#Might be from waking up early to go to a doctor

[thetraumaking]

The Accursed Crown

Other Chapters

Chapter 12

Though Azula didn’t notice it at the spur of the moment, she did sustain a burn of her own during her little welcome. The sudden increase of heat and her blue flames has caused a burn on the palm of her hand. She paid it no mind because she was preoccupied. 

She was happy. 

For once, she got to take care of you. When you were passed out, she dragged you back to your room. Though being only a child, she had to order a guard to assist her and call forth the palace doctor. 

They laid you on your bed before the doctor cut around the burnt skin. Not wanting your wound to be infected, he had to rip the infused fabric from your skin to be able to further treat it. While he was making small cuts on your chest, Azula stood by your side, observing the doctor as he worked in case he had any funny ideas. 

She wanted to be the one to treat you but she knew when to let the professionals take the lead. After receiving the ointment from him, she shooed him and the guard away so she could look after you. 

She ordered a maid to fetch her a bucket of cold water and a clean towel. She was adamant on staying by your side till you’ve regained consciousness. 

When night came, there was a knock at the door. Seeing that the both of you had missed dinner, she expected to see one of the servants asking for your whereabouts due to her grandfather’s orders. But when she opened the door to tell the servant off, she was met with the face of her mother. 

Ursa was surprised to see her in your room. Putting on a smile, “Good evening, dear. Is 6 not joining us for dinner?” She asked.

Before she could reply, Ursa pushed past her. Asking what happened to you and why she hasn’t reported the issue to her. Swallowing dryly, she crossed her arms, “We were sparring. You wouldn’t understand, you’re not a bender.”

“A typical sparring session wouldn’t leave someone unconscious and bedridden.” Ursa takes her place by standing by your bedside. A look of worry in her eyes as she looks down on you. 

“6 needs rest. You should go.” Azula states, her hands now balled by her sides. 

“How about you go eat dinner? I’ll stay behind and look after 6.” Ursa offers. “You just came back from the academy and I doubt you had any supper on that ship. Why don’t you rest up for today and you can care for 6 when you wake up?”

“No, I’m caring for 6. I need to clean and bandage-” 

“I can do that but you might find it difficult. You are a child, my dear, so go eat with your family.” Ursa ushered. 

Before she could retort, there was yet another knock at the door. Her and Ursa were at a stalemate. Neither moved or spoke as they held each other's gazes as a voice spoke from behind the door. “Princess Azula, the Fire Lord and his highness, Prince Ozai, requests your presence in the dining hall. They wish to discuss your first year at the Royal Academy.” 

Her fists clenched harder, she could feel her nail embedding deeper into her palm. The pain doubled when she pressed too hard, her nails dug through the burnt flesh of her damaged palm. Her anger flared even more so when she saw the corner of her mother’s lip twitch. 

“You see? Your father and grandfather missed you.” Ursa cooed. She walked near Azula and nudged her towards the door. “Go enjoy your evening, dear.”

She knows she can’t disobey her grandfather, the Fire Lord. Clicking her tongue, she slapped her mother’s hand away before stomping to the exit. 

When she slammed the door open, a startled noise leaves from the back of the servant’s throat. She glared up at the insolent man before glancing back at you. 

Her eyes were on you as the door drew shut. 

But just before it was fully shut, a single drop of her blood fell when she saw Ursa caressing your cheek. 

Maybe it’s not too late to care for you. 

The next day, when she woke up early just for you. You were already gone and in your stead, laid Ursa. There were bloodied bandages on the nightstand, the bucket of water she had previously ordered now murky with blood and grime. Ursa’s daily wear was carelessly dropped on the floor, while the owner herself was in her night robe, peacefully sleeping in your bed, under your sheets. 

Now the question remains, where were you?

Purposely slamming the door as hard as possible, Azule went on a search for you. 

There aren’t many places where you would, or could, wander off to. 

First, there is the study, where you either taught her the basics of war tactic and soldier manoeuvre, or where you would sight off on documents and plan battle procedures. When she went there, all she could see were scattered papers and multiple arrays of scrolls only you knew what was where. 

Second was the kitchen, though she didn’t bother going there since you usually prefer not to eat breakfasts, unless you were specifically ordered to or wanted to cook for her. 

Third was the war room. Where negotiations and battle tactics were supposed to be discussed, but as of late, the council members have gone lazy and hadn’t thought of anything original. The meeting room is now where they make you brief on your plans and vote on the one they like the most. 

Damn old geezers. 

She noticed the deep eyebags that you now lugged around. How many sleepless nights have you spent doing their job? Going up and beyond expectations? She had brought the issue up at last night’s dinner to her grandfather. It’s only a matter of time for him to make a decree of either replacing the old farts or giving you a much deserved promotion for your hard work. 

When she made it past her pillar, she quickly turned around. You were not there. The doors were open and they only closed when someone was inside. 

Fourth, the place she had the highest hope for, was the private training ground of yours. A place full of memories, both bitter and sweet, though there are more fond ones where she would get one on one training from you. 

Her steps came to a halt when she saw you panting in the middle of the ground. You were not dressed in the proper attire to train nor to walk around in broad daylight.

Similar to her bandaged hand, your chest was tightly wrapped in gauze. Your eyes were red and the exposed skin you had were covered in welts from either rubbing or scratching. 

Sighing, she marched forward. 

She knew this would happen. This is the usual outcome from when you are left alone with her mother. 

The surrounding sand had now turned to glass as she drew near your panting form. The bandages must have made it hard for you to do your breathing technique. 

“What did mother do?” She curiously asked. 

“… nothing. Her highness simply cleaned and cared for my wound… nothing else.”

“liar.”

Your lips made a thin line. You straightened your back before standing up straight. 

As she held eye contact, she noticed you building your guard back up. With her bandaged hand, she placed it over your chest, right above the centre of your wound where you were hit. 

“I will not apologise nor am I ashamed.” She stated coolly.

You place your hand over hers, pressing them onto your burn, making the wounds sting. “And I will not ask for it.”

When she drew her hand back, there was her bloodied smudge left on your white bandage. 

“Good.”

Because without you, she wouldn’t be the way that she is now. 

#atla azula #azula x reader #fire lord azula #avatar the last airbender #fanfic #fire lord ozai #atla #prince zuko #princess ursa

[dynamic-dingo]

Prince

He was a request from Discord, I started him last week, but official translations of 242 came out and I had to color Ness.

I was going between pink and blue for the aura, but went with blue because I love it. However, his eye aura is hard to see, and was hard to see for pink too. Also, I gave him pink eyes because it seemed nice.

#Dyna colors Manga #Dingo colors Manga #Blue Lock #Prince #Chris Prince #Blue Lock Prince #Manga Coloring #The shading got simpler as I went because I'm tired #Might be from waking up early to go to a doctor #Might be the medicine I took #Might be both I dunno #I'd let this man throw me across a room out a window into a river and watch me float to sea

[shares-a-vest]

Wayne shuffles to the door, desperate to answer the incessant knocking that sounds like whoever is on the other side is going to beat the exterior fly screen straight off its hinges. He is greeted by Claudia Henderson, clutching her handbag strap tight across her chest and looking very serious.

Although it might just be his sleep-deprived inability to gauge the emotions of chipper 9-to-5 receptionists who wear cosy sweaters. He checks his watch. He’s only been asleep for about an hour after getting home from night shift - what with waiting for Hurricane Eddie to finally head off for the garage.

“Hello, Wayne,” Claudia nods and purses her lips.

He scrubs a hand over his face but steps back nonetheless to let her in. Claudia is one step in the doorway anyhow.

“Coffee,” he not-so-much asks as he moves to the kitchen.

“No, thank you,” Claudia says politely, “I usually wait for my morning tea break.”

He looks over to find her pulling out his assigned chair at the breakfast table. She looks nervous, if a little pissed off as she gathers her handbag up on her lap. He blinks harshly and pinches his nose enough to press his forefinger and thumb into the inner corners of his eyes. He really needs to wake the hell up a little more, it appears.

“What did Eddie do?” he sighs, looking over the drying rack on the sink for one of the mugs he has in his rotation at the present time.

“Oh, Eddie hasn’t done a thing!” she insists, a smile evident in her voice, “I’m here about Steve.”

Cubs mug it is then...

He frowns again and turns back to Claudia, confused. And the woman looks like she was expecting such a reaction because she huffs and straightens up, looking like she is readying herself to give a sermon on the kid.

“I need you to help me convince that boy to move in with Dustin and me,” she explains, promptly holding up a defensive hand, “Now, I know he stays here, mostly This isn’t about anything to do with you… Or Eddie…”

She tacks that last mention of his nephew on with a tone and a knowing look.

Wayne clears his throat. It’s certainly far too early in the morning for the ins and outs of that conversation. He flicks the kettle on to drown out the awkward silence between them.

“Have you uh...” he hums and scratches the back of his neck as he searches for words, “Have you talked with him about this, at all?”

Claudia squeaks out a noise he assumes is a negative as he quickly spoons coffee into his mug. He’ll settle for black coffee for now - he really cannot be assed to stand up for much longer, even if he did have the sense to quickly step into his comfy slippers when Claudia came a-pounding on the door.

“And you want my help specifically?” he says, raising his voice above the steaming kettle that is whistling away in boiling readiness.

“Yes!”

He waves a hand in the air, “Well, what about Robin?”

“Oh, gosh, no! I can’t talk to that girl,” he barks a laugh that makes Claudia startle in her seat, forcing her to clarify, “I mean she is a steel trap about that boy!”

Wayne smirks and nods as he heads for the table with his piping hot - and hopefully, heavily caffeinated - beverage, “He’s not the biggest talker when it comes to himself.”

“I’m not one to speak ill of other mothers,” Claudia says in a hushed tone, “God knows, I am not perfect. But where are his parents?”

She rocks a little with each word like she has needed to ask that question for a good long while. Of course, Wayne thinks about Steve’s parents. A lot. Because the boy almost never mentions them.

He shrugs, “He says they stayed away on business.”

“After everything that has happened in this town?” she argues, voice growing shrill with worry, “Did he tell you what actually happened with the mall fire? It was more of that other dimension nonsense!”

He almost chokes on his coffee. He knows a little - there was no way around it with Eddie in the hospital surrounded by all those secret nurses and doctors. But he didn’t know Claudia Henderson knew about some of it too. Still, he decides to remain cautious and gestures for her to continue.

“And he’s been concussed more times than he can remember!”

She slumps back in her seat with a look of such horror, Wayne thinks the sweet woman sitting opposite him considers it her closing argument.

Wayne taps on the rim of his coffee cup. They would have to tread carefully, not ambush the kid.

“He does get a lot of migraines - ” is all he can think to say.

“ - And he has dizzy spells,” Claudia cuts in, leaning forward. He can see tears starting to well up, “I just want him to be looked after. I know he’s a young man with his own life and everything, but he still needs a parent to care for him, to support him.”

“Yeah,” Wayne nods firmly, “Yes, he does.”

#wayne and claudia to the rescue #i feel like i'm writing a vaguely connected henderson-munson plus steve found family thing #but it's all separated into ficlets??? #idk if i should put it all together??? #wayne munson #claudia henderson #steve harrington #steve harrington ficlet #stranger things #steddie #steddie ficlet #lilys ficlets #claudia henderson 🐈

[thebubblemaster]

.

#i need to like vent somewhere and this is as good a place as any bc tumblr hides long tags so pple can just scross past but #having chronic fatigue is so frustrating because im either asleep or exhausted and basic tasks feel impossible #during a fatigue spell i just cant function and i lose track of the time and the day and the world feels like it just moves around me #i have to save the little energy i have for feeding myself and maintaining my hygiene so sometimes i just lay in bed half asleep #i can either scroll through my phone or watch a video or something else that requires little movement or thought #bc if im not i might cry from how frustrated i am and how heavy my body feels and how sluggish my brain is and how slow my words are #and i just #comparing the really bad days to the really good ones brings a lot of melancholy bc the difference is so stark #on my best days i wake up early and clean my room and work out and get my hw done and go to every class and walk on campus #ill keep up with my laundry and dishes and ill go out with my roommates or meet with a friend or make it through a work shift #these are all such ordinary things that i take for granted when im well that i wish i could do at least one of when im unwell #i used to think it was laziness or stress or lack of sleep #i used to push myself to the point of feeling faint and get mad at myself for not being able to handle everyday life #i used to have breakdowns over my inability to function and have my parents list off all the things i was doing wrong that made me tired #i asked my mom if maybe i should go to the doctor and get some tests and she would tell me that theres no magical cure #that if my tests came back with nothing wrong then what would i do #even now knowing im developing a thyroid issue i find myself angry that there are days i cant do anything because of my fatigue #i would give anything to be functional even 80% of the time #ive never known what its like to not be slightly tired and unfocused and uncomfortable #its depressing

[soobnny]

one in the morning — kim seungmin. roommate au. fluff. a little slice of life.

roommate seungmin takes care of you when you catch a cold (1.0k words)

“(Name). Wake up.”

It’s quiet in your shared apartment, save for Seungmin’s harsh whispers jolting you from your trance of sleep.

There’s a trace of grogginess in his voice, like he’d forced himself awake, you’re not quite sure. It’s a little difficult to focus on anything when every surface of your skin feels like it’s burning.

“(Name).” He tries again, cold hand tapping against your arm. He’s gentle with his actions. He knows it wouldn’t take much to jolt you awake in your state.

“Seungmin?” You croak, voice congested as a result of your fever.

When you open your eyes, your roommate makes it look like he hadn’t been hovering over you and trying to shake you awake for the past few minutes. He just stands back, glass of water and your prescribed medicine in hand.

He looks exhausted, messy hair indicative of just having woken up and you don’t miss the yawn that leaves his lips when he turns away from you for a second.

The big white shirt he’s wearing is a little lopsided that it exposes a bit of his collarbones.

“The doctor said you need to take this every 8 hours, right?”

It’s a rhetorical question. You know he knows. He’d practically dragged you to get yourself checked after you’d failed to hide your fever from him.

“Yeah.” You move to sit up, the sound of rustling sheets lingering in the silence. A quick glance at the clock on your bedside table will tell you it’s close to one in the morning. It’s too early to have shaken your roommate away from his sleep. You feel sorry.

Seungmin hands you the medicine and glass of water in his hands. “Here, drink this.”

You take the medicine from his hand, placing it on your tongue and chugging it down with water almost immediately, like you’ve been told. You would hate for the metallic taste of the drug to linger on your tongue lest you want to start vomiting.

Your roommate only takes the glass back after you've drank every last drop, feverishly placing it on your bedside table so he doesn’t make a mistake of dropping it.

“Just gonna check your temperature now, okay? Then you can go back to sleep.” His hand falls over your forehead, an evident frown tugging at his lips before shoving his hand down the pocket of his sweatpants to grab the thermometer he’d brought with him.

“Okay.” You yawn, rubbing your eyes.

“It might feel a little uncomfortable.” He uncaps the cover off of the thermometer before gently tapping at your chin, as if telling you to open your mouth so he can slip the thermometer tip under your tongue.

When he slips it in, the first thing you discern is how cold the metal feels in your mouth. The next is how warm his hand feels gently moving strands of your hair away from your face before falling limp by his side.

The device is uncomfortable, but you don’t want to bother Seungmin any more than you already have.

“You can close your mouth now, then we’ll just wait for it to beep.”

Seungmin does nothing for the 30 seconds it takes the thermometer to check your temperature, simply sits on the edge of your bed patiently. The way he attempts to keep his eyes open is almost endearing.

He must’ve had a long day today.

The thought makes your face twitch. Your roommate isn’t usually like this, always passive in the things you do, but there’s something about the way he’s taking care of you right now that suddenly makes you aware of how considerate he is about things you usually overlook.

Thinking about it makes your face hot, so you stop. You wouldn’t want to fool the small device in your mouth.

When the thermometer beeps, Seungmin takes it from your mouth gently, staring down at the little screen before sighing a little in relief. “A little better than your temperature this morning. How do you feel, though?”

“I can’t really tell.” You feel ridiculous for it. The least you can offer him is a little reassurance that his efforts at waking you up to take your medicine are slowly adding up to your betterment, but you genuinely cannot tell if you feel better or not.

“That’s alright. We’ll check again in the morning. You can go back to sleep now.”

Your mind is slow to process your roommate tucking you back in. It doesn’t see him taking the empty glass on your table and shuffling to leave the room. It can only hear the quiet patter of his feet and the heavy inhale and exhale of exhaustion from the boy.

You’re halfway back to surrendering yourself to sleep when you call his name. “Seungmin?”

He’s just about outside your door when he turns back and lets his eyes gaze over to you. There’s something about the way he’s looking at you that you can’t quite put a word to. It’s different to how he looks when it’s morning and you’re more aware.

“I’m really sorry for bothering you.” You think the guilt will swallow you whole if you keep letting it brew in your sternum, so you tell him. The words sound congested when they leave your mouth, but you hope he understood every single word.

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

You could never be a bother sits on his tongue.

“Go back to sleep. I don’t have plans tomorrow so I’ll be here to take care of you.” He runs a hand through his hair, looking at you one final time before shutting the door closed behind him. He doesn’t give you a chance to protest.

A little digging will tell you he does have plans for tomorrow, and if you asked Jeongin he’d probably rat out his best friend and tell you how he’d asked to raincheck so he could stay and take care of you.

(“Jeongin, I can’t come tomorrow. Can we move it to Sunday?”

“Why?” He whines.

“...(Name) is sick.”

“Oh my god, you are hopeless. Dude, just tell her how you feel, it’s not that hard.”

“Goodbye.”

“Wait, tell her get well so—”)

Maybe if you were more awake, you would’ve noticed the little ways in which he cares for you. Maybe if your mind was a little sharper in processing things, you would’ve heard him saying he’d do anything for you, even if it was to sacrifice the sleep he values. Instead, you close your tired eyes and fall back to unconsciousness.

In the morning, you’ll be greeted by a hot bowl of soup and the company of a roommate who bears more feelings for you than you originally thought.

#seungmin x reader #stray kids x reader #stray kids imagines #stray kids fluff #seungmin fanfic #seungmin x you #seungmin x y/n #kim seungmin x reader #seungmin fluff #skz x reader #skz fluff #stray kids drabbles #skz drabbles #stray kids blurbs #skz blurbs #seungmin drabbles #seungmin blurbs #roommate au #fluff #kim seungmin blurbs #stray kids fic #stray kids oneshot #stray kids x you

[leah-lover]

Get better. Alessia Russo × pregnant reader.

Alessia introduces her pregnant girlfriend to the team after the conti cup win.

Words: 1k

You woke up to the sound of rain, and the smell of coffee, but this wasn't your favorite way to wake up because Alessia wasn't there with you. You lazily opened your eyes to a tray with your breakfast on it with a note next to it that said “ good morning beautiful. I love you.”

Since Alessia started dating it was obvious that she was a hopeless romantic. She wanted to protect you, care for you and love you to the best of her ability.as a result, you kept your relationship private since she was getting a lot of hate after leaving man united for you. Your job had nothing to do with football. One day you and Alessia met at a bar while she was celebrating her birthday. The sparks went on immediately and you never left each other after that.

You were originally living in Manchester with her but your work had required you to go live in London , the north to be exact. Upon hearing the news, Alessia decided it was also time to leave her club.

Now you wake up in your shared home in London, have breakfast in bed, then get up to get ready. Alessia had early Training that day and you didn't have work you only had a doctor's appointment.

After getting ready you went to your appointment where the doctor confirmed to you that your baby was in very good health. You ask him for a moment alone with the baby monitor and you call your girlfriend.

“ Hello baby I miss you. Well, we miss you.” You started the conversation by pointing the camera towards the baby monitor. “ Ohh hi baby, oh my God I wish I was their baby. Is everything ok?.” She said with the biggest smile on her face.

“ Yeah it's all okay. I am going to read on the road after this. We want to be with you when you win the cup.” I responded by sipping the gell of my belly.

“ Amor please be careful, besides I am sick I might not even play.” She said,

“ Yeah I know this sickness stopped you from sleeping next to me for a while now. I really miss you and the baby misses your cuddles with me.” I cooked.

“ You wouldn't have to wait much longer. I am getting better. Amor I gotta go I love you tho.” She added blowing a kiss at the camera.

“We love you too.” I said blowing a kiss back.

I got to the stadium at the right time before kick off. Alessia got me the closest seats to the pitch and to the Arsenal fans. The atmosphere was electric when the teams got in. The chants, the tension, and the even score all managed to overwhelm me so I found myself holding on to my bump more than usual. I was sat next to a few Arsenal supporters who managed to all cheer me up again.

Suddenly an uproar filled the stadium, we had won the cup due to Stina’s goal. My happiness overwhelmed me. I was happy for the team and proud of Alessia who played really well despite her illness. I was celebrating with the fans around me when i spotted alessia heading my way not joining her team’s celebration.

“ baby i am fucking proud of you i love you soo soo much.” I yelled as soon as I saw her and hugged her.

“ Hey, mind your language in front of my baby.” she said joinkinly which earned her a pout from me.

“ you should go celebrate with the girls you earn it star girl, you and me can celebrate when i get home.” I added my hands on her shoulder.

“ I don't want to celebrate with them, I want to celebrate with you plus I am not going to drive all the way to London alone again.” she said with the cutest pouty bossy face. Before I had any chance to respond she added. “ Come with me. It's time to introduce you to the team.”

Shocked, I said “ Lesi I don't do anything you are not comfortable with, you are high on adrenaline baby.”

She didn't mind anything I said, she took my hand and slapped passed security and she led me to the changing room.

The music was loud, everybody was dancing, eating pizza, hugging, and taking pictures. I felt so out of place so I tried to stop Lessi but with no luck. Nobody saw us come in, we went undetected until she shut the music off, which earned her a glare from all the team.

“ i know, I know but I wanted to share with you something very important. '' she apologized for the music. '' This beautiful young woman next to me is my girlfriend. She and I have been dating since I was at United and she is now pregnant with our first child. That's it you can now go back to celebrating.” she said and turned the music back on. All of the team’s jaws were on the floor. Leah shut the music off again and said “ you mean to tell us that you are in a secret relationship and you are going to have a secret child why didn't you tell us dumbass.”

“ What Leah here means to say is that you two are welcome. We love you already and we love you baby too right Leah.” said Kim the captain which Leah nodded to.

The encounter was wholesome, I felt welcomed by the girls who wanted to learn everything about us. That night was filled with stories, jokes and laughter.

After we were done celebrating I got on the bus with them and sat next to alessia.

“ I don't want to go home and cuddle with you so that I can get better.” she said her hands on my bump and her head on my shoulder which earned her a kiss on her head.

“ I love you baby and I am so proud of you. x

#alessia russo #alessia russo × reader #woso #woso fanfics #woso imagine #woso community #woso couples #pregnant reader #leah williamson #awfc x reader #awfc imagine #awfc #kim little

[rslashrats]

my predictions for the mario movie

they’ll have a montage of mario’s failed career paths at the start of the movie and it will include him trying to be a doctor and him and luigi trying to run a hotel

the brothers will order a stereotypical italian dish and either ask for extra mushrooms or no mushrooms. if the latter happens at the end of the movie they will order the dish again and specifically ask for mushrooms to be on it

the brothers will have a secret brother handshake

mario will be like “dont you ever wish you could do more with your life? dont you want to do something bigger” to luigi who will be like “nope not really” and then turn around and go to sleep. they sleep in the same room in different beds and the beds are color coded. one of them will snore really loud too and it will trigger my misophonia and make me violent

they will make a reference to a neglected nintendo franchise where the only three fans of said property will be in the theater with me and start whooping and hollering

either mario or bowser will get star power and look at the power surging from their hands and go “i can get used ta this”

the third act will include some sort of argument where mario leaves and princess peach and co gets captured by bowser so mario has to go back to save everyone

kamek at one point will say something like “sir, you might wanna see this…” to bowser

that tweet where the person had a nightmare that the mario movie included a bad fart joke that ends in bowser shitting on a wall will be in the movie somehow

they will have a fakeout death scene with mario after he makes a heroic sacrifice that ultimately saves the day. the characters will start crying and then a single tear will fall on mario and make him wake up

princess peach will give mario a kiss on the nose and he will turn all red and go “WAHOO” and a 1-up sound effect will play

they have a dance party at the end of the movie with an early 2010’s pop song playing

there will be an after credits scene that alludes to a sequel where wario and waluigi’s hats appear on screen for a single second

[strawberryspence]

Listen, it’s been a hard few days.

From the day Eddie— his new friend— got pulled into this shit show called The Upside Down, to when he literally had to watch Max float into the air as the evil wizard from the other dimension tried to kill her from the inside. To today, in which Eddie’s in the hospital— after Steve miraculously carried him on his back to the hospital— and where Max is also in— broken and in a coma, but alive.

It’s natural to feel confused from fatigue and emotional distress. But this? Dustin doesn’t even know what to do with it.

It’s been a long morning. After a lot of suffocating, but well deserved, smothering from his mother, he then got another suffocating but again, well deserved smothering from Steve when he finally picked him up.

Steve looks tired, dark circles under his eyes, his hair is… a mess. It’s flat and not styled. It looks like he didn’t even go home? Did he stay by Eddie’s side the whole night? For someone who hates someone, that’s a lot of effort. Dustin opens his mouth to ask or investigate, but they arrive at the hospital in a record time. Steve probably ignored every street sign.

What Dustin doesn’t understand is why Eddie’s room is jam packed so early in the morning? In the room, there’s Erica, Lucas, Mike, Robin, Nancy and Wayne, Eddie’s Uncle. And now there’s him and Steve.

“Why are you all in here?!” Dustin asks the room. There’s too many people in the small hospital bedroom.

“The doctors said he’s waking up anytime soon.” Nancy informs him, not taking her eyes off Eddie.

“And you’re all here to just watch him?” Dustin pushes in distress, “You guys, we might overwhelm him when he wakes up. We should do it one at a time.”

“I am not leaving.” Erica voices out at the corner of the room.

“Guys.” Dustin says, his voice wavering with anxiety and worry. He meets Mr. Munson’s eyes, who softens at the expression on his face.

“It’s okay, kid.” Wayne rasps, “Eddie would love to wake up with everyone just watching him. Ya know how dramatic he is.”

This earns a few snickers and chuckles from them. Dustin looks around to see if Steve stayed, only to see him exiting the room with Robin. Robin’s softly rubbing his hand with her hands, like she’s comforting him. There’s a look on Steve’s face. It’s— concern? worry? But they’re already gone before Dustin can study it further.

After all of this, Dustin will put it on top priority to get those two together. Why they won’t just date, he never understood.

Eddie groans and silence overtakes the whole room. Dustin stares at him, quietly praying for his friend to finally wake up, for him to be okay. He just wants Eddie to be okay, he never intended for him to get dragged into this.

Eddie moans as he slowly moves, his eyes fluttering open and squinting at the bright light. Dustin can hear everybody holding their breath.

Eddie turns to Wayne. Stares at his Uncle for a second before he smiles. Suddenly, Dustin can finally breathe again. He watches as Eddie looks at every person in the room. Smiling and waving a small wave to everyone.

But his smile drops. Oh no.

“What’s wrong?” Dustin asks, as he moves closer to Eddie. The fear is already cruising through his veins.

Eddie turns to Nancy in alarm, “Steve?”

Nancy blinks back, confused, “What?”

He ignores the question. Turning to Wayne instead, “Wayne?”

Wayne nods, leaving a kiss on his head, “Calm down, boy. Give me a second.”

Wayne stands up and jogs out of the room.

“What’s wrong, Eddie?” Nancy asks, as Mike comes closer too. Dustin doesn’t know how to help but Eddie’s hand is shaking.

“We should call a doctor.” Lucas announces.

“No!” Eddie immediately answers, “No! I just want—“

The door springs open. It thuds against the wall with force. Steve moves closer to the bed, breathless as Robin and Wayne follow him in the room.

All the tension— They just— They just vanish from Eddie. He visibly melts into relief. His shoulders sagging in content, and he has this smile on his face. It’s… It’s a smile Dustin has never seen on his face. It’s small, but bright and full of adoration.

Eddie whispers something. Which Dustin thinks he hallucinates, or maybe he heard it wrong. But he turns to the others, and from the look on their faces he might’ve actually heard it right.

Eddie lifts his hand, beckoning Steve closer, and then he says it again, clearly and louder.

“Sweetheart.”

Steve blinks and in a surprising turn of events, he— he starts crying. Steve Harrington starts crying. Dustin didn't even see him cry after he was tortured by the Russians.

“You fucking idiot!” Steve glares at Eddie, “I told you not to be a hero! I told you not to be cute! I asked you for one thing! And you did it anyway! What if I didn’t get back in time? What if I wasn’t able to bring you to the hospital? You could’ve died! You almost died!”

Dustin gasps in anger. How could he do this? Eddie saved him! “Steve! Shut up!”

“No!” Steve turns to him. There’s tears streaming down his face. “This is between me and him.”

“Sweetheart.” Eddie calls out again, and his hand is still in the air waiting for— whatever he’s waiting for.

“I’m so sorry about him, Mr. Munson.” Dustin turns to Wayne, who shrugs at him. He looks entertained. Which is weird.

Steve sniffles, shaking his head, “No. Don’t sweetheart me, Edward fucking Munson.”

Eddie groans, “I did what I had to do.”

They stare at each other for a few more minutes as the room fills with uncomfortable silence.

“I am sorry.” Eddie finally whispers and Dustin wants to interrupt. He doesn’t have to apologize about anything. He did what he had to do.

Steve sniffles, “Good.”

Eddie does something he has never done in the entire time Dustin knows him.

Eddie (Edward apparently) Munson pouts.

“Now?” Eddie lifts up his hand again.

“Okay.” Steve whispers before…

Before intertwining their hands together. Steve sits on Eddie’s bedside, sweeping Eddie’s hair off his face. They’re acting like they’re the only people in this room. Maybe they think they are.

“I am glad you're okay, sweetheart.” Eddie says, a smile dancing on his face.

“Me? Of course, I am okay.” Steve replies. There’s a softness to his voice that Dustin’s never heard before. “Do you want me to call you a doctor, baby? Are you okay?”

“No, I just wanted to see if you’re okay. Just needed to know.” Eddie stares up at him, it comes out loopy but there’s a real spark of joy in his eyes.

Woah, alright. Steve moves closer and kisses Eddie— On the lips. Oh my god? Is Dustin dreaming? Is Vecna still alive and showing this to him?

“What the hell is happening?!” Mike demands, breaking the glass of peace they have, and making Steve pull away from Eddie immediately.

“Oh.” Steve breathes out. Like he’s just realizing that they were there. Dustin frowns as he sees Steve’s face contour from fear to sadness. Fear for what?

“Uh.” Steve stammers, looking back at Eddie who looks like he’s about to bite Mike on the arm.

“Steve and I are dating. Since the starcourt mall burned down.” Eddie finally explains, and Wayne immediately moves closer to them like— like he’s trying to protect Steve and Eddie. From what? From them? Instinctively, Robin moves to follow Wayne.

“Oh.” Someone says, maybe it was Nancy or maybe Mike.

Dustin blinks. He tries his best to absorb the news, but he can’t think straight with that devastated look on Steve’s face or that defensive look on Eddie’s. What’s wrong with them dating? Well, Dustin takes offense over the fact that Steve didn’t tell him but there’s nothing really wrong. Two boys—

Oh. Oh.

“Alright.” Dustin finally says, making everyone turn to him. He tries to make it sound as casual as possible, “Listen, congratulations. But I am angry that you both hid this from me.”

Lucas is nodding his head beside Dustin, “Dude. Really? Our dungeon master? Come on now, Steve. You could do better.” He teases, making Steve finally cough a tiny laugh.

Mike scoffs, “If there’s anyone that could do better, it would be Eddie. Really, Eddie? Steve? I can’t believe you fell for the Harrington Charm.”

Eddie sputters a response, but he’s too busy blushing to say anything.

“Instead of ice cream, I want insider information for the next campaign.” The room erupts into noises as Mike argues that Erica can’t do that, Eddie relaxes and says no one can have insider information. In the corner, Dustin sees Nancy hug Steve and say something into his ear.

Dustin lets his eyes wander and he meets Eddie’s eyes. Eddie smiles at him, nodding. It’s his way of thanking him.

They’ll talk later, and Eddie will get his own lecture from Dustin. Maybe a shovel talk for each of them. Not that they really need it, Steve looks at Eddie like he’s the creator of the universe and Eddie looks at Steve like he holds all the answers of the world. Perfect.

But he lets it be for now. Again, it’s been a hard few days. There’s nothing wrong with letting himself bask in this sliver of happiness and safety.

#dustin: i am tired and i didnt get enough sleep and ur telling me yall are dating????????? #steve and eddie: yes #dustin: *sighs* alright *hugs the two of them* #because its that simple #and because dustin loves his bros #who cares if theyre gay #love wins yall #steddie #steddie rants #dae writes #daeheadcanons #steve harrington x eddie munson #steddie ficlet #dustin henderson #steddie headcanon #steddie hc

[asahicore]

we’ll always have this summer - psh (m)

this work contains smut - minors please do not interact pairing. sunghoon x fem!reader synopsis. Your mom ruins your summer plans by sending you to the equestrian center your grandmother owns in the south of France, wanting you to spend some time away from the city and take a break from your med studies. Although you’d been determined to spend the worst time ever there, you soon find out that maybe the cold but cute horse nerd next door who doesn’t want to talk to you might actually turn this summer into the best one of your life. genre. summer au, strangers to mutual dislike to friends to lovers ig, city girl x country boy type beat, mainly fluff and smut but also angst cause i love pain word count. 25.9k a/n. hi sisters i'm super excited to repost this, it was really fun rereading and editing it, and i hope that all of you who had enjoyed reading it last summer will still like it this time around and that those of you who hadn't read it will enjoy it now <3 i had also posted an sfw version, so if anyone would like that too, pls lmk! ok thats it let me know what u think love you bye

Sunghoon was going to have a very normal, uneventful summer. He would take a very much needed break from his studies and take care of the equestrian center he lives in, letting his parents take a breather and enjoy their summer. He’d wake up early and do everything he needed to, then spend the afternoon on horseback or sleeping in a random field. It’d be a routine his body is used to and likes, and he’d be able to let his worries go for a while. But then, you came along.

You, who’d had big plans for the summer. You, who should’ve been going on a two-week vacation with your friends to Mallorca as a treat for having aced your second-year medical school final exams and as a celebration for getting an internship in the hospital of your choice. You, who would’ve done nothing for those two weeks but sunbathe, read trashy romance novels, and get margarita-drunk at 2pm, and would’ve spent the rest of the summer hanging out with your friends in Paris, your home, and taking day trips to random French cities. This summer would be your last fun, carefree summer before you were thrown into real semi-adult life, and you were going to make the best of it. That’s what you had planned; to your utmost despair, your mom seemed to have other ideas in mind.

“We’ve gone over this a thousand times now, sweetie. You’re going. It’ll be good for you.”

“You know what will be good for me?” you say, close on her tail as you descend the stairs. “Relaxing and having fun with my friends for two weeks. Not cleaning horse manure and having to walk ten kilometers to get service.”

“It’ll be one or two kilometers at most, dear, not ten.” 

“Ugh!” you groan ostentatiously. Your mother only shoots you a don’t-be-so-dramatic look. You glare back at her.

“It’ll be good for you,” she repeats, turning back to whatever was occupying her in the kitchen before you started arguing with her as you plop down on one of the stools at the center island. “You’ve seen neither your grandmother nor the countryside in ages, so it’ll be a nice change. What’s more, they say the best doctors are the ones who’ve done different jobs, you know.”

“Who’s ever said that…” you mutter under your breath, a clear look of distaste on your face. “But anyway, I see Mamie every Christmas at Auntie’s in Perpignan, and even if I didn’t, whose fault is it I never go to the countryside? You never bring me there.”

Your mother lifts her head and looks at you. “I’m too busy to make the journey all the way there. You’ve seen it, there’s two trains and two buses, I can’t do all that. Which is why we settle for Marseille. Direct train, easy. You, on the other hand,” she says, pointing to you with her wooden spoon, “will have plenty of time this summer.”

“Yeah, time I could’ve spent on a beach in Spain or with my friends here!” You know you’re being annoying, but you can’t help it. You really want to go to Mallorca.

She sighs. “I just need you to trust me on this one, honey. You’ll have tons of other summers to do all that. Your grandmother is getting old, so I want you to have at least some memories with her before… you know. I know it’s our fault you didn’t see her more often, so this is our way of making up for it!”

Your father walks in the kitchen, materializing out of nowhere as he often does. “Your mother’s right, you know.” They both peer down at you, and you know then you really don’t get a say in this. “I had an amazing bond with my grandfather, and I want for you to have something similar with your grandmother. She’s the only grandparent you’ve got left, and I promise you, you don’t want to let that go to waste.” You still don’t look fully convinced, so he adds, “Plus, you already get along well, right? You always talk lots when you see each other at Christmas.”

Your father does have a point. You know the problem isn’t being with your grandmother, anyway. Truth be told, you were quite looking forward to spending more time with her. She had a great sense of fashion, and you were sure she had many stories to tell you. It was the fact that you had to spend your summer in a godforsaken town of Southern France where the nearest town was seven kilometers away and the nearest city almost a forty-minute drive. Where you lived in Paris, you had everything you needed in a five-minute walk radius, and you just needed to hop on the Metro or the train to go anywhere else. And it was an equestrian center, of all places. You didn’t even like horses.

“Also,” your mother starts, dragging out the vowel, “the family that lives in the house next door has a boy your age. I heard he’s cute.” She wiggles her eyebrows and you groan at her, which just makes your parents laugh more. You don’t want to stereotype, but you highly doubt a boy who lives in an equestrian center in the middle of God-knows-where is anywhere as handsome as the boys you see everywhere in the capital city. Hot people live in cities; to you, that’s always been a fact.

And as if a stupid boy could make this any better anyway.

-

Your mother wasn’t lying when she said the journey was long. You took the Metro from your apartment to the train station, then a rapid train to Perpignan, a regional train to Argelès, and a bus to the town of Laroque-des-Albères. And that wasn’t even it - there could’ve been a second bus, but your grandmother had arranged for the neighbors’ son to come and pick you up and drive you to the small commune named La Pierrerie where the equestrian center was. 

To your dismay, there was another thing your mother had been right about; the neighbors’ son being cute. When you get off the bus, you look around the almost empty parking spot with no idea of who you’re supposed to look for. But he must see your lost expression and all your luggage and assume you’re the one he had come to pick up, so he calls out your name. Your head snaps towards the direction of the voice, and the moment your eyes settle on him, you have to hold yourself from gaping at him like a dead fish. For someone who supposedly spends his weekends and vacations outside, taking care of horses, cleaning stalls and doing handiwork, his features are… delicate. The perfect blend of sharp and soft - a round face contrasted by a knifelike jaw, plump lips, his eyebrows forming a straight line over his almond-shaped eyes. But you find roughness on his face is in the crease of his eyebrows as he peers down at you. You haven’t done anything yet, but he already clearly disapproves of you.

There’s a scowl on his face - he may be pretty, but he’s definitely not welcoming. You walk towards him, dragging your luggage behind you, and he doesn’t move to help you until you reach the car, and finally he opens the trunk and hauls one of your suitcase in. 

“Thank you,” you breathe, looking up at him, “um?”

A beat passes as your eyes lock, and he looks so bored you think he might not even bother to give you his name, but thank God he does. “Sunghoon.”

You decide not to let his rudeness get to you and put on a bright smile, but by the time you’re done saying “nice to meet you,” he’s already gotten in the driver’s seat. He starts the car without another word, and your efforts at any sort of conversation are so fruitless that you give up after two minutes of asking questions that are only met with two-word sentences. You can only hope that his family isn’t as unfriendly as he is, otherwise you’d be in for one hell of a summer.

When you arrive in La Pierrerie, it’s almost nine p.m., and you’re exhausted from your long journey and from carrying around such heavy suitcases. Still in complete silence, Sunghoon takes two of your bags and heads towards what you can only assume is your grandmother’s house. You go to follow him, but you soon notice your grandmother and another woman, who you guess is Sunghoon’s mother, sitting at a table, sipping on some lemonade. As soon as they see you arrive, they rush towards you (well, the woman does - your grandmother walks as fast as she can), helping you with the rest of your baggage. They kiss you on both cheeks as a greeting, starting from the right but you’re used to starting from the left, which almost makes your lips bump into each other. Thankfully, they laugh it off, and you make sure to remember the local custom to avoid future potentially awkward encounters.

The woman introduces herself as Mrs Park and tells you she lived next-door to your grandmother, just like you’d guessed. She says that she’s happy to meet you and hopes that you had a nice trip and that you weren’t too tired for the meal she and your grandmother had prepared for tonight. You like her instantly - her kind eyes and warm smile make you feel at home right away. 

Your grandmother hugs you too, and you had to admit it felt nice seeing her after such a long time. Such a sweet welcome revives you a bit, and a nagging voice in your head tells you, see, this isn’t that bad, this summer might be good after all, but you quickly shut it down. Your stubborn nature wants you to hate this for at least a little bit, especially after the excruciating car ride you just had to sit through. You won’t show it to your hosts, obviously, because you want to be respectful, but you can at least scowl and curse your parents when nobody’s looking.

There’s no time for awkward silence and looking back and forth between the two women because as soon as the greetings are over, Mrs Park announces she’ll go heat up the food and get the last things ready while your grandmother shows you around her home, which would be yours for the next two months and a half, and lets you unpack for a bit.

Your grandmother’s house is on two floors. The ground floor is basically one big room, which the front door leads directly into. There’s the kitchen, the dining room and the living room. It’s all very open and bright, and you can tell it must be very warm when the sunlight poured directly through the large windows into the room at the right time of day. It’s simply decorated, with furniture that probably hasn’t been updated in a while but that is well maintained and looks cozy enough. Black-and-whites and photographs of fuzzy quality are hung on the wall of the dining room and you’re eager to take a closer look at them later on.

Upstairs are two bedrooms and the bathroom, as well as a mezzanine that’s a few steps lower than the rest of the floor and that looks over the living room. This is where your grandmother keeps her books and her trophies from her past very successful horse riding career. There are a couple armchairs in the corner and a window to bring more light in, and you’re sure this would make an amazing reading nook for late evenings or stormy afternoons. 

Your room is not much more than a double bed, a chest of drawers, a cupboard to hang your clothes in and a few empty shelves. Your grandmother had told you you were welcome to bring any kind of decoration you wanted to make this room yours for the summer, so you’d taken with you a few posters and framed pictures as well as some babbles you liked looking at. She’d picked out some daisies from her garden and made a bouquet out of them, livening up the vase on your bedside table. 

She sits on your bed as you put your clothes away (which you had brought so many of, you weren’t sure there’d be enough room to put them all in) and tells you how she’d come to live here with the Parks. This is something you like about her - she has many stories to tell, each more fascinating than the other, and she’s always willing to tell them.

Your grandmother had actually grown up not too far from here, on the other side of town. Her parents had signed her up for lessons every Wednesday afternoon for a few years, until her instructor recognised her potential and told her she could ride professionally if she wanted. So, she started having two-hour lessons four times a week. When she started winning local, then regional, then national championships, she moved to Perpignan to be taught by more qualified instructors in a more renowned riding club.

Years forward, she got pregnant and her career as a rider was over. When her kids were old enough, she got a job as an instructor and even managed a few athletes of the club in Perpignan, but she continued to visit her old club in Laroque once in a while, as she always did throughout her career. She’d seen it wear down and lose customers over the years to the point that at the end of the nineties, it was under threat of closing down. Her old teacher had long passed and her son and his wife had taken over. This son, who was a bit older than your grandmother, had worked there his whole life, but it wasn’t what he wanted to do - as the only son, he’d had no choice but to stay and take care of the club. However, he hadn’t wanted it to close that way, and he was still desperate to keep the club alive, especially because his own son truly loved it and wanted to take over and manage it once he was done with high school.

Your grandmother, with more money than she needed from her successful career and the inheritance she got from her husband’s passing, offered to buy the club from the Parks and manage its finances while they took care of the horses and of lessons. Her only condition was that she could move in in the other house on the property that wasn’t inhabited and needed a few renovations. They agreed immediately.

Mr Park graduated from high school in 1998, got married to the now Mrs Park in 2000, and they had their first child, Sunghoon, in 2002 - the same year as you. His parents moved out to the city and got new jobs that they liked a lot more while the club, thanks to your grandmother’s donations and Mr and Mrs Park’s hard work, prospered once again. It did help that an Olympic rider sometimes helped out with lessons and gave out advice for aspiring athletes.

And now, here you are, twenty years later, visiting her for the first time since you were probably six. You don’t have many memories from those few times you’d been here, so it was all new to you. Especially that Sunghoon boy, whom your grandmother was sure you would get along with based on how chummy you were back in 2008. When you were both six. You didn’t have the heart to tell her how he had been with you in the car.

“Sunghoon’s a bit shy, but once you get to know him, he’s a really good kid. Very passionate and hardworking. So is his sister Yeji, but she’s got different ambitions,” your grandmother muses.

“Oh yeah? What does she want to do?” you ask, genuinely interested, as you try to somehow fit another t-shirt into one of the drawers. You’d started out by folding them nicely but you’d soon given up and started stashing them into the corners.

“She wants to become a professional rider. Says she wants to become like me,” she explains with a small chuckle. “Well, she’s definitely got what it takes. I got her a spot in that bigger club in Perpignan I told you about, so she goes there after school twice a week, but she still trains here with me every weekend.”

“You give her lessons?” you ask, some surprise in your voice, which makes your grandmother laugh.

“What, you think I’m too old?” she jokes and you shake your head rapidly, but she doesn’t take any offense to it. “I can’t stand for hours and shout like I used to, but I can sit in the center of the riding hall and watch, then tell her what she needs to work on and what she’s doing well. She says it helps her, so I’m happy to do it,” she adds with a shrug. You nod as you open another drawer and decide this one will be for your underwear.

“What about Sunghoon?” You can’t help but ask, a bit curious about him. You doubted you could really chalk up his impoliteness to shyness, but you could still listen to what your grandmother had to say about him.

“He’s more like his dad, wants to take after the club. But he’s a very decent rider, too. If his sister hadn’t said she wanted to go pro so early on, I’m sure he would’ve. You know one thing that’s great about getting old?” she asks suddenly.

“No?”

“You observe people a lot more, and you understand them a lot more too. Well, now that I think about it, it might be just me,” she says, making you chuckle. “I don’t have a lot going on in my life, so I have more time to be nosy and see what others are up to. He’d never admit it, I don’t think, that he gave up on a potential riding career for his sister. He’s the type to make quiet sacrifices, and he loves his sister to death. He’d rather take over the club and watch her be happy than the opposite.”

You nod, an approving expression on your face. “Sounds like a good guy,” you say honestly, surprised that someone supposedly so kind could also be so rude.

“He is. Handsome, as well, by the way, as I’m sure you’ve noticed,” she adds, a knowing smile playing on her lips, but you just roll your eyes playfully.

“That’s what mom said,” you reply, not wanting to admit that they are both right on the matter of Sunghoon’s handsomeness. 

Sunghoon’s the one who opens the door when you and your grandmother knock. His expression when he sees you is the same as earlier, but you don’t have the time to ponder over his behavior, because quickly enough, two figures appear behind him. He steps to the side, letting enough space for you to come in, his harsh gaze never once leaving your face. You turn your attention to the figures, namely his father and a young girl who you guess is Yeji, and, thank God, they’re looking at you with wide smiles.

“You must be Y/N!” his father beams, and you nod, returning his smile and saying hi. He kisses you on both cheeks, and this time you remember to start from the right. “Welcome. We’re very happy to have you here, aren’t we, Sunghoon?”

He seems oblivious to his son’s clear distaste of you as he loops an arm over his shoulders, happily shaking one of them under his grasp. “Right,” Sunghoon says, voice monotone. “Hi.”

“Hi,” you reply with a slightly confused tone - what the hell was his deal? Usually, whatever energy someone gave you, you’d give it back to them. You’d have no problem being as rude to Sunghoon as he was to you if only his family didn’t seem so nice.

“I’ll go help Mom in the kitchen,” he announces and walks away. His father turns back to you and gives you an apologetic smile.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just shy. He’ll warm up to you eventually.” You nod, saying it’s okay. 

Yeji then takes a step towards you, introducing herself as she goes in for the usual two kisses on the cheeks. “Hi, I’m Yeji!”

“Hi, so nice to meet you!”

“Me too, I’m really happy you’re here! It’ll be nice being with another girl,” she says, gesturing towards her oblivious brother with a tilt of her head. It takes a lot more effort to be nice than to be rude, you think, side-eyeing Sunghoon in your head.

“Are there not a lot of girls that come here for lessons?” you ask as she leads you inside the house, showing you where to take off your shoes and jumper.

“There are, but they only come here once a week and stay for a few hours, so it’s not the same. I’m stuck with my anthropoid of a brother most of the time,” she says, lowering her voice to make sure only you can hear what she says. You both laugh at her diss; nothing like bonding over hating boys with another girl. You can already tell you’re going to like her.

You ask if there’s anything you can do to help, but the Parks tell you to not worry about anything and sit down. You and Yeji join your grandmother who’s already sitting at the dinner table, and the three of you chat, or rather, you and Yeji chat while your grandmother listens. Or maybe she isn’t listening, you’re not sure. 

Yeji is in her first year of high school. The prestigious riding club she is being taught at doubles as a school, so that’s where she’s been studying for the past few years, and she boards there as well, coming home every weekend unless she’s got important competitions coming up, in which case she stays there for a few weeks. Competition season is about to start, so she’ll be spending most of her time there this summer.

“And do you like it there?”

She looks slightly taken aback by your question, as if she’s not quite used to being asked about that. “I mean, yeah, yeah, I do. It’s nice being able to ride so often, and not having the stress of needing to figure out what I want to do next. But it is… you know,” her voice gets quieter, “a lot of pressure sometimes.”

Sunghoon walks in then, plates and cutlery in hand, and starts setting the table. Yeji’s face lights up at her brother’s arrival, using it to change the topic. “Sunghoon is studying to become a vet. He’s finished his two years of preparatory classes, so now he’s going to a vet school in Toulouse.”

He glares at his sister, but she doesn’t pay him any mind. “He graduated top of his class, you know.”

“Why are you telling her about me?” he interrupts.

Yeji just shrugs. “I’m telling her about us.”

“Well,” he says, putting down a plate in front of you and a fork and knife on each side of the plate, “she doesn’t need to know about me.” You can’t see his face but the cold tone of his voice and his presence right behind you are enough to send shivers down your spine. What the hell is his deal?, you wonder.

You look at Yeji, a confused look on your face, and she rolls her eyes as a dismissal of her older brother’s behavior. “Don’t ask me, cause I don’t know what his problem is, either,” she says, and you can’t help but chuckle.

Mrs and Mr Park walk in then, bringing in the main dish of duck confit as well as roast potatoes, vegetables and some bread. Mrs Park gives you the biggest chunk of meat and a load of sides, saying you must be famished after such a long trip even though you tell her you’d brought things to snack on. She says she’d hesitated between cooking Korean food or a typical French Southwestern dish but had opted for the latter, wanting to welcome you properly in the region. You thanked her and told her it looked amazing.

When everyone is served, you wish each other ‘bon appétit’ and start eating. You’re chewing on your first mouthful of duck and potatoes when Mrs Park asks you what you study. “Your grandmother said you were a med student?” she asks with a smile. Everyone looks at you except for Sunghoon, who only has eyes for his food.

You nod, waiting to swallow before answering, and Mr Park tuts his wife for not letting you eat. “I am. I passed my second year,” you say, earning yourself some congratulations, “and I’m starting my residency in a hospital in Paris next semester.”

“Do you know what part of the hospital you’ll be in?” Mr Park asks.

“We get to do turns, so we can see what we like. We give our school our top five choices, and then they put us in three departments for three months each, and then choose our favorite one based on the offers we get for the summer. I’m in the children’s ward first, then cardiology, then reeducation. We’ll also get to watch over surgeries.”

He nods, humming at your words. “And is that what you want to do later? I mean, work in one of those departments?”

“I’ve got time to change my mind, so I guess it depends how much I like being at the hospital, but I think I’d rather have my own cabinet after some time. I feel like overtime, you build more of a relationship with people, and it’s a lot less stressful, too,” you add with a chuckle.

Mr Park smiles and nods again. “Ah, I see. That’s nice. And would that be in Paris?,” he asks, and this time, it’s his wife that tells him to leave you alone, but you say it’s okay.

“Probably. It’s the city I know best, but nothing is set in stone.”

“You should come here!” Mrs Park perks. “Most people who live here are quite old - no offense, Nadine - ” (“None taken,” your grandmother says with a smile), but we’ve only got two doctors, and one is probably retiring in the next six to ten years.”

“You tell me to leave her alone, and then you tell her to move here,” Mr Park mutters, earning himself a small slap on the arm. They start bickering, and your grandmother just sighs and shakes her head.

“Young love,” she says, making everyone laugh. Even Sunghoon cracks a smile, and you get a glimpse of his dimples. As soon as he catches your gaze, his smile drops, and you turn your eyes away, your cheeks heating up. Yeji starts a new topic and soon enough you’re all chatting again. If it wasn’t for Sunghoon making it very clear he didn’t want you here, you’d already feel at home, just sitting at this dinner table.

When dinner is over, you insist on clearing the table and doing the dishes, saying you felt bad not doing anything. “I need to earn my keep,” you tell Mrs Park with a smile.

She laughs and says, “Oh, no need to worry about that, with Sunghoon showing you the ropes the next few days, you definitely will.”

Sunghoon perks up at the mention of his name. “What’s this about?” he asks, that crease still in his eyebrows. You find yourself wanting to stroke them with your thumbs and brush that frown away, but you quickly snap out of it. He may have a pretty face, but from what you’ve seen, that’s about all there is.

Mrs Park lets out a small puff of air through her nose. “We’ve talked about this, dear. You’re showing Y/N around the club tomorrow and Monday. It’s so you know how everything works before summer lessons start,” she explains, turning towards you.

“Why does it have to be me, though?” Sunghoon almost whines, and you want to scoff at him.

“Because your father and I said so,” his mother says, ending the conversation there, and you’re reminded of your own parents.

Sunghoon looks at you and frowns, so you raise your eyebrows back at him. It wasn’t your fault you were here or that his parents had designated him to show you around, so there was no reason you should make yourself small or apologetic for him. He scoffs and looks away. “Just be outside by eight a.m. tomorrow morning, okay?”

He doesn’t let you answer, just gives you one last hard look and walks away.

-

“Why are you wearing a dress?” Sunghoon asks as soon as you step outside the next morning.

“Good morning to you too, Sunghoon,” you reply sarcastically. You roll your eyes when he doesn’t say anything, just stands there, arms crossed over his chest, so you add, “Because it’s going to be hot today. And because it’s pretty.”

“This is an equestrian center, not a fashion show. You won’t be comfortable. Go put on a t-shirt and some shorts or some leggings. And wear sneakers, not sandals, Christ.”

You scoff and mirror his posture. “You don’t get to tell me what to wear, you know.”

He lets out a dry chuckle and rolls his eyes, a disbelieving smile on his face. “This might be a holiday for you, because it’s sunny and there’s nature everywhere, but this is work we’re gonna be doing. So, for your own sake, wear the right kind of clothes. But if you want to get horse saliva on your dress or step in horse shit wearing those shoes, be my guest.”

You glare at him for a few seconds, realizing that he’s right, and huff out an annoyed “fine,” stomping back into your grandmother’s house. “Be quick!” he calls after you.

You come back out five minutes later, wearing a tank top you usually use for sleeping, a pair of denim shorts and old sneakers your mother had told you to pack. “Took you long enough,” Sunghoon says, a true ray of sunshine, but you decide it’s better to ignore him. He barely talked to you yesterday, but now that it’s just the two of you and he has to, his words are somehow more annoying than his silence.

You stare at him unfazed and ask, “So, what’s first?”

He raises his eyebrows, seemingly surprised, but answers anyway. “Right. Follow me.” He heads towards a part of the farm that is attached to the riding hall and that your grandmother had pointed out yesterday evening as the reception and office area. 

Sunghoon fishes a keyholder out of his jean pocket and slides open the door using one of the many keys he has. He goes to stand in front of a postboard and points to it. “This has the daily and weekly schedule on it. It’s a routine, so things don’t change much, but when they do, we add a post-it to the board. For example, the blacksmith is coming next Thursday to check horseshoes. That’s a post-it. Today, we’re cleaning out all the stalls and adding fresh straw. We do that every Monday, so it’s on the schedule. No post-it.”

“Right. That makes sense,” you nod. “Is that all we do today?”

“We do rounds first, but basically, yeah, because cleaning takes a long time. And Monday is technically our day off. No one comes in for lessons so we use that free time to clean out the stalls.”

You nod and Sunghoon chuckles at you, but you don’t have time to question him about it because he’s already off and you have no choice but to follow him. He leads you to a part of the farm on the other side of the courtyard and pulls out another key, pushing the door open to a wide three-and-a-half-wall room with rings attached to the walls every few meters. Three and a half because behind that space on each side are stalls, as Sunghoon points out.

“This is the prep room, where we get the horses ready before a lesson.”

“What do you do to get them ready?” you ask, looking around the room.

“You clean their coat and their hooves, brush out any tangles in their manes and tails, then saddle and bridle them. The club saddlery is over there,” he says, pointing to a door on your right. “Horse owners have their own stuff in lockers in another room.”

Apparently, you’re not checking out the saddlery today, because Sunghoon is already walking over to the stalls. 

“Hi everyone,” he greets softly. You follow him closely as he walks on one side of the stables, petting each horse as he walks past them or peering over the door to see how the sleeping ones are doing, and then does the same thing on the other side. He greets each horse by name, and even though it shouldn’t come as a surprise that he remembers each and every one of them, it still does. You tell him exactly that, and he chuckles.

“What would you think of a teacher that doesn’t know their students’ names? This is kind of the same,” he explains. He shows you the stacks of hay and straw at the end of the stables, and explains that they bring it here from the fields every once in a while because it’s more convenient, and that this is what you’ll be using later.

When he’s checked that everything is okay, he opens the door on the other side of the room leading outside. On your right stands a huge pile of manure, and you can’t help but make a stank face at the odor hitting you right in the nostrils. Sunghoon chuckles again (can he please stop chuckling at you for no reason?) and reassures you by saying they’re emptying it soon. “The farmers use it for their crops,” he explains.

On your left, there’s another barn that you guess hosts more horses. He gets out yet another key and pushes the door wide open. Light fills the barn instantly, making the dust particles in the air visible, and you hear a few grunts and huffs from the horses - of annoyance at Sunghoon waking them up or of happiness at seeing him, you’re not yet qualified enough to say.

There are two other smaller, one-sided stables next to the riding hall where he takes you and does his rounds again. When he’s all done, you follow him to the riding hall where he opens two doors on each side, that way you can walk through it to get to the pastures in the back rather than walk around the whole center, and takes down the electric cables that serve as an entrance to the pastures. He doesn’t explain any of this, however, so you sort of have to guess. Wordlessly, you head back to the last stables you were in and there, he throws a bunch of what you think are harnesses at you.

“What are these?” you ask dumbly, looking at the thing in your hand.

“They’re halters,” he says, and when you just stare wordlessly, he adds, talking as if it were obvious, “you put them around the horse’s head so you can take them places?”

“Right. Can you show me how to put one on?”

He sighs but obliges; he doesn’t have much of a choice anyway. Not your fault that he’s lived here all his life whereas you’ve encountered a horse maybe three times in your twenty years of life. 

He demonstrates how to put a halter on and watches over you as you practice it on an old and tired-looking white horse. When you manage to do it somehow quickly, he says, “there you go,” and you’re surprised to not hear any sarcasm in his voice. However, when he pats the horse’s forehead, you have a feeling the praise was more directed towards her than you.

You walk side-by-side to the pastures, you with the white horse, whose garrot reaches your shoulder, and Sunghoon leading a small pony in each hand. They have to walk quickly to keep up with his strides and you can’t help but laugh at their cute swaying hips.

“How old is she?” you ask Sunghoon, head tilting towards the horse you’re walking with.

A soft smile cracks on Sunghoon’s lips, perhaps the first smile you’ve seen on him today. “That’s Nellie,” he answers quietly, looking at the horse in question. “She’s turning 20 this December. We were only born a few days apart.”

“Wow, so you grew up together, that’s pretty cool,” you say honestly, and Sunghoon’s eyes settle on you for a few seconds, eyebrows raising a bit as if surprised by your words. 

“Yeah, it is,” he says, looking back in front of him. “My parents taught me how to horse ride with her. And she’s the only horse that belongs to the club whose papers actually state that I’m her owner. All the others have my parents’ name or the club’s on theirs.”

“Ah, so she’s your horse,” you say, looking at Nellie and smiling. You’d have imagined a much taller, handsome and dark-haired horse for him, but this somehow matches as well. It makes Sunghoon appear sweeter, for some reason.

“Yeah,” he says simply, but you don’t miss the small smile on his lips. So maybe there is a way to get to know Park Sunghoon, you think.

Once in the pastures, he shows you how to release a horse safely in case they get excited about being outside and hurt you accidentally or run away. Thankfully, these horses know better than to do that sort of stuff, so it’s very unlikely that anything will happen, he explains, but you’re always better safe than sorry. You head back to the stables in a silence a bit less awkward than before and do the same things with the three other horses in those stables. Not much is said, but you don’t want to force the conversation. He just explains to you that these few horses work well together in the pastures, but that it’s not always this easy.

“Horses have a herd instinct, so they need to be with each other, but also not with anyone. You know how wolf packs have alphas and betas and stuff?” he asks, and you nod. Your friends and you had an obsessive Teen Wolf phase when you were in middle school. “Well, horses kind of have that too, because there’s a hierarchy in their herds. So there’s usually one leader, a mare, and some others that just get along.”

“How do you know which horses get along, though?”

“You just have to observe. You can tell pretty quickly which horses are going to have a leader or a follower type personality. Just put two leaders together, and they’ll clash instantly. It can get pretty bad pretty quick, so the first few times you put certain horses together outside, you really have to watch over them and be careful.”

“That’s so interesting,” you say after a few moments. “I never knew horses to have such complex relationships,” you say, and he smiles.

“Horses are really cool,” he says, and immediately grunts. “That was such a loser thing to say.”

You can’t help but laugh at his self-realization, but quickly reassure him. “No, it’s not. It’s something you’re passionate about, of course you’re gonna find them cool,” you say, and the smile he gives you as an answer shouldn’t make your heart beat that much faster, but it does, and you don’t know how to feel about that. You’re just glad he’s being nice to you - bare minimum, but still, a small victory.

“Time for the hard part, now,” he says when all five horses are happy in the pasture. You follow him to a toolshed where they keep tools, of course, but also two empty wheelbarrows and snacks for the horses like grains, carrots and salt blocks. He tells you to grab a shovel as he rolls out a wheelbarrow and you head back to the stalls together.

There’s nothing complex about shoveling dirty hay and horse shit into a wheelbarrow, but by God is it a draining task. The shovel itself is heavy, so having to pick all that stuff up, heave it back into the cart, and then repeat for who knows how many times is a real burden on your poor back and arms. You definitely let Sunghoon know how hard this is for you, what with all the sighs and loud breaths and grunts you’re letting out. You’ve barely finished cleaning one stall out when Sunghoon is starting his third, and you can tell he’s not happy about it.

“If you complained less, you’d work faster, you know,” he says, that scowl back on his face.

“I can’t help that I’ve never done anything like this in my life,” you chide back, out-of-breath and wiping some sweat from your forehead.

“Yeah? All the hard tasks usually done for you, princess?”

His scowl turns into a small smirk as he looks at you, and you curse your heart for doing a flip when he chuckles at your dumbfoundedness. It’s just a stupid nickname, you tell yourself, no need to get so worked up over it.

“I’ve never had any hard tasks like this in the first place,” you say, moving on to the second stall. “My body isn’t made for it.”

“Well, it’ll have to get used to it.” Yesterday, his mother had also told you you’d get used to it, as a way of reassuring you; but Sunghoon’s words are a far cry from his mother’s, and are more of a threat than anything.

Another few minutes and you’re done, Sunghoon watching you as you finish cleaning your designated stall. You dump everything at the manure pile, then head to the straw pile and fill the wheelbarrow to replace the dirty straw with fresh one in the stalls. And then, you only have to do that four more times. Easy enough, right?

No. Not easy.

The only semi-easy part is taking the horses out of their stalls and tying the rope that are attached to their halter to a ring in the prep room, except some horses are less compliant than others and you end up having to call Sunghoon a couple times so he can take care of them for you.

The whole time you’re heaving manure into the wheelbarrow, you’re complaining. At first, it was the stank that had really gotten to you - as one can imagine, hay infused with horse piss and shit doesn’t smell like fresh linen. But somehow, you got used to it - maybe the physical exertion forced you to forget about the smell and focus on the pain taking over your whole body. 

You huff and puff as you feel the heavy weight of the shovel in your arms and shoulders every time you need to lift it up and bring it back down. The pain in your upper back from years of carrying your backpack on one shoulder makes itself known, and after half an hour you’re whining that you can feel muscle scores coming in your whole body.

“They’ll probably stay for a whole week too,” you mumble to yourself, but still loud enough for Sunghoon to hear.

“You’ll get used to it, I told you. In a few weeks this will feel like nothing.” When you only grunt in response, he adds: “I usually do this on my own, you know. You’re lucky you’re only doing half of the work. Or more like one fourth, with the speed you’re going at.”

“Why don’t your parents or sister help you out?” you ask as you lean against the stall wall, using the distraction of a conversation to take a break.

“My parents already work all week when I’m not there, giving lessons and taking care of the club, so it’s the least I can do to help out on weekends and during my breaks. And my sister already works hard enough at her school so I want her to relax when she’s here,” he replies, never stopping his shoveling.

“But you work hard too, don’t you? I mean, your sister said you were top of your class. You should get a break too.”

His movements halt for a split second only. If your words have any sort of impact on Sunghoon, he doesn’t want to let you know.

“I just study hunched over my desk all week. It’s nice to do something physical, and I don’t mind the time alone.” You’re not sure whether this is an excuse he’s come up with for himself or if he’s telling the truth, but his tone is so final and you understand that he’s done with the conversation, so you pick up your shovel and get back to work. You don’t complain for the rest of the morning.

When you’re finally done with the stalls, you bring back the horses you had walked to the pastures so that others can enjoy the free space and green grass. That’s when you run into an obstacle.

No matter how much you pull, coax, or stare impatiently, this horse won’t budge. Sunghoon rests his back and one foot against the plastic half-wall of the riding hall, chuckling at how awfully you and Dona are getting on. He’s already brought back the other five horses to their stalls and has nothing better to do than be useless, apparently. 

After a few minutes of you trying to negotiate with Dona, to no avail, Sunghoon finally speaks up, just loud enough for you to hear. “Stop staring at her. Horses get nervous when you stare too much.”

You scoff. “But she won’t move! I’m trying to show her the desperation in my eyes!” you shout back, and turn to the horse who only peers at you with empty black eyes.

“Don’t shout. Horses don’t like it when you shout,” Sunghoon simply answers, propping himself off of the wall and taking his sweet time walking towards you. When he reaches you and Dona, he takes the tether from your hands and says, “C’mon, Dona,” without even looking at the horse, who immediately follows, no questions asked.

You stand there dumbfounded and mouth O-shaped as you watch the two of them stride away calmly, running after Sunghoon when your shock dissipates. “Don’t run,” he says when he hears your quickly approaching footsteps, “horses don’t like it when you run.”

“My God,” you say, already out of breath, “how many things do horses not like?”

“Quite a few,” he answers matter-of-factly, although you meant your question more rhetorically than anything.

“How did you do that, anyways?” you ask when your breathing returns to normal.

“Well, mainly, it’s just because she knows me and knows to listen to me,” he explains, turning his head just a bit to look at you as you walk back to the main stables, the sun making itself shy behind the tall trees even though it’s nearing midday. A warm breeze blows, sweeping your ponytail to the side and rustling the leaves on the trees. “But also, horses need to be told what to do, not asked. Your attitude needs to be, ‘we’re going back now,’ not, ‘hey, wanna go back?’” You nod slowly at first, then faster when the words start making sense in your head. Sunghoon wants to make fun of you but finds it sweet that you’re at least trying to understand.

“Right,” you say after a few moments. “It’s not very nice, though,” you add, causing Sunghoon to tilt his head and frown his brows, silently asking you to go on. “Well, I’m sure Dona would like a say in the matter.”

He once again contains his laughter because you look so serious and he doesn’t want to make you feel bad, but ultimately fails and snorts at your comment, making you look up at him, bewilderment written all over your face. “What? I’m being serious!”

“I know you are,” he chuckles, “but don’t worry, Dona doesn’t mind having to go home. And if it was up to her, she’d stay out all night.” 

Sunghoon tells you some anecdotes about the club and its occupiers on your way back, making you giggle at some of the mischievous things the horses have gotten up to. He’s more talkative than this morning which takes you slightly aback, but you’re not going to complain about the change. You were dreading having to spend your summer annoyed at a cute boy you’d have to see every day, so you’re glad his first impression is drastically different from what he’s actually like.

You and Sunghoon part ways a bit before noon, and you plop down on the couch as soon as you get to your grandmother’s house. “Tough morning, huh?,” she calls from the kitchen. You only have enough energy left to hum a small “yes” back. She chuckles at you, then tells you to take a shower before having lunch. You spend the rest of your day sunbathing on a deckchair in the backyard, taking some time to relax before what you’re sure will be a tiring week.

-

One thing you learn during that week and the weeks after that is that Sunghoon has his fair share of fangirls. As a female-dominated hobby, most of the club members are teenage girls who love horses and cute boys.

Tuesday morning before lessons start, he shows you basic things like how to properly groom a horse and how to put their saddles and bridles (which is actually a lot harder than it looks - putting your thumb in a horse’s mouth seems a bit counterintuitive), just in case you ever need to get a horse ready for whatever reason. You’re going to be here for two months, so might as well learn things like these. 

While you help him walk some horses to the pastures, he explains that summer lessons are different in that instead of learners coming once or twice a week, they come all day from Tuesday to Friday and then pass an exam on Saturday morning if they want to. Since both his mother and father teach, they’re able to have two separate groups, one for riders who come for more laidback lessons with games and walks in the fields nearby, and one for those who want to improve their skills in an intense week of both practical and theoretical lessons.

There isn’t much you can do on your own, so after you’ve gone around the stables giving grains to the horses that need them, you join Sunghoon outside in the courtyard as he cleans and greases some saddles and bridles that are starting to wear out. It’s fairly easy to do and he lets you help out, so you sit outside together in silence, enjoying the warmth of the sun on your face. That is, until you start noticing the girls.

You don’t want to pay them any attention, but what with the way they wave shyly at Sunghoon and giggle when he waves back, a smile you can’t describe as anything but dazzling adorning his lips, it’s impossible not to. Some of them even call out his name, saying “hi” in the sweetest way they can. You don’t blame them: had you been fifteen and seen a boy as pretty as Sunghoon, you probably would’ve acted similarly, especially if you got to see him on a regular basis. 

What gets on your nerves, however, is how much Sunghoon enjoys it: you can tell by the smirk that won’t leave his face the whole time or the way he makes them all swoon by remembering their names. Bare minimum, you think to yourself once again, but you don’t say anything. Even if slightly infuriating, it’s also entertaining, seeing Sunghoon enjoy himself this way. You would’ve thought he was the type to want to be by himself at all times, unbothered by anyone, yet here he was, blushing at all the attention he was receiving.

After a girl who had come up to him (sparing you a confused “hi” when she saw your unfamiliar face but quickly turning her attention back to Sunghoon), wanting to know how his year at school had gone, skips giddily away, you can’t help but tease him.

“I can’t believe you’re liking this so much,” you say with a smile, keeping your attention on greasing the leather parts of the bridle.

Sunghoon looks up at you, a semi-offended look on his face. “I’m just being nice.”

“I didn’t know ‘just being nice’ entailed letting yourself be showered in compliments and winking at fifteen year-old girls. Aren’t you turning twenty?” 

“I’m not- I didn’t- Whatever,” he gives up, a pout on his face as he returns to work. You nudge his shoulder, making him crack a smile, and you feel like you won the Grand Prix of something.

Another thing you learn that week is that there’s a lot of going back and forth with Sunghoon. One minute he’s laughing at your jokes and acting like a normal human being, and the other he’s giving you the cold shoulder as if he suddenly doesn’t want you around anymore. Sometimes, these changes in his attitude are so quick, they give you whiplash.

You learn to not pay too much attention to these mood swings, not wanting to create any problems for yourself. He seems to be happy when you ask him about horses, so you often come up with the most random things you can think to ask, and he always patiently answers even the dumbest of questions. However, his patience is much quicker to run out when you complain about any task you’re given, so you settle on glaring at the back of his head.

Thankfully, you’re actually a lot less busy than you thought you would be. Your tasks consist mainly of cleaning the stalls, feeding the horses, and taking care of the ones who are too old or have some kind of illness and can’t be mounted. You bring them to the pastures, where they spend a lot of their time, then brush out the dirt and dust embedded in their fur after rolling around on the ground. These horses are often the most affectionate, gently nuzzling your hands when you try to clean their face and huffing happily when they see you arrive.

You do this a couple times a week and Sunghoon often joins you, bringing Nellie out and attaching the rope of her halter next to the horse you’re taking care of so he can groom her as well. These are the moments when he’s in his best mood and he lets you blabber away, talking about random things and concerns in your life as he listens and nods, sometimes sharing some of his as well, letting you take a peek into his closed-off world. You find that you have actually quite a lot in common, with you being in med school and him in vet school, which are both intense and high-pressure. Yet, there’s always something that’s quite surface-level about these conversations; students will always easily bond about the stress of deadlines and horrible professors. You want to dig deeper, but something tells you that Sunghoon will quickly shut you down, and you’re okay with waiting for a bit. You’re just glad he hasn’t been the way he was with you that first day the whole time and that he’s actually talking to you and even sending a smile your way once every now and then.

You also hang out with Yeji quite a lot. Even though she’s on her summer break, competition season means she spends four days a week at her boarding school to train and the other three days at the club, trying to enjoy her summer like any other normal high schooler as best as she can. She doesn’t say much more on how she feels about training so much, only slightly hinting at her level of stress and fatigue like she had done at the dinner table, and you can tell it’s a touchy subject, so you don’t pry.

It does take your body a few days to get used to being outside in the sun and walking around all day, so your first week at the club, you head home as soon as you’re done with your tasks and take a shower then help your grandmother with dinner, spending your evenings reading or playing Scrabble with her (she’s an impressive player, by the way, and has taught you many words). Every Sunday night, you have dinner with the Parks, although Mrs Park also sometimes urges you into her house at one p.m. with the promise of delicious food.

On your second Wednesday there, however, you feel like going out in the evening. After a really hot week, it had stormed during the night that made Tuesday turn into Wednesday which had made the air feel less heavy and more refreshing, so doing anything was a lot less energy-consuming than it had been before. It’s nine p.m. and the sun is low in the sky when you tell your grandmother you’re going to explore the property some more. You know there’s a path that goes behind the pastures to a forest and that is used for horse rides and walks, so you make your way there and follow it.

The mud is still a bit soft from all the rain of the night and morning and you can tell apart footsteps as well as hoof and dog paw prints. The trees on each side on the path are so full of leaves that they make a sort of arch overhead, barring any of the remaining sunlight from entering and casting a shadow all over, and you wish you’d have brought a thin jumper with you. It feels nice to be outside when the sun isn’t making you feel like your skin will melt right off of your body, though. 

You’ve been walking for about fifteen minutes, stopping here and there to look at a flower or snap a shot of the clouds you can see through the trees when you reach a clearing. It’s completely empty, the trees making way for a vast patch of just grass and small daisies, so of course you see him immediately.

A couple hundred meters away from where you’re standing is Sunghoon on a tall, ginger horse, galloping in circles. You don’t know much about horse riding, but you can tell that he knows what he's doing from the way he holds himself and directs the horse. His back is straight and his legs are pressed against the horse’s flanks, his hips moving in perfect synchronization with the horse’s strides so that he stays seated on its back rather than bounces like you’ve seen many less advanced riders do. The horse’s neck rounds and its head stays down, making its steps light and refined, and Sunghoon holds the reins long and low on each side of the horse’s garrot so he can gallop in a continuous circle.

The sight is breathtaking.

You’d always thought that horses had a certain grace to them, especially such tall and slim horses like the one right in front of you, and Sunghoon, with his perfect stance and control, somehow brought even more of that grace out. It was clear that it took a lot of work and talent to reach such elegance.

Although he seemed highly concentrated on what he was doing, Sunghoon noticed you after a minute of you standing there, all but gawking at him. You see him chuckle as he subtly changes his position on the horse and slows to a trot, heading towards you.

“Hey,” he calls out when you’re within hearing distance of each other. “What are you doing here?”

“I was just… taking a walk,” you say, pointing to the path behind you with your thumb but your gaze not leaving Sunghoon, still wearing an expression of astonishment on your face. “Sunghoon, that was- I mean, just, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. You looked amazing,” you say, unable to keep your honesty at bay. If the girls from the club had seen him ride like this, then you were definitely starting to understand why they were so smitten over him - you felt almost starstruck.

He chuckles again and looks down bashfully, hoping the dim light hides his growing blush from you. “Thanks. I wasn’t really doing anything special.”

“Not anything special, are you kidding? I’m serious, that was awesome. It was like- like a figure skater gliding, or like a ballet dancer doing turns or something,” you say, shaking your head in disbelief.

Your grin gets even wider when he lets out a giggle at your words, immediately covering his mouth with his palm when he hears the sound he’s made. He really does have a thing for being paid attention to and praised, you note.

“So you were just on a walk?” he asks awkwardly as a way of changing the subject, scratching the back of his head.

“I needed some fresh air, I guess. Plus, I’ve only been staying in the club, so I thought I’d take a walk around.”

“I can show you around when I’ve got time this week, if you want.” His offer seems to come as a surprise to the both of you, but you nod anyway, grateful for the extended hand.

“That’d be nice,” you say. You’re not sure what’s happening when you two stay there for a few seconds, just smiling shyly at each other, but you don’t hate it. 

“Have you ever been on a horse?” he asks, breaking the silence first.

“Well, just a couple times, but it wasn’t lessons or anything, so I don’t know if it counts- wait, wait, what are you doing?”

A sudden mischievous smile has made its way to Sunghoon’s features as he dismounts, bringing the horse next to you. “Wanna try, then?”

“No,” you say with a pointed look. “No way. That horse is taller than me, Sunghoon, I’m not getting on him.”

“Oh c’mon, I promise you it’s not scary, and I’ll be holding onto the reins the whole time. We can just walk back to the club like this.” His eyes are working hard to convince you, and his small pout makes what little resolve you had crumble.

“Fine. But you better not let go of that horse.”

“I won’t,” he says, and something about his tone makes your qualms dissipate.

You walk over to where he’s standing on the left hand side of the horse and hook your left foot in the stirrup. Sunghoon instructs you to place your hands on each end of the saddle and hoist yourself up. It requires a lot more arm strength than you’d have imagined after seeing so many riders do it effortlessly, but Sunghoon is there to help you up as soon as he sees you struggling, two strong hands coming up to hold you at the waist and lift you onto the horse. You tell yourself it’s the physical exertion and not his touch that renders you breathless.

“Wow,” you say when you look around you, almost two meters above ground.

“Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

A small giggle escapes your lips. “Yeah. Pretty cool.”

“How does it feel? Are you sitting okay? Here, I’ll change the stirrup length so they fit you. Or we can just cross them over the saddle, since you won’t really need them, anyway.”

“No, I’d rather wear them, please,” you say, and your slight anxious tone makes Sunghoon chuckle.

When he’s done adjusting the stirrups for you and made sure you’re comfortable, he shows you how to hold the reins properly and tells you how to get the horse to start walking. “We usually teach beginners that you knock your heels against their flanks, but because Flame has only been mounted by more advanced riders, he might not like that. Don’t panic,” he reassures as soon as he sees your eyes go wide, “just press your calves against him instead of using your heels. Here, see? I’m holding him by the front of the reins, so he won’t run off.”

“Right, right,” you breathe out. Sunghoon’s right there, so there’s no reason to stress about this.

“Good. Just a small pressure from your calves, and we’re good to go.”

Flame is very reactive, already started walking when you’ve barely squeezed your legs against him. With Sunghoon practically directing the horse for you, you realize there’s nothing for you to do but enjoy the ride.

“This feels nice,” you say as you try to get used to Flame’s quick but steady rhythm. Sunghoon’s smile is better than any other spoken answer he could’ve given you. After a few minutes of comfortable silence, you decide to speak up.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure,” Sunghoon replies, looking up at you.

“Why were you so mean to me the first night I got here?”

He seems slightly taken aback by your question, but you get a glimpse of a guilty expression before he looks back down. “Right, sorry about that. I’ve kind of been feeling bad about it all week, but I was scared to bring it up.”

“It’s okay, I’m just curious about the sudden change is all,” you say.

“I just-” he starts, but then seems to think for a bit. “I’m not the best with strangers, for one. Plus, you were going to stay for the whole summer. I’ve built a routine for myself every summer here, and I don’t like it when something, or someone, disturbs my peace. Also, no offense, but I’m not a huge fan of you city folk. So many people at school have this weird prejudice against me for being from the middle of nowhere, so I’ve kind of got a low tolerance for them. So before I even met you, I didn’t really like you. Sorry, that’s harsh.”

You tell him not to worry about it. His words make you understand him a bit more, and you’re glad it doesn’t seem to be anything too personal against you. You tell him to go on and he sighs. “And you know, I talked with my parents and they told me it’ll be nice to have someone else around to help, and that your grandmother always talks highly of you, and that it was stupid to have decided in advance I wouldn’t like you, and I sort of agreed, but I couldn’t bring myself to be okay with it all. It’s like, we’ve been fine all this time, so why bring in someone new? My parents told me that technically this whole property belongs to your grandmother, and that she could bring anyone she wanted, and I couldn’t really say anything against that. But anyway, I told myself that if I just was cold and pretended you weren’t here, that it’d be fine. But then I- I saw you, and…” his words trail off here and he looks down as if embarrassed to say what comes next.

“And?” you pry, too curious not to.

You really have to focus to hear his words because of how low he mumbles them. “And you were really pretty…”

This confession that seemingly comes out of the blue makes your heart swell with satisfaction and you can’t help but tease him about it. “What was that? I didn’t hear you clearly.”

“Oh c’mon, you heard me. Don’t make me say it again.”

“I want you to say it again, though.”

He sighs and gives in. “Fine. I said you were pretty.”

You laugh, way happier than you should be at his words, and he whines at you to not make fun of him. “So you were mean to me because I was pretty? Doesn’t make much sense,” you taunt.

He sighs again, shaking his head a bit as if in disbelief he’s actually talking about this. “It’s just that… I wanted to be nice, I promise you I did, but I just… I’m not even sure myself. I think it just pissed me off even more, because it wasn’t like having to ignore some rando, it was having to ignore a really pretty girl, which obviously I don’t really want to do,” he says, and you laugh again. “But then you ended up being really nice as well and even funny, and I felt like an asshole for being mean. Which I should never have been in the first place, I know. I’m just… bad with strangers, like I said. Not used to them. It’s not an excuse for my behavior, though, so I’m sorry.”

You look at him with a smile and thank him for apologizing. Sadly, it’s a lot more than most nineteen-year-old boys would do, so you appreciate it. You spend the rest of the ride teasing him about how he thinks you’re pretty and how he was really acting like a tsundere, earning a few embarrassed chuckles from him. Something about getting him flustered just gets you going: his shy smile that reveals a pair of dimples and another of fangs, the blush creeping on his cheeks as he looks down at his feet. Too adorable.

When you reach the entrance to the club, he helps you get off the horse, holding you when your knees almost buckle at the impact of your feet against the ground. For some reason, you weren’t expecting to be so high up, even though you had been on a nearly two-meter horse for the past fifteen minutes.

“You know, I could teach you how to mount, if you’re interested,” he says as you brush some horse hair from your leggings.

That’s the second offer Sunghoon makes you tonight; he’s really showing you his nice side now, you realize with a flip of your stomach. You could just say yes, that sounds fun, but instead, you decide to annoy him some more. “Didn’t know I was so pretty that the Park Sunghoon would offer to give me lessons!”

He rolls his eyes playfully and starts to walk away with Flame. “Forget it then.”

You giggle as you catch up to him and nudge his shoulder with yours. “I’d love to.” 

-

From that day on, it’s a lot easier to be around Sunghoon. He still doesn’t let you complain, and you can tell the walls he’s built around himself have only shrunk by a few bricks, but at least his attitude doesn’t flip around anymore. He reveals a side of himself that’s goofier than you’d have imagined, cracking random dad jokes and making side comments that never fail to make you laugh. He’s also quite sensitive to your teasing, always looking away with a blush, mumbling a small whatever at your words, but his shy smile lets you know that he doesn’t actually mind it.

The riding lessons usually happen in between work breaks or at the end of the day, and after a few of them, you know how to get a horse to start, turn, and stop, and you don’t like a complete fool when the horse’s pace goes up to a trot, having mastered the art of sitting and standing at the right time. Sunghoon had shown you a few horses you could practice on and you’d gone for a piebald horse named Picasso whose garrot reached your chin, because the agglomeration of white hairs at the top of his otherwise black head formed a small heart.

Although you’d noticed from the get-go that Sunghoon was nothing less than gorgeous, it hadn’t hit you in the face until now that you could call him a friend, and every time he smiled or that the light hit his eyes a certain way, your heart skipped a few beats. At first, you told yourself that that was it - you found him pretty. That didn’t mean much more than you being able to recognise beauty, and it certainly didn’t mean you actually liked him as anything else than a friend.

That was until this one day, when he was giving you a lesson after everyone had left the club. In the south of France where temperatures often rise to the high thirties in the summer, heavy storms are bound to break out. This was one of those days - it had been raining the entire day, but it had calmed out a bit at the end of the afternoon which was why you had gone ahead with the lesson. However, twenty minutes into it, the rain got heavier again and thunder suddenly rang, loud and resonating in the emptiness of the fields. Horses are generally skittish creatures, and Picasso was no exception, the sound frightening him so much that he took off in a rapid gallop. In less than a fortnight of lessons you hadn’t developed the strong legs and quick reflexes of an advanced rider, and you were unable to keep up with him, falling off of him with a yelp, everything happening in the fraction of a second.

You fell right on your butt, the pain shooting off from there and spreading to your whole body and taking away your breath for three long seconds. You had barely the time to register what had happened that Sunghoon was already next to you, frantically asking if you were okay and telling you to stay still. He pulled his phone out and called Yeji, telling her to come to the riding hall quickly. 

From your peripheral vision you could see Picasso pacing back and forth at the other side of the hall, as if to calm himself down. Sunghoon held you up with one firm hand planted on your back, his other hand resting on your arm as his thumb brushed your skin comfortingly. He helped you regain a normal heart rate by making you mirror his long and controlled breaths, worried eyes never once leaving your face. 

Yeji got to the riding hall in no time and immediately spotted you sitting on the floor and Sunghoon crouching over you, but her brother asked her to please take Picasso back to his stall before she could walk over to the two of you. She nevertheless asked if you were okay and you nodded, trying to give her a faint smile that reassured both her and Sunghoon.

“You feeling better?” Sunghoon asked when your tears had finally stopped falling, wiping away the ones that had rained down your cheeks and reached your jawline. 

You nodded, taking a deep breath through your nose that turned out to be useless when you opened your eyes and realized how close Sunghoon was, face merely inches away from yours and arms wrapped around you, taking your breath away more than the pain had. “Y-yeah, I’m fine, more shocked than anything.”

He let out a chuckle of relief and brushed the hair away from your face, fully putting your heart and lungs out of order. “I’m glad. Falls always happen when you first start out riding, but they’re still really scary. I was worried you got badly hurt for a second there,” he says simply, and before you can even process his words, he asks, “Are you feeling ready to get up?”

You can only nod, looking up at Sunghoon like he saved you from a near-death experience as he helps you up. If he notices your gawking, he doesn’t say anything, and you’re thankful for it. In your three weeks of knowing each other, you’ve been the one to tease Sunghoon and make him unable to say anything. Even just in general, you’re used to being the flirt that makes boys blush - very rarely were they able to do the same to you, even though they all tried their hardest. Yet Sunghoon, without even realizing it or doing it on purpose, had just made your heart flutter and your brain draw a blank. You wished you could blame it on the shock you just had and the pain still making your legs weak, but you’re reminded of all the times a simple smile or passing touch had put you in the same state, and you know you’d be a fool to continue on ignoring them.

It takes you literally falling flat on your ass to realize you have feelings for Park Sunghoon.

-

Unsure what to do with this newfound information, you decide to keep things between you and Sunghoon as they were. You’ll be leaving at the end of August anyway, no need to make things awkward for the remainder of your stay. Although some moments make you wonder if he might feel some kind of way for you too, you try not to think too much of them and enjoy your friendship as is. 

When you’ve reached a level where you being on a horse isn’t a danger to yourself or those around you, Sunghoon keeps his promise of showing you more of the premises and you go on horse rides together, allowing you to discover random creeks and benches that were placed in the middle of nowhere. You go on these a few times a week when you’re all done with your tasks of the day and the raging heat of the sun has somewhat calmed, and to your surprise, you actually really enjoy being out in nature, even though bugs are still a very much unwelcome part of it.

One day he mentions vet school and you’re reminded of your grandmother’s words on your first night here about how it wasn’t particularly what he wanted to do, so you ask him about it. He turns to you with a stunned look on his face. “I didn’t know she knew about that.”

“She told me she noticed a lot of things like that.”

He turns his head again and gazes up at the sky. “Well, she’s not wrong. It’s my parents that wanted me to go to vet school. I’d be happy just taking care of the club and making a living that way, but they say they don’t need my help year round and that it’s better for me to take up a better job.”

“For someone who doesn’t want to do it, it’s very impressive that you’re top of your class.”

He chuckles shyly and a blush appears on his cheeks. “Did Yeji say that? I only got the top grade for a couple of subjects, not all of them,” he says, making you scoff as if to say ‘still, very impressive.’ “And you know, I still like it and find it interesting, and if I’m doing it, might as well give it my best and make my parents proud.”

“Yeah, I get that. My parents are both doctors so there was never any doubt in either their or my mind that I’d become one too, until I started my first year and realized that maybe I could’ve done something else.”

“Then why didn’t you?”

You turn your head to look at him and he mirrors you. “Cause if I’m doing it, might as well give it my best and make my parents proud.”

You both look away with a chuckle. “Guess we’re more similar than I thought we were,” he says, taking you aback, but you’re very glad he thinks that way. You turn to your side, leaning against your elbow as you peer down at him.

“What about a riding career? Had you ever thought about that?”

“God, yeah,” he answers without any hesitation. “My parents signed me up for a few competitions when I was younger, and I won a couple. It made them happy, so I was happy, but I also actually really liked it. My parents never really asked how seriously I wanted to take it, though, and I didn’t say anything, so when Yeji started showing a lot of interest in competitions and becoming a professional rider they focused their attention on her and assumed I didn’t really mind, I guess. I never tried to prove them wrong. As I said, I’d be fine just taking care of the club.” He sighs and pauses for a second. “She was really young when she said she wanted to have a horse riding career, and my parents just ran with it. Now that she’s older and it takes up basically ninety percent of her life, I can tell it’s a lot of pressure on her. But it’s too late to switch places and she’s the same as me, doesn’t want to let down our parents. I just hope she won’t push herself too much, you know.”

You nod, listening intently to his words. “I’m sure you’ll be there to watch over her if she ever does. You seem like a good older brother.”

He smiles and looks up at you. “I try to be.” He reaches a hand up to your face and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. The sudden, unfamiliar and intimate gesture takes you by surprise and as soon as he registers your wide eyes and agape lips he retracts his hand, apologizing. “S-sorry, I didn’t mean to be weird, I just- I don’t- I’m sorry,” he stammers, looking away with a blush.

You don’t say anything for a few seconds, too stunned by what just happened, and he looks back at you, calling out your name in a small voice. His worried expression immediately crumbles when you start laughing. “It’s fine,” you say between giggles. “I just wasn’t expecting it.”

He breathes out a sigh of relief and smiles again. “Sorry, I just did it without thinking. My friends and family are always super touchy so I’m just used to that sort of thing.”

“I’m the opposite,” you say, and Sunghoon raises his eyebrows. “My parents aren’t very affectionate. I mean, they tell me they’re proud of me, and buy me gifts and stuff like that, but we never hug, or say we love each other. You’ve seen my grandma, right? The only time she’s hugged me in the almost three weeks I’ve been here was the very first day, and that’s because we hadn’t seen each other in six months.”

Sunghoon nods and hums at your words. “Yeah, now that you say that, your grandma isn’t the type to hug, or, I don’t know, pet your hair or anything, even though I’ve known her basically my whole life. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,” he says, and you shake your head.

“No, don’t worry, you didn’t. It was actually… kinda nice,” you admit, looking away from him quickly.

“Really?” he asks with one of the widest grins you’ve ever seen on him, and you can’t believe this is the same boy that glared at you as he opened the door just a few weeks ago. You look at him from the corner of your eyes for a few seconds, trying to hide your smile, but give in and nod.

He opens his arms wide and says, “Come here,” and you look at him in disbelief.

“As in…” you say, pointing with your index finger to his chest, and he nods, blinking slowly. You scoff but do it anyway, resting your head on his chest, and a weird but warm bubble envelops your insides as he circles your waist with an arm and caresses your hair with his other hand.

“Is this okay?” he whispers, sending shivers down your spine.

“Yeah,” you whisper back. “This is okay.”

-

One Friday morning when he’s grooming Nellie and you’re braiding Picasso’s mane, he tells you he’s driving to the city tonight to meet up with his friends. “We’re just going to McDonald’s and then the cinema… and they’re kinda losers, you know, but it’d be fun if you came too. If you want to, I mean,” he offers, his shyness preventing him from looking you in the eyes. When you say you’d love to, his whole face lights up.

The day passes and when the clock strikes six p.m., you walk out of your grandmother’s house and find Sunghoon who’s waiting for you, back resting against his parents’ car. Hands in his pockets and sunglasses on, you can tell he’s trying to look cool and it makes him all that much more endearing to you. He fixes his posture and takes his sunglasses off when he sees you approaching, as if trying to get a better look; he’s seen you wear cuter outfits than tank tops and denim shorts for the dinners with his family but you’ve never worn such a pretty dress, and his heart speeds up at the mere sight of you.

“Like what you see?,” you say when you’re closer to him, twirling around in your dress.

“You look beautiful,” he says, and the look on his face must not be far from the one you wore when you saw him with Flame in that clearing a couple weeks ago.

His honesty makes you a bit shy, and you thank him as you ruffle his hair on your way to the passenger seat of the car. He stands there dumbfounded for a second until you call out his name, getting him back down to reality.

On your way to Perpignan, he tells you about his friends Heeseung, Jay and Jake, and how they all met two years ago. He shared a dorm with Jay and Jake in their first year of preparatory classes, and Heeseung, in the year above, was assigned as his mentor. They all clicked instantly and have been practically inseparable ever since, although they all live quite far away from each other, which is why it’s easiest to meet up in Perpignan when they’re on break from their studies.

“Heeseung’s girlfriend will also be there. Her name is Yunjin, she’s really nice, so if the guys get annoying you two can just talk together.”

“Why, do you guys have a tendency to get annoying when you’re together?,” you ask lightheartedly, making Sunghoon chuckle.

“Not always, but it’s a possibility. They’re nice though, so don’t worry. Jay and Jake especially are outgoing, even though Jay kinda ruins the mood sometimes cause his jokes are just awful. Heeseung is a bit shy though, just don’t take it personal if he like, doesn’t really talk to you or anything.”

“That’s funny, that reminds me of someone,” you say with a smile, unable to stop yourself. Sunghoon just replies with one of his famous whatevers.

It takes you about an hour to get to Perpignan. When you arrive, his friends are waiting outside of the McDonald’s, the boys waving with their whole arms in your direction while Yunjin watches them cross-armed, a smile on her face. “Oh, God,” Sunghoon murmurs, already embarrassed by his friends. “They’re not always like that, I promise,” he says as you walk over to them.

“Really,” you deadpan when they’ve started chanting Sunghoon’s name, watching as his face turns a deeper shade of red.

“Hi guys,” he greets them, bro-hugging Heeseung, Jay and Jake and kissing Yunjin on each cheek. You remind yourself once again to start from the right and not the left, and greet the boys first. They all say “hi, Y/N” and give you their names, and you’re quite flustered that you don’t need to tell them your name.

“Sunghoon’s told us a lot about you,” Jake says with a knowing expression, and you all chuckle when Sunghoon mutters “shut up, Jake.”

You go to greet Yunjin next and you’re surprised when, rather than simply pressing the corner of her lips against your cheek like most people do when they greet someone they’re not particularly close to, she actually kisses your cheek, an extra-friendly gesture. “I was so relieved when Sunghoon said he was bringing a girl,” she confesses, reminding you of Yeji, “I can’t deal with having to babysit these four all the time. Look at them,” she says, gesturing towards the quartet with a nudge of her head. They’re sizing Sunghoon up, ruffling his hair, pinching his cheeks and brushing away invisible creases in his t-shirt as he tries to swat their hands away, to no avail, and you can’t help but laugh at them along with Yunjin.

You all head inside the McDonald’s, getting into pairs of two to pick your order on the giant touch screens. You choose a McChicken, potato wedges and ice tea, and Sunghoon chides you for getting wedges instead of fries.

“People who get those think they’re better than everyone else,” he says matter-of-factly.

“Because we are,” you say with a smile. You touch the screen to get to the payment page but Sunghoon goes back, saying he’ll order too.

“But I need to pay?” you say, looking up at him questioningly.

“I can pay for the two of us,” he says nonchalantly, and you tease him with an ‘ooh.’ “Shut up,” he mutters, already blushing, “just let me do something nice for you.”

“Fine,” you smile, nudging his shoulder with yours a bit. “Thanks. I’ll get the cinema tickets then.”

He turns to you abruptly, his eyebrows drawn in together. “But then that cancels out me paying for this…” he whines, and you give him a look as if to say, “yeah, exactly.” 

“I don’t mind getting the tickets,” he says. “I get paid for my work at the club but I never spend any money, so, you know, I can get this for you. It makes me happy,” he mumbles, avoiding your teasing gaze.

“Thanks, Hoon,” you say, the nickname escaping your lips before you can stop it. He doesn’t seem to mind it; if anything, his blush gets deeper. You think he might end up eternally red at this rate.

“Of course.” He orders a double Big Mac, fries and a coke, and you tease him for getting such a boring meal. “They’re classics for a reason,” he defends himself. 

You swear you’ve never seen him so red and so stuttery as when you get on your toes to press a kiss to his cheek as a thank you for paying, and you think there’s no way he could get any cuter than this. His friends don’t miss it and Jake punches him very obnoxiously in the shoulder as what you can only assume is a weird congratulatory gesture.

His friends are a bit annoying, but in a funny way, so it’s okay. You’re so unaccustomed to their very unique sense of humor that everything they say and do makes you laugh, whereas they’re used to behaving like that and don’t even question their weirdness anymore. Contrary to what Sunghoon told you, Jay’s jokes land with you every time, even when the whole table grunts. 

Most of the conversation, to Sunghoon’s dismay, is spent telling embarrassing stories about him, which his friends have a lot of after having seen him drunk so many times. Heeseung asks you about how it’s been being with Sunghoon at the club, and you don’t really notice the sly smirk on his and Jake’s faces until you’re done answering. You tell them about all the things he’s made you do, but when you notice him about to complain, you add that it’s also been nice, learning how to ride a horse and spending time in the countryside.

“So you’ve seen Sunghoon ride, then?” Jake asks, and Heeseung’s snort tells you it’s not an innocent question.

“Yeah, I have,” you say, but it comes out more a question because their behavior confuses you.

Jake gives you a pointed look. “And, what did you think? I mean, it’s not the coolest sport out there, is it?” he asks, and the way Sunghoon looks down at his half-eaten burger is enough for you to put the puzzle pieces together.

You frown slightly. “Well, I think it’s a lot cooler than running after a ball and pretending like you’re gonna die when you twist your ankle,” you reply, remembering Jake’s mention of him playing soccer. Jay is quick to diffuse the tension when he sees Jake about to bite something back, saying to just talk about something else. You back off and look at Sunghoon, who seems to have completely spaced out and left the conversation. You rest your hand at the top of his knee, his attention snapping back towards you and he gives you a small smile, then turns to his friends and the conversation starts again as if nothing had happened. You’re thankful for it, because you don’t wanna create trouble the first time you meet them and make it awkward, but you really don’t appreciate his friends making him feel like he’s not “cool” because he’s a horse rider; there’s already enough stigma about it being a girls’ sport, he doesn’t need any added pressure from them.

The rest of the meal goes well, Heeseung and Yunjin throwing fries at each other, and the table making fun of Jay for eating his McFlurry so messily. Apart from the horse riding comment and the fact that they love teasing him (which you do too, to be fair), Sunghoon’s friends are nice and make him laugh, so you relax around them once again, although you and Jake exchange a few tense eye contacts. You won’t feel sorry for defending Sunghoon, even if you’ve known him for three weeks and Jake has for two years. 

When you’re done eating, you walk to the movie theater that’s just two minutes away, the boys ahead and you and Yunjin in tow. “I’m really glad you spoke up for Sunghoon earlier, and I’m sure he appreciated it too,” she says, just loud enough for you to hear. “I’ve tried speaking about it with Heeseung, but he and Jake just don’t seem to get that it actually annoys Sunghoon and they say it’s just for fun. I did horse riding when I was a kid, so I know how hard it actually is, and Jay is just a bit more mature than them, so we try to get them to stop, but they still do it a bit. Their humor is basically just making fun of everyone in their group, so sometimes they don’t know when to stop.”

You nod at her words, the situation a bit clearer now. “He should bring them to the club and show them how good he is,” you say. “Or better yet, make them get on a horse so they can see firsthand that it’s not the horse doing all the work like everyone says.” Yunjin laughs and agrees, saying she’d pay to see those boys on a horse. 

You reach the cinema as you make a note to talk to Sunghoon about this later before you can forget. You ask Yunjin what movie you’re seeing, realizing you had no idea, and she rolls her eyes. “I wanted to go see the new Marion Cotillard movie, but the boys said it looked boring, so we’re going to watch some horror movie. I don’t even know the name, but I’m sure it’s just a rehash of the same tired haunted house plot.”

While Sunghoon gets the tickets, you sneak to the food counter and get two bottles of coke and a large popcorn to share with him. He complains that he could’ve gotten that but you shut him up with a tut. 

“Are you good at watching horror movies?” you lean in and whisper when you’re seated and waiting for the movie to start while ads play, and you see him shiver slightly, but that might just be because of the aircon in the theater and not your proximity.

“What do you mean, am I good at watching them? Do you mean if I like them?” he asks, eyebrows slightly furrowed as he looks at you.

“No, I mean if you get scared easily. You can like them and watch them a lot but still get scared. I feel like you’d scream at all the jumpscares,” you add that later part just to tease him, and you know you hit bullseye when he looks away with a scoff, straightening in his seat.

“I guess they’re fun to watch, but no, I don’t get scared. And I’m definitely not going to scream.” He looks down at you with a smirk, his confidence hitting him out of nowhere as it sometimes does. “But I know you will, so feel free to hold onto my arm when you get scared,” he says, and it’s your turn to scoff and look away.

“Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be alright,” you say just as the lights start to dim and the movie starts playing.

It takes a while for the movie to pick up, so the first half hour, you’re not really into it, paying more attention to the way your hand brushes against Sunghoon’s whenever you reach for the popcorn at the same time rather than to what is happening on screen. However, when a ghost with a very unpleasant face suddenly pops out, you can’t keep yourself from jumping in your seat and letting out a small gasp which Sunghoon would’ve made fun of, had he not been twice spooked as you were, the pieces of popcorn he was about to eat discarded somewhere at his feet because of the jumpscare.

You share a look with Sunghoon and when the both of you realize the other was completely bluffing, you burst into quiet giggles. He offers you his arm to hold onto again and you roll your eyes but take it anyway, glad for the reassurance his warmth brings you. You wrap one hand around his bicep and place the other in his hand, interlacing your fingers together, and for once you’re the shy one and can’t look him in the eye, keeping your gaze on the screen when you feel his eyes on you, surprised but pleased by your cute action.

You spend the rest of the movie like this, bodies turning towards each other every time something scary happens on screen as if instinctively going to the other to find comfort. If you weren’t in a public place, you probably would’ve ended up in his lap. Or he in yours, perhaps.

The loss of his warmth when the movie ends and the lights turn back on makes your heart a bit sad, and you already find yourself waiting for the time you’ll get to feel him next to you again. When you walk out of the theater, the sun’s finally set and the sky is starting to get dark. You all walk back to the parking lot, Heeseung, Jay, Jake and Yunjin ahead, talking about the movie excitedly and recalling their favorite scenes, but you and Sunghoon hang back a bit. He’s silent and for a second you’re worried all the hand-holding has made him awkward but when you look up at him, he gives you a smile that calms all your nerves in an instant.

Jake suddenly turns around to face you, walking backwards. “What did you two lovebirds think?” he asks.

“It was alright,” Sunghoon answers. “It had some scary scenes but I couldn’t really get into it.”

“Yeah, that’s ‘cause you two were too busy being all- ow!” Jake starts but is interrupted by a kick in the shins, courtesy of Jay.

“Can you read the room, just once in your life, bro?” he says, and Jake rolls his eyes but turns back around anyway, leaving you and Sunghoon to laugh at his friends’ antics. 

When you reach the parking lot, you say goodbye to everyone, saying it was nice meeting them and you hoped to see them again soon. “If you can, you should try and visit the club at some point, it’d be nice seeing you there,” you tell Yunjin as you hug her goodbye.

The car ride home is silent at first, betraying both your and Sunghoon’s shyness. “Tonight was nice,” you start, wanting to start a conversation after a few minutes of just looking out the window.

Sunghoon responds immediately as if he’d been waiting for you to say something. “Yeah? I’m glad. I was scared you weren’t going to like my friends or something…” he says, glancing at you with a worried expression on his face.

“Well, I really liked Yunjin and Jay…” you trail.

“But?”

“But…” you sigh, too late to turn back, but unsure whether it’s your place to bring this up. “Heeseung and Jake were nice, you know, but that comment they made about you horse riding really brushed me the wrong way.”

“Aww,” Sunghoon coos, and you roll your eyes at his fake saccharine tone. “Did it make you upset for me?”

“It did!” you say, wanting Sunghoon to know you were serious. “Friends shouldn’t make fun of your passions. Plus you’re really good at it, and I’m sure they’d be impressed by you. I talked about it with Yunjin, you know,” you add before he can cut in. “She said it happens all the time and you’re used to it, but it’s not something you should have to put up with. You should have them over at the club some day.”

Sunghoon hums, pouting his lips a bit. “I don’t know… It’s not that big of a deal. It’s how we mess with each other.”

“You looked really down when they were saying those things, Hoon. You’re allowed to say when something bothers you. And if they don’t listen, then they’re assholes. I know you’ve been friends for a while now, and I’m not trying to make you cut them off by any means, but I think you should talk to them. If they’re good friends, they’ll understand and not want to say something that hurts you. At least I hope so,” you say, looking out the window again to hide how upset this truly makes you. Sunghoon’s next words come as a surprise to you.

“Thanks, Y/N.” You look back at him with a questioning look, wordlessly asking him to go on, and he sighs. “I’m sort of used to keeping everything for myself. Taking a step back so I don’t take things personally, not complaining and just doing what I’m told even if it’s not what I want to do, stuff like that, I’m used to it. I just- I don’t wanna bother anyone, you know. I think you’re the first person who’s ever told me I’m allowed to voice things out.”

You don’t know what to say for a few seconds, shocked by this revelation. It’s very fitting of him - sacrificing his potential career for his sister, going to vet school to please his parents but taking care of the center whenever he’s on break. You didn’t know this behavior went deeper than that, and it was ingrained in him to just take it all and never put up a fight.

You say, “You’re allowed to put yourself first, you know. Sometimes, you even need to,” and it’s an unfamiliar breath of fresh air that blows away some of the weight on his shoulders, hearing those words. He chuckles a bit, hoping that the tears pooling in his eyes don’t accidentally overflow.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to do that, but it’s nice knowing I have the option. Thank you, Y/N,” he repeats, and you smile at him, relieved when he smiles back.

The rest of the car ride goes by in a flash as you make fun of each other for being so scared of the film and jump from topic to topic like frogs bouncing around lily pads, somehow neither of you ever losing track of the conversation. You tell him someone with such a boring McDonald’s order doesn’t deserve to have opinions and he says that of course you’d think that since you chose potato wedges instead of french fries.

Without noticing it, you soon reach the center, and Sunghoon walks you to your doorstep after parking the car. You stand in front of each other at the door, and you seriously feel like the main lead in a teen rom-com, butterflies in your stomach and all the works as you look up at him, expecting a little something.

“So…” he starts, pressing his lips into a flat line to hide his smile.

“So…” you repeat, nudging your foot with his as you both look down.

“Tonight was nice,” he says sheepishly and you can’t help but laugh, him soon imitating you.

“It was. But we’ve already established that, I think.”

“Right.” His gaze finds yours, and the look in his eyes makes your heart feel like it’s on an acid trip. You stare at each other for a few seconds, unable to look away, and you’re about to run off into the house, the tension too much to handle, when his eyes finally drop to your lips. Knowing him, he probably won’t do much more, so you take a small step towards him and raise your lips towards his, closing the distance between the two of you inch by inch, getting closer, closer, closer, until-

“Sunghoon!” Yeji’s voice rings out in the night, taking you aback as you gasp and stumble a few steps back, not wanting her to see you almost devour her brother’s face. Sunghoon closes his eyes and shakes his head, then lets out an exasperated “what.”

“I can’t believe you went to see that new movie without me. I saw it in Jay's story. I told you I wanted to go see it!”

He sighs and looks at you, mouthing a “sorry” before walking towards her, hooking his arm over her shoulders as he walks her back to their house. 

“Sorry, lil sis. We can go watch it together, I don’t mind seeing it again. Also, why do you follow Jay? Unfollow him,” he commands, and after that you can’t hear anything because they’re too far away. You watch them walk with a smile on your face, appreciating their little moment together, and your heart does a little somersault of joy when Sunghoon turns around to wave at you from his door.

-

After that night, you’re more determined than ever to turn that almost-kiss into a actually-happened-kiss. However, your resolve soon seems to have been for nothing when Sunghoon tells you about how he wishes he didn’t have to leave with his parents, but they won’t let him stay, and you’re reminded of the Parks yearly vacation that starts the next day, exactly three days after the night out.

It’s a late Sunday afternoon and you’ve done everything you needed to for that day, so you and Sunghoon went off on a horse ride as you often do, deciding to take a break when you reach a field in which a bunch of haystacks rest. You only had to exchange a look to understand the other immediately, so you tied your horses to a tree and raced over to the closest stack, helping each other get to the top and laying there.

“I wish you didn’t have to go either,” you say, playing with a loose strand of hay peeking out from the stack in the small space between you and Sunghoon.

“You gonna miss me?” Sunghoon teases, grinning as he lightly nudges your shoulder.

“As surprising as it sounds, I think I might,” you say, and from the corner of your eye you see his grin get wider.

“I think I will too,” he replies, and he giggles when he sees you try and fail to suppress a smile. “Actually, I definitely will,” he adds just to see you smile bigger, and it works.

“When are you leaving again exactly?” you ask to change the subject.

“Early tomorrow morning. I still haven’t packed,” he says and sighs.

“We should head back so you can pack,” you say even though you don’t want to do that at all.

“Yeah, we should, but I don’t want to,” he replies, practically reading your mind. “I wanna stay here for a while.”

A small silence settles between the two of you, but it says more than a thousand words. The tension that has been hanging over your heads for a while now but only thickened after Friday night is almost palpable now. You’re laying so close that your arms are almost touching, occasionally brushing when one of you shifts, and if you turned your head, his face would be right there, which means his lips would be right there. Well, one of you is going to have to do something about this tension, you think, and it’s definitely not going to be him.

“Sunghoon?” you call out, turning your head towards the boy next to you. He does the same and your eyes meet. In this late afternoon hour, the sun is right behind you and he has to squint a little bit and use his hand as a shield to look at you properly. He looks a bit stupid like that, but you think he’s cute.

“Yeah?”

The warm feeling that spreads over your whole body at the sound of his voice is what gives you the confirmation that you want to say what you say next, and the courage to do it.

“Can I kiss you?”

His eyebrows raise slightly but he’s quick to hide his surprise and starts grinning instead, revealing those fangs of his you love so much. You have a feeling they’d leave the cutest marks on your skin. “Sure,” he says, letting his eyes drift down to your lips just like that other night.

So you do.

You lean in close enough to press your lips onto his, letting them touch for a brief second before leaning back again. A small pout forms on his lips at the fleeting contact. “That’s it?”

You could just eat him whole, you think. A kiss will have to do. “What did you want?” you ask, trying and failing to hide a smirk.

“That wasn’t a proper kiss.”

“Yeah? What’s a proper kiss then?”

He looks away with a huff. “I’m sure you know what a proper kiss is. Why would you ask to kiss me if you’re not even gonna do it properly…”

“How about you show me then?”

This makes him look promptly back at you, his eyes a bit wider. When he just gulps without saying anything, you add: “Or should I try again? Properly this time?”

He nods, eyes set on your lips. He’d always found them pretty and inviting, and he’d caught himself daydreaming about this exact moment a few times, but now that it was right in front of him, his brain was short-circuiting. All he could do was close his eyes and wait for you.

You find it cute how he screws his eyes shut before you’re even kissing him, making him look like a k-drama female lead during the first kiss scene. You can’t help but smile a little even as you bring your lips to his once again, this time a bit firmer, a bit deeper. He waits for you to move your lips against his before he does so too, but once he’s started, he’s unstoppable.

In fleeting conversations and off-hand comments, you’d learned that Sunghoon had had a couple girlfriends but that it always ended after a few months. When you’d accused him of “virgin behavior” after he did something embarrassing for an almost twenty-year-old, he’d fervently defended himself of very much not being virgin and very much having had sex before, which you’d said was what a virgin would say, but you knew he was saying the truth because he wasn’t the type to lie, especially about this sort of thing.

What was sure was that he kissed you like he knew what he was doing, and he was doing it well. His shy demeanor from a minute ago is completely gone as he tilts his head and deepens the kiss, holding you tight against him. His hands were shy at first, but when yours made their way to his hair so you could gently tug at the strands there, he understood he didn’t need to be so polite. One of his hands found your waist while the other cupped your cheek, his thumb coming under your chin to tilt it up towards him. 

Your lips move against the others’ like you’d done this your whole life, and you’re unable to keep it Disney-friendly for long as your feelings and the fact that you were finally touching each other like you’d been wanting to take over any reason you had left. The kiss turns hungrier, needier, hotter, as if catching up on all that time you lost to dilly-dallying around each other. It’s easy to slip your tongue inside his mouth and you swear you hear him moan when your tongues come into contact, the small sound making your brain turn into mush and giving you one goal, and one goal only: hear him again.

You pull away and press a palm to his shoulder, and he lets you push him down on his back as you straddle his lips, positioning your core right over his growing erection and watching with a smirk as he bites his lips and furrows his eyebrows, humming at the feeling of you against him. You press your lips back against his and note with satisfaction that his movements are messier than before, kissing you mouth open and letting you take full control of the kiss, almost unable to focus on kissing you and on feeling you grind very lightly, almost teasingly against him. Slick pools in your underwear at the angelic sounds he’s making, and you’re very happy he doesn’t seem to be shy about being vocal because his moans are the prettiest sound you've ever heard.

You move away from his lips and trail wet kisses on his cheeks and jawline, moving down to his neck and his Adam’s apple, gently biting and sucking the skin at the base of his throat, enough to make him squirm underneath you but not enough to leave a mark, even though you’d love to, the thought of other girls seeing him all marked up because of you filling you with a sense of pride you didn’t know you could have.

You find his sweet spot at the juncture of his neck and his shoulder, so you kiss him more there, tracing the other side of his neck with your fingernails. He’s so sensitive and those actions alone are enough to have him whine a small “fuck, Y/N, that feels so good,” and you think you might actually go insane with lust for him. 

You’ve just started kissing him on the lips again, his hands holding your hips so tightly you think they might almost bruise your skin and his kisses desperate and needy, when his phone buzzes. Taken aback, you pull away quickly, and he whines at the loss of contact. He goes in to kiss you again but you tut and tell him to check his phone in case it’s important. You note that he does what you say, and you wonder whether that’ll hold up for other situations. You observe him as he unlocks his phone and reads the text, and you curse yourself for waiting until he leaves to do this. You could’ve had him heaving, cheeks rosy, lips slightly swollen and eyes blown out for some weeks now, but your hesitation prevented you from doing anything, and now you’ll have to wait ten more days to see him like this again - that is, if he wants to do it again.

“It’s my mom,” he says with a sigh, snapping you out of your reverie. “She says I need to come home and pack my bag and have dinner.”

You pout at each other and he sits up, wrapping his arms around your middle and nuzzling his face in your neck. The rather intimate action surprises you a bit, but mostly you find it endearing, and it was pretty obvious Sunghoon would be the clingy type. You’re happy he feels comfortable enough around you to show this side of him - plus, it makes him ten times more adorable than he already was in your eyes.

“I want to go even less now,” he murmurs, voice muffled and you giggle at him as you caress his head.

“Same. But ten days will go by quickly, right? And I’ll be right here when you come back,” you say, leaning back so you can cup his face in your palms and look at him, his cheeks a bit squished. “You’re so cute,” you whisper with a smile, and the compliment makes his cheeks heat up but for once he doesn’t look away and keeps your gaze locked in his.

You peck his lips quickly and get off of his lap. “Right, we should go then,” and when he whines in protest, you add, “your mom will be mad, Hoon,” which is enough to convince him.

You head slowly back to the center and walk the horses to their stalls, talking about this and that as you often do, but you grow silent as you near his house, dreading having to say goodbye. The only difference with Friday night is that you’re standing at his door and not yours; the tension and heart-fluttering awkwardness are the same. Well, maybe not exactly the same, because you had your tongue down his throat just fifteen minutes ago.

“You’ll be alright when I’m gone, right?” he asks, taking your hands in his and letting them hang between you two.

“Yeah, I will. Plus, your parents’ friend is coming to take care of the club, right? I’ll help her, and I’ll hang out with my grandma while you’re on vacation and the ten days will be over before we know it,” you say, more trying to reassure yourself than him.

Sunghoon sighs but nods as if trying to convince himself too. “Right.”

“Right,” you repeat, and look up at him with a smile. The thought that this might look completely dramatic to any outsider crosses your mind, but you ignore it because you’re really not looking forward to spending ten days without Sunghoon here. When he comes back, you’ll only have three weeks left, and that simple fact already makes your heart ache.

He takes you in his arms and holds you close to him for a few moments. “Okay. I’ll see you soon, Y/N,” he whispers in your hair. “Don’t miss me too much. But not too little either. Just the right amount,” he jokes, and usually you’d have punched his chest or something but right now all you can do is chuckle. He pulls away and pecks you on the lips, and when you take a step back, he opens the door and waves at you goodbye, then disappears inside the house.

-

Not to be dramatic, but those ten days are probably the longest of your life. The Parks’ friend, Madame Rasson, is nice enough, and you enjoy helping her out and having dinner with her and your grandmother every night, but she’s no Park Sunghoon. You don’t really have the urge to gallop away with her and kiss at the top of a haystack as the sun sets behind you, nor do you feel like a small part of your heart stays with her when you’re not together.

Sunghoon calls you every night under the pretext of wanting to know how the horses are doing, but you know Mrs Park and Mme Rasson are keeping in touch and that he just wants to talk to you. You don’t call him out on it though and let him tell you about his day when he’s done pretending he cares about who did what and who went where. After a few days, as you’re nearing the end of a call, he tells you he misses you then hangs up right after as if he hadn’t been basically crying into your shirt about how much he didn’t want to leave and how much he’d miss you just a few days prior, but you just giggle and text him that you miss him too, which he texts a heart back to.

Yunjin also comes around one day, saying she missed horse riding and wanted to hang out again, so you show her around the club and go on a horse ride together, taking her to all the spots Sunghoon took you to, pointing with a giggle to the spot where you made out. She gasps when she hears that and lightly slaps your shoulder. “You two made out?” she says, surprise and excitement all over her face. You only giggle some more and nod, face heating up.

“I mean, it was obvious it would happen at some point. You guys were giving each other major heart eyes the other day.” You roll your eyes and say you weren’t even though you know you very much were. “Plus, the guys send a lot of voice messages on their group chat and I sometimes listen to them with Heeseung. The way Sunghoon talks about you is so cute it makes me want to throw up sometimes.”

The thought of Sunghoon talking about you to his friends makes your heart jump and swell with pride a bit. “Really? What does he say?” you ask, not looking at Yunjin to hide the stupid smile you’re wearing.

“He just talks about your day and what you guys did, but he’ll focus on a random thing like the way you said hi to the horses or how you ate your food and he’ll be like, it was the cutest thing ever. He doesn’t go into too much detail cause he knows the guys will make fun of him but it’s still really sweet. Heeseung told me he’s never talked about any other girl like that, you know,” she says, looking at you pointedly. “And you probably also know Sunghoon isn’t the easiest to get to know. But he’s clearly let you in, and he really wanted you to meet the boys, so I think he really, really likes you.”

You give yourself a few moments to process Yunjin’s words, but all you can say in the end is “Well, I really, really like him too,” and Yunjin laughs at you.

She stays over for dinner, charming your grandmother with her jokes and willingness to help, and spends the night as well. You two stay up until late talking about your families, school, how she met Heeseung and how cute you and Sunghoon are, and the fact that you have to stay quiet so as not to wake your grandma up makes you want to laugh even harder. When she leaves the next morning, she mentions that she saw the sea was really nearby and asked if you’d been.

“I haven’t yet, but Sunghoon did say he knew a spot and would take me sometime… I’ll ask him about it again,” you say, and she nods fervently, saying she hasn’t been to the beach forever. You hug each other goodbye and you wave at her until you can’t see her car anymore, and you get that empty feeling of being alone again, so you go find your grandmother and bother her with tons of questions which she answers patiently. Five days to go until Sunghoon comes back.

And then these five days are over, and Sunghoon finds you in the middle of the afternoon, taking a nap in your grandmother’s backyard and oblivious to the fact that the boy you like the most is back. He wakes you up by taking your sunglasses delicately off of your eyes and pressing his lips to the top of your head. You frown and open your eyes bit by bit until you recognise the boy hunching over you and then open your eyes all at once, sitting up in your lounge chair and wrapping your arms around Sunghoon’s neck, pulling him down towards you.

“Hi,” he giggles, chin hooked over your shoulder.

“You’re back!”

“I am.” He pulls away to peck your lips, and it’s like he hasn’t even left a day. “I’ll go get changed and check on Nellie and then we can go for a horse ride, if you want?”

You nod excitedly. “Sure. I’ll go get the horses ready.” You both rush to your respective destinations and meet again fifteen minutes later in the grooming hall just as you finish buckling Picasso’s saddle. Sunghoon pecks your lips once more just because he can, and then you’re off.

Sunghoon’s prepared a blanket so you could lie in the grass in the clearing. On your way there, you ask him about his vacation and he admits it was actually really fun. They drove down to Spain, spending a couple days in Barcelona and then a week in a smaller seaside town. In terms of weather and landscape, it wasn’t very different from their hometown, but the food was amazing and the people very welcoming, and Sunghoon and Yeji could finally put their years of learning Spanish in school to the test.

“I took a lot of pictures because there were so many things that reminded me of you or that I thought you’d like,” he admits bashfully, taking out his phone from his bag once you’re settled on the blanket. You rest your head on his chest and rest your hand on the side of his stomach, feeling the vibrations of his laughter against your ear and commenting on the pictures he shows you, giggling when he starts rapidly scrolling through fifteen consecutive selfies.

You try to keep up a conversation but it’s a bit hard to do when his neck is right there, close enough for you to press kisses on or to nuzzle your face in if you just lifted your head a bit, and his skin is soft and warm and you want to feel all of it under your palms. Even Sunghoon, who usually never shuts up when he’s with someone he’s comfortable around, is quiet. His sigh when you trail your hand up from his waist to his shoulder tells you he’s probably thinking the same as you, and as soon as you graze your fingers through his hair, he’s rolled you onto your back and his lips are on yours, kissing you with all the need that’s built up over the past ten days. You have a feeling just kissing won’t be enough to satisfy either of you today.

There’s a sense of urgency to all of your movements, the way all four hands are restless and travel each other’s body tirelessly, pulling on the other’s hair, kneading the skin here, caressing it here. Sunghoon bites down on your lower lip and the action makes you moan, so he takes that opportunity to slip his tongue into your mouth. Your kisses are open-mouthed and wet and messy, but you wouldn’t have it any other way because they translate all the desire you have for him and you want him to know exactly just how he’s making you feel.

You remember how much Sunghoon likes it when you compliment him, or tease him using your words, so you decide to do just that. When he starts trailing kisses your jaw, then sucking and biting at your neck, leaving tiny marks there, you whisper his name, making him hum. 

“Hoon. I want you so fucking bad.” 

You feel him trembling at your words and he nuzzles his face in the crook of your neck, whining as he continues pressing wet kisses there. He ruts his hips into yours, seemingly more by reaction than deliberately. “Want you too,” he murmurs, and slips his hands underneath your t-shirt, the flesh on your stomach burning everywhere his hands touch it. You lift your arms so he can take the piece of fabric off, and he’s quick to find the back of your bra as well, unclasping it and revealing your breasts to him.

In no time he’s already delving into your body, pretty pink lips circling and sucking on one of your nipples and deft fingers playing with the other, warmth spreading all over you at the intense pleasure he’s finally giving you, wetness already starting to make your underwear stick to your core.

Your fingers find purchase in his hair, pulling whenever it feels particularly good, and he seems to like the pain that comes with it because it’s enough to have him moaning around your nipple. “Fuck, Hoon, that feels so good,” you breathe out. Despite your praise and to your confusion, he pulls away, trailing kisses down your stomach until he reaches your shorts and looks up at you when his fingers are around the button, asking for confirmation to go further. He whispers “thank God” when you nod your head yes.

“Wanna make you feel good,” he says as he drags your shorts and underwear down at the same time, eyes fixated on your glistening folds.

You hold yourself up on your elbows, admiring him and his blown-out pupils and disheveled hair - he’s never looked hotter. “You already were, baby.”

“Wanna make you feel even better,” he says before diving right into your pussy, giving you no time to get used to the feeling as his tongue licks up a long stripe up your folds before finding your clit, alternating between giving it kitty-licks and sucking it. You’re a moaning mess in an instant, pulling even harder at his hair and sometimes holding onto his shoulders as if your body might start levitating at any moment. As if that didn’t already feel good enough, he then adds a finger, and quickly a second one into your hole, his thin and long digits feeling better than yours ever have. He must be some kind of fingering expert because he finds your g-spot in thirty seconds, pressing the sensitive spot again and again until you come apart for him in an embarrassingly quick orgasm, moaning his name and how good it feels like a broken record.

That doesn’t seem to be enough for Sunghoon, however, who doesn’t relent and sends your body into overstimulation until you find the energy to tell him to stop. “Was that good?” he asks innocently when his lips find yours again, letting you taste yourself on his tongue.

“Was it good?” you repeat, almost scoffing. “Baby, it was amazing.”

“Really?” he asks, a childlike grin on his face that is worlds away from the things he just did to your body.

“Really. Let me show you how good it felt,” you say with a mischievous smile, pushing his shoulder down so you switch positions and he’s the one laying, back against the blanket. “Let’s get this all off, yeah?” you say, hands fiddling with the hem of his shirt, and when that’s gone, with the band of his sweatpants and underwear. He gulps when he’s fully naked under your curious gaze, but he’s brave and his eyes don't leave your face, patiently waiting for what you’ll say or do next.

“So pretty, Hoon,” you purr as your hands trail from his thighs up to his neck, applying some pressure there, not enough to cut off any oxygen but enough for him to feel it. “And all for me,” you add as you mark his neck just like he did yours, before pushing yourself down his body until your face is level with his now fully hard cock. You press wet kisses to his thighs and hear his breaths get shakier when your kisses get dangerously close to his crotch. “Haven’t even touched you, and you’re already this hard, baby?” you tease, and chuckle when his cock twitches at your words.

“Please,” he implores, voice small.

“Just a second, baby. Be good for me, yeah?” you ask and he nods, eyes screwed shut as if in pain. You had a feeling that Sunghoon might like to give control rather than have it, but you hadn’t thought he’d let you have full power over him like that. You can’t say you dislike it, though.

You don’t want to make him wait for too long, and the sigh of relief he lets out when you finally place your tongue on the base of his shaft and lick a stripe up is worth it. Your baby is loud and lets you know exactly what he likes, and what he likes is when you pay attention to his tip and his sensitive balls at the same time. You alternate between having your lips around his tip, hands massaging him, and your palm circling his tip, taking his balls in your mouth and letting them out with a pop. In just a few minutes, his whole body is shaking under your touch and his moans are getting louder and louder, almost shout-like. He calls out your name and pleads with you to stop, and you look up at him with a worried expression. Before you can ask if he’s okay, he says, “Wanna cum inside you,” and how can you refuse him when his blush has spread to his whole face and his eyebrows are furrowed in concentration and pleasure, trying his best not to cum?

“Of course, baby.”

He sits up and you straddle his lap, telling him you’re on the pill when he’s about to pull out a condom he’d sneakily brought from his bag. “Fuck, okay,” he says, voice shaky at the idea of feeling your bare walls around him.

You raise yourself over him, your arms wrapping themselves around his neck and his around your waist, you line your entrance up with his dick and then sit back down onto his lap, his cock stretching you out in the best way possible as it slips right in, your wetness serving as natural lube. You waste no time before moving your hips against his, first rocking them back and forth and then raising them up and down, the both of you letting out loud moans and breaths at the pleasure taking over your bodies.

“Y/N, feels so good, gonna cum quick,” he breathes out into the crook of your neck, biting the flesh there which feels surprisingly good.

“That’s okay baby, you’ve done so well, cum whenever you want.”

“Want you to cum too, though,” he whines, and you can’t help but chuckle.

“You already made me- fuck!” you scream out of surprise when Sunghoon’s hands suddenly grip your thighs tightly and he holds you steady like this as he ruts his hips up into yours, the angle hitting right where it needs to. Your brain can’t form sentences that make any sort of sense so you’re left blabbering praises and curses at the same time, feeling your second orgasm rapidly approaching.

“Fuck, baby, just like that, fuck- so close, Hoon…”

The feeling of your walls clenching as your high washes over you is enough for Sunghoon to tip over the edge as well, your releases mixing together in a loud and sticky mess. You’ve never felt closer to heaven as you do now.

The seriousness of it all soon starts to fade as you and Sunghoon lock eyes and burst into giggles, breathing still heavy and irregular. You help clean each other up and put your clothes back on, but you don’t head home until the sun has long set, feasting on the snacks and water he’d brought along.

You check the time before you go to bed that night. 00:57, Thursday 11th August 2022. Twenty days left with Sunghoon. 

-

Eighteen days left with Sunghoon. Your last days together feel like a montage, like you’re watching a movie in which you play the lead role and you know the ending credits will have to start rolling at some point. You hate to be thinking that way, but the first thing you do when you wake up every morning is check the date and tell yourself how many days you’ve got left with your summer love. 19 days, 18 days. If Sunghoon feels a change in your attitude, how your gaze lingers more, how your touch softens, he doesn’t say anything.

You mentioned how you and Yunjin would like to go to the beach, so he called up his friends and got them to drive all the way over here. He said another time when you told him this is the perfect opportunity to show them his horse riding, and you didn’t push it.

He drives you all to what he calls ‘his’ beach spot, and indeed, it feels like it’s yours and yours only. It’s a bit of a trek getting there, having to walk up a dirt road and climbing some rocks before heading down to a small sandy beach where the sand is so hot it burns and the water only feels refreshing for two minutes, but you love it. He side-eyes Jake and Jay when you take off your dress and reveal your bikini-clad body, and barks at them to stop salivating even though they weren’t looking at you.

Yunjin on Heeseung’s shoulders, Jake on Jay’s and you on Sunghoon’s, the six of you play a tournament of who can make the others fall faster. Your boy has amazing balance, robust legs, a strong core, and decent (surprisingly impressive) arm muscles, so you win, a victory peck turning into a makeout session that everybody groans at, except for Jake who whoops. 

You apply sunscreen on each other’s backs and complain that evening when you’ve got weirdly-shaped sunburns anyway, you along the lines of your swimsuit and him on the back of his knees. You eat the watermelon Jay brought and the boys spit black seeds at each other, not daring to do it to you or Yunjin after the stank look you gave them.

When you get home and everyone has driven off, neither of you is quite ready to call it a night yet. Sunghoon eyes the backseat of his car and you understand what he wants immediately. His skin smells like sun, sweat, sunscreen and sea water, and it’s all so him. It smells so good, it’s almost intoxicating, and you think you’ll never be able to get enough of his scent, of him. You won’t be able to look up at the bright star in the day sky or at an orange bottle of sticky sunscreen the same way ever again. 

You’ve had many things in your life. You’ve had dolls, and you’ve had books and CDs. You’ve also had and still have friends, sometimes even boyfriends. You’ve had fun, and times that were not as fun. You’ve had sex. But you’ve not had anything like what you have with Sunghoon. He’s the one who gave you the intense feeling of truly loving and being loved, the insatiable craving of wanting more, the overwhelming need to see and talk to and feel and smell. 

He’s the one who gave you the best summer of your life, and it’s the best thing you’ve ever had. It overpowers everything you’ve ever had to the point that it feels like it’s the first thing you’ve ever had; it might be the only thing you ever have, because you don’t understand how you could want anything else now that you’ve had him. He’s all you need.

Seventeen days left with Sunghoon. You’re having your joyful weekly dinner with your grandmother and the Parks when you feel something hit your foot gently. You feel it again, and when you look up at the boy sitting right across the table from you he’s trying to hide a small smile, but you know him too well to miss it. His clothed foot caresses the ridge of your own and you suppress a giggle at the ticklish feelings. You tease him back, and you realize you’re playing footsies at the ripe age of twenty years old, but it doesn’t bother you. You both end up failing at not laughing and when innocently, his mother asks, “what are you two laughing at?”, he coughs and says it’s an inside joke.

Fourteen days left with Sunghoon. The last two weeks of summer lessons have started again and Sunghoon and you can’t run around and lay in random fields at any time of the day anymore, but you still try your best to spend every waking second of the day together, to the despair of his fangirls. However, you still find moments where it’s the two of you in an empty stall and one exchanged look is enough for you to push him against the walls, your lips finding his in the fraction of a second. Sadly, before it can get too heated, a nearby horse always neighs or huffs as if telling you to get a room.

Twelve days left with Sunghoon. Conveniently, Sunghoon’s sister and their parents are out for the night at a party in celebration of the competition season that’s about to end, so you finally get to spend the night in his room. You technically could’ve done it before, but the house is old and the walls are thin, and you didn’t need that kind of humiliation. 

Maybe Sunghoon feels that your time is slowly running to its end too, because as the days pass, he melts under your touch like a candle to a flame even more than before, he kisses your lips with more desperation and he holds your hips tighter as if you were going to disappear from between his hands at any moment. He always asks to please, please let’s cum at the same time and please, please say my name and you do it because you’d do anything for him.

You do it three times in a row, both of your bodies weak and sensitive with overstimulation yet unending desire, and you feel tears pouring down your cheeks as your third orgasm of the night hits you. There’s no way anything will ever feel as good as this. You tell him this, and he says, “I know.”

Seven days left with Sunghoon. He asks you what you’ll do when you go home, and you reply that you don’t know, because even though you’ve been thinking about what little time you have left together, you haven’t been thinking about the time after that, simply because it puts a bland feeling in your mouth whenever it crosses your mind. “I’ll start studying again and I’ll start my internship. I’ll get black out drunk at least once a month to forget all the stress and pressure of being a med student. I’ll think about you. That’s probably about it. What about you?”

“I’ll study too and I’ll have an assistantship at some point too. I’ll get drunk on Thursday nights and take care of the club during the weekends. I’ll think about you, too. More than you, I’m sure.”

“That’s not possible. You won’t ever leave my mind.”

“You won’t either,” he whispers.

Two days left with Sunghoon. He tells you you’re going camping for your last night together, not wanting to leave your side for even a second. “We’ve only got so much time left, we need to make the most of it,” he says, and you wished he knew that that had been your exact thought for the past twenty days.

That night, everything goes much slower than it usually does. You take your sweet time taking the clothes off of each other, reveling in discovering the smooth skin underneath the fabric as if you hadn’t seen it dozens of times by now. You find all of his moles and kiss them one by one, and he takes a full minute kissing down from your lips to your core. His thrusts are slow but deep, and your lips don’t leave the other’s the whole time.

-

Ten hours left with Sunghoon. You wake up the next morning when the sunlight the thin walls of the tent are unable to keep away gets too bright for your eyes’ liking. The warmth of this late August night has made you two drift apart while you slept, but you quickly find his body again and you wrap your arms around him, nuzzling your nose into the crook of his neck. He smells like sleep and like himself, which is comforting.

He calls out your name and you lift your head to look at him. When he doesn’t turn his head as well and only gives you his chin and jawline to look at, you know he’s about to say something important. Something he doesn’t dare to say while looking in your eyes. 

Your mind goes back to all the times you’ve laid down next to each other and you hope that those will be what you see whenever you think of Sunghoon in the future. The sun not quite ready to call it a day, a slight breeze picking up, the hay a semi-comfortable mattress that sometimes poked you at the back of your neck and arms. Sunghoon right next to you. You were always happy then, hoping you wouldn’t regret anything later. You wouldn’t have known what to do to prevent that anyway.

All you know is you don't want your memory of Sunghoon to be tainted by this moment right now, this moment in which he avoids your gaze and your heart feels heavy because you’re leaving soon and you won’t get to have him in your embrace like this. You want to be happy when you think of him; you don’t want to feel his absence.

“Yeah?” you answer. He still doesn’t look at you, and you get a bit nervous.

He sighs a deep breath like you’ve never seen him do before. “Is it okay if I say something a bit selfish?”

You love him so much. You realize that maybe that’s what you’ll end up regretting. “Go ahead.”

“I wish you didn’t have to leave,” he says, and you almost laugh out of relief.

“That’s not selfish, Hoon. I don’t want to leave, either.” You reach for his hand and he lets you take it, your fingers intertwining immediately as if made to hold each other. To hold onto each other. He still doesn’t look at you, and you know there’s something more there.

“It’s selfish because I’m scared I’ll resent you for leaving,” he says, voice a whisper. 

Ah. There it is.

You squeeze his hand, wordlessly asking him to go on. He takes another breath, a shakier one this time, and he chuckles at the tears he feels pooling in his eyes. “You showed up here out of nowhere and you made me so, so happy. You listened to me and got me to open up, which I usually hate doing. You told me that I was good, that you were proud of me. And now you’re leaving and no one will tell me those things anymore.” The first crack in your heart happens when you hear his voice quiver at the end of his sentence.

“You don’t need me to tell you those things. You know them now, and you have yourself,” you try to reassure him.

The second crack happens when he finally turns to look at you, lips trembling and eyes full of tears. “But I want you to tell me those things.” It takes everything in you to not burst into tears, but you want to be strong for him. For the both of you.

“I can still tell you those things. Phones exist, you know.” A small smile appears on your lips as you try to alleviate the tension. Sunghoon’s eyebrows crease and he pouts his lips; you can tell he doesn’t want to laugh in this moment, but the nudge you give him and your smile make his facade break.

You laugh as he whines, telling you this is a serious moment and to not make him laugh. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” you say between chuckles and you wrap your arms around him, bringing him to lay his head on your chest. You kiss the top of his head and graze your fingers through his hair. “Laughing is all I can do to stop myself from crying, baby,” you whisper. When you feel a tear roll down your cheek, you add, “And it’s not even working that well.”

Sunghoon buries his face deeper between your breasts and sobs. No more, no less, he sobs, loud, choked sobs that make his whole body shake against yours, and you hold him as tight as you can so that they don’t break him in two. “I’m gonna miss you so much,” he manages to say, and that’s when the third and final crack happens and your heart shatters. It breaks into a million tiny pieces that fall all over your body; some of them make their way to your throat while others travel to the tips of your fingers and others lodge themselves behind your knees or in the pits of your stomach. Your heart breaks into sharp pieces and you feel them piercing under your skin everywhere. You feel like you’re gonna throw up.

You and Sunghoon aren’t even technically dating. You’ve known each for two months. You live far, but not halfway across the world; you can see each other again. You will see each other again. It’s not supposed to hurt that much, yet it hurts even more than that. 

“I know, baby, I know,” you whisper into his hair. “I’ll miss you so much too. But we’ll see each other again, right? Paris isn’t that far away.”

His sobs calm down and you hear him sniffle as he catches his breath. “Paris isn’t far away, but we’ll be worlds apart. You’re going to study and become a doctor, and I’ll stay here. You know what medical school is like, you’re going to be flooded with work for at least four more years. I can’t expect you to stay in touch all the time.”

“Well, it doesn’t need to be all the time, does it? I’d annoy you if it was.”

“You could never annoy me,” he says, and it makes you laugh. He’d never have said this two months ago.

“Plus, I’ll still get time off. I can come back next summer.”

He raises his head to look at you and you can see all the hope and sadness in his puffy eyes. You want to kiss away the tear stains on his cheeks. You want to right everything wrong just to see him smile again. “Next summer?” he echoes in a small voice.

“Next summer,” you promise, a smile you hope is comforting on your lips.

-

Next summer doesn’t work out. The one after that either. Your internship is going swimmingly, and so is his assistantship, and you simply don’t have the time to make a trip all the way down there. A part of you is also worried that if you see him again, you won’t have the force to leave.

Those years you don’t see him, you’re reminded of the ten days you were apart during that summer, and how you’d felt like he’d kept a small piece of your heart with him, because it still feels that way. There’s something that’s keeping you tethered to that summer, something that the strongest scissors or the sharpest knife in the world couldn’t break.

For a short period of time, he was all you needed. But reality quickly seeped back in, and now you needed good grades and then a good job, a decent flat, a decent income. You didn’t need anyone like you needed him, but you still wanted them because even if they weren’t as pretty, or as patient, or as kind as your Sunghoon, they were still good, and sometimes that was all you could ask for. You were always sorry that you couldn’t give them your whole heart, because a piece of it had stayed in the south of France and you didn’t have the courage to march down there and demand it back. Selfishly, you hoped you also kept a piece of Sunghoon’s heart in yours.

You did call once in a while, but those calls made both of you more sad than happy, and after a couple years the calls were so spaced out that they only happened on birthdays and special events. The next time you see him, it’s five years later, at your grandmother’s funeral. You can only stay for three nights and you spend most of your time there with relatives, celebrating your grandmother’s life, so you don’t see him much. When you do, you get to catch up for a few hours. He’s almost done with vet school and he’s specialized in equine studies. He’s an intern at the horse vet in Laroque which means he gets to stay in the center and help his parents out. Yeji is on her way to becoming one of the best in the country, he adds with a proud smile. You’re finishing up your last years as an intern in a Paris hospital, but you haven’t changed your mind about becoming a general practitioner, which you need just a few more years of experience for. You don’t miss how his face falls slightly when you tell him you have a boyfriend and that you’re thinking of getting engaged to him. He tells you he’s happy for you with the saddest eyes. The hug he gives you when you have to leave brings back so many feelings and memories, and even after all these years there’s nothing more that you want to do than stay in his arms and never move again.

You break up with your boyfriend as soon as you get home.

On a random Thursday, you’re done with your decade-long studies, and you’re free to go out into the world, a medical diploma in hand. You get a job in a cabinet owned by a friend of your parents, and you like the job, but you know you’re just passing the time until the opportunity you’ve been waiting for comes around.

Every week, you check whether a spot opens up for a general practitioner in the small town of Laroque-des-Albères. It doesn’t for about eighteen months, until suddenly it does, and in a week you’re packing your bags and taking that trip you took twelve years ago.

Sunghoon doesn’t even know. He could be married with a wife and three kids, for all you know, and it’s foolish but you hope he’s been waiting for you. He’s just finishing up a health check on some of the older horses when you get out of your car, eyes finding him immediately. From the other side of the courtyard, he smiles at you, and it’s like the summer you first fell in love all over again.

permanent taglist: @ozymandia-s @bbujiikseu @sd211 @lalalalawon @sunghoonmybeloved @w3bqrl

© asahicore on tumblr, 2023. please do not repost, plagiarize or translate my works. feedback and reblogs are always appreciated!

#sunghoon x reader #enhypen x reader #sunghoon smut #enhypen smut #sunghoon fluff #enhypen fluff #sunghoon angst #enhypen angst #sunghoon au #enhypen au #sunghoon fanfiction #enhypen fanfiction

[egcdeath]

omg i loved loved loveddd that marriage fic of patrick zweig!! there is a serious shortage of patrick zweig x reader fics, I had a request actually if you could maybe write more of pregnant reader x patrick or maybe even newborn dad patrick (i have a soft spot for that& i loved the ending because of that) tysm!! :)

thank you and that prompt is so cute!! i’m currently super busy, so i really do not have the time/mental capacity for a whole fic so here’s a (long) list of headcanons!

also, i’m imagining the pairing from something old, something new, but you don’t have to read that to get this!

when you first tell patrick that you’re ready for kids, that man is ECSTATIC. in SOSN, they’re just “friends” but he definitely has feelings for her before they address it, so taking the step to start a family together is a huge one.

patrick suddenly starts believing alllll of the old wives tales and superstitions about pregnancy. you have to call him out for it every now and then like, “patrick, wtf??” and he’s always just like “i swear it’s true, i heard it from a friend of my friend’s aunt.” and you just give him a crazy look.

once you finally take a test and find out it’s official, the two of you are SO excited. patrick tries to lift you up and spin you off the ground but that almost instantly triggers your morning sickness.

that man is so excited to be a father. he’s constantly putting his hand on your tiny bump and reading books on parenting (you don’t know that you’d ever seen him read a book before then) and asking you about when you’re free to take baby related classes. you have to remind him that you’re really not that far along and he needs to chill.

he would be so accommodating to you. hold your hair back while you’re having morning sickness. wake up in the middle of the night to get the ingredients and make you a pickle watermelon salad. massage your swollen feet. he already loves and cares about you so much and he wants to be sure to give you and the baby the top tier of treatment ever.

patrick is very much a hot head who loves to argue. and i think in the early stages he might egg on your mood swings A LITTLE BIT. but i think pretty quickly he’d realize he needs to dial it back because arguing with a pregnant person is crazy. but every now and then you just want to argue with him to argue with him or old times sake, and when he ends up being the bigger person, you say something about it and he’ll humor you. i actually think it would be so funny if you and him had like . a safe word to indicate that you were just playing, that way he doesn’t say the wrong thing and make you cry or something.

specifically for the pair from sosn, i think that they would maybe vaguely mention that they were trying to get pregnant to their family, but they wouldn’t tell family until it can’t be hidden anymore. like sometimes you just want something to yourselves, and you know that if your families get involved, things will be WAYYYY blown out of proportion. you tell your friends, who are super happy for you, and you tell your family who are also very happy for you. your families immediately start debating about baby name and whose great grandma is going to be the baby’s namesake. patrick insists that there will be more than one baby to name, then winks at you.

as the baby approaches, he’s coming with you for appointments. it is his final season before he retires, so he is pretty busy, but he’s either flying to meet you or for you to meet him vice versa. he ends up having a tennis event end on the same day as one of your ultrasound appts and you’re SO sure that he isn’t going to be able to make it, but lo and behold. who comes running through the door just as the doctor starts applying that cold gel to your stomach??? you actually cry a few tears of joy. patrick kisses them off your face.

you’re struggling these last few months or pregnancy, but patrick has your back. i can see him being super accommodating during this time period, especially once his tennis commitments end.

he starts tearing through his books and making you come to all of these classes with him. you’re kinda having the time of your life bonding with your man and getting a little less anxious for your baby.

you go into labor in the middle of the night. patrick grabs your birth bag (the two of you have been preparing for this) and holds your hand the whole time that he’s speeding down the highway.

this man is full of theatrics when you get to the hospital. he’s yelling and shit. he’s asking all of the doctors where they went to school and if they’re qualified to take care of you. they’re sick and tired of him immediately. you wish you could be sick and tired of him but you’re actually to scared to care.

you’re in pain. he keeps telling you that he wishes he could take all your pain and give it to him. he’s so dramatic. you love him with all of your being.

your labor is not a short one, but he’s by your side for every single second that he can. he’s telling you stupid stories. he’s talking about things you’re gonna do with the baby when they arrive. he’s trying everything he can to distract you.

when it’s time to start pushing, he holds your hand again. you’re squeezing his hand so hard that it goes a little numb, but he doesn’t mention it. he’s cheering you on like you’re at a sporting event.

suddenly your baby is here. the two of you cry happy tears when you hold her. it’s the best moment of your lives.

adjusting to having a baby at home is definitely… something! the two of you consider hiring a nanny (as all rich people do) but ultimately decide against it. patrick is literally retired so like, stay at home dad era incoming!!

babies really are not glamorous so i’ll skip all the gross stuff and focus on the good.

you guys think the baby is the cutest thing on earth. even though you’re sleep deprived and stressed and still in a good amount of pain, you think that the baby is the best thing either of you have accomplished.

sometimes you watch in the doorway when patrick sings and rocks the baby to sleep. it is the cutest thing you’ve ever witnessed.

patrick lovessss a baby bjorn. he’s walking around the house chatting it up with your baby, just telling her about how much of a tennis legend he was back in the day, flipping pancakes in the kitchen with baby attached to him, etc etc. anything he can do, he swears baby can also do.

patrick is just so cute and sweet and gentle with the baby.

patrick girldad?? idk. just think about it.

patrick loves dressing up your daughter in silly little baby outfits. she loves it. you just shake your head in mock disapprovement while patrick brings the baby over to your face for a little cheek kiss, followed by his own cheek kiss. it’s very hard to be pretend disappointed after that.

once baby is a little older, i think the two of them would try to get her into tennis. maybe see if it’s her calling. it’s not. but she loves dancing, so that’s what she does!

the two of you are at every recital, watching her clumsily tot around. it’s so cute. patrick swears she has star power and is gonna be big some day. you lovingly roll your eyes at him. he insists it’s true.

your families also LOVEEEE the baby. i could see patrick being pretty overprotective from them at times too though, especially when they try to insist that she should be a certain way or do a certain thing.

the three of you are a very happy family. you were a little worried before you asked about how he might be as a father, or scared that he was going to run off at the proposition but he’s definitely taken to it.

i hope you enjoyed reading that as much as i enjoyed writing it! this was super fun to do and i would love to write more hcs for anyone who has any more ideas!!

#neptune answers #patrick zweig x reader #patrick zweig x you #josh o'connor x reader #art donaldson x reader #challengers

[starl3ght]

141 + more with a reader that sleeps a lot

A/N: I’m back from the dead, haha Melanie Martinez kinnie. I have a cousin that sleeps till 3 in the afternoon like wtf😨 I live for these men. They’re fine as fuckkkkkkk I loved making this

Requests are open and follow for more <333

-

-

Simon “Ghost” Riley

• He won’t be worried that much about you

• Maybe you’re just tired so he lets you do your own thing

• He respects you and what you just do around the house so he allows it

• But notices how you nap like every 3 hours a day and he gets concerned

• You just drop wherever. The couch, the living room floor, he found you outside in the grass one time.

• He throws a blanket over you each time and rubs his temple wondering what he’s gonna do with you

• “Love, you know this isn’t healthy right?”

• You had just woken up from your 4th nap.

• You look at him with your puppy eyes

• “But I’m tired”

• Don’t melt his heart, it makes him weak.

• “Trust me you’re gonna regret it, now up you go.”

• He’ll throw you over his shoulder and makes you do some random activities for you not to fall asleep.

John “Soap” Mactavish

• Might do the same thing but not much as you.

• He thinks it’s weird that you just close your eyes and stay dead for a few hours

• Might wake you up for fun

• He likes seeing you angry

• He sprayed you with the bottle one time. That wasn’t a good thing to do let’s just say.

• But seriously he is a bit concerned for you

• So when he walked into the literal, pitched black living room with the tv on and opened the blinds to the sunlight you hissed like some savage cat

• He only looks at you with a weird look

• “Jesus…alright, up and at em love.”

• You’ll just throw the blanket over your face again

• Ok, that’s how you wanna play it? He can play that game too

• He’ll grab your legs and drag you off the couch

• “No Johnny” you’re hugging a pillow against your face and he keeps dragging you “Not letting go that easy love. Now up.”

• He’ll pick you up putting your legs around his torso and your arms around his neck

• “We’re going out, dunno where but you’re done with your hobby for today bonnie”

• You went to Starbucks together( ˘ ³˘)♥

John Price

• Concerned as any parent would be

• Limits your sleeping time

• Has his alarm on his phone to wake you up

• “Love rise and shine, well technically it’s 4 in the afternoon so…”

• You’re still dead.

• He’ll stroke your face to wake you or just come back to existence💀

• Kisses your forehead and shakes your shoulder gently

• If you wake up he’s not letting you go back to sleep

• “You ready to stay up now love?”

• You violently shake your head no but he takes you to the living room so you can watch tv or read a book

• He needs you to be more active🤷‍♀️

• Might consider taking you to a doctor but tries to help you first

• Watches your sleeping habits well

• If it’s insomnia he’ll comfort you in his lap as you rant on about your sleeping issues

• He’ll make you sleep at the same time as him and takes you out to keep you busy or distracted.

Kyle “Gaz” Garrick

• Honestly it’s ok with him

• He just doesn’t like it when it happens for like a week straight

• 2-3 days is alright him because it’s a long tiring week so.

• When its 5 times every day he’s not allowing it

• Feels bad for waking you up

• “Baby?”

• You’re still in the world of dreams

• “Love, it’s time to wake up now”

• He uses that sweet soft voice you love so much

• But you won’t wake up

• He doesn’t know what to do that he might consider calling Price for help

• When you do wake up and look at him with your eyes with bags under his heart melts

• You must be having some issues

• He’ll make you sleep early so you’re ok for the next day

• He’ll take care of you, trust me

Alejandro Vargas

• Future husband mode activated

• Worries that waking you will get you angry

• But remembers it isn’t healthy

• So he uses your weaknesses to wake you up ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

• Mans kisses the crook of your neck and strokes your hair

• “Mi amor…wake up for me” That deep sweet voice he’s got for you

• You shift around in your sleep and open your eyes

• You just go to the bathroom and go back to the couch to sleep again

• He’s standing there frozen🧍

• “Ahora si, wake up mi vida.”

• He picks you up and that’s when you wake up

• You’ll slap his shoulder from anger

• “There we go…”

• He takes you to the bedroom and gives you a reason to be tired if you know what I mean🙂✨🌹

Rodolfo Parra

• AYYYY BABY😍😍😍😍

• He loves you too much

• He’s very worried for your health

• “Mi vida por favor, wake up.”

• You just won’t budge

• Worries a bit much now

• Like what if you’re staying up all night and he hasn’t noticed and so you sleep all day

• But that if that wasn’t the issue he would calm down

• You just sleep…like a lot

• Considers giving you melatonin for the night and taking you out the next day to have your energy

• He always gently touches you and when you wake he’ll give you something to eat

• He’s literally like a parent having to take care of you

• Will help you with your habits

König

• Won’t wake you up

• He’s scared

• Like what if you’re so peaceful and he upsets you from waking you up

• But reminds himself this is for your own good

•If you fall asleep on him then may he rest in piece.

• He’s not getting you off of him anytime soon and not easily

• Will nudge you shoulder hoping you open your eyes

• “Schatz??”

•You’re still sleeping. Are you even breathing??

• “Please wake up” oh now his voice is anxious

• “König what are you doing, it’s 8 in the morning”

• Wtf is wrong with you👁👄👁

• “Umm, meine liebe it’s 2 in the afternoon actually…”

• You reach out your arms like a baby wanting to be picked up

• So he does

• Picks you up gently as if you were the most fragile thing

• “Geliebte I think we should talk about your habits my dear.”

Alex Keller

• This mf let’s you do whatever you want

• He only gets curious when you’re in random places napping

• That’s when he realized it’s weird that you sleep a lot

• “Baby, you should’ve been awake 3 hours ago. It’s already 9 pm ”

• He’s literally standing in the living room and you’re on the carpet floor with a blanket over you

• Bro reaches for the blanket and throws it across the room and you wake up whining

• “Alex stop, let me sleep.”

• He gives you an almost offended look

• “It’s already been 5 years, it’s time for you to rise. Now go eat something”

• Drags you to the kitchen and makes you eat

• Now when it’s time for bed you don’t wanna sleep

• He’ll make you either way and holds you to his chest so you can’t escape

#call of duty #cod modern warfare #ghost call of duty #ghost mw2 #john price #call of duty mwii #simon riley #kyle gaz garrick #alejandro vargas #cod mw2 #cod x reader #mw2 x reader #soap mactavish #call of duty mw2 #gaz cod #modern warefare ii #mw2 fanfic #simon ghost riley #soap mw2 #alex keller #alex modern warfare #konig cod #konig mw2 #konig imagine #cod john price #gaz x reader #alejandro cod #call of duty rodolfo #rodolfo rudy parra #ghost cod

[bamsara]

For the prompt thing, may I suggest, "good morning sleeping beauty" with moon? I think it'd be really sweet to have y/n finally comfortable enough to sleep near moon and they wake up to see him next to them.

(also, hi bam!)

Moon-Centric | Wordcount: 1,018 | A03 Version

Adjusting to living with the Daycare Attendant was easy in some ways, odd in others, and in some cases: just weird.

You've gotten quite used to a few quirks or theirs, or simple things. Like remembering you're not alone in your apartment anymore when you suddenly hear the TV turn on to the news in the other room or the sound of doors opening and closing. Or the smell of food cooking (burning) when Sun decides to try a new recipe that he may have forgotten that your fridge is not an endless supply of ingredients and you do, actually, have to go to the grocery store to keep supplying his new hobby.

There's the whole showering situation. The laundry situation (they don't need clothes, per say, but one of the upsides of being free robots means they can dress however they like now, so their wardrobe is growing) and coming home to see that your furniture has been rearranged for a third time that week because the Daycare Attendant wants everything to look just right.

There's also the sleeping situation.

You mostly wake up to Sun in the morning. Unless you don't, and it's the middle of the night, and Moon doesn't know the meaning of 'personal bubble.'

One evening you wake up with a sore, dry throat, open your eyelids and find two bright red glows casting back down at you. "What the-"

A silicone-coated hand gently, quietly, comes over your lips. You are silenced, though still sending a glare, to the robot that hushes you, hovering inches over your face. Moon sits cross-legged on the bed, tall body hunched over your foam. His T-shirt brushes up against your bare arm. The bell of his hat rests beside your head on your pillow. This was the norm for him.

You glare up at him and talk through the fingers on your mouth. "Whattyadoing."

The Moon does not respond, but his smile and half-lidded eyes tell you its an obvious answer.

You blink through he bleariness and look to the clock. It's about 5AM, not the middle of the night like you thought, but the sun hasn't risen yet. The space behind your curtains is still a blue, purple of a day not born yet. "How long have you been like this."

"Only a few moments." He talks quietly, voicebox in a whisper. Any louder would disturb you, and he wants you to fall back asleep. "You were stirring."

You yawn, and the hand brushes down your chin and to your neck, and lingers there. The bed on your back and warm blankets are lulling, but the ache in your throat is becoming more noticeable as you breathe. "I need water."

"I can get it for you."

"No, it's fine." You grab his arm before he moves, and he stays. Though a dulled look comes across his face, he returns to hover above you. "Give me a minute. I should get up for the day about this time anyway."

Moon's face twitches. Obvious disagreement. But the hand near your neck returns just to brush the hair away from your face. "You are getting up early?"

"Yeah." You yawn, and stretch your legs under the blankets. Any moment now you'll have to bite the tired and sit up. "Gramps has doctor appointment at 8AM, and we're driving him. Might as well get some stuff done and ready before we go."

"Hmm." His thumb moves to your eyes, and you close them briefly as he thumbs away the sleepy bits in the corner. He does what Sun does all the same, greasy hair and dried drool on your face do not stop him from petting you, for some reason. It's a nice feeling, if not too soothing when you know you need to get up.

The Moon clicks dully, pulling at the skin underneath your eyes (dark circles, thin skin with taut veins from sleepless nights and days full of worry and agitation. ) before a soft grin stretches on his face. "Good morning, sleeping beauty."

You glare at him, blinking out of synch.

"I never tell you good morning." He continues, unphased by your less-than-impressed reaction. "I only tell you Good Night. My turn."

That was...correct. Moon was the one who followed you to bed, but never the one to wake up with you. That was Sun. You never thought to wonder if they'd prefer to see how it is to switch. "God, you're corny. I hate 'sleeping beauty.' Makes me cringe."

"I can use a different name I have for you." Moon's smile turns slightly wicked.

"Pass."

"I can try a different way-"

"I'm going back to sleep." With one swift motion, you pull the blanket up to your chin and turn away, back to the animatronics. "Wake me up in an hour."

A low, amused chuckle comes from the static voice box behind you, and the presence on the bed shifts, the weight moving as Moon's head comes down to your face directly. "I won't."

"Mean."

"I'll wake you when the sun rises."

You blow air out from your nose and onto his face. It swivels, the ball falling with it. "You're totally preventing me from getting my extra hour of sleep, by the way."

"A shame." Moon hums. The face disappears from your vision, and the darkness of the room is all you have to see. Against your back, you feel the bed shift, and an arm comes up underneath you. The covers are lifted (not like you didn't help with that) and the space behind you is occupied now. Your legs brush up against star-pattern pants, a metal arm secured around your waist. "We will make it two hours."

You realize with faint defeat that you never got your water, but you're already lulling back to sleep too late to try. "Don't make me late."

"Hush." The other hand finds its way over your eyes. Moon's faceplate rests on your head, his t-shirt presses into your back. "Good morning."

"G'morning." You mumble, shifting backward further into the animatronic, and letting your lingering sleep take you.

#writings #drabbles #fnaf sb #fnaf moon #moon x reader #Solar Lunacy

[simping-for-joe]

Let Me Steal this Moment From You

Leon Kennedy X reader (soulmate AU)

Part 2

You feel whatever pain your soulmate does, and for the past six years it seems like your soulmate never gets a break

A/N: I haven't seen a soulmate AU for Leon so thought it might be fun to do and I'm cheesy as hell. I also thought about how painful it would be to be anyone from RE's soulmate like this

(Title from the song "Running up that Hill (A Deal with God)" by Kate Bush)

Your soulmate was always someone who got hurt, it seemed like whoever they were they could never stay out of trouble. You got used to it and it was never anything serious until one night. Earlier that night a pain shot up in your back, like almost your back had been slammed against something metal. You decided to go to bed early since the pain was extreme, and it didn't seem to stop.

You shoot up in bed in blinding pain, grasping your shoulder. You screamed out from the shock. Your roommate ran over to you, calling your name but the pain was unbearable almost like you had gotten shot in the shoulder. Tears in your eyes just from the agony of it, your roommate in a complete panic called for an ambulance unsure of what else to do for you. That entire night in the hospital left you in pure pain as your soulmate seemed to be beaten around the entire night.

You thought your soulmate was dead by the time it all settled. You were in just aching pain as you lay in the hospital bed. Your worry consumed your thoughts, worried that something had happened to your soulmate.

"Well... they aren't dead." The doctor suddenly says to you. "You would know if they were, but whatever they just went through was rough." He tells you, looking at a chart. "Seems like it finally settled."

"Is there anything I can do?" You ask worried, and he shakes his head.

"I'm sorry... there's nothing."

There wasn't a ton of pain for the next week or so, but suddenly the pain started coming back. Nothing as extreme as that faithful night, but nothing pretty. A lot of times you would end the day feeling beat up, and exhausted. It made you wonder what changed for them, why was there suddenly so much pain in their life. It made you worried, very worried. It turned into six years of your soulmate being beaten around and hurt.

It was a random day in the fall when you suddenly felt a prick in your neck. You stop and look around, your hand going to your neck. Something was happening to your soulmate today. Nothing too crazy, you've had worse, but it was a bit different from the usual.

You were in your kitchen when there was suddenly a pain in your chest and stomach. You ran over to your sink before you spat up blood. Your eyes widened as you looked down at the sink that had a mix of saliva and blood at the bottom.

"What the hell is going on?" You ask yourself worry filling your chest. That pain stuck with you among the other things you were feeling. It was starting to become like that night again, but it was getting so much worse. A feeling of a cut on your thigh, feeling like you’ve been kicked around. It was non-stop pain, and it wasn’t slowing down.

It was the middle of the night when you screamed out in agony, a heavy pain in your chest. It stopped after a few moments, and you managed to call your mother to tell her what was going on. Tears in your eyes as you explained that your soulmate could be dead with the amount of pain you felt. She tells you to stay calm and to take deep breaths. The sensation starts again, and she says she is going to call an ambulance before hanging up. Everything from there is a pure blur as a doctor and nurses struggle to sedate you, unable to do anything else for your pain.

When you wake up the pain is gone, and your mother sits beside you,

"How are we feeling honey?" She asks you kindly, running a hand through your hair.

"Tired... but okay..." You reply softly almost numbly. Still exhausted from the night before. The doctor comes into the room and asks how you're feeling the usual routine.

"It says here you were hospitalized six years ago due to a similar situation." She notes as she looks at her clipboard.

"Yeah... I was..." You nod gently looking at her. The woman sighs as your mother gently runs a hand through your hair still.

"Look... I don't recommend this to just anyone but there's currently a drug doing testing that numbs the sensation we experience from soulmates." She begins to explain to you. "I'm just saying you've been to the hospital twice because of this. Neither time seemed like a small incident, it's just something worth thinking about."

Your mother loved the idea, but you... you didn't know. The pain let you know they were still there. They were still holding on despite everything and all the pain they had been through, you both have been through. If this was six years ago you would have jumped at the chance to never feel that pain again, but now...

"I need some time..." You reply softly.

"That's understandable, here's the information you'll need if you decide you want to do this." The doctor nods understanding and hands you some papers.

Your thoughts were constantly on your soulmate and their pain, it's been quiet since your hospital visit. Just small things, you were glad they were seemingly getting a break. You were always careful when it came to your own pain not wanting to add any more to theirs.

The drugs were constantly on your mind too, even as you shopped at the store. You accidentally bumped into a man, your thoughts elsewhere.

"Oh! I'm sorry!" You quickly say looking at a rather well-built man, he had the bluest eyes you had ever seen. His lips upturned into a friendly smile no longer in a deep frown, but his eyes had heavy bags underneath them. He looked tired, it made you kinda worried for the stranger. Even if you didn't know him.

"It's alright," he brushes it off. His blonde hair swayed with his movement. He goes on with his day and you do too, but you glance back at him for some reason. Like some part of you was telling you to keep talking to him. You ignored it and went to grab your list from your pocket. As you do your thumb gets a cut, causing you to wince out gently. When you do, you hear someone else wince. Your eyes widened and you turned to the blonde stranger. Who was looking at you too, he had winced. Holding out the same thumb you had just cut, he looks you up and down. Like he was trying to process everything that was going on.

You do something you would have never done for anyone else you pull a stranger into a tight embrace.

"I don't know what you've gone through these past six years, but... I'm so sorry... and I wish I could take that pain from you..." You simply say to him pulling him close to you. He says nothing and does nothing for a moment before he hugs you back. Struggling to hold in his tears as he feels the warmest embrace he's felt in a long time.

Your soulmate Leon Kennedy has the weight of the world on his shoulders. It's a good thing you are there to make it a little easier.

#resident evil #leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #fanfic #x reader #soulmates au #angst #hurt/comfort #no use of y/n #might do a leon version

[genderqueerpond]

You know, I think Clara knew about Amy.

Not at first, of course, but Clara grew up with her --- that is, grew up reading Amelia Williams books. And they were precious to her, books she's read many times over the course of her childhood -- how else does she know exactly which chapter holds what in the book she gave Artie? Perhaps she has always felt connected to her, this moderately obscure children's fantasy author, following in the footsteps of E Nesbit; this contemporary (and sometime friend (oh yes!) ) of Edward Eager's; although not nearly as widely known as either of these. Perhaps because of her choice to publish openly under a "woman's name", thus, in the time in which she lived, relegating her books to the inferior realm of "girls' books", despite the more than equal balance of male viewpoint characters.

But Amelia Williams is different from these authors too -- often fantasy, but sometimes more like early science fiction, a barely- recognized pioneer in both genres. Her views were feminist and daring. In so many ways she was ahead of her time, and the innovations she imagined! almost as if she knew what the future would hold.

And if Clara knows and loves her books so well, she can hardly fail to recognize the most frequently repeated character archetype in them. especially after she rereads a few on a subconscious hunch, during that summer after the Maitlands found a permanent nanny and she insisted that before anything else, she go off and fulfill her original travel plans from 101 Places To See. (The Doctor purported to leave her alone to forge her own way with this, but was in actuality very bad at that, and kept popping up nearly every place she went.) She's Clara, she's clever, how can she fail to look up from her book and notice that the person who's just appeared out of nowhere to stand in front of her with a plate of jammie dodgers and a goofy smile has stepped directly out of the pages?

And then of course, there are the dedications. Sure, there's normal stuff like "to my daughter", "to my loving and patient husband", and "to my parents, who are children now" which is rather weird and whimsical, but fits in with the fantasy author's signature style of dream-like imagination.

But the majority of Amelia Williams' dedication pages say things like "to You", "to My Doctor", "to My Raggedy Doctor" "to my raggedy man" (weird but clearly connected to the other variants), and, cryptically, over and over again: "to you", "to you", "to you", "to you (wherever in time and space you are)".

There's "to my imaginary friend" and "to my imaginary friend, and to all children who have an imaginary friend" and "to my imaginary friend, and every child in the universe who's ever met him, or ever will". Nerds and English teachers have occasionally debated what, if anything, she meant by all this, and now Clara thinks she knows, but she can never say....

And then there are the nights that the Doctor wakes up crying out for "Amy!" and then refuses to talk about it when Clara asks, refuses to acknowledge ever even knowing an Amy, "well everyone shouts random things when they're asleep, it doesn't mean anything" and "I don't remember." if pressed for details about his dreaming. And later he might go off somewhere and cry quietly, reading a book he never lets Clara see.

And then he regenerates, and calls out for "Amelia!", "the first face this face saw."

There's newborn twelve, with his Scottish accent, letting her name slip. It's the first - and only - time he's spoken of her while awake and not actively dying. And Clara is too busy with the immediate threat to their lives to think about it in the moment, but at this point she at the very least has a hunch about the connection between him and the Scottish-American author with the rather opaque background --- that as far as anyone can trace it (although to be fair, no one really cares enough to try very hard) she and her husband just kind of appeared out of nowhere in pre-WWII New York. It seems kind of obvious, now, that the doctor would have had a hand in that.

And now with all the books everywhere, the library gradually migrating into the console room, what else is obvious is that he owns every single one of her books. multiple copies, first editions, last editions, signed copies, mass paperbacks, everything. There's a TARDIS key hidden in a well-worn, well-loved, tear streaked copy of The Cuckoo And The Doll's House, which Clara finds when she's cataloging all the locations of TARDIS keys, just in case she should ever need that information one day.

This all is enough for Clara to know. There doesn't really need to be any more proof, but there is. What totally and fully clinches it are the pictures. Tucked in the pages of another tearstained book (The Beast Below this time), are photographs of Amelia, looking just as she does in her black and white author photos, but younger, and in 21st century clothes. Elsewhere, later, she finds photo booth polaroids of a still younger Amelia, goofing off and smiling. Some of them feature another young man Clara doesn't recognize, and some of them feature the Doctor. He's wearing a tweed jacket instead of his purple wool, and no vest, but otherwise he is exactly the same as the Doctor she first met. The three of them hang off each other like old friends, like family.

idk how to end this.

#clara oswald #amy pond #augh i just! so many feelings about post-TATM writer Amelia #she made the doctor up and then she grew up to Make Him Up professionally #she created him she created him she created him #lavender thoughts #dw #ndw #doctor who #meta #ANOTHER dw ficlet/meta in one day i am on a roll #like six half finished ones in my drafts too btw

[asuyaka]

Worst Gen. trio (+ Ace) with a transmasc reader!

★ - Absolutely frothin at the mouth ab Corazon n Law guys,,

☆ - Trafalgar D. Water Law, Eustass "Captain" Kidd, Monkey D. Luffy, and Portgas D. Ace x TM! Reader.

♡ - Reader has space-manipulation devil fruit powers! (❁´◡`❁) (only brought up like,, twice... oopsie!!)

— TRAFALGAR D. WATER LAW.

Law is a doctor, so of course he knows what to do when it comes to his boyfriend!

Always reminds you ta take off your binder if he notices that you've had it on for too long, and makes sure you take your T-shots on time!

If you've already had top surgery, your scars are somethin he's absolutely smitten over.

Genuinely, when you two getting ready for bed he always prefers you with your shirt off because something about your scars (or your body in general) s'so attractive ta him ??

Bein a doctor, he's always available ta do any surgery you want him to, as long as he knows the safest way to do it so you don't get hurt!

Law sat at his desk, a cup of coffee next to a pile of books with a lamp close by to illuminate what he was reading. He grumbles slightly, rubbing his eyes and taking a sip of his coffee.

You walk out of the bathroom with one of Law's button-ups and shorts, lazily rubbing your eyes and walking up to where your boyfriend is.

"You're a doctor and still won't go to sleep early?" You mumble into his neck as your arms wrap around his shoulder. He takes a deep sigh and lets his book down, bringing his hands up to rub against your arms.

Before you know it you've switched places with the book he was reading, now on his desk with a slightly confused expression, slowly turning into one of worry when you're finally able to see your boyfriend's face.

His eye bags have gotten worse and his posture makes him look like he's a shrimp. "Law..." You mumble worrily. He interrupts you with a hug, burying his head right underneath your surgery scars (that he did for you).

With a sigh, you pull him closer and rub his hair gently, feeling all the stress leaving his body. Law has always been one to overwork himself and not know when to stop, especially before letting go of his ties to Doflamingo.

"Do you want me to ask the others to get you tea?" You ask tentatively, keeping your voice soft just in case he's close to falling asleep.

He just grumbles and squeezes you closer, his tattooed fingers drawing air images on your pecs. "...warm..."

Giggling at Law's words, you press a kiss on his head and wrap your legs around his torso. The two of you stay together in comfortable silence until you feel his hands slowly fall from your chest and his breathing even out.

With a tiny smile, you use your devil fruit abilities to gently move the two of you onto the bed, situating yourselves so you don't wake Law up.

As you place the blankets over your bodies, you hear Law mumble something about a person named 'Corazon' and how the person was meeting his boyfriend—you— for the first time.

You place a soft kiss on his forehead, letting out a small giggle as he instantly squeezes you closer and buries his face in your chest.

No one would've thought the 'Surgeon of Death' Trafalgar D. Law was a cuddle bug at night.

Except you, of course.

— EUSTASS "CAPTAIN" KIDD. | DISCLAIMER: mentions of periods/mainly about gettin your period unexpectedly 'round Kidd, might be triggers f'some transmascs !! ヾ(＠⌒︶⌒＠)ノ

He genuinely doesn't care/didn't know that you're trans,,?

Tha first time he saw you with a binder on/saw your top surgery scars he didn't think much of it, genuinely thought they were battle scars.

It was only when he told Killer about them that his first mate told him in the most deadpanned and serious tone that they weren't battle scars.

n'he's so confused like ??? what are they then ???

After Killer explains what those scars mean he just,, doesn't care ?? All he came up with was that they're still battle scars, just not the same kind of battle.

His view of you doesn't change in the slightest, in his eyes you're still his boyfriend just with added customizations.

"Bath's fuckin hot," Eustass grumbled behind you, his metal arm wrapped around your waist as the scent of marshmallows wafted through the bathroom.

You relax into Eustass' boobs chest with a content sigh, letting all the tension in your body wash away with the bath. Through your daze, you hear Eustass grumble about how he forgot to bring his nail polish close so he could do his nails while resting.

With small movements of your finger, the bottle drops on your boyfriend's head, causing him to wince. "Fuck you." He mutters under his breath as he splashes some water in your direction, narrowly avoiding your face. "Love you too, captain."

You're sure Eustass rolls his eyes at that, mumbling something about how insufferable you were as he no doubt made a metal structure to help paint his nails as his other hand was occupied with holding his boyfriend.

Either you blacked out or took a small nap because before you knew what was happening, Eustass was shaking you awake with slight anger in his eyes, though you can easily make it it's all a facade because that's how he looks when you're hurt during missions. "Why didn't you tell me you were hurt? You're fuckin bleeding everywhere."

Not all the way there yet, you look around trying to find the spot you're bleeding from because you don't remember getting any injuries that could cause bleeding to worry Eustass. He's gotten and seen his fair share of wounds anyway.

That's when you notice the blood is coming from between your legs, staining your previously relaxing shower with red. Embarrassment floods your mind as you shift away from him so the blood doesn't get everywhere.

""[Name]? You alright? If it hurts that bad I could call Killer or somethin—"

"No!" You say instinctively as your mind wracks to figure out a way to sort this out. "I'm okay, can you just... leave me alone for a few minutes?"

Eustass stares at you as if you've got two heads. "While you're bleedin' out? Just tell me what's wrong, maybe I can help, yanno?"

Your lips stay shut as more wetness flows down your thigh. You've dated Eustass for a while now, it's just the first time you've openly had your period around him—which shouldn't have happened in the first place since it's two days early.

Kidd is a naturally perceptive person around you. He likes knowing what things to avoid and never bring up, and what things you could talk about for hours, so he's made sort of a guess as to what's happening, but he doesn't want to bring it up in case you were uncomfortable.

Either way, though, you looked as if you were going to explode even if he left, so he decided to take the gamble anyway. "Is it that thing where you're like,, shedding?"

You turn to stare at Eustass with a blank face. "...Shedding?"

"You know! Like the thing where like you're ready to get pregnant and shit— I don't fuckin know what it's called!" The man grumbles, trying his best to push aside his embarrassment to make sure you're okay. "Still, don't you gotta get cleaned up and shit? Not sure it's healthy to stay in a bath of your own blood."

"All the more reason you should leave, Eustass." You mumble under your breath, yelping slightly when he lifts you up and lets all the water drain out, turning on the shower to help you get clean. "Naw, think I'm good here. Wouldn't be a very good boyfriend if I left, would I?"

Realizing nothing you'd do or say was going to let him leave, you let him do whatever it was he needed to do that made him a 'good boyfriend'.

He took a shower with you, practically not letting you move a muscle until he was sure all the blood was off you. When you two were done, he tossed an extra big towel on your head before leaving to go get a few things from the kitchen.

You quickly got situated, putting on your clothes and other needed accessories before landing on Eustass' bed, hands over your tummy as pain surged from your lower half.

You hoped that sleep would get its grubby hands on you quickly so you wouldn't have to deal with it alone. As if it was mocking you, a harsher tingle worked its way up your body, eliciting a small whimper out of you.

A few minutes later, Eustass walks in with a cup of hot tea and other snacks. "Dunno what you wanted so I grabbed anythin'. You alright?"

You nod, even though you know you aren't; and by the look on your captain's face, he knows you're lying too. He doesn't pry though, only sets your body between his legs and your head on his chest, handing you the cup. "Careful, s'hot."

"Killer said I'm supposed to make sure you're well hydrated and shit, so you don't die."

You sip down the tea gingerly, stifling a giggle. "I'm not sure I'll die from cramps, Kidd."

"It's what he said! I don't know how this shit works." Eustass rolls his eyes and pulls you closer, using all the metal in his room to make a miniature version of himself and you for entertainment.

With a small content smile, you relax against your boyfriend, holding the arm he had on the lower half of your stomach. "I think whatever it is you're doing is working just fine, Kidd. Thank you."

His cheeks turn as red as his signature lipstick, rolling his eyes and trying to play it off. "Whatever, it's the least I could do for you. Even if you're annoying."

"Mhmm, I love you too Eustass."

— MONKEY D. LUFFY.

Almost like Eustass, but 10x worse.

If you wear a binder and he sees it, he's like "why do you have two shirts on ????"

And if you have surgery scars, he thinks it's the best thing ever that you two have matching (not really) torso scars!

When he asks Chopper why you suddenly get sick every month, the doctor looks at him with wide eyes,, he doesn't know ???

Chopper, just tells him to ask Robin, who tells him with a kind face to ask someone else.

Ends up asking the entire crew as his frown slowly gets deeper because why is everyone keeping a secret about you—his husband (you two aren't engaged at all)— from him ?!?!?

Demands Sanji to tell him after running around the Sunny for the tenth time, and he's just like... "Ohhhhh! Wait, why was everyone hiding that from me?????"

He just realizes you're like Yamato but the only difference s'that you two are dating!

The place smelled like a hospital, your brain foggy as you try to feel your surroundings.

Your eyes slowly open as you try to sit up—a stinging pain from your chest sending electricity through your body. "Oh, you're awake! Has everything settled down yet?" A voice asks from a chair nearby, though all you can make out from the shape is a comically large blue hat and a pair of antlers, right beside another comically large hat with black spots dotted around it.

Groggily, your eyes trail down to look at yourself, trying to find the source of the pain flowing through your body. That's when you see the bandages around your chest with tubes underneath them.

The realization hits you like a brick. Your surgery, the days spent stressing as the date got closer, the surgery. "Chopper? Is it— did the surgery go okay?"

The reindeer smiles and it feels contagious. Law stands up with a huff, throwing a mask in the bin and using his devil fruit to replace himself with Luffy.

Luffy looks a bit disoriented for a bit, relaxing when he realizes where he is. Then, he locks eyes with you and you think he cracked the biggest smile you've ever seen on his face. "[Name]!"

Before he gets the chance to throw his body at you, Chopper switches to Human Point to punch him in the head, quickly reverting back to look at you with serious eyes. "Yes, the surgery went well, but there are some things you can't do for a while."

You nod your head feverishly, gripping the sheets as you try not to squeal from excitement.

Chopper explains how you should avoid doing any strenuous activity, like fighting and training. Making an extra point to tell you not to let Luffy drag you into dangerous situations. He says that you still have to do mild exercising, i.e moving around and maybe going on slight jogs but nothing too over the top like Zoro's training.

Finally, he gives you and Luffy time alone; excusing himself to go talk with Law about some doctor-thing you couldn't give two shits about.

When the door clicks shut, Luffy sits in front of you— his expression blank but his eyes focused on the bandages around your chest. "This means you don't have to do the binding thing anymore, right?"

You nod.

"And, you're happy about it?"

You nod again.

Luffy stares at it for a bit longer, raising up a finger to poke it slightly. A small wince forces its way out of your mouth. The wounds were still fresh after all, it hurt like a bitch. Luffy apologizes with a small peck as his usual happy-go-lucky expression forms on his face. "Wanna know what I just thought of?"

You can't help the grin that forms on your face, cocking your head playfully. "What did you think of, Luffy?"

"We have matching scars now! Shishishishi!" Luffy smiles even wider (if that's possible) and grabs your hands to hold it against his. You notice that he isn't as hyper as he is normally, and in the back of your mind, a fondness spreads through you when you realize it's because of Chopper's warnings.

"You're still so pretty, you know?" Luffy whispers, as he cautiously climbs on top of your body, stating himself so he stays clear of your chest, as much as he wants to lie down and rest his head there.

A warm flush spreads across your face as your fingers comb through Luffy's hair. He shifts up and presses a quick peck on your lips, giggling as he does it again but on your cheek. "My husband is soo handsome!"

"Lu.." You trail on, giggling as you rest your hands on top of his. "We aren't even married—"

"Yet!" He interrupts sharply. "We aren't married yet! And when we do, we'll have a big wedding and invite everyone! Oh, oh, and we'll have Sanji cook meat! With a meat cake, and meat wedding rings, and meat desserts, and meat—"

You interrupt him with a kiss, running your hand through the back of his head as your fingers slightly brush against the straws of his hat. You pull away with a dopey grin on your face and Luffy stares back at you with one equally as dorky. "Just promise you'll marry me soon, okay, Luffy?"

"Shishishi, of course, I will!"

—PORTGAS D. ACE. | DISCLAIMER: mentions of period cramps and [NAME] thinking that period cramps doesn't make him a man anymore ! (>'-'&lt;)

He's surprisingly quick to figure it out!

From the random getting "sick" moments every month, to the refusal to let him hug you from behind, he pieced everything together easily.

After all, he grew up around Izo and a very supporting crew!

The first person he asked about it was his pops. He didn't know if he was supposed ta tell you up front or let you tell him yourself!

Dunno what he thought was gunna happen, Whitebeard jus sent him off to Marco or fuckin Blackbeard. Whitebeard might be good at a buncha things, but anything romantic was not his strong suit.

After a bunch of nothing from Marco, and actual advice from Izo, he figured out how he'd do it.

Ace had his hat resting on his nape, yawning as he walked into the room he shared with his boyfriend. "Love? Are you in here?"

He notices the top of your head from under the covers but you're hunched up, curled into the sheets, and cuddling a pillow for dear life. Worrily, he climbs into the bed with you and holds your shoulder. "Love? Are you sick again?"

Meekly, you nod. Trying to keep your discomfort under wraps. Ace already had things to deal with trying to become 2nd Division Commander, he didn't need his boyfriend annoying him about cramps.

Not that Ace knew you were trans—or at least you hoped he didn't know. You don't even know if he would accept you. After all, men don't get period cramps.

You sniffle, trying to keep those thoughts out of your head, but you can't help it. What if Ace finds out and decides you're too disgusting to be near him? What if he doesn't think you're a real man? Would he be angry that you deceived him? That you made him live a lie for the past three years?

The thoughts don't feel like they're stopping now—it's already gone out of hand. What if he told Whitebeard and he decided to throw you overboard for making a lie out of his son?

Not that Whitebeard would ever call you that, you aren't even sure if you are a man.

"...Love, love can you look at me? You're hyperventilating right now, do I need to call Marco?"

You quickly shake your head, trying to stop the tears from flowing but everything feels like it's too much, or like you're overstimulated. The cramps hurt and your mind won't shut up about lying to Ace about three years, three years of hurt, love, and everything in between, wasted because you couldn't tell him something with your chest.

"I'm sorry— I'm sorry Ace!" You sob, instinctively curling into his warm chest and trying to stop being a crybaby. Ace has dealt with more serious things, having been the son of Gol D. Roger and struggling to find out if he deserves to live.

You being whiny over something that was entirely your fault wasn't something you wanted to bother him with, but it doesn't look like you have much of a choice. "What is it? C'mon love, deep breaths okay? Breathe with me, inhale..."

Your lungs expand as you take a deep breath in, following Ace's instructions. You try to focus on something else, the warmth of his body, how his hands are slightly dry from his devil fruit, the soft waves hitting the ship in a soft ambiance, anything to stop thinking of those unsavory thoughts.

When Ace notices you've calmed down, he places you in the middle of his legs, his hands resting on the lower half of your tummy as he rubs gently; the heat adds an extra layer of comfort, even if he wasn't aware of it. "Do you wanna talk about it, Love? We can just go to sleep and cuddle, if you want."

Ace is worried, obviously so. You rarely have breakdowns like that and a part of him thinks it's his fault. "I'm not a man..." He hears you coarsely whisper as your bloodshot eyes stare into the bedsheets.

"What do you mean, love?"

He watches you sniffle, trying to recollect yourself before you start speaking again. "I was, born a woman. And as much as I tell myself, real men don't get periods, they don't have breasts and they don't have—"

"But... you think of yourself as a man, do you not?" The man behind you asks softly as he spreads his fingers against your tummy.

A nod.

"Then that's what you are. No more of this 'real man' shit, if you say you're a man, then that's who you are. Izo's a man, and he had periods before... well, before doing whatever it was Marco did to him, but no one out and started calling him a girl anytime he did get them, right?"

You feel your chest start to tighten again, but you nod. Albeit shakily.

Ace intertwines one of your hands together, lifting you up so you're resting in his lap and pressing his cheek against yours. "Then why would I not love you, even if you were trans? I fell in love with you, because you're you. For fucks sake, you could be a cat and I'd still love you; but then I'd have to be a cat too so we could be cat boyfriends... Yeah, we'd definitely be boyfriends in every universe— imagine it!" He says excitedly as stars practically shine in his eyes.

"We could be um... birds, cats, dogs, the sun, and the moon! Ooo, we could be food too! Like salt and pepper, or—"

"You'd still... love me? No matter what I was?" You ask shyly, craning your neck so you could look him in the eyes.

He cocks his head. "Did you not just hear me say I'd love you even if you were a pepper shaker? Dummy, you've gotta get your hearing checked!" He presses a plethora of kisses on your cheek, only pulling away when you've been turned into a blushing and giggling mess.

"Yes, I'd love you no matter what you were. You'll be my boyfriend forever, you know? Never gettin' rid of me, love!"

You giggle, letting Ace continue his kiss attack on your face. "Like anyone could get rid of the infamous 'fire-fist Ace'."

He grins, one so bright it makes you remember why you fell in love with him in the first place. "Got that right! Now c'mon, let's cuddle and think about each other as cat boyfriends in our dreams, I've gotta fight Marco tomorrow to decide who's the better fire user!"

You shake your head. "Ace, love of my life, Marco is a phoenix, not a fire user."

"Ah, tomato, tomatoe, who cares!" He blows a raspberry, taking off his hat and placing it on the bedside table, not letting go of his hold on you once. He shifts the position so he's spooning you, his warm hand still on the spot your cramps hurt the most.

He presses a kiss to the back of your head. "Night, Love."

And before you can say goodnight back, Ace is already snoring asleep beside you.

#writin' shit. #one piece #one piece x male reader #one piece x trans male reader #x male reader #x trans male reader #op x trans male reader #trafalgar law x male reader #trafalgar law x reader #trafalgar law #trafalgar law x trans male reader #eustass kid #eustass x reader #eustass x male reader #eustass x trans male reader #portgas d ace #ace x male reader #ace x trans male reader #portgas ace x reader #portgas ace #portgace ace x male reader #law x male reader #law x trans male reader #monkey d luffy #monkey d luffy x male reader #monkey d luffy x trans male reader #luffy x male reader #luffy x trans male reader #captain trio #worst generation trio

[i-cant-sing]

Okay okay, time for me to word vomit an idea:

So imagine that after Dabi does his whole vengeful arc, kills dozens of people and publicly calls out Enji's abusive ass, my man just gets caught by the cops and he's like put in a psychiatric hospital (because obviously Enji pulled some strings to save his son from death row to ease his own guilt).

Anyways, Dabi is like majorly depressed obviously and he's like "well, I've done everything I wanted to, so I might as well off myself" and cue reader's entry.

So basically, reader could be a nurse/doctor(NOT A PSYCHIATRIST) and she's all warm and fuzzy and a literal Ray of sunshine and Dabi hates her, but he doesn't give a crap atm.

And like everytime Dabi tries to kill himself, reader is there to stop him. It obviously started with "nooo, please don't kill yourself🥺 you are precious🥺🥺" to reader just swooping in and foiling his plans like "can you not die during my shift? I need an early night off🥱". Dabi is actively trying to kill himself, like he's standing on the ledge to jump, and reader is tackling him down and then punching him for making you run all the way up to the roof.

And like reader is bandaging him up with great gentleness and care and Dabi is staring at her being all close to him (he is mesmerised), and he goes-

"I'll be successful in my suicide one day."

And you just smile and shake your head. "Not as long as I'm praying." And at first, Dabi is super annoyed because he's think you're into the whole religious mumbo jumbo, but he actually caught you one day praying (insert whatever religion) and he's bewitched by the sincerity you pray for his (and others) well being. As if you believed with your whole heart that someone up there is listening to you.

He doesn't know what or when exactly he fell for you, but he did. And he decides that he'll confess to you after he gets out of psychiatric hospital (after tugging at Rei's and Enji's heart strings and them using money and influence to free their menace son). After spending 6 years in the hospital, 6 years where you were the only one who truly cared for him, he'll finally confess to you.

But then you don't come. Not even the next day, or the week after that. Turns out, you left your job.

Out of the blue? Dabi's suspicions rose.

He got out of the hospital and began doing his own research on you until he found your address and well... he sort of came in unannounced (look he knocked, you didn't answer, so he melted the lock and let himself in. At least he came in bearing flowers and wine).

He wasn't expecting you to be at home, but there you were, lying in your bed, a little too still for someone to be asleep.

He throws the covers off you, eyes narrowing on the red stains on your sheet before moving to your bleeding wrists.

Dabi's world stops, every cell in his body stops before every fiber in his being screams and makes him move. He doesn't check for pulse, doesn't check if you're still breathing, perhaps he'd die himself if he didn't like the answer he found. He picks you up and immeadiately goes to the nearest hospital, which fortunately was near.

While you were being operated on, Dabi sat outside, heart thumping as he prayed to whatever deity you did.

Please... not yet.

His prayers were answered as tge doctors told him that you're going to be alright... physically that is. Mentally? Well, Dabi is about to figure it out.

He sat by your side waiting for you to wake up. When you finally did, he saw how different you looked. Obviously he had noticed that you were physically weak, but your eyes... they lost their shine.

Your eyes turned to confusion when you looked at him. "D-Dabi? What are you-"

"I found you." That was enough for you to put together what he meant. You turned your eyes away from him, ashamed.

"Why?" He asks in a quiet tone. "What made you do it?"

"My choices." You whispered. "Bad decisions in the past."

Dabi wanted to pry more out of you, but he knew you wouldn't explain more. So, he takes matter into his own hands and leaves the hospital, telling you that he needs to run some errands, but he's actually going back to your apartment and starts rummaging through your stuff to find some clues as to what exactly caused you to do this.

He didn't have to look around too much because he found your phone and snooped through your messages. Someone was blackmailing you. They had some explicit pictures of you, seems like a toxic ex who was threatening to share these photos with your family and social circle.

So Dabi pays a visit to your ex, takes care of him and the pictures he had,making sure to get rid of all the copies too. All in a day!

By night he had returned to the hospital, you were asleep. He slept there too, in the uncomfortable hospital chair, heart at peace as he watched your chest rise and fall steadily.

Next morning, when it was time for you to leave, Dabi helped you and took you home. You thanked him for everything, and Dabi made sure to tell you that he'll be picking you up for lunch later. You agreed hesitantly. And at lunch, he finally revealed that he came to you because he wanted to ask you out.

You look surprised, more so when he reveals that he had fancied you for a while and that he understands that relationships might not be a priority for you at the moment but-

"I understand if dating is not a priority for you right now but if you ever do consider falling in love, know that I've been on the top of your wait list for the past 6 years and will wait another lifetime if that's all the time you need."

You're in tears at his words, and you have a hard time not breaking down as he takes your hands in his, his thumbs carefully tracing over your bandaged wrists as he promises to wait by your side, that he'll always be there to help you with anything, that if you gave him a chance, he'll spend the rest of his life trying to make you happy.

"Dabi, i- I am not good for you." You say, voice wobbly. "My past, it'll always haunt me and I care too much about you to let it haunt you as well."

"Your ex? His pictures?" He asked watching shock appear on your face. "You won't ever have to worry about him, Y/n."

You shook off your surprise. "That's not it. It's not the only problem I have!"

"Then tell me. I'll fix all of your problems." Dabi promises with such sincerity that you're compelled to believe him.

You don't tell him obviously, saying that it is your burden, your mess to deal with. Dabi doesn't push more, only because he knows he'll figure it out later anyways. Hey, he may be a criminal but he was once the son of the top hero who trained him, so Dabi's IQ is through the fucking roof.

And a man in love has no limitations.

Had a DUI? He deals with it. Parents disowned you? He'll make them regret it. Killed someone? He'll make sure you have an alibi to prove your innocence. Cheated off a test in grade 2? He'll make sure there are no witnesses alive. He'll burn the world- burn himself if it means keeping you warm.

You don't wanna date a criminal? Fine, he's working a cooperate job and since he's so smart, he'll be a fucking CEO in no time and have enough money and time to spend on you. Youre crying because you feel ugly when you see your scars? Dabi makes sure to kiss them every day and pulls out his turtleneck (aka the trademark Todoroki fit) for you, while he buys the best treatment money can buy for your scars. Mental health is going down? He's taking you to the best therapist in town. You're sad he's an atheist because it means you won't be with him in heaven? Damn, he's a convert now.

I just adore men in love :(

Okay but I don't think we're focusing on how scary smart Dabi actually is😳😳😳 I just know it, I KNOW he's super smart but he downplays it all the time because he's depressed or whatever.

#yandere dabi #yandere dabi x reader #yandere bnha #bnha headcanons #yandere mha #bnha imagines