#me...never posts here unless it's by mistake

[cursedcola]

Prompt: 'How Protective Are They? Continuation! -- Jade Leech, Rook Hunt, Lilia Vanrouge, and Jamil Viper Requisitioner: Rin! Warnings: None! Words: 4022! (Purchase: Custom Fiction.) A/N: Hello everyone! We've got another commission to be shared, requested over on my ko-fi! This one comes to you by the sponsor 'Rin!' -- Way back in the day, I wrote a fic detailing the TWST housewardens on a protectiveness scale in regards to their s/o. Rin asked me to bring that prompt back to surface and write for four characters of their choosing. Ah...I remember when I made that first post. I was reading the comments in the back of my calc II lecture and surely not thinking about solving proofs. Good times. If you would like to submit a commission of your own, feel free to check me out HERE! If you'd like to learn about my medical journey, view my rates, or learn why I'm accepting commissions. Click: HERE!

Jade Leech 

9/10 

Jade is often considered the more ‘reasonable’ Leech. That is the first mistake people always make. They assume that because he smiles politely and speaks with indoor manners that he is somehow the ‘safer’ twin. More approachable. Less…ah, driven to extremes. 

Incorrect. Catastrophically incorrect. Need we be reminded that as youth, Jade was the more difficult son for his parents to handle. 

You see, he is rather the possessive sort in a sense that by the time you realize how serious the situation has become, it’s already too late. 

One day you realize he has memorized your class schedule. The next? He is silently appearing beside you before you even noticed someone else was there to be a bother. It is genuinely unsettling how quickly he materializes whenever you are uncomfortable. Sometimes before you realize the feeling is about to settle in. 

You carry a shadow that is towering, one that swamps your own in broad daylight. 

Physically, Jade is not clingy in the traditional sense. He is not hanging off your shoulder or demanding affection in public. In fact, he is oddly respectful of your space…which somehow makes him more overbearing? He simply has eyes in the walls. You grow accustomed to the sense of being watched over with time, as he is worse than a helicopter mom at disney world.  

A hand on the small of your back while walking through crowds. Casually steering you away from danger like you are a shopping cart with a broken wheel. If someone becomes too loud or aggressive near you, Jade inserts himself into the situation before you can speak. 

And seven help the sad sack who touches you without permission. 

Jade does not explode like Floyd or bark threats like Leona. No. He politely dismantles people with a shark-took grin. One warning is spoken with that overly pleasant customer service voice and suddenly the entire room feels humid. 

“Oh dear. I’m afraid you seem to have mistaken my partner for someone interested in your attention. How embarrassing for you.” 

People at Mostro Lounge learn very quickly that your name is not one to use carelessly in conversation, unless they want Jade’s attention - and trust me, that is not a fun prize. Gossip in his domain? Unless he thinks it is relatively harmless and might yield a cute reaction from you…nuh-uh-uh. 

Jade understands social warfare better than nearly anyone at NRC. He knows secrets. Everybody has secrets. Azul collects contracts but Jade collects information, and if someone threatens your reputation? Congratulations. They have just volunteered for psychological warfare against a man who enjoys sampling poisonous mushrooms in his free time. Very Mao-Mao from ‘Apothecary Diaries’ core. 

If someone DOES spread rumors about you? They tend to disappear before they gain traction. It is almost magical. One moment there is gossip circulating around NRC and the next the students involved are apologizing to you with sweat dripping down their backs while Jade stands nearby smiling like a proud parent at a piano recital. 

You never find out what he did to make it happen. Snitches get stitches, you can ask whomever you like. No one is about to get on a Leech’s bad side. Especially anyone from the Coral Sea…they like having their gills intact, thank you very much. 

In fact…your social circle seems to thin out. No one you’d miss, certainly. Anyone worth keeping around is already known by you before Jade’s fancy was stuck, after all. He just has a ‘quality’ that keeps bottom feeders away. 

Jade is significantly more possessive than he pretends to be. He acts amused when people flirt with you. Smiles. Tilt his head. You’d think him entirely unbothered, if not for the slight twitch of his lower eyelid. 

Meanwhile he’s mentally ranking the best burial locations on his usual mountain trails. He won’t do it. Just…let him tinker. He can only tolerate so much audacity from these people after all. 

Unlike Floyd’s explosive jealousy, Jade’s comes in the form of increased politeness. That’s how you know he is upset. The sweeter he sounds, the worse the situation is. If someone is heavily flirting with you, Jade becomes attached to your side for the rest of the day. He won’t intrude unless you explicitly ask – discounting the times you’re unaware of his presence – but he does expect you to shrug the plebs off. Make an effort or his ire might have you backed up against a wall later that night. 

Make no comment when he casually mentions your relationship status every three sentences either. Subtly, as he watches the offender making a move on you crumple like the trash they are and evaporate from his sight. Yet…if it continues beyond flirtations? If someone dares to make a vulgar comment at you?

His terrariums gain new fertilizer. 

No, because seriously. There is no situation where he’d let any sort of objectification or crude remark slide. Not interesting. Not funny. The only tolerable admiration is watching bottomfeeders deflate as they realize he’s already got the best pickings of the land. He can and will cut their tongues out. 

“My, what a vulgar thing to say. I do hope for your sake that you simply misspoke…though judging by your expression, I suspect not. How unfortunate. Shall we continue this conversation somewhere private? People do become rather forgetful when they are trying to impress someone who is already spoken for, don’t they? ” 

Jamil Viper 

7/10

Jamil does not WANT to be protective.

That is important to understand first and foremost. 

He already has enough responsibilities. Enough people depending on him. Enough stress. The last thing he needs is another person to worry over and yet somehow…there you are. Sitting comfortably in the center of his thoughts like you pay rent there. Mm. 

Annoying.

Very annoying.

He’s a bit of his own worst nightmare. Jamil finds a partner who is competent insanely attractive. Nothing gets him going like a show of power…but his brain doesn’t have an ‘off’ switch. So he naturally tries to take charge in most situations and has a terrible time letting his guard down. 

Because now he has to think about things like whether you ate today. Whether you got enough sleep. Whether Ace and Grim dragged you into another near death experience. He catches himself scanning crowds for your face automatically and gets irritated every single time he realizes he is doing it.

Just his luck that he’s fallen for the person with the self-preservation skills of a mosquito…ha..haha..hahaha.

Physically, Jamil is surprisingly attentive. Not overbearing, but hyperaware. He notices exhaustion before you say anything. Notices when your social battery dies. Notices when you are forcing yourself to smile through discomfort. He’s used to reading people. 

He is the type to silently pull you away from overwhelming situations under the guise of something casual.

“Come help me with this for a second.”

Suddenly you are outside getting fresh air while he pretends to sweep the outer courtyard. .

Jamil is not loud about protecting you because loud attention is dangerous in his mind. He prefers subtle control over situations. Strategic positioning. Standing between you and someone sketchy without making a scene. Steering conversations away from topics that upset you. Making sure you get back to Ramshackle safely even if he acts like it is an inconvenience.

And yes. He absolutely keeps track of where you are. Give him your phone so he can add you to Life360. Just do it. 

Not in a creepy way. In a “if something happens to you I will have a stress-induced migraine” way. He gets pissed when Grim takes your phone though. The headmaster seriously has you both sharing one? Just…look, take his old one. Don’t tell Kalim either. He’ll 100%% get you the newest model with an unlimited data plan, but Jamil isn’t about to have someone else doing what he can do for you just fine. Especially Kalim.

He especially hates when you wander around NRC late at night alone. This school has entirely too many weirdos, overblot incidents, and students with magical superiority complexes. The moment he finds out you went somewhere dangerous by yourself he is giving you ‘That Look’.

You know the one.

Socially, Jamil is vicious in the pettiest ways possible.

He does not have the authority of someone like Riddle nor the intimidation factor of Leona, so instead he weaponizes competence. If someone is rude to you publicly? Congratulations. Jamil is about to make them look stupid in front of everyone.

Not directly, of course. That would be messy.

But suddenly they are fumbling their words during class presentations because Jamil “helpfully” pointed out inconsistencies in their work. Suddenly they are losing arguments they thought they could win. Suddenly every flaw they have becomes painfully obvious because Jamil knows exactly how to press people until they crack.

He has years of experience surviving court politics. Some random teenager is light work.

The thing is, Jamil gets especially protective over your image because he understands what it feels like to have people make assumptions about you. So rumors? Harassment? People trying to paint you negatively? He…is guilty of doing that to others. 

So he is able to detect the early signs of someone scheming. No one’s ripping at your confidence. He’ll end them.

Not only because he cares about you, but because he genuinely cannot stand unfairness directed toward someone he loves. You become one of the very few people he allows himself to prioritize emotionally and he takes that seriously.

Now jealousy?

…Yeah. Yeah Jamil has issues.

Not outwardly at first. He tries SO hard to play it cool. He tells himself he is being irrational. That you can handle yourself. That he trusts you.

Then he sees someone flirting with you too comfortably and suddenly his eye is twitching.

Jamil’s jealousy manifests through hovering and passive aggression. He starts inserting himself into conversations uninvited. Interrupting. Pulling you away under flimsy excuses. Offering to do things for you before someone else can. Oh, he is burning. That ego he tries to keep under a tarp is coming out at full force. 

And the sass?

Unmatched.

“Oh? You suddenly developed interest in my partner after ignoring them for months? What a fascinating coincidence…sorry, what’s your name again?”

The worst part is that Jamil absolutely notices when people are attracted to you before they even realize it themselves. One lingering glance and he is already annoyed.

He also DESPISES overly touchy people around you. No one gets a pass. Kalim really pisses him off, but he has to bite it down. At least there’s the comfort of knowing it’s strictly platonic but still. 

Your little first-year group? He has so much beef with Ace it isn’t funny. That ******* knows exactly what he’s doing whenever he slings an arm over your shoulder. Floyd? Every basketball practice is one where Jamil is tempted to spike the ball at the back of his head. He tolerates Grim, knowing that the menace is going to be there until the day you both die. 

And if someone thinks to pass a vulgar comment? A cat-call? Mm. Patience isn’t always a virtue. 

Jamil’s entire expression flattens like someone turned his emotions off manually. He gets cold in a way that makes people instinctively backpedal. Unlike some of the others, he is less likely to threaten violence and more likely to verbally flay someone alive with frightening precision.

He knows exactly what insecurities to target too. Doesn’t matter who it is. He can pick them apart in a few short moments. 

“You know, confidence is attractive in moderation. Unfortunately for you, this is just embarrassing.”

Rook Hunt 8.5/10

Dating Rook is like accidentally befriending a very affectionate cryptid.

One day you are minding your business and the next you hear rustling in the trees followed by an enthusiastic Frenchman praising the way sunlight reflects off your hair. There is no such thing as privacy anymore. Not because Rook wishes to control you, but because he genuinely enjoys your existence so much that he cannot help orbiting around you constantly.

He is EVERYWHERE.

The scary thing? Half the time you do not even notice him until he speaks.

“Ah! Trickster! The way you leap away in surprise reminds me of a startled doe. Magnifique!”

Cardiac arrest. Immediate cardiac arrest. He ceases for the rest of the day but then is right back at it the next. 

At first his protectiveness does not even register because Rook treats everything with fascination. He watches everyone. Compliments everyone. Appears out of nowhere for everyone. So naturally, you assume his attention toward you is just part of his personality.

Then you realize he has been tailing you across campus for three hours because you mentioned feeling unsafe walking alone after dark.

Romantic.

Terrifying, but romantic.

This man has the instincts of a hunting dog and the perception of a military drone.

You are never unsafe around him.

Ever.

Physically, Rook is actually extremely protective. Far more than people expect. Underneath all the theatrics and poetry is someone with terrifying awareness of his surroundings. Rook notices danger instantly. The shift in someone’s body language. A suspicious movement in the crowd. The subtle signs someone intends harm.

A student reaching for their pen? He sees it. Someone following you through the halls? Already aware. Suspicious noises outside Ramshackle at night? He is perched somewhere nearby like a Victorian gargoyle with a bow in hand. Sorry Malleus. This one is not fit for your club to study…unless?

Ahem. You genuinely cannot sneak up on this man.

And because of that? Nobody sneaks up on you either.

The issue is that Rook treats protecting you like an act of devotion. He enjoys it. Not in a creepy controlling way but in a “the hunter safeguards what he treasures most” way. 

And unlike some of the others, Rook is willing to get physical FAST if he thinks you are genuinely threatened. People forget that beneath the dramatic monologues and layers of concealer is a man who hunts for fun.

For FUN.

One second someone is getting too aggressive with you. The next Rook is suddenly behind them smiling with their wrist pinned up against their back.

“Ah ah~ I would reconsider your actions, mon trésor’s comfort is far more important to me than your pride.”

The thing about Rook is that he rarely ‘sounds threatening. Which somehow makes him infinitely worse. He says horrifying things with the same tone someone would use to compliment flowers.

And LORD help the poor soul that genuinely hurts you somehow.

Rook becomes the physical manifestation of “I know where you live.” 

His little ‘Oo la la~’ pitch that carries in the wind like fallen leaves suddenly turns into Krampus incarnate. Deep, guttural, and spoken directly into the perpetrator’s ear with a promise for something much worse than a beating with a straw broom and some coal in their stocking. 

“Aha. No. We are not looking at mon coheur in such a manner. You may apologize now, or I will be forced to consider alternative persuasion. Un, deux, toi –” 

Socially, Rook is extreamly supportive rather than controlling. He absolutely hypes you up constantly. Shamelessly….it’s very much the ‘Wear whatever you want, my darling. I know how to fight’ dynamic amped to maximum overdrive. 

He will praise you in front of literally anyone with zero shame. Your intelligence, your beauty, your habits, the way your eyes crinkle when you laugh—nothing is safe from his admiration. At first people think it is exaggeration because surely no one can speak this poetically about their partner twenty-four hours a day.

No. He means every word.

The issue is that this also means he becomes deeply offended when others speak poorly of you. Rook values beauty in all forms and to insult someone he treasures? Mon dieu. The audacity.

Rook does not argue normally. He psychoanalyzes people like he is peeling an orange. Someone makes fun of you once and suddenly Rook is smiling thoughtfully while pointing out all the hidden insecurities fueling their behavior.

In front of everyone.

“Oh? Such cruelty toward someone so radiant…could it be envy, perhaps? How unfortunate. To possess eyes capable of witnessing beauty and yet remain unable to appreciate it.”

Murder. Actual murder.

And because Rook is naturally charismatic, people listen to him. He can spin social situations terrifyingly fast. One minute someone is mocking you and the next they are being publicly pitied by half the room while Rook comforts you dramatically like the star actor of a tragedy play.

But jealousy? Hah! Listen. 

Rook is a strange creature because he simultaneously understands why people are attracted to you while also wanting to put them in the ground for acting on it.

He appreciates beauty. Of course others admire you! How could they not? To him your existence is practically artwork.

So when others pursue you, he does not see them as something to dismiss. No. No. He will acknowledge their challenge…and you will find no one more competitive. He wants to win. 

Which means the flirting somehow becomes worse. He is a peacock spreading its feathers while aiming a shotgun with its beak. 

You think one person complimenting you is bad? Congratulations. Rook is now reciting poetry while kissing your hand in front of them with enough intensity to make bystanders uncomfortable.

He becomes unbelievably touchy too. Draping himself over your shoulders. Holding your waist. Tilting your chin toward him while maintaining eye contact with whoever dared flirt with you. If they want you, then they’ll have to offer you better than what he can provide. Which is impossible, because Rook spares no effort in ensuring you have everything you could ever want. 

And if someone says something vulgar about you? 

…they have a ten second head start. 

Rook does not mind admiration, he encourages all beauty to be appreciated, but crude lust disgusts him. In his eyes it reduces something precious into something cheap and tawdry. He takes it personally, like someone smeared mud over a painting. 

He merely teases the brim of his hat, ducks his chin low, and fixes the offender with sharp eyes and the terrifying realization that this man could absolutely hit a bullseye through their skull from fifty yards away.

“You speak of them so carelessly…how terribly sad. To witness something so precious and reduce it to vulgarity. I highly suggest you choose your next words with greater care, monsieur. ”

Lilia Vanrouge

6.5/10

At first glance, Lilia does not seem protective at all.

If anything, he encourages chaos.

Go explore dangerous places! Fight strong opponents! Experience life! Make reckless memories! Half the time it feels like he is actively encouraging your bad decisions while Sebek is somewhere nearby having a stress-induced aneurysm over it.

Lilia is not controlling. Not even remotely. Rather than stop you from pursuing danger, he’s walking into it at your side. 

He does not hover over your shoulder monitoring who you speak to or where you go. He will not cage you up “for your safety” because frankly? That sounds dreadfully boring to him. Lilia fell in love with YOU. Your spirit. Your freedom. Your ability to live fully despite fear.

Why would he take that away?

No, if you are with Lilia then you are expected to spread your wings and enjoy life to its fullest. He wants stories. Excitement. Late night walks, spontaneous adventures, troublemaking, dancing on rooftops because “the moon looks lovely tonight.”

He treats love like something alive. Something meant to grow unrestrained instead of being locked away. He’s waited seven-hundred years for this chance and will not waste a second of it. 

Which honestly makes people underestimate him terribly.

Because while Lilia is not overprotective in everyday situations…

He IS an elder fae. Even those of lower status are raised not to take matters of the heart lightly. Your soul is an extension of his own. 

The man could probably locate you in a foreign country with nothing but a vague description and a prayer. You will be halfway across campus thinking you're alone only to hear his voice from a tree branch.

"My, my. Fancy seeing you here."

He truly is an extension of your person now. While not tethered for centuries, he is quite fond of being a phantom limb of yours. 

Which becomes obvious the moment someone truly threatens you. He does not mince his words or offer mercy to those who threaten his family. Kingscholar was very fortunate to be spared after targeting Malleus during the spelldrive tournament during your first year in wonderland. Remember how brutal Lilia’s words struck. 

There is a massive difference between Lilia finding your recklessness amusing and someone else harming you intentionally. One earns laughter. The other earns silence.

And silence from Lilia Vanrouge is one of the most terrifying things a person can experience.

Because Lilia does not posture.

He does not threaten.

He does not growl warnings or puff out his chest.

He simply decides that someone is dangerous.

Then acts accordingly.

People often forget that beneath the jokes, the gaming addiction, and the culinary war crimes is a former general. A man who spent hundreds of years protecting a royal family through actual conflict. Lilia has survived war. Buried friends. He knows exactly how far he is willing to go for the people he loves. 

Which is as far as his body can take him. Lilia would die for you without hesitation. 

Not in the romanticized “I’d take a bullet for you” way either. In the very literal, non-negotiable sense that he has already accepted the possibility long ago. Loyalty is woven into Lilia so deeply that protecting his loved ones is practically instinctual. 

Which is why anyone who thinks otherwise, dares to even tinker with the thought of harming you, is scheduling an audience with General Vanrouge. 

Socially, Lilia is surprisingly relaxed. He has lived too long to care about petty gossip (although he does enjoy hearing it). Rumors roll off him like water because honestly? Most students at NRC are children to him mentally. Why would he value their opinions over yours?

That being said, he DOES care if the rumors genuinely hurt you.

Not because your reputation reflects on him, but because he cannot stand seeing someone he loves feel isolated or targeted. Lilia knows what loneliness feels like better than most people ever will. He still will not intervene though, not beyond offering a distraction to make you smile. 

Honestly? He finds caring about that sort of thing silly. With time you’ll understand and think the same, of that he’s certain. 

If someone dislikes you, they dislike you.

If someone talks badly about you, then they are showing their own character.

Most of the time he laughs it off. "Mhmm. Are they finished? Goodness, they seem to think about you more than I do."

Now jealousy?

Pshh. Manageable. A dime in a dozen. 

Lilia feels secure in your relationship. He does not panic over every passing flirtation because he trusts you and frankly finds some situations funny. Watching younger students awkwardly attempt to woo you while he sits nearby smiling into his tea is genuinely entertaining to him.

He especially enjoys making them nervous. “Oh? Trying to court my darling? My my, how brave~”

Although he is not against blipping in if harmless flirtations progress to crude vulgarity or a breach of boundaries. Which is unfortunately common with youth that possess egos with more concentrated power than the sun. The moment someone dares to say something genuinely degrading about your person, he eases in with the air of someone far superior and reminds the offender to view a specific chapter in their history textbook. He normally isn’t fond of his pictures in those books, but surely they have their uses. 

“Tsk, what an ugly thing to say. Careful now…there are far crueler creatures in this world than me, child. You ought to learn some manners before you meet one.” 

[ineedabev]

damian x reader: the move

tad nsfw continuation of my last post

just want to say, i do see all the sweet messages you guys send to my inbox. it really means a lot when you share how much you've been enjoying the story.

also i'm drafting things up for a dick grayson fic. it's childhood friends to lovers. if you're interested keep an eye on the batfam masterlist :)

Middle of July in Gotham. Ninety degree humidity.

You've only been inside for five minutes, already stripped down to your underwear. Hair balled at the crown of your head. Damian's shirt hanging to the middle of your thighs.

The AC's been out for a few days now—the radiator a few months. Each email to your landlord is met with the same reply:

Waiting for parts. Will get back to you.

It's too hot to be in bed or the couch. The fabric would only soak in your sweat. So you take to the floor, let your back sink against the tile.

Eyes closed for a short moment, until you notice: something smells weird.

Back on your feet. Circling the room, sniffing like a dog.

Into the kitchen. You crack open the fridge.

Big mistake.

The air in the fridge is warm. What little fruits and leftover lunches inside have completely rotted.

You plug your nose. Look up to the sky. Address a deity you don't really believe in, "You've got to be kidding me."

Utter disgust as you pull everything into the trash, send it down the chute. Trying to scrub the smell out of the fridge with an old rag and dish soap when Damian's key unlocks the door.

He steps in. "It smells."

Body halfway into the fridge, voice echoing from inside, "Shut up."

"Something wrong with the fridge?"

"Something wrong with the apartment," you mutter, angrily wiping the back wall of the fridge. "Nothing that holds temperature works."

"Did you tell your landlord?"

"Yes" you douse the top shelf in soap, hoping it can mask the sour stench. "And now I'm waiting for him to take up more space in my inbox saying he can't fix it."

Damian hums. You can feel his eyes on your back. Then suddenly, "The portrait sold this morning for 1.7 million."

"WHAT?!"

Lifting your head.

Instantly colliding with the top of the fridge.

You fall out, cupping your skull. "Ow."

He rushes over, hands on top of yours. "Are you okay?"

"Forget about me," you wince. "That's incredible, Damian. Do you know who bought it?"

"Roger Sterling."

"From the insurance company?"

He looks displeased by your recognition.

One hand still cupping your head, the other reaching for his cheek. "I'm so proud of you."

He leans into your touch, softens against your skin. "It wouldn't be possible if not for you."

"I didn't do anything," you say. "Unless you want to credit me for sitting at the park."

"If not for you, I would have never considered selling the painting," he says. "I would have never considered doing anything at all."

Eyes locked. Watching one another as you feel the heat from his palms sink into yours. Thin layer of sweat between your skin.

Your phone chimes on the floor nearby. Email from the landlord

New fridge ordered. Won't be here until next month. Sorry.

You'd throw the phone if it weren't so new. Head throbbing. Blood and body boiling in the heat.

"I'm sorry." You try to take a deep breath, only able to notice how warm the air you dispel feels. "You've just told me incredible news and I'm ruining it."

"You're not ruining anything." Standing you up. Hands wrapped around your head like a helmet. He glances at your phone—the very one he bought for you. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"Which part?" you scoff. "The radiator that's been broken for more than a year? The AC? Or the fact that I can't even ice my head because my fridge is ruined?

He thinks, eyes shifting.

"Actually..." Eyes shifting. Hesitating, unlike himself. "I came here to talk to you about that."

"I thought you came to tell me about the portrait."

"Yes, but it's what I want to do with the money."

Your stomach drops.

Steady. Words clearer than you'd like them to be. Hands shifting against your head. Touch loosening. "I want to use it to get you a new place—"

"Absolutely not."

"You haven't even heard me out yet," he argues.

"I don't need to, Damian." Heart pounding. Humiliated. "I already feel awful enough about the phone. I can't ask you for this."

"You're not asking."

"Think of how it will look to your family."

"Their opinions on this are irrelevant."

Sweat beading down your spine. Behind your ears. "Not to me."

"If our positions were switched, would you not try to do everything you could?"

Your lips part. Unable to come up with the answer you'd prefer.

"I want to help you," he says. "I have the means to help you."

Damian's right. He has the money to solve nearly every problem in your life, and is more than willing to do so. But it's you—your pride. His family and your friends' voices in the back of your head, whispering about how you're using him. Taking advantage of his love. Like a parasite. A leech.

You can't even stand the thought of it. "Please don't put me in this position," you beg quietly.

He's clearly upset. Almost two million dollars richer, but unable to persuade his girlfriend. Forced to abandon the hundred arguments he probably rehearsed beforehand.

"Let me take a look at the fridge," he says.

You help him pull it forward. Watch him for some time as he observes the back.

"It's the insulators inside. I can't fix that."

He runs a hand through his hair. Slick with sweat. "You'll stay in the manor until the new one arrives."

Not a suggestion or a request. An order. Him reaching his limits after not getting what he wants.

"Dami, you can't just—"

"You can't store food and you're going to die of heatstroke if you stay here."

It's too hot to come up with more counterarguments. Too frustrating to live in this box for the next month.

"Fine."

Living at the manor spoiled you.

Two hour commute shortened down to twenty minutes. Food always available. Cold air in every room.

Spacious. A room just for reading and a garden to lay on the grass. Damian holding you in a king sized bed.

Quieter. Not as many police sirens. No distant screams and gunshots from the alleys below.

Never lonely. Duke, Tim, and Cass constantly shuffling in and out. Steph on the weekends. Titus at your heels while you read in the garden. More time with Damian in the mornings and before he heads out on patrol.

Full transparency—you're disappointed when the landlord calls to say the new fridge arrived. Postpone telling Damian for a few hours. Enjoy his body beneath king sized sheets a while longer.

When you finally tell him, he doesn't seem pleased. Legs tensing against yours. Lips pursed as he stares up at the ceiling.

"I found a place in midtown, not far from here."

You roll onto your side. Feel the warm indent your body has formed in the mattress "I thought we already talked about this."

"We did," he says. "This place is for me."

"You..." trailing off, confused, "you're moving out?"

"Next week."

"And just to be clear," you prop yourself up on your elbow, the sheet slipping. Damian's gaze betrays him, shifting sideways briefly. "You're not doing this because of me?"

"No, I figure it's time to live on my own." Hands sliding beneath his head, arms wide and stretching at the muscle. "Besides, you already said you're staying."

Something off about all of it. His forced casualness.

Falling flat onto your back, "Then it sounds like everything has worked out."

He scoffs.

You roll your eyes. "Problem?"

Silent. Ankles crossing and uncrossing beneath the sheets. "You won't ask more about the place?"

"I'm sorry." You roll over, onto his chest. Chin sinking down into his collar. Looking up at the V of his chin, eyes wide. Taking in every detail of him. "What's the place like?"

Gratification flickers across his face briefly. Pleased with himself as he says, "Open layout. Three bed, two bath. Plank floors and big windows for light."

Finger tracing his jaw. "Sounds very practical."

"It is," he gloats.

"It also sounds like a lot of space for just one guy."

His eyes are closed. You wonder what hundred calculations are floating through his mind.

"I'd need a work room," he says. "A proper studio for full sized portraits."

"Of course," you nod.

"And I'd like to keep this size of a bed."

"Naturally."

He goes on, "The place should be able to accomodate guests."

"Like if Jon wanted to visit."

His eyes open. Glances down at you. "Yes."

Finger slipping from his jaw now, along his throat, down to the shoulder. "So, a big bedroom, art studio, and a guest room for Jon."

He hums shortly.

You exhale. "I can't wait to see it."

Quiet again. Your palm flat against his heart.

"Though the guest room could also double as a library."

"Oh?"

"There's an absurd amount of closet space," he adds. "And Titus might be lonely when I'm away."

"Titus?"

"Yes."

Shifting now until you're on top of him. Holding yourself up. He stares down at your nude body. Breasts hanging. Inside of your thighs still damp.

He swallows, lips parted.

"I'm over the banter," you say seriously.

It seems harder for him to conceal the truth now. Faltering beneath you, "It's for two people."

You nod knowingly. Still patient. "I thought so."

"It would make sense." He swallows again. "We lose time together due to travel."

"Ah, so this is an efficiency thing?"

His breath seems to pick up. "Yes."

Hard now. Prodding the inside of your leg. You take advantage.

"A practical, emotional 'I want to live with my girlfriend' decision, right?" You drag your center over the tip. He shudders, eyes pressing shut. "Not some Robin strategy to coerce me out of my shitty apartment?"

"I want you out of that apartment," he confesses, gasping when you sink down barely an inch. "But I do want to live with you."

You still. He tries not to squirm. Firm when you say, "I'm paying half the rent."

Sweat forming on his brow. Eyes still shut. He shakes his head. "You can't."

You frown. "One-third."

"Done."

"Good," you sink down the rest of the way. Hear him sigh in relief, hands finding your waist.

Tender now as you rock against his hips. Timid even. "You really want to live with me?"

Utter bliss across his face. "I want to do everything with you," he says.

"What's everything?" you ask. Realizing he's never let you be on top before. Eyes closed as you move faster. Feeling your body has re-molded itself just to fit him.

"Living together." He lifts himself. Chin on your shoulder, holding you. "Doing this on every inch of that place."

You breath a laugh.

His lips are on the shell of your ear. Breath heavy, "I'm going to marry you... A family... I—everything."

Pace steady. But you're glad he can't see the way your eyes have widened. Stammering at first, "Okay."

His hands press down on your back. Like he's scared you'll run. "That was too much."

"No," you say. Hips slowing. Legs beginning to tire. You connect your forehead to his. "Give me everything."

continuation here

[ap-ple-head]

pairing: mature era!michael x singer!reader

summary: reader tries to make michael jealous. it backfires. that’s it. that’s the plot.

word count: 1373

author’s note: oops. this ended up being (basically) a shorter version of a much longer fic i’m writing in response to a request…

 but just pretend the plot isn’t similar at all when you read that, ok?

idk this came to me last night and it wouldn’t leave me alone unless i wrote it. sue me. ps. if y’all are mean to me about skipping their first date i will never give you ANY MORE of these two i stg

jk i probably still will. 

but don’t be mean to me :(

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

You were playing in his face at this point.

Michael had taken you on two dates now—to restaurants that someone in your tax bracket had no business stepping into—and he had been a perfect gentleman both times.

It was infuriating.

After all that big talk about “giving the people something to post about,” he hadn’t laid one single (stupidly big, stupidly hot) finger on you.

So you decided to do something about it.

All week, you had ignored his calls, knowing good and well that you were going to see him at an awards show Friday night.

You’d thought he might ask you to be his date, but since he hadn’t, you went right on ahead and found yourself another one. 

That was mistake number one.

Your choice had been methodical. You’d asked another musician that you knew would be accepting an award at the event, someone much younger than him that all the magazines were calling the “nation’s newest heartthrob.”

That was mistake number two.

Finally, you’d had a dress custom-made for the occasion, something that left very little to the imagination and would make your mother clutch her pearls when she saw it on TV. You wanted to make sure that your tattoo was as visible as possible.

…and that was mistake number three.

All night, you hung on your date’s arm, bound and determined not to even glance Michael’s way. 

You could feel him staring at you on the red carpet, even though you weren’t anywhere near him in line. Then, by some miraculous stroke of good luck, he was seated on the same row as you in the auditorium. 

Not right next to you, but a few seats down, which was exactly where you wanted him. Too far to talk to you, but close enough to get a really good look.

Incidentally, he was also close enough to hear you flirting with your date. And when he went on stage to accept his award and you were the loudest voice cheering him on? Yeah. Michael definitely heard that.

Afterwards, you were enjoying a glass of champagne at the afterparty when a low voice whispered so close to your ear that it made the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

“What d’you think you’re wearin’?”

You didn’t jump or freeze this time. You simply turned around and gave him your sweetest, most innocent smile.

“Michael. I didn’t know you were here tonight.”

He glowered at you.

“You’ve been ignorin’ my calls for days.”

“Have I? They must not have gone through.”

He bit his bottom lip—hard—and you could tell that he was trying to maintain the calm composure that he always projected in public.

Good. He deserved it.

“I don’t believe that.”

“Are you calling me a liar? That’s not very nice.” You took a sip of your drink, glancing over to where your date was standing just a few feet away. He was in the middle of a conversation with someone else, completely oblivious to what was happening with you—not that Michael would have cared.

“Last time I ignored you, y’pitched a fit about it.”

“I don’t remember that. All I remember from that night is you feeling me up in the club. Which was wildly inappropriate, now that I think about it. You barely even knew me.” 

 His jaw twitched.

“An’ how well do you know the guy that you’re here with tonight? Hm? Y’didn’t have a problem with him bein’ all over you.”

“We’re getting acquainted.”

“What’s his favorite color?”

“Excuse me?”

“Y’knew mine. What’s his?”

There it was. The first tiny crack in your facade.

“I… don’t know. I’ll have to ask him when he takes me home.” You said pointedly, hoping he hadn’t noticed you hesitate.

But he did. Of course he did. Michael was annoyingly observant, and you watched in real time as he clocked your bluff. He didn’t call you out on it, though.

“Now you’re makin’ me mad.”

“Mad? I didn’t know Michael Jackson got mad.”

For the first time ever, you wished he’d pull out his sunglasses and put them on. Anything to get his eyes off you. You’d wanted him to look at you all evening, but now that you were actually face-to-face, it was like he could see right through you.

“I get mad when my girl is flauntin’ some other guy right in front of my face.”

Crack number two.

“I’m sorry. Do you think I’m your girlfriend because you’ve taken me out on two dates? If you can even call them that. They might as well have been business dinners.”

His eyes sparkled like he had suddenly started to enjoy this game, and you knew you’d fucked up. Big time.

“Go tell him you’re not goin’ home with him.”

“Excuse me?” You sputtered, putting your glass down before you dropped it like you’d dropped your phone the first night he’d asked you out.

Or… He’d told you he was going to take you out. He had a way of telling you what you were going to do like it was a fact, not a question. 

Right now was a case in point.

“Tell him you’re not goin’ home with him, or I’ll do it for you.” He repeated, his gaze shifting to your date for approximately two seconds before it flickered back to you.

“I am not going to do that.”

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged, taking a step forward like he was actually about to interrupt their conversation. You grabbed his sleeve and yanked him back.

“You’re not going to do it, either! Who do you think you are?”

“Michael Jackson.”

Crack three. Game over. You lost.

“Why do you want me to tell him that?” Your cheeks flamed his favorite color.

“‘cause you’re goin’ home with me.”

“What if I don’t want to go home with you?”

“I think you do.”

“I do not!”

Actually, yes please. Date who? Let’s get out of here right fucking now.

“Look me in the face and tell me you didn’t wear this to get my attention.” His eyes were on your face, not your dress, but his thumb brushed over the tattoo on your thigh like he didn’t need to look to know exactly where it was.

You quickly looked away, staring at his chest like you’d just become very interested in his shirt. “I didn’t wear this to get your attention.”

“You’re not lookin’ at me, honey.”

Before you could raise your chin, he put a knuckle underneath it and raised it for you.

“C’mon. Tell me y’weren’t thinkin’ about me when you picked this out.”

“I wasn’t thinking about you.” 

You couldn’t have sounded less convincing if you tried.

“Not even a little bit?” He clicked his tongue like he was disappointed. “What a waste. It woulda looked so pretty on my arm tonight.”

Was he serious right now? You felt like you were going crazy. 

“But you… you didn’t ask me to be your date.” 

“You ignored my calls.”

“And the dates we did go on, you didn’t even act interested.”

He raised a single dark eyebrow—an unspoken question. Pardon?

“You didn’t even kiss me after!” Your lower lip wobbled, and you hated yourself for it.

“You’re an impatient girl, aren’t you?”

He was still touching your face. People were surely starting to notice. Your date was going to notice any second. 

“I just want you.” You mumbled so quietly, so pathetically, that you almost didn’t recognize the voice as your own.

“Say that again. I couldn’t hear you.” 

Smug. Smug. Smug.

“I want you.” Asshole. “But you’ve been acting like the feeling is not mutual.”

“Oh, honey.” 

He dropped his hand and put a respectable amount of distance between the two of you again. “Here’s what you’re about t’do.  You’re gonna go get in my car. And I’m gonna go over there and tell your little friend that you weren’t feelin’ well. Then when he starts lookin’ for you, I’m gonna tell him I called you a ride, like a gentleman.”

“...and then?”

He shrugged again, taking his sunglasses out of his jacket pocket and sliding them over his eyes.

“Then I’m gonna show you how mutual the feelin’ is.”

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

tag list: @delictezz, @swag313gurl, @amoravelee, @roseidol, @artflooo, @poetsprey, @pinkpearlg, @meowswrites, @babyimhis-mj, @cunty000, @xluvrira, @sturnioloslut101, @nqctar, @b00ty-shakerr-9000, @migualllll, @anotherpartofme22, @littleskittles325, @wisejudgedragonhairdo @michaelsgirlie, @miratate, @peachtreeinthegarden, @lucidlyspiraling, @jaiana-b-blog, @animegamerfox, @unknwnbrii, @bakugotypecrashout, @ephemeralmj, @muddyloserlia, @smoothcriminalgf, @thebabykashmere, @bookklover23, @aegoniipascal, @eternal-life94, @lanibuggg, @mysterioussag, @osugahunnyicedtea, @some-one-yiu-dont-kno, @undeadzombiebrainz, @theyluvjai, @nunusmoll, @lovelyreadersposts, @funkaoverwar, @zzeraphilm, @allihavetodoiisdream, @vincrichc, @frozenhuntress67, @prettygurljo, @devynrulesboisdrool, @pinkpotss, @kayybaereads

[lxdymoon0357]

Hold you down!

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I haven't read 'Closet fan princess' or 'I'll be matriarch in this life', so I cannot unfortunately write for them. But I can write for Caelus, so this post is solely for him.

GENRE: Smut || Drabble

WARNINGS: Era typical ideals of marriage. I only did fingering, no idea what to do after it. So we're stuck here. OOC? Fingering. Spitting. Edging (slightly). Crying. Mentions of murder. Divorce. Pussy-eating/eating out. Oral (f receiving). Cowgirl. Initially reader isn't sure, but she ends up matching his freak in a way...? Tell me if I missed something.

© Writing belongs to me, Lxdymoon0357. Do not plagiarize, but reblogging, liking and commenting is deeply appreciated.

Requested by Anon—

Hi i hope your doing well .your yandere caelus was so good😍 Would you please do a yandere caelus ( from for my derelict favorite ) and yandere kylo (from the closet fan princess) and yandere clerivan pellet (ill be matriarch in this life) x wife reader (sepeeately)? Like reader thinks they (the boys) love someone else and suggest divorce (please make it suggestive scenario or smut ) ? Thank you❤

For one, a life as a noble is never easy. Never easy. Love is difficult to find and even when you do? You have to be strong and resilient for the love to last. You hoped that would be the same one occurring to you, considering your marriage was arranged to Marquis of Vrandt, Caelus.

Beautiful, cold and gentle. He had only divorced his recent wife, Lady Hestia. Apparently since their marriage had been a contract, he had no problem getting out the marriage and marrying you. You were everything good in a lady. Arranged marriage is more or less the direction nobles take for alliances and love is secondary.

But you hoped for love to blossom. Was it naïve to think so? Yes. But at the very least, civility was something you knew you deserved. Caelus was more or less absent from the marriage, while he was loving the certain days you spent together.

There were rules for you, Uros implemented them while lovingly but also firmly:

1) Do not go out without at the very least few bodyguards.

2) Do not spend time with people unless absolutely necessary.

and yada and yada and yada.

You were practically cooped up and you knew why: he was spending time with his ex-wife, Hestia. He still loved her. You knew it. Whenever you mentioned why Caelus kept getting her portraits switched with yours, Uros didn't say anything except mumbling about 'his grace loves you, do not fret'

You never mentioned Hestia, after her and Caelus' divorce. She was practically vanished and you figured it hurt his feelings that she left without a word. It's practically neglecting you and you were isolated, like he couldn't bare to look at you.

And you two hadn't even consummated the marriage..

When he did visit you?

His face seemed rather red, like he was containing to blowing up on you or something, his hand never strayed close to you and he only ever 'hummed'. Yet his eyes would bore into you as if hoping for you to make a mistake so he'd have some reason to leave.. That was entirely how it was.

But his reaction right now? No..You hadn't expected that.

Your hand held onto the divorce papers you had attempted to hand over, not only to free yourself from the utter isolation and neglect, but also to let him have his ex-wife, Hestia yet again.

"No." Caelus' voice cracked, his face crumpled uncharacterically expressive of disgust, panic and worry. You paused, your heel clicking as you took a step back, "..Excuse me?"

"You're not divorcing me," Caelus said, his hands held the other edge of the desk, his knuckles whitening, so much so you worried his skin of his knuckles would tear. His palms reddenning, "You're never divorcing me. You're not supposed to!"

His voice slightly high-pitched and panicked, almost too expressive from the man you'd come to know as your husband, The Marquis of Vrandt. His lavender eyes blown wide as he quickly walked around the table to get close. His palms reached out, but stopped as you clutched the divorce documents tighter.

"Do not worry for me, my grace. I shall be fine–I know you like Lady Hestia and miss her and–", "Who told you that?"

You blinked a little, confused and a bit more nervous. Your teeth gently catching your lip and biting down gently to ground yourself, chewing the skin of your lips.

His eyes stared you up and down, like he was still scanning for something. His brows furrowed like he couldn't believe you wanted to divorce him, his hands reached out, gently placing themselves on your shoulders, "You–please. Don't leave–I don't want Hestia. Never did. I haven't seen her since we married!"

"But–"

"No! I promise, just–" he sighed, pushing back his hair, hands sliding from your shoulder to your waist as he grabbed the divorce papers. You gently sighed out, "It's not like that! I want whatever you wish from me, you can be happy with Hestia!"

"I DON'T WANT HESTIA!" Caelus' voice rang loud as you flinched, stumbling back but nothing occurred as his grip around your waist tightened. Fingers digging in the flesh under your dress. Caelus sighed out, his face going back to that icy coldly beautiful face he adorned.

"You can't leave me–I shall not accept this divorce." he whispered, taking a step back while he held the papers. His hands held them, looking down before back at you and then–

"You won't leave me, I'll make sure of it." he whispered, tearing the papers in half before again. The tears biting the paper into smaller and smaller pieces. Your eyes and face winced a little when he sighed out, "I'm sorry.."

He didn't sound remorseful. You gritted your teeth, hoping to keep your voice silent. If you had to be insolent to get the divorce, so be it.

"Oh please! You haven't even consummated this damn marriage. You don't care for me. I haven't LEFT my room in the months we've married, not to mention how your cooped me up here like a damn pet!" You sucked in a breathe, hoping you weren't going too far.

But your mouth spoke before your brain, "You and I know both know you missed hestia. You've been having affairs, I KNOW IT!" you sighed, stomping your foot almost petulantly, pushing his papers off his desk.

"She is likely living somewhere you paid for her to live in, that's why she suddenly vanished and another marriage for her isn't heard of!" You banged your palms down, feeling the sting of the hit against the mahogany wood. Caelus' eyes softened and filled with worry as he reached out,

"No–no! Nonono, it is nothing like that!" His hands wanted to hold, but you flinched back, swatting his hands away as he pulled them back immediately. Like an obedient dog,

"NO..I divorced her to marry you! I don't love her, i'm so sorry.." His eyes looked like that of a guilty child's, it made you feel bad but you didn't want to! You were neglected and cooped up and isolated. Why should you believe him?

But he gently lowered his eyes, his hands clasped infront, his left hand picking at the nails on his right before he looked up, eyes blinking nervously,

"I haven't consummated the marriage..that makes our matrimony invalid, does it not?" He gently took a step back. You didn't get to protest when he grabbed you by your upper arms and with almost inhuman strength, sat you down on his work desk.

He gently leaned down, getting on his knees and his hands reached to your dress' hem, "Let me, please.." he whispered. Eyes hazing and decorating you. You pushed him back, "No–who do you think you are, your grace?!"

"Please, my darling. I'll make sure you feel so good–" he whispered, his hands gently held your ankles, stroking before they moved up, pushing the dress as he kissed your ankle.

His hands moved to your knees and then up your thighs, pushing your dress and gently probing his finger against your inner thigh, "Do not–oh—" you whimpered when he practically forced them apart.

His hands very gently stroked your panties, his pointer thumbing against your panties. His thumb gently circling where he hoped the clit was.

Was that how you got here?

Hot and blood rushing to your head. Sweat beaded against your thighs and Caelus' foreheads. His tongue gently stroking your cunt, while his thumb rubbed vigorous and almost pressuring circles on your clit.

"Mphff–" you whined, trying to not grind against his face. Except it didn't work as your back arched. Your fingers digging in his long white hair and shoving his face deeper between your thighs,

"yesh-yeahyeah–mhm..Mhh, yess, good," his tongue began to move in and out, just encasing the pressure in your gut and tummy, making your thighs shake, "Good, move against me, I know–feels good. Doesn't it?" He hummed, making you whimper.

"PLE-ease, your gracee! Mhh! Faster–more more!" you whined. Caelus' gently gripped your hip, shifting you to lay back slightly—giving him more space to kiss your cunt. His palms gently stroked your thigh, until he lifted his face up. His chin and lips practically glistening with your slick. Your inner-thighs sticky and clammy as you tried to not rub them together at the sight of your husband.

Yours. All yours.

"Mhm–move against my mouth, good—" he sucks hard, your hands tightening their grip in his hair making him groan. The vibrations making you stutter as you gently pushed him deeper,

"yeah. Good, please–don't leave." he begged, licking a strip up your slit, his pointer and middle gently entering while he thumbed your clit. His mouth moving to stare up at you.

His fingers gently sinking, "I don't—hmm..mh! Hm-yeah!" he whimpered, gently palming his bulge as he kissed your clit, sucking hard, "MH! Ca-Caelus-darling, plea-yess"

Your whimpers only worked to make him hard, as he pulled back, gently turning back to thumbing and tracing circles on your clit with his thumb, while his pointer and middle gently sunk deeper. His other hand pushing down your thigh.

I don't love Hestia–please. Believe me." He whispered, eyes pooling with overwhelming tears. You were so pretty, face and ears flush and body hot. Everything burning as you tried to chase pleasure. He only witheld it, you looked too cute for your own good.

His fingers gently pulled out, before sinking back in. Curling to nudge the spot and hit it with brutal and concise precision. His fingers moved faster, his lips capturing yours. The slick covering his lips, sticky against your own. His tongue gently grazing the teeth and your own.

Groaning at the taste of you, he pushed you back gently, pressing his hand on your lower belly. Fingers moving faster, the slick slightly spraying out while he leaned down to capture your clit between his lips against. Suckling hard or rolling it between his grazing teeth and gentle lips.

Your back arched, twitching making you whine, pleasure making you freeze in lamping your thighs together. His fingers somehow speeding up when you whined loudly, feet gently kicking out in subconscious protest.

"Yes? Good, right? I know–I'm sorry," Caelus whispered while his lips still kissed your folds and clit. His fingers curling deeper and tighter. "I'm sorry I took so damn long. I should've—I should've known."

"Your grace–"

"Caelus." Caelus corrected softly, sucking harder and pushing your thighs apart against gently. Sweat causing his pale skin to shine and his white hair to stick to his forehead and nape, eyes glowing and lower part of his face covered in spit and slick. "Please..don't–don't push me away. Call me by my name."

"Cael–" Your words cut off—whines escaping loudly—when his fingers gently plunged deeper, massaging into you g-spot. Caelus gently hummed in approval, "yesshh, like that," he whispered against your clit, sending vibrations down your clit and tail-bone upto your spine.

Goosebumps swallowing the surface of your skin at the pleasure when he hummed louder, moaning when you tugged harder on his hair. "Like th–tha-thaat! Ye–yes!" you whimpered, hips twitching and stuttering.

He smiled, gently pulling his fingers out. Thin strings of saliva and slick connecting to his long fingers, wanting to pull them back.Your walls squeezing and clamping as if upset at the loss of contact and your back arching when the pleasure faded. His fingers gently moved at your folds, around your cunt and teasing.

Tantalising in the way you had no idea if he'd push it in or no, occasionally slipping past the rim, but only a millimeter of his fingers or so to stretch you a little and hear your pretty whines and moans.

Caelus hummed, gently lowering close and watching your walls clamp, "Please-darling—Caelus. Pleasee, just–" you sucked in a breath when you felt his cool but warm breathe on your cunt, making you even more impatient, "Put your fingers–fingers in again!"

Caelus smiled, gently kissing your inner thigh before laying his cheek against your plushy thigh. Watching and admiring your cunt, before he sighed. His cock hard and painful with how much he wanted you on his cock. To stretch you, keep you warming him and make you ride him at your own pace!

He sighed, gently kissing your thighs, lining them as you whimpering. Thighs and hips twitching subconsciously, until he pressed a gently kiss against your clit and folds, "Pretty girl. Mine–" before he spit on it. His saliva warmer than you expected, making you groan out.

"I don't want you worrying about Hestia. She–" He sighed, gently pushing his fingers in before pulling all the way out and plunging them deep to his knuckles. You almost screamed at the pleasure, your thighs hooking up on his own while Caelus smiled.

He was gently placing his hand from your thigh to the back of it, around your hip to keep you close to the edge of his office desk, "She was only a contract marriage. Only for a while–" he said, as if to convince you, "I divorced her to marry you! I've replaced her portraits with yours too!"

Caelus' fingers began moving in and out, rougher and curling deeper, trying to pull you to the edge. Rougher, deeper, faster, stronger. He sighed out, until you whined out—

"Please–I need it!" He immediately dove his head against your clit, his fingers moving faster. Plunging deep, making your tummy tighten. His free hand travelled up, gently teasing your stockings before upto your lower tummy. And he pressed down on your tummy.

The pleasure made your hips stutter as you lifted them, but unable to grind with Caelus pushing down on your tummy and hips if you moved them, "Caeell," you whimpered. Caelus nodded, "mhm, yes. My darling, call my name."

His face buried as he slurped loudly, his licks covering your slicked cunt and inner-most thighs with saliva and juices, soft hums and whines as if he got pleasure from just eating you out. Your stomach tightening and a blunt pain of pleasure rising stronger, the pressure on your bladder.

Your hips twitched. His fingers curled in, not moving out. Only curling and uncurling to press into the gummy spot, the point of your G-spot and somehow deeper.

His voice spoke, whiny but desperate and as if expecting praise, "I told Hestia I wanted a divorce. Don't think about her!" His fingers moved as you whimpered out, "i'–I'm cummin–yesyesyes!"

"Come on, darling. A little more," he whispered, his fingers faster. Your were moving to the edge, "Hestia won't come back and I don't want her. Anyways–" His fingers moved faster, his lips wrapping around your clit.

"I got Hestia killed."

And he sucked hard. The orgasm washed over you like you had never expected it. It overwhelmed oyu to the point you had tears in your eyes as you moved your hips against his fingers while he moved them to help you through your high.

Not to mention how taken aback you were from the new of blatant murder. It was of surprise Caelus of Vrandt was a man of devotion. He had killed a family for the crown princess, but you. Oh you..

You were his TRUE love. Hestia wouldn't have kept him from you anyway. It was just an extra security step for your assurance.

You whimpered when you get down, panting heavily. Eyes shut to gather your body, still twitching and out of control like a liquid for you. You heard soft sounds of shoes when Caelus stood up. The fabric of his pants felt up against your thighs and you felt Caelus gently move his free hand, still clean from your stomach.

Then he pries it under your head and nape, gently lifting. His hand, still covered in your essence as you gently licked them clean. Groaning and his hips subconsciously against your thighs and the desk, before he gently leaned down and captured you in a kiss. The taste of your slick and cum still heavy on his tongue, his hips—for the lack of a better word—humping your thighs like a fucking dog.

He killed someone..He killed Lady Hestia! You couldn't believe your bones freezing and yet somehow the arousal in you heightened. Higher. You wanted more. You needed more devotional acts from your husband.

You gently felt him help you sit up, still kissing you with his tongue practically sucking yours. His hips humping your thighs and the desk for some form of relief. His hand behind your head and nape gently pushed you more into the kiss as you sighed out.

His other, wet hand—surprisingly—was gently tugging on the hem of the dress, which had been pushed a bit above your waist for access while he was between your thighs. But you grabbed his hand to stop him before he could pull your dress down. His froze in the kiss, before pulling away.

His cheeked reddening and sweat beading, but he was so desperate. He didn't mind you not giving him your cunt. Ever. But..Please–he couldn't handle it! Couldn't handle how your hands were stopping him from pulling your dress down bare. Other hand gently tugging on his belt, freeing his cock before he realised you did it.

More busy just gawking at your pretty face, until you tugged on his cock, stroking it and gently pulling Caelus right against you. Cock against your lower lips, grinding as he whimpered, leaning his chin down to bite on your shoulders gently. Sucking hickeys.

His hand gently lining himself up before pushing it in with a biig streetch. Gods, you drove him insane. Literally. Even with the way you demanded your needs be fulfilled silently. Caelus didn't bother or dare moving his hips until you gently pushed him out before tugging him back.

Almost using the Marquis like your personal toy. Caelus began moving his hips, smacking skin against skin with his cock soaking in your juices and his pre-cum when he moved inside your warm, wet and sopping pussy, squeezing him just perfectly. He threw his head back, whimpering as his palms gently massaged your hips while thrusting in,

"..Fuck–gods. Darling–ugh, you feel..you feel like he-heaven." he whimpered out, eyes watering as he moved his hips.Your hands pushed him against the desk, gently shifting as he pulled you against him. Sitting back on his desk while you straddled his lap, sinking back on his cock and his eyes rolled back into his skull.

You whined out, grinding your hips back against his to feel him even more, "yess, fuck..More, Caelus-more!" you hummed.

As far as Caelus was concerned? He wasn't divorced right now and he had finally not only consummated his marriage, making it valid. He was also removing every fucking thought of Hestia from your brain. Caelus worried he'd have to take more of an action against you.

He had been ready to kill people, accuse you of crimes, kidnap or even lock you up. But the way you use his cock as you rode him? The way you trailed kisses down his neck, pinching his nipples gently while grinding against him. Your hips moving expertly and slick dripping while your cunt tried to suck him back in whenever he pulled out to thrust deeper into you—shiitt.

Shit.. You had ruined him since the moment you met him and you're ruining him now with every breathy and whiny moan of, "Caelus, please-I need it..nghh-mhhh—I need you!" Who knew the best way to hold you down was to simply let you use him as you pleased?

© Writing belongs to me, Lxdymoon0357. Do not plagiarize, but reblogging, liking and commenting is deeply appreciated.

[wadigrove]

✦ pet me pretty (fuck me feral) — shidou ryusei

[ nsfw ] — smut (18+) ; shidou ryusei x reader

word count: 3,889 — read on ao3

tags: kitty hybrid!reader who’s in heat, pet play, shameless smut, vaginal sex, oral sex, vaginal fingering, overstimulation, scent kink, size kink, possessiveness, praise kink, begging, marking, biting, blood kink (light), feral sex, aftercare, licking, breeding kink, explicit language & sexual content, soft!shidou post-nut, not beta read, mdni!

summary:

Spoiled in satin, fed on praise; you were always meant to be worshipped like this.

notes:

this wip has been sitting in my drafts for ages, and i finally finished it 🥹 i want to dedicate this one to my darling tee @seitee ! you were on my mind the entire time, and i genuinely wrote this with the intention of driving you a little crazy. sorry in advance for any mistakes, but i really hope you all enjoy it :D

There’s an ache between your thighs—warm, heavy, and sore in a way that makes your stomach flutter. 

It’s not pain, not really. It’s need. A low, constant throb that pulses in time with your heartbeat, settling deep in your cunt and spreading outward until your legs feel weak from it. Your body runs hot, skin flushed, nerves singing. Your nipples are tight and sensitive, pebbling hard as you arch without thinking against the silk sheets beneath you.

The sheets are expensive. Everything here is. The bed, the room, the clothes draped carelessly over the chair in the corner—designer, imported, chosen with intent. Shidou Ryusei doesn’t do halfway. Never has.

“Only the best for my baby,” he always says, voice all teeth and heat, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

And he spoils you. Relentlessly.

You’ve never had to think too hard since he picked you up and decided you were his. No work. No cleaning. No responsibility beyond existing beautifully for him. You don’t lift a finger unless it’s to curl it into his shirt, claws catching the fabric as you mewl for his attention. He feeds you himself—warm bowls of milk, sweet and rich, bite-sized snacks pressed to your lips when he wants to watch you chew. Sometimes he sits you on his lap just to do it, thumb brushing your chin when a drop spills, laughing low before leaning in to lick you clean.

He always tells you how cute you are. How lucky he is. How sweet you taste.

Your tail curls tight when you finally feel him touch you properly—fingers sliding along the sensitive underside, slow and deliberate. The sensation shoots straight through you.

“Ryu…” you mewl, voice small and breathy as your back arches instinctively, body opening for him without shame. Your cunt is already slick, folds shining, exposed by the way you present yourself so naturally it doesn’t even feel like a choice. It’s instinct. You paw at the sheets, claws dimpling silk, ears twitching as every nerve lights up.

Shidou groans and drops forward, burying his face against your neck. His whole body shudders above you like he’s barely holding himself together.

“Baby… you smell so, so, so good,” he mutters, voice rough, hungry, vibrating against your skin.

You whimper again, softer this time, and turn your head just enough to look back at him. Your nose wrinkles as you sniffle, overwhelmed, one fang sinking into your bottom lip as your cunt leaks from his scent alone. 

(He smells intoxicating—masculine, sharp, sweet-spicy in a way that makes your head feel fuzzy. Like heat and sweat and something dangerous underneath it all.)

His eyes widen when he sees you like this; pink and blown wide, bright as candy. The same shade as the collar snug around your neck. The same molten, sticky-sweet pink he makes you feel inside when he looks at you like you’re the best thing he’s ever found.

That grin spreads slow and feral across his face, sharp and delighted. He leans closer, crowding your space on purpose. “Does my baby need me?” he asks, voice low and teasing, like he already knows the answer and just wants to hear you beg.

You nod eagerly, pushing back against him, hips lifting, tail flicking.

“Yeah?” he coos, tilting his head, eyes glittering. “Needs me to make you feel good?”

You nod again, faster this time, breath stuttering as he finally presses his palm between your thighs—warm, heavy, possessive. He laughs softly, pleased, thumb brushing through your slick with no hurry at all.

God, he loves this part. Loves how responsive you are. How honest your body is with him.

“That’s my girl,” Shidou murmurs, leaning down to nip at your shoulder, teeth just shy of breaking skin. “Always so needy. Always so perfect for me.”

You feel the pads of his fingers brush your swollen, aching clit and the sensation nearly breaks you. A sob punches out of your chest before you can stop it, breath hitching sharp as your whole body bows toward him. Shidou’s teeth sink into your shoulder at the same time—just enough pressure to sting—before his tongue sweeps over the bite, slow and reverent, soothing heat into the mark as he moans against your skin like he can’t help himself.

You curl into him without thinking. The way a cat finds warmth. By instinct. By trust. By the quiet certainty that this is where you belong.

“Ryusei… please—more…” you whine, voice thin and wrecked as you press harder into his hand, chasing the pressure. You want his fingers inside you—warm, thick, filling you up. You ache for it in a way that makes your thighs tremble.

He exhales shakily above you, forehead pressing to yours for half a second like he needs it. “Oh, baby,” he murmurs, voice low and breathy, rough around the edges. “You know I can’t handle it when you beg for me like that.”

And it’s true. The contrast hits him every time.

In the beginning, you didn’t trust him. You hissed when he got too close. Hid in corners. Swiped at him with claws bared, all sharp edges and fear. You were feral then—all survival, no softness. But now? Now you melt for him. Now you arch and open and whimper his name like it’s prayer and instinct combined. You’re soft for him in ways you never learned before him.

(Ryusei always grins like he’s proud of it. Like he won something precious.)

He twists his wrist slightly, just enough to change the angle, and his thumb begins to rub slow, deliberate circles over your clit. Not rushed. Not sloppy. Intentional. His other fingers press at your leaking entrance, teasing, feeling how wet you are for him before he finally slides inside you. The stretch makes you gasp, back bowing off the mattress as his fingers push deep, thick and invasive in the best way.

He fingerfucks you slowly at first, curling his fingers just right, rubbing against your walls like he’s mapping you from the inside out. Every thrust is deliberate. Every sound you make goes straight through him. The sheets beneath you smell like warmth and mischief and you—your scent soaked deep into silk—and you melt into it without shame, letting out a high, sinful moan that makes his eyes flash.

He keeps it up just long enough for your body to start chasing release—hips stuttering, tail twitching erratically—before he pulls his fingers out with a playful little click of his tongue.

“Oopsie daisy.”

You nearly cry. A broken sound tears out of you, needy and unfiltered, one of your hands reaching back to grab at him like you might actually die without it.

(And then the warmth; like the sun, because Ryu is your sun.)

His tongue replaces his fingers, wet and broad and so fucking good. He eats you like it’s instinct, like it’s hunger, like he’s been waiting all day just for this. The first swipe makes your ears flick sharply, tail puffing as pleasure crashes through you hard enough to make your vision white out for a second.

Your body jolts, nerves screaming as he laps at you—long, eager strokes followed by deep suction that pulls another sob from your throat. It’s loud. Messy. Proud. Slurping and sucking and eating you like he wants everyone to know you’re his.

“Ryu—!” you cry, voice cracking.

He only laughs into you, grip tightening on your hips to hold you open as his tongue works faster, greedier. Ryusei doesn’t do restraint when it comes to you. Never has.

Your back arches higher as his fingers dig into your ass, grip firm and possessive, lifting your hips without asking—like he knows exactly how your body wants to be held. He spreads you open with practiced ease, thumbs pressing into the soft give of your cheeks, leaving you exposed and trembling beneath him. You gasp at the vulnerability of it, at the way your body answers without hesitation.

Then his tongue drags a long, deliberate line—slow, unhurried—up your slick heat before moving higher. The first touch at your asshole makes your breath stutter, a broken sound slipping out of you as he circles the puckered skin with maddening patience. It’s gentle and teasing and impossibly intimate, his tongue warm and curious, like he’s savoring every reaction you give him. Your tail flicks sharply, ears twitching as pleasure sparks bright and overwhelming through your spine.

He doesn’t linger forever. He never lets you get too comfortable.

With a pleased hum, he moves back to your pussy, mouth pressing in eagerly, tongue flattening and working you open again like he can’t help himself. Like he needs this. Like eating you is as essential as breathing. The contrast makes you shudder—your whole body shaking as sensation stacks on sensation until it feels too big to hold.

It feels like heaven. Like the galaxies have cracked open just for you, stars spilling everywhere, light rushing in. Like this is where you were always meant to be—arched and open, offered up to him, body singing beneath his mouth. Every lick feels purposeful, reverent, hungry all at once. Shidou eats your cunt like he needs you to survive, like your pleasure is oxygen, and you melt completely into it.

Your thoughts blur. Shame dissolves. There is only heat and sensation and the sound of him—wet, unrestrained, devouring you with no apology. Your hands claw uselessly at the sheets, silk bunching beneath your fingers as your body gives itself over fully, trusting him to take everything you offer.

You come with a broken sob—sharp and high and helpless—as your body convulses against his mouth. Pleasure crashes through you like a wave, shaking you to your very core. Your pussy clenches hard, leaking against Ryusei’s tongue, your release messy and wet as your thighs tremble and your tail thrashes weakly beneath you. It’s overwhelming. Electric. The kind of climax that leaves your vision spotted, your muscles twitching, your thoughts dissolved into white noise.

Your legs nearly give out, the strength wrung from your limbs—but Ryusei doesn’t let you fall. His grip on your hips is strong, bruising, possessive. Like he dares your body to go limp on him. Like he’s the only thing keeping you grounded in the haze of your orgasm. And maybe he is.

He doesn’t stop right away. No—he keeps licking through it, slower now, dragging his tongue through the slick mess of your release with a deep, satisfied moan. He slurps lazily at your folds like he’s tasting the finest dessert, groaning against your heat as his fingers squeeze tighter, as if savoring you is his favorite part of the day. Only once he’s sure he’s licked you completely clean does he finally pull back.

Then, without a word, he flips you onto your back.

The motion is effortless. Confident. The way only Shidou Ryusei can be—reckless and smooth all at once. You land on the silk sheets with a soft thud, breath catching in your throat, body still humming from the orgasm he just gave you.

Your legs part on instinct. A welcome. An invitation.

And he takes it—scooching forward on his knees, eyes never leaving you. His cock is flushed and hard, the tip already weeping, and he gives it a slow, deliberate stroke as he looks down at you with eyes blown wide and hungry.

His grin is wide. Ferocious. Stupidly pretty. Lips wet, chin shiny with you, dimples cutting into cheeks that look boyish despite the filthy glint in his eye. He looks like a menace. Like the devil himself came down in sweat-slicked abs and smudged eyeliner.

He taps the head of his cock against your clit, and you jolt, body twitching at the overstimulation. You’re still so sensitive—but you don’t pull away. You can’t. You already want him again. Even after you just came, even with your thighs still shaking—you’re greedy for more.

He grins wider, dragging the thick head through your folds, coating himself in your slick as he hums. “Does my baby want me to fuck her?” he purrs, voice low and mocking but affectionate in its own twisted way.

You nod so fast it’s almost dizzying. “Yes. Yes, please, Ryu. Please—”

His cock catches on your entrance—and then he pushes in.

One long, slow glide, his breath hitching into a moan so raw and sinful it makes your walls flutter around him. “Shit—baby…” he groans, eyes fluttering shut for a moment as he bottoms out inside you, his hips pressing flush against yours. “You’re so warm. Fuck. You’ve been aching so much, haven’t you?” He rolls his hips once, slow and deep, grinding in like he wants to make sure you feel every inch. “Good thing I’m here now.”

He laughs a little at the way your back arches, how your body clamps down around him like it needs him, like it’s memorized the shape of him and is begging to be filled again.

He starts slow—long, measured thrusts, deep strokes that make you gasp as he rocks into you. His rhythm is steady, patient, almost cruel in how controlled it is. He watches your face the entire time, cock grinding against your sensitive walls, dragging against that sweet spot that makes your thighs twitch.

Your tail curls beneath you, your toes curling tight, your thighs trembling as the stretch and pressure and rhythm all blend into a growing ache that starts building again. Your lips fall open around moans you can’t even shape into words, your body already teetering on the edge of begging again.

And Ryusei? He just smirks. Sweat sliding down his neck, muscles flexing as he leans forward, kissing your jaw with a chuckle that’s all teeth.

“Better hold on tight, princess,” he murmurs with a grin that's too wide. 

He gets rough—like something primal snaps inside him and takes over. Like the teasing, the slow rhythm, the controlled grind was all just foreplay for what he really wants: to ruin you.

His thrusts go deep and fast, each one slamming into you with enough force to shake the bed. The wet, rhythmic slap of skin on skin fills the room, filthy and unrelenting. Your breath hitches into whimpers, little gasps of broken sound punched out of you with every harsh thrust. Your body trembles beneath him, legs spread wide, tail twitching with every slam of his hips.

You cling to him like instinct—your hands latching onto his back, claws digging in as if you’ll float away otherwise. Shidou moans loud and shameless at the feel of it, head dropping forward to crash his mouth against yours. The kiss is all teeth and tongue, bruising and wet, desperate. Your fangs catch on his lip and draw blood, and instead of flinching, he laughs into your mouth.

“Fuck yes—” he groans, voice wild with lust, with joy. He lives for this, for the pain, for the fight, for the way you scratch him like you’re trying to crawl inside him. He ruts harder into you, pace brutal, like he’s trying to fuck the shape of himself into your body and make it stay.

You break the kiss with a gasp, your lips slick and sore, and bury your face into his neck to muffle your cries. His hand tangles in your hair, keeping you close as your fangs graze his throat. The scent of sweat and blood and sex is dizzying. Your moan turns to a sharp cry as his cock hits deep, and you clamp down harder, hips lifting to meet every thrust even when it’s too much.

“Just like that—scratch me, baby. Mark me up.”

You do. You can’t not. You drag your claws down his back, down his arms, down his chest with a broken sob, leaving bloody trails in your wake. He shudders above you—groans deep in his chest like he loves the pain—and licks the wounds when he pulls back just enough to look at you, eyes glazed and mouth stained with red.

“Fuck me,” he hisses, hips grinding deeper, filthier. Your walls flutter around him, tight and soaked, and the sound he makes is pure filth. Your head spins.

“Ryu—please—! I’m gonna come—” you whimper, voice high-pitched and teary. Your nails curl into his skin again as your body arches, wound so tight you’re shaking.

His eyes lock onto you, flushed pink like cherry blossoms in winter—but now darker. He looks possessed, grin curling into something sinful and wolfish. Like the night sky stretching above you—black, starless, vast.

“Y-Yeah?” he pants, cock thrusting deep as he licks his lips. “Are you now? Gonna come all over my cock? Want me to come too? Fill you up with my cum?”

The words alone make you clench—so hard, so tight it knocks the breath from your chest. The thought of him spilling into you, marking you on the inside, coating your insides warm and full and thick—your eyes roll back and you nearly sob as you nod, desperate and undone.

“Please—want it,” you cry. “Want you to come inside—want it so bad, Ryu—”

He moans like you’ve given him permission to lose it.

“Fuck, baby—gonna paint that pussy from the inside out,” he groans. “Wanna see it leak outta you after. Want you dripping with me. Mine. Mine.”

And he fucks you even harder. Unhinged. Animalistic. Every thrust pushing you closer to the edge, every word wrecking you further. You want him to mark you just as you’ve marked him. You want his cum, his scent, his everything. You want to wear it like a collar and a crown.

You’re about to come again—harder, deeper—your whole body tensing like a bow pulled taut, ready to snap. And he knows. Shidou feels it in the way you tremble around him, in the way your hands tighten on his bloody back, in the way you moan his name like it’s the only word you’ve ever learned.

And then you do.

(It hits like the crack of fireworks in a summer sky—sudden and bright, loud and blinding. Like all your nerves ignite at once, bursting beneath your skin in waves of molten pleasure that roll through your body and leave you trembling.)

You mewl his name like a chant, high and sweet and broken, your voice catching on every syllable. Your thighs shake. Your tail coils tight beneath you. Your ears twitch uncontrollably, overstimulated and sensitive, and your tongue slips out as your jaw goes slack, lolling with the intensity of your release.

You’ve never come like this before—never so hard you forget how to breathe. Never so full of sensation you feel like you’re glowing from the inside out.

And Shidou feels it. Feels your walls tighten like a vice around his cock, pulsing with every wave that crashes through you, and it undoes him.

“F-Fuck—fuck, baby—” he gasps, hips stuttering as your pussy milks him for everything he has. His breath catches sharp, then he moans—loud and guttural and filthy—head tipping back in a wild arc, exposing the long stretch of his throat. His jaw clenches, muscles flexing, and his eyes roll back as he groans deep from his chest.

And then he’s coming—hot and thick, shooting deep inside you, filling you so full that your breath hitches again and you tremble all over. You can feel it, the way his cock throbs inside you with every spurt, how his cum spreads warm and heavy in your belly, like something sacred and claimed.

It makes you shake, overstimulated and owned.

Ryusei doesn’t stop right away. He grinds into you through it, making sure you feel every drop, every twitch of him inside you. His hands cradle your hips like he’s trying to press his seed deeper, like he wants it to stay in you forever.

And he’s still moaning, still whispering curses and praises. “Fuck—fuck—fuck, you feel so good,” he breathes. “Took it all—shit, baby, that was crazy—”

And he laughs, wrecked and breathless, before collapsing forward to cage you in his arms, his body heavy and hot and trembling just like yours. His cock still pulsing inside you, his cum beginning to leak slowly down your thighs.

(You’ve never felt more full. Never felt more his.)

You know what comes afterward. You always do.

Because Shidou may fuck like a feral thing—all hunger and chaos and filthy obsession—but after?

After, he’s soft in the way only he can be. Wild and tender. Dangerous and devoted.

The moment his breathing evens out, he’s already moving—grumbling softly, shifting his weight with a groan as he presses one last kiss to your temple. His cock slips free with a wet, sticky sound that makes your body jolt, and he hums at the sight of his cum slowly leaking from your cunt, thumb brushing it with possessive satisfaction.

“Messy girl,” he mutters, but he says it like he’s proud. Like it’s art.

Then he scoops you up.

Doesn’t ask. Doesn’t need to. You’re pliant in his arms, still shivering faintly, cheek pressed against his chest as he carries you across the room like something precious. You hear the faucet start to run, hear the way the water swirls and rises in the enormous tub, warm steam already curling into the air like a lullaby.

He lowers you into the bath gently—so unlike how he fucks you—and your muscles melt the second the heat touches you. Your body relaxes, floating in perfumed water as his hands follow, pouring warmth over your shoulders, down your back, over your twitching tail.

He washes you.

Not like it’s a task. Not like it’s something he has to do.

He adores it.

His fingers glide over every inch of your skin, careful and methodical, like he’s learning you all over again. He hums sometimes—off-key, sleepy, happy. He teases when you pout at the shampoo, kisses your nose when you scrunch it up, always working slowly, like there’s nowhere else he’d rather be.

And when he dries you? It’s with the fluffiest towels, warmed and waiting. He wraps you in them like a cocoon, kneels down to kiss your knees, your wrists, your collarbone. You sit there, sleepy and boneless, as he pulls out a brand new collar—soft pink leather, shiny tag engraved with your name, a tiny bell that jingles when he fastens it gently around your throat.

He kisses just below it, teeth scraping the skin there like a promise.

Then he dresses you. Something silky and expensive and sheer—something ridiculous you know he’ll tear off later. But for now? He lets you wear it. Runs his hands along the hem, the sleeves, fingers slipping beneath it to trace the curve of your hip. Not to start anything new.

Just because he can.

He fucks you like a beast, but he loves you like a man who never wants to let go.

That's how you sleep: wrapped in silk and scent and sin—marked by teeth, crowned in love.

notes:

felt very horny porny and i hope you did too ദ്ദി◝ ⩊ ◜.ᐟ

[melrahh]

Frat basketball star Sukuna x introverted fem reader 𓏲ּ𝄢

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

(this is my first post on here sorry for any mistakes! I’m new to writing so I’m still trying to learn and get better. Credits to @su2kuna for the art.)

°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･ °❀⋆.ೃ࿔:･°❀

You walked into class late already miserable and tired, Staying up late studying and waking up at the crack of dawn. Usually it wouldn’t be a problem but the short 4 hours of sleep you’ve being getting finally caught up to you. Today hasn’t been great, waking up late threw your whole routine off. Having to take the buss ride to campus since your car was still in the shop. Not having enough time to grab coffee or anything to eat, nothing else could possibly go wrong…right?

So imagine your surprise when you walk into class and see everyone paired up in twos, conversing about the project your professor pulled out of nowhere. Walking to your professors desk with a small smile, hoping that she’d just let you work by yourself. Group projects were always an inconvenience. Having to micromanage people to make sure they do their part. Spending the extra time meeting with whoever you were working with when you could easily finish it faster by yourself. 

You clocked something was off by the look on Mrs. Smith’s face. A smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes, like she already felt bad for what was about to come out of her mouth.  

_

“Mrs.Smith please literally anyone else but him. I can handle the work load alone you know I can.”

The older woman sighed her lips pressing into a thin line her eyes softening apologetically.

“Sorry hun I can’t allow you to work alone for this one. The board committee made some new rule about the equal amount of points given to students.”

Mrs. Smith clicked her tongue as if she thought it was just as stupid.

Ryomen Sukuna is a name everyone on campus knew. Quite literally the king of his fraternity and star of the basketball team. He was usually in the center of every scandal or rumor. Girls raved about him, he was a certified manhore, arrogant, had an ego the size of Texas. He rarely attended any of his classes and probably paid someone to do his work for him. Otherwise there’s no way he’d be even passing this class. He stood out everywhere he went being 6’5 and 250 pounds of muscle, salmon pink hair and covered in tattoos. In other words a walking red flag. The type of person you would usually stray away from.

With the planning sheet papers in your hand, your eyes scanned the room for your partner. He was easy to find sitting at the back of the class. Black hoodie over his head scrolling on his phone like he wanted to be anywhere but here. Tattoos peeking from the sleeves of his hoodie.

Ignoring the headache that was already forming, you sighed heavily and made your way to where he was sitting. 

“Uhm…excuse me.”

The sound of your voice grabs his attention, whatever on his phone no longer important. His sharp ruby eyes widening slightly at the sight of you. 

Fuck it’s you, wait it’s you? When did you even come in? And why were you talking to him of all people? He doesn’t even realize he’s just staring at you and not saying anything back until you clear your throat awkwardly.

“You need somethin?”

His voice comes out a bit harsher than he would’ve liked it sounded as if he was irritated. Which he was but not at you. Sukuna has always noticed you around campus, well everyone did, it was hard not to. 

You were absolutely gorgeous, the type of pretty that should be on magazine covers. You were smart, getting into college on scholarship, always at the top of your classes. Scoring high on exams that more than half the class failed. You shined in every room you walked in without trying to stand out. 

Sukuna never saw you at party’s nor did he ever see you outside of campus. From his knowledge you don’t have many friends and seem pretty reserved, often sticking to yourself unless necessary. You had your life together and clearly ran a strict program. You ended up scaring most people off apparently. Your friends that you did have told you that before getting to know you they found you intimidating. 

You never understand how you came off as scary or intimidating. Hearing that over and over grew to be frustrating over the course of your life. People often look at you and automatically assume you’re unfriendly because of your reserved nature. Not even taking the chance to get to know you first before sticking the label that you’re unapproachable. You’ve heard from people how pretty you were, yet you never got flirted with at party’s, never gotten your number asked for at bars. Just the girl that listened to all her friends rant about their relationships, Situationships, and everything in between. Sure, you weren’t short or petite being taller than the average man and having a fuller figure. You wanted to experience love and feel the intimacy everybody else claimed was indispensable. Overtime you just stopped caring and went on with your life. Your priorities shifted as you got older and entered college. You were more focused on finishing your courses so you can hurry up and finish medical school to become a doctor. You gave up on the idea of finding someone and being in a relationship. From what you’ve seen from your how your friends relationships and stories from other people, it’s not that great. What’s the point in being with someone if it’s not long term? Getting attached to that person and giving them your time and energy for it to just end abruptly seemed pointless. 

“Since we seem to be the only ones without partners, would you wanna do the project with me?”

Sukuna blinks a couple times, he’s kinda had a crush on you but will never admit that not even to himself. He thinks you’re beautiful sure but that was it. At least that’s what he tells himself. Sukuna prided himself in his looks and athleticism. He usually came up to any girl he felt like and was able to flirt without a care in the world. Yet he never approached you. Mainly because he rarely saw you and the few times he did by chance you were gone in an instant. He rarely showed up to class so why would someone as beautiful and smart as you waste your time with someone like him. In his mind he was light years out of your league.

“Not like I have any other choice.”

He replies his eyes subtly roaming over your face. Crimson eyes taking in your facial features, your glossed lips, coils bobbing with any movement from your head. Your brown skin glowing, fuck you were pretty.

“Cool, we should probably exchange numbers. So we can get in contact with each other.”

You say, oblivious to the way he’s looking at you. He hands you his phone and you put your number in his phone. Sending yourself a text to save his number in your phone later.

“I’m y/n by the way.”

He already knew your name from stalking your instagram page countless of times.

“Sukuna.”

-

It’s been a few hours since that interaction with you and Sukuna hasn’t stop thinking about it. The way your manicured nails typed your number into his phone. The sound of your voice, how your curls bounced as you walked away, the sway of your hips. He couldn’t get you out of his head. Even as he went to practice that day, he couldn’t stop thinking about his parter in biochem.

The steam flowing from the shower fogging up the mirrors, towel low on his hips as he stepped out the bathroom into his room. He changed into some basketball shorts and a black wife beater and slumped on his bed. He stared at your contact name for five whole minutes straight, debating whether to text first. Since when did he put any thought into his texts? His thumbs hovered over his screen before typing something, deleting it and then typing again. Then as if you could sense his inner turmoil.

Y/n| Hey we should probably meet soon to talk about the project, lmk when you’re free.

Sukuna| I have practice but I should be free Wednesday after class

Y/n| Sounds good.

It was short, barely could even be called a conversation, but for some reason as the week went on he found himself counting down the days until he’d see you again. 

The day of the meet up comes up, he made sure to actually show up to class today. His palms are a bit sweaty, he didn’t even know why he of all people was feeling nervous. It was just a simple meet up to discuss the project. So why the hell did he feel so anxious? You probably already thought he was a fat freaking chud who was incompetent. He finds you in a quiet corner tucked away in the library sitting by the window. Your laptop open as you typed something, your pinked themed notebooks open and covered in cute stickers, some type of sugary drink at your side. The sunlight catches your skin and eyes perfectly making you look like something out of a painting. Your curls pulled off your face and into a loose updo, edges swooped. He almost trips over his own two feet at the sight of you. Your eyes meet his and you give a small smile that he could tell was a little forced.

“You showed up.”

You were a little surprised he even came to be honest, he took a seat opposite from you. The chair was honestly too small for him which made him look a little goofy.

“I said I would didn’t I.”

He huffs, shifting in the small chair that creaked under his weight as he tried to find a comfortable position.

“Yea but you didn’t really strike me as the studious and punctual type.”

You tease, flipping through your organized folder to find your planning packet.

“How’s that one saying go? Never judge someone by their looks or something.”

Sukuna shifts again in the chair that he makes look doll size, struggling to not look as stupid. 

“Never judge a book by its cover?”

You corrected lips quirking into a smirk at his interpretation of the saying.

“Same shit.”

“It’s not but if you say so.”

The whole time you’re the main one taking lead in the conversation. You ask him about which parts he feels comfortable to take responsibility for the project. Which he just responds with a shrug telling you whichever parts you don’t want he’ll take. He seems like his mind is somewhere else. He hasn’t stop looking at you since you started talking which makes you think he’s actively listening. 

Whole time Sukuna’s just lost at the sight of you. He’s never had a chance to talk to you like this. Your to busy chatting about genealogy and the evolution of chemistry. He watches the way your eyes light up and you begin to speak a little faster when you talk about a topic that interests you. Sukuna nods along like he understands everything you just spewed out from your mouth.

“Did you hear me?”

“Mhm.”

“I asked you when we should meet up again, we have a good few weeks until we have to turn it in.”

“Oh…I’m free whenever.”

He shrugged nonchalantly as if his schedule wasn’t already packed with basketball practices, weights, party’s, and meetups with his team. But if it meant he could talk to you more he’d find a way to make it work.

“Okay, then Same time next week?”

“Yea that works.”

-

The cold air from the Ac hits Sukuna’s damp skin as he steps inside your apartment. He tosses his keys you lent him in the bowl you had on the nearby table. Kicks his shoes off at the door and neatly puts them beside your own. 

“Babe?”

The place is quiet which isn’t unusual, he can hear the soft music coming from down the hall so he knows your home. If you told Sukuna a year ago that he’d be dating the girl he’s had a crush on since freshman year. He’d probably scoff at you and look at you like you grew two heads. 

You were a bit weary of him at first, I mean who wouldn’t be? From all the things you heard about him you kinda just expected him to be this jockey asshole who would be difficult to work with. However, Sukuna proved you wrong. After the first meeting you two had he went back home and stared at the numerous amount of planning sheets and side notes you wrote on the side in pink pen. Only to realize he had no fuckin clue what he was even looking at. Which led to him asking you to tutor him every now in then. He could’ve asked someone else but part of him just wanted an excuse to see you more than once a week. For some reason unbeknownst to him you agreed. You used to scold him when he seemed like he wasn’t paying attention. ‘Are you even listening Ryo?’ You’d say with that signature glare and tilt of your head. He wasn’t paying attention because he was too busy admiring the way you looked and the sound of your voice explaining equations and chemical formulas. Sukuna was extremely smart when he actually applied himself. Soon enough he fully understood concepts from the modules he previously skipped. Ever since then he’s been taking his academics seriously and started studying, mostly to impress you…Actually only to impress you.

He drops his gym bag down by the side of the couch and   Makes his way to your room. He knows your playlist by heart, so much so that he can recognize Cleo Sol’s voice coming from the crack of your door. You’re sitting at your vanity taking out your flexi rods out of your hair. Pink silk robe tied loosely, your room smells like that sweet vanilla candle you always light at night. The flowers you always insist on getting even though he bought you new flowers every week. Along with a hint of your signature perfume that makes him feel like he’s home. Sunlight streaming through your window, the lighting hitting your face perfectly. He’s leaning on your doorframe, head tilted, just watching for a few seconds.

“Baby.”

You jump a little at the sound of his voice snapping you out of the slight daze you were in. He watches as your eyes flicker up to his, how your facial expression softens at the sight of him.

“You scared me Kuna, how long have you been standing there?”

“Not long.”

He answered, trudging over to where you sitting. He leaned down, his head resting on your shoulder with a heavy sigh, muscular arms snaking around your waist.

“Rough practice?”

Your hands moved from separating your curls to massaging his face, trying to get his face to relax. It was like he had a permanent scowl etched on his face, mostly just because he was stressed.

“Mhm, coach was on my ass and that blue eyed freak was ball hogging the whole fucking time.”

He grumbled turning his face in the crook of your neck peppering kisses along your neck to your face causing you to squirm and giggle.

“Kuna go shower, you’re all musty and stinky.”

You urged pushing his face away causing him to furrow his eyebrows feigning hurt.

“I can’t love on my girl?” 

You rolled your eyes going back to carefully separating the spirals in your hair.

“Not while you’re musty. Go shower baby I promise it’ll make you feel better.”

He groans like he’s irritated mumbling under his breath but the hot steaming water was very enticing after the tough practice he just had. Plus your shower had the perfect water pressure and he was going to use your good shampoo and conditioner despite having his own products for whenever he was over your place which was basically all the time.

“Fine.”

He stalks over to your bathroom, you hear the water turn and an exhale leaves his lips. 

When you made your relationship with Sukuna public it caused shock around campus. To most people it made no sense, your aesthetics and personality’s were complete opposites, how could someone so quiet be with someone so loud? Sukuna thrived in the spotlight, he lived in the bright lights and deafening music. The never ending party’s that started in the dead of night and didn’t end till early morning. The burn of alcohol down his throat, smoke that curled around him temporarily blinding him from his responsibilities and problems. The sorority girls and cheerleaders he ended up in toxic ass relationships with. The screams and chants from the crowd from the stadium, he used to fien for that lifestyle. He chased after it like air because to Sukuna that’s all he ever knew. Since a young age his life has been full of never ending noise, one thing after another, for a long time he avoided the hush of the quiet because it was uncomfortable to him.

Yet when you came into his life, it’s like he put on glasses, yet he can’t tell if everything’s blurry or clear. You showed him that the quiet can be tranquil and comforting, not something to be scared of. Your soft smile and honeyed voice is what gets him through the day. He craves your attention and affection, the love he has for you genuinely scares him sometimes because he’d quite literally kill for you. You’ve got him wrapped around your pretty finger without even realizing it. You’ve taught him so much about himself simply by being who you are and allowing him in your life. He no longer spends his free time at parties his frat brothers hosts, he only goes when he’s required to show up for some event. When he goes he brings you along if you felt like going out that night. He started cutting back on the cigarettes and other stuff he’d normally get from choso. You mentioned how you hated the smell of cigarettes once and he just started to stop. He would occasionally light up a blunt if he was really stressed out but nothing crazy. 

Because you were more to yourself by nature, people often got the misconception that you were either mean, stuck up, or shy. In which none of those cases are true. Sukuna never rushed you when you were speaking, he never forced a conversation or small talk. Sukuna didn’t treat your silence like an obstacle he had to force out of you. Nor did he take your quietness personal. He didn’t treat you based off the stereotypes people would place on you by default. He let you be yourself without feeling like you have to put on a character for somebody else.

Overtime you slowly started showing more parts of yourself to him and he was able to feel a sense of security and peace simply by being in your presence. You started to joke around and be more playful, you shared thoughts you’d normally just keep to yourself. Sukuna remembers the first time you FaceTimed him on your own accord. He answered your call halfway through the first ring, his heart beating in his ears. You were laying down on your stomach in your bed, a pink throw pillow halfway hiding your smile at how fast he answered the phone.

Sukuna steps out of the shower his hair damp, water droplets dripping on his forehead. He changes into some sweatpants and is too tired to bother with a shirt. He makes his way to the kitchen since you weren’t in your room like before. You’re standing at the counter looking like a Disney princess while making him a plate of food you made earlier. You’re still in your pink robe, your hair fluffed out and all bouncy. For someone as big as Sukuna he had the most silent footsteps. He comes up behind you, your back hitting his hard chest. His hands rub up and down your sides occasionally massaging the plush flesh of your ass before settling on your wide hips.

“Feel better?”

You ask softly turning around to face him holding out the plate to him. 

“Mhm.”

He hums looking down at you with half lidded eyes. He takes the plate out of your hands only to set it back down on the counter top. His hands block you in as he continues where he left off showering you with kisses. Within a year you’ve managed to turn the Ryomen Sukuna who picks fights every where he went and partied like no tomorrow into a mushy soft hearted man who is severely in love with his beautiful girlfriend.

He kisses you along your jaw, your cheeks then on your forehead and finally a slow but sweet kiss to your lips. He finally pulled away a little breathless as he looked at you like you hung the moon.

“Missed your pretty face.”

He muttered his calloused hands gently coming up to cup your cheek, his thumb caressing your cheek.

“You saw me this morning Ryo.”

“Still too fuckin long.”

The rest of the evening was spent cuddling on the couch engulfed in blankets. You tucked by his side, his arm thrown around your shoulder pulling you closer. Whatever movie you two picked for the night playing on the tv casting light across both of your faces.Rain pattering against the floor to ceiling window like background noise. With you everything seemed to fade in the background, all his problems seemed irrelevant. Being able to come home to you was a blessing he didn’t know what he did to deserve.

A/n this was way longer than I intended also I suck at dialogue.

[daechwitatamic]

impossible || kmg

(banner by @sailorsoons)

written for the AJU LEAGUE collab hosted by @/sailorsoons and @100vern !!

impossible kmg x reader exes to ??? SFW but minors are not welcome on my blog

summary: Mingyu, the city's star pitcher, is everywhere. His face is on the city buses. His interviews play on the televisions in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. His stupid social media videos are constantly in your face. As a non-sport girlie, this would be annoying. As his ex, it's downright painful. You can't escape your past with Mingyu. Not in this city. It'd be nothing short of impossible.

wc: 14k

general warnings: language, drinking, injury and hospital scenes, allusion to past sexual activity, legal use of prescription pain medications, hurt feelings, not miscom-miscom but poor communication or lack of it in the past, kissing

a/n: he's finally here!!! please enjoy this fic and the rest in the collab as they are posted! thank you to the collab hosts <3 this is unedited and unbeta'ed so any mistakes are my own

--

Your ex smiles at you and your stomach turns over, a single motion as clean as flipping a pancake. His eyes crinkle and his stupid little fang peeks at you and you clench your hands into fists, lowering your eyes to the slightly sticky cafe floor under your feet. 

His voice reaches you anyway, yapping a mile a minute in that distinct and unmatchable Mingyu way, talking excitedly about the upcoming playoff game.

“Personally, I don’t think the pressure will be a negative factor. If anything, it helps us to focus -”

The line moves, the two college-aged girls in front of you putting their phones away as they step up to the barista to order their matcha lattes or whatever, and Mingyu’s voice blessedly falls silent.

Because he’d been smiling at you from one of their phone screens. They’d been watching soundbites of his last interview on tiktok while they waited.

It happens to you all the time - Mingyu’s face on the city buses as they pass. Mingyu’s interviews playing on the televisions in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Mingyu’s stupid social media videos in your face. Everywhere you go, no matter the time of day or night - you’re never safe, not unless you save up enough money to move far, far away. 

Unfortunately, you live in a baseball city, and even more unfortunately, Mingyu is their star pitcher or something. 

(Okay, you pretend not to know, but you dated him long enough that you do know the specifics. He’s the closer, not a starter. You can talk extensively about what that means, but… why would you want to?)

Even if you did move out of the city, you wouldn’t escape him. He’s turned into the team’s precious social media darling, because he’s cute and charming and positive. Even the anti-sport girlies know his name. He’s everywhere. You can’t escape your past with Mingyu. It’d be nothing short of impossible.

You get your coffee and grab an express bus to work, surviving still more Mingyu conversation on the way. (“They’re going to need to expand the bullpen eventually,” the business bro standing behind you on the bus says emphatically into his airpods. “What happens if he gets hurt? They’ve got no one.” A curse upon this godforsaken baseball city!)

When you slam your purse onto your desk, your cube-mate Wonwoo turns in his swivel-chair, his expression somehow both flat and indulgent. 

“What’s the count today?”

You sigh. “Only three. But one of them was an elderly lady shoving a magazine cover in my face and asking me if I don’t think he’s so handsome. That should count for five just because she invaded my personal space.”

Wonwoo grimaces on your behalf. 

“Sure,” you say, voice laced with sarcasm as you drop into your chair and wiggle your mouse to bring your screen to life, “he’s good-looking. But did you know, random bus stop grandma, that his farts can clear a room? And that he breaks at least three coffee mugs a month? And that he doesn’t rinse his toothpaste out of the sink no matter how many times you nag him about it?”

Did you know that he’ll tell you he wants a life with you, and then watch it burn to ash?

“She does not know all that,” Wonwoo deadpans. “Maybe you should do an op-ed. The public deserves the truth.”

“Shut the fuck up,” you grumble, but a laugh threatens to tip out of you. You pull up your email, fingers already flying across the keys. “I either need a work-from-home assignment, or I need to cross the city with blinders on like a damn racehorse.”

“We still on for tonight?” Wonwoo asks, entirely ignoring your tirade. 

“Yeah,” you tell him glumly. “I still can’t believe you’re abandoning me.”

He laughs, a bit of exasperation in it. “We’ve been over this.”

You huff, your eyes on your screen, half of your attention on your work and the other half on your conversation. 

“I’ll be back in no time.”

“Months, Wonwoo, you’ll be gone for months.”

“You’ll be fine.”

“I will be bored. You better bring me back so many presents.”

In all honesty, you are happy for Wonwoo and his opportunity to take a project abroad. And you know you’ll still talk, and when he comes back you’ll have your Work Bestie back. But it doesn’t change that your day to day will inevitably be a little lonelier without him. 

It doesn’t change the fact that, ever since your breakup with Mingyu, Wonwoo is basically your only friend.

The night, despite being Wonwoo’s big going away event, ends up just like a hundred nights before: you and Wonwoo side by side at the bar, separated by the pitcher of beer you’re sharing, bitching about work.

It isn’t long before you’re also separated by his girlfriend, Seona, who joins you for after-work-drinks about half the time. She squeezes between you, already reaching for the pitcher of beer and the empty glass you’d saved for her.

“Hey,” she greets you, even as her arm snakes around Wonwoo’s waist, her body automatically leaning into his. “What’d you do today?”

“Worked,” you shrug. “FaceTimed my mom. Ate dinner over my sink like a rat. Came here.”

“How’s your mom?” Seona asks, gracefully ignoring the rat comment.

“She’s good,” you say. “Living her best sugar baby life.”

Wonwoo chokes on his beer, spluttering into his glass and coughing twice, wiping at his mouth as Seona pats unhelpfully on his back. 

“Your mom is not a sugar baby,” he objects. 

You shrug again, nonplussed. “Well she’s being taken on a two-month-long overseas adventure by her rich boyfriend and I am here, third-wheeling after a day at my very boring, soulless job, so. I think I can describe it however I want.”

“Did they leave yet?” Seona asks, again stepping cleanly around your nonsense. She’s got it down to an art at this point - you say whatever bullshit, and Seona neatly picks out the one piece of actual information and chases that.

“They leave Sunday,” you say. “When I called her today, she was, like, drowning in piles of clothes. Trying to decide what to pack, you know how it is.”

Your eyes scan the bottles behind the bar as you chat, eventually falling on the television screen behind the bartender’s head. Your stomach sours and you feel the smile fall off your face.

You sip at your drink, making a concentrated effort to ignore the baseball game, but now that you’ve noticed it’s on, you’re noticing everything else too - the many jerseys being worn around you, the shouts and cheers, the way you’re crowded more tightly against the bar tonight, because the sports fans are here.

Wonwoo notices you have this little realization and grimaces at you over Seona’s head. 

“Sorry, bestie,” he says quietly. “It’s the play-offs. If they lose tonight -”

“I know how play-offs work,” you snap. You feel bad for it before it’s even completely out of your mouth. “Sorry,” you add. “I get very…”

“We know,” Seona says, placing a forgiving hand on your arm. “You’re a very nice girl when Kim Mingyu isn’t on the television.”

You try to do better through the rest of the night. You turn sideways so you can look straight at your friends and keep the television more firmly behind you, but you can’t help but glance at the score every now and then. The game is close. 

You haven’t had to care about baseball in over a year, and back when you used to “care” it was only by proxy from dating Mingyu. Of course you wanted your boyfriend’s team to win, back then. 

When he broke up with you, you’d thought you’d be stepping blithely away from the baseball world, happy to exist in ignorance again. And mostly, you have - you don’t turn the games on, don’t listen to the radio broadcasts, don’t seek out the clips or interviews. But fourteen months away from Mingyu haven’t been enough to completely chase the habit - you catch yourself watching the numbers in the corner of the screen, some tiny part of your brain trained to pay attention.

To distract yourself, you talk to Seona about her upcoming relocation - she works fully remote, so she’ll be joining Wonwoo when he leaves for his project in Europe. The distraction works well for a while, as you listen to her talk about the apartment they’ll be leasing, the restaurants she’s already scouted, the museums she wants to get to first. 

But when the stadium’s lights go out on the screen - Mingyu’s dramatic entrance  - you stop mid-sentence to turn and watch.

Most of the people around you do, too. The tvs are muted, so you can’t hear Mingyu’s bass-heavy entrance music, but you know it by heart and it rings in your head as Mingyu strides onto the field. 

His team is down by one in the final inning. The opposing team has two runners on base. Mingyu’s job as the closer is to get three outs without allowing either of those runners to make it home.

He’s good at it. 

He’s amazing at it, which is why he got signed to this team about a year before your breakup, why his salary is more than years of your own, why everyone in the whole country seems to know his name.

Pride and bitterness wage war behind your ribs - the first one coming unbidden and unwanted, followed by the belated recollection that he isn’t yours to be proud of, not anymore. The bitterness churns through the beer in your stomach, but you still can’t tear your eyes from the screen as Mingyu stands astride the pitcher’s mound. 

It burns you up to admit it… but the deepest, most secret place in your heart is still rooting for him. Hoping he does well. Hoping he leaves tonight feeling proud, not dejected.

You want to hate him - you should hate him. But you never really could. 

The whole bar seems to hold its collective breath as Mingyu spins the ball in his hand, narrows his eyes, leans forward to peer at the catcher’s hand signals. 

The first pitch is a ball, too high.

“Come on, Mingyu,” Wonwoo mutters beside you. You shoot him a sideways look, but you can’t blame him. Not when your own inner dialogue said the same thing. Not when you catch yourself clenching your hands into nervous little fists.

“He’s getting too old for this,” someone behind you says, and Seona grabs your elbow before you can turn around and glare. You shouldn’t be fighting to defend his honor, anyway, not after he left you. 

Mingyu’s next two pitches are strikes. The umpire’s shout rings in your head even though you can’t actually hear it. Then, another ball - outside. It’s followed by, thankfully, a third strike.

You exhale. Try to look casual, sip at your beer. Remind yourself that this man broke your fucking heart and you shouldn’t even be watching, let alone feeling anxious for him.

The next batter hits a slow roller towards first base and gets easily tagged out, the first baseman jogging lazily back to his spot after the tag. 

Two outs, but the runners who were out there have advanced, meaning now there’s someone on third base eyeing home plate hungrily. The camera pans the crowd, who are going bananas. Mingyu needs one more out, and then his team will have a turn to bat and hopefully score the necessary two runs to pull ahead. 

The crowd around you presses closer as the next batter walks up. Conversations hush slightly. The guy’s a big hitter.

Mingyu walks him intentionally, four balls in a row. Smart, probably. A good call. But now the bases are fucking loaded.

The woman to your left covers her eyes with her hands and mutters, “I can’t look.”

Ah, play-offs season. A uniquely beautiful time.

The fourth batter approaches home plate. The camera shows Mingyu’s face for a second, focused and serious, then switches to a wider view just in time for him to throw the first strike. 

Two more. He only needs two more.

Your hands tighten around your beer glass as the next ball goes skyward at the sharp crack of the bat- but it lands foul, which counts as a strike. 

You bounce on your feet nervously, watching intently as Mingyu lines up the next pitch. He only needs one more strike and he’s done his job. Your body thrums with tension and nerves - the whole room does. 

The next pitch zips straight down the middle and the batter swings. The camera tracks the ball up and left, and you find yourself holding your breath.

The third baseman gets underneath it and - that’s it. That’s three outs. Grinning wide and wild, Mingyu returns to his dugout amidst back-thumps and butt-pats from his celebrating teammates.

All the tension leaves your body, replaced with the heady waves of relief. You turn back to your friends, lighter, ready to chat again - but the rest of the room has not relaxed. They all still care - very much - if their home team will score the needed two runs to win.

It turns out, you don’t really care if the team does well. You only care if Mingyu does.

–

You don’t always miss Mingyu, but you do always miss the apartment you’d shared when you lived together. High ceilings, big windows, and the best part: in-unit laundry.

Your new place - the one you rent alone - isn’t bad. It’s cosy, affordable, and conveniently located. Your main complaint is that it’s a third floor walk-up, and the laundry room is in the basement. Which means you have to haul your hamper up and down four sets of stairs every weekend. 

You’re distracted today as you make your way down Set of Stairs Number Two with your hamper. You’d seen Wonwoo and Seona off at the airport earlier, and now you’re in a funky mood - a little blue, a lot sorry for yourself. 

Wonwoo wasn’t always your only friend. But you’d lost a lot of them in the break-up, and the few that remained had grown distant in the months that followed. It was your fault, not theirs. It turns out when you isolate as a coping mechanism, there are natural consequences or something. Wonwoo had made it through the Dark Ages simply because you saw him at work every day - you couldn’t shut him out, not from 9-5 on Monday through Friday.

For a second, you let yourself miss your old life - lots of friends, laundry nook adjacent to the kitchen, your best friend kissing you goodbye each morning before you left for work. Then you shove the missing down, remind yourself that things are fine now and to stop looking back all the time -

And then you miss a stair.

–

Things seem to happen in a blink. Mrs. Lee in apartment 1F hears you scream and finds you crumpled on the first floor landing surrounded in dirty clothes. An ambulance ride, a clipboard of paperwork, time passing marked by the shift change and a new nurse introducing himself.

You wait for x-ray results, crying on and off - from pain, from frustration, from helplessness. You’re trying to picture what your next few weeks will look like if you end up on crutches. Your apartment is on the third floor. How will you get groceries up there? How will you make food? How will you stand in a shower long enough to get clean?

You have no one to call for help. Your mom is on her little love cruise, and Wonwoo and Seona are somewhere over Europe by now. 

Just be a fracture, you plead, eyeing your ankle. It’s already bruised purple and black, and swollen twice as big as the uninjured one. Just be a fracture so they can put me in a walking boot and send me on my way. 

The emergency room physician really psychs you out, too, when she pulls back the curtain and says cheerily, “Good news! You won’t need surgery!”

It isn’t the good news you were hoping for. 

The bad news, she informs you, is that you have a bimalleolar fracture, meaning two bones are broken in there. Apparently the majority of bi-mal fractures need surgery, so you were lucky.

“Do I get a cast?” you ask. You’re afraid to be hopeful. You just want to hear a medical professional tell you that you can go home, that you’ll be able to navigate the next few weeks independently, that things will be okay.

The doctor grimaces like she knows you won’t like the answer. “I’m recommending a closed reduction,” she tells you, but this means nothing to you. She interprets your blank face correctly, adding, “Basically, I’m going to adjust the bones so they line up and heal in the right spot.”

Your stomach jolts. “That sounds… not painless.”

She nods seriously. “You’ll be numbed up in that area before the procedure, and given a light sedative.”

You frown. “So I’ll be awake?”

She nods again. “Awake, but groggy. You’ll need someone to help get you home,” she informs you, and your heart sinks heavily. This is what you were afraid of.

How do you explain to this stranger that you have no one you can call?

She taps the end of your bed with the clipboard in her hand and promises to return soon, leaving you to puzzle out what to do. 

You’re almost considering calling Mrs. Lee, who called the ambulance for you - but you don’t have her number. You were too frazzled and in pain to think of it when the paramedics came. You’ve only ever said hello to her in the hallway a few times since you moved in, anyway - you don’t have the kind of relationship where you feel comfortable asking for this much help.

For a short moment, you consider calling your boss. He’s in his sixties, has a daughter older than you. But the idea of him bringing you to your apartment and helping you up three flights of stairs makes you cringe so hard that your jaw makes a popping noise. 

Could you call an Uber and then go up the stairs on your butt, one step at a time? Even if you made it to the top, then what? You have to call someone. You’re going to need help with everything, especially at first.

Your gaze falls on your television screen across the emergency room. It’s playing clips from last night’s play-off game. 

Heartbreaking loss, the closed captions read. Apparently the team hadn’t earned their two runs, didn’t pull out the win even after Mingyu’s heroic inning. 

Which means his season is over. Which means he’s done traveling, done with interviews, done with team activities and daily practices. 

You hate the idea viscerally, even before it fully forms in your mind. 

But you know this for sure about Mingyu: no matter how he feels about you these days, no matter what went down between you two… he’ll help. He’ll make sure you’re okay. He’ll make sure you’re safe, that you have what you need.

He might be the fucker who broke your heart, but Mingyu is a good person.

With a sigh, you pull up his contact info. You never blocked him - didn’t need to. Once he ended things, you never spoke again. No petty subtweets, no late night texts, no drunken phone calls - nothing to indicate that he ever thought of you again. 

You’re nauseated by the time the call connects and the rings start sounding in your ear. He picks up after the third ring, saying your name like a question instead of hello.

You press fingers to your eyes, suddenly close to crying again. Because this sucks. It hurts - your ankle, and your pride, and your heart.

“Mingyu?” you say, though of course it’s him. His voice sounds exactly the same as it always did - low and calm and steady. “It’s me. I’m… sort of at the hospital.”

–

Mingyu arrives after the closed reduction, which means you are high as a kite from the sedative when he enters your room. He’s got a ballcap pulled low and a mask on - to shield his identity at least a little, you know from past experience - but even drugged up, you know those shoulders anywhere.

Your face breaks into a loopy smile. “Mingoooooo,” you croon, and he winces but steps closer, adjusting his expression to something more polite. 

“You’re a mess, huh?” he asks, wryly.

He’d asked you the same question when you’d first moved in together. 

“You’re a mess, huh?” as he peered at the laundry draped over your desk chair, washed and dried but never put away. As he picked up the collection of empty water glasses next to your side of the bed. As he learned that you liked to let dishes soak before tackling them.

You’d just blink at him, each time, all innocence. “I’m so cute, though!” you’d joke, at the beginning, and he’d cave and kiss your head and assure you that you were, despite the clutter. 

You got better about it after a few months of living with his freakishly clean influence, of course. One of the many ways you’d changed for the better, with him.

Sometimes, since the break-up, you’ll leave things untidied on purpose, just to cosmically spite him. One of the many ways you’ve gotten worse, since he left.

You’re heavily drugged from the procedure on your ankle, so you think nothing of it when you lean into the old joke again. “But I’m a cute mess.”

You miss his second wince.

“I take it she’s got something still in her system?” he asks the doctor dryly. The doctor chuckles, so you laugh, too. It must be funny. 

“The sedative will wear off within the next three hours, but the pain medication should last another five. We’ve run another x-ray to confirm that the bones are in the right position,” the doctor tells him. “Once we confirm that they are, then we’ll get her into a cast. Then you can sign her out and take her home.”

The doctor talks over you - to Mingyu - and little snippets of their conversation reach your ears: keep it elevated and dry, here’s the prescription for -, you might also want to get -, six weeks for the cast, follow up in two weeks, she can call to make the appointment…

You don’t remember getting the x-ray results, nor the placement of the cast. You don’t remember being wheeled back down to the lobby, nor Mingyu lifting you and buckling you into his giant SUV.

You’re still groggy when he pulls into your building’s parking lot, but you’re way more coherent.

You blink at the building, a little befuddled. “Did I give you my address?” you ask, because you don’t remember it happening.

“You unlocked your phone for me,” he shrugs. “How do you feel? Does it hurt a lot?”

You shake your head. “It did, but right now I don’t feel it.”

He nods. “Good. That’s good. Let’s… let’s get you inside.”

He gets out of the SUV and walks around to your door. When he opens it, you just stare at him, wide-eyed.

“What?” he asks.

“It’s… my apartment’s on the third floor. No elevator.”

It takes him a second to realize this means he’s carrying you up three flights of stairs. He closes his eyes for a second and exhales, resigned, but when he opens them again to speak he sounds perfectly pleasant.

“We’ll go slow,” he assures you. Then he reaches across you, unbuckles the seatbelt, and lifts you out of the car like it’s nothing. 

The first time he’d carried you, it was because your shoes were hurting your feet at the end of a night out. You still remember giggling into his shoulder, your heels dangling from your fingers as he pretended to huff and puff his way to the front door.

You’re not sure when the last time he carried you was. You hadn’t known it would be the last time, hadn’t paid special attention to it, hadn’t known you would want to remember.

Currently, still groggy, you wrap your arms around his neck and hold on tight, but Mingyu doesn’t falter the whole way up. 

No one giggles, this time.

He unlocks your front door with one hand - when did he get the keys? - and steps inside, using his shoulder to turn on the light in the entryway. You have no idea what time it is, but it’s dark outside. 

“Where’s your bedroom?” he asks quietly, and you are forcibly yanked back in time.

Four years ago, unlocking your door - a different door, a different apartment - unsteadily after a few drinks, Mingyu’s kiss pressing you into the entryway wall, his hands cupping your ass and lifting you until you wrap your legs around his waist. Mingyu murmuring against your jaw, where’s your bedroom? for an entirely different reason.

You swallow back the memory. Your heart thuds, and the nausea has returned. “Past the living room. On the right.”

Mingyu sits you on your bed, leaning you back against your pillows. He adjusts you carefully, then leaves the room wordlessly. You stare at your empty doorway, completely baffled. Fear starts to trickle down your arms like errant raindrops. Is he just leaving you here? Where did he go? Are you alone?

Knowing that your thinking is still a little confused from the sedative and painkiller doesn’t make it any less frightening, and you hear yourself sniffle.

Mingyu’s gone? He left you? Your ankle hurts. Your head hurts. 

Large hands are cupping your cheeks, tilting your face back up. You blink away tears and warm thumbs brush them off of your cheeks. 

“Hey,” a voice is saying, a bit frantic. “What’s wrong, why are you crying? What happened?”

You squeeze your eyes shut, and your head swims wildly. You’re confused, you’re in pain, the nausea is overwhelming, and the emotions are taking over even if they make no sense.

“Y-You left,” you manage through hiccuped breaths. “I got - I got scared.”

His arms wrap around your shoulders, enveloping you. The hug is awkward - he’s standing and you’re sitting, and he’s clearly trying to not jostle your leg around - but you feel yourself calming. He’s always had that effect on you. You close your eyes and lean into him, letting him hold you up, breathing his familiar scent deeply. It works, your breaths coming less and less as gasps, your exhales shuddering less and flowing more smoothly.

When he pulls away, he tells you, “Hey, look at me.”

You do, hazily. He holds your gaze steadily, one hand remaining against your cheek. 

“I’m not leaving you alone,” he tells you seriously. “I will not leave you alone. Okay? Do you understand?”

You nod.

He steps back. Your cheek is warm where his hand had lingered. 

“I’m going to your kitchen to get you some water,” he tells you seriously, keeping eye contact like he wants to make sure you’re paying attention. “I’m going to sing the whole time I’m out there. Just listen to my voice, okay? Keep listening, and you’ll know where I am.”

You don’t register him taking his hand from your face, or him leaving the room again, or even the sounds of rummaging in the kitchen. Drugged and exhausted, the confusion takes back over immediately, hitting you with a fresh wave of fear. 

Alone. Alone, alone - hungry, in pain, confused, tired, and alone.

Mingyu’s voice finds you, singing something slow and crooning. You turn towards the doorway, following the sound. 

Just listen to my voice, okay? 

You nod even though no one is there to see you. You listen to his voice - familiar, comforting, able to wreck you and your heart - and after a moment you hum along sloppily, barely catching the melody.

When he returns with your water bottle, he finds you smiling slightly as you join his song.

He smiles at you affectionately as he passes the bottle over. 

“You good?” he asks, after you take a long drink. “Need anything?”

“Sleep,” you tell him definitively. He bustles around for a second - plugging your phone in for you, turning off the lamp on your desk - then hovers by the bed again, hesitating.

You’re mentally present enough to catch it.

“Mingyu?”

He grimaces a little. “I’m afraid that if I go sleep on the couch, you’ll wake up scared that I left again.”

That sounds like something you would do, considering the last twenty minutes. 

“Can I stay in here with you?” he asks tentatively. “That way, if you wake up, you aren’t alone? I’ll sleep on top of the comforter and just use my own blanket.”

Your heart had lifted and then sank in the same sentence; it feels like whiplash. It feels like a hot air balloon managed liftoff and then got pierced by someone’s slingshot, plummeting to earth again. 

“Good idea,” you say, and you hope that if your voice wavers Mingyu chalks it up to your two broken bones. “Spare blankets are in the -”

“Top of the closet,” he guesses, and you scowl at him.

“You don’t know me,” you protest, only teasing a little - a bit you used to do as a couple when you’d read each other’s minds. 

He crosses his arms and lifts an eyebrow. “Are they at the top of the closet?”

Your scowl darkens. He laughs at you as he heads into your walk-in to get one.

–

The truth is, Mingyu does know you. Better than anyone else alive - even now, even after over a year of being broken up and not talking. You haven’t changed enough to make that untrue, haven’t let a single soul get close to you the way he once was. 

You were together about three years before the end - and they were good years. There’s no other way to put it. You and him… it just worked. You complemented each other in some ways and matched perfectly in others. The balance was just right. 

Like the baseball thing. You didn’t give a fuck about baseball, or even sports in general. But Mingyu had brought you around to the world of it. Over time, you’d reached a point where you could enjoy yourself at a game, could lead a conversation about batting averages and free agents. And Mingyu learned about your interests, too - went with you to concerts, book signings, even the occasional convention.

Or, he had, until he’d gotten called up to his current team. The beginning of the end, in terms of the relationship. Just the beginning in terms of his career, his fame, his legacy. The beginning of a life that had no room for you. You both knew it, even if neither of you had ever been brave enough to face it head on.

The first time he’d joined you at a music festival was also the last, because you’d ended up in the tabloids together. It hadn’t said your name, and the photograph the paparazzi snapped didn’t show your face, but the headline had questioned whether his female companion was getting him into trouble. 

“We just have to be more careful,” he’d said easily, trying to placate you. 

“We weren’t doing anything wrong,” you’d repeated, for what felt like the tenth time. “You weren’t breaking any laws or contract stipulations by going to hear live music.”

He’d shrugged. “We all know what people do at festivals, though, right? We just have to be aware of my image -”

“Your image?” You’d echoed on a laugh, bitterness on your tongue like the ashes of the cigarettes you hadn’t had at the festival - thank god, because that would have been a contract breach, especially if there was photographic evidence. 

You don’t remember how the argument got resolved. Maybe it had just fizzled out, set aside as something you both knew couldn’t be untangled. But you do remember that you stopped going out as much, that Mingyu had gotten a little paranoid over the next few months - constantly watching over his shoulder, checking his phone for alerts or messages from his manager. 

That wasn’t what killed the relationship, though. Certainly, it helped. But you’d held on through his first year, even when he started essentially hiding your existence because he didn’t want your name in the papers. You’d held on when he was gone for months during the season. You’d held on when he’d had to miss your birthday for a team event. You’d held on through videos of sports interviewers flirting with him in front of the whole world, the microphone held up to their perfect, lipsticked smiles. None of those things were enough, alone, to ruin it. You loved each other - so much. It would take more than that. 

It had taken more than that. But it had still happened.

Ironically, it was a night that he chose to bring you into his world that changed things too much for you, that altered the timeline where you’d live happily ever after together.

He brought you to a banquet, a team thing. You’d rented a dress because you hadn’t owned anything nice enough. (Still don’t.)

He’d held your hand, smiled down at you, so handsome. He’d introduced you to the partners of some of his teammates, had squeezed your arm and murmured that he was going to the bathroom (him and the hot girl stomach problems, god) and left you at the bar with them.

“Did he bring you home any gifts yet?” one of them asked you, and you’d started to answer - it wasn’t a gift but you’d gotten a car for the household just last month - when the woman behind her bumped her elbow in playful reprimand.

“Don’t be like that,” she chided, and they both cackled - and you realized, your whole body going hot, that you were the butt of a joke that you didn’t even understand. 

“I - uh -” you spluttered, looking around like someone might rescue you.

“Don’t tease her, she’s new here,” another wife or girlfriend or whatever had said, coming up beside you. When she saw your baffled and embarrassed expression, she ducked her head and whispered, “They’re asking if he’s come home with an STI yet.”

Your face grew even hotter, your mouth dropping open in outrage and indignation. You tried to formulate an answer - the word stigma was involved - when the first one spoke again. 

“We made it through two seasons before it started,” she mused. “So maybe you’ll have another good year before the shit starts!” She said this with cheerful positivity, like she was saying something good and not predicting when exactly your relationship would devolve into lies and infidelity. 

You didn’t have to ask what shit. You’d heard the horror stories.

“Mingyu doesn’t do that stuff,” you’d murmured. 

“Yet,” one of them had said, giving your hand a sympathetic squeeze, and then Mingyu had returned, oblivious, sending them scattering like bowling pins. 

But the words had snaked beneath your skin anyway. 

Not that you thought Mingyu would go full-tilt crazy. You knew his character - he wasn’t a liar, wouldn’t get out of control.

But it was undeniable that his life was about to change drastically. The money, the recognizability, the party scene - they wouldn’t do nothing to him.

Was being with you going to hold him back? Would he start giving you little white lies to make things easier? At what point would it be too many, too much?

Should you even waste both of your time when a checkered finish line was inching closer and closer towards you? 

In the end, you hadn’t had to answer a single one of those questions. Mingyu had ended things before you could try. 

“Things are changing too much,” he’d said - exactly what you’d been afraid of. He was just brave enough to call it before it happened, whereas you’d been prepared to watch the whole thing burn to ash before finally walking away.

Hurt like hell, even if you’d thought the same thing he had.

Still does, actually. Hurts like hell.

–

Your ankle fucking hurts, but that’s not what wakes you. You wake up because you have to pee, and as soon as you roll over it comes crashing back - the pain is immediate, and your blankets trap you because your ex is asleep on top of them, and you can’t go pee because you can’t walk to the bathroom.

Even sleepy, you feel mentally clearer than you had all day, and the reality of your situation slams into you as hard as you’d slammed into the first floor landing twelve hours ago, bringing angry tears stinging into your eyes.

“Fuck,” you hiss, suddenly furious - furious at yourself for getting hurt, furious at your mother for going on her late-in-life romantic adventure, furious at Wonwoo for leaving you here, furious that you have to ask Mingyu of all people for help - when you hate asking for help in the first place. 

“What’s wrong?” His voice cuts through the dark, groggy, and resentment rises in you, as sharp as the pain radiating up your leg.

All you manage in response is a growl. 

His hand pats around on the blanket, trying to find you in the dark, until it lands on your thigh. He gives it a quick pat. “What’s wrong?” he repeats. “Is it hurting a lot? You might be able to take more -”

“Shut up,” you command, your jaw clenched, your voice tight with the tears you’re trying to hold in. 

Mingyu falls silent, but the energy in the room shifts - he’s awake, now, not groggy and affectionate but watchful and wary. He stares at you through the dark as if he can see you perfectly. It’s like he knows you’re about to lash out at him. It’s like he knows you, knows how you respond to things. Because he does - he knows everything.

And fuck him, honestly. Fuck him for leaving you behind, fuck him for shattering your heart and the life you were building together and walking away from it, fuck him for showing up now when you’re down, fuck him for getting to look like such a good guy helping his ex -

He says your name through the dark, and then you hear him fumble for the lamp.

“Turn that shit off,” you snap, but he isn’t listening. He’s peering at your face, squinting through eyes puffy with sleep.

“Why are you crying?” he asks, a little exasperation creeping into his voice.

Because I hate that I have to ask you for help. You, specifically. I hate it I hate it I hate it I hate it -

“Because I hate you.”

What comes out isn’t the truth, but you’re glad for it, even when you watch him go stiff beside you, his face going carefully blank.

The silence stretches, a thing alive, curling up between the two of you like a lazy cat, rolling to show its belly just so it has an excuse to bite your hand.

“Well.” He turns away from you for just a second, and you watch his throat work. You don’t feel bad. He gives a tiny cough, turns back to you, and deadpans, “Glad we cleared that up.”

You watch him sullenly. You have to tell him. It can’t be helped. “I have to pee.”

He nods, jaw tight, and then he stands and makes his way to your side of the bed. You push the blankets off and he bends to pick you up. You wrap an arm around the back of his neck instinctively - like muscle memory. It makes your breath jump, the pain of it, the agony of your body knowing what it’s supposed to be doing when it’s close to him. 

Getting you on the toilet takes work, but eventually Mingyu gets you seated. 

“Don’t put weight on that leg when you’re handling your pants and everything,” he warns. 

You glare up at him. If you can’t have your dignity, you will have your rage. Or something. 

“I’ve got it,” you tell him sourly.

“Clearly,” he snips back, sarcastic, but before he closes the bathroom door he adds, “I’ll be right out here when you’re ready.”

After he gets you back in bed, he picks up the blanket he’d been sleeping under. “I, uh, I think I could probably move to the couch, now,” he says to the floor. “The drugs from the hospital have clearly worn off, so you won’t be confused if you wake up. ‘Kay?”

You blink, breathe, don’t feel rejected. 

He doesn’t wait for you to answer, and he doesn’t look back. He closes your bedroom door and leaves you alone with the taste of I hate you on your tongue. 

–

The sound of clattering pots and pans wakes you in the morning. You cover your eyes against the bright sunlight streaming around your curtains, taking stock of your situation.

Ankle, still broken, still throbbing in pain. Head, much clearer. Eyes, puffy from crying so much yesterday. Stomach, growling with hunger.

And clearly your ex is still in your apartment, because you can hear him cursing out in the kitchen.

“Hello?” you call, sitting up and trying to fix your hair a little bit. Not like Mingyu didn’t see you with bedhead for three years and change, but still. “Are you robbing me?”

The clattering stops abruptly, and you hear Mingyu’s footsteps approach your bedroom doorway. You can hear the indignation in just the cadence of his footfall.

“No,” he snaps at you, as soon as he’s within eyesight, but there’s no real heat behind it. “I’m making your ungrateful ass breakfast.”

“Well,” you say blithely. You deserve the dig after what you said to him last night, and you know it. You can’t even be mad about it. “My ungrateful ass is starving, so I appreciate that. If you help me out to the table, I can tell you where things are so you don’t have to dig through my cabinets like a grizzly bear at a campsite.”

He rolls his eyes but does as you say, and soon you’re sitting back on a kitchen chair, your ankle propped on a pillow on the chair next to you.

You watch Mingyu work, breaking the silence only to help - “The whisk is in the third drawer”, “the good pan’s buried in the back” - until he busies himself at the stove and you decide to have a conversation with his back. (It’s a nice back. You had always thought so.)

“I’m sorry about last night,” you say. It’s easier, this way - easier to apologize when you don’t have to look him in the eye. The back you’re speaking to tenses.

“For what, exactly?” he asks thinly. He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even glance over his shoulders at you.

“You know.”

“Apologies don’t count if you can’t say what you’re sorry for.”

You exhale, an unpleasant tingle flooding your body. He’s just parroted one of your own relationship rules at you.

“Don’t quote the old magic to me, witch,” you quip, and now he does turn around, his face stormy.

“Okay!” You hold up your hands in defeat. “I’m sorry I said I hate you. I hate this situation a lot, I hate asking for help, I hate needing someone, and I hate that it’s my ex - but I do not…. totally hate you.”

He watches you for a long moment, and then turns to stir whatever is in the pan. “Not totally? So, what percent?” he asks.

“Ninety-seven.”

“Hmm,” he says, mock thoughtfully. “Even after I carried you up three flights of stairs?” 

You pretend to consider this. “Ninety-six.”

“Harsh.”

Him making you laugh makes something in you soften a little. “I’m sorry I couldn’t articulate that the first time,” you say, and this is your real apology, the one he wanted. “I was coming down from all those medications, and I was just feeling a lot and -”

“I know,” he says softly. This means I forgive you. You can still translate him, and you aren’t sure how this makes you feel.

You shrug innocently, as Mingyu comes and places food on the table in front of you, taking the seat across from you and starting to eat. 

The first time he’d cooked for you, it blew you away. You hadn’t seen it coming - this big guy, athletic, math-minded. It never occurred to you that he might cook - and well. He’d asked you to his place, and as soon as his front door opened it hit you - the smell making your stomach growl, the candle-adorned table making your heart flutter, the mischievously pleased smile on his handsome face making your knees weak.

No wonder you’d fallen for him, fast and heedless and stupid.

You eat in silence. You’re overwhelmed, feeling too many things. Your ankle throbs - you need to take your morning dose of painkiller. Your head still hurts a little - maybe from stress, from crying yesterday, from the medications. 

And your ex is sitting across from you eating breakfast like you’ve stepped back in time three and a half years, when things were still good, like everything is fine between you. Like he didn’t basically leave you for dead, emotionally, a little over a year ago.

It hurts to sit and talk with him, to laugh at his jokes and try to parry them back; it hurts because you had this and living it again feels amazing, feels like actual weight is lifted from your chest, feels like everything you wouldn’t let yourself want for the last three years - but you know it isn’t real. 

It’s like all the times you’d dreamed of him - ordinary dreams, nothing exciting at all, but he was there, you were together, he was yours. You’d wake up from them freshly devastated, feeling like you’d lost something all over again.

Now, at your kitchen table, you know this is just an act. You know that when you’re healed enough he’ll go back home and back to baseball - and you’ll be here, alone, with an ankle that twinges when a heavy rain is coming through.

You wonder if this hurts for him, too. Maybe, you think. Maybe it does.

After a bit, Mingyu stops eating, leans back in his chair and looks at you calculatingly. It’s dangerous, that look - it means he’s figuring you out, usually in ways you’d prefer he didn’t.

“I do wonder,” he says thoughtfully, and you fight the urge to roll your eyes as you hear him slide into logistician mode, “why you called me.”

“Mom’s traveling.”

He quirks an eyebrow at you.

You sigh. “She got this new boyfriend? Apparently he’s, like, richer than you, even. He whisked her off on this six-country lovefest. I don’t know. In fact, I try to know very little about it.”

He’s cackling across the table, and you want to be irritated, but you feel yourself smiling. 

“Love that for her,” he jokes. “I always knew she had it in her.”

“Mingyu!”

“What?” he laughs. “Good for her! I hope I have that much game in my sixties!”

You scoff at this, but he’s a little right. 

“What about Seungcheol?” he prods, once he’s done laughing. “He would have helped, no questions asked.”

Your breakfast suddenly tastes like sand. You try to keep your face neutral as you say, “Haven’t talked to him in a while. Any of the guys, really.”

Mingyu’s too sharp for this kind of evasion. His eyes narrow. “In how long, would you say?”

If your leg wasn’t broken, you’d kick him. He knows the answer. He just wants to confirm if he’s right. 

“Little over a year,” you mumble, eyes on your plate.

Mingyu goes quiet. 

“It’s fine,” you say emphatically, protesting to something he hasn’t even said. “I didn’t expect them to take my side -”

“There shouldn’t have been sides,” he growls, and you watch him, trying to work out what he’s angry about. That your friends dropped you when he did? That he didn’t know about it? Both?

“It’s fine,” you say again, more gently. “Normally I have Wonwoo and Seona, but he took a work trip and she went with him -”

“Who?”

“Oh.” It occurs to you that Seona came after Mingyu left your life. Only by a few weeks, but still. “She’s been with Wonwoo… about a year. She’s great. You’ll like - I mean, you’d like her. If you met her.”

This slip startles you both into silence. You shovel another bite into your mouth and chew, even though it still tastes like crap - which is not a reflection of Mingyu’s cooking, just your own emotional state. 

Being together like this again, sitting down to breakfast like it’s any regular Saturday morning, feels like you’ve both just slipped right back into your old roles, old routines - muscle memory of the heart, or something. 

Remembering that it’s nothing like it used to be, that Mingyu isn’t yours and you are certainly not his, is like being doused in cold water.

You eat in silence for a bit, until Mingyu sighs and says, “You’re lucky we lost the playoffs or I’d be across the country right now instead of cooking you breakfast.” 

You grimace. “I’m sorry you guys lost. Wasn’t your fault, though.”

Mingyu freezes, his dark eyes meeting yours. “You watched it?”

You feel yourself flush, caught. “I was at the bar with Wonwoo and Seona,” you try to explain. “It was on the tv.”

He watches you silently, taking a bite of his food, waiting you out. He knows how you work.

You lower your gaze, play with your food a little. “Yeah,” you amend. “I watched. You did great. We… we were rooting for you. You had us nervous.”

Something changes on Mingyu’s face; it’s hard to read, even for you. “Well,” he says, and you can hear a bit of bashfulness in his tone, “I appreciate the support.”

“Of course,” you murmur, but you can’t look at him as you say it, your eyes on your plate. “Anyway… I’m sorry. That you didn’t get to move forward to the championships or whatever.”

You hear him huff out a laugh; he knows you know how the tournaments work, knows that your indifference is an act.

“It’s disappointing,” he says. “But we’ll just get ready to tackle next season.”

Now you do look up at him. “This isn’t a presser, Mingyu. You don’t have to give me the hot-mic answer.”

His smile goes sideways. “Fine,” he says, then taps his fork against his plate a few times, as if he needs a second to give himself permission to be honest. “It fucking sucks. I’m pissed off about it.”

Now you smile. “There he is.”

You’d thrown the same line at him when you broke up, this isn’t a press conference, and you wonder if he remembers. But he’d been careful, clinical, diplomatic in ending your relationship, in telling you he was moving out, and it had infuriated you.

This isn’t a press conference, you’d hissed, hands curled into fists at your sides, like you could fight off what he was telling you. You can say the real reason.

He’d shrugged, collected and unreadable, as if the cameras were on him even then, the perfect picture of their Mingyu - the team’s, his coaches’, the adoring public’s. Not yours. Hadn’t been, for a bit.

Now, in your cramped kitchen, he looks like your Mingyu again, cute and pouty, his frown extra pronounced in case it gets him extra sympathy. 

The rest of the meal passes in silence. When you’re both done, Mingyu rises and takes all the dishes, stands and washes them at your shitty little sink. You watch his back again, trying to read the tension in his shoulders. 

“I’d offer to help,” you say over the sound of running water, “but it’s kind of a task that requires standing.”

He flicks a look at you over his shoulder, just a quick acknowledgement, but doesn’t answer - just keeps washing and drying until everything is done. Then he settles back in the seat across from you, his face pensive. 

“Thanks,” you say quietly. You have a feeling you’ll be saying this a lot over the next few weeks. Might as well lean into it, so as to get past the sour taste of it sooner. 

You look at each other in silence, both serious. 

“So,” you say uneasily, after a few minutes of quiet, “I just wanted to say that I really appreciate you coming to get me from the hospital.”

Mingyu cuts a look at you that means you have a weird way of showing it, but he blessedly keeps his mouth shut. 

“Really,” you insist. “You were really nice to me, and made sure I was okay. But I’m good now, not all loopy from the meds, so you can go back home to your real life whenever you want. I’m okay here.”

He stares at you for a minute, that problem-solving look on his face. Right now, you’re a math equation to him, and you fight the urge to squirm. 

“Alright,” he says slowly, but you can tell from his tone you aren’t going to like what follows. “So let’s say I go home right now. What are you going to do when you need to go to the bathroom?”

“Hobble.”

“Ma’am.”

You smile despite yourself. It’s so easy to fall back into teasing him. 

“Okay, so I need… crutches?” 

He nods. “And a shower chair, probably. But even once you have that… even once you can hobble around the apartment… what are you going to do about food?”

“The microwave and I have a beautiful relationship.”

He says your name so flatly it makes you cackle. 

“What do you propose, then?” you ask. “I’d be fine here most of the time, it doesn’t make sense for you to stay. You have… a life. I don’t need a babysitter. Honestly, if you could just bring my groceries up once a week, I can figure the rest out -”

His brows furrow. “I don’t like that idea.”

You falter. “I know it’s not the most convenient for you, especially with the stairs… but what else could we do?”

He gives you a look you know well - he’s going to say something he knows you’re going to hate. 

“My place makes more sense.”

“Absolutely not,” you say, the words rushing from you with force.

He says your name, a reprimand laced with affection. “Hear me out,” he argues. “I have empty guest rooms on the ground floor - no stairs. Okay, one stair. And I have security, and staff to help us -”

“From the baseball millions.”

“Yes,” he snaps, the first time he’s actually sounded a little pissed. “Yes, I know, my dirty baseball money - how dare I earn a living, how dare I have enough for a housekeeper, how dare I need security systems, how dare I choose a life that isn’t this!” He throws one arm out, indicating your rinky-dink, three-foot long kitchen, and you feel yourself flush hot.

You’re surprised it took this long for an argument to devolve and turn into what you’re really fighting about: the breakup. 

“I never said that,” you say darkly, your voice low and coiled. 

“You did,” he counters, the heat gone from his voice now that his outburst is over, replaced with something sullen and almost pouty. “Maybe not in those exact words, but you did. You hated seeing my life start to change and you made it very clear.”

You stare back at him, something hot and angry fluttering behind your ribs. “Is that why you left?” you ask, full of venom. “Because I wasn’t being nice enough about your sudden celebrity status?”

He laughs silently, humorlessly - a single puff of air through his nose. “Kind of, yeah,” he says, a bit of hateful laughter still present in his tone. He stands and walks into your living room, and you watch him pull his hands through his hair in frustration, his back to you.

You had meant it as a barb, not as an actual question. But you’re wondering if he’d given you an honest answer anyway.

Focus. Neither of you can afford to do this, to deconstruct the breakup, to autopsy the relationship. 

“I’m not going to live in your house, Mingyu.” You say it with as much finality as you can muster. 

He sighs, frustrated. “Let me stay here, then.”

“I’d rather chew glass.”

If you’ve hurt his feelings again, he doesn’t show it. “I’ll leave you alone as much as possible,” he offers. “I’ll just pop in once a day, or something. It would just give me some peace of mind to know that if you have an emergency… someone’s around.”

“I won’t have any emergencies.”

“You’re so stubborn,” he mutters, speaking to you less than he’s speaking to himself. Then, addressing you, he adds, “Humor me until your follow-up appointment. It’s just a few days. If everything looks good then, we can revisit the topic.”

Revisit the topic. It makes your insides swim, the formality of it, the way he’s talking to you like you’re a business deal.

You stay silent, giving him neither a yes nor a no. 

He gives you an exasperated look that used to be wielded only when you provoked him on purpose. 

You deflate. “Fine,” you mutter. “We revisit the topic after my follow-up.”

He nods smartly, pleased, but doesn’t smile about it. “Great.” He pulls out his phone and starts typing. “I’m going to head out for a while and pick up some stuff for you. Crutches, shower chair… groceries? Text me what food you need.”

Something twinges in you, even as he stands, ready for action, ready to start fixing things.

“You’re being really nice to me,” you mumble, eyes on the worn carpet below you.

Mingyu lets out a quiet, breathy laugh. “Maybe it’s penance,” he says.

Your eyes shoot up - you want to ask him what that means - but he’s already clapping a hand against the top of the chair he’d been sitting in and heading away. 

After he gathers his things - he used to tease you by reciting keys, wallet, phone every time you left the house because you’d always forget one - and tells you goodbye, you stare around your empty apartment as if looking for a witness to this madness, this sitcom of your life. 

Maybe it’s more of a tragedy, actually. 

You listen for his footsteps to disappear down the steps out in the hall. You count to a hundred. Then you pull out your phone and call Wonwoo. 

“It is six in the morning where I am, in case you suddenly can’t do math.”

“I broke my ankle and had to call Mingyu to get me from the hospital and now he is insisting on continuing to take care of me. He is out buying my crutches right now.”

Silence on the line. You pull the phone away from your face to check that the call didn’t drop. It didn’t.

“Wonwoo?”

“I left you alone for a day,” he laments, disbelief coloring his tone. 

“I know,” you whine. “Come save me.”

“Not only can I not do that, I also don’t want to. Now go back to the beginning and tell me what happened.”

–

It takes Mingyu three trips to get everything upstairs - though, to be fair, the shower chair by itself took one trip. 

He unloads the groceries, putting everything in its place, leans your new crutches against the end of the couch you’ve been trapped on, and then disappears into your bathroom to put the shower chair in your tiny shower.

(“Does it fit?” you call to him.

“I’ll make it fit,” he grunts back, and you go hot from head to toe and thank every god, universe, everything that he can’t see your face.)

When he emerges, sweaty and huffing, you ask him, “What do I owe you for all that?”

He waves a hand at you. “Don’t worry about it.”

You hate that.

“I will worry about it,” you retort. “I’m not letting you just buy all this shit for me, Mingyu, I am not your problem -”

“I know you’re not,” he cuts you off, not really arguing, but still somehow arguing - a skill you two have always had with each other. “But the cost doesn’t… affect me the way I know it will affect you and I -”

“I’m not your charity case, either!” you snap, suddenly defensive. “I can buy my own groceries, I don’t need my rich ex to swoop in and -”

“I know you resent the baseball money,” he interrupts again, “but I want to do this for you. It makes me happy to do this for you. Please let me.”

You fall into sullen silence. He lets you sulk, knowing you well enough to wait it out. Knowing you well enough to know that when he’s right and you’re wrong sometimes you just need to sit with it for a minute before you let it go.

“I don’t resent that you make good money,” you mutter eventually. “I know I said some bratty things about it, but… that isn’t the problem. I’m happy you’re doing well.”

He makes a face like he doesn’t quite believe this.

You sigh, knowing you have to explain this, but hating the vulnerability it requires. “I don’t resent the baseball money,” you explain. “I resent the baseball life.”

Mingyu’s face is blank. He does - says - nothing, just waits.

You rub your hands over your face. 

“Because,” you say, as if he’d asked, which he didn’t, technically, “as much as we both wanted me to, I didn’t belong in it. Okay? I know it’s been a long time, and I’m over it and everything, but does it make me feel better to be petty and bratty about the career that took over and bumped me out of your life? Yes. It does.”

He turns and heads into the kitchen, his back to you once again. You stare at him, wondering at his reaction. You aren’t sure what you’d expected from admitting this - defensiveness, maybe even an argument. Not a shut-down. Mingyu isn’t usually an ice you out type of guy.

Or, he hadn’t been, until the very end.

But he doesn’t respond to what you’ve admitted at all, doesn’t challenge you or press you for more - just continues bustling around your kitchen with a tense, crackling energy that makes you both nervous and itchy to soothe, the way you used to.

The way you slip into old habits with each other fucks with you, lets you forget that you lost him, and then shatters you with the memory of him walking out. Not to mention it’s becoming more and more clear that you’ve both harbored some feelings - anger, resentment, blame, guilt, who knows what else - and the more time you spend in the same room, the more of it bubbles to the surface. 

You watch tv and Mingyu cooks you dinner early - “So it’s here later, when you’re hungry” - before getting ready to go home. 

You don’t talk about anything else, don’t bring up your past or his present. Mingyu just flits around your apartment until he’s sure you won’t die tonight, and then he tells you goodbye and goes on his way.

Later, after you’re done eating, alone, you make your way on crutches back to your bedroom. You try to read, your mangled ankle propped up on a stack of pillows at the end of the bed, but your eyes are heavy and it isn’t long before you fall asleep. 

You must have slept fitfully the night before, because you knock out for hours - when you wake again, it’s dark outside. You blink, then grab your phone to check the time. 

Two texts from Mingyu wait to be read.

Call my cell if you need anything tonight. Ringer’s on. 

And then, below that, clearly added as a forceful afterthought, Even if you don’t want to. Do it anyway.

–

Of course, falling asleep after eating dinner and waking up near one in the morning means your body had a great nap, and now you’re wide awake. 

You try your best to get comfortable and sleep again, to no avail. Sighing in defeat, you click on your bedside lamp and settle in for a long scroll on your phone.

You’ve scrolled just long enough that you’re starting to find yourself in a strange corner of the internet when a DM notification pops up.

Mingyu: i can see youre online You: 😬 You: well you see… lol Mingyu: 🤨 You: i fell asleep at like… 8 You: so now my body thinks i just had a very refreshing nap You: and i am wiiiiiiiide awake  You: whats your excuse?

Mingyu types, then deletes, then types, then deletes. Your eyebrows raise, curious.

Mingyu: couldnt sleep. tried jogging to see if it helped and now im just sweaty and awake. tragic. You: why cant you sleep?

Again, Mingyu seems to choose between responses, the little dots appearing and disappearing multiple times before his response comes in.

Mingyu: a lot on my mind ig You: want to share with the class? Mingyu: lol Mingyu: not this class You: ouch Mingyu: 🤷

It’s strange, feeling rejected by your ex - someone who already left you in every way a person can. When he broke up with you and moved out, Mingyu went from your best friend, the biggest part of your life, to a stranger - leaving emptiness clinging to the corners of your home, your routines, your heart like spiderwebs and dust. 

You don’t answer him. You feel weirdly stung, and the feeling is compounded by the fact that you know - logically - it isn’t fair. Mingyu isn’t yours. Mingyu doesn’t owe you his thoughts. Mingyu made it very clear, over a year ago, that he wants to exist without you. 

All he’s doing is sticking to the plan. You don’t get to feel hurt by that.

You don’t answer him; you don’t know what to say. But your phone buzzes in your hand again anyway.

Mingyu: how is everything over there Mingyu: you good right now? need anything?

The hurt softens. 

You: i’m fine. just bored lol Mingyu: you sure? i could swing by with food if you need it You: its almost 2am mingyu Mingyu: my phone tells time too Mingyu: im offering

You take a moment, trying to work out how you feel. Confused, you think, by the way Mingyu seems to push you away and pull you back in the same moment. 

It’s almost two in the morning, and the liminal space of late-night-early-morning makes you bold.

You: i dont really understand why youre doing all this

Silence spools out. You wonder if you’ve pissed him off. You wonder if he fell asleep. 

When his answer comes, words on a screen, you can hear the tightness in his voice, can hear the dare in it.

Mingyu: doing what, exactly

You take a bracing breath. 

You: taking care of me, i guess

No waffling over words this time. His answer flies back.

Mingyu: because the alternative is you do this all alone

So what? you shoot back. So let me. And then, when he doesn’t answer, you add on, I’m not your responsibility, and that’s YOUR choice that YOU made so I just. dont understand. 

Just like before, his answer comes in hot.

Mingyu: are we really doing this?

Your pulse jumps, adrenaline spikes. 

You: doing WHAT? Mingyu: pretending that IM the one that left YOU

You’re dizzy, that’s how strongly your fight or flight has kicked in - and it wants you to fight, bad. 

You: pretending??????? im sorry, i dont remember packing up MY shit and moving out You: nor do i remember saying the words “i’m done” or “dont call me” You: who could that have been??? You: ohhhh right. You: that would be you.

You wait, blood boiling, furious and dying for a response because sitting alone with your anger feels worse than if this fight were happening in person, where you could see his reaction, yell about it instead of just typing harder.

His answer is glacial.

Mingyu: so we ARE pretending. got it. Mingyu: thats fine.  Mingyu: call me if you need help. otherwise, i’ll see you tomorrow.

Sleep doesn’t come for you until the sun creeps over the horizon outside your windows, tinting your room pale blue into dandelion yellow. 

You’ve only been asleep for about two hours when your front door slams shut, startling you so badly that you jolt in your bed, sending waves of stinging pain up your leg from your shattered ankle. 

“Ow,” you hiss. You can hear the telltale clatter and footfall in your kitchen that means Mingyu is whipping up your breakfast. You wait for the throbbing in your ankle to abate to something closer to ignorable, and then reach for your crutches. 

It’s a familiar sight, as you lower yourself onto your normal kitchen chair: Mingyu’s back, shoulders tight, his body language letting you know that yes you’re still fighting. But he’s there, even though he’s angry. He still showed up.

“It was just a question,” you say instead of hello. “I think it’s a fair question, actually.”

“My question,” he retorts, whirling around to face you, spatula forgotten in his hand, “is why you would want to antagonize the only person who seems interested in helping you through breaking your leg. Do you see a line of willing friends, lovers, family, or neighbors? No?” His voice is sarcastic and acidic, and you will yourself not to wince. “In that case, maybe you should consider not being such a -”

He cuts himself off. You don’t name-call, even when you’re mad at each other. It’s one of the Old Rules. 

You let it slide. Softer, you say, “It was a real question, Mingyu, not an attack. You walked out on me. You told me to stay out of your life. And it’s wonderful that you’re helping me, because you’re a good fucking person, but I just… find myself feeling confused by how much you’re taking care of me.”

His hands lower, the spatula resting near his thigh, but he doesn’t answer this. 

You lower your eyes to your hands. You never could look at him when you had to say the hard stuff. Hadn’t been able to look at him the first time you told him you loved him. Hadn’t been able to look at him when you told him goodbye. Can’t look at him now.

“Maybe this just doesn’t hurt you like it hurts me,” you try to reason. “I think that’s why I’m… angry. Antagonizing. It just sucks that it’s easy for you to be around me when I’m… the ankle is nothing. Having to sit across the kitchen from you, acting like everything is normal, like we’re roommates, or friends? That shit hurts.”

Quietly, Mingyu murmurs, “Should I cancel the World’s Best Roommate cake, then?”

“God, Mingyu!” You hate that you’re laughing. “I’m trying to be serious. I’m trying to have a real conversation about this.”

He turns back around and flicks the knob to turn the stovetop off, sets the spatula on the counter, and calmly takes the chair across from you, his long legs stretched out sideways because they barely fit under your table.

“It isn’t easy for me,” he admits. You let yourself look at him again, emboldened. He laughs, a little self-depricating. “I can’t even be normal with you, I want to just bundle you up and bring you home and… and… fix everything. It’s awful. It’s not allowed. But I can’t seem to stop.”

You watch your hands on top of the table, watching your fingers grasp each other tightly. “Why not?” you ask.

It’s a dangerous question. The tension shifts around you like oil in water, seeping into the empty spaces, pushing to make room where it needs to. 

“You know why,” Mingyu says quietly. Your heart stops. Or, well, that can’t be possible, but it feels like it. Your chest feels so tight that inhaling seems like a herculean task. 

“No I don’t,” you say, your voice thin and tiny. “That’s why I’m asking.”

He says your name, flat, calling you on the lie. 

Frustration claims you. “No I don’t,” you insist. “Because it seems like you’re saying some version of you still care about me - or something like that -”

“Something like that,” Mingyu murmurs, like it’s a joke he wants to repeat. 

You barrel over him. “But that can’t be right, Kim Mingyu, because if you still felt something like that, that would make absolutely no sense considering that you are the one who left.”

He rolls his eyes and you slap your hand on the table, leaning forward, fury carrying you as close as you can get to leaping to your feet, considering the broken ankle.

“God, you’re impossible!” you snap. “What is that reaction? Am I wrong? Am I telling a lie? Did you or did you not pack up and move out?”

“I did,” he says, so evenly and lightly that it makes you angrier. 

“Okay!” you burst out. “So you can see why I might be confused.”

Mingyu eyes your ceiling, exhaling lightly. “Yes, I think I understand why you’re confused. I’m just not sure we should really be having this conversation right now.” He looks at you in that familiar way of his, like he’s solving puzzles you can’t even see. 

“Why?” you demand.

He shifts his mouth guiltily. “I think it’s just going to… hurt. To dredge everything up. To talk about… the end.”

You’re still bristling with annoyance, but you try to consider what he’s saying. He watches you carefully, his manner still a bit cowed, like he’s regretting this entire topic. 

Finally, you tell him, “Listen, I’m already hurt. I was hurt when you left, and having you around is somehow worse. So if you don’t want to talk about this for your own sake, then fine. But I’d rather hear what you have to say, if it was up to me.”

He wiggles his mouth around, regretful in advance. 

You tap your knuckles on the table absently. “Maybe understanding better will help me… feel better,” you say quietly, eyes on your hands again.

His expression flutters like he very much doubts this, but he reins it in. Then, he looks at you flatly, displeased with the decision you’ve made, displeased with laying this at your feet. 

“Fine,” he says, brittle. “Yes, I’m struggling with this because I still have feelings for you. Yes, I was the one who left. But if we’re having an honest conversation right now, then we both know that maybe I said the words… but I did that because it’s what you wanted.”

Your temper flares - calling you to demand he explain himself, calling you to defend yourself against the claim. But Mingyu’s words are heavy - weighed down with years of the truth he’s held by himself. He isn’t saying them lightly. He isn’t playing a game. Whether you agree with him or not, they’re true to him, and this version of the truth has hurt him, and you owe it to him to hear it.

You bite back whatever retort your temper queued up. “There’s no world in which I wanted you to break up with me,” you say hollowly. “So, I’d really like to know why you thought I did.”

His expression falls, his eyes close for a moment. “We don’t have to do this,” he says, pleading, his expression taut. “We can just let it go.”

Too late for that, you think. You shake your head instead, not trusting your words to be soft, to come out like solid bedrock and not like flint, ready to spark.

He heaves a heavy, defeated sigh. “You pushed me out,” he says simply. “I tried for months to fight you on it, to push back. You shut me out, and eventually I realized I was clinging to… ashes.” He demonstrates, open a fist, and you almost expect to see the ruined sands of your dead relationship slide between his fingers. “You didn’t want to be with me anymore, but you didn’t have the heart to end it. So I did the hard thing for you. Like I always have. Like I always will.” His voice is raw as he says this. It is clear he has thought these words many times, late at night when he’s alone and reviewing the footage of the collapse in his mind.

You don’t know what to say, what to address first. “That’s not true,” you whisper finally. “That’s not what happened.”

Mingyu’s gaze flits to you for only a second, and then he pushes himself out of the chair and stands. 

He slides his hands into his pockets and stares at you, his favorite math equation. “I know you pushed me away,” he says again, like it’s so simple. He gives a tiny shrug. “If you say that wasn’t what happened… maybe the truth falls somewhere in the middle.”

He steps backwards, away from the table.

“Don’t go,” you beg. The words burst from you without warning; you would have never let them out if you’d known they were coming. You hadn’t begged when he left the first time. You hadn’t fought for him at all.

Maybe that was part of the problem. This is the first piece of evidence that maybe he’s right.

He shakes his head. His throat moves, and his gaze hovers around your broken ankle. “I need to,” he says, and his voice is tight. “I’ll come back tonight to make sure you have dinner and everything. Okay?”

“Mingyu,” you say. It’s still a plea. It’s desperate, but it’s years too late. 

“I’ll be back tonight,” he assures you, one hand on the doorknob, his gaze still nowhere near your face. You ache, suddenly, in a way you hadn’t even when he left the first time. 

“Don’t,” you whisper, but the word is barely audible because you’re fighting tooth and claw to hold it in. You’re not sure your lips even part for the word.

He leaves without looking back, just like he did over a year ago.

–

Once he’s put it in your head, you can’t stop thinking about it. You can’t stop turning over every moment in your last year together and examining its underside. 

It looks different than it ever did, now. 

All the nights that you went to bed before Mingyu came home from work, and pretended to be asleep when he checked on you. All the events he’d invited you to that you’d begged out of, claiming work was too hectic. All the phone calls you’d let go to voicemail, had answered hours later with only a text. All the mundane, daily stories about your life that you’d stopped sharing with him. All the times you’d rolled your eyes or made bratty comments as his fame and salary started creeping higher. 

All ways to prepare yourself to lose him, eventually. All ways to make yourself need him less, so when it happened, you’d be ready.

Had they added up to Mingyu feeling like you’d placed him on the outside? 

A tenderness behind your ribs, like a bruise in a place that finds every piece of furniture as you walk, answers you with how could it not?

He was right - you’d pushed him out, made him feel so outside that he thought you didn’t want him there at all. 

“Crap,” you murmur to your empty apartment. 

When he returns, a bag of take-out in his hands for dinner, he enters the apartment quietly, with audible trepidation.

You look at him over the back of the couch, baleful eyes wide. He smiles when he catches sight of you, like the affection he feels has caught him by surprise. 

“What?” he asks, mouth quirking.

“I’m sorry,” you mutter into the crook of your arm. 

He places the bag of food on the table and raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me? I didn’t catch that.”

You huff. “I’m sorry,” you repeat, just slightly louder. “I’m sorry that I… didn’t know you felt that way.”

The smile falls from his face. “That’s what you’re sorry for?” he asks, like he wants you to check your work before you turn it in.

“No,” you admit sourly. “I’m also sorry for making you feel that way in the first place.”

“So, why did you?” he asks easily, head cocked.

You cover your face with your hands, peeking through your fingers at him. “Because it just felt inevitable,” you tell him. “You were hiding me from the press, your life was getting so much bigger, your name was all over the internet… it just felt like something that was going to happen no matter what. Your life was going to move on to a place I couldn’t follow. I just… I was looking ahead and…”

You trail off, but Mingyu picks up your sentence.

“- and making up monsters in the shadows that maybe weren’t there,” he fills in, his voice still affectionate even as it inches towards cutting.

You grimace. “Well, yeah,” you admit. “That’s what I do.” Then, you add a bit petulantly, “You used to slay those monsters for me.”

Mingyu crosses the room slowly, perches on the arm of the couch. “So maybe it’s a little bit my fault,” he muses. “For conjuring up more. For not being there as much as I should have.”

You shrug. “Maybe fault doesn’t really matter right now.”

He meets your eyes. “Maybe. But I… I wish you had told me you were scared.” 

You look away. “I didn’t want to say it. I knew you didn’t deserve my doubts, but I couldn’t stop having them. So I… kept them to myself. Tried to make it only my problem.” This is the truth you couldn’t face for over a year since losing Mingyu. But you’d known it, somehow. 

He mutters something under his breath that sounds like hard-headed.

“I’m sorry,” you say again. “I handled it all wrong.”

He meets your gaze. “I am, too. For my part in it.”

You stare at each other, at a loss.

“Well, now what?” you finally ask. “You’re having… feelings… again?”

“I don’t know if again is very accurate,” he murmurs, voice low. 

You swallow, eye your ceiling, seeking strength. “Do you… want to act on those feelings or… are we just… acknowledging them?”

He watches you steadily. “What do you want?”

You huff an exasperated laugh. “You’re so impossible,” you mutter. “Throw me a bone, here, Mingyu. You left me - I understand your reasoning and my own fault in it, but do I really have to be the one to beg, now, after all that?”

A delighted smile takes over his face. “Are you begging?” he asks, like he’s so pleased to hear it.

You growl at him. “I am rethinking -”

“Okay, okay!” he laughs. “I’d be open to trying again if you wanted to.”

Trying again. What would that look like? Starting over? Starting where you left off?

Maybe it doesn’t really matter, right this second. Maybe there’s time for that later - time to say you can’t hide me from the world this time, time to say I promise to tell you when I’m feeling nervous about something, time to say I know this is hard, but I’d rather do the hard stuff with you than anything easy without you.

“You gonna stand over there and look at me, or are you going to do something about it?” you ask in a grumble.

“You didn’t actually tell me you want to,” he points out. 

“Mingyu, I am this close to coming after you with my crutches.”

He laughs again. “You’re too easy to rile up,” he says, sauntering closer. Something familiar, long-dormant, simmers in your belly. “I kind of missed that.”

“Hmm,” you say, the frustration and anger and months of hurt ebbing away as he approaches. “Tell me what else you missed.”

He sits heavily on your wooden coffee table to be eye-level with you again, leans forward, and catches your mouth with his. It is just how it used to be. It is like no time has passed at all. It is like saying welcome back. 

It is everything.

–

Mingyu’s face is on the tv again. 

It’s an old interview, from back before the season ended. You’ve seen it before. Still, your physical therapist leans closer, whispers conspiratorially, “Isn’t he dreamy?”

You smile back, but don’t say anything. You and Mingyu’s rekindled relationship has been steady, but slow - neither of you wanting to rush it, mess it up by being sloppy. 

She sets you up with ice and puts the timer where you can see it; when it goes off, you can remove the ice, put your ankle brace back on, stop at the front desk to pay your co-pay, and order your ride home.

As you stand, babying your healing ankle, waiting for the receptionist to hand you back your debit card, the physical therapy room goes silent and then erupts in hushed whispers. Alarmed, you look around.

Mingyu stands in the doorway, sending you one of his most bone-melting smiles. 

“Would you like a ride home?” he asks, pretending to be oblivious to the reaction in the room.

“Uh,” you say, eyes wide, not even noticing that the receptionist is pushing your debit card back into your lifeless fingers. “Yes?”

You hobble closer, looking at him nervously.

“Mingyu,” you whisper, casting a glance over your shoulder. Everyone is staring at you, even the old ladies on the stationary bikes. “Everyone here knows who you are. We’ll be a headline.”

He nods, looking thoughtful, like he’s considering the weight of your words. “Guess we better make it a good one, then,” he muses, and then he sweeps you off your feet - literally - and carries you bridal style all the way to the car.

“I can walk,” you hiss, your face aflame, but your smile is a thing alive and you can’t tamp it down.

The headlines come before you're even awake the next morning, your texts and social medias flooding with messages from old friends and acquaintances alike:

Star Pitcher Kim Mingyu Puts Dating Rumors to Rest - “Yes, we’re together.”

--

thank you for reading!!! <3

[carnalcrows]

STUDY ME

pairing: perfect student! male OC x male reader [faceclaim]

synopsis: No one’s ever ranked higher than Haruki Mikage—until you do. You’re new, unsettlingly smart, and partnered with him for a major project. Haruki’s trying to stay composed, but your odd habits, offhanded comments, and freakish talent in the kitchen are messing with his head. He should’ve ignored you. He doesn’t.

content warnings : 18+, academic rivals to something else, reader is creepy-smart and says weird shit unprovoked, golden boy Haruki smokes under pressure, slow burn with freaky tension, blowjob at the end of ch1 (reader giving), reader’s thoughts are not normal, shared trauma over academic excellence, high-school setting, light humiliation kink energy, some bullying, borderline-obsessive chemistry, they’re both unwell but in different fonts. also: the project does get submitted on time. barely.

word count: 3.4k

The paper wasn’t even all the way up on the board before someone in the hallway let out a low whistle.

“Yo, he’s not first anymore.”

The teacher pressed the last corner of the sheet flat against the corkboard with her palm, used a pin to anchor it in place. She stepped back. The crowd surged forward.

Haruki Mikage didn’t move from his desk.

He didn’t have to. He already knew what it said.

He’d been top-ranked every semester since middle school—longer, if you counted the city-wide assessments and mock entrance exams his mother used to post on the fridge like they were participation ribbons. Everyone knew his name. They whispered it before exams, hated him for it after. Professors adored him. Classmates tolerated him. His grades were a forgone conclusion.

But still, there was that whistle.

That murmur again.

The skin between his shoulder blades prickled with something unfamiliar.

He’s not first anymore.

He set his pen down.

Someone pressed a palm to the open door. “Mikage.”

Haruki looked up.

It was Kinoshita from 2-A. Always too loud, always too nosey.

“There’s a new name up there,” Kinoshita said, eyes wide, half in disbelief and half in that messy kind of glee people reserved for perfect students slipping. “You’re second.”

Haruki blinked once.

Kinoshita grinned. “They only wrote the family name. No one knows who it is yet.”

Haruki didn’t answer. He just turned back to his notebook and wrote the date in the top right corner. Kinoshita lingered in the doorway a second longer, waiting for something. A reaction. A twitch. Even a shrug.

He got nothing.

Haruki didn’t even look bothered.

But the tip of his pen was pressed too hard into the paper. Ink pooling.

∘₊✧

He didn’t go look at the list.

Not during lunch, not after school. Everyone else swarmed the board. The hall smelled like shoe rubber and shampoo and stress. A few people snapped photos. One girl squealed. Someone muttered your last name and said, “It has to be a mistake.”

It wasn’t.

Your name was written in blocky black print above Haruki’s, the gap between your scores barely two digits wide—but it was enough. It was real.

You weren’t in his class last year. No one knew who you were. You didn’t even have a photo in the club yearbook. No whispers, no rumors, no posts online. Just a name no one recognized and a score too high to ignore.

That should’ve been the end of it.

One test. One fluke.

People were curious, but curiosity burned out fast here. Unless you were someone interesting, someone visible, someone like Haruki—nobody lasted more than a few weeks before fading back into academic noise.

Except you didn’t fade. You didn’t do anything. You just existed in the background.

Quiet. Distant. Present. Like static. Like a blank space on a page that never stopped drawing the eye.

He should’ve forgotten it.

But your name kept coming up—softly, between other people’s conversations. No one knew where you were from. Or why your name was never on any club roster. Or what kind of person beat Haruki Mikage and then refused to show their face.

Someone in class said you were weird. That you mumbled to yourself. That you drew creepy shit in the corners of your worksheet margins and then never turned them in.

Another said you laughed in the middle of a chemistry lecture, and no one knew why.

Someone else said they saw you eating cold rice balls under the gym stairs, headphones on, eyes closed, mouthing the words to something that didn’t exist.

None of that made sense.

None of it matched the clean, precise writing next to the top score on the midterm report.

But Haruki remembered it anyway.

∘₊✧

The first time he saw you was two weeks later.

There was no grand entrance. You just walked in a little after the second bell, half-zipped jacket, hair a mess, notebooks clutched to your chest like a bribe.

Haruki was already seated. Already organised. Already done with the warm-up quiz.

You didn’t look at him.

You walked past him, past everyone, and sat in the back corner of the room by the window. The only desk that hadn’t been claimed.

You slumped down. Dropped your bag. Took out a pencil that had bite marks in it and started copying notes from the board with a half-lidded stare.

Haruki stared. He couldn’t help it.

There were no rumours about how you looked—no pictures online, no Instagram stories. But this wasn’t what he expected.

You weren’t particularly neat. Or polished. Your uniform didn’t fit right, like it had been ironed two days ago and then slept in. Your fingers were ink-stained. Your collar slightly crooked.

You were pretty. But in a way that felt… accidental. Or wrong. Like a painting flipped upside down.

There was something strange about your face. Or maybe your mouth. It looked like it wanted to smile, but didn’t know how.

You looked up once during the lecture. Your eyes met his.

Then you winked.

Haruki turned back to his textbook immediately, his throat dry.

He didn’t look at you again for the rest of the period.

But he felt you looking.

∘₊✧

The class project was announced the next week.

“Pairs of two,” the teacher said, holding up a glass bowl with folded slips inside. “We’re going to assign them randomly. You’ll have three weeks to put your presentations together. Graded on both content and performance.”

She walked between rows with the bowl.

Haruki reached in, pulled a number: 9.

He waited patiently while the others filed through their slips. Then your name was called.

You pulled yours out. Paused. Tapped it twice against your palm.

You looked right at him when you said, “Nine.”

Haruki’s fingers twitched around his pen.

∘₊✧

He didn’t say anything until after class.

You were still packing up, slow and disorganised. You dropped your folder and didn’t bother to pick up half the papers that slid out. A few had doodles in the margins. They looked like vines. Or veins.

“Haruki Mikage,” he said.

You blinked up at him, surprised. “Yeah?”

He stared. Then, “That’s my name.”

You tilted your head.

“I know,” you said. “You're the guy with the stupidly perfect eyebrows.”

He stared harder.

You reached for your bag, smiling faintly. “Are we gonna start working on this project, or are you gonna keep staring at me like I just spit in your bento?”

Haruki didn’t respond.

You laughed softly—barely audible. Like you hadn’t meant to do it.

Then you leaned forward and whispered, “You always look like you’re trying not to judge me. It’s okay. You can. It makes your mouth look sharper.”

His stomach twisted. He stepped back.

You turned and walked off like nothing happened.

Like you hadn’t just said the first thing that’s ever made him lose his breath.

∘₊✧

The two of you met for the first study session in the back corner of the library, because, of course, you suggested it, and of course, Haruki said yes, even though it went against his better judgment, instincts, and every fibre of his tightly-wound existence.

“This is where the ghosts live,” you said, dropping your bag to the floor and immediately sitting cross-legged on the chair. “They’re chill, though. As long as you don’t read anything out loud in Latin.”

Haruki blinked at you over the top of his textbook. “I don’t read Latin,” he said flatly.

You grinned. “That’s good. You’ve got exorcism hands, not summoning hands.”

“What does that even mean?”

“It’s a compliment.” It didn’t sound like one. But also—it kind of did?

You kicked your leg a little, humming under your breath. Then you reached over and grabbed his pen. Didn’t even ask. Just took it. Twirled it between your fingers like a wand and said, “Alright, Harvard. Let’s get this nerd orgy started.”

“…Excuse me?”

You looked at him innocently. “You’re telling me you don’t think studying is a group kink?”

Haruki did not dignify that with a response.

You leaned back in your seat and tilted your head, staring at him like you were taking inventory of something beneath his skin. Then:

“Have you always been like this?”

“…Like what?”

“Like a boy who was genetically engineered to be the president of every club. Like a human version of whatever’s in those vitamin gummies for your brain.”

Haruki frowned, flipping to the next page of the syllabus. “And you’ve always been like this?”

“Unfortunately,” you replied, deadpan. “I tried being normal once. Got a nosebleed.”

He didn’t believe a single word out of your mouth.

He also couldn’t stop looking at you.

Not in the overt, obvious way. Just… his eyes kept landing on the curve of your neck when you tilted your head back to think. Or the way your lips moved when you mouthed words to yourself under your breath. You chewed your pen sometimes, distractedly. 

You had a pretty mouth. Haruki wondered what it would feel like around his fingers.

You tapped your fingers against your leg in a rhythm he couldn’t decipher. You made references he didn’t understand.

“Did you know Freud had a raging thing for eels?”

“…What?”

“He dissected like so many of them. Never found the testes. Drove him insane. I feel like you’re my eel.”

Haruki slowly set his pen down.

“I’m… what.”

“I don’t get you,” you said, voice lighter. Not teasing now. Just honest. “You’re like this shiny, polished, student council-approved perfection android. But then you make these tiny expressions when no one’s looking. Like you’re pissed. Or bored. Or like you wanna scream into a pillow for eight hours.”

He stared. Speechless.

You tilted your head again. “Have you ever screamed into a pillow?”

“No,” he said slowly, carefully. “Have you?”

You smiled. “Only when someone's on top of me.”

Haruki’s brain short-circuited for a second.

You opened your notebook like you hadn’t just dropped a sentence that would require him to pray afterwards. “Okay, let’s start with the thesis breakdown. We can decide if you wanna present or I wanna present, but either way, I get to say the weird part.”

“There’s… a weird part?”

“There’s always a weird part,” you said, eyes sparkling. “It’s the whole point of writing anything. Gotta add the bite.”

He didn’t know what you meant, but his pulse ticked up anyway.

You worked surprisingly well together.

You were smart. Not just academically, but weird smart. You pulled random quotes from obscure films, recalled footnotes Haruki had skimmed past, and made connections he hadn’t even considered. And the worst part was—your instincts were always right.

You were completely unserious about your own reputation, but deadly serious about the work. Which meant that Haruki—perfectionist, ruthless, prideful Haruki—couldn’t even hate you for beating him.

All he could do was sit across from you while you explained why you thought the author used soil erosion as a metaphor for emotional decay and pretend his leg wasn’t bouncing under the table.

When the session ended, you leaned over his side of the desk to grab your drink—and stayed there.

You were too close.

Too casual.

Your hair was a little messy. Your breath smelled like melon soda and mints. And when you pulled away, you laughed like you knew exactly what you were doing.

“I’ll text you,” you said, swinging your bag over one shoulder. “Unless you’d prefer I send smoke signals from the roof.”

“I don’t have your number.”

You blinked.

“Oh. Right.”

You held your hand out. Palm up. Waiting.

Haruki hesitated. Then handed over his phone.

You typed something fast, then handed it back.

The name you saved in his contacts wasn’t your name.

It just said: [threat level: weirdly hot]

He didn’t correct it.

∘₊✧

Haruki stepped out onto the rooftop with his blazer slung over his shoulder, tie loosened just enough not to look sloppy. He didn’t really care if people saw the cigarette between his fingers — nobody ever said anything. Not to him. It was the kind of privilege that came with being him.

Top grades. National mock test finalist. MVP of the volleyball team. Editor of the student journal. The golden boy. Your mother’s favorite. Your teacher’s pride. The one who always knew the answer but never rubbed it in.

And here he was, burning through his second cigarette of the afternoon, hoping it would quiet the spinning in his head.

He hated that it didn’t.

The shouting started before he even made it down the last step.

“Why don’t you just eat somewhere else?” someone hissed.

“I’m not in the mood to deal with this freak show today—seriously, you always pick the corner seat like it’s your kingdom or something.”

Haruki’s foot hit the bottom stair.

He knew that voice. Loud. Entitled. A second-year student from the basketball team who walked around like he owned the school just because he had abs and rich parents. The group around him laughed, but it sounded more like barking.

You were sitting alone, lunch in your lap, face unreadable. Picking at your rice like you couldn’t hear them.

You didn’t flinch. Didn’t look up. But your hands had gone still.

Haruki’s voice cut in before he could think about it.

“You talk a lot for someone that far below average,” he said flatly.

Silence.

The air shifted.

The guy whipped around, only to pale when he saw Haruki standing there, jacket off, sleeves rolled, cigarette still burning between his fingers.

Haruki didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to.

“Keep walking,” he added.

The group scattered. No one apologised. No one even made eye contact. They just fled, like hyenas realising the lion hadn’t left after all.

You glanced up at him with a half-smile. “Wow. My hero.”

“You shouldn’t let them get to you.”

“I don’t.” You popped a cherry tomato into your mouth. “I just added them to the list.”

“…What list.”

You didn’t answer. You just chewed and smiled.

∘₊✧

Later that week.

You opened the door in a loose black T-shirt and grey sweatpants, hair wet from a shower and sticking to your forehead in damp, clinging strands. You looked cosy in a way that made Haruki’s lungs feel too tight.

“You made it,” you said, stepping aside to let him in. “Wanna see something cool?”

Haruki followed you in, expecting weird posters, weird books, and maybe an Ouija board or something.

What he didn’t expect was—

The kitchen.

Clean. Lived-in. There was a wooden cutting board already dusted with flour. Soy sauce, mirin, and sesame oil lined up neatly on the counter. A cast iron pot simmering quietly on the stove, steam curling like the first exhale of a ghost.

You tied an apron around your waist and turned slightly. “Sit.”

He did.

The scent was unreal.

Rich and savoury. Ginger and garlic blooming in oil, followed by a splash of sake and the quiet crackle of meat hitting the pan. Chicken thighs, if he wasn’t mistaken—bone-in, skin crisping in real time as you basted it with soy and sugar.

The sauce thickened into a lacquered glaze, caramel-dark and glistening. You flipped the pieces with casual precision, face calm in a way he’d never seen in class. Focused. Almost elegant.

You weren’t speaking. Just humming. A low, tuneless little rhythm under your breath.

He watched the way your fingers moved—quick and practised as you sliced scallions into fine curls, sprinkled furikake over the steaming rice. You moved like you lived in the kitchen, like it wasn’t a performance.

The food was simple, but the kind of simple that only comes from knowing what you're doing. Like you’d made this a hundred times for someone you cared about.

No one had ever cooked for Haruki before.

He didn’t realise how tightly he was gripping the edge of the chair until you set the plate in front of him and the smell hit him like a memory he didn’t have.

He blinked. “This is…”

“Chicken nanban,” you said. “I made the tartar sauce from scratch.”

Haruki picked up his chopsticks, swallowed something thick in his throat, and took a bite.

The chicken cracked at the surface, still hot enough to burn, still sweet from the soy and vinegar glaze. The homemade tartar had bits of pickles and onion, just sharp enough to cut through the richness. The rice underneath had soaked up some of the sauce, sticky and warm.

It was stupidly good.

He kept eating quietly. You sat down beside him with your own plate and started scrolling through your phone, legs tucked up under you.

“Why do you know how to cook like this?” he asked finally.

You shrugged. “I like taking care of things.”

“…People?”

“Depends,” you said, tone lazy. “You wanna be taken care of?”

He looked at you. You didn’t look up.

The silence between you stretched like sugar—warm, sticky, slow.

He put his chopsticks down.

You turned to him.

And smiled.

Haruki wasn’t sure what he expected your room to look like, but it wasn’t this.

Simple, mostly. Clean. A little lived-in. The walls were bare except for a stack of books pushed into a crooked shelf, a futon folded neatly in one corner, and a secondhand desk with a few pens left uncapped. A soft hum filled the silence — maybe a fan from the hall or the fridge ticking quietly through the wall.

You tossed your bag down and sat on the floor like you didn’t feel the shift in the air. Haruki did. His skin felt too tight. The space between your bodies suddenly felt loaded.

“So this is where you hide,” he said, trying to sound casual.

You looked at him. Really looked at him. Then shrugged.

“I like quiet,” you murmured. “It’s hard to find in school.”

Haruki didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything at all.

You watched him for a long beat, then patted the space in front of you.

“C’mere.”

He hesitated. You raised a brow. And then he moved — sat down across from you with crossed legs and a heart that wouldn’t stop thudding.

You didn’t touch him at first. Just stared. Haruki stared back. He wasn’t used to that, either — being looked at like he was something to be read, not admired. It made him feel strange. Exposed.

“Haruki,” you said, voice softer now, almost uncertain. “Do you ever stop thinking?”

His mouth opened — then closed. He didn’t have an answer.

You leaned in, slow like a question. Gave him time to stop it.

He didn’t.

So you kissed him.

Just once, at first — a slow press, the kind that didn’t demand anything. Then again, this time deeper. Haruki inhaled sharply, hands hovering like he wasn’t sure where to put them. You pulled back only slightly.

“You can touch me.”

The words were soft. Not teasing. Just an offer.

Haruki’s fingers found your shoulders, then your jaw, then finally threaded into your hair like it made sense.

You kissed him again.

And again.

Until you shifted, pushed gently at his chest. He leaned back onto his elbows, lips parted, breath shaky. You sank to your knees in front of him, palms brushing the hem of his shirt.

He watched, stunned, as your hands moved with practised ease — unbuttoning, unzipping, until he was bare from the waist down. The air was cool against his erection. Your breath was warm.

“Wait—” he managed, voice a little broken. “Are you… sure?”

You looked up at him with the faintest smile.

“Very.”

And then you lowered your head.

The first touch of your mouth on his cock made his breath stutter. He’d never—no one had ever—

He clutched at the sheets beneath him, back arching slightly. You didn’t rush. Just took him in slow, deep, unhurried. Your hands on his thighs kept him steady, kept him grounded.

Haruki didn’t know where to look. Your lips, your eyelashes, the ceiling — nothing helped. His brain was static.

You hummed against him, the vibration sending a full-body shiver up his spine.

“Fuck,” he gasped, hands fisting the blanket. “That—wait—don’t—”

But he didn’t want you to stop. Not really. And you knew that.

You pulled back just long enough to whisper, “It’s okay. You can let go.”

And when he did, it was quiet.

His jaw went slack. His head tipped back. Your name curled off his tongue like something reverent. He was shaking.

You swallowed, slow and clean, and wiped the corner of your mouth with your thumb.

Then you looked up at him.

Smiled like it was just another Tuesday.

“You taste like stress and bad decisions.”

Haruki lay there, bare and ruined, heartbeat in his throat.

You stood, grabbed your water bottle, and stretched like a cat.

“Wanna stay for dinner?”

© carnalcrows on tumblr. Please do not steal my works as I spend time, and I take genuine effort to do them.

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