#and the pretending to like him turned into actual liking him (probably already was more than pretend from the start even if they couldn't

[nail-art-no-jutsu]

Itachi and Kisame nail polish headcanons

Itachi

he was super on board from day one, like yes hello fellow villains, I too am a fellow villain, if this is how we aim to distinguish ourselves from other ninja, by all means

he didn't get it right from the start, but he practiced A Lot, and figured out what works and what doesn't, because painting your nails is a skill, just like making perfect eggs for your little brother

and it was only a matter of time until Itachi was able to perfect every aspect of the thing

it's an absolute mystery how it happens but his one coat lasts for ages on his nails, Itachi is the second slowest at using up a whole bottle after Kakuzu, who silently appreciates this

Deidara's reaction to Itachi's flawless mani: "being careful not to flood your cuticles is overrated, un"

he rather likes the color, it's soothing, he's glad he wasn't assigned red to match his sharingan, it would look a bit too much like blood, and he doesn't need any reminder of the blood on his hands, thank you very much shfjfsfdsfs

and it's actually a fun activity, it's challenging enough to demand complete focus even when you're good at it, Itachi learned fast that you make a mess if you let your mind wander, so it provides a small but much needed break for his overactive brain

in a better world Itachi would have liked to discover this fun little thing in a different way and maybe Sasuke would have liked to learn to do his nails too, red probably - this is a world where red means tomatoes, not blood - and he could already imagine his lil bro asking him to teach him better clean-up skills and--

oops.

that was too much polish.

sigh.

Kisame

"we all have to do what?? ... okay :D this is fine :D"

nothing wrong with it in general, but... that color, why so intense, why not a blue that matches his skin, does purple even look right on him? does anything??

so he procrastinates, acts like he forgot, or he lost his bottle, but it always reappears like magic before Kakuzu can hold him accountable lmao

as soon as Itachi realizes the truth though, that alarm goes off in his head that puts him in unstoppable mode. his mission? make Kisame understand that there's nothing wrong with how he looks

so Itachi asks Kisame to let him do his nails too. for practice. there's always more room for practice. and it's such a powerful shade of purple, it suits Kisame perfectly, it looks great on him

Kisame tries to deflect the compliment, but then Itachi shows him purple flowers by the shore, and how beautiful that looks, and, ... okay. okay.

and that's how Kisame ends up with perfectly polished fingernails and toenails that he's proud of

it's an unspoken thing, the same way that Kisame says he's tired when it's very obvious that Itachi should rest but he'll never say so himself, and it's obvious to both of them what game they're playing

it's a peaceful ritual, they talk about all kinds of things, get to know each other, read between the lines, so on, so forth, and at least for a short while they can both pretend all is well

after a while Itachi shows signs of his health worsening, and then it's Kisame's turn to practice - "if you keep doing stuff for other people, they don't get to practice doing it themselves, don't you agree, Itachi-san? :D :D" and there's no way around it, Itachi lets Kisame do his nails

by now Kisame learned what to do just by watching Itachi do it so many times, if he gets polish on Itachi's fingers he knows how to clean it up properly too so they look exactly as if Itachi had done them himself

Kisame is sure that every "mistake" Itachi ever made was just to show him how to fix it but shh that's part of the secretly taking care of each other game

after Itachi's gone Kisame doesn't really wanna talk about it, but sometimes when he thinks no one's looking he checks his mani and he's like, "yep, Itachi-san was right, this color looks great on me" and grins because what else can he do lmao, what else can he do

#itachi #kisame #kisame hoshigaki #itachi headcanons #kisame headcanons #kisaita headcanons #akatsuki #akatsuki headcanons #kisaita #I could have added more shippiness to it but #maybe that could be a different post

[disillusionmp3]

ahaha😎💯

#i haven't talked abt this w anyone yet bc it's so fucking humiliating #but my ex's corworker was in love w them and one time they asked me 'would u be mad if i made him believe i liked him back? it would be an #epic prank lol' #and i said it didn't bother me :(( bc i wanted to trust them and bc there had been a situation before where i had accidentally implied that #they might not be a lesbian and it was so upsetting to them and i didn't want to stir that up again #and the pretending to like him turned into actual liking him (probably already was more than pretend from the start even if they couldn't #admit it to themselves) #i really let someone cheat on me w my eyes wide open i feel so stupid and disgusting and ugly and dumb and small #idk how to not see it as my fault #and idk how to forgive myself!!!!!!!!! #crying so fucking much rn idk what to do #🍓

[osaemu]

GOJO SATORU: ❛❛ FINDERS KEEPERS, LOSERS WEEPERS! ❜❜

.ೃ࿐ streamer!au: the user "gojoslittleslut" tries to make a move on your boyfriend, but she doesn't stand a chance

contents: fem!reader. it's not too serious, nobody gets angry/jealous (except the comments lol). if u haven't already read the other streamer!gojo works u probably should so u understand the dynamic between satoru and his commenters !

author's note: reader is actually a mature person who doesn't pick fights with random ppl on the internet and i think we should all be more like her ꨄ︎

satoru leans back in his chair, idly chatting with people who pop up in his comments after he finishes his last round of the co-op game. his viewers are eager to chat, and some even shoot money satoru's way to draw his attention. whenever someone donates money, he gives them a quick shoutout and has a small back-and-forth with them, and he does that for everyone.

that is, until a user with a questionable username donates to his stream.

gojoslittleslut has donated $100.00!

gojoslittleslut: notice me pls

"shit, a hundred dollars?" satoru says, raising his eyebrows in mild surprise. "thanks, gojoslittl— oh, fuck, what is that?"

you look up from your laptop and see the way your boyfriend's cheeks have gone bright red. satoru laughs a bit nervously, so you get up and walk over, making sure to stay out of sight of the camera. you sit on satoru's desk beside his computer and peer at his screen curiously.

gojoslittleslut: im ur number one fan~

satoru's eyes flicker to yours for a second before he looks back at his monitor. "ah, well, thanks for the donation!" he replies, completely ignoring the user's advances.

suguru-geto: he has a gf ...

gojoslittleslut: yeah

gojoslittleslut: me

you cover your mouth to suppress a giggle, scrunching up your nose at satoru to let him know that you really weren't taking it too seriously. after all, it's just some random person on the internet—they don't stand a chance with your boyfriend. 

satoru reaches over and takes your hand, twining his fingers with yours off-camera. he ignores the sudden burst of comments that litter the corner of his screen, instead watching you intently. in response, you roll your eyes playfully and blow him a kiss, snickering when satoru pretends to faint.

eventually, he turns back to his screen, cerulean eyes doing a quick once-over of his new comments.

toji-fushiguro: ill take his gf any day

inumaki: we know gtfo

gojoslittleslut: toji i get gojo and u take his girl. deal?

toji-fushiguro: bet

"alright guys, settle down," satoru huffs, rolling his eyes. "for the record, i still have a girlfriend and i don't plan on changing that anytime soon," he clarifies, addressing the current feud going on in his comments. 

satoru's a good streamer—he does his best to keep things cordial and lighthearted with his audience, but he also knows his limits. one of his limits involves people trying to separate you and him, his one true pairing (of course satoru's otp is his own relationship).

your boyfriend leans closer to the screen and scowls good-naturedly, holding up the hand still wrapped around yours. "this isn't gonna change, so don't even think about it!"

satoru says his goodbyes and then ends the stream, turning to you with a sigh. "how down bad do you have to be to name yourself 'gojo's little slut?'" he grumbles, clicking through his stream analytics and finding the user. he opens gojoslittleslut's profile and studies it for a moment before hovering his mouse over the block button.

he leans back in his chair and tilting his chin up at you. "she just gave me a hundred dollars, so i kinda feel bad about blocking her," satoru muses, tapping his foot on the floor. he looks up at where you still sit on his desk, twirling a strand of hair around your finger. "c'mere," he mumbles, slipping his hands around your waist and hoisting you into his lap with a soft grunt.

satoru rests his chin on your shoulder and nudges his face into your neck, breath tickling your skin. "you know that i'm all yours, right?"

"of course i do," you murmur, settling into his arms. he's warm and comfortable, like always. satoru smiles warmly and kisses the side of your face, letting his lips linger.

"good. 'cause no fan account's ever gonna change that."

#osaemu #streamer!gojo #gojo x reader #satoru gojo x reader #jjk x reader #gojo x you #gojo x y/n #satoru gojo x you #satoru gojo x y/n #jjk x you #jjk x y/n #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen x y/n #gojo satoru x reader #gojo satoru x you #gojo satoru x y/n #gojo fluff #jjk fluff #satoru gojo fluff #gojo satoru fluff #jujutsu kaisen fluff #gojo drabbles #jjk drabbles

[bayjaruchel]

Underneath The Strobe Light

－－－

Pairing: Mike Schmidt (2023)/AFAB Reader

Rating: Explicit

Summary: You're aware of your feelings for Mike, but you're unsure if he feels the same. A single late-night conversation changes everything. (4.2k | originally posted on ao3 | Masterlist )

Extra Notes: Posted October 29, 2023

－－－

You know Mike, sometimes. Mainly in bits and pieces. 

You know he has that poster of Nebraska above his bed; you know he's got a soft spot for terrible eighties cartoons. You know he likes his steak well done. Maybe it's generally useless information — but you've tucked it all away in a dear corner of your brain, in a well-worn cardboard box with his name scrawled fondly on the side in Sharpie. 

He's been busy nowadays, especially with his awful new job at that abandoned restaurant. You've always been there if he needs someone to watch over Abby. It's a strange juxtaposition— spending more and more time at his house, but spending less and less time actually talking to him. But you know he's exhausted, both mentally and physically. 

You don't expect much. You don't need much. Even though Mike's always offered to actually pay you for babysitting Abby, you've always declined. 

However— needing and wanting are two very different things. 

And you want. So, so much. 

Sitting here, on the couch in his living room, your mind always wanders back to him. Abby's a really nice kid, even if she's a little on the eccentric side. Whenever you're sitting with her, watching her draw or watching the television, you can't really focus on Mike. But now, with her safely put to bed … There's nothing to stop you. Nothing to distract you from the empty spot next to you on the couch. 

You blink, already bleary-eyed from the hour. There's some mediocre sitcom playing on the television. It's practically white noise, and you can feel yourself slowly but surely being lulled to sleep. The stubborn part of you wants to fight it. The tired part of you wants to just let it happen. You fumble for the remote instead, switching the channel. 

World News Now? 

Not bad, you think wryly, slumping back into the pillows. You liked the guy playing the accordion and singing about the news, polka-style. Hopefully they'll bring that back. Maybe large broadcasting networks actually do know their audiences. 

Yeah, no. 

You stifle a yawn, tugging your blanket a little tighter. The room's dark, so the only real sources of light are coming from the kitchen and the bluish glow of the television. The only sounds besides that of the T.V. are the occasional car passing by, joined by the gentle chorus of crickets. It's quiet, but not in a discomforting way. 

It's kind of perfect. Like your own little bubble in the world. Untouchable. Not until the sun rises, anyway. 

Your bubble suddenly pops when a car pulls into the driveway, tires crunching on the pavement, and your heart skips. 

It couldn't be anyone else. 

About a minute later, there's the sound of keys turning in the lock. The door swings open and then shuts behind him. Softly. He knows Abby would wake up if he slammed it. Then there's the thump of him setting down his stuff— carelessly. 

The couch cushions squeak a little when Mike sits down next to you. Silently. He's gotten rid of that stupid security vest. 

"Hey," you offer. 

"Hi," he obliges. 

You're sure he's not really paying attention to the T.V. "How was work?" 

It's bland small talk at best, and brutally annoying at worst. But it's the only way to move into interesting conversation territory. And he didn't just trudge past you to go flop down on his bed, so you're assuming he does want to talk. You might pretend not to know, but you're well aware of his social life— or lack thereof. Everyone needs to talk, sometimes. 

"Pretty dull." Rolling his probably stiff shoulders, he lets out a small sound of discomfort. Sheepishly, he murmurs: "I kind of … I kind of just napped, to be honest." 

"Aren't you supposed to be a security guard?" You tease. "That's a really important job, you know. You have to stop all the dangerous teenagers from breaking in and spray-painting dicks on the walls." 

He huffs out something reminiscent of a laugh. "Honestly, the pay's too low to take it seriously." 

"And yet … " 

"There weren't any kids, okay?" Mike shakes his head. When you turn to look at him, though, he's smiling. It's faint, but it's there. "No dangerous teenagers that I had to fight off. It was fine." 

"Fine?" 

"Fine." 

You don't want to let the silence set in. 

"Oh, yeah, we finished the leftover spaghetti earlier. For dinner. I hope that's okay." 

"No, it's terrible," he deadpans. "I hate you." 

"Asshole." 

"Whatever." Mike snickers, and you bask in its gloriousness. "Yeah, it's okay. I know that I probably wouldn't have eaten it anyway. Did you, uh … " He pauses for a split second. "… Did you like it?" 

His tone makes you wonder, but you hastily brush it off. "Yeah, I did," you clarify, "the sauce was pretty great. Was it store-bought, or?" Because if it was, then where can I get it?

"Yup," he replies, popping the 'p'. "Great stuff, for something that's canned. But I always add a little more garlic powder, too." 

"Oh, really?" 

Mike hums an affirmation. "It's like magic, I'm telling you. Doesn't even take a lot to add flavor." 

"That's cool." You rustle with your blanket again, adjusting it more out of habit than anything else. That, and it's kind of cold. "I'll try and remember it for later." 

He's almost cheeky when he speaks. 

"It's life-changing." 

You can't help but snort. "You sound like an addict." 

Incredulously, he glances at you. "To what? Garlic powder?" 

"Pretty much, yeah." 

"I can't believe that you'd say that." He slowly shakes his head, for the second time in the span of roughly a minute. "Especially as someone who's experienced it firsthand—" 

"—you're the one talking about how life-changing it is—" 

"—you can't possibly ignore the irresistible savoriness of garlic powder." 

You look at one another for a moment. The sheer absurdity of the situation sets in all at once. And, well. He starts giggling, and you can't hold it in, either. How could you? Even though he looks at least part zombie, his eyes are still very much alive. Despite the blatant awkwardness and lingering shyness that always follows him around, he's still got a very contagious laugh.  

After you both calm down, he lets out a long sigh. 

"It's getting really late." 

You cling to what little stubbornness remains. "Yeah?" 

"Are you gonna head home?" 

Again, there's something there. Despite his nonchalant attitude, it's almost like— 

—but you're probably overthinking. Wouldn't be anything new. He has to get some rest, and so do you. The drowsiness repeatedly threatening to tug your eyelids closed is a testament to that. Normally, you'd just pass out on the couch or something, and take off early in the morning; before Mike and Abby wake up. But now, it's different. Now, you actually have to make a choice before your sleepy body makes it for you. 

"Um." You rub your eyes again. "I mean. I could, if it's bothering you—" 

"It's not." 

He interrupts you so quickly that it catches you off-guard. It seemingly catches him off-guard, too, judging by the way he promptly averts his gaze and pretends to care about the guy on the television going on about some sort of plumber strike in the city. 

"Oh." You need a second to process. "Oh, okay. Well, in that case … I don't really think that it'd be safe for me to drive right now." You laugh, a little too airily for it to be completely genuine. "I'd probably fall asleep at the wheel or something." At least that's the truth. "I'll just take the couch. As usual." 

"Okay," he says. He's back to murmuring. 

"And I'll be gone before you eat breakfast." Subconsciously, you're fiddling with the slightly frayed edges of the blanket. It's well-loved. "As usual." 

You think you hear him suck in a breath, seconds before: 

"Why don't you stay?"  

Your own breath stutters in your chest. 

"... what?" Is all you can manage, without horrifically humiliating yourself. 

"I mean," he rushes to correct himself, "you come by sometimes because you want to spend time with Abby— she likes you a lot, you know, sometimes I think she likes you more than she likes me . I think—" He's properly nervous now, his knee bouncing up and down. But he's already continuing before you can get a word in. "I think she'd like you to be here in the morning. And you don't accept pay, anyway. You just— won't." 

His nervousness is spreading to you. "Hey, I—" 

"Why are you here, anyway?" 

The question sounds like it's been a long time coming. He's demanding you now, brow furrowed and eyes sparking with emotion. "Is it out of pity? Do you feel sorry for me? Do you feel sorry for Abby? Because if you do, then— then you can just—" 

"It's not!" You exclaim. 

Immediately, you realize that there's a sleeping girl not too far away, and shamefully lower your voice. 

"... It's not, I promise. I just—" It takes a little while for you to gather the right words, and when you do, you don't drop your gaze from him. All of his previous frustration is all but gone, replaced by a slightly wide-eyed expression that's making your heart ache a little. "I genuinely really like spending time with Abby, okay? She's really sweet, and creative, and just a really great kid. And I—" 

You stop yourself. 

"And you what?" Mike asks, gently. 

Might as well, huh? 

"And I really like spending time with you, too," you admit, finally unable to meet his eyes and focusing on your lap instead. 

There's an incredibly tense beat, in which you swear your life flashes before your eyes. 

Then: 

He's barely audible when he speaks. His knee has stopped bouncing, but he's playing with his thumbs. Clearly, your confession— vague as it was— resonated with him, in some way. You hope he understands what you meant, because you couldn't possibly put it all into words in a way that would make sense. 

"Feeling's mutual," he mutters. 

Your head almost snaps up at that. Maybe you had expected it, deep down— you're not oblivious, duh— but it's one thing to have a hunch, and another to have that hunch proven. And out loud, no less. 

"Yeah?" You dare to ask. 

Slowly, he looks up. He meets your eyes. 

"Yeah," he repeats breathlessly, like the wind's been knocked out of him. 

You let your blanket fall from your shoulders, and it slides all the way onto the floor. 

You reach out. 

He lets you lace your fingers through his. 

Mike's palm is sort of clammy— and he's shaking a little— but he still squeezes your hand. On instinct, you guess. It still makes you smile. He doesn't return it, but his lips are parted a little, and you really, really like that. More than you probably should. You like a lot of things about him more than you probably should. 

You scooch a little closer, and he doesn't move away. You let your gaze drop back down to his lips again, making your intentions clear. Still, you don't know if it's clear enough. You lean in, just barely. 

"... Can I?" 

His reply is almost instantaneous. 

"Please."  

You swallow all of the witty quips you could make, and kiss him instead. 

He's very tentative at first. Like he hasn't done this for a while. But you ease him into it— and before long, he's got one hand on the back of your neck, the other somewhere near your waist. He tastes like coffee and something else you can't really put your finger on. It doesn't really matter, though. Because you are kissing him, damnit! 

His eyes are still shut when you part— with a soft smack — but they flutter open after a second. You're not sure if you're supposed to say something meaningful. Luckily, he leans in instead, and your thoughts are immediately transported elsewhere. 

You kiss like this for a while. It's really nice, and you know he needs it. So do you. 

However— when you start losing track of time, lost in the moment, he makes a noise. 

It's quiet, definitely. But it's nothing like the little hums and sighs he's been making so far. It makes you shift closer, pressing more insistently into him. And he responds, enthusiastically wrapping his arms around you, closing the little distance between your bodies that there was. You can practically feel his heart jackrabbiting in his chest when you slip your tongue past his already kiss-swollen lips. 

He moans.  

You indulge yourself. For a little longer. And Mike chases you when you part. 

"We shouldn't do this in the living room," you whisper, nearly panting. "The couch is a little—" 

"Okay," he whispers back, already sounding wrecked. "Okay." 

You've been in his room before. You've sat on his bed— you've even laid on it before. But you've never straddled him on it before. It's a position that makes your head spin a little, and you occupy yourself with kissing him again. His hands fit perfectly on your hips, but they don't stay there for long, tragically— they trail upwards, up your waist, to your back. To your shoulders, and then back down again. It's as if he just can't get enough. You can't either. You need more. 

So, you tug at his shirt. He gets the message right away— hands scrambling to pull it up and over his head. He's still rather slim, but with a slight softness, mostly located in his midsection. There's a light dusting of dark hair on his chest, as well as the provocative happy trail leading down from his navel. You drag your eyes downward, admiring him, and then decide that you're wearing too much clothing. Your top comes off, dropped onto the floor near his. 

Mike takes more time to admire you when your torso is completely bare. His hands are warm on your bare skin, and slightly rough. Like before, he's hesitant at first, but when you encourage him— either literally or with physical indications— he grows bolder. His stubble scratches gently against you when his lips find your collarbone. 

You squirm a little, not even realizing it— and you feel him. Simultaneously, you both gasp. He's not fully there, but he's at least half-hard— and it can't be comfortable in those jeans. 

"Should I—" 

"Yeah—" 

With steady fingers, you unbutton his fly, and then unzip him. It's a little awkward when he shimmies out of the jeans, and when you wriggle out of your bottoms— you both snicker a little, but he's back to comfortably breathless when you settle back onto his lap. Under normal circumstances, you would tease him again. And yet, you can't bring yourself to. Not right now, at least. 

All you want to do is keep going. 

You roll your hips, testing the waters. His breath audibly hitches, and his hands fly up to settle back on your hips. He looks up at you, eyes already half-lidded— and they close when you grind down again. And again. His lips are clumsier this time when you kiss him, but he still reciprocates all the same. The sensation of him directly underneath you like this is intoxicating. You can feel every little twitch and every little jolt. 

"Fuck," he breathes, long and drawn-out, " God, I can— I can see the spot on your—" 

"Yeah?" You encourage, grinding down again, drinking in his answering groan. "You like that?" 

  "Yes —" 

"You want me to take 'em off?" 

Mike's pupils are blown wide, even though his eyes are already dark as is in the dimness of the room. He nods, once, then twice. "Yes," he murmurs. "Please," he adds, for good measure. 

He stares openly when you get off him, just enough to peel off your last remaining layer of clothing. And when you sit back down, well. It's obvious that you'll have to give him a second. "Can I," he says, finally, "can I touch you?" The way he's looking up at you again is just so sweet, so needy, that you consider saying no. Your throbbing core quickly shuts that idea down. 

"Go on," you encourage. 

He helps you move so he has easier access, and—  

His fingertips find your slit, already wet for him.

"Look what you did to me," you murmur. 

He visibly flushes— and then carefully works one finger into your slick heat. The feeling, combined with his thumb brushing against your clit— it's relief that you've needed this entire time, and you can't help but let a quiet sound escape your lips. It's apparently enough incentive for him to quicken his pace a little. Deliberately, he continues massaging your sensitive nub in a firm but easy pattern as he gently pushes a second finger inside you. 

Mike may be out of practice, but evidently, he still knows what he's doing. He peppers kisses up and down your neck, some more open-mouthed than others. Crooking his fingers, he maintains his diligent rhythm. A thought floats through your mind, unbidden— he must have strong hands, if he's been able to keep up like this—   

Two becomes three, and you're spreading your thighs a little wider for him. He's still transfixed, but speeds up at your urging, breath hot against the divot between your neck and shoulder. You chance a glance down, and you can see the visible outline of him through his boxers. You did that to him. He's desperate— for you. 

"Mike," you gasp, "nnh—" 

"Yeah, c'mon," he mouths, against your neck, "c'mon—" He's not letting up in the slightest, and when you tell him to, he speeds up again. He needs to see you cum just as much as you need to feel it. Your needs and wants are rapidly blending into one. You squeeze your eyes shut, but open them to look at him. His dark curls are a mess, his hand working tirelessly between your legs. 

  "Mike —" 

He says your name in return, like he's the one in the vulnerable position. 

"Mike , 'm gonna— 'm gonna—"  

"Please," his breaths are ragged, debauched, "cum, please, c'mon, lemme see it—" 

"Oh —" 

The tension snaps, and you spasm around his fingers. Your hips twitch, and you moan, your mouth falling open as you ride out your orgasm. You're rising— falling — molten honey pooling in your core, before flowing throughout your body. And Mike keeps going throughout it all, letting you enjoy the sensations until you're fully satisfied. 

Nearly boneless, you sag backward. His fingers, soaked with your glistening release, slip out of your cunt with a wet noise. He doesn't waste any time in bringing them up into his mouth, cleaning them off with his tongue— at the taste of you, he groans, even though it's muffled. Your mind takes a moment to catch up again with the world, but another thought manifests itself— how would he react, if you let him use his mouth on you? How would his head look between your thighs? He would be noisy, wouldn't he? Enthusiastic, pliant, and—

Your desire, although it waned for a short minute, comes back tenfold. But you take one look down again and— you can do that later. Right now, you want him inside you. 

Mike lets you tug him down for another kiss. He lets you feel the worn fabric on his thighs, almost playfully. When you palm him through them— he hisses through his teeth, hypersensitive even though you've barely touched him yet. You're going to fix that, though. Hooking your thumbs into the waistband of his boxers, you tug them down. 

You were right. He's desperate. As soon as his overheated skin meets the cool air, he lets out another quiet hiss. And when you take him in hand— 

"Mmh —" A firm stroke from base to tip, and you've already got him. He's average in length, but a little girthy. You know he'll be perfect. There's a little drop at the head of his cock, and you resist the urge to lick it off, focusing instead on warming him up a little. He whispers your name, once, when you pump up and down, twisting your wrist. 

"Got a condom?" You ask, stilling for a second. His eyes snap to you. 

"Oh my God, " he quickly mutters under his breath, before raising his volume, "uh, yeah, I think so. Lemme—" And he's already scrambling off the bed, opening the drawers of his nightstand with speed, but somehow simultaneously managing not to make much noise. He rifles through them, but soon emerges victoriously with what he was looking for. It's a little funny, how he doesn't waste any time in ripping it open and tossing the garbage into the mostly-overfull pail near his bed. Hastily, he rolls on the condom. You think he's expecting you to lay back or get up on your hands and knees so he can fuck you like that— you wouldn't be entirely opposed to it— but that's not what you want right now. 

You place your hands on his chest and push him back down so he's sitting against the headboard. He goes without complaint, even shifting when he understands what you want to do. He's flushed almost down to his neck. 

When you sink down on him in a smooth slide, still slick from earlier, you both moan. He sounds strained— he's biting his lower lip, squirming until he finally bottoms out. You have to take a moment to catch your breath, too; the fullness is just how you imagined, but it's so, so much, especially because of your lingering sensitivity. 

"I'm not—" He audibly swallows, hands tightening on your waist when you move just a little, "oh, fuck, I'm not gonna— I'm not gonna last long." He's babbling a little. "You're tight, fuck." 

You rock back and forth, once, and it's enough to force a choked noise from his throat. You watch his face, observing every little twitch, the clenching of his jaw. You can't hesitate for much longer, though— so you begin lifting yourself and dropping yourself down on his cock. Just in little movements at first, so you can get used to the feeling. His eyes squeeze shut— 

"Look at me," you demand, and he does. He doesn't try and thrust up into you when you really start to move. Up and down, up and down, with lewd plaps that accompany your sounds; his grunts—  you swear you hear him whimper .  His eyelashes flutter open and closed, as he struggles to follow your command, wanting to be good. For you. Even though you can see his thighs flexing as he holds everything back. You ride him for all you're worth. 

True to his words, you can tell when he gets close. Maybe he's been on edge this entire time. You thread your fingers through his hair— he buries his face into the crook of your neck, maybe out of embarrassment. You can feel how flushed he is, a thin sheen of sweat covering both of your bodies. Your muscles are aching, but you're determined to make him cum. You're determined to do this for him. 

He says your name, but it's more of a whine. "Please — I'm gonna— I can't — "  

"Go on," you pant, "you can. Don't hold back." Your arms are wrapped around his neck, now, holding him tight; just like his arms around your waist. The contact is almost too much, but somehow it's still not enough, despite him being inside you. "Go on," you repeat, after he whines again, the sound sending white-hot heat straight to your core. "Cum." 

Mike twitches, and you can feel him pulse— the sound he lets out is high-pitched, muffled into your skin. You slow your movements— the aftershocks of his orgasm last longer than yours. It might've been a little while for you, but it had definitely been longer for him. 

He doesn't let go, even after his breathing's slowed down. 

Gently, you pull his head back so you can look at him. He looks up at you with slightly wet eyes. The kisses you press to his cheeks and forehead make him scrunch up his face. 

"Hey," he rasps, "I gotta throw out the condom. Hang on." 

"Yeah, okay." 

When he slips out of you, you both sigh a little. With unsteady fingers, he ties up the condom before chucking it into the pail. 

The sheets are cool on your skin when he pulls them over you both. The room reeks of sex, but both of you are too exhausted to care. When you turn to lay on your side, he's behind you, throwing an arm over your waist. Tugging you closer. Almost absentmindedly, there's a kiss pressed to the back of your head. 

"Thank you," he mumbles. 

You stare at the far wall, unable to close your eyes just yet. 

"For what?" 

"For—" A pause. "For everything, I guess." 

The awkwardness is back. But you let it in. You smile. 

"You're welcome." 

He doesn't respond, but shuffles nearer, chest pressed up against your back. It's not long before you're both fast asleep. 

#mike schmidt x reader #mike schmidt x you #mike schmidt imagine #mike schmidt smut

[loonylupinblack3]

First Win

Pairing: Lando Norris x Reader

Summary: in which Lando's first win helps the two of you finally get together

Warnings: swearing, my utter HAPPINESS AND AWE THAT LANDO WON, also not edited bc i wanted to post it as soon as possible

Word count: 1.1k

A/N: you guys dont UNDERSTAND how fucking happy i am im literally sobbing oh my GOD

You were pushing your way through the crowd, trying to find Lando, all the while your heart was fucking soaring. You were so proud of him, probably one of your closest friends, finally achieving this incredible success in his career. He deserved all of it and more, and you were so proud of him.

Getting P8 yourself, you weren’t upset with your score, though you could have done better, but it seemed insignificant compared to Lando’s win and how excited you were for him. You knew you probably wouldn’t get to talk to him until much later; he was the star of the day, a very busy man with hundreds of people demanding his attention, but you hoped for at least a look of him, maybe if you were lucky a smile, to show your utter joy of him winning.

The grid was packed, however, and even with your status as a driver it was still a challenge getting through the swarms of people. You pushed and shoved, mumbling apologies, almost desperate to see your friend before he went on the podium.

You and Lando were close. Even for co-workers you guys had a special relationship. You just clicked, able to understand each other without having to work for it. Even only actually knowing each other for a few years you felt you’d known him for a lifetime.

Sure, there may have been some… other feelings towards him that you harboured, but you refused to let them risk your friendship with Lando so you kept them hidden, shoved deep inside you and pretended to be ignored, even though in reality they seemed to have a chokehold on you.

You didn’t know if Lando felt the same and honestly weren’t sure if you wanted to know. You already had this incredible relationship with him, this understanding you shared with no one else, and you weren’t willing to risk it for anything, even to end the aching longing you felt sometimes when looking at him.

You finally managed to push your way through the crowd, now at the edge of a couple fences blocking the part of the grid where only certain F1 employees were able to be. Usually you wouldn’t have been able to go, what with you receiving an eighth position and not a podium, but you were determined to see Lando closer, maybe even give him a quick hug.

You were just so fucking proud of him, and you didn’t know what to do with the overwhelming feeling. He’d opened up to you multiple times in the past, confessing his feelings of failure, of being unable to get a win and how much that affected him, how shameful he was because of it. You knew how much his lack of wins haunted him and his career, so to gain a win, to achieve something like this, it was truly amazing, and your pride for him was overflowing. 

You managed to wheedle your way through the fences, using your driver status and known close friendship with Lando to your advantage, slipping through and immediately looking around for the Miami Grand Prix winner.

You followed the sound of cheering, rounding a corner to find the massive group of Mclaren employees behind a small fence, with Lando on top of them crowd surfing, laughing and looking like the happiest man alive.

Today he was exactly that.

You stood to the side, grinning like a maniac seeing Lando so happy. Your heart was near bursting, you couldn’t stop smiling even if you wanted to. You stayed silent though, not wanting to drag attention to yourself and get kicked out, but seeing him so fucking happy was more than enough for you.

So when Lando distractedly glanced around, a joyous smile on his face, and saw you, his smile widening, your heart warmed. You told yourself it was nothing big, but when he left his team to walk over to you, jog over, actually, your smile turned even bigger.

“Congratulations,” you exclaimed before leaping into his arms, wrapping your own tightly around his neck. His own hands came up to hug you back, holding you tightly against him. “I’m so fucking proud of you Lando.”

Lando squeezed you tighter, still not letting go. You were more than content to stay in his arms, pressing your head into the crook of his neck, ignoring the flashing cameras that would be following Lando for the rest of the day.

When the two of you eventually pulled back, however reluctantly, Lando was beaming. He looked gorgeous like that, genuinely happy, nothing able to bring down his mood. He was riding the high of winning, still heavily influenced by the adrenaline pumping through his veins.

Maybe what was why he kissed you, in front of millions of people, taking them and you by surprise. Or maybe it was because he was having the perfect fucking day, and having you in his arms would have made it all the more better.

Either way you were certainly taken off guard as Lando stared at you for a split-second, eyes tracing your face before they landed on your lips, and then the next second he was leaning in and pressing his lips against yours.

There was an onslaught of noise as he did it, the cameras going crazy, people yelling and cheering, yet it was all distant. All you could focus on was Lando’s soft lips against yours, dragging his mouth across your own.

You kissed him back without thinking, your hands snaking back around his neck. His hand gripped your waist, tugging you closer as he deepened the kiss, his tongue flicking your lower lip and forcing you to swallow a moan lest you want the whole world to hear it.

Lando had the gall to grin against your lips, no doubt hearing your gasp before you could muffle it completely. You pulled back, giving him a ‘what the fuck man’ stare and he just shrugged, keeping his hand firmly around your waist.

You shook your head but your emotions were in overdrive, everything inside you screaming for more. You pressed your head into the crook of his neck again, hearing his soft chuckle as his hands roamed your back.

“We are having a very serious talk after this,” you whispered in his ear.

He paused, before whispering back, “good or bad?”

You pulled back to stare at Lando, his curls sticking to his forehead from sweat, his eyes alight with an excitement you hadn’t seen in a while, his face slightly red from exertion and happiness.

You smiled at him. “Definitely good.”

Lando grinned and pulled you back for another kiss, blatantly ignoring the paparazzi around you. He murmured into your lips, “I’m so fucking lucky.”

You couldn’t help but ask, “how so?”

He grinned against your lips again. “Winning the race and the girl in one day.”

#lando norris #lando norris x reader #ln4 #f1 #f1 fanfic #f1 x reader #lando norris fanfic #lando x reader #miami gp 2024 #f1 fanfiction #formula1

[absolutely-esme]

What do you mean he's not eldritch?

What if all of the members of the Bat Family other than Tim Drake were secretly eldritch abominations?

They all work very hard at pretending to be human, and they've even gotten pretty good at passing. They can even mostly avoid the uncanny valley when in their civilian identities. There was a heck of a learning curve, but they've gotten things figured out for the most part.

Enter: Tim Drake

Weird, poorly socialized, probably autistic Tim Drake

The Bats think they've encountered a fellow eldritch being in disguise, and one that seems like he could use some help blending in. Naturally, they're quick to welcome him into their fold. Jason is delighted to take his turn at being a big brother mentor.

It takes a comedically long time for anyone to realize something's up because there is an absurd amount of overlap between stuff you need to know for masking and stuff you need to know to pass as human.

Meanwhile, Tim is amazed that the Bats have apparently decided he's cool enough to hang out with. It's like something out of his daydreams. They even have good advice for him on problems he hadn't known how to ask about. They are so patient and understanding about it, too. They never get annoyed with him for not already knowing. They also seem to be okay with the bits of weirdness he can't change.

Just weird kid Tim getting bundled into an incredibly helpful and supportive found family of eldritch entities. They're all going to get a good grade in human-ing, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve.

...

I imagine the Bats are various different kinds of eldritch abominations because they're still adopted. They look wildly different when not in human form.

Bruce is a mass of... shadows? Smoke? Something dark and formless that shifts and flows in different ways depending on his mood.

Dick kind of looks like a pile of owls that is also somehow a single body.

Barbara is a spiral galaxy with stars that are also eyes somehow?

Jason is a solid-looking mass of muscle with six strong legs, a thick coat of shaggy hair, a mouth that opens much further along his body than it seems like it should, and even more teeth than you'd expect a mouth that size to have.

Stephanie Brown is kind of like an incredibly dense storm system with purple glitter.

Cassandra is a silhouette through which undiscovered nebulae can be seen. What she is a silhouette of depends on her mood.

Tim, they have only ever seen in his meticulously well-crafted human form. He's really good at that part even if he needed some help with the behavioral bits.

Damian is half human. Talia saw a mass of living darkness trying really hard to pretend to be a man and decided she was into that.

...

Dick: So, eye contact is actually pretty simple once you have the formula figured out. You need to cycle between looking at the other person and looking at something else at the appropriate frequency. If you look at them too much it will come across as staring. If you look away for too long they'll think you're not paying attention to them. You'll need to experiment to figure out the appropriate frequency.

Tim: *frets*

Jason: You don't have to look straight at their eyes, just in the general direction of their face.

Tim: Oh! I can do that!

...

I think Eldritch Bruce having history with the league of assassins in a markedly less inentional way than Canon would be funny. Like, you'd think an encounter between an eldritch abomination and a cult would be deliberate on someone's part, but no.

Bruce was still young and unskilled at differentiating between normal and abnormal human behavior.

#dc #batman #batfam #found family #tim drake #jason todd #dick grayson #stephanie brown #eldritch au #Eldritch Jason Todd #Eldritch Dick Grayson #Eldritch Stephanie Brown #Eldritch Barbara Gordon #Eldritch Damian Al Ghul #Eldritch Bruce Wayne #Eldritch batfamily #what do you mean he's not eldritch au

[ellemj]

Making Sure: 12 Days of Smut #3 - Sex Pollen

Bucky Barnes x Reader One-Shot

Summary: Bucky is exposed to a sex pollen while the two of you are snowed in, stuck in a cabin in the Swiss Alps after finishing up a mission. Oh, and of course, you happen to be his ex-girlfriend.

Warnings: profanity, dubcon (sex pollen), possessive!Bucky, breeding kink, unprotected sex, mutual pining of sorts, some use of y/n, MINORS DNI, 18+!!!

Feel free to comment and let me know if this requires any other warnings.

Word Count: 4k

A/N: My laptop decided it didn't want to turn on today, and then when it finally turned on it didn't want to run any apps so 12 Days of Smut almost became 11 Days of Smut. But anyway, let me know if you guys like this one! For once, it doesn't involve anyone hating anyone or an obscene amount of unbearable tension (which I severely miss).

            It’s not all that hard to work with your ex, not when you ended on decent terms. Well, as decent as they could have been. When Bucky broke up with you three months ago, it wasn’t completely out of the blue. You hadn’t been having any problems, you never had any fights, but you knew he was never as into the relationship as you were. He had said from the very beginning that he didn’t think he ever wanted a lifelong commitment. The majority of his life had been spent without having true freedom to make his own decisions. It’s safe to say the man only had about six years of making decisions for himself, between turning eighteen and joining the army. Then the army had a say in everything he did until he was taken by HYDRA. HYDRA controlled him for so long, and honestly, they still have some form of control over him if you consider his nightmares and insomnia issues. So, when things started to feel a little too serious between you two, when Bucky started to realize that he actually loved you, that’s when he called it off.

            You’d both agreed to keep the relationship between yourselves, remaining professional at work and around the others. Even Sam had never figured it out. Bucky was so good at keeping it hidden, staying completely stoic unless he was positive you were both alone. When things ended between you two, he became stoic all the time. There have been a few times where you’ve felt a bit angry with how easily he can just shut himself off and pretend like you never had anything between you. You think you might’ve been in love with him. How can you be stoic around him when you loved him? You can’t be. So, instead of being stoic, you’re just a little more quiet than usual. You get your job done, you speak to him as professionally as you can, and then you get away from him.

            Unfortunately though, there’s no getting away from him tonight. Technically, your mission is already over. You broke into HYDRA’s only remaining functional lab, you stole at least one sample of each of the various compounds that they were working on, and then you got the hell out of there. You made it all the way back to the safehouse, a small rustic cabin a little ways up in the Swiss Alps. It had been snowing for the last twenty-four hours that you’d been here, but the winter weather came to a head to today on your drive back from the break-in. By the time you got all of the samples safely inside the cabin, there was no way either of you could make the drive back down the mountain to reach the quinjet. You’re stuck here for the night.

            “I want them kept at a pretty low temperature overnight, well below thirty degrees.” Bruce has been watching you over a video call as you’ve been cataloging the samples and packing them safely into a padded case. “It’d probably be best to leave them all in the trunk of the car, since it’s so cold out there.” Bucky’s sitting in the living area while you’re working at the kitchen table, but he’s still listening in. He’s listened for the last half hour as you labeled the samples and hummed a little Christmas tune to yourself. Truthfully, he almost forgot that Christmas is in a few days until he heard you humming that song that you love so much. What was it? He can never remember the name, but he recognizes it from last Christmas. You sang it often and he was lucky enough to still be yours then, to still get the privilege of listening to you flit around the tower so festively, infecting everyone around with your cheerful spirit.

            “They all fit in the case except for one, but it should be fine. I’ll just stick it in the trunk next to the case and slip it into my bag tomorrow before we drive out.” You say, holding up the thin glass flask containing a very watery, clear liquid. It looks the least terrifying, out of all of the chemicals you retrieved from the lab today.

            “Good work today, we’ll see you guys back here tomorrow, if the weather permits.” Bruce gives a little wave before ending the video call. Just as you’re closing the heavy black case of samples, Bucky rises from his seat on the couch and joins you in the kitchen.

            “I’ll take them out.” He offers, staying a few feet away from you but at least making eye contact with you. He doesn’t seem to look at you very often since you broke up, but you can’t complain about it. It makes it a little easier to get over him when you’re not drowning in his blue eyes. You give him a curt nod before sliding the case across the table and then setting the sealed flask of clear liquid on top of it.

            “Try not to jostle them around too much, carry it with two hands.”

            “Got it, two hands.” Bucky repeats. You watch as he lifts the case, leaving the glass flask resting on the lid. You think about carrying the lone chemical out there in your own hands, worrying that Bucky might tip the case a little too far and let the flask fall to the ground outside, but you brush off the worry. He’s never been clumsy, and he sure as hell hasn’t ever been careless. It’ll be fine. It’s just a short walk from the front door to the back of the car.

            In retrospect, you should’ve listened to your instincts.

            When Bucky rushes in the front door only a minute after he’s stepped outside with the chemicals, a sickening feeling settles deep in your stomach. You quickly turn to the source of commotion as he slams the door shut behind him and starts nearly jogging across the cabin, heading straight for the bathroom at the end of the hall.

            “Bucky? What happened?” You call out, your feet carrying you down the hall after him. Bucky strips off his coat, dropping it on the floor in the hall before throwing the bathroom door open and ripping off his shirt. He doesn’t even close the bathroom door. You step over his coat and come to a stop in the doorway as he leans down and turns on the shower.

            “Stay back.” He warns, giving you a sideways glance that makes your stomach flip. “I slipped on a patch of ice and the little glass thing on top of the case fell and shattered. Whatever was in it evaporated quick, but I inhaled a lot of it. I don’t know if I got any on me.”

            Shit. This is not good. Bucky starts unbuckling his belt, but stops himself after he gets it undone, finally turning and looking you straight in the eye. Right. You’re not together anymore.

            “Only rinse, don’t use soap. We don’t know what the chemical was or what might interact with it.” You say, forcing your voice to sound calmer than you feel. Bucky nods, and then shuts the door between the two of you. Shit. You knew you should’ve carried that damn flask yourself.

---

            Half an hour later, after Bucky’s finished showering and is resting on the couch per yours and Bruce’s orders, he begins to feel something. He wanted to go to bed, just sleep it off and see how he felt in the morning, but you and Bruce insisted that he stay in the living room and awake so you could monitor him for any weird signs or symptoms. You miss the first few symptoms that Bucky begins to feel. First, his heart rate began picking up. It was so miniscule at first that even he didn’t notice it, but it increased more and more until he could hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears. Then, even in the chilly little cabin with a near-blizzard raging outside, Bucky began to feel hot. Hot to the point of wanting to take off everything he was wearing and go lay in the snow. Now he sits on the couch, breathing a little quicker than he was earlier, with beads of sweat forming on the back of his neck. It’s his increased respiratory rate that you notice first. Then, as you begin looking him over from your far away seat at the kitchen table, you see the way his cheeks are flushed and the way his dark gray t-shirt is beginning to stick to the sweat coming off of his back. Shit. Whatever it was that he was exposed to, it sure as hell wasn’t nothing.

            You’re just about to ask Bucky what he’s feeling when he abruptly stands from the couch and looks right at you, his gaze wild and pupils blown.

            “Bucky—” You start, but he cuts you off in an instant.

            “I don’t know what was in that flask, but I’ll be fine. I’m not going to sit out here all night.” Bucky’s trying to play it off. He has no fucking idea if he’ll actually be fine, but the newest physiological response his body is having to the chemical isn’t one he wants you to become aware of. He’s aroused. His cock is harder than it’s ever been, and he’d rather sleep outside on the icy road and get run over by Santa’s fucking sleigh then stay this close to you. He worries he won’t be able to control himself if he has to look at you one more time tonight, if he even hears another breath leave your lips, he’ll be done for.  

            “Bucky, tell me what you’re feeling.” You say softly, pushing your chair away from the table and standing, but not daring to move any closer to where he stands in the living room. He scrunches his eyes closed and presses his vibranium hand to the back of his neck in an attempt to cool the skin there.

            “Y/n, I’m going to bed.” He sounds so frustrated. It’s a tone of voice you actually recognize. This is how he used to sound when you’d tease him at the worst times, when you were somewhere that restricted him from being able to touch you, to fuck you.

            “Is it what I think it is?” You ask, your voice impossibly quieter than before. Bucky’s eyes snap open now and he studies you. Looking at you makes his dick throb and his balls feel so fucking full and heavy. He closes his eyes again as quickly as he opened them and then, you’re sure. It was a fucking sex pollen.

            You don’t dare make a move to stop Bucky when he hurries down the hall and locks himself in his bedroom. You stand frozen in the kitchen for the next two minutes, trying to figure out what the hell you should be doing in a situation like this. You end up doing what you do best: researching. You sit yourself right back down at the table and open your laptop, quickly accessing the online archive of SHIELD research files. You type in every word you can possibly think of to find what you need. Luckily, the first article that pops up is exactly what you needed.

            You skim through it at lightning speed, your eyes picking up on the important details. Heightened senses, increases sexual drive ten-fold, may result in permanent disability or death if state of intense arousal is not rectified. Shit, this is bad. You’re wondering how the hell one is supposed to rectify the intense arousal when your eyes land on the most key piece of information in the entire article. Human trials have revealed that allowed the specimen to engage in sexual intercourse is the only successful way to return to a normotensive physiological state.

            You have to fuck. You have to convince him to have sex with you. You have to convince the man who broke up with you three months ago to have sex with you. You’ve suddenly decided that you fucking hate your job.

            However, you’re not going to sit around while Bucky becomes permanently disabled or lets himself die of exposure to a damn HYDRA sex pollen. So, you slam your laptop shut and march right down the hall. You tap your knuckles against his bedroom door three times, until you hear the bed creak slightly, so you at least know he’s alive. He doesn’t make a single move to answer the door. He’s sitting on the side of the bed, his hands gripping the edge of the mattress so hard that it’ll probably never spring back into shape. His sense of hearing is heightened so much that he can hear every breath you take. He thinks he can even hear the sound of your eyelashes fluttering as you blink.

            “Bucky, I did some research.” God, just the sound of your voice might be enough to make him cum in his sweats. Bucky bites his bottom lip and looks down at where his erection is fighting to escape the confines of his sweats. “If this is a sex pollen, which I think we both know it is, it can kill you. The only way to fix this is to…” Your voice trails off, but you don’t have to finish your sentence for Bucky to know what the solution is here. But he won’t ask that of you. He refuses to ask you to sleep with him. He knows he broke your heart three months ago, and he’d be the world’s biggest asshole if he used you for relief now. So, he stays silent. “We could…”

            You can’t seem to finish any of your sentences. Why is it so hard for you to say we could fuck. Oh, right. Because you’ve missed the way he fucks for months. Because you know that if he wasn’t under the influence of this chemical right now, he sure as hell wouldn’t be turned on around you. You’d happily have sex with him right now, but he’d only be doing it because he has to do it to survive.

            “I know I’m probably the last person that you’d want to be offering this, but I’m offering. I don’t want you to sit in there and die.” You say softly, your voice cracking a little bit on the final word. The last person he’d want to be offering this? Fuck, you have no idea how he really feels, do you? Bucky screws his eyes shut and fights back the urge to throw the door open and tell you how much he fucking loves you, how much he’s missed you. It’s why he broke up with you in the first place. What if something happened one day that turned him right back into the Winter Soldier? What if he ended up on ice again and by the time he came out of cryo, you were dead and gone? He had to break up with you, because he felt like his future was always too unclear to promise it to someone.

            “I’m here, Bucky, if you need me.” You whisper, with your forehead pressed against the cool wood of the door. He can tell that you’re hurting for him. It’s why, against his rational mind, he finds himself crossing the room and tugging the door open. When he sees you standing there in the light of the hallway, he can hear that little Christmas tune that you love so much playing in his head. Fuck it.

            You’ve barely had a second to realize that Bucky’s just opened the door for you before you feel his hand fist in your hair and he yanks you forward against his chest. His mouth captures yours in a heated kiss. Bucky sucks your bottom lip between his and wastes no time in using his hold on your hair to tilt your head to the side and slide his tongue into your mouth. You act on muscle memory, kissing him the same way you used to every single day. You let his tongue dance around your mouth, but when he begins to pull back you suck on it lightly, earning a groan from him. He tastes just like you remember, and suddenly you want him so badly that for all you know you could have some sex pollen coursing through your veins.

            “The last person I’d want to be offering this?” Bucky rasps against your lips, briefly looking into your eyes as he repeats your words in question. “You’re the only person I’d want to be offering this.” He pulls on your hair again, tilting your head further to the side and sucking on the skin right below your ear. Your eyes close as you try to calm your racing heart, reminding yourself that as perfect as this might feel right now, it won’t last.

            It takes mere seconds for Bucky to pull you into his room and practically throw you onto his bed. When he crawls over you a second later, it’s like he’s suddenly realized you both still have your clothes on. He stands back up beside the bed and strips quickly, exposing every bit of his fucking heavenly body to you. You don’t even try to choke back the whimper that leaves your lips. Bucky freezes when he hears it. He’s heard it before. He’s heard it in his dreams, ever since you broke up. It’s sort of funny. He never had dreams before, only nightmares. Until he broke up with you, and then he started having dreams about you every night. They’ve replaced nearly every nightmare. Instead of HYDRA being the reason he’s up at night, it’s all you.

            You start shimmying out of your pants right there on the bed as you look at Bucky, too impatient to stand up and take everything off like he did. He strokes his cock slowly in one hand, but every time his palm glides over the tip he makes a face like he’s in pain. You know from your brief research that touching himself won’t give him an ounce of relief, it’ll only make things worse. So, once you have your pants off, you reach up and grab his wrist, stopping his stroking, and pulling him closer to the bed. He gets the hint and positions himself on top of you again, spreading your legs apart with his knee before settling between them.

            “I’ve missed you.” Bucky coos against the side of your neck, right as you feel the head of his cock brushing against your clit through your already soaked panties. He didn’t mean to say it. He doesn’t want to make the break up any harder for you, but fuck. He’s missed having you under him like this, though in the past you never kept your panties and shirt on when you were under him.

            “I’ve been right here.” You respond quietly, letting your hands coast down his sides until you feel the way his back muscles are rigid underneath your palms. He’s restraining himself. “Bucky, you don’t have to hold back.” He sighs deeply and grinds his cock against you, hard. It draws a moan from your lips that’s so needy, Bucky can’t wait any longer. He knows he’s only waited a minute at this point, but he just can’t anymore. He reaches down between the two of you and snags a finger in your panties, deftly pulling them to the side and guiding his cock straight into you without warning. The cry that escapes you isn’t one of pain or surprise, it’s one of pure lust. It might’ve been three months since the last time you had sex, but your body accepts his cock like it never left. There’s no pain, there’s only pleasure as he starts fucking into you slowly. He builds the pace up in mere seconds, speeding up more and more until he’s fucking you so hard and fast that the headboard is snapping against the wall and scratching the paint.

            “God, you’re still so fucking tight for me.” He groans, burying himself balls deep inside you. He stays still for a moment, letting your pussy grip his cock like a vice.

            “It’s still yours.” You whisper the words against his jawline. When his eyes snap open and stare straight into yours, you know you probably shouldn’t have said it. His pupils are already overly dilated, but they expand a little more as possessiveness flares in his chest. He always loved when you let him know who your pussy belonged to. He fucking loved it.

            Wait. The realization hits you both at the same time. He isn’t wearing a condom. As he looks into your eyes, his face falls and your eyes widen. He never once fucked you without a condom on. It was part of his whole no-long-term-commitment thing. He didn’t want to risk an unintentional pregnancy, so he never let himself fuck you raw. When he starts to pull out, you’re quick to wrap your legs around him and lock him in place.

            “Don’t.” You plead. You want this. You’ve always wanted this. Bucky bites his bottom lip and closes his eyes, trying to find a single rational thought in his mind. He knows he shouldn’t do this, he knows he should pull out and find a fucking condom. But will he?

             The answer is no. He uses what little space you give him between your legs to start thrusting into you again, slower this time, but still every bit as deep as before.

            “If you don’t let me pull out…” He starts, but you pull his face down to yours and silence him with a kiss. After a few seconds, he picks up his pace and begins fucking you relentlessly once again, further ruining the paintjob on the bedroom wall behind the headboard.

            “I always wanted you to fuck me like this.” You sigh against his lips. You feel Bucky’s entire body tense up as he nears his release, your words egging him on.

            “Oh, baby, I always wanted to fuck you like this.” He admits, snapping his hips into yours and getting you that much closer to the edge. As your orgasm threatens to tear through you, something weighs heavy on Bucky’s mind. He wants to cum inside you. He loves you but he’s always told himself he can’t have you, because his future is so unclear, he can’t make promises to you and possibly break them. But…he’s a good guy. If he were to knock you up, he’d do the right thing. The traditional thing. He’d marry you and take such good care of you, of the little family you’d have together. Maybe that’s what he should do. He thinks that maybe if he gets you pregnant right now, it would force him to give you his future, no matter how much it scares him. He’d be so much more concerned with doing the right thing in the present, rather than worrying about what might happen in the future. “Let me cum inside you.”

            “You can, Bucky. You can cum inside me.” You moan out, locking your ankles together behind him and pulling him harder against you. He groans and presses another kiss to your lips, but a gentler one this time.

            “You’ll have a baby for me.” He doesn’t even phrase it as a question, no, he’s telling you what you’ll do. “You’ll let me get you pregnant, and then you’ll be mine.”

            “Fuck…” The curse falls from your lips as bliss surges through you. You can’t even find the words to say what you want to say, which is fuck yes. So, you lay there submissively, with your legs wrapped around him as he fucks every drop of cum that he has into you. Then, you catch your breath while he pulls his cock out of you and slides your panties back over your sore cunt. You even let him pile the pillows beneath your hips and legs, elevating your pelvis to make sure his cum won’t drip back out of you.

            Fuck. He really wants to make sure you’re pregnant after this.

TAG LIST (if your user has a line through it, Tumblr wouldn't let me tag you):

@gyokujyn @mrsjoequinn @thealloveru2 @nixxaswrld @ordelixx @sweettae02 @frombkjar @hellfirebabe @edelweissbarnes @sunnyhummingbee @jenniferpendragon @siciliano13 @crist1216  @twlkdead

#bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes fanfiction #mcu #bucky barnes x you #marvel #bucky barnes #the winter soldier #winter soldier #12 days of smut

[bucks-babe]

Friends Don't Lie

Paring: Bucky x f!reader

Summary: Wanting to know if your crush likes you, you go to Bucky for help, the only problem is, Bucky is your crush

Warnings: Slight angst, fluff, Smut (oral f receiving, p in v), unprotected sex (don’t do that), friends to lovers, crying, praise kink, soft!Bucky is a warning, Roommate!Bucky, Bucky calls reader kid just to piss her off for a bit but not when they’re doing the thang thang, no actual age gap though, no use of Y/N

Word count: Over 5k Idk what happened

A/N: This is my first ever fic so please go easy on me. If I missed any warnings, please let me know. Any and all mistakes are my own

Sighing, you walk into the apartment you share with Bucky. He’s sitting on the couch sporting his signature grumpy frown. Your heart beats that much faster when you lay your eyes on him. Honestly, you don’t know how he looks that hot with just a black t-shirt and jeans on. 

“Hey, what’s got your panties in a twist, Buck,” you chime as you plop down onto the couch next to him, now noticing the bottle of whiskey in his hands. He only glances at you before taking another swig of his whiskey.

“My panties aren’t in a twist, kid,” he huffs.

You cringe at the nickname he gave you. In all reality, you were only 3 years younger than him, but he knows how much you hate being called kid. In true Bucky fashion, he calls you kid all the time, just to get under your skin. “Really, then why are you drinking at,” you check your phone for the time before cocking your eyebrow, “2 o’clock in the afternoon?”

He completely ignores your question so you press on. “Well since you aren’t doing anything, I need your help.”

This seems to catch his attention just a little, “With what?”

“Well…” you trail off only to continue when you catch his eye, “I need some relationship advice and I can’t go to Sam about it because he is the worst.”

“I’m supposed to be good at relationship advice? I’m not the right person to come to, kid.” He replies, seemingly even more annoyed than he was before you walked into the apartment, and takes another swig out of his bottle.

You snatch the bottle out of his hand (ignoring Bucky’s Hey! That’s mine!) and take a swallow, “You know how much I hate being called kid, Buck. But yes, I need relationship advice”

“Why can’t you go to Sam about this; he seems to think that he is an expert at everything?” he practically whines as he rolls his eyes and leans back into the couch, spreading his legs and giving you a great view of his thick thighs in those jeans.

“Because, Buck, Sam will just make fun of me, and I know for a fact he cant help me with this.” To be fair to Sam, he would probably give you good advice, but he would make fun of you for your crush on Bucky.

“And I won’t?” Bucky scoffs before taking the bottle back from your hands. 

“Well, you would make fun of me, but Sam would never let me live it down, okay,” you can already feel your cheeks starting to heat up and regret seeping into your pores for talking to the very person you want to be in a relationship with about relationship advice.

“I think I already know who you need the advice about, don’t I,” Bucky turns his head toward you and cocks an eyebrow.

“What!” It feels like ice is coursing throughout your entire body. There is no way that he knows you're talking about him. “Uh… wh-who do you think I’m talking about?” Nice save, dipshit. You are mentally punching yourself in the face.

He takes one final gulp of his whiskey, wiping his mouth with the back of his palm, and sets the bottle on the coffee table, “I’m pretty sure I know who you have feelings for. The question is, do you really think you have a chance?” Oh my God - he knows and this is his fucking warning to walk away. Pretend like this never happened and leave - now

“Who-who do you think I’m talking about.” Wow, nice save. Always repeat the question, it never makes you look more suspicious. If he wasn’t onto you already, he sure as hell knows now.

“It’s rather obvious, don’t you think?” God you hope not, “Let me guess, Rogers?”Huh? an amused, little smirk appears on his face, blue eyes waiting for your reaction.

“St-Steve?!” Okay, not where you thought this was going but at least he doesn’t know you like him.

“You’re blushing,” he puts an arm over the back of the couch and crosses one leg over the other, “and stuttering. Seems like I was right, huh?” that stupid, gorgeous smirk is still on his lips.

“No! I do not have a crush on Steve Rogers! Ew, no. Why would you even think that, Buck?” Maybe you shouldn’t have had such a visceral reaction to him thinking you liked Steve, but you’ve never seen Steve as anything other than a great friend; however, once you started talking, you couldn’t stop. “I do like someone, Buck, but the thing is… well I don’t know how to tell if they like me back. I mean, every relationship I’ve been in has been so…so superficial. I would like them, but I don’t think they ever liked me, you know? It was always about the sex and what I could give them.” Shut up Shut up “This is why I need your help. I’ve never had someone like me for me and I don’t know how to tell if what I feel for this guy, who is most definitely not Steve, is reciprocated.” Why are you still talking?!

“Calm down, kid,” Bucky’s hands on your shoulders cut you off from your rant. The smirk is gone from his face, replaced with a look that is slightly less grumpy looking than his normal face. “It’s only me, remember? I’m sure whoever this guy is, he likes you for who you are, kid.” He once again leans back against the couch.

Your scoff brings the smirk back to his face, which is now more annoying than pretty.

“You know what, I think I’m just going to go to bed.” As you go to get up from the couch, Bucky grabs your wrist and pulls you back next to him, much closer than you were before.

“Who is it, kid? I can help you, only if you tell me who it is.” It feels like he is staring into your soul, like he can see right through you and you hate it. Fear bubbles up inside of you.

“Why do you need to know who the guy is, huh? I need advice and you said you would help me.” He’s getting too close to the truth; if he keeps pressing the matter, he’s going to find out that it's him you like, and that will not end well. You can feel the heat coming off of his body just like his stare is heating your cheeks.

“Kid, just tell me who it is you like and I can help.” He leans forward in his seat and you can tell that he is getting pissed off. Maybe you're reading too much into the situation, but Bucky might be getting mad because he likes you? Impossible.

“Help how? Do you know who likes me?” Smooth 

“I can tell you if this guy, who isn’t Steve, likes you, I just need a name first, kid.” He crosses his arms in front of his chest, making it very clear that he is not happy with how the conversation is going.

“Wait! You do know if someone likes me!” You’re desperately clutching at straws to keep his attention off of who you like, knowing that it’s fruitless.

“Yeah, I do. But right now I don’t care because you still won’t tell me who you like.” Bastard! That stupid, pretty smirk is back and he knows he won.

“I’ll make you a deal, you tell me who already likes me, and I’ll tell you who I like.” 

“Deal.” Rolling his eyes, Bucky finally leans back and it feels like you can catch your breath again. “It’s Sam, he likes you, kid.” Bucky knows that he is lying through his teeth, but he is a great liar and this will get you to tell him who your crush is.

“Sam?” You can’t help the way your face falls or the disappointment in your voice. You knew it was a long shot, Bucky liking you that is, but he didn’t even bat an eyelash when telling you that Sam of all people liked you.

“Yep,” he pops the p. “Sammy boy likes you. Now, who do you like?” He can’t even pretend to care about throwing Sam under the bus or who he will now hate for the rest of time for taking his girl from him before he could make you his.

“Uh… it’s Sam. Yep…Sam. I like Sam, so this actually works out really great… thanks, Buck.” It sounds like a lie even to your own ears, let alone to Bucky’s.

“Come on, kid. Spit it out.” Somehow Bucky’s final braincells piece together your reaction. You like him. That is the only explanation as to why you won’t tell him who you like. “Kid, do you like me?”

You start to choke on your own spit and if you weren’t blushing before, you definitely are now. “Wh-wh-what? You? No!”

Bucky’s eyes light up just a fraction and his right hand cups your chin. “You like me, kid.” It’s not framed as a question, but rather a statement. Maybe it was the whiskey finally taking effect, but he tilts your head so you are looking directly at him and your breath hitches in your throat. “I like you, too.” It’s a whisper, but it pulls you out of your stupor.

You wheel back and jerk out of his grasp. “That’s not funny, asshole. Who said that I liked you?”

“Me.” Was his only response. “Didn’t you hear what I said, kid? I like you, too,” a chuckle left his lips.

“That is not funny, Buck. Don’t play with my feelings like that.” You don’t know why, but you feel tears begin to well up in your eyes. For a second, you thought that Bucky liked you back, but this was all some cruel joke. Of course Bucky was just messing with you.

“Hey, kid, look at me. Don’t cry.” The smirk on his face is gone, leaving only concern; this is worse, those pretty eyes looking at you with pity. “I wasn’t joking. I actually like you back, okay.” Guilt bubbles up in his chest when he sees tears fall down your cheeks. “Aw, sweets, you’re too pretty to cry.” He coos, wiping your tears with his thumbs.

“What did you just call me?” The pet name seems to bring you back to the moment. You’ve never heard him call anyone sweets, and the name made you feel special inside.

“Huh?” Now it is Bucky’s turn to be confused.

“You called me sweets, not kid.” You tilted your head, feeling your heart rate pick up.

“Well, it would be a little weird if I called you kid when I do this.” His face was only centimeters away; you could feel his breath on your lips. He was waiting for you to give the all clear, a sign that this was okay. You were the first one to make a move, closing the gap between you two. 

When your lips connected, you let out an involuntary moan; you’ve dreamed about kissing him and what he would taste like but nothing could compare to the real thing. He tasted of the whiskey he was sipping on and something distinctly Bucky that you couldn’t put your name on, but frankly you didn’t care when he was kissing you so good.

With his hands still on your jaw, he tilts your head to where he wants it, making you gasp. His tongue enters your mouth and now it’s his turn to moan. One of his hands falls down to your thigh and he pulls you into his lap, not breaking the kiss.

You were the first one to pull away, regrettingly, but you needed oxygen and as much as you wish you could breathe him in, it wasn’t possible to sustain life. You wrap your arms around his middle and bury yourself into his neck, and the arm around your thigh travels up to your waist, while his other hand goes to the back of your head.

“Hey, easy, sweets. I can barely breathe.” You can feel more than hear Bucky’s chuckle, but you only bury yourself deeper into his shoulder, feeling a sudden rush of emotions. Never in a million years did you think that Bucky would kiss you, or that you would be on his lap. “Are you okay, sweets? Come on, talk to me.” Bucky can feel how tense you are on top of him, and it makes him worry.

Once again, there are tears in your eyes. At this point, you don’t know if they ever went away, “I just never thought that you would like me, you know?” The hand on your head doesn’t try to pull you away, but rather massages where it lays.

“Well, I do, sweets, so you’re gonna have to get used to me. How about that?” You just nod into his shoulder and wiggle deeper into his embrace. Bucky lets out a low groan and the hand on your back drops down to your hip, holding you in place. “You’re gonna have to stop moving, sweets.” You can feel the hard bulge in his pants from you moving around, causing a giggle to leave your lips, the tears once again subsiding.

“Oh, you think this is funny, huh, kid?” He brings back the nickname just to tease you and you know it.

“Hey! I’m sitting on your dick right now, please don’t call me kid, Buck.” Bucky throws his head back and the most beautiful laugh leaves his mouth. He’s laughing so hard that you are slightly bouncing on his lap and your core hits the raised zipper of his pants. A whine leaves your lips while his laughter turns into a choked groan.

“Fuck, sweets, come here.” He pulls you back in for another kiss while he leans back into the couch. Involuntarily, your hips grind against his and he is swallowing your moans in his mouth.

You sit up a little and pull him up with you. Tugging at the bottom of his shirt causes him to break your kiss, “You want my shirt off, sweets?” You can only whine in response and tug on it again, but Bucky isn’t helping you take his shirt off until you speak.

“Please, Buck.” God you’re already out of breath and he’s only kissed you.

“That’s a good girl. See that wasn’t so hard was it?” Oh fuck. A high pitched moan leaves your throat at his praise. Bucky chuckles, he’s found your praise kink and he’s not going to let it go now.

He takes pity on you and takes his shirt off, but doesn’t give you time to ogle at his shirtless body before his hands are underneath your hoodie, warm palms running up and down your naked skin. “Can I take this off, pretty girl? Can I see my pretty baby, huh?” You nod your head so fast you make yourself slightly dizzy, but he makes no move to actually remove your top, waiting for you to speak.

“Yes, Bucky. I want you to take it off please.” A hum of approval leaves him as he takes your hoodie off.

“Fuck,” it comes out under his breath when he sees you in just your bra and pants. “Prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. You know that? You know how pretty you are?” Fuck, you can’t do this. He’s saying the things you always wanted him to say to you, but now you don’t know how to handle it. He lays you down on the couch and you can feel the outline of his hard cock through both of your pants.

When his hand goes up you back to your bra, your brain goes into overdrive. “This isn’t just sex, right?” You need this to mean something to him too. It can’t just be sex; you can’t do just sex. It would break your heart.

Bucky chuckles a little before giving you a chaste kiss, clearly missing your desperation for it meaning something more. “Let me show you how much you mean to me, sweets? Let me make you feel good.” His hands are on your leggings, fingers in the waistband. 

“You won’t leave me after, right? You’ll stay with me?” God, are you crying again? This might be your only chance to be with him and you’re blowing it! The crack in your voice gets his attention and his hands leave your bottoms to cup your face once again, thumbs wiping your tears.

“Hey, sweets, look at me?” You meet his eyes; they are filled with a softness you’ve never seen from him before. “Of course I won’t leave you. I just got you, and now you’re going to be stuck with me for a very long time, okay, sweet girl? You’re mine and I’m yours.” He rests his forehead on yours after kissing all of your tears away.

“You’re mine?” 

“All yours, okay?” After you nod, he pulls you back up so you're sitting on his lap and holds you close to his chest. “How about we just calm down for a little bit, okay? I didn’t mean to push you too far, sweets.” He’s so perfect. How did you get him?

“No. I’m okay, it’s just that…well I don’t want you to leave me after you get what you want, Buck.” This is so unsexy; there is no way he is going to want to sleep with you now

“Look at me, sweets.” You look at him, “Good girl.” Fuck. “I want you. Not just your body. I want to take you out on dates and annoy all of our friends with how cute we look together. I want it all.” He’s looking into your eyes with such sincerity that it feels like you could break and all of your doubts leave your mind.

You grind your hips against his still hard cock, “Will you make love to me, Buck?” 

He groans lowly before gaining his composure again, “Are you sure, sweet girl? We don’t have to do anything, you know that?” But you want to, so bad.

“I know and I’m sure I want you.” He’s looking into your soul; he never wants to hurt you. “Please?” It’s the doe eyes that break him and he picks you up and carries you to his room like you weigh nothing.

“I’m gonna make love to you, sweet girl. If you want me to stop, just say the word, okay? But I promise it won’t change how I feel about you.” He is looking into the depths of your soul, making sure this is what you want; there is nothing you want more in this moment than Bucky finally loving you.

Instead of a verbal response, you wrap both your arms and legs around him so his whole body is on top of yours on his bed and you kiss him again. You are surrounded by everything Bucky; his room smells so good that you want to spend forever in it with him. 

Calloused palms slide up your back to meet the clasp on your bra and Bucky breaks the kiss, staring at your swollen lips before catching your eye, “Can I take this off, sweets?” Taking your bra off swiftly after he hears your breathly ‘yes,’ his hands find purchase on your ribs.

“Fuck,” his groan makes you attempt to close your legs to find some release, but his waist stops your legs from moving even an inch. “Your tits are absolutely gorgeous, you know that? God, sweets, do you feel how hard you make me? This is all for you.”

You arch your back, pushing your breasts further into his field of view, gasping when his right hand cups your breast, tweaking your nipple and rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. 

“Please, touch me, Buck!” You already sound cock drunk and he hasn’t even done anything to you, but you can’t find it in you to care. 

Cocking his head to the side and chuckling, he whispers in your ear, “I am touching you, sweets.” That son of a bitch! “Where do you want me to touch you, huh?”

You grab his unoccupied hand and lead it down to your pants but he doesn’t budge, refusing to touch your clothed pussy. “Touch you where, sweet girl? I need words or I can’t please you.” 

Cheeks heating up, you finally give up, just wanting him to touch you, pleasure you, anything. “My pussy, Bucky! Touch my pussy!”

“Atta girl. I knew you could do it.” How does he know all the right things to say?

He leaves a trail of kisses from your neck, to your chest, down your belly, until he reaches the hem of your leggings; looking up at you, waiting for your permission, “Take my pants off, please.”

Another wave of slick goes straight to your core when he whispers, “Such a good girl, using her words,” as he takes your pants off, leaving your panties on your core. Shit, I don’t think I’ve ever been this wet in my life.

Bucky’s thumb goes up and down over your pussy, slightly pushing down over your entrance, making your panties that much wetter, then sliding his thumb up to your clit. Your thighs unconsciously tighten around his head and hips jerk up when he does it again, and again, and again.

Breathy moans and gasps leave your lips before he gently pushes your thighs back with a small chuckle, and pushes your panties to the side, getting his first glance at the pussy he has been dreaming about. 

“Such a pretty pussy to match the prettiest girl in the world, don’t you think?” He doesn’t wait for a response this time, instead his mouth latches onto your clit and the moan that leaves his mouth is almost louder than your own. 

He can’t bring himself to pull away for a single moment, rather speaking into your pussy, sending vibrations throughout your entire core. A small huff leaves his lips when your thighs wrap around his head again; he’s going to make sure you stay put right where you are so he can keep licking your pussy until he is satisfied. He laces both of his hands with yours when you reach down toward him, because you need to be able to ground yourself.

So lost in your own pleasure, you almost don’t notice that Bucky is grinding against the bed, desperate for any type of friction, dick being the hardest that it has ever been. He’s sure that he could blow his load at any moment, but he wants this to be good for you, needs it to be good for you, so he is holding back with all his might, but fuck if he can’t stop moving his hips he won’t make it inside of you. And the sounds that are coming out of your mouth are making it almost impossible for him to do that.

Your thighs clamp around his head somehow even harder when you feel your orgasm approaching, effectively suffocating Bucky. He doesn’t care; he can breathe when you come on his tongue. You don’t even have time to announce that you’re going to cum before the strongest orgasm of your life rips through you. Bucky’s muffled moans are even more distant over the blood rushing through your ears, eyes finding purchase in the back of your head, you don’t know if you went silent because the orgasm knocked all the wind out of your, or if you are going to get a knock on the door from the police because they think you’ve been murdered.

When Bucky comes back up for air, the whole of his lower face is covered with your slick, and that gorgeous smirk is back on his face. “Thank you, sweet girl. That was amazing.” Did he cum, too? Please don’t tell me I missed seeing his face when he cums.

Seeing your dilemma, Bucky chuckles, “Don’t worry, sweets, my cock is still rock hard for you. Although, I did almost cum watching you. You have no idea how pretty you look when you cum.” You’re too fucked out to even be embarassed at how easily he can read you, or his knowledge of how much you want his cock.

While you're still coming down, Bucky finishes taking off your panties and the rest of his clothes. The moment he pulls his jeans and boxers down and his cock springs up, you gasp. You’ve never seen a prettier cock in all of your life: thick and long with a vein that you want to spend hours licking goes from base to tip, flush head partially covered by his foreskin, heavy and full balls that you know wouldn’t even be able to fit in your mouth rest at his base.

Your eyes never leave his cock as he climbs back into bed, salivating at the way it bobs as he walks and the precum dripping from his tip. “Can I suck your cock, Bucky, please?” Damn, you’ve never begged to suck a cock in your life.

Moaning at the way it twitches at your begging, you reach out for it but Bucky stops you.

“Next time, sweet girl, promise. I need to be inside of you right now and I won’t last if I let you do that, okay, sweets?” You whine in disappointment but nod nonetheless. You groan and wiggle your hips when he is finally on top of you again and you feel his cock slide up and down your pussy.

“Can I have it, Bucky? Can I have your cock?” Bucky looks like he is about to blow a fuse as he grips the base of his dick to stop himself from cumming.

“Sweet girl, you’re gonna have to stop saying things like that if you want this to last.” He is lining up with your entrance and you immediately shut your mouth. There will be another time to be a brat and tease him, but right now you need his dick.

“I’m ready, Bucky, I want it.” Your breath catches in your throat when his tip slides in, for all the staring you did a few minutes ago, you vastly underestimated how fucking big his dick was and now it feels like you’re being spilt in two - in the best way.

“Shit! Sweets, you’re so -fuck- you’re so tight. Choking my dick so good, baby fuck. Best pussy I’ve ever had and I’m only halfway in.” He’s mouthing at your neck while you're grabbing onto anything you can.

“Please, Bucky, more! Fuck, I want it.” You feel like you could cum again just at the sheer stretch of his cock inside of you, his deep groans spurring you on. 

As he bottoms out inside of you, you feel the heavy weight of his balls against your ass, twitching wildly as he tries to stave off his own orgasm. “Oh god, you’re so fucking warm. Fuck, feels like I’m gonna blow before I even move. Shit!” Bucky is so pussy drunk he can’t even think straight, but fuck if you don’t love it. 

“Please move, Bucky, please, I need you to fuck me, please!” You weren’t fairing much better, cock drunk out of your mind.

Bucky is scrambling against the sheets, trying to be closer to you somehow, as if having his impossibly thick length inside of you wasn’t enough, he wraps your legs around his waist as he starts to rut into you.

He is barely pulling out of you, not that you would let him go very far anyway with how tightly your legs are wrapped around him. “Pussy is so fucking good! I just wanna stay here forever, sweets. You want that to, fuck, huh? You want me to stay in this little pussy?”

Clawing at his back, you were a babbling mess, crying out for him, never having been in so much pleasure before. “Yes, Bucky, I want that so bad, yes.” Tears were welling up in your eyes from the sheer amount of pleasure that you were receiving from Bucky. 

Rutting into you faster, his hand slid between your bodies and thumb rubbing your clit in fast circles, Bucky’s calm demeanor was gone, now he was begging for you to cum with him.

“Come on, sweets. I need -fuck- I need you to cum for me. I need to feel your little pussy cum on my cock.” His balls were slapping against your ass, making a vulgar sound, as they were covered in your slick that had trailed out of your pussy.

“Can feel you clenching around me, pretty girl.”

“Need you to cum first, please.”

“Want you to soak my cock.”

“Be my good girl and cum.”

Maybe it was the good girl, but the second orgasm that tore through your body was even better than the first and the clenching of your pussy sent Bucky over the end, into his own orgasm.

“Fuck, sweet girl, I’m gonna cum for you. I got so much fucking cum and it’s all for you. Shit, I’m cumming!” You felt his cock twitch once, twice, and balls pull up before his cum was coating the inside of your pussy.

After you both came down from your highs, Bucky slowly pulled out, catching the wince that left you at the emptiness of your cunt. “Sweet girl, I’m going to get a cloth to clean you with and some water, but I’ll be right back, okay?” Bucky wanted to make sure that you knew that he was coming back, that he wasn’t like all of those other assholes who didn’t treat you right.

Your faint ‘okay’ was the green light for Bucky to dash to the bathroom to clean himself up, get a rag for you, and then head to the kitchen to get a glass of water for you. He paid special attention when wiping you clean, not wanting to overstimulate you after having multiple orgasms.

He helped you sip your water before covering you both up and holding you close to his chest. Never in your life had you felt so safe and loved than you did at this moment, wrapped up in Bucky’s arms, confident that he would stay with you even after having sex with you. 

“You know that I love you, right, sweet girl? And I’m not going anywhere.” He whispered into your hair.

“I do now. And I love you, too, Buck.”

After a little while, you raise yourself on his chest a little so you can look into his eyes, “Hey, Buck?”

“Yeah, sweets?” No one has ever looked at me with so much love.

“Does Sam actually have a crush on me?” Bucky throws his head back into the pillows with an exaggerated groan while you try to muffle your giggles. For once, you actually have what you’ve always wanted.

#bucky barnes smut #bucky smut #bucky barnes #bucky imagine #bucky x reader #sebastian stan x reader #bucky x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes imagine #bucky barnes oneshot #smut #bucky x y/n #bucky x female reader

[steddiealltheway]

Steve looks at Eddie and takes a deep breath. He can ask this. He really can. It's not that big of a deal.

"Hey, Eddie?"

Eddie glances up from the small book he's writing in and raises his eyebrows.

"Can you give me a hickey?"

The book shuts quickly, but, other than that, Eddie remains relatively frozen in place.

Steve shifts to sit up a little straighter against the wall of Eddie's bedroom as he explains, "There’s this girl who keeps coming into Family Video who is really persistent. I've tried to drop hints that I'm not into her, but she isn't getting it. And Robin suggested that I needed to appear to be in a relationship so she would stop."

Actually, Robin had told him that he needs to be direct and reject her, but he didn't want to be cruel. So, he suggested that the two of them should pretend to be in a relationship. But Robin only looked at him in disgust and told him that she would not be taking the fall for his problem.

"Why don't you just reject her?" Eddie asks.

Steve sighs. Why do people keep having to ask him that? "It's not the Family Video way."

Eddie snorts and glances away, pausing for a moment before turning back. "Why me?"

Steve shrugs. "You're the only friend my age that I can ask. It would scar me and Robin for life, and there's no way I'm asking Nancy."

"You know who would do it with no questions asked?" Eddie asks.

"Who?"

"Argyle."

Steve laughs. "Yeah, but I don't really know the guy."

Eddie softly smiles and nudges his shoulder. "So you're saying I make you comfortable?"

Steve looks at him, wondering why he's phrasing it like it's a question. "Yes," he confirms.

For some reason, it seems to fluster Eddie, but he quickly nods and sets down his book. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I'll give you a hickey," Eddie says.

Steve swallows and runs a hand through his hair. "Cool. Cool. Uh, I guess we should do that now?"

Eddie nods, but neither of them move.

A few seconds pass before Eddie clears his throat and asks, "So, how are we doing this?"

Steve shrugs. "However you're comfortable with, but you should probably be in front of me."

Eddie nods and says, "Right." Then, he shifts and swings a leg over Steve's lap, straddling him on his bed.

Steve's heart beats a little faster. He hadn't thought this far into his plan, and he certainly hadn't expected Eddie to make him feel this way.

Eddie slowly leans his head down to Steve's neck then sits back, biting his lip in thought but not saying anything.

"What?" Steve asks.

Eddie fidgets with his rings and says, "This will be easier if we're standing up or laying down. Sitting like this is going to hurt my back."

Steve knows that either position is going to kill him, but the thought of his knees buckling while standing up has him deciding, "Well, we're already on the bed, so..."

Eddie nods at him and moves so Steve can lie down.

As he gets comfortable, Eddie climbs on top of him, hovering in a way that must be a damn workout.

Steve laughs, "You don't have to do a plank over me. You can get comfortable."

Eddie blushes a bit then settles his weight over Steve's body. And oh. Yeah, that feels nice.

Steve reaches up to hold Eddie's hair back so he can look at him. And shit, he didn't realize this is an angle he wants to see Eddie at more often.

"You're still okay to do this?" Eddie asks, voice slightly rougher than before.

Steve nods quickly. "Yes."

Eddie nods back and leans down as Steve tilts his jaw to expose the right side of his neck.

Eddie's breath is hot against his neck, mouth hovering but not touching yet. "Where do you want it?"

Steve tries not to sound so strained when he says, "Right under my jaw."

Eddie's lips finally brush against the sensitive area almost like a kiss before he opens his mouth wide and presses his lips firmly against the skin, tongue brushing lightly against him before he begins sucking. Steve's eyes squeeze shut when Eddie's teeth brush slightly against him. He slaps a hand over his mouth and fists his hands into Eddie's sheets.

This was not part of the plan. This was definitely not a part of it.

Soon, Eddie pulls away, and cool air makes contact with the wet spot against his neck as Eddie breathes out.

Steve's hand clamps over his mouth tighter before he opens his eyes, thankful that Eddie is staring at the mark and not at his face. But he's confused about why he's frowning.

Then, Eddie's hand comes up to lightly tilts his jaw back to him, but he still stares at the mark with his brows pinched.

"What's wrong?" Steve asks, a little more breathlessly than he wants to sound.

Eddie finally looks him in the eye and says, "It's...it's good. Like, a solid hickey... but it's right under your jaw like you asked so it's not extremely visible." He crawls off Steve and grabs a small mirror off his side table.

Steve grabs it, trying to ignore how flushed he looks before he stares at the hickey. Eddie's right. It's nice and red, standing out against his skin, but only when he tilts his head just right. Hell, someone could brush it off as a hit to the jaw.

Steve sighs. He doesn't know if he'll be able to survive Eddie giving him another hickey.

"I can give you one on the middle and bottom of your neck if you really want to sell it," Eddie offers.

"Sure," Steve says without thinking. Because shit, if he doesn't think he can survive one more hickey, how the hell is he supposed to survive two??

But Eddie takes the mirror back and is on top of him again before Steve can really think.

Luckily, Eddie looks him in the eye and asks, "Are you sure you're okay with this? We could just put makeup on you to make it look like hickeys."

Against his better judgment, Steve shakes his head and replies, "No, it's okay. I want this to look as realistic as possible. But, hey, are you okay with this?"

Eddie nods quickly and enthusiastically in a way that makes Steve feel like maybe he's not the only one enjoying this a little too much. Honestly, it makes him feel much better... but also knowing that Eddie's into it makes him feel h-

His thoughts are cut off when Eddie's hand fists into his hair and gently pulls to expose his neck more. Without thinking, Steve's hands come up to grip onto Eddie's back tightly as he sucks another hickey into his neck.

Steve pinches his lips together as best as he can, but he's sure his heavy, quick breathing gives him away.

Then, Eddie moves on from his neck to the junction between his neck and shoulder, pulling at his shirt to get better access as he trails his lips over his skin, never losing contact as his wet lips leave a trail connecting the two areas.

But when Eddie starts sucking a mark into his neck again, something about the area sets something off in Steve causing him to moan loudly. He slaps a hand over his mouth again, but the damage is already done.

Only, Eddie doesn't pull away. He sucks harder.

Steve's back arches off the bed, and his hands fist into Eddie's hair pulling him off of him.

Eddie's lips are red and wet with his own saliva and his pupils are blown wide in juxtaposition with the panic filling his eyes.

Steve breathes out, "Please tell me I'm not the only one who wants this."

Eddie shakes his head quickly and rasps out, "Fucking hell I thought you were going to murder me."

"Eddie, the last thing I want to do to you right now is murder you."

He leans down, brushing his nose against Steve's, and whispers, "And what do you want to do to me right now?"

"First, I want to kiss you," Steve confesses, heart hammering in his chest.

Eddie leans down, lips brushing against his as he asks, "And then?"

"I'm thinking something that involves a lot more hickeys."

Eddie smiles. "I like the sound of that."

Finally, they both move together, kissing deeply in a way that makes Steve think that maybe Eddie's lips are magic everywhere.

And shit, he's going to have a hell of a time explaining the hickeys to Robin and the kids, but it'll be worth it.

Now including an Ao3 link :)

#steddie #eddie munson #steve harrington #stranger things #steddie ficlet

[faebaex]

TWST Characters - Big Spoon or Little Spoon?

author note: don't ask me what provoked this, i'm writing these silly little headcanons so that i can get it out of my head so i can write the things i'm supposed to be writing! forgive me for my slowness (｡T ω T｡)

characters: Heartslabyul, Savanaclaw & Octavinelle

Heartslabyul

Riddle Rosehearts

Little spoon who thinks he is a big spoon

He will try being both the big spoon and the little spoon respectively

But in his ACADEMIC opinion, he will declare that he is the big spoon

But despite how he insists that he is the big spoon, most nights he ends up falling asleep in your arms

If he wakes up in the middle of the night he’ll groggily try to rearrange but it doesn’t always work

Don’t tease him about it, sometimes he just needs the comfort of being held

Little spoon in denial basically

Ace Trappola

Silly straw who thinks he is a big spoon

No fr this guy will posture and insist that he is 100% big spoon material

But then as SOON as he falls asleep, he’s snoring and throwing his arms around and wiggling around, tossing and turning

Man will NOT keep still

The amount of times you’ve kicked him out of bed bc he keeps waking you up with his flailing

Rarely you’ll get a night where you comfortably sleep with him as the big spoon but don’t get used to it

Deuce Spade

Respectable big spoon

Probably one of the most comfortable people to sleep with

Will cuddle you well enough that you feel soothed but not tight enough that you can’t slip out if you want/need to

Always makes sure you’re comfortable, probably to the extent that you have to tell him to stop fretting

Good boy, 10/10

Cater Diamond

Undeniable little spoon

There is no doubt, just hold him pls

His favourite position is with his back to you bc he prefers it if you can’t see his face

Can’t have you seeing him vulnerable instead of his usual silly, goofy persona

Sometimes tho he’ll lay his head against your chest and you’ll have a little moment together

But don’t mention it otherwise he won’t do it again

Trey Clover

Big spoon

As if there was ever any doubt

He actually really likes spooning, he likes the intimacy

He likes the feel of your heartbeat and being able to stroke a hand through your hair or watch you as you sleep

Plus it is easy for him to slip into bed next to you if he’s stayed up late to finish baking

Savanaclaw

Leona Kingscholar

Big spoon but only because he treats you like a living pillow

I mean let’s be real all this man does is sleep

So there is no way that you will be anything but the little spoon here

He’ll think its funny if you try to be the big spoon and then just push you underneath him and resume business as usual

Spooning with Leona is either incredibly comfortable or the most uncomfortable sleep you’ve ever had – there is no in-between

He pretends not to care if you voice any discomfort but genuinely will try to be more attentive in future

Jack Howl

Big spoon

But he goes to bed sooo early so you don’t always get to cuddle

Sometimes when you sneak into bed he’ll roll over and engulf you in his arms

As if he sensed you in his sleep

But other times Jack sleeps like a rock

So its kind of hit and miss

But when you do get to spoon, it feels like you are encompassed in a huge, never-ending hug

It may even be tempting enough for you to become a morning person, if you’re not already

Ruggie Bucchi

Little spoon 100%

My man just likes to cuddle up after a long day of making thaumarks and running around taking care of Leona

So there is nothing he loves more than snuggling into your chest or side and passing out

Plus being the little spoon makes it a tiny bit easier to slip out in the morning when he has to do one of his early morning jobs or get Leona's breakfast ready

Plus plus having you there makes his bed feel just that little bit more comforting :)

Octavinelle

Azul Ashengrotto

Little spoon who thinks he is a big spoon #2

You’ll fall asleep with him being the big spoon but you always ALWAYS wake up with him somehow in the little spoon position with his arms and legs wrapped around you

Will insist this is a misunderstanding and that he slipped bc he’s still not used to beds yet

He actually loves nothing more than burying his face into your chest and feeling nice and safe

Nevertheless he will go to the grave insisting that he is the big spoon

The biggest little spoon in denial, no one compares

Jade Leech

Big spoon

The only time he is a little spoon is when he gets too excited about mushrooms or something and needs to calm down while you stroke his hair

Otherwise he is a big spoon through and through

Thing is though, his grip is TOO strong

Once you make the decision to spoon with him, there is no escape

His arms will be wrapped so tightly around your waist that you can’t even more an inch away from him

He has absolutely no remorse about it either the next morning, he’ll just give you his little closed eye smile and be all ‘whoops’ but hold you just as tight the next time

Floyd Leech

Hear me out, hear me out

100% a little spoon

He gives off big spoon energy but actually prefers to wrap himself around you and have you hold him and play with his hair and give him back scratches

Be careful if he’s in a silly goofy mood though because he’ll start nipping at you

Thinks its hilarious when you’re relaxing and you suddenly yelp bc he’s nipped at your side

But usually he behaves himself bc sometimes he’s a little touch starved so he really likes it when you hold him

#twst #twisted wonderland #twisted wonderland x reader #twst x reader #Riddle Rosehearts #Ace Trappola #Deuce Spade #Cater Diamond #Trey Clover #Leona Kingscholar #Jack Howl #Ruggie Bucchi #Azul Ashengrotto #Jade Leech #Floyd Leech #azul ashengrotto x reader #jade leech x reader #floyd leech x reader #leona kingscholar x reader #riddle rosehearts x reader

[pshaven]

enhypen making YOU lose nnn ?

OUUUUHHHHH. this is good. i love this. ur mind needs to be studied

cw! fwb with heeseung, established relationship with jay and sunghoon, riding, oral (f & m receiving), doggy, reader gets called slutty girl, princess, jay brat tamer hehe, hoon is evil, lmk if i missed anything!

이희승 heeseung ᥫ᭡

as you’re heeseung’s number one fuck buddy… well, he’s not very ecstatic about your decision to join the nnn challenge. he thought it’d be okay at first– he has other people to attend to while you’re busy. he actually discovered something new about himself thanks to your personal challenge: he can only go a few days without you. he really did try to distract himself with other hookups but they just aren’t you! no pussy felt like yours, and no one moaned his name the same like you do. so now he has his own personal challenge: to make you lose nnn! he thinks it’d be a piece of cake, really. because have you seen him? how can you resist him?

turns out pretty well, much to his dismay. he disguises his mission as an innocent “wanna watch some movies tonight?” to come over. you, in skimpy top and flimsy shorts that you typically like to wear when staying in. he thinks– knows– he’ll have a hard time keeping his hands to himself. and you’ve always been such a good girl, so you’ll obey him this time again, right? 

it starts off with just a hand on your thigh, and even though you give him a side eye he pretends he doesn’t notice, eyes too focused on whatever movie you decided to put on. he notices when your thighs tense each time his hand inches close to your clothed cunt, and it’s so slow– you guys have probably burned through two movies already but heeseung wants to take his time, see how long you can really resist him. 

you’re doing too well, and the space in his pants is beginning to tighten up the more you tense your thighs… he swears he can feel the heat radiate off your cunt, he knows you’re wet… you just have to be! by the third movie, he’s done playing around with you and grabs the remote out of your hand, “how ‘bout i give you something else to hold?”

“knew i could get you to cave- ah, shit!” heeseung cursed, hands on your waist as you bounce up and down on his cock. you whine, nails scratching his chest to leave marks that will definitely last for days. 

“i hate you!” you squeal at one particular thrust when he bucks his hips into you, the tip of his cock hitting your cervix. his eyes are focused on your entrance taking his length in, brows furrowed in concentration as he lets out a breathy chuckle. “heh, not enough or you wouldn’t be cumming on me right now.”

박종성 jay ᥫ᭡

he is such a good sport about it, honestly. he’s an amazing boyfriend, at that! he makes sure he avoids doing anything particularly sexy around you (but let’s be for real, anything he does is sexy). he encourages you and does his best to avoid any particular advances that you put on him during no nut november because he knows that once he reciprocates it, it’s over for you. so you do get a lot of no’s and don’t even think about it throughout the month… but he thinks you’ll thank him by the end of the month.

wrong. you’re extra bratty in particular today (november 27th), trying to tease him and tempt him when you rub your palm against his bulge during game night with the other members. he has a good poker face… for maybe ten minutes until he’s rock hard in his sweats underneath the blanket that you both are sharing. you’re stifling your giggles behind his back, occasionally popping in some commentary of the game so the members don’t get too suspicious on why you’re so quiet. 

old habits die hard, so how else is he supposed to act when you’re being bratty? 

“you only had three more days left, princess,” jay taunts in your ear, his hand on your back to bend you over the sink counter. you whine, but you shaking your ass tells him exactly what you wanted. “guess this slutty pussy just can’t live without me, huh?” 

you nod your head repeatedly, “mhm! can’t get enough- wan’ your cock now~” you moan when he slides down your bottoms, hand slapping your ass in the process. he’s a weak man for you, and honestly he’s been dying without your warmth around him for almost an entire month so he’s impatient as well.

jay reaches for your neck, lifting your head up towards him so that your back is arching. “could’ve just stayed a good girl and lasted the whole month,” he mutters into your shoulder as he slides himself in your tight entrance, both of you releasing a long sigh of relief.

심재윤 jake ᥫ᭡

okay… he definitely set himself up for failure when he proposed that you both do the nnn challenge together. he thought it would be soooo funny and easy! not even twenty four hours passed and he already regretted it, seeing you prance around in some cute shorts that leaves half your ass hanging out and a loose shirt that clearly shows your perky nipples. he really hates having a roommate that is as hot as you– maybe nnn wouldn’t be such a challenge then.

you’re determined to get your assignment done as you sit on the couch next to jake, typing away at your laptop while he merely scrolls through his phone, occasionally (every five seconds actually) staring at your tits through your t-shirt like he has x-ray vision. he clears his throat, mindlessly letting some random tiktok play as he begins to zone out, letting his mind think about him wrapping his lips around your pert nipples as he rubs you through your stupid excuse that you call a pair of shorts. 

“you’re hard.”  you comment after hearing the same tiktok play for over seven times. “it’s like you want to lose no nut november?” you tease before shifting your attention back to your laptop. jake clears his throat again, shifting in his seat when your words snap him out of his daze. “want to help me lose?”

“slutty girl- ah fuck- can’t say no to some dick, yeah?” jake muses as you choke down on his cock, saliva dripping out from the corner of your lips. you moan around him, your hand around his length tightening a bit at his words that causes him to curse underneath his breath. 

you go particularly deep, a small reward for him when his fingers inside you speed up. he has you on all fours on the couch, his long arm reaching your cunt as he scissors his fingers inside of you. if he’s going to lose, he’ll lose with you. “f-fuck, you’re so good ‘n so wet for me, huh?” he taunts, your juices squelching from his fingers and sloppy mouth working on his cock.

“oh, you cummin’ already? roomie… didn’t know you were this sensitive. so cute,” he hums, slowing his fingers down as he works you through your orgasm. but he’s talking as if he isn’t five seconds away from cumming down your throat.

박성훈 sunghoon ᥫ᭡

he thinks it’s cute you want to do the nnn challenge! but he also thinks it’s cute that you think you can resist him for an entire month. the exact opposite of jay– he makes it his personal mission to make you lose. he’s such a bad boyfriend, making you exceptionally horny, especially the first night after you tell him about your little goal to accomplish this challenge. he’s playing with you in bed, the hands on your waist not so discreetly creeping up to your chest. you have to physically detach his hands away from you so you don’t start acting up. 

the next morning is even worse– he’s stepping out of the shower and into your shared bedroom with only a towel that is barely hanging on his waistline. your mouth goes dry, your attention completely stolen away from your phone and onto sunghoon. “you sick bastard,” you curse under your breath, but it doesn’t go unheard by your sneaky boyfriend. “you could just… i dunno, lose right now,” he mumbles, going over to you as he nuzzles your neck. you’re doing much better than he thought when you push him away with a stern and determined look on your face. 

but in the end, he’s always right. and you give in like a child who’s offered some more playtime if they complete their homework. but he really didn’t expect you to give in when he’s doing something so basic, cooking dinner for you when you come back late from uni or work. but it gives him an ego boost either way. 

“can’t believe you got turned on from me cooking,” he snickers as he lifts his head up from in between your thighs. you roll your eyes, your grip on his hair tightening as you pull him back into your cunt. “i-it was the domestic-ness of it, okay? just shut up and make me lose already,” you pout. 

he groans, sliding his fingers inside of you with ease, thanks to his own work. “you already did… approximately one minute ago. but i guess i can make you lose twice,” he grins before he latches his mouth onto your sensitive bud.

#enhypen #enhypen smut #enhypen x reader #enhypen hard hours #enhypen fanfic #enhypen imagines #heeseung smut #jay smut #jake smut #sunghoon smut #heeseung x reader #jay x reader #jake x reader #sunghoon x reader #enhypen fluff #enhypen hard thoughts

[i-am-hungry-24-7]

[I only have 30 pounds in my bank account] - Mafia!TF141*F!Reader

Summary: You sigh when it's the fifth time someone fights in your poor tea shop this month. You just open it two months ago, in an area ruled by mafia called '141'. Maybe you should find their boss and give them money or what to stop the bullshit keeps happening in your shop. (well, here they come)

Mafia!TF141*F!Reader, but only Soap and Ghost in this chapter unless I extend this

chapter 2

You’re just trying to fulfill your dream, plus survive with the money you earn with your shop, but you start questioning if this is a good idea, maybe you should just listen to your friend and be a 9-5 worker, sitting in front of a laptop the whole day.

This isn’t a good location to open a tea shop, your little shop will rather become a place for dealing drugs or getting extorted in the first month. The area is fully ruled by the mafia, hence the cops couldn’t do anything here, but it makes the rent extremely low, which you’re able to afford with money you saved during school, and have a tiny shop that can barely squeeze in more than 8 people.

Looking at the scene playing in your shop for the fifth time this month, you stare at the people fighting and break the cup with dead eyes. You want to shout, to kick these guys' ass out of here or hit them with your broom, yet you glance at their muscles and the knives in their hand –  probably killing every day as work out, to your opposite one because you slump onto the bed once you close the shop and go upstairs, you choose to remain silent as the yelling only become louder.

Maybe you should find the mafia boss or some henchmen and give them half of your income to prevent the mayhem, but first, you don’t even know who actually rules this fucking place; second, you doubt they will have interest in your skimpy bank account. The only information you have is the mafia ruling here called ‘141’, since it’s an open secret to residents here.

“What are ye arseholes doin’?”

Fuck, here comes another one, or two as you spot the man with a balaclava behind the mohawk man who's speaking. They are tall, muscular and built like bricks. Grown like giraffes either, you complement when you need to crook your neck up to look at them stepping into your shop as if it's their backyard.

but the chaos halts immediately as you watch your ‘customers’ seem shocked with terror at the men.

You pretend you’re deaf and attempt to bury yourself in your counter. Please don’t kill me I didn’t hear a goddamn word and didn’t see you threatening them. You recite your defense as you scrub at the same tea cup till the distinct accent from the mohawk man catches you off guard that you almost drop it.

“I guess it’s already clean, lass.” A smirk appears on his face as he points at the cup.

“Wh– what do you want?” 

“Calm down, jus’ want te have some tea.”

“I only have 30 pounds in my bank account.”

“We’re just sayin’ we want tea.” The taller man speaks for the first time after coming in, and it startles you but forces your brain to function at the same time.

Ah, they aren’t here for money. You finally get what they’re talking about.

“Isn’t it supposed te be a tea shop here? One cup for him, and give me a cup of coffee.”

“Oh, of course. What kind of tea would you like, Sir?” You shift slightly to meet the other man’s eyes, and you want to shiver under his cold eyes.

“Just give him whatever you recommend.” 

They round over the glass scattering on the floor and take a seat closest to your counter after you nod at them.

While boiling the water, you sneak a glimpse at them, and the shape of guns covered by their clothes are unignorable as you scold yourself to stop looking at them, or the bigger guy might stab your eyes, but you still curse whole-heartedly in mind when the Scottish accent man meet your eyes with his azure ones and shines you a grin.

Should just quit staring, or you shouldn’t open this shop at all. Regretting your decisions as you turn back and focus back on making their drink, you’re able to recognize them staring at you from the periphery of your vision. Is it too late to kneel down and beg for your life right now?

You still perfectly make their orders and bring them the drinks, even though you’re sweating internally. At least don’t mess it up, and your confidence in your tea and coffee isn’t born from nothing, as you notice the man with the skull balaclava takes a sip first, then raises his eyebrow, added with a side glance at you.

“Haven’t seen him amazed by tea in years, it must be very good.” The mohawk man whistles as he sips at his coffee and gives an approving nod too.

“Thank you…” Your ego shouldn’t be boosted by mafias, but you still relax a bit knowing you didn't screwed up.

“When did ye open ‘is shop?” The man asks while the other continues drinking his tea, but seemingly taking in the conversation too.

“About two months ago."

"That’s why we didn't know about it before…” He taps at the table twice before shooting you another question “Got blokes like those in yer shop earlier often?”

Death sentence is served to your front, that’s what you think you hear. Is it better to say yes or no? Judging by the fact those people are their minions, you’re not sure if saying yes is indicating they haven’t controlled them appropriately.

“Tell us the truth” 

“Yeah, it’s the fifth time this month.” Swallowing, you confirm. Lies aren’t meaningful, and surely they’re able to pierce any veil with those scrutinizing stares and keen minds.

You watch them sharing a glance, and Soap takes out a pen along with a piece of paper, and starts scribbling on it.

“Here, call this number when you run in trouble, aye?" He shoves the paper into your grasp “I’m Soap, call him Ghost.”

"It’s a nice shop, we’ll come back soon.”

Your little shop drops into peace again as your customers leave, and you gaze at the generous tip lying on your counter, to the paper in your palm.

A number is written on it, with a big badge of ‘141’ beside it.

Oh shit, so your shop just became the most far-flung mafia’s property without you knowing.

#cod imagine #cod x reader #cod x you #simon riley x you #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #ghost x you #simon ghost riley x reader #simon ghost riley x you #john soap mactavish x you #john soap mactavish x reader #soap x you #soap x reader #kyle gaz garrick x you #kyle gaz garrick x reader #gaz x reader #gaz x you #john price x reader #john price x you #price x you #price x reader #tf141 x reader #tf 141 x reader #tf141 x you #queued post

[taexoxosgf]

DO IT AGAIN

PAIRING brother’s best friend!park jisung x fem!reader

WORDS 3.7k

SYNOPSIS your brother’s best friend can never get you alone. that’s why he won’t miss an opportunity— even if your brother’s on the other side of the walls.

WARNINGS reader is tyong’s sister, jealousy, vaginal fingering, unprotected sex, creampie

NOTES this smut is actually from a super long fic i posted on my old account! i’m not sure if i’m gonna post the whole thing because i’m cringing rereading it lol

“So, how’s your big bro’s parties? It’s better than frat parties huh?” Taeyong dangles the red cup charged with alcohol in front of your face just for you to swat away in annoyance. “No musty bathrooms and paint peeling off the walls! Woooooooo!”

You’re going to have to have a jolly time cleaning his vomit in the morning. “Stop drinking you little shit. I’m not gonna take care of you tomorrow, just so you know.”

He does a little dance that has you suppressing a laugh, “The night is still young! Loosen up a little! Won’t stop until you’re having as much fun as me!” Your brother is so out of it, that he bumps into a million corners of the home and an attendee urges him to the couch.

“Actually… I’m not feeling so good,” he shushes the person helping before running out of the main room.

“Oh my god,” you pinch the sides of your nose bridge, unable to understand how Taeyong’s motto is always all or nothing.

You're nothing near Taeyong's level of intoxication, and whether it's the devil on your shoulder or the drink, you want Jisung. Excruciatingly so. Whoever claimed that drinking made you act like a bitch in heat wasn't kidding. It's more than true now that you know he's nearby– wanting to look for Jisung because if he wasn't going to make a move tonight, you would.

“Y/n?” a familiar voice calls you, prompting you to turn around.

“Hyuck? Oh my god! How are you?” you’re already bringing your arms out for a hug and he’s quick to immediately accept.

You both went to high school together before he left for university thousands of miles away. He still texts you now and then, but due to the time difference, you never had the opportunity to properly catch up.

“Not doing too bad. It’s so good to finally talk face-to-face babe, holy shit,” he chuckles.

“How’s the East Coast? Did you find a girlfriend at Columbia yet?”

“Nah, you know me. Girls there are way too preppy for me. Plus, I can’t stand another minute of freshmen thinking they’re living through Gossip Girl,” he pretends to gag, swaying his body from side to side.

“Hey! Don’t hate. That show was ahead of its time,” you comment, brows raised.

“It IS! But I’m talking about the people acting as if they were a part of the show themselves. Like come on, you were probably five when it came out!” he exclaims.

​​"Fair enough," you nod. "You know who you should go for?" an idea flashes across your mind as you speak.

“Who?” he shifts closer, genuinely curious.

You wave towards you as another way of telling him to step even closer and cup your hand behind his ear before whispering, “Yuna.”

“What?! There’s no way!” he steps away, not expecting you would say your best friend’s name.

“Come on! You guys would look so hot together! What’s so ‘no way’ about that idea?”

Your old friend momentarily pauses, like he didn’t know what kind of question you asked. “She’d never go for me.”

“What? She used to have a crush on you! You were always around different girls so she never made a move,” you affirm. “You know how she was in high school,” you remind him of the girl who was once afraid to step out of her comfort zone.

“Are you serious? There’s no way that’s true! You’re straight up lying to my face right now,” he groans, looking as if he was going through a mental crisis due to the news.

“I swear on my Loubitons that it’s true! Just talk to her,” you point to the back door. “She’s in the backyard. I’m sure she would love to catch up.”

He brings a hand to his chin, soothingly rubbing with his index, “You do love those shoes…”

“More than myself, so come on! The times ticking!” you press him further, and his eyes light up when he realizes the words you’re feeding him might actually be true.

“You know what, fuck it.”

“That’s what I like to hear! Acting like a true alpha male!” you jump up and down, probably with more excitement than he has.

He chuckles at your words, “Okay. Okay. Let’s hang out and catch up this week. Let me know when you’re free.”

“Okay now go!” you try not to hold him back longer than he needs to be.

“I”m go-”

Before you can properly bid goodbye, you feel a hand wrap around your wrist, pulling you away towards the narrow hallway of the home.

You see it’s Jisung after checking, and he’s definitely on a mission by the way he doesn’t utter a word. Instead, he drags you through the hallway and finally halts his steps at the sign of your bedroom door.

“Jisung, what are you doing?”

He doesn’t answer, he doesn’t let up on your wrist, and definitely doesn’t spare you a glance until you’re both in the room with the door shut behind your back. It’s almost pitch black in the room, and the only light source is the hallway lights illuminating underneath the crack of the door. Jisung finally lets go of your wrist when it’s just you two in your own space, and he brings that same arm above your head to anchor himself.

“Jisung.”

“Y/n,” his voice comes out hoarse, more playful. This was just what you wanted. He’s right here on a silver platter and you hadn’t even come close to building up the courage to approach him first.

Too bad you love to act dumb for the hell of it.

“What are you doing?” your eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness, noticing how close his face was to yours. It was the perfect opportunity. Taeyong was probably passed out along with the loud music all throughout the house. There’s no way anyone could hear a thing from inside the room.

“Just wanted you to myself,” he comments. You can smell the alcohol on his lips, assuming it was the reason behind his impatience– but don’t think he’s drunk due to his coherent speech and careful movements.

“You have me to yourself now. So what is it?” you gloat, acting as if you don’t notice him struggling to control himself.

“Sorry, I took you away from your little boyfriend. Look’s like you guys were having fun,” you can hear the slight anger in his voice, jaw clenching following the statement.

You roll your eyes in order to suppress a grin, the alcohol influencing you to play games, “Hyuck isn’t my boyfriend, just an old friend. Remember him?”

He notices the hint of playfulness in your eyes, wanting to just fuck it out of you. But he’s waited too long to do this, and there have been too many interrupted moments, so he leans into patience for resolve. “Oh, I must have missed something babe.”

You shift your face closer to him to prove your point once again, “He calls everyone that! Go up to him, he’ll literally call you babe.”

“Hmm,” Jisung hums. “Should I call him Hyuck too?”

Your eyes shoot to his plushy lips, his jealousy turning you on, but you don’t back down just yet, “If you heard that, then you must’ve heard the part where I told him to go for Yuna.”

“I checked out the moment you were calling each other pet names, baby,” he leans his hips against you, eyes evident with desire even in the darkness.

“Well, it’s definitely different coming from you,” you give him what he wants to hear, but it’s ultimately the truth.

Jisung pulls back just to lean down against your ear, “Different, how?”

It’s like he knows the power he has over you when he’s using that tone, including the fact that you feel him between your legs only slightly hard. It’s definitely bigger than you previously thought, the excitement shooting to your core, “I’m not spelling it out for you, baby.”

The name has him bringing his face back to where it was before, cocking a brow. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?”

“Play games. Don’t fuck with me because if you are, I’m gonna lose it,” he seethes, all control he previously displayed being lost in an instant.

You began narrowing the gap between the two of you even more, your noses brushing against each other. Jisung falters slightly as you do so, his hand landing on your hip. He's noticeably less in control than when he initially encircled you in the room, taking in every inch of you as you jut your hips forward.

He groans, struggling to keep up with what you've been doing.

"I'm not fucking with you," you say, holding his chin with your thumb and index finger, tilting his head and maintaining eye contact. "Just giving you what you want."

Jisung doesn’t know how you tempt while looking so innocent. If he’s being honest with himself, he never holds a sliver of command when you’re present. “You’re hot as fuck,” he mutters, trying to maintain a normal breathing pattern.

"You're hotter," your lips nearly touch at the movement. You're grinning ear-to-ear, but it's short-lived as Jisung grabs your nape and presses his lips to yours. This kiss is nothing like the previous one, and you want to drown in him. You press your mouth even harder on his, and he responds by positioning his entire weight against your body. You’re actually somewhat sober this time around and take notice of the piercing at the corner of his lips. The silver metal grazing over your lips provides a cold sensation to the hot atmosphere, and you push down a moan at the feeling.

He’s such a good kisser, it surprises you but doesn’t at the same time. The boy you used to know was so different than the one in front of you now.

When you set your arms around his neck to play with his locks, he grabs a hold of your waist. You're drowning, arching your back to relieve the tension in your body as the kiss deepens. Jisung licks your lips, and you easily accept his tongue, lips fighting against his. His tongue dances with yours, getting sloppier by the minute, ready to rip each other's clothes off.

He taps the back of your leg with his hand, signaling for you to jump. You do so without breaking contact with his lips, and he smiles against yours. The taste of alcohol in his mouth ignites something within you, along with the scent of his washed hair intertwined with the cologne he’s wearing.

Jisung slowly sets you down against the mattress, slotting himself between your legs before he pulls back for air. “You look submissive as fuck right now. Is that what you’re into? Being dominated?” he purrs, fingers playing with the waistline of your pants.

“Only if you like to dominate.”

The switch in his head flips, and he uses one hand to unzip your jeans to slowly run his fingers over your clothed clit. Your toes curl at the sudden pressure to your sensitive core that's been begging to be touched. The thin material of your panties doesn’t do much to shield his touch, but one thing’s for sure, if it feels this good, you can’t imagine how it’d feel when it’s not just a tease.

“Fuck,” you pant, moving your hands underneath Jisung’s shirt.

“What?” he asks, moving down to your neck. The sensation of his warm tongue against your neck has your skin igniting goosebumps all over. “I can’t hear you. Already falling apart?”

“N-no,” you stutter, knowing damn well that anything done to you will be the actual end. It seems like he wants to win the moment he brings his red and swollen lips back onto yours, sparing any niceties. He’s smothering you, ruthlessly kissing you to no end. But when you become lost in his lips once again, Jisung slips his hand underneath the band of your underwear to touch your pussy head-on.

“Jisungg,” you say against his mouth.

Of course, he doesn’t let up, circling your bud, knowing exactly where to touch you even though this is the first time you’ve done this with him. It’s nothing, but feels like so much, your thighs attempting to close around his hand.

He’s still attacking your mouth with his, fingers trailing in an up-and-down motion between your folds. It surprises you, and you moan against his mouth, unable to maintain the same pattern with your lips. “Fuck, you’re already so wet,” he lets go of your mouth with a pop, groaning at the arousal coating his fingers.

“Please, Jisung. I need you,” you whimper, unable to take any more of the mere seconds of pleasure he’s giving you. You don’t even look down as he slides your pants off along with your panties in one motion. He tsks, lowly enunciating a small, “So impatient.”

Without anything in the way, he doesn’t waste time plunging his fingers into your pussy, groaning at the way the muscle tightly clamps around his fingers– and it shoots straight down to your core, never getting enough of how deep his voice is.

The pleasure you’ve been trying to grasp is finally reached, a gasp spilling from your lips once he curls his fingers inside you. Your hands have found their way to his back, fingers digging deep into his skin and he hisses at the slight pain.

“Tell me you want this,” he murmurs against your ear while his fingers begin to speed up in pace. You’re bucking your hips up, wanting to meet him halfway in order to reach euphoria. “I w-want it,” you cry.

“Want what?” he asks, voice too soft for the motions he’s enacting.

“Want you. Want you so bad,” you moan, throwing your head back when he hits a certain spot. It feels too good to stop, and every part of your body tingles at the pleasure.

You want to sob at the feeling it brings you, his fingers, mercilessly driving in and out of your cunt, while his thumb circles your clit. Your stomach feels tight from all the stimulation, and his body pressed against yours makes you feel hot all over. What you don’t notice is Jisung’s watching every movement on your facial features, loving the way your brows scrunch and how your pretty lips open up every time he hits a certain spot.

The band in your lower abdomen is on the verge of snapping, and the fact that he's above you doesn't help. Jisung's hair still falls perfectly, occasionally brushing the tip of his nose. He’s so fucking hot, you can’t hold back. You can't stop the orgasm from reaching your body simply by the way he feels on your body and looks above you.

“P-please,” you beg.

At the feeling of your pussy tightening around your fingers, he digs into your cheek, bringing your face back towards his. “Come on, you can do it. Cum,” he demands.

“F-fuck! I-I’m gonna–” you scream, body convulsing as your orgasm washes over you. He doesn’t stop his movements until you’re whining for him to stop. Pulling his coated fingers out, just to bring it to his lips.

As the climactic high wears off, your body becomes limp, but the image of Jisung bringing his plump lips to wrap around his fingers leaves you wanting more. You nearly squeak when he groans at the taste, letting go of his fingers with a pop. "Mmm," Jisung moans. "You taste so good."

“Here, have a taste baby,” he smirks, bringing those same digits to swipe motions at your core. You whimper at the sensitivity, the buzzing feeling still present. “Open,” he commands.

You listen, sticking out your tongue for him to insert them into your mouth. The wet muscle swirls around his fingers, finally closing around them, and you gag when he presses further into your mouth, teasing your throat. “Good girl.”

It’s so arousing that you intend to get up from your original position beneath him, but he catches your wrists and pins them over your head to keep you in place. Maybe it's the unfulfilled horniness from all the other times he’s tried to get you under him, but it's got you whining and squirming beneath him for his tolerance. “Fuck, it’s like you knew this was gonna happen,” he murmurs, not taking his eyes off your body.

His hot breath fans against your face, “Did you?” He begins to trace the contours of your body, slipping underneath your shirt on his way up. “No,” it’s a weak response, body twitching when he starts massaging your breasts. You had just experienced an unearthly orgasm, but everything Jisung does just causes your cunt to clench around nothing, and it’s only once out of a million times since he walked through the door.

“Just fuck me,” you plead, feeling his thick cock prodding at the side of your thigh.

“You sure?” he asks once more for confirmation.

“Yes, now hurry,” your whine turns into a pout, and he chuckles at your impatience.

“Do you have a condom in your room?”

“Fuck no, I’m on birth control.” He groans at the information, already quick to tug his cock out of its confines.

And just like that, Jisung slowly inches his cock into you. “Oh,” you cry at the fullness. He’s stretching you out so well, and the slight burn just adds fuel to the fire.

“Holy shit,” he sighs. “You’re so tight,” to ease the tightness, his fingers are already making their way back to your bud, circling in slow motions, “Relax for me pretty.”

You nod, eyes rolling back into your head when he slowly begins to move. “Fffuck,” he curses, his grip moving to your waist the moment your legs instinctively wrap around his. He feels so fucking good inside you and you regret with every ounce of your being you both didn’t do this sooner. You should’ve jumped him when you had the chance because fuck. How are you going to stop now? “You feel so fucking good,” he groans at the sensation.

“Ji–sung,” you moan, “Faster.” Your walls clench around his hard cock dragging against your walls, speeding up in pace and you fully lose it. The lewd sounds of skin slapping echo through the bedroom, and Jisung just swallows your pour of moans. He eventually listens to your request, practically nailing you into the mattress. It feels so good, the sounds coming from him, the feel of his cock pulling out, leaving the tip, just to roughly thrust back inside. You don’t know how much more you can take.

The thin silver chain he always wears around his neck dangles right before your eyes, and even in your fucked out state, you can’t stop looking at Jisung. The sweat on his forehead causes the front pieces to stick, the glow of sex already peeking through. “This is what you get,” he spits, but you can tell he’s slightly holding back. “This is what you get for all the times you fucking ran away. When I could’ve fucked you dumb like you want.”

Jisung’s name was the only thing coherent as he drills into you, squealing at a particular thrust of his hips. He’s so deep inside you, tip faintly against your cervix. “You’re cock’s s-so big,” you gasp, tears blurring your vision. The higher the tension builds in your stomach, the more Jisung continues to destroy you. “Jisung, fuck!”

“You like it hard huh? Want me to make your pussy mine?” His dirty words only have you holding onto him tighter, digging the heel of your feet into his spine. It’s too bad you can’t respond, your brain a puddle of mush at this point, cock going too fast for you to think about anything else. The bed frame knocks against the walls as the bed shakes but there’s no room to worry about that. Especially when he’s hitting every spot inside you perfectly.

“Answer me,” he grunts as your moans grow higher in pitch, unable to take it much longer.

“Y-yes, it’s a-all yours,” your body jolts after every movement, carving pleasure all over his skin. The thread that holds on for dear life is on the verge of snapping, and you wail before your second orgasm can send you crashing down.

It was so easy for Jisung to slide in and out of your pussy, your dripping arousal coating his cock perfectly. “Ji–” you attempt to warn him, but he already made his way back to your clit, pressing rough circles. You begin to babble random sounds, unable to form coherent words when he’s impaling you.

“Yes!” A shriek tears itself from your throat at your orgasm, and your toes curl at the high that takes over you yet again tonight. Your body spasms, and your mind stuck in a haze when he continues stuffing your achy cunt with him.

“Holy shit,” it’s almost impossible for Jisung to keep going when you’re clamping down on him like a vice, keeping him from completely being able to leave.

“Inside, cum inside, Jisung,” you plead when his hips begin to stutter. After a few more thrusts, he fully moans, painting your insides. “Fuck,” It feels even more full than before, if that was even possible and you whimper from the overstimulation from the last few movements. After his orgasm is at its resolution, he slumps into your form, not bothering to pull out.

You’re both just lying there trying to catch your breath, and it’s somewhat serene. The music combined with the vague sound of murmurs could be heard from outside and that’s when you remember that there were indeed a bunch of individuals present too. Maybe they heard you guys fucking, and Jisung seems to have similar thoughts when he raises his head to murmur something. “I forgot to lock the door.”

Your eyes shoot wide open in response, “What? Are you serious? Someone could walk in to you butt-ass naked!”

You’re actually alarmed, but he just stares back at you, his mouth turning into a wide grin. “Nah, I’m just playin',” he laughs.

You chuckle along with him, playfully slapping his shoulder because of his unseriousness. “You’re so annoying.”

“Get used to it baby, I’m not going anywhere.”

#nct #nct dream #park jisung #jisung #park jisung smut #jisung x reader #nct jisung #jisung smut #park jisung x reader #park jisung x y/n #park jisung x you #park jisung fic #park jisung nct #nct x you #nct smut #nct drabbles #nct x reader #nct imagines #nct hard thoughts #nct hard hours #nct dream smut #nct dream drabbles #nct x y/n #nct dream x reader #nct dream hard hours #nct dream hard thoughts #nct dream jisung #nct dream x y/n #nct dream fic #kpop

[f1goat]

more than friends + lando norris x part one

In which your best friend wants to help you so you get more sexual experience, but he discovers quickly that he never wants to share you and your new sexual experience with others.

masterlist - playlist

warnings: smut with a plot or a plot with smut? :) sexual content starting next chapter. minors dni! i never proofread so probably grammar or spelling errors

requested: yes, based on: something with a driver sister that’s still a virgin & lando (her bestfriend) suggests to teach her things (ofc pretending for it to bot mean anything), while he’s actually in love with her

Lando is holding you tightly when he helps you to get into your car. The two of you did talk about him picking you up tonight, but it’s not even near to the time you agreed on. It were your friends who texted him to come pick you up, since you’re drunk. When he arrived he was quick to find out how drunk you are. Lando lets you lose when you’re seated in his car, he puts the seatbelt around you and walks towards his own side. He’s quick to take his seat next to you and to start the car.

“Oh my god,” you slur, “did you already turn on the seat warming for me?”

Lando laughs about your enthusiasm. “Yeah I did,” he tells you.

“You’re the best friend ever,” you continue to slur drunkly. You make yourself comfortable on the car seat. Lando drives away. He can’t help himself and looks at you whenever he has the chance. He wonders why you’re this drunk. 

“Why did you drink so much?” He asks you after a bit of wondering. He can’t think about any reason himself. Normally you don’t like to drink too much. 

“They kept talking about their boyfriends,” you confess without even thinking about it. The alcohol has made your mind hazy. You don’t think things through right now. “And I felt single,” you continue to tell Lando, “and then I realized I’ll probably stay single forever.”

“Don’t say that,” Lando quickly states, “You’re a catch for every boy.”

“And if I ever find a boy who likes me,” you slur further, “he’ll probably lose all interest when he figures out that I have no sexual experience and don’t know what to do.”

Lando hits the brakes as hard as he can. Your confession made him almost ran through a red traffic light. He looks at you with a confused gaze. Of course he has been your friend forever but the two of you never talk about things like this. He knows you aren’t dating a lot and you’re certainly not sleeping around. But he did think you had lost your virginity once. Now that he thinks about it, he has no idea with who he thought that should be. 

And the most fucked up part is that it kinda turns him on to know that you’re a virgin. It makes him think about everything he could teach you and do with you if you were his. The thought of having you while no one else ever did makes him lose all his sane thoughts.

“See even you think it’s weird,” you exclaim annoyed, “just say so Lan. You’re my best friend, you can tell me that it’s weird. The girls also told me.”

“It’s not weird,” Lando is quick to say, “and if anything, I would say a lot of guys would like it.”

You let out a weird fake laugh. “Nice try Lando,” you say annoyed, “I should just find some random guy to take my virginity and teach me some things.”

“No!” Lando says quickly, “Don’t do that. Not with some random guy.”

“With who then Lan? Maybe I should text all my guy friends and ask them, that seems like a great idea,” you continue with the same annoyed tone.

“Just text me,” Lando says so soft he almost whispers it to you. 

You barely hear him. At first you thought your drunk mind made it up that he said that. But when you notice the way he looks at you, you start to believe that he actually said it.

“You would want that?” You ask him.

“Yes,” he confesses, “I can teach you a few things. If you want to.”

“Deal,” you quickly say.

“You can tell me if it’s a deal tomorrow, when you’re not drunk anymore babygirl.”

Babygirl. That’s new.

+++

The following day you wake up with a massive headache. Lando is still sleeping next to you. You wonder why you ended up in his bed instead of in the bed in the guest room where you normally sleep. Weird. You have almost no memories left from last night. When you turn around you notice that Lando is following your moves in his sleep. He presses himself against your body. Weird. You unlock your phone and read some of the messages from last night. Your friends send a couple messages last night in the group text.

Friend 1: did you get home?

Friend 2: ??? Answer y/n

Friend 1: nvm we texted Lando and he told us you got home safe with him

You let out a sigh and start to type a message.

Y/N: oops sorry girls, I’m with Lando & having a massive headache  rn :(

You open your socials and scroll for a bit while waiting until Lando wakes up. It doesn’t take long before he wakes up. You feel him moving next to you in the bed. Carefully you turn around to look if he’s really awake. You’re quickly greeted by his open eyes.

“Morning babygirl,” Lando says with a raspy morning voice. 

“Hi Lan,” you reply softly.

Since when does he call you babygirl? Your mind switches back to yesterday night and you remember him calling you that as well last night. Weird. You remember him something saying that you would have to agree as well when you’re not drunk anymore. About what was that? You try to remember, but your mind leaves you hanging. 

“How are you feeling?” Lando asks you.

“Terrible,” you sigh, “I barely remember anything and I have a massive headache.”

Lando lets out a frustrated sigh, he hoped that you’d remember the conversation from you two from last night. He wonders if he needs to start about the subject or let it be. 

“You drank a lot,” he says eventually, “Why did you even do that?” Of course he already knows the reason, but he wants to hear it again from you. He needs to know for sure that last night wasn’t a drunk lie from you. 

You think about the reasons why you drank that much. Slowly you feel your memories coming back to you. You remember feeling frustrated when you realized how single - and inexperienced - you’re in comparison with your friends. They talked about their boyfriends and their sex lives a lot, both subjects you couldn’t say anything. You remember drinking too much because you wanted to forget about your awful love life. Then you start to remember the car ride back with Lando.

“Fuck,” you mutter, “I already told you, didn’t I?”

Lando nods to confirm your thoughts. He waits for you to continue. You should remember the rest by now as well, right?

“Oh my god,” you suddenly exclaim, “did I really ask you to teach me those things? Fuck I’m sorry Lan, I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Lando realizes that you don’t remember everything correctly. It went different. You were talking about different boys who could teach you those things, random guys even. He was the one who offered to do it himself. 

“It didn’t go like that babygirl,” he says slowly, “I offered.”

You start to remember the conversation in more details now. Lando is right. He did offer. You feel a blush creeping up on your cheeks. What do you need to tell him now? You think about everything that can go wrong when you’re getting involved with him like that. But you also can’t shake off the thoughts about doing those things with Lando. You have had a crush on him for a while, you can probably say that you’re in love with him. In love with your best friend like a real idiot. It wouldn’t be bad to explore everything with him, he’s the guy you trust most. But what if you can’t keep it casual like that? You already know you want more.

“I remember now,” you confess.

“And I’m still offering,” Lando continues, “I don’t even want to think about you doing those kind of things with a random guy.”

“But you do want to do those, uh those things with me?” You ask awkwardly.

“Yes,” Lando is quick to confirm, “It’s not like I’m the most experienced guy around, but I can teach you some things.”

“But what if that ruins our friendship?” You ask him afraid.

“It won’t,” Lando quickly states, “We have to set some boundaries. Like having a safe word for if you’re not comfortable with what I’m doing and about how we will keep it from ruining our friendship.”

The following conversation is a bit awkward, but it’s a good one. Lando tells you about his boundaries, he doesn’t want you to have sex with someone else in the mean time - but he does want to teach you everything he knows. Teach. It even sounds ridiculous when you think about it. But you can’t deny that you want it. Fuck, there’s nothing you want more on this moment.

“So what safe word will you chose?” Lando asks you. 

“How do you see this going?” You ask back, “Do I need to make you a list or something with everything I want? Do we need to plan this like teaching sessions?”

Lando softly laughs. He pulls your body closer towards himself. In only milliseconds he’s pressed up against you. You squirm under his touch. Lando lets out a groan. It’s insane what you’re already doing to him. Your innocence is turning him on so much. 

“If you want you can make a list,” he tells you with a smile, “and if you want we can plan your so called teaching sessions. Although, I suggest to let things happen a bit more naturally.”

“Naturally?” You ask him confused.

“Yes babygirl,” Lando replies, “Can you turn around and face me?”

You do what he asks you. You turn yourself around. Lando his face is only a couple inches away from you now. It takes you everything to stop yourself from going closer. He stares at you and you can’t stop staring back. Of course you already knew he’s beautiful, but now you’re seeing it from even closer.

“Can I touch you?” Lando asks you while he maintains eye contact with you. You can’t find the words to answer his question, even when you only want to say yes. So you show him a simple nod. 

“I need words baby,” he says, “I’ll only do things to you if I’m sure that it’s what you want.”

“Touch me,” you say with a soft voice. When Lando takes a couple more seconds you even add another word. “Please.” 

Fuck if he wasn’t turned on already this would be the moment for it. Lando can’t stop imagining you begging for him - for his touch, his cock and more. He shakes the thoughts off, maybe that’s something for later. If he’s lucky. 

He softly puts his hand on your cheek and brings your face even closer to his. Without giving it a second thought he presses his lips against yours. Softly he presses multiple kisses against your lips. You are quick to open your mouth a bit, hoping that he wants more. Just like you do at this moment. Lando grants your wish. He lets his tongue enter your mouth and starts to explore your mouth with his own. You feel your stomach tighten a bit. 

Why does it feel so good to kiss with your best friend?

Lando moves his hand to your body. He pulls you even closer towards himself. Then he starts to draw figures on your lower back with his fingers. You let your hands wander around his body as well. At first you’re focused on his hair, softly tugging on some of his curls. You love his curls. Lando moves his face back a bit, you directly miss the feeling of his lips on yours. 

“How does that feel?” He asks you. His hand is still placed on your lower back. You want it even lower. How would if feel if he would grab your ass? 

“Good,” you confess, “really good.”

Lando is hand is still on the same place. You almost feel yourself aching for more of his touch. Do you need to tell him? He is watching you in silence. It surprises you that you feel quite comfortable with him watching you like this. 

“You should take a shower,” Lando says eventually, “We’re going out for lunch with Max.”

You send him a surprised look. That was it? 

Lando laughs softly, “Patience babygirl, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”

You almost tell Lando that you feel turned on, almost. This will be a long day. With a soft huff you get out of the bed and walk towards the bathroom. The cold air distracts you from your feelings, for a few seconds you forget about how turned on you are right now.

“Maybe you can add that to you list,” Lando jokes, “Shower sex. I have never done that either.”

Great. Now you can’t even shower anymore without thinking about Lando taking you underneath the water. This will ruin a lot of things, but strangely you aren’t that afraid for it to ruin things between Lando and you. 

“I thought I didn’t need to make a list,” you tell him.

“Maybe you should,” Lando replies, “I think I’d like a list after all. What if I forget something eh?”

You show him a small smile before disappearing in the bathroom. Lando sighs when you close the door. It took him a lot of good will to stop things instead of going further with you. It has been a while since he has been this hard. He can’t even remember the last time he was this turned on now that he thinks of it. It probably was last summer when you wore that tight bikini.

part two

#lando norris #lando norris x reader #lando norris x y/n #lando norris fanfiction #lando norris imagine #ln4 #formula one #f1 #lando norris imagines #lando norris smut #friends to lovers #best friends to lovers

[moonjxsung]

Begged & Borrowed

Copyright Ⓒ 2023 by Moonjxsung

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner. Doing so will result in a legal takedown per the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and is subject to legal action.

Pairing: Lee Minho x fem reader

W/c: 30.2k

Warnings: infidelity, drinking, smoking, use of pet names, unprotected sex, breast/nipple play, dry humping, clitoral stimulation

Synopsis: A turn of events causes you and your longtime best friend Minho to confront your true feelings for each other- except you’re already getting married to somebody else.

[this work was based off a request from “🌷” anon - thank you for requesting!]

18+. Mdni!

•

For as long as Minho has remembered, he’s been in a constant state of grieving. But no one’s passed, nor is there any reason to believe something should happen. Nonetheless, the feeling remains, a cruel reminder of the phenomenon when it hits him suddenly, eating away at his thoughts and boring into his flesh.

Like a seed planted deep in his body, one that suddenly sprouted, and won’t stop growing, and growing. And in his mind, this grieving takes its form in viridian hues of ivy, thin stringy stems that wrap around his bones and constrict him to a life lived within the cage of his own body. Rubbery leaves of green with venules that mirror his own veins and seem to mock him as they replace what’s left of him. And Minho can do nothing except coexist with this heavy sense of grieving, let the ivy strangle him in its unsuspecting embrace and rob him of his last breaths. He’s still in there, trapped somewhere, breathing in labored breaths and stiff at the limbs. But he can’t breathe, and he fears one day this grieving is going to kill him.

*

Minho exhales deeply, balancing a small cardboard box which houses a white cylindrical cake in his hands, his eyes darting nervously over the crowd inside. There seem to be 20, maybe 30 people, already acquainted with the space, chatting amongst themselves with glasses of champagne in hand. He’s tried your cell phone twice, to no avail- of course he knows you’re probably making your rounds, chatting with guests and double checking the hors d’oeuvres are to your liking. But he tries one more time just in case, bringing the phone up to his ear and letting it ring once, twice, three times- voicemail.

There’s no way around this but to go inside and socialize for the next hour, Minho’s personal idea of hell on earth. He grips the box a little firmer with one hand, using the other to slip his cell phone back into his pocket and make sure he can access it easily, just in case he needs to look busy. And with one more deep sigh, he begins the journey inside, mentally preparing to pretend as though he cares about any of this.

The venue interior is spacious, and admittedly a breathtaking view at this proximity, much to Minho’s stubborn dismay. Round white tables line the wooden floors, wrapped in velvety cream tablecloths and glowing in the dim lightning of tea candles. Similar cream-colored lanterns line the ceilings in neat rows, parallel to the strings of bohemian bulb lights that serve more as decoration than to actually brighten the place. And by the marble wall fountain at the back of the open space, there’s you, all dressed up and chatting enthusiastically with a group of women. Minho pauses for a moment, not yet proceeding, as he takes in the sight of your elegant appearance. Your figure is hugged delicately by a slim-fitting dress, a pair of strappy heels complementing the loose curls and simple makeup you sport. And he sighs again, feeling as though this is all going to be in vain the second he approaches you.

Yet he doesn’t even have to- you spot him from across the room first, whispering something in another woman’s ear before making your way toward him, an enchanted smile on your face and such purpose in your step as you near him. Minho’s heart quickens in his chest the way it always does when he’s around you, though his demeanor seems to relax fully once you’re in front of him, your arms extending for a hug as he shoots you a saccharine smile and pulls you into his embrace.

“You made it!” You exclaim enthusiastically, your arms wrapping around the broad shoulders he flaunts under his white collared button-up. He smells familiar, a comforting mix between fabric softener and his musky cologne, and it brings you right back to your days spent alongside him in college, catching late-night movies together and hitting up all your favorite fast food joints.

“I wouldn’t have missed it for anything,” Minho replies sweetly. He chuckles a little as he speaks, lost in the striking glow of your eyes at this proximity, your long eyelashes fluttering as you smile in response and nod.

“Thank god you’re here,” you voice, glancing around the room inconspicuously. “I think Jung’s friends have had one too many shots. And I asked for pink flowers on the centerpieces- do these look pink to you?”

You gesture to the bouquets of very magenta floral arrangements, shaking your head as Minho laughs in response.

“Hey, remember this is just to celebrate everything being finalized. You can get nit-picky when the wedding rolls around- for now, let’s just enjoy the magenta flowers.”

You smile up at him, always endeared at the way Minho finds the good in everything. He has a special way of taking your fears or reservations and making them seem so insignificant in contrast to the world around you. And he’s been that way for as long as you can remember, quick to fix things and stay by your side through the hardships whenever they crept up on you.

Like the time your car got impounded and he walked nearly two hours with you to get it back because neither of you could afford a taxi. Or the time your holiday office party was all but sleep-inducing, and he didn’t hesitate to drop what he was doing to take you out for burgers, instead.

And of course, being by your side throughout this very burdening wedding process. Minho’s the first person who got the news of the engagement when it happened, nearly shattering the dish he washed during a session of old cartoon reruns and fast food while you were out at dinner with Jung. And it was the last thing he’d expected, too, remembering how the week prior was spent lending a kindly ear to you as you ranted about Jung’s stubbornness and his poor temperament.

“Married?” He’d spoken into the phone, like the proposition of getting an engagement ring implied literally anything else.

And when you saw him again an entire week later, the marquis diamond hugged by delicate prongs and a sterling silver band around your fourth finger confirmed the words, as if your excitement over the phone hadn’t done so already. At first Minho was angry, declining invitations to hang out and forcing himself to stay asleep so as not to feel the sheer pain and regret that came with the news. What does she even see in him? He’d asked himself a dozen times a minute, mapping out the factors you complained about to him and weighing them against the likelihood that you’d actually follow through with this wedding.

He’s messy. He doesn’t like spending money on fancy dinners, so sometimes we’ll only do sides. My parents think he’s a little arrogant and when he’s with his friends, it’s like I don’t exist.

All signs point to negative. There’s no way you’d actually follow through with marrying Jung- at least not if it’s up to you. Maybe you had stars in your eyes, couldn’t say no to the sparkly ring and had thought back to the first date when he first got down on one knee. That has to be why you said yes.

The prospect of marrying him contractually is a headache when Minho thinks about it- and that’s not even inclusive of the idea that comes with spending the rest of your life cooped up in a house with him, with children and in-laws. It would mean years of him talking back to you, undermining you and rubbing his superiority complex in your face. Minho isn’t sure he could stick around for a lifetime of that.

At least he wasn’t sure before- and now, with just two months out till the wedding, Minho is panicking. It feels like some race against time to knock an ounce of sense into you, but the stars in your eyes are still there when he catches you glancing at your ring, or moved by Jung’s actions that scream the bare minimum.

“Did you see the champagne glasses? They’re iridescent! Jung got them just for tonight.”

Maybe that’s what you see in him. His noble trait of picking iridescent champagne glasses over clear ones.

“Cool,” Minho responds, giving you a small nod.

“What’s in the box?” You ask, gesturing to the small white box in Minho’s hands still.

“Oh, just a little something,” Minho replies a little softly, watching as you slowly lift the thin cardboard lid and peer inside. And the smile that grows on your face makes everything worth it again.

“From our favorite bakery? Minho! That place is so expensive, you shouldn’t have!”

“It’s a special evening,” Minho replies with a smile, watching as you admire the intricate icing display for a moment. White fondant ribbons and candy pearls line the frosted surface which enreathes decadent layers of chocolate- all your favorites. As Minho begins to close the box, he’s rudely interrupted by a finger prodding itself into the dessert, swiping across the frosting and moving the carefully placed cake toppers into complete disarray.

“Is this chocolate?” A voice asks from behind Minho, coming forward to sprawl an arm over your shoulders and lick the frosting off his finger. “Damn, that’s good!”

And Minho can practically feel every ounce of hope in his body dissipate as he watches you giggle enthusiastically.

“Hi, Jung,” Minho says flatly, observing your destroyed cake briefly before shutting the box again.

“What’s up, man? Thanks for the cake. Hey, wedding’s in two months- I hope you have your tux ready!”

Minho responds with a thin-lipped smile, not saying anything as Jung laughs loud enough to fill the awkward silence amongst the three of you.

“What do you say we go cut some real cake?” Jung asks, turning to face you as his grip around your shoulders tightens.

You smile back at him, turning to Minho and cocking your head toward the table by the wall fountain.

“You wanna join? We got a variety of pastries, too. There’s those little cream puffs you like, and macarons from the French bakery.”

Minho extends his arms, passing the box of cake to you and giving you both a small bow.

“I actually just stopped by to gift you the cake. I have a work thing really early tomorrow.”

“You’re leaving?” You question, a small pout on your face as Jung scans the room around you, desperate to ditch the two of you, but also stubborn about maintaining his dominance in front of Minho.

“We’ll catch up soon,” Minho replies, trying his best to convey a smile that will make it seem like nothing’s bothersome.

“Okay, okay,” you respond, separating from Jung’s hold on you and pulling Minho in for another hug.

“Thanks for the cake, anyway. I’m still glad you stopped by.”

“Of course,” Minho says, averting his gaze from Jung. “And congrats on finally getting all the wedding plans finalized. That’s a really big deal.”

“She’ll be hitched in two months!” Jung chimes in loudly from behind you. “And then we’ll be on an island celebrating married life!”

Minho just nods at him, shooting him the same thin-lipped smile and bowing to both of you.

“Catch you later,” he says, finally pivoting to exit the way he entered. And he can still hear Jung’s obnoxious laughter from halfway across the room.

*

Fridays were always your designated days with Minho. In college, they meant movie nights and greasy takeout food. Post-graduation, they involved bars and gossiping about your entry level positions and your bosses. And after Jung came into the picture, they quickly became every other Friday, which soon turned to Sunday brunch on a monthly basis, which then transitioned to catching up over the phone or in brief passing. Jung made sure you were always busy doing something with him, his arm slung possessively around your shoulders and speaking far too loudly about your relationship for the whole world to hear.

Minho began to ditch the Friday group dates when Jung started inquiring about his own relationship status, getting drunk off one-too-many jägermeisters and slurring questions and demands about when he’d finally bring a girl to the function. And Minho never had the heart to tell you why he stopped showing- he simply conjured intricate excuses for every instance you invited him out.

I have a headache. I have an early day tomorrow. The cats are lonely these days.

Of course, perhaps Jung could see right through him into the green leaves of ivy that enwreathed his bones and swallowed him whole with this grieving. Grieving for you, grieving for himself, grieving for this life he knew was bound to come to a close the minute Jung made his move. Which Jung did, practically setting the relationship in stone so that Minho would now be subject to a lifetime of his offensive slurred speeches and unsettling presence. And although the grieving grew heavier after the engagement, it’s always been there, perhaps even longer than Jung’s even been in the picture.

“Jung said no male strippers at the bachelorette party, which is a bummer if you ask me. But we are having an open bar, so I’ll be too drunk to care about naked men anyway.”

Minho chuckles softly, bringing the straw in his iced coffee up to his lips and taking a sip from the corner of his mouth.

“But he’s having strippers at his bachelor party, isn’t he?”

You shrug casually, brushing off the question as you take a sip of your coffee, too.

“I don’t really care, either way. I mean we’ll be getting married regardless, so he can look at whoever he wants. I just need him to show up in a tux on the day of, and stand at the end of the aisle crying when I come to meet him.”

Minho doesn’t reply, a string of questions circling his mind, which he chooses not to ask in order to maintain the peaceful silence that now falls over you both. It’s one of the only days this month you two have been able to get some time alone, although it did require Minho taking off work early and you lying to Jung about your whereabouts. You find yourselves at the coffee shop you’ve been meeting at since your college days, an iced americano in Minho’s grasp and a latte in yours.

As Minho takes in his surroundings, everything feels vastly different than it used to- the distance between you two feels much greater, like there are miles separating the beverages you consume at this proximity to each other. The baristas don’t shoot you curious looks like they used to when they were certain you two were an item. And the shiny ring on your finger makes an appearance every sip you take, glistening under the beams of sun that dance through the windows and fall over your enthusiastic figure.

“What are you up to this weekend?” You ask finally, meeting his shy gaze as he taps his fingers on the wooden surface of the table.

Minho shrugs, toying with the lobe of his ear as he thinks of a random commitment to voice back to you.

“Oh, you know,” he stutters. “Moving stuff.”

And he’s completely unsure, himself, of what the words imply as they escape his lips.

“Moving stuff? To where? Where are you moving?”

“I’m not moving,” he emphasizes. “Just… moving stuff. Things. I want to rearrange some picture frames. And maybe reorganize my bookshelf.”

You sigh in response, a small smile tugging at your lips as Minho does his best to maintain the bogus narrative.

“Minho, you never leave the house anymore. Why don’t you go out with Jung or something? He’s doing a golf thing with some of-”

“No, thank you,” he interrupts quickly. “I’m not a golfer.”

And you sigh again, cocking your head at him.

“Okay, mister ‘moving stuff.’ Will you at least call me when you’re done moving your stuff and your things?”

“I’ll call you,” Minho reaffirms.

“I mean it. I’m gonna call you when I get home from the party and you better not be asleep on the couch again.”

“I promise to answer,” he echoes.

You smile at him again, and Minho mirrors the action with a small smile of his own, his skewed teeth exposing from behind his plump lips as he grins sheepishly.

“Moving stuff,” you repeat, mocking his excuse.

“Moving stuff and things,” he emphasizes, chuckling lightly across from you.

*

Bachelorette parties are supposed to be one of two things: freeing, and cathartic. Luckily for you, yours checks both boxes, the two-day retreat to a luxury hotel in the city providing ample time to relax, and the shots you down at the open bar in your venue fulfilling the cathartic part of it. Your girlfriends shower you in presents, ranging from expensive dining sets and clothes, to humorous sex toys for you and Jung to try on your honeymoon. Even the bartenders join in on your two nights of dancing, parading your event with handmade signs and getting everyone in the bar to sing to you. And for the first time since the stress-inducing year of planning has begun, you feel excited, ready for your new life as a bride alongside Jung.

Husband and wife have a nice ring to it, you think to yourself, as you kick off your shoes and lie back on the thick white duvet of the hotel bed. And though you’re still a little tipsy, you keep your promise, selecting Minho’s contact in your phone and giving him a ring. The phone rings once, twice and then three times, before you conclude he’s definitely fallen asleep on the couch again, probably while moving around his stuff and his things. But you’re proven wrong on the fourth ring, a gentle click echoing in your ears as you hear him press the phone to his ear and speak in a tired voice.

“Hello?”

“You’re asleep on the couch, aren’t you?”

“…no,” he responds, after a short pause.

“You’re so predictable,” you chuckle back at him, shaking your head as you sigh into the phone.

“How was the bachelorette party?” He inquires, sitting up on the couch he definitely wasn’t asleep on, to speak a little clearer into the receiver.

“It was amazing,” you reply with a dreamy sigh. “We did karaoke, and danced and even the bartenders were wishing me good luck. It was like something from college.”

“I’m glad,” Minho responds, nervously picking at the hem of his ratty old t-shirt.

“I’m a little drunk,” you say with a gentle laugh. “But I couldn’t help but wish you were there. The girls are great, of course, but I feel like bars were our thing.”

Minho blinks nervously a few times, pondering your words and keeping his gaze locked on the array of neatly-placed picture frames on the wall across him.

“Yeah,” he settles on replying, his breath hitching in the back of his throat.

“Do you miss me?” You query, twirling a strand of hair around your finger. And Minho can’t comprehend what’s got you acting like this, flirting with him in the phone line while Jung isn’t around.

“I do,” he responds after a brief pause.

“I’m serious, Minho. As your best friend, I’d hope that you miss me sometimes.”

There it is- the clarification is enough for him to exhale the deep breath he’s been holding in all this time.

“Yeah,” he says again. “I miss you, as a friend. And I’m glad the night was enjoyable.”

“You hate bars,” you say to him. “But you used to let me drag you out to them. I miss you.”

And he nods on the other end, repressing the real emotions that eat away at him like, you might see them over the phone if he feels too deeply.

“I miss you, too. Get some sleep, okay? We’ll talk in the morning.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you say sarcastically. “Goodnight. Thanks for answering.”

“Sure thing,” Minho replies before ending the call. And the room is eerily quiet now that he’s awake, the clock on the living room wall ticking with the passing seconds, as the ivy in his chest constricts a little tighter now.

*

Jung’s bachelor party is nothing short of insufferable. It’s loud, it’s rowdy, and it’s neither relaxing nor cathartic. Unless you define the two as getting lap dances in a smoke-filled limousine driving down the freeway a million miles a minute.

Minho sits quietly on one side, refusing every advance from the female strippers as they flaunt their beautifully-sculpted breasts in his face and dance to the loud rap music. He pretends to use his phone, having no service in this part of town, and yet still resorting to switching frantically between the compass feature and the weather app. And then he tips each stripper a generous amount, apologizing to them profusely as he gets off at the first stop and orders a cab. Where exactly the limousine is taking them, he doesn’t even care to know. Jung questions no part of it, not even having wanted to invite Minho in the first place. And while Minho waits for his taxi, he calls you, frantically wishing he could remind you Jung’s possibly the worst person you could have chosen to marry.

“Hi Minho,” you speak into the phone, shuffling about on your end as you tend to some household work. “I thought you didn’t get reception wherever you were going?”

“I found a way,” he responds, lying through his teeth.

You narrow your eyes, pausing your work to listen in to the phone call a little more closely.

“Minho, did you… leave?” You question, taking note of the way there’s not a sound in the background of the call- not Jung’s booming laughter, nor any music of any kind.

“No,” he says quickly, and you let out a deep sigh.

“Now you’re lying,” you remark.

“I’m not-”

“You’re talking in short responses, and I can’t see you but I know you’re doing that blinking thing. Why would you leave?”

Unfortunately for Minho, you know him like the back of your hand, always quick to clock when he’s lying to you through his nervous habits. The same habits you’ve studied since your days together in college, and ones he’s never been able to stop doing no matter how hard he tries. Minho lets out a deep sigh and runs a hand through his hair.

“Look, it’s just not my scene, okay? I’m still going to the wedding, it’s not like ditching a bachelor party is going to ruin your marriage.”

You shake your head and pinch the bridge of your nose in annoyance.

“What am I going to do with you? Why are you so opposed to just bonding with him?”

“I’m not!” Minho exclaims. “He wanted to go swimming. I can’t swim.”

Another lie.

“Look,” you begin. Would you just come over if you’re not going? We can talk about it here.”

Minho nods eagerly, the idea of spending time by your side sounding much more appealing than a weekend with Jung.

“I’m just waiting on a taxi,” he says. “I’ll be there soon.”

And when he hangs up, you stare briefly at the contact phone of you two, running your fingertips over the dimly lit screen. It’s an older photo, of you guys in college out at a bar, Minho smiling enthusiastically and giving you a piggy-back ride. And although it’s still Minho, it doesn’t feel anything like the version of him you know now.

*

“I don’t want this to set the precedent for the rest of our relationship.”

“Don’t want what to set a precedent?” Minho questions back.

“This! You running away from Jung every chance you get so that we’re only able to bond when he’s not around! You’re my best friend, Min. Why can’t you guys just make it work so that I don’t have to divide my time between the two of you like this?”

“You had no problem learning to divide it when we were in college,” Minho says frustratedly. “Now that you’re engaged it’s like I’m engaged to him, too. I don’t like the guy, okay? Whatever we make of that as friends isn’t in my hands, but it also doesn’t mean I’m gonna jump at the chance to go golfing with him every weekend.”

You’re quiet for a moment, his frustrated speech circling your mind as he remains sprawled out on your couch. He’s right, to some degree- you know very well that the two of them never got along well. And try as you might, they’re just incompatible in every way possible. Jung’s loud, he’s stubborn, he’ll never say no to a social outing and he’ll only make an effort to get along with someone for a finite amount of time before he’s disregarding their existence, much like he does Minho’s. And Minho is quiet, soft-spoken, only social when it comes to you and takes his stance on a person just minutes after meeting them. They’ve already reached the stubborn conclusion that they despise each other, and at this point in your life, there’s little you can do to change it.

“I just want to know things are okay between us,” you remark.

“Things are okay between us.”

“We haven’t had a proper hangout in months, Minho. I get married in a few weeks and then I’m afraid we just won’t see each other.”

Minho seems to understand the seriousness in your tone, sitting up from the couch to finally meet your gaze. You look disheartened, an expression Minho is used to seeing when you try to set him up with a date or when he can’t make it out to an event. But this time it seems like it has more weight to it, the way you sag your shoulders as you slouch over one of the barstools in the kitchen, completely terrified at the prospect of losing your best friend.

“I’ll tell you what,” Minho breaks the silence. “How about we plan something, just us? It’ll be like old times, and we don’t have to worry about Jung or your friends or anyone. Just for a weekend.”

You meet his gaze, too, promptly glancing at the ceiling as you think over his proposal.

“I don’t know, Jung probably wouldn’t like it-”

“This is exactly what I mean!” Minho interjects. “Everything you do is based on what Jung likes or doesn’t like. We used to go out together all the time- if you only want to hang out when he’s around then yeah, things might be a little different from here on out.”

And the words pierce through you like a dagger, yet again filling your mind with all the regrets that will come with shutting him out for the purposes of pleasing Jung. Minho is right- he’s been your best friend for years. Jung might be your future spouse, but that doesn’t mean your relationship with him has to be any more important than the lifelong commitment you’ve made to your best friend, too.

“Where would we go?” You ask reluctantly.

Minho shrugs casually, lying back down on the couch with his hands behind his head.

“Anything,” he responds. “Your pick.”

And you think over his offer again, mentally mapping out your schedule at work and what you guys might be able to do on a quick weekend together.

“Camping,” you say suddenly, straightening your posture.

“You hate camping,” Minho retorts, chuckling lightly.

“Yeah, but you love camping. I’m just doing this to spend time with you, Min. I already spent my weekend in the city. Let’s do something you like and we can have an old friend trip like we used to.”

Minho can’t help the grin that tugs at his lips, endeared by the way you always let him drag you to his favorite places just like you used to drag him. And he knows you’re a city girl through and through- you’ve always been very vocally opposed to accompanying him on his camping excursions. But maybe going together, you’ll have some change of heart if it means you won’t have to listen to Jung share all of his unwarranted opinions.

“Let’s do it,” Minho says confidently. “You’re gonna love it.”

“I’m only doing this for you,” you reply with a smile. “I still maintain that I’m going to hate it.”

*

A yoga retreat.

Jung is made to believe you’re at a yoga retreat, three hours out from your shared apartment, with a close girlfriend you haven’t seen in months.

And maybe it’s because he genuinely believes you, or he simply doesn’t care, but he doesn’t press you for any information about the event, sending you off with a chaste kiss and turning his attention back to the sports he watches on television. He doesn’t even inquire about why you fail to bring your yoga mat, leaving it folded neatly in the closet of your bedroom alongside all your workout clothes.

You do pack warm clothes, blankets and even a matching set of flashlights for when it gets pitch dark like you know the mountains do at night. And as you make your way to Minho’s house with your backpack slung over your shoulders, you’re actually a little excited, the idea of getting some fresh air sounding like a well-deserved treat after the week you’ve had in the city.

“Well aren’t you all ready to go camping,” you say to Minho in an amused tone, admiring the outfit he’s put together for the occasion. He sports a simple white t-shirt and a loose-fitting pair of jeans, coupled with a black cap he wears backwards over his brown hair. He looks a lot simpler than usual- in fact, you’re not sure you’ve ever seen Minho in a cap before today.

“You look nice,” you voice to Minho, as he loads his duffel bag in the trunk of the car.

“Me?” He questions, furrowing his brows in genuine confusion. “I’m just dressed for comfort.”

“Yes, you. That cap looks good on you. God forbid I compliment my best friend.”

He chuckles lightly, helping you load your backpack into his car and closing the trunk when he’s finished.

“Ready?” Minho asks, turning to you with a small smile.

“Ready,” you echo, climbing into the passenger seat beside him.

The drive to the campsite is just over an hour long, taking Minho’s vehicle through narrow paths of dirt roads surrounded by trees. The treacherous drive doesn’t seem to faze him at all, as he keeps just one hand on the wheel, while the other rests casually on the car console. You can tell he’s done this drive a number of times before, judging by the way he needs no form of navigation and doesn’t stop to read the directional signs at any point.

“Do we need to pitch a tent when we get there?” You ask, and Minho laughs in response.

“That’s how I can tell you’ve never come here before.”

“What?” You reply with a chuckle of your own. “It’s a totally valid question.”

“Yeah, maybe if we were on Survivor. There’s tents all over the campsite. And picnic tables, and bathrooms and I think there’s a gift shop somewhere.”

You nod at his response, a little more intrigued now that you know it’s not going to be as hands-on as you thought. And when he pulls into the parking lot, he’s right- there are cabins that span the perimeter of the parking lot, presumably bathrooms and information centers about the place.

Minho puts the car into park as he helps you gather your bags, and then you both enter the cabin closest to you, being greeted by an older woman who sits at an information booth.

“Welcome!” She exclaims in a cheerful tone. “Are you folks staying overnight?”

“Yes,” Minho answers, hoisting his duffel bag further up his shoulder. “We’ll be here for two nights.”

“Wonderful!” she replies, gathering a thin stack of pamphlets. She uncaps a red pen, circling a little graphic that indicates a tent, and then slides it over to Minho along the counter.

“You two will occupy this location here- it’s just a few minutes up the hill there. The bathroom is attached to the unit, and there are a few clean towels in the drawers there.”

She slides him two more pamphlets, gesturing to their titles and keeping her gaze on the infographics.

“There’s a guide on plants to avoid, and some wildlife you might run into. Any questions?”

Minho shakes his head, stuffing the pamphlet into his pocket and giving her a small nod.

“No, thank you,” he says, looking over at you.

And the woman shoots you a smile now, gesturing to your hand.

“That is a beautiful ring,” she states, clasping a hand over her heart emotionally.

“Thank you,” you reply with a smile. “I’m getting married.”

She laughs lightly, shooting Minho a thumbs up.

“Enjoy it while you can!”

You’re quick to shake your head at her, taking a step away from Minho.

“Oh god, no, he’s not my fiancé. He’s just a friend.”

And Minho takes a step away, too, giving her a nod.

“We’re just longtime friends,” he echoes your words.

“My apologies,” the woman is quick to say. “Enjoy your stay regardless.”

*

“It never ends,” you say to Minho as you exit. “I can’t believe people still think we’re a couple when we go out.”

“It’s just a common equation,” Minho responds. “Two people. Engagement ring. Camping trip.”

“I know,” you emphasize. “It’s just so weird being so close to my own marriage and still having to tell people we’re not a couple.”

Minho swallows nervously, not entertaining the discussion any further as he takes your aversion to the idea of it as answer enough.

“It’s just up here,” Minho says, gesturing to the narrow dirt path that leads up to your tent.

The tent is a long, rectangular space, the beige tarp even accompanied by clear vinyl windows that zip up for added privacy. The inside houses a small birch wood table pushed against the side, two white folding chairs, and a single bed, just larger than a twin-sized one.

“One bed?” You say as you scan the room, dropping your bags and looking nervously back at Minho.

“All the units have one bed,” he explains casually. “I’ll take the floor.”

“You’re not taking the floor, Minho. It’s freezing.”

“I’ve done it before,” he says, unzipping his bag and pulling out a smaller pouch. “I’ll be fine.”

“But it’s so awkward to have you on the floor while I get a whole bed to myself.”

He disregards your concerns, tossing the pouch to you, which you catch in two hands and examine.

“Bait,” he says with a small smile.

“Bait?” You echo. “You mean like…”

“Fishing,” he says confidently. “We’re catching our dinner tonight.”

*

It’s a fair assumption to say you hadn’t taken Minho’s liking to camping very seriously. Sure, you knew he was partial to the great outdoors and to catching his own dinners. Of course he knows how to pitch a tent and gut a fish. But seeing him do it in action, string a spinnerbait onto his fishing rod and cast his line, watching meticulously as the bobber pulls underwater and he checks if he’s caught a bass yet, you’re admittedly pretty impressed. He looks completely in his element like this, uttering remarks about his “monofilament fishing line” that you don’t understand in the slightest, but you listen to regardless. For a brief moment, you can’t help but feel bad, seeing how much this interests him, when all you’ve ever done in the span of your friendship is drag him to clubs and get takeout together. Maybe you should’ve taken this whole thing more seriously. Maybe you should have accompanied Minho on one of his offers for a fishing trip when you still had the chance to do it without being under Jung’s watchful eye.

“We may need a smaller hook,” Minho says, as he adjusts his rod and stares out at the lake. The atmosphere is lazy and restful, the gentle lull of the lake’s deep blue water sloshing against the rocks that line the shore and swaying with the breeze. There’s a distant buzz of cicadas at this hour, and the swallows circle the vast green trees overhead that rustle in syncopation with the water. You and Minho remain seated on the flat rocks that line the shore, a cooler of ice and a small pouch of bait between the two of you.

Minho’s gaze remains set on the lake, attentively watching the bobber and praying for a bass to latch onto it so that he can instruct you on the de-gutting and cleaning process. But there seems to be no sign of fish anywhere, the only movement being the little ripples that vibrate with the sporadic activity of water bugs.

“When was the first time you went fishing?” You ask Minho suddenly, catching his gaze as he turns to you.

“First time?” He echoes. “I don’t know, maybe age seven? My dad taught me.”

You nod in response, picturing a little Minho alongside his dad, learning the ropes of monofilament fishing lines and all that jazz. You can’t help but smile at the thought of it, knowing Minho was probably so quiet, yet full of curiosity, the same way he is now.

“I wish I would’ve come,” you say finally, letting out a small sigh as you speak. “I wish I came with you on one of these trips.”

Minho shakes his head and waves you off. “Solo camping is one of my favorite things in the world. I didn’t need it to be ruined by all your city girl antics.”

“Hey!” You exclaim with a small laugh, hitting him lightly, and Minho hits you back.

For a moment, the two of you say nothing, admiring the way the sunlight glares overhead and sets the water aglow with glints of light that make it almost hard to look at. Minho takes notice of the more casual look you sport, too, void of any makeup and your hair tied back loosely. Similarly, the little imperfections that mark his skin remind you of the Minho you met in college, back when you were both riddled with zits and drank cans of soda for breakfast. And now across from you, acne scars and a handsome face he’s grown into so well, you can’t help but feel your heart swell at the fact that he’s still here, this many years later, regardless of the roadblocks your relationship has taken you through. It’s a miraculous thing to have someone stick by your side knowing you’re getting wed to a person he despises. And you refuse to part ways with him, too, despite the amount of outings he declines in the name of nothing important. What a fascinating prospect, to be reminded that your most unconditional form of love comes in the form of a best friend more than even your fiancé on most days.

You open your mouth to say something, being promptly interrupted by the reel of the fishing line being pulled back, the rhythmic buzzing of the handle startling you both as it’s pulled in circular motions to indicate a catch.

“Oh my god, what do we do?” You exclaim to Minho, a sense of urgency present in your voice as you await his instruction.

“I’ll teach you,” Minho says, as he rises from his spot and gestures to the fishing rod. “Grab the handle, like- yeah, just like that.”

And you do as you’re told, approaching the rod to steady the handle in your grasp. He guides you through the careful motions, steadying your hands a comfortable distance away from the reel seat, pulling back the handle with slow, yet purposeful movements and raising the fishing line away from the gentle current of the water.

“There’s a lot of resistance,” you comment, as you pull even harder.

“Really?” Minho remarks, his hands on his hips as he looks out upon the water. “I wonder if it’s going to be a big one. Keep pulling.”

And you do, heaving the rod desperately away from the water to pull in your catch. There’s heavy resistance at first, and then a generous amount of give to the force, as the line finally glides across the water and begins to pull up toward you.

“Get ready,” Minho says excitedly. “It’s probably going to be a little skittish, just hold tightly and don’t let go.”

As he watches you pull, he takes note of the way the line struggles to move past a barrier in the water, sending ripples down the shore as you continue to pull, to no avail.

“I need help,” you voice frantically. “Minho, take the rod-”

“Just relax,” Minho echoes, coming around behind you and placing two hands over yours. He stands close behind you as he helps steady the rod, gripping tightly and helping you reel it in.

The two of you watch with bated breath as the line finally begins to move again, erratic ripples of water vibrating in the otherwise still lake as you reel in the catch.

“Here it comes!” Minho exclaims, as he continues to reel over your hands with his, his veins protruding with every slight motion as his slender fingers work around yours.

And then the fishing line is promptly pulled out of the water, swinging in front of your view and slowing its swaying motions as you take a gander.

It’s a large, juicy, vibrant hunk of moss.

No fish in sight, no catch of the day, unless for a bottom feeder. Minho says nothing for a moment, placing his hands on his hips again as he takes in the sight of the forest green mass. And then you break the silence with laughter, doubling over and clutching your stomach as you laugh at the ridiculous view.

“What’s so funny?” Minho inquires with a breathy chuckle, transitioning into his own fit of giggles.

“It’s fucking moss,” you exclaim, gesturing to the fishing rod and laughing again. “We’ve been here for hours and we haven’t caught anything besides a fucking byrophyte.”

Minho laughs, too, setting the rod down to clutch his own stomach.

“It’s not funny,” he says between laughter. “We don’t have dinner tonight.”

“Yeah we do,” you say breathlessly. “We have moss.”

And the two of you almost collapse on the gravel, holding your stomachs as you laugh endlessly at the ridiculousness of the situation. The fishing rod remains propped up against the rocks, the slab of moss dangling and dripping murky water back onto the gravel.

When your laughter dies down, Minho sprawls out onto one of the big rocks, the palms of his feet flat against the warm stone as he meets your gaze again. You occupy the spot beside him, your knees bent too, keeping your gaze locked on his as you smile.

“I missed this,” you say after a moment of silence. “I missed hanging out with you.”

Minho responds in a breathy chuckle, running his hands through his hair and rolling his eyes in a joking manner.

“You should’ve come camping with me ages ago,” he says. “We could’ve been eating moss for dinner instead of fast food.”

You chuckle too, and the sunlight beams over your listless bodies sprawled out on the rocks, glints of light hitting Minho’s golden-brown hair and his sparkling eyes. He looks so angelic in this atmosphere, so at peace with the nature around him and in tune with his emotions. For the first time in a long while, there’s nothing present between you and Minho that hinders the relationship you have to each other. He’s just as important to you in this moment as you are to him. And not even the knowledge that you’ve lied to your fiancé to be here with him can come between that.

*

Lucky for you, Minho always comes prepared. Of course he’s dealt with the situation of catching nothing while fishing and needing a plan to fall back on for dinner. So it’s no surprise to you that his backpack contains cups of instant ramen and bags of chips.

“Shrimp or chicken?” Minho asks, as water boils on his portable kettle.

“Surprise me,” you shoot back, getting comfortable in one of the two camping chairs across the bed. You feel a wave of tiredness wash over your body instantly, but you also feel fulfilled, having bonded with Minho more in the last few hours than any of your double dates with Jung and one of Minho’s picks from a dating app.

Minho shuts off the kettle, tearing open packets of vegetables and mixing them with your noodles as he pours hot water in both cups.

“Careful, it’s hot,” Minho remarks, handing you a cup and sliding a pair of chopsticks across the table to you.

“Today was fun,” you say to him, as you blow on a generous serving of noodles and guide them into your mouth with the wooden chopsticks.

“You’re not half bad at fishing,” Minho states. “I think it’s just emptier this season. But your technique’s good.”

“Really?” You query. “I feel like you did most of the work.”

Minho shakes his head, slurping a portion of his noodles before speaking.

“Maybe if you ditched your lame golf nights with Jung and came camping with me more, you could get some practice.”

“Ha ha,” you muse sarcastically. “His golf nights aren’t lame, they’re actually pretty fun. You’d know if you came out to one.”

“Please,” Minho retorts, gathering more noodles with his chopsticks. “Artificial grass and polo shirts aren’t really my thing. Of course they’d be Jung’s, though.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means even his favorite sport is as fake as he is.”

“Minho!”

“What?” He says in a breathy chuckle. “You asked what I meant.”

You shake your head, stirring broth around in your cup with your chopsticks. You normally don't entertain Minho when he insults Jung like this, knowing he’s just going to get mad and list everything he despises about him. But tonight, being so far away from Jung, it somehow feels permissible. It’s not like Jung is going to materialize out of thin air and find out about his little remarks. You don’t get cell reception out here, and it’s possibly one of your last few intimate moments with Minho to just let loose and joke with him. So you don't say anything, allowing him free reign as he cracks jokes about Jung at his expense. And you don’t feel bad about it, either, knowing Jung wouldn’t hesitate to do the same back at Minho.

The tent falls quiet for a moment as both of you finish your meals, the only noises present between the two of you being slurping the remainder of your noodles and setting the cups aside. Minho runs his hands through his hair and spreads his legs out in front of him as he slouches back in his camper chair.

“I can’t believe you’re getting fucking married,” he says with a breathy chuckle. “That’s still so weird to me.”

“Imagine how I feel,” you emphasize. “The word ‘wife’ still kinda grosses me out.”

“Well you have about a month to get used to it,” Minho replies. And then he gets quiet, averting his gaze from yours as he blinks. “Or a whole lifetime, I guess.”

You stay quiet, too, pulling up your legs to cross them in your chair and nodding reluctantly.

“Yeah. ‘lifetime’ kinda sounds like a scary word, too.”

Minho purses his lips, and then he turns to meet your gaze again, a solemn smile on his face.

“It doesn’t have to be,” he voices. “It can also imply a lifetime of happiness. And of love. Permanence isn’t a bad thing.”

You smile at him, comforted by the optimism he brings to the atmosphere, despite his dislike for Jung, and especially the prospect of you getting married to him. He doesn’t change- he’s still the Minho you know very well, the one who takes your problems and makes them seem so small, so unimportant, until you can’t, in good conscience, worry about them anymore.

“You’re right,” you say back at him. “I’ll remember that when I say my vows.”

You think over his words momentarily, and then you meet his gaze with a knowing smile.

“Do you remember when we had to write an essay about where we’d want to travel if we won the lottery? In our literary analysis course?”

Minho’s eyes roll to the ceiling as he thinks for a moment, and then he nods.

“Yeah. You wrote about Europe or something.”

“I did,” you recall. “And you wrote about that one historical town. What was it called again?”

“Shirakawa,” Minho responds. “Small mountain village in Japan where it snows a ton and there are little farmhouses everywhere.”

You chuckle lightly, remembering the countless images Minho had shown you when he was producing his paper on the subject. You can still picture the little brown houses and the vibrant green hills in the summertime. And the winter photos looked like something out of a Christmas movie, fresh snow blanketing the village and painting the town with bright hues of white.

You think over his essay for a moment, remembering just how many times you’d peer edited each other’s papers, and Minho wound up getting the best grade in the class for how poetically he spoke of Shirakawa. He talked about it for several months after the assignment, too, always voicing his desire to visit one day and see all the farmhouses for himself.

“I wish we still had time to go,” you say finally. “I always pictured we’d go one day.”

Minho purses his lips in a thin line, your statement echoing in his ears and the words stinging. It’s moments like these he’s especially regretful you’re getting married to Jung- all the stupid, likely intangible plans you made together and promised you’d fulfill sometime down the line. And now with Jung’s obnoxious presence indicating that of permanence, Minho knows there’s zero possibility you’ll be able to fulfill any of the plans you made together.

“You have a whole honeymoon planned on a tropical island,” Minho says somberly. “That’s far better than little old Shirakawa.”

You say nothing in reply, nodding at his words and thinking back to the plans you and Jung have already booked for your honeymoon.

Honeymoon. Even that word sounds foreign.

“Maybe we’ll plan for when I get back,” you tell Minho. “Little camping excursion in the farmhouses. We can get shitfaced and pet all the little goats.”

He laughs lightly, giving you a smile.

“Sure,” Minho affirms. “We can do that.”

And then his gaze darts to his backpack which sits on the floor, his eyes widening as he sits up.

“Speaking of shitfaced,” Minho says. “I think I brought boxed wine.”

“Boxed wine?” You repeat with a chuckle. “Jesus, we really might as well be back in college.”

He rises from the camper chair to make his way over to his backpack, unzipping the larger pouch and pulling out two small black cartons of wine, giving them a small shake before scanning the room as though he’s looking for something else.

“What?” You query, waiting for him to say something.

Minho says nothing, standing up again and taking long strides to where his fishing rod is, grasping it in one hand and fiddling with the hook.

“What are you doing?” You ask, watching as Minho’s expression turns serious again. His slender fingers toy with the small hook, the two cartons of wine balanced in his other hand.

You watch as he unfolds one tab on the box of wine, and then brings down the fishing hook to pierce it through the thin cardboard and string it through securely. When he’s finished, he gives it a little tug, and then raises the box of wine as he lifts the fishing rod once more, reeling the handle in the counter direction to move it out toward you.

“What the hell are you doing?” You ask again, chuckling softly as you watch Minho struggle to balance the carton of wine.

He reels the carton out further, and then slows as he drops it into your lap, moving the rod around in erratic motions and pretending to stabilize the line.

“Get it!” Minho exclaims. “It’s getting away, you have to get it!”

You play along, grasping the carton of wine in your two hands and pretending to steady its slippery grip as it flaps around helplessly.

“It’s slippery!” You exclaim back, holding it up with two hands and angling it toward Minho.

Minho gasps, and then sets his rod down to applaud you generously.

“Congratulations,” he says in a proud voice. “Your first catch. You caught your own dinner.”

And the dark night around you seems to be set aglow as laughter fills the entirety of the tent.

*

Two hours later, it’s half past midnight, empty cartons of wine on the table between you as you talk through your starkly different lives.

Minho shares tales of work you’d missed out on, dating app horror stories and recounts days from college when you’d go to nightclubs together and use fake IDs. You listen attentively for the first time in a long time, no sense of urgency present, nor the desire to set him up with somebody else. It’s you who wants to be here alongside him, rekindling your friendship and reliving your glory days. And Minho feels the same way, a gentle buzz swirling his mind from the cherry merlot and your sweet laugh in response to his tales.

“They so thought we were lying when we turned 21,” you say through laughter. “In hindsight, it’s pretty lucky we didn’t get thrown in jail for a night.”

“Yeah, only because you flirted with the bouncer,” Minho says. “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t throw you in jail after offering you a drink.”

You laugh lightly, remembering the bizarre encounter, and then you slouch back in your chair as you shut your eyes.

“We should get to sleep,” you say to Minho. “It’s late.”

“Yeah,” he responds. “I’ll get my sleeping bag on the floor.”

“Don’t be such a fucking drag,” you protest.

“What?”

“Just sleep on the bed with me. It’s big enough and there’s less of a chance that you’ll wake up with a broken back. I’m not listening to you complain about your fucked-up joints on tomorrow’s drive home.”

Minho laughs lightly, and then he gestures to the bed.

“If you snore, I’m throwing you to the bears,” he says plainly.

“Yeah, well you kick me, I’m dumping you in the lake.”

*

Minho brushes his teeth over the small steel sink in the corner of the room, swapping out to fix the bed sheets while you brush your teeth, too. When you’re finished, you meet him at the foot of the bed, pulling your corner of the blanket down and climbing in beside him. The ceiling of the tent is barely visible in this level of darkness, just an indistinguishable outline of fabric visible as you cross your hands over your chest and exhale deeply. Minho does the same, and though he’s right beside you, he feels miles away, his exhale sounding distant as he focuses on the ceiling of the tent, too.

“It’s really dark,” you comment.

“Yeah,” he says back. “That’s the outdoors for you.”

He thinks for a brief moment, and then he breaks the silence that washes over the two of you.

“Are you excited for the honeymoon?” He asks quietly.

There’s no answer for several moments, the only sound coming from the gentle sway of the trees just beyond your tent.

And you are excited, but you’re more nervous, uncertain and disappointed knowing that everything will be so different upon your return. It’s like exchanging an old life for a new one- one that could be far worse, for all you know.

“I’m nervous,” you say candidly.

“Why?”

“Because marriage is a big deal. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m even doing the right thing.”

It’s Minho’s turn to remain quiet now, his hands folded over his chest as he ponders your words.

“Are you happy?”

There’s no response from you. Not now, not after a minute and not even after several minutes have passed. And you are happy, but you’re still much of the same- nervous, uncertain and disappointed that this new life implies change.

“Jung hates me,” Minho says suddenly.

“He doesn’t hate you-”

“He hates me,” Minho reaffirms a little louder. “The way he looks at me, or interrupts us whenever we’re talking. I’m sorry that I’m so distant from you when he’s around. The guy hates me.”

You stay quiet, knowing he’s right, but not wanting to fuel the fire that burns between the two of them.

“He probably thought we had something going on,” Minho says. “He’d kill me if he knew I was in the same bed with you.”

You scoff lightly, dismissing Minho’s claims with a wave of your hand.

“Please,” you emphasize. “He hasn’t even touched me in a month.”

And you regret the words the second they leave your lips, bringing two hands up to cover your mouth as Minho props himself up to look at you.

“What? Why?”

“Nothing,” you say quickly. “Forget I said anything.”

“No, I genuinely want to know,” Minho reiterates, keeping his gaze locked on yours. “You’re getting married and you haven’t had sex with your fiancé in a month? Who does that?”

“He told me it was a punishment,” you say in exasperation. “We had a fight, and he told me he wouldn’t touch me if I didn’t admit to being wrong.”

“What?” Minho says, turning audibly irate. “Are you serious? What kind of cruel and unusual punishment is that?”

“Look, I don’t know, okay? Let’s just not talk about it-”

“There go your excuses,” Minho says. “Your future husband won’t touch you, and you’re still defending him. Jesus Christ, it’s worse than I thought it was.”

“Would you stop?” You say to him, sitting up as he slings his elbows around his knees and shakes his head.

“Stop what? Stop being concerned for my best friend who’s clearly suffering at the hands of her own fiancé? Not gonna happen.”

“I’m not suffering,” you relay to him.

“Sure,” Minho says sarcastically. “So you never wanted to have sex in the whole month he’s kept this punishment going.”

You say nothing, swallowing nervously as you keep your gaze locked on Minho’s. He’s at a painfully close proximity to you right now, one strand of hair falling loosely in his face as his eyebrows furrow together in anger. His plain black t-shirt hugs his broad shoulders as he sits up, his basketball shorts riding up to expose a generous amount of his toned thighs. And his lips remain parted, waiting for you to say something, which you don’t. You simply stare at him blankly, your eyes darting over his gaze, down to his lips and then back up to his eyes.

Minho’s expression turns serious, too, unable to look away from your conflicted expression as you watch him.

“Not… really…” you manage to say in short words.

“Maybe not…” you continue, leaning into him a little as his arms loosen around his knees.

He somehow looks so tantalizing right now, in a way you’ve never seen him before. Sure, you’re aware Minho is good looking, and he always has been. And maybe your fleeting crush back when you first met him was short-lived, quickly moving on to date somebody else you met at a party. Maybe you were a little jealous the time his former girlfriend remarked how good he was in bed, or that she got to touch him when he wore that suit you loved so much at graduation. Maybe you even touched yourself once or twice to the thought of him, conjuring some stupid fantasy in your mind for the sole purpose of getting off to it. But nothing was ever going to come to fruition, not when he’s been your friend for years, you have Jung and you’re about to get married.

…At least not with any intention besides being fucked by him the way Jung has neglected of you for a month now.

“Maybe not until now,” you finally breathe out, your heart beating erratically in your chest as you await an answer from him.

Minho’s gaze flickers down to your lips, and then back to your eyes, furrowing his eyebrows as he makes sense of your words.

“Are you drunk right now?” He asks simply.

“No,” you’re quick to respond, shaking your head to affirm the answer.

“Good,”’Minho says. “Me neither.”

And the two of you meet in the middle, his lips crashing against yours roughly as you kiss him for the first time, hands flying to tug at his t-shirt as he brings to hands around the small of your back.

He tastes like wine, transferring the robust flavor of cherry merlot back onto your lips as you kiss him, his plump lips working perfectly against yours as you pull him closer. You want so badly to position yourself differently, to adjust your body’s awkward spot on the bed so that you can be a bit closer to him, so that you can cup his face and pepper it in breathless kisses. But you fear that the minute you pull away, Minho’s going to somehow realize that it’s you he’s kissing, his best friend of so many years, one who’s already engaged.

It’s Minho who pulls away briefly first, getting a little closer to you, while you scoot further back and lie flat on your spot on the bed.

“This is just to prove a point,” Minho says breathlessly, as he hovers over you now and steadies himself over your body with one strong arm. “It’s not cheating,” he emphasizes, and you nod eagerly at the words, suddenly aware that it’s not even the cheating aspect you were worried about. It was solely the possibility of ruining your friendship with Minho, who’s always been so vocal about his distaste for disloyalty.

“It’s just to prove a point,” you repeat, tangling your hands in his hair and pulling him back down to kiss you. “Nobody has to know.”

Minho grins against your lips, pressing repeated, chaste kisses to your already swollen lips and trailing down to paint a line of kisses down the column of your neck. Your heart beats in ways you’ve never felt before, a rapid arrhythmia brought on by the sheer terror of being found out, by the knowledge that this is the one person who could single handedly ruin your engagement to Jung. And yet you couldn’t care less in this moment, as his teeth take your flesh between them and suck bruises down your neck, a generous purple color painting the goosebumps that rise upon your skin.

Are either of you in any place to return with hickeys painting your skin like you spend the weekend at a frat house? Not in the slightest. And yet you can’t help but feel this is what you missed in college all that time, the same actions Minho repeated with the few girlfriends he ran through. Fucking them sweetly in his dorm bed, roping scarves around their necks when he’d send them off and his ears turning a bright shade of red when you’d point them out in your 7am college lectures.

Was there ever a hint of jealousy present between the two of you? Maybe, you think to yourself, as a string of spit connects Minho’s lips to your bruises, peppering them in light kisses. You could never help but wonder what it was like, what those girls had experienced each time they disappeared from his dorm in the early hours of the morning. And Minho, being the gentleman he was, was never one to kiss and tell. The sex was intimate, private, the details living and dying with him only, even if the relationship went awry or fizzled out suddenly.

“We probably shouldn’t go any further,” Minho interrupts, pulling away from you to maintain eye contact. His eyes are hooded with lust, his lips pink and swollen from kissing you so passionately. And his eyebrows arch up in a state of concern, mostly worried you’re going to protest him taking it any further than this. But it’s all you’ve occupied your mind with now, wanting so badly to know what little tricks Minho wears up his sleeve, if he’s just as intrigued with the idea as you are, if he even wants to have sex with you.

“It’s not like we’re dating or anything,” you say to Minho, desperately searching for the words to indicate how badly you want this. “It’s just… some drunken hookup. It’s probably nothing Jung didn’t do at his party last week.”

“But we’re not-” Minho begins, promptly silencing himself. He begins to tell you that he’s not drunk, and you aren’t either- but he’s already caught on to your little plan.

“Yeah,” Minho then says. “I’m a little tipsy.”

“Me too,” you say with a soft chuckle. “Too much wine.”

“Yeah,” he says, leaning into kiss you again. “And I get really horny when I’m drunk.”

“Me too,” you say between kisses. “It’s not like we can just leave each other hanging. Unless you want me to rub one out beside you, and that would be more awkward.”

“Yeah,” he replies. “Might as well… help each other out, right?”

“Right,” you affirm, pulling down your panties as Minho separates to pull off his shirt.

It’s nothing you haven’t seen before, already having witnessed him in this level of undress at every pool party and when you’d come over to his dorm unannounced. But it feels different at this proximity, his tanned skin hovering over yours and brushing against your flesh with every eager kiss.

Minho begins to ask you if he can touch you, but you’re faster than he is, taking his hand in yours and guiding it to your aching clit, letting him circle two fingers around your bundle of nerves as he pulls back to look you in the eyes.

“Jesus,” Minho remarks. “You are wet when you’re drunk.”

And your breath hitches in the back of your throat as he rubs you gently, a smirk growing on his face as you let out little whimpers. It’s been so long since somebody’s touched you like this, Jung hardly even giving attention to the foreplay on most days. His nimble fingers rub at a steady pace, his eyes boring into yours as he makes you writhe in pleasure beneath him. Minho’s eyes are sparkling at this proximity, his big brown pupils exuding curiosity and tenderness as he gauges your every reaction to his touches.

“Minho,” you breathe out desperately, arching into his touch to chase the friction.

“What?” He asks sweetly, his expression shifting into that of concern as he waits for you to speak. But he knows what you’re going to ask, also aware of the tent pitched in his boxers as he works you.

“Don’t make me ask,” you say with a sheepish chuckle.

He chuckles softly, too, leaning in to press a chaste kiss to your lips before pulling his hand away.

“Let me get a condom,” Minho says in a serious tone. And you’d completely forgotten about protection, not even having used a condom in ages, since your only partner for several years has been Jung.

With the painful ache between your legs, you wish so badly you could ask him to fuck you raw and help ease the weeks of waiting you’ve had to do just to feel some sense of relief. And a part of you can’t help but think back to your days of college, when Minho would always ensure he kept a new one between the crisp bills in his wallet. Ones that were put to use with other women, Minho always so careful not to make any stupid mistakes or take risks the way you and Jung often did.

But you can’t let him fuck you raw, being in the middle of nowhere, no access to pills and admittedly not the most punctual at remembering to take your birth control. The last thing you can do right now is show up to your own wedding with Jung- pregnant with Minho’s child.

Minho’s cock is fully erect as he fishes around his backpack for a condom, pulling out his wallet and sorting through the bills for one. You briefly wonder what would happen if he didn’t have one- you’d likely ask him to fuck you anyway, and to finish on your face or your tits. But it’d be such a waste not to let him finish inside of you, not when you’re both this aroused and desperate for some sense of relief

You silently pray he won’t think too hard about any of this. Don’t think about who I am to you. Don’t think about how this will complicate things, and don’t think about the fact that I’m engaged to another man. Just fuck me, and we’ll deal with whatever consequences arise tomorrow.

“Got it,” Minho voices, and you feel yourself exhale the breath you’ve been holding this whole time.

Minho approaches you again, pinching it between his two fingers, tearing open the silver packet with his skewed front teeth and pulling out the white rubber. You watch with bated breath as he rests a knee on the bed beside you, steadying himself with one hand and rolling the condom onto his length with one hand.

It’s the first time you’ve properly taken note of the appearance of his cock, and he’s bigger than you’d imagined. His thick, veiny girth is tinted a bright shade of red in anticipation, his head leaking a bead of precum as the rubber grazes his tip and coats every inch of his flesh. You’re a little disappointed at the sight being obscured by the protection, but you take a sharp breath, anyway, wanting nothing more than to just feel it inside of you.

“Are you sure this is okay?” Minho asks, as he hovers over you again and props himself up with two hands. “If you think we’re making some mistake-”

“We’re not,” you say quickly. “It’s not a mistake. I promise you I’m not drunk or out of my mind or anything. I’m just really fucking horny.”

Minho chuckles lightly, and then he leans into graze his lips over yours just barely, delivering a painfully light kiss as he positions himself in front of you.

“Just tell me if you want me to stop,” he says, pressing another light kiss to your lips. “I promise I won’t get mad or anything.”

You nod eagerly, wrapping your arms around his neck, and then you both maintain eye contact with his hands as he carefully guides the tip of his length inside of you. You feel like you could cum at the sensation of his tip alone, your walls contracting around him desperately as he shuts his eyes in pleasure.

“Jesus,” Minho breathes. “You’re tight.”

“It’s been a month since he fucked me,” you admit shyly. “I haven’t even touched myself.”

And Minho takes it as a signal to snake a hand down between your bodies, latching the pads of his fingers to your clit once more and rubbing in gentle circles.

“He’s a fucking idiot,” Minho says plainly. “What a fucking joke.”

You weave your fingers in his golden brown tresses pulling him in for another kiss as he begins to thrust in and out of you with gentle movements so as not to hurt you. And it feels heavenly, like nothing you’ve ever felt with Jung before. There’s so much fear circling your mind, but it simply elevates the arousal you feel at the same time, your mind and body contracting in syncopation to echo the same sentiment that maybe you have indeed, been jealous of some of the other girls he’s fucked. Maybe your jealousy forced you to shut out the idea of anybody being pleasured like this by your best friend. You silently pray it never felt half this good for any of them, that he simply couldn’t get hard for them or maybe he’d neglected the same parts that drive you crazy in this moment. Because the thought of his cock inside of anybody except for you drives you mad, it feels so unnatural to think about when he’s fucking you so sweetly in the privacy of your tent, here in the middle of nowhere. Virtually impossible to feel an ounce of guilt when the nearest human is likely miles away, made even harder considering the only man who’d even care is much, much farther.

And Minho hopes you can’t feel that he’s been trying to stave off his own orgasm for the better part of 20 minutes now. His cock twitching with every thrust, his eyes shutting tightly to give attention to the sensation of your cunt clenching desperately around his thick girth. He can’t remember how he’d imagined it all those years, but he knows this feels much, much better than any fantasized version of you that ran rampant in his thoughts. One he had to stop himself from staring at a little too long when you’d opt to wear short skirts and tight little shirts to the clubs you’d frequent. A version of you he swore would one day come around to the realization that Jung isn’t meant for you, that he doesn’t fulfill you emotionally, or intellectually or even physically. Even a version of you that found exhilaration in fucking Minho behind Jung’s back, because having any version of you belong to Minho in one form or another would always take precedence over your inevitable absence following the wedding.

“Talk to me,” Minho says, as his thrusts slow a little. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.”

“You,” you’re quick to respond. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

Minho captures your lips in a drooly kiss, gasping into your parted lips as he thrusts in again and holds it there for a moment.

“Is it still okay?” He asks, like he hasn’t already been fucking you for several minutes now.

“It’s more than okay,” you respond, folding your leg at the knee beside him so that he’s hitting an entirely new angle.

“Jesus Christ,” Minho breathes, squeezing his eyes as his cock grazes your cunt even deeper.

Your breaths are labored now, involuntary gasps escaping your mouth with every thrust inside of you. His cock is completely buried to the hilt inside of you, the condom completely coated in your juices and working out of you with complete ease as he fucks you.

And he fucks you like he’s yours, like he’s the one getting married to you, perhaps subconsciously to prove a point to both you and Jung. He could never fuck you like this. I’m willing to bet he never has. He could never want you the way I do so passionately and unrelenting.

“Minho,” you call to him, arching into his touch as he moves a strand of hair out of your face.

“What is it?”

“This is okay, right?,” you state, though your tone takes the form of a plea, tears pricking the corners of your eyes. “It feels so good, I don’t want to ruin things-”

“It won’t ruin things,” Minho emphasizes. “We’re drunk, remember?” he says with a light chuckle.

His face is promptly buried in the crook of your neck, peppering kisses along the flesh and whispering promises against you that exist only in the intimate space of your shared tent.

“I’m just helping you out while we’re here,” Minho repeats. “And then you have a wedding to run off to.”

You smile up at him, fingers massaging his scalp lightly as he stays still inside of you, his cock pulsating lightly inside of the rubber as you take him.

“I would’ve asked for help a lot sooner if I knew it’d be this good,” you say with a saccharine smile, allowing your fingers to loop in his hair and tug lightly.

Minho chuckles down at you, his smile instilling an almost immediate sense of comfort once more as he begins to move again, his cock grazing your cervix with every slight movement as he lets out little gasps over you.

“I think I’m gonna cum,” you breathe through labored pants. Your tone sounds surprised, almost, at the prospect of your best friend coaxing an orgasm out of you.

And maybe you are, never having thought that this camping trip would end up with him inside of you, making love to you the way you picture the events of your honeymoon to unfold. Your best friend since college, and the most vocally displeased person at the reality of your engagement to Jung.

And the moment Minho’s been fantasizing since he first confronted his own feelings for you, a time completely unbeknownst to him now. Maybe it was the time you let him stay in your dorm bed when he wasn’t feeling good, or the time you baked him his favorite cake for his birthday most people seemed to have forgotten about. But the pinpointed time doesn’t matter right now- he’s here, your entire being is his for the night, and love or not, he’ll take any form of you he can grasp so desperately at.

“Fuck, I’m gonna cum, too,” Minho says back, his hands digging into your waist as he moves a little faster.

For several moments, nothing else is said between the two of you, only the echoing sounds of skin and drool and his toned body working itself in and out of you teeming around the dinky little tent like an erotic film on low volume. The sounds are muffled, both of you doing your best to remain hushed in your words and your breathy exchanges to each other, almost as if it’ll all be too real if you voice it any louder than this.

But all of this is very real, the actions serving as a sealed promise between the two of you to maintain this remarkable relationship you’ve developed with him. One in which you traverse the complexities of dating a man who’s never quite fulfilled you the way Minho caught on to very early on. And in turn, Minho uses the opportunity to fulfill you in every way he’s able to, whether it means being there at 3am to lend a kindly ear, concocting your favorite dishes after waking up hungover as a result of drinking to mask Jung’s shortcomings. And even to fuck away the stress Jung instills inside of you. To meet you halfway with his version of intimacy, one Jung has withheld from you for so long, and to remind you that although the marriage implies permanence, things could still be so, so different.

“Cum for me,” Minho says to you, leaning in to keep his lips pressed to yours. “Just let go of everything. Don’t think about him right now.”

And somehow it’s those words that assist you in reaching your finish, the subtle command to eject Jung from all your thoughts and replace him with Minho and Minho and more Minho.

It’s Minho easing the pain, Minho kissing you so tenderly, Minho thrusting his hardened cock in and out of your soaking cunt as you whimper helplessly beneath him.

And it’s Minho who finishes first, squeezing his eyes tightly as he feels his tip releases strings of cum into the constriction of the rubber condom, the finish feeling as though it’s the heaviest he’s had in months.

And the gentle pulse against your flesh coaxes out your own release, contracting around his wet girth and dribbling cum along the length of the condom as he fucks you through your fervent moans.

“God, you’re amazing,” Minho voices, as he pulls you in for a much gentler kiss. He holds his lips there momentarily, grazing them softly over yours, every part of him wanting to stay right here inside of you.

But as his cock begins to soften against him once more, he pulls out without another word, stripping off the condom while you watch him.

Strands of sweaty hair hang loosely in front of his face, framing his flushed appearance as his nimble fingers work to tie the condom off. He looks so attainable, so forgiving as he moves, and every part of you wants nothing more than to pull him close again and keep him tangled in your needy embrace.

“Minho?” You ask, as you sit up on the palms of your hands to meet his gaze.

“Hm?” He hums in response, discarding the condom and running two hands through his disheveled hair.

“Would you stay like this?”

He chuckles softly, occupying his spot again and pulling the blankets up to his chest.

“I’m not taking the floor anymore, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“No, would you stay... close to me?” You ask shyly, your eyes flickering over his figure as he lies beside you.

He sits up to meet your gaze, reaching a hand out to you, his palm facing upward as he shoots you a sweet smile.

“I can stay close to you,” Minho reaffirms, pulling you close to his chest as he lies flat again, your head resting on his broad chest.

His chest rises and falls with every breath, his eyes shutting gently as he revels in the sensation of you seeking comfort beside him like this. And he can’t help but press a series of soft kisses to your temple, smiling when he hears a soft giggle escape your lips.

When the tent falls quiet once more, your listless bodies welcome the sleepiness that washes over you, euphonious melodies of crickets engaging in the sounds of nightfall outside. And Minho’s hand rubs gentle back and forth motions along the small of your back, reassuring for one last time that you have nothing to feel guilty about.

*

It’s like a moth to a flame, the way you’re drawn to Minho in the morning, despite the promise of it being just one night with him.

You’re hypnotized by the way he pulls on his sweatpants, chuckling as he nearly trips over himself in the confined space of the tent. His veiny hands working nimbly to chop vegetables and crush herbs as he prepares you one of his signature omelets. The silence that falls over you both while you eat, two fascinated gazes stuck on each other knowing very well you’d let him do it all over again if you weren’t so pressed for time. And when he’s helping you hoist your heavy backpack over his shoulders, the pressing urge to kiss him is present again, as though you seek a reminder that what occurred was indeed real and not some lucid dream conjured up within the darkened campsite.

An urge which you act upon, leaning into press your lips to his as he turns to ask if you’re all packed. And one which is reciprocated with a smile from him, grinning against your lips as he takes his time cupping a hand to your cheek and grazing his fingertips along your skin tenderly. With no real purpose, no sexual implication, no rush. Simply a kiss to conclude the trip, which may very well have been everything you needed as it precedes the wedding.

And with shared smiles between the two of you, Minho leads as you make your way back through the informational center. The same woman is sat at the desk, except she says nothing as you pass her by, a scowl on her face at the sight of you. You watch as she bows politely to other guests, inquires about their stay and offers them hard candies from the glass jar in front of her. Except she says nothing to you, almost appearing to shake her head as you pass her by.

“She was nicer yesterday,” you voice to Minho, your concerned gaze scanning his expression for a reaction. But he doesn’t give one, shrugging lightly as he holds the door for you on the way out.

“She’s probably having a bad day,” he says back. “Don’t worry about it.”

And it’s not until he takes your hand in his again that you realize it- this woman who you’d so confidently corrected on the fact that Minho is not in fact your fiancé, has witnessed you kissing him and holding his hand on your way out. Like a scarlet letter you wear upon your chest, except it’s you who put it there. Confirmation that you’re disloyal- a cheater, simply put. You want to defend your actions, but realistically, to whom? Not to Minho, who actively facilitated it. Not to Jung, who would kill you both if he knew.

And not even to the elderly woman, who you can’t explain it to, because it’s different. It’s not cheating, not when it’s Minho. He’s not some drunken hookup from a dive bar, or someone who’s relentlessly pursued you despite your protests. He’s your best friend, one who did you a favor in the absence of your fiancé’s desire to satisfy you. It’s different, you want to say to her. It’s not cheating with Minho- he’s different.

But you settle on the uncomfortable silence that remains when you climb into the passenger seat of Minho’s car, watching the trees melt into a blur of green hues as he backs out of the parking lot. And his hand meets yours over the center console, intertwining your fingers to put your mind at ease like he can somehow read your mind.

Perhaps he can, being the person who’s known every one of your thoughts so intimately since your time in college. And he also reads into your dismissal of the event when you finally let out a gentle sigh, lacing your fingers with his and allowing him to press a kiss to the back of your hand.

*

The arrival home is a non ceremonious one, Minho dropping you off a block before your shared apartment with Jung to avoid the interrogation he knows he’ll get.

He assists in gathering your bags, consolidating your items to ensure you can comfortably carry them up the block. And for a minute, the two of you say nothing as he sends you on your way, a kind of sparkle present in his eyes as he stares at you. He looks different today, a saccharine smile on his face and a much calmer demeanor overall. Every bone in your body wants to jump him and pepper him in kisses, to thank him for relieving the pent up sexual frustration in you and affirming that your fears surrounding this wedding are valid, but they don’t imply that you won’t enjoy married life, either. They’re just… feelings, ones you often find trouble confronting in the presence of Jung, and ones that you realize you’ve probably never confronted at all, if not around Minho.

The fears are valid, and they’re not fleeting in the slightest. But they are lessened with the reminder that Minho’s beside you every step of the way- regardless of how it manifests in your relationship. And the silence remains, as Minho shoots you a small wave, his eyes flickering briefly over the distant outline of your apartment.

“Hey,” you call out to Jung, who’s lazily sprawled out over the sofa, his feet laid flat upon the coffee table.

“How was the trip?” He asks enthusiastically, not taking his eyes off the sports channel that echoes loudly in front of him.

“Oh, you know,” you reply casually. “Just yoga. Always good to see old friends, though.”

“I’ll bet,” Jung replies, chuckling sarcastically as he speaks. “Seems like the only person you’re around these days is Minho.”

And then he reaches for the remote, lazily flipping through channels as you set your bag down.

“He’s my oldest friend,” you say casually, hoping he won’t notice the audible shakiness in your tone. It feels like he can hear how loud your thoughts are, the fears circling your mind, an expression on your face painted with incrimination. You think of your heart racing while Minho kissed you, the way his cock felt inside of you, your clit pulsating gently at the mere memory of it.

“Yeah, well, change is good,” Jung finishes. As you turn the corner, to meet him in front of the couch, you take note of his lap- a small, white cardboard box propped upon his sweatpants, the top ripped to keep it open and his hands working and out of it in rushed motions.

It’s the cake, you quickly realizing, your heart sinking a little at the sight of the frosting in complete disarray, almost half the dessert either smeared around the sides or piled on the fork he brings up to his lips.

“Listen,” Jung says, between a mouthful of food. “I have a golf thing this week and I want you to come see a couple buddies of mine.”

“This week?” You echo, your mind pondering all the potential excuses you can use against him. But nothing comes to mind, as Jung sets the box of cake aside and stands up from the couch.

“Yeah,” he says casually. “My buddy from college is gonna be in town, and he wants to get together before the wedding.”

You want so badly to protest his offer, knowing very well that Jung’s friends are nothing short of insufferable. They very seldom like you, openly voicing their concerns with your flaws, and they’re protective of him, as though Jung is the one who’s sacrificing more by being wed to you.

“Do I have a choice?” You ask, a small smile on your lips to offset the anger that could very well erupt in response to your statement.

But Jung just brings two hands up to your shoulder, rubbing the sides as he turns his attention back to the television.

“Not really. Hey, the game’s on again but make sure to clear your calendar on Thursday for me. And let’s bring that wine we got recently.”

“The white one?” You question, sagging your shoulders a little at his lack of hesitation to offer your favorite wine as a housewarming gift to his friends.

“Yeah, that one,” he says plainly, pressing a chaste kiss to your forehead and slinging his body back over the couch.

“By the way,” Jung voices, motioning for you to move out of the view of the tv screen. “Where’s the cake from? Shit’s good.”

Your gaze lands on the box again, completely torn apart, the icing letters indistinguishable and the fondant ribbons in disarray on the cardboard. You can’t help but think of Minho and his careful attention to detail- the way he picked all your favorite colors, the flavors he knows you love, all from your favorite bakery you very seldom even visit because of the steep price points.

“Babe?” Jung calls again, spooning a layer of frosting into his mouth. “I asked where the cake was from.”

And you shrug casually as you pivot on your heel to exit the room.

“Minho picked it,” you say as you stride away from his still-slouched figure. “I wouldn’t know.”

*

“You have to freeze your cake and eat a piece of it every wedding anniversary,” Jung’s friend Kwang explains, as he brings a cigar to his lips and inhales generously. “That’s what we did, and we still have enough red velvet to last fucking years in there.”

“I love it,” Jung replies in a chuckle, slinging an arm over your shoulder and nudging you harshly. “Course, I’m not sure this one could stop herself from eating the rest of our cake for a whole year. She’s got a bigger sweet tooth than I do.”

You distance yourself from Jung a little, fiddling with your golf club as the men share echoing laughter between puffs of smoke.

The golf course Jung frequents is massive, spanning several hectares of land, which means you’re often stuck here for a long while during his golf sessions. His friends are the same detestable group of men he’s usually out with, all old friends from college you’ve since been forced to get acquainted with. And together they talk each others’ ears off about sports, food, making subtle digs at their own wives or partners, and of course, golf. The blinding shade of green hills contrasts harshly against a pale blue sky and depicts an almost cartoon scenery, and you can feel the headache in your temples worsening with every loud chuckle that escapes Jung’s lips.

He hasn’t asked once about your yoga retreat- which may be a blessing of sorts when you recall the events that unfolded. But you know it’s got nothing to do with that, and everything to do with the fact that he doesn’t give a shit.

He probably doesn’t even remember you were gone, nor does he care to fill you in on the details that unfolded while you were away. And it wouldn’t matter, because you know it would be exactly some version of this- his obnoxious friends, golf, sports on tv and bragging about his proximity to a married life with you. Strangely enough, you’re normally able to stomach these conversations when you’re forced to go out with Jung. But somehow today, every word he utters aggravates you, and you’re desperate to find some excuse to make it home again.

Except you also know very well that it’s something else eating away at your mind this afternoon.

“Y/n?” Kwang questions, and you snap your head to look at him, realizing you’ve tuned out most of his talking points up until now.

“Yes?”

“It’s your turn,” he says, gesturing to your golf club. Jung watches you and chuckles, almost embarrassed with you, as he mirrors Kwang’s gesture.

“Go on,” Jung says condescendingly. “Remember how I taught you last time.”

And with the golf club in your timid grasp, you approach the tee, positioning your club out in front of you and doing your best to mimic the way Jung taught you. Or rather the way he yelled at you to memorize, always taking his sports endeavors far too seriously.

The club head rests gently against the golf ball, pulling back momentarily as your hands shift and tighten around the grip again. And Kwang exhales another puff of smoke, a light chuckle escaping his lips as his eyes bore into your standing figure.

“Her form’s gotten a little better,” he remarks to Jung.

“Yeah, because of me,” Jung says back.

“And good thing, too,” Kwang voices. “If she’d gotten better without your help it’d mean someone else was helping her.”

He laughs as he finishes speaking, transitioning to a coughing fit as you turn to meet Jung’s gaze. But Jung doesn’t look back at you, he simply pats Kwang’s back and exchanges laughter of his own.

“That’s true!” Jung echoes through a fit of laughter, like it’s the best joke he’s heard all century.

“Could you imagine if she pulled up here better than you?” Kwang says, flicking stray ashes off his cigar. “Some other man doing your part for you?”

Jung chuckles again, pulling a box of cigars from the pocket inside of his blazer and thumbing at a fresh one. You watch as he flips open a small bronze Zippo lighter, a small metal clink emitting from behind his cupped hand, as he brings the cigar head to the little yellow flame and holds it there momentarily.

“Fuckin’ A,” Jung remarks with the cigar hanging between his lips.

When it’s lit successfully, he pockets the lighter again, taking a generous puff and blowing smoke just past the direction of Kwang’s still-laughing figure.

“They say that’s how you know your wife’s disloyal,” he remarks. “Her sports form never worsens.”

You stand awkwardly, your fingers grazing the rubber of the golf club grip as you say nothing. Their laughter continues to swirl the atmosphere around you, the sound of the birds and the buzzing cicadas drowning out amidst their cackles. The sun beams entirely too bright down over you, the artificial grass seeming to turn an even more obnoxious shade of green as you wait for them to finish.

“Better hope this one’s not disloyal,” Kwang says amidst his jokes, nudging your upper thigh with the tip of his own golf club. “That’s a lot of planning down the drain.”

And somehow the words trigger the familiar arrhythmic beat in your chest, flashbacks of Minho crossing your mind instantaneously. It’s like they know, the way their jokes seem to run on forever, their wicked cackling taunting you with every passing second. They speak of your form and your position, and you can’t help but picture the way Minho had you sprawled over the bed for you, his toned body looming over yours as he fucked you like he was consummating a marriage.

Beads of sweat trickle down your forehead as the sun glares over you, and the feeling is reminiscent of your sweaty bodies tangled together in the confined space of the tent. Was it you who came first? Was it Minho? The details are a little blurry right now as you try to steady your breathing, every single fear coming to life as you use your golf club to keep upright.

Disloyal. Another man. Cheater.

Their words replay in your mind and produce offspring of new ones, alluding to implications of broken trust and shattered plans. Hypothetical talks of one whole year of planning down the drain, another man with his hands all over you fulfilling Jung’s role in his absence and improving your form.

They know. They know you cheated, this is Jung’s way of humiliating you in front of his closest friend before he publicly calls off the marriage. He’s going to confront you about it any second now. He’s going to drag Minho’s name through the mud, and possibly also his corpse when he’s done with him-

“Y/n?” A voice interrupts, and your head snaps in the direction of their still gazes. The atmosphere is quiet now, birds chirping overhead once more, cicadas buzzing rhythmically in the distance again.

“Huh?”

“You want to forfeit your turn?” Jung asks with a chuckle. “We’ve been waiting for you to start for ten minutes now.”

Your gaze falls down to your hands, gripped tightly around the rubber of the club still, the ball remaining immobile on the little red tee.

“Uh, sure,” you reply, handing the golf club to Jung as he shakes his head.

You watch with an embarrassed expression as Jung grasps the club skillfully, pulling back and twisting his heel as he produces a robust hit, the ball lifting off its tee and soaring into the distance over the green hill.

“She can’t be disloyal,” Jung says with a chuckle, as he prods you with his golf club for the nth time today. “She can’t even complete one round successfully. Any other man would’ve taught her that’s not how you golf.”

*

At the one week mark since you’ve seen Minho, he’s aware something is wrong. You haven’t picked up his calls, haven’t responded to a single one of his texts, and you feign tiredness or some made up illness when he offers to stop by at hours he knows Jung isn’t home. But you don’t entertain any of it, fearing still that Jung knows, and that this is going to be the end of your marriage.

A fleeting physical endeavor caused by your fiancé’s stubbornness, and yet it’s effectively going to be the end of what was supposed to be your entire future. Seeing Minho will only reignite every fear present inside of you, causing it to coax the truth out of you and confront your fears in the presence of Jung.

The fear of what a lifetime of marriage implies. Are you meant to feel like teenagers in love for the entirety of it? Do the fights last a lifetime? Are you supposed to find a middle ground, or will there always be a need for somebody like Minho to provide some clarity and help you rekindle things to the best of your abilities?

What if in a week, you hate the cake flavor you’ve picked? What if you find yourselves so comfortable it doesn’t feel like love anymore? What if you spend a lifetime picturing it’s Minho fucking you instead of Jung, just to get off at night?

What happens to the marriage then? Does the love fizzle out until it’s a comfortable state of tolerance, one in which you’re sacrificing happiness for stability? Or does it simply exist somewhere else- or with somebody else? What’s implied by a lifetime of this?

Minho’s always been a worrier at heart, though, and he won’t let up until he’s certain your relationship to him isn’t at risk of dissipating, too. So at 11pm on a Friday, when he knows Jung is out with the same group of friends, he makes his move to confront you.

The living room is completely quiet at this hour, a soft ticking noise from the clock overhead as you flip past a page in your book. A romance novel, one littered with smut and cheesy dialogue, true to the lonely housewife you’re already conditioning yourself to be. And as your gaze falls over the first sentence of a new chapter, a knocking at the front door interrupts you.

It’s not Jung- it can’t be at this hour, his return home always signaled by his loud stumbling through the doorway, the jingling of his keys and drunken steps over the shoes he so conveniently forgets to put on the shoe rack.

You wrap your arms around the knit holes of your sweater, approaching the door hesitantly. It’s likely one of Jung’s friends, late to the party, or even one of your own girlfriends, here for a late night gossip session. But when you unlatch the door and pull it open, your heart drops at the sight of Minho, his hands shoved in his pockets and his figure standing slouched as his head looks up to meet your gaze.

“Hi,” says Minho, giving you a thin-lipped smile.

You give him a small nod, unsure of what to reply.

He looks handsome tonight, in a dark denim jacket and a pair of jeans. His golden-brown tresses fall loosely around his chiseled face, and his eyes look a little tired, like he hasn’t gotten much sleep.

“Minho,” you say plainly, fidgeting with a loose hem on the inside of your sleeve. “What are you doing here?”

Minho shrugs, peering into the doorway behind you, and then his eyes lock on yours again.

“I never taught you how to gut a fish,” Minho replies.

“I was just- what?”

“A fish,” Minho repeats. “I never taught you how to gut one.”

“Yeah, because we didn’t catch any,” you reply, a short chuckle escaping your lips.

“I know,” Minho says. “I was wondering if you wanted to come over and gut one.”

“Now?” You reply, glancing at the darkened street behind him. “It’s late.”

“Yeah, and Jung isn’t home until early morning. There’s a salmon defrosting on my counter as we speak, assuming the cats haven’t gotten to it. And I was wondering if you wanted to gut it.”

And he’s doing that thing again, where he takes the problem at hand and makes it so much more miniscule than it actually is. This state between disloyalty and tension you feel toward Jung, and the conflicting feelings you have toward Minho and the trip’s subsequent events. But he doesn’t address any of that- instead, he takes issue with you never having gotten to gut a fish. And that’s a relief, when you think about the other option of verbally confronting the emotions you keep at bay.

“Is it messy?” You ask with a little smile.

“It’s messy,” Minho replies.

“What if I’m bad at it?”

“Then you’re bad at it. But I’ll help you. Mess and all.”

You turn around to peer back into the hallway, at the book lying open and flat on the couch, the second hand on the clock moving painfully slow and the dim lamp illuminating the room around you. There’s not much of anything to stick around for, not when Jung’s still going to be out for hours on end. And not when a part of you is dying to confront the situation with Minho in the privacy of his place.

“You can’t laugh if I’m bad,” you say to Minho as you turn back to face him, slipping on your shoes in the process

“I won’t laugh,” he retorts. “No promises, of course.”

*

Two hours later, the kitchen is littered with napkins, plates, gloves, filet knives and scales. Minho walks you through how to remove the roe and the milt, discarding them for you as you prep your filet knife. He verbally instructs you how to descale the fish, and when you make minimal progress, he guides your hand up and down the length of the salmon with his, giving a little nod as the scales fall off with ease and uncover the smooth finish beneath.

He’s understanding when your reluctant hands fail to cut through to the back bone, chuckling lightly as he helps you cut that, too. And when you successfully pluck the remainder of the pin bones with tweezers, he nods proudly, giving you a thumbs up as you dispose of the fish parts and slide the plate of pink slabs to him across the counter.

“You did really well,” Minho says comfortingly. “You’re very attentive to detail. I don’t think there’s a single pin bone still on there.”

“It’s a little gross,” you say, shaking off your hands and chuckling lightly.

“But the end result will be worth it,” he replies. “Somebody plucked the pin bones off every filet you’ve eaten.”

You hit his arm lightly, as he laughs, coating the slabs in seasoning as you pull your gloves off.

“Minho,” you voice nervously, as he keeps his attention on the plate of fish in front of him.

“Hm?”

“Should we… talk about what happened?”

He sprinkles dried parsley atop the filet, not looking at you as you hold your breath for an answer.

“We can talk about it,” Minho replies simply. “Or we can choose not to. It was just a favor I ran you.”

You nod in response, watching as he swaps out parsley for onion powder and sprinkles lightly.

“Can we talk about it?” You say finally, twiddling your thumbs together.

Minho sets down the glass jar, turning to face you and pulling off his gloves, too.

“Sure,” he says, leaning back against the counter and giving you his undivided attention. Your heartbeat quickens momentarily at the sight of him focusing solely on you, and you struggle to find the words to say. But Minho is faster, taking reins of the conversation and breaking the deafening silence between you two.

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Minho finally says, a kind of sadness evident in his tone.

“I was scared,” you reply. “I felt like Jung knew. It could ruin all of our wedding plans.”

“There’s no way he can find out,” Minho says. “I haven’t said a word to anyone. Unless you felt inclined to say something-”

“God, no,” you reply quickly. “I wouldn’t dare say anything.”

“Good,” Minho then says. “Then it was just a mistake in the heat of the moment. There’s nothing to worry about.”

And somehow the words sting a little, this conclusion that the affair was a mistake. Was it a mistake? You’re not sure- though you are sure of the complete sense of ease it instilled in you, and the fact that it hasn’t left your mind in a whole week.

“Are we okay?” You ask him, a nervous expression painting your face as you wait for an answer.

And Minho nods confidently, pulling on a fresh set of gloves as he reaches for the salt and pepper shakers.

“We’re fine,” Minho reassures. “If you think anything is getting in the way of a decade of you being stuck with me, then you’re mistaken.”

You laugh lightly, pulling on another pair of gloves too and joining Minho in front of the plate of fish.

“You want to pan fry this?” Minho asks, changing the subject. “I’ll walk you through it.”

Your eyes scan the well-seasoned strips of salmon, and then Minho’s comforting figure beside you, as he slides you a pair of tongs.

“Yeah,” you say to him. “Let’s finish this thing.”

Minho’s right- the end result is worth it. The fish is tender, well-seasoned, paired beautifully with his favorite bottle of white wine over an old comedy movie.

And everything feels like it’s back to normal once more as you sit beside him, your plates completely void of food as you finish your glasses of wine and sit back comfortably.

As the end credits roll, Minho lowers the volume, but he doesn’t shut off the television yet, taking another sip from his glass as your gazes fix on the names disappearing on screen.

Your eyes scan Minho’s mostly-vacant walls, at the things and the stuff he’s moved around. And he has, a couple new photographs displayed neatly on the wall in gold frames.

Most of them are black and white photographs you recognize to be cityscapes. And among the collage, placed right in the middle, the only photo with an ounce of color catches your eye.

“Shirakawa,” you say to Minho, cocking your head at the photograph.

It’s a wide shot of the town, bright green grass contrasting the traditional brown farmhouses that span the entirety of the landscape.

“Mhm,” Minho affirms, giving a little nod as he looks over the photograph, too.

You remain like that for a moment, reveling in the view, and then you finally break the comfortable silence once more.

“Could you tell me about it?” You ask him sweetly. “Just anything.”

Minho thinks back to the facts of Shirakawa he stores in the corner of his mind for a moment, sorting through facts and tales he’s held onto since college. Little stories he’s always wished to pass along again one day.

“Those are called Gasshō-Zukuri houses,” Minho says. “Which directly translates to hands in prayer.”

You cock your head in the other direction, nodding at his words, and seeing exactly what he speaks of. The houses do resemble two hands in prayer, the triangular thatched roofs almost reminiscent of a church’s.

“The roofs were designed to prevent heavy snowfall,” he continues. “Which the town is notorious for receiving. But apparently it’s like a little winter land when you’re there.”

His voice trails off a little at the last syllable, getting quiet again as he folds his hands in his lap.

“Which is pretty cool,” Minho finishes, pulling back from divulging too much information about the town he could go on about forever.

And he doesn’t know you’d gladly listen to him talk about it forever, being continuously fascinated with his appreciation for the centuries-old town across the world from you two. You nod in response to his words, imagining the winters those tucked away in that little town must experience- blankets of snow and freezing temperatures, and yet so warm inside those historical homes loved by people all around the world.

“We’ll go one day,” you say to Minho finally, turning to meet his gaze.

He turns to look at you, too, a somber expression on his face as he listens to you speak.

“We’ll go to Shirakawa one day. I promise it.”

Minho swallows nervously, well aware of how close you are to him on the couch now. Your face at such a close distance to him, your limbs resting right beside each other as his eyes flicker over your parted lips.

Minho engages in the nervous habits he always does, blinking nervously a few times and toying with the lobe of his ear. But he doesn’t act on anything, not wanting to push the boundaries you’ve practically just set in place. The same boundaries that concluded it was a mistake in the heat of the moment. So then why do you feel so inclined to kiss him all over again, let your body tangle with his and ease your stress as he assists in confronting all your fears preceding the wedding? Why does the idea of a lifelong commitment feel so much less intimidating when you’re in the presence of Minho? And what are you doing having these thoughts about your best friend when you’re getting married to somebody else in a month?

Thoughts that fail to induce an answer from you- instead interrupted and subsequently silenced by your lips on Minho’s again, kissing him with such desperation the way you did before.

And though desperate, it's still tender, his eyes shutting instinctively as his hands cup your cheeks and pull you closer. And you’ve nowhere to go but his lap, straddling his waist with your legs as you refuse to break away from the kiss, your kisses turning hungrier by the second as his hands find your waist.

This implication to fuck you is far greater this time, a pressing urge between the two of you to mirror the night’s actions and confirm it really did happen. That he did fuck you that night in your tent, and that you both came with each other and for each other, your bodies releasing the pent-up frustration you’re now certain has existed for years.

“Is this okay?” Minho begins to ask, his hands grazing your sides, and your kisses trail down his neck to provide a clear answer to his concern.

“Please,” you plead, nibbling a light bruise into his flesh. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you.”

“I don’t want you to feel guilty-”

“I don’t,” you say, moving to meet his lips again. “It feels so right with you. Please, could we do it again?”

Minho’s breath hitches in his throat as you palm him over the fabric of his jeans, his erection already visible for you.

“I want to,” Minho gasps. “But you’re getting married. I don’t want you to make another mistake-”

“It was never a mistake,” you say breathlessly. “Not the first time, not now. It feels so different with you. Do you feel it too?”

You pull away momentarily, hands cupped around the back of his neck as you wait for his answer. And Minho shoots a nervous smile in response; sheepishly toying with his hair as he struggles to voice his feelings.

“I… do,” Minho begins. “But I want you to-”

“Don’t worry about me,” you say, leaning in to resume pressing kisses along his neck. “Just fuck me like he doesn’t exist,” you finish, your lips working against his once more and guiding his hands down to your waist.

Although you were the one worried of getting found out, you can’t keep your distance from him, wanting nothing more than to feel him inside of you all over again. Coaxing your own arousal out of you, encouraging you to forget all about him the way you’ve been trying to do in the absence of Minho. But with him here in front of you, you know the only way to shut Jung out of your mind is to fill it with thoughts of Minho, and Minho and more Minho.

“I… can do that��” Minho says with another nervous chuckle, as you unzip his jeans and palm him through his boxers.

“Call me something other than my name,” you say to him, pressing a series of chaste kisses to his lips. “Say it like I’m yours.”

And Minho reaches up to tuck a strand of hair behind your ear, pulling away again to look into your eyes.

“Baby?” He questions nervously, eliciting a smile from you.

“Yeah. Like that.”

“Yeah, baby?” He says again, reciprocating confidently now as you stroke him over his boxers. “You want me to make you forget about him?”

“Please,” you beg again. “You’re so much better than him.”

And amidst the ego boost, Minho can feel his cock swell, painfully hard in your firm grasp now as you stroke him.

“Wait,” Minho says, wincing slightly as you slow your movements. “I don’t want to cum yet.”

“Then hurry up and fuck me,” you smirk down at him, looping your fingers in the waistband of his jeans and tugging slightly. And Minho sits up straighter, smirking back, as he moves to press you down against the couch and hover over you.

“You want me to fuck you?” Minho asks, using one hand to tug his jeans down to his thighs. “God, you haven’t stopped thinking about it, haven’t you?”

“Not once,” you admit, wrapping two arms around his neck and pulling him down toward you. “I would’ve asked you to fuck me years ago if I knew what I was missing out on.”

The two of you share giggles as his jeans are discarded on the floor, followed by his t-shirt, and then your pants and your t-shirt, leaving him in just his boxers, and you in your bra and panties.

Minho lowers himself against your clothed core, rubbing ever so gently against you to provide some relief to his aching shaft as he works his kisses against your drooly lips. And he smiles in between every slight movement, completely satisfied at the fact that it’s him rubbing against you like this and taking care of you instead of Jung. For the second time this month.

The idea that Jung is completely clueless to this game you play behind his back, that he still comes home thinking you belong to anyone except Minho. Both in mind and body, your entire being is intertwined with Minho in every way possible.

And you both know it, judging by the way you grab at each other like a pair of horny teenagers on a first date, trying everything in your ability to hold onto the feeling. Also by the way he’s so patient and forgiving with his movements, stil careful not to move too fast in case you decide you want to stop. And an unspoken promise between the two of you, that no matter what happens, the friendship will remain, that it simply can’t slip through your fingers after a decade of promises to each other.

“Let’s go to Shirakawa,” you say to Minho in a whisper, finally tugging his boxers down and freeing his erection against abdomen.

“You want to?” Minho asks, tugging your panties down, too.

“Yes, I want to,” you reply. “We’ve talked about it for so long. Tell me what we’ll do there.”

“Well we’ll definitely go fishing,” Minho begins, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips as he discards your panties on the floor beside you. “And I’ll help gut all the salmon with you.”

“Mhm,” you voice in a dreamy tone, massaging his hair with the tips of your fingers.

“And then we can see all the animals there,” he continues, positioning himself over you and lifting your leg a little to get a better angle. His hand massages gentle circles in your inner thigh, careful not to enter without ensuring you’re comfortable first.

“And when it snows,” Minho says. “We’ll be trapped inside. But we can occupy the little attic space, where the walls slant inwards. And I promise to make love to you until it stops snowing.”

“When does it stop snowing?” You ask, as Minho pumps his cock gently over you and positions himself in front of your entrance. He chuckles lightly as he leans in to kiss you, your entrance quickly swallowing his tip and caressing his girth with your arousal as he leans in to push himself even further.

“It doesn’t,” Minho replies finally, thrusting himself into you and letting his hands find the small of your back to steady himself. You let out a fervent moan at the sensation, quickly drunk on the feeling all over again. The mesmerizing sensation of his body hovering over you, of his cock inside of you, exactly the way you remembered it from the other night.

And it’s not right, but it feels so right to have him those close to you again, your best friend closing the gap of uncertainty between you and shutting you up with the confirmation that your souls have always belonged to each other this way.

“Fuck, Minho,” you breathe out, beads of sweat dripping down your temples as he buries himself to the hilt inside of you and holds it there, pulsating harshly against your cervix.

“Will you go faster?” You ask him, running your fingertips down his back in encouragement.

“Are you sure?” he says between labored breaths, still careful not to hurt you.

“Please,” you practically beg. “I’m so eager for you, please just do something about it, baby.”

Minho’s eyebrows raise a little at the utterance of a pet name. He’s never heard it from you- not in all your years of friendship. He’s hardly secured a nickname from you in all that time. And yet here you are now, taking him so fully obediently, throwing words like baby at him and begging him to fuck you so that you won’t have to think about Jung.

“Baby?” Minho says curiously, capturing your lips in a kiss.

“Baby,” you reply, rutting your hips up against his as he begins to move a little faster. “Baby, and honey, and fiancé.”

Minho chuckles a little at the last word, cocking his head as he digests your response.

“Fiancé?”

“Yeah,” you say back between little moans that escape your lips. “If we were in Shirakawa I think we’d be engaged. And you could fuck me whenever you wanted to.”

Minho feels his cock twitch at your words, his mind running rampant with the fantasy of being engaged to you. The implication of a lifetime of this, fucking you sweetly in the comfort of a shared home and coaxing all your stress out of you. And furthermore, a lifetime of you- of being dragged to all your favorite bars, takeout meals and cheap comedy movies, camping when the leaves turn orange and gutting salmon alongside you.

A lifetime of security, stability. One of sheer, unwavering happiness.

“What a dream that would be,” Minho voices, moving a little faster at your words now.

“You think?”

“I know,” he affirms, his hands finding the mounds of your breasts and cupping them gently to unclasp your bra.

“What a fucking dream it would be to have you like this every night.”

Your bra is promptly discarded alongside you on the couch, the cool air grazing your erect nipples as he brings his mouth down to latch around one in gentle sucking motions. You can feel yourself clench around his cock, taking in the sight of his drooly lips wrapped around your chest and working you in eager motions. It’s still the same Minho you recognize from years ago- still the dorky, yet handsome figure of permanence always present somewhere in your life. And it feels even less unnatural than the last time you slept with him, simply instilling another wave of eased stress and tranquility deep inside of you. It’s like this is supposed to be the relationship between the two of you now- you live your life catering to the stubborn, unmoving personality of Jung’s. Minho tends to his monotonous life away from you. And when you reunite once more, relishing in tales of your separate lives from each other and laughing over glasses of chenin blanc, he concludes the night with a slow, intimate session of love-making, one to seal the promise between your souls that regardless of where the future takes you, this is still permanent.

Neither the college girls Minho’s fucked so well, nor the shitty men you promise yourself to could come between that. And it’s a comfortable truth you both come to terms with as he gives himself to you so lovingly and wholly.

“Are you close?” Minho asks, moving to your lips once more and indulging you in a slow, sensual kiss.

“Yeah,” you breathe out, wrapping your arms around his neck a little stabler and bringing your gaze down to his cock, where he disappears inside of you with complete ease.

“Where do- fuck- where do you want me to finish?” Minho asks, squeezing his eyes shut momentarily. “I don’t want to pose any risks to you right now.”

And he’s right, both of you knowing very well that just because you’ve addressed your mutual attraction to each other, doesn’t mean you can run around with Minho’s arousal catching in your walls like you just aren’t engaged.

You still have a wedding to tend to, another person to return home to and a promise in the eventual holy sanctity of marriage that Jung is your only lover. But right now that no official certificate holds you to that, you can’t find it inside you to care, wanting nothing more than to be filled by Minho, and Minho and more Minho, and yet knowing it’s simply not a possibility.

“Wherever you want,” you finally breathe out, placing the option in the hands of Minho. Your breasts, your mouth. Inside of you. You don’t care- all you care is that he’s here, and he’s upholding his end of sealing the permanence between you two.

Minho gives a few particularly harsh thrusts, and then he brings a hand to the base of his cock, pulling out carefully and wincing as he staves off his orgasm. Your hands remain wrapped around the back of his neck, your gaze fixed on his as he works himself in quick strokes and leans in to kiss you.

“Can we go to Shirakawa?” You ask him again tenderly, as he continues to pump himself over your lying figure.

“Of course we can,” Minho responds with a sweet smile, his breaths labored as he nears his finish. “We can go wherever you want.”

“As long as you’re there,” you say to him, smiling up at him as he leans forward to kiss you again.

“As long as it’s the two of us,” Minho clarifies. “We can go anywhere.”

His eyes shut once more, his long eyelashes grazing his eyelids as his lips part open, and then he lets out a whimpered moan as he finally reaches his finish, coating your stomach in the milky white release of his orgasm. He kisses you when he finishes, smiling against your lips as he brings a hand down between you and rubs your clit in gentle, circular motions.

Your moans turn whimpered, too, as you reach your finish, clenching around what you wish was his cock and letting go for him.

And the credits on the television reach their end, transitioning to the hushed echo of a commercial playing. But neither of you are in any rush to leave or clean up just yet, allowing your listless bodies to intertwine lazily on the sofa as your giggles fill the quiet space between you and reverberate off the walls with such mutual fondness.

*

Mondays are heavy with work. Tuesdays, Jung works late. Wednesdays and Thursdays are dedicated time for his friends from college, and every day after that is a toss-up, but they’re often days you spend with Jung, watching movies in your apartment, going on little dates or in uncomfortable silence alongside him as he spills details of his work and his friends.

And he believes this to be your schedule, because he’s clueless otherwise.

Mondays are really for late-night phone calls with Minho, where you run off to the patio for a few minutes of privacy while Jung catches up on sports broadcasts. Tuesdays, Minho cooks you intricate meals at his apartment, alongside old comedy movies and concluded always by his gentle love-making to you. Wednesdays and Thursdays feel like college again, Minho finally agreeing to accompany you to all your favorite bars again and paying for your drinks as he watches you dance for him, his hands all over you as the two of you exchange needy kisses for everybody to watch.

And though the lights by the bar are far too dim for anybody to recognize you’re out with somebody beside your fiancé, a part of you doesn’t care.

Bastard. Facilitator of cheating. Homewrecker.

Sometimes you and Minho joke about the names they’d call him if they found out. Every derogatory term under the sun, like they haven’t already thought it of him for being quieter than Jung’s douchebag friends. And yet they also fail to see he’s more kind, more attentive and more loving than any of them could ever bring to the table in the presence of their own wives.

You also know they won’t find out- not when you’re virtually invisible to Jung and his friends when he’s not showing you off like some trophy to be won. When corporate holiday parties arise, or the need for an even number of golf participants makes itself known, Jung’s there without hesitation, grasping your hand between his clammy fingers and recounting days of when you’d met.

And yet none of his stories involve the present you. They fail to include your successes at work, or the books you’ve taken a liking to recently, or even the valiant efforts you’ve put into decorating your shared space with him, despite his complete lack of assistance. His stories of you exclude the liking you’ve taken to “yoga retreats” recently. And they definitely don’t know you can gut a fish like your life depends on it.

“This wine is better than the last one,” you say to Minho, as he pours himself a glass and slips a crystal stopper into the spout.

“It cost me less than the loaf of bread,” Minho replies with a breathy chuckle. “I don’t think we’ll ever stop favoring cheap convenience store wine.”

You swirl the cherry red color around in your glass, admiring the way the liquid forms a little whirlpool and settles once again, the strong scent wafting upward in the process.

“Notes of cherry, wood, french vanilla and… pocket money,” you say to Minho wafting the scent up even further with a wave of your hand.

He laughs at your words, taking a sip from his own glass and smacking his lips together once.

“Undertones of fruit and nuttiness. And maybe penny pinching, like in our college days,” Minho replies, the two of you chuckling as you set your glasses down.

You look out at the view from his balcony window, the darkened sky providing little to see at this hour, but still outlining the silhouettes of the trees and the bushels that line his apartment terrace.

“The time passed us by so fast,” Minho says in a somber tone, not turning to face you. You keep your gaze on the trees outside, thinking over your shared actions over the past few weeks. It’s been nothing short of thrilling going behind Jung’s back the way you do, but you’re also aware that with every meetup, you’re a day closer to tying the knot with Jung, preparing for a lifetime of permanence alongside the same person you’ve never felt so unsure about before now.

You turn to face him finally, a sad smile on your face as he waits for your answer.

“I wish we did something about this earlier,” you respond finally, taking note of the glow in his eyes as you speak. He looks marvelous at this proximity to you, so attainable and so enchanting all at the same time.

“Did something about what?”

“This,” you emphasize. “Us.”

Minho blinks nervously a few times, and then he cocks his head slightly as he waits for you to continue, too scared to affirm your words with thoughts of his own first.

“All this time I was trying to validate the fears inside of me surrounding this wedding,” you explain to him. “And then there was you, the same person who makes them nearly nonexistent. I wish we did something about it earlier so that maybe the fear was just lessened to begin with.”

Minho nods nervously, as he understands very well now that you’re on completely separate pages.

Minho, who wishes he could shake some sense into you and confess that this isn’t just some physical endeavor soul-searching the way it is for you- that he’s so madly in love with you, and that he chases the reminder of your permanence because the ivy that constricts his veins will surely kill him in your absence.

And thus, he takes what he can get- you, at your most vulnerable moments, unloved and uncherished by Jung, just seeking a kindly ear and maybe a warm body to remind you that there is some semblance of comfort to be felt in the interim.

And yet you, who only partakes in this fleeting act of physical yearning because you’re scared of commitment to Jung, who maybe doesn’t fulfill you every way you wish he would all the time. So you go behind his back, and you chase the fulfillment yourself, and you act upon the fears and the anxieties that have always circled your mind in the presence of Minho.

Maybe he likes you, maybe he’s jealous, maybe he wants to fuck you.

Statements you’ve heard throughout the entirety of your friendship, ones you couldn’t help but ponder, too, as Minho would grow painfully quiet with Jung in the room. But ones you always brushed off, telling yourself that the two just don’t click. And yet the arousal present with the fear makes for some of the most pleasurable moments together in the privacy of Minho’s home, albeit for Minho, on time begged and borrowed from you. The affair with Minho is not indicative of permanence in any form, and yet it exists to confront your very fear of permanence.

Selfish? Surely. Contradictory? In every sense of the word. The concerns raised to you by Minho himself in any way? Never.

So it remains, this tragic cycle of sleeping with your best friend behind your fiancé’s back, blind to the fact that he’s irrevocably in love with you, in a comfortable state of mind knowing that at least you’ll have felt this state of peace for even just a finite amount of time before you give yourself away to the marriage completely.

And yet it’s a beautiful thing in essence, this shared love between the two of you. A trust instilled so deeply on both sides to give yourselves away to each other every night and close a chapter of what once was, regardless of the differences in how it’s perceived.

The incandescent glow Minho’s tender embraces bring forth in you, no matter the fact that he’s simply grieving a very real, living love that still exists between the two of you. Green leaves of ivy that constrict his throat and force words back down them again, so that he may never admit that he’s jealous, and it’s you, it’s always been you. The same suffocating feeling he ponders late at night, asking himself why he’s been so magnificently cursed to only love you under these circumstances, and never in ones that promise him your permanence in return.

But when you're across from him, a glass of cheap wine in hand and your gentle laughter accompanying his, he can’t help but embrace the grand feeling- tarnished, but still grand.

“Maybe it worked out the way it was supposed to,” Minho settles on saying. “Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be more than this little period of time.”

And there’s a pang of pain in his chest as he utters the words, but he’s met with your small nod in response, visibly comforted by the prospect of his implications.

“Hey,” you say after a moment of silence, sitting up straight and swirling your glass of wine around in your hand again. “There’s a dinner thing Jung’s hosting with some people from the guest list. Don’t say you didn’t get the invite.”

Minho exhales with an audible groan, slouching back in his chair and running his hands through his hair.

“I don’t even like his cooking,” Minho admits frustratedly. “He’s just going to make me feel like an idiot the whole night.”

“But I want you there,” you say to him in a pleading tone. “You’re my best friend. I can’t do this stuff without you.”

“I know you can’t,” Minho replies. “And I don’t want you to have to. But it’s going to be awkward, and painful.”

“I won’t let him cross any boundaries,” you reason with him. “I’ll diffuse anything that comes up. I just want you there, even if it means you’re going to sit there and say nothing. Even that would make me happier than seeing your empty chair all night.”

Minho groans again, swirling his own glass of wine around in his hands and averting your gaze. He’s quiet for a long moment, and then he speaks again, in a reluctant voice.

“He would kill me if he found out, you know. We would never see each other again.”

You feel your heart sink at his words, even the thought of it beyond unnerving to you.

“Why do you say that suddenly?”

“Just… thinking,” Minho finishes.

“Well he has no way of knowing,” you console him. “And I promise to keep things civil.”

Minho thinks for a moment, wanting to press you for more answers about what this even is, about why you’re choosing to let him waste his time like this and what possessed him to agree to attend your pre-wedding dinner as the other man.

But he says nothing, letting a generous sip of alcohol serve as the answer to the requests you press him for- yes, of course he’ll be there, albeit with his long list of fears and reservations. But he’ll do anything, twice even, at your behest.

*

The ebony wood dining table looks particularly elegant when it’s set up for guests. You line the seats with ceramic white platters, shiny silverware and iridescent glasses, paying special attention to even minute details, such as the direction of the prongs for each fork you place on white nylon napkins. Mixed peonies and birchwood make up the long centerpiece, and tall white taper candles are lit in the bronze candleabras.

And the mood is largely set by the guests, who laugh loudly around the table with glasses of expensive beverages in their hands. They speak of their jobs, and their spouses and pop culture references you can’t be bothered to pay attention to. Your eyes scan the emptiness in their eyes, most of them living lives you can tell they’ve simply settled for. And you wonder, briefly, if they’ve ever experienced the unwavering happiness you do in the presence of Minho. Do they ever crack open a bottle of convenience store wine? Do they still let loose at clubs every now and then? Could they gut a fish if they caught one?

You respond to their stories with little nods and fake chuckles, and your head snaps in every direction past your guests to the front door.

Minho’s fashionably late tonight, or at least you hope he is, still holding on to the promise that he’s going to be here. And Minho’s many things- but he’s not dishonest. He’ll show if he says he will, albeit for a few minutes each time when it involves Jung. But he’ll still show, dropping by with a timid smile and greeting the audience before sending you off with a lousy excuse again and leaving his spot vacant for the remainder of the evening. But tonight is different- tonight he’s here as the other man. And you can’t decipher whether that indicates a change in his subsequent actions, that perhaps he won’t show after all, and you’ll be left to your own devices with Jung and his obnoxious friends.

“… And one of our clients is an intern this quarter,” Jung says loudly, as he rants about his work in typical fashion. “Which means I’m going to be carrying most of our partnership.”

The guests laugh and raise their glasses, and you can’t help but wonder how on earth the comment warrants even an ounce of laughter. As Kwang’s wife begins to voice a response, the doorbell rings once, and your head snaps in the direction of the echoing bell.

“I’ll get it,” you say quickly, rising from your seat and smoothing down your skirt. “Excuse me.”

The guests glance briefly in your direction, and then turn their attention back to Jung, who begins to voice another chronicle of his inadequate colleagues. As you march down the hallway, your heart quickens in your chest, admittedly a little nervous to confront Minho after the recent events. You wonder if he’s going to be more awkward, or maybe even shut down entirely around the group. Maybe he’s just here to drop off another cake and send you off with a wave. Endless possibilities you’ve never had to consider when you weren’t actively sleeping with him. You unlatch the front door, taking a deep breath, and then pull it open, your gaze falling instantly onto the standing figure.

And it’s a wave of comfort when he smiles at you, his eyes forming little crescents as he grins and exposes his endearing set of skewed teeth, a breathy chuckle escaping his lips as he does. He’s much more dressed up tonight, in a black collared button down and a black tie, his light brown tresses framing his chiseled jawline so well. And seeing him is more exciting than any other guest you’ve seen tonight, a present urge to pepper him in kisses and remain right here alone, with him.

“Hey,” Minho says in a shy voice.

“Hi,” you respond, trying to stifle the giddy expression on your face from the guests around you who might be looking. “I saved you a seat,” you continue. “Come on.”

Minho enters reluctantly, glancing around the room and giving a small nod to the guests as you direct him to the vacant seat beside you. And somehow, he looks a little more confident, his posture much straighter and a knowing smile on his face as he occupies the seat beside you.

“Hi,” he says to the guests as they meet his gaze, and he even gives a small nod to Jung, who shoots him a subtle scowl.

“Jung,” Minho voices, gesturing to the table. “Pleased to be here.”

Jung just nods at Minho, and then goes back to telling a story of his business accounts.

But your attention is everywhere except for Jung’s story, hardly even able to take your gaze off Minho’s. His eyes sparkle under the hanging pendant lamp, his lips pulling into a little smirk as you watch him with such fascination. There’s something so enticing about the prospect that nobody here knows he’s fucked you, several times since the last time they saw him, and he’ll likely do it tonight when Jung thinks you’re out with a group of girlfriends. They don’t know the world you two have effectively built together, romantic nights of cooking intricate dinners together over glasses of cheap wine. And they don’t know the history you two share, years of walking through your fears and uncertainty alongside one another and bettering yourselves in the process. He’s your other half in so many ways, and you’re not sure it’s something anybody except the two of you could even begin to comprehend.

You watch as Minho picks up a bottle of wine from the table, rotating it in his grasp and examining the contents. It’s one of Jung’s favorites, an expensive bottle of zinfandel he picks up from a special market a few hours out of the city. And it all tastes the same to you anyway, pairing just fine with steak or fish or even fast food at 3am. In fact, it’s subpar in comparison to Minho’s favorites, which taste like safe intimacy, laughing at comedy reruns and love-making under the warmth of his blankets.

“Anyways,” Jung voices loudly, finally garnering your attention from beside him. “We’ve never been more ready for this honeymoon. I need tropical weather and some margaritas.”

“Amen to that,” Kwang chimes in, raising his glass for the nth time tonight.

I hate warm weather, you want to say. I wish it was Shirakawa, under the safety of the prayer hands thatched roofs and blankets of snow.

“If we don’t come back, just know we opted to stay,” Jung then says. “I’ll stay golfing on the beach and you guys can tough out the rest of winter here.”

Cue the obnoxious laughter, fake smiles, raised glasses.

“You’ll have the whole trip to help on her form,” Kwang says loudly, gesturing over to you with the wine bottle in hand.

“We went golfing the other day, and let’s just say there’s ample time for improvement.”

Roaring laughter, unsightly grins and clinking glasses.

And Minho glances over at you, who keeps a smile on your face at the stupid remark.

It’s exactly this that keeps him from acting upon the urge- you look content. You don’t argue, you don’t maintain a blank expression. Instead you smile, and you agree with his friends and your eyes look like they’re still on the same page of devoting entirely yourself to this less-than-desirable relationship you flaunt. Minho knows he’s just a stepping stone in this chapter, and that he’s going to come out of this hurt. But he also knows that despite your fears, you’re content, and he’s not going to insert himself between the love that you deserve, though it may take a while to materialize fully.

You glance over at Minho with a nervous smile, silently hoping he’ll say something. Just ask me to run away with you, you want to say. Tell me to run, and I’ll meet you there. Wherever.

But you know he won’t dare, too set on the idea that this is still what you want. So he’ll remain like this, in the unfamiliar atmosphere of a dining table you share with another man, and he’ll let himself face what becomes of it in due time.

“Are you okay?” Minho asks quietly, leaning in to fill your glass with more expensive wine.

“Peachy,” you say with a smile. And one he returns, shooting you another gentle smile and nodding at your confirmation.

The two of you listen as Jung segues into another story about his business client, and Minho’s leather heel finds your ankle under the table, grazing it softly as you stifle a smile.

There’s no sexual implication rooted in his actions, maybe not not even romantic implication, as his heel moves up and down the back of your bare calf. It’s just a reminder to say this will always be of permanence.

*

Minho’s hands work up and down the sides of your waist as he kisses you, smiling against your lips as you slot yourself between his legs and grasp the back of his neck.

He kisses Jung’s expensive wine back into your mouth, the flavor complementing the mouthwatering look he sports this evening, and you have to remind yourself several times to slow down.

“This looks so good on you,” you say with a smile, fidgeting with his tie and loosening it from around his neck.

“It’s the same one I always wear,” Minho says with a chuckle. “I can’t be bothered to buy a new one.”

“Don’t buy a new one. I want this one. I want it to be this one every time.”

Minho laughs lightly, a form of verbal agreement, and then he pulls you a little closer to him, rubbing little circles in the small of your back as you stay close in his embrace. He’s sprawled out on his couch, strands of hair hanging delicately in his face as he steadies you in his hold over him, his pink lips visibly swollen from having kissed you for the better part of an hour now.

“Tell me something about Shirakawa,” you ask him innocently, unfastening the first few buttons of his collared dress shirt.

”Anything?” Minho responds, bringing an arm up to rest casually behind his head.

“Anything. Something dreamy.”

“Hm,” Minho hums in response. “There are rice fields, and lily ponds and green orchards,” he says finally. “We can walk through all of them without a care in the world, and we can get drunk off little glasses of sake.”

“And the whole town can be ours,” you chime in, leaning forward to press a chaste kiss to his toned chest.

“The whole town,” Minho echoes. “It can be whatever we want it to be.”

“As long as you’re there,” you tell him, trailing your kisses lower and undoing the line of buttons as you near his navel

“Anything you want,” Minho exhales in a dreamy tone. “Say it and it’s yours.”

His eyes shut instinctively as the last of his buttons are undone, exposing his chest to you and promptly covered in eager kisses as you trail down to his hardening cock in his pants.

And his arms rest lazily behind his head, feeling completely taken care of, so needy always for your delicate touch. Your nimble fingers work to graze in slow back and forth motions over his flesh, and then you hoist yourself up a little higher to straddle your hips over his crotch.

“Thank you for showing up tonight,” you say to him in a sweet voice. “It means everything to me.”

“Anything you want,” Minho says for the second time tonight. “Say the word and I’m there.”

“You’re my best friend,” you voice to Minho. “I couldn’t do any of this without you.”

And the utterance of a friend doesn’t even sting for him anymore. It’s fact- you belong to each other, time and time again, as friends, and lovers in the evening, and everything else in between. He doesn’t fight it, because he’s grateful for any role he can play amidst the grand role you play in his.

“Are you hard?” You ask a little quietly, a knowing smile on your face as you rock your hips gently over his.

“A little,” Minho replies, though he’s in no rush to have you take care of it. It’s enough exactly like this, your bodies intertwined together and infatuated with each other in the secrecy of his home.

“You want me to take care of you?” You then ask, one hand trailing up to wrap lightly around his throat.

And as your slender fingers graze the column of his neck, it’s clear to you at this angle. Sticking out like a sore thumb, so glaringly wrong and indecent from this proximity.

Your left ring finger, completely bare, your engagement ring nowhere to be seen.

At first you’re sure you’re hallucinating, pulling your hand back quickly to examine the thin tan where your finger meets your knuckle, one that’s usually covered by the gleaming jewelry. But as you rotate your finger around under the dim lighting, you confirm it’s not in fact some illusion- your engagement ring is gone.

Minho sits up a little, craning his neck a little to examine your worried expression.

“Y/n?” He questions, taking note of the way your eyes remain fixed to your hand. “Is everything okay?”

“It’s not here,” you say simply.

“What? What’s not here?”

“My ring,” you say a little more panicked, climbing off him and glancing around the coffee table.

“Where’s my ring?” You question, moving aside stacks of books and magazines atop the glass table. Minho sits up, glancing around too, searching desperately for the little piece of silver jewelry.

“Let’s stay calm,” Minho says as he stands up. “It has to be around here. When was the last time you saw it?”

“I can’t remember,” you say in a panicked tone, now scrambling to the kitchen and searching the marble counters.

“Okay,” Minho says calmly. “Was it- do you ever take it off to wash it?”

“I never take it off,” you reply. “I never take it off, why the fuck isn’t it on my finger?”

“Let’s stay calm,” Minho repeats. “It has to be in here-”

“Calm?” You finally retort, turning to face him with tears pricking your eyes. “You want me to stay calm? Jung’s going to kill me, do you know how fucking expensive that thing was?”

“Of course,” Minho says, buttoning up his shirt as he continues to search. “Which is why we’re going to find it.”

And you don’t reply for several moments, still frantically scanning the kitchen counters for any sign of your ring. But it’s a moot point, every napkin you unball containing nothing, nothing in the trash cans Minho searches through, even the dishwasher thoroughly searched, to no avail.

And you can’t help but to cry, tears falling nonstop from the corners of your eyes as you rush about the kitchen and think of every worst-case scenario. This is it. Confronting Jung about it means he’s going to know what’s been going on, chew you out about the cost of the ring and your carelessness toward it. And then call off the wedding, and every single one of your friends will know you’re a cheater and a liar.

“It’s not fucking here,” you cry out to Minho, halting your movements to bury your face in the palms of your hands, letting yourself emit muffled sobs into the sleeves of your sweater.

“It has to be,” Minho says, glancing once more around the room, and then approaching you to pull you in for a hug.

“Don’t,” you order, pushing him away from you, and Minho furrows his brows together. “Just don’t fucking touch me right now.”

Minho gives a breathy chuckle, thinking at first you might be joking, and then his expression softens as he realizes you’re being completely serious.

“What- seriously? That’s it?” Minho questions.

“What?” You say with a choked sob. “I can’t find my fucking engagement ring. The one I was given to get married, in case you forgot. Sorry I’m not in the mood.”

Minho scoffs lightly, placing his hands on his hips and shaking his head. And then he meets your gaze once more, a solemn expression on his face.

“What are we doing?”

“What?” You query in response.

“What the fuck are we doing?” Minho repeats. “What the fuck are you doing here if you’re getting married?”

You shrug frustratedly, wiping tears with the back of your hand and saying nothing in response.

“No, answer me,” Minho commands, his voice raising a little. “What are we doing, going behind his back like this? You come here almost every night spewing your bullshit about Shirakawa and suddenly it’s my fault that you can’t find your fucking engagement ring? I mean, who even cares?”

“Who cares?” You retort. “I do. I’m getting married-”

“Exactly,” he interrupts. “So then what the fuck are we doing? Go get married, for fuck’s sake. Will you just leave, for good then?”

“You want me to walk out of your life just because I’m getting married?”

“I want you to leave because I’m in love with you,” Minho says finally, and a deafening silence washes over you two.

For a moment, all that’s heard are your echoing sniffles and Minho’s heavy breathing, as he struggles to find the words to continue.

“You really don’t see it in the way I look at you? You really haven’t realized I’m only okay being the other man because I’ll take any fucking version of you I can get at this point?”

Your gaze fixes on his, taking note of the way tears prick at the corners of his eyes, too.

“I’ve been in love with you for all these years,” Minho says, his voice coming out in a choked sob. “And what a waste, all these talks of Shirakawa when I’ve known all along it was always going to be him in the end.”

His words circle your mind with a sense of urgency, as you struggle to respond.

You have known it, maybe even reciprocating by this point, but knowing that you can’t, not when you’re getting married in mere weeks. You’re happy, and you’re safe here with Minho. But in terms of love, this isn’t permanent. It’s a fleeting thing, one that has to end like this as you approach the next chapter of the rest of your life.

And yet it hurts, like a knife pierced deep into an existing wound, like thick vines of ivy that caress your veins and pull tightly with every thought of it being Minho all this time, all these years.

“I love you,” Minho says almost sheepishly, throwing his hands at his sides in defeat. “I’ve always loved you. I love you in loud bars and over cheap bottles of wine. And I’m jealous- god, I’m jealous,” Minho admits in a choked sob. “And it’s killing me. I can’t do anything about it except watch you plan a life with somebody I’ll spend the rest of my life wishing was me instead.”

Your lips part to say something, but you can’t, simply wiping the tears that fall onto the sleeve of your sweater.

“I love you in the hands of another man and I’ll still love you if you choose him. But I can’t do it at this proximity to you anymore.”

“Minho, please-”

“There’s nothing else,” Minho says, gasping back his tears. “This is it for us.”

You watch as he exhales deeply, wiping his tears and gesturing back to the kitchen.

“Did you check the soap dish?” Minho then says in a quiet voice.

“What?”

“The soap dish,” he clarifies somberly. “For your ring.”

And Minho watches as your gaze falls to the stainless steel soap dish across the room, a bristle pad sponge occupying the rectangular dish, alongside the familiar glint of your silver engagement ring.

One you removed to ensure you didn’t lose it among the plate of pin bones from the cod you helped Minho prepare. And one you hadn’t even realized has been missing from your finger for several hours now.

Your gaze falls back to Minho’s before you retrieve the ring, and his eyes are swollen and mournful. There’s not a glint of hope present between you two- not in friendship, and certainly not in love.

And neither of you say another word as you pivot on your heel to collect the symbol of yours and Jung’s ode to permanence.

*

The polyester-spandex mix of your reception dress is much itchier than you remembered it to be. It’s a simple white piece, long and cascading behind the heels you’ve chosen, a generous v-cut enhancing the curve of your breasts as you adjust the hem in the mirror.

“Is it more comfortable than your wedding dress?” One of the bridesmaids questions with a smile.

You shoot her a somber smile, nodding at her and fidgeting with the long sleeve of your dress.

“Yeah. It is.”

“It should be,” she responds kindly. “Remember, try not to step on the bottom or we’ll have to get it cleaned off before the real thing.”

You nod at her, checking your reflection once more in the full-length mirror across from you. You love the woman you embody- she looks elegant, and sure of herself and well on the path to a lifetime of stability and happiness.

And yet the girl inside of you can’t feel further from the perception.

You want nothing more than to climb out of the tight-fitting dress and leave all of this, damn this rehearsal dinner to hell and call off the wedding. But this is it- the final stretch. Guests at every corner assume their positions and practice where they’ll stand and how they’ll move about so elegantly as you say your vows.

Jung seems so sure of himself, adjusting the cuffs of his suit and shooting you a wink from across the room as you stare blankly. And you can’t reciprocate, still far too preoccupied with the events of last week to care about any of this. Minho sending you off, the ultimatum to choose between your fiancé and the best friend you’re in love with.

Of course you couldn’t choose Minho, whose role in most of this has been to help lessen your fears and prepare you for a lifetime of giving yourself to Jung. And yet somewhere along the way, you couldn’t help but wonder if that was even true, completely smitten with every part of him, too. The fact remains that you’re in love with him, and yet you’ve both been so magnificently cursed to keep it at a comfortable distance and pray that in some version of this story, it’s you guys in the end.

Your family saunters about the venue in their fancy dressed and suits, and your guests chat amongst themselves and sample the foods that have been laid out for them. And your mind circles with images of Minho, and Minho and more Minho. And what he would look like, instead of Jung, waiting at the end of the aisle for you with a toothy grin and tears in his eyes. The cheap wine you’d choose to cater, just a handful of guests the way you know he’d want it. And an innocent, undemanding love shared between the two of you, sealing your promise to each other with a tender kiss and his breathy laugh.

Yet the fantasy is fleeting, it’s rooted in the delusion of a cheater, in every sense of the word, and it would effectively ruin your life had it come to fruition.

“Which way do we go from here?” Jung questions loudly, and your head snaps up in his direction.

“From here you’ll go to the right, just past the foyer there,” a coordinator responds. “Make sure to smile when you’re walking down an aisle at any given point.”

Stupid. The whole thing feels stupid.

“Did you get that?” Jung questions, and you nod meekly.

“Sure.”

“Let’s take five,” a coordinator says, clasping her hands together.

Jung resumes a conversation with the groomsmen beside him, and your eyes fall to the vacant seat across the table, where Minho’s meant to be sitting. A small white folded card rests delicately on a white platter, his name scribbled in loopy cursive to reserve his spot.

Lee Minho.

And you read his name over a dozen times, replaying every last word of your conversation in your head and wondering what he’d do if he were here. Probably criticize the wine, or make faces at Jung’s phony speeches. And love you from afar, but with his entire heart, regardless.

“What do you think so far?” Jung leans in to whisper.

“Yeah,” you reply, nearly evading the question altogether.

Your eyes scan the room at the carefully placed decorations- rows of lantern lights, white tablecloths and organized dishes for the guests, tapered candles are lit at every table. And in the center, bushels of magenta flower arrangements in cylindrical glass vases.

Magenta.

Your eyes do a double take, carefully examining the color as you furrow your brows. Magenta. Neon, obnoxious shades of magenta at every table. Nothing within the realm of the baby pink you requested. Harsh on the eyes and contrasting repulsively against the rest of the decor.

“The flowers are magenta,” you say to Jung quietly.

“Hm?”

“The flowers,” you repeat. “Are magenta.”

“Yeah,” Jung says, audibly a little confused. “They’re nice, right?”

“I said pink,” you respond. “Baby pink. These aren’t pink.”

Jung furrows his brows together, and then he cocks his head at the floral displays set upon each table.

“You’re right,” he then replies. He snaps his fingers at a staff member, and then he gestures to the floral displays.

“These aren’t pink,” he says harshly. “She requested pink and not magenta. Could we get these swapped out, please?”

A coordinator jots something down in a small notepad, and then gives him an understanding nod.

“That’s what we’re paying you guys for, right?” Jung asks sarcastically. “Come on, don’t let us settle for magenta flowers.”

And when he turns back to you, his chuckles get quieter as he observes the displeased expression on your face.

“Why are you making such a big deal out of this?” You ask him quietly.

“What?”

“Why are you ordering them around like that? They’re just flowers.”

“What? But you just said-”

“You never make things feel like less of a big deal,” you say quietly, a little scoff escaping your lips as you speak.

“What are you talking about?”

“You just take something and run with it. You don’t make things feel like less of a problem than they are. You’re supposed to comfort me, or find the good in magenta flowers. Not yell at the service workers.”

Jung laughs nervously, taking your words for a joke at first, and other guests begin to stare across the table as they watch you rise from your seat.

“And why is the wine so fucking expensive?”

“Please, sit down,” Jung says nervously, waving the guests off as they shoot him concerned looks.

“No, I don’t want to.”

And as you search for the words to say, your heart beating erratically, you realize it’s exactly this that you’ve stopped yourself from doing all this time. Fighting back. Using your voice the way Jung so comfortably weaponizes his against you. Letting your emotions spill out from the years they’ve been bottled up inside of you, and finally coming to terms with the fact that this isn’t the life you want at all.

It’s Minho you love, it’s always been Minho and it’s always going to be Minho.

“I don’t want this,” you say to Jung, as you smooth down your dress and stand up.

“Please, sit,” he says through gritted teeth.

“You don’t know the first thing about me,” you say in a shaky voice. “You don’t fulfill me, you haven’t touched me in weeks, I don’t think you even know that I asked for baby pink flowers, because you’re too busy showing off to all the shitty people you call friends. I don’t think we have ever been friends.”

All of the guests keep their gazes on you, taken aback by your words, but you don’t care, continuing your rant while they watch in horror.

“I hate expensive wine,” you say to Jung. “I want to go on a honeymoon somewhere it snows. I want to watch comedy movies, and go camping and be so madly in love it hardly feels like it some days, because we’re also such good friends when we’re not completely infatuated with each other.”

Jung doesn’t say anything, glancing nervously around the table as the coordinators maintain their silence, too. Your chest rises and falls with gasped breaths as you try to hold back from crying in front of them. And then you shrug, before finishing your speech.

“At the end of the day, there’s the man who tells me how to golf,” you say in a shaky voice. “And there’s the man who guts a fish alongside me, mess and all.”

Jung frowns at your words, visible confusion painting his features.

“What?”

“I have to go,” you say to him, sparing him any sort of explanation.

The hem of your dress is balled into the palms of your hands and pulled up to give yourself room to walk, as you kick off your heels and begin to exit the venue. And before you do leave, you pivot around one last time, letting your gaze meet Jung’s visibly irate expression.

“Here,” you announce, pulling the silver band off your ring finger and setting it down on the tablecloth.

“If you’re going to make a big deal out of anything, at least let it be this.”

*

The polyester-spandex mix of your reception dress isn’t made to run in. It’s much too long, the fabric bunches up at the sides and its bright white color begs to be kept indoors only. And yet you run- and you don’t stop, not even for a second, until the reception building is completely out of your sight, disappearing beyond the trees and the tall grasses that surround it.

Your bare feet scrape the squelching mud that surrounds the grassland after the recent rains, and overhead, the piercing blue sky and a harsh sun beams down over you in encouragement. And you normally hate blue skies and green grasses like this, always equating them to Jung’s stupid golf courses and the corporate events he’s dragged you to for years.

But today it serves as a sort of blessing, like the world is brighter, lighting your path and guiding you to the beacon that is Minho, and all his unconditional, unwavering love for you. Maybe it took you years to finally acquaint yourself with your emotions like this, and maybe you hadn’t even realized what true love was until Minho. And there’s the possibility, of course, that you’re also too late, and that Minho has already settled on the tragic fact that Jung would always remain a part of you.

And that’s true- he will maintain a role of permanence in your life. He was your first serious boyfriend throughout college, your first fiancé and your first true love before you understood it in a less superficial form. And yet he will also permanently remain the man whose life you walked out on, because he helped you realize he’s nothing near what actually fulfills you.

Once the paved roads are in view again, you waste no time waving down a taxi and uttering Minho’s address to the driver with such urgency. Your dress is caked in mud up to the ankles, and your hair is in complete disarray as you glance out the window at the rows of cars, all belonging to guests here for your dinner rehearsal. And you chuckle briefly, at the thought of them emptying the lot and walking out of your life forever.

Contrastly, Minho’s apartment is in complete disarray, too, as he hoists the last of his immediate belongings into a leather bound suitcase and latches it shut.

What a waste, he thinks to himself. What a waste to have spent so much time comfortably in love with the idea of a finite soulmate, and at such close proximity, too. You’re probably off at your rehearsal dinner, sampling finger foods and laughing at all of Jung’s surface-level conversation.

And he’ll never know you the way Minho knows you. He will never comprehend your fears, your reservations, all your little quirks and the things that make you tick. He’ll never fully understand the prospect of being so bound to somebody in both friendship and love that it’s almost indistinguishable what you are to each other. Perhaps that’s where you went wrong, too- because Minho knows it, that his role in your life has always been to love you, near, far and at every point in between. And yet you deem it just a fleeting thing, one implying an end.

There is no discernible point between the end of my friendship and my love for you, Minho wishes he could tell you. Just like the promise of my friendship to you, it’s a blossoming thing, this beautiful phenomenon. And we can run with it, or we can let it die like this- but it will always remain of permanence.

The chestnut suitcase is hoisted into the trunk of his car, also littered with boxes and duffel bags of his belongings. It’s a vulnerable feeling, to pack up and move on like this. Not forever- just for the duration of which you’ll be uttering your vows to Jung. He can’t bear to be in the same city as any of it, he refuses to let himself love at the proximity of you dolled up in a wedding dress, in the sacred environment of a church surrounded by your family. How could a higher power accept the felicitations of the same man who’s been fucking you behind the groom’s back? Within the four walls of which transforms hate to love, and sin to virtue?

What a waste, Minho concludes again. What a waste to have loved this deeply, and to pacify your fears only for another man to reap the benefits. Try as Jung might, he’ll never know you the way Minho does. And the vast trench that separates you from Jung, one which paints a clear divide of friendship and his superficial love for you- that will remain permanent, too.

As Minho starts up the engine, the last of his belongings all packed and ready to go, he glances around the neighborhood with a somber expression. The sun glares down on the empty concrete roads, birds circling the sky like there’s any reason to celebrate. Maybe they’re ravens, and maybe they circle in a mourning ritual. The only event fitting for an afternoon like this one, as Minho prepares to leave for his parents’ house- like the coward he knows he is.

His apartment grows smaller with every passing inch he drives down the concrete road, and a trembling hand reaches up to adjust his rear view mirror, letting out a deep exhale as he prepares to leave all this behind.

And as the faint outline of his apartment grows smaller, a white figure behind him grows bigger.

It starts as a fleeting blur, maybe a shadow, or perhaps the glint of the sunlight in his mirror. But as he quickens the push of his foot to the gas pedal, it grows faster, too, catching up to the drag of his car along the concrete and approaching him with such purpose.

An apparition of sorts, he thinks momentarily.

I’m fucking seeing things. I’ve officially lost it.

But as the frantic call of his name floats through the air and into the crack of his car window, his eyes widen, the lag of his brain finally reaching a halt as he slams on his brakes and throws open the door.

And in rushed motions, he’s climbing out to face you, doubled over as you catch your breath and hold a hand up in surrender.

“Stop!” You shout, waving your hands and motioning for him to cease his movements.

And Minho’s eyes don’t get any smaller, maintaining their shocked expression as he waits for you to speak.

Your white dress, tainted brown up to your knees in mud and grass. Even your face is muddy, streaks of it painting the otherwise stunning face of makeup you flaunt. And you speak in pleading gasps as you finally break the silence between the two of you.

“It’s you,” you say to Minho sheepishly.

“What are you-”

“It’s you, it’s always been you,” you breathe out. “I was so stupid, and I left as soon as I could comfortably come to terms with it. It’s you I love, Minho. Not Jung and not the idealized version of that life I created in my head. I can’t do any of this without you, and I can’t live the rest of my life without having said something. I love you- now, and in ten years time and I want to spend the rest of my life gutting fish alongside you- mess and all.”

Minho doesn’t say anything for a moment- in fact, he wears a poker face as he watches you continue to catch your breath. And then he scoffs lightly as he shakes his head.

“You waited until the day of your wedding to say something?” Minho retorts frustratedly.

“Rehearsal dinner,” you correct him. “This is just a dinner dress.

“Regardless,” Minho says. “I mean, what are we doing? There’s another man waiting for you, and we’re here doing something we should’ve done years ago if it was meant to be in the slightest.”

You feel your heart drop at his words, confirming the theory you’d feared the most. Too late.

“Please,” you beg, and Minho shakes his head.

“We’re terrible people,” he then states, his voice trembling in the process. “Cheaters, and liars. And this is far too rooted in dishonesty and selfishness to be love.”

Tears prick the corners of your eyes as you watch Minho scan your expression. And perhaps he’s right- but it can’t be anything except for love, not when it feels this right with him.

“Where are you going?” You ask Minho quietly, moving a strand of muddied hair out from your eyes.

“My parents’ place,” he replies.

And you give him a small nod, pivoting on your heel to walk out of his life, forever.

Except it’s the realization of this that causes you to turn back around-

There is no forever in the absence of Minho- not when he plays a role of permanence.

He will forever be the man you fell in love with, the man you’ve been in love with for years, one you risked your life to come find and one who’s defined the limitations of what it means to be a best friend and simultaneously a lover.

That will remain with you always, and near, far and everywhere in between, the love will exist the way it always has.

“Loving me was the most selfish thing you ever did,” you call out to Minho, and he turns back around to meet your gaze.

“And yet you did it anyway,” you continue. “You made love to me and you drank my fiancé’s wine and we’re in love so selfishly at this proximity to each other. But it doesn’t change the fact that we’re in love, and that I’m not going back to Jung. And leaving here- depriving yourself of the love you’ve wanted for so long, that’s also a selfish move. You can go as far as you want, but it doesn’t change the fact that the love is still here between us.”

Minho’s lips part to say something, but he doesn’t, instead blinking nervously as he waits for you to finish.

“And at the end of the day, there’s the man who tells me how to golf, and there’s the man who teaches me how to gut a fish, mess and all,” you finally finish.

Minho stays silent, pondering your words, and scanning your expression.

And truth be told, he wants to take you in his arms and run, hearing the words he’s longed to hear all his life. But he stops himself, instead emitting a breathy chuckle from his lips and shaking his head.

“Well what do you propose?” He finally asks, cocking his head as he awaits your reply.

And his response is a weight off your shoulders, as you sigh deeply and shrug in his direction.

“I propose we let ourselves be selfish,” you say to him. “And we spend the rest of our lives seeking forgiveness together.”

Minho chuckles, taking careful note of the way your eyes sparkle as you approach him. He’s not sure he’s ever seen you so relaxed before, and certainly not so sure of yourself. You look like the woman he’s loved both near and far, exuding confidence and passion and unwavering comfort in your demeanor. His best friend and his lover, he thinks encouragingly, as he cups his hands around your cheeks and pulls you in for a tender kiss, one that confirms your proposal and implies all of this permanence.

The roads are still empty in the dull afternoon of the hour, Minho maneuvering the car with one hand as you sit beside him in the passenger seat, your hands intertwined over the center console as the harsh blue sky and bright hues of green grass melt into blurs of color beside you. And he speaks only of Shirakawa as he drives, promising you beautiful snowfalls and chilly walks along the lily ponds upon your arrival.

You can picture everything as the tales escape his lips, full of life as you imagine the brown farmhouses and green hills, where you and Minho promise to love selfishly under the prayer hand thatched roofs, the very place your forgiveness will coincide alongside the permanence.

And as he brings the back of your hand to his lips for a chaste kiss, he can feel the green vines of ivy loosen around his soul, but this time you feel it too, viridian leaves finally putting distance between your venules and their harsh grasp. And perhaps it wasn’t grieving all along, but love for you- love which you’re full of, too.

The vines tangle themselves beautifully between your seated figures, blossoming flowers and color and placing life back into you both.

And for the first time in a long, long time, Minho can finally breathe.

#stray kids #skz #skz smut #lee know fic #lee know smut #lee know scenarios #lee know x reader #lee minho x reader #stray kids hard hours #skz scenarios #lee know stray kids #lee know #🌷 anon #request #Spotify

[luveline]

smart, younger reader who’s like spencer and is awkward but so so lovely and then guard dog botch who’s always there and always ALWAYS so sweet to reader after absolutely biting a guys head of about getting condescending or rude !!

if u would be so kind

thank you for requesting! fem

“Exactly! High five, Dr. Reid.” 

Your hands smack as Spencer gives you a heartfelt high five. Spencer is younger than you, but besides that, Hotch might think you were twins separated at birth (very genetically different twins, but twins nonetheless). If he believed in kindred spirits, that's what you'd be. 

And it's good for him. Hotch knows there are moments where he could've been nicer to Spencer, just that being his boss makes that more difficult than it should, and with you around, you've got all the niceness solved. You're lovely. 

“I knew we'd get there,” you say. 

It's great, but there are better places for your and Spencer's diorama than the office kitchenette. 

“Guys, can we move this to a desk?” he asks. 

He should say, Can we not do this in work hours? But he doesn't. That likely says something about him… he'd rather not explore. Something he already knows. 

“It's a bit delicate for moving,” you hum, eyes on the paper attachment you've created. 

“Move it,” he says, imploring rather than stern. He hides a smile behind the lip of his mug and begins to turn away, stopped momentarily by Anderson just past the threshold. 

Anderson begins asking him about something, Hotch listens, and he pretends he isn't still listening to you and Spencer as you decide what to do with your diorama. You speak in sweet tones, encouraging to a fault, “He doesn't really mind,” you're saying, “he's just the boss. I'll hold this side and you hold that side, and– woah!” 

There's a scuffle, an explosion of paper crunching and ceramic, the sound of water spilled. 

Hotch shifts to the side to watch the aftermath. 

“Are you kidding me?” 

“I–” you say, hand clenched around a scrap of torn paper, coffee staining your shoes, “I– I–” Hotch winces as you struggle for words. “I'm so sorry.” 

“You've gotta be joking.” The man you've seemingly whacked into is an older agent. He's been around much longer than you have, probably almost as long as Hotch, and he has that jaded chagrin about him. Time constitutes knowledge, sure, but not attitude. “Why are you two always messing around in here?” 

“Sorry, Agent Giles,” you say, your hands creeping together toward your stomach defensively, “we were just moving this, and I- I'll–” 

“You're gonna make me another cup of coffee?” he asks contemptuously. 

“That's quite enough,” Hotch interrupts. “Agent L/N had no intention of bumping into you.” He stands to your side. “I'd be more than happy to make a new cup of coffee if it's an imposition for you.” His tone suggests he may not be very happy after all. 

“It's fine.” Giles turns his gaze away. 

Spencer's sprung into action, having fished the bits of your diorama and broken mug from your feet, now on his knees wiping up the puddle of coffee you've displaced. “Spence,” you say, “I'm sorry, I ruined it–” 

Hotch speaks up before Spencer can. “It was an accident.” 

You have this gutted, soft eyed look about you, embarrassed he's sure. You're a sensitive girl. You're probably more upset for Spencer than yourself, and aflame with the heat of the gaze of an entire office. He casts his head back to narrow his eyes at any nosing that's still happening before he touches your shoulder. 

“Sorry, Hotch,” you say, lifting your shoe a centimetre off of the ground. Coffee drips down the canvas of them. It squelches as you put it down. 

“It's okay.” The favouritism he works so hard to hide rears its head, unable to stand the sad quirk of your mouth. “Hey, it's okay. It was an accident. You have spare shoes and socks in your go bag, and it's,” —he lowers his voice to a fond, warm whisper— “not as though you and Spencer have anything to do that you'll actually hand in to me today. Don't let it upset you.” 

You raise your head too quickly at the sound of his teasing. Relief brightens your eyes. “You're not mad?” 

“Not at you.” 

You let that sink in. Hotch's hand drops to your elbow before leaving your sleeve altogether. 

“Reid,” he says. “Don't hurt yourself. I'll call the custodian.” 

“Please don't,” you say, turning your chest to his. So close he can smell the clean notes of your perfume. “We can do it.” 

“Alright. If you're sure,” Hotch says. He resists the urge to touch your face, though the way he looks at you isn't much better. The upset melts your face, replaced with a flustered freneticism that snaps him back into focus. He's your boss. 

He's your boss. 

“Thanks, Hotch,” you smile. 

He turns away before he's tempted into touching you again. 

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