s shoulder. “I got a galaxy-sized load to blow.”
Minseok rolls over as Luhan pulls out and clambers off the bed. He smirks up at Kris, smug and taunting, and beckons with both hands.
“Don’t keep me waiting.”
Kris slides his hands under Minseok’s shoulders and hauls him up into his arms.
“Ooh, okay.” Minseok wraps his legs around Kris’s waist. “I like where this is going.”
Kris doesn’t move far, just turns to the wall and pushes Minseok into it. He lets the wall take Minseok’s weight and focuses on holding his hips, reaching under him to shove his fingers into Minseok’s ass, dragging Luhan’s come around for extra lubricant. Minseok purrs, so Kris lines his cock up and lets Minseok fall onto it.
“Ohhh- yeah,” Minseok sighs, “that’s the shit I need.”
Kris grunts in agreement and begins to piston his hips up into Minseok, fucking him in earnest now that Minseok seems to be comfortable.
Ten minutes later, he’s still pumping away. Minseok is beginning to gurgle with delight, bouncing in Kris’s arms, but everyone else is getting impatient.
“Hurry it up,” Tao gripes. “The rest of us want a go too.”
“Stick a finger up his ass,” Jongdae suggests. “Maybe it’ll make him come faster.”
“I’m not touching Kris’s nasty asshole, you do it.”
“No one’s sticking anything up my ass,” Kris grunts. “I do the sticking, not the getting stuck. Wait your turn.”
“C’mon, duizhang,” Minseok teases. “I want that galaxy load.”
“Almost there.” Kris smacks his hips up, the slap of skin on skin loud in the small room. His groans increase in both pace and pitch, and when he finally comes it’s not with a grunt but with a tiny yip.
“Mmm,” Minseok hums his approval. “Good job. Who’s next?”
Tao nudges Yixing in the shoulder.
“Your turn.”
Yixing steps forward, his hands clasped in front of him despite the bulge in his jeans demanding his attention. He comes to stand in front of Minseok, who’s propped up against the wall on shaky legs, and reaches out to take his hands and lead him back to the bed.
“Dang!” Jongdae interjects from the corner as Yixing lays Minseok down on his back, “Yixing’s making love!”
As expected, when Yixing positions himself over Minseok and slides inside him it’s with a sweetness, even a shyness, that brings a gasp to Minseok’s lips.
“That’s it,” Minseok whispers, lips pressed to Yixing’s hair as Yixing moans into his collarbone. “Good boy. Keep going.”
If they didn’t know already, the next few minutes are indisputable proof to everyone in the room that Zhang Yixing fucks like a god.
“Holy shit,” Tao mutters, rubbing himself through his pants so hard he’s probably going to give himself a friction burn, “film this shit and sell it to horny housewives, we’ll make a million.”
“Everyone deserves this kind of fantasy in their lives,” Jongdae agrees.
Yixing pushes slowly into Minseok, deft but gentle, each thrust of his hips deliberate as it drags over every sensitive spot inside him. He’s careful, attentive, his hands playing over Minseok’s chest and stroking across his nipples, and Minseok doesn’t usually kiss during sex unless it’s Luhan but right now he’s sucking on Yixing’s lips as if for water in the desert.
“Mm, just like that. Oh- mmm, yeah, so good, so good like that, Yixing-”
Yixing moans his agreement and pulls Minseok closer, holds him tighter, and when he circles his hips with his mouth on Minseok’s throat, Minseok gasps, cracks, falls apart with a moan and comes in shuddering spurts across his chest.
“Oh my god,” Jongdae whispers. “That’s so fucking hot.”
Luhan agrees with a groan, eyes on the two loads of come dribbling out of Minseok’s ass as Yixing pulls out, still hard, and sits back on his heels as if unsure what to do next.
“Does this mean you’re done?” Tao asks, palpably disappointed.
“Not yet,” Minseok says. “Just give me a minute.” He reaches forward and grabs Yixing by the waist to pull him forward until he can take hold of his cock.
Yixing whines, squirms, resists the visible urge to thrust into Minseok’s hand.
“Come on,” Minseok coaxes. “It’s okay. Take what you need.”
Yixing rolls his hips forward, and his mouth falls open as Minseok thumbs across the head of his cock.
“Yeah, that’s good,” Minseok murmurs. “I want you to come on me, Yixing, just paint me with it - make me a come burrito with extra sauce.”
Tao snorts with laughter in the background, but Yixing’s eyes are locked with Minseok’s now, and he’s chasing the touch of his hand with rapid jerks of his hips.
“You gonna come for me, Yixing?”
“Mhm.” Yixing whimpers, twitches, and comes hard onto Minseok’s stomach, curling forward and rocking through it as Minseok strokes him with whispered praise.
“Good boy,” Minseok croons as he leans forward to press a kiss to Yixing’s forehead.
“Yixing’s the MVP,” Jongdae says from the corner.
“Excuse me,” Tao objects, “you haven’t seen me yet.”
“Go on, then.” Jongdae jerks his head towards the bed. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Tao struts over to grab Minseok by the ankles and pull him to the edge of the bed.
“You ready for this? We’re gonna do it panda style.”
Panda style, it turns out, is just doggy style but with Tao muttering, “yeah, baby, panda style” the whole time. At one point he makes something that’s probably supposed to be a panda noise, but it sounds more like a goat on drugs. He’s having a good time.
“Luhan, you’re drooling.”
Luhan tears his eyes away from the handprints Tao is leaving on Minseok’s ass and finds Jongdae smirking at him.
“Go on,” Jongdae continues. “Get in there.”
Luhan doesn’t need telling twice. Sliding onto his knees in front of Minseok, he pushes him upright against Tao’s chest and bends forward to suck Minseok’s cock into his mouth.
“Ohhh- Lu-ge-”
“Panda threesome,” Tao mutters, “nice.”
Kris snorts. “Threesome? Dude, this is a full-on orgy.”
“Panda orgy,” Tao amends. “Nice.”
Minseok is moaning now, thrusting between Tao’s cock and Luhan’s mouth. One hand is on his own nipple, the other in Luhan’s hair, and every whimper of breath is audibly closer to the edge.
“Come in Luhan’s mouth, Minnie,” Jongdae suggests breathlessly from the corner. “Tao, fuck him harder, he’s almost there.”
Tao obliges with a panda grunt, and ten seconds later Minseok is almost shrieking, his eyes squeezed shut, tugging at Luhan’s hair as he rocks into his mouth.
“Ohh- oh, I’m gonna come, I’m gonna-”
“Do it.” Tao reaches around to pinch Minseok’s nipple as he grinds in deep. The result is explosive.
“Ohhhh!”
Luhan swallows rapidly, drinking down everything Minseok has to give him and sucking gently at the head of his cock for the last drops, and Minseok shudders as Tao rocks his hips in to chase the last of his own orgasm. When Tao pulls out, Minseok flops forward into Luhan’s waiting arms.
“Mm- oh my god. Hah.” He lifts his head with an effort to look over his shoulder. “Chen, you want a go?”
“Nah.” Jongdae shakes his head, indicating the wet patch on the front of his pants with a satisfied grin. “I’m good.”
“Mmmkay.” Minseok sighs, yawns, and curls further into Luhan’s embrace.
“Happy?” Luhan asks.
“Mhmmm.” Minseok smiles. “Come burrito.”
“I’ll say.”
He’s about to ask whether Minseok wants a shower, or a cup of tea, or a six-man cuddle pile, but then there’s the sound of a key in the lock and that’s all the warning they have before the front door opens at the other end of the hall.
“Hey guys, what- OH MY GOD.” Baekhyun gapes at them for a moment, taking in the horrifying sight of Minseok, love-bitten and dripping five different kinds of come, then claps his hands over his eyes and wheels around to yell out the door. “SUHO! THEY’RE DOING IT AGAIN!”
In which Minseok is a catboy and Luhan gives him everything he wants.
This one is for Moe, my darling, my partner in XiuHan shitposting. Source tweets for this AU are here and here (nsfw warning on that art).
XiuHan hybrid!AU pwp, 2.1k. Crossposted from AFF.
Luhan hasn’t even gotten his key into the lock when he hears the thud of feet against the floor.
He’s light, he thinks. He’s agile.
He can thunder like a fucking train when he wants to.
He pushes the door open, takes two steps into the apartment, and suddenly finds himself with an armful of cat boy.
“You’re home!”
Luhan takes a staggering step back. Minseok’s legs are around his waist, arms around his neck, tail swishing back and forth as he flickers delighted kisses up and down Luhan’s cheek and throat.
“Hey, baby.” Luhan drops his briefcase and secures his hands more firmly under Minseok’s butt to hold him in place. “Did you have a good day?”
“Mhm.” Minseok nuzzles into Luhan’s collarbone, every breath a purr. He pushes the door closed over Luhan’s shoulder and turns his head to rest his cheek on Luhan’s shoulder. “I missed you.”
“Did you?” Luhan kisses Minseok’s head. “I would have thought you’d be too busy spending my money to miss me very much.” As Minseok’s ears twitch, Luhan laughs. “Don’t think I didn’t notice my credit card was missing from my wallet this morning.”
Minseok snuggles into his arms, and Luhan’s not quite sure whether it’s genuinely apologetic or whether Minseok is just being a little minx. “Sorry, Daddy.”
“You know I don’t mind.” Luhan loosens his hold, lets Minseok slip down onto his feet, and holds him at arm’s length to get a proper look at him. He’s wearing that shirt again, the one that always slips down off one shoulder no matter how much Luhan needs to concentrate on his board reports. His feet are bare, toenails freshly painted red, one ankle ringed with a delicate butterfly chain. He’s clearly been home all day, probably shopping online with Luhan’s black card.
“How was work?” Minseok tilts his head to one side, ears flicking attentively.
“Same old, same old.” That shoulder is distracting. Luhan steps forward and runs a hand across it. Minseok closes his eyes, smiles, tilts his head further to give Luhan better access. The neck of the shirt stretches easily as Luhan pushes it down Minseok’s arm.
“Mmm…” Minseok begins to purr again at the press of Luhan’s thumb beneath his collarbone.
“Do you want dinner, sweetness?” Luhan bends to kiss the tempting length of Minseok’s neck and is rewarded with a little mew, a hand on his arm, the faintest edge of claws in his shirt. “I don’t know about you-” he sucks at the skin, nips gently with his teeth, “but I’m a bit hungry.”
“Mm-” Minseok is struggling for composure, but his tail is betraying him with every flick. “I’m not hungry.”
“Aren’t you?” Luhan untucks Minseok’s shirt from his shorts and runs his thumbs along the skin just above the waistband. “What do you want, then?”
Minseok is purring so hard he’s practically vibrating under Luhan’s hands. His tail comes up over his shoulder and curls around the back of Luhan’s neck, the tip flicking harder and harder until Luhan chuckles and straightens up.
“Tell me what you want, sweetie.” He pushes Minseok by the hips, walks him back towards the couch.
“I missed you,” Minseok says. When he hits the back of the couch, he reaches up and wraps his arms around Luhan’s neck.
“Tell me what you want,” Luhan repeats.
“I want you.” Minseok is whining now, ears flattening against his head. “Please, Daddy, I want you so bad.”
“Mmm.” Luhan digs his thumbs into the front of Minseok’s hips. “Do you now?”
Minseok nods, eyes wide and pleading.
“Hm.” Luhan says nothing for a moment. He focusses on Minseok’s left auxiliary ear, pierced through with diamonds, a fine gold chain threaded through the lobe. Compared to his upper ears, these ones are practically deaf. They’re fit for the purpose, though, when Luhan leans forward and whispers, “My kitten always gets what he wants.”
Minseok mews, clutches Luhan’s neck, lifts his feet to claw at Luhan’s back. Luhan presses him against the couch and returns his mouth to that delicate expanse of skin between the neck of Minseok’s shirt and the soft line of his jaw.
“How do you want it?” He murmurs into Minseok’s throat. “In bed? In front of the fire? Or right here and now, over the back of the couch?”
Minseok whines and rocks his hips against Luhan’s. “Here, right here, I can’t wait.”
Luhan hums his approval and unwraps Minseok’s legs from around his waist. Placing him back on the floor, he pops the front button of Minseok’s shorts and turns him around to face the couch. He hikes Minseok’s shirt up and laughs - Minseok definitely hasn’t left the house today. His shorts aren’t even buttoned over his tail, the strap hanging loose so that his underpants are visible through the opening. Those, too, are just pulled up underneath his tail, slightly bunched inside his shorts where Minseok has been too lazy to put his tail through the hole.
Luhan shakes his head, still laughing to himself as he pulls Minseok’s pants down. Minseok steps out of them and leans forward over the back of the couch, his tail arching above his back to present himself to Luhan.
“Oh baby.” Luhan strokes over the base of Minseok’s spine, where fuzz turns to fluff turns to fur at the bottom of his tail. Minseok purrs and presses into Luhan’s touch, stretching up onto his toes. Luhan runs his hand along the length of Minseok’s tail and returns it to his hip.
“So pretty.” He traces a finger around the edge of Minseok’s hole and relishes in Minseok’s whining mew. “Such a lovely kitten.”
“Stop talking, you asshole,” Minseok gasps, and there’s the edge of a growl in his voice. “Just fuck me already.”
“Demanding.” Luhan grins. He’ll have to leave Minseok spread out here on the couch while he ducks through to the bedroom to grab lube, and he’s tempted to take his time. Minseok always gets what he wants, but that doesn’t mean Luhan has to give it to him right away.
This trajectory is somewhat diverted, however, when Luhan presses a teasing thumb to Minseok’s hole and is met with absolutely no resistance. He slips inside, flicking at the edge and making Minseok gasp.
Luhan wrenches his thumb back out and blinks in shock at Minseok’s ass. He carefully presses his finger in, and it slides inside with a slick noise and a moan from Minseok.
“Baby,” Luhan breathes, testing with a second finger and finding it easily accommodated. “Have you been fingering yourself?”
Minseok moans, nods. “All afternoon.” He’s clutching at the back of the couch, face turned to press against the leather, his ears flattened against his head as he gasps at every tentative thrust of Luhan’s fingers. “I didn’t come though, Daddy, I didn’t let myself- ohh-”
“Fuck.” Luhan feels his chest clench, unable to breathe for a moment, because Minseok has been edging himself all afternoon just waiting for Luhan to get home and fuck him, and Luhan doesn’t even have words for how hot that is.
“Please, Daddy,” Minseok is mewing. “I want you so bad.”
And fuck, this just explains everything. Minseok’s unbuttoned shorts, his underwear bunched up under his tail. The shirt hanging seductively off his shoulder. The thundering rush to leap into Luhan’s arms the second he was through the door.
Luhan needs only one more suspicion to confirm that Minseok had this all planned. With his fingers - three of them now - still pumping steadily into Minseok’s ass, he bends down to fish around in the pocket of his discarded shorts with his other hand.
Sure enough, he comes up holding a small packet of lube.
“Sneaky boy,” he mutters. He can’t help but laugh - Minseok makes these elaborate plans sometimes, as if he thinks he has to trick Luhan into having sex with him when all he really needs to do is take his pants off and climb into Luhan’s lap and it’s go time.
He tears the packet open with his teeth and squeezes it out over his fingers where they’re thrusting into Minseok. Minseok whines at the cold and shoves his ass back towards Luhan, his tail puffy and shuddering with pleasure.
“Ohh, please-”
“Mmm.” Luhan traces his little finger along Minseok’s perineum before pushing it in alongside the other three. “Have you been a good kitten today?”
Minseok nods, ears twitching against his head. His eyes are squeezed closed, his mouth open, and every other breath is a desperate mew.
“Do you think you deserve a reward?” Luhan doesn’t wait for Minseok to nod again, just curls his fingers and bathes in the resultant moan. “How about I give you my cock now? Do you think you can take it?”
“Yes-” Minseok clenches around Luhan’s fingers and whimpers. “Daddy- please, I need it.”
Luhan pulls his fingers out and unbuttons his pants. Minseok, ears pricked for the sound of the zipper, seems to shiver with anticipation.
“You ready, baby?” Luhan strokes a hand along Minseok’s tail, following the arch of it all the way to the end.
“P- Put it in,” Minseok gasps.
Luhan gives his cock a couple of firm strokes, then lines up behind Minseok. He holds it there for a second, letting Minseok hover on the edge of anticipation, then slams his hips forward hard enough to drive himself all the way in in one thrust.
Minseok yowls, and Luhan hears the pop-pop-pop of his claws going into the couch.
“Fuck yeah,” he grunts, hands at Minseok’s hips to hold him steady. Minseok is whining, scrabbling at the back of the couch, his tail swishing back and forth. Luhan reaches forward to run one hand down the length of Minseok’s spine as he pulls out and thrusts back in.
“Oh god- fuck-” Minseok moans, and Luhan can hear his claws ripping into the back of the couch. “Oh shit, Daddy, it’s so good- fuck me like that, so good-”
He’s babbling now, borderline incoherent as Luhan’s hips slap forward. They’re going to have to get the couch cushions reupholstered again, Luhan thinks. This is the third lot Minseok has torn up in as many months.
It’s very difficult to care about that, though, with the way Minseok is crying out at the depth of every thrust. He’s mewing, yowling, shoving his ass back to grind in dirty circles against Luhan’s hips, and Luhan knows Minseok isn’t going to last, especially not if he’s been holding himself close to the edge all afternoon. With that thought in mind, he picks up the pace. Minseok’s definitely going to beat him there, but not by much if he can help it.
“Daddy,” Minseok is panting, “oh yes, Daddy, you fuck me so good like that, gonna make me come so hard, your big cock, oh my god Daddy I’m gonna come-”
Luhan slides his hand forward around Minseok’s hip and traces a finger along the length of his cock, then leans forward to whisper in his ear.
“Come for Daddy.”
With a squeak, Minseok does. His whole body spasms as he paints the back of the couch with a truly astounding amount of come, and Luhan thrusts in hard to drive him through it.
“Oh- fffuck, Lu-”
Luhan pulls out and jerks himself with quick, sharp strokes until he’s just about to come. As he feels the telltale shivers beginning at the base of his spine, he grabs Minseok by the hips and thrusts back in so that when he comes it’s deep inside him, just the way he knows Minseok likes it.
“Shit, babe-” he grunts and pushes in as deep as he can, desperate to feel every tremble of Minseok’s body.
When he’s given all he has to give, he pulls out with a sigh and flops forward next to Minseok over the back of the couch. Minseok is purring like a motor, his eyes closed and an immensely satisfied smile on his face. Luhan, struck as he often is by the sheer magnitude of Minseok’s beauty, watches him while he catches his breath.
“By the way, Luhan,” Minseok says after a few minutes, cracking open one eye.
“Mhm?” Luhan drags his attention away from the intermittent flicks of Minseok’s ears to meet his gaze.
“I bought seven hundred dollars’ worth of makeup on Amazon today.”
Luhan groans and buries his face in the cushions. Minseok, still purring, slides off onto the floor with a thud, hoists one leg over his head, and begins to lick the come from his ass.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART TEN: Toes (G, 645 words)
They’ve wandered out ahead, as they tend to do, and Minseok is playfully pushing Luhan away as he tries to take his hand. Luhan pushes him back, so Minseok shoulder-checks him, and Luhan returns it with a laugh. Minseok’s next shove is forceful enough to send Luhan staggering sideways, and Minseok, met with no resistance, goes sprawling to the pavement.
“Oh my god,” Luhan laughs. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine,” Minseok snorts. “Help me up, you giant idiot.”
He’s grinning as he reaches up to grab Luhan’s arm, but Luhan doesn’t miss the way Minseok’s other hand is hovering by his ankle.
“Your foot.” He squats down and reaches for Minseok’s shoe.
“Luhan, I’m fine.” Minseok pokes at his ankle, frowns, and begins to get to his feet. “It’s only a short walk back to the dorm.”
“Then it’s only a short walk for me to carry you.” Luhan pushes Minseok back down onto his butt, ignores his huff of protest, and pulls his shoe off.
“Luhan-”
“How’s that?” Luhan twists Minseok’s foot from side to side.
“Fine.”
“And that?”
“That’s okay.”
“How about that?” Luhan flexes Minseok’s foot upwards, and Minseok winces.
“It’s f-”
“Liar.” Luhan pulls Minseok’s other shoe and socks off to compare his feet. His ankle doesn’t look swollen, at least, but Luhan’s not taking chances. “As soon as we get back to the dorm you gotta put ice on it. I don’t think it’s sprained? But I’m not sure.”
“You fuss an awful lot,” Minseok says.
“Of course I do,” Luhan replies. “It’s my job.”
Minseok rolls his eyes, but there’s a smile underneath it.
“Okay, help me up.”
“I’ll carry you.”
“Hell no, just this morning you said your back wasn’t healed yet-”
“It’s fine, Min, you’re not that heavy-”
“Alright, alright, alright.” Kris, having caught up with them, strides straight into the middle of the conversation. “No need to worry. Hyung is here to help.”
“You are nobody’s hyung in this situation,” Minseok points out.
“I’m my hyung,” Kris says, and doesn’t give any more explanation than that. Crouching down, he grabs Minseok’s arms and hauls them up over his shoulders. “Come on, Xiao Gege. Let’s get you home.”
“I can walk, you know,” Minseok protests.
“I know.” Kris hoists him up onto his back. “But isn’t this so much more fun?”
“... Yes,” Minseok admits, then gives a surprised giggle as Kris bounces him into a better position.
Tao, Jongdae and Yixing wander up behind them.
“What’s going on?” Tao asks, equal parts bewildered and suspicious.
“Uminnie’s feet hurt,” Jongdae guesses, and reaches out to pinch one of Minseok’s toes.
“Just the one,” Luhan clarifies. He runs a finger along the underneath of Minseok’s toes, bumping from one to the other until Minseok wriggles and pulls his foot away.
“I’m perfectly fine,” he insists, “but these two won’t let me walk.”
“Ah,” says Yixing, as if this is a very reasonable state of affairs.
“We have to look after you,” Kris says matter-of-factly. “You’re important.”
“Why don’t you ever look after me like this?” Tao says.
“Because you’re not important.”
As Tao begins to complain, Luhan returns to Minseok’s toes. He tweaks them one by one, pinching each pink little pad and brushing his thumb over the knuckles. When he looks up, Minseok is staring at him. One eyebrow is raised, but there’s an underlying fondness there that warms everything inside Luhan’s chest.
“I love you,” Minseok mouths at him over Kris’s shoulder.
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that,” Kris declares. He shakes his head, hoists Minseok into a more comfortable hold, and turns to lead the way back to the dorms. “No, no, no. I heard nothing. Did someone say something? Not that I heard.”
Minseok laughs and glances back over his shoulder at Luhan, his eyes sparkling as his toes wiggle in delight.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART NINE: Shorts (NC-17, 450 words)
Good things always come in small packages, Luhan thinks. And by that rule…
Minseok’s shorts are tiny and tight and blindingly bright pink, and right now they’re just about the only thing he’s wearing. His basketball jersey is hiked up around his armpits, his shoes and socks flung haphazardly over the edge of the bed, his snapback lying on the pillow where it landed when Minseok’s head hit the sheets. In place of all that clothing is Luhan’s mouth, working its steady way down Minseok’s chest and across his stomach as his hands smooth across Minseok’s thighs to drag his hips up.
“Oh-” a visible shiver runs through Minseok’s body as Luhan nips at the soft skin of his stomach. “Luhan.”
“Mhm.” Luhan drags his teeth against the button of Minseok’s shorts. This is the only part that isn’t pink; even the rivets and pocket stitching are a bright rose, but this button is silver with a giant diamante gem in the middle. Luhan takes a second to appreciate this as he carefully slips the button through its hole.
“I like your pants,” he murmurs.
“Huh?” Minseok raises his head to give Luhan a stare that borders on incredulous.
“Your pants,” Luhan repeats.
“My pants,” Minseok echoes. “Okay. Why are you talking about them when you should be throwing them across the room?”
Luhan sits up and runs his hands over the front of Minseok’s shorts. Minseok lets his head fall back to the bed with a groan and smacks both hands over his face.
“You look so fucking hot in them,” Luhan says. “They’re so… short.”
“They are shorts.”
“Yeah, but-” Luhan slides his fingers under the rolled-up hems and into the crease of Minseok’s thighs. “How do you fit all that booty into so little fabric?”
“I don’t have that much booty,” Minseok mutters into the palms of his hands.
“You have the finest ass that has ever graced this earth.”
“Stoppp.”
Luhan chuckles and ducks his head to kiss the tiny little V of skin where Minseok’s fly has begun to edge open, then takes the zipper in his teeth and pulls it the rest of the way down. Minseok’s breath shakes into his hands as Luhan’s nose traces over the front of his briefs.
“Luhan, please-”
Luhan presses his lips to the fabric and drinks in the moan that Minseok muffles behind his fingers. He gently eases the pink shorts over Minseok’s butt and pulls them off along with his briefs, then drops them on the pillow beside Minseok’s hat. As his hands return to the hot miles of Minseok’s bare skin, he smiles. Yes, he thinks, the best things definitely come in the smallest packages.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART EIGHT: Nails (G, 370 words)
Luhan is curled over his desk as Minseok approaches him. He seems to be deep in concentration, scribbling away in his notebook, but Minseok knows he won't mind being interrupted.
“Hey.”
Luhan doesn't answer, so Minseok nudges him with an elbow.
“Hey.”
“Hm?” Luhan tears himself away from the page and blinks up at Minseok. “Yo. What's up?”
Minseok holds out his hands for Luhan's inspection. “Look.”
“Whu-” Luhan looks and bursts out laughing. “Who did that?”
“Yixing.” Minseok lifts a hand to scrutinise his own nails. “He said I could use a little more sparkle in my life. What do you think? Does pink suit me?”
“Of course.” Luhan scratches a stray fleck of glittery polish off Minseok's skin.
“Really?” Minseok can't keep a grin off his face. “You think it looks good?”
“I think it looks beautiful.”
“Oh, stop.” Minseok swats at Luhan's shoulder, because he's getting that look on his face again, that softness of his voice that means this is more than a game. It's the same look he used to have when they were trainees, when he would call Minseok Mingssok and follow him everywhere.
Luhan still follows him everywhere, Minseok realises - he's just stopped minding, stopped even noticing, like it's an unquestionable fact that they should be together.
On that epiphany, he tweaks Luhan's nose with his sparkly fingers.
“What are you working on?”
“Just a song.” Luhan glances at his notebook. “It's nothing much, I'm just kind of putting stuff down and hoping I get an idea.”
Minseok peers over Luhan's shoulder. “What's it about?”
“Nothing.” Luhan's arm sliding over the page is casual enough, but there's a tightness in his chin that Minseok reads as embarrassment, and it's not too far a reach to guess it's a love song.
“Hmm.” He leans forward, rests his chin on Luhan’s head, lets his arms fall around his shoulders. “I look forward to hearing it.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Luhan shrugs. “I can’t get the words to come out right.”
He takes one of Minseok’s hands and laces their fingers together. His thumb traces lightly, almost meditatively, over one pink nail.
Minseok presses his face into Luhan’s hair. That’s okay, he thinks. You’ve never really needed words.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART SEVEN: Sunburn (G, 365 words)
“I told you to put on sunscreen!”
Minseok whines as Luhan pulls his shirt away from his neck to examine the extent of the damage. Predictably, he’s bright pink from shoulder to shoulder, with two pale strap marks cutting through it to give a shocking context to the burn.
“Idiot,” Luhan mutters.
“I didn’t think we were going to be out that long!”
Luhan sighs and carefully peels Minseok’s shirt off over his head. Minseok gasps as the fabric rubs over his burnt skin, and Luhan makes a sympathetic noise.
“Wait here, I’ll be right back.”
Minseok sits down on his bed with a meek nod, and Luhan bends to kiss his head before ducking out the door. He crosses the hall to the bathroom and pulls open the cabinet, which is a predictable mess. Over the back, behind boxes of pore strips and aspirin, he locates an old bottle of aloe gel, which he extracts from the jumble and takes back to Minseok.
“Here we go,” he says, sitting down behind Minseok and uncapping the bottle. “This is probably going to sting, I’m really sorry.”
Minseok whimpers at the first touch of Luhan’s hands.
“I know,” Luhan murmurs, “I know, I’m sorry.”
“It hurts,” Minseok whispers.
“It’ll stop hurting soon.”
As Luhan’s palms smooth the cool gel into his shoulders, Minseok’s breath starts to ease. The tension bleeds out of his neck, and he relaxes into Luhan’s hands.
“Is that better?”
Minseok nods, eyes closed, head bowed. He gives the breath of a moan as Luhan’s thumbs press into the side of his neck, working the gel into the muscles knotted together in spiderwebs from the small of his back to the base of his skull.
When the gel has all been rubbed into Minseok’s skin, Luhan gives his arms a last gentle caress and leans forward to kiss his cheek.
“There we go.”
“Thank you,” Minseok mumbles. His eyes are still closed, so Luhan kisses him again, takes the opportunity to be close.
“Anything for you,” he murmurs into Minseok’s skin.
Minseok smirks. “Gay.”
Luhan presses his grin into Minseok’s cheek. “Yep.”
Minseok just laughs and turns his head to kiss Luhan back.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART SIX: Lips (G, 456 words)
Minseok’s lips are parted in sleep.
Luhan lies there, awoken by the sun but unwilling to disturb Minseok, and watches the passage of dreams across his face, the flutter of his eyelashes and gentle snuffles of his nose. His lips twitch every so often, as if his unconscious words are almost strong enough to break through sleep and appear in his mouth.
Luhan watches this with the kind of smitten fascination he is recognising more and more in himself these days.
Soon, Minseok will awake. Or perhaps Jongdae will awake first, roll over and sigh at the sight of Luhan in his room once again, maybe ask him why they don’t swap rooms, maybe tease him about just getting a double bed rather than squeezing into Minseok’s single. Until then, Luhan is free to watch Minseok’s lips purse around dreams.
Luhan is familiar with the movement of Minseok’s lips in his waking hours. When he smiles or laughs his top lip flattens, hollowing out as if he needs to make room for all the amusement to fit in his mouth. When he speaks there’s a certain asymmetry to his expression - not quite a smirk, more a wry little twist of his mouth, as if the irony of life is not lost on him. When he kisses, he pours his entire being into his bottom lip, using it to push and drag and dig his way to the very core of Luhan’s soul.
In sleep, he is different. His mouth relaxes; his cheeks fall slack. His carefully held composure bleeds away, leaving him soft and uncontained. He becomes smaller, rounder, a simpler being than the fire that burns through his days.
In sleep, as in waking, Minseok is astonishingly beautiful.
The gentle pout of his lips is inviting, alluring, but to touch him would be to drag him from his dreams, and so Luhan watches, cataloguing Minseok’s face even though he already knows it better than his own.
Luhan lays there and watches Minseok for the entire time it takes the sun to migrate across the pillow and fall onto his face.
Minseok’s lips twitch, purse, press together, as if he can hold the sleep inside his body if only he keeps his mouth tightly shut. All he manages to keep in is the yawn that vibrates through his throat and shudders down his body into a stretch. He turns his face away from the pillow and opens his eyes.
He does not speak, but greets Luhan with a hum, a sleepy blink, and the edge of a smile.
Luhan leans forward and returns that smile into Minseok’s lips. Minseok hums again, soft and happy, and Luhan wraps his arms around him to begin a new day.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART FIVE: Ears (M, 708 words)
Luhan has Minseok flat on his back, his legs hanging off the side of the bed so that his toes are almost touching the floor. His shirt is hiked up around his armpits, his hands are in Luhan’s hair, and his breath is pleasantly vocal on every exhale as Luhan kisses a line down his chest. Luhan has just unbuttoned Minseok’s pants and is sliding a hand into his underwear.
It’s not a great moment for Jongdae to open the door.
“AH!”
Minseok gives a horrified squeak and smacks both hands over his eyes, as if by hiding his face he can also hide the full expanse of his chest, his kiss-bitten nipples, and the line of purple marks Luhan has sucked into his skin.
“AH, WHY?” Jongdae has gone into alarm mode and is protesting at the top of his lungs. “Why didn’t you lock the door if you’re doing that in here?”
Minseok’s ears have gone bright pink with embarrassment, but he manages to lower his hands and muster a glare in Jongdae’s direction. “I didn’t expect anyone to walk in!”
“Why not?” Jongdae cries. “It’s my room too!”
“Yeah, well can you take what you need and get out? We’re busy!”
Jongdae darts across the room and grabs a book from his bedside table. Halfway back to the door, he whirls around and adds, “Luhan has a single room!”
“I don’t like people lying on my bed,” Luhan points out.
“That’s what beds are for!”
Minseok picks up a pillow and throws it at him. “Get out!”
Jongdae slams the door behind him. All the way down the corridor they can hear him loudly advising anyone within earshot to Stay Away From His Room Because Xiumin And Luhan Are Fucking In There.
There’s a second of silence, and then Minseok buries his face in his hands again to muffle a scream of mortification.
“Ahhh, that was so embarrassing!”
Luhan grimaces and gives him a pat on the head that he hopes is reassuring. Minseok’s ears are positively flaming, and Luhan thinks if he gets any more distressed he might combust. He knows Minseok doesn’t like letting go of his composure, and the unexpected intrusion on a rare moment of impulse has shaken him - probably even more than he’s letting on.
“It’s okay, Umin,” he says, cupping his hands behind Minseok’s ears. The flush isn’t easing out of them - if anything, they’re getting pinker.
Minseok gives another moan and shakes his head as if he can dislodge his embarrassment that way.
“I think I might die,” he mumbles into his palms. “I’m never having sex again.”
Luhan’s life flashes before his eyes, an endless string of blue balls and disappointing masturbation. He jumps up off the bed and flips the lock on the door so that no-one else can interrupt them, then slides back onto the bed beside Minseok.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “Look at me.”
After a moment of visible dilemma, Minseok lowers his hands. His cheeks are almost as pink as his ears. Luhan gives a gentle kiss to each cheek, each ear, and then to the worried little pucker in Minseok’s forehead.
“They’re not going to make fun of us,” he says, soft against Minseok’s skin.
Minseok snorts. “They’re definitely going to make fun of us.”
“Then I’ll kick their asses,” Luhan promises. “Really, though, I think they’ll get it all out of their system teasing Chen. He’s probably still whining about us burning his retinas or something.”
Minseok laughs at that, an involuntary little huff and a shake of his head as he looks up to meet Luhan’s eyes.
“You look like you’re about to blow steam out of your ears,” Luhan says, and traces a finger around the edge of one.
“Stoppp,” Minseok whines, clapping his hands over his ears, but he’s laughing now, and when Luhan cups a hand under his chin to pull him into a kiss he goes willingly, his eyes crinkled shut and nose scrunched in feigned indignation.
“So,” Luhan murmurs into his lips, “you’re never having sex again?”
“Hm.” Minseok kisses him again, then pouts as if considering the question. “We’ll see. Maybe just one more time.”
His giggle gets a little bit lost in Luhan’s kiss.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART FOUR: Nose (G, 359 words)
It’s only a five minute walk to the coffee shop, but by the time they’re halfway there Minseok is huddling into his scarf, his arms wrapped tightly around himself as if he can physically hold the warmth inside his jacket.
“Oh, it’s so cold,” he whines between chattering teeth. “How are you not shivering?”
“I’m shivering on the inside.” Luhan has his hat pulled low over his ears and he’s wearing an extra jumper under his jacket, but his hands are still chilly inside his thin gloves and his lips sting with the cold every time he opens his mouth to talk.
“I can’t wait for coffee.” Minseok snuggles back into his hood.
They stop at a crosswalk to wait for the lights, and Luhan turns to look at him.
“Look at your nose,” he grins.
“Is it dripping?” Minseok lifts a hand to wipe the end of his nose. “I can’t feel it.”
“No,” Luhan shakes his head, “it’s just all pink.”
“That’s because I’m freezing!”
Luhan can’t help but laugh at Minseok’s indignation. Gently he takes Minseok’s face between his hands.
“Ohh, so warm.” Minseok closes his eyes.
A second later he snaps them back open as Luhan leans forward and blows on his nose.
“Ah! What are you doing?”
Luhan holds him steady so he can’t jerk away. “I’m warming up your nose.”
“With your stinky breath?”
“Liar.” Luhan cleaned his teeth not twenty minutes ago, and the last fragments of the mint Minseok gave him as they left the house are still on his tongue.
“You’re really strange,” Minseok complains as Luhan presses his mouth to the tip of his nose.
“Mhm.”
“… I am warmer, though.”
“Mhm.” Luhan reins in a smile.
“Oh, shut up.” Minseok pushes him off as the light changes. “You weirdo. You’re buying me coffee.”
“Of course I am.” Luhan grabs Minseok’s hand and pulls it into his pocket with his own.
“Americano, extra large,” Minseok insists.
“Yep.”
“And a cookie.”
Luhan smiles. “Anything for you, Umin.”
Minseok grumbles, but his hand squeezes tight in Luhan’s pocket. When Luhan glances at him a moment later, his cheeks are pink too.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART THREE: Elbows (G, 400 words)
“Hey dude.”
“Hm?” Minseok doesn’t look up from his phone.
“Let me see your arms.”
“My arms?” Minseok frowns, but offers Luhan one lazy hand.
Luhan takes Minseok by the wrist and turns his arm over.
“Wow, they’re totally right!”
“Wait, what?” Minseok finally tears his attention away from his phone to give Luhan a quizzical look. “What are you talking about?”
“I’ve just been reading some fansites,” Luhan explains. “People are talking about how your elbows are pink. And they totally are!”
Minseok cranes his neck to give a mildly interested glance to his elbow.
“Huh. I guess they are. I can’t say I’ve spent too much time looking at my own elbows.”
“I’ve never noticed before.”
Luhan sounds awestruck, as if this discovery has absolutely blown his mind - which, considering how intimately familiar he is with every inch of Minseok’s body, Minseok supposes it probably has.
“They’re just elbows,” he says.
“They’re your elbows,” Luhan replies, as if this is a critical distinction.
Minseok shrugs. “They’re just my elbows.” And now he’s almost teasing, because Luhan’s fascination with him has always been sort of amusing. Minseok has never considered himself to be particularly exceptional - he’s not all that fit, not all that good-looking, not all that talented - and yet Luhan seems to hold him in the highest regard, seems to see him as all that and more.
“They’re pink,” Luhan beams. The fact apparently delights him, if the way he’s pinching Minseok’s wenis is anything to go by. With a happy little waggle of his head, he leans forward and kisses it, then proceeds to trail kisses all the way up Minseok’s arm until he reaches his shoulder.
“Yah.” Minseok shies away, but Luhan has arrived at his face and is peppering it with tiny kisses, his nose poking at Minseok’s cheek with each peck of his lips.
“I love you,” Luhan murmurs, and kisses the flush that spreads across Minseok’s cheek.
“Shhh,” Minseok admonishes him, because he’s still pretending this is somehow a secret.
“I love you,” Luhan repeats, lower this time, a whisper into Minseok’s ear.
He gives Minseok’s elbow a last little pinch, then picks up his phone and continues scrolling like nothing happened. Minseok straightens his shirt and goes back to texting Jongdae.
Two seconds later his fingers find their surreptitious way to his elbow, and he ducks his head to hide a smile.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART TWO: Chub (G, 356 words)
Luhan shifts his head slightly on Minseok’s stomach, moving away from the afternoon sun as it inches inevitably towards his eyes.
“Can you reach the blinds from where you are?” he says, and feels Minseok shake his head against the bed.
“Nope. I’m too comfortable, I’m not moving.”
Luhan sighs. “Same.” He closes his eyes and drops his book onto his chest, giving up the fight and letting himself bathe in the warmth streaming through the window onto his head.
“You’re so comfy,” he mumbles.
Minseok’s stomach moves beneath him in quiet laughter.
“You are, though,” Luhan insists. “You’re like a pillow, but warmer. And more gurgly.”
Minseok pats his head, still laughing.
“You’re lucky I’ve got abs of steel,” he says. “Your head weighs a ton.”
“What abs?” Luhan rolls over and pushes himself up onto his elbows to pluck at Minseok’s shirt. “I see no abs here.”
Minseok cranes his neck to look down at his stomach. “They’re in there somewhere.” He hitches his shirt up to display his soft stomach. “I think. Look, you left a head print on me.”
Luhan traces the edge of the pink splodge on Minseok’s skin, left over from the pressure of his head. “Hee. Pink chub.”
“Shut up.” Minseok lets his head fall back to the pillow with a grin.
“No, I like it!” Luhan traces his fingers back and forth across Minseok’s stomach. “Pink chub… white chub! Pink chub…… white chub!!”
“Oh my god stop, you’re tickling me.”
Luhan laughs as Minseok grabs at his hands. He bends to press a kiss to the divide between pink and white, then blows a raspberry. Minseok squeals and pushes at Luhan’s head, but Luhan just turns to rest his cheek against the softest part of Minseok’s stomach with a contented sigh.
“All chub is good chub,” he says, with a smile at Minseok’s amusement.
“Oh really?” Minseok tweaks Luhan’s nose, then brushes his hair back off his face.
“Yeah.” Luhan kisses Minseok’s stomach again. “But your chub is the best.”
Minseok hums a happy smile, his eyes slipping closed as he strokes Luhan’s hair in the afternoon sun.
In which everything pink about Minseok, from his clothes to his toes, is equally important.
This is a series of disconnected ficlets on the theme of Minseok and pink. Crossposted from AFF.
Read the entire series here.
PART ONE: Hair (G, 560 words)
Minseok’s hair has been pink for a while now.
He dyed it for the most recent comeback, and somehow, through all the promotions and concerts and photoshoots, it hasn’t found time to become any other colour. Normally, by now, it would have been bleached and re-dyed a different shade, but here they are three weeks later and Minseok’s hair is still pink.
Luhan realises this one evening when Minseok’s head is pillowed in his lap, Luhan’s fingers absently combing themselves across the soft skin behind his ear and down over the back of his neck.
He scratches through Minseok’s hair and watches the way it parts, observes the flicker of individual strands over his fingers with each pass of his hand. The colour is more intense towards the base; it’s faded, he realises, at the tips. He strokes his hand through again and watches the ripple of coral to magenta, and then the line where the pink abruptly stops and becomes black.
Luhan runs a fingertip along that line. It’s about as wide as his finger, which means it’s probably only a matter of days before the whole thing gets bleached out and turned purple or red or green. Luhan suddenly feels a little sad about that. There’s something about the gradient of Minseok’s hair that is so incredibly endearing. Luhan wishes he could take a picture of it, and in the same moment wishes he could explain why it feels important enough to capture.
“You’ve got regrowth,” he murmurs, in lieu of any of this.
Minseok does not respond.
“What colour do you think you’ll do next?” Luhan continues. “I thought you looked really good blonde. Maybe red or something?” Nothing will ever be as beautiful as this pink.
When Minseok still doesn’t answer, Luhan carefully leans forward to peer over at his face.
Minseok is fast asleep. His hand is sandwiched between his cheek and Luhan’s jeans, his mouth open, breathing softly as dreams flicker through his eyelashes. As Luhan watches, his lips purse, a frown creasing in between his eyebrows, and he gives a little snuffle.
Luhan smiles. With one careful finger, he brushes a spare strand of hair back off Minseok’s forehead so it won’t tickle him any more. Minseok’s nose twitches and he relaxes with a sigh, and Luhan’s heart gives a little throb.
“Come on,” he murmurs, “I think it’s bedtime.”
He gently slides out from under Minseok and scoops him up into his arms. Minseok mumbles and turns to press his face into Luhan’s shoulder, his hand coming up to grasp sleepily at the fabric of his shirt, and Luhan can’t resist ducking his head to kiss Minseok’s forehead. He creeps out of the living room and along the hall to Minseok’s bedroom.
Jongdae is already asleep in the other bed, so Luhan doesn’t turn on the light. He pulls off Minseok’s shoes and eases him in under the covers, and then, after a moment of hesitation, kicks off his own jeans and slides in beside him. He gathers Minseok into his arms and kisses the top of his head, delighting in the comfortable little murmur he receives in return.
Luhan closes his eyes and smiles. Nothing ever feels as safe as holding Minseok to his heart like this.
When Luhan falls asleep, it is with his lips pressed to Minseok’s pink hair.
A relationship catalogued in tiny milestones - first sight, first kiss, first everything else.
XiuHan romance/fluff, 1.4k. Crossposted from AFF.
The first time their eyes meet is across the cafeteria. Minseok’s just come from a dance lesson and he’s starving, shovelling rice into his mouth with a poor attempt at dignity, only half an ear on the conversation taking place around him. He’s halfway through his meal and already wishing he could go back for seconds when he happens to glance up and finds himself being watched.
The guy at the other table has something of a deer in the headlights look about him as their eyes meet, as if he’s only just realised that Minseok can see him too. Frowning, Minseok wipes his face - does he have rice stuck to his chin? Why is this kid staring at him like that? - and by the time he blinks the other boy has grabbed his empty tray and scuttled off towards the door at the far end of the hall. Minseok shrugs and goes back to his food and doesn’t see Luhan stop, tray clutched in shaking hands, to look back at him with a euphoric grin that refuses to leave his face.
-
The first time they talk, Luhan is a stuttering mess. His beloved’s name is Mingssok - no, Mingseok - no, it’s Minseok, Kim Minseok, and Luhan is so enchanted by the fury with which this tiny Korean boy corrects his fumbling Chinese accent that he almost forgets to tell him that oh right, he’s Lu Han, Lu as in deer and Han as in dawn, even though these distinctions between characters mean nothing in this country.
He can’t tell if Minseok is really mad at him for all the staring and the following or if he’s just pretending to be annoyed, but by the time they part they’re both smiling, and Luhan takes the stairs three at a time to scream his joy from the rooftop.
-
The first time they stay up all night together, it’s in a fit of quiet giggles, with the lights off and a flashlight between them like fifteen-year-olds up past bedtime. They share a couple of beers, even though Luhan doesn’t really like it and Minseok doesn’t normally drink, and every time they hear movement in the corridor outside they scramble to switch the light off and cover each other’s mouths, frozen with ecstatic fear at the thought of being discovered.
Luhan falls asleep with his head in Minseok’s lap at six in the morning, and Minseok continues to fight his eyes open for another twenty minutes just to watch the gentle twitch of Luhan’s nose before giving in and leaning back against the wall to follow him into his dreams.
-
The first time they kiss is in a corridor. Nowhere special - not the dorm, nor a practise room, nor the rooftop under the stars - they’re on their way from somewhere to somewhere, neither place particularly important, but halfway there Minseok turns and takes the next step on his tiptoes so he can lean up and peck a kiss to Luhan’s lips, then keeps on walking, steady and purposeful, like this is something they’ve done a thousand times. Luhan stops, one shocked hand over his mouth, fingers hovering but not daring to disturb the lingering breath on his skin. He blinks three, four times, then runs to catch up with Minseok. When he takes his hand and links their fingers together Minseok gives him a tiny squeeze, and as Luhan returns it with a giddy thrill Minseok turns and offers him the glitter of a smile. Luhan grins back, his heart buoyant between his tonsils, and they continue down the corridor from wherever to wherever.
-
The first time they fight is in an airport. Luhan’s said something stupid, and the more Minseok corrects him on it the more he doubles down. It’s something trivial and unimportant, a ridiculous thing to fight about, but the fact that Luhan refuses to listen to him drives Minseok crazy, and he doesn’t want to yell at him in public so he just turns away. He can’t exactly leave, but he can keep his back resolutely to Luhan, eyes on his phone like it’s the most important thing he could possibly be doing right now, and even though he knows Luhan is still staring after him he doesn’t turn around.
He busies himself with doing absolutely nothing for a whole two hours until they board, and he’s planning to ignore Luhan for the entire flight too if he can, but when their bags are stowed and they’re buckled into their seats Luhan’s hand finds his on the armrest, fingers gentle with hesitance, and after a moment his head settles onto Minseok’s shoulder. It’s an apology of sorts, and Minseok knows he should insist on getting it in words, but right now it’s enough to press a kiss to Luhan’s forehead, to let his lips linger against his skin until he can kiss him again and mean it with love.
-
The first time they undress each other it’s in a fumble of shaking hands, hearts in throats and lips between teeth. When Minseok drops his briefs on the floor and is finally standing naked in front of him, Luhan’s breath leaves him all at once. It’s not like he’s never seen Minseok naked before - they’ve seen each other in all possible states of undress, in dorms and dressing rooms and behind curtains backstage during the quickest costume changes of their lives - but never like this, never with this sense of promise between them. Luhan is frozen with want and indecision and the sudden feeling that his entire life has led up to this point, and they stand there staring at each other for a solid five seconds before Minseok steps forward and gently takes Luhan’s hand. He pulls him nearer, guides him to touch, just touch, and the sweetness of his skin is enough for Luhan to pull him into his arms, so close that it hurts not to be closer, and give himself to the heat that Minseok kisses into his veins.
-
The first time they get caught, they’re backstage at a music show. A production assistant comes looking for Minseok and finds him pressed against the wall of some back hallway, Luhan’s leg between his thighs, lips on his throat, hands skirting around his meticulously styled hair.
She’s professional, apologetic; says, Sorry to interrupt but your stylist just wants you so she can check…, and Minseok nods and bows and says he’ll go immediately so that she can scuttle off on her next errand without having to worry about escorting him back.
“Oops,” Luhan whispers as she disappears around the corner.
Minseok agrees with a low hum. “Less than ideal.”
Luhan taps his waist. “You’d better go back.”
“Give me a kiss first.”
“You’ve just had a hundred!”
“Yes, but I want another.”
Luhan kisses him, fierce and deep, then pushes him in the direction of the dressing rooms. “Go. It’s very rude to keep your stylist waiting.”
“It’s even ruder to kiss my makeup off and undo all her hard work.”
“You-!”
Minseok just skips away, pausing at the corner to give his ass a wiggle before disappearing with a laugh.
-
The first time they make love, Minseok breaks. He’s strung out from an eon of careful preparation, love and patience kissed into his skin with more tenderness than he thinks he should be allowed, and by the time they come to the act itself he’s almost gone. He feels it up to his armpits, the gunpowder tension through his entire body, just waiting for a spark to destroy him.
How foolish to love a man whose every kiss is the flick of a lighter.
When Luhan enters him, the explosion resonates through Minseok’s very bones. He cries out, his fingernails trailing fireworks across Luhan’s shoulders, and even to his own ears it sounds more like anguish than pleasure. He feels his heart splinter inside his chest, shattered by the blast, and as Luhan bottoms out inside him Minseok lifts his head to kiss every last fragment into his lips.
He’s ruined, he realises. They’re gasping, panting, drowning in flames as they move together, and Minseok knows they’ll never again be able to exist apart.
As Luhan kisses the heat from his lips, Minseok thinks maybe that’s okay.
It starts, as things often do, with Chanyeol picking up a guitar. The rest is a full-on fiasco.
XiuHan-ish, XiuBaek-but-not-really, Junmyeon is a Dad™ and everything is SeBaek’s fault.
2.3k, slice of life/crack
Crossposted from AFF
It starts, as things often do, with Chanyeol picking up a guitar.
At first he’s just fiddling around, fingerpicking chords of something that might be one of his compositions or might just be an improvisation. After a few minutes, though, it turns into a distinctive riff, and Kyungsoo launches up off the couch, because Chanyeol’s not the only one who can secretly practise something for months and then whip it out like he didn’t plan the whole thing.
“Sí, sabes que ya llevo un rato mirándote,
Tengo que bailar contigo hoy-”
“Oh shit!” Baekhyun’s head pops up from behind his DS. “Kyungsoo’s got his Spanish on!”
Kyungsoo allows himself a grin, then closes his eyes and concentrates on articulating every word perfectly.
By the time he reaches the chorus, Jongdae is up and dancing.
“Despacito, quiero respirar tu cuello despacito-”
“Work it, Chenny!”
Jongin laughs and smacks Sehun in the arm as Jongdae gyrates (not at all self-consciously, even though he probably should be).
Chanyeol hasn’t learned the lyrics, but he clearly knows enough to add in a “sube sube!” every time Kyungsoo draws breath, and for a few minutes it’s a good duet, even if Kyungsoo’s rapping is slightly more lyrical than rhythmic.
Then Junmyeon bursts in.
“PASITO A PASITO-!”
“Ah, why?” Jongdae smacks a hand over his face.
Kyungsoo keeps singing despite the chorus of groans and shouts of embarrassment as Junmyeon dads his way to the middle of the room and starts dropping it down.
“Sit down, Suho,” Baekhyun calls, “you’re gonna put your back out.”
If Junmyeon hears him he doesn’t acknowledge it, and as Kyungsoo approaches the next chorus everyone in the room seems to suddenly see what’s about to happen all at the same time.
“Des-”
“Don’t do it, Suho-”
“-pa-”
“Kim Junmyeon don’t you dare, I swear to god-”
“-cito.”
Junmyeon whips.
“Ahhhhh why are you like this?”
“God dammit, Suho.”
Junmyeon turns around with a huge grin on his face like the whole room isn’t embarrassed to be seen with him.
“Yolo?” he offers.
“It’s not 2012,” Jongdae says, “no-one says yolo anymore.”
“Okay,” Baekhyun declares, “I’m salvaging this party. Minseok, dance with me.”
Minseok, seated in the corner and observing the whole scene with a grin, shakes his head.
“Come on,” Baekhyun insists, “we’ve still got one more chorus. Get up and shake your booty.”
Minseok shakes his head again, but his grin is wider now, and when Sehun tugs at his sleeve he slides off his bench and saunters over to Baekhyun in the centre of the room.
“Do that thing with your butt,” Baekhyun says, and just like that it’s like he’s activated Sexy Minseok.
“This thing?” Minseok swirls his hips.
“Yes, work it.”
Jongin lets out a whoop as Minseok shakes his ass.
“Dang, Minseokkie!”
Minseok laughs and shimmies harder. Baekhyun smacks his butt as he turns around, so Minseok wiggles in his direction. Next second, Baekhyun’s crotch is pressed against Minseok’s ass.
“Oh my god,” Minseok says, “what are you doing?”
“Grind with me, Minseok!”
“Nooo-”
“Yes, like they do in the music video!”
Baekhyun spins Minseok around and grabs his hips to pull him closer.
“You have no sense of personal boundaries,” Minseok complains, but his arms are around Baekhyun’s neck anyway, and they’re grinding so close that their belt buckles are clicking together.
“Let’s be real,” Baekhyun grins, “we’ve been in this group so long, we practically share the same body.”
Minseok laughs and throws his head back as Baekhyun’s hands move over his hips.
“Y que olvides tu apellido, despacito.”
Baekhyun spins Minseok and dips him as the whole group claps and cheers.
“Wow, you’re so sexy!” Jongdae cries.
Junmyeon claps Kyungsoo on the arm. “I didn’t know you knew that song. You know it’s about sex, right?”
Sehun is giggling at his phone, with Jongin peering over his shoulder.
“Awesome.”
Minseok points a warning finger at the pair of them.
“That is not going on your Insta, Sehun. If you show that video to anyone, I will end you.”
“Pasito a pasito,” Sehun chortles, wiggling his shoulders.
“I’m serious.”
“I won’t show it to anyone,” Sehun assures him, “I promise.”
-
“Send it to me,” Baekhyun says. “I just want to be able to see how sexy I am.”
“Okay.” Sehun hits share, then looks up. “I guess it’s okay to send to the members, right? I mean, we were all there, so…”
“Yeah, absolutely,” Baekhyun agrees. “Except for Yixing, and he'll want to see it too. After all, we have to keep him in the loop, right?”
“Naturally.” Sehun scrolls down to find the group contact list.
“Don’t send it to Minseok, though,” Baekhyun says. “He’ll get self-conscious if he watches it.”
“That’s a good point.” Sehun unticks Minseok’s name and hits send. “Done.”
“Sweet, thank you!” Baekhyun walks out of the room, and Sehun throws his phone back on the desk.
-
Kris picks up his phone when it chimes.
“What the hell…?”
He hasn’t used this email account in years, but it’s still synced to his phone - and boy has that caught up with him in a weird way, because at the top of his screen is a notification.
From: Oh Sehun
Subject: sexy ;)
Kris hesitates, then opens the attachment.
“… What the absolute fuck.”
At first he’s not quite sure what he’s watching. Then he realises it’s Minseok and Baekhyun dirty dancing in the practise room, apparently rubbing dicks while Kyungsoo serenades them.
“Am I supposed to take this as a wedding invitation or something?”
Kris shakes his head, deletes the email and shoves his phone back into his pocket.
-
“Pfft. Amateurs.”
Tao closes his emails and hands his phone to his assistant.
“I need to update my Instagram. Can you film me?”
-
Luhan watches the video with a lump in his throat.
He wants to cry, and at the same time feels guilty for it. Minseok is smiling, laughing in Baekhyun’s arms - he looks happy, and Luhan should feel happy for him, but he can’t help the tears that well up in his eyes at the thought that Minseok is happy with someone else. He’s moved on. The way Baekhyun is holding him is intimate, possessive, and even though in the back of his mind Luhan knows that Baekhyun is like that with everyone, he can’t convince himself to say the same of Minseok.
As much as it hurts to watch, though, Luhan can’t seem to tear his eyes away. Minseok may be dancing with someone else, but he’s still dancing, and that has always been and will always be one of the hottest things on earth. Minseok’s hips move like they’re not even attached to his body, and every body roll sends a shiver down Luhan’s spine. If he squints, looks at the video at just the right slant, Baekhyun’s face disappears and Luhan can almost pretend he’s the one dancing with Minseok.
He holds that fantasy in his mind as he turns on his webcam. He’s gotten into the habit of recording himself recently, for no particular reason. At first it was to see if his face really does that weird thing Minseok always used to say it did, then it was to time himself to see if he was lasting longer as he got fitter… now it’s just a habit more than anything. He hits record, rewinds the video on his phone and unzips his jeans.
He thinks about Minseok, imagines dancing like that with him. He lets his imagination play over the idea of Minseok grinding against him, rolling his hips, throwing his head back with laughter as Luhan’s hands stroke over his waist, grab his ass, pull him closer-
Luhan chokes back a sob as a tear splashes onto his hand. He knows he’s muttering under his breath, humming and whispering, but he’s not really paying attention to what he’s saying. It’s not important right now - what’s important is the fleeting image of Minseok in his arms, swaying against his body, letting Luhan undress him with kisses and relearn his body over and over and over-
Luhan cries out and buckles forward over his desk.
Afterwards, when he’s cleaned up and zipped back into his jeans, he opens his emails again. Lao Gao sometimes uses his computer, and Luhan doesn’t want him seeing these webcam sessions. If he emails the video to himself he can delete it from his hard drive and access it from the email server when he wants to watch it.
He attaches the email, hits send, and flops down onto his bed. It’s nap time.
-
“Mother of god.”
Baekhyun can see his own horrified expression reflected on Sehun’s face.
“Why- just… why?”
It’s awful and uncomfortable, but somehow they can’t bring themselves to look away. Sehun turns the volume down so no-one outside their room will hear, even though judging by the recipient list they all will have received it anyway.
“Ooooh- *hic* oOOoooh-”
“He must have hit reply all,” Baekhyun murmurs. “Poor fucker.”
“I’m just tryna get you in the- *sniff* m- moooooood-”
“Wow.” Sehun shakes his head. “This is horrifying.”
“Oooh- oooOOoh- M- Minnie just show me what it- *hic* what it dooo-”
“What nightmare hath god wrought?” Baekhyun whispers.
“He sent this to everyone,” Sehun says.
“Everyone except Minseok,” Baekhyun nods. “Which is unfortunate. I’m pretty sure he’s the only one who wouldn’t be permanently scarred by this.”
“I dunno about that,” Sehun says. “I don’t think even Minseok wants to see Luhan having a sad fap.”
“You’re right. Let’s never speak of this again.”
“Agreed.”
-
It’s been a weird week. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary has happened, but for some reason no-one will meet Minseok’s eyes and he can’t work out why. At first he thought it had something to do with the video that popped up on Tao’s instagram of him twerking to Despacito - but everyone shrugged it off as a coincidence, even if the timing was slightly unnerving. Still, it’s something more than that. Something is wrong, but he can’t put his finger on what it is. Rooms clear when he walks into them; dinner time is uncomfortably quiet. Minseok has basically been living in isolation, and it’s more than a little unnerving.
He’s still racking his brain trying to figure out what he’s done wrong when Yixing arrives home that Saturday night.
“Yixing!” Jongdae cries, bouncing up from the couch.
“I’m so glad we’re close enough that we can share our most intimate moments like this!” Yixing declares.
It’s a weird sort of hello, but Minseok smiles anyway and gets up to go hug him.
“That was an interesting video Luhan sent, huh?” Yixing continues, and Minseok stops.
“… Video? Luhan- what?”
“We’ve grown so close as a family, there are no such thing as secrets anymore. I’m so proud.”
Minseok turns around to see if anyone else is as confused as he is and finds Baekhyun standing right behind him, his hand halfway across his throat in an unmistakable no-stop-shut-up gesture.
“No secrets, huh?” Minseok narrows his eyes. “Really?”
-
Baekhyun takes it on himself to explain, even though it was really Sehun’s fault. He tells Minseok about how he asked for the video, how Sehun decided to send it to the whole group, how he accidentally used an old email list and sent it to Luhan, Kris and Tao as well.
“That explains Tao’s Instagram video,” Minseok says, “but it doesn’t explain why everyone has been avoiding my eyes all week.”
“Well…” Baekhyun pauses to wring his hands together. “Luhan sort of… responded. With a video.” The look on Minseok’s face makes him really wish he could stop talking. “A rather personal video. Of himself…” he stops, gulps, takes a deep breath, “jerking it. To you.”
Minseok’s eyes widen, and just for a second he doesn’t look quite so mad. Then his expression hardens again, and he holds out his hand.
“Give it to me.”
Baekhyun gapes. “What?”
“The video,” Minseok demands. “I want to see it.”
“You- really?”
“Well, it was about me, wasn’t it? I have a right to know.”
“Yeah, but-”
The look on Minseok’s face stops him, and Baekhyun scrabbles to fish his phone out of his pocket. He opens the video and hands it to Minseok.
Minseok watches it with a stony expression, completely still and unmoved even as Luhan chokes on his name through the speakers. It’s possibly the most awkward five minutes in their entire history as a group, and that includes the time Baekhyun jimmied open Kyungsoo’s shower to find him already sharing it with Jongin.
When the video finishes, Minseok hands the phone back to Baekhyun, then wallops him on the shoulder.
“Ow!”
“This is your fault,” Minseok says, then smacks Sehun too. “Even more yours.” He turns around and hits Jongdae as well for good measure. “That’s for laughing.” With that, he turns on his heel and storms off into his room, slamming the door behind him.
“Wewww,” Jongin breathes. “He’s furious.”
Yixing looks stricken. “Was that my fault?”
“No, no,” Baekhyun rushes to reassure him. “It was Sehun’s.”
“How long do you think it will take him to stop hating us?” Jongdae wonders.
“A long time,” Junmyeon says. “Maybe forever.”
Baekhyun rolls his eyes, but inside he’s worried Junmyeon might be right. There was something in Minseok’s eyes that frightened him a little bit, and Baekhyun isn’t quite sure what to make of it.
They sit down, quiet and subdued, to try and salvage the evening while they wait for Minseok to hopefully stop sulking and come out of his room.
Ten minutes later there’s a simultaneous chime from every phone in the room. Baekhyun already has his phone in his hand and unlocked before he realises what that means and freezes.
“Oh. Oh no.”
“Oh no,” Chanyeol echoes, then recoils from his phone as it loads. “Oh, no.”
“Lu-ge… ah- ohhh-”
“WHY DID HE SEND THIS TO EVERYONE?”
-
Five thousand miles away, Kris throws his phone off the Lions Gate Bridge.
I’ve seen five different authors take down, or prepare to take down, their posted works on Ao3 this week. At the same time, I’ve seen several people wishing there was more new content to read. I’ve also seen countless posts by authors begging for people to leave comments and kudos.
People tell me I am a big name fan in my chosen fandom. I don’t quite get that but for the purposes of this post, let’s roll with it. On my latest one shot, less than 18% of the people who read it bothered to hit the kudos button. Sure, okay, maybe that one sort of sucked. Let’s look at the one shot posted before that - less than 16% left kudos. Before that - 10%, and then 16%. I’m not even going to get into the comments. Let’s just say the numbers drop a lot. I’m just looking at one shots here so we don’t have to worry about multiple hits from multiple chapters, people reading previous chapters over, etc. And if I am a BNF, that means other people are getting significantly less kudos and comments.
Fandom is withering away because it feels like people don’t care about the works that are posted. Why should I go to the trouble of posting my stories if no one reads them, and of the people who do read them, less than a fifth like them? Even if you are not a huge fan of the story, if it kept your attention long enough for you to get to the bottom, go ahead and mash that kudos button. It’s a drop of encouragement in a big desert.
TL;DR: Passively devouring content is killing fandom.
You know, kudos and comments are much beloved by all esp. yrs truly, but I have to say: I’ve been posting fic for 20 years, and I have never in my entire life had a story stay above a 1:9 kudos to hits ratio (or comments to hits, back when kudo wasn’t an option). Usually they don’t stay above 1:10, once they’ve been around for a few weeks.
I also have a working background in online marketing. In social media 1:10 is what you would call a solid engagement score, when people actually care about your product (as opposed to “liking” your Facebook page so they could join a contest or whatever). If BNFs are getting 1:5 - and I do sometimes see it - that is sky-high engagement. Take any celebrity; take Harry Styles, who has just under 30M followers and doesn’t tweet all that often. He regularly gets 3-400K likes, 1-200K retweets. I’ve seen him get up to just under 1M likes on a tweet. That’s a 1:30 engagement ratio, for Harry Styles, and though some of you guys enjoy my fics and have said so, I don’t think you have as lasting a relationship with my stories as Harry Styles’s fans do with him. XD;
Again, this is not to say we, as readers, should all go home and not bother to kudo or comment or engage with fic writers. That definitely is a recipe for discouraging what you want to see in future. But this is not the first post I’ve seen that suggests a 20% kudo ratio is the equivalent of yelling into the void, and I’m worried that we as writers are discouraging ourselves because our expectations are out of whack.
I think about this a lot, because it’s important to know what a realistic goal to expect from an audience is, even though I admit it definitely is kind of depressing when you look at the numbers. I was doing reading on what sort of money you can expect to make from a successful webcomic, and the general rule of thumb seems to be that if your merchandising is meshing well with your audience, about 1% will give you merch. I imagine ‘subscribe to patreon’ also falls in this general range.
Stuff that is ONLY available for dollars are obviously going to have a different way of measuring this, but when it comes to ‘If people can consume something without engaging back in any fashion (hitting a like button, buying something, leaving a comment)’ the vast majority will.
And as a creator that is frustrating but as a consumer it’s pretty easy to see how it happens. I have gotten steadily worse at even liking posts, much less leaving comments on ones I enjoy, since I started using tumblr. It’s very difficult to engage consistently. I always kudo on any fanfic I read and comment on the vast majority, but then again I don’t read a lot of fanfic, if you are someone who browses AO3 constantly/regularly for months or years, I could see how it’s easy to stop engaging. I don’t remember to like every YT video or tumblr fanart I see, much less comment on them.
When we are constantly consuming free content it’s hard to remember to engage with it or what that engagement means to the creators. And lol, honestly that sucks. Certainly as consumers we should be better about it. But also like, as a creator be kinder to yourself by setting a realistic bar of what you can achieve.
And IMO, if numbers matter to you (kudos, comments, etc) be honest about the fact that you CAN improve those things by marketing yourself better. The ‘I just produced my art and put it out there and got insanely popular because it was just so brilliant’ is less than a one a million chance. Lots of amazing content is overlooked every day because there is a lot of good content and a metric fuckton of mediocre to bad content. You can only SORT of judge the quality of your work based on the audience it generates, but if what you WANT is an audience there is way, way, WAY more you can be doing than simply producing whatever you immediately feel like. Marketing yourself is a skill and if you want the benefits of it you have to practice it.
I have a professional background in internet marketing as my day job and a moderate hobby business. My definition for “moderate” is “it pays for itself, keeps me in product, and occasionally buys groceries.”
In the day job, which is for an extremely large global company, there are entire teams of people whose entire purpose of employment is to ensure a 3% conversion rate. That’s it. That is for a Fortune 100 company: the success metric is for 3% of all visitors to a marketing web site to click the “send me more info” link.
My moderate business that pays for itself has a 0.94% conversion rate of views to orders. Less than 1%, and it’s still worth its time – and this is without me bothering to do any marketing beyond instagram and tumblr posts with new product.
I know it feels like no one is paying attention to you and you’re wasting your time if you don’t get everyone clicking kudos or commenting but I promise, I PROMISE, you are doing fantastically, amazingly well with your 10% rate. You probably aren’t going to go viral AND THAT’S FINE. You’re only hurting yourself if you’re expecting a greater return – don’t call yourself a failure, because you’re NOT. You’re just looking at it the wrong way. I promise, you’re lovely just the way you are.
I keep track of what stories are doing well based on the reading to kudos ratio. I aim for close to 10%…and a story that hits between 5% and 10% kudos, to me, is considered a success. That means 10% of all readers liked the story enough to slap the kudos button. For me - that’s a big deal. Enough to struggle with writers block, re-writes, edits, writing when I’m tired, etc etc etc.
A story with a low kudos ration may get taken down as a “not enough liked it to deal with the stress of writing it.”
I just got some people interested in a story I haven’t touched in 2 years. I checked its kudos ration. It’s almost 7% on a self-insert. Damn. I should work on that story. See?
And oddly enough - sometimes I look not at total hits or kudos, but a kudo ratio to see if a long story is worth trying out. Because you may have low numbers, but if you’re hitting close to 10%…I’mma give that story a solid chance and 99% of the time add to that kudos ratio because that means 10% of the readership loved it.
I think…no, I know that I don’t understand marketing numbers well. I know that 10% kudos ratio seems low. Especially since hitting that kudos button is so easy. But then I think about stories I’ve read where I haven’t hit the kudos button and yeah…ok…I get it. I’m guilty of it too. We all are.
So hey - kudos to the people who leave me kudos.
CAKE to the people who leave me a comment. Even if it’s just a whole bunch of <3 <3 <3 <3.
Also, do remember that if people keep coming back and re-reading your fic multiple times, that can also artificially lower your Kudos ratio. There are a lot of things that can result in it not being as high as you’d like. But yeah, if my Kudos:Hits ratio hits over .05 I figure I’m doing pretty damn well. And even my best fics, the ones that got near that 10% mark especially when I first published them, have had that ratio diminish over time due to new readers, who may still kudos at a nearly-10% rate, but also due to old readers who come back and can’t leave another kudos. Slowly the ratio slips downward, but that’s okay. As long as somebody still likes it, I’ll leave it up. :)
Just looking at my recent fics, Despacito has a 9.3% upvote/7.7% comment rate (based on views of the actual story - it looks like most people didn't actually click past the foreword), Without Warning has an 8.4% upvote/6.9 comment rate, and Feels Like Flying, which has some serious diehard fans, only has a 3.9% upvote/3.4% comment rate! And that's just the most recent one-shots. If you go back farther, those rates drop significantly - down to less than 1% for some of them.
I try not to look at views, upvotes and comments in relation to each other. Instead, I celebrate each one individually. If I beat myself up over percentages and ratios I'll get disheartened, and that won't make my writing any better.
